About
With over 13 years of experience spanning UX research, product design, entrepreneurship, and cross-functional leadership, I have built products and teams across very different contexts - from enterprise tools for asset managers and bankers in the U.S. to mobile experiences for drivers in India. I have built design functions from the ground up, mentored teams, and created processes that improve user experience and product outcomes. My work spans the full spectrum of UX research, product design, and design systems, supported by hands-on experience in product management, business development, and project management. This allows me to approach product building not just through the lens of design, but through the wider realities of business, execution, and growth. The diversity of my journey reflects a continuous evolution in self-understanding, constantly drawing me toward new challenges, unfamiliar domains, and opportunities to keep learning.
Talk details
The roles they are a-changin: AI and the Great Dissolve
About this talk
During a recent stakeholder meeting, the PM came with a fully functional, AI-built prototype. It looked polished and the business liked it. For the next hour I sat shocked and unsure, wondering if my role had just become redundant.But once we had multiple design variations on the table, the question in the room shifted. Not which design looks better, but why. From aesthetics to usability, user needs and design language. That was the moment I understood that my role was never about creating an interface. It was about designing the right one.Multiple sessions like this later, three clear shifts emerged: decisions are the new bottleneck and PM roles will grow around that, specialists will continue but as reviewers and knowledge owners rather than producers and as AI homogenises design output, handcrafted and bespoke experiences will become a premium in their own right.Each of these futures needs different skills. This talk is about figuring out which one you are building towards.
Key takeaway
- The skill that matters now is not how fast you can create, but knowing what is right, useful, and worth shipping. Whether you move toward a generalist role or stay as a specialist, the people who will be most valuable in AI-native product teams are those who can look at multiple options and confidently decide which one is right and why.
- The designers value shifts from making interfaces to defining the right one. That reframe changes 'everything' from how you position your role to where you invest your time. The core of the work becomes interpreting user needs and guiding the direction, not producing the output.
- As AI makes competent design abundant, originality becomes the premium. This gives rise to a market for handcrafted, thoughtful, context-specific experiences that AI cannot serve. To be part of that market, you need to start building the taste and craft that exceptional design requires.