Grow Infinity — Career development
How it started
Grow Infinity is a career development platform for Emirati employees at the bank. A team of senior product designers had been working on it. I was busy with Design Reflect, a personal initiative, when the head of design pulled me in.
The first thing I did was look at what existed. The visual work was excellent — better than mine, and I say that as someone who wants to be the best in the room. So I took it as a challenge.
But the stakeholders hadn't accepted it, and I wanted to understand why before touching anything.
What I found
It was a form. A well-designed form, but a form — type in your details, fill in your requirements, complete the assessment, and eventually something comes back.
As a Gen-Z designer I hated it on sight. Not because it looked wrong, but because of what it asked for.
Then I asked myself what I'd actually want. If I needed a career coach, I wouldn't fill in a profile. I'd talk to someone.
What I pitched
I didn't redo the visuals. I changed the product direction, and pitched it.
Chat is the front door. Everything else is a window.
Mahmood — an AI career coach who greets you in Arabic before you sign in, explains what he does, and runs the whole journey through conversation. It works the way ChatGPT and Claude already work, which is a pattern people know. Profile, assessment, goals, learning path: all captured by talking, with the screens filling in behind.
The decisions
Show before you ask. You meet Mahmood and understand the value before anyone requests a login.
Gold from the kandoora. The accent colour came from the trim on Mahmood's clothing rather than a palette — so the character and the interface belong to each other instead of sitting next to each other.
A reason to come back. Streaks and progress, so returning isn't only because HR said so.
Shipped
Product thinking through to interactive prototype in a single day — Claude and Figma Make, no handoff. The redirection was adopted by the team.
Reflection
I like winning, and my instinct was to out-design the visuals. The better move was to stop competing on craft and ask whether the product was solving the right problem. Judgment beat execution, and I'm glad I pitched instead of just redrawing.
The other thing this taught me: AI didn't replace the empathy in this product, it delivered it. Mahmood greets people in their own language before asking them for anything. That's a human decision, encoded — which is what I think AI is actually for.