American universities are a critical pillar of US innovation. But what happens when Silicon Valley gets more intentional about that, treating a campus more like a talent pipeline, especially in the race to build AI? In his new New York Times bestseller “How to Rule the World,” journalist and recent Stanford graduate Theo Baker explores that and more. He describes the extreme lengths students and VCs go to in supercharging the school’s system for cultivating talent and investment opportunity. Host Rana el Kaliouby knows this world from the other side – as a founder who spun her company out of MIT and as an investor who now scouts talent on college campuses. Theo and Rana compare perspectives, discuss how AI has changed college, and ask whether AI is an accelerant to “win at all costs.”

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It often feels like the world is divided when it comes to AI — do you lean in, or opt out?.

But what if that tension exists within your own household? In this episode, Rana brings her kids onto the show for a candid conversation about AI adoption. Her son Adam is an AI enthusiast and her daughter Jana is an AI skeptic, a dynamic she wrote about in a recent essay, "I'm an AI Scientist, My Daughter Refuses to Use AI, and I'm Okay with It." She asks them both to explain their different perspectives on AI, how they've embraced it and how they haven't — prompting Rana to reflect on her role as a mother and an AI leader raising both of them. 

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At the 2026 FIFA World Cup, AI has already played a role in high stakes moments – revealing “just barely” violations that have broken hearts and driven hopes for millions of fans. As the tournament’s technology partner, Lenovo has augmented the game with new tools like virtual models of each player, balls equipped with motion sensors, and thousands of cameras logging every second of play. Lenovo Chief Information Officer Art Hu sat down with Rana just before the games began to share all the ways this World Cup draws a line between the pre-AI and post-AI eras of sports.

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While many tech companies race to build ever-larger AI models, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna sees the future differently. Speaking with host Bob Safian before a live audience during New York Tech Week, Krishna explains why enterprises are overcomplicating AI adoption, what kinds of risks leaders should be taking right now, and how to weigh AI's costs against its benefits. He also shares why IBM believes quantum computing will reshape the next era of technology.

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Anthropic and OpenAI’s plans to go public have set off waves of speculation about the ripple effects, and how they’ll stack up to the SpaceX IPO. What’s really driving the value of these companies? Does the timing of the IPOs matter? How might they impact the AI startup ecosystem?

To process all this, Rana phones a friend: Reid Hoffman. As co-founder of LinkedIn and Manas AI, a longtime Microsoft board member, investor in OpenAI and Anthropic, and so much more, Reid offers his take on the AI investing landscape. Rana and Reid break down the IPO headlines, sovereign wealth fund proposals for AI, and what’s defensible in AI today. 

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Natalie Monbiot is the founder of Virtual Human Economy (VHE)  and  was one of the first experts to advocate that your digital twin can be one of your most valuable assets. In fact, she argues that when we use AI models like ChatGPT and Claude, we are already creating a digital twin of ourselves. We welcome Natalie back to the show, following up on some topics we touched upon in our 2025 live taping at On Air Fest, “The making of an AI clone.” 

In this conversation, Rana and Natalie dive into what’s really at stake when we rely on AI for our thinking, what qualities make you indispensable at work, and what parts of ourselves we should not outsource to AI.  

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Big Tech is moving fast on AI. But who's watching out for the rest of us? Aza Raskin, co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, has spent years sounding the alarm about where the race to build powerful AI is actually taking us. He joins Rapid Response to expose the incentive structures quietly pushing Silicon Valley toward dangerous territory, and to make the case that it's not too late to change course. Raskin also unpacks the significance of Pope Leo XIV's sweeping new encyclical on AI, what China's AI priorities reveal about the global race, and why the hidden assumptions baked into AI systems may be the most underestimated risk of all.

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Historically, the only way to know what was going on in your body was to make a doctor’s appointment, run tests, and wait for the results. Now, wearable tech is changing access to health data. Rana sits down with Tom Hale, CEO of Ōura, the company behind the smart ring found on the fingers of everyone from elite athletes to patients managing chronic illness. Together they discuss how wearables give your body a voice, why and how Ōura is leaning into women’s health, and how a trifecta of sensors, data, and AI can move healthcare from reactive to preventive.

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When MasterClass CEO David Rogier was a kid, his grandmother sat him down and told him how she'd lost everything during World War II. The lesson David took from her is that education is the one thing no one can ever take from you.

That idea became the basis of the online learning platform he co-founded, MasterClass. Now, after celebrating its 10-year milestone, AI is leading David to reimagine what learning actually looks like.

On this Pioneers of AI episode, David joins host Rana El Kaliouby in a frank conversation about how MasterClass hopes to upskill their audience with AI-driven offerings, how he is reimagining what business school can look like with AI, and how David himself is incorporating AI into his everyday CEO life.

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When Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn sent an internal memo about AI last year, he didn't expect it to go viral — or to ignite a firestorm about the future of work. Now he joins Rapid Response to unpack what he got right, what he got wrong, and what the backlash taught him about the real limitations of AI. Von Ahn also reveals why he's made a deliberate pivot in 2026: chasing users, not revenue — and what that bet says about how big Duolingo can get before ads become inevitable. It's a candid reckoning with hype, growth, and the surprisingly complicated promise of technology in education.

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