Margaret Mariani

Join Karen and Margaret as they kick off IIEX North America with a warm welcome! They’ll share everything you need to know to make the most of your time at the event.

In today’s attention economy, sports teams compete not only with each other but with every form of entertainment. In this fireside chat, the Toronto Blue Jays share how they’ve used consumer insights to reframe their competitive set, embed insights across the organization, and turn fan attention into lasting engagement and revenue.

AI can analyze research faster than any team in history. It can even simulate consumers. But when companies start replacing human research with synthetic insight, something dangerous happens. The strange behaviors, contradictions, and surprises that spark breakthrough ideas disappear. Insights start averaging out and the edges vanish.

It’s never been easier to create, but it's harder to create well. As output grows, quality is slipping, widening the gap between what gets built and what actually resonates with people.

In this fireside chat, Bloomberg’s Arty Rivera brings a perspective shaped by years of applying human-centered design not just to products, but to how organizations make decisions. His work goes beyond usability, digging into the emotional drivers behind everyday behaviors and helping teams connect what they build to what people actually need in the moments that matter.

Together, we’ll explore what it takes to raise the bar: moving past volume and velocity to design experiences grounded in real human context. We will also examine why the ability to think critically about people, not just outputs, is becoming the difference between noise and meaningful impact.