Reading Room: What is expertise when AI does more of the work?
Reading Room: What is expertise when AI does more of the work?
Judgment, taste, and how we develop them when AI does more of the producing.
There's a version of working with AI where you direct the machine: deciding what it handles, checking what matters. Then there's the version where you follow the direction and plan it proposes, and your work becomes checking its output and keeping the system going. These arrangements reflect choices about how work gets done and what we normalize. They also shape what we count as human contribution and innovation. Who makes those choices, and how do you recognize when you're directing the work, adapting to the system, or doing both?
Doing the work and getting reps in has been part of how we develop judgment, expertise, discernment, and taste. As machines grow more capable, where do those opportunities for practice come from?
Who this is for
Leaders, strategists, operators, builders, and designers working through what AI means for their work and the decisions they make.
Come to explore possibilities, question assumptions, and engage with perspectives that challenge your own.
Any level of AI fluency is welcome. Bring your curiosity, unfinished thoughts, and a willingness to participate.
Questions we’ll explore
What do we mean by expertise, discernment, judgment, and taste when we work with AI?
What does existing expertise let us notice or do that a less experienced person might miss?
If doing the work helps us build judgment, where do the reps come from when AI does more of the producing?
Is a new kind of expertise emerging, and what role does AI fluency play?
Who shapes the workflow, and what can we change when it leaves too little room for our judgment?
As more people use the same tools, what makes someone’s work or an organization’s expertise distinctive?
How it works
A curated multimedia packet: A few days before we meet, I’ll send you a selection of research papers, articles, podcasts, and other media that approach our question from different perspectives. Set aside 40–45 minutes to read, watch, or listen beforehand.
A live briefing: I open with a presentation that connects the packet to further research and what’s happening in culture and business, drawing out where the sources agree, where they conflict, and what deserves a closer look.
Facilitated discussion: We’ll have full-group conversation and smaller breakouts where you can share your reflections and questions, hear other perspectives, and sharpen your own point of view. The presentation and discussion together take 90 minutes.
About the Reading Room
The Reading Room is an after-work club for strategists, builders, designers and operators committed to thinking for themselves.
As machines grow more capable, we're told the only rational move is to keep up with the latest. I don't think so.
Learning the technology shouldn't be where our participation ends. People decide what gets built, deployed, used and normalized. But the power to make those decisions isn't shared equally.
AI opens up extraordinary possibilities. It also raises questions a product demo or a feed of hot takes can't answer. What are we willing to delegate to machines, and what responsibility stays with us? Who benefits, who bears the costs, and who gets a say?
In the Reading Room, we examine these questions through a curated pre-read, a presentation from me, and facilitated discussion. We meet virtually for 90 minutes, connecting different perspectives to the decisions we’re making in our own work and lives.
Bring conflicting perspectives, unresolved questions, and unfinished thoughts. Together, we'll challenge assumptions and ask what we might try, change, or build.
Meet us in the Reading Room.
Your host: Ariba Jahan
I've led product strategy and customer experience transformation, built innovation practices, and helped organizations put emerging technology into practice. I've worked with organizations including the Ad Council, Anomaly, Google Shopping, TIAA, and Ally Bank.
Today, I focus on AI product strategy and organizational adoption: helping teams use AI well while strengthening the expertise that sets them apart.
The Reading Room brings that practical experience together with my background in bioengineering research, executive leadership, teaching, and facilitation. I design each session to connect research and evidence with the questions we're encountering in our own work and lives, making room for different perspectives and ideas still taking shape.
I write and host Unmissables and developed Cognitive Endurance: a human-AI practice for using AI to extend our intelligence while exercising agency and strengthening our judgment.
SELECTED FEATURES & RECOGNITION
Obama Foundation Leader · Global Top 100 Women of the Future
United Nations General Assembly · Google · Columbia University · Paramount