The Edge of Now is a conversation about what AI means for people, work, leadership, and the organizations we’re part of.
Hosted by Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank, each episode starts with the signals shaping the week, then looks past the headlines to find the real story, the human question, and the choices ahead.
Expect strong opinions, honest disagreement, and practical thinking about workforce orchestration, trust, productivity, education, the humanities, and the changing value of human capability.
Created by Now to Next for people who want to do more than react to the future. They want to help shape it.
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Most organizations are preparing to apply new intelligence to old processes, old roles, and old organizational structures. That may produce faster work, but it will not necessarily produce better work.
In Episode 8 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine why this moment demands more than another round of upgrades. Talent acquisition, learning, talent management, and workforce planning have spent years operating as separate functions, often because the technology and data required those divisions. Now that people can access intelligence more directly, the technology is no longer the only constraint. The operating model, organizational mindset, and willingness to let go may be the larger barriers.
Jason asks whether some HR functions have become too old for another app update and need a new phone instead. Jess introduces a sharper mandate: do not automatically rip and replace. Rip and retire. Before automating a workflow, protecting a job, or buying another platform, leaders should ruthlessly question whether it still belongs in the organization they are trying to build.
This is a conversation about the difference between protecting jobs and protecting people, why interruption is a leadership capability, and what organizations must be willing to leave behind before AI accelerates everything they have already built.
Episode Highlights
Why talent acquisition’s early exposure to AI created both fear of job loss and new optimism about a more strategic talent role
Why labels such as talent acquisition, talent management, and talent development may reinforce the silos leaders say they want to eliminate
How direct access to workforce data can change who produces insights and who is empowered to act on them
Why technology has caught up, but organizational structures and mindsets still stand in the way
Whether established HR functions can keep updating old systems or need to start with a clean operating model
Why meaningful transformation can require closing the kitchen while continuing to serve the business
The difference between incremental upgrades and exponential change
Why leaders should retire obsolete work before replacing systems or automating workflows
Why protecting people does not mean preserving every job exactly as it exists today
How leaders can create a culture in which questioning an established process is expected, not punished
Why 2027 could become the year organizations stop buying and start interrogating what they already have
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
AI leaders are debating whether development should slow down, but most organizations have barely begun to absorb the capabilities that already exist. The real enterprise problem may not be an adoption gap. It may be an adaptability gap.
In Episode 7 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine why individual productivity gains are not reaching the P&L, what a pause in frontier development should mean for business leaders, and why agents need accountable human managers before they need names or places on the org chart.
The episode asks leaders to stop chasing headlines and start redesigning work around their own outcomes. AI may be the most powerful amplifier organizations have encountered, but humans must remain responsible for deciding what it should do, how it is governed, and where it stops.
Episode Highlights
Why the familiar “adoption gap” is better understood as an adaptability gap.
Why individual AI productivity gains are not automatically producing enterprise value.
What organizations should do if frontier AI development pauses.
Why stopping AI advancement today would still leave businesses years behind existing capability.
How leaders can distinguish AI at work from the risks associated with superintelligence.
Why work redesign and operating-model change matter more than chasing the latest model.
What “twilight organizations” could look like when AI performs most tasks and humans supervise critical work.
Why every AI agent needs an accountable human manager before it needs a name.
Who should be responsible for an agent’s performance, learning, quality, and outputs.
Why humans must remain at the helm, not merely somewhere in the loop.
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.Jess Von BankJess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
Episode 6: AI Is Moving Faster Than We Can Govern It. Where Do We Draw the Line?
Schools are considering AI bans at the same moment frontier models are becoming more capable than most people imagined they would see in their lifetimes. That gap is not only an education problem. It is a warning for every organization trying to balance progress, protection, learning, and human control.
In Episode 6 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine what responsible AI adoption actually requires. They challenge blanket bans that create shadow behavior, question whether speed should remain the default measure of progress, and draw a necessary distinction between AI that helps people work and systems capable of acting without them.
The central question is no longer whether AI is good or bad. It is where technology should expand human capability, where it should remain under human control, and where leaders may need the courage to stop.
Episode Highlights:
Why banning AI without redesigning learning may create more shadow behavior and deepen inequality.
Why the most competitive organizations will need to become learning organizations.
How schools and employers can teach responsible use instead of relying on blanket restrictions.
Why faster content creation is not the same as deeper learning or better thinking.
How technology can create more inclusive learning experiences for people with different needs.
Why leaders must distinguish between what technology could do and what it should do.
Why AI that supports human work should not be treated the same as systems that can act beyond human control.
What organizations risk when they place every form of AI into a single good-or-bad category.
Why care, judgment, agency, and human development cannot be reduced to computational intelligence.
Why every executive needs to understand agents, even if their organization is not ready to deploy them.
About Jason & Jess
Episode 5: AI Should Come for Your Org Chart. But Have You Earned the Move?
AI should change the org chart, but not because a headline, budget target, or efficiency claim says it should. The real question is whether an organization has redesigned the work, decision rights, accountability, and operating model before making the move.
In Episode 5 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine three signals shaping the AI conversation: Expedia’s reorganization around AI, McKinsey research showing stronger conviction than financial return, and Bill Gates’s warning that the choices made during this turbulent transition will determine whether AI leaves people better off.
Together, the stories expose a growing divide between organizations using AI to rethink how value is created and those applying it to old work, cutting ahead of evidence, or mistaking personal speed for business performance. Jason and Jess challenge leaders to interrogate work before automating it, earn their way to organizational change, and decide what AI should do instead of being distracted by everything it could do.
Highlights
Why “reorganizing around AI” is different from eliminating roles because of AI
Why AI should be an accelerant for organizational changes that already need to happen
What small squads, clear ownership, faster decisions, and reduced bureaucracy reveal about operating-model redesign
Why leaders should read beyond fear-based job loss headlines and examine the underlying organizational story
What AI-exposed businesses can learn from earlier, internet-era disruption
Why personal efficiency does not automatically create enterprise value or stronger financial performance
How organizations confuse speed, activity, productivity, and meaningful business outcomes
Why AI returns cannot be judged on timelines designed for a five-day payback
What must change before redesigned jobs and org charts can produce measurable impact
Why “what could AI do?” is becoming less useful than “what should AI do?”
Why speed is not enough reason to hand over care, judgment, or taste
Episode 4: Your Organization Is Connected. But Has It Forgotten How to Connect?
Organizations have spent years connecting people through platforms, devices, chat, video, and increasingly intelligent systems. Yet being connected is not the same as building connection, and technology will not decide for us when people need presence, conversation, judgment, or trust.
In Episode 4 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank explore what it means to design humanity into technology-enabled work. Beginning with back-to-school phone policies and moving through AI workflows, remote work, meeting rituals, software design, social platforms, and AI companionship, they examine where human interaction is being weakened, where technology can strengthen it, and who is responsible for drawing the line.
The conversation raises an urgent leadership question. As AI becomes more capable and platforms become more persuasive, will organizations intentionally design the moments when humans should engage with one another, or will connection remain an accidental byproduct of systems built for efficiency and attention? The opportunity is not to reject technology. It is to combine human and machine systems in ways that make work, learning, and life more capable, fulfilling, and human.
Highlights
Why being connected through technology is not the same as building human connection
What back-to-school device policies reveal about our struggle to combine attention and technological capability
Why banning tools outright can deny people capabilities they will need in the future
How leaders can design specific moments for presence, judgment, conversation, and collaboration
Why platforms cannot be expected to protect every human interest when their commercial incentives point elsewhere
What systems thinking and design thinking contribute to AI-enabled work
Why forward-deployed engineers need to understand human outcomes, not merely technical requirements
How measures such as quality of hire can become meaningless when the business problem has moved
Why the next generation of system implementation must integrate human and machine systems
Episode 3: AI Can Find the Answer. Can Your Organization Still Think?
AI has made information easier to access and first drafts easier to produce, but abundant answers do not automatically create better thinkers. As schools, universities, and workplaces race to introduce AI, the more urgent question is what people should learn when the answer itself is no longer scarce.
In Episode 3 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank explore why everyone is going back to school, regardless of age or role. They examine the durable human capabilities that become more valuable as technology accelerates, including curiosity, judgment, adaptability, presence, expertise, and the ability to ask better questions.
The conversation moves beyond prompt engineering and AI adoption to a more consequential challenge: how do we create experiences that strengthen thinking, preserve human agency, and help people practice their way into new capabilities? For leaders, educators, parents, and anyone trying to navigate this moment, the goal is not simply to know more. It is to become a better learner in a world that will not stop changing.
Highlights:
Why back-to-school season now applies to leaders, employees, parents, students, and educators
Why waiting for a dramatic AI threshold distracts us from changes already happening around us
How organizations can help change happen with people instead of merely to them
Why human value must be designed into the technological revolution from the beginning
Which durable capabilities become more valuable when information and basic production become abundant
Why expertise matters most when it is paired with curiosity, humility, adaptability, and contextual judgment
How practice, feedback, reflection, and real work build capabilities that a conventional course cannot
Why the future of learning may be less about transferring knowledge and more about creating better thinkers
How AI detection tools and unclear rules can punish people for using the very tools they were told to adopt
Why prompt engineering should not become the center of organizational AI education
Episode 2: Your Smartwatch Might Be Recording This. Enterprise Governance, Employee Trust
AI can preserve organizational knowledge, expand human capability, and capture context that traditional systems routinely miss. It can also record, retain, and repurpose more of our work, behavior, and judgment than most people fully understand.
In Episode 2 of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine the complicated relationship between AI, privacy, trust, and human value. They explore what happens when organizations encourage experimentation while limiting access, when useful technology begins to feel like surveillance, and when a person’s knowledge becomes training material for a system.
The question is not whether organizations should use this technology or protect people from its risks. The real challenge is designing governance that allows responsible progress while ensuring that the people whose knowledge creates value are recognized, protected, and included in that value.
Listen to the conversation and consider what a fair value exchange between people, organizations, and AI should look like.
Highlights:
Why encouraging AI experimentation while restricting tokens sends a contradictory message
How organizations can support different levels of AI participation without rebuilding an outdated center-of-excellence model
Why probabilistic technology requires new education and clearer expectations
When meeting recorders, wearables, and voice technology begin to feel like surveillance
What separates listening, recording, storing, and repurposing human information
Why trust requires more than accepting a privacy policy or checking a consent box
How AI could preserve tacit knowledge without treating employees as extractable training data
Why effective governance should keep responsible experimentation moving
How voice can capture context that forms, fields, and surveys routinely miss
What organizations owe people when their experience and judgment help train intelligent systems
AI is changing what work is, but most organizations still rely on job descriptions, structures, and leadership practices built for a less fluid world.
In the first episode of The Edge of Now, Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank examine why people increasingly contribute across functions while organizations continue to keep them in boxes. They discuss the growing value of organizational context, the difference between routine and frontier problems, and what happens when companies invest in AI without redesigning the work around it.
The capabilities already exist. The harder question is whether leaders are prepared to organize around outcomes, expand human potential, and build organizations that learn as quickly as work changes.
Listen to the conversation and consider what your organization may already have outgrown.
Highlights:
Why “What do you want to do next?” may be more useful than asking what someone wants to be
What cross-functional AI use reveals about the changing nature of work
Why broad learning may be becoming more valuable than narrow expertise
How outdated job descriptions quietly constrain organizational value
Why organizational context may matter more than model selection
What companies should document before introducing agentic workflows
The difference between routine, complex, and frontier problems
Why advanced AI should be reserved for questions requiring genuine discovery
What separates AI investment from meaningful work redesign
Why leadership may be the greatest barrier to becoming AI-native
About the Hosts
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world
The world doesn't need another podcast. It needs a better conversation.
Welcome to The Edge of Now, a weekly conversation with Jason Averbook and Jess Von Bank exploring the space where technology meets humanity and where the future of work is being shaped in real time.
Each week, they'll unpack the biggest signals shaping our world by asking four questions: What happened? What's the story behind it? What's the human impact? And where is the edge?
If you're looking for thoughtful conversations that move beyond the hype and help you navigate what's next, you're in the right place.
New episodes release every Friday at 7:00 AM Central Time. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and we hope you'll tune in every Friday as we explore the ideas, questions, and possibilities waiting at the edge of now.
Music licensed through Soundstripe.
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About the Hosts
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
How governance can protect people without regulating an organization into inertia
Why humans become “the leftovers” if leaders reserve only the work machines cannot perform
What happens when organizations fail to write their own rules and allow the market to write them instead
Why leaders must interrogate and shed outdated work before adding AI to it
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
How technology can become an excuse for behaviors people would not choose face to face
What meeting rituals, team scrums, and communication choices teach us about intentional connection
When bots should talk to bots and when humans must remain involved
Why some members of Gen Z are turning to AI for emotional support and personal issues
What leaders, educators, parents, and platform users need to understand about persuasive design, privacy, and trust
Why humans remain responsible for designing technology that makes work and life more fulfilling
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
What organizations should measure instead of logins, usage, and superficial adoption
Why leaders must define value and outcomes before prescribing tools
How schools and workplaces can create the capacity, culture, and presence required for meaningful learning
Why knowing who you are may matter more than knowing exactly what you will do
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
How AI could make previously invisible human contribution easier to recognize and reward
Why human agency must be designed into the value exchange from the beginning
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
Jess Von Bank Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
About Jason & Jess
Jason Averbook
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
Jason Averbook has spent more than 30 years shaping HR technology and workforce transformation. His career includes leadership roles at PeopleSoft and Ceridian, co-founding and leading Knowledge Infusion from 2005 to 2012, serving as CEO of The Marcus Buckingham Company, and co-founding and leading Leapgen from 2018 to 2023. After serving as Mercer’s Global HR Transformation Leader, he co-founded Now to Next to help leaders prepare people and organizations for an AI-shaped world.
Jess Von Bank
Jess Von Bank brings more than 20 years of experience across recruiting, talent strategy, employer branding, HR technology, and workforce transformation. She began as a recruiting practitioner before moving into leadership roles focused on bringing workforce solutions to market, including global HR transformation and technology advisory work at Mercer. She is now co-founder of Now to Next, where she combines industry expertise, community building, storytelling, and a human-centered perspective on change.
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