AI isn't replacing user research, but it is exposing every team that hasn't yet defined what makes their research irreplaceable. From testing AI-powered products to using AI inside your own research practice, the pressure is real, the stakes are high, and most organizations are operating without a framework.

This session takes a strategic look at what's changing: how the researcher role is evolving, what a more expansive ResearchOps mandate might look like, and what it means in practice to work with AI rather than alongside it passively. Grounded in real organisational dilemmas, it's designed to help researchers think more clearly about their positioning and contribute more confidently to the conversations happening around them.

You'll walk away with:

• A map of the plausible futures for the research role and the organizational signals that hint at which way yours is leaning
• A clearer read on what's changing, including the real risk of quietly losing ground, and the hard and soft skills that distinguish adapting from being sidelined
• A sharper sense of your own positioning: a framework for thinking about where you sit and where you want to be in the conversations shaping research