Making and Building with AI:What Comes Next

Michelle Parsons shares the story of building Lora from early community experiments into a shipped product. Instead of disappearing for months to build in a vacuum, the team used lightweight experiments, a tight early-user community and rapid feedback loops to test what resonated before committing to the full app. The result was an app built in roughly eight weeks.

This case study looks at what the team learned about validating demand, compressing product cycles and deciding what to build next.

What happens when hundreds of millions of people suddenly have a designer in their pocket? Drawing from the experience of leading design for ChatGPT Images, this talk explores how AI is transforming visual creation from a specialized skill into an everyday creative act for everyone. It shares lessons from building creative AI for a global audience while also examining how the role of designers evolves when the tools themselves become creative partners.

Takeaways:

• How to design products with evolving AI capabilities
• How to design AI products for a global audience
• Design principles for creative AI tooling
• How powerful creative tools such as ChatGPT Images change designers' daily workflows
• How to position designers' skills when everyone can visualize their ideas

AI removes friction from shipping. So now every idea can reach production in hours instead of months. But speed without guardrails means inconsistent product, technical debt at scale, and teams losing sight of what they've already decided. Robin Cannon moderates a conversation with Rania Svoronou, David Eisner and Natalya Shelburne about the hidden costs of frictionless shipping, how to move governance upstream, and what actually stops bad ideas from shipping fast. The 50-minute session includes audience Q&A.

A short wrap-up from UXDX New York ambassador and host Ryan Leffel before rooftop drinks and networking.

Continue the conversation over drinks and networking on the Datadog rooftop. Rooftop access and the weather fallback are to be confirmed.

A short welcome from UXDX New York ambassador and host Ryan Leffel before the speaker programme begins.