Last week a student asked me about the scope of AI in the domain of Electrical Engineering so that he can “focus” on those for the future. A vast majority of people (even in tech!) are still not grasping the vastness of what is happening in the world of AI. Here’s my take on how AI might shape our industry, though I may look back at this post in 10 years and laugh at how far off I was!
Schematic Design: AI is going to dramatically change this. Manual schematic creation will die off. Think of tools like TI Webench but supercharged—where you type in your circuit functionality, and set parameters like cost or size, and AI will provide several optimized designs. Even BOM (Bill of Materials) selection will be automated, factoring in component availability during the design process itsel
PCB Layout: Auto routers have been bad but it was bad only because folks never put enough resources to truly build a good router. AI will integrate simulation and produce designs that already meet stringent EMI/EMC certifications. RF and High-speed designs are not black boxes anymore. It will be codified and automated by AI no matter what the complexity.
Chip Design: This area is already seeing AI deployment. AI can generate chip designs in ways that would take human teams years to discover. AI-designed chips will soon be creating the next generation of AI chips—it’s a self-accelerating process.
Firmware development: Code generators, with built-in testing, will interpret datasheets and produce solid firmware with test cases. What used to take hours or days to code could be handled by AI in minutes.
These are just some of the areas where I see AI revolutionizing embedded systems and EEE. Please understand AI won’t come for your job in the future not because it can’t do it, it will be because you can do it cheaper. My only advice to young engineers: Keep learning and evolve with the times. No field is a guaranteed safe zone with AI. Use it as a tool to grow to stay relevant! If there is interest, I can do a deeper dive into how AI might affect other EEE domains in a long-format blog post.
AI is going to reshape the future whether you like it or not. If you disagree, you’re either not paying attention or you’re simply in denial. Would love to hear your take, but it’s hard to argue against what’s already happening.
