SydDT #127: The Human Loop - Keeping the Customer at the Core of AI

SydDT #127: 11th Birthday & The Human Loop - Keeping the Customer at the Core of AI. Thursday, 11 June 2026 at Thoughtworks. Sponsored by Thoughtworks, Sh8peshifters, and Dynamic4. How do we keep people, customers, judgement, creativity, and trust at the centre as AI becomes part of more of what we design and do? We were lucky to have Riley Coleman, Kristin de la Fuente, Alex Zinoviev share thoughtful, practical, and very human perspectives on AI in the real world – with Tarra van Amerongen guiding the panel conversation. AI can help us move faster, but if we’re building the wrong thing, solving the wrong problem, or removing human judgement that makes the work meaningful – faster doesn’t bring more value. A fitting 11th birthday conversation for SydDT. It looped back to our first meetup in 2015 when we debated the singularity and SydDT #2: Future of Work with Michelle Williams and Brian Lim where we explored the question – should we race against the machines, or run with them? The tech has changed a lot. The pace is different. The stakes feel different. But the deeper question hasn’t changed much at all… how do we use design to help people solve problems that matter? Sydney Design Thinking (SydDT) is a diverse community of 10,000+ members. We've been meeting monthly since 2015 to explore the world of design thinking as a human-centred design and living systems approach to innovation and solving complex problems – to help create positive outcomes for people, our planet, and business. We're one of the top design thinking meetups globally. New members are welcome! Chapters 0:00 Community networking 0:28 Welcome & thanks to our collaborators by Kate Linton with Alan Chen & Diana Ayoub from Shapeshifters 4:18 Thanks to the SydDT community for 11 years by Ben Pecotich from SydDT & Dynamic4 8:49 Upcoming meetups with Lucas Mara 9:54 Speaker intros by Kate Linton 14:33 The Pause is Where the Value Is with Riley Coleman 32:58 Trust Me, I'm an Agent with Kristin de la Fuente 53:26 Panel with Riley Coleman, Kristin de la Fuente, and Alex Zinoviev hosted by Tarra van Amerongen 126:20 Thanks and wrap up by Kate Linton 1:27:33 Graphic recording by Resham Agrawal SydDT is all about helping build a connected community of people from a diverse range of design and business practices, industries, contexts, and roles… to learn and share. To get exposed to what others doing and see what's possible. We’re proud to see this in our community – our members are experience designers, researchers, service designers, startup founders, product people, consultants, academics, anthropologists, architects, software engineers, project managers, medicos, engineers, and many other roles. We keep it pretty casual with plenty of time for networking before jumping into talks, panels, and workshops on a broad range of topics - with a healthy Q&A that often turns into a group discussion. If you're not a member already you can find out more and join here https://dynamic4.com/syddt. We'd love to hear from you if you're keen to speak - or if there's someone you think we should invite to speak. There will be more sponsorship opportunities coming up... if you'd like to be a supporter, please get in touch!