How I work with AI
After 15 years in tech, I feel excited again.
AI brought the momentum back. Ideas that used to sit in a notebook for months now turn into something real in a day or two. Here’s what that actually looks like.
01
It all starts with Claude.
Every project starts as a conversation. Discovery, research, the first rough idea, the first working version. And Claude isn’t a chat window on the side. It’s plugged into the tools I design with, so it can open the Figma file, set up the scene in Blender, cut the edit in Premiere, and ship the build.
I’m still the one making the calls. I just have a very fast pair of hands.
The rest of the kit
ChatGPT for the visual side.
For branding and visuals, I bounce ideas off ChatGPT. Directions, references, quick visual studies before anything gets polished.
I talk, it types.
I think faster than I type. With Wispr Flow I just talk to the models, so nothing gets stuck between my head and the keyboard.
The logistics run themselves.
Task boards, updates, notes, all the project management around the work is handled with AI. My time goes to the work itself.
02
You’ve probably lived this.
How it used to go
- Brief
- Moodboard
- Wireframes
- Mockups
- A deck to explain the mockups
- Handoff
- Wait three weeks
- “Hmm, that’s not quite what we meant.”
How it goes now
- Talk it through
- Build a working version
- Click through it together, same week
- Change it
- Click through it again
- “Yes. That.”
Nobody has to imagine how a flow will feel from a static screen anymore. We just try it. On GreenLyne and Shop & Ship, the team was clicking through a working prototype before engineering wrote a line of code.
03
So what do you call this?
Every month there’s a new title for it. They’re all pointing at the same thing: the line between designing a product and building it is disappearing. The design isn’t a picture of the product anymore. More and more, it is the product.
- Creative technologist
- Product designer
- UX engineer
- Vibe coder
- Design technologist
- Design engineer
- Full-stack designer
- Builder
- Product engineer
- AI-native designer
- Prototyper
- Maker
- Design-led developer
Right now I’d call myself a product designer and a design engineer. AI-native, if you need a third. Ask me again in six months.
04
Not just screens.
Motion and 3D used to be the things I handed off, or quietly cut from the scope. Now I make them myself. I write the script, work it through with ChatGPT and Claude, and build the scene. Then I push it until it feels right.
05
Products that feel alive.
This is the part I enjoy most. Things that move, respond, and have a little personality. AI lets me spend my time there, instead of on the parts that used to eat the week.
Like the digital version of me in the corner of this page. Go ahead, ask it something.
06
My only problem?
The day is too short.
I feel empowered, excited, and motivated in a way I haven’t in years. Most days I just wish I had a few more hours.
07
What doesn’t change.
AI is fast. It doesn’t have taste. Knowing what matters, what to cut, and when something is finally right is still my job. That’s the part I’d never hand off.