Brad Beam — AI-native Senior Product Designer

AI-native Senior Product Designer

AI-native Senior Product Designer. 20+ years building enterprise and fintech products. I turn ambiguous problems into working prototypes — solo, and end to end — using AI as a working partner across discovery, design, and validation. Currently at American Express, building My Lens and Athena.

How I Work with AI

I work fluently with AI across the full product lifecycle — discovery, strategy, design, prototyping, validation, and into development. I treat it as a working partner, not a tool. AI accelerates synthesis, expands the option space, and pressure-tests decisions before they ship. The discipline is in knowing when to push back on AI output, when to trust it, and when to throw it away. I bring the conception and the architectural calls; AI amplifies the execution.

AI-generated image: 'Robotic Woman'

My Lens — AI-Augmented Executive Workspace · American Express

An internal concept exploring how executives could stop navigating tools and start directing outcomes. Built solo, end-to-end — discovery, architecture, interface, and click-through prototype — with AI as a working partner at every stage.

Executives lose their day to system-hopping — calendars, task tools, dashboards, and inboxes that each demand attention but never show the whole picture. My Lens is an internal concept I designed for American Express that replaces that fragmentation with a single workspace built around prioritized signals: what matters today, what's at risk, and what action to take. Its embedded AI layer, Athena, follows one principle — advise without overstepping — surfacing patterns and pressure-testing decisions while the executive stays in command; getting that trust boundary right was the core design problem. Designed and prototyped solo, end-to-end, from problem framing to working click-through. Shown as a design exploration; concept visuals only.

Nextiva — AI-Powered Customer Experience Platform — Nextiva (2021)

At Nextiva in 2021 — years before generative AI entered the mainstream — I designed a suite of AI-powered features for the customer experience platform. The flagship was a real-time customer journey visualization: as a call or conversation unfolded, the interface displayed a live timeline showing sentiment shifts, tone in speech and text, and the overall experience trajectory. I outlined how the AI could identify patterns in language and behavior, surface trends across interactions, and offer next-step recommendations to agents and managers in real time. I also led the UX for a survey builder and automation tools, both designed around minimal-step flows for non-technical users. The work proved early that AI in product design isn't a layer you add on — it's an architecture you design around from the start.

Cassie — All-in-One Workspace

American Express

Cassie is an all-in-one dashboard at American Express that consolidates fragmented internal tools — documents, calendar, email, Slack, and personal context — into a single workspace. The product builds on a pattern I've solved across enterprise: at Hartford, consolidating 18 internal applications into one workflow; at Amex Actions, consolidating reject/approval flows from 11 systems; and now at Cassie, consolidating the everyday tools that fragment an employee's attention. Cassie also surfaces Athena, the AI intelligence layer I led design on separately, bringing agentic AI into the consolidated interface. I contributed design to Cassie alongside a team, focused on the Athena-integration surface and the cross-tool information architecture.

Skills: AI-Assisted Research Synthesis · AI Prototyping · AI Output Verification · Claude · ChatGPT · Perplexity · Midjourney · Replit · Cursor

UI/UX

Enterprise and fintech products designed end-to-end — from discovery to shipped UX.

Amex Actions

Mobile Approval Hub — American Express

A mobile approval hub that consolidated reject/approval workflows from 11 disparate internal systems into a single front-end experience. Outcomes: +78% approval speed, +62% approval volume. Abstracted system complexity from end users; abstracted UX complexity from underlying APIs.

Concept Work

Explorations across consumer, civic, and enterprise

The pieces here aren't client work — they're explorations. Each one started from a specific question: what would a voting app on a blockchain feel like? How would a cruise itinerary work as a daily companion app, not a marketing site? Concepts are where I work out what I think about design before a brief tells me what to think. The pieces here range across consumer, civic, and enterprise — different domains, same instinct: start from the user's real day, not the product's existing pattern.

Industrial 3D UX

Truvisible Taker UI

Designed both the 3D models and the user-facing experience for a heavy industrial inventory and maintenance product. The interface ties a live 3D rendering of equipment to predictive maintenance signals — operators can identify failure points, schedule service, and trace asset history without leaving the canvas. Built for shop-floor scale.

Industrial 3D UX TricomB2B tablet preview

Eyeon

Eye Tracking 2D — Eyetech

Led the design of Eyon at Eyetech — a complete OS and application suite for users who interact only with their eyes. The interface integrates comms, environment control, and a keyboard, all rebuilt as a target-first experience. Shipped at scale for people living with ALS and locked-in conditions.

Sync

Executive Dashboard — American Express

At American Express, I designed Sync — a configurable executive dashboard that surfaces real-time KPI rollups, anomalies, and AI-prepared briefings for senior leaders. Built so the C-suite can move from question to answer in a single glance, without needing the BI team in the room.

Built · UI/UX Design · Product Discovery · User Research · Journey Mapping · Wireframing · Usability Testing · Design Systems · Native iOS · Native Android · 3D · Motion · Prototype

My Process

Run design sprints in 2 to 4 weeks — half the traditional timeline — with AI accelerating synthesis, ideation, and prototyping while the architectural calls stay with me.

Discover

Ideate

Validate

Understand the problem before designing the solution.

Stakeholder interviews and alignment
User interviews and contextual research
Domain mapping and analytics review
Problem framing and prioritization
Personas and jobs-to-be-done

AI in this phase: structured synthesis, clustering interview transcripts, surfacing tensions in the data and stress-testing assumptions in real time.

Turning understanding into directions worth building.

Information architecture
Wireframes and lo-fi flows
Prototyping
Generative concepts (multiple)
Internal critique
Concept selection and refinement
Motion, prototype, and usability validation

AI in this phase: rapid generation of alternative concepts, copy variants, and edge-case enumeration before they get prototyped.

Putting the work in front of real users and refining it until it lands.

Task-and-scenario design
Usability testing with actual users
Quant funnels and behavioral analytics
Accessibility audits
Findings analysis and pattern identification
Refinement and iteration

AI in this phase: synthesizes session recordings, clusters patterns and surfaces issues for follow-up.

Experience

20+ years across enterprise, fintech, and assistive technology — different domains, one practice.

American Express — Senior Product Designer, AI Systems · 2023 – Current
Hartford Insurance — Senior UX Product Designer, Consulting · 2022 – 2023
TIAA — Senior UX Product Designer, Contract · 2021 – 2022
Nextiva — Product Designer, Early AI · 2021
Eyetech — UX/UI Lead Designer · 2020 – 2021
American Express — Senior UX Designer · 2018 – 2020
Avnet — UX/UI Lead Designer · 2016 – 2018
TricomB2B — 3D Modeling & Animation Specialist · 2014 – 2016
Performance Associates International (PAI) — Graphic Designer / Animator · UX/UI on Performance Tracker · 2010 – 2014
Journal Broadcasting Group (KGUN 9) — Graphic Designer / Animator · 2009 – 2010
The WLB Group — 2D/3D Graphic Artist / Illustrator · 2005 – 2008
The Art Institute — Animation Curriculum Advisory Board (2009 – 2017) — Nominated to serve on the advisory board for animation curriculum development.

Additional Skills

Everything in this section is hand-made — illustration, 3D modeling, animation and design produced without AI generation. Where AI-generated work appears elsewhere on this site, it's labeled.

3D Animations

I'm skilled in 3D modeling and sculpting. Also lighting and texturing. Poly painting, rendering, compositing and video editing.

Digital Art

I find inspiration from many things I see, to create digital illustrations in the attempt to capture a thought or expression, all for fun!

Fine Art

I also do Hand rendered illustrations. I can work with any medium or style. I can create from something I see or from my head.

Technical Animations

Created promotional materials for web/mobile applications, including interactive 3-D turnaround, promo videos, and graphics, used in ads for Cummins product launch.

Graphic Designs

Create digital illustrations and graphic design elements for Flowserve for publication in print media, such as Nuclear News and Nuclear Plant Journal.

Skills: 3D Modeling & Animation · Motion Graphics · Hand Illustration · Digital Illustration · Graphic Design · Video Editing · Autodesk Maya · ZBrush · After Effects · Photoshop · Illustrator