Erik Drouhard is an AI Design Engineer specializing in human-agent interaction on the Core AI team at Microsoft. He lives in Worcester, MA with his wife Becca and cat Star.

KEY SKILLS: AI PRODUCT DESIGN, HUMAN-AGENT INTERACTION, UX ENGINEERING, DESIGN SYSTEMS & CONTEXT ENGINEERING

I work at the intersection of design and code, with a focus on complex systems, rapid prototyping, and human-agent interaction.

I specialize in making intelligent systems understandable, predictable, and useful.

Over the past 15+ years, I've designed interfaces for conversational AI, developer tools, and automotive systems. At Nuance, I worked on Dragon Drive, including an automotive HUD UI with gaze tracking featured at CES 2019, and spent four years on Mix.dialog, where I designed tools for authoring complex conversational behavior. I also led the creation of Verse, a design system for Mix and the surrounding platform.

Today, I work on Microsoft Core AI, across products including Microsoft AI Foundry and Azure portals. I use design, code, AI, and LLMs to prototype ideas, build team tooling, explore emerging interaction patterns, and help teams translate complex AI capabilities into usable product experiences.

I prototype to think.