
John Moriarty - How Fin got every designer shipping to production
At Fin (formerly Intercom), agents write around 90% of the code and every one of the 35 designers ships to production. John Moriarty shows us how they decide what to prototype and what to build for real. 🎓 Turn this episode into something you make → https://daicampus.com This is the first episode of the d.AI podcast. John, Head of Product Design at Fin, takes us behind the curtain on one decision his team makes constantly: does an idea get prototyped in a sandbox, or built straight into production? We cover the tools they use by name, where real data is and isn’t allowed, and the judgement behind the call. Plus jigs. In woodworking, a jig is a guide you build to help you make the real thing. John’s designers do the same with AI: instead of guessing the answer to a design question, they build a little throwaway tool to find it. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WHAT IS d.AI? d.AI is the new programme from d.MBA for designers who’ve decided to engage with AI and are excited for the opportunity it unlocks. Every month, a designer from a team doing great work with AI shows us how they really do one thing. We turn it into a brief, and you build it in your own context, with your own work, in a private community with other designers. The guest is in there for their month too. John’s brief drops Monday 26 October 2026, and he’s in the community all month to see what people make. The first 77 members get the founding price, locked in for as long as they’re a member. 👉 Join d.AI: https://daicampus.com 00:17 Meet John Moriarty and Fin 02:03 Blurring roles and how Fin designs today 05:57 How agents broke the old handoff process 08:54 How design craft has changed 10:57 Building to learn what to build 12:42 Surge Intelligence: the rails agents run on 14:57 Sandbox or production? Choosing the right tool 19:47 About d.AI 20:24 Operator and Charlotte’s HTML prototype 27:30 Daria’s messenger design playground 30:42 Who can ship to production at Fin 31:39 The culture shift: no more UI bug reports 33:21 Shrek and automated PR checks 35:33 A designer’s production workflow: Eric’s Help Center 38:45 UI is going away 41:21 Why designers shouldn’t be precious 43:18 First steps for smaller teams 44:44 Outro













