What should your machines do? with Stefanie Hutka
As organizations race to automate with AI, the most important question may not be what machines can do, but what they should do. Lou talks with cognitive neuroscientist and UX researcher Stef Hutka, author of the forthcoming Rosenfeld Media book What Your Machines Should Do: The Science and Strategy of Human-Centered Automation, about how teams can make more thoughtful decisions about automation.
Stef introduces the Autonomy Decision Matrix, a framework that asks teams to evaluate automation along two dimensions: Could you automate it? and Should you automate it? Using examples from augmented reality and AI-powered customer service, she explains why technical feasibility alone isn’t enough — and how shared frameworks can help leaders and practitioners make better decisions together.
The conversation ultimately makes the case for “humanist automation”: using technology to extend human capabilities rather than simply replace people. Stef will continue exploring that idea as a curator of the human-centered tooling track at Rosenfeld Media’s upcoming Shift UX 2026, where she and the speakers will examine how our tools are reshaping not only products, but organizations, communities, and society.
What you’ll learn from this episode
- Why “could we automate?” and “should we automate?” are different questions
- How the Autonomy Decision Matrix guides automation decisions
- Why augmentation can be more valuable than replacing people
- How shared frameworks help leaders and practitioners discuss AI
- What “humanist automation” means in practice
- How designers can think beyond today’s tools toward longer-term consequences
Q&A with Stefanie Hutka
Q: What is the most important question organizations should ask about AI and automation?
A: The central question is not, “What can our machines do?” It is, “What should our machines do?” That distinction forces organizations to look beyond technical capability. It asks what people gain or lose, what the business is actually trying to achieve, and whether automation improves the entire system—not just a narrow efficiency metric.
Q: What does human-centered automation mean?
A: Human-centered automation is technology designed to enhance human judgment, capability, and agency rather than remove people by default. Sometimes that means fully automating a routine task. Often, it means creating a productive partnership: the machine handles repetitive work, retrieves information, or identifies patterns, while people retain responsibility for interpretation, empathy, creativity, exceptions, and consequential decisions.
Q: What is the difference between “could we automate this?” and “should we automate this?”
A: “Could” is about technical and operational feasibility. Do we have a model that works reliably, good enough data, usable integrations, and the organizational readiness to operate the system?
“Should” is about value, risk, and consequence. Will automation improve the customer or employee experience? Does it protect trust? What judgment, learning, accountability, or human connection might disappear if a machine takes over?
Organizations need both answers before they deploy AI. A technically possible AI application is not automatically a useful, responsible, or strategically sound one.
Q: Can AI make work better—not just faster?
A: It can, but only if organizations use the time and capacity it creates well. AI can reduce repetitive work, help people access information, and support exploration. That is valuable when it gives people more room for problem-solving, judgment, creativity, and relationships.
But faster output is not inherently better output. If AI simply creates more work, more content to review, or more pressure to produce, it can intensify work rather than improve it.
Q: What should leaders do before implementing AI automation?
A: Start with the problem, not the technology. Be clear about the human or business outcome you want to improve, then examine the workflow and the larger system around it. Ask who benefits, what success would look like, what can go wrong, and where people need to remain in control. If a process is broken because of poor priorities, weak handoffs, or misaligned incentives, AI may accelerate the problem rather than solve it. The goal is not to automate everything; it is to make an intentional choice about how people and machines should work together.
About our guest
Stefanie Hutka, PHD, is a UX practitioner, author, and educator. She is the founder and head of design research at Sendfull, a boutique consultancy for emerging technology teams. She also teaches UX, systems thinking, and vibe coding at UC Berkeley.
Previously, Stefanie led design research and strategy for 0-to-1 product launches at Adobe, Meta Reality Labs, and DAQRI. She holds an ARCT Diploma in Violin Performance from the Royal Conservatory of Music and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Toronto, specializing in cognitive neuroscience.
Stef Hutka is also the author of What Your Machines Should Do: The Science and Strategy of Human-Centered Automation.
Quick reference guide
0:18 – Meet Stef
3:30 – Augmented reality – should we?
5:23 – The reality of the cost of augmented reality suits
7:17 – Augmenting human capability or replacing it?
8:47 – A basic framework, the Autonomy Decision Matrix, for a thoughtful, less risky approach
12:16 – Early conversations in the automation space are important
14:29 – Bloomberg LP
15:46 – Fleshing out the Autonomy Decision Matrix – a case study with Klarna
20:50 – The people who should be having these ADM conversations
22:48 – Humanist automation
24:57 – Steph’s role in Shift UX 2026
29:20 – Stef’s gift for listeners
Resources and links from today’s episode
How to convince your boss to send you to Shift UX 2026
Shift UX 2026 is an opportunity to bring practical, cross-disciplinary UX thinking back to your organization. Hosted by Rosenfeld Media, the event takes place September 23–25, 2026, in New York City and online: two days of conference programming plus an optional workshop day. It is designed for people who care about how products and services actually work in the world.
The strongest request is simple: connect your attendance to a project or challenge your team is working on, present a responsible budget, and commit to sharing and applying what you learn.
Make it about the work
Shift UX is focused on the changing roles, skills, structures, and measures shaping UX work—not just another collection of talks. You’ll leave with frameworks and peer connections you can put to work immediately.
Start with a current problem:
- Your product team is moving quickly but lacks enough customer evidence behind key decisions
- Your organization is incorporating AI and needs to think more carefully about trust, transparency, and human judgment
- Research insights are not reaching the people who make product, business, and technical decisions
- Teams are struggling to align around complex customer journeys, content, services, or systems
- UX practitioners need stronger ways to collaborate across functions and demonstrate the value of their work
- Your team is adapting to changing roles, responsibilities, tools, and expectations
Then connect that problem to a practical outcome. Instead of saying, “I’d like to attend Shift UX to keep up with industry trends,” say:
“We are working through how to make better product decisions amid rapid change in our tools, workflows, and customer expectations. Shift UX brings together people across design, research, product, content, and data—the same disciplines we need to align internally. I want to bring back specific approaches we can apply to [initiative].”
That framing turns professional development into a business case.
Explain why Shift UX
Shift UX is a hybrid event for people whose work shapes products and services: designers, researchers, product managers, content designers, data scientists, and more. Its premise is especially relevant for organizations navigating this critical moment where UX work is changing, but the underlying need for thoughtful, human-centered products remains essential.
Show the ROI of attending Shift UX
Calculating “ROI” is imprecise and can be daunting. You cannot promise that one session will solve a strategic problem. But you can promise a practical process for turning what you learn into something useful.
Within two weeks of Shift UX, commit to:
- Sharing a concise debrief with your immediate team
- Hosting a working session for your colleagues
- Identifying one practical framework or technique worth testing on a current project
For example, if your team is building or evaluating AI-enabled experiences, your return plan might be:
“I will document relevant approaches to designing products people can understand and trust, then facilitate a 60-minute working session with product, design, content, and engineering. Together, we will use those ideas to review one upcoming AI feature and create a lightweight set of questions for future product reviews.”
That is a more credible commitment than promising to “bring back inspiration.” It gives your manager a tangible outcome, identifies the people who will benefit, and ties the event to work already underway.
What to say
Need some help crafting the perfect email? We’ve got you:
Subject: Requesting approval to attend Shift UX 2026 (Sept 23–25)
Hi [Manager’s name],
I’d like to request approval and budget to attend Shift UX 2026, and wanted to make the case directly rather than just forward a registration link.
Why this one. UX demand looks like it’s shrinking, but the actual need for the work isn’t—what’s stuck is the way we’ve packaged it: titles, team structures, roles, and metrics that haven’t caught up. Shift UX is built around that exact problem, which is directly relevant to [what our team/org is currently navigating—e.g., a reorg, flat headcount, unclear UX metrics, pressure to prove UX value]. I’d come back with frameworks and peer contacts I can put to use right away, not just notes from sessions.
What it costs me in time. [Sept 23 workshop or UX Leadership Salon day / Sept 22–25 with travel] out of office.
Format and cost options:
- Main conference only (Sept 24–25): $995 in-person / $595 virtual
- Workshop day only (Sept 23, in-person): $995
- Both together: $1,890
- VIP track (director+, in-person Sept 23): $1,995—includes the day-long UX Leadership Salon with Peter Merholz and an evening reception with speakers and other UX leaders
- Volume discounts if [other team members] attend too, and 15% off for government/higher ed/nonprofit staff
I’d like to attend [option]—total cost $[amount], plus [travel/lodging if applicable]. I’m asking for approval by [date] to lock in [any pricing deadline, if one applies].Happy to share what I learn with the team afterward—a debrief, or folding what’s useful into [a specific team process, e.g. our next planning cycle]. The conference ticket includes access to the sessions’ recordings and decks, sensemaking artifacts (e.g., sketchnotes), human-written notes, and reading lists.
Thanks for considering it,
[Your name]
Make the decision easier
A good request acknowledges that your manager has to weigh learning against budget, work commitments, and fairness across the team. Respect those tradeoffs. Be transparent about costs, propose an attendance format that fits the organization, and show exactly how you will extend the value beyond yourself.
Shift UX 2026 is built around a timely reality: the work of creating useful, understandable, effective products and services now requires people to collaborate across shifting roles and disciplines. Your pitch should reflect that same reality.
Do not ask your manager to fund a trip. Ask them to invest in an experience that will help your team make better decisions, build stronger connections across functions, and respond thoughtfully to what comes next.
Designing your own path in an uncertain UX landscape with Catt Small
What if uncertainty isn’t something UX professionals need to survive — but an opportunity to reshape what comes next? Catt Small and Lou explore how designers can reclaim agency at a moment when familiar roles, tools, and assumptions about the industry are shifting. Drawing on her own evolution from web designer to staff designer, Catt argues that career paths aren’t fixed: designers can identify where they bring the most value and help shape roles around their strengths.
Catt and Lou discuss why today’s upheaval isn’t entirely new, how experimentation can help designers navigate ambiguity, and why the optimism that once surrounded technology has become more complicated. They also explore design’s role within the realities of business—and why making things better sometimes means slowing down, adding friction, asking harder questions, and helping organizations make more thoughtful decisions.
Catt, who will open the inaugural Shift UX conference, ultimately offers a hopeful message: even in uncertain times, designers have agency—and uncertainty can be an ideal time to make meaningful moves.
What you’ll learn from this episode
- How to shape a design career around your strengths rather than a prescribed path
- Why agency matters when roles, tools, and expectations are changing
- How today’s UX uncertainty echoes earlier periods of industry transformation
- Why designers increasingly help organizations explore possibilities and make better decisions
- How business realities complicate the goal of designing for people
- Why uncertainty can create opportunities to experiment, advocate, and make meaningful career moves
Q&A with Catt Small
Q: What should UX designers do when the UX job market and technology are changing rapidly?
A: Start by recognizing that uncertainty is not a signal to freeze. The UX industry has always changed: job titles evolve, tools shift, organizations reorganize, and new technology changes how teams work. What matters is understanding where you create the most value and making intentional choices about the problems, teams, and types of work you want to contribute to.
Rather than waiting for a clearly defined career path, designers can build agency by identifying their strengths, experimenting with new directions, and helping shape the role they need to do their best work. Times of uncertainty can be a particularly good time to make meaningful moves because old assumptions are already being questioned.
Q: What does responsible UX design look like in the current technology landscape?
A: Responsible UX design means asking harder questions about what a product enables, who benefits, who may be harmed, and whether speed or convenience is being prioritized at the expense of people. The technology industry has often treated innovation as automatically positive, but designers need to examine the real impacts of the systems they help create.
That requires designers to look beyond whether an experience is usable or visually polished. Responsible UX includes considering incentives, downstream effects, user autonomy, privacy, accessibility, misinformation, exclusion, and the social consequences of a product decision. Design is not neutral when it shapes what people can do, what they understand, and what choices are easiest to make.
Q: How can designers advocate for better product decisions?
A: Advocacy starts with connecting design concerns to the goals and language of the organization. If you want leaders to consider a user need, a risk, or an ethical concern, explain how it affects customer trust, product quality, adoption, retention, operational cost, or the company’s long-term reputation.
It also helps to bring evidence and options. Instead of only saying, “This is a bad idea,” show the user impact, describe the tradeoff, and propose a better path forward. Designers can use research, prototypes, scenarios, and clear storytelling to make abstract risks concrete. Good advocacy is not just criticism; it helps a team see a more responsible and effective choice.
Q: What is the best career advice for UX designers facing uncertainty?
A: Know yourself and understand the value you bring. The most useful career decisions are not based solely on what title appears next on a ladder. They come from knowing your strengths, your interests, the type of impact you want to have, and the conditions under which you can do your best work. A career is not a straight line, and you do not have to be told what kind of job you should have. In a changing UX landscape, self-awareness, adaptability, and a willingness to make intentional moves are forms of leadership.
Q: How can UX teams use uncertainty as an opportunity?
A: The key is not to romanticize uncertainty—it can be difficult and destabilizing. But when change is already happening, UX professionals have an opening to participate in shaping what comes next. Designers can use that moment to advocate for better decision-making, more intentional products, and career paths that reflect real value rather than outdated expectations.
Q: Why is uncertainty in UX a useful theme for Shift UX?
A: Uncertainty is already part of the reality many UX professionals are navigating. Roles are changing, teams are changing, tools are changing, and the expectations placed on design are changing. Shift UX creates space to talk honestly about that—not as a reason to panic, but as an opportunity to question assumptions about what a successful UX career or practice is supposed to look like.
Q: What will attendees learn from your Shift UX keynote, “Your Future is Nebulous—and Why That’s Good”?
A: I want attendees to leave with a more useful relationship to ambiguity. The goal is not to pretend that career changes, AI, shifting job titles, or organizational instability are easy. The goal is to see that a less certain future also makes room for experimentation, agency, and paths that may not have been visible before.
UX has changed many times before. Instead of waiting for the industry to provide a perfect next step, attendees can consider what they want to learn, what kind of impact they want to have, and how they can shape a role around their strengths and the needs they see around them. That is especially important when the traditional UX career ladder no longer reflects how work actually gets done.
About our guest
Catt Small is a Staff Product Designer who has done design work for companies of all sizes including Asana, Etsy, SoundCloud, and Nasdaq. She started coding around the age of 10 and designing at the age of 15. She graduated from SVA with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2011 and later received an MS in Integrated Digital Media from the NYU Tandon School of Engineering in 2016.
An observer at heart, Catt focuses on ways to improve the lives of people through design. She is interested in ways to increase empathy through interactive media. Many of her personal projects center around the human experience and tackle issues related to interpersonal relationships, self-expression, gender, and race. In addition to her product design work, Catt makes video games by herself and with friends. She is co-organizer of the Game Devs of Color Expo, an annual event that amplifies the creative power held by people of color in games. In her spare time, she writes about professional development and creates artwork of all kinds.
Quick reference guide
0:10 – Meet Catt Small (and her kittens), and learn about Catt and Lou’s ground rules for their conversation
3:27 – The career ladder is made up, so we should feel free to change it
7:26 – Embracing constant evolution rather than resisting change
10:20 – Advice for embracing change: know yourself
13:26 – Lessons gleaned from others
16:39 – A sale on book pre-orders
17:38 – UX returns to experimentation
21:28 – Tech’s optimism vs harder questions about progress and impact
24:47 – Designing for people while navigating the realities of business
26:57 – Shifting from removing friction to facilitating better decisions
29:32 – Finding agency and making meaningful moves
31:02 – About Shift UX 2026
32:08 – Catt’s gift for the audience
Resources and Links from Today’s Episode:
One week only: Get $150 off tickets to Shift UX 2026
Shift UX 2026, Rosenfeld’s newest two-day, hybrid conference (plus an optional day of workshops) for people who care deeply about how products and services actually work in the world, is fast approaching!
On September 24-25, we’re looking forward to bringing together professionals who currently work as designers, researchers, product managers, content designers, data scientists, and adjacent practitioners who know UX is more important than ever—even as traditional UX roles blur or disappear.
And this is your last chance to join us either in-person in New York City or virtually.
For five days only, you can get $150 off your ticket to Shift UX 2026.
Unlock access to the first-ever conference dedicated to the future of the profession for user experience designers, researchers, PMs, and others just like you. You’ll see two days of talks jam-packed with the latest insights on the state of UX from speakers hailing from companies such as IBM, InVision, Dalberg Design, Dropbox, and more!
Want to dive deeper? Attend one of our in-person expert-led workshops on September 23!
And guess what? There’s no discount code needed — the $150 is already reflected in the flash sale ticket price. Register by September 18th at 11:59 pm EST to lock in your savings!
VIP and low-cost tickets are excluded from this promotion.
From information architecture to sensemaking with Abby Covert
As UX roles and titles continue to shift, the ability to make sense of complexity may matter more than ever. Lou talks with information architect, author, and longtime collaborator Abby Covert about how her work evolved from information architecture into the broader practice of sensemaking—and why she believes that work extends far beyond people with “IA” in their job titles.
Abby also offers a preview of Shift UX, Rosenfeld Media’s hybrid conference on September 24–25, where she is one of the main curators. She explains how the event itself is being redesigned to move away from “design theater”: speakers will share the stage, dedicated sensemakers will connect ideas across talks, and the audience will become part of the conversation.
The conversation explores Abby’s Sensemakers Club, the importance of creating genuine community, and her new book, Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers. Throughout, Abby makes the case that sensemaking isn’t simply about organizing information—it’s also about understanding people, adapting how we communicate, and helping others turn complexity into something they can actually use.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- How information architecture led Abby to the broader practice of sensemaking
- Why UX skills may outlast traditional UX roles and titles
- How Shift UX is rethinking the traditional conference experience
- Why sensemaking is personal—and looks different for everyone
- How intentional discussion can turn connection into genuine community
- Why adapting how you communicate can make your work more effective
Q&A with Abby Covert
This interview has been edited for clarity and length from Abby Covert’s appearance on the Rosenfeld Review Podcast, “From Information Architecture to Sensemaking.” Responses are adapted from the podcast discussion and should not be treated as verbatim quotations.
Q: UX is shifting. What do you think is changing most fundamentally about the work?
A: Titles are changing, organizations are uncertain, and conventional UX boundaries are less stable. Shift UX is positioned as a place to work through that change—not merely observe it.
Q: Why is sensemaking such an important skill for UX practitioners now?
A: So much of the work is not simply about making a screen, a service, or a piece of content. It is about helping people understand complex systems, competing priorities, changing information, and different points of view. Sensemaking gives us a way to work with that complexity instead of pretending it is not there.
Q: What can information architecture teach people beyond the IA field?
A: Information architecture has always involved more than navigation or menus. It is about how people understand information, how language affects that understanding, and how systems are structured. Those are useful concerns for anyone working in design, research, content, product, operations, or leadership.
Q: Why is this the right moment for a new UX conference?
A: We are in a moment where people are asking real questions about what UX is, where the work belongs, and how it needs to evolve. Those questions are bigger than any one discipline or role. We need spaces where people can come together, compare what they are seeing, make sense of it, and think about what comes next.
Q: What could someone gain from attending Shift UX that they may not get from watching talks alone?
A: The value is not only in the content of any individual talk. It is in what happens when people gather around the ideas: the conversations, the connections, the different perspectives, and the chance to make sense of what matters to you. A meaningful event gives people a way to participate in the work of understanding, not just consume someone else’s conclusions.
Q: How can Shift UX help someone whose role no longer fits neatly under “UX”?
A: You do not have to fit neatly into one label to contribute to this work. Many people are already working across boundaries: research, content, design, product, operations, technology, and organizational change. If your work involves helping people make sense of complex situations and building things that work better in the world, you belong in the conversation.
Q: What is the most important idea you want people to take from this conversation?
A: Sensemaking is not simply about organizing information. It is about understanding people, adapting how we communicate, and helping others transform complexity into something useful. That work matters whether you call yourself an information architect, a UX practitioner, a researcher, a content strategist, a designer, or something else entirely.
About our guest
Abby Covert is an information architect, writer, and community organizer who specializes in helping people make sense of messes. She has written three books on sensemaking. How to Make Sense of Any Mess (2014), Stuck? Diagrams Help. (2022), and Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers (2026).
In 2020, she left a 20-year consulting career to focus on independent publishing and community building. Since then, she launched Makesensemess, a beloved annual storytelling event celebrating sensemakers, and founded The Sensemakers Club. Abby now serves as the Chief Sensemaker of 170+ sensemakers globally, reporting on discussion trends, identifying and training new discussion leaders and mentoring a growing list of Sensemakers in Residence producing experiments in Community-Powered Education.
Quick Reference Guide:
0:16 – Meet Abby
2:29 – Sense-making as part of information architecture; placemaking vs sensemaking
5:31 – More on the term sensemaking
9:46 – More on placemaking; moving away from performance and toward disclosure; experience design
16:09 – 15% off on two books: What Your Machines Should Do by Stephanie Hutka and Body Talk by Dane DeSutter and Stephanie Scopelitis
17:17 – Sensemaking is personal
19:11 – What sensemaking will look like at the Shift UX conference
21:22 – Sensemakers Club and Abby’s book
26:27 – More on Abby’s book
30:34 – Abby’s gift for listeners
31:33 – Check out the Rosenverse
Resources:
How to Make Sense of Any Mess by Abby Covert
Shift UX conference – September 23-25, 2026
Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers by Abby Covert
Join Abby Covert at Shift UX 2026.
Attend live in New York City or participate online, September 23–25, 2026. Shift UX brings together practitioners working across UX, research, design, product, content, data, technology, and organizational change to explore how products and services can work better in the real world.
Attending Shift UX 2026 remotely? Here’s your virtual social events rundown
On September 23-25, we’re bringing together professionals who currently work as designers, researchers, product managers, content designers, data scientists, and adjacent practitioners who know UX is more important than ever—even as traditional UX roles blur or disappear.
We just announced a killer schedule of activities for our in-person attendees, but that doesn’t mean we’re skimping on the experience for our remote conference-goers!
The highlights of the Shift UX 2026 conference aren’t limited to the stage…It’s in the connections you’ll make!
See what we have in store for all of our remote attendees on the first day of the conference, September 24:
Pre-conference Warmup
9:30-10:0am: Kick the day off with an informal virtual warm-up session, hosted by virtual emcee Frances Yllana. Come say hello, meet fellow remote attendees, and get comfortable before the day’s programming begins—pet photos highly encouraged. No agenda, no pressure, just a friendly way to feel like part of the room even when you’re not in it.
Cozy Juicy Real virtual boardgame/networking session
5:15-6:30pm: Whether you’re looking to expand your network, meet your next client, or connect with collaborators, this is your opportunity to make it happen.
You’ll experience Cozy Juicy Real, a simple, effective board game that’s been played in 71 countries. It’s proven to create stronger team bonds at the world’s most successful organizations—including Google, Adobe, and the UN.
“You will connect. Cozy Juicy Real is the best way to foster connection online.”
– Marcia Goddard, Chief Culture Officer, The Contentment Foundation
Not registered for the groundbreaking Shift UX conference yet? Register now before it’s too late!
8 can’t-miss off-stage experiences at Shift UX 2026
On September 23-25 in New York City, we’re bringing together professionals who currently work as designers, researchers, product managers, content designers, data scientists, and adjacent practitioners who know UX is more important than ever—even as traditional UX roles blur or disappear.
But the highlights of the Shift UX 2026 conference aren’t limited to the stage…It’s in the connections you’ll make in New York City!
Our incredible team has been hard at work curating a lineup of fun activities for you to do between inspiring keynotes.
Because Shift UX isn’t just about the amazing program lineup and guest speakers; it’s about the people you meet while you’re there!
See what we have in store for all of our in-person attendees.
Wednesday, September 23
VIP reception
6:00-8:00pm: Some of the best conversations at Shift UX happen off the agenda. Sponsored by Nava, the VIP Reception is an invitation-only evening for speakers, sponsors, and VIP Conference Ticket holders—director-level leaders and above—following the UX Leadership Salon. It’s a rare chance to unwind and connect candidly with your peers shaping the field’s direction, away from the crowd. Space is reserved exclusively for this group. VIP Conference Tickets include entry to both Wednesday events.
Dinner groups
6:00pm: Skip the solo takeout and dine with fellow attendees. We’ve reserved tables for small groups of 10 at three spots: an Italian trattoria, a Thai favorite, and historic Fraunces Tavern, where George Washington delivered his farewell address. We make the reservation; you just sign up (keep an eye on your email after you register!). Spots are limited and first-come, first-served, so claim your seat and your restaurant early.
Thursday, September 24
Morning group run
6:30-7:30am: Led by Stef Hutka, join us for a no-drop run along the iconic Two Bridges route, taking you across the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges (3.78 miles)! We’ll start and end in McLaughlin Park in Brooklyn, at the corner of Jay and Tillary. All paces welcome. We will stop at Confucius Plaza Statue (1 Bowery) around 7am if you want to join from the Manhattan side.
Read more about the run here (note: the meeting/ending point is NOT #1 on the map)
Book signings
Meet some of your favorite authors on the conference floor during breaks in the program:
- Catt Small (The Staff Designer)
- Christopher Noessel (Make It So, Designing Agentive Technology, Designing Assistant Technology)
- Alison Rand (Sentido: Finding Sense and Purpose in Design Leadership)
- Abby Covert (How to Make Sense of Any Mess, Stuck? Diagrams Help., Timeless Sensemaking for Modern Sensemakers)
Opening reception
5:30-7:30pm: Cap off day one at our Opening Night Reception, sponsored by Bloomberg L.P. After a full day of sessions, join the entire Shift UX 2026 community—attendees, speakers, and sponsors alike—for drinks, food, and the kind of hallway conversation that’s as valuable as anything on the agenda. Open to everyone at the conference, no extra ticket required; just show up and dive in.
Games night
8:00-10:00pm: Looking for an escape from the digital world? Time to get tactile! Join host Dan Brown and your fellow Shift UX attendees for some friendly tabletop gaming. Whether you prefer deep strategy or casual fun, we have a wide selection of games for you to choose from including Wingspan, Azul, Flip 7, Splendor, Spaceteam, and many more!. Come meet colleagues, enjoy a refreshment, and play a great game or two. No experience necessary!
Friday, September 25
(More) Book signings
Meet some of your favorite authors on the conference floor during breaks in the program:
- Sheryl Cababa (Closing the Loop)
- Donna Lichaw (The User’s Journey, The Leader’s Journey)
- Stefanie Hutka (What Your Machines Should Do)
Sunrise yoga
7:00-8:00am: Start your day with a moment of calm: Conference curator Jem Ahmed will lead a session of gentle morning yoga and breathwork with a view of the Manhattan skyline. Whether you’re an experienced yogi or have never stepped onto a mat before, join us for a moment to connect with yourself before the second day of the conference begins.
Jem Ahmed is a classically trained yoga, breathwork and meditation teacher. She’ll draw on the ancient, interconnected practices of yoga and Ayurveda. Beginner and injury friendly. Mats and lovely views provided!
Dinner groups
6:00pm: Close out the week with a dinner group of 10 fellow attendees, exploring what NYC does best. Choose from Chinese, Korean, or a trip to Brooklyn’s legendary original Junior’s for cheesecake worth crossing a bridge for. We handle the reservation; you just need to sign up. Groups are small and spots go fast, so grab yours before they’re gone.
Not registered for the groundbreaking Shift UX conference yet? Register now before it’s too late!
Meet the sponsors that make Shift UX 2026 possible
From AI to the global economy, everything is changing everywhere all at once, and the job you had yesterday may not resemble your role today, much less tomorrow. Which is why, instead of treating UX as a job title, Shift UX 2026 frames UX as a powerful toolkit for everyone to use to solve complex problems in any setting, ranging from finance and healthcare to education and transportation.
Let’s meet the sponsors that make the first-ever Shift UX 2026 conference possible.
Platinum
The UX practice at Bloomberg brings together researchers, product designers, data visualization experts, and prototypers to create intuitive experiences for clients navigating the global economy. We turn complex data into clear, useful insights by understanding user needs and designing thoughtful, human-centered products that help solve our customers’ complex, real-world problems. Learn more »
Palladium
Nava is a public benefit corporation on a mission to make government services work better for the people they’re meant to serve. Federal, state, and local government agencies across the country have trusted Nava to modernize critical public services over the last decade. We combine our deep technology and domain expertise to help government agencies improve how people access essential services, reduce administrative burden, and build systems that are flexible to constant improvement. Learn more »
Gold
Justworks helps small and growing businesses take care of their people and run with confidence. Its platform brings payroll, benefits, HR tools, and compliance support together in one place, simplifying the essential administrative work behind building a great team.
By pairing straightforward technology with expert support from real people, Justworks gives business owners more time to focus on their employees, their customers, and the work that moves their organizations forward. Learn more »
Design at Amazon spans devices to fashion, logistics to streaming, voice to retail—creating experiences that touch customers everywhere. With curiosity, rigor, and care, we design from every perspective and scale, from smallest moments to largest systems. Learn more »
Silver
Aboard is a solution engineering firm. We combine AI-accelerated software delivery with the skills and craft we developed across two decades of software consulting. AI is powerful, but only if you manage the risks. And that’s why we don’t put AI in charge—we put it to work, to help us build reliable custom software for industry leaders in a fraction of the time it used to take. We typically partner with clients for a year or more to clear their roadmaps, integrate AI into existing data and workflows, and ship platforms that actually fit their needs. Learn more »
Supporting Sponsor
The Sensemakers Club is a community-powered education space where curious people come to grow without performing or pretending to have it all figured out. Learn more »
Ready to meet these sponsors? Join us September 23-25, 2026 in New York City (or remotely)!
Taking back control of UX and research: An interview with Shift UX curator Jemma Ahmed
Jemma Ahmed has been working for two decades in the space where consumer, design, product, marketing and cultural insight meet. A mixed methods insight practitioner, her work focuses on how technology can empower minority Global communities. With expertise in data science, market research and user research, she has delivered projects at scale which have had significant business and societal impact.
We sat down with her to ask why she believes this conference is essential for all UXers—regardless of whether they have “UX” in their titles.
Why is Shift UX needed right now?
I could tell you everything that every other conference is talking about right now.
I could tell you that you need to think about the skills that are needed as we march forward in an AI-mediated environment.
I could talk to you about the importance of coming together when the social contract of work is changing. I could talk to you about the importance of community and agency.
That would all be true. And I hope that anyone who attends the conference will walk away with those things.
But for me, Shift UX is so important right now because it is a space that will cut through the noise with honesty.
In a world where everyone is an AI or LinkedIn influencer and everyone and their mother with a blue tick is offering a perspective, there is just so much noise and clutter and—often AI generated—opinion going on out there. And that doesn’t help anyone.
A curated conference like Shift UX is trusted because everyone who steps on that stage has researched their topic and is a deep expert in what they are talking about and has worked with other people with deep expertise.
What you’re hearing from the speakers is about as accurate a signal as any of us can give right now. And in a world that is just so cluttered and noisy, making decisions off information that you can trust really matters right now.
Is UX dead?
Absolutely categorically not.
UX, when you kind of slip it all back, is about figuring out what a human need is and building something which helps that human and reduces harm to them. That skill has been going on since the days when we were trying to figure out like why a wheel is round and not square. That is a perennial skill and it’s not going anywhere. The shape of it might shift, the job title might shift, the spaces it’s practiced in might shift, but that fundamental isn’t dead and it isn’t going anywhere.
If we need UX more than ever, why is it so freaking hard to get a job right now?
I am job hunting and I have got all the feels for this question. From my vantage point and the people that I’ve spoken to and the people that I conducted research with going into Shift UX is that…Yeah, in some spaces there is a downturn of traditional UX jobs.
But that doesn’t mean that they are going away.
Some of them require different skills. A lot of them are going under different job titles, like in research. You might not be being called user researchers anymore. You might be called strategists. Your work might be sitting in policy teams, but the work is still going on, perhaps in different places with different titles and different spaces than it has been before.
What are you most excited about from the Research As Strategy track at Shift UX?
We are actually completely decoupling research as a profession and research as a skill. If anything, I’m going to ban the word research because we’re not living through that anymore.
Organisations are functioning as a knowledge economy. From very, very rigorous research being conducted by specialised teams, all the way through to lived experience, AI generated lit reviews, and everything in between, we have got more insight or sometimes insight-shaped things than ever. But how you function in a knowledge economy is very, very different. And I’m excited to get into this.
I’m excited to help people understand how you collate that volume of information and signal and yet stop people becoming data blind. Identify those hinge questions.
I’m curious about helping people understand the different spaces and places and consequences of working in a knowledge economy means for a researcher and their role, and how people who are doing research contribute back up to that knowledge economy.
I’m ready to dig into what it actually means to help an organisation metabolise the knowledge that is collecting. That is not having a seat at the table, my friends. That is using relational power when you might not have those institutional power markers anymore to make your voice heard.
I’m also really curious to dive into what the skills are that are needed to actually help organizations consume and ingest knowledge well. Often those conversations can be hard-hitting and difficult. That’s often the role of knowledge: to add friction and to have difficult conversations. That’s predicated on psychological safety on non-suppression of voices and we are going to be understanding how to have those conversations.
Regardless of whether you’re a researcher or a person who does research… these matter. I don’t care whether you are a user researcher, a market researcher, a data analyst, whether you are working in-house as a consultant or a contractor or you are an agency.
This space, regardless of whether you have got UX in your title or not, is for you.
If you work in spaces where you are creating and designing for humans, this conference is for you. I hope it will help you learn some of the fundamental shifts in skills that we’re seeing: how you metabolize knowledge, how you stop seeing operations as admin and start seeing it as strategic orchestration, and how you actually go about working with sense-making. These are skills that—regardless of whether your title is UX or not— if you are building human-centered things, matter moving forward.
What worries you if user experience designers and researchers (UXers) as a field don’t get on top of what’s happening right now?
So I think there has been a very, very human toll of the changes that we’ve seen in our field. I have friends, peers, mentors who’ve been long-term unemployed as a result of the shifts that we’re seeing. I don’t want that for them. I don’t want that for you.
Equally, I have seen people feel devalued, feel like this is being something that is done to them, that their career is not in their hands anymore. And let’s face it, if you get into this work, it’s because you more often than not care about the human at the end of it.
I want, if nothing else, for people to walk away with a sense of agency.
I want our field to start having agency and start making the decisions that affect us rather than it being a thing done to us.
So, what worries me is that if we don’t get our handle on this, there is a very, very human cost—to jobs, to worth, to identity. I hope Shift UX gives us a space to really start taking back control.
Low-cost tickets now available for the Shift UX 2026 conference
The world has always needed people who take responsibility for humanizing systems, services, products, and technologies. In 2026, that need is exploding…and demand will inevitably catch up. Are you prepared for the new wave of user experience?
That’s exactly what Shift UX 2026 is all about, and why we want to make sure it’s accessible to as many UXers as possible.
Our team has been hard at work shaping Shift UX 2026 into the groundbreaking event it’s meant to be, and we can’t wait to see so many of your faces there!
But we know that not everyone has the budget or circumstances that allow them to attend conferences like ours, which is why we’re offering exclusive low-cost tickets to the first-ever Shift UX conference.
Attend virtually on Sep 24-25 and obtain access to the conference session recordings, notes, and slide decks!
You’re eligible for this lower-priced ticket if you’re…
- Unemployed
- A full-time student
- Reside in one of the following countries: Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Indonesia, Philippines, South Africa
Join us at Shift UX in just a few short weeks by registering here.
See you soon!
