Design students' GenAI use concentrates on research, writing and brainstorming tasks, with low use for image, media and code generation¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r1 · q2
Currency · newest study 2026 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person · recheck by 2031: baselines and conditions change

Subclaims¶

q2 i? Research-related tasks (finding information, summarising, brainstorming) were selected by more than two thirds of respondents, while image, audio, video, games and code generation were selected by less than one in three. → Stefana Broadbent 2026 q2 i? For design-specific activities, searching for articles (69.2%), brainstorming (67.9%) and summarising reports (65.2%) were the most selected uses; rapid prototyping (12.2%) and generating code (0.5%) were rare. → Stefana Broadbent 2026 (2)

Evidence¶

Stefana Broadbent 2026¶

Stefana Broadbent. (2026). A study of GenAI usage by Design Students: Analysis of Survey Results and Journals of AI practices at the Politecnico di Milano in 2025/2026. Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.17094 doi:10.48550/arxiv.2607.17094

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Survey task checklist (n=231 respondents). Research activities such as finding information, summarising notes and brainstorming were each selected by more than two thirds; the article notes creative-media and code tasks were "unexpectedly selected by less than one in three respondents".

"tasks involving the generation of images, audio, music, video, games or code, were unexpectedly selected by less than one in three respondents."

Stefana Broadbent 2026 (2)¶

Stefana Broadbent. (2026). A study of GenAI usage by Design Students: Analysis of Survey Results and Journals of AI practices at the Politecnico di Milano in 2025/2026. Department of Design, Politecnico di Milano. https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.17094

q2 · i? · associational · r1

Design-activity checklist (n=221 respondents, 1076 unique answers). Searching for articles was the top design use at 69.2%; the table prints brainstorming at 67.9%, summarising at 65.2%, rapid prototyping at 12.2% and generating code at 0.5%.

"Searching for articles, papers and case studies 153 69.2%"

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Most design students at Politecnico di Milano use GenAI tools daily or weekly for academic purposes — related
• Journal analysis shows heavy GenAI reliance in secondary research and transcription but student autonomy in planning and interpretation of primary research — related
• Engineering students most often use LLMs for academic writing (27%), conceptual clarification (20%), programming help (17%) and brainstorming (13%) — related
• Conversation/discussion (62%) and brainstorming (61%) were the most frequent teaching techniques in the program — related
• Students view GenAI use on a spectrum from unethical to ethical, with a vast middle grey area of uses such as paraphrasing AI-generated text or generating ideas — related