By Ts. Muhammad Syahmie bin Shabarudin, Dean of the School of Computing, Games and Immersive Technology, Universiti Malaysia of Computer Science & Engineering (UNIMY)

UNIMY Dean Series | AI & Your Future: Insights from UNIMY Experts

In short: AI is not simply removing creative jobs. It is mostly changing them. Over the next 3 to 5 years, routine production work will be done much faster by AI tools, and designers and animators will spend more time on art direction, storytelling and managing hybrid human-AI workflows.

That is the view of Ts. Muhammad Syahmie Shabarudin, Dean of the School of Computing, Games and Immersive Technology at Universiti Malaysia of Computer Science & Engineering (UNIMY). We asked him three questions about AI and the future of creative media. His answers are below.

Key takeaways

· Tasks that once took hours or days, such as animation in-betweens and background variations, can now take minutes.

· Creators are moving from making every asset by hand to directing and curating the work.

· Students still need strong fundamentals, because AI has no sense of taste or cultural context.

· The most valuable creators will know how to fit AI tools into professional pipelines.

· AI will not replace artists, but creators who master AI workflows will replace those who resist adapting to them.

How is AI changing design, animation and content creation jobs over the next 3 to 5 years?

In short: The industry is moving from manual asset making to creative orchestration.

According to Ts. Syahmie, routine and repetitive tasks are the first to change. These include basic UV unwrapping, in-betweens in animation, quick ideation sketches and background asset variations. Work that used to take days can now be done in minutes.

This does not make creators less important. It moves their value to higher-level skills: art direction, keeping a story consistent, and connecting different tools into one pipeline. In the coming years, designers and animators will act more like directors and technical curators, managing production workflows where humans and AI work together.

What skills should creative students build now to stay relevant?

In short: Build strong creative fundamentals, learn how to connect AI into production pipelines, and learn to prompt and review AI output carefully.

Ts. Syahmie highlights three areas:

1. Strong fundamentals. AI can produce believable images instantly, but it has no real sense of taste, cultural nuance or visual hierarchy. Students who master composition, lighting, anatomy, colour theory and human-centred storytelling can judge AI drafts, improve them and turn them into professional work.

2. Workflow and pipeline skills. Students should learn how to bring AI tools into industry-standard game engines and digital content creation (DCC) pipelines. The advantage comes from linking AI output with technical work such as rigging, real-time shaders, logic and multi-tool workflows.

3. Structured prompting and critical curation. This means going beyond one-line prompts. Students should learn structured prompt engineering, negative prompting (telling the tool what to avoid) and quality checks on every output.

What is one myth about AI replacing artists and designers?

In short: The myth is that AI is a “one-click creator” that removes the need for artistic vision and skill.

Ts. Syahmie explains that AI generates statistical variations based on past data. It does not understand context, client goals, user empathy or deliberate design choices. Generative tools can create assets, but artists build experiences.

His conclusion: AI will not replace artists. Creators who master AI workflows will replace those who resist adapting to them.

Frequently asked questions

Will AI replace designers and animators?
Not as a whole. AI is taking over repetitive production tasks, while human creators remain essential for vision, taste, context and storytelling.

What should creative media students learn first?
Start with the fundamentals: composition, lighting, anatomy, colour theory and storytelling. These skills let you judge and improve AI-generated work.

Is learning to prompt enough?
No. Prompting is useful, but employers will also look for people who can fit AI into real production pipelines and check the quality of the output.

About Ts. Muhammad Syahmie Shabarudin
Ts. Muhammad Syahmie Shabarudin is the Dean of the School of Computing, Games and Immersive Technology at UNIMY and a Professional Technologist registered with the Malaysia Board of Technologists (MBOT). He holds a Bachelor of Information Technology (Game Technology) and a Master of Computer Science (Multimedia Computing) from Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM).

He began his career as a freelance game designer and has lectured since 2019. He served as Head of Programme at Melaka International College of Science and Technology (MiCoST) before joining UNIMY in 2025, and was appointed Dean in 2026. He has taught and supervised students in game design, game programming, 3D content and immersive technologies such as augmented and virtual reality, and his work has won awards at national innovation competitions.

He is currently pursuing his PhD at UTeM. His research uses ontology-based methods to integrate and analyse learning data from different e-learning platforms, and it has been published in journals including MethodsX, the Journal of Theoretical and Applied Information Technology and the Journal of Education and Learning (EduLearn). He is particularly interested in how data analytics, AI and immersive technologies can change the way students learn.

This article is part of the UNIMY Dean Series and the “AI & Your Future” series. Follow The FutureVerse, UNIMY’s official WhatsApp channel, for more insights.