Overview
AI meetings for everyone else
Yappa is a browser-based video meeting app with an AI assistant built right into the call. The bet is the same one Zoom made in 2020: be the lightest, easiest version of the thing. Let AI handle the work that meeting platforms keep adding feature-by-feature. Built for clubs and small groups, not enterprise teams.
The problem
Disarming AI fear
The founder pitched the concept. What I took on was making it not feel like another AI product.
AI is a harder sell in the West
50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI. Only 10% feel the opposite (Pew, 2025).
The fear is anticipatory
Only 18% of people who reject AI have actually had a bad experience with it (Edelman, 2025). The distrust is anticipatory, not earned.
And it all looks the same
Open any AI product from the last two years and the visual language repeats. A sparkle icon. A gradient. A 'magic' button.
AI looks like a thing for someone else, especially for the clubs, hobby groups, and less tech-inclined users Yappa is built for. So the bet was that design itself was where the discomfort would dissolve, before anyone met the model.
The decision
Why a pixel dog
Pixel art
Cheap and fast for a small team to animate. Borrows from Tamagotchi-era nostalgia, the opposite of the gradient sameness.
A dog
Loyalty and companionship: how a dog feels, and how AI in a meeting should feel. The dog gets us there before the model has to.
Motion states
Meet Yappa
Running
Yappa thinking. Loading something for the room or searching for an answer.
Tail wagging
Yappa hanging out. Present but not nudging anyone for attention.
Pop-up
Yappa surfacing something. The dog brings what the AI just dug up.
Product
Inside the call
Yappa lives in the call itself. No side panel, no sign-up. It's a meeting room with a dog in it, handling the AI work other tools make you leave the call to do.
Design challenge
Present without taking over
Yappa needed enough presence to be useful in the call, but not so much that the meeting became about the dog.
Present
The dog stays in the room, not in a side panel.
Quiet
Status and motion stay small. The people in the call stay central.
Useful
Files and answers come from the dog, inside the call. No tab-switching.
In-chat support
Small signals, not another dashboard
Most of Yappa's signals live in chat. Short messages and small motion cues, never a popup that pulls users away from the call.
Overlay helper
Tools that stay in the room
Yappa's tools (chat, transcripts, files, prompts) stay layered over the call instead of replacing it. The dog brings them in when they're useful.
Design system
The system around the dog
If Yappa is the personality, the system is the room it lives in. Type, colour, components, and spacing all tuned so the dog stays the loudest thing on screen.
Concept testing
Where the bet stands
Concept testing right now, not shipped. The question is whether non-technical users see the value of AI inside the call, and whether the dog feels helpful instead of needy.
The next step is putting the prototype in front of small community groups and watching what happens in a messy real conversation, not a clean demo.
Reflections
Reflections
Brand on the wall
The brand and system are in place. Even pre-launch, having Yappa to point at has changed how the team talks about the product. The dog became our shared shorthand.
Working with a founder
Designing for a 0-to-1 product means the brand decisions are also the product decisions. There's no design team to debate with, just a founder to convince. Most of my time on Yappa was in conversations, not in Figma.
Where I'm pushing
Yappa pushed me into brand and product strategy in equal measure. The kind of design role I want more of, where the call gets made before the screens, not after them.