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Schools are considering AI bans at the same moment frontier models are becoming more capable than most people imagined they would see in their lifetimes. That gap is not only an education problem. It is a warning for every organization trying to balance progress, protection, learning, and human control.

In Episode 6 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine what responsible AI adoption actually requires. They challenge blanket bans that create shadow behavior, question whether speed should remain the default measure of progress, and draw a necessary distinction between AI that helps people work and systems capable of acting without them.

The central question is no longer whether AI is good or bad. It is where technology should expand human capability, where it should remain under human control, and where leaders may need the courage to stop.

Episode Highlights:

• Why banning AI without redesigning learning may create more shadow behavior and deepen inequality.
• Why the most competitive organizations will need to become learning organizations.
• How schools and employers can teach responsible use instead of relying on blanket restrictions.
• Why faster content creation is not the same as deeper learning or better thinking.
• How technology can create more inclusive learning experiences for people with different needs.
• Why leaders must distinguish between what technology could do and what it should do.
• Why AI that supports human work should not be treated the same as systems that can act beyond human control.
• What organizations risk when they place every form of AI into a single good-or-bad category.
• Why care, judgment, agency, and human development cannot be reduced to computational intelligence.
• Why every executive needs to understand agents, even if their organization is not ready to deploy them.

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
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