For our very first interview, I’m excited to introduce Mayara Sousa, a creative strategist and designer. What stands out about Mayara is the way she dives into the technical side of AI, whether it’s experimenting with code, building agents for clients, or finding new ways to bring complex tools into creative workflows.

Every conversation with her leaves me learning something new, which is exactly why I wanted to share her perspective with you. This is a chance to see how someone blends deep technical skills with a creative approach to design.

I spend most of my time in branding and web design, but I'm getting more and more into development since I realized I really enjoy switching between the two. With AI becoming a big deal, I'm also pursuing my MBA in AI for Business to bring my big ideas to life and stay ahead of the curve. This year has been all about working with amazing clients and getting clearer on my vision so I can help empower others to start their own businesses, and I truly think now is the perfect time to go freelance!

Outside of work, I'm an early bird who loves my cats, reading, long walks in nature and all things fall and pumpkin spice. Even though my work has a technical side, at the end of the day, I'm just a girl who loves the simple things!

My main tools are the basics: Figma, Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop, though I'm currently trying to switch over to the Affinity suite. 

Those are the essentials for my day-to-day design work, and for development, I use Visual Studio Code.

When it comes to AI, my toolkit is pretty wide-ranging, and I like keeping it that way.


I use everything from ChatGPT to image models like SeedDream. I don't get too attached to one tool, because I know each one - whether it's ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude - has its own strengths and weaknesses.

I mostly use text-based tools, but I love exploring image models like SeedDream and Nano Banana for fun right now. I also use a cool tool called UXPilot, which helps me bring wireframes to life super fast and I can get five or ten pages done in a matter of minutes, which shows how exciting the evolution of AI has been. I haven't jumped into video yet, but that's definitely next on my list.

I've honestly been one of the biggest AI enthusiasts in my circle from the beginning.

I truly believe AI is here to stay, and if it can make our lives easier, why wouldn't we use it?

I completely understand the concerns, which are all valid, but generative AI is just getting started, meaning there's huge room for growth. If we want to avoid biases and make sure it's sustainable, then we need to jump in now; we should be part of building it, not backing away.

For me, especially in design, I don't see AI as a way to generate a final product from a prompt. Instead, it's a co-pilot, a tool that helps with the details or when I get stuck on little things.

For example: 

I might run a design by an AI to get a "heat map" of where people's eyes might go. You still need your professional expertise, but having a tool trained on so much data is a massive help, so I use it primarily for internal things rather than client deliverables.

Since I work by myself, I often just need a second opinion, or something that will ask me questions back. In fact, one of my favorite things to prompt is asking the AI to ask me questions instead of giving me answers, because that's when you really bring new ideas out and make things happen.

I won’t say that I work fewer hours or make passive income, but I definitely feel like I get more done. That includes having more time for passion projects. It's a mix of a couple of things: AI saves me a little time that I can invest in my own projects, and because of AI, I can actually create some of those personal things now.

My overall approach to a project hasn't really changed, but the workflow is different. Some processes have been completely delegated to an AI, have AI incorporated into them, or I use AI to ask questions about them. The little details vary from project to project, but AI is definitely a part of my workflow now.

This year, I really noticed how much Gamma has been saving me time.

My Gamma Process:

They have a ton of templates, but you can also create a custom one, which I did with my brand colors and fonts, and then I just ship it off to the client.

Proposals used to take me hours, and now I can do it in less than one hour, right after the client call.

That's huge because during the proposal phase, you don't know if the client will say yes, and you don't want to spend too much time on design or copywriting details. It's been great.

I actually started out in web design. That was the very first thing I did as a freelancer and in design, generally. Thinking about web design now, with platforms like Framer and Webflow, plus all the new ones coming out, they're all going to have AI that helps users who have no clue how to build a website. They'll just enter a prompt, and the platform will create the basic pages like Home, About, and Contact.

They won't need a designer for those simple things and I think in a couple of years, it's going to look amazing - right now they still look quite simple and template-y.

I believe people will need designers and developers much more for the "meat" of the project. If you need a dashboard, a login/sign up page, or systems functioning behind the scenes, the backend is going to become super important. I don't think AI will handle that kind of complexity in the next three years. But for those basic sites, it's definitely progress.

Fifteen years ago, we didn't have easy drag-and-drop builders like Elementor, and now we're taking the next step with Framer AI, Webflow AI, and all the other tools coming out. I think that's how web design is going to change.