Designing AI Experiences for High Stakes Industries
AI experiences can look flawless in a prototype. The real risk starts after you ship the feature, when real users, facing real consequences, start pushing your model into use cases you didn’t plan for. This session draws on direct experience designing AI assistants for Australia’s financial services sector to explore how to design for accuracy, accountability, and the inevitable moments when the model gets it wrong.
You’ll leave with 3 actionable frameworks: how to design human in the loop checkpoints that keep users genuinely in control without killing productivity; how to build a design pattern language for AI behaviour, covering how AI acts differently from deterministic systems and what that means for the patterns you design around it; and how to build a research practice that tests the model before it tests your users, covering accuracy, edge case simulation, and how to know when it’s ready for real users.
Alex McMahon
Alex McMahon designs AI experiences for one of the most regulated industries in Australia. As Head of Design at Loan Market Group (LMG), she leads the AI experience design for MyCRM Intelligence, a suite of AI assistants used by Australian and New Zealand brokers. Before LMG, she worked as Director of Design at Alpaca Markets, shaping the UX across algorithmic trading, crypto, and broker infrastructure platforms globally. With 15+ years across fintech, e-commerce and tech, including Expedia, News Corp and blockchain gaming pioneer ZED RUN, Alex brings a research backed perspective to designing AI products when the stakes are real. She writes and speaks regularly on the ethics and craft of product design with a focus on emerging technologies.