imPROMPT: An AI jam salon that felt real
Mixtape 1: Psi-espresso startups, frivolousness, 90s slacker animals and raps
It’s like the 90s all over again, where there are no constraints or anything. We’re just having fun with new stuff.
-Jess S.
I hosted the “beta format” of imPROMPT last week at Canopy Studios in Austin. imPROMPT is an AI salon that’s like improv-meets-jam session. I invited a small group of 6 colleagues across UX and Creative, and it was kinda everything.
I’ve always been into rap mixtape culture in the mid-aughts, as a collage of creativity and inspiration. That’s why I’m calling this first imPROMPT event, “Mixtape 1”. I see these being a series people can look forward to, just like mixtapes.
Prologue: Groove is in the heart
So, right off the bat, the magic of imPROMPT wasn’t just the crazy things we made, but the act of creating with AI itself. We were transported back to a place of creative freedom with no ceilings (sorry, I had to). *SPOILER* we made Blade-Runner style Dream Espresso startups, “vibey call/response” pages, and comics about slacker animal neighbors (below).
If “it’s about the journey, not the destination”, then imPROMPT is the yellow brick road.
Act I: Icebreakin’ with agentic DJ vibe checks
I wrote that ^ realizing Chat GPT 4o earnestness is a sticky voice and tone that I can’t avoid lately, lol.
Obviously, there’s no better way to break the ice than with a DJ selector agent who specializes in 80s and 90s songs that match your day. Our intros and vibe checks hit a range of things Austinites deal with on a typical morning — neighbors, rollerblade deliveries, dogs and stuff. Our “DJ” threw out plenty of contextual '-isms’ for songs selected, like “wildlife noir” and “Big Kolache Energy meets Political Slack Maneuvering”.
How I did it: I had people talk into a mic, which was coming out of a studio monitor, while I held my iphone notes app up to the speaker with dictation on. iCloud notes updated live on desktop, where I pasted into our GPT thread. Hey DJ, play that song…
The room was pretty jazzed at that point. This took about 20 minutes.
Side note: I think everyone talks a lot about AI-generated music, but we overlook the magic of a ‘vibe-check’ that AI can bring (side side note: a16z’s “AI Apps Unwrapped” featured a bunch of founder favs, where most picked Suno). I’m telling you, it was trying to map out our feelings. I nearly gasped on my Sammataro pizza.
Eugene L.: [Speaks into the mic with his story, involving Raccoons and stuff]
GPT 4o: Oh my god. This is wildlife noir.
We’ve got:
🐿️ A black squirrel mastermind dodging bait like it's Ocean's Eleven
🦝 A returning raccoon mafia building a generational empire in your chimney
🛠️ A drone-assisted reveal worthy of a prestige HBO series finale
🧠 You, spiraling somewhere between suburban detective and exasperated general contractor
You deserve a soundtrack that captures the absurdity, the espionage, the “how did it come to this” mood of it all.
Here’s your “Rodent Recon & Raccoon Reckoning” playlist:
1. Shannon – “Let the Music Play” (1983)
For that moment you’re on your porch, peanut butter trap out, staring into the void like, “She knows.” The squirrel is just vibing. You're spiraling. But make it danceable.2. Deee-Lite – “Groove Is in the Heart” (1990)
Because deep down...the raccoons are probably having a little chimney disco party every night while you strategize and sip your LaCroix. This is their anthem. This is their house now.3. Sade – “Smooth Operator” (1984)
This is the squirrel’s theme. Elusive. Regal. Emotionally unavailable. Dodges traps with style. You set bait, she writes poetry about it.4. Midnight Star – “No Parking on the Dance Floor” (1983)
You = trying to reclaim your yard.
The animals = dancing on your roof at 3am in sequined vests.
It’s turf war but make it electro-funk.5. Janet Jackson – “Control” (1986)
Final boss energy. This is what plays when you locate the chimney hole via drone, stand with your hands on your hips, and whisper, “Not this year, bitch.”
VIBING SQUIRRELS y’all…
Act II: Smooth Operator
Time to start jammin’. So most improv crews start with a prompt from the audience. I made one, literally in 2.5 seconds. This is what inspired the first wave of artifacts for the mixtape.
Prompt:
There’s a spaceship in my yard and I’m late for my coffee date.
This is where things got cool: We jammed for about 30 minutes with whatever — bouncing from GPT to Claude etc. And I know what you think, here we are, in a room, all heads down with Claude and Runway just ignoring each other, all silence and focus and the AI machines. Honestly, the energy in the room was pretty bananas (AND the vibe playlist helped). We dropped the guardrails and explored together.
We had to laugh at Suno’s rap song that used our DJ inputs from the playlist we made…all rolled into one song.
“This is the most Gen Z thing I’ve ever seen”. I’ll admit we got some inspo from vibe code hitmakers Danger Testing via Carly Ayers and her substack Good Graf (fyi, Carly is the AI/Design whisperer, pay attention to her).
We shared our artifacts, which took another 30 minutes (cue I Can’t Wait by Nu Shooz):
We had like, real laughs fun. Just real energy fun. Also, all of this had a sense of accomplishment, regardless if “we’re just doing things”. Also, Doing Things…omg that mantra will never die (shoutout Ty Haney).
A music gif-eo, made with Suno and Runway. The track in Suno is the one above, where the prompt was all of our icebreaker stories from the DJ warmup put into one.
All out vibe-coded “smash page” — movements, styling, everything all Claude. This was from our design technologist friend, Jonathan E. Open this now.
An alien espresso shop concept in GPT ended up in Claude as a home page a la Blade Runner meets Kyoto vibes.
Prompted our way into an animal-filled slacker comic strip in GPT.
The Spaceship Coffee Dash game - fully, 100% playable in 10 mins.
A renaissance painting of said spaceship and coffee date run. There was also an AR experience in GPT around this, but it would require some source files.
Act III: Let’s Remiiix It.
Okay, so we had about 10 minutes left, and our minds were blown, so we just decided to hang out (ha). However, I’m going to illustrate how the “REMIIIX” portion would go down (and yes, that’s me on the slide as my electropop alter-ego, Neiliyo).
Let’s take the animal coffee comic…
Neil: Come up with a collaboration concept between the comic and a gen z clothing style brand
ChatGPT [snippet]:
🧢 Pieces in the Drop:1. “Sealant Gun & Mocha” Utility Jacket
– Cargo-style jacket with neon piping, stencil graphics of espresso drinks and sealant guns
– Comes with velcro patch options: UFOs, barking pugs, drones
– QR code inside leads to an animated webcomic short[etc…]
Neil: Show me an image of the “Sealant Gun & Mocha” Utility JacketChatGPT:
Neil: Show me a photo of inside the coffee shop with decor inspired by the comic
ChatGPT:
You see where the REMIIIX portion of is going. This was inspired by the “remix” function on Claude. The minute I saw that, I tied AI creative to music-making, and if that’s the game, you know my crew is playing.
Post-pizza contemplation and what the group thinks…
imPROMPT combines the spirit of a musical jam session with improv — all in a fun environment without constraints. But it takes a host, and I was happy to oblige.
The thing is, since iPhone and Instagram, we’ve been operating under some pretty fixed walls. All of us in the room that night have day jobs under the shadow of those walls, but we also remember the spirit of cordless phones, aimlessly wandering the neighborhood for fun, sporadic art and the feeling of getting to “a feeling” without “pointed tech” to guide us there.
To me, the next level of experiences, and the ability to go from “thought to thing” will break down the old walls and tap into deeper feelings and vibes at a given moment. It’s what travel feels like, and it’s what stepping into a club to hear a band for your first time feels like.
imPROMPT is a way to step into the ‘weird zone’ with AI and cut through the noise. Because let’s face it, AI is pretty weird to most. Let’s remember, AI is not just for design/creative, but for healthcare, legal, nonprofits and other verticals that could benefit from it and aren’t subscribed to the same media diet a lot of us design/creative types are.
Thanks for checking out Mixtape 1. imPROMPT as an AI improv-meets-jam salon hosted in Austin, Texas.
-Neil