Mini Series:
AI and the Future of Listening
March 2026
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming how we communicate, collaborate, and make meaning. As AI becomes increasingly capable of imitating listening behaviors, important questions arise: What does authentic listening look like in an AI-shaped world? How can technology enhance—rather than diminish—human empathy and connection?
The International Listening Association’s five-part 2026 miniseries explores the evolving relationship between AI and listening across healthcare, workplaces, customer experience, group facilitation, and difficult conversations. Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, this interactive series examines both the promise and the limitations of AI—highlighting ethical considerations such as bias, surveillance, and shifting “listening power.”
Participants will gain practical insights into how AI can streamline tasks and surface meaningful insights, while also engaging critically with the uniquely human capacities of empathy, discernment, and understanding that technology cannot replicate.
Join us as we explore how to shape a future where AI supports—and never replaces—the deeply human act of listening. Register for one or more of these Mini Series events by clicking the Register for Event link below the session description.
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The Listening General Practitioner: Leveraging AI Agents to Reclaim Clinical Connection
10 March 2026
8 a.m. EDT, 1 p.m. UK
In this interactive session, Dr. Krishna Naineni shows how custom AI agents and simple prompt “cheat sheets” can streamline clinical workflows and documentation. By offloading routine tasks to AI, GPs can reclaim time, deepen listening, and strengthen real human connection with patients.
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Listening to Customers in the Era of AI: When Technology Enables Empathy
17 March 2026
1 p.m. EDT, 6 p.m. UK
Beata Kaczkowska leads us in a session that traces how customer listening has evolved from segment-level metrics to individual feedback, and now to an AI-enabled, rich understanding of people’s real experiences. Participants will explore how modern AI tools can move beyond surface sentiment to support genuinely empathetic and effective listening across channels.
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Reclaiming Human-Centered Listening in an AI-Shaped Workplace
20 March 2026
12 noon EDT, 5 p.m. UK
This session, led by Lisa Athern, explores how AI tools like meeting bots, clinical chatbots, and voice analytics are reshaping what listening looks like in modern workplaces. Participants will examine shifting “listening power,” ethical risks such as bias and surveillance, and walk away with strategies to design AI-augmented workplaces that still center human connection and empathic listening.
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Diversity, Empathy, and Flow: From "Argument-as-Battle" to the "Dance of Co-Creation"
25 March 2026
12 noon EDT, 5 p.m. UK
In this highly interactive workshop, join Rosa Zubizarreta as participants experience “Co-Creating Desired Futures,” a listening-based facilitation approach that turns disagreement about AI into shared exploration instead of debate. Through guided questions and practices, diverse, uncertain, and even conflicting voices become the creative fuel for more nuanced, co-created understanding of AI’s impact on our lives and work.
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AI and Difficult Conversations
30 March 2026
2:30 p.m. UK, 4:30 p.m. Jerusalem, 9:30 a.m. EDT
AI is great at imititating human behavior (e.g listening), however, it can't UNDERSTAND humanity. This leads to issues in challenging conversations especially given its tendency to validate the user. Join Guy Itzchakov for this session.