Timoni West

Tomorrow, my limited series podcast AI Product Builders drops. Here’s what you can expect: - Ideas and inspiration to kickstart your own AI projects - Insights on the tools designers are using to build their AI stacks. - Real stories that reaffirm why designers are essential in this tech shift - How to spot diminishing returns when prototyping with AI - What happens when prototyping and production start to blur - Why design leaders need to reframe their approach—or risk falling behind Traveling to Config tomorrow? Make sure you’re subscribed to my newsletter. There’s over 5 hours of rich, free content ready for the trip. You can subscribe by hitting the ‘view my newsletter’ button on my profile.

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Ever been surprised by some predictions you make? In 2017, when invited to speak at a design conference I attempted to make a timeline for AI until 2026. Here's the summary: 2018   - 1st Type 5 Self-Driving Car 🔁 Still at Level 2-3 autonomy. 2019   - 1st Fully Autonomous Factory 🔁 Partial automation exists, but human oversight remains. - Full Limb Prosthetics Commercialized ✅ Advanced prosthetics are available. - 1st AI Bank with Market Penetration 🔁 AI aids banking, but no fully AI-run banks exist. 2020   - Most Customer Support Assistants are Bots ✅ AI chatbots dominate customer support. - Turing-Level Conversational Systems ⏳ #ChatGPT launched in 2022, two years later. 2021   - All Trucks are Autonomous ❌ Testing continues, but no full autonomy. #TeslaSemi seems promissing - Versatile Microfactories are New Startups ❌ Concept exists but hasn’t taken off. Likely influenced by 2017 zeitgeist. - First Fully Automated Surgery 🔁 First fully autonomous Dental surgery completed in 2024. Funny that in 2021 got to visit Intuitive and test their surgical robot. 2022   - Most Industries are Completely Autonomous 🔁 AI aids, but full autonomy is still rare. - 1st AI Industrial Designer 🔁 AI assists but isn’t fully autonomous. Likely much harder than I thought. - 1st AI Marketeer ✅ AI-driven marketing is widespread. The AI could be better at it's job, though. - 1st AI Architect 🔁 AI supports architects but isn’t independent. Likely much harder than I thought. 2023   - Fully Android Commercialized ✅ Humanoid robots from companies like Agility Robotics, Figure, Tesla are in warehouses. - Major Job Losses Begin ✅🔁 AI job impact is rising changing work structure. (Not sure if I'd give it a total ✅ though) 2024   - First Fully Autonomous Graphic Designers ❓ AI-in-the-loop exists, but not fully autonomous. might be harder than I thought. 2025   - First Fully Robotic Theater ✅ Massive Robot performers hit asian events powered by companies such as Unitree Robotics. 2026 (Future, Unclear... This part needs a revamp)   - Most Creative Work is Autonomous ❓ - 1st AI Company ⏳ Attempts exist, but no fully autonomous company yet. - First Blockbuster Featuring Robot Actors ❓ AI-generated characters exist, but not full robot actors. - 1st AI Government System ⏳ Governments are testing AI decision-making with Palantir Technologies, OpenAI. - Job Loss Hits 2 Billion ❌ Highly unlikely at this scale. (bit of a doomer here) - First Robotic Sports Match Won Against Humans ❓ We'll see. Sure seems like I missed many markers. Somehow, assumed a ChatGPT-like system would be launched in 2020 instead of 2022... But you know what? I look at this and see my younger-optimist-self. And that's something I think we all should be. How about you? Any predictions you did that was surprisingly correct? #futureofwork #AI #stayoptimistic

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I’ve been 5 months into vibe-coding. Shipped a few AI-powered things, broke a few too. 😅 Along the way, I’ve been stashing the best AI tools for designers who build, from branding to prototypes to code. Thought I’d share my good stash with you here. 👇 AI Branding -- 1. Lovart.ai AI design agent that generates posters, storyboards, and branding assets from prompts. Pretty good alternative to Figma Buzz and Canva. 2. Looka.com Design your own beautiful brand. Use Looka's AI-powered platform to design a logo and brand you love. I actually tried it with one of my projects and got pretty good results. AI Researcher -- 3. HeyMarvin.com Your Al partner in research and feedback repository for the whole team. Rigorous analysis tool to differentiate insights from noise. 4. Appvelocity.io (Kevin McDonagh) On-demand feedback for Figma prototypes. Challenge AI to complete tasks on interactive prototypes. Watch AI navigate and ask WHY it gets stuck. AI Localisation -- 5. GetGlocal.ai AI-powered localization for iOS. Up to 29+ languages. I built this myself. I use it myself to localize nasma.ai to 8 languages. AI Designer -- 6. CTTF (https://mcp.sonnylab.com) Sonny Lazuardi MCP integration between Cursor AI and Figma, allowing Cursor to communicate with Figma for reading designs and modifying them programmatically. 7. Subframe.com Filip Skrzesinski Design with real components, not mockups. A visual editor seamlessly synced with code. 8.Aurachat.io Meng To Generate beautiful designs in seconds and export to HTML or Figma. Powerful prompt builder with hundreds of templates for responsive web design. 9. Polymet.ai AI Designer, at your service. Design and iterate faster with AI. Get the production-ready code and ship faster. YC startup. AI Design-to-code -- 10. Locofy.ai Honey Mittal Turns Figma designs into frontend code for frameworks like React. It also cleans your designs to make them AI-ready! Bonus: UDML (universaldesign.io) Michael Meikson Speaking of AI-ready, stumbled upon UDML via the comments when struggling to clean up our design files before handover. If I missed anything, drop it in the comments as I'm always keen to try new shiny toys. Wanna know more? Check out below: 👇 detachinstance.com — a space for designers who build. — PS: A like or repost helps me and your designer friends in the algorithm. 😅 #AI #UXDesign #DesignTools #ProductDesign #BuildingInPublic #AIUX

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