Send us Fan Mail

AI leaders are debating whether development should slow down, but most organizations have barely begun to absorb the capabilities that already exist. The real enterprise problem may not be an adoption gap. It may be an adaptability gap.

In Episode 7 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine why individual productivity gains are not reaching the P&L, what a pause in frontier development should mean for business leaders, and why agents need accountable human managers before they need names or places on the org chart.

The episode asks leaders to stop chasing headlines and start redesigning work around their own outcomes. AI may be the most powerful amplifier organizations have encountered, but humans must remain responsible for deciding what it should do, how it is governed, and where it stops.

Episode Highlights

• Why the familiar “adoption gap” is better understood as an adaptability gap.
• Why individual AI productivity gains are not automatically producing enterprise value.
• What organizations should do if frontier AI development pauses.
• Why stopping AI advancement today would still leave businesses years behind existing capability.
• How leaders can distinguish AI at work from the risks associated with superintelligence.
• Why work redesign and operating-model change matter more than chasing the latest model.
• What “twilight organizations” could look like when AI performs most tasks and humans supervise critical work.
• Why every AI agent needs an accountable human manager before it needs a name.
• Who should be responsible for an agent’s performance, learning, quality, and outputs.
• Why humans must remain at the helm, not merely somewhere in the loop.

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.

Stay Connected:

Jason Averbook
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonaverbook/
X: https://x.com/jasonaverbook
Substack: https://jasonaverbook.substac...