Cait Donovan Keynote Speaker

08/20/2026

AI isn’t just changing how we work.

It’s exposing how we think.

Too many conversations about AI swing between blind optimism (“It’ll solve everything!”) and doomsday panic (“It’s taking all our jobs!”). Neither is particularly useful.

Instead, borrow three lenses from Bhushan Sethi

🧪 Think like a scientist. Test. Experiment. Be curious. Not every AI tool deserves a permanent place in your workflow.

📊 Think like an economist. Question the assumptions. Who benefits? What are the tradeoffs? What costs are we ignoring because they’re harder to measure?

❤️ Think like a humanist. Technology doesn’t create trust, belonging, or psychological safety. People do. If AI makes us more efficient but less human, we’ve optimized the wrong thing.

The companies that get AI right won’t be the ones with the fanciest tools.

They’ll be the ones that remember the technology is there to amplify humans, not replace humanity.

Which mindset do you think we’re missing most right now?

08/13/2026

fried.caitdonovan.com

08/10/2026

07/08/2026

Just sayin’.

06/29/2026

Sometimes, our egos get in the way of the most obvious solutions.

In 1840, Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that if doctors would wash their hands when they transferred from the morgue to the maternity ward, the death rate of birthing mothers dropped from 18% - 2%.

Doctors, not believing that they were being asked to wash their hands and not believing that some sort of invisible particle could be causing all this death (even after it was tested and proven), refused.

Ignaz was ostracized, ended up in a asylum and died of sepsis (oh, the irony) at 47.

What does this have to do with burnout?

Check out this week’s FRIED the burnout podcast ;)

fried.caitdonovan.com