Satori Canton
AI Product Leader · Head of AI · Board Member
Summary
AI product leader and strategist with 30 years of being early at technology inflection points — and a career-long pattern of being the person who bridges marketing, product, and engineering. I founded Satori Interactive in 1996, spent a decade as one of the most recognized names in Flash/ActionScript development — lead ActionScript architect for FarmVille at Zynga, creator of RockYou's Slideshow and Super Wall (the #1 app on Facebook), founder of ActionScript.com — then entered generative AI in 2023 with a decade of prior research already behind me.
Today I'm Head of AI and Board Member at HeartStamp, where the role is equal parts product and engineering leadership. I own the AI product roadmap, specs, and acceptance criteria, lead a 6-person AI organization, and created Stampy — the AI agent users create greeting cards with. When analysis showed Stampy's 8-question onboarding was bouncing 96% of users, I redesigned the interaction into a 4-step creative session that 87% of users now complete. That's the work I do best: translating between what users feel, what the business needs, and what the technology can deliver.
I also founded StyleGuideAI — a boutique AI consultancy with a 1,000+ member community of AI artists and practitioners, with a newly shipped website and companion iOS/Android apps built in React Native. My practice covers generative AI strategy, AI agent architecture and interaction design, system prompt engineering, LangSmith evaluation pipelines, LoRA fine-tuning, and AI art direction.
Experience
Head of Artificial Intelligence & Board Member
HeartStamp
Brought in to fix a broken LoRA training pipeline at an AI-powered greeting card startup; now lead a 6-person AI organization, own the AI product roadmap, and serve on the board. Created Stampy — the AI agent that is the primary way users experience the product — and guided the 30-person startup to its MVP launch in under six months.
- Own the AI product roadmap, specs, and acceptance criteria; partner with project management on sprint priorities and run stakeholder communications up to the board
- Redesigned Stampy's interaction model from an 8-question interrogation with a 96% bounce rate into a 4-step creative session — 87% of users now complete it and see their card
- Created Stampy, HeartStamp's production AI agent: it tours users around the site, helps find the right card, co-writes the message, and generates custom artwork
- Lead 4 AI engineers (agent, orchestration, AI architecture, and lead engineer) plus 2 designer/prompt-engineers
- Built the automated card rendering system that lets designers go from LLM concept to finished card at scale — 18,000 cards produced in 3 months by a 2-person team
- Rebuilt the broken Flux LoRA pipeline, then pivoted the company to a model-agnostic prompting system for frontier image models (NanoBanana 2, ChatGPT-Image-1.5)
- Established the AI quality practice: LangSmith prompt regression suites, golden datasets, model benchmarking for latency/cost, and prompt versioning in Git
- Elevated to Board Member in recognition of strategic contributions beyond the AI scope
Founder & AI Consultant
StyleGuideAI
Founded an AI consultancy and creative community focused on generative image AI, growing a 1,000+ member community of AI artists across Discord and DeviantArt while consulting on AI strategy and generative AI implementation.
- Built a 1,000+ member community of AI artists and practitioners on Discord and DeviantArt
- Designed and shipped the new StyleGuideAI website (2026); built companion iOS and Android apps in React Native, launching in the app stores
- Developed systematic approaches to AI art direction: style guides, prompt frameworks, and model evaluation techniques
- Consult for startups and creators on generative AI strategy, Flux/Stable Diffusion workflows, and LoRA fine-tuning
- Write and publish on AI topics including generative models, agentic AI, and AI strategy on LinkedIn, X, and the HeartStamp blog
Founder & Creative Director
Satori Gallery
Side project and creative space: a 10,000 sq/ft art gallery, event venue, and maker space in Batesville, AR. Built 20 original large-format musician portrait paintings (Elvis, Prince, Michael Jackson, and others) that double as DML flat-panel loudspeakers, driven by a 5-channel DSP audio system. Full maker space for wood, metal, leather, and plastic work. Hosts Oscilloscope Art/Music events where audio channels drive real-time visual animations.
- Designed and built 20 DML (Distributed Mode Loudspeaker) flat-panel speakers from 4-foot foam panels with original canvas paintings of music legends — Elvis, Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, 2Pac, Biggie
- Engineered a 5-channel audio system with DSP processing for perfectly balanced stereo coverage across the 3,000 sq/ft event space
- Applied AAS Electronic Engineering background (ITT Technical Institute, 1990) to speaker design, signal chain, and crossover architecture
- Hosts Oscilloscope Art/Music events: audio left/right channels drive X/Y oscilloscope inputs, creating real-time Lissajous pattern animations synchronized to live music
- Full maker space for wood sculpture, metal fabrication, leather goods (hand saddle-stitched bags, backpacks, and luggage from raw leather), and plastics
- Produces and sells museum-quality art prints of the musician portrait series; online presence at facebook.com/BatesvilleArt
- Runs private exhibitions and events from the space
Lead Web Architect
Lifeplus
Led web architecture and development for Lifeplus, an international direct sales health supplement company with operations in 40+ countries, overseeing the digital properties serving a global distributor network.
- Architected and maintained web properties serving a global network of distributors across 40+ countries
- Led frontend development and interactive experiences across major international markets
- Transitioned the company's web stack through multiple technology generations over 13 years
- Managed vendor relationships and external development teams
Founder & CEO
Satori Interactive / ActionScript.com
Founded Satori Interactive in 1996 after rallying the game development team from a company layoff — immediately signing publishers Activision and Viacom. Pivoted to Flash in the early 2000s, joined ActionScript.com as a staff writer, acquired the site, and rebranded as ActionScript.com in 2003, building it into the definitive Flash developer community and consulting group.
- Founded Satori Interactive in 1996, rallying the team after a layoff and immediately landing publishers Activision and Viacom — keeping everyone employed and shipping
- Shipped PC game titles and mission packs (including for Redneck Rampage and Quake II) through the late 1990s
- Pivoted to Flash interactive development as Flash emerged as the definitive web platform in the early 2000s
- Joined ActionScript.com as a staff writer; acquired the entire site and rebranded the company as ActionScript.com in 2003
- Built ActionScript.com into the largest and most recognized Flash developer community on the web
- Built interactive experiences for Justin.tv (now Twitch), Bed Bath & Beyond, Frontier Airlines, and the Denver Broncos
Staff Writer
O'Reilly Media / InsideRIA
Contributed technical articles and analysis to InsideRIA.com, O'Reilly's publication covering Rich Internet Applications and the Flash/Flex/AIR ecosystem.
- Wrote technical deep-dives and analysis on ActionScript, Flex, and RIA development trends
- Covered the Flash ecosystem at the pivotal moment when HTML5 began to challenge Flash's dominance
Lead ActionScript Architect — FarmVille
Zynga
Lead ActionScript architect for FarmVille, the social game that became one of the most-played games in history with 80+ million monthly players at peak, fundamentally defining the social gaming category.
- Designed and built the client-side ActionScript architecture for FarmVille's core gameplay systems
- Architected the farm rendering system, item interaction model, and neighbor visiting mechanics
- Built real-time state synchronization between the Flash client and server at social scale
- FarmVille peaked at 80+ million monthly active players — the fastest-growing Facebook application at launch
Lead ActionScript Developer
RockYou!
First Flash developer at RockYou, where I led the creation of the RockYou Slideshow — the viral widget the company was built on — and the Super Wall product for Facebook, which became the #1 app on the platform.
- First Flash developer at RockYou — built the initial Flash-based product from scratch
- Led the creation of the RockYou Slideshow, the viral social media widget the company was built on
- Led the creation of Super Wall for Facebook, which became the #1 app on the platform
- RockYou grew to become one of the largest social platforms of the Web 2.0 era with billions of widget installs
- Helped establish the widget/viral loop model that defined social media growth in the Web 2.0 era
Lead Interactive Developer
Lifeplus
Led interactive development for Lifeplus, building Flash-based training systems, product presentations, and interactive distributor tools for a global direct sales company.
- Designed and built Flash-based interactive training systems for an international distributor network
- Created product demonstration tools and e-commerce experiences in Flash
- Managed the full interactive development lifecycle from concept through deployment
Marketing Director
Traditional Medicinals
Marketing director for Traditional Medicinals, one of the leading herbal tea brands in North America, overseeing brand strategy, campaigns, and the company's early web presence.
- Oversaw brand strategy and marketing campaigns for a leading national herbal tea brand
- Managed the company's early web presence during the first dot-com boom
- Led cross-functional marketing initiatives spanning retail, wholesale, and direct channels
Director of Technology & Business Development
MicroStar Software
Hired as Product Acquisitions Manager at this game publisher; within five months was leading the entire technical organization (product development, QA, tech support). Repaired a dysfunctional marketing–engineering relationship and used joint market research to pivot the company from publishing third-party titles to creating its own — which became its best sellers.
- Became the bridge between marketing and engineering, repairing a dysfunctional relationship between the two departments — the first of many times playing this role
- Promoted from Product Acquisitions Manager to leading product development, QA, and tech support within five months
- Pivoted the company to creating original titles based on market research done jointly with marketing: add-on packs for Duke Nukem 3D, Warcraft II, Doom, Diablo, and Flight Simulator
- Self-created titles repeatedly hit top-5 at major retailers and sold hundreds of thousands of copies — versus 20k–50k for previously published third-party titles; Nuke It! reached #3 at CompUSA
- Involved in a landmark software copyright case that established important legal precedent for the game industry
Skills
Generative Image AI
ExpertProduct Leadership
ExpertAI Strategy & Architecture
ExpertAI Platforms & APIs
ExpertML Research & Python
ProficientFrontend Development
ProficientLeadership & Community
ExpertEducation
ITT Technical Institute
Bachelor of Science · Computer Science & Information Technology
1990 – 1992
ITT Technical Institute
Associate of Applied Science · Electronic Engineering
1988 – 1990
Want an AI-powered fit analysis?
Paste your job description and get an honest score with supporting evidence from these case stories.
Evaluate Your Role