{"id":1376,"date":"2026-06-04T12:36:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/future-proof-with-ai\/?p=1376"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:36:50","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:36:50","slug":"knowledge-guilds-who-owns-your-expertise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/future-proof-with-ai\/knowledge-guilds-who-owns-your-expertise\/","title":{"rendered":"Knowledge Guilds: Who Owns Your Expertise?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><em>New research proposes a framework to give workers a stake in the AI systems built on their labor.<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Data portability has often been presented as a way to reduce the control digital platforms exert through exclusive access to user data. In principle: if Meta, Alphabet, Spotify, or another platform holds your data, you should be able to take it with you. The idea has mostly been discussed as a consumer protection and competition policy tool. As <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brookings.edu\/articles\/data-portability-and-interoperability-a-primer-on-two-policy-tools-for-regulation-of-digitized-industries-2\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Brookings<\/a> explains, data portability can reduce switching costs and make it easier for rival firms to compete. But generative AI raises a potentially harder, worker-centric version of the portability problem. What if instead of a collection of images, videos, playlists, and posts, your data is the accumulated record of how you do your job? This question is at the heart of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/faculty\/Pages\/item.aspx?num=68817\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Knowledge Guilds: Sharing the Productivity Gains of AI<\/a>,\u201d co-written by HBS AI Institute associate Zo\u00eb Cullen. The authors argue that workplace AI is not simply external automation adopted by firms. Rather, it is a tool that can capture workers\u2019 expertise and convert it into firm-owned &#8220;knowledge capital&#8221;.\u00a0 This creates the potential for an adoption crisis, but Cullen and her authors propose <em>knowledge guilds<\/em> as a mechanism to ensure that the people who make AI effective share meaningfully in what it produces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Why This Matters<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>For business leaders and executives, this research is a call to move beyond a \u201charvesting\u201d mindset toward a strategy of sustainable intelligence. Successful execution in the AI era requires a unified conversation between leadership, HR, legal, and IT departments. By exploring the idea of knowledge guilds, organizations can begin to design a social contract that recognizes workers as stakeholders in AI-enabled productivity advances, ensuring that the gains of AI are not just concentrated, but shared and incorporated into further organizational wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\" \/>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/knowledge-guilds-who-owns-your-expertise\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Link to the HBS AI Institute Insight Article<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hbs.edu\/faculty\/Pages\/item.aspx?num=68817\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Link to the Research Paper<\/a><br><a href=\"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/#join-our-community\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with HBS AI Institute news and research<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New research proposes a framework to give workers a stake in the AI systems built on their labor. Knowledge Guilds AI Framework<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19452,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_trash_the_other_posts":false,"rkv_hide_featured_image":false,"rkv_hide_page_title":false,"rkv_hide_abstract_shapes":true,"rkv_reduce_header":false,"hbsd3_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/vimeo.com\/1198073288","hbsd3_featured_media_url_autoplay":false,"editor_notices":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"tax_cop":[],"rkv-people-shadow":[8],"insight_type":[],"class_list":["post-1376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Knowledge Guilds: Who Owns Your Expertise? - Future Proof with AI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/aiinstitute.hbs.edu\/knowledge-guilds-who-owns-your-expertise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Knowledge Guilds: Who Owns Your Expertise? - Future Proof with AI\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"New research proposes a framework to give workers a stake in the AI systems built on their labor. 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