01AI & product
Founder & Product Lead
An AI personal assistant that turns what you ask for into things that actually get done.
Portfolio / CV · Istanbul, Türkiye
Melih Yavuz
Founder & Creative Technologist
I build AI products, game worlds and the visual systems that connect them.
My foundation is architecture: understanding how people move through a space and how its parts work together. I bring that thinking to product design, Unreal Engine worlds, animation and brand experiences, combining creative direction with hands-on production.
What am I building today?
Today I am building aila and co-leading Humion Tech. My work connects product strategy and agentic AI with the experience of shipping games, interfaces, films and immersive environments. I stay involved from the first concept through design, technical development and delivery.
- years across design, 3D, games and AI
- 10
- companies founded: aila and Humion Tech
- 2
- agents in my own orchestration system
- 18
- languages: Turkish, English, French
- 3
Selected work
22 projects
From product to world. Selected work turning ideas into working systems, interfaces and playable experiences.
02Games & real-time
Art director
An arena shooter with solo, duo and trio royale modes, listed on the Epic Games Store.
03Environments
Environment design & Unreal production
An isometric temple island built in Unreal Engine, presented through seven distinct spaces and an atmospheric full-island film.
04Film
Creative direction, animation & game design
The Ponchiqs universe in motion: a short film, action trailers, arcade promotions and character performances.
05Games & real-time
Unreal Engine Designer & Developer
A fantasy game interface connecting character selection, battle preparation, inventory and wallet flows.
06AI & product
Design, UI/UX & brand system
An identity, interface and presentation system for an AI-native command panel connecting people, projects and operations.
07AI & product
Product development
A terminal-inspired catalog of Claude Code skills, specialist agents and development workflows.
08AI & product
Architect & builder
Eighteen specialised agents that build, research, test and operate, working as one system across two machines.
09Games & real-time
Design, direction & development
The site you are on: a PS1-style start screen, a walkable room where my story plays chapter by chapter, and two arcade games inside it.
10Games & real-time
Game design & UI/UX
A tile-based mobile factory and farming game, with map interfaces, a farm panel and a recorded level-building process.
11Games & real-time
Art direction & UI/UX
A mobile tapping game where every character has a room of its own, with daily boosters, leagues and a spin wheel.
12Games & real-time
Art direction & UI
A mobile arcade game: its logo, its start screen, and the win and fail cards that frame every level.
13Characters
Character design & 3D
Six characters with one family resemblance: a robot, a pig, a bear, a bunny, a duck and a wolf.
14Brand & UI
Art direction, 3D & graphic design
Key visuals for a game studio's community: exchange listings, tournaments, weekly leaderboards, launches and holidays, with the same 3D cast in every one.
15Brand & UI
UI/UX & graphic design
The $PONCH airdrop claim flow with KuCoin: eligibility, sign-up and an off-chain claim in a handful of phone screens.
16Environments
Environment & creature, Unreal Engine
A sci-fi horror sequence: black-and-white storyboard frames rebuilt as lit corridors in Unreal Engine, with a creature model.
17Environments
Concept & environment, Unreal Engine
A temple carved into a cliff, taken from a concept frame through a 3D blockout to a final render in Unreal Engine.
18Environments
Environment, 3ds Max & Unreal Engine
A dense cyberpunk district, laid out in wireframe and rendered at street level in Unreal Engine.
19Environments
Environment, Unreal Engine
A still, fog-bound forest and lake, built and lit in Unreal Engine.
20Environments
Environment, Unreal Engine
A lunar landing environment: crater ridges, Earth on the horizon, and the lander in black space.
21Characters
3D character
Ash Williams, chainsaw and shotgun, as a full 3D character in a turnaround and a night-forest render.
22Characters
3D character
Jack Torrance from The Shining: a sculpted likeness and the full figure, axe in hand.
Experience
Present
Founder & Product Lead aila
AI-powered personal assistant · Istanbul
- Founded aila and led it from concept to MVP and pilot, defining the product vision, the system architecture and the core experience.
- Designed the agentic orchestration layer that turns natural-language intent into real actions across voice, web search and third-party integrations.
- Architected and iterated the platform across Node.js, Fastify, Redis, BullMQ, Qdrant, Supabase, React Native and Expo, with OpenAI, Claude and ElevenLabs.
- Ran discovery directly with pilot users and turned what they needed into shipped iterations on short cycles.
- aila was selected for PitGrowth Global 5 to take part in Web Summit Lisbon on 9-12 November 2026.
- Defined the conversational experience, the agents' behaviour, and how agents, integrations and human support work together.
Present
Co-Founder & Managing Director Humion Tech
AI systems & digital product studio · Istanbul
- Co-founded and lead a multidisciplinary studio delivering AI systems, digital products, automation, web platforms, cloud infrastructure and interactive experiences.
- Lead client discovery, product strategy and technical scoping from the first concept through delivery.
- Coordinate teams across AI, software, UI/UX, infrastructure and creative technology.
- Turn business problems into product and technology roadmaps, and own delivery quality and client relationships.
Art Director & Project Manager Ponchiqs
Game studio
- Set the creative vision and worked hands-on across game design, animation, UI/UX and 2D/3D production, from concept through delivery.
- Connected characters, environments, interfaces and promotional films through a shared visual language across games, brand and campaigns.
- Managed production workflows and coordinated creative and technical disciplines across art, gameplay, FX, materials and mobile.
Unreal Engine Designer & Developer Mythaverse
- Built gameplay with Unreal Blueprints, combining game design with implementation of player interactions and AI behaviours.
- Developed UI widgets and animation systems alongside FX, sound and materials for real-time experiences.
- Optimised code, levels and UI under real-time and Android/iOS performance constraints.
Head of Next-Gen DIGIVEGA
Istanbul
- Founded and led a department helping brands adopt AR, VR, immersive media, the metaverse and Web3.
- Ran technical discovery with non-technical stakeholders and turned emerging technology into roadmaps and deliverables.
- Created brand-specific AR and VR advertising, and short and long-term Web3 strategies covering virtual worlds, virtual fashion and NFTs.
Design Lead, Animation & Environment Temple DAO
- Led animation and environment design, connecting spatial composition, motion and visual direction.
- Collaborated across disciplines on new features and existing experiences, with web applications developed using Unity and Unreal Engine.
EarlierArchitecture & spatial design
Architecture, interior architecture and large-scale entertainment environments: design development, 3D modelling and visualisation, before I moved into interactive products. At Outdoor Factory, an international design firm, I designed and developed large-scale park monuments and amusement parks.
- Outdoor Factory3D Artist & ArchitectJan 2020 / Feb 2022
- Sebe DesignArchitectJan 2018 / Feb 2019
- TK DesignArchitect2017
- Erhan Sair Interior DesignInterior design
- A YapıArchitecture
What I do best
- Product strategy & discovery
- Agentic AI & orchestration
- Unreal Engine & game design
- UX architecture & interaction
- Art direction, brand & motion
- Architecture & spatial design
Stack
Product & AI systems
- Product strategy & discovery
- Conversational UX
- Agent orchestration
- System architecture
- Node.js / Fastify
- Redis / BullMQ
- Qdrant / Supabase
- React Native / Expo
- OpenAI / Claude / ElevenLabs
Unreal, games & immersive worlds
- Gameplay & Blueprints
- Environment design
- Character design & animation
- UI, FX & material systems
- Asset & mobile optimisation
- AR / VR
Art direction, brand & motion
- Creative direction & production
- Brand & visual identity
- UI/UX & prototyping
- Cinematic animation
- 2D design & illustration
- Collaborative sound design
Architecture & 3D production
- Interior & spatial design
- Architectural visualisation
- CAD drawings & BIM
- Sculpting & retopology
- 3D scanning
- Park & monument design
ToolsTools used in practice
3D & real-time
- 3ds Max
- Character Creator
- Unreal Engine
- Blender
- Marvelous Designer
- Unity
- Maya
- ZBrush
- Substance Painter
Architecture & rendering
- AutoCAD
- SketchUp
- Lumion
- Corona Renderer
- V-Ray
- Revit
Design & video
- Premiere Pro
- Photoshop
- Illustrator
- Figma
- After Effects
- Webflow
Education
- Yeditepe UniversityB.A., Interior Architecture2012 / 2016
- Saint-Joseph French High School, İzmir2008 / 2012
Languages
- TurkishNative
- EnglishProfessional
- FrenchConversational
Contact
Have something worth building?
For a collaboration, a product or a question about anything here, write to me at melih@myai.la.
melih@myai.laIstanbul, Türkiye