Humans of AI: Presented by WRITER

WRITER
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WRITER's Humans of AI takes listeners behind the business of AI and into the intimate stories of those at the forefront of the AI era. Listen to leaders as they navigate how generative AI is changing their work, and lives.

  1. When AI optimizes for the wrong thing — with Nicole Alexander, former Meta executive

    FEB 25

    When AI optimizes for the wrong thing — with Nicole Alexander, former Meta executive

    What happens when marketing AI stops finding the right customer and starts finding the right moment of weakness? Nicole Alexander, former Global Head of Marketing at Meta and author of "Ethical AI in Marketing," takes us inside one of the most uncomfortable truths about modern marketing technology. Nicole reveals how optimization algorithms don't just target demographics anymore — they identify emotional vulnerability. We explore the distinction between growth as a physics problem and responsibility as a human problem, and why the assumption that efficiency equals ethics is fundamentally broken. Nicole shares her framework for building AI systems that scale without exploitation, explaining why the question isn't "Is this ethical?" but rather "What constraints would make this sustainable?" She offers a provocative reframe: the conversion that destroys trust isn't a win — it's technical debt on your customer lifetime value. This conversation challenges marketers to rethink how they measure success, engineers to redesign how they optimize, and leaders to consider what it means to build AI that serves people rather than simply converting them. Key Takeaways: Why AI-driven systems ask "What vulnerability is the most profitable lever to pull?"How algorithms engineered for time spent inevitably reward outrageThe business case for treating trust as a technical constraint, not a review stepWhy guardrails should be part of optimization itself, not added laterNicole Alexander is a Professor at NYU, author of "Ethical AI in Marketing," and former Global Head of Marketing at Meta, where she led teams building some of the world's most sophisticated marketing systems. Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    16 min
  2. The AI reinvention test: Front CEO Dan O'Connell on building for the future, not the past

    FEB 11

    The AI reinvention test: Front CEO Dan O'Connell on building for the future, not the past

    What does it take to reinvent a 10-year-old company when AI changes everything overnight? Dan O'Connell, CEO of Front, knows the answer‌ — ‌and it's not what most boards want to hear. Dan shares the framework he's using to lead Front through an existential transformation from legacy player to AI-first platform. Drawing on lessons from building TalkIQ, scaling through Google's hypergrowth, and growing Dialpad from dozens to over a thousand employees, Dan reveals how pattern recognition becomes your superpower when navigating change at scale. Dan's framework isn't just about AI‌ — ‌it's about building the kind of organization where everyone knows their role, understands the mission, and can move fast without losing control. Whether you're leading a startup or transforming an enterprise, this conversation will change how you think about structure, transparency, and what it really takes to build AI-first. In this episode, you'll discover: The three-part diagnostic for determining if your company needs AI-first reinvention (Spoiler: If you're asking, you probably do)Why structure and process don't slow innovation—bad structure does The leadership mistake Dan made in his first 90 days that became his most valuable lesson • How transparency drives decision velocity and distributed decision-making at scale Why Front is betting that human touch becomes the competitive advantage when automation becomes table stakes The paradox of alignment: Why being explicit about what you're NOT doing matters as much as what you areSubscribe and Listen:🎧 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube Learn more at writer.com  Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    19 min
  3. From vending machines to champions: Eric Porres, Logitech's Head of AI, on why the best AI transformation starts by listening, not teaching

    JAN 28

    From vending machines to champions: Eric Porres, Logitech's Head of AI, on why the best AI transformation starts by listening, not teaching

    Late 2024, Logitech surveyed their entire workforce about AI usage. Seven thousand employees. 46 countries. When Eric Porres saw the results, he stopped calling it an adoption problem. Eric had spent the year running AI training sessions across Logitech—not as his official job, but as a second shift while leading innovation and software teams. 827 people over eight months. And in those sessions, he kept hearing the same story: people approached generative AI like they approached Google. Ask a question. Get an answer. Walk away unsatisfied. They didn't realize they could iterate, refine, and improve. Then Eric discovered something remarkable: hidden in the survey data were 112 people doing exceptional work with AI. He started asking them to walk him through their process—not what they were building, but how they were thinking. And a pattern emerged around six elements. In this episode of Humans of AI, Eric shares the framework that transformed Logitech's AI adoption—and why the biggest barriers to enterprise AI aren't technical. They're human. In This Episode, You'll Learn: • Why most people treat AI like a vending machine—and how to break that habit • The 6-element DNA strand of effective AI prompting: role, context, task, output, boundaries, and reasoning • How to identify and activate AI champions already hiding in your organization • The two barriers that kill AI adoption: friction and institutional amnesia • Why leadership modeling matters more than training programs • How one question at every leadership meeting can transform your AI culture • The discipline required to make AI transformation permanent—not just another pilot program About Eric Porres: Eric Porres is the Head of AI at Logitech, where he leads enterprise AI strategy and adoption. A fifth-degree black belt with 20 years of ninjutsu training, Eric brings the same discipline and pattern recognition to AI transformation that he learned in the dojo. Before joining Logitech full-time, he founded a company to fix broken meeting culture—analyzing how organizations burn payroll dollars on ineffective collaboration—and sold it to Logitech in 2022. When Logitech created the Head of AI role in 2025, Eric had already done the groundwork: he had the data, the champions, and a framework that scaled. 🎧 Listen now and discover how to move from 1% adoption to organization-wide AI transformation. Learn more about Writer at writer.com Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    17 min
  4. The $10 billion culture gap: Jevan Lenox, Chief People Officer at WRITER

    JAN 14

    The $10 billion culture gap: Jevan Lenox, Chief People Officer at WRITER

    What's the difference between a $10 billion company and one that fails? The technology? The timing? The IP? According to Jevan Lenox, Chief People Officer at WRITER, it comes down to culture. And in the age of AI, that gap is about to get much wider. In this episode of Humans of AI, Jevan shares why AI doesn't just change your processes—it amplifies everything, including your cultural dysfunction. From his experience leading people teams at Insitro and Stitch Fix, he's learned that the companies that win aren't the ones with the best AI—they're the ones with cultures built for what's coming. You'll learn: • Why AI adoption is fundamentally a cultural problem, not a technical one • How to shift from efficiency culture to resilience culture • Why everyone in your organization now needs strategic thinking skills that used to be management-only • How to help employees navigate identity shifts as AI changes their roles • The difference between AI as replacement versus AI as amplification This isn't about rolling out another tool. It's about building the invisible architecture that determines whether your AI transformation succeeds or fails. Subscribe to Humans of AI on your favorite podcast platform and check out the video version on YouTube. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com. **Download the Agentic Compact:** WRITER's framework for building AI-ready organizations at https://go.writer.com/the-agentic-compact Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    27 min
  5. The hybrid human-agent workforce with Matan-Paul Shetrit, Director of Product Management at WRITER

    JAN 7

    The hybrid human-agent workforce with Matan-Paul Shetrit, Director of Product Management at WRITER

    Picture this: You're 21 years old, just started your first job at Israel's Ministry of Finance. They sit you down in a corner office. No one else has access. For the next three years, you'll work on restructuring the entire social security system. If word leaks, careers end. This is Matan-Paul Shetrit. Today, he leads product design at WRITER, building and scaling agent-based AI for enterprise. In this episode of Humans of AI, Matan-Paul shares why the technology isn't the product — the transformation is. He reveals the surprising truth about which industries are actually leading the AI revolution (hint: it's not Silicon Valley startups), why managing AI agents requires an entirely new skillset, and what happens when a 1,000-person company suddenly becomes an 11,000-employee organization overnight. You'll discover: • Why regulated industries like healthcare and financial services are more ready for AI than you think • The critical difference between observability and supervision in AI systems • Why we're all about to become managers — whether we've managed before or not • How AI is teaching us to be critical thinkers and editors, not just writers • Why businesses run on exceptions, not happy paths Matan-Paul warns: "If you take everything AI says as gospel, there's a problem. These machines, by definition, make mistakes." The real challenge isn't building agents — it's scaling them responsibly and managing a fleet of humans and machines working together.  This is a conversation about humility, systems thinking, and understanding that the real bottleneck to AI adoption isn't technology. It's people, processes, and accountability. 🔗 For enterprise leaders: Download The Agentic Compact — A framework for building trust and control in the human-agent enterprise: https://writer.com/blog/agentic-compact/ 📖 Read more from Matan-Paul Shetrit: The Enterprise as a Living Brain: https://writer.com/engineering/enterprise-as-living-brain/Orchestration Graphs: https://writer.com/engineering/orchestration-graph/From Employee to Manager in the Age of AI: https://writer.com/engineering/employee-into-manager/Supervising the Synthetic Workforce: https://writer.com/engineering/supervising-synthetic-workforce/Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    31 min
  6. When AI acts autonomously, who's accountable? With WRITER’s General Counsel Rowan Reynolds

    12/17/2025

    When AI acts autonomously, who's accountable? With WRITER’s General Counsel Rowan Reynolds

    What does accountability mean when AI can make thousands of decisions before a human even notices? That’s the question Rowan Reynolds, General Counsel at Writer, is tackling.  Rowan shares how his background in philosophy and law taught him that legal frameworks aren't just about what's legal—they're about what's right. And in the age of agentic AI, building those frameworks before disasters happen means treating AI agents like privileged users who work at far greater speed and scale than any employee. Rowan discusses the three core principles that make AI trustworthy (transparency, human-centricity, and security), and why companies are worried about the wrong things when the real challenge is organizational change. From the difference between "Big G" enterprise-wide governance and "little g" day-to-day deployment, to why we're building this in real time with no established playbook, Rowan offers a framework for building AI systems right instead of just asking what could go wrong. Subscribe now so you don't miss an episode!  Check out our YouTube channel to watch the full interviews.  Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.  Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    26 min
  7. What's Your Company's AIQ? Featuring J.P. Gownder, Forrester VP and principal analyst

    12/03/2025

    What's Your Company's AIQ? Featuring J.P. Gownder, Forrester VP and principal analyst

    Why are organizations throwing money at AI without investing in the people who use it? And where is the disconnect between technology adoption and real business results? On this episode, we hear from guest speaker J.P. Gownder, one of the world's leading analysts on the future of work. With a background in history and political science and as VP and principal analyst for Forrester’s Furture of Work team, J.P. brings a unique, human-centric perspective to the world of technology. For over a decade, he has guided leaders at billion-dollar corporations through immense change, urging them to focus on the human side of AI and automation. Listen to learn about Forrester’s concept of "AIQ" (Artificial Intelligence Quotient) as a measure of an organization's readiness for AI. He explains why the old rulebooks for technology rollouts don't work for generative AI and provides a masterclass in effective training‌ — ‌from social learning and champions programs to creating proprietary content that reflects your company's context. He also debunks the myth of mass job replacement, arguing that AI is far more often an augmentation technology than a replacement one. Subscribe now so you don't miss an episode!  Check out our YouTube channel to watch the full interviews.  Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.  Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

    17 min
  8. Special Episode: How a Broke College Student Co-founded a VC-Backed Edtech Startup

    11/26/2025 · BONUS

    Special Episode: How a Broke College Student Co-founded a VC-Backed Edtech Startup

    This Thanksgiving break, we wanted to share an episode from our friends at Fund/Build/Scale. As AI continues to reshape education, many are wondering how it will impact learning and what new skills the emerging workforce will need to thrive in this tech-driven landscape.  We're sharing a fantastic episode from our friends at Fund/Build/Scale. It's a conversation with Nectir co-founder and CEO, Kavitta Ghai who shares how she transformed her frustration as a student into a fast-growing VC-backed edtech startup – building an AI-powered tool for the classroom.  Kavitta discusses the leap from student to founder, how she built an AI tool without a technical background, and the tactics that helped her and her co-founder land paying customers early. She also opens up about navigating the venture world as a first-generation founder and reframing risk as a competitive advantage.  Learn more:  NectirKavitta GhaiHow to Crash the Silicon Valley Party, kavitta.comCalifornia Community Colleges Launches Groundbreaking Pilot with Nectir AIPaul Graham essaysWhat is FERPA?, U.S. Dept. of EducationEntrada VenturesSubscribe now so you don't miss an episode!  Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.  Subscribe to Humans of AI for more stories from people navigating the intersection of business and artificial intelligence. Watch the full video interview on the WRITER YouTube channel for bonus content and deeper insights. Learn more about WRITER at writer.com.

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WRITER's Humans of AI takes listeners behind the business of AI and into the intimate stories of those at the forefront of the AI era. Listen to leaders as they navigate how generative AI is changing their work, and lives.

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