Agents vs. Interfaces | Creative Duel at Blink UX
🤖 Do we design for humans to act, or for agents to act on their behalf?
One side says the interface is not going anywhere. Trust, judgment, and accountability live at the surface where a person can see what is happening and intervene. Take the human out of the loop and you have not removed friction, you have removed the last place where a bad outcome could be caught.
The other side says the interface was always a workaround for the fact that software could not understand intent. Now it can. Every screen we defend is a tax on the user's time, and clinging to it is how incumbents get left behind.
Both arguments are strong. That is exactly why we are putting them on a stage.
⚔️ The Format: A Duel, Then a Decision
The afternoon runs in two acts.
Act one is the Duel. Two sides. One question. No slides full of hedging. Each side gets the floor to make its strongest case, then defends it under pressure from the other side and from you. We poll the room before the duel and again after, and we tell you what moved.
Act two is the Leadership Panel. The duel is built to sharpen the argument. The panel is built to answer the harder question underneath it: what do you actually do on Monday morning? Leaders who are making these calls inside real organizations respond to what they just heard, tell us where the debate breaks down against a roadmap and a budget, and take questions from the room.
The duel makes the tension visible. The panel makes it actionable. The most interesting result of the day is not who wins. It is who changed their mind, and what it cost them to change it.
Come ready to be argued with.
👥 Who This Is For
Designers, researchers, product leaders, engineers, and founders who are building or evaluating agent systems and want a sharper argument than the one currently in their head.
🎤 Duelists
To be announced
💬 Panelists
Brandon Knapp
Senior Manager of Technical Product Management
Amazon
Brandon Knapp is a product leader with 15+ years of experience, including 12+ at Amazon across Retail, Operations, and AI. He leads Rufus, Amazon's generative AI shopping assistant, scaling it to hundreds of millions of monthly interactions and more than $1B in annualized revenue.
Linnea Hagen
Consumer Insights Manager
Netflix
Linnea Hagen spent over a decade at Amazon leading UX research across Shopping, Advertising, and Prime Video, most recently as Senior Manager of UX Research for Prime Video. At Netflix, she focuses on Core Member Experience, building research teams that blend qualitative and quantitative methods to shape product vision and customer experience.
Rohan Thakkar
Founder, FamilyCall
Rohan Thakkar is the Founder of FamilyCall, whose AI companion Asha calls aging parents in their own language, checks in on their wellbeing, and shares updates and voice memories with their families. A seasoned product leader, he previously built products in search, messaging AI, and developer platforms at Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, and Expedia.
Lad Decker
Vice President of UX Research
Lad Decker is VP of Research at Blink UX, an artist, researcher, and observer of humans fascinated by the endlessly complex human experience. For 30 years, she has collaborated with teams and individuals to understand people, examine complexity, and design things that empower curiosity and creativity, a lens she also brings to her work as a painter.
Laura Blanchard
VP of Design, Blink UX
Laura Blanchard is VP of Design at Blink UX, bringing 25 years of experience creating standout user experiences for web, mobile, software, and applications. An award winning interaction and visual designer recognized by Communication Arts, South by Southwest, and ID Magazine, she partners with intentional organizations to drive positive change, energizing teams and elevating the quality of design.
🕐 Schedule
4:00 PM | Doors, drinks, and conversation
4:15 PM | Welcome
4:30 PM | The Duel: Agents vs. Interfaces
5:15 PM | Leadership Panel: what this means for what you ship
6:00 PM | Audience questions and the closing poll
6:30 PM | Continue the conversation
7:00 PM | Close
📅 Details
Tuesday, November 3, 2026
4:00 PM to 7:00 PM
$159 General Admission
This event may qualify for professional development or L&D reimbursement.
📍 Venue
Blink Studio
1011 Western Ave, Suite 600
Seattle, WA 98104
On Seattle's waterfront, just blocks from Pike Place Market.
🔷 More About Nivan
Nivan is an innovation platform bringing together leaders, builders, researchers, and creatives at the intersection of Tech, AI, UX, and Design. Through conferences, intimate events, and community experiences, Nivan connects diverse perspectives to explore how technology and humanity shape what comes next.
🤝 More About Blink
Blink UX is a product design and UX consulting firm that helps organizations turn insights into breakthrough products and experiences through UX research, product design, strategy, AI acceleration, and business transformation.
🎟️ Explore Nivan Creative Duel Seattle 2026