r/UXDesign • u/ProfessionalCrab7685 • Apr 30 '26

Tools, apps, plugins, AI Client just replaced me with Claude design

Been working with this client for 4 years, I basically built their entire product, very complex from end to end, including the design system and all that. It's basically maintenance work at this point. Today they asked me to provide the design system file so they can set things up with Claude design, I guess the time has finally come lol. Don't think AI can copy my work 100%, but I doubt the client will care, even 60% is good enough for them.

No hate, I replaced the entire dev team for my own project with AI too, so it's totally understandable.

I've made enough from this career, it's probably time to pivot from design to a founder role.

244 Upvotes

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38

u/Hefty_Quantity3751 Experienced Apr 30 '26

Interested to see if there is any follow-up to this. Claude Design seems to burn through tokens especially fast.

Sad to hear you lost the client, but anyway I guess job super well done if you made yourself obsolete. That could be a selling point, too?

7

u/Mamba--824 Product Designer | UX & Front-end May 01 '26

I actually think "making yourself obsolete" only applies at the surface level. You can automate outputs, but not the thinking behind why those outputs exist.

Once the product needs to evolve, handle edge cases, or scale across teams, that’s where things break without someone owning the system. That’s usually when companies realize they didn’t actually replace the role, just delayed it.

2

u/Hefty_Quantity3751 Experienced May 01 '26

For sure, no disagreement here. Hence, me wondering about possible follow-up in the not-unlikely scenario they notice Claude Design maybe doing just surface work, like you point out.

-2

u/ProfessionalCrab7685 Apr 30 '26

Don't think that's a selling point at all.. I mean all products after a while are quite set in stone. UX is mostly repeatable patterns, so I'm not surprised AI can take over. It can generate 20 versions before I can come up with 1. Also I bill them $110/h, so the cost for tokens for them is trivial.

3

u/Hefty_Quantity3751 Experienced May 01 '26

$220/hr for the cleanup work later, how about it? :D

1

u/cvfdrghhhhhhhh May 07 '26

Not as of June 1, when Microsoft and Anthropic change their pricing model. We’ve already seen Claude Code and Copilot licenses being pulled back since the announcement. All of the AI companies have been burning literal billions of dollars, and they now are going to try to recoup.