Honest UX Talks by Wix Studio

#140 Designers Coding with AI - Inside Intercom’s AI x Design Revolution w/Caitlin Rich

9 snips
Jun 25, 2025
Caitlin Rich, Group Design Manager at Intercom, shares her journey through the design world and how her team is integrating AI, specifically the Cursor tool, into their workflow. They discuss the cultural shift towards collaboration with engineers and the anticipated evolution of design roles with AI. Caitlin elaborates on the criteria for selecting AI tools, the importance of AI fluency in hiring, and how companies can effectively educate their staff about these technologies. The conversation highlights an exciting future where creativity and coding intersect.
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INSIGHT

AI as a Cultural Expectation

  • Intercom embraces a cultural shift where using AI to improve productivity is expected and encouraged, not hidden.
  • The mindset is to always ask how AI can make tasks easier, faster, and better before starting work.
ANECDOTE

Designers Coding With Cursor

  • Designers at Intercom started making small product fixes by coding directly using Cursor, supported by close collaboration with engineers.
  • The initiative grew organically and included onboarding, training, and creating safety guardrails for designers.
ADVICE

Guardrails for Designer Code Changes

  • Strengthen guardrails to prevent designers from breaking code when contributing.
  • Use rule-based AI assistance to guide designers to keep changes simple and defer complicated tasks to engineers.
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