The new Signal & Noise episode with Douglas Rushkoff, “Staying Human in the AI Inevitability,” is here, filmed LIVE at Advertising Week New York 2026. Watch (or listen): Staying Human in the AI Inevitability: Douglas Rushkoff on Signal & Noise at Advertising Week 2026

Douglas Rushkoff is an author, documentarian, and media theorist, host of Team Human, and Professor of Media Studies and Activism at Queens College. His books include Team Human, Survival of the Richest, and an updated Program or Be Programmed with an AI-focused lens. He’s written 25 in total!

Is the AI boom about getting smarter, or about getting richer? Douglas Rushkoff, Author and Media Theorist at Team Human and Professor of Media Studies and Activism at Queens College, Brett House, and Rio Longacre talk about the extractive economics and monarchical worldview behind the AI race on Signal & Noise LIVE at Advertising Week New York 2026.

It's a wild conversation about the existential challenges all of us are experiencing in this era of AI inevitability. Rushkoff argues AI has exposed the flaws in capitalism and democracy, and that the industry’s real paradigm is the same as the economic system developed by 12th century monks looking to stop the masses from rising up.

He argues that what looks like noise in a human (to AI), the off-note or the weirdness, is often the signal. Think of James Brown’s raw, piercing screeches that were intentional trademarks to his music, rather than accidental "off-key" mistakes. A “super intelligence” might weed that out as noise. Food for thought.

Key takeaways:
- The race is driven less by intelligence than by chips, data centers, minerals, and energy. And, of course, money.
- The beliefs of the people building AI end up in the platforms, and he recommends reading The Nerd Reich by Gil Duran and The Singularity is Nearer by Ray Kurzweil on how those beliefs show up.

This one was filmed LIVE in the studio, so watch the video if you can. Watch (or listen): Staying Human in the AI Inevitability: Douglas Rushkoff on Signal & Noise at Advertising Week 2026

Suma Nallapati is Chief AI & Information Officer for the City and County of Denver. She has led digital transformation across both the public and private sectors, including as Colorado’s state CIO, and Denver is now one of the country’s leading AI-enabled cities.

AI is transforming every industry, but what happens when it transforms an entire city? Most conversations about AI focus on marketing or enterprise productivity. This one asks a bigger question: how can AI make society better?

In this episode, Suma, Brett, and Rio get into why she left the private sector to return to public service and how Denver became one of the first U.S. cities to appoint a Chief AI Officer. She tells the story of Sunny, Denver’s multilingual AI assistant, which she says now handles about 30% of 311 calls with humans still in the loop, and why starting with “good enough” data beats waiting for perfect.

They also cover responsible AI and governance, including a cross-functional committee that includes non-technical voices, plus the public backlash over data centers, the Colorado AI Act, and why AI adoption is becoming more about organizational change than technology. Suma closes on why curiosity, not fear, is the leadership trait of the AI era, and her hope that AI can help us see each other as more human.

Watch (or listen): Building the AI-Powered City: Suma Nallapati on Public Service, Smart Cities, and the Future of Government