Videos
Wongdoody on Human-Centered AI, User Experience, and ROI
Insights
- AI competitiveness comes from improving human experiences, not simply deploying new technology.
- The strongest AI ROI is achieved through early research, prototyping, and user validation that prevent costly rework.
- Successful AI adoption depends on making work more efficient, creative, and enjoyable for the people using it.
Erica Schenk of Wongdoody discusses how organizations can unlock greater value from enterprise AI by combining user-centered design with disciplined innovation. Drawing on Wongdoody’s experience in customer and employee experience, she explains how research, prototyping, and user validation help organizations improve adoption, accelerate productivity, and generate stronger returns on AI investments. She also highlights the importance of designing AI solutions that enhance how people work, collaborate, and create. This interview was recorded during the Milken Institute Global Conference 2026.
Dylan Cosper:
I'm Dylan Cosper with the Infosys Knowledge Institute. And today I am sitting with Erica Schenk of Wongdoody. We are here in LA for the Milken Institute Conference. Today we're going to discuss a couple of questions around enterprise AI and Erica's going to give us her insight. So Erica, thank you so much for joining us today.
Erica Schenk:
Fantastic. Thank you for having me.
Dylan Cosper:
So I want to start off here looking at your clients and the people that you're working with currently. How is enterprise AI reshaping your clients' competitiveness?
Erica Schenk:
So at Wongdoody, we focus on the user experience or the human element of technology. And so through this lens, we approach every company, every vertical, every different industry from that solving the human problem. So AI does pose an interesting advantage as well as a problem in itself.
When we're looking at leveraging AI, it is a lot of the times approached strictly from a technology stack standpoint. And when we have to take it to this human lens aspect, we have to ask ourselves, how is it being implemented and how is it going to be the most useful tool for those people that are using it? So when we talk about competitiveness for our clients, we're really looking at how can we make the people using it more efficient, more effective, and also enjoy using whatever we're building. So when we're looking at knowledge base AI or generative AI, how can we make their jobs easier? Make their jobs more creative, more fun. So it's really this additive thought process of what we can bring to our clients.
There's a lot of AI investment right now, but the hot button topic is where's the actual ROI coming from? When we're looking at the implementation of AI and how we can get the best ROI, we're really thinking about what we can do upfront to avoid rework, avoid missed investments or investments in the wrong direction. So how can we do that front end work and really figure out what the problem is that will actually fix the business problem? So investing in that research, investing in prototyping and validating with the real users that are going to use whatever product you're trying to put together — whether that's an internal tool, whether that's a customer-facing website — getting something tangible in front of the real people, and then being able to test it, get their feedback. And that helps boost ROI. It helps you boost usability, as well as that return in the end.
Dylan Cosper:
Excellent. Well, Erica, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciated hearing some of your insights, especially from the Wongdoody side.
Erica Schenk:
Awesome. Thanks, guys.
