Season 2 Episode 23: Inside Pendo's AI-Powered Design Culture

In this episode of UX Leadership by Design, host Mark Baldino is joined by three members of Pendo’s design team—Senior Product Design Manager Holly Reynolds, Senior Product Designer John Incampo, and Product Design Intern Ryan Markley—to explore how AI is reshaping real-world design work from the ground up.

They discuss how leadership at Pendo has created a culture of experimentation and empowerment, how AI tools like Bolt, Cursor, and Claude are integrated across the product and design process, and what it takes to balance speed with quality. Whether you’re a new designer, an experienced leader, or somewhere in between, this episode is full of honest takes, practical tips, and forward-thinking insights into what AI actually looks like in a modern design team.

Listen & Watch

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/inside-pendos-ai-powered-design-culture/id1658851404?i=1000724989986
Spotify Podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7m5p8xat7LXqPUMYjx85r6
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd9GGf-vhqQ

Key Takeaways

Culture of Empowerment: Pendo’s leadership doesn’t just allow AI exploration—they encourage it, creating space for experimentation, risk-taking (without risking users), and team-driven innovation.
Hands-On AI Tools & Integration: From interns to senior designers, team members are actively using tools like Cursor, Claude, Bolt, and Figma’s AI features to accelerate research, prototyping, documentation, and collaboration.
Collaborative Learning Environment: Weekly product + AI sessions and open Slack channels create a culture of shared discovery where everyone contributes wins, tools, and ideas.
Practical Guardrails: While AI is everywhere, the team reinforces foundational UX process—reminding each other not to skip steps, misread data, or forget critical thinking in the rush to ship.
Real Wins in the Workflow: AI is unlocking richer prototyping, better animation handoff, faster research synthesis, and scalable documentation through tools like custom GPTs.
Design Ops Meets AI: The team is rethinking design systems and documentation with AI—exploring ways to automate OOUX structures, update components, and turn dead docs into dynamic tools.
Advice for AI Newcomers: Whether you’re overwhelmed, underexposed, or unsure where to start, the team shares practical tips for getting started, experimenting safely, and staying ahead of the curve.

Resources & Links

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome + Meet the Pendo Design Trio
01:00 – Career Paths and AI Exposure
05:30 – How Pendo’s Leadership Encourages AI Exploration
08:00 – Internal AI Forums, Slack Channels, and Culture of Sharing
10:50 – Guardrails, Trust, and Responsible Use
13:00 – Balancing Speed with UX Process
15:30 – Cost, Tool Chaos, and What’s Next
17:20 – When AI Skips the Process (and How to Handle It)
20:00 – AI in Design Education: A Student’s POV
25:10 – Real Wins: Richer Prototypes and Faster Handoffs
27:50 – Using AI for Hiring, Microcopy, and Design Systems
33:00 – Turning Design System Docs into Chatbots
36:00 – Advice for Hesitant Designers and AI Newbies

Tags

#UXDesign, #UXLeadership, #DesignCulture, #AIInDesign, #ProductDesign, #UXResearch, #AIUXDesignOps, #Pendo, #FuzzyMath, #UXPodcast

Transcript

Mark Baldino (00:03.95)
Hello and welcome to UX Leadership by Design. I'm Mark Baldiner, your host. I'm also a co-founder of FuzzyMath. FuzzyMath is the user experience design consultancy that brings consumer-grade UX to business applications for B2B and enterprise tools. And today is a super special episode. I got the chance to speak with not one, but three members of the Pendo design team. Ryan, who is a product design intern, John, a senior product designer, and Holly's a senior product design manager.

and all on the role that AI plays in their work and in the design process. We start with exploring how Pendo is AI forward from the top down and how they've created a culture-owned AI exploration and now have a very, very healthy AI integrated design process. We get into some of the specific tools they're using, some really impressive implementation wins, and advice for all of you, regardless of your experience level with AI. Okay, so this is a great conversation with three friendly, smart, talented folks. So please enjoy the episode, and if you do, please like and share.

And as always, thank you for listening.

Mark Baldino (00:01.646)
Folks, welcome to the podcast. I want to say this is a first for UX Leadership by Design. Now we have three people on the podcast, which is super exciting. I've done two and the only time I've done more than one was with Fuzzy Math Employees. was two folks. So to have three people from Pendo's design team is super exciting for me. I really appreciate your time today. I'm super excited about the conversation we're going to have. As is per maybe, I don't

every podcast or everyone I've done. I love for people to cover a little bit about their background and maybe how they got into design, where they are in their design career, because I know we have some different ranges of design career. And then we're going to be talking about AI today and how designers are using AI in their product design process. after your intro and background, if you can just give a little bit of a sense of what your exposure has been to AI over the past several years, that would be great.

And Ryan wanted to start with you.

Ryan Markley (00:59.912)
Awesome. Hi, I'm Ryan Merkley. I'm a product design intern at Pendo. I'm a senior at NC State University studying graphic and experience design with a focus in data science. My exposure has definitely been primarily through my education with AI tools like Chachi BT, Figma and Food Jam AI, Adobe AI. But coming to Pendo, it has expanded to Bolt and other systems like that. So.

It's definitely still growing, but it's been intertwined with my design process and very much for experimentation and integrating there.

Mark Baldino (01:39.278)
Awesome. Thanks, Ryan. Holly, how about you? You've been on an event with me, did a webinar a month ago, so I know you a little bit, but introduce yourself to the audience.

Holly Reynolds (01:49.728)
Sure, Holly Reynolds. I am a Senior Product Design Manager at Pendo. I've been in the industry for a very long time. Also a former UX Bootcamp instructor. And how I got into the industry started out actually as a front-end engineer and sort of transitioned over to design, which is a very long story that I won't share here just for time's sake.

My exposure to AI has been probably similar to a lot of people of various levels in the industry. I've played with it. I've used it for personal use to understand how to address problems with my plants. And then I've used it for really complex strategic decisions, such as how can we identify the proper metrics for this particular feature that we want to launch? What are the considerations that I'm not thinking about?

Ryan Markley (02:24.268)
Thanks.

Holly Reynolds (02:39.502)
As far as types of tools, typically, well, currently I'm using Claude, Cursor, Bolt, ChachiPT, leveraging Figma's make a bit. I'm less on the design side these days, being just in full-time management, but definitely still like to play and see what's possible with it. So those are probably where I'm spending most of my time right now in terms of specific tools.

Mark Baldino (02:56.216)
Thank

Thank you.

Mark Baldino (03:05.069)
Thanks, Holly. Alright, John, round us out with intros.

John Incampo (03:09.551)
Yeah, what's up? I'm Johnny Campo. I'm a senior product designer at Pendo. I've been a professional designer for about 10 years and a product designer for a little over four years. I think I'm just like a lifelong designer, lifelong artist. I've been drawing and designing my whole life. I loved like HTML and CSS and making websites when I was in high school and just kind of like naturally flowed.

into product design. Eventually it did take me a little to get there. started in graphic design and then I kind of transitioned to web design. It was like building WordPress websites and then eventually started doing a SaaS applications. Um, when it comes to AI, I'd say recently I've been pretty much like obsessed with it, but it's just been a slow, slow burn and like, you know, first I had chat GPT and then it was like mid journey and now it's like both in cursor and,

Mark Baldino (03:53.294)
Thank

Mark Baldino (03:57.23)
Thank you.

John Incampo (04:02.086)
Constantly just like seeing what you could do a cursor and it's just like super exciting especially like coming from somewhere that I used to do WordPress websites and like try to make websites I was always like limited by my development knowledge. It's like I only knew up to like JavaScript and now it's like okay Like I could really like explode in possibilities

Mark Baldino (04:20.866)
Fantastic. So for the listeners, if you didn't catch that, we have kind of three folks who are at different stages of their career. Ryan, just beginning. John, a number of years, now a senior product designer, and then Holly is senior product design manager. So different phases, but all at Pendo, which is super exciting. And I'm kind of curious, at Fuzzy Math, which...

digital consultancy, we work with lot of clients and what we're hearing is leadership has created a mandate for AI. What is the team doing with AI? How can we better integrate AI both in our process and then most of the clients we work with are SaaS software providers. How can we integrate it into our product? So I'm kind of curious, what does that...

leadership, empowerment, or AI. I don't know if it's a mandate. I don't want to say that, but it feels like in a lot of our clients, there's sort of this mandate you've got to be using, and sort of AI. What does that feel like at Pendo? What's been the communication and kind of how does it get getting integrated? And Holly, if you don't mind, I'd love for you to kind of start from your position and perspective.

Holly Reynolds (05:33.522)
Absolutely, it starts all the way at the top at Pendo from the CEO all the way down. We are strongly encouraged to explore, to play, to take risks. Now I want to be clear, we don't take risk with our customers, with our customer data, but we are encouraged to play in terms of how we design things and how we build things and to try to understand what the opportunities are to be more efficient, to add more value, to explore. And I think that it's important that we have that

that empowerment at the leadership level because that helps us to get blockers out of the way in terms of being able to access certain tools. We're able to move quickly. And I think it also helps us to be able to really just, you know, go and learn and explore. So I apologize. I had a puppy run at the moment. Sorry about that. Thank you.

John Incampo (06:23.484)
Thank

Mark Baldino (06:24.072)
You're all good. We didn't even notice. Well done. That's a pro answer there without anyone else noticing that you had an answer. So, there's no worries. So, John, at your sort of level in the organization experience, how does that like, is mandate the right term or just encouragement, I mean, from executive leadership?

Holly Reynolds (06:31.366)
Thank you.

John Incampo (06:43.108)
Yeah. mean, I mean, I think mandate might be the right term, but I think it depends on your perspective. Like to me, that's, that's exciting. Maybe some people are like, I don't want to use AI and like this, it's a little more frustrating, but to me, I've loved the empowerment of like, Hey, like we're to give you guys these tools. And like, you know, we got bolts really early on. We have like product AI sessions or like once a week, we just like talk about what people are doing AI. And we have a few Slack channels where we do that, but, no, I think it's great. And it's, yeah, it's just like super exciting.

to just see how people are like elevating their work. Like I feel like I've elevated my own work just by working with these tools and I've seen other people do it and the more it's ingrained in, you know, the team, I think it's just better. I every team should be using AI with their work at this point. Like you gotta stay with the trends and like, you gotta keep evolving as a designer. So this is just another technology that we should be using. But yeah, you'll see it.

Mark Baldino (07:13.378)
Just to keep on.

John Incampo (07:40.294)
We've seen marketing come in and do talks on how they're using it. We've seen, I'm sure all, all over the place they're using it. mean, specifically we obviously focus in product and design, but yeah, it's definitely a company-wide thing.

Mark Baldino (07:53.262)
That's great. So a lot of knowledge sharing. Do mind me just diving into you said you guys have like a series of Slack channels and then like a weekly meeting and that's just the design team and what happens if you don't mind. Oh, not just the.

John Incampo (08:04.388)
Yeah, not just the design team. It's, it's product and AI, but it's really kind of open to everybody. So it's the product team, design, engineers and marketing. Sometimes it's really just kind of ad hoc topics. have a designer, Brian Green, who started this whole thing, but like, yeah, usually just different topics. Like I did one recently on how we integrate bolt into a design sprint and how we got our PMMs and our PMs and

Our engineering manager is all prototyping and working and it was just really a fun experience, but it's always something, always something different.

Mark Baldino (08:37.902)
That's awesome. I do want to get into in a minute the design process, how people are using these tools, do's, don'ts, guardrails, maybe good uses and maybe some areas where it feels a little bit early. But Ryan, you're new to the industry, you're still in school. I assume you're with Pendle for the summer for internship. What's that been exposure to AI in a work environment?

within a design team as you're sort of new in your career.

Ryan Markley (09:09.994)
Yeah, so I'm definitely newer to Pendo. I get to be here for 10 weeks. And it's now rounding out, but I've definitely gotten to see how it is encouraged. AI is encouraged to be used. There's a lot of freedom for me as an intern to use it for experimentation, reflection. It helps me move faster. So it's been really cool to have the resources, like John was saying, of product and AI to get to hear from people who are

They've been in the industry longer. They've been exposed to this type of AI much longer. Bolt and cursor, they're new to me. But I've definitely gotten to implement them into my projects and gotten familiar. So it's really exciting. I'm looking forward to taking that back to my education. But it's been amazing to have the resources and collaboration that Pendo provides when it comes to AI.

Mark Baldino (10:01.902)
Awesome. Thanks for sharing. So are there guardrails in the process of where you all want to be applying it or where you can? Obviously, we'll assume that you're using it, as Holly said, you're not taking any risks with customer data. We work with lot of folks in regulated industries, so we've got to bring these tools inside of the firewall before we can put any data into them. But let's put that to the side in terms of trust.

Are there areas that people are saying, say away? Is it open? Is it like really free form? How do you pick a tool? How do you pick a part of the process? Like, what does that look like? And I'm gonna throw it open to anyone who wants to cover this one first.

John Incampo (10:48.252)
I guess I could go first. I mean, I think it's kind of like a little bit of the Wild West right now in terms of like freedom. it's kind of like people are mustering out new tools all the time. I think we were given both early on because Brian had experimented with it and he liked it. And, we had tried level, we tried both. Some people started using cursor. So it's kind been all over the place. It's kind of just been like.

New things come out, new updates every day. So you really just have to be like messing around, experimenting and kind of sharing with each other. I think it's just encouraged to be fluid. There's no like strict use both or use this. I do think the guard rails is just like, don't, don't forget all the process that we've had before. Like, don't just throw everything into AI. Like there's still, it's like, it's like a partner in this, in this, it's not like completely replacing these workflows we've had for a while.

Mark Baldino (11:43.256)
So do you, in your work, John, do you personally decide, like, okay, I mean, you mentioned a design sprint. I'm going to implement it here. I'm going to kind of try it here, see how it fits into this part of the process. And I think it's a nice mental model of this is another, you're kind of a pair designer with AI in these cases. Are you just choosing where you want to place it and then see how it, you know, see how the outcomes are?

John Incampo (12:05.948)
I mean, that's kind of how it's felt for a little bit at this point, like just kind of seeing where it goes. I feel like I have a general workflow at this point, but when something new comes out, I do want to see like, could this fit in somewhere? But it's usually just like, none of my process is really different. It's just now I'm talking to AI the same way I would talk to other designers, the same way I talk to other people. It's kind of just like this other resource in the mix.

Mark Baldino (12:30.734)
Holly, from a design manager perspective, does that Wild West create any chaos, or are we in this exploratory phase and it's fine and we'll figure out when the dust settles if we want to be more, I don't want to say rigid about where AI is implemented, but does that feel comfortable? Does it feel uncomfortable from a manager's perspective?

Holly Reynolds (12:56.591)
Can the answer be yes to all of that? I think in some capacity all of those things are true.

John Incampo (12:58.812)
everything.

Mark Baldino (12:59.552)
I'm probably doing all the messes, yeah.

Holly Reynolds (13:06.372)
It's a little bit of Wild West. It's also exciting. There's a lot of room for exploration. To John's point, new tools come out all the time. So we kind of all have to be constantly picking up and learning new things. I literally hear about a new tool every week, sometimes a couple of times a week that someone on the team has picked up and is starting to play with or use, or their engineers are bringing in. And so now we have to understand.

Mark Baldino (13:18.23)
So, that's what we hear about.

Holly Reynolds (13:32.166)
You mentioned guardrails, like, you know, just because engineering has brought something in, how does that affect what design is able to do when this new tool is introduced? How does it change our workflow? And John also made a really good point just going back to the guardrails thing about design process and making sure that as we're moving really quickly, we're not losing sight of the fundamentals that we know about quality user experience, design and best practices.

Mark Baldino (13:38.446)
Thank

Holly Reynolds (14:00.496)
That is a bit of a challenge, I think for design, but also for us as managers, because we're trying to remind the team, yes, we want to move quickly. And I know product is saying we have to move quickly, but let's make sure that we're taking a moment to review the data and know that we're making the right decisions as best as we can while still moving quickly. So that's probably one of the bigger challenges.

Mark Baldino (14:04.6)
That's the kind of thing that's required to prepare for the interview. You know, we'll be doing this really quickly and then we'll show you what's on screen.

Holly Reynolds (14:25.49)
And then in terms of just kind of tool management, I think there's always the question of cost. We've had people very quickly run out of tokens and start racking up additional expenses without even really knowing it because they were just, you know, exploring. So I do think eventually we will try to align on some tools internally and put some more guardrails around it just from a cost management perspective. But I don't think we're really just there yet. I think we're trying to figure out what the new

next thing is going to be that we'll officially kind of align on. And Figma's showing a lot of really good promise, to be honest, with its AI tools. So I want to be clear that we're not necessarily looking to go away from that, but what can we use to supplement with AI?

Mark Baldino (15:09.102)
Sure, we could also do a podcast on Figma's license model, which has always thrown me for a loop. All of sudden, new people show up in our account. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, what's going on? But that's a side topic. If you know the design process, you can responsibly integrate AI or evaluate where it can fit into the process better, worse, or more effectively. But if you have other groups that...

I don't know what it's like at Pendo, but in a lot of organizations, design teams, product design teams have been fighting for process for years, right? And what teams, what their coworkers and peers want is UI. And I don't begrudge them. If there's anything that moves a conversation forward, I've said it over and over again, the design team has the biggest sort of tool in the toolkit, which is to be able to develop UI. And when you show UI to somebody, whether it's a

executive or a customer or a peer, it moves the needle in conversations. People have a visceral response when you put digital pen to paper and add color to it. So I feel like we've fought for the process to get to UI for a while. And we now have tools that allow a lot of groups to skip that process. So if you're in an organization and we now have more folks

generating UI, right? These tools aren't limited to designers anymore, which is really interesting and I think very cool. We did co-creation sessions for years with paper and pencil and asking people to design. And that's really fun and really powerful, but using a digital tool to generate UI is way more powerful. So if you're in an organization and you feel like people are skipping steps in the design process and they're getting to UI kind of quickly, and not as like a, stop, but like, there...

tips you think of like how are you communicating this is gonna be from any and anybody here like how are you communicating people be like wait wait there's a there's a we're at the wrong point in the diamond in the double diamond to be doing this or something like that like are there tips that folks have to like slow people down from just like going into these tools generating UI and be like let's make this

John Incampo (17:25.052)
You

Holly Reynolds (17:25.778)
I'll jump in. We have had that happen. I'm happy to say that it doesn't happen often, but I think as people get kind of swept up with AI and all of the possibility, it has happened at times. Some of it is going to depend on what I call the UX maturity of the organization. I know Nielsen Norman Group did a UX maturity sort of quiz a couple of years ago that I thought was really helpful to kind of understand where the company is.

I think the higher the maturity of UX understanding and use at the company, the less that's a problem. And not everybody has the luxury of working at a company that quite honestly does really understand what design brings to the table. So in that case, if you don't have support from senior leadership, because I think that's important, I'm happy to say we have that at Pendo. But if you don't have that, I think it's important to just have those conversations. But you'll have to frame it from the perspective.

of the person you're speaking with, because you're going to need to get their buy-in in order to be able to build that part of the process in. And there is, unfortunately, still some companies of perception that design is going to slow things down. So how can you convince them that what you want to do doesn't have to take a lot of time, and that might mean adjusting your process, doesn't have to take a lot of time, but is something that's going to be valuable to do, and here's the reason why. That's what I would suggest is having that conversation initially.

John Incampo (18:51.866)
Yeah. I mean, I agree with everything that Holly said. think it's one thing it makes me think of, like when we say this is like, I think as a, like a seasoned UX designer, product designer, like there's everyone's gone through the pain of showing a high fidelity design early and somebody like latching onto it and like, you didn't warn them that like, this isn't exactly what it's going to look like. mean, and you kind of learn that like early on, like, okay, like if I'm not going to show wireframes or sketches right away, like

You have to give a warning that like, this is just an idea. Like this is not what we're going to build necessarily. This is just like to give you, get you excited. And I think people who haven't been designed for a long time and now have these tools, they need to just kind of learn. like, as desires, we have to try to teach them that like, you could do these things, but if you're going to show it to senior leadership or executive, please warn them, please say, Hey, this is just a design. This is just a concept because I think you could get in the problem of them thinking, okay, this is shippable.

And that this is not a new problem for us, but it's a new problem for potentially PMs and other people.

Mark Baldino (19:55.15)
Yeah, that's a great point. And a reminder, again, as you said earlier, we're following the same process. We were probably educating and communicating along the way in similar fashions. just, maybe it's accelerating in certain areas. Ryan, I'd love to hear from you because you're new in your career, still in school. I didn't go to school when there was AI and you are. And so I'm sure it's not only changed the dynamic in education, but also

John Incampo (19:57.593)
Thank

Mark Baldino (20:22.446)
being exposed to the design process, which now has people learning how to use AI tools. A, sounds like, hopefully it's a really interesting time, but is it confusing? You're trying to sort out the AI usage. What is AI? I mean, educate me. What is AI usage in your program itself?

Ryan Markley (20:41.992)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think my program does a really good job at navigating AI, but I think in general, since, you know, it's a time period where, you know, it's new for the design education system in general, navigating usage and making sure that it's used as a supporting tool because, as we've been talking about, like, it's in the industry. It's something that we're going to need to know how to use once graduating, but at the same time,

not letting it replace critical thinking or that solid understanding of a grounded design foundation or process. I think that's really important and it can be easy to get carried away and things are exciting. We don't have as high of stakes as someone in an industry would. So I think it's almost sometimes extra important to make sure that it doesn't hinder our design process, but we use it for the things that it's good at, like discovery, expanding and thinking big, but not

for getting to hone in and genuinely crack down on the parts that are really important in the design process because it's easy. And some professors are more experienced with AI because they're actively in the industry. Others haven't been in the industry for over 30 years. So navigating that is also something new. So I think students have to take initiative a lot. We have a great school system in place at NC State that luckily we have exposure.

to these new tools, but it's important to stay educated and to keep each other in check and group projects and everything, evaluating each other's design process. And we don't have PMs or engineers as closely that we work at in school. So it's really important to intentionally think about its usage so that we can have it as a tool and not a hindrance.

Mark Baldino (22:35.758)
Are you learning the design process agnostic of AI and then sort of folding it in or is it happening all at once? you trying... I mean, I can only imagine that the internship at Pendo has been like a fantastic working experience. actually, you're seeing it live, but are you trying to figure it out on your own? Like, this is where AI should go, this is where it should end, or this is what the design process look like pre-AI and post. Is that being laid out for you? Or is it kind of like, I have to figure this out?

Ryan Markley (22:50.942)
Mm-hmm.

Ryan Markley (23:04.896)
I think it definitely depends on your exposure to different professors. Some are very interested in it and excited, and others tend to stick to a very traditional method. So you have to have a curiosity to see where it fits in and take that time to learn on your own. But at the same time, do have those exposures. We'll have talks with people who will come in and give their two cents about how it's being used. But at the same time, it's

The design process, don't think anymore will ever be agnostic from AI. you have to be intentional about separating it and make sure that you have that core and then see how it adds in. But I think going forward, specifically in product design and UI, I'm not entirely sure how much it integrates into more visual professions. But I definitely think that it's only going to

continue to be intertwined. making sure that you, whether it's learning from experience, what works in what stage, but yeah, I feel like it's definitely been self initiative while also getting that support from professors that are interested to help you distinguish where it should be used, where to really stay away and kind of hone in on just intentionally thinking without it. So yeah, it's been a mix, but.

Mark Baldino (24:21.272)
We are confused.

Ryan Markley (24:31.816)
Very, very cool. Pendo has been amazing at seeing how it works with other designers here. It's very insightful. So, yeah.

Mark Baldino (24:39.63)
That's awesome. Well, I think we all probably agree it's here to stay. In recent experiences, is it fair to ask maybe for some wins in terms of using AI personally, maybe on your team where you felt like, yes, at this part in our process, at this part in a project, we implemented this AI and it yielded A, B, or C.

Does anyone feel like they have a winner too that they would want to share?

John Incampo (25:15.002)
Yeah. I mean, I could think of, think there's so many wins. Honestly, I feel like I have so many wins with like the AI being integrated into the process. think, I think, so the first thing I would say is I think it's just like every part of the process. Like it's just that tool when I'm doing my competitive research, it's making things better. Like if I'm looking at interactions, it's just, I'm like, Hey, well, how would you do this? And I could see just how it would do that. I can't put them, but just another screenshot basically in the bank of all the screenshots and all the regular research I do, but like,

Mark Baldino (25:20.398)
Thank

John Incampo (25:44.957)
I think the most powerful piece is just, is unlocking some of the interactions and the prototyping aspect because I mean, everybody who knows is probably use Figma. mean, if you want to create a really robust prototype, it's extremely time consuming. have lines going everywhere and if they break one of your paths, like the whole prototype is not going to work correctly. And now when you're doing user testing and stuff, it's just like, Hey, do, do whatever. Like I've, you know,

Mark Baldino (25:46.136)
So, thank you.

John Incampo (26:11.984)
generally do whatever. And I can actually see what you would have done. It's not like, there's a hard stop that would have been, I didn't wire this up. It's just like, go on. So you're just getting way more insight into what the users are doing. It's much easier to design out those flows. And then the other part I would say is just, just interactions. Like I'm working on like this little, this table component. And at one point, you know, to get the animation style, right. I'd be like, okay, here, here is a figma and like,

kind of explaining it to my developer and I'm trying to do it in Figma, but Figma could only do so much. And now I'm like, okay, I designed in Figma, pushed it over to cursor in my MCP and I'm like, okay, do this. And I could see how it works. And I'm like, okay, now add some easing. like, I can have an animation that I'm like, okay, I can show my developer. And I have so much more control over those micro interactions that I ever had. So those are my wins.

Mark Baldino (26:57.16)
So thank you.

That's awesome. mean, both of those are, you know, it's more than just high fidelity, right? It's actual, like, high fidelity interaction. In the first example, just for folks listening, what tool, I mean, you're still designing in Figma, what are you building these prototypes in?

John Incampo (27:17.678)
Yeah, so we've used Bolt. I personally have been using Cursor a lot more. So Cursor is just a, it's like a VS code clone that you could build things with. And it's a little more complicated. think Bolt is easier, but Cursor is a little more technical, but the results are way better. Also, they have a great integration with the Figma MCP where you literally could select frames in Figma and be like, hey, you see this, build it. And it will like, if you have components of Figma,

It gets really close. It's really great.

Mark Baldino (27:48.014)
Awesome. Awesome. Thanks, John. Holly, how about from your perspective?

Holly Reynolds (27:53.328)
Yeah, an example of a recent one is Maddie Snyder, one of our amazing content writers, put together a GPT that is, she defined the rules for the GPT for best practices in language and microcopy within the product. So what we found is that we were constantly pulling her in to give us feedback on error messages and microcopy for a new feature or even large tech documents.

And this has, I believe, reduced the amount of back and forth that is required for her and kind of gives us a bunch of little Matties that we can go to in the form of AI without necessarily having to pull her in constantly and quite honestly stretch her too thin. So it's been really cool to see how that's been used, that GPT.

That's just one example. mean, obviously also being able to just really quickly analyze large sets of data and synthesize that data and be able to take next steps on it quickly is a big one. The downside of that is to Ryan's point, we can't let it take over the critical thinking for us. We have to make sure that we are still reviewing the data that it gives us and the insights it gives us and that it aligns with what we're thinking and really make sure that we understand it as opposed to just letting it

kind of take those decisions and run with it for us.

Mark Baldino (29:20.366)
That's awesome. Mattybot sounds like a really good use. like that one. Holly, are you at your level in the org? Are you doing any UI anymore? No, I'm not UI anymore. Is there anything like design management related that you use that's like a tweak from how you would use it in the design process?

Holly Reynolds (29:33.186)
Not really, not very often, once in a while, but not so much right now.

Holly Reynolds (29:43.824)
Yeah, one maybe simple example is I did some hiring recently and I wanted to understand maybe what other organizations were looking for in candidates. So as I'm putting together my job details for that position, I let it write up the description. Now, I'm particular. I don't like to use every word that it gives me. So I use it for inspiration.

And then I go back and revisit and tweak it and make it what I want it to be. And things, don't agree with everything that it gives me either, but that's just one example of how I used it recently to simplify my job was just write up this job description for me, using this criteria. And it was great, it very helpful.

Mark Baldino (30:28.526)
That's awesome. think there's, you know, really, there's, how do I say this? Things that are kind of tedious, and I'm not saying you don't like writing job wrecks, but that can be something that, you know, it's hard, they're hard to do and they're hard to get into it. And I say, I feel like sometimes those tasks, like it gives you such a good head start. And it takes that, like, I'm not a writer by trade, but you know, that sort of fear of a blank page or getting started, like the fact that...

Holly Reynolds (30:40.146)
You

Holly Reynolds (30:48.028)
Yeah.

Mark Baldino (30:56.32)
it can give you such a head start. And the same can be said for UI as well. I was watching a designer that works at a client site and was looking for a series of micro-interactions on a table and was just clicking through it based on AI. And neither of the six options was going to be final, but I think it helped her in particular get started and then have a little bit of extra visual follow-up.

Holly Reynolds (31:20.274)
I will add one more thing, even though I'm not really doing design anymore, I am working currently with one of the other design managers on a project where we are combining object-oriented UX. Shout out to Sophia Prater, who is the creator of that. We're combining those principles using AI with a giant spreadsheet of all the components in our system. So we've put together this sort of hierarchy of

John Incampo (31:23.398)
Yeah.

Holly Reynolds (31:49.644)
the various large objects and then their child objects and the attributes for those objects and the actions related to those objects. And we're going to use that hopefully to create a better foundation for our design system so that when we go to build these AI prototypes, they are more up to date. There's less maintenance and management on our part. But we're using both the principles from OOUX and sort of this manual process to set that foundation.

Mark Baldino (31:57.038)
Thank

Mark Baldino (32:13.624)
music.

Holly Reynolds (32:18.854)
And then we're going to hope that AI can help us automate that and be able to move forward with a better system in the future that'll be easier to maintain.

Mark Baldino (32:27.566)
That is awesome. I feel like that's closing a loop because I remember thinking through OUX and design systems have become such a part of the process at Figma, obviously. And then AI came at a really interesting time where we have these huge libraries of well-defined, whether inside of your firewall or outside, in the industry, and being able to generate high-quality, consistent, for the most part, UI. I'm not able to think that you guys are going to close that loop.

and up your game a little bit. That's really, really, really cool. Very curious to how that goes.

John Incampo (33:01.052)
Yeah, just a little add on design system thing. think it's everybody should be using AI with their design systems because personally, like I'm like a big, I'm one of the biggest design system advocates, but like you write all this documentation and nobody reads it because nobody likes to read and nobody even does what you want. And now you can just plug into a chat bot and be like, they can just ask questions and you have like all that documentation you did isn't just sitting in a file somewhere dying. So.

Mark Baldino (33:23.726)
Thank

Mark Baldino (33:28.046)
100%. I like it. I like it. Ryan, any sort of wins, positive uses of AI in kind of your design journey thus far?

Ryan Markley (33:38.803)
Yeah, of course. I'm going to focus on this past 10 weeks because it's been really, really helpful on getting to go through an entire design process for pretty large subject matter in a short period of time. It's definitely sped up stages that can take longer. So it's been really helpful with like, first off, learning a large system, even just asking questions about Pendo over time. It's been helpful to answer small questions and then I can go.

you know, a peers and mentors and managers for others, but it's definitely been helpful for that aspect. Also with research, clarifying research, like Holly was saying, synthesizing insights and everything like that. It's very, very good at summarizing and taking large quantities and making them concise and easy to read and digestible, which is very helpful. I've also found it helpful to use for pressure testing ideas. So,

just smaller feedback because I think it's crucial to go to other designers or cross other people for feedback. But for smaller wins, I think that it's very helpful to just identify any reasons immediately why it would work, wouldn't work, kind of help narrow down some potential directions. It's definitely very helpful for the speed aspect, but that's not to say that

Mark Baldino (34:48.75)
and it's very difficult to just like, you know, spend a night and you have to spend a night.

and there are no such corrections.

Ryan Markley (35:04.972)
quality isn't prioritized because it needs to be. I'm definitely having those checks when using them, but it can be very helpful. And I've found it especially helpful when, as John was talking about with the prototyping, it's been interesting to dive into that. I've gotten to really explore several ways that AI is used here in a short period of time because of the quick cycles that it can be implemented. So yeah.

Mark Baldino (35:32.27)
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing. think some folks design otherwise are a little bit afraid to jump in. it is, I think as Holly, you said, like you first start using it on maybe things that are not work related, healthcare or cooking or something like that. And then you start to see like, okay, I can now apply it, you know, apply it in simple ways within my profession.

And then having a culture that's very supportive of it at Pendo, and then seeing a series of wins, it all really builds on it. And then that becomes internal momentum. So if you're a designer listening now and you haven't had a lot of exposure, either from an organizational challenge or maybe personal hesitation to actually get in and use the tools,

I'm start with you, John, because you said everyone should be using AI. I like the approach, but somebody who's a little bit hesitant, hasn't had any wins yet, what's some advice? And then move down the line of folks for getting involved and finding ways to find some wins. What's your advice somebody who might be a little bit more hesitant? Or is it an org that isn't embracing AI as much?

John Incampo (36:31.548)
you

John Incampo (36:44.252)
you

John Incampo (36:51.02)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's kind of like anything I think you have to just, you know, to be interested because I think as designers or you need to keep learning and be lifelong learners and you really don't want to get left behind. These tools are here. Like I like to say, like, I feel like we're in the moment we're like, print designers are like, no, the internet's coming. Like, what are we gonna do? And like the ones who didn't do anything about it.

Like they probably don't have careers anymore. Well, it's been a while, but they probably, they probably lost their careers. The people who embraced it, they became the UX designers. I don't really know what the next role is, but like, you want to become the next role, potentially it's not a product designer anymore. Like watch like so many YouTube videos. It's really just interesting stuff and just like, just enjoy it. I mean, it's just a fun new thing. I think just, you have to be like, how could this elevate me? And just really just enjoy learning. think that's just always part of.

part of the experience. think don't be worried about like, I'm going to do something bad or like maybe not with your work stuff and your personal stuff. Just, just play around. And like some of these tools are, really not that expensive. Like I, we have a cursor count at work, but I pay for my own cursor counts like 20 bucks a month. And it's totally worth it. think, you know, you could always just sign up for a month for some of these, some of them have free trials, play around with different ones and just, just see what you like, because I really think you'll be surprised at what you could do with it.

And I don't just, just God break the fear around using these tools.

Mark Baldino (38:17.006)
appreciate that. Ryan, I don't know if you're feeling overwhelmed by AI at this point in your career, maybe not, but do you have any advice for folks similar to you, either in school, new in the design career, like exposure, jumping in from...

Ryan Markley (38:35.34)
Yeah, of course. I think you have to do a lot of exploration on your own. There's so many resources. mean, there's YouTube, there's podcasts, there's threads that go on and on about all the different resources. But I definitely think it's important to jump in because AI is here. The industry is not pausing for you to catch up. So I think you have to take the initiative to explore and experiment. And like John was saying, a lot of

resources are like free trials as well. So if you're curious, you know, you don't have to like commit, but you can see what's going on. And you know, you don't know what you don't know. So if you don't jump into it, you could be, you know, spending so much more time on something where you get a fantastic result. But you know, some things are more tedious than others. So really tapping into the opportunities that are that are there that are working for other people.

and hearing what's going on from leadership all around. It's very cool and I think you have to stay curious, especially as a student. think that's the mindset we're supposed to have lifelong, especially we have the freedom to do that now. So exploring while you can and really just diving into it.

Mark Baldino (39:51.554)
Awesome. Thanks, Ryan. Holly, anything to add on the advice for either folks in an organization that isn't as AI forward or that have some maybe personal hesitations and jump?

Holly Reynolds (39:57.323)
Thank

Holly Reynolds (40:05.678)
Yeah, if you're in an organization that doesn't really have a solid AI forward focus, I strongly encourage every designer to still spend time investing in it for yourself. If you're one of those people who's not naturally curious, I feel like Ryan and John both spoke truthfully to the benefit just being a curious person that likes to learn. But if you're not one of those people and you're being told you need to figure it out or need to use it or just feel that pressure,

and you don't know anything about it, I would recommend just set up a ChatGPT account, start with the basics, go to it and just say, I'm new to this, where do I start? What do I need to know? And it'll give you a really just good starting point list. If you're even more nervous about asking it from that perspective, think of something that you're interested in. We've got designers who have used ChatGPT to fix their dishwasher. I've used it again, as I said, to detect problems with my plants and try to understand

you know, how to improve their life quality. So start with something that you're interested in, that you have a problem on, and just ask it questions. And that can be a great way to just kind of understand what's possible and potentially develop that kind of curiosity as to what you could even go further with. That would be my advice in that perspective.

Mark Baldino (41:24.866)
great. I think people who are newer to it will be shocked at the results. It's going to mess up. mean, it might give you some wrong answers if you're looking for a history lesson. But on a lot of tasks, and specifically the UI stuff, which is really new to me in seeing these tools, the quality is there. It's as much about the starting point that you give it as input, and then the editing process that comes out. It's not replacing all of our critical thought. You're going to need to...

It's iterative, is what a really cool part is that you can generate multiple alternatives pretty quickly and the quality is pretty high. I think this is a good place to wrap. Hey, hopefully this episode becomes a resource for folks who are in the design and product space and are looking to integrate AI into their workflow. You guys not only mentioned a number of tools by name and how you're using them, but places within the process. And then we kind of cap the conversation off with...

some advice for folks. So I just want to say thank you for the opportunity to speak to all of you at Pendo to hear what Pendo is doing. It's exciting time for Pendo and it's an exciting time for AI and that all kind of overlaps here. So I just want to say thank you for your time and energy today. I have really enjoyed the conversation.

Holly Reynolds (42:39.494)
Thank you so much. It's been great.

John Incampo (42:40.506)
Yeah, thank you.

Ryan Markley (42:41.088)
Yeah.