In the AI Age, the meta question on everyone’s minds is: how do humans and AI fit together?
That was the underlying meta question for our Service Design + MetaSkills Community MeetUp on 1 Sep, at The Meeting Point, LaunchPad @One-North.
Hence our theme: Human in the Loop. We invited three speakers to look at it from three perspectives.
PJ set out the big picture, drawing on Charles Dickens, history and his story (including as a trainee software engineer) - what are the implications of AI for organisations and design, drawing on the history of textile manufacturing electrification? What can design do about technology and AI?
Isaac shared the learnings from how AI has impacted product, especially in ShopBack: how previously distinct roles (product management, design, data analytics) are converging with AI; how AI empowers existing processes (“+AI”) and enables previously impossible new services/products/offerings (“AI+”); and ShopBack’s alternative to the forward deployed engineer: allowing existing domain experts to build their own domain tools.
Jensen shared how it was like to run customer service teams working in tandem with AI agents in SuccessIT, and how his leading user of AI in his firm is a non-engineer.
A big thank you to @JTC for supporting the evening.
Here's a glimpse of what each speaker shared:
@Peijing (PJ) Teh - Principal Design Lead, T-Lab, Public Service Division:
“This is not just the worst of times but actually the best of times as well.
After a few years (graduating from design school), I was still not able to make my (final project app idea) come to life.. (With AI, the Intersections app) took a grand total of about 11 days . . .”
“Maybe we're intervening at the wrong level of abstraction. Maybe the most meaningful thing that people can do as a designer nowadays is to go out and actually create a new business.”
“What is actually not so cheap now is stuff that designers, product people are already doing - figuring out what to build, why we should be building stuff”
@Isaac Timothy Tay - VP of Product, ShopBack Isaac shared a product builder’s field report on how AI is transforming product management.
He looked at how the role of the product manager is evolving, and what the next generation of builders may look like.
“We think that this is another model where the domain experts are the ones who ship, and you empower them to ship safely and quickly…The domain expert becomes the maker."
"Product management is a discipline, not a job title... the tasks and functions that used to be bundled together with a guy or a lady called a product manager is now going to be unbundled and moved out."
“The cognitive load of trying to keep up with superhuman speed is really going to drain a lot of us... it's almost going to become a physical sport. Knowledge is going to become a physical sport, because your brain has to keep up, and I don't think our brains can do that."
@Jensen Loke - MD & CEO, SuccessIT Jensen shared his talk “Everyone gets a Jarvis”, and shared how his AI agents (built on OpenClaw and SuccessIT's own tools) support staff across customer service, ticket triage, bookkeeping, insurance workflows and technical operations. His take: AI doesn't replace service judgment, it raises the ceiling on what service teams can handle.
"The AI is not meant to replace the person talking to you, but the AI should help the person talking to you get to your problem like five times or 100 times faster."
"The agents will always prepare and humans will decide."
"The fact is that the agents have taken away 90% of the work and you really need to verify."
"The concept of verification is no longer just about testing... you need to get creative. You cannot just say 'oh, it looks correct' — but what is ‘correct’?"
Missed it?
All three talks are on YouTube:
PJ’s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_GG1z-pftY
Isaac’s: https://youtu.be/FOKC1YUslZ8
Jensen’s: https://youtu.be/mR2xA85JXIQ
Thanks to our partner community @MetaSkills - A Global Future Skills Community for co-organising with us. This meetup was also an affiliate event of @INTERSECTIONS:CONFERENCE.
Keep a lookout for our next one .... sometime soon :)
Pre Event
HUMAN IN THE LOOP
How do Humans & AI fit in Product Building, Service Design and Enterprise Businesses?
This was one of the most sought after sessions at our INTERSECTIONS:CONFERENCE on 23-24 July 2026.
On popular demand we are bringing this session again for our larger community.
We will have three great speakers:
Peijing (“PJ”) Teh, Principal Design Lead, Transformation Lab, Public Service Division (Singapore)
Jensen Loke, MD & CEO, SuccessIT
Isaac Timothy Tay, VP of Product, ShopBack
PJ's TALK
A Tale of Three Technologies - AI, Humans And The Great Convergence In Design, Product, Engineering
Jensen's Talk
Human in the Loop (for Businesses and Overall Processes)
The session looks at what it takes to design human-in-the-loop service systems that are actually useful in daily work: agents with clear roles, secure access boundaries, memory of customer context, and escalation paths back to people.
Isaac's Talk
Field Report From A Product Manager On How AI Is Transforming Product Management
Isaac will be sharing how the role of product managers are evolving and what the next generation of builders may look like.
--------------------
Here are details:
Event Name: Service Design + MetaSkills Community MeetUp
Theme: Human In The Loop
When: Tuesday, 1 Sep 2026, 6:30 PM - 8:30 PM (gates open at 6PM)
Where : The Meeting Point at LaunchPad @One-North, 73B Ayer Rajah Crescent, Singapore 139966
Registration: link in comments
-------------------
LaunchPad by JTC
JTC Corporation
MetaSkills - A Global Community For Future Skills