By Emmanuel Gueit, Watch Designer for more than 30 years, with Audemars Piguet, big groups and Dennison on his CV.
With Artificial Intelligence, we run the risk of product managers and middle management designing new watches instead of working with designers. This would be disastrous for the watch industry, especially since we are in an era where design is more important than ever. So why do I see an increasing level of homogeneity when I look at new watches, especially from big brands? I don’t know if AI is already in use, but I would argue that AI will make it even more homogeneous in the near future.
Why can't AI create good designs for us? Because being a designer is a real job. You have to think ahead: how will people react to this model in 10 years, in 15 years?
To do this, you must be human, you must have your antennae all over the world. You must be well aware of what is happening at different brands and look beyond the existing brand catalogue.
The job of a designer is to create new trends. It is a designer’s job not to reproduce what the brand has done before, while strengthening the brand DNA. Here it sometimes gets tricky: models we call icons today were often not accepted, or were frowned upon in the beginning. Thus, brands need to have courage and take risks on designs made by human designers, and they must dare to go all the way. Over the years, I have stood up for several of my original designs, which have in the end become successes. So did Gerald Genta. AI will not stand up for its “creations.”
Another argument against AI is that it won’t make mistakes. Sometimes mistakes are the way forward in a creative process. Mistakes can open the door to a thousand new ideas. For instance, when I designed the oval Millenary for Audemars Piguet, I got the idea when I made a sketch in which a watch accidentally became oval rather than round.
Last but not least, I don’t think that you can teach a machine what beauty is.
I am not against technical evolution: I am well aware that AI can be a great tool. It can help with texts, it can transform a rough sketch into a 3D design, and many other things. But if we let AI lead the development of watch design, the Swiss watch industry will be in trouble.
Now, the watch industry is experiencing a huge pendulum movement after some record years. Yes, some brands are still doing very well, but we also see big groups selling brands. Why are they doing this? In my view, because the designs of recent years are not good enough to generate enough profits. I would argue that most brands out there urgently need to work on their designs if they want to remain relevant in the market. And I am not talking about tweaking existing models – I am talking about new products. That’s why I think that we are in an era where watch design – and human designers – are more important than ever.
