I’ve always been interested in people.
Long before I worked in AI, I was trying to understand people.
As a screenwriter, I spent years thinking about why conversations succeed or fail. Why one sentence builds trust while another creates distance. Why people rarely say exactly what they mean, and how status, empathy, conflict, and timing shape every interaction.
I didn't realise it at the time, but I was learning the same skills I now use in conversation design.
From screenwriting to conversation design
People often ask how screenwriting led me into AI.
To me, they aren't very different.
Both are about understanding human behaviour.
Both require thinking about intent, context, subtext, and what someone needs to hear in order to move an interaction forward.
The difference is that one audience is human.
The other is helping teach technology how to communicate with humans.
Technology doesn't understand subtext.
People do.
Most conversations aren't simply an exchange of information.
They're full of hesitation, uncertainty, assumptions, emotion, and things left unsaid.
Technology doesn't naturally understand any of that.
That's where conversation design matters.
My job is to bridge that gap, to design conversations that feel clear, supportive, and genuinely useful, especially when people don't quite know what they need or how to ask for it.
The kind of work I'm drawn to
Looking back across my projects, I've realised I'm rarely interested in the "happy path."
I'm interested in the moments where people feel uncertain.
When someone doesn't know where to start.
When two people want different things.
When confidence disappears.
When the next step isn't obvious.
Those are the moments where conversation design can have the biggest impact.
Outside of work
late-night learner,
reformed screenwriter,
IVF Mumma,
worth-the-climb immigrant,
half of a marriage,
occasional late-night dancer,
and an out-and-proud verbivore.
I ask a lot of questions, drink too much tea, and get disproportionately excited when someone uses exactly the right word.