99designs

99designs by Vista announced findings from a 2024 survey of over 10,000 freelance designers across 135 countries examining attitudes toward and adoption of generative AI tools in the design industry. The survey is a research and communications activity, not a deployed AI system.

The survey found that 52% of freelance designers on the platform were already using generative AI tools in 2024, up from 39% in 2023, and that 88% considered learning to use AI effectively a priority. The findings were published in October 2024 and coincided with an announcement that total designer earnings on the platform had surpassed $500 million USD. This activity represents 99designs' public positioning on AI rather than an internal AI deployment.

99designs offers clients the option to allow freelance designers to use third-party generative AI tools when submitting designs in eligible contest categories, with disclosure required from designers at submission. Clients choose whether to permit AI-assisted work when writing their contest brief, and generative AI is banned outright in certain categories such as logo, illustration, and button and icon design.

When a client opts in, designers may incorporate outputs from external generative AI tools (such as image generators) as part of their creative work, but must still meet 99designs' originality and quality standards. Designers are required to disclose the specific AI tool used in their submission, and 99designs treats all AI-generated content as third-party material. The opt-in/opt-out mechanism is built into the brief creation workflow for contests and handled via a written agreement in 1-to-1 projects. Generative AI is not permitted in logo, illustration, or button and icon design categories regardless of client preference.

99designs uses a built-in declaration mechanism in its contest submission workflow that requires designers to disclose whether they used generative AI tools, and the platform enforces a categorical ban on AI-generated content in logo, illustration, and button/icon design contests. This is a platform-level policy control rather than an automated AI detection system.

When submitting a contest entry, designers are prompted to declare whether generative AI was used and, if so, which tool. In categories where AI is banned (logo, illustration, button and icon design), no AI-assisted submissions are permitted under any circumstances. 99designs' own support documentation states that the platform has 'systems in place to catch designs that do not follow our guidelines,' though the exact technical nature of these systems — whether AI-assisted or manual — is not confirmed in publicly available sources. The disclosure requirement is a workflow enforcement mechanism embedded in the submission process.