I’m joined by the imaginative Kyle Zantos, a Seattle-based designer, builder, and musician with over a decade of experience across UX, product, and brand. Kyle’s worked at startups and consultancies, but lately he’s been diving into AI through deeply personal, playful projects that blend creativity, tooling, and experimentation.
We get into:
Why he shifted from music to design, and now from design to building AI tools
How he used AI to build a Figma plugin without any coding background
The tools in his AI stack and how he actually uses them (Claude, Cursor, Lovable, Vercel, and more)
What MCPs are and how they help Claude "remember" his context across chats
Why rapid prototyping now beats hours in Figma
His framework of “Software as a Gift,” building custom apps just for friends
A look at the Jeopardy-inspired app he built for his trivia-loving best friend
Kyle brings curiosity, technical scrappiness, and real heart to everything he builds. Whether you’re a designer figuring out how to start with AI or just looking to rekindle some joy in your craft, this one’s for you.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
02:07 Kyle's musical interests and background
06:41 Kyle's journey into "vibe coding"
13:02 From an early course to building som ething functional
20:59 Leveraging MCPs to build smarter
26:26 Software as a gift
36:49 Where AI has influenced Kyle's design process
38:59 How can design org incentivize to close the skills gap
41:29 How to get started with AI
43:15 Closing
Follow Kyle
Website: https://kylezantos.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kylezantos
Mentions
Jeopardy practice game — Kyle launched (in time for this release)
Claude (by Anthropic) — AI assistant used throughout Kyle's workflow
Cursor — AI-first code editor forked from VS Code
Lovable — No-code AI app builder Kyle uses for software-as-gift experiments
Vercel — Deployment platform for full-stack apps
SuperWhisper — Voice-to-text transcription tool
Ammaar Reshi — Design leader at DeepMind; inspired Kyle's early AI builds
Follow Harrison Wheeler and Technically Speaking
Technically Speaking is where I share reflections, insights, and conversations to help you lead with confidence, clarity, and community. Are you looking to level up your design leadership and management craft? Spend an hour with me for personalized 1:1 coaching to help you thrive in your role.
Share this post