Chelsea Larsson



The arrival of generative AI gives content designers a whole new toolkit. As with any new set of gear, there's some learning that comes with the new capabilities that the tools afford.



At Expedia, Chelsea Larsson is leading her team of content designers into the AI design future with fresh takes on the planning, design, and evaluation skills that designers have always relied on.



We talked about:



her work as a senior director of experience design at Expedia

how she is facilitating with her teams the shift from product development design to AI design

how she has identified new capabilities that AI brings and is incorporating them into product road maps

how content strategists and architects help them decide whether to use generative AI or structured-content methods

their shift from front-end content design to working with back-end engineers and architects

how new LLM-driven applications of conventional content-evaluation criteria permit them to scale up their content design work

their goal of creating good-quality content at scale

how content designers are shaping the future of conversational ecosystems

how AI lets content designers do more strategic thinking, in particular about how to apply their insights at scale

her take on the recent rounds of tech layoffs

one of the new roles that are emerging for which content professionals are well-suited, like the new position of model designer

the origins of their AI program in a simple application of gen AI to partner content creation

how to bootstrap the implementation of AI content practices in your org

how to identify opportunities to help your customers by matching their content use cases with your AI capabilities

her message to content designers: "don't be afraid" and keep learning



Chelsea's bio

Chelsea Larsson is a Sr. Director of Experience Design at Expedia Group where she leads the B2B Content Design team, partners on strategic design initiatives, and builds AI travel tools. Chelsea loves to chat about Content Design in genAI and UX design for travel. She shares her thoughts on both topics via the Smallish Book newsletter and conference stages around the world. Her favorite book to gift loved ones is the delightful Chirri and Chirra series. Her favorite sandwich is a turkey club.

Connect with Chelsea online



LinkedIn

Smallish Book



Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:



https://youtu.be/qKr7o5aKQrM

Podcast intro transcript

This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 27. The arrival of generative AI tools gives content professionals a whole new palette of design capabilities. Learning how to take advantage of these new opportunities so that they can shift from product-development design into content-driven AI experience design challenges many content folks. Chelsea Larsson sees these challenges as a chance for both her and her team at Expedia Group to stretch and grow and to scale their impact as design professionals.

Interview transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 27 of the Content and AI Podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show, Chelsea Larsson. Chelsea is a senior director of experience design at Expedia Group. And welcome Chelsea, tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days.



Chelsea:

Thanks for having me, Larry. As you said, I'm a senior director of experience design. I lead the B2B content design team at Expedia Group. So we call that the partner content design team, because we work with Expedia partners. I also lead the Generative AI Experience Design Program, which we'll get into later and lean in on a couple of strategic initiatives at Exped...