Generative AI in Studio-Based Design Education: Human–AI Relationships, Collaboration and Assessment

Rapid advances in generative AI (GenAI) have created both opportunities and challenges that have transformed the landscape for design education. While GenAI offers new ways to envision and explore entire design processes—from framing design challenges to generating design output—its influence on studio-based learning practices and environments remains under explored. Drawing on qualitative data, this study investigates how GenAI is transforming core practices in studio-based design education, focusing on relationships, collaboration, and assessment. The findings show that GenAI disrupts dialogic critiques, undermines creative agency, diffuses ethical responsibility, and renders learning processes increasingly opaque, thus challenging traditional pedagogical structures. In response, this article proposes reframing studio pedagogy to emphasise process transparency, ethical co-creation, and critical human–AI collaboration.