Could AI become more Biased than the society It learns from?
(Reflections on UNESCO’s Outlook Study on Artificial Intelligence and Gender in South Asia) Last week, I was invited to the launch of UNESCO’s Outlook Study on Artificial Intelligence and Gender in South Asia at the UNESCO Office in New Delhi. As we design, build, and train LLMs, we are baking in the biases already present in our society while creating the risk that the AI layer influencing our lives becomes even more biased than the society it learns from. What does that mean? The AI layer shaping our society could eventually become more biased than the humans it learns from if we fail to identify, test, and address these biases continuously throughout the AI lifecycle. To reduce risks such as embedded bias, hallucinations, and harmful outputs, governance, testing, and risk management must be applied throughout the model development lifecycle, not only after deployment. As Responsible AI practitioners, one question keeps returning: Do we have sufficient legal and governance guardrails when organizations build or deploy AI systems? Studies like this play an important role in strengthening accountability. They provide evidence that helps policymakers, researchers and organizations identify systemic risks and reduce harmful bias before it becomes embedded at scale. One of the biggest challenges in global AI governance is balancing speed, complexity and local context. Training data is often collected across countries and cultures without sufficient attention to gender, caste, language, cultural diversity, or equitable representation. AI is becoming part of everyday life. Before organizations procure and deploy AI systems, they should understand how the underlying models were trained, what governance processes were followed, how the systems were evaluated and how their recommendations could affect citizens’ access to public services. Ultimately, this is about more than model performance. It is about preserving public trust in AI. In this context, both the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI and periodic studies such as this are essential. They help us understand how AI is evolving, who is participating in shaping it and where governance and inclusion still need attention. About the report This is UNESCO’s first regional assessment of women’s participation across the AI ecosystem in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka. Its central finding is striking: South Asia is producing more educated women than ever before, yet very few are reaching positions where AI is designed, governed, funded, or led. The AI leadership gap Is where bias begins. AI cannot be inclusive if its builders aren’t. Top six findings Women remain underrepresented across the AI ecosystem, particularly in AI engineering, research, entrepreneurship, and leadership. The AI talent pipeline is “leaky,” with women’s participation steadily declining from STEM education to AI careers and senior leadership. Women contribute to AI research but are far less likely to lead it, limiting their influence on innovation and policy. AI systems can reinforce existing gender biases through biased training data, limited diversity in development teams, and discriminatory outcomes in hiring, finance, healthcare, and public services. Women-led AI startups continue to face barriers to funding, mentorship, investment, and professional networks. Gender-responsive AI governance is essential, supported by fairness, transparency, accountability, inclusive participation, and better gender-disaggregated data across the AI lifecycle. Download the full report here: https://tinyurl.com/5ydujdhd
Why Corporate Digital Presence Feels Synthetic
Most corporate websites today feel assembled rather than expressed. Not because companies lack intent, but because they lack authorship. A synthetic digital presence is one that looks complete but lacks a clear, human voice. For years, corporate websites have been shaped by the wrong hands, on both sides. At the client end, the brief has become transactional. “Get us a website.” There is little clarity on what the website should do for the business, what it should communicate, or what it should make people feel. So most outcomes become presence without purpose. From Narrative Ownership to Execution Focus This was not always the case. Two decades ago, functions like Corporate Communications played a central role in shaping the narrative. These teams understood language, tone, culture, and business context. They could translate an organisation into a coherent voice. As the digital ecosystem expanded, the role of the corporate website changed. It became the primary public interface of the organisation. It now acts as a hub for information, leadership communication, talent attraction, culture expression, and stakeholder engagement. With this shift, the focus moved toward digital marketing instead of digital communication, along with the push to build scale across channels. This brought speed and reach. But it also shifted attention away from personality, communication, and authenticity. The emphasis moved to distribution and efficiency, without fully addressing the need for a clear and consistent brand voice and visual narrative. Standardization and the Rise of Sameness Around the same time, design practices moved toward standardization. Templates, pre-built systems, and scalable frameworks helped teams move faster, but reduced distinctiveness. Across industries, many corporate websites began to look and sound similar. Layouts, imagery, and messaging followed predictable patterns. Claims around innovation, leadership, and trust became generic. Different organisations with different vision and culture began to project very similar digital identities. This sameness creates a synthetic presence. Not because of technology, but because human factors are missing. Intent, voice, emotion, and culture. A corporate website is not just a set of pages. It is a representation of people, decisions, and organisational thinking. When this layer is absent, even well-designed websites feel assembled. Users are not only looking for information. They are trying to understand the people behind the business, the thinking behind decisions, and the culture that drives action. When these cues are missing, the experience feels impersonal and manufactured. AI and the Possible Return of Human Attention With AI, digital practitioners can move from research to ideation in a much compressed time. Tools like Perplexity AI and NotebookLM can compress weeks of landscape research into hours, surfacing patterns and perspectives that would otherwise demand significant human bandwidth. Claude and similar conversational tools help teams move quickly from a rough brief to a considered narrative framework, testing tone, stress-testing clarity, and iterating on voice before a single page goes live. With emerging layers like Zapier AI and platforms such as Adobe Experience Cloud, workflows are not just orchestrated. Intelligence is increasingly integrated across content and systems. As AI takes over the functional layer, architecture, SEO and AEO scaffolding, and performance optimisation, it returns something the last decade quietly took away. Time to think. Space to be deliberate. The bandwidth to ask not just what this page says, but what this organisation sounds like, and what it should make people feel. In that sense, AI does not deepen the synthetic problem. It creates the conditions to finally solve it. The risk is not that AI will make corporate presence more artificial. The risk is that organisations will use it to produce more of what they were already making, faster, and at greater scale. The opportunity is the opposite. To use reclaimed time with intention. To write and design with conviction. To build a presence that feels like it was made by people who meant it. What Needs to Change The issue is not capability. It is the willingness to be real. Consider a small decision, whether to use real people or default to stock imagery. It seems minor, often driven by budget or timelines, but to a visitor it signals something immediate. Either there are real people here, or the organisation has chosen to mask them. Organisations that show their actual teams signal something simple. They chose to be seen. This is where most corporate digital transformation falls short, not in technology or execution, but in small human decisions that build either trust or distance. Real change begins when decision makers stop treating digital presence as an output and start treating it as an expression. That requires voices from across the organisation, the person closest to the customer, the team that onboards new hires, the leader who echoes the ethos of the organisation. Each carries a part of the organisation’s real voice. When that breadth shapes the digital presence, the result feels inhabited, not assembled. Practitioners have a role here too, to push back on briefs that prioritise speed over substance, and to ask harder questions about tone, culture, and intent before a single wireframe is drawn. As Artificial Intelligence accelerates content production, sameness will increase. More websites will look complete. Fewer will feel real. Corporate digital presence will not improve with more pages, features, or content. It will improve when organisations take ownership of meaning, communicate with clarity, and build trust by design. Until then, most corporate websites will continue to exist. Very few will truly connect. If this reflects where your organisation is, it may be time to relook at how your digital presence is being shaped. At HUDE, we work with leadership teams to move from execution to expression, bringing clarity to narrative, design, and experience so what gets built reflects what the organisation actually stands for. If this resonates, write to: nazim@hudestudio.com and we will set up a conversation.
Designing for Trust in BFSI and Healthcare
Trust is often treated as a communication problem – something to be solved with better messaging, sleek branding or AI chatbots. But in BFSI and Healthcare, that approach doesn’t hold. Trust isn’t claimed; it’s experienced. In these sectors, interactions aren’t casual. A claim, a diagnosis, or a payment carries heavy emotional weight. Users aren’t “exploring options” – they are trying to be certain. THE EROSION CYCLE Most systems are designed to complete a process, not to reduce doubt. When flows prioritize data capture over clarity, we trigger a dangerous chain reaction: Gaps in understanding → Users filling gaps themselves → Guessing → Trust eroding. Think about a typical insurance journey. Technically, nothing is broken. The forms work. The “Submit” button triggers a response. Yet, the user feels uneasy because: The coverage is purchased, but not understood. The claim is initiated, but the path ahead is a black box. Documents are uploaded, but adequacy remains a question mark. The system works, but the experience fails to reassure. THE ANATOMY OF ASSURANCE In high-stakes environments, users aren’t looking for “delight” – they are looking for assurance. Real trust is built on three pillars:1. Clarity: What is happening right now?2. Control: What can I actually do about it?3. Predictability: What exactly happens next? We often see organizations try to “signal” trust through badges and copy. But a clear claims timeline builds more trust than a “We Care” banner. A guided medical report builds more trust than a beautiful UI. Our role as designers isn’t to remove the complexity required by compliance, but to translate it into something actionable. In BFSI and healthcare, users are not looking for delight. They are looking for assurance. In insurance, they buy the hope of support when things go wrong.In healthcare, they trust the system to help them recover.Design cannot change the policy or the diagnosis. But it shapes how both are understood. THE BOTTOM LINE Trust is tested most when things go wrong-a delayed claim or an unexpected medical outcome. These are the moments where transparency and clear reasoning can actually strengthen a relationship rather than shatter it. Trust isn’t a layer you add at the end of a project. It is built (or lost) in the quiet, functional moments of a journey. How is your team designing for certainty in high-stress user journeys? This post has been taken from the Linkedin post by Nazim Iqbal.
Rise of the Human-Centered Design
Over the last few years, we have made huge progress in adoption of design by businesses, brands, and in the civic space. But even now when I head into meeting with key stakeholders in evolved corporate organisations or government departments looking to bring ease of use to their technology stacks, I encounter prejudices and hand-me-down assumptions. One of which is the random use and ambidextrous clubbing of UX & UI. Whether it is UX & UI or UI & UX, the pairing has caught everybody’s imagination who is looking walk the digital path. So, whether it is the CTO, CPO or CDO looking to bring an ounce of user friendliness to their products or wanting to improve accessibility of their technology stack for humans – they somehow evolve a notion that all of it is a UX & UI ride. UI is a small sub-set of the UX. UX is the experience layer of the product which combines, in varying degrees, copy writing, interaction design, visual design, iconography, motion design, and in many cases, voice and audio design. The world of experience is much wider and deeper both at the organisation, product or service level. It requires not just digital and design acumen, but a collective human perspective of emotions, ethics, human behaviour and a large dose of measured maturity. Such holistic thinking and approach build design experiences that are inclusive and accommodate diversity of human inanities, fallacies, and cultural dichotomy. We are now at an inflection in the digital evolution, and for design to be really impactful, it has to step out from the realm of designers and get into the hands of developers, engineers, project managers, marketers, technologists, civil administrators, government service providers and possibly also the users of the product or services. Which brings up the question: what would designer do, if everybody is a designer. Designers need to step up and be mentors, coaches, assimilators and the tribe that can help connect the dots. It is collectively that we can build experiences that carry diversity of perspective, yet are inclusive in their embrace and need fulfilment. We at HUDE Studio call it Human Experience (HX).
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Watch Nazim Iqbal in conversation with host Ashutosh Garg of A Brand Called You. Nazim shares his journey as entrepreneur and designer, his motivations, and his evolution into a ‘humanist-designer’. And of course, the birth of HUDE Studio. He talks at length about his passionate quest for human-centred design and how Digital today is not just expected to fulfil the consumer’s functional needs but also some emotional and social needs and desires; how brands can improve their omni-channel experience in a digital-first business environment. Get to know us better: read at length about HUDE Studio and our philosophy. Do watch and be sure to share with your friends! Drop us a comment or get in touch. We love conversations!
How can a designer respond to climate change
In the Indian subcontinent, it is monsoon time, and a time of the year when all conversations revolve around rainfall. Too much! Too little! Too late! Rising water level of this or that river! What’s more heat waves, no longer a regional phenomenon, are lashing large swathes of Europe, Africa and Asia. It is a time when climate change is experienced not as an abstract idea or a topic for an animated debate, but as a grim everyday reality that refuses to adhere to any solutions or patterns or predictions. And then arises the inevitable thought: how can a designer – product designer or web or UI/UX designer or any other kind of designer – become part of the solution for climate change? What can a designer do to influence or impact climate change, even if in a small way? Climate change – that juggernaut with all its uncertainty, its irreversibility. Here are some fairly simple ways in which a designer can make a difference. Think holistically, think big. When working on a project or system, ask the larger questions about the entire system: who will use it and how, what is being reused and renewed (as against creating from scratch), who all will not be able to use it, and its expected outcomes. Remember to ask the bold questions that people may not be readily willing to discuss – due to budget or time constraints, or lack of awareness, or just plain lazy to think wide and deep. Having the larger picture will inform your design in more relevant ways. Graphics and visuals, user journeys, navigation labels, simple elements in a design can actually create awareness and sensitivity towards climate change or sustainability or environment (as appropriate in the given context). Having it as a core concern will, in any case, enable you to think of and design visuals that ‘speak’ climate-change awareness, and in turn, influence users and stakeholders. Have ethics for your work and collaborators. As a smart designer you remain aware of the bottom line and the need to balance ‘good’ and ‘worthwhile’ projects that inspire and give you a sense of a larger purpose along with ‘mundane’ corporate work that keeps your boat afloat. Global studio leaders, however, underline the importance of getting picky today, with clients as well as collaborators within the fraternity. Given the urgency of response required by the climate emergency we collectively face, this seems like a sensible, life-affirming way to go. Then there are designers who believe that their creativity should be employed in ways that serves society rather than to come up with ‘cool’ things that end up ‘persuading customers’ and driving consumption. For instance, a global design agency used its authority to promote an environmental group, through creating its Christmas campaign ‘Ungifted’, that used powerful visuals to discourage mass consumption. We could think of it as a moral arc that every designer (actually, every human) designs for themselves, and then tries to remain as true to it as they can, while juggling life’s multifarious challenges. Keep learning and pass it forward. Take responsibility. Climate change is a juggernaut, yes! It is also complex and has various interconnections, nuances related to geography, economics, seasons and species. Everything’s linked, and everything’s changing – very quickly We need to learn, keep learning, and at the same time, help clients and teams unpack its layers. Keep reading, keep up with the research, get connected with groups that resonate with you, and be aware that there is as much propaganda on this topic as there are authentic resources. Taking responsibility is a big step. In small ways – those invisible actions nobody will see and judge. Recycling tins, minimizing use of plastic and packing material, planting a tree. Starting small is a big point of departure from our present ‘hyper life style’. The monsoons will give way to sunny days in a couple of weeks in India. And while that might keep our water worries at bay, climate change will not fade away as a universal fact of our current existence. A wholesale redesign of our world might be the way forward, one design practice or visual at a time. And if you have reached here, then do take a couple of minutes to also read this post. Photo by Akil Mazumder: https://www.pexels.com/photo/person-holding-a-green-plant-1072824/
At the Pitchfest Finals, 28 June 2022
When CX Network put out their announcement for the CX Live Start-up Pitchfest, we responded with open-minded curiosity and enthusiasm. It felt exciting to be part of the larger community of CX and related organizations and professionals. It ended with participation in the final, as one of the six shortlisted finalists. Not only was it an invigorating challenge, but also an educative and wonderful experience. An eclectic mix of people, product and services – all bonded by the common quest to improve customer experience for organisation and brands. Presenting the HUDE Studio proposition of ‘putting a human face to the digital presence of organisation and brand’ was a solution narrative that rhymed with products trying to reach out to CX professionals. In the end, the event was a great opportunity to have connected with global professionals in the larger CX fraternity. Nazim Iqbal, founder and director, elaborated on the HUDE philosophy of integrating human connectivity into digital channels. Customer experience, forever evolving, and growing more subtle and embedding deeper within products, now calls for deeper collaborations amongst specialists, thinkers, analysts and creative dreamers. Such initiatives seem like excellent places to hang out with one’s own tribe, and get acquainted with others.
Why ethical design is a business imperative
As design gains a greater role on the business stage, as brighter spotlight is shone on it, design as a practice is fast growing into a mature and responsible adult. Not only is the design industry aware of its great significance, it is also taking responsibility for aspects that are more fundamental and intrinsic to products, both digital and physical. Ethical design is, therefore, no more an afterthought starting with diversity in people imagery and ending with testing accessibility for the differently abled. It is now more nuanced and flows deeper within the muscle of the product. Indeed, ethical design strengthens a product (or service) and it is a business imperative. Today more than ever before. Some key aspects of ‘Ethical Design’ that should be taken into consideration by every UX practitioner. Design for inclusiveness All genders, demographics, races and ethnicities; minimization of unconscious biases and unintended exclusions.A range of nationalities and regional identities, urban and rural.For voice-enabled products, relevant accents and manner of speech including colloquialisms, abbreviations and typical phraseologies.No stereotypes and what is typically understood as ‘expected’ behavior of user segments (e.g., LGBTQ, older women, indigenous populations, and others). A product in the digital is available to all, and is accessed by people with varying abilities, interests and cultures. The more inclusive a product, the wider spread its usage, across users and geographies. Does this not make perfect business sense? More importantly, it aids in building a better society and world. Think sustainable design It’s widely accepted that 80 percent of the ecological impacts of a product are focused (and handled) in the design phase of a product. Decisions taken during the design phase are crucial to the entire life cycle with regard to the product’s relationship and effects on people, planet and business profits. Research and white-boarding, gathering insights, prototyping, user feedback and finally production of a digital or physical product should factor this in. Factors that influence – prominently – and need insightful exploration are: impact on environment (negative and otherwise), on society (values, social norms and specific demographic targeting) and business value (in the immediate time frame and in the long term). Context of design ‘Who is the target user’ – this line of design thinking is old-hat. Look for the deeper unseen connections with users’ lives and their decisions. Think of the long-term impact of your design and its intersection with social and environmental factors. Consider the mental map and the psychological conditioning of potential users. Post pandemic, these below-the-surface systemic aspects have greatly magnified in their bearing upon products and services design. We were once designing a solution for nutrition among rural mothers and infants. Among the many things to be taken into consideration were also the most personalized details like: language dialects in a region, a mother’s usual daily routine, average distance to the closest health center, divorced and abandoned mothers, extreme weather topographies (snow or extreme cold and extreme heat) and so on.The design model overlaid on the social model – and that is the only way the solution can have real meaning for the end user. Ethics in design enlivens the promise of being well-integrated (and sustainable) in its physical world replete with its social realities, imperfections, even quirks. Based on the powerful concept of product stewardship, it helps to ‘regulate’ the field of design in much the same way as medicine or law is regulated to provide lasting value and meaning to people and societies. Whereas earlier generations of designers often considered ethics to be outside their pale, not any more. In fact, this is the key to making design more accountable, and respond in a wholesome way to present-day human and business demands. Photo by Anderson Guerra: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-portrait-wall-art-1154198/
Get started with ethical design
Featured image by Lisett Kruusimäe from Pexels Published on 6 May 2022.
Why brand storytelling is good for business
Every time I go to my hometown, a small dusty place in Uttar Pradesh, I always visit a particular watch shop to buy a new wristwatch. It’s not a one-dimensional buy-and-sell transaction. Each time I go there, I experience a special warmth, renew an old bond, and come away with a unique piece, immensely satisfied, even happy. My passion for collecting watches apart, there’s a reason I take the trouble of visiting this modest showroom, as opposed to buying well-known brands from opulent showrooms or from an online marketplace: my connection with the business. The owner is an old friend and I know his story from the earliest days. Making a purchase from his shop adds yet another bead to our shared story. It’s a deeper connection that defies argument and reasoning. When a customer buys something from a brand, not only are they fulfilling their immediate need, they are, at a deeper level, connecting with the brand and saying, “Yes, I identify with you and what you stand for.” It’s not just about a superficial feeling – it’s a close identification with the business, its ethos and values, its principles of engagement with the world, its commitment to issues that are close to the customer’s heart. Storytelling to highlight the human aspect Businesses need their stories to differentiate them in a forest of same faces. Facts are impressive: jaw-dropping profits and revenues and all the ‘new business in the last year’ coupled with the imposing range of products and outlets in the country or world. Facts tell the growth story of a business with absolute certainty. Excellent! But then, the brand’s real achievement shines through that one story of how a disadvantaged person was supported and put on the road to happiness, or how an initiative by the business brought a smile to a widow’s face, or gave a family a new home. These are the human stories that actually move the customer and help to forge an emotional link. The customer now sees the business as a complete entity, that works not only for its shareholders but also for people and society. It is how the customer puts a face to the business they can connect with in a meaningful way. After all, our brains are wired to respond to stories – a story always sticks in our memory, long after those shiny figures and facts have faded away. Being human and profitable are not mutually exclusive In our age of ‘positive-deficit’, in a time when people all over the world are surrounded by bad news in different shades, building a ‘tribe’ around your brand makes total sense, right?! After all is said and done, becoming a part of and changing people’s lives is no small goal to aspire to. Increasingly, as customers demand that businesses support real people and causes, they also desire to know the impact of such corporate-level engagements. When customers know that a business is greater than its revenues and profits, it’s a powerful incentive for deeper engagement, recommendation to their friends, and thus, the circle expands. We must also not forget that trust in a business is greatly cemented with the help of real customer stories and especially in sectors that engage with human emotions or require the human touch like hospitality, healthcare financial service and insurance companies. When organisations use brand storytelling, they are cementing customer trust for the long term Employees need more than salaries In this age of the Great Reset, when employees are seeking greater motivations than salaries and perks, brand storytelling could actually help give employees the pride of association with their organization. It gives meaning to their daily jobs, and the sense of being part of a greater purpose. As the pandemic wanes and people return to their jobs, they now desire more than a job – and this is where the brand story is reassuring evidence of the larger purpose and impact of the business. As more and more businesses reinvent their digital selves in the glittering age of Web3 and metaverse, a human soul, and a real human voice comes to gain more significance than ever before. Published on 22 April 2022. Body image by Kanchanara on Unsplash Featured image by Art Lasovsky on Unsplash
