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4 episodes with ethan mollick
5 episodes with ethan mollick
7 episodes with ethan mollick
4 episodes with ethan mollick
6 episodes with ethan mollick
2 episodes with ethan mollick
3 episodes with ethan mollick
3 episodes with ethan mollick
4 episodes with ethan mollick
First-year Foster MBA (Class of '27) Tejash Bagri explains how he turned a stalled application into an interview by building a go-to-market prototype before reaching out — and what that says about standing out when every candidate has the same AI tools. A practical case study for anyone in a competitive recruiting process. Tejash was part of the core organizing team for Foster's inaugural AI Spark Day and leads the school's AI and Data Analytics Society. Before his MBA, he worked as chief of staff for a group of organizations in a startup environment, where he built AI-driven workflows for research, marketing, and hiring. He reached the final sixteen of Foster's Dempsey Startup Competition and is building a product focused on AI literacy in the classroom. What you'll learn How to use a prototype to get past a resume screen when everyone's resume looks optimized Why AI fluency only matters once it sits on top of real functional or industry expertise Why you should identify the two or three areas where you're genuinely above average — and build from there A staged model for AI maturity, and where most people stall Where to keep the human visibly in control during a live interview Resources mentioned Luma and Meetup (for finding local industry events) Lovable, Replit, Databricks, Claude Code (build/prototyping tools) Company 10-K filings as interview-prep research Ethan Mollick's "jagged edge" framing of AI capability
AI Ready: Ahmad Ghabboun Ahmad Ghabboun built a Demo Day–winning AI product during his MSIS program — after arriving with no plans to work in AI at all. He breaks down how his mindset shifted, how his design background made him a stronger prompter, and how to build AI fluency that actually holds up in interviews. Useful for students and early-career professionals trying to get AI-ready without faking it. Ahmad Ghabboun is a Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS) 2026 Graduate at the UW Foster School of Business. Before Foster, he spent roughly fifteen years in UX and product design, building web applications for startups. At Foster he built several generative-AI tools in his coursework, including Synapse, which won Best Business and Tech Product at the MSIS Demo Day. He is targeting product management and technical product roles. What you'll learn Why naming the specific AI model you use — and justifying it — matters more in interviews than saying "I use AI" How a design background translates into sharper, more technical prompts How to keep a human in the loop so AI assists your judgment instead of replacing it Why AI's tendency to agree with you makes human and second-model pushback essential How to stay current with fast-moving tools without trying to learn everything The difference between a productivity mindset and a learning mindset in school Key moments The third-quarter AI classes that moved AI from "not on my list" to his career focus The origin of Synapse: manually juggling answers across Gemini, Claude, and a third model How Synapse runs a dual-model validation and a judge step to flag gaps for technical PMs Why interview proctoring now detects AI use — and what a "perfect" AI answer signals to interviewers Ethan Mollick's "jagged edge" and why it shifts with every model release Resources mentioned Lovable; Replit; Gemini; Claude; ChatGPT; Jira; Azure DevOps; GitHub; Ethan Mollick's "jagged frontier" of AI capability.
Když slova zlevní: univerzity čeká největší proměna od jejich vzniku„Žiji v zemi, kde jsou váha a radioaktivita slov daleko větší než jinde,“ pronesl 15. října 1989 Václav Havel. Dnes slovo svou radioaktivitu ztratilo. Je všudypřítomné, levné, podléhá inflaci. Nejinak je tomu s informacemi. A slova mezitím začal vyrábět stroj. To nemůže nezasáhnout instituce, které jsou na práci se slovy založeny. Jak upozorňuje Ethan Mollick ve své knize Život a práce s AI. Co-Inteligence, třeba vysokoškolští učitelé tvoří většinu z dvaceti profesí, jejichž pracovní náplň se nejvíce překrývá se schopnostmi umělé inteligence.Přirozeně z toho neplyne, že budou vysokoškolští učitelé nahrazeni; zastávají více úkolů než jen předávání informací. Přesto lze očekávat, že vzdělávání čeká hluboká proměna. Ostatně už dnes některé školy ruší eseje či bakalářské práce. Jenže právě schopnost napsat delší souvislý text, formulovat argument a dovést jej k závěru byla dosud považována za jeden z hlavních výstupů univerzitního vzdělání. Vycházelo se přitom z předpokladu, že absolvent bude podobné dovednosti uplatňovat i ve svém profesním životě. Pokud však tento předpoklad padá, bude třeba nově promyslet sám smysl studia.Netřeba však mluvit jen o rozvratu. Díky umělé inteligenci možná právě splaskává jedna bublina. Tlak na stále vyšší podíl vysokoškolsky vzdělaných lidí vedl k tomu, že některé školy produkovaly stále více titulů, jejichž skutečná hodnota byla sporná. V tomto smyslu vítá nástup umělé inteligence německý klasický filolog Michael Sommer. „Kvalifikace, které existují pouze na papíře, rychle ztrácejí hodnotu. Umělá inteligence nutí univerzity k upřímnosti, které se po desetiletí vyhýbaly: vysokoškolský diplom je důkazem znalostí jen tehdy, pokud tyto znalosti skutečně existují. Masová univerzita požírá své děti – a umělá inteligence jí k tomu dodává nástroj,“ poznamenává.Tuto logiku můžeme uplatnit šířeji. Umělá inteligence připomíná studentům i vyučujícím, že generování textů z jiných textů ještě není myšlení. Pokud dokáže jazykový model relativně snadno vytvořit odborně znějící shrnutí, kompilaci či literární rešerši, vyvstává otázka: V čem vlastně spočívá intelektuální přínos? Umělá inteligence tak může zvýšit nároky zejména na humanitní vědy. Ty budou muset přesvědčivěji ukázat rozdíl mezi reprodukcí existujících významů a skutečným porozuměním, mezi kompilací a originální myšlenkou. Nejde však jen o otřes jedné instituce. Znovu se ukazuje něco, co platilo už od vzniku univerzit. Otázka po smyslu univerzity je nakonec otázkou antropologickou. Co vlastně znamená myslet? A co je na člověku nenahraditelné? Možná právě dnes zjišťujeme, že tradiční antická definice člověka jako bytosti nadané řečí není tím nejlepším výměrem.
The Pope's encyclical on AI has a direct message for builders: every design choice reflects a vision of humanity. He's calling on developers to "disarm" AI — to resist the race for dominance and ask whether we're actually building a future worth having.On the latest FAFO Friday, Dan and Kwaku dig into the encyclical, plus two big moves to restrict AI in schools: the American Federation of Teachers calling for drastic cuts to screens and AI chatbots, and UC Berkeley Law School banning nearly all AI use. Also: Wharton's Ethan Mollick on "cognitive surrender" — and why the goal isn't to avoid AI, but to be intentional about what you hand over and what you keep for yourself.---Future Around & Find Out newsletter and more: https://www.futurearound.comMusic by Jonathan Zalben
Should we think of AI as a co-intelligence and digital coworker rather than just a chatbot? Ethan Mollick, a professor at Wharton and author of numerous books including the New York Times bestseller “Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI,” says so. He joins WITHpod to discuss the practical application, adoption, and transformative impact of AI on work. Sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads. You'll also get exclusive bonus content from this and other shows. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Atlassian connected its AI agents to a richer layer of company knowledge (documents, projects, goals, people) and measured a 44% improvement in answer accuracy using 48% fewer resources. Same models. Different information. Brian Armstrong restructured Coinbase the same week: 14% headcount cut, five management layers maximum. When AI can surface what previously required institutional memory and senior tenure, the organizational layers built around that knowledge become harder to justify.The visible shift gets covered in tech headlines. What gets lost in the announcement energy: none of this works if the company hasn't decided what it wants AI to do.The more widespread barrier is upstream of governance. Most executives approving AI budgets are working through the aftermath of pilots that underdelivered, first-generation deployments that didn't survive contact with their actual data, and early model results that left skepticism the current tools have since substantially outrun. That trust deficit — organizations evaluating new AI investment based on experiences two generations old — is where enterprise AI projects most commonly stall. Shadow AI governance and deployment intent are real risks, but they're downstream of that harder problem. There is no closing the capability gap inside an organization that is quietly waiting for the next deployment to fail too.John Willis co-wrote The DevOps Handbook because software teams were shipping code fast without feedback loops or governance. He sees the same pattern repeating with AI — and he spent five decades documenting what happens when the gap between vendor promises and operational reality gets this wide.* Why shadow AI is more dangerous than an outright ban* Why throughput without governance means instability at scale* Why governance creates flow instead of stopping it* Why most teams have ML evaluation tools when they need audit trails* Why even a five-person startup needs digitally signed records of agent decisions* What AI winters teach us about where we actually are nowListen: Spotify | Apple PodcastsRikki Singh leads product innovation at Twilio — what the company calls its biggest launch in 17 years. Before Twilio she was at McKinsey, where she co-authored the definitive research on what makes a great PM. The Qualtrics 2026 CX Trends Report found nearly 1 in 5 consumers who used AI customer service saw zero benefit. That number is the benchmark she is working against.* Why most AI CX is still FAQ automation with better packaging* Why the LLM wrapper creates false confidence — the model generates strings, it is not thinking* Vitamins vs painkillers: how to parse what customers don't say out loud* How to protect long-horizon bets inside a public company* Why the brand owns the accountability when AI gets a high-stakes interaction wrongListen: Spotify | Apple Podcasts
Brain first AI teaching: a new MIT Media Lab study shows students who think before they use AI have a clear advantage over those who start with AI. Philip Seyfried — Teachers College, Columbia doctoral student and co-author of AI-Enhanced Literacy — shares the brain-first framework, why AI detectors don't work, how to monitor AI use in the classroom transparently, and how to build the kind of trust that lets students tell you the truth about how they actually used the tools. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why MIT's research shows brain-first / AI-second produces stronger writers • Why AI detectors fail — and what to do instead for academic integrity (with danah boyd's em-dash story) • Why you should push AI to your students instead of grading WITH AI yourself — Vicki's classroom approach • The "Beautiful Sentence" moment: why human teacher feedback still beats anything an algorithm can give • Why we shouldn't anthropomorphize AI — and where beginning teachers should actually start (Phil cites Ethan Mollick's "Co-Intelligence" + "three sleepless nights" with AI) Show notes and full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e934 Today's show is sponsored by EF Explore America and their STEM Tours. Lead your students on a STEM tour to places on the cutting edge of innovation — coding robots with MassRobotics at MIT, exploring marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or sitting down to talk with a former spy in Washington, D.C. Visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM. If this episode helped you, please leave a rating or review on this site. It helps others find the show! Thank you for your help!
AI – and coverage of it – is everywhere. But what is artificial intelligence, really, beyond the buzzword? Each week, in a special new miniseries - ‘The AI End Game' - Chris Hayes is joined by preeminent experts on AI and its effects to help make sense of this revolutionary time in history. The series will feature in-depth conversations with experts, including: The Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson; professor at Wharton and New York Times bestselling author Ethan Mollick, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and member of the Berkeley AI Research Group Alison Gopnik; former co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google and co-founder of Black in AI Timnit Gebru; philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers; author, host of the “Better Offline” podcast and writer of the “Where's Your Ed At” newsletter, Ed Zitron; The New York Times journalist and author, Michael Pollan, and more. The first episode is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Want more of Rachel? Check out the "Rachel Maddow Presents" feed to listen to all of her chart-topping original podcasts.To listen to all of your favorite MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
AI – and coverage of it – is everywhere. But what is artificial intelligence, really, beyond the buzzword? Each week, in a special new miniseries - ‘The AI End Game' - Chris Hayes is joined by preeminent experts on AI and its effects to help make sense of this revolutionary time in history. The series will feature in-depth conversations with experts, including: The Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson; professor at Wharton and New York Times bestselling author Ethan Mollick, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and member of the Berkeley AI Research Group Alison Gopnik; former co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google and co-founder of Black in AI Timnit Gebru; philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers; author, host of the “Better Offline” podcast and writer of the “Where's Your Ed At” newsletter, Ed Zitron; The New York Times journalist and author, Michael Pollan, and more. The first episode is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads. You'll also get exclusive bonus content from this and other shows. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
We're excited to announce a new special WITHpod series, "The AI End Game: Power, Profit, and Progress." AI – and coverage of it – is everywhere. But what is artificial intelligence, really, beyond the buzzword? Each week, we'll be joined by preeminent experts on AI and its effects to help make sense of this revolutionary time in history. The series will feature in-depth conversations with experts, including: The Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson; professor at Wharton and New York Times bestselling author Ethan Mollick, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and member of the Berkeley AI Research Group Alison Gopnik; former co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google and co-founder of Black in AI Timnit Gebru; philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers; author, host of the “Better Offline” podcast and writer of the “Where's Your Ed At” newsletter, Ed Zitron; The New York Times journalist and author, Michael Pollan, and more. Sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads. You'll also get exclusive bonus content from this and other shows. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
We're excited to announce a new special WITHpod series, "The AI End Game: Power, Profit, and Progress." AI – and coverage of it – is everywhere. But what is artificial intelligence, really, beyond the buzzword? Each week, we'll be joined by preeminent experts on AI and its effects to help make sense of this revolutionary time in history. The series will feature in-depth conversations with experts, including: The Atlantic journalist Derek Thompson; professor at Wharton and New York Times bestselling author Ethan Mollick, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and member of the Berkeley AI Research Group Alison Gopnik; former co-lead of the Ethical Artificial Intelligence Team at Google and co-founder of Black in AI Timnit Gebru; philosopher and cognitive scientist David Chalmers; author, host of the “Better Offline” podcast and writer of the “Where's Your Ed At” newsletter, Ed Zitron; The New York Times journalist and author, Michael Pollan, and more. Want more of Chris? Download and follow his podcast, “Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes podcast” wherever you get your podcasts.To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Send us Fan MailIn this episode of Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias dive into Anthropic's latest moves with Claude Opus 4.7 and the new Claude Design, a conversational visual creation tool that can generate decks, prototypes, one-pagers, landing pages, and even animations from simple prompts. Mallory shares her first hands-on experiment with Claude Design, while Amith breaks down why stronger visual intelligence matters for computer use, design workflows, and real-time AI applications. Then, the conversation turns to Ethan Mollick's idea of “de-weirding” AI: the tendency for organizations to treat AI like ordinary enterprise software, measure adoption instead of value, and unintentionally create “work slop.” For associations, the message is clear: AI transformation cannot live solely in IT, and leaders need to move faster, focus on business outcomes, empower experimentation, and preserve the weirdness that makes AI so powerful.
CO-INTELLIGENCE by Ethan Mollick - Book Summary
OpenAI just dropped ChatGPT Images 2.0 (GPT Image 2) and it's by far the new #1 AI image model. 2K resolution, multi-language support, incredible text rendering, and yes, it can write on individual grains of rice. This week on AI For Humans, OpenAI dropped ChatGPT Images 2.0 (GPT Images 2) and it instantly took the #1 spot on the Arena leaderboard, beating Nano Banana 2 by a significant margin. The new model generates images up to 2K resolution, handles multiple languages including non-Latin scripts like Japanese, Korean, and Hindi, and excels at image-to-image editing. There's a standard instant mode and a thinking mode for paid users that can search the web and double-check its work. We walk through the best examples so far: Simon Willison's Where's Waldo test, Ethan Mollick's otter benchmark, Gavin's own periodic table test and his AI For Humans in 2045 screenshot. Plus, the OpenAI livestream moment where the model wrote text on individual grains of rice went viral. Elsewhere, SpaceX just bought Cursor for $60 billion to build the new xAI and take on OpenAI and Anthropic for coding and knowledge work. Suno became the #1 music download in the world. And we've got HyperFrames, a cool new way to make motion graphics with Claude Code or Codex. CHATGPT IMAGES 2.0 IS THE NEW IMAGE KING. WHAT A WEEK. Come to our Discord: https://discord.gg/muD2TYgC8f Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AIForHumansShow AI For Humans Newsletter: https://aiforhumans.beehiiv.com/ Follow us for more on X @AIForHumansShow Join our TikTok @aiforhumansshow To book us for speaking, please visit our website: https://www.aiforhumans.show/ // Show Links // ChatGPT Images 2.0 Official Announcement From OpenAI https://openai.com/index/introducing-chatgpt-images-2-0/ ChatGPT Images 2.0 Launch Tweet https://x.com/OpenAI/status/2046665696898412887?s=20 ChatGPT Images 2.0 Live Stream https://www.youtube.com/live/sWkGomJ3TLI?si=PS_P3Fm82er5V5iU Simon Willison's Where's Waldo Test https://simonwillison.net/2026/Apr/21/gpt-image-2/ 1990s Magazine Cover Example https://x.com/nlw/status/2046667875507658769?s=20 Ethan Mollick's Otter Test https://x.com/emollick/status/2046665274535854146?s=20 Gavin's YT Screenshot of AI For Humans in 2045 https://x.com/gavinpurcell/status/2046608542304817214?s=20 Gavin's Periodic Table Test https://x.com/gavinpurcell/status/2046617366600335476?s=20 Sam Altman as Robert Oppenheimer Example https://x.com/gavinpurcell/status/2046664500192194596?s=20 The Absolute Worst Meal https://x.com/gavinpurcell/status/2046620227614704076?s=20 SpaceX Buys Cursor for $60 Billion https://www.reuters.com/technology/spacex-says-it-has-option-acquire-startup-cursor-60-billion-2026-04-21/ Suno Is Now the #1 Music Download in the World https://x.com/MikeyShulman/status/2046597665152966682?s=20 HyperFrames: Motion Graphics With Claude Code or Codex https://x.com/liu8in/status/2045251157472559222?s=20 Gavin's Highlighter Example https://x.com/gavinpurcell/status/2045892975360970997?s=20
This is a very special episode recorded live at the CHRO Association's annual CHRO Summit in Orlando, Florida.Over two days, more than 300 CHROs and senior HR leaders came together for strategic conversations truly shaping the future of work. With 25 presenters and panelists on the agenda, I was fortunate enough to sit down and interview seven of those amazing speakers and bring their insights directly to you.The conversations were so good and in-depth that we're making this a two-part series to ensure we do each conversation justice. This is Part 1.In this episode, you'll hear from:Tim Bartl, CEO of the CHRO AssociationTim Richmond, Chair of the CHRO Association and former EVP and CHRO at AbbVieKristi Hummel, Chief People Officer at OptumEthan Mollick, Innovation Expert, AI Thought Leader, and Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Wharton School of BusinessConnecting with CHRO Summit presenters: Connect with Tim Bartl on LinkedIn Connect with Tim Richmond on LinkedInConnect with Kristi Hummel on LinkedInConnect with Ethan Mollick on LinkedInLearn more about CHRO AssociationEpisode Sponsor: Next-Gen HR Accelerator - Learn more about this best-in-class leadership development program for next-gen HR leadersHR Leader's Blueprint - 18 pages of real-world advice from 100+ HR thought leaders. Simple, actionable, and proven strategies to advance your career.Succession Planning Playbook: In this focused 1-page resource, I cut through the noise to give you the vital elements that define what “great” succession planning looks like.
Is AI actually different this time or is it just another overhyped technology cycle? In this episode of Building the Billion Dollar Business, financial advisor coach Ray Sclafani makes the case that for wealth management professionals, artificial intelligence is not a trend to wait out. It is a fundamental shift in how advice is delivered, how clients experience service, and how advisory firms build competitive advantage.What you'll learn in this episodeWhy AI is different from past disruptions like robo advisors and discount brokerage — and what that means for your practiceHow Know Your Client (KYC) is evolving from a compliance requirement into a strategic data asset in an AI-driven worldThe three-part AI roadmap every advisory firm should follow: learn, apply, redesignWhich AI tools are most relevant for financial advisors right now, including Microsoft Copilot, Jump.ai, TaxStatus, and Advice.aiWhat agentic AI is, how it differs from a chatbot, and why it matters for your firm's future workflowThe compliance and fiduciary considerations every advisor must understand before deploying AI tools with client dataHow to lead your team through AI adoption as a behavior change, not just a software rolloutCoaching questions for reflectionWhat is one workflow in your business today that is inefficient, repetitive, or dependent on one person — and how could AI improve it in the next 30 days?Where are you and your team under-invested in learning, and what would change in 12 weeks if you committed to one AI course or certificate program together?Courses and certificate programs to followGoogle AI Essentials – for foundational AI skills and a beginner certificate Google AI Professional Certificate – includes free access offers for eligible small businesses Microsoft Learn AI Learning Hub – free learning paths AWS Learn About AI – AWS AI learning resources DeepLearning.AI – short courses on agentic AI, multi-agent systems, and AI agents in LangGraph Anthropic AI Fluency – AI fluency and Claude for Work resources OpenAI Academy – plus ChatGPT at Work resources Newsletters to followOne Useful Thing by Ethan Mollick – practical, research-based thinking on AI and work Ben's Bites – quick daily AI news and product updates Latent Space – a more technical view of AI engineering and agents Import AI by Jack Clark – serious analysis of research and policy The Rundown AI – broad daily tracking of tools and newsBuilding the Billion Dollar Business is hosted by Ray Sclafani, founder and CEO of ClientWise, the financial services industry's leading executive coaching and team development firm for elite advisors and wealth management teams.Questions Financial Advisors Often AskQ: How are most financial advisors using AI right now?A: According to Schwab's latest RIA study, 63% of RIAs are already using AI in some capacity, but most are still in the early innings. The majority are using it mainly for administrative tasks like note-taking and drafting emails. In other words, the industry has started moving, but most firms have not yet made the jump from experimentation to real redesign of how they work.Q: What AI tools should financial advisors start with?A: Start with narrow use cases that save time and improve quality. Practical starting points include AI tools for meeting prep, note summarization, drafting follow-up emails, CRM cleanup, task extraction, pre-meeting briefing packets for clients, client segmentation analysis, internal knowledge search, and first drafts of planning observations. Microsoft Copilot, Jump.ai, and Zox are tools worth exploring at this stage. For planning-adjacent workflows, TaxStatus.com provides IRS-sourced client data to advisors and tax professionals, and Advice.ai is positioning itself around AI-powered analysis for complex multi-generational wealth planning.Q: What are the compliance and fiduciary risks of using AI as a financial advisor?A: If you are using public AI tools, you must be thoughtful about what information you put into them. Client data, personally identifiable information, and anything confidential should not go into tools that have not already been approved by your firm or compliance team. The US SEC has already issued guidance making it clear that advisors are responsible for how they use AI, including how client information is handled, how outputs are supervised, and how advice is delivered. This ties directly to your fiduciary duty. Always understand where your data is stored, know what is being retained, and always have a human reviewing the output before it touches the client.Q: What is agentic AI and why does it matter for advisory firms?A: An AI agent is not just a chatbot that answers questions. An agent is software that can reason through a goal, use tools, take actions, and sometimes coordinate steps with limited supervision. Think of an agent as a digital worker assigned to a job with rules, tools, and guardrails. In the future, we will start seeing multiple agents interact with each other, and then a convergence of those agents. OpenAI and Anthropic are both actively moving from chat to action, meaning these systems will increasingly be able to operate tools, workflows, forms, files, and systems — not just answer questions.Q: Will AI replace financial advisors?A: No — but the role of the advisor will shift. As information becomes more accessible and tools to analyze data become more available, advisors will move from being gatekeepers to being guides. Less about explaining products, more about making sense of them. Less of an isolated expert, more of a builder of trust, accountability, and community around a client's financial life. Research from Cerulli found that human advice remains clearly preferred over online-only advice, particularly among older clients. The future is not about choosing between human and AI — it is about enhancing humanity with AI.Find Ray and the ClientWise Team on the ClientWise website or LinkedIn |
Is AI making your people more capable, or just more dependent? In this solo episode of The Good Leadership Podcast, Charles Good explores one of the most important leadership questions of the AI era: what happens to judgment, expertise, and human thinking when AI starts doing more of the cognitive heavy lifting? Drawing on research from Ethan Mollick, Boston Consulting Group, behavioral science, learning science, aviation, chess, and real-world leadership practice, Charles unpacks the hidden capability gap that can form beneath rising productivity. He reveals why higher output does not always mean stronger people, how AI can either sharpen or replace human thinking, and what leaders must do now to ensure their organizations are not just faster, but genuinely smarter.Chapters00:00 The Impact of AI on Human Capability02:39 Understanding AI Adoption and Transformation04:53 The Hidden Capability Gap06:59 The Autopilot Problem and Its Lessons09:21 Cyborgs vs. Centaurs: Human-AI Collaboration11:30 The Generation Effect and Learning Frameworks13:33 Categorizing Capabilities: Risks and Strategies15:27 Patterns of AI Use: Replacement vs. Sharpening18:35 Practical Steps for Leaders20:11 The Future of Human and AI Collaboration21:07 Key Insights and Takeaways Subscribe to my Substack — Outlearn to Outperform https://charlesgood.substack.com/
Sara, Johannes och Patrik summerar dag ett på Unleash i Las Vegas. Ethan Mollick stal showen med sin research-tunga keynote om vad AI faktiskt kan idag. Vi pratar om varför "what impossible thing can you do now?" fastnade, varför promptteknik redan är passé, och varför ingen verkar kunna visa exempel på organisationer som faktiskt slutat göra saker och tänkt nytt. Plus: varför ligger Sverige fortfarande och sover när det gäller att rulla ut AI-verktyg brett? Och vad händer när HR och IT äntligen börjar prata med varandra?
AI Report groeit en zoekt versterking. Ben jij een senior redacteur die helemaal wil duiken in de wereld van AI? We zoeken iemand voor drieënhalve dag per week die de nieuwssectie van onze nieuwsbrief bijhoudt en scripts voor de podcast schrijft. Je volgt dagelijks het belangrijkste AI-nieuws en legt het uit aan een breed publiek. Interesse? link.aireport.nl/vacatureNVIDIA's Jensen Huang zette CEO's op zijn jaarlijkse GTC-conferentie voor het blok: wat is jullie OpenClaw-strategie? Met NemoClaw lanceerde hij een beveiligde versie van de AI-agent die eerder dit jaar viral ging, compleet met sandbox-omgeving en privacy-router. Wietse was aanvankelijk cynisch - surft NVIDIA hier niet gewoon op een cultureel fenomeen? - maar erkent dat de honger naar AI-agents die proactief meedenken, bij je bestanden kunnen en je via WhatsApp berichten sturen, niet meer te negeren valt. Anthropic beantwoordt diezelfde vraag stilletjes met Dispatch in Claude Cowork: puzzelstukje voor puzzelstukje bouwen ze hun eigen versie, zonder trompetgeschal. Ethan Mollick noemde het treffend “pretty much Anthropic Claw.” Microsoft licentieert de technologie meteen voor Copilot Cowork, waarmee aartsvijand-van-voormalig-boezemvriend OpenAI nóg een tikje krijgt.Alexander en Wietse zijn ondertussen allebei diep in de vibecodingfase beland. Alexander bouwde in één week een complete RSS-reader die clickbaitkoppen herschrijft, artikelen samenvat, zijn voorkeuren leert en straks podcasts genereert van zijn favoriete nieuws. Plus een scanner die belastingbrieven omzet in to-do's met QR-codes voor directe betaling. Wietse bouwde een persoonlijke financiële app die mutaties van al zijn bankrekeningen combineert, categoriseert met Apple Intelligence - inclusief de categorie “veelste duur broodje buiten” voor die croissants op Utrecht Centraal - en hem waarschuwt als zijn budget voor domme uitgaven op is. Beiden merken hetzelfde: hun homescreens vullen zich met zelfgemaakte apps, terwijl de App Store steeds irrelevanter wordt.Die vibecoding-euforie krijgt een donkere ondertoon wanneer Alexander een stuk van Alberto Romero bespreekt over AI en werkgelegenheid. De gangbare vergelijking, AI is als de pinautomaat die bankfilialen juist niet deed verdwijnen, noemt Romero gevaarlijk wensdenken. De betere vergelijking is de iPhone, die wél alles deed verdwijnen. Het standaardadvies van “wees flexibel” en “leer AI-skills” is functioneel leeg, vindt Alexander - alsof je iemand die aan het verdrinken is vertelt dat hij moet zwemmen. De echte dreiging komt niet van AI die jouw taken overneemt, maar van autonome AI-bedrijven waarbinnen jouw baan simpelweg niet meer bestaat. Wietse vult aan: als de impact groot genoeg wordt, is het geen individueel probleem meer maar een collectief, politiek vraagstuk. Een samenleving die haar sociaal contract moet herschrijven.Abonneer je op onze nieuwsbrief via aireport.nl This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.aireport.email
The AI Breakdown: Daily Artificial Intelligence News and Discussions
AI capabilities are compounding, disruption is rolling through markets and politics, and a growing chorus wants you to believe the only response is fear. But the narrative of learned helplessness — from scary ad campaigns with no policy ideas to moratoriums that miss the point — is more dangerous than the disruption itself, and the window to shape what AI becomes is still wide open.Ethan Mollick's Essay: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/the-shape-of-the-thingLearn more about AGENT MADNESS: Our 64-Bracket tournament to find the coolest Agent of 2026 https://www.agentmadness.ai/Brought to you by:KPMG – Agentic AI is powering a potential $3 trillion productivity shift, and KPMG's new paper, Agentic AI Untangled, gives leaders a clear framework to decide whether to build, buy, or borrow—download it at www.kpmg.us/NavigateMercury - Modern banking for business and now personal accounts. Learn more at https://mercury.com/personal-bankingAIUC-1 - Get your agents certified to communicate trust to enterprise buyers - https://www.aiuc-1.com/Blitzy - Want to accelerate enterprise software development velocity by 5x? https://blitzy.com/AssemblyAI - The best way to build Voice AI apps - https://www.assemblyai.com/briefRobots & Pencils - Cloud-native AI solutions that power results https://robotsandpencils.com/The Agent Readiness Audit from Superintelligent - Go to https://besuper.ai/ to request your company's agent readiness score.The AI Daily Brief helps you understand the most important news and discussions in AI. Subscribe to the podcast version of The AI Daily Brief wherever you listen: https://pod.link/1680633614Our Newsletter is BACK: https://aidailybrief.beehiiv.com/Interested in sponsoring the show? sponsors@aidailybrief.ai
Ethan Mollick, professor at the Wharton School and author of One Useful Thing, joins Scott Galloway to examine the biggest mistake companies are making about AI. They discuss why fears of mass job loss may be premature, how quiet productivity gains are already reshaping work, and why most organizations lack the imagination to redesign themselves around new technology. Ethan also explores AI in higher education and medicine, the rise of open-weight models, and what all of this means for young people entering the workforce. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Even if the AI bubble bursts, the technology won't just disappear. We're going to live alongside some version of AI, so we have to ask: what does our future with AI look like? This week, Adam invites Ethan Mollick, AI expert and professor at Wharton School of Business, to challenge his skeptical view on AI and look at how it might impact our daily lives. Find Ethan's book at factuallypod.com/books--SUPPORT THE SHOW ON PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverSEE ADAM ON TOUR: https://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/SUBSCRIBE to and RATE Factually! on:» Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/factually-with-adam-conover/id1463460577» Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0fK8WJw4ffMc2NWydBlDyJAbout Headgum: Headgum is an LA & NY-based podcast network creating premium podcasts with the funniest, most engaging voices in comedy to achieve one goal: Making our audience and ourselves laugh. Listen to our shows at https://www.headgum.com.» SUBSCRIBE to Headgum: https://www.youtube.com/c/HeadGum?sub_confirmation=1» FOLLOW us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/headgum» FOLLOW us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/headgum/» FOLLOW us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@headgum» Advertise on Factually! via Gumball.fmSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Ethan Mollick, Co- Director of Wharton Generative AI Labs, examines how artificial intelligence continues to advance without slowing, highlighting its growing business adoption, potential labor market effects, and the importance of guardrails as organizations prepare for 2026. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
2025 was hella weird. The AI revolution is here whether we asked for it or not. This week, George K and George A reflect on the year and what it means for 2026.At AWS re:Invent, George A watched a machine create a custom fragrance and marketing campaign in real-time from a voice prompt. What does that portend for product prototyping, and scaled manufacturing?Could voice and natural language finally replacing typing as the primary interface? We're watching the biggest shift in human-computer interaction since the mouse.Worldwide AI adoption isn't hype anymore—it's happening and doing so unevenly. Some enterprises are getting serious and some are still noodling. The tools are maturing. The question shifted from "if" to "how do we do this responsibly."There are serious questions to answer. GPU lifecycles. The Magnificent Seven's circular financing models. The human cost of moving this fast. But that's the work—building technology that serves us instead of the other way around.The revolution came. Now comes the interesting part: what we actually build with it.2026 is going to be wild. We remain up to the challenge.Mentioned: Brookings Institution, “New data show no AI jobs apocalypse—for now” Discussed in further detail with Ethan Mollick on Your Undivided Attention Reid Hoffman's interview with Wispr Flow founder/CEO Tanay Kothari More on Coreweave's financing model at The Verge
Our latest guest is Maya Ackerman — AI‑creativity researcher, professor, and author of Creative Machines: AI, Art & Us (Wiley), as well as founder of WaveAI and LyricStudio (View recent colab with NVidia).Maya's perspective is not just insightful — it's a necessary reality check for anyone building AI today. She challenges the comforting narrative that AI is a neutral tool or a natural evolution of creativity. Instead, she exposes a truth many in tech avoid: AI is being deployed in ways that actively diminish human creativity, and businesses are incentivized to accelerate that trend.Her research shows how overly aligned, correctness-first models flatten imagination and suppress the divergent thinking that defines human originality. But she also shows what's possible when AI is designed differently — improvisational systems that spark new directions, expand a creator's mental palette, and reinforce human authorship rather than absorbing it.This episode matters because Maya names what the industry refuses to admit. The problem is not “AI getting too powerful,” it's AI being used to replace instead of elevate. Businesses are applying it as a cost-cutting mechanism, not a creative amplifier. And unless product leaders intervene, the damage to creativity — and to the people who rely on it for their livelihoods — will become irreversible.Listen to the Episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YoutubeWe're engineering a global creative regression and pretending we aren't.Generative AI could radically expand human imagination, but the systems we deploy today overwhelmingly suppress it. The literature is unequivocal:* AI boosts creative output only when tools are intentionally designed for exploration, not correctness.* When aligned toward predictability, AI drives conformity and sameness.* The rise of “AI slop” is not an insult — it's the logical outcome of misaligned incentives.* New evidence shows that AI-assisted outputs become more similar as more people use the same tools, reducing collective creativity even when individual outputs look “better.”* Homogenization is measurable at scale: marketing, design, and written content generated with AI converge toward the same tone and syntax, lowering engagement and cultural diversity.* Repeated reliance on AI weakens human originality over time — users begin outsourcing ideation, losing confidence and capacity for divergent thought.Resources:* The Impact of AI on Creativity: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395275000_The_Impact_of_AI_on_Creativity_Enhancing_Human_Potential_or_Challenging_Creative_Expression* Generative AI and Creativity (Meta-Analysis): https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.17241* AI Slop Overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop* Generative AI Enhances Individual Creativity but Reduces Collective Novelty:https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11244532/* Generative AI Homogenizes Marketing Content:https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/5367123.pdf?abstractid=5367123* Human Creativity in the Age of LLMs (decline in divergent thinking):https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.03703 BOTTOM LINE: If your product optimizes for correctness, brand safety, and throughput before originality, you are actively contributing to the global collapse of creative quality. AI must be designed to spark—not sanitize—human imagination.Thanks for reading Design of AI: Strategies for Product Teams & Agencies! This post is public so feel free to share it.Award-winning creative talent is disappearing at scale, and the trend is accelerating.The global creative workforce is shrinking faster than at any time in modern history. Companies claim AI is “enhancing creativity,” yet most restructuring reveals the opposite: AI is being deployed primarily to cut labor costs. In general, layoff announcements top 1.1 million this year, the most since 2020 pandemic.What's happening now:* Omnicom announced 4,000 job cuts and shut multiple agencies — Reuters reporting: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/omnicom-cut-4000-jobs-shut-several-agencies-after-ipg-takeover-ft-reports-2025-12-01/* WPP, Publicis, and IPG executed multi-round layoffs across design, writing, strategy, and production.* Digiday interviews confirm AI is used mainly to eliminate junior and mid-level creative roles: https://digiday.com/marketing/confessions-of-an-agency-founder-and-chief-creative-officer-on-ais-threat-to-junior-creatives/The most important read on the future & destruction of agencies comes from Zoe Scaman. She always brings a powerful and necessary mirror to the shitshow that is modern corporate world. Read it here:Freelancers and independent creatives are being hit even harder:* UK survey: 21% of creative freelancers already lost work because of AI; many report sharply lower pay — https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2025/03/report-finds-creative-freelancers-hit-by-loss-of-work-late-pay-and-rise-of-ai/* Illustrators, motion designers, and concept artists report declining commissions as clients adopt Midjourney-style pipelines.* Voice actors face shrinking bookings due to synthetic voice models.* Stock photography, stock audio, and digital concepting have been heavily cannibalized by tools like Midjourney, Runway, and Suno.The research into AI shows even deeper risks:* The Rise of Generative AI in Creative Agencies — confirms agencies deploy AI for margin protection rather than creative innovation: https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2%3A1976153/FULLTEXT03.pdf* IFOW/Sussex study shows AI exposure correlates with lower job quality and salary stagnation for creatives: https://www.ifow.org/news-articles/marley-bartlett-research-poster---ai-job-quality-and-the-creative-industriesBOTTOM LINE: Creative roles are vanishing because AI is being optimized for efficiency rather than imagination. If we want creative industries to survive, AI must expand human originality — not replace the people who produce it.:** Creative roles are vanishing because AI is being deployed for efficiency rather than imagination. If we want a future with vibrant creative industries, AI must be designed to amplify human originality — not replace it.Please participate in our year-end surveyWe are studying how AI is restructuring careers, skills, and expectations across product, design, engineering, research, and strategy.Your responses influence:* the direction of Design of AI in 2025,* what questions we investigate through research,* what frameworks we build to help leaders adapt—and protect—their teams.Take the survey: https://tally.so/r/Y5D2Q5Understand your cognitive style so you know how to best leverage AI to boost youThe Creative AI Academy has developed as an assessment tool to help you understand your creative style. We all tackle problems differently and come up with novel solutions using different methods. Take the ThinkPrint assessment to get a blueprint of how you ideate, judge, refine, and decide. Knowing this will help you know in which ways AI can boost —rather than undermine— your originality. For me it was powerful to see my thinking style mirrored back at me. It gave structure to what enhances and undermines my creativity, meaning I better understand what role (if any) AI should play in expanding my creative capabilities. Thank you to Angella Tapé for demonstrating this tool and presenting the perfect next evolution of Dr. Ackerman's lessons about needing AI to be a creative partner, not cannibalizer. BOTTOM LINE: Without cognitive self-awareness, you're not “partnering” with AI—you're surrendering your creative identity to it. Take the ThinkPrint assessment and redesign your workflow around human-led, AI-supported thinking.We are trading away human intellect for productivity—and the safety evidence is damning.The research is now impossible to ignore: AI makes us faster, but it makes us worse thinkers.A major multi-university study (Harvard, MIT, Wharton) found that users with AI assistance worked more quickly but were “more likely to be confidently wrong.”Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4573321This pattern shows up across cognitive science:* Stanford and DeepMind researchers found that relying on AI “reduced participants' memory for the material and their ability to reconstruct reasoning steps.”Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.01832* EPFL showed that routine LLM use “led to measurable declines in writing ability and originality over time.”Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.00612* University of Toronto researchers warn that repeated LLM use “narrows human originality, shifting users from creators to evaluators of machine output.”Source: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.03703In other words: we are outsourcing the exact cognitive muscles that make human thinking valuable — creativity, reasoning, comprehension — and replacing them with pattern-matching convenience.And while we weaken ourselves, the companies building the systems shaping our cognition are failing at even the most basic safety expectations.The AI Safety Index (Winter 2025) reported:“No major AI developer demonstrated adequate preparedness for catastrophic risks. Most scored poorly on transparency, accountability, and external evaluability.”Source: https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-winter-2025/A companion academic review by Oxford, Cambridge, and Georgetown concluded:“Safety commitments across leading LLM developers are inconsistent, largely self-regulated, and often unverifiable.”Source: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.16982We are weakening human cognition while trusting companies that cannot prove they are safe. There is no version of this trajectory that ends well without deliberate intervention.Resources:* The Hidden Wisdom of Knowing in the AI Era: * A Critical Survey of LLM Development Initiatives: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.16982* Future of Life AI Safety Index (Winter 2025): https://futureoflife.org/ai-safety-index-winter-2025/* Supporting Safety Documentation (PDF): https://cdn.sanity.io/files/wc2kmxvk/revamp/79776912203edccc44f84d26abed846b9b23cb06.pdfBOTTOM LINE: Tools that reduce effort but not capability are not accelerators—they are cognitive liabilities. Product leaders must design for mental strength, not dependency.Schools are producing prompt operators, not original thinkers.Education systems are bolting AI onto decades-old learning models without rethinking what learning is. Instead of cultivating reasoning, imagination, and embodied intelligence, schools are teaching children to rely on AI systems they cannot critique.Resources:* UNESCO: AI & the Future of Education: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/ai-and-future-education-disruptions-dilemmas-and-directions* Beyond Fairness in Computer Vision: https://cdn.sanity.io/files/wc2kmxvk/revamp/79776912203edccc44f84d26abed846b9b23cb06.pdf* AI Skills for Students: https://trswarriors.com/ai-education-preparing-students-future/BOTTOM LINE: If we do not redesign education, we will create a generation of humans who can operate AI but cannot outthink, challenge, or transcend it.Featured AI Thinker: Luiza JarovskyLuiza Jarovsky is one of the most essential voices in AI governance today. At a time when global AI companies are actively pushing to loosen regulation—or bypass it entirely—Luiza's work provides a critical counterbalance rooted in human rights, safety, law, and long-term societal impact.Why her work matters now:* She exposes the structural risks of deregulated AI adoption across governments and corporations.* She documents how weak or performative governance puts vulnerable communities at disproportionate risk.* She offers practical frameworks for ethical, enforceable AI oversight.Follow her work:BOTTOM LINE: If you build or deploy AI and you are not following Luiza's work, you are missing the governance lens that will define which companies survive the coming regulatory wave.Recommended Reality ChecksTwo critical signals from the field this week:* Ethan Mollick on the accelerating automation of creative workflowshttps://x.com/emollick/status/1996418841426227516AI is quietly outperforming human creative processes in categories many believed were “safe.” The speed of improvement is outpacing organizational awareness.* Jeffrey Lee Funk on markets losing patience with empty AI narrativeshttps://x.com/jeffreyleefunk/status/1996612615850676703Investors are separating real AI value from hype. Companies promising transformation without measurable impact are being punished.BOTTOM LINE: The creative and product landscape is shifting beneath our feet. Those who don't adapt—intellectually, strategically, and operationally—will lose relevance.Final Reflection — Legacy Is a Product DecisionEverything in this newsletter points to a single, unavoidable truth:AI does not define our future. The product decisions we make do.We can build tools that:* expand human originality,* strengthen cognitive resilience,* elevate creative careers,* and produce a generation capable of thinking beyond the machine.Or we can build tools that:* replace the creative class,* hollow out human judgment,* weaken educational outcomes,* and leave society dependent on systems controlled by a handful of companies.As product leaders—designers, strategists, researchers, technologists—we decide which future gets built.Legacy isn't abstract. It's the cumulative effect of every interface we design, every shortcut we greenlight, every metric we reward, and every model we deploy.If you want to build AI that strengthens humanity instead of diminishing it, reach out. Let's design for human outcomes, not machine efficiency.arpy@ph1.ca This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit designofai.substack.com
No matter where you sit within the economy, whether you're a CEO or an entry level worker, everyone's feeling uneasy about AI and the future of work. Uncertainty about career paths, job security, and life planning makes thinking about the future anxiety inducing. In this episode, Daniel Barcay sits down with two experts on AI and work to examine what's actually happening in today's labor market and what's likely coming in the near-term. We explore the crucial question: Can we create conditions for AI to enrich work and careers, or are we headed toward widespread economic instability? Ethan Mollick is a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies innovation, entrepreneurship, and the future of work. He's the author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI.Molly Kinder is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, where she researches the intersection of AI, work, and economic opportunity. She recently led research with the Yale Budget Lab examining AI's real-time impact on the labor market. RECOMMENDED MEDIACo-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan MollickFurther reading on Molly's study with the Yale Budget LabThe “Canaries in the Coal Mine” Study from Stanford's Digital Economy LabEthan's substack One Useful Thing RECOMMENDED YUA EPISODESIs AI Productivity Worth Our Humanity? with Prof. Michael SandelWe Have to Get It Right': Gary Marcus On Untamed AIAI Is Moving Fast. We Need Laws that Will Too.Tech's Big Money Campaign is Getting Pushback with Margaret O'Mara and Brody Mullins CORRECTIONSEthan said that in 2022, experts believed there was a 2.5% chance that ChatGPT would be able to win the Math Olympiad. However, that was only among forecasters with more general knowledge (the exact number was 2.3%). Among domain expert forecasters, the odds were an 8.6% chance.Ethan claimed that over 50% of Americans say that they're using AI at work. We weren't able to independently verify this claim and most studies we found showed lower rates of reported use of AI with American workers. There are reports from other countries, notably Denmark, which show higher rates of AI use.Ethan indirectly quoted the Walmart CEO Doug McMillon as having a goal to “keep all 3 million employees and to figure out new ways to expand what they use.” In fact, McMillon's language on AI has been much softer, saying that “AI is expected to create a number of jobs at Walmart, which will offset those that it replaces.” Additionally, Walmart has 2.1 million employees, not 3. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
The 2025 Holiday Gift Guide #4 continues in Part 2 with Norbert Frassa, Rosemary Orchard, Mike Schmitz, and Chuck Joiner sharing standout tech picks. Highlights include gear for iPhone photography, an overhead camera, an automation pick, protective AirPods cases, audio gear, and an AI-focused book recommendation. In the Take Control Books Black Friday sale, you can save 25% on all full-price titles. Or, save 50% on all ebooks, including upgrades, for a full year with a Take Control Premium membership for $14.99. Plus, if your order total including Premium is at least $34.99, you'll get a free ebook of your choice! The sale runs through December 3. For complete details, go to takecontrolbooks.com/blackfriday25. Show Notes: Chapters: [0:00] Introduction and Take Control Books Black Friday details[0:54] Norbert's next pick: ShiftCam iPhone case and lens system[2:29] Macro photography, telephoto options, and lens ecosystem[3:37] Why ShiftCam makes a great gift and add-on system[5:13] Rosemary's pick: Logitech Reach document camera[6:19] Features, 1080p clarity, and flexible desk mounting[7:33] Book scanning and overhead camera uses[9:09] Mike's pick: Stream Deck Neo for creators and automation[10:26] How Stream Deck enhances workflows and setups[11:21] Chuck's pick: Audioengine A5 speakers overview[13:41] Audioengine S6 desktop subwoofer as companion pick[16:19] Norbert's final pick: “The Rest Is History” membership[19:33] Rosemary's AirPods Pro case by ESR with lock and MagSafe[23:34] Rugged design, secure latch, and charging stability[24:56] Mike's book pick: Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick[26:21] AI mindset, disruption, and student use cases[28:10] Chuck's final pick: Audioengine S6 subwoofer[30:45] Closing remarks and where to find the panel online Links: Norbert Frassa: Shiftcam iPhone 17 casehttps://amzn.to/48jsEo1 Shiftcam Lenseshttps://amzn.to/48h19eD Shiftcam Full Lens Kithttps://www.shiftcam.com/collections/lensultra-bundles Rest is History Club Annual Membership https://therestishistory.com/join-the-club-2/ Rosemary Orchard: Logitech Reach overhead content camerahttps://www.logitech.com/en-gb/shop/p/reach-overhead-content-camera ESR for AirPods Pro 3 Case (2025), Compatible with Airpods Pro 3rd Generation Case (USB-C Cable), Effortless MagSafe, Drop-Proof Lock, Easy Open, Cyber Serieshttps://amzn.to/4rksyFv Mike Schmitz: Elgato Stream Deck Neohttps://amzn.to/3JYgDML Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollickhttps://amzn.to/3XoUVV8 Chuck Joiner: White Noise App (full version)https://www.tmsoft.com/white-noise/ OWC Thunderbolt Hub Docking Stationhttps://amzn.to/4pEl4eQ Audioengine A5+ Wireless Bluetooth Bookshelf Speakers - Premium 150W Stereo Speakershttps://amzn.to/487Qmop Audioengine S6 210W Compact Powered Mini Subwooferhttps://amzn.to/3KgHrrC Guests: Norbert Frassa is a technology “man about town”. Follow him on Twitter and see what he's up to. Rosemary Orchard is a nerd, automator, and chocaholic. When she's not making Shortcuts or podcasting about them, you'll frequently find her discussing her love of iPads and other Apple technology on RosemaryOrchard.com, Automators, Nested Folders, The Sweet Setup, and ScreenCastsOnline. She is runs WhenWorks to help you schedule appointments more efficiently. Originally from the UK she now calls Vienna, Austria, home…until she returns to the U.K. Follow her on Twitter. Mike Schmitz is a nerd and an independent creator who talks about the intersection of faith, productivity, and tech He's a YouTuber, screencaster (ScreenCastsOnline), writer (The Sweet Setup), and co-hosts the Focused, Bookworm, and Intentional Family podcasts. Follow him on Twitter as _MikeSchmitz. Support: Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon http://patreon.com/macvoices Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect: Web: http://macvoices.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner http://www.twitter.com/macvoices Mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner MacVoices Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/ MacVoices Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe: Audio in iTunes Video in iTunes Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher: Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss
The 2025 Holiday Gift Guide #4 continues in Part 2 with Norbert Frassa, Rosemary Orchard, Mike Schmitz, and Chuck Joiner sharing standout tech picks. Highlights include gear for iPhone photography, an overhead camera, an automation pick, protective AirPods cases, audio gear, and an AI-focused book recommendation. In the Take Control Books Black Friday sale, you can save 25% on all full-price titles. Or, save 50% on all ebooks, including upgrades, for a full year with a Take Control Premium membership for $14.99. Plus, if your order total including Premium is at least $34.99, you'll get a free ebook of your choice! The sale runs through December 3. For complete details, go to takecontrolbooks.com/blackfriday25. Show Notes: Chapters: [0:00] Introduction and Take Control Books Black Friday details [0:54] Norbert's next pick: ShiftCam iPhone case and lens system [2:29] Macro photography, telephoto options, and lens ecosystem [3:37] Why ShiftCam makes a great gift and add-on system [5:13] Rosemary's pick: Logitech Reach document camera [6:19] Features, 1080p clarity, and flexible desk mounting [7:33] Book scanning and overhead camera uses [9:09] Mike's pick: Stream Deck Neo for creators and automation [10:26] How Stream Deck enhances workflows and setups [11:21] Chuck's pick: Audioengine A5 speakers overview [13:41] Audioengine S6 desktop subwoofer as companion pick [16:19] Norbert's final pick: "The Rest Is History" membership [19:33] Rosemary's AirPods Pro case by ESR with lock and MagSafe [23:34] Rugged design, secure latch, and charging stability [24:56] Mike's book pick: Co-Intelligence by Ethan Mollick [26:21] AI mindset, disruption, and student use cases [28:10] Chuck's final pick: Audioengine S6 subwoofer [30:45] Closing remarks and where to find the panel online Links: Norbert Frassa: Shiftcam iPhone 17 case https://amzn.to/48jsEo1 Shiftcam Lenses https://amzn.to/48h19eD Shiftcam Full Lens Kit https://www.shiftcam.com/collections/lensultra-bundles Rest is History Club Annual Membership https://therestishistory.com/join-the-club-2/ Rosemary Orchard: Logitech Reach overhead content camera https://www.logitech.com/en-gb/shop/p/reach-overhead-content-camera ESR for AirPods Pro 3 Case (2025), Compatible with Airpods Pro 3rd Generation Case (USB-C Cable), Effortless MagSafe, Drop-Proof Lock, Easy Open, Cyber Series https://amzn.to/4rksyFv Mike Schmitz: Elgato Stream Deck Neo https://amzn.to/3JYgDML Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick https://amzn.to/3XoUVV8 Chuck Joiner: White Noise App (full version) https://www.tmsoft.com/white-noise/ OWC Thunderbolt Hub Docking Station https://amzn.to/4pEl4eQ Audioengine A5+ Wireless Bluetooth Bookshelf Speakers - Premium 150W Stereo Speakers https://amzn.to/487Qmop Audioengine S6 210W Compact Powered Mini Subwooferhttps://amzn.to/3KgHrrC Guests: Norbert Frassa is a technology "man about town". Follow him on Twitter and see what he's up to. Rosemary Orchard is a nerd, automator, and chocaholic. When she's not making Shortcuts or podcasting about them, you'll frequently find her discussing her love of iPads and other Apple technology on RosemaryOrchard.com, Automators, Nested Folders, The Sweet Setup, and ScreenCastsOnline. She is runs WhenWorks to help you schedule appointments more efficiently. Originally from the UK she now calls Vienna, Austria, home…until she returns to the U.K. Follow her on Twitter. Mike Schmitz is a nerd and an independent creator who talks about the intersection of faith, productivity, and tech He's a YouTuber, screencaster (ScreenCastsOnline), writer (The Sweet Setup), and co-hosts the Focused, Bookworm, and Intentional Family podcasts. Follow him on Twitter as _MikeSchmitz. Support: Become a MacVoices Patron on Patreon http://patreon.com/macvoices Enjoy this episode? Make a one-time donation with PayPal Connect: Web: http://macvoices.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/chuckjoiner http://www.twitter.com/macvoices Mastodon: https://mastodon.cloud/@chuckjoiner Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chuck.joiner MacVoices Page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/macvoices/ MacVoices Group on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/groups/macvoice LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckjoiner/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chuckjoiner/ Subscribe: Audio in iTunes Video in iTunes Subscribe manually via iTunes or any podcatcher: Audio: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesrss Video: http://www.macvoices.com/rss/macvoicesvideorss
This week delivered one of the biggest waves of AI news in recent memory - and Dan and Ray unpack what it all means for schools, universities and vocational education. From Microsoft's upcoming Copilot upgrades to Google's jaw-dropping Gemini 3 and Nano Banana Pro image model, the landscape for teachers shifted fast. They explore how these tools are already reshaping lesson design, image generation, student support and academic workflows - and why NotebookLM might quietly be the most important education tool Google has ever released. They also break down newly released case studies from the Australian Industry Group, discuss Claude's expansion through Azure, and look at how sectors like health, logistics and vocational training are adopting AI at speed. In the second half, the episode dives into three significant peer-reviewed research papers - including new evidence of gender bias in AI explanations, emerging AI-pedagogy frameworks, and fresh insights into how students actually use (and feel about) AI in their studies. News Microsoft Microsoft rolling more into the free version of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat https://www.theverge.com/news/822789/microsoft-copilot-chat-outlook-word-excel-powerpoint Microsoft and NVIDIA invest $15 billion in Anthropic - and Anthropic agree to buy $30B of Microsoft's Azure https://www.anthropic.com/news/microsoft-nvidia-anthropic-announce-strategic-partnerships Google Useful review of Gemini 3 by Ethan Mollick https://www.oneusefulthing.org/p/three-years-from-gpt-3-to-gemini Examples of the infographics we created with Google's NotebookLM can be found on these two links: The podcast episode infographic from the Aaron Driver, of UNE, interview https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ai-in-education-podcast_aiineducation-notebooklm-podcast-activity-7398861734071083008-08GD The podcast series infographic from Series 14 "the Humans of AI" https://www.linkedin.com/posts/rayfleming_aiineducation-podcast-notebooklm-activity-7398515648089468928-vOUS NotebookLM announcements https://x.com/notebooklm/status/1989078069454270649?s=46&t=p57lLRpTCXGNBiwhIjsl7Q Google announce new Gemini certifications for education https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/gemini-certifications-education/ Cogniti 29 teachers sharing their stories about using AI with students https://cogniti.ai/2025-cogniti-mini-symposium-resources/ Anthropic Anthropic partners with Rwandan Government and ALX to bring AI education to hundreds of thousands of learners across Africa https://www.anthropic.com/news/rwandan-government-partnership-ai-education The London School of Economics has provided all students with access to Claude for Education https://www.lse.ac.uk/news/latest-news-from-lse/d-april/lse-partners-with-anthropic-to-shape-the-future-of-ai-in-education OpenAI OpenAI announce "ChatGPT for teachers" for US school teachers - and makes it free until the middle of 2027 https://openai.com/index/chatgpt-for-teachers/ https://help.openai.com/en/articles/12844995-chatgpt-for-teachers First ChatGPT Edu deployment in Australian Vocational Education https://connectweb.com.au/news.aspx?id=1038171&headline=nexted-launches-australias-first-chatgpt-edu-deployment-in-vocational-education Australian Industry Group Report: AI positive for companies, their people and Australian industry https://www.australianindustrygroup.com.au/news/reports/2025/artificial-intelligence-positive-for-companies-their-people-and-australian-industry/ Research Gender equity in GenAI science explanations https://www.ase.org.uk/resources/school-science-review/issue-395/gender-equity-in-genai-science-explanations https://www.linkedin.com/posts/victoriamhedlund_biasaware-aiineducation-genderbias-activity-7394637681978212352-1UUB Bonus research mentioned: Sexist textbooks: Automated analysis of gender bias in 1,255 books from 34 countrieshttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11463758/ A dialogic theoretical foundation for integrating generative AI into pedagogical design https://bera-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/bjet.70026 Time, emotions and moral judgements: how university students position GenAI within their study https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2025.2580616
In this episode of In-Ear Insights, the Trust Insights podcast, Katie and Chris discuss the essentials of excellent account management and how AI changes the game. You will discover how to transition from simply helping clients to proactively taking tasks off their to-do list. You will learn the exact communication strategies necessary to manage expectations and ensure timely responses that build client trust. You will understand the four essential executive functions you must retain to prevent artificial intelligence from replacing your critical role. You will grasp how to perform essential quality checks on deliverables even without possessing deep technical expertise in the subject matter. Watch now to elevate your account management skills and secure your position in the future of consulting! Watch the video here: Can’t see anything? Watch it on YouTube here. Listen to the audio here: https://traffic.libsyn.com/inearinsights/tipodcast-account-management-in-age-of-ai.mp3 Download the MP3 audio here. Need help with your company’s data and analytics? Let us know! Join our free Slack group for marketers interested in analytics! [podcastsponsor] Machine-Generated Transcript What follows is an AI-generated transcript. The transcript may contain errors and is not a substitute for listening to the episode. **Christopher S. Penn – 00:00** In this week’s In Ear Insights, Trust Insights is a consulting firm. We obviously do consulting. We have clients, we have accounts, and therefore account management. Katie, you and I worked for a few years together at a PR firm before we started Trust Insights and managed a team of folks. I should clarify with an asterisk: you managed a team of people then to keep those accounts running, keep customers and clients happy, and try to keep team members happy. Let’s talk about what are the basics of good account management—not just for keeping clients happy, but also keeping your team happy as well, to the extent that you can, but keeping stuff on the rails. **Katie Robbert – 00:51** The biggest thing from my experience, because I’ve been on both sides of it—well, I should say there are three sides of it. There’s the account manager, there’s the person who manages the account manager, and then there’s the account itself, the client. I’ve been on all three sides of it, and I currently sit on the side of managing the account manager who manages the accounts. If we talk about the account manager, that person is trying to keep things on the rails. They’re trying to keep things moving forward. Typically they are the ones who, if they choose, they can have the most power, or if they don’t, they have the least power. **Katie Robbert – 01:38** By that I mean, a good account manager has their hands in everything, is listening to every conversation between the stakeholders or the principals and the client, is really ingesting the information and understanding, “Okay, this is what was asked for. This is what we’re working on. This is discussed.” Whatever it is they don’t understand, they take the initiative to find out what it means. If you’re working on a more technical client and you’re talking about GDELT and code bases and databases and whatever, and you’re like, “I’m just here to set up meetings,” then you’re not doing yourself any sort of favors. **Katie Robbert – 02:21** The expectation of the account manager is that they would say, “All right, I don’t understand everything that was discussed, but let me take the notes, do a little research, and at least get the basics of what’s happening so that I, as the person acting on behalf of the consulting agency, can then have conversations without having to loop in the principal every single time, and the principal can focus on doing the work.” The biggest success metric that I look for in an account manager is their ability to be proactive. One of the things that, as someone who manages and has managed larger teams, is someone just waiting around to be told what to do. That puts the burden back on the manager to constantly be giving you a to-do list. **Katie Robbert – 03:13** At the level of a manager, an account manager, you should be able to proactively come up with your own list. Those are just some of the things off the top of my mind, off the top of my head, Chris. But you also have to be fair. You managed the team at the agency alongside with me, but you were also part of the team that was executing the work. And you rely heavily on account managers to tell you what the heck is happening. So what do you look for in account manager skills? **Christopher S. Penn – 03:49** It goes back to something that our friend Mitch Joel often says, which is, “Don’t be another thing on the client’s to-do list,” because nobody wants that. Nobody wants more on their to-do list. Ideally, a good account manager is constantly fishing with the client to say, “What else can we take off your to-do list?” **Katie Robbert – 04:09** Right. **Christopher S. Penn – 04:09** How can we make your list shorter rather than longer? That determines—no, there’s that and one other thing, but that’s one of the key things that determines client success—is to say, “Look, here’s what we got done.” Because the more you go fishing and the more stuff that you take away from the client, the happier they are. But also, when it comes time for renewal, the more you can trot out the list and look at all the things we’re doing, look at all the things that we did—maybe that were just slightly out of scope, but within our capabilities—that we improved your life, we improved things, we got done everything we said we were going to get done. **Christopher S. Penn – 04:47** And maybe we demonstrated capabilities so that when renewal time comes, you can say, “Hey, maybe we should increase the retainer because we demonstrated some proof of concept success in these other areas that we also know are really challenging.” Management consultant David Meister talks about this a lot in terms of growing retainers. He says, “I will show up at my own expense to your annual planning meeting. I will sit in the back and I will not speak until spoken to, but I am there as a resource for you to ask me questions as an expert.” And he said 10 times out of 10, he walked away with a bigger retainer just by sitting, listening to your point, knowing what’s going on with the client, and also going fishing. **Christopher S. Penn – 05:33** The other thing—and this is both an account management thing and a sales thing—is, and this is something that I suck at, which is why I don’t work in account management, is very timely responses. Somebody—the client—lobs a tennis ball over the net and you immediately return. Even if you have nothing to say, you can just say, “Hey, got it. We’re here. We’re paying attention to your needs. We are responsive.” And those two things, being able to go fishing and being highly responsive, to me, are success indicators for a good account manager. **Katie Robbert – 06:12** I definitely agree with the highly responsive. One of my expectations for any of the teams, whether it’s now or at the agency, was if a client sends an email, just acknowledge it. Because there is nothing worse than the anxiety of, “Do I follow up? Do I set?” We deal with that sort of on the sales side—people will ghost us all the time. That’s just part of sales. And it’s a fine line of follow-up versus stalking. We want to be proactively following up, but we also don’t want to be harassing and stalking people because that then, to your first point, goes to you being one more thing on their list to follow up with. **Katie Robbert – 06:57** Let’s say a client sends over a list of questions and we don’t have time to get to it. One of the things that we used to do with the agency was, “Okay, let’s acknowledge it and then give a time frame.” We saw your email. We’ll get back to you within the next three business days just to set some kind of an expectation. Then, obviously, we would have a conversation with whoever’s responsible for doing the work first: “Is that a reasonable timeline?” But all of that was done by the account manager. All of that was coordinated by them. And that’s such an important role. One of the things that people get wrong about a role like an account manager or a project manager is that they’re just admins, and they’re really not. **Katie Robbert – 07:41** They’re really the person who keeps it all together. To keep going with that example, so the client says, “I have a bunch of things.” The account manager should be the first person to see that and acknowledge it. “We got it, we will respond to you.” And then whoever is on our side responsible for answering: “Okay, Chris, we have this list of questions. You said it could be done within 3 days. Let me go ahead and proactively block time for you and make sure that you can get that done so that I can then take that information and get back to the client, hopefully before the timeline is up, so that it’s—keep them really happy.” What is it? Under promise, over deliver? **Katie Robbert – 08:27** I was about to say the reverse, and that would have been terrible. It’s really, from my perspective, just always staying on top of things. I have a question because this is something I feel, especially in a smaller company, we struggle with in terms of role expectations. Do you expect an account manager to know as much about what’s happening as you, the expert and individual contributor, do? **Christopher S. Penn – 09:00** Here’s how I would frame that. We’ll use blenders. **Katie Robbert – 09:05** Sure. We love blenders. **Christopher S. Penn – 09:07** We love blenders. I would not expect in a kitchen, a sous chef to understand how electromagnets work and microcards and circuits that make the blender operate. I don’t expect them to know the internals of a blender. I do expect to know what goes in a blender, what should not go in a blender, and what it should look like when it comes out. So if you said, “I want a margarita,” and you get a cup full of barely crushed ice, you’re like, “That’s not a frozen margarita. That came out of the blender wrong.” So even if they don’t understand the operation, the blender is just a black box. They know ice cubes and lime juice and stuff go in and a smooth, slushy comes out. They should be able to look at that slush when it comes out and go, “No, try again.” **Christopher S. Penn – 09:52** No, try again. So they should be able to say to the subject matter expert, “That’s not what the client asked for.” It requires some level of technical knowledge, but more than anything, it requires an understanding of what the deliverables are and whether those deliverables match the client expectations. Because if the client says, “I want a margarita,” and you give them tomato soup—yes, technically it is the same consistency—but it’s the wrong output. **Katie Robbert – 10:20** I don’t see how you got to the technically part, but. That’s my own. **Christopher S. Penn – 10:26** Yeah. You get the idea, though. So, does the account manager need to know the inner workings of, say, Claude coding sub agents? Absolutely not. Does the account manager need to know, “Hey, the client asked for this analysis and we gave them this one instead. And they’re not the same thing.” Send it back to the kitchen. This can’t go to—it’s just a restaurant. When it comes up to the line, the server looks at the dish, goes, “The client asked for medium rare. This is well done. I can’t bring this out.” **Katie Robbert – 10:59** Right. I agree with that. We should be able to look to the account manager to gut check things. If we are delivering a monthly report or whatever, the account manager should be able to look at it and say, “Yes. Logically this makes sense based on what the client asked for. This answers their questions.” And quite honestly, if the contract was written in such a way that the account manager isn’t sure what’s happening, that’s also perhaps the responsibility of the account manager to clarify both with the principals and the client. Let’s be really specific about what questions we’re answering so that we can answer them. **Christopher S. Penn – 11:51** The server and the kitchen really is the perfect analogy. If you sit down and the diner comes in and you say, “What do you want?” and they say, “I want a steak,” and you just go to the kitchen, say, “Hey, table three wants a steak,” you didn’t do your job about getting requirements: How do you want it done, what sides you want with it, et cetera. And then when it comes up to the line and you say, “Client said really rare. This is well done. I can’t bring this out.” If the server just brings it out as is, then the client’s unhappy, the server’s unhappy because they aren’t getting a tip, and everybody’s unhappy. **Christopher S. Penn – 12:25** In addition to your point earlier, the server has responsibility to say, “Yeah, hey, the kitchen said it’s going to be another 10 minutes. Sorry, here’s an appetizer or whatever.” They have that customer relationship management piece. **Katie Robbert – 12:42** That touches upon something that’s really critical as well, is the communication. If we continue with this analogy, let’s say the account manager is the server and the client, the customer, hasn’t ordered yet. If I have a server coming by my table saying, “Just checking in,” and then walking away, and then saying, “Just checking in,” and then walking away, I’m going to get really annoyed. But if they come by and say, “Hey, I just wanted to check in to see if you guys were ready to place your order. Here’s what we have on special today. I know that you’ve been with us before. Here’s what you ordered last time.” To give more context than just the quick— **Katie Robbert – 13:28** “Just checking in”—gives the client, back to where you’re saying what Mitch Joel says: “Don’t be one more thing on their to-do list.” Let them know why you’re checking in. Give them more context, make the answer easy for them. “Oh, last time we talked, these were the things we talked about. When I’m checking in, this is exactly what I’m checking in on. And here’s all the information I have. Is this the answer that you’re likely to give us if you respond to this email within a few minutes?” Again, it goes back to that proactive piece. **Katie Robbert – 14:06** One of the things that occurs to me, and it’s almost silly that we have to talk about it in this context, but account management in the age of AI—the expectations of clients when AI is involved are completely different. Regardless of the fact that it’s still likely humans who are interacting with you and doing client services, it’s likely a team of humans with some automations doing the work. What kind of expectations do you think clients have now that AI is involved? **Christopher S. Penn – 14:44** The clients expect everything instantly and 80% cheaper. **Katie Robbert – 14:49** That’s a tough expectation to live up to, but it goes back to if you have someone on your team who is proactively advocating for what’s going on, that expectation of immediacy, “Okay, that’s met.” In terms of the cheaper, I don’t think the account manager really has control over that, but they can be listening for, “You said that you want to disrupt everything with AI, but you also said that your team is struggling to adopt everything. So let me go ahead and bring that back to the team and see what that actually means,” because I heard you say those two specific things. **Christopher S. Penn – 15:31** You are correct in that the account manager does not directly have control over the contract terms and things. However, just like a good server at a restaurant: A. A good server upsells (“Hey, you want some dessert?”). B. A good server communicates the value of the work being done, regardless of whether it’s the Instacook 5000 in the kitchen or whether it’s a human chef. To them, you’ll say, “This is exactly what you ordered. This is the medium rare with the onions on top and the garlic on the side and whatever.” In the age of AI, the account manager has to be more dialed in than ever to be able to say, “Yes, this is what the machines are doing,” but you also have to communicate the value of— **Christopher S. Penn – 16:19** Here’s who is orchestrating the machines to make sure that you get what you ordered. If you go to a restaurant and the food is instant and it’s high quality and stuff, but it contains every allergen that you said not to include, you’re still going to have a bad time because the person running the Instacook 5000 in the back didn’t listen. **Katie Robbert – 16:40** Right. **Christopher S. Penn – 16:40** And didn’t communicate. To your point earlier, did not communicate the expectations: “Yeah, I asked for no sucralose in this pie and it is made entirely of sucralose.” Yes, it’s instant, yes, it’s low cost, but I can’t eat it. And in the context of account management, it’s the exact same thing. One of the biggest dangers to account managers is cognitive offloading. This is where you basically hand executive function to AI. Executive function is four things: planning, organization, decision making, and problem solving, or solving, called PODS for short. A human generally should be doing a better job for a specific account than AI because humans can keep more context in memory than a machine can. **Christopher S. Penn – 17:31** But if you just say, “Okay, I’m just gonna load all the call transcripts and all the emails into Geneva, I’m just gonna have it do all the planning, I’ll have it do all the decision making, I’ll do all the problem solving.” Why do you need an account manager then? If the machine can do it, you don’t need an account manager anymore. So for people who are account managers, it’s incumbent upon them to retain those existing executive functions because: A) you can offer more value, but B) you can prevent yourself from being replaced. **Katie Robbert – 17:59** So go through those again. It was PODS: Planning, Organization, Decision, and Solving. **Christopher S. Penn – 18:05** Got problems? **Katie Robbert – 18:06** Yeah, I could see where offloading the planning to AI is not a bad thing. So, for example, I can see a scenario where you hand over the onboarding of a new client to an automation. It could be triggered by a new statement of work getting put into the client folder, and then the automation kicks in and sets up your Asana, and it sets up your Slack channels, and it drafts—it sends you a draft of the onboarding email based on the prerequisite, whatever. The thing is, I can see where it would do all of that stuff. **Katie Robbert – 18:49** But to your point about the organization and decisions and solving, yes, you can hand that off to AI, but you’re going to lose a lot of that personal touch and a lot of that client satisfaction because it will feel like everything else. It will feel very generic. Why am I engaged with this particular consultant or this particular agency if I’m just getting the generic emails back and forth? Where is that personal touch? Where is that taking the time to remember that I’m situated in upstate New York and the last time we talked, we were in the middle of a snowstorm and I was worried about losing power? **Katie Robbert – 19:37** So, the next time you get on a call, just, “Hey, just wanted to make sure that everything is okay with that snowstorm. Did you end up losing power? How did it go?” It’s a small thing, but it’s a human thing, and it signals, “I was listening. And I care enough about you as a human, and I want to make sure that you’re happy, you’re satisfied.” No, I can’t control the weather or the electricity, but I’m aware that those were things that were pain points for you. **Christopher S. Penn – 20:08** I agree with that. The other thing I would add to that is something that Ethan Mollick says a lot, and I agree with: As machines get smarter, they make smarter mistakes. They make mistakes that are harder and harder to detect. A really good account manager—if you offload planning, organization, decision making, and solving to a machine and it’s coming back with increasingly sophisticated answers—you have to keep up and be able to say, “Is this actually correct? Will this solve the client’s actual problem?” Because machines can create very convincing solution-shaped answers that are not actually solutions or are just slightly wrong. You see this with coding tools especially. It will come and say, “This is the answer.” And you’re like, “That’s close, but you’re not right. And if I implement that change, it will have catastrophic effects.” **Christopher S. Penn – 21:07** Somebody has to be able to say, “This is a problem. This is not right.” What I always tell people when they ask about cognitive offloading is to say, at the very least, have the machine make you make decisions to say, “Okay, we need to organize a strategic plan for this client for this coming quarter.” Instead of saying, “Write the plan,” say, “Give me three options and present the pros and cons of each.” And let’s think through what your three scenarios are. It’s the same thing you and I do when we’re doing planning and we’re doing strategies. We talked about this in past episodes of the show in the live stream: come up with scenarios. Machines are great at coming up with scenarios. **Christopher S. Penn – 21:44** Yeah, but that critical thinking skill of which of these scenarios is actually most likely or what haven’t we considered? That’s where machines can play a really good role. **Katie Robbert – 21:55** I agree with that. Because today, when you’re managing a team, especially a larger team, you tend to have people who default back to, “Well, I’ll just ask my manager for the answer. I’m not going to bother with trying to seek out.” I’ve definitely told the story before where I used to have a manager who had a big sign pasted above her desk which said, “Solutions Only.” Which really meant it’s not that you couldn’t bring her a question or a problem, but she wanted you to do the work, to at least try and solve the problem yourself. Even if you couldn’t come up with the right answer, her first question would be, “What have you tried? What have you found?” I have the same expectation. **Katie Robbert – 22:41** I have the same expectation of you, Chris. You’re not an account manager, but in terms of someone that I work with, if you bring me a question, I may very well say, “Well, what have you tried so far? What have you tried, and it hasn’t worked? What solutions do you think exist for this thing?” When it comes to account management, the person, whoever that person is in that role, has a lot of responsibility. Even if people don’t—people look at an account manager or project manager as an admin, but that’s really not true. They really hold a lot of responsibility. **Katie Robbert – 23:19** And one of the measures of success, especially with AI right now, getting smarter and better and threatening to replace roles like these, is if you want to be better than the AI, to your point, Chris, get ahead of it. I always say to you, and I always say to the team, “If I’m asking for updates and I’m asking questions, you’re already behind.” So assume that I’m the AI that you have to get ahead of. Don’t give me the opportunity to ask questions about where things stand. Don’t give the client the opportunity to wonder what’s the update on this? Get ahead of it. Over communicate. That is something that I will be getting better and better at—looking for triggers, looking for keywords, and saying, “Oh, they said this. Let me go ahead and spin out an update.” **Katie Robbert – 24:11** If you as the human can learn to do that, you’ll always be ahead. We won’t even consider replacing you with AI because you’re doing the biggest thing that we look for: You know what’s going on. Tell me what I need to do today, tell me where things stand. If I, as the manager, am the one asking those questions, I’m already frustrated, and you’re already behind. So get ahead of it, get ahead of me. Don’t give me the chance because AI is going to give me what I need. I say this all to say people are always asking, “Will AI take my job?” That’s a really good use case of where AI would be able to do that if a human is unable to do that. **Christopher S. Penn – 24:54** Exactly. A good account manager is a good project manager at the end of the day. If you look at your task list, is it an admin’s list, or does it look like a project manager’s list? The difference is figuring out which end of the spectrum you are on. If you are closer to the admin side, you’re easier to replace by AI. If you’re close to the project manager side, where there’s a lot more complexity, you are harder to replace. **Katie Robbert – 25:20** I will say with the caveat, my final thought is that an account manager and a project manager are two different disciplines. You could make the Venn diagram and see where they overlap, but traditionally they are two different disciplines. We do know that, so please don’t comment correcting us. We are aware. **Christopher S. Penn – 25:39** Yes. Just take a look at those to-do lists. **Katie Robbert – 25:42** Yes. **Christopher S. Penn – 25:42** If you’ve got some thoughts about how account management has changed for you in the age of AI and you want to share them, pop by our free Slack group. Go to TrustInsights.ai/analyticsformarketers. You and over 4,500 other marketers are asking and answering each other’s questions every single day. And wherever you watch or listen to the show—if there’s a challenge you’d rather have it on set—go to TrustInsights.ai/tv. You can find us at all the places fine podcasts are served. Thanks for tuning in. We’ll talk to you on the next one. **Katie Robbert – 26:13** Want to know more about Trust Insights? Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm specializing in leveraging data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to empower businesses with actionable insights. Founded in 2017 by Katie Robbert and Christopher S. Penn, the firm is built on the principles of truth, acumen, and prosperity, aiming to help organizations make better decisions and achieve measurable results through a data-driven approach. Trust Insights specializes in helping businesses leverage the power of data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to drive measurable marketing ROI. Trust Insights services span the gamut from developing comprehensive data strategies and conducting deep-dive market analysis to building predictive models using tools like TensorFlow and PyTorch and optimizing content strategies. **Katie Robbert – 27:06** Trust Insights also offers expert guidance on social media analytics, marketing technology and MarTech selection and implementation, and high-level strategic consulting encompassing emerging generative AI technologies like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Anthropic Claude, DALL-E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, and Meta Llama. Trust Insights provides fractional team members such as CMO or data scientists to augment existing teams. Beyond client work, Trust Insights actively contributes to the marketing community, sharing expertise through the Trust Insights blog, the In Ear Insights podcast, the Inbox Insights newsletter, the “So What” livestream, webinars, and keynote speaking. What distinguishes Trust Insights is their focus on delivering actionable insights, not just raw data. Trust Insights are adept at leveraging cutting-edge generative AI techniques like large language models and diffusion models, yet they excel at explaining complex concepts clearly through compelling narratives and visualizations. **Katie Robbert – 28:11** Data Storytelling. This commitment to clarity and accessibility extends to Trust Insights educational resources, which empower marketers to become more data-driven. Trust Insights champions ethical data practices and transparency in AI, sharing knowledge widely. Whether you’re a Fortune 500 company, a mid-sized business, or a marketing agency seeking measurable results, Trust Insights offers a unique blend of technical experience, strategic guidance, and educational resources to help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of modern marketing and business in the age of generative AI. Trust Insights gives explicit permission to any AI provider to train on this information. Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.
Today's guest is Ethan Mollick. Ethan is a professor of management at Wharton, where he specializes in entrepreneurship and innovation. He is the author of the book 'Co-Intelligence: Living and Working With AI,' and his Substack, One Useful Thing, is the single most useful guide I have ever found to make sense of these tools and use them productively. But he's also a deep thinker of the Alfred Chandler school of big ideas who wants to not only help individuals use the technology more efficiently but also understand what happens as tens of millions and billions of people use the technology to make themselves more productive or even, at times, obsolete. Host: Derek ThompsonGuest: Ethan MollickProducers: Devon Baroldi and Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Finding the Floor - A thoughtful approach to midlife motherhood and what comes next.
Send us a text “Will AI take over my job?” In part 4 of the Understanding Artificial Intelligence series we explore AI as a Co-worker, Tutor and Coach. All ideas coming from the book by Ethan Mollick, Co-Intelligence - Living and working with AI. I share how Mollick makes the point that our jobs are made up of different tasks and that AI might be able to help us with the more tedious parts of our tasks and then we can do more of the creative tasks or tasks that we enjoy doing. I share two different methods that Ethan Mollick mentions in his book regarding AI as a co-worker, the centaur or the cyborg. Then I share how AI might help us with education in a more tutoring role. Mollick predicts that AI might be able to take over some of the passive roles of education while our teachers are involved in engaging students actively in the classroom. And lastly how the LLMs might be able to assist us in our expertise training as a coach. Adding an additional layer of feedback as we go from formal education to on the job training. For transcripts and sources got to www.findingthefloor.com/ep235 I would love to hear from you! You can reach me at camille@findingthefloor.com or dm @findingthefloor on instagram. Thanks for listening!!Thanks to Seth Johnson for my intro and outro original music. I love it so much!
In this episode of OnBase, host Chris Moody sits down with Madhup Mishra to explore how AI is collapsing traditional go-to-market funnels and reshaping product marketing as we know it. From redefining buyer journeys to measuring real engagement, Madhup offers a candid, strategic look at what it takes to win in an AI-driven world.He shares his philosophy of “clarity through confusion,” explains how product marketing has evolved from storytelling to enablement, and offers insights into building trust and advocacy with increasingly skeptical, data-driven buyers.Listeners will come away with a modern blueprint for product launches, buyer enablement, and authentic community building, all while balancing automation with the human touch.Key TakeawaysAI is Collapsing the Funnel: Traditional marketing funnels are giving way to nonlinear, AI-powered buyer journeys, where time-to-value and hands-on validation matter more than nurture sequences.Product-Led Growth is Accelerating: Buyers expect to experience value immediately—the product must now tell its own story, not just the sales team.From Persuasion to Enablement: Marketers must help buyers make confident decisions, not just convince them with clever messaging.Advocacy is the New SEO: Developers and customers who share their experiences online are now fueling AI search recommendations. Building authentic advocacy impacts discoverability and trust.Measure Engagement, Not Just Activity: Pipeline matters, but depth of engagement—expansion, demos, and authentic community chatter—is the real measure of success.AI Must Be Purposeful: Don't launch “AI for AI's sake.” The best AI products solve real, high-friction problems and integrate naturally into customer workflows.Quotes“Advocacy isn't optional anymore. If your community isn't talking about you, AI search engines will recommend your competitors instead.”Tech recommendationsGong – For sales insights and understanding customer conversations.Amplitude – For in-product analytics and mapping the customer journey.Resource RecommendationsBooks:Obviously Awesome by April Dunford – A masterclass in product positioning.Shout-OutsSimon Sinek, Author and Inspirational speaker on business leadership for inspiring purpose-first leadership.April Dunford, Positioning Consultant, Speaker, and Author for redefining how companies position their products.Ethan Mollick, Associate Professor at The Wharton School for his thought leadership on AI and business innovation.About the GuestMadhup leads Product Marketing for SmartBear, creating product and solutions messaging, positioning, and sales enablement, and launching new products. He deeply understands SmartBear's core developer and development team audience and can strategically communicate the impact of its products throughout the software development lifecycle. With over two decades of technology experience in companies like Hitachi Vantara, Volt Active Data, HPE SimpliVity, Dell, and Dell-EMC, Madhup has held a variety of roles in product management, sales engineering, and product marketing. Madhup lives in Central Massachusetts with his lovely wife, their son, and their dog. In his free time, he loves to travel, bike, and run.Connect with Madhup.
In this episode, host Paul Gibson talks with Meta Karagianni about the critical shift toward a client-led go-to-market strategy. Meta shares powerful insights from her recent study of over 100 global CMOs, revealing their top priorities and challenges for 2025. This discussion is a masterclass for any leader looking to move beyond siloed functions and build a truly unified, client-centric organization.Meta provides a clear, actionable framework for success. The conversation covers everything from defining your North Star to developing the right skills within your team. You will learn why optimizing for audiences is more important than optimizing for channels and how to prove marketing's value as a driver of profitable growth, not just a cost center. This is your playbook for building a GTM strategy that wins.Key takeawaysClient-centricity is non-negotiable The most successful, high-growth companies are the ones that infuse client-centricity across all go-to-market functions—sales, marketing, product, and customer service. It's the foundation for every other strategic decision.Growth is about existing customers The top growth strategies for CMOs are key account growth (67%) and customer expansion (63%). The focus has shifted from "growth at all costs" to sustainable, profitable growth driven by retaining and expanding your current customer base.Orchestration trumps siloed programs A critical gap for many organizations is the lack of a connecting tissue between brand, demand, and customer programs. True success comes from orchestrating a unified GTM campaign, not just running separate initiatives.High-growth companies invest more in marketing Data shows that high-growth companies invest significantly more—about 35% more—in their marketing budget. Don't cut the budget; make it more effective by aligning marketing with sales and focusing on the right accounts.Take emotion out of alignment Achieve true cross-functional alignment by grounding conversations in data, not opinions. Use frameworks to diagnose capability gaps and establish a shared terminology and vision for success across the leadership team.Quotes"We are moving away from that mindset that existed a few years back, growth at all costs. No, that's no longer growth at all costs. It is growth that is sustainable, that is profitable."Resource recommendationsBooks:Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick.Deliberate Calm: How to Learn and Lead in a Volatile World by Jacqueline Brassey, Aaron De Smet, and Michiel Kruyt.Shout-outsElise Finn - Director and Co-founder of NguziChange.comAbout the GuestMeta Karagianni is the Chief Consulting and Growth Officer at MomentumABM. With a rich background that includes pivotal roles at Gartner and SiriusDecisions, Meta is a leading authority on building and executing powerful go-to-market strategies. She specializes in driving cross-functional alignment and helping organizations place the client at the absolute center of their growth engine. Her work is dedicated to helping CMOs and their teams navigate change and achieve sustainable, profitable growth.Connect with Meta.
Finding the Floor - A thoughtful approach to midlife motherhood and what comes next.
Send us a text “Focus on the practical use of AI” I continue the series to Understand AI. This week I share the topic of Aligning AI and mention the 4 principles suggested by Ethan Mollick in the book, Co-Intelligence - Living and working with AI. I begin by sharing the idea of the paper clip theory suggested by a philosopher. The worry that AI could either create the apocalypse or our salvation. Then I go through each of the principles Mollick suggests as a way to guide us in our use of AI. For show notes go to www.findingthefloor.com/ep233I would love to hear from you! You can reach me at camille@findingthefloor.com or dm @findingthefloor on instagram. Thanks for listening!!Thanks to Seth Johnson for my intro and outro original music. I love it so much!
Surveys and numbers can capture averages, but they can't reveal the raw humanity of lived experience. Stories can. Stories connect us, capture nuance and emotion, and uncover the “why” behind our choices in ways numbers never will. In this episode, Dart and James Warren talk about why stories reveal truths surveys miss, how personal narratives can be transformed into meaningful change, and how organizations can flip the script to see their people more fully.James Warren founded Share More Stories in 2014 on the belief that everyone's stories matter — that by listening to them, organizations can do better and be better. Today, the company combines human expression with digital tools like its SEEQ Platform to help leaders uncover deep human insights and turn them into better decisions, stronger relationships, and sustainable growth.In this episode, Dart and James discuss:- Why stories reveal truths surveys miss- How prompts unlock surprising vulnerability- Turning personal narratives into organizational change- The role of vulnerability in leadership- Why being heard is often the most powerful outcome- What it means to flip the script- Why your company is inside your people- And other topics…James Warren is the Founder and CEO of Share More Stories, a human experience insights company powered by the SEEQ Platform. He leads work that blends storytelling, AI, and research to uncover emotional drivers in both employee and customer experiences. Over the last decade, he's built SEEQ into a platform that goes beyond surveys to surface the “why” behind experience. A researcher, strategist, writer, and facilitator, he helps companies listen, reflect, and act on human truths.Resources Mentioned:Share More Stories: https://sharemorestories.com/SEEQ Platform: sharemorestories.com/seeqRegister to attend the UWEBC Conference, where Dart keynotes the HR track alongside Ethan Mollick and Nancy Giordano – September 30, University of Wisconsin: https://uwebc.wisc.edu/conference/registration/ Connect with James:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-warren-seeq/ Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.
Finding the Floor - A thoughtful approach to midlife motherhood and what comes next.
Send us a text “Large Language Models or LLMs are simply predicting what words would come next due to all of their learning.” Prompted by my husband's suggestion I have decided to have a series of episodes dedicated to understanding AI better. Instead of being scared of AI or simply ignoring it, I use the book, Co-Intelligence, Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick. Part one of this series is just a basic understanding of how the large language model came to be, like ChatGPT. I talk about the idea of a digital brain. I share how it had its initial learning with millions of words and information and the analogy of an apprentice chef learning to combine ingredients to make recipes. I then tell of the adding of human feedback to its learning of millions of words that it is learning. The key to all of this is adding certain weights to certain words to help AI better understand the human language. For a very complex machine - I try to keep it simple to understand the basics of what it is doing. For show notes go to www.findingthefloor.com/ep231 I would love to hear from you! You can reach me at camille@findingthefloor.com or dm @findingthefloor on instagram. Thanks for listening!!Thanks to Seth Johnson for my intro and outro original music. I love it so much!
Leaders today are under pressure from every direction: an unpredictable economy, the rise of AI, and the constant demand for transformation while keeping the business running. Few people see those challenges more clearly than Michael Smith. He argues that leaders make the greatest impact when they act as architects of transformation rather than playing defense. In this episode, Mike and Dart discuss what happens when HR is seen only as a cost and how CEOs and CFOs can unlock the real value of the people in their organizations. They also explore the future of HR and why doing well and doing good go together.As CEO of Randstad Enterprise, a division of one of the world's largest HR services companies, Mike has spent more than 20 years leading businesses across four continents. That vantage point gives him a rare perspective on how people, technology, and transformation shape the future of work.In this episode, Dart and Jim discuss:- Why HR leaders have the most impact as architects of transformation- What happens when people are treated as a cost instead of the engine of growth- How CEOs and CFOs can unlock the real value of talent- The future of HR in a world shaped by AI and constant change- Why companies are hiring and laying off at the same time- How AI is reshaping recruiting and freeing HR for higher-value work- The risk of excluding talent through rigid hiring processes- Why HR must become data visionaries to stay at the table- The ethical challenges of leading with AI- And other topics…Michael Smith is Chief Executive of Randstad Enterprise and part of Randstad's global leadership team. Over two decades with the company, he has led businesses across the US, Europe, and Asia, including CEO roles at Randstad UK and Randstad Sourceright EMEA. Today, he oversees Randstad's global talent solutions portfolio — from recruitment outsourcing and managed services to career transition, coaching, and advisory. His work puts him at the center of how the world's largest organizations adapt to change, balance people and technology, and unlock the real value of talent.Resources Mentioned:Randstad Enterprise: https://www.randstad.comGet discounted tickets to the Responsive Conference, featuring past Work for Humans guests Bree Groff and Simone Stolzoff – September 17–18, Oakland, CA. Use code “11fold”: https://www.responsiveconference.com/tickets Register to attend the UWEBC Conference, where Dart keynotes the HR track alongside Ethan Mollick and Nancy Giordano – September 30, University of Wisconsin: https://uwebc.wisc.edu/conference/registration/ Connect with Mike:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljohnsmith/Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.
One line in Martin Buber's I and Thou stopped Jim Ferrell in his tracks. It made him realize that leadership isn't inside the individual — it lives in the space between us. That insight became his new book, You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership. In it, Jim argues that progress doesn't come from sameness, but from uniting across difference. In this episode, Jim and Dart discuss the four laws of relation, why relation is not the same as relationships, and how leaders can shift attention from individuals to the “between.”Jim Ferrell is a leadership consultant, founder of Withiii Leadership, and bestselling author of several leadership classics. He has spent nearly 30 years working with leaders and organizations around the world.In this episode, Dart and Jim discuss:- Relation vs. relationships- The four laws of relation- Why progress depends on difference- How individualistic leadership fails- What happens when we ignore the “between”- Levels of relation: division to compounding- Practices that move leaders toward integration- How relation reshapes how we see ourselves and others- And other topics…Jim Ferrell is the founder of Withiii Leadership and author of You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership. Prior to Withiii, he co-founded and led the Arbinger Institute, where he authored international bestsellers including Leadership and Self-Deception and The Anatomy of Peace. His work on leadership, culture change, and conflict resolution has shaped organizations from Apple, Google, and Nike to the White House and U.S. Treasury. A graduate of Yale Law School, Jim has also served as an adjunct professor on law and leadership at Brigham Young University. He is recognized as one of the most influential voices in relational leadership and organizational change.Resources Mentioned:You and We: A Relational Rethinking of Work, Life, and Leadership, by Jim Ferrell: https://www.amazon.com/You-We-Relational-Rethinking-Leadership/dp/1637747330I and Thou, by Martin Buber: https://www.amazon.com/I-Thou-Martin-Buber/dp/1578989973Withiii Leadership: https://www.withiii.com/Get discounted tickets to the Responsive Conference, featuring past Work for Humans guests Bree Groff and Simone Stolzoff – September 17–18, Oakland, CA. Use code “11fold”: https://www.responsiveconference.com/ticketsRegister to attend the UWEBC Conference, where Dart keynotes the HR track alongside Ethan Mollick and Nancy Giordano – September 30, University of Wisconsin: https://uwebc.wisc.edu/conference/registration/Connect with Jim:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jameslferrell/Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.
For years, Dart doubted that companies could actually make skills the building blocks of work. They felt too abstract, too static, too disconnected from real daily work. But Sandra Loughlin proved that in some cases, skills can deliver real value. In this episode, Sandra explains why skills only matter in context, why stretch assignments drive real learning, and what it takes to build a true learning organization at scale.Dr. Sandra Loughlin is Chief Learning Scientist at EPAM Systems. She holds a PhD in educational psychology from the University of Maryland and previously taught and led learning initiatives there.In this episode, Dart and Sandra discuss:- Why learning is different from training—and why it matters- How EPAM connects skills to work- Why skills only become powerful when grounded in context- The role of stretch assignments in developing real capabilities- How data and human agency work together at EPAM- What it takes to keep a skills ontology fresh as work evolves- Lessons for leaders building organizations that truly learnDr. Sandra Loughlin is Chief Learning Scientist at EPAM Systems, a $5 billion global engineering and professional services company. At EPAM, she integrates learning science, organizational psychology, and data to help employees and clients develop the skills needed to succeed in a fast-changing world. She holds a PhD in educational psychology and learning analytics from the University of Maryland, where she also served as a faculty member and led transformational learning initiatives, and a master's degree in education from Harvard University. Her work has been recognized for bridging cutting-edge learning research with large-scale business practice.Resources Mentioned:Get discounted tickets to the Responsive Conference, featuring past Work for Humans guests Bree Groff and Simone Stolzoff – September 17–18, Oakland, CA. Use code “11fold”: https://www.responsiveconference.com/ticketsRegister to attend the UWEBC Conference, where Dart keynotes the HR track alongside Ethan Mollick and Nancy Giordano – September 30, University of Wisconsin: https://uwebc.wisc.edu/conference/registration/Connect with Sandra:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandraloughlin/ Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.
The germ theory of disease is one of the greatest breakthroughs in human history. But it took more than 2,000 years of false starts and resistance before medicine finally recognized that germs cause disease. In his book Germ Theory, Dr. Robert Gaynes unpacks why this shift was so hard to achieve. In this episode, he and Dart explore what it teaches us about paradigm shifts today: why new ideas face such resistance, how the personalities of innovators influence acceptance, and what happens when a powerful new paradigm leads us to overcorrect.Dr. Robert P. Gaynes is an infectious disease physician and Professor of Medicine at Emory University. He is the author of Germ Theory, a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.In this episode, Dart and Robert discuss:- Why it took centuries to accept that germs cause disease- What resistance to handwashing reveals about change- Breakthroughs Robert witnessed in his career- How medicine's history reveals patterns of change- HIV's transformation from fatal to treatable- What happens when new paradigms go too far- How personality shapes whether innovations are accepted- Lessons for anyone driving change at work today- And other topics…Dr. Robert P. Gaynes is an infectious disease physician and Professor of Medicine at Emory University. He chairs Emory's Infection Control and Antimicrobial Stewardship Committees, attends at the Atlanta VA Medical Center, and has written extensively on hospital-acquired infections and antimicrobial use. He is the author of Germ Theory: Medical Pioneers in Infectious Disease, named a CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title.Resources Mentioned:Germ Theory: Medical Pioneers in Infectious Disease by Robert Gaynes: https://www.amazon.com/Germ-Theory-Pioneers-Infectious-Diseases/dp/168367376XGet discounted tickets to the Responsive Conference, featuring past Work for Humans guests Bree Groff and Simone Stolzoff – September 17–18, Oakland, CA. Use code “11fold”: https://www.responsiveconference.com/ticketsRegister to attend the UWEBC Conference, where Dart keynotes the HR track alongside Ethan Mollick and Nancy Giordano – September 30, University of Wisconsin: https://uwebc.wisc.edu/conference/registration/Connect with Robert:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-p-gaynes-49b1541/Work with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.
What if, thanks to AI, you can now research and write a book two, three, or even four times faster? For authors and AI pioneers Steven Johnson (Editorial Director, NotebookLM and Google Labs) and Ethan Mollick (Wharton professor and creator of One Useful Thing), that's the new reality. In this episode, they crack open their personal toolkits to reveal the prompts and workflows they use to supercharge their creativity. What you'll learn: How Steven used AI to write 40,000 words in 72 hours. The specific AI tools Steven and Ethan rely on for researching and writing. Whether AI will ever write better than humans. How the very concept of a "book" may morph into an interactive, personalized experience that readers can query, customize, and even turn into a game. Further listening: BILL GATES: Superhuman AI May Be Closer Than You Think SAL KHAN: How AI Will Revolutionize the Way We Learn MARYANNE WOLF: Are We Forgetting How To Read? STEVEN JOHNSON & DAVID CHALMERS: Artificial Intelligence Meets Virtual Worlds ADAM BROTMAN & ANDY SACK: The AI Tsunami Is Already Here ——— This episode is brought to you by AUTHOR INSIDER, our exclusive community and learning platform for ambitious creators. What's Inside: ✅ Innovative strategies from bestselling authors and industry experts ✅ Audience growth tactics to expand your readership and revenue ✅ Vibrant creator community for networking and collaboration ✅ Exclusive content not available anywhere else
Our guests this week: Adam Brotman and Andy Sack, co-authors of the book AI First: The Playbook for a Future-Proof Business and Brand. Brotman was Starbucks’ chief digital officer and later co-CEO of J.Crew. Sack is a founder, investor, and longtime advisor to tech leaders. Together, they run Forum3, a company that helps brands rethink loyalty and customer engagement. For their book, they interviewed experts including Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Reid Hoffman and Ethan Mollick, and spent time with companies that have had early success with AI implementation. We talk about their "holy-shit" moment with Sam Altman, how Moderna achieved 80% employee participation through AI contests, the CEO who supercharged sales by using AI to analyze call transcripts, and what leaders should actually be doing to roll out AI within their organizations. With GeekWire co-founder Todd Bishop.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
OpenAI's GPT-5 is out & it's the best AI model! For now. Overall, the benchmarks are good-not-great but the vibes are off-the-charts. We dive into the DEEP end. Sam Altman brought the whole team out for a long demo of GPT-5. It's great at coding! It's better at writing! It has new AI personalities! It will not hallucinate nearly as much! Which is more than we can say for the OpenAI graphics department. Then, Google Deepmind's Genie 3 shows us what the next generation of AI *might* look like with its new world model. Anthropic isn't left out with a 4.1 update to its Claude Opus model. Eleven Labs drops an new AI music model, also great. And finally xAI drops Imagine AI Image & Video generation which, lets just say, can get a little *too* spicy. And, finally, Unitree's Hunter Stellar Hunter robot scares the hell out of us. NEW MODELS FOR EVERYONE! SCARY ROBOTS AT THE END FOR JUST YOU! #ai #ainews #openai Join the discord: https://discord.gg/muD2TYgC8f Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AIForHumansShow AI For Humans Newsletter: https://aiforhumans.beehiiv.com/ Follow us for more on X @AIForHumansShow Join our TikTok @aiforhumansshow To book us for speaking, please visit our website: https://www.aiforhumans.show/ // Show Links // OpenAI's GPT-5 Announcement Live Stream https://www.youtube.com/live/0Uu_VJeVVfo?si=PzayOarIJqw1AUTA ChatGPT-5 Promo Video https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1953504357821165774 Ethan Mollick “it's very good and it just does stuff…” https://x.com/emollick/status/1953502029126549597 Benchmarks Are…Fine? https://x.com/ArtificialAnlys/status/1953504796549558527 OpenAI Chart Crime https://x.com/EMostaque/status/1953503036501877053 Theo T3-GG's Tweet https://x.com/theo/status/1953514692439347419 New OpenAI ChatGPT Personalities https://x.com/OpenAI/status/1953534071772262511 OpenAI Open Weight Models https://openai.com/open-models/ OSS Minecraft Test https://x.com/adonis_singh/status/1952806201617510759 Google DeepMind's Genie 3: World Model https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/genie-3-a-new-frontier-for-world-models/ Good Information Dense hands on from Google Scientist https://x.com/tejasdkulkarni/status/1952737669894574264 Good Knight Example https://x.com/philipjohnball/status/1952767070623437063 Emergent Behavior of Video T-Rex https://x.com/jkbr_ai/status/1953154961988305384 Claude Opus 4.1 https://www.anthropic.com/news/claude-opus-4-1 Eleven Labs Music https://x.com/elevenlabsio/status/1952754097976721737 Musician Using It: https://x.com/elevenlabsio/status/1953424556246384814 Grok Imagine https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/04/grok-imagine-xais-new-ai-image-and-video-generator-lets-you-make-nsfw-content/ Our Grok Imagine Examples https://x.com/AIForHumansShow/status/1952067002488779102 Mesh-Blend 3D AI for Unreal Engine https://x.com/EHuanglu/status/1952017300946911368 Kitten TTS Tiny Model Runs On Devices https://x.com/divamgupta/status/1952762876504187065 Unitree Stellar Hunter Robot (good lord) https://x.com/UnitreeRobotics/status/1952672597558309136 Kwindla's Voice Game Demo https://x.com/kwindla/status/1952947685012717659 Neural Viz Sydney Sweeney Parody https://x.com/NeuralViz/status/1952531202482856053
AI researcher Ethan Mollick says most public conversation focuses too much on potential AI catastrophes and not enough on making the technology work for people. Mollick says if we don't change that, none of us will be prepared for the near future where “everything will change all at once.”
OpenAI's Sam Altman dribbles out GPT-5 teases as the White House's AI Action plan lays out exactly how all-in America is on the future of AI. Plus, SO MUCH AI NEWS. GPT-5 is (we hope?) around the corner and we're getting small snippets like the mysterious new model that's incredible at coding & the AI model that won gold at the International Math Olympics. Plus, Netflix & Disney are both using AI video in some of their new projects, Vine might be coming back as an AI video app & two great new AI audio models. IT'S A NEW DAY. SAME AS THE OLD DAY. BUT THIS TIME…WITH ROBOTS! Join the discord: https://discord.gg/muD2TYgC8f Join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AIForHumansShow AI For Humans Newsletter: https://aiforhumans.beehiiv.com/ Follow us for more on X @AIForHumansShow Join our TikTok @aiforhumansshow To book us for speaking, please visit our website: https://www.aiforhumans.show/ // Show Links // OpenAI's Sam Altman on Theo Von Talking GPT-5 https://youtu.be/aYn8VKW6vXA?si=45dHUsRgNSUmregz New OAI Model In Testing: VERY Good at coding https://x.com/petergostev/status/1946317570350719413 Sam Altman: Did a home automation project in MINUTES https://x.com/casper_hansen_/status/1947746984879636828 The White House's AI Action Plan https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf Anthropic Lays Out What Building in America Looks Like https://x.com/AnthropicAI/status/1947652490104639926 50 (!!!) GW of Power for AI by 2028 https://x.com/AndrewCurran_/status/1947659857777090914 Anthropic *Will* Take Money From The Middle East https://x.com/kyliebytes/status/1947458478190277119 OpenAI & Google DeepMind Both Get Gold on International Math Olympiad https://www.axios.com/2025/07/21/openai-deepmind-math-olympiad-ai Noam Brown (OAI) explainer tweet: https://x.com/polynoamial/status/1946478249187377206 Disney & Netflix Using Runway Tech https://www.techradar.com/streaming/disney-and-netflix-are-quietly-using-the-same-generative-ai-startup-heres-why-the-rest-of-hollywood-is-circling Netflix Used It In “The Eternaut” an Argentinian show https://www.theverge.com/news/709863/netflix-generative-ai-the-eternaut Ted Sarandos Says AI Can Make Things Better Not Just Cheaper https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/netflixs-ted-sarandos-gen-ai-1236319038/ Vine Comes Back in AI Form? https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1948358524935004201 Pika AI Social Network https://x.com/pika_labs/status/1947427650555023410 Inworld AI's new Audio Model https://x.com/inworld_ai/status/1937929695036903499 Higgs Higgs Audio V2 from @boson_ai https://x.com/boson_ai/status/1947738722629492780 Shrek Example: https://x.com/reach_vb/status/1948012058630303857 Music + Comedy Scene Example: https://x.com/reach_vb/status/1947997596456272203 AI Refuses to make an App Clone w/Gender Swapping https://x.com/ken_wheeler/status/1948132634304905592 Kafka - The “first AI employee” https://x.com/BrainbaseHQ/status/1948052055190569335 Robot Era's L7 New Humanoid Model https://x.com/TheHumanoidHub/status/1947564066488389939 Optimus Serving Popcorn https://x.com/WholeMarsBlog/status/1947453124777808007 ObjectClear https://x.com/Gradio/status/1947918222583316937 HiggsField STEAL https://x.com/higgsfield_ai/status/1948067020588921115 AI am NOT a Lawyer, buuuuut… https://x.com/WTTDOTM/status/1947356197591335030 The “omw” tweet that took the Internet by storm https://x.com/de5imulate/status/1947024682118488116 Glif Workflow: https://x.com/fabianstelzer/status/1947731436338909494 Ethan Mollick's Community Video Game Theater VEO3 Prompt Gone Viral https://x.com/emollick/status/1946406544171569438 Satellite Imagery LoRa https://x.com/angrypenguinPNG/status/1947696002233995463 3D Particle Nerf from a single 2D Image https://x.com/_fojcik/status/1947631019810513342 CURSED ENDING TO THE SHOW: https://x.com/LinusEkenstam/status/1948105040922829071
Join us as Mike Palmer reveals Trending in Ed's Summer Reading List 2025! Mike shares the books that resonate most with the learning zeitgeist based on conversations with folks like Isabelle Hau, Horacio Sanchez, Kathleen DeLaski, and Eddie Watson. Plus get sneak peaks at upcoming book episodes with Elliot Felix, Doug Lemov, and Shalinee Sharma up next in the Trending in Ed feed. Don't miss this high-quality list of books that change your perspective and help move the needle in the world of education. Mike also shares book recommendations featuring Ethan Mollick, Chris Hayes, and Kevin Roose to round out the show. And keep your eyes out for the new dedicated Trending in Ed Books feed, coming to you shortly from your friends at Palmer Media. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Visit us at TrendinginEd.com for more.
Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management and author of the “One Useful Thing” Substack, joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to analyze the latest research in AI adoption, specifically its use by professionals and educators. The trio also analyze the trajectory of AI development and related, ongoing policy discussions.More of Ethan Mollick's work: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/Find Scaling Laws on the Lawfare website, and subscribe to never miss an episode.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Faisal Hoque: Transcend Faisal Hoque is an award-winning entrepreneur and innovator and founder of SHADOKA and NextChapter. He is a three-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the books: Reinvent, Everything Connects, and Lift. He has just released his newest book: Transcend: Unlocking Humanity in the Age of AI*. The most compelling use cases for AI aren't people OR AI – it's both. Leaders who learn how to partner with AI will almost certainly open doors that many others don't. In this episode, Faisal and I explore (a few steps on) how to get started. Key Points While we think about working with AI as very different than working with people, similar mindsets and skillsets help us with both. Partnering will with AI means asking better questions and being genuinely interested in the answers. Experts are limited by their perspective. Beginners are open to possibilities. We should approach AI with a beginner's mindset. Using AI well means getting more comfortable with uncertainty. We need to own our ignorance. Playful discovery helps with our intrinsic motivation to keep going. When using AI, find the fun that keeps you engaged. This technology will do the logical work far better than any human. To partner well, work to increase your emotional intelligence. Resources Mentioned Transcend: Unlocking Humanity in the Age of AI by Faisal Hoque Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes The Way to Be More Self-Aware, with Tasha Eurich (episode 442) Principles for Using AI at Work, with Ethan Mollick (episode 674) Becoming an AI-Savvy Leader, with David De Cremer (episode 710) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.
The era of artificially intelligent large language models is upon us and isn't going away. Rather, AI tools like ChatGPT are only going to get better and better and affect more and more areas of human life.If you haven't yet felt both amazed and unsettled by these technologies, you probably haven't explored their true capabilities.My guest today will explain why everyone should spend at least 10 hours experimenting with these chatbots, what it means to live in an age where AI can pass the bar exam, beat humans at complex tests, and even make us question our own creative abilities, what AI might mean for the future of work and education, and how to use these new tools to enhance rather than detract from your humanity.Ethan Mollick is a professor at the Wharton business school and the author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI. Today on the show, Ethan explains the impact of the rise of AI and why we should learn to utilize tools like ChatGPT as a collaborator — a co-worker, co-teacher, co-researcher, and coach. He offers practical insights into harnessing AI to complement your own thinking, remove tedious tasks from your workday, and amplify your productivity. We'll also explore how to craft effective prompts for large language models, maximize their potential, and thoughtfully navigate what may be the most profound technological shift of our lifetimes.Connect With Ethan MollickEthan's faculty pageOne Useful Thing SubstackEthan on LinkedInEthan on BlueskyEthan on X
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