Our Student Walked Into OpenAI Headquarters – and Spoke Directly to Sam Altman

Two weeks ago, one of our Next Lab associates walked into OpenAI’s San Francisco headquarters for a town hall with the ChatGPT Lab cohort.

Then he ended up speaking directly to Sam Altman.

Luan Nguyen, a member of our AI & Cloud Guild, was one of the few ASU representatives in the room. He asked questions, raised real usability issues, and brought the perspective of an actual daily user into a room where product decisions get made. That’s exactly the kind of student we want building with us at Next Lab.

Here’s what he said.

Product decisions are shaped by real users — if real users show up

Luan raised something that anyone who uses AI tools heavily will recognize: large chat threads getting laggy, losing context, forcing you to either start over or work around the problem.

Personalization is where AI in education has to go

If AI is going to be meaningfully integrated into education, it cannot be one-size-fits-all. The current model — where every new conversation starts from zero, where the system has no memory of who you are or what you’re working on — puts the burden entirely on the student.

Some opportunities show up unannounced — you have to be ready

Being in that room reminded him how fast opportunities can appear — and how much the quiet, consistent work of building skills determines whether you’re ready when they do. He didn’t end up in that conversation because of luck. He ended up there because he’d been building, learning, and showing up long before anyone was watching.

Why this matters to us

At Next Lab, we believe that building AI tools means staying close to the people who actually use them. Technically impressive work that’s disconnected from real human experience isn’t the goal — it’s a warning.

Luan’s trip to San Francisco is a good example of what we want our associates doing: not just using AI, but actively engaging with how it’s designed, questioning where it falls short, and bringing that perspective back into the work. From testing AI educational tools in our own lab to raising usability issues directly with the people building the world’s most widely used AI platform — that’s the range we’re aiming for.

We’re proud of him. And we’re already thinking about who’s next.

Watch the full OpenAI town hall recording here: OpenAI Town Hall →

Next Lab is ASU’s applied AI and innovation lab, housed within ASU Enterprise Technology. Our student guilds work across EdgeAI, digital storytelling, applied AI infrastructure, UX research, and games and spatial computing.