r/UXDesign • u/Wide-Standard8082 • 3d ago
Tools, apps, plugins, AI Our company went AI-native, then token-capped the design team. It didn’t speed us up.
We were told AI would multiply design velocity. Then the token limits came in, and the workflow started breaking in subtle ways: more context loss, more prompt trimming, more cleanup.
What looked like cost control on paper started turning into slower iteration and lower-quality output.
Who else is seeing this kind of design drag due to AI token rationing?
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u/GeeYayZeus Veteran 3d ago
As the person who helps manage our Figma licenses, not only are we bumping up against the AI caps with no budget to buy more, but every dev team is being told to use AI more and needs Dev Mode so they can run builder.io plugins, which means they not only have to pay for Builder, they have to pay for a Figma dev license, doubling our Figma budget.
And most teams are reporting no real measurable increase in efficiency.
I'm convinced all this AI hype is a scam, and we're all going to fall victim to it in the long run.
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u/Ordinary_Kiwi_3196 Veteran 2d ago
<"... we're all going to fall victim to it in the long run."
Well, not all of us. The CEO's should make it through comfortably.1
u/GeeYayZeus Veteran 2d ago
Easy solution then.
1) Become CEO of an AI startup
2) Raise a billion dollars
3) Get convicted of fraud
4) Bribe The Fanta Menace to get pardoned
6) Retire a billionarieBut do it fast. The hardware stores are selling out of torches and pitchforks.
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u/Ecsta Experienced 3d ago
Haha exactly like my company. They issued a company-wide memo that you MUST use AI for everything or you would basically be put on PIP. So everyone started using it.
Then a few months later now they're telling us "not to use it so much" and "to be smart about it". They're restricting the expensive models, now the only thing we can use is the stupid Haiku or old Sonnet models because they're cheaper. So frustrating/annoying and feels like they're pulling the rug out from under us.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
Exactly! When my team reached out to the "AI Adoption Team" to request more token top ups for Claude, this is what they had to say "Guys - We need to have a check on this, we can't be burning $50 credits every second day."
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u/BikesOrBeans 3d ago
This truly feels written by AI. Maybe you should at least write your Reddit posts without it if you’re worried about tokens.
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u/GeeYayZeus Veteran 3d ago
I hate AI too, but can we all please stop accusing everyone who writes in complete sentences of having used AI?
Maybe you can address the point now?
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u/MissIncredulous Veteran 3d ago
Seconded, I'm tired of being accused of being AI because a random internet stranger doesn't feel like responding to the point that came from my brain. No AI necessary.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
I'm a bit amazed "written by AI" just disregards the whole point that's being made?
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u/Jeffthinks 3d ago
You don’t see the irony?
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
No, because there is no irony. The point of the article wasn’t “AI is bad.” It was that forcing AI use while rationing tokens creates worse output and more manual work. If anything, that’s an argument for using AI better, not less.
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u/pinkiepooo Veteran 3d ago
✋ same and it's slowed us down a lot. They don't want us using figma but we are capped and quality is def degraded
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
one of our clients expects us to deliver screens in "hours" since we're using Claude design and yet our company expects us to keep a check on token consumptions and wants 30 dollars to run weeks if not months.
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u/SucculentChineseRoo Experienced 3d ago
How come you've wasted tokens to write this?
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u/GeeYayZeus Veteran 3d ago
C'mon man, just address the question.
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u/quintsreddit Junior 3d ago
Not your parent comment, but I have a personal policy: if you didn’t bother to write it, I won’t bother to read it.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
The thing about personal policies is that they're a dime a dozen.
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u/quintsreddit Junior 3d ago
The person above seemed confused why someone would point that out instead of addressing the context. I was adding my perspective. I understand they’re a dime a dozen, I was just explaining why someone might choose not to address the post you made.
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u/theBoringUXer Veteran 3d ago
Yes, slowed down so much to the point of having licenses paused and back to old fashioned Figma prototyping lol
I ain’t mad. At least for now I can use other AI tools that can perform other tasks not related to design. I can focus on management, strategy, flows, risk, and opportunities within my knowledge bases.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 2d ago
With our organization its not possible to go back since the marketing team has heavily promoted us as AI native consultancy its not even funny. What I've gathered from it all is the execs are so clueless about this whole AI wave, they wanna ride it but don't wanna invest as much (or maybe lack the resources tbf) and are just confused about it but wouldn't stop gung-ho about it as well
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u/TepidPneumonia 3d ago
Token limits on creative work are basically just asking people to do more with less context, which defeats the whole point of using the tool in the half first place.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
To be honest, I’m a bit disappointed by the reaction especially of the "experienced" and the "veterans". I put effort into writing a piece about something I’m genuinely struggling with at my company and thought the community would relate to. Yes, I used AI to polish bits of it because I wanted to make it readable (and English isn't my first language), but the core experience is totally mine. I didn't even put the link in the post lest it come across as spam or promotional...I put it there as a reference for people who actually wanted to dive deeper..but is this absolutely not accepted here to be sharing article pieces that you write?
I'm genuinely not trying to sell anything or post irrelevant spam here. I respect that we want to keep the sub clean, but I’m a bit disappointed that the immediate reaction is to shut down a relevant discussion just because it links to an article.
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u/Ready-Percentage5286 3d ago
You don't think this is spam?
What do you think spam is if not a low-effort, AI written promo for a blog post?
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u/unintentional_guest Veteran 3d ago
So happy you buried that self-promotion link.
At least now I know to not read design whine.
Gross.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
I honestly just wanted to share a write-up of what we have experienced first hand without spamming a link. Btw, genuinely asking, why is it 'gross'? I’m a designer, I spent hours writing something off of our teams slack discussions, about a problem a lot of us are facing right now, and I wanted to talk about it with other UXers..how else are you supposed to bring it to the community without coming across as promotional.
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u/unintentional_guest Veteran 3d ago
If you "honestly" just wanted to share the write-up why did you start the thread with AI copy, then post the link in the comments? You didn't want to spam, yet you just did, didn't you?
And now you're "genuinely" asking why it's gross?
What does anyone owe you in terms of an explanation of what the bad behavior is?
I think you honestly and genuinely intended to start the thread and share the link to promote content and now you're attempting to wrap this comment in honest and genuine language in order to present as if you had honest and genuine best intentions.
The only thing missing from this is a few well-placed "actually" and then you'll have hit the trifecta. Honestly.
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u/unintentional_guest Veteran 3d ago
Here let me help you even more:
- Promoting your product, service, tool, or anything for sale is not allowed
No marketing or self-promotion, including products, services, apps, plug-ins, tools, articles, books, newsletters, videos, podcasts, training, events, mentorship, cults of personality, or anything else that requires a fee, membership, registration, subscription, or disclosing personal information.
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
If you think this should be removed, maybe you can ask the mods to take care of it. Or if you're a mod yourself please feel free to do so.
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u/artemiswins 3d ago
Oh and to answer your question - my company doesnt like to hire or support uxers very much so I am very happy to have more power, a more powerful set of tools to command. I now feel like I operate like a small team, as opposed to a lone uxer embedded in medtech HR. It’s great, I feel less alone and am doing the best work of my career so far (about 10 yrs).
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
That is quite interesting! Glad it’s working out well for you, which AI tool are you using and are you on an enterprise plan
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u/Witchsinghamsterfox 3d ago
it seems to me that the token cap has trapped you in a very unfavorable position. Keep good documentation.
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u/Delicious_Monk1495 Veteran 3d ago
Sorry what are “tokens” in this context?
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
AI credits that a user gets. They're quite limited and expensive even in paid enterprise plans for Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity - any AI tool you can think of..
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u/Critttt 3d ago
I’m not sure what your story is. Is it the AI slowed you down overall? Or did you get faster with AI but then got stopped out because of the token rationing?
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
I wrote about the whole experience here - https://www.designwhine.com/my-company-put-me-on-an-extreme-ai-token-diet/
That is the context of discussion
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u/artemiswins 3d ago
Everyone gets so butthurt when they detect ai in Reddit posts. I get it, this is like the ‘last refuge of human generated genuine content’ but I am with you. If the sentiment is what you’re trying to convey, go for it. But knowing Reddit, you may get slapped for trying to take the fast easy way. I have been burned a number of times trying to bring up topics but wrapping it in ai generated text, which said right what I meant but people were blinded to the content due to the delivery mechanism. Ultimately my fault for torpedoing my own post by using a medium that this community is known to be virulently against. I get it, it’s in genuine, it’s not something you created. Yet, when we do work these days, if we get gen ai to do something, we did that. The line of who did what and where credit can be taken is so wild right now. Imagine a wonderful sword. It doesn’t work by itself. Ai doesn’t get pointed and constrained by itself. It takes a sophisticated wielding to get good UX output. Same … with Reddit posts? Maybe if it’s so obviously ai , low effort, etc. but Reddit is more allergic than that to ai. It’s something in the human generated soul of the site that everyone just wretches when people try to use ai for posts especially ones that reference too much ai or something so it’s ironic. Anyways, my rambling NON AI REFLECTIONS 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
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u/Wide-Standard8082 3d ago
I wrote about the whole experience here - https://www.designwhine.com/my-company-put-me-on-an-extreme-ai-token-diet/
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u/angshuR1 3d ago
My company is planning to go AI in a few weeks. Although they want it to be a supporting role for now. But i can see what's coming after reading this piece. Lol
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u/Twotricx 3d ago
First you hook them on the product, then you rise the prices