design systems
Multi-Brand Design Fragmentation:
Why AI Makes Single-Owner Systems a Cost-Saving Reality
December 24, 2025 | By Isaac Kadosh
Over the last three years, I’ve had more enterprise clients reach out to me—through Toptal and directly—with the same big question: “Q: How do we solve product and brand fragmentation?”
I keep seeing the same pattern. Either you’re a company with multiple brands and products that had to move fast and never invested enough in design systems, consistency, or governance. Or you did invest—millions of dollars—into design teams, design systems, documentation, and processes… and you’re still dealing with fragmentation. Different paths. Same pain.
I’ve worked with large enterprises in the last 10 years, and the fragmentation problem keeps coming up. Teams are big. Products are at scale. Designers care deeply about quality. And yet, hours are spent in meetings debating things like the difference between a dropdown and a select component—while inconsistencies continue to ship anyway.
Design at scale is hard. Creating a cohesive UX across brands is genuinely challenging.
Is Design system collaboration changing?
In the early 2000s, things looked very different. Remember the “rockstar” designer? It was always: “Hey, meet so-and-so. They built all our apps.”
Then came the 2010s. Design became collaborative, cross-functional, and defined by shared ownership. It was no one person’s “baby.” That shift was necessary—and powerful.
Now it’s 2025, and we’re in a new phase. AI acceleration is changing how companies think about productivity. Teams are getting leaner. Companies are laying off people. Decision-making is increasingly centralized. The expectation is clear: Increase productivity and reduce costs.
“Collaboration is key,” in many places, still important. However, I am seeing more companies that are frustrated and exhausted by endless conversations.
As a fractional UX lead and consultant, my role is technically to “empower the team.” Yet, more often than not, leadership comes to me and says:
“You’re the decision-maker on this. Work 1:1 with the Engineering Lead. Build the system. Define the governance. We will back your decisions.”
Are we heading back to the “Rockstar” designers days? 🤔
Huge cost-saving opportunity is happening right now
AI is accelerating engineering in a very real way. GitHub repositories can now be read and understood by models. That unlocks the ability to build shared APIs, token systems, and design foundations across products much faster than before.
The equation is changing. Companies no longer need large teams just to maintain consistency. What they need is clarity, ownership, and leverage. One strong design system lead, working closely with an engineering partner, can now do what used to require many people and endless coordination.
You can already see this shift in the U.S. market. More companies are choosing contract-based and fractional roles—CPOs, UX leads, system architects. They want to move fast. They want fewer discussions. They want solid products that actually hold together.
I see this trend continuing to grow. With one or two clear system owners, a strong engineering partnership, and AI-assisted visibility, companies can dramatically reduce fragmentation, prevent it from compounding, and save millions in refactoring and rework.
Fragmentation doesn’t disappear—but for the first time, it becomes containable, manageable, and maintainable.