Episode 3 | AI and Social Impact: Ethics, Adoption and Trust | Amrita Mahale | Peepal Pods

India has over a million frontline health workers who serve as the first point of care for hundreds of millions of people. Designed well, the tech can support them in their individual contexts, designed poorly, it can become an overhead in their already stressful lives. Welcome to Episode 3 of Peepal Pods! In this episode Bhavya speaks with Design Leader Amrita about what it means to design for India’s public health infrastructure. Amrita shares critical insights on what happens when design decisions fail to account for real-world user contexts. Amrita breaks down the real-world realities of digital health tools, the ethical responsibilities of product designers, how we can build tech and AI that genuinely simplify human workflows, and how product managers, designers, and engineers can shift from simply shipping features to actively reducing cognitive load for their end users. If you’re building digital products or integrating AI into complex human workflows, this conversation offers a grounding perspective on what responsible, user-first design actually looks like. Hosted and Created by: Bhavya Gupta, Tushar Goyal 🔗 Links & Resources: Subscribe to our youtube channel for more on product, design, and AI. Follow Amrita on LinkedIn:   / amrita-mahale-1474497   Follow PeepalDesign on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/peep... 📌 Chapters: 00:00 - Introduction 01:04 - Amrita's Journey from Aerospace engineering to Social Impact 05:10 - Writing Fiction and Product Innovation 6:20 - Female Friendships, Agency, and Women's Lives 10:50 - How does Amrita stay Curious and Informed? 11:37 - Building AI for Maternal and Child Health 17:52 - The Hidden Digital Burden on Health Workers 24:02 - Designing for Trust in Social Impact 28:57 - Beyond the AI Hype Cycle 32:47 - How Do You Measure Social Impact? 35:46 - Safety, Privacy, and Responsible AI 38:33 - The Future of AI for Social Impact 43:10 - Final Reflections 43:50 - Closing #peepalpods #uxdesign #humancomputerinteraction #productdesign #aiproducts #publichealth #responsibletech #techforgood #socialimpact © 2026 PeepalDesign. All rights reserved.