In This Issue
→ The question everyone in UX is asking but nobody is answering honestly
→ What two panels at UXCON26 are doing about that
→ Why October 8 might be the most important day of your career this year
→ How to get your ticket
Go ahead and ask it. The question sitting in the back of every UX practitioner’s mind right now.
Are companies still hiring us?
Not the LinkedIn version of the answer. Not the thought leadership version. The real one. The one that explains why someone with eight years of experience and a strong portfolio is refreshing their inbox every morning and hearing nothing back. The one that explains why researcher roles that used to get fifty applicants are either getting five hundred or disappearing entirely. The one that explains why the job market feels like it changed the rules without sending anyone the memo.
The honest answer is: yes. And also it is complicated. And also the practitioners who are thriving right now are doing something different from the ones who are not, and that difference is not about skill level.
It is about understanding what the field actually values right now. What it means to stay valuable when the title keeps changing and the tools keep changing and the definition of the role keeps expanding into territory nobody trained you for.
That is a conversation. A real one. With people who are inside the organizations doing the hiring, building the teams, and navigating the same shift from the other side of the table.
That conversation is happening at UXCON26. Twice.
October 8, 2026 · UXCON26
Silver Spring Civic Center
The Career Between the Titles
How to Stay Valuable as UX, Product and AI Keep Changing
11:15 to 12:15 · Career Panel
Moderated by Edward Cupps
Netflix. Amazon. Skylight. UXR Institute.
Four practitioners who are living inside the career question you are asking right now, from four completely different vantage points. This is not a panel about optimism or resilience or believing in yourself. It is a panel about the specific, practical, sometimes uncomfortable reality of what it takes to stay valuable in a field that keeps redefining what valuable means.
Beyond the Prototype: Who Actually Builds the Future?
Research, Design, Product and Engineering in the AI Era
14:15 to 15:15 · Industry Panel
Moderated by Edward Cupps
The New York Times. UserTesting. Target. Visionist Inc.
The tools changed. The process changed. The question of who actually owns the work, who gets credit for it, and who gets a seat at the table when the decisions get made is changing too. This panel goes there. Research, design, product, and engineering in an AI era where the boundaries between all of them are blurring faster than organizations know how to handle.
Two panels. Eight practitioners. Zero sugarcoating.
This is the most important gathering the UX community has had in years and it is happening on one day. October 8. One room. The conversations that do not happen on LinkedIn, do not happen in webinars, and do not happen anywhere else except in a room where everyone is serious enough about the field to show up in person.
The field is changing. The people who understand exactly how it is changing and what to do about it will be in that room.
Be one of them.
📚 Resource Corner
→ Beyond UX Design Podcast with Jeremy Miller · The show built around staying valuable through every shift the field throws at you
→ Making an Impact Substack by Twisha Shah Brandenburg · Practical thinking from one of UXCON26’s panelists on design leadership in complex organizations
→ Nielsen Norman Group: The State of UX · Research-backed thinking on where the field is and where it is heading
Final Thought
The question is not whether UX has a future. It does. The question is whether you are positioned for it. October 8 is where that answer starts.
The UXU Team