The Context Problem: Why AI Design Tools Need More from Pharma Before They Can Give More Back

Author(s): Ed Hart

Every few years, a new tool arrives and the design industry briefly loses its mind.

Photoshop. Sketch. Figma. Each one shifted what was possible. Each one prompted the same cycle of excitement, adaptation, and eventual integration into normal practice.

The AI design tools arriving now feel different. Not incrementally better at the same thing, but genuinely disruptive to the relationship between an idea and something real. We have been deep in testing across a range of these tools, including Claude Design and Figma's AI integrations, and the distance between concept and working, testable prototype has collapsed in a way that still surprises us.

But here is what the hype misses, particularly in pharma. These tools will produce output immediately. What they produce depends almost entirely on what you give them to work with.