'The process was a creativity killer': how Monotype's new AI search tool is changing design for the better

At the beginning of the month, leading type foundry Monotype announced its new AI tool to ease the endless search for the perfect typeface. With AI increasingly encroaching on the design industry, this innovation marks an important and inevitable embrace of the technology, demonstrating how AI can be leveraged to streamline and ultimately benefit the creative sphere.

Monotype's AI-powered natural language search tool is just one part of its AI integration, shaped by responsible innovation. To understand more about this new development, I caught up with Mike Matteo, Monotype's chief typography officer and spokesperson, to discuss how AI has influenced the creative sphere and what it holds for the future of Monotype.

"Typography is one of the most immediate signals a brand sends," Mike explains. "Before a single word is read, the typeface is already guiding perception of your brand – trust, energy, sophistication, approachability. It's not decoration; it's brand infrastructure. Get it wrong, and it undermines everything else you've invested in your visual identity.

The old way forced creatives to think like a database. You had to know the right terminology, navigate rigid filters, and still, you ended up scrolling through hundreds of options that didn't quite fit. The creative brief in your head ('something warm but modern, confident but not aggressive') had no real translation into a search box. The process was slow, imprecise, and honestly a creativity killer," he adds.

Monotype's new tool "meets creatives where they are," Mike explains. Breaking free from the jargon and coded language of design, the natural speech tool removes the need for technical interpretation, streamlining the creative process.

"You can describe what you're trying to communicate and get back options that actually reflect that intent. It cuts down on the time between idea and execution, and it opens up the font library to people who don't have deep typographic vocabulary – which is most of the people making design decisions today," Mike explains.

"AI tools have shifted the focus from searching to thinking. Creatives can stay in the idea and brainstorming phase longer instead of getting pulled into the mechanics of finding and managing assets. The tools are finally starting to adapt to how people think, rather than the other way around," he adds.

The new AI tool hasn't been an overnight development – Mike explains Monotype's AI integration has been shaped by responsible innovation that purposefully aids human creativity above all. "As AI has become an integral part of many brands’ design workflows, we’re committed to developing tools to augment human creativity and judgment, helping brands realise their creative vision with great typography, wherever that work takes place," he says.

The overall goal for Monotype's AI innovations? "To make typography easier to find, use, and manage — for everyone in the creative lifecycle," Mike says. "We want to remove friction at every stage: discovery, governance, workflow, and deployment. AI is what makes that scalable across thousands of brands, touchpoints, and teams worldwide," he concludes.

Discover more about Monotype or take a look at why typography is key to good branding, straight from a pro. For more typographical inspiration, check out the type foundries every designer should know.