Karl Neuhold, who runs exterior design at Skoda, says he is shocked by how good artificial intelligence has become at designing cars, and he is warning that the technology now threatens the jobs of the human stylists who do the work. Neuhold, Head of Exterior Design at the Volkswagen Group brand, made the remarks in an interview with the Dutch outlet Auto Week, which English-language car sites picked up on October 15 and 16, 2026.
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His account is notable because it comes from inside a studio, not from a technology company selling software. The person who signs off on the shape of production Skodas describes a workflow in which a rough sketch becomes a polished image in seconds, and who says the people-hours behind that work are the part at risk. The warning matters for anyone weighing a career in car styling, because exterior design has long been seen as one of the most coveted creative jobs in the auto industry, and Neuhold is describing it as a job already under pressure.
A sketch becomes a photorealistic rendering
According to Autoblog’s summary of the interview, Neuhold described AI tools that take a simple text prompt and a rough hand sketch and turn them into a photorealistic rendering, with lighting, shadows and proportions computed automatically. Earlier versions struggled with brand logos, but recent updates reportedly fixed that problem. Autoblog says he told Auto Week that the era of endlessly refining digital surfaces by hand is ending, because neural networks now produce polished concepts almost immediately.
Carscoops, which reported his comments in English on October 15, adds that Neuhold uses generative AI himself and was surprised that a simple sketch could produce multiple versions within seconds. Because the original interview was in Dutch, the English wording in both write-ups is likely translated. In Carscoops’ account he called AI the future and said professionals have to stay up to date to remain competitive.
Why fewer stylists could be needed
The job warning follows from that speed. Neuhold said a studio can now finish a project with fewer people, which means automakers may need fewer designers to complete an exterior. He also said this makes it harder for young artists to break into automotive design, since the entry-level work that once trained newcomers is the work AI handles fastest. Designers, in his words as Carscoops reports them, need to be careful about their strategy.
He is not predicting that designers vanish. He said automotive design is no longer only about sketching, and that designers must also learn AI tools. He said the speed also lets people express ideas faster and better. The shift he describes is a change in which skills a studio pays for, with fewer people and a new tool kit.
The hand-drawn sketch still counts
Neuhold still asks young applicants to bring hand-drawn sketches, because he believes drawings help recruiters judge creativity in a way polished AI renderings cannot. That position puts human judgment at the start of the process, with the machine doing the rendering afterward. The original is posted on Auto Week under a title that says designers must be careful.
Neuhold is not the first car-design leader to say this out loud. In a February 2025 interview, Gorden Wagener, then Mercedes-Benz design chief, suggested AI could make most car designers unnecessary within about a decade, and Motor Authority reported that he joked his successor would be a machine, much cheaper than his salary. Wagener also said 99 percent of AI-generated designs are poor, but that the remaining 1 percent is good and improving daily.
The comparison with Wagener shows how the tone has moved. Wagener spoke as an executive predicting a future headcount. Neuhold speaks as someone using the tools in a studio today, surprised by the quality, and concerned about the next generation of stylists who would normally start by doing the work that machines now do in seconds.
Other carmakers are moving the same way
The wider industry is already leaning on AI, though not always smoothly. Nissan President Ivan Espinosa told Nikkei Asia that a big part of the carmaker’s faster development “is built on AI capabilities,” and Autoblog reports that development time for the N7 electric vehicle fell from 55 months to 26 months. Nissan expects up to 90 percent of fiscal 2026 development to follow a similar process.
Ford offers the cautionary example. According to Autoblog, Charles Poon, Ford’s vice president of vehicle hardware engineering, acknowledged at a media briefing that the company leaned too heavily on AI and let experienced engineers go before their knowledge reached the software. Ford then brought back more than 350 veteran engineers to mentor younger staff. Neuhold’s request for hand-drawn sketches fits that lesson: the machine speeds the work, and human judgment decides what is worth building.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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