In this HCI Webinar, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Kyle Samuels about diversifying your talent pipeline. Kyle Samuels is the founder and CEO of Creative Talent Endeavors (CTE), a retained executive search firm known for helping organizations identify and hire the leadership talent that drives growth, transformation, and long-term value. Under Kyle’s leadership, CTE has been recognized twice on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and was named the #4 fastest-growing company in Charlotte. What sets Kyle apart is a deep commitment to authenticity, candor, and alignment. Whether he’s partnering with a founder making their first executive hire or a global enterprise reshaping its leadership bench, Kyle brings a direct, empathetic, and values-driven approach to every search. His work is grounded in the belief that hiring the right leader isn’t just about a resume — it’s about long-term fit, trust, and shared purpose. Kyle is also the creator of Fairantee™, a value-based pricing search algorithm that uses data to determine the price of a search, not an arbitrary percentage like most search firms use. This makes using executive search more transparent and equitable. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5000388458315776

Explore "The Wizard Era: How to Verify AI & Win the Future" — a 5-minute breakdown of Dr. Jonathan H. Westover’s key insights on Human-AI partnerships, the wizard paradigm, and practical verification strategies for organizations. Learn about verification domains (factual accuracy, process transparency, contextual appropriateness), tiered verification frameworks, collaborative verification networks, augmented verification tools, and governance best practices to balance trust and efficiency with LLMs and AI agents. Ideal for leaders, product managers, and AI practitioners seeking evidence-based solutions to verification gaps. Background: upbeat, professional stock media. If this helped, please like and share the video to spread these essential AI verification strategies. #AIverification #LLMs #HumanAIPartnerships #AIgovernance OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - The Evolution of Human-AI Partnership 00:01:42 - The Verification Challenge 00:03:10 - Three Pillars of AI Verification 00:04:30 - S004: Learning from Real-World Cases 00:06:16 - S005: Building Effective Verification Systems

Abstract: The rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs) and AI agents is transforming human-AI collaboration from co-intelligence partnerships to interactions more akin to verification of autonomous outputs. This article examines the emerging "wizard" paradigm, wherein AI systems produce sophisticated outputs with minimal human guidance during the creation process. Drawing on empirical research and organizational case studies, we analyze the verification challenges that arise when AI capabilities simultaneously become more powerful and more opaque. The paper identifies three key verification domains—factual accuracy, process transparency, and contextual appropriateness—and presents evidence-based organizational responses for managing AI verification across different scenarios. As organizations increasingly deploy advanced AI, developing systematic verification strategies and cultivating appropriate trust calibration will be essential for capturing value while mitigating risks associated with undetected errors or misaligned outputs.

In this HCI Webinar, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Rich Braden and Dr. Tessa Forshaw about their new book, Be Innovation-ish. Rich Braden is the founder of People Rocket LLC, a strategic innovation firm based in San Francisco. With over 15 years of academic experience, Rich is a recognized thought leader in design thinking, leadership, and innovation. He is a design educator teaching at renowned institutions including Harvard University, Stanford University, Aalto University, and London Business School, helping shape future leaders. As CEO of People Rocket, he works with clients such as Airbnb, Google, the United Nations, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and the Red Cross to drive strategic innovation and responsible AI solutions. Rich holds degrees in Computer and Electrical Engineering from Purdue University and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. As a co-founder of the Next Level Lab at Harvard University, Tessa specializes in using cognitive science to explore how people best work, learn, and innovate. She draws upon her academic research as a cognitive scientist and extensive background as a former designer at IDEO CoLAb and Accenture to turn the cognitive processes involved in design, creativity, and innovation into practical insights that can be applied in the flow of work. These insights are also the foundations of what she teaches as a design educator at Stanford University and now Harvard University. Recognized for her impactful design projects, Tessa is the recipient of multiple design awards: a Fast Company Design Award for General Excellence, two Core77 Industrial Design Magazine Design Awards, and the Australian American Chamber of Commerce Innovation Awards. 🎙️ New to streaming or looking to level up? Check out StreamYard and get $10 discount! 😍 https://streamyard.com/pal/d/5000388458315776

In this podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Kyle Samuels about diversifying your talent pipeline. Kyle Samuels is the founder and CEO of Creative Talent Endeavors (CTE), a retained executive search firm known for helping organizations identify and hire the leadership talent that drives growth, transformation, and long-term value. Under Kyle’s leadership, CTE has been recognized twice on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies and was named the #4 fastest-growing company in Charlotte. What sets Kyle apart is a deep commitment to authenticity, candor, and alignment. Whether he’s partnering with a founder making their first executive hire or a global enterprise reshaping its leadership bench, Kyle brings a direct, empathetic, and values-driven approach to every search. His work is grounded in the belief that hiring the right leader isn’t just about a resume — it’s about long-term fit, trust, and shared purpose. Kyle is also the creator of Fairantee™, a value-based pricing search algorithm that uses data to determine the price of a search, not an arbitrary percentage like most search firms use. This makes using executive search more transparent and equitable. Check out all of the podcasts in the HCI Podcast Network (https://www.podbean.com/podcast-network/HCI) !

The relationship between humans and artificial intelligence (AI) has evolved dramatically from an era of strict, step-by-step programming to what the speaker calls the “wizard era” of AI, where humans provide goals or prompts and AI autonomously completes complex tasks. This shift has enabled unprecedented speed and scale in accomplishing tasks but also introduced new vulnerabilities due to less direct control over the AI’s internal processes. Highlights 🧙‍♂️ The “wizard era” of AI shifts humans from step-by-step programmers to goal-setters and final verifiers. ⚖️ Balancing verification is crucial: too little risks errors, too much negates AI’s speed advantages. 🔍 Verification rests on three pillars: fact, process, and context checking. 💰 Real-world consequences of unchecked AI are severe, seen in finance, healthcare, and media. 🤝 Collaborative, cross-functional teams improve verification quality and efficiency. 🛠️ Tiered, risk-based verification systems ensure safety without bottlenecks. 🤖 AI tools can assist human verifiers, enhancing accuracy and speed without replacing judgment. Key Insights 🧩 The transformation in human-AI roles demands new skill sets. The shift from controlling every AI action to verifying outputs means humans must develop expertise in critical evaluation and risk assessment rather than programming minutiae. This change requires training professionals to become effective “AI skeptics” capable of discerning subtle errors or biases in AI-generated results. ⚠️ Unchecked AI outputs can cause catastrophic real-world harm. Examples such as a financial firm losing $440 million due to an unverified trading algorithm or medical misdiagnoses illustrate that AI errors are not just theoretical risks but tangible threats to health, safety, and economic stability. This underscores the necessity of rigorous verification as a safeguard. 🔄 Verification must be efficient to preserve AI’s speed advantage. While verification is essential, excessive manual review undermines AI’s primary benefit—rapid processing. The speaker’s newsroom example highlights how over-verification delays can render AI outputs obsolete. Thus, verification systems must be optimized for both thoroughness and speed. 🏛️ Fact, process, and context verification form a comprehensive framework. Fact verification ensures the output’s accuracy; process verification checks the fairness, logic, and ethics behind AI decisions; and context verification assesses whether the AI output is suitable for the specific use case. This triad forms a robust methodology for trustworthy AI deployment. 🤝 Collaboration across roles enhances verification effectiveness. Verification is not a solitary task. Engaging multiple stakeholders—prompt engineers, subject experts, strategists—creates “AI pods” that combine diverse expertise, enabling a more nuanced and robust review process that can catch errors individual reviewers might miss. ⚙️ Tiered, risk-based verification systems tailor scrutiny to potential impact. Not all AI outputs carry the same risk. Low-risk outputs like social media posts require minimal checks, whereas high-risk outputs, such as engineering designs, demand multi-layered, rigorous reviews. This approach balances safety with operational efficiency and avoids unnecessary obstruction. 🤖 AI-assisted verification tools empower human reviewers. Specialized AI tools can serve as first-pass filters to detect factual errors, plagiarism, or bias, streamlining the verification workflow. These tools do not replace humans but augment their capabilities, allowing human verifiers to focus on more complex judgment calls and contextual evaluations. 🔄 Agility and adaptability are essential for successful AI governance. The AI landscape is rapidly evolving, and static verification processes will quickly become obsolete. Organizations must adopt flexible, evolving verification frameworks and cultivate cultures that embrace continuous learning and adjustment to emerging AI capabilities and risks. 🌍 Sector-specific examples demonstrate universal principles. Whether in finance, healthcare, or journalism, the core principles of verification apply broadly but need tailoring to domain-specific risks and workflows. This universality suggests that while AI verification strategies must be customized, they share foundational elements across industries. 🛡️ The verifier role is the new frontline of AI safety and trustworthiness. As AI systems become more autonomous, human verifiers are the critical safety net preventing errors and abuses. This role carries significant responsibility and requires investment in training, tools, and organizational structures to support effective verification and maintain trust in AI outcomes. OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Leading in a Changing World 00:01:13 - Why Economic Cycles Matter 00:02:08 - Proactive Planning and Flexibility 00:03:09 - How Great Companies Navigate the Tides 00:04:22 - Practical Steps for Resilient Leadership

Explore Dr. Jonathan H. Westover’s insights in this 5-minute guide to Leadership in Fractured Markets. Learn how geoeconomic competition, market fragmentation, and U.S.–China tensions reshape strategy for multinational enterprises. This video breaks down evidence-based leadership tools—strategic foresight, geopolitical intelligence, scenario planning, supply chain resilience, stakeholder management, and adaptive governance—so executives can turn geopolitical risk into competitive advantage. Perfect for CEOs, strategists, risk officers, and business students seeking practical frameworks for navigating trade restrictions, tech decoupling, and regulatory complexity. If you found this helpful, please like and share the video to help others navigate the new era of geoeconomic competition. #Geoeconomics #Leadership #Strategy #SupplyChain #Geopolitics

Learn a practical, research-backed step-by-step quantum roadmap for your organization in this 5-minute video: from building quantum literacy to prioritizing use cases, securing cryptography, and forging partnerships. Based on Dr. Jonathan H. Westover’s “Quantum Computing Readiness,” we explain quantum computing, business impacts (finance, pharma, logistics), and concrete actions for capability development and long-term resilience. Like and share if this helps your team plan for the quantum revolution. #QuantumComputing #QuantumReadiness #PostQuantum OUTLINE: 00:00:00 - Introduction & Quantum Basics 00:01:14 - How Quantum Computers Think Differently 00:02:46 - Real-World Applications 00:04:10 - Cybersecurity Quantum Threat 00:05:40 - Preparation Strategy