MANILA, PHILIPPINES – Our world is indeed accelerating in digital speed. Hence, the path to relevance is paved with a single, clear mandate: embrace disruptive technology or face obsolescence.
This is what Denise Haak — a visionary entrepreneur and formidable leader with extensive expertise in human-centered design, digital innovation, and creative technology — emphasized during the fourth episode of the adoboTalks podcast | the business of creativity, hosted by adobo Magazine Founder, President, and Editor-in-Chief Angel Guerrero.
During the insightful conversation, Denise, as Globe Group Head of Product Experience Strategy & Design, discussed how emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes a hands-on approach to translate creative concepts into impactful solutions, aiming to move beyond theory and demonstrate what’s possible.
As a self-confessed geek and nerd, Denise’s journey is rooted in a deep love for figuring out how things work, a passion that eventually led her to pioneer a concept now crucial to business strategy: User-Centered Design.
Denise illustrates the tech world’s penchant for acronyms, pointing out that concepts like User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) are simply doing “what we should have been doing for years.” Her company’s genesis sprung from an idea during her time at Google, specifically from the practice of “dogfooding.”
“Dogfooding is an industry term in tech where you have to try your own products before you put them out into the market,” she explained.
According to Denise, dogfooding emphasizes the principle of confidence and quality where a company should have enough faith in its own product to use it internally. If the creators and employees aren’t willing to use what they’ve built, then it’s likely not good enough for the customers.
“And in that ‘dog-fooding’ space is where you design, you test, you iterate, all of the products that you make,” Denise said.
As part of Google’s volunteer testing teams, Denise spent countless hours designing, iterating, and improving products from the inside out. What started as volunteer work soon became a passion — and ultimately, her life’s work.
“I fell in love with that process,” she said. “And nobody was doing this outside of big tech giants like Google, Apple, or Facebook. So I thought, ‘What if I created a company that helped other companies think this way? Where you design things for actual human beings.’”
Breaking the mold: A woman in tech
Denise’s path to computer science was an unexpected one as it was recommended by her mother. In her university class, she recalled being not only the only female in a sea of males, but also the only white person. Yet, she found this position deeply empowering.
“You felt very special, and special not because you were alone, but special because you were first,” she stated.
While Denise hoped her experience would herald a massive influx of women into the field, she remains disappointed by the slow progress.
“I kind of felt that this was going to be something more women would get into in the future, but I am disappointed that they’re not enough.”
She continued, “And in the worst sense, we keep getting relegated to female-esque tech. So if you’re a startup for a makeup brand or a beauty brand, you should be a female startup.”
The power and peril of disruptive technology
Disruptive technology is the relentless engine of modern progress, but it arrives carrying a double-edged sword: immense power for transformation alongside significant peril for those who fail to adapt.
As a former Agency Lead at Google Philippines — where she was pivotal in the company’s launch, fostering digital evangelization, and driving globally recognized initiatives like the Google Partners 30-Day Challenge — Denise said that disruptive technology, in its own terms, is anything that compels an entity, for better or worse. This can mean pivoting a business model, ways of working, or even a target audience. Technologies like Virtual Reality, AI, and even the jump to 5G are prime examples.
Although Denise acknowledged that disruption feels inherently uncomfortable, she asserted that technology is ultimately a tool, and its impact — whether positive or negative — lies entirely “in the hands of whoever’s using it.”
“I think technology is like any other thing, and I think the term ‘disruptive’ already says it right, correct. I mean, the minute you feel disrupted, it’s very uncomfortable. But I think technology, in any sense, whether disruptive or not, is really in the hands of whoever’s using it,” she emphasized.
When asked how leaders determine which technologies are worth pursuing, Denise offered a memorable anecdote from her Google days, citing former CEO Larry Page.
“When I was in Google and a similar question was asked to our then CEO Larry Page, and it was exactly the same, ‘How do we choose which technologies we’re gonna try?’ He said, ‘Well, the answer to that question lies in the toaster,’” she shared.
Considering all the innovation in the last few decades, the toaster’s basic function remains the same, but often failing in its one task — burning the toast. The lesson, according to Denise, is to focus on innovation that genuinely “moves the world” or “moves your business,” rather than technology that is merely new or fashionable.
“And I think that was the real answer to this question. How do you know what to try? What do you think will move the world? What do you think will move your business? And what do you think is something that even if you make a mistake, it’s not something that you look at and go, ‘That was a waste of my time,’” she noted.
AI as a reflection of humanity and ethics
The digital landscape is on the transition of a profound transformation driven by the convergence of AI and Web3. The two are closely connected with each other as they are generally considered complementary technologies that enhance each other’s core goals.
While Web3 focuses on decentralization, user ownership of data, and transparency (often using blockchain), AI provides the intelligence layer needed to make the decentralized internet function better.
In terms of brand and advertising, Denise saw Web3 as fundamentally democratizing storage and processing by leveraging the blockchain. This decentralization secures the authorship of creative work; while access can be bought, the original creator is forever recorded on the chain. This removes the control over data and commerce traditionally held by big tech giants, shifting ownership rights back to the individual.
Meanwhile, Denise, believes that AI made its greatest impact on creativity by forcing a reckoning on ethics. While AI’s power is to create beyond human capacity, its real power lies in the hands of whoever’s wielding it.
“So if you’re the kind of person that will wield it for good, then AI will churn out good. And if you’re the kind of person that wants to use it for nefarious purposes, it will probably help you do that as well. But I think for me, the biggest impact AI has that hasn’t been seen in creativity — not in a long time, even maybe since its inception — is the idea of ethics.”
AI as a new liability for creatives
Denise also underscored that although AI uplifts creatives’ power to create things, it also introduces a new liability for creatives — to declare to clients that the product is not entirely made from hand.
“We, the people who are picking it up, we need to remember that. And we need to be very morally right about [using AI].”
AI is dividing the creative world into “winners and losers” — those who embrace the challenge and those who fear obsolescence.
“I think for one thing, it now forces us to know who the winners and the losers are. These people who take AI and are not daunted by it and say, ‘You know what, fine. I will take that challenge and either work with it or even try to beat it.’ They’re the winners, and the ones who are like, ‘Oh, it’s gonna take my job and I’m never gonna be able to create anything again.’ And unfortunately, those are the losers,” she told adobo Magazine.
Despite the detractors for both AI and blockchain (often due to lack of regulation and fear of the unknown), Denise remains optimistic about their potential. Blockchain, being decentralized and open for validation, is particularly effective at preventing fraud.
Ultimately, she offered a profound insight into AI’s ultimate role: “AI is a reflection of who you really are before you might even know who you are.”
Moreover, by citing the popular series Black Mirror, she suggested that every time we engage with a technology screen, it is essentially a black mirror reflecting the entirety of humanity back at us — good and bad. And so, if you are still afraid of what AI is doing, Denise said, it “means you’re afraid of what humanity has done in the past, because it’s only getting from there.” AI, in this sense, becomes a powerful tool for self-discovery, forcing us to confront and better recognize the humanity within ourselves and others.
All-in-all, Denise’s insights paint a holistic picture of the digital age, moving past the superficial buzzwords to address the core challenges of innovation, ethics, and human connection. Her experience, honed from the early days of Google to founding successful design firms, distills complex concepts into practical wisdom.
Here are the key lessons on product strategy, innovation ethics, and the future of creativity, per Denise.
- The Power of “Dogfooding”: A core principle of successful product development is ‘dogfooding,’ an industry term where companies must rigorously test and use their own products internally before launching them. The rule, according to Denise is “If it isn’t good enough for you, it shouldn’t be good enough for your dog [the customer].”
- User-Centered Design is not new: Concepts like User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) are just acronyms for what companies “should have been doing for years” — designing products for actual human beings.
- The “Toaster Test” for innovation: When deciding which technologies to adopt, Denise said that leaders should ask: Does it “move the world” or “move your business”? Citing a story from Google, Denise suggests focusing on impactful innovation rather than fixing issues (like a toaster burning toast) that have persisted despite decades of tech evolution.
- Avoiding the “Bleeding Edge”: A major mistake companies make is adopting technology just for the sake of trying it because it’s new. This is the “bleeding edge” — adopting tech that doesn’t fit the business model or customer base, resulting in wasted time and resources
- AI’s ethical imperative for creatives: The most significant effect of AI on creativity is forcing a “reckoning on ethics,” introducing a new liability for creatives to be transparent with clients if their work is not “entirely made from hand,” as AI borrows from creations across the internet.
- AI as humanity’s reflection: AI is fundamentally a reflection of who you are as an individual and as a collective. If you fear what AI is doing, it means you’re confronting “what humanity has done in the past,” as AI is trained on human data and behavior.
- Blockchain’s benefits: Despite regulatory fears, blockchain offers significant advantages: decentralized storage to prevent data loss and a verification system that is highly effective at preventing fraud.
Catch the insightful conversation with Denise Haak on Episode 4 of the adoboTalk Podcast on Spotify, YouTube, and Soundcloud.
The adoboTalks Podcast | the business of creativity, is presented by adobo Magazine, the word on creativity and produced in partnership with The Pod Network and Hit Productions.
