Typeformer Stories: Alistair S. on building bold products in the age of AI

This series is about the people behind the product: the thinkers, builders, and doers shaping the future of Typeform and the industry. 

First up: meet Alistair, Senior Product Manager of the team on a mission to envision what the future of form-filling, form user experiences, and data collection will and should look like. 

When a Surfing Mini‑Game Redefined Product Velocity

Alistair once spent an evening building a retro surfing game where players could dodge sharks, piers, and rogue surfers. A kind of pixelated mash-up between Kelly Slater Pro Surfer and Mario Kart.

“It was a total flop, but it was fun,” he said. “And it proved something important: how fast an idea could move from thought to testable product using AI prototyping tools.”

That spirit of low-risk experimentation, fast feedback loops, and serious play now fuels the work Alistair leads at Typeform as Senior Product Manager for the team that captures all things conversational, generative AI at Typeform. And while the surfing game didn’t ship, the lessons from it now influence how some of Typeform’s most ambitious product ideas come to life.

Envisioning the Future of Forms

Alistair’s Typeform mission is deceptively simple: rethink what a form can be. He leads the team exploring the intersection of generative AI, user experience, and data collection. While PMs at other companies may be tweaking question types or optimizing button placements, Alistair is reimagining how businesses and customers interact.

He envisions a data collection future that’s more conversational and human-like. Less rigid and predictable, and far more engaging. The goal is to augment, and ultimately reinvent, how people share information, shifting toward experiences that are multi-modal, dynamic, and deeply personal.

Typeform has always stood out by putting UX and design first. Now, Alistair’s team is pushing that foundation further. “I came to Typeform with a fresh set of eyes and a mentality that everything can be broken,” he said. “I’ve been given a lot of autonomy and space to go out into the market and do research into the latest technologies and understand how these could be applied.”

“I’ve also spent a lot of time talking to customers about how they see the future of Typeform, data collection, and applied AI. How do they want to communicate with their customers in the future? How do their customers want to provide their data? What makes for an engaging experience? The future isn’t just about inserting AI into forms; it’s about evolving the entire experience.” 

The Sandbox: Building Fast, Learning Faster

At the heart of Alistair’s work is a bold initiative: rethinking how ideas become products through a company-wide AI prototyping sandbox.

The idea? Use new AI prototyping tools to dramatically accelerate the path from concept to customer-ready solutions. Identify where teams get stuck, then remove the blockers. “I’ve been studying our entire product development lifecycle. Where do ideas stall? What slows us down from concept to customer? Then I find the tooling that can fix that.”

The initiative empowers more Typeformers to get scrappy. AI tools are enabling PMs to spin up working prototypes in hours. Designers can test interaction patterns in days. Engineers can try new logic models without waiting for full plans.

It’s the beginning of a new product paradigm. One where creativity is more important than credentials, and velocity doesn’t sacrifice quality.

Real Features, Real Impact: Clarify and FAQ with AI

Two of the clearest outcomes from Alistair’s sandbox experiments are now live features in Typeform: Clarify with AI and FAQ with AI.

Clarify with AI gives a form the power to step in mid-flow. If a user response is vague or unclear, the form asks a smart follow-up question, resulting in richer data.

FAQ with AI emerged from Typejam, Typeform’s internal hackathon. It allows a form to “talk back” and answer respondent questions in real time, without leaving the form experience.

“What’s fascinating is that no customer asked for these. But when we showed them what was possible, they were blown away. It unlocked a new way of thinking.”

The team relied heavily on research sessions to validate these early ideas with real customers, getting rapid feedback, gauging surprise, and identifying use cases customers hadn’t even imagined yet. That’s a win-win: fewer assumptions, stronger validation, and more innovation. 

Guardrails for Innovation

In a world where many companies raced to add AI to stay trendy, Typeform is still moving fast, but taking a more thoughtful route. “We’ve seen the gimmicks. But gimmicks don’t last. AI is a powerful tool, but it’s not the answer to everything. That’s why we needed a framework to keep us focused on what matters.”

The product team codified a set of AI principles to guide every experiment:

• Customer Problem First – Solve real problems. Never use AI just because it’s new.
• Model Fit for Purpose – Choose the best model for each use case, not the most advanced.
• Abstract the Complexity – Don’t force users to become prompt engineers.
• Trust and Transparency – Launch carefully. Label clearly. Give users control.
• Continuous Improvement – Feedback loops aren’t optional—they’re built in.

These principles serve as a north star, ensuring we solve real problems, not just build for fun (as much as we love a good surfer game)! They help us maintain trust and high standards as we scale.

Raising the Bar from the Inside

If there’s one way Alistair lives #HighExpectations, it’s how he pushes his team, and those around him across departments and roles, to think differently. That’s especially true when it comes to how product ideas are imagined. “I really believe this is the future: a world where idea generation and creation are democratized, and anyone can turn a concept into something real.”

Instead of separating functions, Alistair blurs them. He encourages engineers to think like PMs, designers to contribute to strategy, and PMs to code rough prototypes. It’s all part of raising the bar. Not just on what gets built, but on how people build it. 

“The technology is only going to get better. We’re working with the most early-stage version of these tools we’ll ever see. That’s why I’m pushing the team to start building now: prototype ideas, share them, show them to customers. This is a new paradigm for product development, and we’re at the forefront of adopting it.”

That collaborative, ownership-driven culture, and a mentality that encourages risk, is what makes bold bets like Clarify and FAQ possible. As Alistair put it: “You’re trying to convince someone of a future that doesn’t, and may never, exist. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, you can win big.”

Advice for Bold Builders

His piece of advice for PMs who want to take bigger swings but feel stuck in “safe” product work, and for anyone ready to lead in the next era of building? “Get good at storytelling. As the way we build changes fast, the ability to come up with something new, and communicate it, visualize it, and get buy-in, will be key. Take risks, keep learning, and show people what’s possible.” 

As he continues his work, there’s a clear legacy he hopes to leave behind. “Forms redefined. Disrupted. Multi-modal. Conversational forms you can talk to on any medium. And all with that same Typeform ‘keep-it-stupid-simple’ style we’re known for.” 

He’s not chasing gimmicks. He’s reimagining how companies collect data, and how brands connect with their customers through online interactions that are anything but ordinary. 

Build With Us

At Typeform, we launch ideas. And we’re always looking for people who want to build like that, too. If this sounds like the right place for you, join us. 

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