The question I keep getting asked is: "Should I be worried about AI replacing UX research?" My honest answer: not if you're the kind of researcher who asks good questions. But yes, if you're the kind who mostly organizes and reports what other people observe. What AI is actually good at in research AI is genuinely useful for transcription, pattern recognition across large qualitative datasets, and generating first-draft discussion guides. I use it for all three. What it can't do is sit with a...

One of the most common questions I get from product teams is: "How do we do more research without slowing everything down?" The answer isn't to hire more researchers. It's to build a system that makes good research instincts repeatable across your whole team. Designers, PMs, engineers — everyone has research moments. The question is whether those moments are structured or accidental. What enabling non-researchers actually looks like At USAA, I built an embedded weekly research training...

Most UGC creators approach a brand brief the same way: read the product description, write a hook, film it, submit it. That works. But it's table stakes. What brands actually want — especially the ones with real budgets — is a creator who understands why a hook works, not just that it does. Someone who can look at a brief and identify what the customer is actually afraid of, what they're hoping for, and what specific words will make them stop scrolling. Research instincts change how you read...