While this year’s theme is interconnectedness, it directly challenges the accelerated use and misuse of vibe coding as design moves rapidly into functional, coded reality. As designers take on more responsibility for increasingly complex prototypes and products, I anticipate a growing trend in soloism that disproportionately impacts disabled people. Similar concerns are already surfacing for security, where AI-generated code has complicated accountability and review. These dynamics matter deeply for access, where it’s possible for risk to be surfaced in lived harm.
Design Problems
We already had an accessibility problem. Now we have a bigger, faster one.
Vibe coding, still in it’s infancy, concentrates more power with fewer individuals. AI is not a replacement for disabled people’s full participation in all phases of design. Speed amplifies gaps and fewer collaborators mean fewer voices inform what gets built and who it ultimately serves.
Move Slow, Really Fast
This year, many conversations with colleagues and friends centered on balancing polarities. How do we center disabled voices without reappropriating them? How do we inform without extracting? How do we honor work that takes time when exponential generation is the default? This tension echoes discussion in the design research community including Gregory Weinstein, PhD’s reflections on slow research, and in broader critiques of fast vs. slow knowledge production.
The Work to be Done
Moving fast or slow is a false binary. In 2026, the real challenge will be sustaining depth, representation and accountability without the illusion that speed equals progress. I don’t have the answers, but I believe vibrancy will need to come from outside of the tech space. As designers and leaders, let’s seek critical voices, challenge ideas, and think more deeply than ever this year.
Our future vibrancy is non-hierarchical, decentralized and I believe this is the complex work we have to do in 2026.
