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Sam Medrington

I design human-AI systems in environments where complexity, consequence, and uncertainty intersect.

Portrait of Sam Medrington

Senior Director of AI Systems Design at Cognite. With a background in Psychology, Human Factors & Ergonomics, and Computer Science, I have spent 20 years making complex systems simple and clear. Previously Global Head of UX at BAE Systems Digital Intelligence.

Human-AI systems designApplied research at scaleAI-native prototypingHuman Factors & ErgonomicsDecision-support architecture

I work by building. Research sets the direction, but the thinking happens in code - prototyping interaction mechanics at production fidelity, testing with real users, and iterating based on what breaks. AI tools compress the distance between field research and working software.

My work sits at the boundary between model behaviour and human judgment - deciding what is surfaced, what is suppressed, when to warn, and where responsibility lies. Read more

Work

Production Flow application in use on the factory floor

Production Flow & Maintenance Support

Led ethnographic research and designed production flow applications for pharmaceutical manufacturing operations at Cognite.

"What the Atlas AI team did in 2 days took our UX team 18 months"

Anomaly Detection investigation interface showing process context and AI-assisted analysis

Human Judgment in Foundation Model Anomaly Detection

Designed the human review system between a time series foundation model and the engineers who act on its output.

The friction is the feature

Data Quality governance interface showing validation rules and violations

Data Quality Governance for Industrial AI

Led a co-innovation hackathon to define the governance architecture for AI-generated validation rules in safety-critical infrastructure data. Facilitated discovery, then built the working prototype in two days.

From interface to governance

Cognite Data Fusion Module Map showing data flow connections

Redesigning Data Operations

Led a redesign of Cognite's data management experience, using ethnographic research and AI-assisted prototyping to make complex data operations legible.

Validated in days, not months

Vodafone Permissions & Preferences information architecture site map

Selected Earlier Work

Programmes spanning 15 years - including military decision support under security clearance, GDPR consent architecture for Vodafone, a £10M platform transformation for Lloyd's Register, and investigative workflows for UK law enforcement.

High-consequence environments across domains