The AI Drop™

The AI Drop #10: Before the Briefing: A GC's Guide to AI in the Boardroom, with Elizabeth Bieber

Most boards today have no clear owner for AI oversight and according to Freshfields Partner Elizabeth Bieber. That may not be fatal, but it is a problem that needs a plan. Anna Gressel and Leza, who leads Freshfields' shareholder engagement and activism defense practice, dig into the practical challenges General Counsels face when preparing board briefings on AI. They explore the tension between presenting a polished, "bow on top" strategy and the reality that AI moves faster than quarterly board meetings. Leza argues that effective governance isn't about having the policy — it's about making the policy drive the right behavior. The conversation also covers how AI should reshape committee charters across audit, compensation, and nominating governance — and whether directors themselves should have guardrails around their own use of AI tools. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Elizabeth "Leza" Bieber | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #9: Trust in the Balance: Navigating Reality in the AI Age with Claire Leibowicz

As the line between real and synthetic blurs, trust is becoming one of the defining challenges of the AI era. In this episode, Anna Gressel and Claire Leibowicz (Director of AI, Trust, and Society at the Partnership on AI (PAI)) explore how synthetic media is reshaping authenticity - well beyond deepfakes - raising complex questions about misrepresentation, context, and evidence. They discuss emerging transparency tools, from watermarking to provenance standards, and the challenge of making disclosures meaningful across legal and everyday settings. The conversation also examines how algorithms and distribution systems shape perception at scale. Looking ahead, they turn to AI agents and the next frontier of trust where questions of identity, accountability, and verification take center stage. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Claire Leibowicz | LinkedIn | Personal Website ☑️ The Partnership on AI (PAI) | LinkedIn | Facebook ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #8: Hello, Operator – How AI Agents Recruit Humans to Reach the Offline World with Umang Bhatt

Most debates about AI focus on the people using it. Umang Bhatt is asking us to pay attention to what happens at the edges of that interaction — including the people who never touch AI but increasingly bear its consequences, and the human labor that AI agents subtly pull into their workflows. Umang is an Assistant Professor in Trustworthy AI at the University of Cambridge, and he joins host Anna Gressel for part one of a two-part conversation. Drawing on his recent Noema article, “AI Agents Are Recruiting Humans to Observe the Offline World,” Umang explains what it means for humans to be “on call” for AI agents — the novel scenario in which agents may reach out directly to people to supply a piece of information the agent can't access on its own. As agent capabilities surpass human skills in some domains, Umang argues, the question becomes how to orchestrate humans and agents on the same team — profiling what each is good at, deciding who handles which subtask, and designing the handoffs between them. The conversation turns to “secondhand AI” — Umang's term for the second-order effects of someone else's AI use on the people around them — and what responsible deployment looks like when the line between tool and teammate keeps shifting. Resources From This Episode ☑️ Bhatt, “AI Agents Are Recruiting Humans To Observe The Offline World,” Noema Magazine, March 5, 2026. ☑️ Jorgensen et al., “Documenting Deployment with Fabric: A Repository of Real-World AI Governance,” AIES 2025, arXiv:2508.14119. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Umang Bhatt | LinkedIn | X | Github ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #7: From Pixels to Physics – How Robots Learn (and Why It's So Hard) with Roozbeh Mottaghi

Between scripted demos, the simulation-to-reality gap, and the absence of any shared benchmark, the robotics field is full of progress that's easy to overstate and hard to measure. "I hate to say this, but most of them are fake," says Roozbeh Mottaghi, a leading robotics and embodied AI researcher, of the viral humanoid robot videos. He joins host Anna Gressel to discuss how robots learn and what that means for the future of the field. Roozbeh and Anna unpack a core hurdle in robotics — building general-purpose robots that generalize across environments and objects — plus the gap between simulation and reality, and why safety becomes the top concern once robots work alongside people. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Roozbeh Mottaghi | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #6: Training Day – AI and EU Copyright Trends with Lutz Riede

The EU is front and center in the discussion about copyright issues and technology, so host Anna Gressel invites colleague Dr. Lutz Riede to unpack the state of play for businesses operating that space. A Vienna-based partner who specializes in intellectual property and technology law, Lutz describes the biggest misconceptions that companies have about EU copyright law, high-impact litigation pending in Germany, and the key difference in legal philosophy between the EU and US. The conversation closes out with Lutz’ practical pointers for companies out of the AI space that are tuning models or using third-party models. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Dr. Lutz Riede | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #5: Looking East – How Asia Is Writing Its Own AI Rules with Rohit Bhat

When it comes to technology, Asian regulators have seemed to follow the lead of their EU and US counterparts. No longer. “With AI, it is transformational, and jurisdictions in Asia are taking note and wanting to ensure that this technology is used for the greater good of their respective society,” says Rohit Bhat. In this globe-trotting conversation with host Anna Gressel, he touches down in India, Singapore, and South Korea. Tune in for his insights about India, with its Information Technology Act that regulates synthetically generated information; Singapore, with its recent influential conference on agentic AI; and South Korea, with its risk-based AI Basic Act that regulates high-impact AI. At the end of the day, Rohit observes, AI is transforming the industry wherever you are on the global stage. Connect and Learn More ☑️ Rohit Bhat | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #4: Pulling Back the Curtain on Agentic AI, with Geoff Schaefer

Geoff Schaefer, vice president of AI Strategy and Governance at Leidos, returns to “The AI Drop” to unpack agentic AI strategy, the subject of his newest book. Host Anna Gressel leads off the conversation with a lightning round of questions such as the biggest surprises he’s seen, the number one skill that employees in an agentic workplace must have, and the value that AI agents are actually providing in the workplace. Tune in as he explains why Leidos’ hybrid org chart places human FTEs alongside agent FAEs (full-time agent equivalents), why it’s no longer wrong to anthropomorphize AI, and why a colleague at Leidos is building a “zero trust” architecture for AI – similar to zero trust principles in cybersecurity and organizational security. Connect and Learn More: ☑️ Geoff Schaefer | LinkedIn ☑️ Leidos ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields ☑️ Subscribe Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music

The AI Drop #3: Check Engine Light – What Every Board Needs to Know About AI Oversight with Doru Gavril

Freshfields partner Doru Gavril remembers listening to the iconic radio show “Car Talk,” where the host would diagnose callers’ car problems. Host Anna Gressel takes the calls, and Doru diagnoses the caller’s AI ailment. Doru peeks under the hood to talk the callers through fixing their issues. Tune in to hear why – just like in “Car Talk” – the answer is often the "carburetor." And why companies and boards should think about diagnosing key AI considerations now. “You have time, but you also cannot wait,” he says. “You need to start thinking about it now, both strategically and operationally.” Connect and Learn More ☑️ Doru Gavril | LinkedIn ☑️ Anna Gressel | LinkedIn ☑️ Freshfields

The AI Drop #2: Planning in Quicksand: Strategy Under Radical Uncertainty with Geoffrey Schaefer

"A good AI strategy is analogous to rebar and concrete," says Geoff Schaefer, making the case that AI should strengthen a company's existing differentiation — not replace the strategy itself. Geoff is the vice president of AI Strategy and Governance at Leidos, one of the largest companies operating at the intersection of defense, national security, and commercial technology. The conversation with host Anna Gressel opens with a lightning round where Geoff predicts that a small majority of companies will double in size with agents within two years and argues that waiting to see how AI develops puts companies in a structurally reactive — and disadvantaged — position. Anna and Geoff explore why AI disruption is categorically different from the Industrial Revolution, the danger of a "pilot mindset,” and why AI strategy must be co-designed across technical and non-technical parts of the organization. ...

The AI Drop #1: Of Bubbles and Busts - A Conversation on the Future of AI with Boris Feldman

Anna Gressel is joined by Boris Feldman to examine whether today’s AI boom represents a lasting transformation or a bubble, drawing key distinctions from the dot‑com era. They look ahead to what’s next for AI and explore what lessons history can teach us about the potential future of AI — and what is fundamentally new and different about the moment we are in now.

Introducing The AI Drop

Join host Anna Gressel to unlock the future of artificial intelligence with The AI Drop, a podcast dedicated to delivering cutting-edge insights on how AI is transforming industries worldwide. Each episode features expert interviews and actionable strategies to help you harness AI, drive business value, and navigate evolving legal challenges. Fresh drops every week so you never miss a beat. Stay tuned for Episode #1 - dropping Tuesday, April 21st

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