Centre for Software and IT Management to host panel on ‘The Work We Keep: What Will Still Be Human in a Future Led by AI and Machines’
The session will be held on 18 September 2025
1 September, 2025, Bengaluru: The Centre for Software and IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a panel discussion titled, ‘The Work We Keep: What Will Still Be Human in a Future Led by AI and Machines’, on 18 September 2025 at 6:30 PM (IST).
As part of its initiative to promote the dissemination and application of knowledge for the benefit of academic and industry professionals, CSITM will host Dr. Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management, Director, Center for Human Resources, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Elizabeth Gerber, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and (by courtesy) Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University; and Dr. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Professor, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science. The panel will be moderated by Prof. Malavika R. Harita, Founder & CEO, Brand Circle, and Member, IIMB Board of Governors.
Please click HERE to register. The Zoom link for the webinar will be shared upon completion of the registration.
Abstract
Big companies like Alpha, Beta and Gamma laid off more than 100,000 workers between 2024 and 2025. At first glance, these layoffs appeared to be driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI). However, strategic shifts and investor pressures were often the main catalysts, not the immediate replacement of workers by machines. Many believe that as AI capabilities expand and adoption deepens, it will soon become a direct driver of workforce reductions. While AI is already becoming a key tool for efficiency and scalability, most current layoffs reflect budget constraints and changing business priorities rather than automation gains.
AI is rapidly changing workplaces and redefining traditional jobs. Workers still start their days early and manage dashboards, but AI programs are increasingly handling coding, data analysis, internal communications, and performance reviews. This ongoing transformation is altering how people and organizations compete. Experts now work alongside AI-powered teams capable of performing high-skill tasks with speed and precision. As companies prioritize speed and automation, important questions arise about what may be lost in the process.
The impact of AI integration has been uneven. In lower-skill areas such as customer service or clerical processing, automation has sometimes proved more costly than anticipated because of frequent updates, exception handling, and retraining (Chui et al., 2018). In high-value knowledge work, AI delivers strong results only when workflows, hierarchies, and decision-making structures are redesigned. Without these changes, companies are left stuck between ambition and operational capacity. Research shows that many layoffs attributed to AI are the result of short-term cost-cutting rather than a genuine commitment to digital transformation (Westerman, 2020). AI-enabled remote and hybrid work has brought flexibility but also ambiguity. When implemented thoughtfully, AI can complement rather than replace human work. Well-integrated AI can enhance imagination, improve collaboration, and increase productivity across sectors (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2017).
The webinar brings together global thought leaders in management strategy, organizational behavior, and innovation to explore fundamental questions such as: What aspects of work remain irreducibly human in an AI-first era? And how can companies use AI without losing the essence of meaningful work? Participants will gain strategies to remain valuable, agile, and human in an increasingly machine-mediated future.
Speaker profiles:
Dr. Peter Cappelli
Dr. Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, served as Senior Advisor to the Kingdom of Bahrain for Employment Policy from 2003-2005, was a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore, and was Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce from 1990-1998. He was recently named by HR Magazine as one of the top 5 most influential management thinkers, by NPR as one of the 50 influencers in the field of aging and was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He received the Michael Losey Award for lifetime research from the Society for Human Resource Management and an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Liege in Belgium. He is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and writes a monthly column. His work on performance management, agile systems, and hiring practices, and other workplace topics appears in the Harvard Business Review. His latest book is In Praise of the Office – about remote work (Wharton Publishing 2025).
Dr. Elizabeth Gerber
Dr. Elizabeth Gerber helps organizations design and implement new technologies to collaborate effectively. She studies how emerging technologies enable novel ways to share and create information with diverse stakeholders to solve complex problems, how new information sources change work practices, and how shifts in work transform organizational roles. Her research spans management, computer science, and design and is supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and industry partners.
Dr. Gerber’s expertise is grounded in her formal training in design, innovation, and management science at Dartmouth College and Stanford University, where she helped establish the Business and Design Initiative at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. Her work has been featured in NPR, ABC, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, and Wired.
She is a Professor at Northwestern University, Founding Co-Director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction + Design, and Founder of Design for America, an award-winning network that prepares the next generation of community-focused innovators. She also serves as Founding Associate Editor of Transactions in Social Computing and produces the Technical Difficulties Podcast, centering female leaders in technology.
Dr. Gerber has received numerous awards for her scholarship and teaching, including the ACM SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Excellence Award, Beckman Trust Award, IEEE Teaching Excellence Award, and Northwestern’s Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury
Dr. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury is a Professor in the Management Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a globally recognized expert on the Future of Work. Prior to LSE, he served as a faculty member at faculty at Wharton and Harvard Business School. In 2023, Forbes included him in their Future of Work 50 list, and in 2024, he was named to the TIME-Charter 30 list of thought leaders shaping the future of work. He also serves as an Associate Editor at Management Science.
Dr. Choudhury studies how technology is transforming where and how we work and has pioneered research on how ‘Work from Anywhere’ (WFA) affects workers, organizations, communities, and smaller towns. He also examines the impact of AI on organizations and how AI and automation can help both desk and deskless workers work from anywhere. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including Organization Science, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Development Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, and The Review of Financial Studies.
His book, The World is Your Office, published in April 2025, became a National Bestseller in the United States. His work has been cited by BBC, CNN, Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, Fortune, Freakonomics, Al Jazeera, El País, and Times of India, among others. He has delivered keynotes and advised organizations such as Atlassian, the British Parliament, the Council on Foreign Relations, Deel, Google, ITC, Young Presidents’ Organization, and the United Nations. Before entering academia, Dr. Choudhury worked at McKinsey & Company and Microsoft. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University and holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Prof. Malavika R. Harita
Prof. Malavika R. Harita is passionate about mentoring startups and women entrepreneurs. She is a Communication Evangelist, Brand Strategist, and Teacher.
She serves as Resident Mentor at NSRCEL, the incubation hub of IIM Bangalore, where she actively mentors startups in both profit and non-profit sectors. Beyond NSRCEL, she is associated with several incubators across the country.
Ms. Harita is a member of the Board of Governors of IIM Bangalore and IIM Visakhapatnam, serves on the Governing Council of Mount Carmel College, is Chairperson of AIM IIMV Field, and Independent Director at Symphony Limited. She is also Chairman of the Big Bang Awards Committee and Treasurer of the Advertising Club Bangalore.
With over 30 years of teaching experience, she has taught at leading postgraduate institutions in India and abroad. She is also deeply engaged in executive education, running workshops and programs for practicing managers. Backed by 44 years of experience in marketing, communication, and entrepreneurship, Ms. Harita has expertise in brand consultancy and strategic planning. She founded and led Saatchi & Saatchi Focus in India as CEO for 25 years.
She was among the first Gurukul Chevening Scholars, chosen by the British Government for a special program at the London School of Economics. At IIM Bangalore, she is the first woman to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award, deliver the Founder’s Day Lecture, serve as President of the Alumni Association, and hold a seat on the IIMB Board in its 50-year history. She is also a TEDx Speaker.
Centre for Software and IT Management to host panel on ‘The Work We Keep: What Will Still Be Human in a Future Led by AI and Machines’
The session will be held on 18 September 2025
1 September, 2025, Bengaluru: The Centre for Software and IT Management (CSITM) at IIM Bangalore will host a panel discussion titled, ‘The Work We Keep: What Will Still Be Human in a Future Led by AI and Machines’, on 18 September 2025 at 6:30 PM (IST).
As part of its initiative to promote the dissemination and application of knowledge for the benefit of academic and industry professionals, CSITM will host Dr. Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management, Director, Center for Human Resources, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania; Dr. Elizabeth Gerber, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and (by courtesy) Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University; and Dr. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Professor, Department of Management, London School of Economics and Political Science. The panel will be moderated by Prof. Malavika R. Harita, Founder & CEO, Brand Circle, and Member, IIMB Board of Governors.
Please click HERE to register. The Zoom link for the webinar will be shared upon completion of the registration.
Abstract
Big companies like Alpha, Beta and Gamma laid off more than 100,000 workers between 2024 and 2025. At first glance, these layoffs appeared to be driven by advances in artificial intelligence (AI). However, strategic shifts and investor pressures were often the main catalysts, not the immediate replacement of workers by machines. Many believe that as AI capabilities expand and adoption deepens, it will soon become a direct driver of workforce reductions. While AI is already becoming a key tool for efficiency and scalability, most current layoffs reflect budget constraints and changing business priorities rather than automation gains.
AI is rapidly changing workplaces and redefining traditional jobs. Workers still start their days early and manage dashboards, but AI programs are increasingly handling coding, data analysis, internal communications, and performance reviews. This ongoing transformation is altering how people and organizations compete. Experts now work alongside AI-powered teams capable of performing high-skill tasks with speed and precision. As companies prioritize speed and automation, important questions arise about what may be lost in the process.
The impact of AI integration has been uneven. In lower-skill areas such as customer service or clerical processing, automation has sometimes proved more costly than anticipated because of frequent updates, exception handling, and retraining (Chui et al., 2018). In high-value knowledge work, AI delivers strong results only when workflows, hierarchies, and decision-making structures are redesigned. Without these changes, companies are left stuck between ambition and operational capacity. Research shows that many layoffs attributed to AI are the result of short-term cost-cutting rather than a genuine commitment to digital transformation (Westerman, 2020). AI-enabled remote and hybrid work has brought flexibility but also ambiguity. When implemented thoughtfully, AI can complement rather than replace human work. Well-integrated AI can enhance imagination, improve collaboration, and increase productivity across sectors (Brynjolfsson & McAfee, 2017).
The webinar brings together global thought leaders in management strategy, organizational behavior, and innovation to explore fundamental questions such as: What aspects of work remain irreducibly human in an AI-first era? And how can companies use AI without losing the essence of meaningful work? Participants will gain strategies to remain valuable, agile, and human in an increasingly machine-mediated future.
Speaker profiles:
Dr. Peter Cappelli
Dr. Peter Cappelli is the George W. Taylor Professor of Management at The Wharton School and Director of Wharton’s Center for Human Resources. He is also a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, MA, served as Senior Advisor to the Kingdom of Bahrain for Employment Policy from 2003-2005, was a Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Manpower for Singapore, and was Co-Director of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center on the Educational Quality of the Workforce from 1990-1998. He was recently named by HR Magazine as one of the top 5 most influential management thinkers, by NPR as one of the 50 influencers in the field of aging and was elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Human Resources. He received the Michael Losey Award for lifetime research from the Society for Human Resource Management and an honorary Doctorate degree from the University of Liege in Belgium. He is a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal and writes a monthly column. His work on performance management, agile systems, and hiring practices, and other workplace topics appears in the Harvard Business Review. His latest book is In Praise of the Office – about remote work (Wharton Publishing 2025).
Dr. Elizabeth Gerber
Dr. Elizabeth Gerber helps organizations design and implement new technologies to collaborate effectively. She studies how emerging technologies enable novel ways to share and create information with diverse stakeholders to solve complex problems, how new information sources change work practices, and how shifts in work transform organizational roles. Her research spans management, computer science, and design and is supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and industry partners.
Dr. Gerber’s expertise is grounded in her formal training in design, innovation, and management science at Dartmouth College and Stanford University, where she helped establish the Business and Design Initiative at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design. Her work has been featured in NPR, ABC, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, The Guardian, Harvard Business Review, and Wired.
She is a Professor at Northwestern University, Founding Co-Director of the Center for Human-Computer Interaction + Design, and Founder of Design for America, an award-winning network that prepares the next generation of community-focused innovators. She also serves as Founding Associate Editor of Transactions in Social Computing and produces the Technical Difficulties Podcast, centering female leaders in technology.
Dr. Gerber has received numerous awards for her scholarship and teaching, including the ACM SIGCHI Societal Impact Award, Smithsonian Cooper Hewitt Design Excellence Award, Beckman Trust Award, IEEE Teaching Excellence Award, and Northwestern’s Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence.
Dr. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury
Dr. Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury is a Professor in the Management Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a globally recognized expert on the Future of Work. Prior to LSE, he served as a faculty member at faculty at Wharton and Harvard Business School. In 2023, Forbes included him in their Future of Work 50 list, and in 2024, he was named to the TIME-Charter 30 list of thought leaders shaping the future of work. He also serves as an Associate Editor at Management Science.
Dr. Choudhury studies how technology is transforming where and how we work and has pioneered research on how ‘Work from Anywhere’ (WFA) affects workers, organizations, communities, and smaller towns. He also examines the impact of AI on organizations and how AI and automation can help both desk and deskless workers work from anywhere. His research has been published in leading academic journals, including Organization Science, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Development Economics, The Review of Economics and Statistics, and The Review of Financial Studies.
His book, The World is Your Office, published in April 2025, became a National Bestseller in the United States. His work has been cited by BBC, CNN, Financial Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Forbes, Fortune, Freakonomics, Al Jazeera, El País, and Times of India, among others. He has delivered keynotes and advised organizations such as Atlassian, the British Parliament, the Council on Foreign Relations, Deel, Google, ITC, Young Presidents’ Organization, and the United Nations. Before entering academia, Dr. Choudhury worked at McKinsey & Company and Microsoft. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University and holds degrees from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur and the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta.
Prof. Malavika R. Harita
Prof. Malavika R. Harita is passionate about mentoring startups and women entrepreneurs. She is a Communication Evangelist, Brand Strategist, and Teacher.
She serves as Resident Mentor at NSRCEL, the incubation hub of IIM Bangalore, where she actively mentors startups in both profit and non-profit sectors. Beyond NSRCEL, she is associated with several incubators across the country.
Ms. Harita is a member of the Board of Governors of IIM Bangalore and IIM Visakhapatnam, serves on the Governing Council of Mount Carmel College, is Chairperson of AIM IIMV Field, and Independent Director at Symphony Limited. She is also Chairman of the Big Bang Awards Committee and Treasurer of the Advertising Club Bangalore.
With over 30 years of teaching experience, she has taught at leading postgraduate institutions in India and abroad. She is also deeply engaged in executive education, running workshops and programs for practicing managers. Backed by 44 years of experience in marketing, communication, and entrepreneurship, Ms. Harita has expertise in brand consultancy and strategic planning. She founded and led Saatchi & Saatchi Focus in India as CEO for 25 years.
She was among the first Gurukul Chevening Scholars, chosen by the British Government for a special program at the London School of Economics. At IIM Bangalore, she is the first woman to receive the Distinguished Alumni Award, deliver the Founder’s Day Lecture, serve as President of the Alumni Association, and hold a seat on the IIMB Board in its 50-year history. She is also a TEDx Speaker.