Joseph Fagan

ReelJoseph Fagan — Creative Strategy & Direction · Co-founder & CTO, Prysmata

I solve client problems with creative strategy, storytelling and technology.

Creative strategy & storytelling
Creative & art direction
Client & executive advisory
AI systems & automation
Team training & tool adoption
Production pipelines & look development

I've led premium 3D and motion work for Mercedes-Benz, Rivian and Audi, and produced and directed live-stream events for Meta, partnering with designers, engineers and clients to turn complex ideas into work people understand.

Most recently, as co-founder and CTO of an AI startup, I turned a business problem into a working AI service, built by directing AI coding agents and launched with a pilot client.

Selected work

Prysmata client portal, shown with example data

An AI prospecting service, from idea to launch

Co-founder & CTO of Prysmata · Dec. 2025 – present

Shown with example data

Benefits advisors miss good prospects because no one has time to watch every company for signs it needs help. I co-founded Prysmata to fix that, and spent the past year turning the problem into a working service. It spots the companies showing those signs, finds the right decision maker, researches why now is the moment, and drafts a personal email in the advisor's own voice.

I built it by directing a team of AI coding agents instead of hiring engineers. The key decision was keeping people in control: each client gets a simple portal to approve, edit or rewrite every email before it sends, and spending is capped per client. It launched with a pilot client, and the first approved emails went out on Nov. 5, 2026.

AI Relay

Built for Prysmata · concept and build

Two AI desktop apps from two different companies, Claude and ChatGPT, can't normally talk to each other. I built a relay that lets them work as one team: each can hand the other a task, a question or a review, and the message lands in the right conversation on the other side without me copying and pasting.

It let one AI build while the other reviewed the work, and it ran throughout the Prysmata build.

Mercedes-Benz R&D

MBUX 3D vehicle

Principal 3D Motion Designer

Footage: Ivan Sensei on YouTube

In MBUX, a 3D model of your own car is how you reach its features. Rotate it and touch a tire to see its pressure, or touch the headlights to turn them on. I worked on that 3D car and many other parts of MBUX.

The car had to look unmistakably Mercedes on every screen. I established the look-development pipeline with internal and external engineering teams and kept lighting and materials true to brand across every vehicle.

Mercedes-Benz

Vision EQ Silver Arrow

Principal 3D Motion Designer · 2018

The show car needed a display drivers could read in full daylight. With the exterior design team, I engineered a rear-projection solution and designed and animated its 3D and 2D graphics.

EQ Silver Arrow display: virtual race between three Mercedes race cars

Driver's view of the EQ Silver Arrow cockpit display

Mercedes-Benz

EQ Silver Arrow in-car experience

3D, motion and look development

Telling the brand's racing story inside the car: 3D vehicles and motion built to read on a curved, rear-projected display.

Mercedes-Benz

Concept IAA

3D and motion

The Concept IAA (Intelligent Aerodynamic Automobile) show car, brought to life in 3D and motion on its instrument display.

Mercedes-Benz

F 015 Luxury in Motion · Future City

3D and motion

Imagining what autonomous luxury could feel like, and the city it might live in.

Rivian

Color, lighting & art direction

Partnered with developers and vendors to raise the lighting and color accuracy of the 3D vehicle to brand spec, and explored new art styles that steered the project's creative direction.

Audi Automated Driving

Prototype vehicle visuals

Art direction and look development for autonomous driving prototype vehicles used in user testing, working with research and software teams to bring designs into the vehicles.

MBH Architects

3D pipeline advisory

Advised the studio on its 3D process: audited the pipeline, found the efficiency gaps, recommended hardware and software, and trained the team.

Personal work

Personal work: chrome spheres on a checkerboard plane

Light, mood and story for their own sake.

About

I trained in 3D animation and visual effects and worked across advertising, feature-film VFX and games, then directed client stories for Silicon Valley tech companies. I brought that craft into the car, leading 3D, motion and look development for Mercedes-Benz, Rivian and Audi.

For the past year I've been building with AI. I co-founded Prysmata and, as CTO, turned a business problem into a working AI service. I built it by directing a team of AI coding agents rather than hiring engineers, and I built the AI Relay that let Claude and ChatGPT work on it together. It launched with a pilot client in November 2026.

That work changed where I'm headed. The same thing runs through all of it: making complex technology clear, premium and human, and getting designers, engineers and clients to agree on how. Now I bring that to AI as well as to creative work.

Today I work with a small number of clients as an independent advisor, on creative strategy and direction and on practical AI systems: finding where AI genuinely helps a team, building it, and helping people adopt it.

Contact

Message me on LinkedIn →

Based in San Jose, California. Available for creative strategy, creative direction and AI systems advisory, remote. Resume (PDF)