Integrating Artificial Intelligence into the Engineering Design Process: Transforming STEM Education

Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into each stage of the Engineering Design Process (EDP) can enrich STEM education by making the design process more iterative, data driven, and student centered. The EDP, consisting of problem defining, learning, planning, trying, testing, and deciding, is framed as a dynamic approach to solving real world problems through ongoing refinement and evidence-based reasoning. Some implementations of the EDP tend to emphasize procedural tasks, and integrating AI into the process fosters conceptual engagement and inquiry. Throughout the EDP, teachers can guide students to use AI as a tool for critical thinking and collaborative problem-solving, not as a shortcut. The chapter also includes practical examples, such as redesigning an arcade claw machine, to demonstrate how AI-supported tasks foster creativity, resilience, and authentic engineering mindsets aligned with twenty-first-century STEM competencies.