Marni Baker Stein is the Chief Content Officer at Coursera, the global learning platform with over 175 million learners and partnerships across 6,200 campuses, businesses, and governments. She leads Coursera’s content and credential strategy and manages global partner relationships. Before joining Coursera, Marni was Chief Academic Officer and Provost at Western Governors University, where she oversaw programs for more than 135,000 students. She has also held leadership roles focused on access, student success, and program design at the University of Texas, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania. Marni earned her PhD in Educational Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How AI is shifting education from one-size-fits-all to personalized, contextualized learning tailored to each student
• Why microcredentials and stackable learning are replacing traditional degrees as the new path for lifelong learners
• The role of educators in the AI era and why they should be part of the solution, not sidelined by automation
• What it means for universities to stay relevant as learning becomes more modular, flexible, and job-aligned
• Why GenAI is fueling demand for both technical skills and enduring human abilities like critical thinking and communication
• How tools like AI tutors, instant translations, and proctoring are democratizing access and preserving integrity at scale

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter
• Connect with Marni on LinkedIn
• AI fun fact article
• On How To Identify The Power of Product and Listening to Your Customers.
• Past episodes mentioned in this conversation:
  • [With Dave Marchick, Dean of the Kogod School of Business] - On How AI is Changing Academia
  • [Chris Caren, Turnitin CEO] - On using AI to prevent students from cheating plus lessons for leaders on innovation and team culture

Tess Posner is the CEO and founding leader of AI4ALL, a nonprofit that works to ensure the next generation of AI leaders is diverse and well-quipped to innovate. Since joining in 2017, she has focused on embedding ethics, responsibility, and real-world impact into AI education. Her work connects students from underrepresented backgrounds to hands-on projects and mentorships that prepare them to lead in tech. Beyond her role at AI4ALL, Tess is a musician whose 2023 EP Alchemy has over 600,000 streams on Spotify. She was named a 2020 Brilliant Woman in AI Ethics Hall of Fame Honoree and holds degrees from St. John’s University and Columbia University.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Why AI literacy is becoming essential for everyone, from casual users to future developers
• The role of project-based learning in helping students see the real-world impact of AI
• What it takes to expand AI access for underrepresented communities
• How AI can either reinforce bias or drive real change, depending on who’s leading its development
• Why schools should stop penalizing AI use and instead teach students to use it with curiosity and responsibility
• Tess’s views on balancing optimism and caution in the development of AI tools

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter
• Connect with Tess on LinkedIn or learn more about AI4ALL
• AI fun fact article
• On How To Build and Activate a Powerful Network
• Past episodes mentioned in this conversation:
  • [With Tess in 2020] - About what leaders do in a crisis
  • [With Tess in 2019] - About how to mitigate AI bias and hiring best practices
  • [With Chris Caren, Turnitin CEO] - On Using AI to Prevent Students from Cheating
  • [With Marcus "Bellringer" Bell] - On Creating North America’s First AI Artist

Brian Elliott is one of the most recognized future of work thought leaders and the CEO of Work Forward, where he advises senior leaders on how to build better organizations. A former senior executive at Slack, Brian is also the bestselling author of How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to Do the Best Work of Their Lives. His insights have been published in Harvard Business Review and Fortune, and cited in Time, Bloomberg, CNBC, The Economist, and Forbes. He holds a BA in Math and Economics from Northwestern and an MBA from Harvard.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Brian Elliott’s leadership journey from Google and Slack to founding Work Forward and advising companies on building healthier workplace cultures.
• Why alignment, accountability, and shared purpose matter more than hustle culture in scaling organizations effectively.
• The hidden risks of AI at work, including why employees often use it in secret out of fear of punishment or judgment.
• The growing tension between executives and employees in an era of midnight layoffs, return-to-office mandates, and AI-induced anxiety.
• How progressive leaders can create space for experimentation with AI and lead with fallibility instead of fear.
• Why the future of work depends on creating space for learning, building trust, and valuing human craftsmanship in an AI-powered world.

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter: https://aiandwork.beehiiv.com/subscribe
• Connect with Brian on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belliott/
• AI fun fact article: https://ashugarg.substack.com/p/nvidias-ai-factory-bet
• On How To Deliver IT Service To The Legal Industry: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jim-mckenna-serial-cio-and-legaltech-expert-discusses/id1476885647?i=1000624398232

Dr. Martin Goodson is the founder and CEO of Evolution AI, a company he launched in 2012 to apply deep learning to optical character recognition (OCR). The company has received one of the largest AI R&D grants ever awarded by the UK government, along with investment from First Minute Capital. A former scientific researcher at Oxford University, Martin has led AI research across several organizations and was elected Chair of the Data Science and AI Section of the Royal Statistical Society in 2019.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Martin Goodson’s journey from researching biological data to founding Evolution AI and pioneering deep learning for document understanding.
• Why traditional OCR missed the mark, and how combining visual and linguistic context unlocked a new frontier in document intelligence.
• The evolution from data extraction to true financial analysis, and why domain knowledge is essential for reading statements like income reports.
• The risks of LLM hallucinations, especially with numerical data, and why accuracy still requires combining techniques across model types.
• What Martin believes intelligence really is, and why language alone may be the wrong benchmark for AGI.
• Why recreating human intelligence shouldn’t be the goal of AI research, and how we can build systems that support, not mimic, human thinking.

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter
• Connect with Martin on LinkedIn
• Check out the YouTube channel of the London Machine Learning Meetup
• AI fun fact article
• On How to Ovecome Imposter Syndrome
• Past episodes mentioned:
  • On Why doing Taxes is like finding the Best Route on a Map with Daniel Marcous
  • On Making AI Smarter Without Harming Humans with Peter Voss

Scott Stevenson is the CEO and co-founder of Spellbook, a legal tech company transforming how attorneys review contracts with AI. Since launching in 2018, Spellbook’s AI copilot has been adopted by more than 1,700 legal teams and helps review over a million contracts annually. Scott recently led the company through a $20 million Series A backed by Inovia Capital, Thomson Reuters Ventures, The Legaltech Fund, and others. Before Spellbook, he founded Mune, a startup at the intersection of music and technology, and holds a BS in Computer Engineering from Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• Scott Stevenson’s journey from building electronic instruments to launching Spellbook, the world’s first generative AI copilot for lawyers.
• Why contracts, not court cases, were the ideal entry point for legal AI and how Spellbook now helps 3,000+ legal teams review over a million contracts a year.
• How AI is expanding access to legal services by reducing costs and enabling lawyers to serve the 70% of clients who previously couldn’t afford help.
• Why AI won’t replace lawyers and how tools like Spellbook enhance human judgment rather than automate legal decisions.
• Why now may be the best time to enter the legal field as AI eliminates drudgery and creates more room for strategy and client work.
• What product-market fit really looks like and how Scott found it after testing more than 100 hypotheses before landing on a solution that clicked.
• Why the best AI products embrace controlled chaos over rigid structure and how leaning into complexity reflects how the real world actually works.

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter
• Connect with Scott on LinkedIn
• AI fun fact article
• On How to Build an AI platform that's growing faster than OpenAI

To coincide with International Human Resources Day (May 20th), this special compilation episode of AI and the Future of Work explores the promises and pitfalls of AI in hiring.

HR leaders are under pressure to innovate—but how can we automate hiring ethically, avoid bias, and stay compliant with evolving laws and expectations?

In this episode, we revisit key moments from past interviews with four top voices shaping the future of ethical workforce automation:

🔹 Sean Behr (CEO, Fountain) – Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/14183120

🔹 Keith Sonderling (U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor, formerly EEOC Commissioner) – Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/15934483

🔹 Guillermo Corea (Former Director, SHRM Innovation Lab) – Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/12706119

🔹 Josh Drean (Futurist, Co-Founder, Work3 Institute) – Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/16473644

💡 What You’ll Learn:

• How AI is already transforming the hiring process
• What compliance really means in the age of automation
• Why HR professionals must take the lead on responsible innovation
• How to balance efficiency with fairness and transparency

Resources

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter: https://aiandwork.beehiiv.com/subscribe
• Data Privacy Day Special Episode: AI, Deepfakes & The Future of Trust: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/16554098
• The Future of AI Ethics Special: Perspectives from Women Leaders in AI on Bias, Accountability & Trust: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/16733990
• World Health Day Special: How AI Is Making Healthcare Smarter, Cheaper, and Kinder: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/16935235

Matt Biilmann is the CEO and co-founder of Netlify, a platform that has raised over $200M to reshape how websites are built and deployed. A key figure in the open source web development community, Matt helped popularize the JAMstack architecture to improve performance and streamline developer workflows. Before launching Netlify in 2014 with Christian Bach, he built several startups and earned a degree in Musicology from the University of Copenhagen.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How Matt Biilmann coined the term “JAMstack”, and how it redefined the architecture of the modern web
• The evolution of Netlify from a bootstrapped side project to a platform used by 6M+ developers
• Why the future of web development includes designing not just for humans but also for AI agents, with a focus on Agent Experience (AX)
• The rise of low-code creators and “vibe coders” who build sophisticated projects by prompting instead of programming
• Why the open web matters more than ever in the age of AI, and what’s at stake in the battle between open and closed platforms
• Matt’s reflections on leadership, delegation, and what still drives him after more than a decade of building tools that empower other builders

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter
• Connect with Matt on LinkedIn
• Read the new blog from Matt: Biilmann Blog
• AI fun fact article
• On the future of automation in B2B sales

Dave Marchick is the Dean of American University’s Kogod School of Business and a seasoned leader with experience across the private, public, and nonprofit sectors. He spent over a decade as Managing Director at The Carlyle Group, where he served on the management committee and advanced the firm’s sustainability and diversity efforts. In government, he held senior roles in both the Biden and Clinton administrations, including leadership positions at the State Department, the White House, and the Development Finance Corporation. Dave directed the Center for Presidential Transition during the 2020 cycle and later launched the Transition Lab podcast and co-authored The Peaceful Transition of Power. A dedicated advocate for civil rights and historical preservation, he has served on the boards of the Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Park Foundation. Dave holds degrees from George Washington University, the LBJ School at UT Austin, and UC San Diego.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• How Dean Dave Marchick is helping to infuse AI across the curriculum at American University’s Kogod School of Business.
• The resistance and cultural shifts required to get faculty on board with AI adoption.
• How students are learning to prompt, critique, and collaborate with AI from their first semester (and how it’s reshaping classroom dynamics).
• Why professionalism, communication, and negotiation are now prioritized as “skills of the future”.
• How Kogod is thinking about measuring the real-world impact of AI education beyond the classroom.
• Lessons from U.S. presidential transitions and what they reveal about leadership during critical moments.

Resources:

• Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter: https://aiandwork.beehiiv.com/subscribe
• Connect with Dave on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-marchick/
• AI fun fact article: https://www.psu.edu/news/campus-life/story/cheat-thon-contest-explores-ais-strengths-and-flaws-higher-education
• On what it was like to co-author a book with ChatGPT: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bob-rogers-ai-expert-physicist-author-and-ceo-of-oii/id1476885647?i=1000606108950
• Other episodes mentioned in the show:
  • Episode with George Sivulka [Hebbia CEO]
  • Episode with Tom Wheeler [Former FCC Chairman and author of Techlash]
  • Episode with Chris Caren [Turnitin CEO]
• Read Dave Marchick’s book: The Peaceful Transfer of Power: An Oral History of America’s Presidential Transitions