For the first time in history, young people aren't the early adopters. And that's a problem.

Recorded live at MIT during the AI Powered Women Conference, this episode features Caren Cioffi, CEO and founder of Agenda Hero, an AI platform that eliminates manual calendar work. But this conversation goes far beyond productivity tools.

Caren reveals a troubling trend: Gen Z and Gen Alpha students are being actively blocked from using AI in schools. They're threatened with failing grades, disciplinary action, and even expulsion if caught using these tools. Meanwhile, the rest of the workforce is rapidly adopting AI and building fluency that will define the next decade of work.

The stakes are high. These are the students whose jobs will be most impacted by AI, yet they're being systematically prevented from learning how to work alongside it. While professionals are using AI to eliminate tedious work and focus on meaningful human connection, students are being taught to fear it.

This episode is for parents, educators, leaders, and anyone who cares about preparing the next generation for a world where AI is infrastructure, not optional.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why Gen Z and Gen Alpha are not adopting AI (and why that should worry us)
• How schools are punishing students for AI use instead of teaching responsible adoption
• The false choice between cheating and learning when it comes to AI tools
• How AI eliminates tedious work across professions (from doctors to lawyers to parents)
• Why curiosity matters more than skills in the AI era
• What happens when we free up human capacity for connection instead of paperwork
• How one founder built a global company solving a problem AI made newly possible
• The real risk of keeping our most capable generation on the sidelines

Erica and Caren discuss the uncomfortable truth that expensive college degrees may be preparing students for jobs that no longer exist, while simultaneously blocking them from the tools that will define their careers. But the conversation is grounded in optimism: when we eliminate the tedious, we create space for what truly matters.

If you're a parent wondering whether your kid should still study engineering, an educator trying to navigate AI policies, or a leader thinking about how to prepare the next generation, this episode will give you clarity without the panic.

👉 Don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we're helping people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.

Follow us and join the movement to shape the future before it shapes us.

🔗 Follow us and dive deeper:

On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com/

Greg Boone on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregboone

Erica Rooney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

© 2026 Walk West Production

What’s the difference between AI literacy and AI fluency - and why does it matter for leaders right now?

Recorded live at MIT during the AI Powered Women Conference, this episode of AI: Voice or Victim breaks down why understanding AI tools is no longer enough. Erica Rooney was joined by Elena Alikhachkina, a global technology and data leader with over 25 years of experience across companies like Dow Jones and Johnson & Johnson.

Together, they explore how AI has been influencing decisions in hiring, healthcare, finance, and content personalization for years - long before ChatGPT entered the spotlight. The real risk today isn’t AI itself, but passive leadership that fails to question, guide, or challenge automated systems.

This conversation is designed for executives, HR leaders, founders, and non-technical decision-makers who need practical clarity on AI without hype or jargon.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• The key difference between AI literacy and true AI fluency
• Why AI fluency is a leadership and behavioral skill, not a technical one
• How AI already impacts hiring, recruiting, healthcare, and financial decisions
• Where leaders unknowingly become “victims” of AI systems
• Why curiosity, critical thinking, and asking better questions are future-proof skills
• What it means to manage both human employees and AI-driven systems

If you’re responsible for people, strategy, or organizational decisions, this episode will help you move from reacting to AI - to shaping it with intention.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to AI: Voice or Victim
01:05 Live at MIT: AI-Powered Women Conference
02:10 Meet Elena Alikhachkina
03:40 AI Literacy vs AI Fluency
06:15 AI Before ChatGPT
08:40 AI in Hiring and Recruiting
11:10 When Leaders Become the Victim
13:55 The Three AI Opportunity Zones
17:45 Why Digital Transformations Fail
20:30 Leadership Mindset in the AI Era
24:10 Managing Digital Employees
27:45 Trust, Bias, and Overconfidence
31:10 Curiosity as a Leadership Skill
34:20 Teaching Better Questions
38:00 Human-to-AI Trust
41:15 The Future of AI Leadership
44:10 Elena’s AI Fluency Framework
47:30 Choose Your Role: Voice or Victim
49:00 Closing Thoughts

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we help people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.

Follow us and join the movement to shape the future — before it shapes us.

🔗 Follow us and dive deeper:

On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com/Greg Boone on LinkedIn:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregboone
Erica Rooney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/© 2025 Walk West Production

Molly Mae Potter has lived more careers than most of us could squeeze into a lifetime: Air Force flight test engineer in the back of an F-16, tech executive fixing organizational chaos, and now a security and compliance leader helping companies survive the wild west of AI. And she’ll be the first to tell you—none of us are fully prepared for what’s coming.

Recorded live at the AI Powered Women Conference at MIT, this conversation cuts through the hype and gets real about the new cybersecurity landscape. Molly reveals her own “oh shit” moment when she realized even Fortune 100 leaders aren’t asking the right AI questions, why traditional security frameworks are already outdated, and how attackers are using AI to scale social engineering at levels we’ve never seen before.

She also shares practical strategies individuals and families can use today—from AI inventories to household passphrases—to stay ahead of DeepFakes and digital manipulation. And for leaders? Molly lays out the mindset shift required to protect your people, your data, and your business when the rules are being rewritten in real time.

If you want a clearer view of the risks, the opportunities, and the future of AI-powered security, this is the episode you need.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we're helping people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.
Follow us and join the movement to shape the future — before it shapes us.

🔗 Follow us and dive deeper:
On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com/
Greg Boone on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregboone
Erica Rooney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/
Molly Mae Potter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/molly-mae-potter/
© 2025 Walk West Production

Marketing is in freefall. Search traffic is tanking. Cold email is useless. Paid media costs keep climbing. The playbook everyone relied on no longer works. Today’s guest, Marc Sirkin, Founder and Principal of Marc Sirkin Consulting and former CEO of Third Door Media (Semrush), breaks down what’s really happening.

Marc joins Greg Boone for a straight talk conversation about how AI has already reshaped marketing, sales, and go-to-market strategy. They dig into why 2022 was the real turning point, why leaders are still clinging to outdated metrics, and how activity is being confused for actual progress.

They get into:

• Why organic search has fallen off a cliff
• How AI-driven personalization rewrites SEO
• Why performance marketing math no longer holds up
• The return of brand and personality-led growth
• Why “just add GEO” is not a strategy
• How mid-market companies can win when big brands dominate every model

If you want a clear, unfiltered breakdown of what is changing and what leaders should actually focus on, this episode is it.

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we help people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.
Follow us and join the movement to shape the future before it shapes us.

🔗 Follow us and dive deeper:
On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com/

Greg Boone on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregboone
Erica Rooney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/© 2025 Walk West Production

When a group of powerhouse women at the MIT AI-Powered Women Conference asked ChatGPT one simple question, “What do you think I look like?” the results were… revealing. And not in a good way.

In this live episode from Boston, we sit down with Siri Swahari, Vice President & Partner at CGI, to unpack what happened that night, why AI keeps defaulting to the same stale stereotypes, and how leaders can push for systems that are actually fair, representative, and useful.

Siri breaks down:

The viral moment when AI generated bald white dudes for women of color

Why the problem isn’t “men vs women”… it’s the data

What organizations must fix before unleashing AI tools on their teams

How bias sneaks into models — even when intentions are good

Why representation, guardrails, and real stress-testing matter

What leaders should ask before adopting any AI solution

Why she’s cautious about AI’s pace — but still optimistic

And her work building The Women Executive Circle, a growing cross-state community supporting senior women leaders

If you work in HR, ops, tech, policy, or anywhere AI touches people — this episode will hit home.

CTA

👉 Watch the full episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/4D78uhi-rw0

AI is reshaping every job, every industry, and every leadership team — but most organizations still don’t know how to adopt it without causing chaos. In this episode, we sit down with Angela Liu (Founder & CEO, Ikaru Consulting) and Tom Simon (Growth Architect, Walk West) to cut through the noise and get real about what AI adoption looks like inside actual companies.

We get into the hard parts — the human resistance, the fear, the bad messaging from leadership, and the pressure to “just be curious” without any real training. Angela breaks down why protecting human dignity matters more than ever, and Tom calls out the ethical landmines leaders keep stepping on when they blame layoffs on AI.

If you're leading teams, navigating digital transformation, or trying to get your workforce future-ready, this conversation gives you a clearer path: what to prioritize, what to avoid, and how to build a culture that actually learns together instead of bracing for impact.

CHAPTERS

00:00 — Why human dignity still matters in the AI era
03:12 — What Angela learned at the AI Forward Conference
07:20 — Diversity, representation, and who’s missing from the room
10:05 — The environmental cost of AI no one talks about
14:30 — Small models, energy limits & the future of training
17:03 — Why leaders keep getting AI adoption wrong
20:12 — How culture shapes success (or failure)
25:45 — The messy reality of layoffs, scapegoating & ethics
28:50 — What an “AI-ready” workforce really looks like
31:22 — How Walk West built massive AI adoption internally
35:40 — Angela’s personal workflow with Claude
42:55 — The part nobody wants to admit: technology vs. humans
47:00 — Last Chat: what they’re actually using AI for
48:50 — Closing thoughts: What leaders must do now

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we're helping people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.
Follow us and join the movement to shape the future — before it shapes us.

🔗 Follow us and dive deeper:
On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com/

From Boston’s financial and tech corridor, Fidelity’s Pooja Basu, VP of Data Platforms, joins hosts Erica Rooney and Greg Boone to talk about what every company needs before diving into AI: clean, accurate data.

Speaking live from the AI Powered Women Conference at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Pooja explains why data governance is the real foundation of AI innovation—and how organizations can balance speed, accuracy, and privacy without losing their competitive edge.

This episode of AI: Voice or Victim spotlights the people shaping New England’s AI future—where data, ethics, and human judgment still lead the way.

Chapters

00:00 – Why Data Is the Foundation of AI
01:05 – Meet Pooja Basu, VP of Data Platforms at Fidelity
02:20 – The “Garbage In, Garbage Out” Rule Explained
04:00 – Building Trust Through Data Governance
06:30 – How Dirty Data Slows Down AI Progress
09:00 – Balancing Speed and Accuracy in AI Adoption
11:00 – Real-World Challenges of Implementing AI
13:00 – When Users Don’t Know How to Consume AI
15:00 – Training People to Trust and Use AI Tools
17:00 – How to Protect Your Personal Data
18:30 – Why Empathy and Compassion Still Matter in Tech

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we’re helping people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.

Follow us and join the movement to shape the future—before it shapes us.

🔗 On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com

How do you lead when the rules of work are being rewritten by AI?

What does leadership look like when AI automates nearly everything...but empathy, creativity, and connection still set you apart?

Live from the AI-Powered Women Conference at MIT, hosts Erica Rooney and Greg Boone (AISerious™) sit down with Jennie Blumenthal, CEO & Founder of Corporate Rehab Leadership, to explore how leaders can evolve beyond hustle culture and embrace a more human-centered approach in the AI era.

Jennie shares insights from her work with executives across industries on how to redesign leadership habits, build stress resilience, and integrate AI tools that protect—not replace—our humanity.

💬 Topics Covered:
00:00 – Redefining hustle culture in the age of AI
04:00 – From burnout to balance: the new leadership framework
07:00 – Empathy vs. efficiency: why human connection still wins
10:00 – How leaders can “audit” their calendars for AI leverage
12:00 – The neuroplasticity debate: are we losing critical thinking?
17:00 – Why most AI initiatives fail (and how to fix them)
21:00 – Blockbuster vs. Netflix: a cautionary tale for laggards
26:00 – The new survival skills: empathy, adaptability, and vision

👉 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone navigating the AI revolution.

Subscribe to AI: Voice or Victim for more conversations that move you from AI anxious to AI curious. Hosted by Erica Rooney and Greg Boone aka AISerious™, we're helping people and organizations embrace AI ethically, strategically, and with humanity at the center.

🔗 Follow us and dive deeper:
On the web: https://voiceorvictim.com
Greg Boone on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregboone
Erica Rooney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericarooney/

© 2025 Walk West Production