The Edge of Now LAUNCHES TODAY! - Why We Created It and Where the Conversation Begins

The world does not need another podcast. I agree. But I do believe we need a better conversation about AI and the future of work.

Much of the conversation today focuses on which model was released, which company raised money, or which jobs someone believes will disappear. Those developments matter, but they do not address the questions leaders and organizations need to confront. What does AI mean for people, work, leadership, education, and humanity? What choices are we making now, and what are those choices creating?

That is why Jess Von Bank and I created The Edge of Now.

We have spent many years working with leaders and organizations as technology has moved faster than the systems, skills, and mindsets built around it. That gap is widening, which makes it increasingly important to examine technology and humanity together. They are not separate conversations anymore.

The podcast comes from the same thinking behind Now to Next. We created Now to Next as a studio because a studio is a place where ideas are tested, disciplines come together, and people build something that did not exist before. This moment does not need more fixed answers. It needs research, questions, experimentation, and honest conversation alongside the people shaping what comes next.

Each episode of The Edge of Now will begin with signals from what is happening around us. Jess and I will ask four questions: What happened? What is the story behind it? What is the human part? Where is the edge we should be thinking about?

We will bring different perspectives, challenge each other, and sometimes disagree. The goal is not to force clean answers onto a world that is still changing. The goal is to help people think more clearly about the choices in front of us.

I truly hope you will listen and more importantly - SHARE. We are a community and the more we act and learn together, the better we will be as an industry, as professionals and as humans.

AI-native leadership begins with rethinking how work, people, and organizational value come together. I have been talking about this and realizing this a ton lately.

AI is changing what work is, but many organizations are still treating it as a faster way to complete work they already understand. They are introducing copilots, automating tasks, and measuring usage while leaving the structure of work largely untouched.

The deeper change is already visible. People are contributing across boundaries that organizational charts continue to present as fixed. Someone hired into engineering may also create value in marketing, finance, design, operations, or customer experience. The contribution has become more fluid, but the systems surrounding it have not.

We still write job descriptions as containers and build teams around vertical reporting lines. We often decide who belongs in a conversation based on where they sit in the organization rather than the perspective, judgment, or capability they can bring to the outcome.

This is not primarily a technology problem, it is a leadership problem.

Organizations also need a better way to distinguish between different kinds of work. Routine problems have answers we already know, and the objective is usually speed, consistency, or efficiency. Complex problems may be difficult, but we understand the methods required to address them.

Frontier problems are different because both the answer and the method still need to be discovered. These are the questions that require judgment, experimentation, organizational context, and the combination of human and machine intelligence.

Yet many companies are using their most capable technology for routine tasks while leaving their most consequential problems untouched. Producing an email or presentation more quickly may be useful, but it should not automatically be confused with transformation.

Leaders need to understand the problem before deciding how intelligence should be applied. That distinction will become increasingly important as models become more capable and organizations face more choices about where to use them.

AI-native leadership is not defined by the number of tools a leader uses. It is reflected in how leaders think about work, how they model new behaviors, and whether they create room for people to contribute beyond the boundaries of their formal roles.

This requires more than encouraging experimentation. Leaders must provide direction about the outcomes that matter, make learning safe, and build the organizational context that allows people and technology to make better decisions over time.

The technology needed to create more adaptive organizations already exists. The harder work is reconsidering the assumptions and structures that keep people in boxes after the work has already moved beyond them.

Jess Von Bank and I discuss this in the first episode of The Edge of Now. It is a conversation about AI, but it is also a conversation about leadership, organizational learning, and whether we are prepared to change the way we see human contribution.

The work is already moving. Leadership now has to decide whether it is willing to move with it. Come be on the Edge with us!

Links to the Episode:

Apple->https://tinyurl.com/3v8prmhd

Spotify-> https://tinyurl.com/4n5u5vyd

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.