Broadband Breakfast on July 8, 2026: AI and Workforce - Combatting Job Displacement

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How to Prepare Workers for Artificial Intelligence Disruption as Safety Nets Erode

Panelists debated AI’s true impact on jobs while warning that support systems meant to help workers adapt are being cut.

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As artificial intelligence reshapes industries from telecommunications to customer service, the question is no longer whether AI will transform the workforce, but how leaders, policymakers, and educators can ensure workers are not left behind. This panel brings together experts to examine the real-world impact of automation on jobs, the sectors most exposed to disruption, and the strategies that can turn displacement into opportunity. Panelists will explore reskilling and upskilling initiatives, the role of public-private partnerships, emerging policy frameworks, and what a resilient, AI-ready workforce looks like in the years ahead. Join us for a frank conversation about protecting workers while harnessing the productivity gains AI can deliver.

Panelists

• Samantha Schartman, Director of Philanthropic Programs, Connect Humanity
• Ron Hetrick, Principal Economist, Lightcast
• Robert Atkinson, Senior Fellow, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation
• Melissa Newman (moderator), SVP, Government Relations, TIA

Samantha Schartman is Director of Philanthropic Programs at Connect Humanity, where she works at the intersection of philanthropy and community finance to close the digital divide. For the past decade, she has championed a simple but underrecognized truth: community technology programming generates economic value that accrues far beyond the individuals it directly serves. She now leads the Alt-Funding Innovation Lab, a national working group of dozens of practitioners identifying cross-sector co-investment opportunities for digital inclusion. The Lab launched its six-sector field guide on July 7, 2026.

Ron Hetrick is the Senior Labor Economist and VP of Staffing Product at Lightcast. With 30 years experience in labor economics, he is a leading expert in the current state of the U.S. labor market. Ron is passionate about educating companies concerning the labor world that surrounds them. He brings nearly 30 years of labor force economic experience to Lightcast, with previous experience including a 20-year career with Allegis Group building and overseeing market analytics and data science teams, 8 years as a senior and supervisory economist with the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington D.C. Hetrick has been quoted by CBS, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and numerous nationally syndicated news channels and magazines on a near-weekly basis, and has provided analysis for prior Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, The Council of Economic Advisors to the President, Congress, and numerous Fortune 100 companies and trade associations. Presently, Ron presents economic and corporate data findings to large companies, trade associations, and local governments often keynoting conferences on trends in the labor market.

Robert D. Atkinson is a senior fellow at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF). He founded ITIF in 2006 and was president for the next 20 years as it grew to become the world’s leading think tank for science and technology policy. Atkinson is an internationally recognized scholar and a widely published author whom The New Republic has named one of the “three most important thinkers about innovation,” Washingtonian Magazine has called a “tech titan,” Government Technology Magazine has judged to be one of the 25 top “doers, dreamers and drivers of information technology,” and the Wharton Business School has given the “Wharton Infosys Business Transformation Award.”

Melissa Newman is Vice President of Government Relations at the Telecommunications Industry Association, and is a skilled public policy executive, effective advocate, attorney and strategic negotiator. She is a solutions-focused professional with executive level management, public policy, legal, regulatory, and legislative experience in the private sector and federal government. She has proven success in applying strategic thinking to achieving corporate goals, and is known for building strategic partnerships and alliances.