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I sat down with Tom Scott recently to talk about a wide range of topics about how we design at @Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).
We touched on hiring, how roles are shifting and how AI is still continuing to change everything.
We touched on hiring, how roles are shifting and how AI is still continuing to change everything.
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
I have not seen projects with lots of obvious design mistakes in a while, like the really obvious ones.
AI has raised the floor. A decent looking design means nothing anymore, it’s the baseline.
AI has raised the floor. A decent looking design means nothing anymore, it’s the baseline.
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
The seventh edition of our Top 100 Consumer AI Apps is here.
New this time: a revenue leaderboard, alongside the usual web and mobile traffic rankings.
Three years ago we published the first edition. ChatGPT was #1, Claude was unranked, and the entire category was chatbots, ot much else.
In today's edition:
- ChatGPT still holds the throne, now with 1B+ monthly actives on mobile
- Claude has climbed to #3 on web with nearly 1B monthly visits
- The category has expanded to vibe coding (Lovable, Cursor, Replit), music (Suno), design (Figma), voice (ElevenLabs), video (Higgsfield, Kling), agents (Manus), and even hardware (Plaud)
Full breakdown from @omooretweets: a16z.news/p/top-100-cons…
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
AI is letting me build all the little things I always wished software could do 🥲
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
stocked for being featured in @multikev ‘s talk at @hatchconference today!
i wasn’t there but I was told we were an example of how to design websites in 2026!
beyond thankful! 🥹
i wasn’t there but I was told we were an example of how to design websites in 2026!
beyond thankful! 🥹
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
I had a stupid idea for a text editor where all the formatting controls were continuous and scrubbable, so you could have 30% bold -50% italic half-left-aligned. stupid and dumb!
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
Super excited to announce the funnest thing I’ve ever worked on… AI views.
Think of it as vibe coding for teamwork.
It transforms boring data into whatever your team can imagine.
And it solves the 5 biggest problems with vibe coding team tools:
Think of it as vibe coding for teamwork.
It transforms boring data into whatever your team can imagine.
And it solves the 5 biggest problems with vibe coding team tools:
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
I think this is worth some nuance.
In recent history, many companies have employed 'product designers' whose primary activity and output has been the creation of software interface facsimiles, e.g. mockups in a drawing tool like Figma.
Those making mockups have of course been doing more than just that, to varying extents leading or more commonly participating in the process of deciding what to build and why. But there was value in that tangible output itself.
I think @gokulr is directionally correct that the role of someone whose primary output is the creating of an interface mockup is quickly disappearing.
But the role of someone who figures out what needs to exist, why, how it should work, how it should should be positioned, differentiated and made memorable has never been more in demand.
I speak with founders on a near weekly basis (many of them in Gokul's own portfolio) desperate for this kind of person.
His conclusions though I agree with almost entirely:
there will always be an opportunity to specialize in the creation of visual interfaces, but more broadly most product designers who want to be employees (totally fine) should take on more responsibilities that have historically been done by PMs or Engineers, to varying degrees.
From my POV, this is just what a product designer is and what we should have been doing the whole time, but that's another post.
In recent history, many companies have employed 'product designers' whose primary activity and output has been the creation of software interface facsimiles, e.g. mockups in a drawing tool like Figma.
Those making mockups have of course been doing more than just that, to varying extents leading or more commonly participating in the process of deciding what to build and why. But there was value in that tangible output itself.
I think @gokulr is directionally correct that the role of someone whose primary output is the creating of an interface mockup is quickly disappearing.
But the role of someone who figures out what needs to exist, why, how it should work, how it should should be positioned, differentiated and made memorable has never been more in demand.
I speak with founders on a near weekly basis (many of them in Gokul's own portfolio) desperate for this kind of person.
His conclusions though I agree with almost entirely:
there will always be an opportunity to specialize in the creation of visual interfaces, but more broadly most product designers who want to be employees (totally fine) should take on more responsibilities that have historically been done by PMs or Engineers, to varying degrees.
From my POV, this is just what a product designer is and what we should have been doing the whole time, but that's another post.
DESIGN: THE FIRST AI CASUALTY
I'm increasingly sure that 2026 signals the end of product design as a full-fledged stand-alone function within companies. If so, it will be the first role / function to be eliminated by AI on a go-forward basis.
Instead of hiring FT designers, startups are hiring / will hire design consultants to create a design system that the founder likes (this takes a few weeks max). Once the design system is finalized, PM/Eng feed it into their AI tool of choice to generate prototypes. The design system is refreshed annually by the same consultant.
Larger companies will likely not backfill design roles and will do some targeted attrition to reduce the design department to 20% the size it is today.
If you're a designer, I think you have two choices:
1. Become an entrepreneur: Start a design agency and become the go-to resource for design systems for startups and even larger companies. This can be a good recurring revenue business.
2. Become a builder: Add PM/Eng responsibilities to become a product builder.
Would suggest you embrace this proactively vs waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I'm really sorry about this - some of my best friends and the people I admire most and have learnt the most from are designers - but it seems inevitable.
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
Big day:@RowsHQ will be joining Superhuman🚀
Our mission was to make spreadsheets easy, automated & beautiful. Now we’ll bring what we’ve learned to @Superhuman's AI productivity suite.
Excited for what’s next. Deep gratitude to our team, my co-founder @patife, and our customers
Our mission was to make spreadsheets easy, automated & beautiful. Now we’ll bring what we’ve learned to @Superhuman's AI productivity suite.
Excited for what’s next. Deep gratitude to our team, my co-founder @patife, and our customers
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
ever seen these small dead zones in a list of closely stacked elements? im seeing this more often.
this can be easily fixed using css `::before` pseudo element on each element:
::before {
content: "";
position: absolute;
inset: -10px 0; /* extends 10px vertically */
}
this can be easily fixed using css `::before` pseudo element on each element:
::before {
content: "";
position: absolute;
inset: -10px 0; /* extends 10px vertically */
}
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
As a former Google Principal Product Designer, I’m having the best time of my life working on brand identities and delivering a complete toolkit for my clients, not just to create consistent content but also micrographics for their products.
Being a brand designer in this AI era o limits, just your imagination.
Being a brand designer in this AI era o limits, just your imagination.
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
grammarly just rebranded to superhuman
and we're fed up with being called Superhuman
so we did a thing
go to superpower . com / superhuman
you won't regret it
and we're fed up with being called Superhuman
so we did a thing
go to superpower . com / superhuman
you won't regret it
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
Huge news: We’re changing our company name from @Grammarly to Superhuman and launching a new product!
The Grammarly brand isn’t going anywhere, but we’re evolving into a multi-product company that includes Grammarly, Coda, Superhuman Mail, and a new AI assistant called Superhuman Go. 🧵
The Grammarly brand isn’t going anywhere, but we’re evolving into a multi-product company that includes Grammarly, Coda, Superhuman Mail, and a new AI assistant called Superhuman Go. 🧵
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
Grammarly is changing its name to Superhuman theverge.com/news/808472/gr…
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Kevin Cannon retweeted
Meet Superhuman: the new AI platform that combines powerful tools like Grammarly, @Superhuman Mail, @coda_hq, and Go, our new proactive AI assistant.
Write, research, automate, schedule, and organize—all in one subscription. Learn more: sprh.mn/47Mi6P8
Write, research, automate, schedule, and organize—all in one subscription. Learn more: sprh.mn/47Mi6P8
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