Shyamala Prayaga

Shyamala Prayaga is a senior product leader and author at the intersection of human-centered design and artificial intelligence. She serves as a Senior Software Product Manager at NVIDIA, focusing on conversational and generative AI, and is an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Integrated Innovation Institute, where she teaches human–computer interaction and UX for managers.

An entrepreneur and movement builder, Shyamala is the founder of MirabilUX, a studio advancing ethical, human-centered AI using her H.E.A.R.T.™ framework (Humanity, Empathy, Alignment, Responsibility, Transparency). She is also the creator of Life by Design (LBD), a soul-aligned life design platform that helps people move from living by default to living by design through a 15-dimension Life Atlas, micro-learning, rituals, and an AI companion.

Across more than two decades, she has shaped voice and multimodal experiences in connected home, automotive, and enterprise contexts. Before NVIDIA, she led Ford Motor Company’s vision for its autonomous digital assistant and contributed to in-vehicle voice experiences like SYNC 4. Her work blends rigorous product thinking with deep empathy for human needs.

Shyamala is the author of Emotionally Engaged Digital Assistant: Humanizing Design and Technology and the memoir Close Calls: My Life of Unseen Miracles. She speaks and writes widely on trustworthy AI, behavior-change design, and how to co-create with AI in practical, accessible ways.