AI and the Future of Work: Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace, Business, Ethics, HR, and IT for AI Enthusiasts, Leaders

Dan Turchin

🏆 Ranked #3, Best 30 HR Tech Podcasts in the US — Million Podcasts (2026). Host Dan Turchin, PeopleReign CEO, explores how AI is changing the workplace. He interviews thought leaders and technologists from industry and academia who share their experiences and insights about artificial intelligence and what it means to be human in the era of AI-driven automation. Learn more about PeopleReign, the system of intelligence for IT and HR employee service: http://www.peoplereign.io.

  1. 394: Dr. Muthu Alagappan, CEO of Counsel Health: Democratizing Primary Care with Semi-Autonomous AI

    13h ago

    394: Dr. Muthu Alagappan, CEO of Counsel Health: Democratizing Primary Care with Semi-Autonomous AI

    Send us Fan Mail Dr. Muthu Alagappan is the Founder and CEO of Counsel Health, the company automating access to high-quality, personalized medical advice from doctors. Counsel recently closed a $25M Series A led by Andreessen Horowitz and Google Ventures, following an $11M seed round that included A16Z, Asymmetric Capital Partners, Floodgate Fund, and Pear VC. He holds an MD from Stanford Medicine and a B.S. in Biomechanical Engineering from Stanford, and was among the earliest AI researchers to publish on clinical applications of machine intelligence. In this episode, Muthu draws on 15 years at the intersection of AI research and frontline clinical medicine to explore the shift toward semi-autonomous care. In this conversation, we discuss: How AI addresses the limitations of traditional primary care by offering a highly personalized, knowledgeable, and always available medical experience.Why patients might leapfrog clinicians in their willingness to adopt AI for medical advice, and how this shift challenges the traditional identity of physicians.What semi-autonomous care actually looks like in practice, and how Counsel Health uses a clinician cockpit to augment human compassion with real-time machine intelligence.How to leverage population-level patterns without compromising patient privacy.Why the double standard applied to AI is misplaced, and why Muthu argues we should hold AI to a much higher benchmark than human doctors simply.What the future of global healthcare could look like when cognitive medical expertise is fully democratized, ensuring that a patient's zip code no longer dictates the quality of care they receive.Explore the Conversation 00:00 Intro & AI Fun Fact: Big Data Limitations and Bias in Clinical AI 03:52 Meet Dr. Muthu Alagappan: From Stanford AI Researcher to Counsel Health CEO 06:51 Why Primary Care Falls Short: The Case for AI-Augmented Medicine 09:05 Human Doctors Are Human: How Patients Are Adopting AI Medical Advice 12:20 Patient Privacy and Population Health: Learning Without Training on Data 14:17 Inside the Clinician Cockpit: Real-Time AI Support for Doctors 16:17 Why Counsel Health Employs Its Own Physicians: Messaging-Based Care 19:00 From Semi-Autonomous to Fully Autonomous Care: Healthcare's Next Era 24:19 AI Ethics in Medicine: Safety Standards, Model Values, and Data Ownership 27:22 The AI Double Standard: Why Machines Deserve a Higher Benchmark Than Doctors 31:07 Founder Lessons: Building a Category-Defining Healthcare AI Company 33:53 Rewriting the Commencement Address: Medicine as Lifelong Learning 35:37 Where to Connect with Dr. Muthu Alagappan and Counsel Health Resources Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with Muthu on LinkedInAI fun fact article: Artificial Intelligence in Health Care: The Ethical Frontier via ConexiantOn the future of AI, Silicon Valley and Venture Capital  LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    38 min
  2. Christine Yen, CEO and Co-Founder of Honeycomb | Live from HumanX 2026

    4d ago ·  Bonus

    Christine Yen, CEO and Co-Founder of Honeycomb | Live from HumanX 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Christine Yen is the CEO and co-founder of Honeycomb, the observability platform that helps engineering teams understand what their software is actually doing. A developer by background, she built products at Facebook before co-founding Honeycomb to bring fast, flexible observability to the rest of the world.  Recorded live from the floor of HumanX 2026, this lightning round explores what observability means now that both humans and agents are writing, shipping, and debugging code. Christine and host Dan Turchin dig into why the code was never the real source of truth, why "more" has become the watchword of the agentic era, and what it takes for teams to agree on what good actually looks like before they build it. What You'll Learn Why the code was never the real source of truth, and what to observe insteadHow the software development lifecycle is collapsing as PMs, designers, and engineers become buildersWhy the system that writes the code should not be the one that judges itHow defining "good" in plain English keeps quality measurable, whether people or agents build itWhat responsible AI looks like in practice, from disclosure norms to protecting human attention🎙️ Part of our HumanX 2026 compilation series. Listen to the full compilation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19363520 Resources Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter.Connect with Christine on LinkedIn.  LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    19 min
  3. Dr. Ali Agha, CEO and Co-Founder of FieldAI | Live from HumanX 2026

    4d ago ·  Bonus

    Dr. Ali Agha, CEO and Co-Founder of FieldAI | Live from HumanX 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Dr. Ali Agha is the CEO and co-founder of FieldAI, where he is building general-purpose "brains" for robots across different forms, environments, and tasks. He has spent nearly two decades in AI autonomy, including years at NASA JPL and research roots at MIT, putting software and intelligence on drones, legged robots, and other platforms.  Recorded live from the floor of HumanX 2026, this lightning round explores what it takes to bring AI safely into the physical world, where people already live and work. Ali and host Dan Turchin dig into why reliability is the overlooked challenge of physical AI, why a robot should communicate how confident it is before it acts, and where the line sits between the tasks machines should take on and the ones that should always stay human. What You'll Learn Why reliability, not lab demos, is the real test for AI in the physical worldHow robots that measure and share their own uncertainty earn human trust on the job siteWhy the future of robotics is hundreds of specialized form factors, not one humanoidHow FieldAI targets the dirty, dull, and dangerous work to keep people out of harm's wayWhere the boundary sits: the creative, strategic, and human-touch decisions that stay with people🎙️ Part of our HumanX 2026 compilation series. Listen to the full compilation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19363520 Resources Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter.Connect with Ali on LinkedIn.  LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    21 min
  4. Dr. Jaime Lien, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Archetype AI | Live from HumanX 2026

    4d ago ·  Bonus

    Dr. Jaime Lien, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Archetype AI | Live from HumanX 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Dr. Jaime Lien is the Chief Scientist and a co-founder of Archetype AI, where she is building a foundation model that turns complex sensor data into meaning people can actually act on. A signal processing scientist by training, she earned her PhD working on RF imaging from satellites and later helped develop the first radar embedded in consumer smartphones at Google, before leaving with four colleagues to start Archetype AI.  Recorded live from the floor of HumanX 2026, this lightning round explores how AI can read the rich, non-human signals all around us and translate them for the people who rely on them. Jaime and host Dan Turchin dig into how machines distill signal from noise, why a reasoning and communication model matters more than a straight-to-action one, and why keeping a human in the loop is a requirement, not a feature, when the stakes are physical. What You'll Learn How AI separates meaningful signal from noise across the sensors already around usWhy Archetype builds a reasoning and communication model, not a straight-to-action oneWhy keeping a human in the loop is treated as a requirement, not an optional featureHow interpretability and explainability have to be designed in from the start, not added laterWhy discovering something new about the physical world matters more than automation alone🎙️ Part of our HumanX 2026 compilation series. Listen to the full compilation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19363520 Resources Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter.Connect with Jaime on LinkedIn.  LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    23 min
  5. SE 26: Designing AI for Accountability and Harmony with Leaders from Honeycomb, FieldAI, Archetype AI, and Zoom | Live from HumanX 2026 Special Episode

    4d ago ·  Bonus

    SE 26: Designing AI for Accountability and Harmony with Leaders from Honeycomb, FieldAI, Archetype AI, and Zoom | Live from HumanX 2026 Special Episode

    Send us Fan Mail In this special compilation episode of AI and the Future of Work, we are bringing you four conversations recorded live on the show floor at HumanX 2026. This is the second and final compilation of our three-part HumanX Live series. Our first compilation explored how AI amplifies the human potential it can never replace. This one turns to the technical side, and to a question that gets harder the more these systems touch our lives: how do you build AI you can actually trust not to fail when it matters most?  As technology reaches further into the moments that count (the systems that monitor our health, drive our cars, and work alongside us on the job), these four builders share how they design for accountability, safety, and harmony between people and machines. What You'll Learn Why reading code is no longer enough, and how observing real outcomes (not system metrics alone) is the only way to know whether AI is actually serving the people who depend on itWhat "AI values" are, and why companies will soon need shared norms for how people disclose, review, and engage with work produced by agentic systemsHow robots earn trust on a job site by measuring their own uncertainty, asking questions, and communicating their intentions before they actWhy the most valuable place for automation is the dirty, dull, and dangerous work humans were never meant to do, and what that means for keeping people safeWhy physical AI should be built first as a reasoning and communication model that can explain its thinking to people, rather than one that jumps straight to actionHow "harness engineering" moves teams beyond prompt and context engineering, and why orchestrating several frontier models together can outperform any single oneFeatured Guests Christine Yen, CEO and Co-Founder of Honeycomb. Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19362645 Dr. Ali Agha, CEO and Co-Founder of FieldAI. Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19362711 Dr. Jaime Lien, Co-Founder & Chief Scientist of Archetype AI. Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19363341 XD Huang, Chief Technology Officer of Zoom. Listen to the full conversation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19363454  Inspired by something you heard in this episode? Share your favorite insight about the future of work and tag us on social: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/ai-and-the-future-of-work Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aifutureofwork/ And don't forget to subscribe to AI and the Future of Work for more conversations with the leaders shaping what comes next. Explore the Full HumanX 2026 Series This episode is part of a special three-part series recorded live at HumanX 2026: Episode 1: Special conversation with Stefan Weitz, CEO of HumanX: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19210355Episode 2: Compilation featuring the CEOs of Scribe, Operative Games, and Dataiku, and the Chief Business Officer of Zensai: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19257142 LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    31 min
  6. XD Huang, CTO at Zoom | Live from HumanX 2026

    4d ago ·  Bonus

    XD Huang, CTO at Zoom | Live from HumanX 2026

    Send us Fan Mail XD Huang is the CTO of Zoom, where he is leading the company's shift from hosting meetings to completing work, a vision he calls conversation to completion. He joined Zoom after 30 years at Microsoft, where he served as Azure AI CTO and a Technical Fellow and helped ship Azure OpenAI Services. A pioneer in speech recognition for four decades, he led the Microsoft team that first reached human parity in transcribing conversational speech.  Recorded live from the floor of HumanX 2026, this lightning round explores what it takes to turn everyday conversation into finished work. XD and host Dan Turchin dig into Zoom's federated approach to AI, the cost and accuracy tradeoffs hidden inside every model decision, and why, after a career spent solving the hardest technical problems, he believes taste and judgment are the qualities that still belong to people. What You'll Learn What "conversation to completion" means for the way work actually gets doneHow Zoom's federated approach combines multiple frontier models into one stronger resultWhy every AI decision is a tradeoff between cost and accuracy, and how to control for itHow an open ecosystem lets the same AI work across Zoom, Google, Microsoft, and in-person meetingsWhy taste and judgment are the qualities XD hires for that AI cannot replace🎙️ Part of our HumanX 2026 compilation series. Listen to the full compilation here: https://www.buzzsprout.com/520474/episodes/19363520 Resources Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work Newsletter.Connect with XD on LinkedIn.  LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    23 min
  7. 393: Dan Roth, Editor in Chief at LinkedIn, on Career Skills Rewarded in the AI Age

    Jun 15

    393: Dan Roth, Editor in Chief at LinkedIn, on Career Skills Rewarded in the AI Age

    Send us Fan Mail Dan Roth is the Editor in Chief and a Vice President at LinkedIn, where he has led the world's largest professional editorial operation since 2011. Business Insider once called him the most powerful business journalist on the internet, and over more than a decade he has helped turn LinkedIn from a networking site into a global media platform, building out its editorial team, top voices, and Influencer Program. He also hosts the popular This Is Working podcast. Over 15 years watching professionals navigate every major shift in the workplace, from the rise of social media to the agentic AI era, Dan has developed a clear and counterintuitive view of what actually drives a durable career. In this episode, he draws on LinkedIn's data from over a billion members to make the case that the skills employers are hunting for right now are not the ones most professionals are building, and that the gap between what AI can produce and what humans can offer is closing faster than anyone is prepared for. In this conversation, we discuss: Why AI has commoditized knowledge itself, and what professionals actually come to LinkedIn for that no chatbot can give themWhat separates content that spreads beyond your network from content that stays stuck inside it, and what LinkedIn's systems are really looking forWhy AI is a great tool for getting your voice out, and the exact moment it starts working against you insteadThe mindset Dan drills into his team about passion and failure, and the one thing he says you are never allowed to get wrongHow a mission-driven company resists the pull to chase clicks and ad revenue, and what Dan's old-world instincts taught him to unlearnThe two categories of skills surging in demand right now, and why the second list is the one most people overlook  Explore this conversation: 00:00 Intro and AI Fun Fact: Stop Giving AI Human Adjectives  04:10 Introducing Dan Roth, Editor in Chief at LinkedIn  05:50 Leadership Lessons from 15 Years at LinkedIn Mission and Failure 12:30 LinkedIn Authenticity AI Content and Protecting Community Integrity 18:27 Moderation vs Distribution: What LinkedIn Promotes and Why  23:55 Ad Revenue vs Mission: The Cost of Chasing Clicks  28:24 Skills on the Rise: What to Build in an AI World  34:29 Going Undercover and Staying Flexible in Your Career  Resources: Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with Daniel on LinkedInAI fun fact articleOn How AI is making networks smartOther episode mentioned in the show: 315: Tony Stubblebine, CEO of Medium, On Human Curation, Subscription-Driven Quality, and Fixing the Internet LIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    38 min
  8. 392: Sophia Kianni, CEO of Phia, on Scaling to 1.4 Million Users Through Feedback, Experimentation, and AI-Driven Efficiency

    Jun 8

    392: Sophia Kianni, CEO of Phia, on Scaling to 1.4 Million Users Through Feedback, Experimentation, and AI-Driven Efficiency

    Send us Fan Mail Sophia Kianni is the co-founder and CEO of Phia, an AI shopping agent with more than 1.4 million users that has raised over $43 million from an investor list that includes Kris Jenner, Sara Blakely, and Hailey Bieber. Sophia and her co-founder built the company out of their Stanford dorm room on a single thesis: in the future, every consumer will have a personal AI shopping assistant. Sophia is also the co-host of The Burnouts, a podcast with more than 600,000 followers and over 200 million downloads. Earlier in her career, she founded Climate Cardinals, the world's largest youth-led climate nonprofit with more than 20,000 volunteers, and became the youngest United Nations advisor in U.S. history. In this episode, Sophia draws on her experience building high-velocity ventures before the age of 25 to challenge how founders think about feedback, team culture, content creation, experimentation, and workflow efficiency. She also makes a compelling argument for how AI should be used at work: removing friction from the parts of a workflow that drain time and energy without adding value. In this conversation, we discuss: Why the intersection of social and shopping looked like a solved problem to most founders, and the gap that Sophia and her co-founder saw inside their Stanford dorm roomHow Sophia thinks about team building as company building, and the specific qualities she screens for before resumes, credentials, or experienceHow a consumer-first mindset and relentless customer feedback help Phia iterate faster and build a product users loveWhy building close to your user is still the most underrated advantage in AI, and what most founders miss when they try to scale it Why Phia and The Burnouts built data-oriented content engines that operate like scientific labs, testing hooks, fonts, retention curves, and B-roll as measurable variables rather than relying on creative instincts aloneHow Sophia uses AI tools like Adobe Firefly to increase workflow efficiency by removing friction from repetitive tasks, not to replace creative work, but to protect itThe framework Sophia uses to decide whose feedback shapes her decisions and whose she treats as noise Resources Subscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with Sophia on LinkedInLIVE EVENT:  See how leading enterprises are using agentic AI to give employees back 4–6 productive hours every week. Join PeopleReign CEO Dan Turchin for a live demo on June 25, 2026. Register here: https://go.peoplereign.io/live-demo-how-agentic-ai-is-being-used-by-global-enterprises

    24 min
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4.9
out of 5
34 Ratings

About

🏆 Ranked #3, Best 30 HR Tech Podcasts in the US — Million Podcasts (2026). Host Dan Turchin, PeopleReign CEO, explores how AI is changing the workplace. He interviews thought leaders and technologists from industry and academia who share their experiences and insights about artificial intelligence and what it means to be human in the era of AI-driven automation. Learn more about PeopleReign, the system of intelligence for IT and HR employee service: http://www.peoplereign.io.

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