Group Effects

I built and led the Alpha UX Design team behind Group Effects, the industry's first AI-powered, real-time AR experiences for video calling. Partnering with Engineering to hack and patent Meta's Multipeer API, we took it from MVP to product-market fit and a public launch that reached 1.3 billion users across Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook, driving an 80% lift in Duration per DAU on Messenger and seeding a creator ecosystem that kept it growing.

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    • Built and led the Alpha UX Design team (technical artists, art directors, designers) as Meta Spark's alpha developers with first access to new APIs, and directed 30+ external vendors.

    • Owned UX end to end, from MVP through product-market fit to public launch.

    • Set the North Star vision and OKRs, secured headcount and resources, and drove cross-functional alignment across PM, Engineering, UXR, Data Science, Content, and PMM, plus senior leadership buy-in.

    • Recruited and scaled the team to meet post-launch growth.

    • Grounded the work in UX research, framing four jobs to be done (create new memories, break the ice, feel closer while apart, express emotion) that defined what the AR had to deliver.

    • Proved the concept by hacking a working prototype before asking for buy-in, which unlocked and led to patenting the Multipeer API.

    • Reframed the core interaction with Scene Composition: rather than layering AR onto a video-call grid, place everyone in one shared AR space.

    • Designed the creator ecosystem as a flywheel, using official templates, tutorials, and competitions so third-party supply scaled itself.

Key Results

• 1.3B+ users across Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook
• +80% Duration per DAU on Messenger at public launch
• +14.6% D14 retention on Instagram and Messenger (MVP)
• +20% AR WAU in six months to global PMF
• +21% YoY Instagram AR WAU
• 800+ new Multipeer experiences, flywheel established

Deep dive: MVP to PMF
Deep dive: Public Launch

Metaverse Avatars

I led the UX creative strategy for Metaverse Avatars "Expressions" experiences across Meta's Family of Apps, spearheading the development and launch of three flagship products: Social Stickers, Animated Stickers, and Animal Avatars in Real-Time Calling. Through a modular design approach that scaled first-party and creator content and a quality playbook that held the bar across a billion-plus avatars, I helped bring these experiences to Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, contributing to the creation of more than one billion avatars across Meta's technologies.

*Password-protected please reach out for access

    • Led the UX creative strategy and creative vision for Avatars Expressions across the Family of Apps, working with PMs, Producers, and PMMs from Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram.

    • Directed the in-house art and animation team and external vendors alongside the Lead Animator, shipping high-quality assets under aggressive timelines.

    • Partnered with the Lead Technical Artist and Engineers to navigate proprietary rendering pipelines and mitigate technical risk.

    • Defined the Technical Guidelines and Quality Playbook that kept avatars consistent at scale.

    • Facilitated cross-functional consensus and senior leadership alignment, including on the Generative AI stickers strategy.

    • Grounded each product in a distinct user insight: Social Stickers answered a need for digital togetherness, while Animal Avatars addressed the fear of judgment that keeps people from turning their cameras on.

    • Designed Animal Avatars as a low-pressure gateway into the wider avatar system, using gender and race-neutral characters and surroundings-concealing backgrounds to lower the social risk of appearing on a call.

    • Introduced a modular design approach so first-party and creator content could scale together instead of hand-crafting every asset.

    • Drove the AI expressiveness work, training Meta's Facial Expression Tracker and tuning levels of exaggeration through A/B/C testing to find the expression range that actually reduced user anxiety.

Key Results

• 1B+ avatars created across Meta's technologies
• 3 flagship products launched: Social Stickers, Animated Stickers, Animal Avatars (RTC)
• Shipped across the full Family of Apps: Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp
• 10 MVP Social Stickers introducing multi-avatar togetherness scenes
• 50 top static stickers converted to Animated across Stories, Reels, comments, and chat

Deep dive: Metaverse Avatars

UX Creative Strategy: Humor

I spearheaded the UX creative strategy for humor on Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook, one of the two primary use cases for real-time calling. Grounding the work in UX research on what makes US under-25s laugh, I led the delivery of six series of Humor AR experiences, including Expressive Characters that consistently ranked #1 globally for real-time calling. Along the way I pivoted the team from a siloed content-production studio into an alpha developer lab that drove 0-to-1 innovation and pushed Meta Spark's AI technologies forward.

*Password-protected please reach out for access

    • Spearheaded the UX creative strategy for humor across Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook, and oversaw all of Messenger's Humor AR offerings.

    • Defined the Messenger Brand Art Direction Guide and supervised the top-performing Expressive Characters series.

    • Pivoted the team from a siloed content-production studio into an alpha developer lab, building new cross-functional relationships across PM, Engineering, UXR, Data Science, Content, and PMM.

    • Reorganized and grew the team, recruiting technical artists, art directors, and designers, mentoring top performers, and managing performance with empathy.

    • Introduced new R&D, design, and production processes, plus a project framework that got the team's work championed at the VP level.

    • Grounded the strategy in UX research, identifying five kinds of humor that resonate with US under-25s (silly, unusual, surprise, relatable, cute) and designing to them.

    • Shifted the team from making "cool stuff" to research-led bets, partnering with UXR to validate humor and flattery as the two primary use cases for real-time calling.

    • Ran an agile hypothesize, ship, test, learn loop to keep content relevant to a fast-moving teen audience.

    • Built Expressive Characters by fine-tuning 3D blendshapes against Meta's AI Face Tracker and optimizing for low-end devices, then codified the wins into best-practice guidelines and a tech-template library to scale vendor production.

Key Results

• 6 series of Humor AR experiences delivered
• 18 top-three-ranked effects with 93%+ pre-capture rates
• Multiple Expressive Characters at #1 global for real-time calling
• Drove Humor as one of the two primary use cases for real-time calling
• Pivoted a siloed content studio into an integrated alpha developer lab

Deep dive: Humor UX Strategy

Camera Effects Platform

I was recruited to build Facebook's first-generation AR filters for the Camera Effects Platform, as part of the first team in the company to work in AR. I built, art directed, and shipped 170+ first-party effects across Facebook and Messenger, including 106 top-performing effects that all ranked above the 90th percentile and in the Top 10 for real-time calling and pre-capture engagement. I led the Post-Capture and APAC emerging-market strategies and contributed to Messenger reaching its milestone of one billion AR real-time sessions.

Key Results

• 170+ first-party AR effects built and shipped across Facebook and Messenger
• 106 top-performing effects, all above the 90th percentile and Top 10 in RTC and pre-capture
• Contributed to Messenger's 1 billion AR real-time sessions milestone
• Post-Capture strategy: 38 effects driving +12% total usage
• APAC: 15 effects, with 3 India effects reaching top 5 globally at launch

    • Built, art directed, and shipped first-party AR effects for the Camera Effects Platform launch, hands-on in Spark AR, Maya, and Adobe Suites.

    • Led the Post-Capture and Cultural Moment content strategies across product-marketing moments (Pride, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Ramadan, Lunar New Year).

    • Led the APAC emerging-market AR strategy and art direction, grounded in regional user research.

    • Developed and managed six AR series for Messenger.

    • Directed external vendors and collaborated with creative coders, designers, 3D generalists, and art directors.

    • Helped define what first-generation AR filters should be, as part of the first team at Facebook working in AR on the then-new Spark AR platform.

    • Translated renowned artist Douglas Coupland's work into AR for the Facebook F8 launch, bridging fine art and a brand-new medium.

    • Designed for cultural relevance in APAC rather than porting Western effects, producing region-specific work that topped charts (three India effects reached top 5 globally).

    • Treated post-capture as an untapped engagement lever, with a focused 38-effect strategy that lifted total usage 12%.

Deep dive: Camera Effects Platform

AR Casual Games

Building on the Multipeer API and Scene Composition we unlocked for Group Effects, our team took on a harder challenge: real-time, multiplayer AR Casual Games. We conceptualized 16 game mechanics, defined the game anatomy and UX framework, hacked working prototypes, and shipped MVPs into Data Science experiments to test for product-market fit. The initiative was paused when company priorities shifted, but the work pushed our real-time AR technology and design thinking into genuinely new territory.

    • Led UX creative strategy and design for the AR Casual Games initiative, building on the Multipeer API and Scene Composition.

    • Defined the game anatomy, UX flows, and design principles for multiplayer real-time AR games.

    • Directed prototyping and API validation in partnership with Spark Engineering.

    • Partnered with Data Science to ship MVP experiments and test for product-market fit.

    • Supported 2P creators with the team's expertise to build inventory.

    • Reused hard-won infrastructure, building on the Multipeer API and Scene Composition from Group Effects rather than starting from scratch.

    • Explored broadly before committing, mapping 16 distinct mechanics to find the formats that actually fit real-time AR.

    • Validated feasibility early by hacking functional prototypes with Spark Engineering before investing in polish.

    • Tested for product-market fit with MVP experiments rather than betting everything on a full build.

Scope

• 16 multiplayer game mechanics conceptualized (timing, turn-based, shooting, puzzles, trivia, racing, and more)
• Defined the game anatomy, UX flows, and design principles for real-time AR games
• Hacked functional prototypes and validated new Spark APIs
• Shipped MVPs into Data Science PMF experiments
• Enabled 2P creators to build inventory and excitement

*Please reach out to learn more about this initiative.