AIDesignLA
Designers, researchers, engineers, and creative technologists in Los Angeles — and beyond — figuring out AI together. No gatekeeping. No hype. Just people doing the work.
Real signals from a real community
420+
Members
28
Events held
64
Projects shared
18
Talks & workshops
40+
Companies represented
A few people worth knowing. Updated as the community grows. If you'd like to be featured, share your work with us.
Senior Product Designer
Currently exploring
How to design trust signals for AI outputs — when should a product show its reasoning, and when does that just get in the way?
One project
A personal prompt library for UX research synthesis, built in Notion and iterated over six months of real projects.
Design Engineer
Currently exploring
Whether design systems can be written in a way that LLMs actually understand — token naming conventions, component specs as structured prose.
One project
An open-source token schema designed to be consumed by both humans and AI code generators without translation.
UX Researcher
Currently exploring
What it means to do research when your primary tool can hallucinate. How to stay rigorous when synthesis is instant.
One project
A workshop format for teaching interview analysis with and without AI — run twice at LA studio offsites.
Creative Director
Currently exploring
The aesthetics of AI-generated imagery — why it all looks the same, and what happens when you fight that hard enough to make something actually interesting.
One project
A brand system built entirely using AI tools, documented step-by-step as a public case study.
Product Lead
Currently exploring
How product teams should think about AI features that might be wrong — error states, graceful degradation, user trust over time.
One project
An internal playbook for shipping AI features responsibly, now open-sourced and adapted by three other companies.
Interaction Designer
Currently exploring
New animation paradigms for AI interfaces — how motion changes when the content is non-deterministic and the timing is unpredictable.
One project
A Figma plugin for prototyping streaming UI states, shared publicly and downloaded 800 times in its first month.
Prototypes, workflows, experiments, and things worth sharing
AI Workflow
Key takeaway
Claude + structured interview notes + a reusable prompt template. The analysis still requires a human, but the first pass takes minutes, not days.
Design System
Key takeaway
Naming conventions and structured metadata that let AI code generators produce on-brand components without a designer reviewing every output.
Prototype
Key takeaway
A plugin for prototyping non-deterministic loading states — the kind you get from streaming LLM responses. Available free on the Figma community.
Research
Key takeaway
Three rounds of user testing on explaining AI reasoning in product UI. Short finding: showing the "why" helps at first and starts to erode trust if overused.
Case Study
Key takeaway
Full brand identity for a real client, documented step-by-step. Every tool used, every prompt that worked, and the three directions that were complete dead ends.
Playbook
Key takeaway
What to do when the feature might be wrong — error states, fallbacks, user communication. Open-sourced and now used by multiple product teams.
Real answers to real questions — not testimonials
What has AI changed about how you work?
I stopped treating the first draft as sacred. AI makes it so cheap to get a rough version that you spend almost all your time on the part that actually matters — the judgment call.
Priya Nair
Senior Product Designer
What are you still skeptical about?
The idea that AI makes everyone a designer. It makes everyone able to produce something that looks designed. That's not the same thing, and I think we'll spend years untangling the difference.
Marcus Webb
Design Engineer
What are you trying to learn next?
How to do research on AI products when the AI itself changes between studies. Every time a model updates, you're not quite studying the same thing. Nobody has figured this out yet.
Yuna Takahashi
UX Researcher
What should designers be paying more attention to?
Error states. Every AI feature fails differently, and most of us are shipping products where failure is a common path, not an edge case. We're not designing for that seriously enough.
Sam Okafor
Product Lead
Four clear paths into the community
Attend
Come to a meetup, workshop, or show-and-tell
Events happen monthly across Los Angeles. No experience with AI required — curiosity is enough. RSVP on Meetup and show up.
RSVP on MeetupShare
Submit a project, experiment, or lesson learned
Work in progress is welcome. Case studies, failed experiments, prompt libraries, tools you built — if it's real and you learned something, it belongs here.
Share your workLead
Propose a talk, facilitate a discussion, or host a workshop
We're practitioner-led. If you have something specific to teach or a question worth exploring together in a room, reach out and we'll build an event around it.
Propose a TalkHelp
Volunteer, sponsor, photograph events, or help organize
The community runs on people who show up twice. If you want to be more involved — logistics, outreach, documentation, sponsorship — we have a spot for you.
Get InvolvedHow we treat each other and why it matters
01
Treat everyone with kindness and professionalism. Debate ideas, not people.
02
Post your work, experiments, workflows, tools, and lessons learned. We all benefit when people contribute.
03
Everyone is at a different stage with AI. Ask questions, share knowledge, and help others learn.
04
Focus discussions on AI, design, product development, UX, research, engineering, and related topics.
05
Don't share confidential information from your employer, clients, or unreleased products.
06
Sharing your projects, events, and tools is welcome when it's relevant and contributes to the community. Avoid spam or excessive self-promotion.
07
Be welcoming, inclusive, and collaborative. The culture of this group is something we create together.
Meet designers, builders, researchers, and creative technologists exploring how AI is changing design practice.
