Conversational AI: Practical Challenges in Talking to People

Join us for Conversational AI: Practical Challenges in Talking to People, an event on Tue, April 14, 2026 at 7-9pm at Covalent, 925 Thompson Place, Sunnyvale, CA 94085.

We'll have free quality pizza and drinks starting at 6:30pm. Come early and network with our members, other engineers, interested parties, and possible consulting clients.

A Zoom option for this hybrid event is at https://californiaconsultants.org/event/conversational-ai-practical-challenges-in-talking-to-people/

NOTE: As in-person registration closes at Noon on Monday, April 13, only the Zoom option is available after that.

Description: Conversational AI systems today speak with remarkable confidence, often giving the impression of understanding and reasoning. However, teams deploying these systems often quickly encounter familiar problems: drift, hallucinations, contradictory answers, and conversations that quietly lose their original purpose. Why do systems that seem so capable end up behaving so unpredictably?

In this talk, Elena Gostrer will examine these behaviors from a practical, product-engineering perspective. Rather than exploring model internals, this talk will focus on what actually happens when humans interact with probabilistic language models - and why traditional software assumptions fail in conversational settings.

Elena will also discuss what architectural patterns teams are adopting to keep in control, and she'll highlight why combining generative AI with explicit structure, state, and constraints is becoming essential. Attendees will leave with a clearer understanding of why conversational AI breaks, what helps it behave more reliably, and how to think differently about designing human-AI interactions.

Bio: Elena Gostrer is a product and marketing strategist. She is co-founder of ExoChat, an AI startup dedicated to crafting structured systems for human-AI dialogues. With 14 years of experience shaping startup concepts into viable products, she draws on over two decades in software engineering and leadership at firms including Veritas, Symantec, Verifone, and WhiteHat Security. Elena’s path has evolved from hands-on coding and systems design to guiding product roadmaps, marketing launches, and growth strategies, while always having an eye on what makes tech land in real user workflows.

This blend of technical grounding and market savvy has given Elena a practical vantage point on AI’s conversational hurdles, including spotting where demos dazzle but deployments falter - and also helping teams navigate from prototype to everyday use. As a consultant and builder, she thrives on demystifying complex tools for broader adoption, and bringing relatable insights to the push-pull of innovation and reliability.

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