A news briefing for someone who isn’t watching

Alexa's old news feed was flat and generic, unchanged since 2017. I was the solo designer who took Smart Briefing, its AI-personalized replacement, from concept through handoff.

A news briefing for someone who isn’t watching

Alexa's old news feed was flat and generic, unchanged since 2017. I was the solo designer who took Smart Briefing, its AI-personalized replacement, from concept through handoff.

A news briefing for someone who isn’t watching

Alexa's old news feed was flat and generic, unchanged since 2017. I was the solo designer who took Smart Briefing, its AI-personalized replacement, from concept through handoff.

A news briefing for someone who isn’t watching

Alexa's old news feed was flat and generic, unchanged since 2017. I was the solo designer who took Smart Briefing, its AI-personalized replacement, from concept through handoff.

Ambient Engagement

The person I designed for isn't sitting down to read — they're making coffee, half-dressed, gone in a minute. Flash Briefing was flat and generic. Smart Briefing had to be Alexa+'s first feature built for real understanding.

Ambient Engagement

The person I designed for isn't sitting down to read — they're making coffee, half-dressed, gone in a minute. Flash Briefing was flat and generic. Smart Briefing had to be Alexa+'s first feature built for real understanding.

Ambient Engagement

The person I designed for isn't sitting down to read — they're making coffee, half-dressed, gone in a minute. Flash Briefing was flat and generic. Smart Briefing had to be Alexa+'s first feature built for real understanding.

Ambient Engagement

The person I designed for isn't sitting down to read — they're making coffee, half-dressed, gone in a minute. Flash Briefing was flat and generic. Smart Briefing had to be Alexa+'s first feature built for real understanding.

impact opportunity

Design that reached 12M users

This work was designed and fully specced before Alexa+ reached public launch, so I don't have Amazon's production metrics. What follows is evidence I can stand behind: scale, delivered work, and what's confirmed since I left.

500M+

Alexa devices worldwide, the platform this design targeted

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Header

  • Smart Briefing depended on an LLM that was still in development

  • The design system was still being created at the same time as the features

  • The design org was still unsure about the difference between Alexa "classic" and premium

impact opportunity

Design that reached 12M users

This work was designed and fully specced before Alexa+ reached public launch, so I don't have Amazon's production metrics. What follows is evidence I can stand behind: scale, delivered work, and what's confirmed since I left.

500M+

Alexa devices worldwide, the platform this design targeted

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Header

  • Smart Briefing depended on an LLM that was still in development

  • The design system was still being created at the same time as the features

  • The design org was still unsure about the difference between Alexa "classic" and premium

impact opportunity

Design that reached 12M users

This work was designed and fully specced before Alexa+ reached public launch, so I don't have Amazon's production metrics. What follows is evidence I can stand behind: scale, delivered work, and what's confirmed since I left.

500M+

Alexa devices worldwide, the platform this design targeted

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Header

  • The product depended on an LLM that we being built in parallel

  • An outside agency was developing the design system in parallel

  • The design org was still unsure about the difference between Alexa "classic" and premium

impact opportunity

Design that reached 12M users

This work was designed and fully specced before Alexa+ reached public launch, so I don't have Amazon's production metrics. What follows is evidence I can stand behind: scale, delivered work, and what's confirmed since I left.

500M+

Alexa devices worldwide, the platform this design targeted

3

simultaneous organizational transitions: platform, product, and design system

Header

  • Smart Briefing depended on an LLM that was still in development

  • The design system was still being created at the same time as the features

  • The design org was still unsure about the difference between Alexa "classic" and premium

discovery

Organizational handoffs

Personalization was Smart Briefing's core promise, but user preferences weren't mine to own. I had to wire the design to connect with other domains (and back) while making it feel cohesive. After much collaboration between our two product teams, we were able to make the experience seamless.

discovery

Organizational handoffs

Personalization was Smart Briefing's core promise, but user preferences weren't mine to own. I had to wire the design to connect with other domains (and back) while making it feel cohesive. After much collaboration between our two product teams, we were able to make the experience seamless.

discovery

Organizational handoffs

Personalization was Smart Briefing's core promise, but user preferences weren't mine to own. I had to wire the design to connect with other domains (and back) while making it feel cohesive. After much collaboration between our two product teams, we were able to make the experience seamless.

discovery

Organizational handoffs

Personalization was Smart Briefing's core promise, but user preferences weren't mine to own. I had to wire the design to connect with other domains (and back) while making it feel cohesive. After much collaboration between our two product teams we were able to make the experience seamless

early experiments

Scrolling transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told me they mostly weren't.

early experiments

Scrolling transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told me they mostly weren't.

early experiments

Scrolling transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told me they mostly weren't.

early experiments

Scrolling transcript

Early on, I got excited about a scrolling transcript, a teleprompter-style screen synced to audio. I also proposed a novel interaction: scrubbing the text scrubbed the voice over. It solved one design problem, but it assumed someone was watching, and research had already told me they mostly weren't.

Process

Approaching ambiguity

At this time, an agency was working on the new Alexa+ design system, being delivered incrementally. Also, LLMs were still nascent industrywide. With no clear direction on UI or capabilities, I made forward-looking assumptions, then stayed flexible enough to rework the design as answers came in.

Early headline playback design

With player controls

Exploration more editorial style

Intro screen exploration

Design system alignment

Launch version

Going modular

When the real system finally landed, it was modular — floating cards over a dark background. I refactored Smart Briefing to match: rounded, floating cards on a dark scrim, the same visual language as the agency's home screen, not a bolted-on exception.

Collaboration

Player Template

I worked closely with the lead designer for Music, because we had to align on a single playback experience, with a few adjustments. A music player's two defining elements, the seek bar and duration display, both depend on a real audio file with a known length. Smart Briefing's audio was generated live by an LLM — nothing to scrub through — so I removed both and kept three buttons: back, pause, forward.

Collaboration

Player Template

I worked closely with the lead designer for Music, because we had to align on a single playback experience, with a few adjustments. A music player's two defining elements, the seek bar and duration display, both depend on a real audio file with a known length. Smart Briefing's audio was generated live by an LLM — nothing to scrub through — so I removed both and kept three buttons: back, pause, forward.

Collaboration

Player Template

I worked closely with the lead designer for Music, because we had to align on a single playback experience, with a few adjustments. A music player's two defining elements, the seek bar and duration display, both depend on a real audio file with a known length. Smart Briefing's audio was generated live by an LLM — nothing to scrub through — so I removed both and kept three buttons: back, pause, forward.

Collaboration

Player Template

I worked closely with the lead designer for Music, because we had to align on a single playback experience, with a few adjustments. A music player's two defining elements, the seek bar and duration display, both depend on a real audio file with a known length. Smart Briefing's audio was generated live by an LLM — nothing to scrub through — so I removed both and kept three buttons: back, pause, forward.

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting for it to come up.

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting for it to come up.

browse

Beyond the queue

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting for it to come up.

THE EXPERIENCE

Hear your stories

Smart Briefing auto-played one story at a time, but not every user wanted to sit through the queue in order. I designed a browsable list view, source attribution and headline visible per card, so a user could scan the day's stories and jump to the one they cared about instead of waiting for it to come up.

delivery

Responsive design

Once we settled on design, I had the task of translating the same experience across eight device screen configurations, portrait, landscape, and a round display (Echo Spot). Needless to say, grunt work that took forever.

delivery

Responsive design

Once we settled on design, I had the task of translating the same experience across eight device screen configurations, portrait, landscape, and a round display (Echo Spot). Needless to say, grunt work that took forever.

delivery

Responsive design

Once we settled on design, I had the task of translating the same experience across eight device screen configurations, portrait, landscape, and a round display (Echo Spot). Needless to say, grunt work that took forever.

delivery

Responsive design

Once we settled on design, I had the task of translating the same experience across eight device screen configurations, portrait, landscape, and a round display (Echo Spot). Needless to say, grunt work that took forever.

Post-departure impact

Reach

Shipped and reached 12M+ users, per public confirmation from the Smart Briefing PM — real traction against a platform that scaled from 100K to 1M+ Alexa+ users within its first year

Precedent

Personalized, audio-first news established as a category on Alexa's newest premium tier, not just one feature

Inferences

Amazon's 2026 launch of Alexa Podcasts — AI-generated, personalized audio news, 200+ publisher licensing deals — suggests the underlying bet was directionally correct

Post-departure impact

Reach

Shipped and reached 12M+ users, per public confirmation from the Smart Briefing PM — real traction against a platform that scaled from 100K to 1M+ Alexa+ users within its first year

Precedent

Personalized, audio-first news established as a category on Alexa's newest premium tier, not just one feature

Inferences

Amazon's 2026 launch of Alexa Podcasts — AI-generated, personalized audio news, 200+ publisher licensing deals — suggests the underlying bet was directionally correct

Post-departure impact

Reach

Shipped and reached 12M+ users, per public confirmation from the Smart Briefing PM — real traction against a platform that scaled from 100K to 1M+ Alexa+ users within its first year

Precedent

Personalized, audio-first news established as a category on Alexa's newest premium tier, not just one feature

Inferences

Amazon's 2026 launch of Alexa Podcasts — AI-generated, personalized audio news, 200+ publisher licensing deals — suggests the underlying bet was directionally correct

Post-departure impact

Reach

Shipped and reached 12M+ users, per public confirmation from the Smart Briefing PM — real traction against a platform that scaled from 100K to 1M+ Alexa+ users within its first year

Precedent

Personalized, audio-first news established as a category on Alexa's newest premium tier, not just one feature

Inferences

Amazon's 2026 launch of Alexa Podcasts — AI-generated, personalized audio news, 200+ publisher licensing deals — suggests the underlying bet was directionally correct

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved.


All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved.


All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.

Copyright © 2025 Jesse Bones. All Rights Reserved.


All content, designs, and images on this website are the property of Jesse Bones and respective clients. Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any materials without explicit permission is prohibited.