Dive Club 🤿 – Episode Summary

Episode: Escha Vera – Designing Perplexity’s Comet and Using AI Like an Artist
Host: Rid
Guest: Escha Vera
Date: September 26, 2025

Overview

This episode features Escha Vera, the founding designer behind Perplexity's new AI browser, Comet. Escha takes us on a candid journey through the early, chaotic days of inheriting an undefined project at Perplexity, the challenge of building a design system from scratch, and the creative, experimental mindset she brings to integrating AI into both workflow and product experience. The conversation navigates product strategy, onboarding moments, team dynamics, and the evolving role of designers who use AI as an extension of their craft.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Escha’s Path to Perplexity and Comet (01:13–03:50)

• Career Transition and Joining Perplexity
  • Escha left Descript with uncertainty about her future in design, spending a year weighing her next move and prioritizing ethical AI use.
  • Introduction to Perplexity came via a referral, with an unexpected immediate responsibility: “The day I joined was the day they announced Comet.” (03:27)
  • Quote: “My first meeting with Henry, he was like, hey... do you just want the keys to like own this? So that was very cool.” (03:39, Escha)

Starting with a Blank Slate: Building the Design System (04:09–11:09)

• No Existing System, High Autonomy
  • Perplexity’s codebase is the source of truth—designers directly influence and implement UI in code.
  • Escha created a design system out of necessity for the Comet C code team, which then expanded into a cross-product system.
• Figma & Code Collaboration
  • Initial focus was on “atoms” (text, buttons, icons), with logic for spacing, padding, and consistent naming between Figma and code.
  • Quote: “The design team in general is just given so much trust to not just propose a design solution. But actually help implement the thing.” (06:14, Escha)
• Prototyping with AI Tools
  • Escha uses tools like Claude and Cursor to rapidly describe prototypes and build front-end flows, especially effective for user flows with dynamic content.

Creative Onboarding & Elevating Experience (15:12–20:26)

• Onboarding as Unboxing
  • Onboarding sought to minimize friction but infuse delight—drawing inspiration from video game startup screens.
  • Music plays a key role in emotional impact; Escha collaborated with her long-time music producer friend, Nesso, to create the theme: “The title of that track is Waking Up Before Everyone Else at the Sleepover. And the Wii is still on.” (18:43, Escha)
  • Quote: “I wanted it to feel like when you start up a Nintendo 64 game... you get the production credits before the title screen.” (16:28, Escha)
• Team Collaboration
  • Brand and product design teams are tightly integrated—creativity flows across boundaries.

Generative Invite Cards & Expanding Designer Output (21:12–26:13)

• Reinventing Invites
  • Instead of traditional QR codes, Escha crafted generative invite cards combining Midjourney, custom AI models (Civit AI, FAL), Photoshop, and dynamic variable prompts.
• Workflow Experimentation
  • Emphasis on chaining tools to go beyond what’s possible in a single platform, leading to unique, brand-consistent outputs at scale.

Product Strategy & Audience Considerations (27:03–31:02)

• Comet’s Target User
  • Early focus: layperson and mainstream Chrome/Edge users, not just power users or early adopters.
  • Familiarity over novelty: Resisting the urge to innovate everywhere, favoring a browser that “just kind of looks like Chrome” so that users can focus on exploring the AI assistant.
  • Quote: “How far do we want to go in making it novel versus familiar? ... Early days lean far more on the familiar side.” (27:36, Escha)

The “Chrome vs. Tabs” Assistant Dilemma (31:51–38:15)

• AI Assistant Design Tradeoffs
  • Explored “window-based” vs “tab-based” agency for the assistant; landed on a tab-based approach to reduce confusion and usability issues.
  • Continues to explore new surfaces, like a command center for managing AI tasks across tabs and workflows.
  • Quote: “It was a bit of just trial and error, like having a gut feeling that it should be window based, trying it out, realizing that it has pitfalls, ... ended up going towards tab based, which was not my first instinct.” (35:37, Escha)
• Decision Paralysis & Team Collaboration
  • Needing to balance solo autonomy with onboarding new designers—building muscle memory for knowing when to ask for input versus owning calls.

Design Principles, Lessons Learned (41:15–44:35)

• Solo Designer Muscle and Design System DNA
  • Long career of solo product design, starting with Microsoft’s Metro UI, has ingrained comfort in making large-scale decisions and building flexible systems.
  • Accessibility, systems thinking, and frameworks that scale across teams and products are foundational.

Interfaces for an Agentic World: Productizing, Not Prompting AI (44:35–51:20)

• Designing for AI Usability
  • Chat-based and prompt-based interfaces are “less than ideal” for mass users; prefer productized, guided workflows that surface AI’s true capabilities under the hood.
  • With Descript: built UI for complex AI features instead of exposing prompting, only revealing prompts as a power-user option.
  • Quote: “AI and tooling is interesting because it’s so early. We’re figuring out the pattern out the gate. ... Chat interfaces and prompts, both, I think are problematic.” (44:50, Escha)
• Discovery and Guidance
  • Creating query libraries, context-specific suggestions (“zero suggest”), and personalized onboarding mechanisms to help users slowly unlock AI's power.

Reflection: Using AI Like an Artist (51:42–56:15)

• AI as Creative Workflow Enhancer

  • Escha advocates using AI for iterative, creative remixing—less like a “slot machine” and more like an artist’s brush.
  • Encourages cross-tool workflows (Figma ↔ Photoshop ↔ Midjourney, etc.), remixing, chaining outputs, and embracing happy accidents.
  • Calls for designers to be mindful and ethical, but also fearless in experimenting with what AI as a creative tool allows.

• Quote (on creativity):
  “It’s not about how little can you do, it’s about how much more can you do because of, of AI as a tool within your workflow.” (52:29, Escha)

  • Quote (on ethics):
    “[AI] is a garden that is ripe for abuse. ... It’s not the technology that’s the problem, and it’s not everybody that’s the problem.” (55:15, Escha)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Moment | |-----------|--------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| | 03:27 | Escha Vera | “The day I joined was the day they announced Comet... I was so honored to be handed a product like that.” | | 06:14 | Escha Vera | “The design team in general is just given so much trust to not just propose a design solution. But actually help implement the thing.” | | 16:28 | Escha Vera | “I wanted it to feel like when you start up a Nintendo 64 game ... just like an old school video game, when you get the production credits.” | | 18:43 | Escha Vera | “The title of that track is Waking Up Before Everyone Else at the Sleepover. And the Wii is still on.” | | 27:36 | Escha Vera | “How far do we want to go in making it novel versus familiar? ... Early days lean far more on the familiar side.” | | 35:37 | Escha Vera | “[The assistant approach] ended up going towards tab-based, which was not my first instinct… but we realized that there are other ways.” | | 44:50 | Escha Vera | “Chat interfaces and prompts, both, I think are problematic ... They're less than ideal for being usable. It's an engineering approach.” | | 52:29 | Escha Vera | “It’s not about how little can you do, it’s about how much more can you do because of, of AI as a tool within your workflow.” | | 55:15 | Escha Vera | “It’s a garden that is ripe for abuse ... It’s not the technology that’s the problem, and it’s not everybody that’s the problem.” |

Timestamps for Major Segments

• Escha’s Journey to Perplexity — 01:13–03:50
• Design System Creation & Frontend — 04:09–11:09
• Onboarding and Emotional Design — 15:12–20:26
• Generative Invites Workflow — 21:12–26:13
• Product Strategy and Target Users — 27:03–31:02
• AI Assistant Architecture Tradeoffs — 31:51–38:15
• Scaling Solo to Team & Design Parallels — 41:15–44:35
• Productizing AI, Designing Interfaces — 44:35–51:20
• Philosophy on AI as a Creative Tool — 51:42–56:15

Closing Takeaways

• Escha demonstrates how curiosity, ethical rigor, and a playful spirit can enable designers to push boundaries while remaining grounded in user needs.
• Her workflow—stitching together multiple AI and design tools—is a blueprint for creative professionals adapting to the new AI-augmented era.
• She models a mindful, experimental approach where AI is a partner in creativity, not a shortcut for effort.

For Designers:

• Get hands-on with new tools.
• Treat workflow as a creative canvas.
• Use AI to amplify—not replace—craft and humanity in your work.

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