Grishma Rao is a designer, writer, and researcher working at the intersection of emerging technology, storytelling, and human-centred design. As a Senior Interaction Design Lead at IDEO, she leads multidisciplinary teams in creating thoughtful, future-facing experiences rooted in deep human insight. With 16 years of experience designing digital products and simplifying complex systems across Asia, Europe, and the U.S., she brings a distinctive global perspective to her work.

For the past decade, her work has focused on generative and conversational AI—exploring new paradigms of human-computer interaction and telepresence, and often asking: how do we build meaningful relationships with unfamiliar technologies? Through explorations of embodied computing and multimodal, sensory experiences, she approaches these questions with a critical, culturally aware lens on the evolving relationship between humans and intelligent machines.
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She has taught postgraduate courses on user experience design, presented at international conferences and exhibitions, and her work has been featured in Fast Company, Forbes, and Vice, as well as recognised by Core77 and IxDA. She is also an award-winning writer and former music journalist, currently working on her first book.