prototyping the future at OpenAI

Author

Ridd
September 09, 2026

This week's episode is with Ed Bayes and we're doing a deep dive into how designers at OpenAI prototype the future of Codex/ChatGPT Work.

Some highlights:

  • How prototyping at OpenAI has shifted recently

  • The design challenges of bringing Codex into ChatGPT

  • How Ed thinks about the spectrum of dynamic interfaces

  • How Codex thought about their information architecture bets

  • Why Ed structures design teams around personas not features

  • The traits of the designers making the biggest impact at OpenAI

  • + a lot more

Watch on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts 👇

👥 FEATURED RESOURCE

My new HTML workflow

Every time I think I know where the ceiling is for HTML prototypes I realize I’m wrong…

Now I use HTML even to share production components (working on a skill to share with you at some point).

When I’m ready to send something to my team it’s simple:

  1. Ask my agent to “share with Inflight”

  2. Get a link to drop in Slack

  3. People reply with pinned comments or video

It really is that easy 👏

🔗 FEATURED RESOURCES
Designing Grok Bot

Remember John Bai?

He demoed some of the earliest explorations of Grok Bot.

Well the xAI team just published a deep dive into how they thought about the core primitives and information architecture behind the viral product and it’s a good read 👇

How Vercel builds on-brand pages with design.md

John Phamous shared a behind-the-scenes look at how Vercel approached building their design.md system.

I recommend feeding it to your agent to look for ways to improve your own system.

Wealthsimple: one year post-acquisition

Remember Thiago Costa?

He joined the show last year to talk about designing Fey (still one of the most gorgeous products of all time imo)

Well they’ve now been at Wealthsimple for a full year, and Thiago’s co-founder Dennis Brotzky shared a behind-the-scenes look at what they’ve made so far.

It’s a bit technical, but it’s also full of gorgeous interface shots that are 100% worth a scroll.

🧃 INSPIRATION JUICE

3 things I saved this week

1️⃣ Laurent Del Rey’s personal website

Laurent is probably one of the most creative designers I’ve ever seen and his site is about as awesome as you’d expect.

2️⃣ on.design upload hover state

I’ve been spending more time on on.design recently. Really like this upload hover state and how they communicate the dimensions as an annotation almost.

3️⃣ Adam Whitcroft — Split drag handle interaction

Ya this is freaking good lol

📻 DIVE RADIO

Insider design hiring data 🤫

This Thursday Tommy and I are surfacing some juicy insights from the Dive Talent Network.

We also get to hear from companies like Shopify, Notion, Railway, and a bunch of recently-hired designers.

it’s going to be the ultimate inside look at the market for design hiring and I can’t wait.

Tune in to Dive Radio Thursday at 4pmEST/1PST

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See you next week ✌️ 
- Ridd

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