As the all-you-can-eat AI era is ending, UX designers must adapt to a new realitySince the democratization of AI, roughly by the end of 2022, companies sold access to their products for less than it costs them to run.That didn’t last long.Now, to try the latest models or pro versions of certain tools, users need to pay extra in tokens, which have unofficially become AI’s currency. More and more products are moving to credit- and usage-based pricing, meaning every action comes with a cost.So how does that price show up on screen? A cost preview before you run a task or perhaps a credits meter in the corner? It might look like a small detail, but it can be the reason people keep using your product or move to a competitor.Cost is a design material, like latency or error states, and it deserves the same care. Our task as designers is to make users feel in control… not like they’re...