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 central Indiana (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.