Near Future Podcast

Tom and Jonny sit down with Avi Ashkenazi, Senior Product Design Director at Deel, for the podcast's first-ever guest episode. Avi shares the story behind Vidit, an internal screen-recording tool he built (and vibe-codes on weekends) that now has 600 daily users and 10,000+ videos produced — and which he's now made free for anyone at viddit.video.

The conversation dives deep into Deel's AI-forward culture: designers losing Figma seats after 30 days of disuse, "super users" burning through massive AI token budgets, twice-weekly AI showcase sessions, and how much of the design workflow has shifted from Figma into tools like Claude Code. Avi also discusses building internal tools like Links (an Obsidian-style knowledge brain) and an AI-powered portfolio screening tool for the ~300 daily design applications Deel receives.

The back half covers hiring in the AI era — including why uniqueness and craft still matter more than ever, the tension between AI making collaboration seamless versus more isolating, and Avi's "spicy take" that no one should manage designers without being a staff-level practitioner themselves. They close on how AI-freed time should be spent: hunting for the next big cross-functional bet rather than busywork.

Chapters
0:00 – Intro & welcoming Avi Ashkenazi
0:33 – Building Vidit: Deel's in-house Screen Studio alternative
3:49 – 600 daily users and open-sourcing (for free) at viddit.video
7:56 – How AI tools have changed ways of working at Deel
10:25 – Deel's build culture, one-click dev onboarding, and losing Figma seats
14:44 – Where the design industry is heading with AI (Shopify vs. Deel)
18:44 – Token budgets, "super users," and adoption curves across the team
23:54 – Scaling judgment: building "Links" and "Launchpad" brains
35:23 – AI-assisted hiring: screening 300+ design applications a day
43:28 – What AI gets wrong when judging portfolios (uniqueness & self-affirmation)
50:18 – Where the freed-up time should go & Avi's spiciest take on AI and craft
57:04 – Wrap-up & useful links

Useful Links
Vidit (Avi's screen recording tool): viddit.video
Avi's personal site: superavi.com
Deel careers: deel.com/careers

Podcast feedback: podcast@nearfuture.works
Near Future workshop (Aug 13th): nearfuture.works/build
Find us at nearfuture.works

Creators and Guests

Host
Jonny Burch
Co-founder of Near Future
Host
Tom Harman
Co-founder of Near Future

What is Near Future Podcast?

A regular podcast covering design and AI from the founders of Near Future, a boutique AI consultancy focused on teams that care about craft. We cover both what we're seeing on the ground and industry trends, ways of working and occasional guests from the design world.

Tom: Welcome back to
the Near Future Podcast.

Today, we have our first
ever guest, Avi Ashkenazi.

Avi is a long-time design leader and
builder who's worked at companies like

Shopify and now Deel, where he focuses
on fintech, AI, design systems, and more.

Johnny and I recently saw him speak
at Product Unleashed, an AI and design

event in London, and spoke to him
afterwards about building software with

AI to scale how he and his team operate.

We're really excited for this
conversation and hope you enjoy it too.

Avi Ashkenazi: my name is Avi.

I'm a senior product
design director at Deal.

I work across fintech, AI, design systems,
our mobile areas, and our homepage.

Uh, I live in London, uh, I've been
doing this for maybe 16 years, 17 years,

something like that I've been working
on a really interesting tool that is

called Vidit, and does what it says.

it allows you to vid it, videos.

And the reason why I built it was
because, A, we pay at Deel quite a

lot of money historically for Loom,
and B, because a lot of the designers,

and there are 130 designers at Deel,
marketing people, wanted Screen Studio.

Screen Studio costs some money,
but the company did not want

to pay that amount of money.

And I really like Screen Studio, but
I was like, "I can do something like

it, something maybe better with all
the features that I always dreamt,"

and I'm looking at the roadmap all the
time hoping that they would build the

thing that I wish they would build.

I bas- basically decided to embark
on this journey and build a backup,

and that's essentially what I built.

Jonny: So th- this is quite a complex
product that you've built, Abby.

This isn't, a sort of a, quick tool to
nail an easing graph or, whatever it is.

This is, this is-- It looks fairly…

for those people listening, we
basically looked at something that

looks very much like Screen Studio.

it's like a dark,
beautiful dark UI with…

it looks like Screen
Studio, but with more stuff.

I'm a Screen Studio user, and I,
like I see features there that

I don't have, and I want them.

you built this for Deal directly?

is this a Deal-only thing, or are
there other users outside Deal?

Avi Ashkenazi: That's a really
good, interesting story.

So one of the magics about
working in enterprise is that

once you enter into enterprise,
you cannot exit the enterprise.

Meaning because, this captive audience
and I built this tool, and that's the

only tool that is available, I essentially
don't have competition, which ended up

in me having six hundred daily users
this tool, recording, producing videos.

I think so far about ten thousand
videos were already produced with this

tool, and it's like my weekend project.

Every, weekend, I go, and I sit there and
keep vibe coding my life away produce.

for example, this weekend,
I added, touch gestures.

So when when you do, pinch on an
iPhone or zoom in or today, when you

were-- you plug in the phone to your
computer and you record it, you don't

have those things, those visuals.

And now in Viddit, you are able to
basically add them on screen, and you

can-- people can see where you swipe
from where to you pinch, et cetera.

Now, you mentioned this is only i-
like, in the internal environment.

However, when I started testing it,
I basically utilized my own account

because I wanted my friends to try it
out and give me feedback before I…

it's a very high stake to
say to the company, "You guys

all use this from now on."

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: I already had, external
users, and over time, I convinced,

Alex, the CEO, to basically do
what Lottie, done with, Airbnb.

the, engineers who built Lottie were like,
"This could really change the internet.

It helps us.

It can help other people,
so we will open source it."

In my case, we're not open sourcing it
because I don't know how I can control

the fact that no one's gonna put a
shell on top of it and start selling

it, and I do want to give it for free.

I want to contribute it to the community.

So I agreed with Alex that we're
gonna give it for free for anyone.

So if you go to viddit.video,

you will be able to download it.

the website is still in the making,
but, there is a download link there.

You can go and, download it
now, and anyone who wants to

use it can use it for free.

Jonny: Awesome.

But I suppose having, the captive
audience, you get tons of feedback.

You--

Avi Ashkenazi: Thanks

Jonny: but also they can literally
never leave, so you don't have to

worry about one whole part of the
product stress, which is churn.

in a sense,

Avi Ashkenazi: you do have some…

so for example, I'll give you
one of the features that I added

was, it was called Instant Mode.

happened was I got annoyed 'cause
I built this thing and spent a

lot of my blood, sweat, and tears.

I got annoyed that people keep recording
stuff on Slack, and then, someone provides

feedback on a design, and are, like,
very obsessive about their feedback.

So you have suddenly, videos of five
minutes ri- one after the other in Slack.

And I'm like, "Why are
you not using FITED?"

And they're like, "Look, friction.

It is there.

I press the button, and I don't need to
render or edit it or, tweak anything."

So I made Instant Mode with
ba- which basically means it's

recording everything live.

You can preset the environment.

You can say, "Hey, my
camera's gonna be a circle.

It's gonna be in this corner.

gonna be like this.

The background's gonna be like that."

And then when you finish recording,
you can just drop it into

Slack when you record in Slack.

And that brought me some other
ad-additional percentage of users

Jonny: Okay

Tom: Amazing.

you mentioned about the sort of starting
point of this being 130 people across

Deel who wanted to use this tool that you
decided to, build your own version of.

curious how this has changed your ways of
working within the company or the team.

hinted there at using Slack for design
reviews or maybe using this tool instead.

How have you not only built this
tool, but how has this changed your

ways of working as a team or, and
your role as a leader in that team?

Avi Ashkenazi: I think first of all, it
allowed me to be way closer to designers.

And from my perspective, I also-- One of
the good, amazing things about tools like

this is that they enable you to share
stuff in a, such a high fidelity and such

quality suddenly you have a marketing
video-like output at your fingertips.

Maybe it's an overkill.

For some people, it's an overkill.

And I get, in the feedback channel,
many, questions quite often that

is like, "Hey, can I do this?"

And it's "Yeah, actually, you can do this.

It already is built."

and that, that tells me, the UX
is maybe discoverability is not

good enough, et cetera, et cetera.

But it also gave me and the team a
lot of confidence say, "Hey, we can

go and build these amazing AI tools."

I know you guys are doing this brilliant
workshop that, I also witnessed in the

event that we were in two weeks ago.

and people…

It gave people much more
confidence to just go and try out.

Because before people thought, "Oh, I can
just make a small Figma plugin," or, "I

can summarize my review in terms of text."

And that suddenly shows them, okay,
a person who is very, busy can go

and, alongside do this thing, then
we can do it as well, and gave them

a lot of confidence to build stuff.

Jonny: Avi, it, might, be useful
context for people listening to

describe what Deel is like to work at.

And I think it's quite a unique
culture, in terms of the attitude

towards build versus buy and AI
generally and things like that.

and, there is one anecdote that I
know you've shared a couple of times,

including on stage around Figma seats.

So c-can you just give us a little bit of
a-- maybe the design lens, but also just

generally how Deel works company-wide?

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah.

Deel, trying to reduce as much as
possible politics or anything like that.

Deel thrives on speed, which
basically means that it bu-- a lot

of things bubble up from the bottom.

Now, of course, this could be some
projects where, s-senior stakeholder

will be involved, but gradually-- but
overall, would say that if you have an

idea, just go and do it because there's
not enough people to do all the ideas and

not enough people to do even the projects
that already are scoped, that anyone is

welcome with any additional initiative
that they have to just go and contribute.

I mentioned, the design team is about 130
people across the board, and we have this,

AI process that enabled us in one click,
basically, to onboard people all the way

from setting up their Amazon permissions
to, set up their repo database inside

GitHub, and then install the cloud
skills that they need and connect it

to the design system, essentially.

So one-click button, you can basically
go and prototype anything that you want,

Claude Design, Claude Code, whichever
tool that you feel like, VS Code,

Cursor, whatever tool that you feel like.

And we also have a hosting environment
internally called Nexus, which is

like our own version of Vercel,
anyone can ship projects there

and has many interesting features.

That was built in two weeks by two
DevOps engineers, and now has been

maintained in the last two months.

It was pretty awful at the
beginning, and now it's fantastic.

Jonny: Do they get some design feedback?

Avi Ashkenazi: it got some design
feedback, but not enough, I would

say because that's one of the
problems, like when people build AI,

like sometimes it's there's like a,
small ego aspect there that you "But

yeah, but I built all this thing.

I don't need help.

I don't want people to slow me down.

I just wanna go and churn and do as
much as I can, as fast as I can."

we got to a point where at the
beginning, people were freaking out,

especially when, Claude released--
Anthropic released Claude Design.

People were like, "I,
I-- We cannot keep up.

The, pace is too fast.

We don't know what to do."

And so we organized twice a week
meetings with designers that are

great at AI or that have achieved
something in AI that others haven't

do this cross-pollination and teach.

we got to a point where, at this point
of time, last, at the beginning of,

July, I got a few messages from designers
like, "Hey, I lost my Figma license.

Can you renew me?"

And the reason why they lost
it is because they practically

have not used it for 30 days.

And we have an automation that if someone
doesn't use it for 30 days, we obviously

don't wanna pay for it, so we clear the
seat from that person for someone else

who might want to use or to basically
not pay at the end of the quarter.

Jonny: you had a bunch of designers that
turned out hadn't opened Figma for 30 days

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah, 15, 15 of them by now

Jonny: 15 of 130 is is a under
10%, but it's-- or around 10%, but

it's, still significant when you
think about a tool that, was…

has been, the very center of
everyone's process for many years.

that and precursors to
it a decade or more.

yeah, really interesting.

so these designers that are not opening
Figma, they are opening their code editor.

Is that right?

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah.

just

Jonny: Okay.

Avi Ashkenazi: and I would say that also,
look, lot of the designers I've been

reading about it also from other people's
posts, the usage for Figma has slightly

changed in terms of, what people do.

There's some stuff that you just can't do.

if you wanna create an icon, you…

Yeah, you might prompt it, but it's
not gonna be great, so you'll just

go and, do some vector tooling and
pen tool and, move some points.

some of the designers, that's what
their usage in Figma is nowadays.

For the whole interface, they just do
Claude code and for really, small things.

So I think there is, interesting
opportunity to make something that

would replace just these, small
little processes of visual refinement

and fidelity, and then they might
not need even Figma that, version.

, Jonny: I'd love your opinion as a
s-- you're a d- you've been leading

design teams for a long time and, seen,
design teams outside Deel as well.

How Deel specific this behavior is
versus what a prediction might be of

where the design industry might end
up tooling itself over the next, say,

twelve, eighteen, twenty-four months.

w- is this, heading towards everyone's
vibe coding or is this actually just

something that Deel's a bit mad and really
early or, yeah, somewhere in between?

Avi Ashkenazi: I think
it's somewhere in between.

it's also hard for me, for example, to
contrast Shopify to Deal because when

I was at Shopify, we were at like 4.5,

4.6

in terms of Opus, right?

And now

Jonny: Yes

Avi Ashkenazi: like way
more advanced, sophisticated

models, so it does get better.

And Anthropic seems to be, unlike
OpenAI, willing to go into any territory

Jonny: Good

Avi Ashkenazi: and start
battling against Figma.

And, Dylan was also asked about…

The CEO of Figma was asked about it
in an interview, I don't remember

with who, but he was like, "Yeah,
relationship is complicated."

because again, they're
like coming for their cake.

it was a very interesting thing.

Like he was, "Hey, we're opening
MCP, so you can bring your Figma

design, and then now you can take
it back, but we want you to stay,

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: we suddenly made
like Cloud Design so you can stay."

And I think like that, Cloud Design was
better at anyone else at digesting the

design system and bearable, results it.

So I think Deal is ahead, definitely.

I can't tell exactly what's
happening right now in…

There's a lot of companies that are quite
advanced, I believe, as us, like Shopify,

Ramp, example, potentially Fin as well.

yeah, I think there's like a…

It's an interesting journey together
with all those aspects of design system

and generative, UI to react rather than
you planning everything in advance.

There's a lot of really, interesting
avenues there to explore, in my opinion.

Tom: Can I ask one more tactical question?

Zooming in on those 15 people who
had their Figma seats revoked, what

is the like when these designers
come to you, requesting a seat?

Is it like a, what, this is
ludicrous, why is this happening?

Or is there an openness to maybe
if you are the sort of designer who

is just needing Figma for the icon
level refinement, is there a, real

possibility that these designers will
go off and build their own tools for the

specific use cases they're solving for?

us a flavor of that,
spectrum that you're seeing.

Avi Ashkenazi: I think they're all very
surprised that it happened, of course,

they take it for granted that they
will have it, and maybe in the future,

based on usage and what we're seeing,
maybe it's not gonna be for granted

that everyone's gonna have Figma seats.

but also you have the other side of
the equation, which is token maxing and

token budget and those type of things.

Designers, literally in Slack are
relieved the 1st of July comes.

I'm, I burned all my tokens.

waiting for, tomorrow at 3:00 AM.

I, I know the time.

Like an addict, I know the
time that this thing is open.

I'm on, 90, 98% of my…

And I'm in a group that is called
super users, which has way more

budget than the normal users

Tom: Oh.

that's, yeah, fascinating.

A- and is that across within
design or across the whole

company, the super users bucket?

Avi Ashkenazi: It's
across the whole company.

There's 100 of those.

I think there are four people
from design in those 100.

The company is 7,200 people

Tom: Wow.

Jonny: Avi, you mentioned four, four, four
of your design team, including you are

the sort of token maxes, the, super users.

Can you describe like a sort of an ad-
adoption curve across the team and are

there people that are still unsure and,
how are you thinking about, as, as much

as you can say, how are you thinking
about how to either help those people

to come on board or actually that it's
okay for some people to be like that

and there's work for them to do as well?

yeah, how are you thinking about that?

Avi Ashkenazi: Look, I think there are
still people that for them it's way

faster to go straight to Figma, and
they produce better, results faster.

And I think that there's, there still
is room for Figma from a collaboration

perspective and, yeah, primarily that.

Because, the workflow f-for
code is very uncollaborative.

It's like you submit the PR, someone
reviews the PR, someone pulls the

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: natural.

It's not easy.

although I have seen…

if you think of,

OpenAI group chats where you can
incorporate or, Claude agents

inside Slack, you suddenly have
this world of collaboration.

How can they bring this thing
into the world of design?

Or who can be the first to bring
this thing into the world of design?

It's gonna be really interesting.

In terms of distribution, I would say
that definitely of the designers are on

Claude Design, on Claude Code doing this.

Some of them are utilizing it as the,
this is the high fi- Le- Maybe, 40%

of them, maybe 30% of them utilizes
it as this is my, platform to make

this super high-end result that I
can sell to, or, user research with,

or sell to, stakeholders, et cetera.

The other ones are using it the completely
other way and are like, "This is an

artifact that would allow me to align
with the PM and engineer, that this

is the actual flow that I need to do.

Then I'm gonna take it to Figma,
and I'm gonna make it, and bring

it the way it needs to be brought
into them implementing it."

So you have, quite an
interesting skew between them.

And of course, and then there's,
20% who not, Are worried, are, not

getting on board with this thing.

And I think they gradually they are
struggling more and more because people

are getting way faster across the board.

I think that they have a really
nice support system to try to

help them gain that, knowledge,
and they have lots of really good

examples of what good looks like.

Jonny: Yeah

Tom: And g- could you give
specific examples of that?

Is that through the team around them,
or are there specific, examples of

resources that you've built or the
team has built to help people onboard?

Avi Ashkenazi: we, as I mentioned,
we have twice a week sessions

with, showcase like different
implementations of what designers…

And the designers are
running it for themselves.

It's not that, I come or anyone
from leadership comes and does this.

They-- You have some designers who
are way more advanced at this thing,

and they "How I shipped feature X into
production," and they show that workflow.

Or, "How d- how did I optimize,
agents to do research more fast with

Akai," which is our agent platform.

and this is also for example, there's a
designer called Mariana, she's in Brazil.

She worked on this with Akai on a
project to optimize research funnels.

So if you think of what you need
to do to resea- for research, you

have some target audience in mind.

"Hey, I wanna talk to that
have contractors in Argentina

and Algeria," for example.

And the company is 200 people.

how do I find them?

you can maybe search.

So would go search for that, and then
you would find 20 companies like that.

Okay, now we need to
organize their user research.

Great.

Akai would set a budget of how
much do we need to pay them.

It will go and talk to the CSM, so the
customer success people that are usually

talking to them, ask them to ask for
a meeting and would also chase them

in Slack until they book that meeting
with a client, which is easier than

just sending like a cold email, right?

then when time to book the meeting, it
would look at the calendars and basically

suggest the times that you should book,
and then you just come and do a session

Jonny: How do the CSMs feel about,
being told to do stuff by an AI?

Avi Ashkenazi: They're okay.

They're, they, I think at this point of
time they're being told so much, stuff

by AI that they're totally used to it.

Yeah

Jonny: wild

Tom: Just slightly changing gears, I
think you've given us a few examples

so far of building and tools or
workflows to help automate or improve

ways of working and processes.

I'm curious about how you think
about trying to replicate your own

judgment or scale your own judgment
and taste versus, which bits you're

trying to keep deliberately manual and
deliberately human, if there are any

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah.

I don't have, the best definitive…

I'm, I think, very much, if you look
in the world of AI, memory is one of

the things that is being talked about.

I'm not talking about
memory like RAM and stuff.

I'm talking about, like, how to
manage memory, how to optimize memory.

if you think about it, the
whole art of storytelling is

for us to remember something.

How we write blog posts, how
we write books, et cetera.

It's all anchored at that.

But memory of an AI is different,
and memory of you is different.

So I-- There's two projects that
a couple of people are working on,

and, one of them is called Links.

It's also an internal
product that I built.

Again, same reason.

People wanted Obsidian or Logseq
or Roam Research or Notion, and

we couldn't, they couldn't use it.

It's not approved.

So I basically built our
own version of Obsidian.

I cannot show it here because
I have it on my work computer.

this tool started as just implementing
and mimicking Obsidian You have the

knowledge graph, you have links that
between subjects that links to each other.

You have different types of primitives,
like a person, a project, a product, a

vertical, a decision, an idea, et cetera.

And I initially started it with,
a Claude code skill that goes and

looks through all my meetings and
summarizes it based on those things.

Then I ended up building an MCP
to Claude, so it could feed and

read it in a more coherent way, in
addition to the, my personal notes.

And now it's all about
trying to manage a brain.

and then a different project that I'm
also working on, which is our Jira

replacement to some extent, or Monday.com

replacement, which is called Launchpad.

And in that world, you need a
brain per vertical or per team.

And it's different from your brain
because a brain per team is reading the

Slack channels of that individual team.

And it's not your opinion,
it's holistic opinion.

Even if someone onboards the team or
someone wants to ask or know a thing

about the team, they, that surface
should have all the jobs to be done

and all the metrics and the decisions
that were made and what the impact

was done based on those decisions.

So building those brains is definitely
like an adventure I have, been

on in the last couple of months,
reading Andrej Karpathy's, comments,

and no one has figured it out.

There's m-ma-many ways, and it's really
hard to make sure that it's not gonna be a

thing that people just forget and not use.

It's really hard to make people maintain
it, and it's also hard to make it

maintain itself automatically and keep
the most up-to-date content keep it

healthy in a way that is queryable.

Jonny: People want all of these tools
and these capabilities, but then you

give them to them and it's adds to
the chaos, the seeming chaos in 2025,

'26 of I'm meant to know all of this
stuff suddenly and, the tool, as

you say, the tool's moving too fast.

I can't keep up with it all.

Now I have a brain.

What's a brain?

Now I have to actually do more work.

Feels like more work, not less work, even
though it's an efficiency and there's

a new capability that you've given me.

And, I remember running my last
company and trying to work out how to

effect change internally within, our
customer, as we rolled out to, clients

and working with internal HR teams on
change management and, like, how do

fire people up around this thing that
they now have, which is really good

for them and, it's gonna help, but
they've got so much else on their plate.

The actual work is so important
that how do you make space for that?

I'm just interested in, m- is
there anything you've done candid,

candidly, is there stuff that
you're like, "This is amazing.

Everyone's gonna love it,"
and then it fell flat?

And it sounds like the, video tool has
d- has done pretty well because there

was just such, this latent demand for it.

But are there other things
that you've been like, "Oh,

it's a bit of a damp squib"?

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah, I think, look, I
think L- Lynx, the kind of our version

of Obsidian is, hasn't taken off yet.

I don't have product market fit,
even though it's the only tool there.

And I think a lot of it is because
am I working for the AI or am,

or does the AI work for me?

with a tool like this,
it slightly feels…

And that's why I'm working on these brain
optimizations, because I want to make

sure it feels more like AI is working
for me, and I do a little bit I'm just

sitting there writing all the notes so
the AI can read it, et cetera, et cetera.

and then, add to that the aspect of,
and the company's following me and

of really documenting everything.

And is it…

In this case,

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: offline and it's on your
computer, but even that, is potentially

queryable in some jurisdictions, in
some conditions, et cetera, et cetera.

So I think it does sums down
to am I working for the AI

or does the AI work for me?

And people think of, in warehouses in
China that are doing the dishes and

having s- tons of cameras around them and
teaching the future robots of how to do

your dishes and how to fold your laundry,
and they don't want to be that in the work

Jonny: Yep

Avi Ashkenazi: and they believe
that they are better than,

They probably are better than.

We just need to find, better systems that
would do all these things automatically.

But, if you think of alignment, and
a lot of people are, in the world

of design and also product, a lot
of people are very tired, especially

in leadership or more senior roles.

They're, like, talking to people,
politics, diplomacy, agreeing on stuff.

AI cannot do that stuff for you.

It's very, tiring.

And, managing a brain is also,
like, that to some extent, right?

It's what do you choose to read?

what do you write?

What is your intelligence?

What do you query?

cannot settle for boiling the ocean every
time and asking, "Look across all Google

Drive and Slack channels for my answer."

not gonna give you the best answer.

The best answer would be based
on your brain, so i-i-it's

worth making the effort.

But these are the things that
sometimes make people tired.

Jonny: Yeah

I think I-- my question was about
the, thing that has always existed,

which is like the value to me versus
the va-- the work I have to do.

The value out must be at-- there's
some ratio, like ten times.

Must get ten times the value out that I
put in, otherwise I'll ignore the thing.

But I think you just touched on the
deeper and much more AI-specific

question, which is why am I doing
this, and like who benefits in the end,

of all of this stuff that I'm doing?

And these stories, yeah, these stories.

there's that cleaning company that set
up in the US and is now in the UK as

well, where you get a free clean, but the
cleaner wears a hat with the cameras and,

the…

who's paying?

If I'm not paying, who's paying?

Turns out it's the, the companies
that are training the robots

how to r-replace the cleaners.

you have to take an ethical stance or
you just go for a free clean, and I'm

sure a lot of people go for a free clean.

But, if you are the…

If you're the one wearing the
hat, that's, of course gonna be

a consideration, that gets in the
way of all the cool stuff that, you

know, that, you can give to them.

But, yeah, I, completely
understand it for sure.

great.

Yeah.

So but Deel is quite AI forward and
yet un-understandably across a company

of thousands and a team of over a
hundred, there's gonna be a mixture

of feelings about putting all of my
stuff in just for an AI to, train on it

Avi Ashkenazi: Definitely.

Yeah

Tom: Yeah.

Fascinating.

have you found specifically with
this, brain-like tool, are there

use cases that you're targeting
that are proving like there's more,

structured value in a specific area?

Or is it intended to be quite wide-ranging
and more sort of general purpose context?

Avi Ashkenazi: Look, I thought at
the beginning when I made the initial

pitch for this thing, I thought
that just saying, "Hey, something

is the brain," is not enough.

And then I thought, what
else can this thing do?

And then I came up to,
it could save us tokens.

could save us tokens because it
doesn't need to go and boil the ocean,

and it's like a llama that filters
what you need to do and aims you at

the right place at the right time.

And people are not sure, like everyone
that I talk to, they're not sure.

So I don't know.

I don't know yet if that's actually
like the value that a thing like this

would bring.

I still think maybe,
but it's hard to tell.

And how much do you save
locally and how is it…

Is it manageable?

When does it stop being manageable?

It's a really interesting user
experience that you need, and

technical question as well.

And it-- do people really
care about this thing?

Maybe today, no.

Maybe later, going to be like a great
setup for the future where everyone

is like hiking their cost stuff.

And maybe in the future, we will end up in
a place where everyone has access to AI.

and only people who we know that they
can actually get like really useful

output out of it will have access, to AI

Jonny: Yeah, interesting.

I w-- I, I actually
had a related question.

W-presumably Deel are exploring
open weight models and other,

and non-Claude options.

Claude, the Anthropic models
are very expensive, and GLM 5.2

and all of these interesting
models coming out.

Are you-- is there some exploration
into h- choose how to use your budget?

You can have a worse model and, more,
swings at bat or anything like that?

Avi Ashkenazi: at the moment,
it's primarily, Anthropic models,

at least, for the normal dealer.

but that, gives you the range
all the way from like Sonnet 4.6

to Sonnet 5 and like

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: But also Fable
is limited to its own budget.

You cannot like, just burn
your whole budget and…

Because if you think about it, you
don't wanna get to a point where you

went, you burn all your Fable tokens,
which basically you burn all your

monthly tokens because you didn't use
it appropriately, and now you're like,

"Sorry guys, I can't do any work."

a problem, right?

and I don't know if it's like a deal
setting or like an Anthropic setting.

maybe it's both.

Hard, hard to tell.

but that's a thing that like
I first burned through my…

Because I got so excited and I was
like, "They're gonna take it away again.

Oh, no."

So I just like just went through all
my, tokens and then was like, "Okay,

we can go back to four-- Opus 4.

4.8

and see what happens there."

But I believe that in the future,
there's a stat, 70% of the startups

in the US are on Chinese models.

Kimi, the models from
Alibaba, Wan, et cetera.

now no one says that, Trump
is not gonna come tomorrow

and say, "Hey, you know what?

you can only use American models.

I don't want this thing
to like leak to this."

And then, amazing for the OpenAI and these
guys who are lobbying very, hard, then

Jonny: Yeah.

Great regulatory capture.

Yeah.

Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah,
it could be incredible.

I don't know if he will get
to it, they did it with cars.

They haven't done it with products, but
they did it with cars, Or maybe they

just put a slap a tax on it and then

Jonny: Yep

Avi Ashkenazi: the same price.

So y-you don't know what's going to happen
there, and I think, yeah, it's definitely,

an area to watch and see where it goes.

Tom: Let's talk about human
to human interaction with AI

in some part of that, loop.

I guess there's two things I wanted
to set the scene with for this.

The first is, posted on LinkedIn
about training an AI model or a

tool to review designer portfolios
to help with the hiring process and

help you screen candidates and, level
them at the start of the process.

which I think is a very, compelling,

compelling challenge for a
hiring manager to solve for.

I'm curious to ask you some
questions about that in a moment.

then you also mentioned a thread recently
about, AI as an en- enabler for human

to human collaboration and how AI was
supposed to make things, it was supposed

to make collaboration seamless, but
instead it has made us more isolated.

talking about the loss of human friction,
associated with these workflows that now

have you, building your own tool in AI
rather than, collaborating with other,

disciplines or people to make them happen.

So I think that is a space I'm really
interested to dig into a bit with you.

perhaps we could start with the hiring
process aspects and, perhaps you could

tell folks about the, the current state
of designer hiring at Deel and how AI

is integrated into that, process, or
where you found success with AI and

where, it's, where you'd like to solve
but maybe haven't quite captured yet.

Avi Ashkenazi: Like one of the, one of
the things that I've done when I joined

Deel was elevate our recruiting practices
and processes, introduce new interviews,

provide better feedback, record videos
for people who I've heard from them,

from candidates that were really,
helpful to explain what we're looking.

Also, bringing a face to it makes it
nice and, personally, as someone who

does not love just reading stuff, I
prefer to listen to stuff or watch stuff.

It gives You I believe that as you
create content and you know someone who

wants to work for you, you are creating
content for them because you want to also

convince them to come and work with you.

It is important to have those podcasts
as a part of my, the podcast that,

I'm working on, a-as well as videos.

I think that there's a lot of things
that people don't talk about, like how

do we judge portfolios, how do we…

Like some people are, which are more
consultants, would do these live

YouTube or like LinkedIn portfolio
reviews or provide and give some time.

I do usually,

I get I don't know, four
messages a day on LinkedIn with,

"Hey, check out my portfolio.

What do you think?"

And obviously, sometimes I have
time, but sometimes I don't have

time, so I, the AI does help me.

And if I do that with AI, I would
basically send them a screenshot

of "Hey, I have this tool.

Here is how it looks like in this
tool," and I'm gonna run it and

walk them through what it says.

The idea was to…

We have 300 applications a day at
Deel for just for design, right?

last year in total for Deel, there
were about 300, sorry, 3,000,300

applications across the board year.

Jonny: That's a bit more than 300, yeah.

Avi Ashkenazi: that's a bit more
than 300 a day, but even 300 a

day, times 365, that's a lot.

Jonny: That's a lot.

Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: I'm

Tom: Wow.

Avi Ashkenazi: at math, so I'm
not gonna try to attempt to

answer that, but it is a lot.

and a lot of it is, some of it is bot,
some of this is this, but like a lot of

it is people who really try and really
want feedback, and if, they just get

like a, "Sorry, not for us," type of
email, which I feel is a bummer, and

it's not gonna help them improve in any
way, and I wanted to put an end to this.

And so this is why I
started building this tool.

it was just-- it wasn't
just, the problem for me.

I literally felt the problem for
everyone who messaged me and went the

extra mile and wanted to help them.

And then I was like, okay, this
thing could be really powerful

in multiple steps in the process.

It could be really powerful when someone
is applying for a staff position, we

can scan it as they paste the link and
tell them, "Actually, you're not staff,

you're senior Deel's perspective, and
this is what's missing from staff.

Do you have it?

If you do have it, awesome.

Bring it into the portfolio.

We would love to look for--
look at it and, evaluate it.

Or, you think we're wrong, it's also okay,
you proceed with application anyway."

And also to bring it into, an automated…

If we are rejecting someone or something
because it's a bot or something

like that, we can provide feedback.

Now, other-- some people would say,
"Yeah, but everyone then will improve

based on what the AI is measuring."

okay.

That's okay.

Then the average goes higher,
and the floor goes higher, and

everyone gains from it, by the way.

In addition to that, it's not that the
AI, you just build it and leave it.

It improves over time, right?

Either by itself or, you adopting
it based on what you're seeing,

because at the end, you will look at
those portfolios and you will talk

to those people, so everyone wins.

Everyone can make a better portfolio.

You will see better portfolios.

The system gets better and,
the managers have less work.

Tom: Yeah, Is this something that you
have scaled across all design hiring

at Deel, or is it still Avi specific?

Avi Ashkenazi: it's still
me specific, unfortunately.

we have released our own ATS really
recently, I think like a month ago,

we will see if we can incorporate it.

But also, remember, this is very design…

there is a tool for that for CV checking
ag-against kind of, the job requirements,

but Portfolio is a very design-centric.

I had to add stuff there, like
specifically read Figma and specifically

understand when pages have password,
and if the person provided the password,

you would be able to crawl through that.

the ability to do OCR on images
and have some sort of analysis,

like visually, the text is sizes
of text give some understanding.

So there's lots of like very
design-specific things that are in this

tool that are just not scalable for
something that is not like design hiring.

but I did give the code for this thing to
some of my design managers, and I, can't

tell for sure if they're using it because
it's not still in the form of code.

It's not like a product that you can

but the idea is to potentially keep
using it until we feel it's like

the right time and, then implement.

I don't think it's like the
top priority for the company,

for us it's really helpful.

Jonny: It's a sort of one of those,
hiring brand things where you--

there's-- you can't point to a number
the-- it doesn't impact the bottom

line directly or at least immediately,
so it has to be a sort of a passion

project until it finds its correct home.

But it sounds really interesting, and
I've always felt whenever I've been

hiring, you get stuck in the situation
where you're like, "I want to give

you really thoughtful feedback, but
I don't-- I have, no time to do it."

And we generally don't do it because
then what if they argue their case

and, that gets difficult as well.

before interview stage, you are stuck
doing the thing that you hate, and you'd

hate to receive the email that you send.

but that's how the process works.

Even worse with now AI and
so many more applications.

yeah, kudos.

It'll be interesting to see if you
ever manage to get it into Deel's ATS.

and, to be clear, for listeners who
don't know Deel well, this is the ATS

Deel sells to, to its customers, right?

Avi Ashkenazi: Yes

Jonny: this…

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this is, this could be some-something
born out of Avi's head could, be

deployed out to, thousands of companies.

Who knows?

But yeah.

Tom: Yeah.

Yeah.

one more tactical question
on this specific example.

I'm curious if there are any
takeaways you have on the ability

for AI to evaluate a designer's
portfolio from having built this.

Are there specific attributes that
are quite hard for it to evaluate

and/or get wrong sometimes?

And what are those?

Avi Ashkenazi: look, would say there's,
a couple of things that I noticed,

especially at the beginning when I was
building it, which is self-affirmation.

for example, a designer would say, "An
expert of, UX design for 16 years," that

They are like, "Yeah, the guy's amazing.

He's an expert."

No, he just wrote that
he's an expert, right?

So you know,

Jonny: Just believes
literally what they say.

Yeah.

Avi Ashkenazi: yeah.

different thing that I think is really,
valued, and like it's a thing that

everyone, and I'm sure you guys have
tested for this when you were interviewing

designers, and I think like I've even
heard, like Johnny, in one of your

previous podcasts that we were talking
about this as well, is, uniqueness, right?

Like you want people to be unique.

So the tool would look if you have
used like a stock Framer template or

a stock Wix template or Squarespace
or anything like that, because

should you do it?

Let's change the color.

Do something, right?

so it would basically check if the
person actually made an effort make

something a little bit different.

Even if it's like in the world of Lovable
or, Cursor, if you use like stock, is

completely visible right now to everyone.

Like we all know when we see something
that was created with AI that no

one has tinkered with a little

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: so watching out for this
is, an important because it's lazy and

you don't want lazy people and, yes, the
content controls and the storytelling,

et cetera, but that's one aspect, but you
also don't want them to be lazy visually.

If any s- especially if someone is
looking for a job, it's really critical.

Now, one of the hardest thing, and
that's not the thing that AI can

solve, is, imagine I wanna hire Johnny.

Johnny is not looking for a job, so
Johnny does not have a portfolio, Johnny?

I suspect you don't
have a portfolio ready.

Yeah.

So how do I assess that?

And that's not just, for like
portfolio evaluation, right?

Like he might have projects from like
long time ago and he's gonna come

and like he will have to confirm to
the flow supposedly of like needs to

do a case study, needs to do these
things and no, and he's, he, doesn't

have it because he's so good that
he doesn't need, he doesn't need it.

people just

Jonny: And then

Avi Ashkenazi: him because
they know he's good.

So how do you go around that?

these are some of the challenges.

when you source people versus
when people apply to you, the

Jonny: Right

Avi Ashkenazi: and
differentiating is important.

Jonny: Yeah, sourcing is so much
more gut and network and just,

Yeah, which is risky as well, right?

Because, someone who's set up some
good references but isn't great could

slip through that net, so you still
have to have that level of rigor.

One thing you just said I think is really
interesting because I think the last

time I was hiring was really pre, pre-AI.

last time I was hiring designers
was pre-AI, and you could get pretty

far by just having built a website.

the fact that it existed on the internet
and didn't look unusual or broken would

get you some distance and, you'd made
some sensible typography decisions,

and the hierarchy was okay, and,

a- and now the cost of production
is so cheap that actually there's a

premium on having a s- an opinion, and
that opinion being or feeling fresh.

someone who I think we're gonna have
on the podcast, Innie, w- came to the

first-- Tom's first, Mostly Working
morning and demoed her portfolio

site, and it was, like, a room
that you could turn the lights on

and off, and it was, like, really,

w- exploratory and interesting and
unusual, and she'd, used image models

in interesting ways, and that's so much
more-- it says so much more about the

designer, even if that UI is not very
useful for really any other product.

they're gonna go and design some B2B SaaS.

It's not gonna look like that,
but, at least it has something

about it, and you've gone beyond.

yeah, no longer can you just design
linear in your portfolio and then hope

that gets you over the, over the hill.

But yeah, I'm not hiring
at the moment, Avi, yeah.

But it, it feels a really interesting
time to decide as-- even as a hiring

team, what your opinion is about what
good is, and you can have a unique

opinion as a team about what you're
looking for in a much more meaningful way.

Avi Ashkenazi: Yeah, and that's why
I would say this is gonna be very…

it's gonna be controversial, I believe.

that's where…

And I think, Deel would allow
for this, which is good.

if you hire for Google, probably
won't be able to someone like

Ini and say, "You know what?

I don't need anything else.

I will interview her four times so I
understand everything," and it will…

No, you will have to go through the
process because of many, reasons.

Many very, by the way,
very important reasons.

and like fairness and a lot of really

Jonny: Yes

Avi Ashkenazi: But you cannot, no
matter what you do, take like a complete

bet on someone and bring them in.

You just cannot do that.

can do that.

I made a post long time ago,
that it's like I saw someone,

failed the interview, and I was
like, "We're hiring this person."

And basically over, and it's a bet
and it su- like some point it sucks.

and I we- I went and I took some
of the feedback from my team and

I told them, "Guys, I decide.

you're, wrong here."

And I think, we made, there's a
bunch of other people, I cannot

name them, but we were wrong.

were wrong in not hiring them.

And we had a interview.

The interviewers maybe did not do
the job well or maybe we didn't

communicate interview very well, and
we lost that candidate and now they're

like principal designer somewhere

Jonny: Yeah.

Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: And so I think sometimes
it is important just be able to have

this, wild card and some credits
with leadership to say, "I really

wanna make a bet on this person.

If it works, If it doesn't,
cool, I learned from it."

Jonny: We should move, start, wrapping.

We've got some closers.

Tom: Yeah, I will pick out
this question for you, Avi.

so the promise of AI is to give back time.

So if AI and A- AI agents can do the
majority of your work in the background

giving you all this time, my question
is: What would you spend that time on

Avi Ashkenazi: I think that I would,
first of all, I, believe that my job and

the job of a director as a whole, and
a design leader is to identify areas.

basically being like water.

you pour water to a bucket with holes.

You see where there's, small
holes, and you just like…

I just go in the container and feel it
with my hand and see where there's a

hole, and I decide if I put a plaster
in it or I need, a complete rework of

this area to make sure that the ship
is not gonna sink because of this.

And so I need to find three, four
new things like this every quarter

to tell the deal and ma- and make
those bets and, pitch them at least.

if 50% of them passed and actually went
into the roadmap, then it's successful.

And we're talking about, cross
vertical, really, big things.

So completely changing the direction
of the company or making a massive bet

with lots of resources associated with
it, then I've been successful, and if I

haven't, then I have not been successful.

The other thing that I need
to do is unblock my team.

And so if I see a- all my team designing
with Lorem Ipsum, then I make a plugin

in Figma that allows them to just, access
the database and fill real information

from client information into Figma, so
we can actually judge the cases for real.

That's, an example that happened.

so I think…

And, same, even with video,
they do best storytelling.

Okay, here's the best tool, go
and, tell stories in a better way.

Oh, you can't find stuff in your note?

Okay, here's, Obsidian, like, all your
notes are connected, and you can query

it with Claude I think these are, like,
optimizing the team from an operational

perspective, getting them excited about
what's possible and inspire them and

also making these big product bets
is what you need to do, and that's

what I choose to spend my time on.

And then the extra time that I have fun
while I watch football or, whatever I

watch, is just like vibe coding 'cause,
you make a prompt, and then you need to

wait for five, ten, maybe more So why not?

and you can do it throughout, I
do it throughout the whole day.

I do it, I didn't do it when we were
talking, in the majority of my meetings,

I will for a second go make another
prompt and just, let it run because

it's a waste of time if I don't.

Jonny: Yeah.

So you don't, you're not
picking up the guitar behind

you, Avi, and, strumming that?

Maybe occasionally?

Avi Ashkenazi: Occasionally, yeah.

Occasionally.

Not enough

Jonny: I'm gonna ask one.

I'm not-- Actually, it might, be
off menu, but, Avi, I think we've

had a few spicy opinions from you
or like spicy, like level of spice,

like Nando's medium maybe, so far.

But I'm interested, what's your
spiciest take on design and AI?

where it's going, what's gonna happen?

Predict the future

Avi Ashkenazi: I don't know if it's spicy.

I, will give you a, non-design, okay?

and then I will think about it all day and

Jonny: Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: you later and tell you

Jonny: Yeah.

leave a voice, leave a voicemail.

we can pop that in.

Yeah

Avi Ashkenazi: actually, you know what?

I actually think that, there was a
spicy opinion that got I think like

my, most commented on post on LinkedIn
was like a spicy opinion, which was no

one should be, at least at Deel, right?

or in the majority of, I would
say, American tech companies, no

one can be a manager without being
at least a staff level designer

Craft-wise.

that is because it is
expected for you as a manager.

Y- no one can basically be pure strategic,
pure operations, pure alignment.

know that there are organizations that are
more bureauc- bureaucratical and require

and has room for this, but I don't believe
that in the tech industry there is room

for managers who are just managing That's
one, and that's not I said, you know it.

Like Brian, Chesky said
that and many others.

And I…

My, my add to this is that a manager
should at least be at a staff level,

and in order to be at least staff
level, it means you need to practice

design regularly, like I do on my
kind of, side projects and sometimes,

in design with the designers.

And especially if you
would bring in new talent.

If, you actually want to make the
bet and bring new talent, junior

talent, even more required for you.

Because if you can't teach them, how
the hell would they look up to you?

how the hell would they learn
from you how to do craft?

It's not-- Like AI is not gonna teach
them how to do craft because AI does

not know how to do craft, regardless of
all the seven million new, generative,

design systems that are coming.

Jonny: Amen.

Tom, we gotta keep practicing.

Tom: Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

We, do.

We do.

I'm curious sort of a, slight evolution
of that last question, but what's a belief

about AI and craft that you held a year
ago that you've changed your mind on?

Or is there anything you've changed your
mind on in the last year based on and

explorations you've been doing with AI?

Avi Ashkenazi: I think historically
there was always the people with a hammer

always looked first for, a nail, right?

And I think that it's
happening also with AI.

I think where AI interjected and
ruined some of the, that metaphor is

with process, because now you c- you
cannot really create process with AI.

you can, but it basically compresses the
process to a point where it's not really

a process is no longer important, so you
can't talk about process in the context

of AI, really, which is interesting.

and the areas where you can, which
is more alike, akin to what I was

talking about with brain, are so
unknown and unclear, and by the way,

so nerdy, that the normal person does
not know enough to talk about them.

the, thing that has changed, like in
the last year, is that everyone is

able to get to such good high level,
I would say, content, and sound like

they know what they're talking about

And, in the past, I believed
everything that I read or more, i-

in the form of that if it sounds
convincing, and now I, believe almost

like nothing, which is really hard
because it's a lot of cognitive load

to everything and, want to check

But that's the world that we're living in

Jonny: Yeah.

Avi, I think we should, we should wrap.

Thank you so much for being our first
ever guest, what are the links that

you'd like to drop in the show notes?

is there anything that,
that you wanna shout out?

Avi Ashkenazi: yeah, we
can drop vidit.video.

We can drop, superavi.com

and deel.com/careers

Jonny: You're a good follow on
LinkedIn, I feel like as well.

You've got some good spicy takes there

Avi Ashkenazi: I am trying, yes.

Hopefully.

Tom: Yes.

Avi Ashkenazi: I am, like,

Tom: plus one

Avi Ashkenazi: share every day, what's
happening inside, and, there's lots of

really, interesting things that we do.

I can't every day, but I am trying,
every week or two to, bring some

video from the internals sh- showcase

Jonny: Absolutely.

Tom: Amazing.

I feel like

Jonny: Great

Tom: the surface, but thank
you so much for your time, Avi.

It was, chatting with you.

great to have you here,
and we'll wrap up, there

Hope you enjoyed our chat with Avi.

If you have any feedback on the
podcast, good or bad, please drop us

a note at podcast@nearfuture.works.

We'd love to hear it.

Oh, and one final thing.

Last week, we announced a new
workshop we're opening up to

individuals to build your own
design tools on the 13th of August,

find out more and grab your spot
over at nearfuture.works/build.

Catch you next week.