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AI can preserve organizational knowledge, expand human capability, and capture context that traditional systems routinely miss. It can also record, retain, and repurpose more of our work, behavior, and judgment than most people fully understand.

In Episode 2 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine the complicated relationship between AI, privacy, trust, and human value. They explore what happens when organizations encourage experimentation while limiting access, when useful technology begins to feel like surveillance, and when a person’s knowledge becomes training material for a system.

The question is not whether organizations should use this technology or protect people from its risks. The real challenge is designing governance that allows responsible progress while ensuring that the people whose knowledge creates value are recognized, protected, and included in that value.

Listen to the conversation and consider what a fair value exchange between people, organizations, and AI should look like.

Highlights:

• Why encouraging AI experimentation while restricting tokens sends a contradictory message
• How organizations can support different levels of AI participation without rebuilding an outdated center-of-excellence model
• Why probabilistic technology requires new education and clearer expectations
• When meeting recorders, wearables, and voice technology begin to feel like surveillance
• What separates listening, recording, storing, and repurposing human information
• Why trust requires more than accepting a privacy policy or checking a consent box
• How AI could preserve tacit knowledge without treating employees as extractable training data
• Why effective governance should keep responsible experimentation moving
• How voice can capture context that forms, fields, and surveys routinely miss
• What organizations owe people when their experience and judgment help train intelligent systems
• How AI could make previously invisible human contribution easier to recognize and reward
• Why human agency must be designed into the value exchange from the beginning

About Jason & Jess

Jason Averbook

Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.

Jess Von Bank

Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.

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Jason Averbook
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonaverbook/
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