Between AI Slop and a Hard Place
Last week, I had the privilege of speaking at DDX Dubai 2026. Held over two days at Dubai Silicon Oasis, the event brought together over 550 participants, 45 speakers, and featured 12 masterclasses and 8 workshops, a significant step up from what began as a single-day gathering in Munich just three years ago.
My talk, "Rethinking the Creative Stack," explored how AI is reshaping the tools and workflows that creative professionals depend on, and what happens when output becomes effortless but quality becomes fragile. The slide behind me in the photo sums up a central tension I keep returning to: the designer's role is shifting from maker to editor, curator, and critic. Slop is easy. The hard part is knowing the difference.
I was honored to share the stage with an incredible lineup. Elizabeth Churchill spoke about the psychology underpinning UX, a reminder that elegant solutions built without understanding how people actually think are built on fantasy. Don Norman joined virtually for what turned out to be one of the most impactful moments of the event, a small session that made everyone in the room pause and reflect on the responsibility we carry as designers. Luis Ouriach from Figma led a hands-on workshop using Figma Make that had the room buzzing about AI as a creative collaborator. And Rowan Salama's workshop on "The Human Glitch" was a refreshing look at designing for real, imperfect human decision-making rather than idealized behavior.
What struck me most, though, was the response afterward. In the days following the conference, messages and posts from attendees kept surfacing, reflections on how the event had shifted their thinking. One attendee wrote that they left "asking more questions and full of new ideas." Another noted that "we're not just designing products anymore. We're designing behavior, trust, and sometimes even curiosity." Several people specifically mentioned my talk as a moment that made them reconsider how rapidly the creative stack is evolving beneath their feet.
DDX Dubai reminded me that the most valuable thing a conference can do isn't deliver answers. It's put the right people in a room together and create the conditions for better questions.
