Changing Tomorrow: Architecture, Equity, and Social Sustainability
Changing Tomorrow is the podcast for real estate developers, architects, workplace strategists, and corporate leaders whose decisions shape the built environment.
Each season tackles a critical, unresolved challenge at the intersection of sustainable design, commercial real estate, corporate strategy, and human performance. We look closely at the friction points where ESG goals and business objectives collide faster than the industry can agree on a path forward.
Through candid conversations with global practitioners, researchers, and cross-industry leaders, we test a fundamental question: can buildings, interior spaces, and organizations be intentionally designed to measurably improve human health, equity, and well-being?
Changing Tomorrow is powered by Liveable, an independent research and advisory organization setting a clearer standard for social value in the built environment. We work with real estate, workplace, and built environment leaders to understand how buildings, products, policies, and business strategies shape people’s lives. Through research, reporting, and strategic advisory, Liveable helps organizations assess human impact, communicate it clearly, and use it to make better decisions.
Changing Tomorrow: Architecture, Equity, and Social Sustainability
Workplace Research Authority: Is AI Actually Making the Workplace More Human? | Janet Pogue McLaurin | People Positive AI
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What if the widespread adoption of AI actually makes our physical workplaces more human, not less? In this episode, we unpack ground-breaking global research that turns the AI isolation narrative on its head.
We explore why AI power users are spending less time working alone, why traditional real estate efficiency metrics are failing, and how forward-thinking leaders can design physical environments that act as catalysts for shared learning, deep trust, and human breakthrough.
Expert
Janet Pogue McLaurin is a Principal and the Global Director of Workplace Research at Gensler, the world's premier global architecture and design firm. For more than four decades, Janet has occupied a singular space at the intersection of business strategy, human data, and architectural design. She leads the Gensler Global Workplace Survey, which is now in its 23rd year and stands as the world’s most comprehensive, ongoing investigation into how people experience the built environment, analyzing over 120,000 respondents across its history.
Takeaways:
- The surprising 2026 data revealing that AI power users spend more time socializing, learning, and building team networks than non-users.
- The reality of the hybrid "sweet spot," where data shows employees globally need to be in the office around 65% of the week to maximize productivity.
- Why the pre-pandemic office layout was already fundamentally broken by February 2020 due to an over-reliance on individual heads-down design.
- An architectural blueprint that flips the standard layout by prioritizing open collaboration hubs and silent focus zones
- How to build neuro-inclusive environments by "designing to the edges" through co-design and providing purposeful variety.
- Why real estate must be viewed as an investment in building "weak ties" and corporate trust, rather than just an administrative overhead expense to minimize.
Chapters
- 00:00 Episode Introduction: The AI Finding That Stopped Me
- 01:48 Guest Welcome & The Scale of the Gensler Global Workplace Survey
- 02:17 Debunking the Myth: The Counterintuitive Behavior of AI Power Users
- 05:14 The Hybrid Sweet Spot: Redefining Where Work Needs to Happen
- 07:43 February 2020: Remembering the Broken Pre-Pandemic Office
- 13:57 Designing for Behavior: Moving from Space Efficiency to Human Experience
- 17:03 Case Study: How Gensler San Francisco Flipped the Script on Spatial Layout
- 20:14 Designing to the Edges: Co-Design, Neuro-Inclusivity, and Purposeful Abundance
- 27:14 Turning Real Estate from an Expense into an Investment in Trust
- 29:12 The Geography of Collaboration: Corridors, Coffee, and Cross-Functional Spaces
- 35:21 Hacking the Office: Why 34% of Your Staff Are Making DIY Fixes
- 42:55 Final Question: What Does People Positive AI Look Like?
Resources & Links Mentioned:
- Connect with Janet Pogue McLaurin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-pogue-mclaurin-faia-fiida-604b913/
- Read the full report on Gensler’s Research Hub: https://www.gensler.com/gri/global-workplace-survey-2026
- Download the Latest Report: Access Liveable’s Spring 2026 Brief on AI Accountability in the Built Environment: https://makeitliveable.com/spring-brief
- Partner With Us: Learn how Liveable helps organizations track and scale social value: www.liveable.earth
- Connect with Host Gayathri Unnikrishnan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gayathri-ukrishnan/
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This podcast is proudly brought to you by Liveable, an independent social sustainability organization based in California.
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