Christian Crumlish is Director of Product at Kind and was Director of the Product Chapter at the late, lamented 18F. He brings over two decades of experience in UX design, product management, and information architecture to the challenge of building ethical AI systems.

At Kind, Christian defines the product and UX practices, leads a project for VA.gov, improving the online experience for veterans submitting and tracking disability benefits reviews, and explores the possibilities of AI-enhances product management practices.

At 18F, Christian worked on federal digital services including the launch of ClimateCorps.gov and passport modernization efforts for Consular Affairs at the State Department, learning how to navigate complex stakeholder interests while keeping user needs central. This public service perspective informs his conviction that AI systems should be built for human flourishing, not just engagement metrics.

At 7 Cups, Christian lead product development for chat-based mental health and peer support platforms, where the intersection of technology and human welfare wasn’t theoretical—it was the core challenge of every product decision.

This experience shapes his approach to AI development: technology should amplify human capability without replacing human judgment, strengthen systems without creating dependencies, and maintain professional boundaries even when business metrics might reward boundary violations.

Christian is author of “Product Management for UX People” and has been a regular speaker at IA Summit/IAC conferences for nearly two decade. His writing combines technical depth with accessible explanation—a skill honed through years of translating between engineers, designers, and business stakeholders.

Currently, Christian is building Piper Morgan, a product management AI assistant designed with ethics-first architecture. This project demonstrates that privacy-preserving AI isn’t just theoretically possible but empirically validated—achieving 80.3% clustering accuracy using only metadata relationships, with zero content analysis required.

His “Building Piper Morgan” blog series documents this work in public, sharing both successes and methodology. The approach emphasizes systematic engineering over good intentions, architectural enforcement over policy guidelines, and information architecture principles as essential tools for AI safety.

Christian’s work sits at the intersection of product management, information architecture, and ethical AI development—proving that human-centered design principles scale to AI systems when properly architected into the information structure itself.

In his copious spare time he writes and records music with his band, Layers of Meta, and released a debut album in 2025 called No One Does it Solo Only.