Rachel Shepard

With a background in fine arts, Rachel began her career through a series of creative entrepreneurial experiments: estate gardening, letterpress wedding invitations, birth photographer, and plant enthusiast. After raising a family, she transitioned into tech, where she joined Microsoft and evolved into a systems-minded designer and AI strategist. She eventually led the design and research team for Microsoft’s AI Platform, guiding a band of eager human-centered thinkers through the earliest days of modern AI and the debut of frontier models. She also holds the distinction of shipping the first LLM-generated artwork in a commercial product. Today, she leads design for Atlassian’s AI Platform, where she stewards AI design principles, patterns, and practices for building AI responsibly. When not testing the latest models, she’s an Olympic weightlifter, a policy advocate who recently passed land-use legislation protecting rural areas outside Seattle, and the "mayor" of her hometown. She’s always game for a wandering conversation, whether it be AI regs, strength sports, or land stewardship.

living alone in the woods