The future isn't a screen; it’s a spatial reality orchestrated by AI.
Liya Safina is an award-winning designer, angel investor, and architectural futurist with over 12 years of experience leading the transition into the next era of reality. Recognized as a 2025 Unity Innovation Award winner and an Estée Lauder VV Visionary Fellow, Liya specializes in the high-stakes intersection of frontier technology—AI, XR, and robotics—and global market adoption.
Her career is defined by "expert-first" receipts at the world’s most influential organizations. Most recently, Liya led experience design within Google’s XR division, defining the spatial computing strategy for Google Maps, Photos, and TV across the next generation of smart glasses. Her track record spans from designing the autonomous "city of the future" (Toyota’s Woven City) to crafting digital strategies for a blue-chip portfolio including Nike, Alibaba, and ASICS, as well as cultural icons like Pharrell Williams and Björk.
Beyond the screen, Liya brings a unique "Outsider Advantage" to the stage. As a former Founder-in-Residence at 500 Startups, her perspective is forged across Minsk, Moscow, NYC, and Hawaii. This global lens allows her to bridge the gap between Western innovation and Eastern market integration, navigating complex product launches across diverse cultural landscapes.
Liya currently serves as an Executive Creative Advisor and sits on the boards of major European immersive technology initiatives. A frequent keynote speaker at global forums like SXSW, Spectrum Tokyo, and Emerce EDAY, she challenges audiences to move beyond "alluring branding" and toward Worldbuilding. By treating every touchpoint as a piece of an unfolding narrative, Liya helps organizations transform passive consumers into active "citizens" of their brand’s reality. She provides the strategic foresight necessary for leaders to not just watch the future happen, but to architect it.
Talking Points
Beyond marketing: Building a Multi-hyphenate World
In 2026, everyone knows how to build a brand, but the future is about building a world. Successful worldbuilding shifts the brand from a service provider to a cultural architect by establishing a proprietary lore -- including unique languages, rituals, and visual codes -- that rewards deep participation. By treating every touchpoint as a piece of an unfolding narrative, a brand transforms its audience from passive consumers into active "citizens" of its reality.Beyond marketing: Building a Multi-hyphenate World
Key takeaways:
- The worldbuilding framework -- A tactical methodology to shift from traditional marketing to narrative-driven cultural architecture.
- Community engagement -- Strategies to move audiences beyond "content" and into active, rewarded participation.
- Operationalizing narrative -- How to treat digital and physical touchpoints as cohesive pieces of a brand’s unfolding world.
The Glasses Revolution: Designing for Phone-Less Reality
We’re at a point of a massive shift away from smartphones as the "screen era" peaks and the smart glasses era hits the mainstream. 2026 is the year the hardware finally catches up to the hype, and digital layers begin to permanently inhabit our physical streets. Drawing on her leadership at Google’s smart glasses department, Liya explains why spatial intuition is the most critical skill for the next decade of commerce and brand trust.The Glasses Revolution: Designing for Phone-Less Reality
Key takeaways:
- Spatial strategy -- understanding how to occupy physical space with digital layers to remain visible in a post-screen world.
- The trust economy in AR -- Insights into how spatial computing fundamentally rewrites consumer behavior and brand interaction.
- Future-proofing design -- IPrinciples for brands preparing for the mainstream adoption of wearable XR.
Video
World Usability Congress - Liya Safina on Toyota's Woven City
Disruption’s Cute Until It’s Not with Liya Safina, Google XR
Liya Safina | Immersive Tech Week, Rotterdam, 2024
Next-Gen Engagement in the AI Era
Liya's mind is a dream. She thinks about things in such a smart, future-proof way—always with the user in mind. She is five steps ahead of everyone and truly paving the way forward. ... keep reading Mostly Sunny
Liya is a brand mastermind whose collaborative process draws insight from team members for impressive results. She backs up creative concepts with behind-the-scenes engineering.
Liya's main superpower is her ability to see multiple perspectives at once. She is an architect of the interaction, endowed with high empathy and the capability to facilitate others to a fruitful result.
Latest News
Neale Daniher: A Legacy That Will Outlast The Beast
Three Stories, One Expert: What Dr Zac Seidler's Week in the Media Tells Us About Men Right Now
How to Measure Event ROI: Why 72% of the Industry Says Outcome Measurement Is Now Essential
