AI didn’t kill the design process. It made being dirt cheap. The new workflow, the tools, and what you should do today.

Petras Baukys of Muzli argues that AI made a wrong prototype cheap, so design teams should build first, release to half of users and measure before deciding.

Petras Baukys writes for Muzli, a browser extension that shows designers new work in each new tab. He argues that the Double Diamond, the best-known diagram of the design process, suited a time when building the wrong thing cost months. He then describes how Muzli builds small changes the day an idea appears and tests them on half of new users.

• Richard Eisermann led the Design Council team that drew the Double Diamond in 2003. In 2023 he wrote that it probably no longer fits, partly because of generative AI.
• Baukys gave two AI models three studio briefs. One built each in 50 to 81 minutes, and the other built all three for $1.88 in total.
• At Muzli, every experiment gets its own label in the analytics before the build ships. The team writes down the sample size and the date it will read the result before a test starts.
• One Muzli test looked like a clear win after two weeks. When the team split it by install date, the whole gain came from three days of installs.

A product team that prototypes with AI can still decide in advance what result would prove an idea wrong, and wait for that result. This is an inference and is not the author's claim; Baukys also uses the essay to promote Muzli.

Derived by Working Surface from the article; more in the Playbook. Source line: Being wrong got cheap in the prototype. It is as expensive as ever in production.

7 October 2026: once AI agents do most of the making, checking and choosing become the scarce steps, and teams protect them with author responsibility, automated checks and tools that point to risk.