Muse shopping
I’m designing how shopping connects Instagram with Muse: what the agent can do for you, and what you should still review.
In progress · Public product context
Francisco Guzman
Senior Staff Product Designer
I design new products and the systems behind them, from startups to Instagram scale.
Today I lead product design for Instagram Shopping as an IC. I’m also designing how shopping connects Instagram with Muse, Meta’s personal AI agent. Before Instagram, I was Nuro’s first designer and Instacart’s second.
Instagram01
Design lead2020–2023, 2025–now
Making shopping work inside an app people don’t open to shop.
People open Instagram to be entertained, then shop when something catches their attention. We had to make it easy to act on that inspiration without getting in the way.
I set direction across teams and design core parts of the product
Selected work
Visual Search
Category-level suggestions are specific enough to explore, without promising an exact product match the system couldn’t reliably deliver.
In progress
Creator monetization
Creators could tag products from across the web and choose when each card appeared.
Business AI
If no one was available, AI could answer product questions. The chat identified itself as AI before the first reply.
Seller onboarding
Sellers could set up a shop in Instagram, on the web, or through Shopify. Each path connected the same catalog and payment system to Instagram checkout.
The team had a self-driving vehicle, but no service around it. We had to figure out what people would use it for and how the fleet would run.
I figured out which tools the fleet needed, what to build first, and designed their first versions. I also worked on the customer app and vehicle interface.
Selected work
Job Manager
Operators could get double-booked or assigned a job they weren’t qualified for. I kept the familiar spreadsheet grid and brought vehicles, time, and qualified operators into one schedule.
Modern reconstruction · Sample data
Remote vehicle startup
One operator could remotely start multiple vehicles and see every readiness check or blocker.
Grocery service pilot
I tested service ideas with ads. Fast grocery delivery was what people responded to, so we ran a service before the vehicle could do the whole job.
Field research
You cross in front of a car because you caught the driver’s eye. With no driver, the vehicle had to send that signal itself.
Night field test
Instagram03
Design lead2023–2025
What would people actually pay Instagram for?
Instagram had never sold a subscription. We had to figure out what creators and businesses would pay for, and what should stay free.
I owned the Instagram experience and pitched and designed its core benefits.
Live nowMeta Verified ↗
Selected work
Links in Reels
Links became the top reason subscribers upgraded to a higher tier, without turning every reel into an ad.
Original credit
Automatic detection ran for everyone. Subscribers could request a human review when another post reused their work. If the claim held up, the copied post was labeled with the original creator’s name.
Notability
Once anyone could pay for a badge, users needed a way to tell a well-known account from a lookalike. We tried several approaches and ended up putting follower count next to the name in search.
Shared accounts
Big accounts had been sharing passwords. Now owners could add people, see what each person did, and keep messages and stories private unless they chose otherwise. Another designer led the detailed design. I set direction and reviewed the work.
Links on profile
Link-in-bio services turned one profile link into a page of links. Instagram’s version became one of the top two reasons people signed up.
When I joined, no one was designing for the people doing the shopping. Shoppers and drivers ran the operation on mobile web.
I focused on getting orders from the store to someone’s door. We built the first native app for shoppers, drivers, and cashiers, along with tools to apply, schedule shifts, and get paid.
Selected work
Shopper app
The app became the shopper’s list and map through each store. When an item was out, it suggested replacements from that customer’s history and what other customers had accepted.
In-store fieldwork
People are unbelievably specific about food. Butcher and deli counters were among the slowest parts of a shop, so the prototype carried the customer’s exact request into the store instead of forcing it into a standard quantity field.
Whole Foods, 2015
Replacements
Preferences already in the order let the shopper keep moving when an item was out of stock and the customer didn’t answer.
End of the order
Picking was only half the job. Each bag was barcoded and its location recorded so a different person could deliver it.
Shifts and pay
Shoppers used the same app to set availability, pick up shifts, and see delivery pay and tips each week.
The face of Instacart
I owned the early shopper experience and worked shifts myself to understand the job. The photo from that fieldwork became the shopper signup site and ran in recruiting ads for nearly two years.
Archived shopper signup site
About
I never really wanted to pick one side.
I’m Dominican, grew up in New Jersey, and now live in Brooklyn. I’ve always been curious about how things work, and usually making something myself.
As a kid, that meant taking a computer apart or posting poems online. Today it’s software, writing, and street photography. Product design is where those technical and artistic sides come together. I still like moving between them.
I like getting deep into how the technology works, then figuring out how people can use it. I build alternatives in code to get a feel for them and work with engineers on where they hold up and where they break.
Career
2013–nowAt Instagram, I’ve led teams of up to seven, hired four designers, and coached three to promotion.
| 2020–now | Senior Staff Product Designer · IC | |
| Nuro | 2018–2019 | First product designer |
| Instacart | 2015–2018 | Second product designer |
| Prismatic | 2013–2014 | Interaction Designer |
| Stanford UniversityEducation | MS Symbolic SystemsHuman-Computer InteractionBS Management Science & Engineering |
View role history
| 2025–now | IC |
|---|---|
| 2024–2025 | IC + Manager |
| 2023–2024 | IC |
| 2021–2023 | Manager |
| 2020 | IC |