I currently lead a design team working on generative AI across Microsoft Office. Right now we’re reimagining PowerPoint for the AI era.
Design Portfolio — Alex Cook
I’ve led design and product teams at Microsoft, Google, Asana and Upside. Titles don’t mean much to me — I’ve been head of design, run a PM team, and managed groups of design engineers. Whatever the challenge, I come at it as a designer, focused on craft and usefulness. I just want to do what every designer does: make beautiful things.
I helped start Google Lens, which was the company’s first real visual search offering. In three years we went from an unlaunched demo to over a billion monthly users. I led design and research, growing the group to 35 — the best UX team at Google, according to our Eng VP.
I led two redesigns of Google Search and helped modernize Google’s visual identity — including the motion and interaction framework behind Voice Search. Read more about the project.
At Upside I led the Consumer PM team as well as the Design team. The role varied day to day: I rebranded the company, helped move the business from a cashback app to a payments platform, and grew the product from 100M to 200M transactions a year.
At Asana I led the brand and product design teams. We shipped Workflows and rebuilt sharing from scratch — a permissions model flexible enough to be useful and simple enough that nobody had to think about it. Along the way I hired 41 designers, updated our job ladders, and wrote our Design Success Guide.
The best part of Google was that you could always find a way to ship the craziest things. Some favorites: viewing dinosaurs at actual size, turning Maps into an 8-bit Zelda overworld, and letting the whole planet navigate as Mario for Mario Day.
I got my start building artist sites at Island Def Jam. Some favorites: Johnny Cash, Slayer’s box set, and the official Mariah Carey fan club.
Last updated July 2026