Jen Gennai: Leading in AI’s Human Era

2026-04-28

Product Rising

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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 about

07:13 Working cross-industry to up-level the market

08:02 History may not repeat, but it rhymes

09:35 Regulation: rules versus principles

13:08 How federal law could solve some problems

18:18 AI’s “harm categories”

24:03 Why we need to think more about human impact

26:49 Skills for the future: Resilience, analytics, communication, creative problem-solving

31:38 Why we need more focus on training programs

38:30 Should you say your business is AI-first? Maybe not.

40:43 Defining what “good” looks like

42:20 Leading means building psychological safety