Alison Chen

Chen currently leads UX for AI Interpreter at Microsoft Teams, designing how language moves through Town Halls and Webinars at the scale of global audiences. Her work sits at the intersection of artificial intelligence and live communication, where milliseconds of latency and thousands of simultaneous voices become the conditions of the design itself.

Prior chapters include Microsoft Excel and a series of early-stage startups. Over five years, she has shipped AI-powered experiences to millions, directed design for large-scale virtual events, and co-founded an iOS application that reached the App Store.

She holds a B.S. in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego, with a specialization in machine learning and neural computation and a minor in human-computer interaction. There, she co-led Design Co, the largest design community on campus, in close partnership with Don Norman and the Design Lab, a formation that taught her to move fluently between the languages of designers, engineers, and researchers.

A third-culture upbringing between Taiwan and California, two distinct centers of technological imagination, shaped an early attention to how systems quietly reshape the way people live, work, and connect.

Along the way: stickers sold online, a zipper patented. Chen is a designer and a builder, most herself when the problem is hard and design becomes the leverage for real invention.