Y Combinator

YC's Head of Design Shows You How To Design With AI

AI isn't just changing the tools designers use. It's changing the way they think, prototype, and build. In this episode of Design Review, YC Head of Design Eve Bouffard joins General Partner Aaron Epstein to share the AI-first workflow she uses to design products, websites, and events. Using projects like Paxel, SOTA Zine, and YC Startup School as examples, she explains how coding agents are transforming everything from rapid prototyping and branding to design systems, and why the biggest bottleneck is no longer software. It's imagination. Paxel: https://paxel.ycombinator.com SOTA Zine: https://www.sotazine.com YC Startup School: https://www.ycombinator.com/startupschool Chapters: 00:00 — AI Design Toolkit: Conductor, Paper Design, & Voice 01:27 — Project 1: Paxel — Spotify Wrapped for Coding Sessions 04:13 — Building the Paxel Landing Page 05:23 — Custom Shader Fine-Tuning Tools 07:13 — Designing for Humans vs. Machines 08:31 — "Send to an Agent" Feature Request Forms 10:18 — The Future of Locally Personalized Software 12:53 — Project 2: SOTA Zine — Celebrating San Francisco 14:34 — The Soul.md File as Source of Truth 16:57 — One-Shot = 16 Website Variations 20:06 — When the Agent Surprises You 21:50 — How to Break Out of Generic AI Design 23:20 — Building an Interactive SF Map 25:17 — Project 3: Startup School 2026 Branding 26:32 — Automated Speaker Card Generation 27:50 — Shader Fine-Tuning and Perfect Loop Recording 29:43 — Personalized Acceptance Tickets 30:49 — Shader-Driven Branding at Arena Scale Apply to Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/apply Work at a startup: https://www.ycombinator.com/jobs