On the first week of April, 2026, I submitted my PhD thesis titled “AI-powered Creativity Support Tools in Visual Design Work”, marking the end of a deeply transformative journey at the University of Melbourne and the beginning of an exciting new chapter. This research sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and design practice, exploring how AI-powered tools can support and enhance the creative processes of visual designers. I approach this topic with a critical and unbiased lens; neither celebrating AI as a revolution nor dismissing it as a threat, but asking the harder, more honest questions: How do designers truly think, create, and innovate? And where does AI genuinely help, and where does it fall short?

Over the course of my PhD, I have tried to let the evidence speak — sitting with complexity, resisting easy conclusions, and keeping the designer’s experience at the centre of it all.

Reaching this milestone would not have been possible without the guidance of incredible supervisors Dr. Greg Wadley and Prof. Jenny Waycott and my former supervisors Prof. Eduardo Velloso and Dr. Ryan Kelly, the support of my academic community, and most of all the resilience I discovered within myself along the way.