Marco van
Hylckama Vlieg
A master chronicler of Product Design and AI-Native Architecture. Twenty years spent transmuting raw software complexity into living, humane interfaces across Google, Walmart Labs, Yahoo!, and Kohl’s.
"The machine is not a parlor trick of automated text; it is an alchemical furnace. When wielded with strict typographic discipline and empathetic rigor, code becomes parchment and models become collaborators in craft."
The Five Transmutations
A twenty-year chronicle of design engineering across five planetary metals
The Sovereign Synthesis
Kohl’s & AI-Created Lab 2023 — PresentDirecting enterprise generative AI enablement and high-volume commerce architecture across cart, checkout, wallet, and design technology orgs.
- Pioneered org-wide generative AI workflows, prompt libraries, and automated prototyping pipelines.
- Engineered high-fidelity AI-native prototypes unifying ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with enterprise design systems.
- Operates ai-created.com as a sovereign laboratory, publishing novel AI software artifacts weekly.
The Crucible of Scale
Walmart Labs 2018 — 2023Led UX and interaction architecture across the planet's highest-volume transactional funnels: omnichannel checkout, payment wallets, and in-store self-checkout kiosks.
- Architected frictionless transaction systems serving hundreds of millions of weekly customers.
- Mentored principal design leads and built code-level design systems bridging engineering and product.
The Prototyping Directive
Yahoo! 2017 — 2018Directed global prototyping guilds across Sunnyvale and international campuses, transforming ambiguous media, search, and portal concepts into interactive reality.
- Steered major brand redesigns through rapid high-fidelity code prototypes tested with millions of active users.
- Established rigorous prototyping criteria to de-risk ambitious product roadmaps before production sprints.
The Speech & Intelligence Guild
Google 2013 — 2017Forged zero-to-one conversational interfaces, multi-modal interaction patterns, and cloud AI tooling for Google Assistant, Android, and Material Design.
- Pioneered rapid speech-and-gesture prototyping environments for early conversational agents.
- Bridged machine learning research scientists and design teams to turn research models into consumer experiences.
The Real-Time Broadcast
Endemol 2008 — 2013Invented real-time synchronous second-screen audience engagement applications for world-scale television broadcasts with millions of concurrent viewers.
The Guild Arcana
Disciplines mastered through two decades of empirical practice
Model Fleets
Multi-agent orchestration with Claude 3.7, Gemini 3.8, OpenAI Codex & GPT-5.
Prompt Architecture
System prompts, structured tool calling, deterministic pipelines, and evaluation loops.
Synthetic Research
AI persona generation, multi-perspective stress testing, and rapid user feedback synthesis.
Production Engineering
Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS, Web Crypto, Node, Vercel & zero-framework web craft.
Design Systems
Figma, Token systems, high-density transactional UI, and accessible component hierarchies.
Voice & Multi-Modal
Conversational flow design, Whisper audio pipelines, real-time feedback loops & UI synchrony.
The Independent Laboratory · ai-created.com
A sovereign workbench where Marco constructs and releases new AI experiments, interactive micro-products, and generative tools without corporate red tape.
Inscribe a Missive
Marco welcomes counsel, advisory inquiries, design leadership roles, and ambitious AI-native product initiatives.