This is (Not) an AI Talk
On meaning, presence, and what's worth making
For every exceptional use of AI, there are countless more examples where AI has been bolted on without a second thought. It’s now in everything: from team workflows to digital products, hiring processes, and company decks.
The problem is, the adoption has been so fast that most organizations haven’t yet slowed down enough to redesign their systems and ask the right questions. That’s what this talk was about.
The biggest AI failures are human, structural, and cultural. In optimizing for adoption speed, we’ve skipped the redesign work underneath:
What do humans need to get better at, when AI can produce a first draft of almost anything?
What has to be rebuilt for AI to make an organization better, not just faster?
When AI-generated "good enough" is available to everyone, what's left to differentiate a brand?
AREA 17 and Industrial Color brought together leaders from AI-native and legacy brands, including Figma, L'Oréal, Pentagram, and Wolff Olins, to examine the relationship between human and artificial intelligence across three levels: brands, organizational systems, and individuals. Together, they unpacked what needs to be fundamentally redesigned as new forms of intelligence redefine the value of human contribution.
Watch the recording of the talk.
Panelists
The talk was moderated by Founding Partner and Chief Creative Officer of AREA 17, Kemp Attwood, and featured:
Lior Albeck — Director of Product at Figma Weave.
Lior is the Director of Product for Figma Weave, a creative platform for AI-native media production. He co-founded Weavy in 2024 and served as its CEO until its acquisition by Figma in 2025, when it became Figma Weave. Previously, Lior led the seller side of Fiverr, the world’s largest freelancer marketplace, and has spent more than 15 years in strategy, product, and entrepreneurship roles in tech.
Edouard Baudoin — VP Media & Marketing Sourcing at L’Oréal
Edouard leads media, consumer insights, advocacy & influencer, content production, and CRM sourcing at L’Oréal across the entire company ecosystem’s divisions, including its brands, corporate functions, and global teams. For nearly twenty years, he has seen and shaped L’Oréal’s buying and sourcing strategy across Paris, Los Angeles, and New York.
Dani Loftus — Founder of This Outfit Does Not Exist/socio.path
Dani is a founder, investor and cultural advisor. After founding This Outfit Does Not Exist in 2021, she quickly became a leading voice in digital fashion, working with brands like Chanel, Dion Lee, Maison Margiela, Puma, and Google, while co-founding RED DAO, a digital-fashion investment vehicle with $10M of assets under management. Her latest project, socio.path, pairs interviews with leading founders, artists, and investors with IRL events to create a field guide for predicting the future.
Giorgia Lupi — Partner at Pentagram
Giorgia Lupi is an award-winning information designer and a partner at the international design consultancy, Pentagram. Her work synthesizes data and storytelling in innovative ways to create unique and singular brand expressions for clients such as Google, IBM, Gates Foundation, and The New York Times. Her vibrant and inspiring design work empowers leading global organizations to achieve their mission through data-driven storytelling and reflects her belief that data has the capacity to make us all more human—advancing our intelligence, engagement, and delight. One of the most lauded designers of her generation and a prominent voice in data design, Lupi received the National Design Award in 2022 and the Compasso d’Oro in 2025 for her visual op-ed in the New York Times.
Forest Young — Global Design & AI Resident at Wolff Olins
Forest Young is a designer and educator who has run his own practice, Young Studio, since 2000. He joined Wolff Olins in 2016 as Head of Design and became the firm’s first Chief Creative Officer in 60 years, leading industry-defining work like the Uber brand transformation. He then served as Global Head of Brand at Rivian and Executive Director of Design at FundamentalCo. In 2025 he returned to Wolff Olins as Global Design & AI Resident. He is a Senior Critic at the Yale School of Art, where he earned his MFA, and he holds a BS in human development from Cornell. He argues that AI predicts like a meteorologist, while the artists and defining brands of our time conjure the weather.
