2026 will reward AI products that get three things right: trust, cost, and orchestration. This episode looks ahead at how those forces are reshaping AI product strategy—and what teams need to pay attention to now.

Brittany and Arpy are joined by Yaddy Arroyo, who has spent a decade designing multimodal AI systems in financial services, where reliability and governance are table stakes. She's also been one of the key community builders amongst the design community who are leaders within AI orgs.

Together, they reflect on what the last two years of AI adoption revealed and how those lessons are directly informing decisions teams are making in 2026.

Why trust now shapes AI product success
Orchestration matters more than prompting
Token costs quietly reshape UX decisions
When small models outperform large ones
How AI design roles must evolve in 2026

Episode chapters01:21 Reflecting on Two Years of AI Adoption02:52 The Rise of Copilot and AI's Impact on Creativity03:37 Challenges and Concerns with AI Safety04:24 Designing AI for Human-Centric Use Cases04:53 Meta's Investment and Intelligence as a Service09:25 Hallucinations and the Reliability of LLMs11:14 The Business Value and Limitations of Gen AI18:55 Founders and the Rush to Monetize AI19:25 Token Optimization and UX Challenges21:31 Personalizing AI Interactions21:48 Challenges in AI Adoption22:27 PH One's AI Solutions22:53 The Orchestration Problem24:22 AI's Role in Everyday Tasks26:08 AI in UX and Design27:55 Future of AI and Small Language Models30:35 Human in the Loop and UI Generators37:35 Accountability and AI's Future42:39 Closing Thoughts and Future Directions

The conversation connects early generative AI optimism with today’s realities—probabilistic systems, rising costs, and scaling pressure—and surfaces where momentum is building, from smaller models to on-device intelligence.

This episode also marks Episode 50 of Design of AI and two years of conversations with builders, researchers, and leaders shaping AI-powered products—follow the podcast to stay ahead as this next phase unfolds

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About PH1
The Design of AI podcast is brought to you by PH1, an AI strategy consultancy. PH1 has worked with the biggest corporations in tech to redefine CX in the era of AI through strategic research, prototyping, and aligning product to power. Visit ph1.ca to ask about your project.

Go Deeper
For deeper, unfiltered thinking on AI strategy, governance, and product decisions, our Substack (https://designofai.substack.com) is the best place to follow our work. It’s where we go beyond the episodes—breaking down what’s actually changing, what’s overhyped, and what leaders should do next.

Connect with the Hosts

Contact Arpy if you’re navigating AI product strategy, platform architecture, orchestration, or high-stakes system decisions that need to scale.
Contact Brittany if you need clarity on AI UX, research, service design, or evaluating whether an AI product is actually delivering value for users.

50. Designing AI for 2026: Trust, Cost, Orchestration [Yaddy Arroyo]

Product Impact Podcast | Formerly Design of AI