How Grok Bot designers use AI agents to build personal sites and product prototypes | John Bai & Peng Zheng

John Bai and Peng Zheng are designers on the Grok Bot team at SpaceXAI, where they’re building one of the most talked-about AI products right now. John writes publicly about his design process (his piece “Designing Grok Bot with Grok Bot” has already made the rounds) and shares bot templates with the design community. Peng brings a product-design sensibility to personal tools, and his website doubles as a live demo of what he builds.

Listen or watch on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts

What you’ll learn:

1. How Peng built a self-updating personal website using Grok Bot as the entire backend pipeline, with no CMS and no Figma file
2. The exact check-in bot setup that lets Peng send a photo or a place name and have his portfolio update itself automatically
3. How John’s Figma Bro bot handles production design tasks while he’s at the gym
4. How John uses voice memos to direct Figma work through an MCP connection without opening his laptop
5. The “shower thought to prototype” workflow John uses with DevBot to test interaction ideas without first going through a product manager or engineer
6. The “trash can method” of software development
7. How both designers organize their personal bot ecosystems
8. What John and Peng actually think AI means for the future of design as a craft

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Introducing John and Peng

(02:53) The Grok Bot hype train

(04:35) Peng’s self-updating personal website built with Grok Bot

(15:12) How AI makes design more accessible

(19:35) Website update result

(20:13) John’s Figma Bro bot

(23:35) Creating marketing materials for the bot marketplace

(26:00) DevBot: from shower thoughts to working prototypes

(28:48) The trash can method of software development

(31:19) Other bots John and Peng are using

(39:05) Practical tips for when bots don’t do what you want

Tools referenced:

• Grok Bot (xAI): https://x.ai/bot

• Figma: https://www.figma.com

• Figma MCP server: https://www.figma.com/mcp-catalog/

• Google Places API: https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/places/web-service

• Notion: https://www.notion.so

• Swarm (Foursquare): https://www.swarmapp.com

Other references:

• Designing Grok Bot with Grok Bot: https://x.ai/bot/guides/designing-grok-bot-with-grok-bot

• Figma Bro bot template (shared by John Bai): https://x.ai/bot/marketplace/bots/figma-bro

• From zero coding background to hardware hacker: How Cursor + a Raspberry Pi makes AI fun: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/from-zero-coding-background-to-hardware?utm_source=publication-search

Where to find John and Peng:

John Bai on X: https://x.com/johnbai

Peng Zheng on X: https://x.com/pengzheng_

Where to find Claire Vo:

ChatPRD: https://www.chatprd.ai/

Website: https://clairevo.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/

X: https://x.com/clairevo

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.