Rosenverse
When AI Becomes the User’s Point Person—and Point of Failure

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

When AI Becomes the User’s Point Person—and Point of Failure

Thursday, August 7, 2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Share the love for this talk
When AI Becomes the User’s Point Person—and Point of Failure
Speakers: Heidi Trost
Link:

Summary

Imagine slipping on a sleek pair of smart glasses. Not only do you look sharp, the glasses capture everything you see, hear, and do. Your AI assistant—built into the glasses and synced to your email, social media accounts, health apps, and finances—manages your life. It’s tasked with paying bills, booking trips, replying to messages, even helping you swipe right. Over time, you find yourself chitchatting with your AI assistant. You call him Charlie. Now imagine you’re a threat actor. That trust between user and AI assistant? It’s your entry point. If your product is powered by AI, you’re not just designing features—you’re designing an entire relationship. You’re designing Charlie. Let’s talk about where that goes wrong—and how to get it right.

Key Insights

  • Users often do not understand why AI-powered systems request extensive personal data, increasing privacy risks.

  • Trust in AI agents can become excessive, creating new vectors for manipulation by threat actors.

  • Security issues typically occur beneath the surface until alerts disrupt the user experience, often causing frustration.

  • Prompt injection attacks pose a novel threat where malicious inputs manipulate AI agents to access sensitive user data.

  • Multimodal AI interfaces introduce complexity in security decisions, increasing chances for user errors.

  • Secure by default settings reduce burden on users and improve overall protection without requiring user intervention.

  • Cross-disciplinary collaboration between UX, security, product, legal, and compliance teams is crucial for safer AI design.

  • Users need clear, contextual guidance during onboarding to make informed decisions about data sharing and security settings.

  • Transparency about AI limitations and giving users the option to reverse AI actions are essential for building trust.

  • Threat actors are likely to exploit growing AI access to personal data and automate vulnerabilities discovery.

Notable Quotes

"When a product is powered by AI, you're not just designing the features; you are designing an entire relationship."

"Charlie is like the most annoying coworker who constantly surfaces problems but never offers solutions to Alice."

"Threat actors probably know your system better than you do and are looking for any entry points to exploit."

"Alice often perceives Charlie as just another barrage of alerts filled with jargon she doesn't understand."

"Prompt injection attacks can trick AI agents into accessing private data like emails without the user realizing."

"People become incrementally more comfortable giving away data because they see the value AI provides."

"We need secure defaults that protect users out of the box without them having to figure it out."

"Alert fatigue is real; users can't be burdened with constant security decisions or they'll ignore them."

"Giving users the ability to reverse AI-driven actions is critical but currently underexplored."

"If Charlie has been tampered with, Alice needs a clear way to be alerted that she shouldn't trust it."

Ask the Rosenbot
Briana Thomas
The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Matt Webb
Context Window: Five Futures for AI
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Paula Bach
Improving Legacy Software: How Much Better Does it Have to Be?
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Welcome / Housekeeping
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Dan Willis
Theme 3: Intro
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Ben Reason
Making the system visible: The fastest path to better decisions
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Deanna Washington
Scaling Success: Paving the Path from DesignOps to VP
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Snehal Pendharkar
Conducting pre-research with AI agent personas: Pressure-testing concepts for expert workflows
2026 • Designing with AI 2026
Conference
Failure Friday #4: Invisible Work: How I Stalled My Career by Not Showing My Work
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Frances Yllana
DesignOps–Leading the Path to Parity
2023 • DesignOps Community
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
Bridge Building across Research Disciplines
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Stephanie Wade
Building and Sustaining Design in Government
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Bria Alexander
Day 3 Welcome
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Luz Bratcher
This Is a Talk for Tired People
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Maverick Chan
From Doodle to Demo: AI as Our Storytelling Partner
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Shawna Hein
Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold

More Videos

Nova Wehman-Brown

"Noba submitted my name without asking me to present today, which shows how much we've grown to trust each other."

Nova Wehman-Brown

We've Never Done This Before

June 4, 2019

Sam Proulx

"Screen readers navigate based on the code and semantics, not on visual layout or appearance."

Sam Proulx

Designing For Screen Readers: Understanding the Mental Models and Techniques of Real Users

December 10, 2021

Lin Nie

"Science doesn’t just check truth; it has to win hearts and minds."

Lin Nie

When Thought-worlds Collide: Collaborating Between Research and Practice

March 10, 2021

Erin Malone

"There’s still a need for human insight to understand behavior and apply meaningful design decisions."

Erin Malone

Understanding the past to prepare for the future

July 19, 2024

Sam Proulx

"Accessibility requires flexible designs, not limited or simplified ones."

Sam Proulx

Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate

September 8, 2022

Mac Smith

"Find your champion before you identify the problems to solve; this person helps navigate complex organizational alignment."

Mac Smith

Measuring Up: Using Product Research for Organizational Impact

March 12, 2021

Marc Rettig

"We’re building a program here that lasts through 2025 and 2030, so we can take risks on entry level folks."

Marc Rettig Julie Baher Phil Gilbert Nathan Shedroff

Discussion

May 14, 2015

Kavana Ramesh

"You’re really there to learn because the person with assistive technology is the expert of their setup."

Kavana Ramesh

Meaningful inclusion: Practicing accessibility research with confidence

September 24, 2024

Sharon Bautista

"We have no cross-functional team dedicated to printing, so figuring out with whom to share recommendations was a challenge."

Sharon Bautista

Time to Make the Donuts: How User Research Helped Bridge Disparate Teams

January 8, 2024