Digital Humans · AI · human-centred business technology

Jade Zhao · 赵郎溪

Digital Humans Project Lead at Luddy · Informatics @ Indiana University (IU) · May 2027

When an AI system looks and talks like a person, what makes people trust it, and keep using it?

I lead Digital Humans work at Luddy LINK: how AI-driven virtual personas might become useful business interfaces, not avatar demos. Trust, disclosure, adoption, and the handoff after the demo. This page is why I build that way. The repos show what shipped.

Handshake Read the work

github.com/jadexzhao

Jade Zhao (赵郎溪) in a lighted vanity mirror, white purse in frame
赵郎溪 · zhao-langxi

How I got here

From the restaurant floor to Digital Humans

  1. 01

    Family business

    Chinese American. Grew up in Greenfield, Indiana, in my parents’ Chinese restaurant. Floor, till, kitchen. After COVID-19 I helped rebuild the website and social channels. A public voice has to hold for a real customer, or it does not.

  2. 02

    Informatics

    IU Luddy. Informatics (Business and Society), with minors in Business Technology and user experience (UX) research. Hudson & Holland Scholar. First-generation college student. Expected May 2027. I wanted organisations and technology in the same sentence.

  3. 03

    Serve IT

    Website Team Lead at the Laurie Burns McRobbie Serve IT Clinic. Web builds for nonprofit partners without in-house engineering. Joined as a first-year student. The test is whether staff can still run the site after the student team leaves.

  4. 04

    UX and privacy

    How people meet consumer technology: collection, storage, and protection of personal data. University work with an industry partner sits behind a non-disclosure agreement. The public version is simple. Precision in the clause nobody reads until it matters.

  5. 05

    AI

    Go-to-market (GTM) and adoption questions around generative AI in public-interest technology. Looking intelligent is not the same as earning a place in a real workflow.

  6. 06

    Digital Humans

    Project Lead at Luddy LINK, February 2025 to present. This is where the rooms meet. When AI looks and talks like a person, trust and disclosure decide whether anyone keeps using it.

Now

Three rooms, one instinct

01

Digital Humans

How AI-driven virtual personas might fit real business workflows. Trust, disclosure, adoption, human oversight. Case notes live on zhao-langxi, not here.

02

Handshake content

I publish for students and early-career people: workplace norms, professional communication, and the systems underneath a first job. Same rule as Digital Humans. A persona has to feel real, or people bounce.

03

Serve IT

Accessible web delivery for partners who will not have a developer on call. Technical proof sits on jadexzhao.

GitHub

Proof, as pointers

This door is the narrative. The repositories are the evidence. They are not a second essay.