HBR IdeaCast

Despite all the ways that artificial intelligence promises to improve our lives, many consumers feel anxious and are averse to AI-powered products and services. For marketers and product managers, it’s vital to understand what is driving that resistance to adoption. Julian De Freitas is an assistant professor in the marketing unit at Harvard Business School. He has identified five main ways people see artificial intelligence negatively: that AI is opaque, emotionless, inflexible, autonomous, and not human enough. Through real-life cases and the latest research, he explains how companies can soothe anxieties and encourage consumer adoption. De Freitas the author of the HBR article "Why People Resist Embracing AI."

Amid the backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the United States and elsewhere, leaders in both the public and private sectors are reevaluating their organizations' policies and goals. While many employers and employees still value and support DEI, a growing chorus argues that such programs run counter to meritocratic ideals. Iris Bohnet and Siri Chilazi of the Harvard Kennedy School think there's one principle everyone should be able to agree on -- fairness -- and argue for a data-driven approach to measuring it. They share their research on how to make workplace systems more fair and offer cases we can all learn from. They wrote the book Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results.

Many consumers are buying electric vehicles, thanks to sportscar-like performance, government incentives, and personal motivations to minimize climate change. But the EV industry overall has revved and sputtered in unpredictable ways and offers a case study in managing innovation, regulation, and competition. Mike Colias, deputy bureau chief at The Wall Street Journal, explains the complex landscape that incumbents such as GM and Ford and start-ups like Tesla find themselves in. Through stories of iconic industry executives and bold competitive moves, he shares insights that leaders in every industry can learn from. Colias wrote the new book Inevitable: Inside the Messy, Unstoppable Transition to Electric Vehicles.

As organizations and workers face a new wave of technological change, Deborah Perry Piscione argues that we're at a pivot point where old models of employment will be replaced by entirely new ones. Get ready for GenAI-assisted, decentralized, sometimes autonomous workforces, and “jobs” that span gigs, companies, industries, geographies, and the metaverse.  Piscione describes this new reality and how mindset shifts and upskilling can help us prepare. She's the coauthor, along with Josh Drean, of the book Employment is Dead: How Disruptive Technologies are Revolutionizing the Way We Work.

If you've ever tried to change things at work, you know the headwinds you face. Teams and processes are often trapped in longstanding, ineffective patterns that are hard to budge. Dan Heath, senior fellow at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, explains proven techniques to reset. Those include making the problem visible, jolting incremental progress to start gaining traction, and motivating teams into a new direction. He shares real-life examples of how leaders and teams broke through seemingly intractable work situations. Heath is the author of the new book Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working.