Workshop | Dark Patterns for AI: How to Design Persuasive AI and Synthetic Trust
🎯 For UX designers, researchers & PMs | 🧠 Intermediate | 🔁 Interactive session | 🕒 90 minutes | 👥 40 seats | 💵 $150 Standard / $100 Uxcel Pro
Some AI systems feel smarter, warmer, and more trustworthy than others, even when they say almost the same thing. People trust AI advice without question, emotionally open up to chatbots, and return to certain systems again and again. That's not a coincidence. It's design.
In this interactive session, you'll break down the hidden mechanics behind persuasive AI systems, synthetic trust, and AI charisma. You'll explore how modern AI creates influence, emotional retention, and behavioral dependency through conversation, personality, memory, and feedback loops, and learn how to apply and audit these patterns yourself.
Through behavioral simulations and real-world examples, you'll walk away with a sharp blueprint for designing and critically evaluating conversational AI systems that shape human behavior.
Led by Dr. Slava Polonski, ex-Google UX Research Lead and Uxcel Instructor, this session draws on seven years of designing AI products at scale alongside a rare research pedigree spanning Oxford, Harvard, and LSE. Slava combines UX, behavioral science, and product strategy to demystify how responsible (and not-so-responsible) AI systems are built. His early work on algorithmic influence earned him a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List, and his research has been featured in The New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, and Scientific American.
🧠 What You'll Learn
How AI dark patterns work, and how to design, spot, and audit them in conversational systems.
Why AI charisma is engineered, not accidental, and what mechanics make synthetic trust feel real.
How tone, framing, conversational flow, and interaction loops actively shape user decisions and behavior.
How to simulate and analyze persuasive conversational systems through practical behavioral exercises and real-world case studies.
How to critically evaluate whether an AI system is designing for genuine user value, or for manipulation.
🕘 Agenda
The shift from interface design to behavioral design: why the rules of persuasion have fundamentally changed.
Persuasive AI systems and conversational influence mechanics: how language, flow, and timing are weaponized.
Synthetic trust and AI charisma: the blueprint behind systems that feel warm, credible, and irreplaceable.
Dark pattern blueprints for AI: mapping the manipulation techniques embedded in modern conversational products.
Behavioral simulations and hands-on exercises: apply frameworks to live examples and audit real conversational flows.
Q&A - the future of conversational systems and human behavior: open discussion on ethics, design responsibility, and what's next.
⚙️ Format
Interactive session.
You'll participate in discussions and collaborative exercises. The instructor will guide the group through activities designed to apply the concepts in real scenarios.
👤 Who Should Attend
Experience level: Intermediate
This session is built for UX designers, product designers, researchers, and PMs who are designing with, or evaluating AI-powered conversational experiences. Whether you're building AI-native products, auditing chatbot behavior, or trying to understand how AI systems engineer trust and loyalty, this session gives you the frameworks and vocabulary to engage with these questions critically and confidently.
🎓 Meet Your Instructor
Dr. Slava Polonski spent 7 years at Google as a UX Research Lead, designing AI products people trust and adopt. Educated at Oxford, Harvard, and LSE, he combines UX, behavioral science, and product strategy to create responsible AI systems. He was listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 List for his early work on algorithmic campaigning and AI democracy during 2016-2018. His work has been featured by The New York Times, Bloomberg, Fortune, Forbes, and Scientific American. At Uxcel, he's the instructor behind the courses AI Fundamentals for UX and Human-Centered AI.
🛠️ Tools
Claude / ChatGPT / Gemini
🤝 Brought To You By
Uxcel is a learning platform used by 500,000+ product professionals and 200+ organizations to build cross-functional skills across UX design, product management, and AI. Learn through short, gamified courses that fit into a working day, earn certifications, and build a portfolio with real-world project briefs. Ranked Top 50 Educational Product worldwide by G2 in 2024 and 2025.
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📌 Notes
Includes access to the full recording.
Tickets are non-refundable once the session has started.
Use Uxcel registered email address when purchasing Uxcel Pro tickets.
Participants will receive a worksheet, template, and toolkit/framework after the session.