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Organizations have spent years connecting people through platforms, devices, chat, video, and increasingly intelligent systems. Yet being connected is not the same as building connection, and technology will not decide for us when people need presence, conversation, judgment, or trust.

In Episode 4 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank explore what it means to design humanity into technology-enabled work. Beginning with back-to-school phone policies and moving through AI workflows, remote work, meeting rituals, software design, social platforms, and AI companionship, they examine where human interaction is being weakened, where technology can strengthen it, and who is responsible for drawing the line.

The conversation raises an urgent leadership question. As AI becomes more capable and platforms become more persuasive, will organizations intentionally design the moments when humans should engage with one another, or will connection remain an accidental byproduct of systems built for efficiency and attention? The opportunity is not to reject technology. It is to combine human and machine systems in ways that make work, learning, and life more capable, fulfilling, and human.

Highlights

• Why being connected through technology is not the same as building human connection
• What back-to-school device policies reveal about our struggle to combine attention and technological capability
• Why banning tools outright can deny people capabilities they will need in the future
• How leaders can design specific moments for presence, judgment, conversation, and collaboration
• Why platforms cannot be expected to protect every human interest when their commercial incentives point elsewhere
• What systems thinking and design thinking contribute to AI-enabled work
• Why forward-deployed engineers need to understand human outcomes, not merely technical requirements
• How measures such as quality of hire can become meaningless when the business problem has moved
• Why the next generation of system implementation must integrate human and machine systems
• How technology can become an excuse for behaviors people would not choose face to face
• What meeting rituals, team scrums, and communication choices teach us about intentional connection
• When bots should talk to bots and when humans must remain involved
• Why some members of Gen Z are turning to AI for emotional support and personal issues
• What leaders, educators, parents, and platform users need to understand about persuasive design, privacy, and trust
• Why humans remain responsible for designing technology that makes work and life more fulfilling

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/
X: https://x.com/jasonaverbook
Substack: https://jasonaverbook.substac...

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AI has made information easier to access and first drafts easier to produce, but abundant answers do not automatically create better thinkers. As schools, universities, and workplaces race to introduce AI, the more urgent question is what people should learn when the answer itself is no longer scarce.

In Episode 3 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank explore why everyone is going back to school, regardless of age or role. They examine the durable human capabilities that become more valuable as technology accelerates, including curiosity, judgment, adaptability, presence, expertise, and the ability to ask better questions.

The conversation moves beyond prompt engineering and AI adoption to a more consequential challenge: how do we create experiences that strengthen thinking, preserve human agency, and help people practice their way into new capabilities? For leaders, educators, parents, and anyone trying to navigate this moment, the goal is not simply to know more. It is to become a better learner in a world that will not stop changing.

Highlights:

• Why back-to-school season now applies to leaders, employees, parents, students, and educators
• Why waiting for a dramatic AI threshold distracts us from changes already happening around us
• How organizations can help change happen with people instead of merely to them
• Why human value must be designed into the technological revolution from the beginning
• Which durable capabilities become more valuable when information and basic production become abundant
• Why expertise matters most when it is paired with curiosity, humility, adaptability, and contextual judgment
• How practice, feedback, reflection, and real work build capabilities that a conventional course cannot
• Why the future of learning may be less about transferring knowledge and more about creating better thinkers
• How AI detection tools and unclear rules can punish people for using the very tools they were told to adopt
• Why prompt engineering should not become the center of organizational AI education
• What organizations should measure instead of logins, usage, and superficial adoption
• Why leaders must define value and outcomes before prescribing tools
• How schools and workplaces can create the capacity, culture, and presence required for meaningful learning
• Why knowing who you are may matter more than knowing exactly what you will do

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...

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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.

Stay Connected:

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