Keynote: Humans in an Agentic Economy

Event Overview

We're sprinting into an agentic economy where AIs don't just answer questions; they negotiate, bid, and transact with other agents in real time. Some AIs even "rent" humans for last-mile physical tasks: opening doors, moving boxes, verifying inventory. And as "world models" from Waymo and Yan LeCun gain traction, they're beginning to describe us better than we describe ourselves. We might see a shift from the physical state to the AI state: reputation scores, permissions, embeddings, and the invisible markets running behind every click.

To unpack where this is going — as well as who gets to design it — join esteemed technologist and visiting Senior Lecturer Lutz Finger for a conversation with Emaad Manzoor, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, about the role of humans in an agentic economy.

As one of the leading thinkers in the field, Emaad will explain how agents and human-algorithm collaboration works. His work spans reinforcement learning, causal inference with unstructured data, and market design choices.

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What You'll Learn

How AI agents are evolving from Q&A tools to autonomous economic actors capable of real-time market transactions
A look at the blending of the physical and digital worlds as AIs coordinate human tasks while modeling human behavior
How personal identity is shifting toward AI-readable metrics, from reputation scores to permissions, that drive algorithmic markets

Speakers

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Emaad Manzoor

Assistant Professor of Marketing

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Bio

Emaad Manzoor is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and Graduate Field Member in Computer Science at Cornell University. His research spans reinforcement learning for language agents, human–algorithm collaboration, and causal inference with unstructured data. At Cornell’s Johnson College of Business, Professor Manzoor designed and teaches the artificial intelligence course.

Previously, Professor Manzoor received the Psychology of Technology Dissertation Award, was named a Rising Star in Data Science by the University of Chicago, earned a Best Paper Award at the AAAI Workshop on AI for Behavioral Change, and was runner-up for the INFORMS-ISS Nunamaker-Chen Dissertation Award. He received his Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

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Lutz Finger

Visiting Senior Lecturer, Johnson Graduate School of Management

Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Bio
Certificates Authored

Lutz Finger is a Silicon Valley technologist and Cornell faculty member with 20+ years of experience building AI-driven products and platforms at Google, LinkedIn, and Snap. He is a serial entrepreneur (R2Decide, acquired in 2025; Fisheye Analytics, acquired in 2013) and currently leads AI strategy at XGEN AI, developing next-generation generative retail solutions.

Finger teaches several courses on AI and product development. His eCornell certificate program provides an end-to-end guide to using AI to create measurable business value, and has helped executives worldwide move from AI ideas to real implementations:

Finger is also a frequent Forbes contributor on AI and the future of commerce. He is a Venture Partner at Cherry Ventures, serves on multiple advisory boards, and has advised and invested in data-centric companies across the United States and Europe. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and an M.S. in Quantum Physics from TU Berlin.

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