Pioneers of AI I gave AI a year of my life: tech journalist Joanna Stern
May 13, 2026
Joanna Stern, consumer tech journalist and author who spent a year embedding AI into daily life. She recounts experiments from using AI to write and research her book to testing robots, AI toys, Waymo rides, and even an AI romantic companion. Conversations cover AI’s varied effects on jobs, manners and emotional bonds, and how families and children adapt to living with intelligent systems.
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Episode notes
Agents Should Elevate Teams Not Just Individuals
- Think about AI augmenting teams, not just individuals.
- Sharif Mansoor argued that agents should elevate whole teams, using workflows where agents triage and humans review high-value tasks.
Use AI To Speed Workflows Not Replace Judgment
- Use AI to accelerate tasks but keep human judgment for core creative decisions.
- Joanna used AI to speed research and workflows writing her book, claiming it cut two years off the process while she kept authorship control.
AI Will Reshape Jobs Differently Across Fields
- Job impact from AI is nuanced: some roles shrink while others are enhanced.
- Joanna found customer service roles likely to be automated, whereas radiology is being augmented with tools like Transpara and ScreenPoint.
