Which AI tools should a designer actually use?

You need far fewer tools than the lists online suggest. Pick one per job, learn it well, and keep your own head for the thinking.

These are the tools I use, sorted by the job they do. Free tiers are as stated on each official pricing page in October 2026. Pricing changes often, so check before you rely on it.

For how AI fits into a workflow in general, read my AI guide first. This page is just the tool list.

I use AI mainly through Claude and Gemini. It gives me information fast and lets me ship things myself: my own image compressor, internal auditing tools, Figma plugins, and token pipelines.

One line I hold firmly: AI never does the thinking, the brainstorming, or the new ideas. Those stay human. In my view AI has changed my output through speed and easier alignment with standards, nothing deeper. It gets you to a basic starting point. Making something special after that is your job.

So every tool below is a speed tool. None of them is a taste tool.

• Claude and Gemini. I run research through them: what people struggle with in a niche, what competitors already tried, and fast iterations on what I find. Anthropic's pricing page lists a Free plan at $0, and Google lists a free Gemini plan with a Google account.
• PostHog. I use it to find funnel leaks and churn and to trace user flows. Its pricing page says the free allowance renews every month and includes 1M analytics events and 5K session replays.
• Mixpanel. I ran a funnel analysis across 1.13M signups in it. The Free plan covers up to 1M events a month.
• GrowthBook. For feature flags and A/B tests. The cloud Starter plan is free for up to 3 users and includes "limited" use of GrowthBook AI. There is also a free, self-hosted open source version.

Treat AI summaries of research as a draft. Read the raw quotes and the raw funnel yourself before you decide anything.

Ideation is the one job I keep AI out of. New ideas and brainstorming are human work for me.

For interface design I use Figma. Its free Starter plan lists "150 AI credits/day, up to 500 AI credits/mo." A Full seat on the Professional plan is listed at $16 a month with 3,000 AI credits a month.

If you are still choosing a design tool, my Figma vs Canva guide compares them.

AI image and video models are part of my toolkit, and at ImagineComputer my design work included AI-generated visuals. The ones I use:

• Nano Banana is Google DeepMind's family of image generation and editing models, built on Gemini. Google lists it in the Gemini app, Google AI Studio, and the Gemini API. The free Gemini plan includes image generation and editing.
• Veo is Google DeepMind's video model; the current version is Veo 3.1, with native audio. It is available in the Gemini app, Google Flow, and the Gemini API. Which Gemini plan includes how much Veo varies by country, so check your local Gemini plans page.
• Kling is a video generation model. I could not load Kling's own pricing page when I checked, so I cannot confirm what its free tier includes.
• Seedance is ByteDance Seed's video model, with text and image input. Its official page offers an API and a playground but says nothing about free access.
• fal is an API that runs many of these models in one place. It is pay per use, billed per output, and its pricing page mentions no free tier. Examples listed in October 2026: Nano Banana 2 at $0.08 per image and Kling Video v3 Pro at $0.14 per second of video.

Use the consumer apps to explore. Use an API like fal when you need many assets, or need them inside a product.

• Claude Code with Figma MCP. This is how I prototype in real code. At Vyro it let me prototype and test roughly 10x faster, cutting design-to-dev handoff friction. Anthropic's pricing page says Claude Code is included in all paid plans and not in Free. Figma's remote MCP server is available on all seats and plans, but View and Collab seats get only 20 tool calls a month. The full setup is in my guide to prototyping in code with Claude Code and Figma MCP.
• Figma Dev Mode. For inspection and handoff. My handoff guide covers what to include.
• Notion. For specs and docs. The Free plan is $0 but includes only a trial of Notion AI. The Business plan ($20 per member a month) includes Notion AI features such as the Notion Agent and AI Meeting Notes.

1. Pick one tool per job from the table above. Ignore the rest for a month.
2. Set up the free tiers first: Claude or Gemini, Figma Starter, and PostHog or Mixpanel on a side project.
3. Write down your own line, the work you will not hand to AI. Mine is thinking, brainstorming, and new ideas.
4. If you can code a little, try one prototype with Claude Code and Figma MCP this week.