We believe in a future where technology adapts to us.
Experience Futures (XF) is a new kind of think tank and product studio that helps organizations use AI with intention.
As AI systems become more powerful and more embedded, the question is no longer whether technology will change the world, but how people will shape that change. We exist to help individuals, organizations, and ecosystems navigate this shift with intention, responsibility, and care.
Our work sits at the intersection of design, technology, and human judgment, grounded in real practice across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
Philosophy
The future is shaped, not assumed.
AI does not arrive neutral or inevitable. It reflects human choices: what gets built, who it serves, how it is governed, and who is accountable when it fails.
As AI increasingly influences decisions, opportunity, and access, responsibility cannot be deferred to tools alone. It must live with the people and institutions that design, deploy, and fund these systems.
XF exists to hold a clear human stance inside this moment. We focus on agency, equity, and accountability as practical requirements for technology that affects real lives. Progress depends on pairing imagination with discipline, and vision with governance.
Focus Areas
Offerings
The thinking developed at XF shows up in different forms across sectors. These efforts are independent, but philosophically aligned. Each exists in response to gaps we encountered through real work.
Intentional Technology
A research-backed AI adoption program that helps individuals and organizations close the AI adoption gap. Built on the Personal Context Engine — a guided conversational tool that captures expertise, tacit knowledge, and AI guardrails, then builds the context that makes every AI tool work in the shape of a person's knowledge.
xf.app
The control layer for responsible AI. xf.app builds fully governed, white-labeled AI platforms for high-trust environments — custom-branded conversational workflows with your rules, your data, your infrastructure. It exists because principles and policies do not hold unless they are embedded in real systems.
xf.works
A services organization launched to support hands-on implementation of human-centered approaches to technology, design, and systems change. It exists because frameworks rarely survive contact with complex organizations without sustained support.
Journal
Thinking in public.
This journal is where ideas are developed over time. You’ll find essays, reflections, and updates drawn from ongoing work across sectors. Some pieces are exploratory. Others are practical. All are grounded in lived experience.
Timeline
Launched xf.app beta
We launched a beta program for xf.app and made it available to nonprofits and mission-driven organizations. It serves as a control layer for responsible AI, with conversational access to complex workflows and guardrails designed for high-trust environments.
Supported Builders Creating Responsible AI Tools
We supported partners by shipping working prototypes, workflows, and early platform components. We integrated early versions of xf.app with Digitunity to support digital equity initiatives. We partnered with WWF and Amano So on AI-powered sustainability leadership development. We collaborated with Duke University's Code Plus program, where students used our frameworks to design responsible AI systems.
Roddenberry Foundation Grant
We received a Catalyst Fund grant from the Roddenberry Foundation to accelerate xf.app as shared infrastructure for responsible AI deployment. The grant reinforced what we were seeing: mission-driven organizations need tools designed for responsible use, not retrofits of enterprise platforms.
Launched the Intentional Technology Training Program
We launched Intentional Technology as a live, coach-led training program. It helps individuals and teams reduce AI risk, align use with their values, and build durable skills and career direction in an AI-integrated workplace.
Introduced Intentional Technology
We introduced the Intentional Technology framework and tested it with senior executives and students, including a keynote at YPO Gold. The goal was to build a practical model for the people part of AI adoption.
Started Building xf.app
We began building xf.app after seeing the same pattern across mission-driven organizations: real need for governance, guardrails, and oversight. xf.app exists because principles and policies do not hold unless they are embedded in real systems. This platform adds a control layer to generative AI so people can use it in high-trust environments with human review built in.
Designing for Inclusion with AI
We developed a practical view on how the experience layer can be automated without losing trust. We treated design systems as structured inputs for AI, so inclusion could scale through real interfaces and workflows. We shared this work through talks at the Page Society, CIO Digital Enterprise Forum, UXPX, and Reuters CX.
Launched xf.works
We formalized our consulting work into xf.works, an AI first consultancy that connects strategy to execution for businesses and brands. We expanded work with founders, impact investors, and C-suite leaders, building responsible AI products and the operating models needed to support them. We build systems teams can adopt, including pilots, prototypes, and workflow tools that connect strategy to execution.
Intentional Technology Use Cases
We joined AI working groups with NationSwell, McGovern Foundation, Omidyar Network, and Code for America. We brought our approach to academic programs at Stanford University and the School of Visual Arts, and to industry forums like Reuters CX and the NY AI Summit.
Launched a Consulting Practice
Organizations asked us to make inclusive technology and human-centered AI real in day-to-day work. Estée Lauder engaged us to help shape a center of excellence focused on human experience. We also began building with mission-driven founders, using our frameworks in hands-on product work grounded in accessibility and responsible design. This work produced frameworks, prototypes, and reusable tools that teams could put into practice inside real products and workflows.
Released "AI and the Digital Divide"
We published our first white paper, "AI and the Digital Divide," on how new technology can reinforce inequality when adoption moves faster than inclusion. We spoke at Web Summit and the NY AI Summit, and started building a public point of view on the human opportunities and risks of AI.
Founded XF
We founded XF as a nonprofit focused on how AI and emerging technologies shape human lives, work, and institutions. We started with a simple belief: technology should adapt to people, not the other way around.
XF was founded in 2021 by Howard Pyle, working with a collective group across a wide range of disciplines focused on the future of technology, experience, design, and social impact.
Since the founding (and even before), the work has been shaped by leaders, collaborators, and supporters from organizations like IBM, MetLife, Bloomberg, the UN High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR), Dominion Energy, Digitunity, Integral, and MA+Group. This extended network brings deep expertise in product management, design, technology, accessibility, communications, human rights, social justice, and organizational transformation. They have influenced the way we think, the programs we run, and collectively bring a range of expertise to the organizations we support.
XF holds a clear stance on this moment: the platforms we call AI are not happening outside of our control, nor are they inevitable forces we must simply accept. Technology is a fact of human life, and it is ours to shape. Embracing it with integrity and intention is at the core of what we do. We apply it for positive use cases, to drive empowerment, and to help organizations that serve people do so in more human, more intelligent, and more successful ways.