Manjeet Rege, director of the Center for Applied AI at the University of St. Thomas, recently spoke to Minnesota industry leaders about artificial intelligence. Rege also collaborated with Jena Zangs, St. Thomas’ chief data and AI officer, to present at two Gartner Leadership Summits.
Rege spoke to senior executives at the Kraus-Anderson AI Symposium, where he addressed the question: As AI takes on more responsibility in our enterprises, who is designing the architecture for how decisions get made?
“We are in a moment where AI is not just automating tasks, it is reshaping who holds decision-making authority inside organizations,” Rege said. “And in most cases, that shift is happening without anyone explicitly authorizing it. Not because the technology went rogue. Because nobody thought to ask the question.”
Rege and Zangs spoke at two Gartner Leadership Summits this summer. At the first one, they spoke to leadership teams and the second to chief data and AI officers. They asked Minnesota leaders about their definitions of an “AI-ready” team member. Both Rege and Zangs stressed the importance of redesigning roles and teams to address the human talent needed to manage and work with AI.
“One in three Minnesota workers are in jobs with high exposure to generative AI. Minnesota ranks 10th in the nation and first in the Midwest,” Rege explained. “Exposure is not replacement. Most highly exposed roles will be augmented or transformed, not eliminated. How leaders frame this internally shapes whether their workforce leans in or pulls back.”
