Design in the Age of AI

From Generic to Genuine: Your Design Edge in the AI Era

Your small business needs an unfair advantage—and it’s not perfection. With AI making highly polished content easy to produce, true brand value now lies in Authenticity. Join Idaho SBDC consultant and digital marketing expert, Kim Sherman-Labrum, to learn how to intentionally use design to build trust and authority. You will discover:

• The telltale signs of generic AI design (and how to avoid them).
• Why authenticity and intentional imperfection are your most powerful marketing tools.
• Stop competing on volume and start winning on connection. This is the design strategy that converts customers in the age of AI.

About Kim Sherman-Labrum

Kim Sherman-Labrum is a SBDC Business Consultant and a subject matter expert in digital marketing, online presence, and technology. With a unique background blending graphic design, creativity, and strategic business consulting, Kim provides actionable guidance to startups and small businesses looking to thrive in the digital age.

She holds a B.A. in Graphic Design from Boise State University and a Credential of Readiness from Harvard Business School CORe. Since becoming a consultant in 2012, she has successfully guided countless clients in enhancing their online presence and growing their businesses.

Trends & Tools for 2026

Join Rhea Allen, President/CEO of Peppershock Media, for an exclusive session tailored to corporate marketing directors, C-level leaders, marketers, and entrepreneurs. Don’t miss this opportunity to stay ahead of the curve and unlock the full potential of marketing in 2026.

About Rhea Allen

Rhea Allen, President/CEO and Co-Founder of Peppershock Media, and founder of The Marketing Expedition Community, is known for her story-telling passion and extreme diligence in obtaining effective media campaign results by planning and crafting relevant and compelling messaging. As an in-demand integrative marketing consultant, national presenter, keynote speaker, and podcaster, Rhea emphasizes team building and creating a culture where she and her team can carry out superior work for loyal Peppershock clients. You might say that she facilitates clients and crew through the creative process, but really, she has fun! With a television news and promotions background in the Treasure Valley, as well as the top 12 markets in Seattle, Rhea brings an investigative, documentary, and testimonial style to her work that both informs and entertains! Rhea and her husband Drew Allen, Co-founder and COO of Peppershock, have two boys, Emerson and Kaden, they enjoy spending time in the great outdoors together.

The Fast-Changing World of NIL

About Tom Scott

Tom was fascinated by two things growing up: the effect disc jockeys had on their listeners, and how cool it was that the public address announcer got to tell everybody in the crowd what was going on. So he did a little bit of both in his early professional career. His positions at radio and TV stations morphed into an advertising career, and that morphed into an ad agency, Tom Scott Communication Shop. But sportscasting and sportswriting have always been a part of his life, and he’ll do both as long as he is able.

Human Signals in an AI World: Capturing Real Customer Meaning – Co-Speaker

Traditional surveys capture what customers say, but often miss how they feel or what they struggle to articulate. This session explores the use of AI-enabled video surveys to capture authentic customer voice and emotional nuance at scale, using tools such as Rhetorix Lab. Attendees will see how video responses can complement existing survey methods to generate deeper, more actionable marketing insights.

About Dr. Anne Hamby

Dr. Hamby (PhD Virginia Tech, 2014) joined the Department of Marketing at Boise State University in the Fall of 2019.

Her research focus is in the area of consumer psychology and user experience. Specifically, she studies how marketing narratives engage their audiences, and how engagement in stories influence beliefs and behavior in marketing contexts such as product choice. She also studies how aspects of product design shape consumer perceptions and behavior. She is also interested in issues related to consumer well-being and examines the psychological, social, and cultural factors that influence risky consumption practices and prosocial behavior.

She has consulted with international and domestic organizations including Micron, the Federal Bureau of Investigation: Behavioral Analysis Unit, the European Society for Medial Oncology, among others.

She is currently an associate editor at the Journal of Advertising. Her research has been published in leading outlets in marketing including the Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, the Journal of Advertising, the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, and others.

Human Signals in an AI World: Capturing Real Customer Meaning – Co-Speaker

Traditional surveys capture what customers say, but often miss how they feel or what they struggle to articulate. This session explores the use of AI-enabled video surveys to capture authentic customer voice and emotional nuance at scale, using tools such as Rhetorix Lab. Attendees will see how video responses can complement existing survey methods to generate deeper, more actionable marketing insights.

About Steven Pentland

Steven Pentland is an Associate Professor at Boise State University and the founder of Rhetorix Lab. His work focuses on the use of video-based methods to capture authentic human voice at scale, with particular emphasis on automated interviewing technologies and scalable systems for behavioral and linguistic analysis. He holds a PhD in Management Information Systems, and his research explores how video responses can surface nuance, emotion, and communicative competence that are often missed by text-based instruments. Rhetorix Lab emerged from this research as a platform for operationalizing video-based data collection and analysis across contexts such as personnel selection, education, and applied behavioral assessment.