#shifthappens in the Digital Workplace Podcast

Moving AI into production requires clarity on what AI is allowed to do and who is accountable for the outcome. In Part 2 of our two-part series, Luise Freese returns to walk through how organizations can design AI agents with clear boundaries, embed governance directly into delivery, and build the operating model needed to scale. She also shares her 90-day approach for turning an early-stage proof-of-concept into a repeatable, production-ready capability.

Organizations aren't short on AI enthusiasm — they're short on the ability to turn that enthusiasm into anything that actually runs. In Part 1 of our two-part series, Luise Freese, developer, consultant, and author breaks down why so many AI initiatives stall after the demo. She covers how to evaluate use cases with intent, why data readiness shapes everything AI can deliver, and what leaders should be asking to turn early momentum into lasting operational capability.

Most companies think they have a messaging problem. In reality, they haven't defined who they are and their place in the market. 
In this episode of #shifthappens, Mike Damphousse, co-founder of Category Design Advisors and co-author of The Category Creation Formula, breaks down why standing out goes beyond being better than the competition. When you own the category, the market doesn't compare you to others — it chooses you on your terms. He explains how category design moves beyond marketing into company-wide strategy, why AI alone won't differentiate your business, and how the most successful companies shape how the market thinks before competitors can.

GenAI has industrialized social engineering. The human entry point is now automated, personalized, and scalable, and that changes how security leaders must defend. 
In this #shifthappens episode, Andrew Carr, Managing Director and Global Head of Threat Management for Booz Allen Hamilton's Commercial Incident Response team, joins AvePoint Chief Brand Officer Dux Raymond Sy and AvePoint Chief Risk, Privacy, and Information Security Officer Dana Simberkoff to unpack what's genuinely new about AI-driven attacks — and what organizations need to do about it.  
Drawing on frontline incident response across healthcare, financial services, manufacturing, and more, Andrew explains why attackers no longer need to compromise systems to extract millions, why built-in trust is now a liability, and why the fundamentals that have been ignored for too long – zero trust, data classification, least privilege – are exactly what this moment demands. He also breaks down how AI should be used in defense: not as autopilot, but as a human-augmented layer that triages, prioritizes, and buys decision-makers the time they no longer have.

Most organizations gave everyone access to AI — and then watched them use it as a search engine.  
In this episode of #shifthappens, Marco Galimberti, CEO of Venchi Asia Pacific, explains why the real shift is AI use. Drawing from his experience leading a global premium brand across manufacturing, retail, and consumer engagement, Marco breaks down where AI creates immediate value (process automation, pattern recognition, shift optimization) and where the longer-term opportunity lies: transforming how brands understand and respond to what customers actually want.  
The conversation covers why data overabundance is more dangerous than data scarcity, why AI currently works better in the hands of experienced professionals who can verify its outputs, why education systems need to prioritize fundamentals over tools, and why leaders who use AI openly and normalize it across their teams are the ones driving real adoption.