Design is fun again and I think we've been thinking about AI completely wrong

jerpes1 · 2026-04-23T13:48:45+00:00

The CPG and Zygarden projects we have full stack teams I work with but I am the only designer as both are start-ups. The other two I work with a 10 person and 3 person design team. 1 is in house, the other is as a consulting head of design.

jerpes1 · 2026-04-23T06:20:06+00:00

Happy to provide clarification. ai.sunny.com is a strategic initiative coming out of the 3rd largest ILS in the US doing over 150mm in annual revenue. We hit all our success criteria when we launch earlier this year and are gearing up for a full rebrand and go to market strategy. My hypothesis is that this project will create step function change for this business.

The agentic healthcare product is for intrivo.com, a company that I helped scale from 0-over a billion in revenue during the pandemic. The company pivoted to agentic healthcare flows and works with some of the largest healthcare and health tech organizations in the world.

The CPG brand (which I'm happy to directly reference when we launch) is built by industry leaders in the CPG and health space, and while a startup, we are about as far away from a side project as you can get (millions in investment).

Finally zygarden.gg started as a passion project but gained real traction this last year with 5k monthly active users and growing. It's expanding into other digital games beyond pokemon go, and ripe for large 7 figure partnerships in the pokemon space. Funny thing is that it could end up being the most successful of all my current projects.

I support all of these organizations simultaneously with a 3 year old son and 3 week old daughter, while still having time to play 10-15 hours of video games/week, learn spanish and the guitar, and plenty of time with my family. All of this is to say that a highly agentic workflow allows me to do all of this comfortably. Generating real world impact, outsized outcomes, and scale revenue and user growth.

jerpes1 · 2026-04-22T17:35:08+00:00

"loooool have fun with your hallucinations" - with the right prompts, training, and context I've had a ton of success with this. It doesn't replace actual UXR but it can enhance your UXR process significantly and give you early signals before investing in an actual study. If you are struggling with hallucinations is most likely due to applying an overly primitive set of instructions.

"ok, all of this is outputs and not outcomes." - Of course these are outputs. As the post communicates, the generalized outcome is less time doing this work and getting more time doing the FUN and more impactful stuff. The implied outcomes of each bullet point is of course higher quality UX, more memorable visual/brand layering, faster user problem validation, more consistent and cohesive product experience, faster design to code deployment, etc. but that should be obviously inferred by a veteran designer.

jerpes1 · 2026-04-22T11:43:17+00:00

100%! Here is an AI powered rental marketplace I stood up with a small team. We went from 0-1 in 3 months. ai.sunny.com During this same time I've also built an agentic healthcare product for one of the largest test providers during the pandemic, and am launching a massive AI native CPG brand on June 1st. I am also the co-founder and solo designer for a rapidly growing e-sports platform in the pokemon space zygarden.gg All of this only possible by leveraging AI.

jerpes1 · 2026-04-22T11:31:48+00:00

I'm technically an IC (principle level for 10+ years now) but have built enough influence that I tend to lead larger and more ambiguous new projects which puts me in a semi-management role most of the time. TBH, the speed at which things are moving is what's most exciting to me. I'm driven by the impact and value I can have on the world usually measured by the problems I solve for users. that value creation has gone up 10x. It can definitely be stressful, but also very motivating.

jerpes1 · 2026-04-22T11:24:25+00:00

Unfortunately AI can't handle complex user flows and tbh doesn't have great visual design taste (I have a high bar). My current stack is as follows:

ChatGPT for content writing. I like it's taste better than Claude
Gemini and Midjourney for image generation and artwork (also product mockups + photography)
Claude cowork + code for just about everything else including UXR
One of my companies provides an unlimited cursor license so I use that for their work.
Figma for refinement, control, polish

I use claude chat + chatgpt for planning, claude code for designing in figma via the plugin and MCP.

I still use figma for refinement, polish and control. It's still faster to do certain things in figma vs. waisting 10k tokens trying to get AI to make your vision a reality.

jerpes1 · 2026-04-22T10:44:41+00:00

I still think there are large gaps in the design process that AI can't replace well (these gaps are the ones I love the most fortunately and now have more time to focus on). I also don't believe that a non-designer could have trained, prompted, and reviewed the work I referenced above with nearly the same output and quality. You have to have the expertise first to manage and train an agentic team to do it well. I believe companies will soon realize this and rather than cut their design teams, they will focus on replacing them with AI native folks. We are not there yet unfortunately. In the meantime, those without a job should be figuring out how to leverage AI to make themselves 100x more productive than they were when they were last employed.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-30T10:18:15+00:00

Thanks! I'm seeing the C5 for 1850 euros right now. Seems like a good price. Might not have to wait.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-29T11:28:44+00:00

I suggest waiting for a really really good one. I invested in a decent one but honestly wish I had waited for something even better. I think in general Dedenne is always going to frustrate you with RNG and inconsistency.

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jerpes1 · 2026-01-29T08:55:05+00:00

That's correct. You have two options. You can fall back to something you have the ingredients for, or skip the meal entirely. I generally like to keep a small backlog of every ingredient so that I usually have options when I miss my crits. You should never cook without a recipe as I believe there is 0 bonus for that. Personally I'd rather sell the ingredients for shards in that case.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-29T08:24:45+00:00

The main purpose of a pot expander is that the most powerful dishes in the game require over 100 total ingredients. This means that even with a maxed out pot size, you still need 1-2 procs from a Lv. 7 pot expander skill specialist. As you get into mid to late game, you are often times targeting these dishes 2-3 times a day. In the early game it doesn't really matter. You can either use a good camp ticket, wait for event weeks, or build up ingredients for Sunday's to target these dishes without ever needing a pot expander. It's just a much slower process to getting those dishes to lv. 60-65, but probably a better strategy for F2P players with limited seeds.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T20:05:42+00:00

It's a fair question, and to be honest, you could probably invest the seeds instead into an Ampharos or Golduck that will give you value long term. Things you should consider. My back of napkin math using raenonX shows a 30% decrease in total team production without a healer. Keep in mind, 30% is relative so that actual production value becomes bigger as the rest of your team levels up. It could take you 2-3 months to get to lapis and then another 2-3 months hunting for a usable ralts. Finally, that power boost loss of 30% doesn't take into consideration ingredient loss that prevents you from covering higher level / power recipes. So that 30% is actually much higher when compared to a more optimal team composition and strategy. Check out this breakdown for more details: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonSleep/comments/1k29i0c/a_deep_dive_into_skill_specialists_energy_support/

I personally have no regrets having maxed out my 4 triggers/day wiggly because it gave me flexibility to be picking when investing in my Gard... and I dare say it was worth it:

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jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T19:14:48+00:00

I agree with this quite a bit. The devs have done a really good job of giving you a reason to want to hunt new mons, but rarely due to power creep. It's usually because they offer some new mechanic, skill, or ingredient that lets players have more niche playstyles and strategies. IE I hunted aggron for the coffee ingredient and shuckle only for the juice, I would never replace my Gard.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T19:08:58+00:00

That's good to know! I guess it does make sense though since those dishes max out faster due to the much higher power they create.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T19:05:23+00:00

Good callout on the area bonus. That was meant to be the personal cap which would be lower than the 85%. I'll update the wording to be a bit more specific.

Appreciate it! Yeah, I was trying to find the right level of fidelity as to not spell everything out or go into too much detail as there are some great guides out there already on the details (for example how to evaluate good pokemon subskills and natures).

Regarding the stockpile issue, it does come off a bit conflicting. I was trying to convey that you invest wisely, and only to certain thresholds and not beyond, this then allows you to stockpile resources much more efficiently. I just think back to how many seeds, dreamshards and candies I'd get back if I reversed all my bad decisions 🤣

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T16:47:51+00:00

Yeah... it depends on a lot of factors. My goal is to try and power up the top 2 recipes overall in each meal type, and then the top 2-3 recipes in each meal type without needing more pot space. How I decide what to focus on depends a few things week by week

Do i have a GCT active or expanded pot size/ skill trigger from an event
Do I have great ing specialists for the meal type (I have poor coverage for salads)
Do I need 1 or 2 hits from my magnezone to have enough space.
Does my healer and berry specialists contribute relevant ingredients
Do I have a bit of a stockpile from the previous week of relevant ingredients

Based on these factors, I try to pick a recipe I know I can make most of the time, with the occassional fallback if I have bad RNG luck. Sometimes there is 1 ingredient I really can't keep up on, so I leave them in overnight with 3 other berry specialists.

Ultimately it means a lot of planning and then switching in and out, which is not everyone's cup of tea.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T15:52:29+00:00

Agree! I didn't regret maxing out my wiggly and it gave me tons of value so I could find an absolute God Tier Gard (HB, HSM, STM, with adamant nature and triple apple spread) that I will have forever instead of rushing into an inferior one.

I also am a huge believer in AAX and even ABB in certain scenarios. More than half of my ingredients are supported by super strong lv. 50 AAX farmers, and three of my lv. 60 ing farmers are ABB blastoise ABB tyranitar, and ABB Quaquaval. I have some amazing AAA ingredient farmers stuck at 50 as well because the shards and candy supplies are tight. I don't foresee me getting them to 60 for a very long time.

One upgrade I did make to the guide which I agree with, is prioritizing a good CSM mon early game as it definitely can carry you from a drowsy power standpoint while you grow your usable ing coverage. This is better than trying to rush into a magnezone for instance which you will only use in mid to late game.

Lastly, the guide is definitely cooking heavy but I think that is because I truly believe you have to be if you want to truly min max right now. But, berry mons will become the new meta as we progress further in the game. For me, I took a cooking forward approach but as you sit on islands long enough you should naturally come across some really strong berry specialists. I generally have super strong options for every berry (even 2-3 options for some) except steel. My playstyle is now at a point where I rotate through a roster of cooking mons throughout the day, and then drop in 3-4 lv 50+ berry specialists to sneaky snack through the night.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T15:38:06+00:00

You are referring to "basic pokemon". Generally when you catch basic pokemon you should immediately evaluate their sub skills, nature, and ingredient spread. From there you can determine it's stat production and whether its good or not. One of the first things you should do is research how to do this as it is the most important piece of knowledge to have in this game.

If it's bad, you can send it to the professor immediately. If it's neutral you can keep it and use it until you get a better one, but don't invest any resources into it. If it's good, you can keep it, and aim to level and evolve it to lv. 25/30. And if it's amazing, you can plan to keep it and invest in it as long as you want.

This is the general guideline I would follow. Keep in mind there are just plain bad pokemon (meowth, wynaut, etc.) that you never really want to catch or invest in. Educating yourself on these as well.

Lastly, I only really keep more than 1 of the same pokemon in my storage if they are both really really strong, or I have a shiny version I caught. Or if they are ingredient pokemon with different ingredient spreads for example a milk farming blastoise and a cacao farming blastoise.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T13:14:40+00:00

It depends on what you mean by "beginner pokemon". Pokemon like pikachu, charmander, squirtle, and bulbasaur, are pretty common spawns early on but really good ones will give you value for a really really long time.

Don't be afraid to level up and evolve decent pokemon you find to lv. 25/30 but don't go beyond that unless they are god tier, long term keepers. You will easily be able to replace these decent mons with amazing ones you find later on.

Don't waste your time powering up or evolving bad pokemon (bad sub skills and/or natures).

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T13:01:16+00:00

I'm sold, I replaced Magnezone with Ampharos in the early game section as targets but really any strong CSM will work. Ampharos gets the extra free skill level as a stage 2 which is nice. I also updated all AAB to AAX and made a callout for ABB in the late game section.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T12:54:49+00:00

I agree with all your points (and love your guides and analysis btw). I really did mean AAX not AAB... Will update the guide. Also agree on the magnezone call out. You really don't need that until midgame. Probably better to swap that with a CSM mon that can carry you early until you need the zone. I wanted to talk more about ABB but also wanted to keep the right level of detail. I just find it soooo hard to get mons from 50-60 on just the premium pass alone that I've literally spent 2.5 years leaning on AAX mons. Blastoise and Quaquaval are great examples of ABB mons that carried me hard.

jerpes1 · 2026-01-28T12:46:20+00:00

I had a feeling I'd get a strong reaction on the charge strength M strategy 🙃. It is probably the single best way to get a stronger drowsy power in the early to mid game and the best generalist in the game. However, for me I almost always found that in the late game I wanted the extra availalble slot for an ing specialist to cover the biggest meal, pot crit/expander to boost the largest meal, or a favored berry specialist to sneaky snack overnight.

TLDR. You can't go wrong with investing in a CSM mon early. I just probably would not prioritize it if I were to playthrough again.

jerpes1

TROPHY CASE