About – AI Design LA

How AI Design LA came to be

Born from a conversation. Built by a community.

AI Design LA started in August 2026 as a single meetup among designers who kept asking the same question: who else is trying to figure this out? The tools were moving fast. The discourse online was either hype or panic. What was missing was a real life gathering where practitioners could compare notes, show their work, and think together.

Our goal is to host monthly meetups, actively publish our ideas, and build a Slack community of designers, builders, and product thinkers across Southern California.

We are not just another meetup. We are a community of people who believe designers should be actively shaping how AI develops and not just reacting to it after the fact.

Why AI Design LA exists

Design is changing. We should shape what comes next.

AI is changing more than the tools designers use. It is reshaping the products we create, the roles we play, and the way teams move from idea to something real.

AI Design LA brings together designers, researchers, design engineers, product thinkers, and creative technologists to learn from one another, share what is working, and question what is not.

There is no established playbook yet. That is why we are building one together.

What we do

Six ways we build community and move the practice forward

01

Monthly meetups

Talks, demos, and open discussions in Los Angeles. Small enough to have real conversations, big enough to keep meeting new people.

02

Ideas & writing

Members share essays, case studies, and experiments on what is actually working — honest reporting from the work, not polished thought leadership.

03

Workshops & deep dives

Hands-on sessions on specific tools, techniques, and questions. Vibe coding, prompt engineering for design, AI-native design systems, and more.

04

Community Slack

An active workspace where members share tools, job opportunities, feedback, and questions between events. The conversation does not stop when the meetup ends.

05

Cross-discipline connections

We bring together designers, engineers, researchers, product managers, and founders. The most interesting ideas come from the edges between disciplines.

06

Speaker & partner network

We connect members with speaking opportunities, studio partnerships, and collaborations with companies building AI-native products in Los Angeles and beyond.

Join the Meetup

Who we are

Founders, organizers, and the people who make it happen

Owned and operated his own design/dev agency for 15 years. Now he specializes in vibe coded solutions. Currently certified as Platinum level by Lovable.

Design leader turned AI builder. 20 years leading design at agencies, Adobe and Walmart, now founder of AI-native studio Raft Design, building with Claude Code, Cursor, and Lovable.

UX and branding designer with 25+ years across enterprise software, mobile, and interactive design. She has led work for AT&T, Microsoft, Pepsi, and Viacom.

Product design leader turned educator and AI practitioner. He led teams at Blizzard, Rakuten, and PADI, now teaches UX at UCLA Extension and designs AI-driven experiences.

What we stand for

Four principles that guide how we run the community

Practice over polish

We value honest work-in-progress over finished thought leadership. Share what you are actually doing, not just what worked.

Designers at the table

AI is being built right now. Designers should be in the room shaping it — not handed the output and asked to make it usable after the fact.

Cross-discipline by default

The best thinking happens at the edges. We actively bring together designers, engineers, researchers, and founders rather than sorting them into separate tracks.