Car Design Chief: AI Can't Design Cars Worth a Damn

AI can’t design cars. They are not good yet, says Gorden Wagener, chief design officer at Mercedes-Benz.

Mercedes-Benz, like most automakers and frankly most companies of all types, has embraced artificial intelligence as a tool for varied tasks. But Wagener does not see AI taking his job any time soon because in his opinion, it does not create good results. Renders can aid by putting a sketch in good light, but that is about it.

AI is prolific. And that is a problem. The internet is crowded with renders and they keep getting wilder and wilder. There are so many, it is becoming boring, says the designer.

They have also made it more difficult for automakers to create eye-catching show cars that stand out because there is so much outlandish stuff online. We are losing the spectacular aspect of show cars, he laments. It is better to have a show car that is stately these days, in his opinion. AI can’t create something iconic because it doesn’t know what is iconic and it cannot generate anything original, he says.

People Want Standout Design

As for his own approach to design, Wagener thinks each type of vehicle should have its own character: sporty E-Class, stately S-Class, a sports car, or a Maybach. People want standout design like the SL, he says.

Mercedes is rolling out new families of vehicles with a new design language, starting with the 2026 Mercedes-Benz CLA and the 2027 GLC. New signatures include illuminated logos and grilles and star headlights which make the cars distinctive and give them a soul, Wagener says.

No car needs a grille, as they are all largely fake in terms of function, with cooling and air intake able to be handled other ways, but they have become integral to design as the face of a vehicle and a brand. The 942 square pixels illuminated by LEDs on the grille of the new GLC are an act of Mercedes reaching into the past for a historical detail and incorporating it into a car line for the future.

The grille was a detail added late in the program. It was Easter, Wagner was glamping in the Grand Canyon at 6,000 feet of altitude in the middle of nowhere, surprisingly within cell phone range. It was five in the morning, and it was zero degrees outside, when Mercedes-Benz Chairman and CEO Ola Källenius called him from China. They discussed what Mercedes stands for and a rebirth of an iconic piece from the past. From the engineering side, it meant pushing back the start of production because it required more time and money. But it was worth it, says the designer.