The Great Siloing means you won't know if you're behind on AI
The industry-wide hiring freeze means you can't tell if you're using AI badly. Conferences like DwAI are one of the few solutions.
I read this mind-blowing observation from Steve Yegge, and it meshes with what I've seen working with diverse tech orgs today:
"There has been an industry-wide hiring freeze for 18+ months, during which time nobody has been moving jobs. So there are no clued-in people coming in from the outside to tell Google how far behind they are, how utterly mediocre they have become as an eng org.
"...It's the Great Siloing. Everyone's flying blind. With nobody moving companies, no company knows where they stand on the AI adoption curve. Nobody knows how they're doing compared to everyone else."
Which is exactly what I've seen with AI-enabled design. Everyone picks their favorite AI tool or influencer to trust, but they have no idea if anything they're doing is representative of the rest of the industry.
That means if you're an IC, you have no idea if you're developing competitive skills for the current job market. And if you're a leader, you have no idea if your organization is lagging behind your competitors.
And this is exactly why conferences like Designing with AI are so valuable in 2026, because it is the only way to see how your colleagues are really working with AI--not FAANG figureheads talking in idealistic abstractions, but the people actually doing the work in organizations like yours.
So I'd invite you to check out this year's case studies. See what questions are top of mind for your peers. And if they sound like your own questions, you should join us.