About Orange Gate Labs
An independent innovation practice exploring what happens when people, organizations and emerging technologies meet.
Why We’re Here
Human judgement doesn't survive by default when AI enters the picture.
Understanding what threatens it, finding ways to protect it, and putting those into practice is why we’re here.
Meet Janneke
I've spent more than two decades working at the intersection of technology, people and organizations. From enterprise-wide transformation in financial services to experimenting with social robots in an innovation lab, I've always been interested in what happens when new technologies meet the real world.
When conversational AI arrived, I realized I didn't understand the technology well enough to contribute to the conversation in the way I wanted. So I went back to university.
Three years later, my research has brought me to a question I can't leave alone: what happens to our ability to think, question and decide for ourselves as we increasingly rely on AI?
Orange Gate Labs is where I bring that experience, research and curiosity together. It's a place to ask difficult questions, experiment with ideas and build things that make a difference.
Our Philosophy
Human Judgement First
AI can generate information, but humans still decide what to trust, question, and act on. Understanding how judgement works is essential to using AI well.
Credibility Signals Matter
People rarely evaluate AI outputs by checking facts. Instead, we rely on signals like fluency, structure, and confidence to judge credibility.
Conversational AI Changes Perception
When AI communicates in our language, it’s easy to treat is as a partner (or even a friend.) This tendency to anthropomorphize AI shapes how we trust it.
Research to Practice
We study how humans interact with AI systems and translate our insights into tools, talks, and practical guidance.
Our Legacy
Orange Gate Labs builds on decades of experience helping large financial institutions adopt new technologies and new ways of working. Often at pace and at scale.
Our work has long focused on the human side of technological change: redesigning workflows, introducing new digital systems, and studying how people interact with increasingly capable machines.
It included designing and testing robot coworker prototypes, early explorations of human–machine collaboration.
That experience laid the foundation for our current focus: understanding how humans interpret, evaluate, and respond to AI systems.
HestaHub
This project remains close to my heart. Showcased at Collision 2019, HestaHub was about envisioning how the home could be an interactive part of the social ecosystem to support aging in place.
Saffi
Our commitment to helping people adopt new technologies led us to create Saffi, concept Social Media Correspondent. Always ‘photo-ready’, Saffi was about enabling a positive first-touch experience with robots in the wild.
Elly
Bank of Montreal wanted to make a statement at Elevate. So we created a robot talent scout co-worker to generate buzz and drive interested tech talent to the BMO table.
Let’s Talk
AI is evolving quickly, and understanding how humans work with these these systems is becoming increasingly important.
If. you’re interested in speaking, collaboration, or exploring how people interact with AI, I’d love to hear from you.