There are plenty of good planning poker tools. Most do the core job well: create a room, vote on story points, reveal, and align. If your team builds with AI coding tools, though, the requirements shift. Here is what to look for in a planning poker tool for an AI team, and an honest take on where the category is heading.
What every planning poker tool should get right
- Fast room creation with a shareable link, ideally with no login friction.
- A clean reveal flow that surfaces disagreement, not just an average.
- Configurable estimation scales for different teams and decks.
- Real-time voting that works across Slack, Teams, and remote setups.
What AI teams need on top of that
The new requirement is capturing AI cost. When usage is metered, two tickets with the same story-point score can cost very different amounts to ship. A planning poker tool for AI teams should let you estimate expected token usage alongside effort, so cost is visible before implementation rather than after the invoice. We unpack this split in story points vs token estimates.
Concretely, look for:
- A second estimation dimension for token usage, not just a single effort score.
- Sensible default token tiers your team can vote on quickly and customize.
- A reveal that shows effort and token estimates together, so the conversation covers both.
- Exportable planning data you can reuse for budgeting and prioritization.
Where Token Poker fits
Token Poker is built specifically for this gap. It keeps the planning poker ritual teams already trust — rooms, voting, reveal — and adds a token estimate to every ticket. The goal is not to replace classic planning poker for teams that do not need it, but to be the better fit when AI cost is a real part of how you ship.
If your team does not use AI coding tools in delivery, a classic planning poker tool is perfectly fine. The second estimate only earns its place when AI usage genuinely affects your planning — and for a growing number of teams, it now does.