The rise of artificial intelligence is shaking the foundations of architecture, forcing architects to rethink what it means to be a creator in a rapidly changing world. For centuries, architecture has celebrated the idea of individual genius—singular visionaries, “starchitects”—whose creative fingerprints are unmistakably etched into seminal structures around the world. But this era of star-powered ocular dominance, when the architect’s identity is inseparable from the visual spectacle of their creations, is now facing extinction. And AI is behind this dramatic shift.

From Solo Genius to Collective Creation

Today, the traditional (and somewhat mythical) view of architects as solitary creators is being replaced by an emerging vision: architects as curators, interpreters, orchestrators of collaborative processes. While it’s not new to see technology impacting architectural practices, AI represents something fundamentally different from previous digital revolutions.

Consider the profession’s trajectory since the introduction of CAD software and, later, BIM tools; these advanced productivity and efficiency but never questioned the authorship of designs. AI, on the other hand, not only streamlines and automates design processes but directly participates in idea generation, often creatively and independently.

What does this mean for architects? They might no longer be the sole authors of their designs, but rather participants in broader dialogues that include machine intelligence. AI algorithms, for instance, can now turn text descriptions into detailed architectural renderings with remarkable speed and creativity, generating dozens of viable design options in seconds. Previously, such tasks could take days or weeks of painstaking human effort.

The Democratization of Design?

This democratizing potential of AI was vividly illustrated in a recent workshop I conducted. Participants, many of whom had no design background, used the AI tool Remodel.AI to rapidly redesign the workshop space we occupied. In less than a minute, 26 unique designs were proposed, each reflecting the participants’ personal tastes and creative ideas. Here, AI acted as an equalizing force, enabling everyone, architecturally trained or not, to contribute creatively.

But that ease came with a considerable tradeoff. Although the results were visually appealing and the speed of generation impressive, there was a notable absence of conceptual depth. The designs generally lacked a clear underlying concept, historical understanding, or contextual sensitivity—elements fundamental to effective architecture. Good architects consider multiple layers of meaning, including historical precedents, cultural narratives, spatial relationships, and human experiences, all of which contribute to a richer and more holistic design solution.

While AI effectively democratizes the act of generating visual forms and spaces, the workshop highlighted the continued importance of architects as thoughtful curators and interpreters who can infuse designs with deeper significance and coherence. AI provides unprecedented access to the act of designing, but the role of the architect remains essential for ensuring that the results have both visual appeal and meaningful substance.

Past Anxieties and Opportunities

The anxieties surrounding AI’s integration into architecture recall earlier cultural disruptions, such as the invention of photography in the 19th century. Back then, critics questioned who truly deserved authorship credit: the photographer, the commissioner, or perhaps even the camera itself. The “monkey selfie” copyright case from 2011 further underscored how ambiguous authorship can become once tools, agency, and intention blur.

AI adds complexity to this ambiguity. Consider Mario Klingemann’s AI artwork Memories of Passersby, which generates portraits that seem familiar yet depict no real individuals. Such AI creations force us to ask: Who’s the real author? The human who programmed the AI, the machine itself, or the historical artists whose styles fed into the algorithm?

Material Agency: Humans and Machines

As AI-generated designs increasingly become indistinguishable from human-generated ones, the lines between human and machine authorship begin to blur. Traditional ideas about human uniqueness, creativity, and ownership are fundamentally challenged. AI-driven tools such as Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and DALL-E are not passive instruments—they actively shape the design outcomes by synthesizing styles, cultural cues, and complex spatial dynamics into entirely new creations. Additionally, AI tools are not just visually based, as several AI tools are available to conduct environmental analysis, specified codes and laws, adjacent functions, orientations, construction documents creations, and more.

Architectural design, then, becomes less about asserting human dominance over material and more about cultivating collaboration between human insight and machine intelligence. The architect’s role evolves into ensuring that these designs engage broader human concerns—philosophical, ethical, social, and cultural—that AI alone can’t adequately address. 

Fewer Architects or More Meaningful Work?

Given AI’s dramatic efficiency gains, it’s rational to fear a drastically reduced architectural workforce. AI’s ability to automate repetitive tasks such as drafting, detailing, or basic visualization might likely mean that fewer architects are needed for these roles. And yet, paradoxically, this efficiency may also liberate architects from monotonous tasks, redirecting their focus and energy toward higher-value activities that machines cannot yet replicate: critical thinking, ethics, philosophy, social mediation, and complex problem-solving.

Historically, automation in other fields has shown that while certain jobs disappear, entirely new roles emerge. In architecture, we can anticipate a similar evolution. AI’s reduction of tedious labor allows architects to reclaim their identity as intellectuals and cultural agents rather than mere technical service providers. And this will bring it all down to one element of a human trait to either succeed or not (in architecture or any other future fields): the power of will.

Who Needs Architects When Drawings Cost Nothing?

Traditionally, architects were compensated primarily for producing drawings. AI dramatically disrupts this model by reducing the cost of creating drawings to almost zero, democratizing the design process and making everyone a potential “designer.” If anyone can produce a drawing instantly, the notion of professional architecture risks obsolescence. Yet this shift also redefines the architect’s role: the true value of architects will increasingly reside in their capacity to contextualize, interpret, and ethically evaluate design outcomes rather than simply produce drawings. The mere ability to generate aesthetically appealing visual representations does not confer the status of “designer.” On the contrary, the proliferation of compelling yet conceptually superficial imagery—enabled by the widespread use of AI tools such as diffusion models and generative adversarial networks (GANs)—reveals a critical void at the heart of such outputs. These images, often algorithmic hallucinations shaped by prompts, lack the cultural, contextual, and conceptual grounding essential to meaningful design. This growing realization presents a timely opportunity for architects to reclaim their societal importance: not as mere drawers or image-makers, but as intellectual orchestrators of complexity. Architects possess the unique ability to synthesize diverse variables—historical, spatial, ethical, and experiential—into coherent and contextually rich propositions. In doing so, they transcend the limitations of ocular-centric production, affirming their irreplaceable role in giving form to ideas that matter.

This technological shift will demand a heightened awareness from architects themselves. Just as the advent of photography did not render painting obsolete but instead compelled artists to redefine modes of expression, the rise of AI should challenge architects to rediscover their distinct value beyond technical execution. The moment opens profound questions: Will architecture remain what it once was? Will those who practice it still be called architects? We may well be witnessing the emergence of a new bifurcation between the “super-architect,” who actively commands AI as an extension of their will and vision, and the “passive-architect,” who merely operates the tools, increasingly shaped by the systems they use.

Beyond Ego: A Collective Future?

Perhaps AI’s greatest promise is the opportunity to move beyond the ego-driven, ocular-centric architecture that has dominated recent decades. Instead of glorifying individual architects, AI suggests a future architecture built upon collective participation and shared creativity.

Architecture, long a reflection of societal ideals, is poised once again to reinvent itself; not by resisting AI, but by embracing its collaborative potential. Architects can reclaim their central cultural roles as interpreters, mediators, and philosophers, guiding this new hybridized creative process toward richer, more inclusive, and more democratically inspired built environments. As architects and citizens, it’s essential to shape the trajectory of AI integration consciously. Ultimately, this means redefining authorship not merely as a legal or intellectual property concern, but as a collective ethical commitment to architecture’s social responsibility.

Featured image created by the author using AI. This essay is based on the academic paper “Redefining Authorship in Architecture in the Age of AI” by Mustapha El Moussaoui, published in Oxford Intersections: AI in Society.