Rebecca Hinds, PhD: Avoiding the AI Productivity Trap

In this episode, host Shannon Peavey speaks with Professor Rebecca Hinds, PhD, a Stanford-trained organizational behavior expert and author of Your Best Meeting Ever. Rebecca, who runs the Glean Work AI Institute, explains why the future of AI at work is not about squeezing more productivity out of individuals, but about strengthening organizations as a whole. She shares her system for applying design principles to create effective meetings and illuminates the ways these can help leaders decide when technology enhances collaboration and when it risks undermining human trust, creativity, and emotion. She also highlights a growing body of research on how AI can expand access to insight and make work more effective – though today, she says, many organizations are getting it wrong. Instead of imposing AI from the top down, she argues that companies should empower employees to experiment, and that they should tolerate and even celebrate failure. Importantly, she says, organizations need to establish thoughtful guardrails that allow people to discover how these tools can truly help teams become more effective.01:56 First things first, the bad news on AI and meeting culture03:12 The good news on AI and meeting culture05:29 Why leaders need to think about meetings holistically07:10 Seven design principles to appy to meeting design10:16 The “Four-D, CEO” test for meetings13:41 Where AI can excel18:02 Thinking differently about human roles19:18 Why we should worry about “digital twins”20:45 Keeping human emotions in mind23:05 What can happen if you deprioritize people23:30 Psychological safety at work, and with AI at work26:09 The critical need to have AI policies 28:30 Enabling employees to find the value in AI30:54 Tolerating, even celebrating failure33:48 Collaboration with AI: an individual experience36:36 The future is managing agents37:38 Hope for a future of unparalleled insights40:26 Using AI to help the organization, rather than the individual42:48 Sharing resources and research📚Resources:Rebecca Hinds https://www.rebeccahinds.com/Stanford University http://www.stanford.eduThe Glean Work AI Institute https://www.workai.instituteRebecca’s book, “Your Best Meeting Ever” https://www.rebeccahinds.com/bookOrganizational psychologist Bob Sutton https://bobsutton.net/about-bob/Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmonsonhttps://amycedmondson.com/about/Wharton School of Business Professor Ethan Mollick https://x.com/emollick?lang=enCharter newsletterhttps://www.charterworks.com/🌟 Where to find Rebecca:On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-hinds/🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

In 2017, before generative AI became a household term, Jen Gennai drafted Google’s original AI Principles. She was part of the effort to define what responsible AI should mean inside one of the most influential technology companies in the world. Now, years later, she is asking a more uncomfortable question. While companies race to deploy AI and governments work toward regulatory frameworks, who is seriously grappling with what this technology is doing to people and how they think, learn, and communicate?  Jen argues that we are making progress on global rules and regulations. But we may NOT be moving fast enough on the human consequences. As an AI responsibility expert and consultant, she spends her time training leaders not just to adopt AI, but to build resilient cultures, to capture gains without eroding human capacities that make those gains meaningful.02:29 How Google’s original AI Principles came about07:13 Working cross-industry to up-level the market08:02 History may not repeat, but it rhymes09:35 Regulation: rules versus principles13:08 How federal law could solve some problems18:18 AI’s “harm categories”24:03 Why we need to think more about human impact26:49 Skills for the future: Resilience, analytics, communication, creative problem-solving31:38 Why we need more focus on training programs38:30 Should you say your business is AI-first? Maybe not.40:43 Defining what “good” looks like42:20 Leading means building psychological safety📚Resources:T3 https://t3-consultants.com/Google AI Safety Principles https://ai.google/principles/NIST AI Risk Management Framework https://www.nist.gov/itl/ai-risk-management-frameworkEU AI Act https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/Latanya Sweeney’s 2016 keynote at the Grace Hopper Celebration https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBzP0NouiGoArticle describing Latanya Sweeney’s findings on racism in Google ads https://racismandtechnology.center/wp-content/uploads/latanya-sweeney-discrimination-in-online-ad-delivery.pdfThe U.S. Government’s AI Literacy Framework https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20260213MIT’s Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/HBR https://hbr.org/🌟 Where to find Jen:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-gennai-b333933/🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

What does it actually mean to build ethical, safe, and responsible AI inside a real company with real deadlines, revenue pressure, and competing priorities? In this episode, Shannon Peavey sits down with Angel Evan, AI Ethicist and Practice Lead at AG Consulting Partners. Angel works directly with Fortune 500 companies and major technology organizations to operationalize AI ethics inside product development teams. His focus is not on abstract principles, rather, it’s process, execution and decision-making under pressure.Together, Shannon and Angel explore:Why AI ethics cannot live only in policy documents or philosophical debatesHow organizations can establish common starting points even when morality is subjectiveThe role of product managers, engineers, and leaders in translating values into shipping decisionsWhat it looks like to embed ethical thinking into roadmaps, governance, and release cyclesWhy learning together across teams is more powerful than waiting for perfect consensusAngel brings deep knowledge of philosophy and ethical theory, but his work is grounded in practical application. How do you turn abstract frameworks into something that actually guides a sprint? How do you navigate competing incentives? How do you move from aspiration to implementation? If you are a product leader, technologist, or executive trying to build AI responsibly without slowing innovation to a halt, this conversation offers a candid look at what it takes to move from ideas to impact.00:00 Introduction 01:59 AI Ethics, Responsibility, Safety: Focusing on the human condition02:50 Turning baseline principles into real products04:13 What is fairness?05:50 The path from data science 06:50 How we calibrate “right” and “wrong” in organizations09:20 Finding a common starting point12:14 Find the threshold between risk and productivity15:42 What is AI literacy?17:05 Building your “ethical reasoning” muscles22:30 Cautious optimism📚Resources:AG Consulting https://agconsultingpartners.com/The Stanford University Human-centered AI (HAI) Index https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-indexAngel Evan’s Machines & Meaning podcast https://angelevan.com/podcast/The U.S. Government’s AI Literacy Framework https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20260213University of Edinburgh https://www.ed.ac.uk/🌟 Where to find Angel:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/angel-evan/🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

Marty Cagan joins Carmen Palmer for this episode in our monthly series, In The Lead. Marty is a renowned product executive and author, and is widely considered a thought leader in the field of Product Management. He is the founder of the Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG), where he advises companies on how to create successful products using the practices of world-class tech organizations. Marty is the author of influential books on the topic of product management and product teams including Inspired: How to Create Tech Products Customers Love Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products.Transformed: Moving to the Product Operating Model Recently Marty and the team at Silicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) have been exploring the use of AI LLMs as product coaches. As always Marty has strong views on the adoption of AI technology enabling true product builders, the increasing importance of true empowered product managers, and how AI Models can assist in the transition by coaching PMs and Product Leaders..In The Lead is a monthly series on Product Rising sharing thought provoking conversations with a wide range of industry leaders hosted by Carmen Palmer, CEO of Women In Product. Your AI Product Coach00:00 Reckoning for Product03:11 GenAI Changes the Stakes07:11 Feature vs Empowered Teams09:57 Build to Learn vs Earn12:18 Prototyping Tools Boom13:37 New PM Litmus Test16:05 Why Coaching Fails20:57 AI Coaching Tipping Point23:58 Prompting for Product Model27:30 Load Strategic Context28:19 Strategic Context Inputs29:23 Project Model Prompts30:52 AI Coaching Limits34:58 Why Humans Still Matter38:42 What Coaching Looks Like39:25 Building Product Sense Fast42:01 Frameworks For Real Work45:23 Adoption Curve Reality49:13 Career Advice And Wrap📚Resources:SVPG Product Coaching and AIConfiguring Your Model As Product Coach - an example of how to get started using an AI Model to provide product coaching✨Where to find Marty:On LinkedInSilicon Valley Product Group (SVPG) Website & Newsletter sign up 💫 Where to find Carmen:On LinkedIn 🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

In this episode of Women in Product, host Shannon Peavey sits down with Tonia Osadebe, AI Safety Lead at OpenAI, for a candid and practical conversation about what it really means to build responsibly in fast moving AI environments. Tonia shares her path into AI Safety, from her early work on AI Agents and machine learning fairness to stepping into a role focused squarely on evaluating and mitigating risk in frontier systems. She reflects on her time at Google, including being part of the team navigating the widely discussed “Glue on Pizza” AI search result moment, and what those high visibility incidents teach teams about iteration, accountability, and resilience. At the heart of this conversation is a simple but powerful idea: safety work is collaborative. Tonia explains how cross functional teams come together to define acceptable risk, make principled tradeoffs, and agree to improve systems over time rather than striving for perfection before launch. 02:29 Where does safety start in a project?03:50 We’re mitigating - not eliminating - risk08:14 Trying not to break everything09:26 Let’s talk about glue on pizza11:34 What we don’t know YET14:06 How teams collaborate 19:02 We are not the “fun police”21:35 Tension is expected22:15 Measure where you can24:05 Sharing ownership25:15 Reflecting the real world 29:00 Access will change the way we dream32:50 Building safety into roadmap📚Resources:OpenAI - https://openai.com/Google AI Safety Principles - https://ai.google/safety/Google’s Pizza-Glue Scandal https://www.wired.com/story/google-cut-back-ai-overviews-before-pizza-glue/The U.S. Government’s AI Literacy Framework https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20260213🌟 Where to find Tonia:On LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonia-osadebe-a9b1a014/Where to find our host:Shannon Peavey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/spmad/🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website - https://womenpm.org/Join the Community - https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

What does it mean to be the person responsible for AI ethics inside a 30,000-person company? Shelby Tallent lives this every day. As the leader of AI ethics, responsibility, and compliance for Alaska Airlines, Shelby works at the intersection of technology, governance, and human trust. Her career across Amazon, Nordstrom, and TeleSign has shaped a perspective that blends policy rigor with product execution. In conversation with host Shannon Peavey, Shelby shares why AI ethics is not about slowing innovation but about guiding it. She explains how ethical value systems become practical decision frameworks, how individuals can hold their ground when goals conflict, and why keeping humans in the loop is not optional. AI should not be looked at as a way to “get us out of things,” she said, rather, we should let it expand our capacity to do what once felt impossible.00:00 Introduction 01:49 How Alaska Airlines structures the AI Safety & Compliance role02:18 The ways responsibilities map to company values04:45 Where foundational principles for AI implementation originate05:50 Navigating different AI rules per country07:32 The “9-to-5” of AI Responsibility13:02 Types of risk and how we mitigate16:30 A path of many hats23:00 Keeping humans in the loop29:30 Why we should be optimistic33:00 Shelby’s challenge to your thinking and approach📚Resources:Alaska Airlines - https://www.alaskaair.com/International Association of Privacy Professionals https://iapp.org/Cloud Security Alliance https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/The EU AI Act - https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/GDPR - https://gdpr-info.eu/AI.gov - https://www.ai.gov/Microsoft CoPilot https://copilot.microsoft.com/ FigJam https://www.figma.com/figjam/🌟 Where to find Shelby:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shetallent/Where to find our host:Shannon Peavey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/spmad/🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

If there is one thing we can agree on, AI is everywhere. It promises incredible gains in productivity, creativity, deep analysis, and progress in all kinds of fields from medicine to music. But - AI also brings anxiety, concern, and a great deal of unknowns. We wanted to find out exactly who is thinking about the future of AI in terms of morality, ethics, psychological and physical safety? (Is anyone working on this? Hello?) We are happy to report that indeed, they are. And we want you to meet them. In an exclusive new Product Rising podcast series, host Shannon Peavey explores the world of AI Ethics, Safety & Responsibility through conversations with experts working in AI policy, compliance, accountability, research and safety. She gets into the details to illuminate the ways these men and women are working hard to help shape a future we all want to live in. Whether you’re an individual contributor, leader, founder, or advisor, listen in to learn about this incredibly important field that touches all aspects of tech and quite possibly, will have a profound impact on all of our lives from here.00:20 What this series illuminates01:07 The AI truth is, we don’t know it all 02:34 It’s time to come to terms with AI03:40 Good people out there working on hairy problems05:07 Time to work on minimizing harm06:18 Our guests: consumer, LLMs, tech, policy08:45 Risk mitigation takes all kinds of backgrounds09:57 Causes for optimism11:54 The legacy of Google’s AI principles 14:20 First guest Shelby Tallent (Alaska Airlines)16:04 Our series starts March 24 and continues for 8 weeks: join us!📚Resources:Women in Product - http://womenpm.orgProduct Rising on Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/product-rising/id1584224561Product Rising on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7bcyVhpdhw0hbiRr6O4h1UProduct Rising on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLijcNLDj_QE2ge6Wqeh0MLx_qMKwot--9The U.S. government’s AI Literacy Framework https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20260213 Thank you so much to our guests:Shelby Tallent, Alaska Airlines https://www.linkedin.com/in/shetallent/Jen Gennai, T3 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jen-gennai-b333933/Tonia Osadebe, OpenAI https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonia-osadebe-a9b1a014/Rebecca Hinds, PhD https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-hinds/Angel Evan, AG Consulting https://www.linkedin.com/in/angel-evan/Tracy Pizzo Frey, Restorative AI https://www.linkedin.com/in/tracy-frey/Sara Tangdall, Nike https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-tangdall/Where to find our hosts:Shannon Peavey https://www.linkedin.com/in/spmad/Elizabeth Ames https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethames/🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

Julie Wenah joins Carmen Palmer for the second episode in our monthly series, In The Lead. Julie is an incredible storyteller. She shares her experience on building Civil Rights into products from the beginning and why that is critical in the era of AI. She also shares her experience of creating sustainable ambition and redefining success. In The Lead is a monthly series on Product Rising sharing thought provoking conversations with a wide range of industry leaders hosted by Carmen Palmer, CEO of Women In Product. 00:41 Meet Julie Wenah01:51 Owning Every Identity04:50 Redefining Success08:43 Sustainable Ambition10:22 When Products Miss13:27 Carrying The Weight15:50 Who Thrives In Tension20:15 Embedding Civil Rights22:56 AI Fairness Window24:51 Access And Accountability28:31 Access And Human Stories29:37 Releasing Productivity Metrics33:58 Boundaries And Time Blocking36:21 Patience Brick By Brick38:06 Why Storytelling Grounds Us41:40 Justice At Scale Dilemma43:38 Ask And Listen Within47:44 Morning Pages And Resources📚Resources:The Artist’s Way - Book by Julie Cameron Digital Civil Rights Coalition - https://www.digitalcivilrights.com, @digitalcivilrights on Instagram, ✨Where to find Julie:On LinkedIn💫 Where to find Carmen:On LinkedIn 🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

In this episode of Product Rising, we look back at Cassie Campbell’s interview with Tami Reiss, an experienced product leader, speaker, author, trainer, and coach. Elizabeth Ames walks us through a number of clips from the interview that highlight the value of coaching, from early management and leadership roles through the highest levels of leadership. Tami shares what changes as leaders advance, where their time and attention must change. She also has some great advice on building and deploying influence and empathy skills to achieve business objectives, and key skills in communication and using the language of business that are required as you advance. She closes with some great advice on networking and it’s value in finding great opportunities.The original episode was published on May 27, 2025. You can listen to the full episode from that date as well.00:00 Welcome and Series Setup01:48 Why Coaching Matters03:11 Transitioning to Executive04:35 Strategy vs Execution Pendulum06:53 Influence and Empathy Skills10:01 Speaking Investor Language12:25 Networking for New Roles13:34 Wrap Up and Where to Listen✨Where to find Tami Reiss:On LinkedInTami’s Website - My Leader Within (with booking link)💫 Where to find Cassie:On LinkedIn At Cassie Camp - Learn more about product leadership coaching and fractional product leadership🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/

There is a lot of debate about the state of the job market today. We definitely hear a lot about layoffs in the big tech companies and also about AI eliminating positions. But AI may be having a bigger impact in the requirements for specific roles and even perhaps new types of roles. We will be having periodic conversations with leading recruiters, hiring managers, and others about the evolving job market and what it takes to get hired/noticed. Our first conversation is with Sally Thornton, CEO & Founder of Forshay, a firm that combines Executive recruiting with interim experts across Finance, HR, and Operations, and by aligning culture and leadership development skills to optimize team performance.02:17 Forshay Firm Overview03:27 Job Market Reality Check06:09 Entry Level Pipeline Crunch07:44 Where Hiring Is Growing08:33 What Employers Want Now09:56 Proving Curiosity in Interviews11:34 Influence as a Core Skill12:38 AI Transparency and Flatter Teams14:47 Fractional Leadership Explained19:36 How Orgs Are Reshaping for AI22:43 The Rise of the AI Scout24:55 Building an AI Experiment Team25:43 Choosing Tools That Fit27:16 AI in Hiring and Resume Filters29:19 Beating the Rejection Machine31:36 Community as Career Support32:14 AI as Reflective Hiring Partner34:37 Gut Instinct Versus Data37:40 Future Proofing Through Community39:56 Give More and Experiment Often41:16 Tools That Reduce Overwork43:42 Wrap Up and Where to Follow📚Resources:To Sell is Human, Daniel Pink🌟 Where to find Sally:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallythornton/Forshay: https://forshay.com🙋🏻‍♀️Where to find Women in Product:On LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-product/posts/ Website https://womenpm.org/Join the Community https://womenpm.org/wip-community/