Evolution of Tech Design

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Hey, it’s Kushagra. Welcome to this week’s AtlasMoth drop.

Last week, while trying Perplexity’s new AI browser, Comet, something unexpected hit me, not the features, but the feeling.

The design wasn’t futuristic.

It made me realize: somewhere between 2020 and 2025, technology stopped trying to look powerful and started trying to feel approachable.

This week, we’re breaking down why that shift happened, what it says about our relationship with tech, and why design is quietly rewriting how we understand AI.

Something subtle but massive changed between 2020 and 2025.

Technology, especially AI, stopped trying to look futuristic.

The real shift wasn’t the product.
It was emotional.

For the past 15 years, tech design has mirrored how we feel about technology itself.
And what we felt changed three times.

Design didn’t just decorate this journey.
It proposed the relationship.

Here’s how the negotiation between companies, culture, and consumers evolved and why Comet feels the way it does.

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Era 1 (2010–2020): The Disruptors

Relationship: Tech as the Challenger
Emotion: Optimism

After the 2008 crash, trust in traditional institutions collapsed.
Smartphones exploded.
Everything felt broken… and rebuildable.

Technology offered itself as the hero.

• Uber would “reimagine the way the world moves.”

• Stripe would “increase the GDP of the internet.”

• Netflix would “entertain the world.”

Design followed the mission: bold, geometric, confident.

Era 2 (2015–2021): The Radical Wing Decentralization

Relationship: Tech as Replacement
Emotion: Cynicism

Then the tone changed.

Crypto captured this vibe perfectly:

Dark UI.
Neon gradients.
Cosmic, maximalist, “post-human” energy.

Ethereum’s utopian art.
OpenSea’s explosion of colors.
Visuals whispering:
“We’re from the future. Trust code, not people.”

Not everyone bought in.
But for a moment, it was peak tech-maximalism, the farthest we’d ever drifted from human warmth.

Era 3 (2020–2025): The Turning Point AI

Relationship: Tech as Partner
Emotion: Empathy

Then AI landed.

It didn’t disrupt what we do.
It disrupted who we are.

A technology that writes, thinks, reasons, and looks almost human triggered a cultural anxiety that no previous tech ever created.

People didn’t want dominance.
They wanted reassurance.

The emotional brief became clear:

“Don’t outshine me. Stand beside me.”

And design softened everywhere:

• Microsoft called it Copilot.

• Claude gave us warmth, softness, and approachability.

• ChatGPT kept a friendly, conversational tone.

• Cursor felt more like a calm reading app than a developer tool.

• Perplexity wrapped precision in gentle gradients and fluid motion.

This wasn’t aesthetic.
It was a strategy.

The most powerful technology in history couldn’t afford to look powerful.

Design proposed a new relationship:
“I’m with you. Not above you.”

We’re still negotiating this trust in real-time.

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The Soft Revolution

Three eras. Three emotions. Three relationships.

• Optimism: Tech will fix broken systems.

• Cynicism: Humans are the problem; let tech take over.

• Empathy: Power must come wrapped in softness.

Design mirrored each shift like a cultural ECG.

And now we’re in the most delicate phase yet, a world where the strongest tools intentionally lower their visual volume.

Is it genuine empathy?
Or beautifully-engineered comfort?

We don’t know yet.
But we do know this:

Design is the compass.
We decide the direction.

Perplexity chose poetry.
Claude chose warmth.
AI companies are choosing softness.

And now, as users, builders, and humans, we choose what relationship we want next.

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The Takeaway

Technology doesn’t just evolve.
Our relationship with it evolves.

Design is the bridge.

It translates fear into trust, power into partnership, complexity into comfort. And every time the emotional climate shifts, design shifts with it, offering a new proposal for how humans and machines should coexist.

Here’s the real insight:

The future won’t be defined by how powerful AI becomes,
But by how human we allow the relationship to feel.

The negotiation is happening now through every interface, every aesthetic choice, and every moment we decide:

“This feels right.”
or
“This feels wrong.”

And that, more than any model upgrade, is what will shape the next era of technology.