# Karim R. Lakhani - Guest Profile **Appears in:** [[Harvard AI Professor - The People Most at Risk From AI Arent Who You Think]] (Silicon Valley Girl, 2026-10-30) · **Profile built:** 2026-11-01 from the sources linked below. Anything not confirmed from a source is labelled. ## Who he is Karim R. Lakhani is a professor at Harvard Business School who studies technology management, innovation and, lately, how generative AI changes knowledge work. He began with open-source software and crowdsourced innovation (what motivates people to contribute, and why many outsiders can solve problems that insiders cannot) and now runs the field experiments at BCG, Procter & Gamble and H&M that the interview draws on. He describes himself in the video as "still a nerdy researcher" who wants causal evidence rather than opinion. ## Background and credentials - **Current roles:** Dorothy & Michael Hintze Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School (since 2021); co-founder and chair of the Digital, Data & Design (D^3) Institute at Harvard, now the **HBS AI Institute** (chair since 2022 per his CV); founder and co-director of the **Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard (LISH)** (from 2010), which includes the NASA Tournament Laboratory (more than 650 challenges run via TopCoder per his CV); co-founder and co-chair of the Harvard Business Analytics Program; developer of the required MBA course **Data Science and AI for Leaders**. Sources: [HBS faculty profile](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/profile.aspx?facId=240491) (the page itself blocked my fetch; the content was read from the search result), [his Harvard scholar bio](https://scholar.harvard.edu/klakhani/biocv), [CV (Mar 2025, PDF)](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Profile%20Files/Lakhani_Karim_CV_MAR_2025_sharing_60e8448a-f383-4f04-86cc-bf6ce86c23c5.pdf), [HBS AI Institute article](https://aiinstitute.hbs.edu/rethinking-ai-innovation-ownership/). - **Earlier HBS ranks (CV):** Assistant Professor 2006 to 2012; Associate Professor 2012 to 2016; Charles E. Wilson Professor 2017 to 2021. - **Education (CV):** PhD in Management, MIT Sloan School, 2006 (committee chair Eric von Hippel); SM in Technology and Policy, MIT, 1999; B.Eng. in Electrical Engineering and Management, McMaster University, 1993 (summa cum laude). - **Other roles (CV and press):** Academic Partner at Flagship Pioneering; board member of VideaHealth; board member of Cloudflare (appointment announced Mar 27, 2025, [press release](https://www.cloudflare.com/press/press-releases/2025/cloudflare-appoints-three-new-board-members/)); co-founder of the Aspire Institute; earlier work at GE Healthcare and as a BCG consultant; Aga Khan Foundation International Scholarship holder. His older Harvard scholar bio mentions a Mozilla Corporation board seat; that page is undated, so treat it as **unverified and possibly outdated**. - **Disclosed ties:** the NBER paper on P&G discloses that he was a paid consultant to Procter & Gamble in 2021 to 2022, and that P&G gave gifts to the D^3 Institute in 2023 to 2025 ([NBER w33641](https://www.nber.org/papers/w33641)). - **Personal (his own account in the video, unverified):** finished his undergraduate degree in 1993 (matches the CV); says his wife is an artist and his daughter studied industrial design. ## Other appearances Dates come from the platform's own metadata (YouTube upload date, or the page date for non-video items). I did not watch these; titles are as listed. ### 2026 - 2026-08-12 - Elsevier / Osmosis - "How Healthcare Can Harness the Potential of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8Ef6DW8E5I) - 2026-05-28 - World Salon (online event) - "The AI Value Creation" panel - [event page](https://world-salon.com/events/180) - 2026-02-04 - WBUR *Here & Now* - "How to use AI in work and life" (about 7 minute radio segment) - [WBUR](https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2026/02/04/how-to-use-ai) - 2026-02-03 - Harvard Data Science Initiative talk - "When AI Is Smart, When It Is Wrong, and When It Replaces the Team" (Science Center, Harvard affiliates only, so no public recording expected) - [HDSI page](https://datascience.harvard.edu/calendar_event/karim-lakhani-when-ai-is-smart-when-it-is-wrong-and-when-it-replaces-the-team/) ### 2025 - 2025-12-26 - Brew Markets - "When Algorithms Become Your Boss" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yauu8KC4sgo) - 2025-12-15 - The CEO Project - "Accelerating AI through Learn, Do, Imagine, Act and Care Approach" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO02sGgQhmk) - 2025-10-24 - Brew Markets - "How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Business" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74ggOBgEruE) - 2025-07-25 - TEDxBoston - "AI Needs Clinical Trials: Harvard's Findings on Democratization" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb9b8j0-RIQ) - 2025-06-18 - Microsoft - "AI is changing the rules of business, see how to adapt from a Harvard Business School professor" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gol8PECt-To) - 2025-04-07 - HBS Club of the GCC - "Karim Lakhani on the Rise of AI and the Role of Leadership!" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fhw9_c4diDE) ### 2022 to 2024 - 2024-12-30 - ESG MENA - "Bridging Academia and Industry" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrMpMYlCUwM) - 2023-08-24 - Harvard Business Review - "How to Lead and Reskill in the Age of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVdQkQjk9gk) - 2023-08-07 - HBS AI Institute - "Competing in the Age of AI" talk (about 1:20:27) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmgcA93W-Q) - 2023-08-03 - HBR *The New World of Work* with Adi Ignatius - "AI Won't Replace Humans, But Humans With AI Will Replace Humans Without AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNGr99LoTsg) (podcast aggregators show a misleading 2026 date for this episode) - 2023-08-02 - CNBC Events - "Harvard Business School Professor on using A.I. to optimize your small business" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTVnSYc0-l4) - 2022-11-24 - CXOTalk #768 - "Digital Transformation Strategy: Become an AI Company" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXMnQBStf7Q) ### 2020 to 2021 (*Competing in the Age of AI* book tour) - 2021-04-13 - Ai4 - "Competing in the Age of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn0zQmKXNXY) - 2021-04-09 - Stellant Group - "Successfully Competing in the Age of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqeZ3n4cHEo) - 2020-12-19 - Zetta Venture Partners - "Zetta Bytes Live: Fireside Chat" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC4UogwN7Yg) - 2020-10-08 - Center of Applied Data Science - "Competing in the Age of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbZvtQQr9do) - 2020-07-28 - Designing for Analytics - episode #044 - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqkBqdRlrfQ) - 2020-05-15 - cackles - "Competing in the age of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0zI4dhG-sM) - 2020-03-09 - HBS Digital Initiative - "New rules in the age of AI" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5242n_W9vA) ### Earlier (open source and crowdsourcing era) - 2017-06-16 - Harvard IT Summit - keynote - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2p5sDJAg4Q) - 2014-07-01 - Collective Intelligence 2014 - talk - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sn44vNdstGc) - 2013-11-13 - Harvard Center for International Development - GEM13, "Unlocking Knowledge Through Crowds" - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB4DUGmAOek) - 2009-07-17 - X PRIZE - "incentive2innovate" conference - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUlFMxb0p7o) The Silicon Valley Girl episode is also on podcast apps under a different title, "Harvard Professor: What Every MBA Student Now Learns About AI" (per a Snipd listing found in search); the YouTube title is "Harvard AI Professor: The People Most at Risk From AI Aren't Who You Think." ## What he has written ### Books - **Competing in the Age of AI: Strategy and Leadership When Algorithms and Networks Run the World** (with Marco Iansiti), Harvard Business Review Press, 2020. Awards and lists: Axiom Business Book Awards gold medal for best AI / robotics / algorithms book (2021); also on year-end lists from Bloomberg, Forbes, Inc. and strategy+business, per the HBS profile. - **Revolutionizing Innovation: Users, Communities, and Openness** (edited with Dietmar Harhoff), MIT Press, 2016. - **Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software** (edited with Joseph Feller, Brian Fitzgerald, Scott Hissam), MIT Press, 2005. ### Recent AI research behind the interview - **"Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality"** (Dell'Acqua, McFowland, Mollick, Lifshitz-Assaf, Kellogg, Rajendran, Krayer, Candelon, Lakhani). HBS Working Paper 24-013, Sept 2023, [SSRN](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4573321); published in *Organization Science* per his [Substack post of Mar 16, 2026](https://professorkl.substack.com/p/discovering-ais-jagged-frontier-and). - **"Cyborgs, Centaurs and Self-Automators: The Three Modes of Human-GenAI Knowledge Work and Their Implications for Skilling and the Future of Expertise"** (Randazzo, Lifshitz, Kellogg, Dell'Acqua, Mollick, Candelon, Lakhani). HBS Working Paper 26-036, [PDF](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/26-036_e7d0e59a-904c-49f1-b610-56eb2bdfe6f9.pdf); [MIT Sloan write-up](https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/3-ways-to-use-ai-are-you-a-cyborg-a-centaur-or-a-self-automator). - **"The Cybernetic Teammate: A Field Experiment on Generative AI Reshaping Teamwork and Expertise"** (Dell'Acqua, Ayoubi, Lifshitz, Sadun, Mollick, Mollick, Han, Goldman, Nair, Taub, Lakhani). NBER w33641 (2025), [NBER](https://www.nber.org/papers/w33641); published online in *Organization Science*, June 2026, doi 10.1287/orsc.2025.20702. - **"Ideas Are a Dime a Dozen with GenAI, but Who Will Champion Them? Gaining and Losing Idea Ownership in Human-AI Knowledge Work"** (Lazar, Lifshitz, Qadri, Yahav, Lakhani). HBS Working Paper 27-010, July 2026, [PDF](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/27-010_fb834cd5-476c-4ad1-95f5-7b8532617984.pdf); [summary](https://aiinstitute.hbs.edu/rethinking-ai-innovation-ownership/). - **"The Crowdless Future? Generative AI and Creative Problem-Solving"** (Boussioux, Lane, Zhang, Jacimovic, Lakhani), *Organization Science* 35(5), 2024 (per CV). - **"Strategy in an Era of Abundant Expertise"** (Yerramilli-Rao, Corwin, Li, Lakhani), *Harvard Business Review*, Mar-Apr 2025 (per CV). ### Articles and earlier papers (from his CV) - **"AI Won't Replace Humans, But Humans With AI Will Replace Humans Without AI,"** *HBR*, Aug 4, 2023: <https://hbr.org/2023/08/ai-wont-replace-humans-but-humans-with-ai-will-replace-humans-without-ai> - **"Competing in the Age of AI,"** (Iansiti & Lakhani) *HBR*, Jan-Feb 2020. - **"The Truth About Blockchain,"** (Iansiti & Lakhani) *HBR*, Jan-Feb 2017. - **"Using the Crowd as an Innovation Partner,"** (Boudreau & Lakhani) *HBR*, Apr 2013; a finalist for the HBR-McKinsey Award. - **"How Open Source Software Works: 'Free' User-to-User Assistance,"** (Lakhani & von Hippel) *Research Policy* 32(6), 2003. - **"Why Hackers Do What They Do: Understanding Motivation and Effort in Free/Open Source Software Projects,"** (Lakhani & Wolf) in *Perspectives on Free and Open Source Software*, MIT Press, 2005. - **"Toward a More Scientific Science,"** (Azoulay et al.) *Science*, 2018; Teplitskiy et al., *PNAS*, 2022; Mak et al., *JAMA Oncology*, 2019 (examples of his non-AI research; see the CV for the full list). ### Newsletter - **Learn with Professor KL** (Substack), launched Oct 19, 2023: <https://professorkl.substack.com/> (archive: <https://professorkl.substack.com/archive>). Example posts: the Data Science and AI for Leaders course launch (Feb 9, 2025); "Jagged Roads, Jagged Intelligence" (Aug 9, 2025); "Discovering AI's jagged frontier, and what we've learned since" (Mar 16, 2026). ## Notes on checking - The video says the BCG experiment had "about 800" consultants; the Jagged Frontier paper reports 758. - Fabrizio Dell'Acqua, whom he mentions, lists himself as an incoming Michigan Ross assistant professor and an HBS AI Institute researcher ([site](https://www.fabriziodellacqua.com/)). - I could not open the HBS profile page directly (HTTP 403), so the faculty-profile details come from search-result text and the CV; the CV PDF is dated Mar 2025, so later appointments may be missing. - The alternate podcast title is from a search-result listing; I did not keep the exact episode URL.