The most successful AI transformations treat internal tooling as a product, not a program. John built the "Automators" platform—a gamified internal marketplace where anyone can create a "quest" (a request for automation or tooling), and engineers or AI agents can pick it up and build it.
Conversations shift from "Should we staff a designer on this project?" to "Here's the actual work; let's discuss how to make it better." PMs can now unblock themselves, test ideas with users earlier, and advocate for design resources with real prototypes instead of abstract arguments.
Surprisingly, PMs now use Protodash just as much as designers, fundamentally changing how Stripe approaches prototyping, design reviews, and engineering handoffs.