Rupa Chaturvedi

Human Centered AI Institute

Founder

Vybe Snacks

Stanford University

Adjunct Lecturer (Product Design)

Miraj Sustainable Racing Club

California's first sustainable racing club

Founder & President

Reforge

Co-created the "Generative AI Products: How to get from Idea to MVP" course for product managers, design and user research leaders, consultants and founders. Understand AI by getting hands-on with this practical course taught by industry experts.

Partner

Uber

Head of Merchant & Ads Design

First Round Capital

Product & UX Design Mentor

Google

UX Design Manager

Amazon

I manage and lead a team of UX and Personality designers focused on Conversational AI within the Alexa Shopping group in Amazon. Collectively, my team and I conceptualize, deliver design and strategy to help launch customer experiences that span upper funnel, inspiration and product discovery; product evaluation and research, and post purchase needs of our customer. We are fierce advocates for our customers and leverage multiple sources of data from qualitative to quantitative to guide our intuition and measure our efficacy. The impact we have generated is a combination of customer experience vision, strategic frameworks and mental models as well as design systems for interaction with Alexa by voice and devices in the context of shopping.

Sr UX Designer, Alexa Shopping

Lead UX Designer for Augmented Reality (AR) experiences at Amazon

Sr UX Designer

Sentient Technologies

Helped launch an AI-enabled shopping product that will change the way shoppers shop online. 
Conceptualized and designed multi-channel user experiences for a breakthrough visual search technology product - redefining how consumers shop online.

Helped launch a breakthrough AI enabled online shopping product within 5 months.
Contributed from conceptualizing the UI and product strategy/features to final implementation through whiteboard sketches, wire-frames, high fidelity prototypes and design specifications.

Followed a thorough user centered design process to gather insights into shopper behavior and expectations as well as iterative design based on feedback from user testing.

Head of Design - Visual Intelligence

Head of Merchant & Ads Design at Uber, Adjunct Lecturer at Stanford University

I'm building a world-class AI education institute that puts humans at the center of the AI revolution. Our mission is to empower professionals worldwide to create AI solutions that deliver tangible value for both businesses and end users. We're committed to making AI education accessible, enabling people from all backgrounds to help shape technology's future.

Hard truth for UX designers: if your role looks the same in 2 years, that’s a red flag.

If your value is defined by producing UI artifacts (wireframes, mockups, and redlines) you are in a precarious position. AI models are already exceptionally good at pattern matching and interface generation.

But if your value is defined by system design, you have never been more necessary.

There is a shift from "designing for the user" to "designing for the system."

When an AI agent acts on behalf of a user, it doesn't need a UI. It needs:

- Behavioral Specs: What is the acceptable range of autonomy for this model?
- Adaptive Context: How does the system pivot when the user’s intent is ambiguous?
- Human-in-the-Loop Protocols: When must the human step in for oversight?

These are design responsibilities. They require moving upstream to shape what the system learns and how it decides.

This is exactly why I developed the Advanced AI & Agentic Design curriculum. We stop looking at screens and start looking at system behaviors. We focus on defining constraints, designing for non-deterministic outcomes, and building trust in autonomous flows.

The designers who survive this shift will be the ones who can define the guardrails of the systems we are building. Learn more here: https://bit.ly/3MjqTzM

Design & AI Leader | Stanford Lecturer | AI enablement for UX orgs | ex-Uber, Google, Amazon

Google's Head of Product announced a shift from "writing-first to building-first culture."

Microsoft's CPO said "prompt sets are the new PRDs."

Product management went through a transformation in the past 18 months that UX designers are just starting to feel.

When you can see a shift happening in an adjacent discipline, you have visibility others don't. The question is whether you use it strategically.

I've been mapping what the PM precedent signals for UX roles—and how designers can position themselves while the industry is still figuring out what these roles look like.

Check out my latest newsletter for more on this:

This is the AI UX Brief - my weekly newsletter on designing intelligent systems, leadership in the AI era, and navigating the messy reality of AIUX. F

Open article: Redefining UX Value: The Shift from Execution to Influence by Rupa Chaturvedi • 5 min read

Redefining UX Value: The Shift from Execution to Influence

Meta, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic - they're paying AI PMs up to $600K+.
Why? Because these PMs aren't writing PRDs anymore. They're architecting intelligent systems - designing model behavior, shaping evaluation frameworks, defining how AI thinks and decides.

The role has evolved from coordination to creation. And the market is paying accordingly.

Designers have a unique opportunity here. System thinking, behavioral specification, mental models - these are already in our DNA. Now it's about applying them to intelligence architecture.

Product's transformation is our preview. They're 12-18 months ahead on this curve, and their playbook is completely visible. We can see exactly which capabilities the market values and how to develop them.

In this week's issue, I break down what designers can learn from Product's transformation - the specific capabilities commanding these salaries and strategies for positioning themselves effectively.

Open article: The $600K Question: What AI PMs Know That UX Designers Don't (Yet) by Rupa Chaturvedi • 6 min read

The $600K Question: What AI PMs Know That UX Designers Don't (Yet)

I got a message this week from a UX Director at a FAANG company 6 weeks after completing MXDAI:

“Org changes have been constant here, and the structure is getting flatter every quarter. The expectations on designers have shifted too. My team and I are being pulled into more conversations about how the AI behaves, not just how it looks on the surface. PM and Eng expect us to have a clear point of view there, and if we don’t, we’re not really influencing the product. MXDAI helped me step into those conversations with more confidence. It’s made a noticeable difference in how I show up and how my team gets included.”

What resonated with me is how common this has become.

Across companies, designers are being asked to take on a level of strategic influence that isn’t written into the job description but is now core to how teams move forward. 

As orgs continue to flatten, leaders and ICs are figuring out how to stay relevant in a landscape where expectations rise even as layers disappear. The people who can bring clarity to messy AI questions and ambiguous decisions are the ones carrying a different kind of weight.

This is the work we focus on inside MXDAI.

We’re currently the number one AI design course on Maven, and now you know why.

Maven also extended the promo for one more day today, in case you’ve been considering joining the next cohort - take advantage of the 25% tuition discount - offer expires tonight/

If you’re facing similar changes or want to get ahead of what’s coming, feel free to reach out.

cc Maven

There’s been so much talk lately about PMs vibe-coding prototypes and PRDs being replaced with “just build something and show me.”
But here’s what I keep coming back to: designers need these skills just as much as PMs do, maybe more.

Our stakeholders are adopting AI tools at a pace that’s hard to ignore. The workflows between design, product and engineering are shifting fast. If designers don’t build fluency in this space, they’ll get left behind.

Vibe coding isn’t about learning to code. It’s about learning to build.

When you can build with AI tools, even scrappy prototypes, you collapse the distance between an idea and something you can actually interact with. You get to explore AI behaviors and edge cases hands-on instead of trying to explain them through diagrams and long documents.

And as you experiment with different tools, you start developing a deeper understanding of the underlying tech, the constraints, the limitations and what’s truly feasible. That knowledge changes how you design. It sharpens your instincts. It gives you language and clarity your stakeholders instantly recognize.

This is also where designers make a shift. You stop worrying about perfect wireframes and start focusing on how to validate your assumptions. You move from being the person who “hands things off” to becoming a strategic partner who brings real, testable workflows to the table.

Designers who lean into this aren’t just speeding up their process. They’re shaping how AI products come to life.

If you’re ready to invest in these skills, take a look at MXDAI: https://bit.ly/48o50YD 
We learn by doing. You’ll explore a range of AI tools, build real workflows, and leave with a portfolio-worthy project that reflects how AI design actually happens today.

NOTE: Currently, Maven is offering a flat 25% discount on the next cohort and its valid only for this. week.

Currently, I lead the Uber Eats Merchant Product team, overseeing the end-to-end experience of hundreds of thousands of merchants on the platform worldwide. 

The Merchant team brings merchants of all sizes around the world onto our platform, helps grow their business, and ensures that Eats technology integrates seamlessly into their operations. Areas: Merchant acquisition, marketing technology and demand intelligence, in-store experiences, POS integrations, payments and financial reconciliation, menus, business intelligence, quality/performance, support and account management. Coverage includes both SMBs and Enterprises.

Director of Product Management, Merchant & Shopping

Houzz

Houzz is the leading online platform for home remodeling and design, providing people with everything they need to improve their homes from start to finish - online or from a mobile device.
Key accomplishments: 
* Launched new pricing structure and GTM less than 2 months in the company; directly led to 4% increase in MRR (total in $XXX millions), 11% improvement of CAC/LTV, and 2% improvement in network retention
* Transitioned Houzz from 100% SLG to 50% PLG- Shifted Houzz’s sales leads mix to rely on Online leads (platform and marketing generated) from Offline (call center generated), and built Self Serve onboarding platform
* Led development and launch of Houzz Pro- new platform for home professionals; drove ideation, development, and GTM efforts; launch drove 35% increase in new sign-ups, 42% increase in WAU, 26% in conversion to paid users
* Revamped data infrastructure of the company- grassroot and extracurricular effort to convince execs of need, negotiate with vendors, and implement new tracking, product analytics, DW, and lifecycle; won collaboration & impact award

Director of Product Management

SoFi

Social Finance (SoFi) is a FinTech company that offers a range of money management, wealth management, and loans.

Medallia

Medallia is the SaaS leader in Customer Experience Management. Backed by Sequoia, Medallia is pre-IPO and serving many of the world's best customer-oriented companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Four Seasons and Nordstrom's. 

I led the product area dealing with Social CX (Customer Experience): 
- Shipped one of the company’s biggest initiatives in 2016- a social review aggregation and analysis tool; development led to market domination and ~x2 revenue
- Convinced company leadership to enter new Web Intercept (surveys on websites) space; secured cross-organizational buy-in; identified and recommended a partner, leading to Medallia’s first ever acquisition (Kampyle, now Medallia Digital)
- Developed and maintained all business relationships with partners such as Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor and others.

Head of Social Product

McKinsey & Company

A member of the Business Technology Office (BTO)  focusing on building growth strategies (including M&A) for tech clients in emerging markets and  driving transformation through agile digitization of business processes. In addition, active in McKinsey Digital Labs (MDL) focusing on turning innovative technologies to new service lines and directly influence internal usage of technology within the firm.

 Examples of client work include:
- Built a five-year operating plan for a tech company (~$30B revenue); analyzed size of emerging market and formed competitive strategy; conclusions determined entry to a $200B space and impacted relationships with strategic partners
- Directed a priority savings effort for a tech company (~$100B revenue); facilitated an internal team to identify opportunities and work through organizational obstacles to deliver $10M savings in eight weeks
- Pioneered next-generation analysis tool leading to firm-wide adoption: analyzed features, built business case proving time savings and convinced decision makers; tool is now part of default toolkit and installed on every consultant’s PC

Associate

MBA summer internship as part of G-Tech- the technical arm of Google's sales org
- Planned off-shore vendor work for 2013; forecasted capacity of 1000+ offshore resources in eight countries; conclusions were adopted by management, determining usage of $50M budget
- Streamlined processes of ads technology implementation in top clients, increasing customer satisfaction metrics by 23%

Customer Solutions Intern

TopSolutions (Top Solutions)

Top Group is a leading technology company providing cutting edge solutions helping businesses with improving their internal processes, customer experience, employee performance, and recruitment.  (Ransys’ feedback software solution was acquired by Top Group)
- Led product planning and execution activities for feedback management product, implemented in 500+ companies
- Orchestrated development of new flag product, raising the company’s revenues by 27%: identified market gap, designed new solution and led a multi-disciplinary team of 20 to execute projects

Ransys

● Spearheaded penetration of the South African market and spent over four months abroad establishing first overseas branch; formed local partnerships and closed first deals, generating $1.5M in revenues
● Mined customer data to uncover usage patterns in product; insights implemented lowering negative feedback by 24% 
● Closed company’s biggest deal in 2008, fully taking charge of sales side in addition to engineering responsibilities; beat international competitors in a year-long multi-staged proof of concept, contributing 12% to company’s revenues in 2008

Product Manager

Israel Defense Forces

● Formulated and executed the brigade’s first ever deployment to a new sector; coordinated movements of 1000s soldiers, 119 armored vehicles and $0.5B worth of equipment      
● Investigated operational incidents that affected lives of over 15,000 men and presented conclusions to IDF Chief of the General Staff; recommendations were implemented and reduced casualties

Brigade Operations Officer (Battle Captain)

Director of Product Management at Uber

Proven software leader with experience in consumer and b2b products. Successful track record of delivering innovative new products, organizational excellence, and business results. Great combination of strong product skills and technical abilities with extensive hands-on experience on large scale engineering projects through the entire lifecycle.

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