Jenny Simonds-Spellmann

Thinking

Notes from the messy middle of AI transformation.

AI adoption rarely fails because someone forgot to make another slide deck. The interesting problems appear when technology meets real people, real work, existing organisations and human judgement. These notes follow three threads that run through all of my work.

Human + AI

How people, roles and judgement change when AI joins the work.

Mirrors: people working with AI

Trust + responsibility

Which mistakes matter, and what AI should and shouldn't know about us.

Mirrors: people experiencing AI

Making AI real

Moving from experiments to systems people can actually rely on.

Mirrors: people making AI

Showing all 6 notes

  • Jenny smiling beside a sandcastle with an 'AI Sandbox' flag and a cat peering over a wooden drawbridge. Her notebook links 'human judgements' to four questions: what can it do, which tools and systems, when is human approval needed, and what level of risk is OK.

    Making AI real

    The AI Sandbox Needs a Gate

    Experimentation matters. So does deciding what should leave the sandbox.

    2 min read

    • Agentic AI
    • AI Prototyping
    • Human Oversight
    • AI Governance
    • AI Experience Design
  • Jenny cooking at a busy stove, sprinkling herbs into pots labelled AI agent prototypes (Cursor), AI literacy learning paths, workshops and enablement, user research, strategy and communication, governance and ethics, and iteration and testing. Her apron reads 'design, code, learn, strategise, stir, repeat', a chalkboard lists 'Today's AI menu', and a cat watches from beside a laptop.

    Human + AI, Making AI real

    My Role Is No Longer One Thing

    And I'm starting to think that might be the point.

    2 min read

    • AI Adoption
    • Future of Work
    • AI Prototyping
    • AI Learning
    • Human Skills
  • Jenny at a flipchart titled 'False negatives and my role'. A false positive panel shows a cat triggering an intruder alert; a false negative panel shows a burglar dismissed as 'probably the cat'. A third panel, 'My role: I connect the bigger picture', links model behaviour, data and context, security risk, human behaviour, decision design, and governance and ethics to human-centred AI.

    Trust + responsibility

    When the AI Thinks the Burglar Is the Cat

    Accuracy isn't enough. We need to understand which mistakes matter.

    2 min read

    • Human-Centred AI
    • Responsible AI
    • AI Risk
    • Decision Design
    • Human Oversight
  • Jenny resting her chin on her hand next to a phone showing a 'Just for you' clothing feed. Dotted lines connect an AI node to questions about your style, relationships, lifestyle, income and health. Bold caption: 'How responsible do we actually want AI to be?'

    Trust + responsibility

    How Responsible Do We Actually Want AI to Be?

    Personalisation becomes much more complicated when we ask what AI needs to know about us.

    2 min read

    • Responsible AI
    • Personalisation
    • Privacy
    • Human Agency
    • AI Ethics
  • Jenny sits thoughtfully in a candlelit restaurant. Above her, an AI node is wired to social media posts about healthy relationships, red flags and boundaries, and to floating questions: What's normal? When to leave? Success in love? Healthy relationships?

    Human + AI

    When AI Starts Shaping What's “Normal”

    AI doesn't only answer questions. Increasingly, it mediates the information from which we form our judgement.

    2 min read

    • Human-Centred AI
    • AI & Society
    • Trust
    • Information Design
    • Human Judgement
  • Jenny sits beside her AI avatar, who has glowing violet hair and a light-lined suit, under the heading 'AI and human skills: a stronger team'. Jenny's list includes ask the right questions, understand people and keep it human; the avatar's list includes analyse and summarise fast and prototype and automate. Sticky notes read 'Messy rollout?', 'Low adoption?', 'More work than value?' and 'Turn them into progress'.

    Human + AI, Making AI real

    Hiring in the Age of AI Is Really About the Human + AI Team

    The question is becoming less “What can you do?” and more “What happens when you and AI work together?”

    2 min read

    • AI Adoption
    • AI Transformation
    • Human Skills
    • Future of Work
    • AI Prototyping