Phemi Tolu Ajayi
AI Experience Architect, Lead User Researcher and builder of products
I sit where human behaviour, design and machine intelligence meet. For more than a decade I have led user research and UX across UK government, and for more than twenty years I have written software. I have served as Head of UX Research in a UK Government department, led one of the first major generative AI adoption research programmes in central government, and I now lead AI user experience and evaluation for a free AI health platform for Africa.
Twenty-six years, one thread: making complex systems work for people
Career timeline, 2000 to today
Each bar is a role or body of work. Hover for detail.
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Six rooms in one house
Evidence that moves organisations
Mixed-method research leadership, insight libraries and research operations across central and local government.
Enter → IIMaking AI safe to trust
LLM evaluation, rubric design, red-teaming, human-in-the-loop frameworks and AI governance at departmental scale.
Enter → IIIServices that span nations
Multi-stakeholder service design from Discovery to Live, mapped to GDS standards and real policy constraints.
Enter → IVA researcher who ships
Full-stack platforms in health, education, law, careers and games, built and launched end to end.
Enter → VCraft at every fidelity
Interface design, brand systems, dashboards, investor decks, motion and book design.
Enter → VIArchitect, teacher, author, composer
The wider practice that feeds the work: architecture, artificial life, teaching, writing, music and enterprise.
Enter →Trusted with high-stakes public services
Evidence that moves organisations
I lead research that triangulates qualitative depth with quantitative scale, then turn it into decisions senior leaders can act on. My practice spans in-depth interviews, contextual inquiry, think-aloud usability testing, co-design workshops, surveys, telemetry and behavioural science.
Evidence bases I have analysed
People represented in selected datasets, recent programmes
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Platform telemetry: where attention really goes
ATLAS geospatial platform, MHCLG · Azure Application Insights, 215 users
Researching generative AI adoption in government, at departmental scale
I managed the research portfolio for the Microsoft Copilot Early Access Programme across the department and its agencies, defining the baseline metrics and performance indicators used to judge system-wide value.
- Surfaced usability issues, pain points, risks and the limits of large language models working inside a government tenant.
- Led research on data loss prevention and information protection labelling across inter- and intra-departmental channels in Microsoft Purview.
- Analysed an end-user device survey of 428 respondents with ANOVA validation, defining three user archetypes and procurement recommendations, and reframed accessibility as a universal departmental need.
- Set up and ran the UR Insights Library and research QA standards, and authored the UCD maturity framework.
AI Capabilities Discovery across seven directorates
End-to-end discovery through workshops, thematic analysis and synthesis, producing a 91-item job stories register and four structural patterns that now inform AI adoption planning. I also escalated a statutory data protection governance gap found during analysis.
A live feedback engine for a 48-regime repayments service
With data science colleagues I built a feedback pipeline using Python pattern recognition and classification across live services, Deskpro tickets and CSAT surveys, letting the team analyse peaks of more than 25,000 items a month and feed them straight into the product backlog.
Finding where trust breaks in an AI agent
Eight participants across three age cohorts, synthesised through affinity mapping and journey maps. The research pinpointed trust assessment and next steps as the primary failure points, and identified the cohort best placed for a pilot rollout.
How I run research
Every programme I lead follows the same discipline, scaled to the risk of the decision it supports.
Making AI safe to trust
I began studying neural networks and genetic algorithms in 2004, long before AI was mainstream. Today I design the frameworks that decide whether an AI system is accurate, safe, fair and ready for real people, in government and in healthcare.
From prompt to release gate
Developed and proven on NaptiQ-Care, a free AI health platform for Nigeria and Africa, where an unsafe answer is not a bug but a clinical risk.
What every AI health response is judged on
Assessment lenses and who scores them
Three kinds of judge, calibrated together
Clinicians, real users and automated LLM-as-judge assessment score against shared rubrics and golden test sets. Reviewer calibration keeps human scores consistent; red-teaming hunts for unsafe advice, bias and failure modes before users ever see them.
Four patterns that shape AI readiness
Identified across seven MHCLG directorates. These patterns explain why AI pilots stall, and where investment unlocks adoption.
Responsible AI at scale
Developed and implemented AI governance frameworks, policies and procedures for ethical, transparent deployment, and led cross-functional oversight of privacy, security and societal impact.
Rubrics, SxS and grounding
Creative multi-turn prompt design, rubric-based scoring with evidence-based rationales, side-by-side stack-ranking, and hallucination and grounding checks.
Teaching the discipline
I created AI Evaluation courses for lawyers and doctors. Graduates join a quarterly safety and legal-risk evaluation of a live product in beta, gaining real experience.
Services that span nations
Trained first as an architect, I approach services as structures: users, policy, data and technology held in balance. I map complex cross-product ecosystems from an as-is state to an ideal state, and align stakeholders who start out pulling in different directions.
Delivery across the GDS service lifecycle
Phases each programme spanned while I was on it
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Four nations, four legal frameworks, one shared strategy
As Lead UX Architect I led research for a digital service tracking hazardous waste from production through recycling to disposal. Design thinking workshops moved stakeholders across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland from misalignment to a shared strategy, through Discovery, Alpha and Private Beta.
One toolkit, four versions, sixteen councils
I mapped council digital capabilities across 16 Welsh local authorities, with a focus on five vanguard councils, and led rapid delivery from Alpha to Live. The answer was not one toolkit but four, each fit for a different level of readiness, backed by adoption workshops and training for council staff.
Turning 25,000 voices a month into a backlog
Accommodation for prison leavers
Led Discovery into Alpha for a digital portal managing community accommodation across five vanguard regions, working with highly vulnerable users under GDS and WCAG standards, and secured stakeholder sign-off to move into Alpha.
An AI-augmented roadmap for geospatial data
Grounded in telemetry, I proposed natural language querying of spatial datasets, AI anomaly detection, intelligent layer recommendations and predictive data surfacing to close the 5:1 Maps-to-Data gap.
A researcher who ships
Two decades of software development give me something rare in research leadership: I can take an insight all the way to a working, paying product. These are platforms I have conceived, designed and built through my ventures, SynaptiQ Technologies and PIKN.ID.
Products by domain
Count of products in this portfolio
Built end to end
NaijaPharmMap
Pharmaceutical premises dashboard built on 8,901 regulator records, plus a bilingual English and French health intelligence dashboard for Cameroon using WHO and UNICEF data.
Predictive feedback analysis
Python classification and pattern recognition models at HMRC, turning unstructured customer feedback into prioritised service improvements.
Built to be trusted
ISO 27001 ISMS documentation, SOC 2 briefings, CI/CD and security governance, and privacy by design: personal data stripped before any AI processing.
Craft at every fidelity
From hand sketches and low fidelity wireframes to production interfaces, brand systems, dashboards, motion and print. I design what I research, and I research what I design.
Selected screens
Stylised illustrations of the products, redrawn for this portfolio.
Design and research toolkit
Number of professional tools I work in, by family
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Beyond the screen
Brand systems
Identities and palettes for NaptiQ-Care, SynaptiQ Technologies and PIKN.ID, applied consistently across apps, decks and social media.
Data storytelling
Interactive financial model dashboards, telemetry reports and research synthesis decks written for ministers, boards and investors.
Motion and video
Animated health awareness reels and narrated explainers, from script and storyboard to final cut.
Book and print
Cover and interior design for my book, with maps, illustrations and an enhanced ebook with embedded video.
Architect, teacher, author, composer
The breadth is not a distraction from the work. It is the source of it. Architecture taught me structure, artificial life taught me systems, teaching taught me empathy, and music taught me rhythm. Each one shows up in how I solve problems.
Twelve disciplines, one way of thinking
Hover the map. Each discipline links back to the core of the practice: understanding people and designing systems around them.
Artificial life, before AI was mainstream
Studied neural networks, genetic and generative algorithms and cellular automata at the Centre for Evolutionary Computing in Architecture, graduating with an MSc specialising in artificial life algorithms and AI.
Eight years as a lecturer
Taught computing, spatial design and computer-aided design, specialising in differentiated strategies for adult learners. Today I teach again through SynaptiQ Digital Academy.
From buildings to systems
Trained architect (B Arch, OAU Ife) and Design Director at PIKN.ID, delivering architectural design and project management, and fluent in AutoCAD, Revit and 3ds Max.
The Worship of Kings
A book in preparation for publication, with an enhanced ebook carrying maps, illustrations and video clips, and a full-colour print edition.
Songwriter and producer
Singing, composing and producing in Cubase, combining traditional craft with AI music and avatar tools.
Director and founder
Director at McAlpha IT and PIKN.ID, founder of NaptiQ-Care and SynaptiQ Technologies, with work spanning international tenders, renewable energy costing and state agricultural transformation.