Mariam Taraif
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Hi, ask me anything
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This is an AI version of me — it genuinely tries its best, but I'd still recommend meeting the real one.
Selected work
08 case studies
01
Twilio Flex · Platform · 2019–2024
Early OpenAI integration in an enterprise contact centre — before anyone called it AI-native
Flex couldn't scale. A 2-week tiger team pause, Segment integration, and pre-ChatGPT OpenAI APIs to surface customer context for agents. Result: 5→23 designers in 18 months, ~$15B TAM.
5→23 designers ~$15B TAM
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Twilio Flex
02
Twilio Flex · AI Product · 2022
Conversational Insights — right context, right moment, at contact centre scale
Enterprise contact centre agents were drowning in context. We integrated OpenAI to summarise customer profiles in real time. What was broken at the product level, what changed, and the measurable impact on strategy and adoption.
Enterprise B2B Early AI integration ~$15B TAM
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Conversational Insights
03
Twilio · Developer Experience · 2021
Developers Are Users Too — org behaviour change, not just UX
Developers were treated as technical consumers who could figure it out. The fix wasn't just better UX — it was shifting how the org thought about who deserved design attention. What changed, and the outcome.
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Developer Experience
04
Cisco ThousandEyes · AI · 2024–present
Making AI feel native in a deeply technical product
Network intelligence products are complex. Bolting on AI summarisation and assist features wasn't enough — we had to rethink what "useful" means when your users are network engineers. What it took, and what landed.
AI summarisation Enterprise SaaS
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ThousandEyes AI Experiences
05
Cisco · Platform · 2024
Cloud Control — platform unification across fragmented Cisco products
The org challenge first: multiple product teams, competing roadmaps, no shared mental model. Unifying them into one coherent platform experience. What was broken, what we changed, and why the hardest part wasn't the design.
Platform unification Systems design
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Cloud Control
06
Cisco ThousandEyes · AI Labs · 2024
Built an AI-native design practice from scratch inside a Cisco team
Not a side project — a full practice. Capability mapping, team topology, and a 90-day roadmap to embed AI into how designers think and work. What we couldn't do before, and what changed.
AI workflows Org design
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AI-Native Design Org
07
Method · Leadership · Always
Design culture that sticks — retention, promotion, capability uplift
Workshops and coaching are table stakes. The measurable outcomes: retention, promotions, designers who became capable of work they weren't hired for. What it actually takes to build culture that shows up in the numbers.
Team building Coaching
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Design Culture
08
Cisco ThousandEyes · Org Design · 2024–present
Designing the Design Org
What it actually takes to restructure a design team for an AI-first world — team topology, capability mapping, the 90-day roadmap, and why most orgs get this backwards.
Org design AI strategy 16 designers
Coming soon
Designing the Design Org
Writing
Design · AI · Behaviour
We Changed. The UI Didn't.
We didn't wait for AI to change how we interact with products. The behaviour shifted first — quietly, before most product teams noticed. What a ninety-second hotel booking taught me about the future of UI.
Mar 2026
AI · Trust · Design
We Trust AI More Than We Should. Judgement Is the Skill Nobody Is Talking About.
We've quietly stopped questioning AI-generated outputs the way we used to question a Google result. That shift has consequences — and designers are the ones who need to name them first.
Coming soon
Psychology · Leadership
The Pressure to Keep Up Is Real. We're Just Not Allowed to Say It.
Everyone in tech is feeling the weight of constant change. Most people aren't saying it out loud. This is me saying it.
Coming soon
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Mariam
Taraif
Head of Design · Cisco ThousandEyes · London

I've spent over 15 years designing products where the complexity is real and the stakes matter. I studied psychology and neuropsychology, and understanding human behaviour is as important as understanding the system itself.

I care about craft and taste, but what I care about more is whether the work actually changes something. I'm currently leading design at Cisco ThousandEyes and running an internal AI lab where we're figuring out what it means to design with AI, not just bolt it on. We're all students in this, including me. I write about it too, because the honest version of this moment is more useful than a confident one.

Outside work, family comes first. Then a dog with strong opinions, a cat who outranks us all, long walks, bad films, surfing, and eating my way through cities whenever I get the chance.

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