Designing AI experiences in Figma is misleading because it only captures the ideal "golden path." Prototyping in code with live AI models is essential to understand and design for latency, errors, unexpected responses, and the true user "feel" of interacting with an unpredictable system.

Contrary to claims that "handoff is dead," designers at top companies use AI-generated prototypes as highly detailed specs. These interactive prototypes provide more information than static designs but are still handed off to developers for implementation, rather than being merged directly into production.

Static wireframes fail to represent the dynamic, probabilistic nature of AI. A better method for rapid validation is to build a simple browser plugin that injects live, AI-generated content into your existing product. This allows for immediate, real-world user testing focused on the value of the content, not UI polish.

When you use AI to generate complex outputs like a website or video, you receive a static, single-layer product. If you don't understand the underlying components (e.g., code, video layers), you can't edit, debug, or evolve the asset, effectively trapping your organization with a 'snapshot in time.'

An interaction can look perfect in a static tool like Figma but feel terrible when built. Prototyping allows designers to experience the 'feel' of their work—a crucial step for validating ideas, developing intuition, and creating higher-quality products that you can't get from static mockups alone.

Product Requirement Documents (PRDs) are often written and then ignored. AI-generated prototypes change this dynamic by serving as powerful internal communication tools. Putting an interactive model in front of engineering and design teams sparks better, more tangible conversations and ideas than a flat document ever could.

Instead of providing a vague functional description, feed prototyping AIs a detailed JSON data model first. This separates data from UI generation, forcing the AI to build a more realistic and higher-quality experience around concrete data, avoiding ambiguity and poor assumptions.

Building a true AI product starts by defining its core capabilities in an AI playground to understand what's possible. This exploration informs the AI architecture and user interface, a reverse process from traditional software where UI design often comes first.

Resist the temptation to treat AI-generated prototype code as production-ready. Its purpose is discovery—validating ideas and user experiences. The code is not built to be scalable, maintainable, or robust. Let your engineering team translate the validated prototype into production-level code.