Babysitting the Machine: Glean's Rebecca Hinds on the Hidden Human Labor of AI at Work

Rebecca Hinds, author of "Your Best Meeting Ever" and Head of the Work AI Institute at Glean, breaks down the surprising findings from the new Work AI Index 2026 report surveying 6,000 workers. While 87% now use AI and report saving 13 hours per week, only 13% say their organization is performing significantly better—a paradox explained by two new concepts: "botsitting" (the hidden labor of making AI useful) and "botshitting" (delivering AI-generated work you can't defend). They discuss practical solutions including better-integrated AI systems, smarter AI detection policies, and aligning work to meaningful missions.

LINKS:

Rebecca Hinds Personal Website

Glean Work AI Institute

Your Best Meeting Ever Book

Glean Enterprise AI Platform

Stanford Future of Work

Glean Enterprise Graph

Pangram Labs AI Detection

OpenAI ChatGPT Product Page

Anthropic Claude Product Page

Google Gemini Product Page

Microsoft 365 Copilot Page

Glean AI Transformation 100

Rebecca Hinds LinkedIn Profile

Sponsor:

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CHAPTERS:

(00:00) About the Episode

(03:22) Grounding AI adoption

(06:46) Methodology and Glean

(12:25) Productivity paradox emerges (Part 1)

(20:31) Sponsor: Claude

(22:22) Productivity paradox emerges (Part 2)

(25:36) Bot sitting burden

(34:00) Hidden time savings

(39:56) Meaning versus automation

(47:14) Enterprise graph potential

(53:13) Detecting bot slop

(01:00:32) Retention and incentives

(01:07:54) Transformation and mission

(01:20:06) AI teammate model

(01:26:01) Future organizational design

(01:32:31) Research and meetings

(01:41:43) Episode Outro

(01:45:07) Outro

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