State of Play This is Design At The Most AI-Installed Company: Diego Zaks
19 snips
Apr 28, 2026 
Diego Zaks, design leader at a fintech driving Ramp’s AI adoption, talks about transforming design when everyone becomes a builder. Short stories cover building Slack agents, designing for harnesses not screens, the four levels of AI fluency, how Ramp hit 99.5% AI usage, and what design looks like five years from now.
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Designing An AI Assistant To Feel Like A Person
- Diego built a Slack AI assistant by starting from a repo and iterating with Claude, treating the assistant like a person rather than a tool.
- He replicated human gestures (emoji reactions, edits, memory, rituals) and deliberately designed a 'soul' and purpose for the agent.
Four Levels Of AI Fluency Reshape Design Work
- Diego defines four levels of AI fluency from casual use to building agents that do your job, and reaching higher levels changes how designers work.
- He shifted from Figma-first to sketching intent then prompting Claude to produce outputs, treating intelligence as the primary medium.
Make Everyone A Designer With Design Infrastructure
- Make everyone at the company a designer by building design infrastructure so non-designers can ship good UX with minimal feedback.
- Use components, React libraries, and systems so designers focus only on 10/10 experiences worth their attention.