What this occupation does
Graphic designers design or create graphics to meet specific commercial or promotional needs, such as packaging, displays, or logos. The role spans concepting, layout, typography, illustration, brand systems, and production-ready file delivery across print and digital media.
The exposure score in context
The ILO 2025 refined Generative AI Occupational Exposure Index places graphic designers in the high exposure gradient. ILO 2025 places graphic designers in the high exposure gradient. Routine layout and asset production are technically and contextually feasible for current generative image and design tools; concepting and brand-system stewardship remain exposed but human-led.
The mapping uses ISCO-08 code 2166 (BLS-published SOC-to-ISCO crosswalk). The full methodology, including the dominant-match rule for one-to-many crosswalks, is at /methodology/#algorithm.
The top five tasks, classified
The top five O*NET 30.2 tasks for this occupation, each tagged Displaceable / Changing / Growing per the Brookings 2024 task-level rubric. The tag definitions are at /glossary/#displaceable-task, /glossary/#changing-task, and /glossary/#growing-task.
- Changing: Create designs, concepts, and sample layouts based on knowledge of layout principles and aesthetic design concepts. AI image generation produces draft layouts; final concepting that meets brand and brief constraints remains human.
- Displaceable: Determine size and arrangement of illustrative material and copy, and select style and size of type. Routine layout selection is technically and contextually feasible for current generative AI.
- Displaceable: Use computer software to generate new images. Image generation from prompt or brief is technically and contextually feasible for current generative AI.
- Growing: Confer with clients to discuss and determine layout design. Client discovery and brief refinement are augmentation-prone per Brookings 2024 and grow as AI handles more discrete production.
- Changing: Develop graphics and layouts for product illustrations, company logos, and websites. AI is producing first-draft logos and layouts; brand-system and identity work remain human for differentiation.
What is growing in this role
The BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035 outlook for graphic designers is decline (-2% projected change). Source: BLS Employment Projections 2025-2035.
Per the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025, the top three growing skills relevant to this role are: Creative thinking, AI and big data, Technological literacy. The skills are mapped to the occupation's O*NET skills profile.
Brookings 2024 finds graphic-design production tasks highly exposed; client discovery, brand stewardship, and creative-direction roles are augmentation-prone.
Graphic Designers in the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025
Graphic designers appear on the WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025 fastest-declining list for the first time, ranked the 11th fastest-declining role by employer expectations, which the report attributes directly to generative AI's growing role in producing visual content. In the 2023 edition the role was categorised as moderately growing. Source: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 (January 2025). The WEF lists are occupation-family level and global, ranked by change to 2030; they are distinct from the BLS 2025-2035 US projection above. The full named declining and growing lists are on what is growing.
AI's impact on graphic design jobs: 2025-2026 outlook and statistics
For 2025 and 2026 the signals now line up. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects graphic-designer employment to decline 2 percent from 2025 to 2035, from a 2025 base of about 253,100 jobs, with roughly 16,000 openings a year, most of them replacing designers who retire or move to other work. That is a darker reading than the prior 2024-2034 round, which had the role growing 2 percent. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 ranks graphic designers the 11th fastest-declining role worldwide, the first time the occupation has appeared on that list after being classed moderately growing in the 2023 edition.
The shift is driven by generative image tools such as Adobe Firefly, built into Photoshop and Illustrator, along with Midjourney and DALL-E, which now produce usable first-draft layouts, logos, and social assets from a text brief. BLS is explicit about where this bites hardest: automated design tools, it notes, may reduce the need for companies to contract with freelance graphic designers. In-house designers who own brand systems, art direction, and production-ready delivery are more insulated than freelancers competing on volume production.
The near-term outlook is a reshaping rather than a wipe-out. WEF names UI and UX design among the fastest-growing roles even as traditional graphic design declines, a sign that demand is moving toward interactive, systems-level design work rather than disappearing. Designers who pair visual craft with AI-tool fluency, brand strategy, and UX are on the growing side of that split.
Sources: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, Graphic Designers; WEF Future of Jobs Report 2025.
Similar occupations
O*NET 30.2 lists the following related roles. Each links to its own deep dive where one is published.
- Writers and Authors
- Marketing Managers
- Architects, Except Landscape and Naval
- News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists
- Interpreters and Translators
Industry context
This role sits primarily in the Creative Industries industry. The industry-level rollup includes the cross-occupation exposure profile and the BLS-published industry-level outlook.
How this assessment was made
The full methodology is at /methodology/: ILO 2025 refined index for the gradient, Brookings 2024 rubric for the task tags, BLS 2025-2035 for the growth outlook, WEF 2025 for the skills demand. The pre-empted critiques are at /how-to-argue-with-this/.