Designers
Caroline Hilman, Jessica Martin, Kevin Pham, Mark Dearman, Natsai Mandisodza, Jackie Black, Jason Permenter, Firdosh Tangri
Year
2026
Category
Product
Country
United States
Design Studio / Department
Fantasy
Three questions to the project team
What was the particular challenge of the project from a UX point of view?
Penny had to be two things at once: a warm, conversational companion and a working booking tool. Either alone falls short. She needs to feel present and alive, and she still has to get you onto a flight. The hardest part was how an AI answer actually looks on screen. Plain text felt flat, while jumping to dense UI felt cold. So we designed the space in between: short, scannable replies, with maps, cards, and chips surfacing only when they earn their place.
What was your personal highlight in the development process? Was there an aha!-moment, was there a low point?
The aha moment was realizing Penny's color could carry behavior. She rests in Priceline blue, warms as she listens, deepens as she speaks, and her center dot pulses in time with her voice. That one system turned a static icon into something that feels present, and it reset our whole design direction: Penny reads as a companion with a mood. The low point came earlier, when every response was either a wall of text or over-built UI, and none of it felt alive yet.
Where do you see yourself and the project in the next five years?
Penny is live and already growing. Days after launch she carried Priceline's Cyber Week moment, and in 2026 Priceline built new Penny video updates on the motion language we designed. In May 2026, OpenAI featured her as a flagship example of realtime voice. She sits in one of the fastest-moving corners of design, where AI meets high-stakes personal decisions, so what works today has to keep evolving. We built her as a living foundation, made to grow as expectations and the technology do.
