# Kai Conragan > Senior Director of UX at Google Location: Half Moon Bay, California, United States Profile: https://flows.cv/kaiconragan I guide strategy, build organizations, and lead execution to deliver world-class user experience for products used by billions of people daily. ## Work Experience ### Senior Director of UX, Core Search & Intelligence @ Google Jan 2022 – Present | San Francisco Bay Area Brought in by senior leadership to lead UX across Search's AI transformation: Personal Intelligence, AI Mode, AI Overviews, and Agentic Search. Led a 70+ person multidisciplinary team of designers, writers, UX engineers, and motion designers. - Built Search's AI voice from the ground up: Founded and led a 30-person team of content designers, conversational designers, and technical writers to define the persona and tone of Gemini for Search, now used in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Established new research methodologies for conversational, multi-modal, and multi-turn experiences, turning insights into model specifications adopted across Google. - Co-led the vision that became Personal Intelligence: Led Search's personalization strategy from organizational misalignment to a shared product vision. Co-presented to Sundar Pichai a strategy that shipped as Personal Intelligence, launched January 2026, connecting Search to Gmail, Photos, YouTube, and search history. - Defined the AI strategy for Google Search: Directed UX across Search's AI transformation, scaling AI Overviews to more than a billion people, launching the first Agentic Search experience, and establishing Trust and Regulatory frameworks for AI-generated content at global scale. Key work:Personal Intelligence · AI Overviews · AI Mode · Gemini for Search · Agentic Search · Trust & Regulation ### Head Of UX, Core Search & Verticals @ Google Jan 2016 – Jan 2022 | San Francisco Bay Area Led UX as Google Search scaled from 100 million to 2 billion daily users, directing design systems, new product surfaces, vertical strategy, trust frameworks, and long-term vision. - Built and scaled a global design organization: Grew the Search UX team from ~25 to ~150 across eight countries. Established UX as a strategic partner by maturing disciplines across design, research, content, and program management, and building quality programs that made the team's work legible at an executive level. - Transformed Search's visual and design foundation: Directed a multi-year design system program, including Material Design for Search, that evolved Search beyond 10 blue links into a modern, content-forward experience. Improved aesthetic perception, accelerated design-engineering handoff, and unlocked significant advertising revenue by redesigning how ads and organic content coexist at scale. Co-authored the Search 2020 principles, a cross-Search strategy adopted as org-wide OKRs, setting the design direction for Search's next decade. - Launched new product surfaces at global scale: Led UX for Google Discover, Gboard, and Google News alongside a vertical strategy across 20 distinct Search categories (3 exceeding 1B MAUs) that outpaced core Search growth and powered experiences across Google's broader ecosystem. - Led trust, safety, and regulatory programs at global scale: Built foundational trust programs including SafeSearch and Privacy+. Led regulatory UX frameworks across 30+ countries, including GDPR and DMA, balancing user-centered design with legal and business constraints. Key work: Google Search · Discover · Google News · Gboard · Material Design · Trust · Privacy · Regulatory ### UX Lead for Search @ Google Jan 2014 – Jan 2016 | San Francisco Bay Area Built and led a team responsible for key product experiences within Core Search. ### Design Lead and Manager for Google Knowledge Graph. @ Google Jan 2012 – Jan 2015 Helped conceive of, design, and launch new experiences within Search that utilized the power of Google's Knowledge Graph. This represented a major shift from Search primarily providing links, to now providing answers to common queries. Grew to lead a team of designers responsible for experiences that deliver structured answers to the page based on common interests including movies, sports, finance, and many more. ### UI Designer @ Google Jan 2010 – Jan 2012 ### Senior Web Designer @ Metaweb Technologies, Inc. Jan 2008 – Jan 2010 Led the design of several consumer and developer products, with the goal of enabling a new structured data technology that could help realize the vision for a semantic web. One such product was Freebase, which was a creative-commons interface allowing people and machines to access public data information more easily, with greater semantic understanding, and deeper connections across entities. Metaweb was acquired by Google in July of 2010, and Freebase went on to power part of Google's Knowledge Graph. ### Web Design Consultant @ selfemployed Jan 2006 – Jan 2008 Independent consultant advising on numerous web projects related to online branding, interface design, web standards development, information architecture, accessibility, and CMS design. ### Co-Founder & Digital Design Director @ Crux Studio Jan 2002 – Jan 2006 Founding Partner in a design and marketing firm working with Outdoor Sports clients to develop brand solutions. Directed complete advertising campaigns from conception to finished product. Designed and developed all manner of websites including e-commerce and custom content management systems as well as engaging brand-orientated user interfaces. Traditional print design of advertisements, brochures, and catalogs. Coordinated and acted as lead photographer on nation-wide photoshoots with professional athletes. Clients served include: * Specialized Bicycle Components * Maxxis International * Fox Racing * FTC Skateboarding * SFO Snowboarding * Ricor Racing Shocks ### Contractor @ McAfee (formerly Network Associates) Jan 1999 – Jan 2001 Joined the web design team to consolidate eight separate websites into a single, cohesive online identity for Network Associates. Template design, html/css development, etc. Designed front-page graphics for daily virus alerts under tight deadlines. Also spearheaded Search Engine Optimization efforts with top 10 results for targeted key words in major browsers. ### Contractor @ Oracle Jan 1998 – Jan 1999 Media 100 technician producing various video segments for the Interactive Media department at Oracle. ## Education ### B.A. in Industrial Arts w/ emphasis in Graphic Design San Francisco State University ### General Education Foothill College ## Contact & Social - LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/kconragan - Portfolio: https://conragan.com --- Source: https://flows.cv/kaiconragan JSON Resume: https://flows.cv/kaiconragan/resume.json Last updated: 2026-04-13