AI & The Future of Work

AI systems are advancing rapidly and are increasingly capable of performing cognitive tasks that were previously the exclusive domain of human workers. As these technologies mature, they raise pressing questions about workforce displacement, the future of entry-level positions, and the overall structure of labour demand.
Engaging with these questions is essential. This panel brings together researchers and practitioners from labour economics, AI governance, and public policy to examine both the empirical evidence on AI's labour market effects and the policy tools available to governments.
The discussion will move across three broad themes:
Diagnosis. What do we actually know so far about how AI is reshaping jobs, wages, and the structure of labour demand?
Inequality. Who stands to gain and who stands to lose, and what does this mean for the distribution of work and income in Europe?
Policy response. What are governments doing, what should they be doing, and how do tools like reskilling, social protection, and regulation fit together?

Format
18:00 - Doors open
18:30 - Introduction, moderated panel discussion, audience Q&A
20:00 - Networking reception with light refreshments
21:00 - Close

Moderator
Ole Teutloff is a researcher at the University of Oxford, where he studies how artificial intelligence is changing work and labour markets. Drawing on large-scale data and computational methods, his research sits at the intersection of technology, economics, and society.

Panel
Ana Dujić is Director-General at the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, focusing on AI and digitalization's impact on work and shaping related legal frameworks on national, EU and international level. Previously, she headed the Strategy Division at the Ministry of Finance under Olaf Scholz. She also worked for seven years with President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, at the Foreign Office and as the head of the first Digitalization Policy Department at the Federal Presidential Office. Ana Dujić is a political scientist and studied in Munich and Paris.
Virginia Sondergeld is an Economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, where she researches global labour market trends using Indeed's proprietary and other data, and leads all work on the DACH markets. Previously, Virginia wrote her PhD thesis in economics on the impact of women in management on labour-market and firm outcomes at DIW and the Free University of Berlin. In 2019, Virginia founded the non-profit organisation The Women in Economics Initiative, which she led for five years.
Catherine Schneider (she/her) is the Senior Policy Researcher for AI Workforce and Innovation at interface, where she focuses on global talent flows, innovation and inclusion. Prior to joining interface, Catherine worked at Mozilla on the Fellowships and Awards team, as well as the UN Refugee Agency, where she worked as an Associate Innovation Officer specialising in AI policy and research. She holds an MSc from the London School of Economics, where she focused on tech ethics and analysed the use of emerging technologies on refugee communities.
Alexandra Spitz-Oener is a Professor of Economics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany, the Deputy Director of the ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin Institute for the Economy and the Future of Work (RF Berlin), and a Research Associate at the Institute for Employment Research (IAB) in Nuremberg. In addition, she is the Deputy Spokesperson of the Research Unit "Labor Market Transformation: Scarcity, Skill Mismatch, and Policy" and a Principal Investigator of the Collaborative Research Center "Rationality and Competition," both funded by the German Sciences Foundation.
Rebekka Weiß is a fully qualified lawyer and Head of Regulatory Policy at Microsoft, focusing on data and competition policy, artificial intelligence, digital safety, and platform regulation. She previously led the Trust & Safety team at Bitkom and holds a Master of Laws in Intellectual Property and the Digital Economy from the University of Glasgow.

About HAIPI
The Hertie AI Policy Initiative (HAIPI) is a student-led initiative at the Hertie School in Berlin. We organise public events on AI policy in Europe. More at hertieaipolicy.org
Questions: info@hertieaipolicy.org