Our Config 2026 speakers on the biggest opportunities with AI

From a pioneering AI artist, to the creator of one of YouTube’s most popular math and science channels, to a veteran designer with roots in behavioral science, this year’s Config speakers challenge us to reimagine work and creativity in 2026.

We asked a few of them where we should be investing energy as AI speeds everything up and unlocks new creative possibilities. They’re playing with process, questioning old narratives, and broadening the impact of what they create.

On pushing the outer limits of craft and creativity

“I see software as one of the defining artistic mediums of our time. With the help of AI, our studio is building more complex software projects than were previously possible,” says Holly Herndon, a renowned artist and composer known for her experiments with music, software, and machine learning. “It’s exciting to see our capacities expand, and to shift our roles to become orchestrators.” Holly and her partner Mat Dryhurst blend art and algorithm: Their recent work, Starmirror, first staged at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, recorded vocals from exhibition visitors and local choirs to form a dataset that will train a new AI choir—reimagining AI models as public, collective endeavors. Projects like Starmirror literally keep a human in the loop by inviting more people to not just participate in model inputs, but also play with the outputs.

Creator of the world’s first 3D-printed fashion collection Danit Peleg also sees an opportunity for AI to bridge digital and physical realms. “We’re entering an era where AI doesn’t just design on a screen, but also drives real-world manufacturing, architecture, and fashion,” she says. “We are going to see AI literally making things in the world.” Using Figma Weave

and by involving AI agents across her entire production pipeline from concept to fabrication, Danit shapes new workflows to take her own creative vision further.

For designer and author Vicki Tan, writing her new book highlighted the parallels between creativity and decision-making: “In both, you’re moving forward on a feeling, often without certainty, following a question to see where it might lead. They are processes that ask you to change how you see yourself along the way.” Being creative, she suggests, asks you to stay open and attuned to your own taste, expertise, and instinct.

“People talk about creativity as originality or talent, but I think it may be closer to care or attention,” she says. “There’s a related word in French, attendre, which means ‘to wait for’ or ‘to tend to,’ and I like thinking about creativity as the act of tending towards an idea, allowing meaning to reveal itself in time. Instead of searching for something entirely new, begin with noticing what already feels yours.”

On defining quality

Designer and founder of mu.design Matthew Ström-Awn believes that as ideas become easier to execute, who defines quality will change. “We’ve always celebrated individual designers as paragons of quality, but those who spoke loudest or most often got the most mindshare,” he says. “Now that anyone can go from idea to working software in hours without the backing of a world-class engineering team, the old signals of credibility—a job in FAANG, a big subscriber list, a nice logo wall, and slick sizzle reel—aren’t sufficient.”

Instead, the new test of quality will be how products behave in the real world. “Quality should be defined by people who deliver real software, real brands, real campaigns, and real impact,” says Matthew. “Shipping isn’t inherently virtuous. Shipped work has to survive contact with actual users, markets, and constraints.”

“The fact that software implementation is on a path to be commoditized and largely automated means design plays a more important role in product development than ever,” says mathematician and educator Grant Sanderson, creator of the popular YouTube channel 3Blue1Brown, which uses animated visualizations to unpack complex concepts in math, physics, and computer science—from how neural networks are structured to summaries on quantum computing.

In his view, products that give users more agency and flexibility—rather than limiting them to a few actions or workflows—will stand out. “Truly great products offer a foundation for making their users swifter in a wide range of tasks,” says Grant. In this sense, quality means letting users adapt the tool for their own workflows.

On who we’re building for—and why

We are quickly moving towards a future where not all users will be human, which means designers need to reconsider who they are building for. “What happens when most of your users are AI agents?” wonders Matthew. “What happens when your human users expect everything to be easily automated? What happens when your users can easily vibe-code replacements for the parts of your app that aren’t a perfect fit for their use case? Product strategy—not just how to build fast and at quality, but what to build and for whom—is the existential question.”

Vicki echoes this sentiment, adding that “the role of product builders may evolve toward orchestration: not just coordinating AI agents, but designing tools and spaces where many kinds of expertise can contribute in tandem.” She urges us to think about building systems not just for personal productivity, but for services that shape communities, like public transportation or medical care. “There is already enormous wisdom in how people live within these systems,” she says. “Our job is to create structures that can hold and shape it.”

Config returns to San Francisco June 23–25, 2026. Grab your in-person ticket today or register for free to watch virtually from anywhere in the world.