[00:00] Thank you so much for making your time
[00:02] to be here. It was really beautiful day
[00:04] out here. I landed in New York on
[00:07] Monday. It's been so cold since then and
[00:09] this was the most beautiful day I've
[00:10] seen since I got here. So, I'm really
[00:13] glad that all of you decide to be here.
[00:16] Hope you can make a meaningful time
[00:18] together. As Brian just uh gave a very
[00:21] warm introduction, I'm Hi. I'll be the
[00:23] first presenter of the event today. And
[00:26] uh what I'm going to talk about is the
[00:28] timely skills product designers need now
[00:31] in 2026.
[00:34] So on that note um before I jump into
[00:37] topic I wanted to talk a little bit
[00:39] about myself or quite a bit about
[00:41] myself. Um I am currently a senior
[00:44] product designer at Lyft. That photo on
[00:46] the left was taken at the New York
[00:48] office a couple of days ago when I was
[00:50] visiting. And uh before Lyft I was at
[00:53] Capital One. That's the photo on the
[00:54] right. When I was at Capital One office
[00:57] and before these two companies, I was at
[00:59] different fintech startups, sometimes
[01:01] B2B companies or sometimes 10% startups,
[01:04] too. And fun fact, these photos are two
[01:07] years apart, but I was wearing the exact
[01:09] same vest. So, I guess I really like
[01:11] wearing it when I go to the office. A
[01:13] little more formal than what I normally
[01:15] wear.
[01:16] And uh outside of my nineto-five job, I
[01:19] am a content creator uh influencer. Um
[01:22] so I started this a year ago. Um I got
[01:26] blessed by algorithm. So I'm glad the
[01:28] account grew very fast and it's been a
[01:31] really interesting um challenging
[01:33] journey. I found it really difficult to
[01:35] understand like what people want to see
[01:36] from me but at the same time I really
[01:38] like the feeling of connecting with
[01:40] people. Yes, internet has its own harms
[01:42] but at the same time um when I feel
[01:45] connected with people I just see the
[01:46] more brighter side of it. And a little
[01:50] more about my background. I am
[01:52] originally from Korea. The photo on the
[01:54] left is when I graduated from my
[01:56] undergrad in Korea. And the photo on the
[01:58] right, I'm based in Toronto, Canada, but
[02:01] the photo is actually in the New York
[02:02] City that I took last year. So, um I I'm
[02:06] based in Toronto in Canada. Uh I have
[02:08] been moving around a lot in Canada, but
[02:10] that's where I am now. So, on that note,
[02:14] let's get into the topic. I wanted to
[02:16] start with this question. What do you
[02:19] think is on every product designer's
[02:22] mind these days? Like literally every
[02:24] day all of the product designers think
[02:26] about Yes, you're right. AI. Um, but not
[02:30] just AI, AI dot dot dot crying face.
[02:35] That's how I feel about it and that's
[02:36] how I found most of the product
[02:38] designers feel about it or honestly most
[02:40] of people feel about these days no
[02:42] matter they are in the tech industry or
[02:44] in in different industries. And um when
[02:47] I think about AI, these are the memes I
[02:50] found resonating. Claude just dropped
[02:52] another update and I start tearing up
[02:55] and they literally drop updates like
[02:57] every day if it's not every the other
[02:59] day and I was learning and I'm like I
[03:01] was just catching up on and you just
[03:02] dropped new one. I have to learn it
[03:04] tonight otherwise I'm going to be behind
[03:06] on it. And the next meme I found is me
[03:09] trying to keep up with the 100 new AI
[03:12] design tools launched every day. So me
[03:15] focusing on one new AI tool while there
[03:17] are a ton of AI other tools like
[03:19] drowning and I'm like oh my gosh they're
[03:21] all dying I don't have time for all of
[03:23] them. So that's how I genuinely feel and
[03:26] uh I found a lot of designers in these
[03:29] industries uh feel that way. So going
[03:32] back to this AI dot dot dot I don't
[03:35] think it's just this fancy tools that we
[03:38] pay a lot of attention to. um they're
[03:40] all really great tools have been
[03:42] democratizing a lot of skills that was
[03:44] limited to um specific experts but at
[03:47] the same time I think on the other side
[03:49] of this bright side is something deeper
[03:53] and something more emotional and these
[03:55] are all the honest thoughts that I found
[03:58] we share which is like when is my job
[04:01] getting replaced is product design going
[04:03] to be a thing like in five years like
[04:05] dang I know nothing about AI and seems
[04:08] like I'm behind of everyone and like
[04:11] what the heck another update like I
[04:13] should learn about it or everything I
[04:15] learned last month is too old now. Let's
[04:17] say last month maybe I could tell my
[04:19] corkers like this is a new AI tool I
[04:21] learned you all got to do it but now
[04:22] it's old now. um and I don't know how to
[04:25] keep up with it and again the thought
[04:28] around like aren't we all just getting
[04:30] unemployed soon like when is it
[04:32] happening and some exhaustion coming
[04:35] from it and uh I want to say the reality
[04:38] is this is not just our anxiety this is
[04:40] not just our anxious thought or
[04:42] delusional thought this is the reality
[04:44] these are some of the articles I found
[04:47] released from like a couple of months
[04:48] ago or this month um layoff in tech
[04:52] always always has been a thing but now
[04:56] AI is accelerating it even more. It's
[04:59] driving it even further. I have a lot of
[05:01] friends who got uh laid off like this
[05:04] year and honestly I wake up thinking
[05:06] like maybe it's going to be next like
[05:08] the reality is there. So for that
[05:10] reason, we spend a lot of time like
[05:12] learning new AI tools like out of FOMO
[05:14] like I don't want to get laid off laid
[05:16] off like maybe if I learn AI tools more
[05:19] maybe I'm going to get laid off later
[05:21] than most of people in the industry. So
[05:23] we spent a lot of time learning it which
[05:25] is great um catching up with what's
[05:28] happening in the industry but at the
[05:31] same time I want us to like pause here
[05:35] for a couple of minutes and actually
[05:37] take a step back um beyond just learning
[05:41] new AI tools because
[05:43] getting better at AI tools and picking
[05:46] up more AI knowledge itself doesn't
[05:49] solve all the problems. Yes, it's there.
[05:51] we got to learn it. But that's not the
[05:53] only thing we need to do now.
[05:57] So on that note, as we take a step back,
[06:00] I want us to think about what AI is
[06:02] actually good at versus what AI is bad
[06:05] at. They're not perfect at everything.
[06:08] So what AI is good at, they're good at
[06:10] analyzing data data or recognizing
[06:12] pattern as we all know. They're really
[06:14] good at skimming through like really
[06:16] massive data sets and finding the
[06:18] patterns and similarities and anomalies
[06:20] and telling us the analysis result much
[06:23] faster than the human. And second thing
[06:25] um they're really good at automating
[06:27] repet repetitive tests such as naming
[06:29] all the Figma layers. It used to be
[06:31] frame one 05 but then now they named
[06:35] into like something more useful or
[06:37] writing the code or building a prototype
[06:39] based on the existing UX patterns.
[06:41] They're really good at it. They're also
[06:42] really good at re combining existing
[06:44] ideas, pulling in um everything they
[06:47] have seen the world and turning into
[06:49] what I was looking for. But at the same
[06:51] time, AI is bad at those three things.
[06:54] Understanding nuance. AI is really bad
[06:56] at understanding like sarcasm or passive
[06:59] aggressiveness. If it's aggressive,
[07:01] they're going to pick it up because it's
[07:02] very direct. But passive aggressiveness
[07:04] that's so subtle, they're also bad at
[07:07] picking up the humor. like something
[07:09] that humans can read the room and
[07:11] understand from something very subtle.
[07:13] AI is not really good at that. And
[07:15] second thing is AI is bad at having a
[07:17] common sense. I believe all of us
[07:19] experience like using chat and you tell
[07:22] it to do something but it's just not
[07:23] following the common sense and now you
[07:25] have to verbalize everything that you
[07:28] thought is very common and normal and AI
[07:30] does not understand it. And third thing
[07:32] AI is bad at is handling unfamiliar
[07:35] scenarios. So how AI functions is again
[07:38] pulling in what they have seen out there
[07:40] and then respond to what they see here.
[07:42] But if it's a very new situation they
[07:44] didn't get any input on they are going
[07:47] to be very bad at responding to it. But
[07:49] beyond what AI is bad at I want us to
[07:52] think about what AI cannot do. So this
[07:55] is beyond what they're bad at. First is
[07:58] creating original ideas. AI will never
[08:01] give you something that has not existed
[08:03] in the world. That's just how AI is
[08:06] built. So it will it probably can draw
[08:08] your portrait in the style of Picasso or
[08:11] Van Go in a very similar way similar
[08:13] way. But then it will never draw your
[08:15] portrait in the art style that has never
[08:17] existed in this world because AI is not
[08:20] going to create it. And second thing AI
[08:22] cannot do is building trust or
[08:25] relationship. So think about like who
[08:27] you trust or have good relationship
[08:29] with. It comes from the risk and
[08:31] vulnerability you have with that people.
[08:33] you know that oh this person acts like
[08:35] that when they have a bad day and they
[08:37] make a mistake and they this is how they
[08:39] apologize this is how you make it up to
[08:41] so trust trust and relationship is
[08:44] coming from the vulnerability and AI has
[08:46] does not have that that's why AI is not
[08:48] going to be responsible or accountable
[08:50] accountable for any tasks you do at work
[08:54] and last thing AI cannot do is
[08:56] empathizing or motivating so the empathy
[09:00] that AI shows is based on what they
[09:02] learn They simulate the emotional
[09:04] reaction, but it's not that they're
[09:06] going to feel the feeling you share with
[09:09] AI. Um, and also it's not going to
[09:11] motivate you. Think about how many times
[09:13] Chachi Pitty told you this is an
[09:15] excellent question and you didn't feel
[09:17] flattered, right? It tells you like this
[09:19] is such a great idea and you're like,
[09:20] yeah, of course you tell me all the
[09:21] time. You don't feel it compared to if a
[09:24] human tells you, hey, that was a really
[09:26] great question. You're like, oh, maybe I
[09:28] ask a great great question. Right? So
[09:31] empathizing and motivate AI is not going
[09:33] to do it. And uh what the reason I have
[09:36] been talking about this is there's three
[09:38] things AI cannot do. It goes into one
[09:42] skill which is storytelling. And that's
[09:44] the number one skill I would want us to
[09:46] focus on.
[09:49] In terms of storytelling, this is the
[09:51] quote I really like. It's very cliche.
[09:54] It's probably overly used um quote in
[09:57] marketing world. So it says facts tell
[10:00] but stories sell. I found this quote
[10:03] really applicable to any industry that
[10:06] we can think of. So facts the screens we
[10:08] design, the codes we write, um the
[10:10] prototype we built, it's going to tell
[10:12] the number. Yes, it's going to tell
[10:14] something the fact, but what helps you
[10:17] sell it is the story. So story really
[10:19] goes a long way. And on that note, um,
[10:23] going back to this AI tools that we
[10:25] looked into earlier as these tools and
[10:28] many many other tools are available,
[10:31] anyone can build anything. I'm a
[10:33] designer now. I can launch an app
[10:35] without talking to an engineer. And an
[10:38] engineer can design something without
[10:40] talking to me at all. So, anyone can
[10:42] build everything. Cool. And uh in this
[10:46] age
[10:48] because everyone can build everything.
[10:50] It's not about building fast or many
[10:52] anymore. Everyone can do it like um any
[10:54] time like overnight while you're
[10:56] sleeping. So it being fast or being many
[10:59] what you built it's not going to be a
[11:00] gamecher. But what matters now is how
[11:04] you're going to sell it. It's about how
[11:07] you're going to sell it through your
[11:08] stories. And storytelling is the best
[11:10] way to sell something.
[11:13] And on that note, what do you think is a
[11:15] really good story? Like what's the story
[11:18] that you're like, "Ah, that story was
[11:19] really, really good." And uh to be more
[11:22] specific, how can we make a good story
[11:25] for our audience? Something that will
[11:27] help our audience to remember it and
[11:30] feel something out of it. And I would
[11:33] say the clearest sign of a good story is
[11:36] when the audience roots for the
[11:38] protagonist success. you see the
[11:40] protagonist is struggling and then
[11:41] you're like, "Oh, I feel for them. I
[11:43] want them to be successful. I want them
[11:44] to succeed." So, that's a clear sign
[11:47] when um the presenter delivered a really
[11:49] good story.
[11:51] And I found superhero story is a really
[11:54] great example for that. Um I got the
[11:56] photos of the Marvel. Um I grew up in
[11:58] Korea. I didn't much I didn't watch uh
[12:00] much of Marvel stories, but whichever
[12:02] background you have, every culture has
[12:05] their own superhero story. So what does
[12:08] this um superhero story does is they
[12:12] follow the hero's journey. You think
[12:15] about every superhero that you can think
[12:17] of and then they start with some kind of
[12:20] conflict. Maybe they got abandoned by
[12:22] the parents or the world is falling
[12:24] apart or now they got kicked out of the
[12:26] village they grew up in. Um so that
[12:29] first part is the conflict and now they
[12:31] have the failed attempts. They try to do
[12:33] something like oh let me save the world.
[12:35] Let me be a nice person. let me help
[12:36] other people and uh a lot of those
[12:39] attempts go into failure and then last
[12:43] step is the breakthrough. They make
[12:44] their final action and finally works and
[12:46] that's how we enter the phase of like
[12:49] everyone happily lived ever after. So
[12:52] the hero's journey consists of this
[12:53] three factors and uh I now want to talk
[12:58] about how can we actually replicate this
[13:00] at work. Okay, the hero's journey is
[13:02] really good, but how can we position
[13:04] ourselves like that at work?
[13:07] So this is the structure I just showed
[13:09] you. So the hero's journey consists of
[13:11] first conflict and if second step is
[13:14] failed attempts. Not all the things have
[13:16] failed attempts and in that case we got
[13:18] to talk about the cost of conflict and
[13:21] then last step is breakthroughs and
[13:23] applying this to work. Conflict means
[13:27] the business or user problem or the
[13:29] problem that your team has experienced.
[13:32] And failed attempts means past
[13:34] initiatives that your team or other
[13:36] teams worked on and did not pan out. Or
[13:39] if you don't have failed attempts, you
[13:41] it's your time to talk about the cost of
[13:43] conflict, which is the negative impact
[13:45] of the problem. And you can really
[13:47] expand on how bad the problem was, like
[13:50] how severely it was affecting the team
[13:53] and the business. And last step, it's
[13:55] time for you to position you, your team,
[13:57] and your project as the breakthrough.
[14:00] See, I'm positioning this amazing
[14:02] project as the final solution that's
[14:04] solving all the problems that other
[14:05] teams could not solve. So, that's the
[14:07] step you're going to go through and I
[14:09] want to drop a very specific example so
[14:11] you can apply it to your working
[14:13] situation.
[14:15] So let's say we're presenting a project
[14:18] at work and uh we can introduce it as
[14:21] this project is to reduce the churn
[14:24] rate. It's fine. Yeah, it's it's okay.
[14:27] Yeah, it's just the work statement
[14:29] you're going to going to hear from any
[14:30] work. It's fine. It does the job. But
[14:32] the audience is not going to really
[14:34] engage with their story. Behind your
[14:36] Zoom call, they have some kids crying
[14:37] next to them or they have some coffee
[14:39] machine like just breaking down or maybe
[14:42] the car on the street is really loud.
[14:43] They're going to listen to you, but
[14:44] they're not going to really focus on you
[14:46] or like engage with the project that
[14:48] you're going to share. So, what you can
[14:50] do is following this the hero's journey
[14:54] um framework. So, first is conflict.
[14:56] We're going to talk about in this
[14:58] meeting we're going to talk about the
[15:00] problem the business has been
[15:02] experiencing in the past three quarters.
[15:04] We have been seeing consistent drop off
[15:06] of users 15%
[15:09] every month after three months of
[15:11] signing up to our product. This has been
[15:14] costing to our business a lot. To be
[15:17] more specific, it created a loss of this
[15:20] many dollars of marketing every month.
[15:23] So this marketing budget gets wasted
[15:26] because marketing team spends a lot of
[15:28] money on acquiring new users and uh
[15:30] improving the brand awareness. So people
[15:33] have better awareness of the brand and
[15:35] then more people get interested in
[15:37] joining our product. Well, that money
[15:39] got wasted and past projects like this
[15:42] project or that project did not
[15:44] meaningfully improve the churn rate and
[15:47] from those failed uh attempts we learned
[15:50] that what actually mattered is this xyz
[15:52] meaningful insight
[15:55] and leveraging this important lesson and
[15:58] we're going to the breakthrough part. We
[16:00] discovered that users who turned
[16:02] consistently did this very unique
[16:04] behavior especially after two weeks of
[16:07] acquisition. So our learning is that oh
[16:10] this two weeks of acquisition after that
[16:13] um that's the best time for us to tackle
[16:16] this user churn problem. So for that
[16:19] reason our project targeted that unique
[16:22] behavior we found from users and res
[16:25] resulted in reducing the churn rate by
[16:27] 8%. And from now on I'm going to walk
[16:30] you through the design solution we
[16:31] built. And from there your audience will
[16:33] be like oh oh your team tried something
[16:36] and you failed and like oh this is the
[16:38] best solution you found. They already
[16:39] gone through the here's journey very
[16:41] quickly in a way that they will get more
[16:43] interested in the story you were talking
[16:45] about.
[16:46] So going back to this slide I said
[16:48] earlier um when the audience roots for
[16:51] the protagonist success you have to
[16:54] think of it as when you apply to work
[16:56] the audience is your stakeholder your
[16:59] manager or product manager engineers or
[17:02] CTO CEO everyone you have to get the buy
[17:05] in from um for your project to be
[17:07] successful and the protagonist here is
[17:10] you or your project or your team in a
[17:14] way that your stakeholder will be like,
[17:15] "Oh, I want this team's project to be
[17:17] successful. I want their stuff to go
[17:19] well." So, that's how you can apply um
[17:23] the trait of a good story um into the
[17:27] project that you're working on.
[17:30] So, going back to the structure,
[17:32] I want to say the most important part is
[17:35] the second one. failed attempts, cost of
[17:37] conflict, like all the ugly side that
[17:39] you normally don't want to talk about,
[17:41] especially at work because it doesn't
[17:43] sound great, but that's what makes a
[17:45] story really, really, really
[17:46] interesting. Imagine there's just a flat
[17:49] perfect story like, oh, there was a
[17:51] problem and I solved it immediately and
[17:53] you're like, yeah, okay, good for you.
[17:55] But if you saw someone or the team
[17:57] struggling through something, then
[17:59] that's how the audience starts rooting
[18:01] for you. And I want to tell you that
[18:03] this is the part AI cannot generate. You
[18:06] have all these ugly sides because you
[18:08] are the living human living in this
[18:10] world and making the mistakes out of it.
[18:13] And AI is not going to create that for
[18:15] you because AI is not just walking
[18:17] around running into all the people with
[18:19] different personalities and like unique
[18:21] problems of the team. And at this point
[18:24] you may think like but AI can write me a
[18:26] story. I asked Claude yesterday night
[18:28] and wrote me a pretty good story. like
[18:30] what about that? And I want to tell you,
[18:32] yes, it will write you a story, but
[18:34] that's something nonoral that's copy and
[18:37] pasted and perfectly polished. And think
[18:41] about a very perfectly polished story.
[18:43] You're not going to engage with it. It's
[18:45] very flat. And since it's copy and
[18:47] pasted, maybe it will pull in some
[18:50] articles that someone wrote about the
[18:51] work conflict they wrote about. they'll
[18:53] maybe uh recombine that into the story
[18:56] that you can copy, but it's not going to
[18:58] give you an original story because AI
[19:00] was not at your work talking to your
[19:03] co-workers and your managers. They're
[19:04] not doing it for you. So, I want to tell
[19:06] you the most interesting part of your
[19:09] story comes from the your originality.
[19:13] And out of your originality, what people
[19:15] find most interesting are usually not
[19:17] the beautiful sides like, oh, I got
[19:19] promoted to this role. I moved to this
[19:22] company, I got a raise by this much. All
[19:25] the beautiful sides is like, yeah, okay,
[19:27] great. But like they don't have strong
[19:29] emotional engagement to it. What people
[19:32] had the strongest interest in is the
[19:34] ugly sides. Such as what you and your
[19:37] team were struggling with and how did it
[19:39] affected the team in a negative way. um
[19:42] what you or the team like
[19:43] misinterpreted, what was an oversight,
[19:46] what was the mistake you you made and
[19:48] why was there a conflict and how did you
[19:50] convince the team and what were all the
[19:53] push backs and frictions you experienced
[19:55] along the way? So as you share this,
[19:58] this is what makes your story much more
[20:00] engaging, unique and compelling.
[20:04] So now I got this blank slide. I was
[20:07] thinking a lot about how I could wrap up
[20:09] what I have prepared for you and give
[20:12] you one takeaway to step away with when
[20:14] you leave this room later and uh I
[20:17] decided to go back to my originality
[20:19] which is my background in Korean. And
[20:22] this is the expression I really like in
[20:24] Korean. I'll read it as
[20:27] and that means if I translate it word by
[20:30] word it means to move move people's
[20:32] hurts and to be more contextual. means
[20:35] to resonate with somebody. You touch
[20:38] them emotionally or you inspire them or
[20:42] you sometimes steer something in the
[20:43] people. So that's the expression that I
[20:47] really like and I wanted to tell you a
[20:49] good story is the one that moves
[20:52] people's hurt. Story is a really great
[20:54] tool to engage someone emotionally which
[20:57] AI a lot of times lack at. So this is a
[21:01] one quote I hope you can remember as the
[21:04] only takeaway out of my talk is the
[21:06] stories that move people's hurts um come
[21:09] from your lived experience and your
[21:12] originality story again is a really
[21:15] great tool. So how I hope you can
[21:17] leverage it as something that really
[21:20] unique to you that you cannot replicate
[21:22] or ask AI to generate even tonight um
[21:26] when you go back home brush your teeth
[21:28] and lie down on your bed you probably
[21:30] will forget about most of the things I
[21:31] talked about and in a few weeks or a few
[21:34] months you probably would have forgotten
[21:36] about me or how I looked where this was
[21:39] exactly but if my story moved your heart
[21:43] you will remember the feeling and story
[21:45] is a really strong way to give you
[21:48] certain feeling and that's how you build
[21:51] something that's going to get remembered
[21:53] by people. Thank you so much for
[21:55] listening.