Business Anthropology at Work: Making AI a Human Multiplier
Date: December 4, 2025
Time: 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. ET
REGISTER HERE
This event will be held online. The link to join virtually will be provided within 24 hours of the event.
Not able to attend this session? Register anyway to ensure that you receive a recording of the session to view at your convenience.
For questions, please contact Christoph Meinrenken at [email protected](linkisexternal).
ABOUT THE EVENT
AI promises sharper insights and faster decisions, yet many organizations are finding it harder than ever for people to truly understand one another across roles, backgrounds, and experiences. This conversation asks a bigger question: What kind of organizations do we want AI to help us build?
Rooted in the perspective of the new Business Anthropology course in Columbia’s MS in Information & Knowledge Strategy (IKNS), this event explores how people, culture, and technology shape organizational life and how AI can become a human multiplier rather than a force that widens disconnects. In an era in which the sheer amount of information often grows faster than our understanding of it, Business Anthropology offers leaders the tools to see context clearly, listen across differences, and avoid costly blind spots.
In this fall’s installment of the IKNS Conversations that Matter series, Culture Consultancy’s Dr. Drew Jones and organizational change expert Dr. Matthew Hill will trace the story from early workplace studies and user-centered design to today’s generative AI, showing how human-centered ways of seeing can guide AI-enabled organizations toward better choices. Through concrete examples, they’ll discuss how to reduce bureaucracy, strengthen trust, and push decisions closer to the people doing the work. They will also explore how “hybrid” workflows, where machines handle the heavy parsing and humans frame problems and interpret meaning, can reconnect organizations internally, not fragment them further.
The session, moderated by Business Anthropology instructor Jessica Malloy, will close with a practical checklist to help leaders connect AI investments to what truly matter: clearer understanding, faster learning, and better decisions grounded in human judgment.
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If you require closed captioning, sign-language interpretation or any other disability accommodations, please contact Disability Services, [email protected](linkisexternal), at least 10 days in advance. Services requested less than 10 days in advance cannot be guaranteed.
This event is open to individuals irrespective of identity and sex.