The Future Of Less Work

Finance has always been about precision, proof, and trust — qualities now being redefined in the age of AI. According to OneStream’s new AI Pulse Report, three out of four CFOs are leading enterprise AI strategy, yet only a third have managed to scale it successfully. So what happens when the people who once managed numbers begin managing intelligence?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Tom Shea, CEO of OneStream, to explore how AI is transforming finance — and, with it, the future of work. Tom shares why CFOs are uniquely positioned to steer the AI agenda, how finance’s “show-your-work” discipline is shaping enterprise trust, and why solving deterministic problems — where there’s only one right answer — is key to building real confidence in AI.

The conversation delves into what happens when human judgment, context, and mentorship meet machine precision. From the risk of losing early-career learning to the emergence of AI agents as digital teammates, Tom and Nirit unpack what it takes to build systems that don’t just automate, but understand.

If you’ve ever wondered how the rise of AI will reshape not just finance, but how organizations think, decide, and grow, this episode offers a grounded look at the future of intelligent work — where humans and machines learn to trust each other.

https://youtu.be/Jy6-5ZYTPmw 

Guest Information:

Tom Shea is the co-founder and CEO of OneStream, and one of the original architects of the OneStream platform. His mission is to transform the corporate performance management (CPM) ecosystem with a solution that combines power and flexibility with ease of use, deployment, and maintenance. For more than a decade, Tom has been dedicated to delivering value, success, and support to users – drawing on his deep understanding of finance and technology to drive fully innovative products. Before founding OneStream, he co-founded UpStream Software, where he invented and architected UpStream TB and UpStream WebLink, pioneering the Financial Data Quality Management space.

Chapters:

00:00 — Why CFOs Now Lead AI Strategy
01:35 — Can AI Replace or Redesign Finance Work?
03:33 — Deterministic vs Non-Deterministic AI in Finance
05:39 — How AI Learns Corporate Context
07:42 — Why Deterministic Problems Are the Hardest for AI
09:45 — Will AI Eliminate Entry-Level Finance Roles?
11:42 — Can AI Fix the Spreadsheet Problem?
13:57 — How AI Frees Finance to Become Strategic
15:35 — What Happens When AI Handles the Basics?
17:44 — From Human-in-the-Loop to Trusted AI Agents
20:00 — Why Finance Needs Explainable AI
21:56 — Why So Many AI Pilots Fail
24:15 — Productized AI vs Internal Experiments
25:59 — Unlocking Full AI Value in Finance
27:28 — Why AI Needs Context, Not Just Data
29:02 — Coding Human Judgment Into AI Systems
31:17 — The Real Opportunity: Turning Over Agency to AI
32:55 — Will AI Replace Work or Give Us Superpowers?

What happens when AI doesn’t just do our work—but starts shaping how we think?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Dr. Kirsti Samuels—founder and CEO of KS Insight and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University—to unpack the overlooked risks AI poses to leadership and culture. From standardized thinking to conflict avoidance, the conversation challenges the idea that AI is an innovation partner—and asks what we lose when tools reward consensus, speed, and surface-level answers.

Drawing on her work with heads of state, rebel leaders, and Fortune 500 executives, Kirsti explains why the best leaders create “pressure cookers” where discomfort leads to insight, and why psychological safety is no longer enough without dissent, disagreement, and deliberate resistance to vanilla answers. Together, they explore how to lead through change, why answers are cheap but good questions are rare, and why the real threat isn’t that AI replaces people—but that it teaches leaders to avoid being human.

If you’ve ever wondered what leadership should look like in an AI-driven world—or what skills organizations must urgently develop—this conversation is your starting point.

https://youtu.be/dKlwlEDJ5J8 

Guest Information:

Dr. Kirsti Samuels is the founder and CEO of KS Insight, a leadership and strategy consultancy based in New York City. She is also an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University, where she teaches Leadership and Management in Moments of Adversity and Opportunity to Master’s students at the School of International and Public Affairs.

As an entrepreneur and strategist with 25 years of experience, Kirsti specializes in tackling complex problems with innovative approaches. Her clients have included the President of the Comoros Islands, the leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the U.S. Department of State, the Clinton Global Initiative, the United Nations, the World Bank, the American Hospital Association, and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT.

Kirsti holds a Doctorate in Law from Oxford University, a Master’s in Public Administration from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a Bachelor of Science and Law from Sydney University

Links:

https://ks-insight.com/

Chapters:

00:00 — What Happens When AI Shapes How We Think?
03:10 — Why AI Makes Everything Sound the Same
07:30 — Can Leaders Train AI to Challenge Them?
10:00 — The Real Skill Behind Innovation: Tolerating Discomfort
12:00 — What High-Stakes Leaders Do Differently
14:45 — Leadership Skills for a Volatile AI Era
17:30 — How to Lead Change Without Breaking People
20:00 — Why AI’s Warmth May Weaken Us
22:00 — The Marshmallow Challenge: When Having the Answer Kills Innovation
24:00 — How Social Discomfort Blocks Better Ideas
26:30 — Can We Still Spark Innovation Without Face-to-Face?
29:00 — Building Cultures That Welcome Pushback
31:00 — Why Human Feedback Still Matters More Than AI
33:00 — The Question We Should Be Asking About Leadership
35:00 — The Deeply Human Skills AI Can’t Replace

As AI becomes capable of doing not just the work of our hands but also the thinking of our minds, one question looms large: what remains uniquely human?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Dr. Tatyana Mamut — economic anthropologist and CEO of Wayfound — to explore the human value add in the age of AI. Together, they unpack how judgment, taste, trust, and relationships form the foundation of real value at work, and why replacing people with agents can strip away the very essence that makes an organization thrive. Tatyana shares how her company helps leaders navigate the “multisapiens
workplace,” where humans and AI agents work side by side. She explains why AI should eliminate inhuman work, not human jobs — freeing people to focus on creativity, connection, and purpose — and how leaders must redesign management and culture to reflect this shift.

The conversation moves from the classroom to the boardroom, covering why education must emphasize human skills, how AI can become a trusted collaborator rather than a threat, and why the future manager may oversee teams made up mostly of intelligent agents.

If you’ve ever wondered what role humans will play when machines can do almost everything else — and how to redefine leadership, purpose, and
meaning in that world — this episode is your guide to what makes us human in the age of AI.

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Read Nirit’s Forbes article, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"⁠AI Isn’t Eliminating Jobs. It’s Eliminating Inhuman Work", to explore these ideas further.  
Guest Information:

Dr. Tatyana Mamut, is the CEO and
Co-Founder of Wayfound where she is driving the next frontier of workforces through AI management for a more seamless multisapiens workforce. Leveraging her Ph.D in Cultural Anthropology, Mamut brings a unique approach to innovating in technology to use AI as the singular largest force for cultural shifts and impacts in the next century.

Prior to Wayfound, she led product development and design at Pendo, where she met her co-founder Chad Burnette. She’s held other senior leadership roles at household tech names like Amazon, Salesforce, IDEO, and more. Wayfound is the #1 “Guardian Agent” for AI - a leading, independent AI agent supervision platform designed for business leaders and governance teams. Wayfound’s “AI Supervisor” captures and analyzes every Agent interaction and activity, assesses how well the Agents are performing and suggests improvements in near real-time, providing unparalleled insights through a single-pane observability dashboard. They’re tackling a $1.3T problem in the AI category to help integrate AI Agents alongside humans for a multisapiens workplace of the future.

What if the best leadership training isn’t about managing others but about managing yourself?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Margaret Andrews, founder of the MYLO Center and author of Manage Yourself to Lead Others, to flip the traditional leadership script. Based on the most popular executive development program at Harvard, Margaret’s approach doesn’t start with people management frameworks or org charts—it starts with self-awareness.

Together, Nirit and Margaret unpack why the future of leadership depends on understanding the stories we tell ourselves—about success, values, emotion, and power—and how those stories shape everything from our decisions to our relationships. They explore six deceptively simple questions that can help anyone lead with greater composure, empathy, and impact—and three more that show you where you’re growing next.

Whether you’re navigating career change, rethinking how you lead, or managing in a time of transformation, this conversation offers a timely reminder: before you manage others, manage the person in the mirror.

https://youtu.be/-_67w1JS9JY

Guest Information:
Margaret C. Andrews is a seasoned executive, academic leader, speaker, and instructor. She has created and teaches a variety of leadership courses and professional and executive programs at Harvard University and is the founder of the MYLO Center, a private leadership development firm. Her clients include Amazon, Citi, Continental, Walmart, Wayfair, and the United Nations. She lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

You can follow Margaret on LinkedIn (@margaretcandrews)

Chapters:
00:00 – Why Great Leadership Starts With Self-Awareness
03:30 – What Is the First Step to Leading Yourself?
06:00 – The First Question Every Leader Should Ask Themselves
09:00 – What Events Changed the Way You Lead?
12:45 – How Do You Define Success (Really)?
14:15 – What Your Calendar Says About Your Values
17:10 – What Makes You Mad Might Reveal What Matters Most
18:55 – Why Leaders Must Understand Their Emotional Triggers
20:45 – What Feedback Have You Heard Over and Over?
22:10 – How Do You Want to Be Seen as a Leader?
24:10 – Why Self-Awareness Is More Important Than Ever in an AI World
26:10 – The Future of Less Work Is About Doing More of What Matters
27:55 – What’s the One Question to Ask About Your Future Career?

Most organizations say they want to adopt AI. But very few are doing what it takes to actually change how work gets done.

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Mary Alice Vuicic, Chief People Officer at Thomson Reuters, to unpack what real AI transformation looks like inside a global organization—and why so many companies are missing the $19,000 per person productivity opportunity AI puts on the table.

Mary Alice shares how her team moved from pilots to full-scale adoption across a global workforce—and why AI strategy isn’t about tools or pilots, but about tone, training, tools, and time. She explains how curiosity became a cultural cornerstone, why AI champions emerged organically, and how psychological safety helped people let go of legacy expertise to make room for new value.

Together, they explore how managers can lead AI adoption, why change management—not tech—is the real constraint, and how to redesign work for a world where agents and humans work side-by-side.

If you’re tired of surface-level AI efforts and want to understand what true organizational shift requires, this is the episode for you.

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Read Nirit’s Forbes article, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"⁠If You Treat AI Like Software, You’ll Miss The Real Transformation", to explore these ideas further.  

https://youtu.be/k0IJ_PU6Gsg

Guest Information:

Mary Alice Vuicic is the Chief People Officer at Thomson Reuters, leading Human Resources, Communications, Government Affairs and ESG.Thomson Reuters is a global content-driven technology company operating in the business information services sector.

Chapters:

00:00 — What’s Missing From Most AI Adoption Strategies?
01:49 — How the $19,000 AI Productivity Opportunity Was Calculated
03:02 — What Is a Clear AI Strategy—and Why Most Fail
04:29 — Why Tech Isn’t the Problem (It’s Change Management)
05:39 — The 4 T’s Framework: Tone, Training, Tools, and Time
07:46 — Why Psychological Safety Is Key to AI Adoption
09:27 — How to Find and Support AI Champions in Your Workforce
11:04 — What Tools Are Employees Actually Using with AI?
12:18 — Real AI Use Case: Eliminating 95% of M&A Admin Work
13:56 — Why Transparency and Empowerment Matter for AI Success
16:09 — How to Drive 75% AI Adoption Across a Global Workforce
18:16 — What Managers Should Do With AI Usage Data
20:16 — How AI Is Changing the Future of Professional Services
22:25 — Rethinking Roles, Org Structures, and Ownership Models
24:09 — What Happens to Experience When AI Does the Work?
25:43 — Advice for Leaders Scaling from AI Pilots to Full Adoption
27:06 — What Quality Metrics Should You Use for AI Output?

What separates companies still experimenting with AI from those reinventing how work gets done?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Anant Adya—Executive Vice President and Head of Cloud, Infrastructure and Security Services at Infosys—to explore what it really takes to embed AI into the operating fabric of work. As one of the leaders behind Infosys’ internal AI-first transformation and hundreds of enterprise deployments, Anant brings a front-row perspective to the mindset shift companies must make.

Together, Nirit and Anant unpack why scaling AI isn’t about tools or pilots—it’s about strategy, outcomes, and workforce reinvention. They explore how Infosys trains over 200,000 employees across three levels of AI fluency, how organizations can reimagine roles instead of replacing them, and why AI must be implemented with people, not just for efficiency.

From healthcare call centers to cloud operations, Anant shares real-world use cases that show AI's impact when deployed responsibly—with a focus on experience, not just execution. They also discuss why so few companies are truly ready across data, governance, and culture, and how leaders can close the gap between what technology can do and what organizations are ready to change.

If you're a leader navigating the AI transition and wondering how to move beyond experiments to real reinvention, this is the conversation you’ve been waiting for.

https://youtu.be/4UOOhsy_URo

Guest Information:

Anant Adya is EVP and Head Cloud, Infrastructure and Security Services (CIS) for Americas and APAC at Infosys. He and his team are responsible for designing solutions to help customers in their Digital and Cloud journey. They use a combination of AI-led solution sets combined with capabilities from partner and startup ecosystem to design best solutions for customers. Cloud and Infrastructure Service line include infrastructure operations, security, data center and network transformation, cloud (public, private and hybrid), workload migration and service experience.

Link to Infosys Research:
https://www.infosys.com/services/data-ai-topaz/insights/leading-ai-world.html

Chapters:

00:00 – How AI Is Changing the Way We Work
01:30 – Why Infosys Became an AI-First Company
02:45 – Internal AI Transformation Before Client Deployment
04:15 – How to Upskill 200,000 Employees in AI
06:05 – What It Means to Be AI-Aware, Builder, or Master
08:00 – Four Core Use Cases for Enterprise AI
09:55 – Moving AI From Tech Layer to Operating Model
12:10 – Will AI Replace People in Operations?
13:20 – How AI Is Creating New Roles, Not Just Replacing Old Ones
15:00 – Real-World Impact: Faster Patient Service with AI
17:05 – Why AI Requires Change Management Too
18:45 – Only 2% of Companies Are AI-Ready
20:00 – What Makes a Great AI Implementation?
22:00 – How to Build Trust in AI Systems
23:50 – Why AI Outcomes Matter More Than Tools
25:00 – The Leadership Mindset Shift: Keep It Simple

What happens when AI becomes your teammate—not just your tool? How Will AI Transform Collaboration at Work?

In this special live episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Anurag Dhingra, Cisco’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration, at #WebexOne in San Diego to explore how the workplace is being re-engineered for the age of AI.

Anurag shares Cisco’s vision for distance zero—a world where technology erases barriers of time and space, connecting people seamlessly across the globe. From AI agents that take notes and run polls to a “director” agent that decides camera angles for hybrid meetings, he reveals how AI is transforming collaboration from the ground up.

Together, Nirit and Anurag unpack what happens when digital teammates join the workforce, how AI is shifting human roles from execution to orchestration, and why the future of collaboration depends on blending human intuition with machine intelligence.

If you’ve ever wondered what it will feel like to work alongside AI—and how organizations can build workspaces where humans and digital agents truly collaborate—this episode offers a glimpse into that future, already unfolding.

https://youtu.be/SWICVT28DtQ

Guest Information:

Anurag Dhingra serves as the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Connectivity and Collaboration Group. In this role, he manages a diverse portfolio encompassing industry-leading hardware, software, and SaaS products. From Meraki, Cisco Catalyst, and Industrial IoT networking, to ThousandEyes network assurance, to Cisco Collaboration, these products power the workplaces of the world's largest and most sophisticated organizations.

In our digital and AI-first world, Anurag has been a pioneer in applying new technologies to build and deliver exceptional experiences for both customers and employees. He has been instrumental in shaping Cisco's AI strategy across its product offerings, and he has led his teams in delivering thousands of innovations to Future-Proof the Workplace.

During his tenure with Cisco, Anurag has held several leadership roles in the Collaboration business, including Chief Technology and Product Officer where he led the entire Collaboration software business. He was also Vice President and Head of Engineering for Webex Meetings where he was responsible for delivering applications and services to power online meetings for millions of users worldwide.

With over two decades of experience in the Communications, Collaboration, and SaaS industries, Anurag is accomplished at building high performance global teams and creating innovative, market leading products. Anurag takes pride in being a customer-focused leader, with a proven track record of strategic thinking and executing with a strong culture of innovation.

Passionate about applying technology for good, Anurag serves on Cisco's Human Rights Advisory Council and was the founding executive sponsor of Cisco's Responsible AI Framework.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Electronics & Communications Engineering from National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, India.

LinksAnurag Dhingra's LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anurag-dhingra

Chapters:

00:00 — How Will AI Transform Collaboration at Work?
01:00 — What Happens When AI Becomes a Teammate?
02:00 — How Will AI Agents Change the Workforce?
03:20 — Inside Cisco’s New AI Tools for Collaboration
04:40 — Can AI Boost Meeting Engagement?
06:00 — What Is Cisco’s “Distance Zero” Vision?
07:00 — How AI Is Reimagining Hybrid Meetings
08:40 — The Rise of Digital Teammates and Voice Agents
10:20 — Will Every Employee Become an AI Manager?
11:40 — How Will Management Evolve with Digital Workers?
13:00 — Preparing Organizations for AI-Driven Transformation
14:40 — How Can Workers Stay Relevant in the Age of AI?
16:00 — Why Leaders Must Keep Learning
17:40 — The Future of Hybrid Work and AI Collaboration

What happens when young people step into the workforce and find only closed doors—too little experience, too few opportunities, and too many barriers outside their control? Is Gen Z really “unmotivated,” or is the system failing to connect them to the future of work?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Steve Preston, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, to explore what it takes to close the opportunity gap. Together, they unpack why youth unemployment is 2.5 times higher than average, why nearly half of young job seekers feel locked out due to lack of experience or skills, and what it would take for employers to tap into overlooked talent pools. They dive into the widening divide between high-skill and low-skill work, the promise of new pathways like Goodwill’s AI Essentials training with Google,
and the potential of green jobs as an engine for upward mobility.

From career navigation and wraparound support to second-chance hiring and skill-based pathways, Steve shares both the urgency and the optimism of reimagining workforce readiness. And he offers a hopeful vision: a future where the economy doesn’t leave people behind, but opens more doors for everyone to participate and thrive.

If you’ve ever wondered what it will take to make the future of work work for all—not just the few—this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

https://youtu.be/W03Ox1YkLA4

Guest Information:

As president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International (GII), Steven C. Preston leads a federation of 151 local Goodwill® organizations in the U.S. and Canada with a combined revenue of $8.6 billion. Goodwill is the leading nonprofit provider of workforce training and development in North America and a leader in the secondhand retail market. It is the mission of Goodwill to ensure that every person in our communities has the opportunity to develop to their fullest potential in life.

Links:

AI Essentials
Clean Tech Accelerator

Chapters:

00:00 — Why Gen Z Can’t Find Jobs
01:24 — Barriers to Entry Without a College Degree
03:10 — What Digital Skills Do Workers Really Need?
05:14 — Green Jobs and Trade Skills at Goodwill
07:18 — Why Training Pathways Are Hard to Access
09:17 — How Employers Can Tap Untapped Talent Pools
10:53 — Rethinking Hiring for Skills and Potential
14:45 — How AI Is Changing Entry-Level Jobs
17:06 — What Colleges Need to Teach for an AI World
18:54 — Can AI Bridge the Skills Gap?
20:46 — How AI Tools Can Support Workers
22:48 — Breaking Barriers in the New World of Work
24:00 — Steve Preston’s Magic Wand for Workforce Access
25:31 — How Do We Make the Future of Work Work for Everyone?

What happens when AI can analyze, draft, and even advise—doing much of what knowledge workers have always done? Are knowledge jobs dying, or are they evolving into something new?

In this episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Pratap Khedkar, CEO of ZS, to explore how consulting—the profession built on knowledge—navigates an AI-first world. With a PhD in AI and decades advising global companies in healthcare, Pratap has a front-row seat to how the very definition of knowledge work is being reshaped.

Together, Nirit and Pratap unpack why the biggest bottleneck isn’t the technology but the humans, how asking the right questions will matter more than having the right answers, and why leadership in this era is less about strategy decks and more about role modeling, system design, and workflow architecture. They dive into what it takes to scale AI beyond pilots, why proprietary data is the real competitive edge, and how adoption hinges on trust, culture, and change management.

From specialization that AI can’t yet replicate to the risk of moving from distrust to blind trust, Pratap shares both the opportunities and the cautions that come with rethinking knowledge work. And he offers a hopeful vision for what’s next: a future where humans don’t disappear, but shift to different work—work that matters more.

If you’ve ever wondered what AI really means for consultants, analysts, or any knowledge profession, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

https://youtu.be/LzNTaBuesHk

Guest Information:

Pratap Khedkar is the CEO of ZS and has held the position since July 2021. Prior to this, he led the firm’s global pharmaceuticals practice for nine years, as well as a practice focused on the dynamics of healthcare ecosystems. He founded and led its advanced data science capability track, which focuses on AI. He has also served on ZS’s board since 2012.

Pratap has advised numerous leading companies in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries on a wide range of sales and marketing issues, including market access and managed care, using AI for multichannel marketing, marketing mix, sales force strategy and incentive compensation. More recently, his work has focused on developing effective strategies and analytics for changing customers in the new healthcare ecosystem.

A recognized healthcare industry expert, Pratap regularly contributes his insights to publications including The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, Business Insider, Fortune, Medical Marketing & Media, NPR, Pharmaceutical Executive and others. His thought leadership work focuses on topics as diverse as healthcare policy; life sciences companies’ new commercial and organizational models; and the evolving relationships between patients, providers and payers and the life sciences organizations that serve them. 

Pratap holds a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.Tech in computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi.

Chapters:

00:00 – Are Knowledge Jobs Dying?
01:08 – From More Work to Less Work to Different Work
03:01 – What Human Value Looks Like in Consulting
05:24 – Can Specialization Save Knowledge Work from AI?
07:01 – Why Asking the Right Question Still Matters
08:36 – The Real Bottleneck in AI Adoption: Humans, Not Tech
10:15 – Why “AI Everywhere” Doesn’t Deliver Results
11:24 – How to Pick the Right AI Use Cases
13:46 – Leadership vs. Productivity: What AI Rollouts Get Wrong
15:20 – Slow Down to Speed Up: Scaling What Works
17:14 – AI in Action: Lessons from Pharma and Clinical Trials
20:04 – Turning Data into Insight and Action
23:09 – How to Drive Real AI Adoption and Trust
24:20 – Why Change Management Still Decides AI Success
25:52 – What Leaders Can Learn from First-Line Managers
27:35 – From Efficiency to New Work: Jevons Paradox Explained
29:29 – The Risk of Blind Trust in AI
31:49 – Do We Still Know How to Think Critically?

What happens when 8 billion people suddenly have the productive capacity of 80 billion?

In this special live episode of The Future of Less Work, host Nirit Cohen sits down with Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer, at #WebexOne in San Diego to explore what the AI-powered workplace means for leaders, employees, and the future of collaboration.

Jeetu unpacks why “distance zero” is the new frontier of work—erasing barriers between people wherever they are—and why creativity and human connection remain central even as AI agents become digital teammates. He explains why unlearning is as critical as learning, why experience can sometimes get in the way of progress, and why freezing entry-level hiring is “the stupidest thing” companies can do if they want to stay adaptable.

Together, Nirit and Jeetu explore how jobs will be reconfigured rather than replaced, how AI can generate original insights that humans could never reach alone, and why the leaders who master AI themselves—not just delegate it—will be the ones to keep their organizations relevant.

If you’ve ever wondered how to balance human creativity with AI scale—and how to build organizations that thrive in a world of human–AI collaboration—this episode offers clarity, challenge, and a call to action.

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Read Nirit’s Forbes article, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠"⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠Why Freezing Hiring For Entry-Level Jobs Is A Stupid Move", to explore these ideas further.  

https://youtu.be/LuoQHp0TjpU

Guest Information:
Jeetu Patel is Cisco’s President and Chief Product Officer. He combines a bold vision, steeped in product design and development expertise, operational rigor, and innate market understanding to create high growth businesses. He is relentlessly focused on building world class products that solve Cisco customers’ biggest problems—bringing the power of the Cisco portfolio together to connect and protect every aspect of their organization in the era of AI.

Previously he was Cisco’s Executive Vice President and General Manager of Security and Collaboration where he led the strategy and development for these businesses and held P&L responsibility for the multibillion-dollar portfolio.

Prior to joining Cisco in 2020, Jeetu was the Chief Product Officer (CPO) and Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) at Box, a role he pioneered. He led the company’s product and platform strategy, setting the company’s long-term vision and roadmap for cloud content management in the enterprise. He transformed Box from a single product application to a multi-product platform used by 100K customers representing 69% of the Fortune 500. Before joining Box, Jeetu was General Manager and Chief Executive of EMC’s newly acquired Syncplicity business unit, a cloud service for Enterprise File Sync Sharing (EFSS) and collaboration. Previously, Jeetu was President of Doculabs, a research and advisory firm co-owned by Forrester Research. The firm focused on collaboration and content management across a range of industries including financial services, insurance, energy, manufacturing, and life sciences.

He currently serves on the board of JLL, an American commercial real estate services company.

Jeetu holds a B.S. in Information Decision Sciences from the University of Illinois, Chicago, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his family.

Chapters
00:00 – What Happens When 8 Billion People Work Like 80 Billion?
00:53 – What Is “Distance Zero” Collaboration?
03:37 – Will AI Replace Human Creativity?
05:15 – Can AI Generate Original Insights Never Seen Before?
06:59 – Will AI Take My Job or Transform It?
09:24 – Why Is Unlearning as Important as Learning?
12:25 – Why Stopping Entry-Level Hiring Is a Huge Mistake
14:24 – How Should CEOs Learn and Lead With AI?
17:25 – What Is the Human Instinct Machines Can’t Replace?
20:16 – What Impossible Problems Can AI Help Solve Next?
22:24 – Should We Approach AI With Fear or Optimism?