Beginning in 2025, our podcasts will feature first-person stories about how work and opportunities are shifting due to technological, business, and social upheavals. You will hear from people who are finding ways to make sense of these chaotic times and the lessons they learn along the way.

The podcasts will be organized into separate series that reflect the Institute's interests and activities. Today’s conversation marks the first installment in our series on artificial intelligence in the workplace.

The adoption of AI differs from other new technologies. In the past, new technologies demanded substantial investment. Organizations carefully identified their needs and potential applications before taking action.

Organizations are still making decisions about the use of expensive enterprise-wide AI applications. But the barrier to entry for many AI services is nearly zero, and people are taking it upon themselves to incorporate artificial intelligence into their work. Some employers encourage experimentation, while others prefer to impose strict controls. But achieving total control is nearly impossible.

Principles for the responsible use and deployment of AI are essential and valuable. There are ongoing efforts to write new policies at many levels; however, these efforts are struggling to keep pace with the accelerating rate of change in artificial intelligence.

We’re adopting a different approach from other discussions on artificial intelligence. Instead of featuring AI experts and developers building AI solutions, our series highlights people on the frontlines within their organizations who are trying to understand how AI can be and is used and customized for their specific needs.

We aim to share real-world examples of how and where artificial intelligence is being adopted and adapted, as well as where it doesn’t seem to work. The listener will gain insights into the thought processes of those who are making sense of this new world. We believe this will help guide your own efforts.

Today’s guests are from the University of Illinois system.

Joe Barnes serves as the Chief Digital Risk Officer at the Digital Risk Office of the University of Illinois System. He is responsible for managing the University of Illinois System's Digital Risk Management (DRM) program.

David Chestek is a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, a practicing trauma physician, and an associate professor of emergency medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago and the hospital. He also serves as the Chief Health Information Officer at UI Health.

Chris Tidrick is the Chief Information Officer at Gies College of Business, where he oversees the technology and data teams for the college. He previously served as chair of the Generative AI Solutions Hub on the Urbana campus from September 2023 to June 2025.

David Chestek and Chris Tidric are the chair and vice-chair, respectively, of the University of Illinois System AI Exchange.

Today's guest, Karen Maguire, is a Head of Division managing the Local Employment and Economic Development Program at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. Some occupations are more vulnerable to automation than others; the concentration of these occupations in a region will have a material consequence on the possible effects for the overall economy. We discuss these and many other factors that are driving local economic dynamics, as well as what regional policymakers are doing to chart new strategies.

This episode addresses the futures of work through the eyes and experiences of two leaders in economic justice, human rights, and Latin American immigration to the U.S.

Our two guests are with Alianza Americas, a Chicago-based national network of Latin American immigrant-led and serving organizations in the U.S. Its mission is to improve the quality of life of Latin American immigrant communities in the U.S., as well as of peoples throughout the Americas.

Oscar Chacon is a co-founder and executive director of Alianza Americas. He has been an organizer and a leader on community justice issues at the local, national and international levels for over thirty years. An immigrant from El Salvador, Oscar is a frequent spokesperson on economic, social, political, and cultural issues affecting Latin American immigrant communities.

Amy Shannon is a nonprofit management consultant, supporting foundations and non-governmental organizations with strategic planning and program evaluation. She has served for over a decade as Senior Advisor to Alianza Americas. She has worked extensively in philanthropy as a consultant and program officer at the C.S. Mott Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Susanne M. Bruyère is Professor of Disability Studies and Director, K. Lisa Yang and Hock E. Tan Institute on Employment and Disability, Cornell University’s premier research, training, and technical assistance resource focusing on disability inclusion in employment, education, and community. Dr. Bruyère is currently focused on workplace neurodiversity-inclusive policies and practices, working with multi-national companies with proactive hiring initiatives for Autistic persons.  She is the author of five books, many scholarly and practitioner articles, and online training programs as well as tools on workplace disability inclusion which are used by private and public sector organizations globally. We explore the disability worker gap and dive into the prospects for workers with disabilities as remote work becomes more common.

Ruth Milkman is a sociologist of labor and labor movements who has written on a variety of topics involving work and organized labor in the United States, past and present. Her most recent books are:  Immigration Matters, Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat, and On Gender, Labor and Inequality. Her early research focused on the impact on U.S. women workers of economic crisis and war in the 1930s and 1940s.

This episode on the Many Futures of Work on an understanding of the scope, size, and context of the work-gender gap, and differences correlated to race, age, and other characteristics and discuss many consequences of the COVID pandemic.

In our conversation with Dr. Patrick Mason,  professor of economics, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy, and Director, African American Studies Program at Florida State University, we explore the social forces embedded in institutions and ideologies that normalize and reproduce inequality. Stratification economics takes seriously that people with identical credentials will not necessarily receive identical treatment in the labor market.

Professor William Lazonick, Founder and President of the Academic-Industry Research Network, discusses the investment triad of households - the prime investors in the education of the young, government agencies investing in education as well as in basic research, and business firms that make use of the knowledge of workers and basic capabilities funded by business. He further explores the adverse consequences of shareholder primacy and describes his theory of the innovative enterprise.

Peter Georgescu, Chair Emeritus of Young & Rubicam, is an outspoken proponent of stakeholder value as the guiding principle for21st Century corporate governance. In the 1980s, free enterprise capitalism was hijacked by the theory and practice of shareholder primacy. Georgescu walks us through how this happened and the consequences from the perspective of someone who served at the helm of the preeminent global marketing communications firm.

Bau Graves, former Executive Director of Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music, and Reggio "the Hoofer" McLaughlin, a 2021 National Heritage Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, discuss the life and times of musicians and other performing artists as gig workers.

Martin Kenney from UC-Davis and John Zysman, Professor Emeritus from UC-Berkeley share their thoughts and research about the era of the platform economy.  What is the platform economy and how is it manifested?  What are some of the common business strategies? What are the consequences for workers? For Mainstreet businesses? What are possible policy actions that can level the playing field for workers and non-platform businesses?