AI Agents: Designing them to be your Friend, not your Foe

Session Leader: Alexis Fink, PhD

Thursday, March 12, 2026 8:00 am PDT (Los Angeles) | 11:00 am EDT (New York) | 3:00pm GMT (London)

1.5 hour duration

As AI agents take on greater roles, we need to reflect on how we design AI agents so that they strengthen rather than destabilize our systems and organizations.

AI agents are evolving from drafting emails and summarizing reports to prioritizing tasks, triggering workflow processes, approving actions and shaping decisions. And with the evolution comes a number of questions about how to ensure that AI agents align with internal governance structures, decision-right frameworks and contribute, rather than deviate, from operational and strategic imperatives. Alignment is essential if we seek to design and deploy AI agents as friends, rather than foes.

Join us for a live 90-minute Enterprise Effectiveness Session in which Alexis Fink (Senior Research Scientist) will talk about what it takes to design AI agents as productive tools that contribute to your operating model as well as the risks associated with failing to do so.

Who should attend?

• HR, strategy, and operations leaders integrating AI agents into enterprise workflows

• Digital and technology leaders responsible for AI deployment and governance

• Risk and compliance professionals assessing automation exposure

• Industrial–Organizational psychologists focused on decision quality in AI-enabled environments

• Senior executives accountable for enterprise performance and oversight

• OD practitioners redesigning processes and authority structures in response to automation

What’s the Enterprise Effectiveness Network (EEN)?

The Enterprise Effectiveness Network (EEN) is a dynamic peer-to-peer community where we discuss and address talent, organizational, and strategy execution challenges. Led by USC’s Center for Effective Organizations (CEO) experts Alec Levenson, Jennifer Deal, Sharna Wiblen EEN sessions are 90-minute virtual sessions founded on research-backed insights. By joining us for our EEN sessions, you’ll gain access to expert and research-led discussions and practical tools and be part of a network of like-minded professionals committed to advancing enterprise effectiveness. Together, we tackle real-world issues at a depth that drives meaningful, lasting impact.