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Speaking and media
AI Learning Director at Genentech. Founder of infinitesimal.ai. Applied AI where it meets people. Talks, keynotes, guest lectures and podcast conversations about AI at work, from someone who leads AI learning for thousands of people, directs the agents himself and has hosted about a hundred interviews.
Chris Richardson is AI Learning Director at Genentech, where he leads AI learning strategy for Commercial, Medical and Government Affairs and represents Learning & Skill Development in enterprise AI governance. He designed EverydayAI and AI60, the programmes behind the organisation's AI upskilling, which won a Brandon Hall Group Gold Excellence in Action award in 2025 and an LTEN Excellence Award in 2026.
He is the founder of infinitesimal.ai, where a portrait of a person is painted from their choices and every claim in it is set over the evidence that earned it, and the maker of Avatar Window, an AI version of himself in a rendered apartment built by directing coding agents.
He has hosted about a hundred long-form interviews across two podcasts: Data Chats for Pragmatic Institute, with guests such as Alberto Cairo, Charles Wheelan and Eric Siegel, and This Is Not A Pipe, the critical-theory show he co-founded. Before industry he was an associate professor and department chair, with a PhD in media studies and four books.
The views on this site are his own.
Use any of it, in any order. A headshot is yours for the asking.
Three subjects I can give a talk, a lecture or a workshop on now. Each one is shown, not described: the room on this site is the exhibit, and its making-of and model card are the evidence.
Learning small enough to fit inside the work: sixty-second lessons led by real colleagues, a six-week baseline taken to more than 99% completion, and xAPI measurement of whether anyone then used the tool. What it takes to know whether any of it changed how work gets done.
For Learning leaders, enablement and transformation teams
What one person directing coding agents can actually produce, which decisions stayed human, and what has to be true before anyone should trust the result. The room on this site is the worked example.
For Engineering leaders, product teams, anyone deciding what to delegate
People trust AI appropriately when they can see how it works. Designing conversational systems that make a model's seams visible, with the avatar's own model card as the case.
For Designers, researchers, trust-and-safety teams
2
industry awards for AI learning, 2025 and 2026
100
podcast interviews hosted, on two shows
86
talks and papers, 2007 to 2026
Counted from the academic CV, updated January 2021: 14 invited and campus talks, 61 conference papers, 9 workshop and praxis sessions; plus 2 talks since. Interviews: about 80 on This Is Not A Pipe, 21 on Data Chats.
LTEN Excellence Award: Innovative Design & Solutions
Life Sciences Trainers & Educators Network, 2026
For designing and scaling AI-enabled workforce transformation at Genentech: Workflow-Embedded Design and Cognitive Liberation, methods that put AI into day-to-day work and moved the organisation from isolated experiments to an enterprise capability.
Gold, Excellence in Action: Innovation & Creativity
Brandon Hall Group, 2025
For the architecture and rollout of EverydayAI and AI60: more than 99% completion across about 2,900 employees, and a projected $51M a year in productivity value at full scale.
Data Chats21 episodes
Host · Pragmatic Institute (with The Data Incubator) · 2021 to 2023
Conversations on data science, analytics and AI for business teams.
Guests included Alberto Cairo, Charles Wheelan, Eric Siegel, Douglas Laney, Kirsten Martin, Nadieh Bremer, Jonathan Schwabish, Alli Torban.
This Is Not A PipeAbout 80 episodes
Co-founder and host, with Mike Elrod · Independent · 2017 to 2021
Critical theory, cultural studies and philosophy, one new book at a time.
Guests included Lawrence Grossberg, J. Hoberman, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Jesper Juul, John Cheney-Lippold, Will Brooker.
Designing AI Learning at Enterprise Scale: Micro, Measurable, and in the Flow of WorkInvited talk
Rustici: The Gathering, the fifth annual learning-technology conference from Rustici Software
How AI60's sixty-second lessons, led by real colleagues, reached 99% completion, and how xAPI statements measured whether people then used the tools.
The Promise of AI as Symbolic Capital: A Bourdieusian Field Analysis of Discursive OppositionsConference paper
Cultural Studies Association annual conference (online)
With Emma Huffin-Gallagher: how firms speak about AI, read through Bourdieu, from inside the corporate setting the paper studies.
This Is Not a Paperweight: Notes on Engaging the Public after Publishing Your WorkPraxis session
Cultural Studies Association annual meeting, Chicago
The second of two sessions on taking scholarship out of the journal and into a podcast, a feed and a public conversation.
Jessica Jones and the Shifting Field of Comics: A Bourdieusian ApproachConference paper
Comics Arts Conference, San Diego
The academic track of San Diego Comic-Con.
Back to the Future of Teaching: Examining Best Practices in Assessment, Instruction, and Course DesignLecture
Governor's Teaching Fellow inaugural lecture, Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Given as a Governor's Teaching Fellow of the University of Georgia's Institute of Higher Education, 2014 to 2015.
Those Questions You Never Ask: Habitus, Cultural Capital, and Symbolic Violence in EducationKeynote
Embracing Diversity Education Workshop, Young Harris College and Spelman College
The keynote address for a workshop run by two colleges' departments of education.
Has also represented Genentech's AI learning work at DevLearn, ATD (Washington, DC), AI Dev 25, AgentCon 2025, the ALIGN AI Executive Summit, Enterprise Ready Conf and GitHub's AI Show & Tell.
This Is Not a Presentation: Engaging Broader Publics through Podcasting, Social Media, and Interdisciplinary DiscoursesPraxis session
Cultural Studies Association annual meeting, New Orleans
Built on This Is Not A Pipe, the interview podcast he co-founded and hosted.
A Slow Reading Revolution: Five Techniques for Teaching Multi-Modal LiteracyConference paper
Innovation in Teaching, University of Georgia College of Education
One of four Innovation in Teaching talks at Georgia between 2016 and 2019, each a teaching technique tested in his own classroom.
Batman Incorporated: The Split-Space of American Heroes and Asian SubjectivitiesConference paper
Batman in Popular Culture Conference, Bowling Green State University
The research behind Batman and the Joker (Routledge, 2020).
Why Comics? A Brief History of Delinquency and Fine Art in AmericaInvited lecture
Unveiling of the Andy Rowe Comics Collection, Young Harris College
The opening lecture for a collection of more than 10,000 comics he brought to the college and curated.
Putting Bourdieu to Theoretical Work for CriminologyDiscussant
American Society of Criminology annual meeting, New Orleans
Invited discussant on an international panel; he had chaired and spoken at the society's meetings since 2011.
The Ethics of Looking: Passive Acts of Violence and Resistance in Popular CultureInvited lecture
Ethics Across the Curriculum lecture series, Young Harris College
A campus-wide lecture for students across every discipline.
Celebrity Culture and Infamous Individuals: Thinking about Olivier Choinière's BlissInvited lecture
After-show lecture series, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Toronto
A theatre audience, after the play, with no slides.
I am open to a board seat, an advisory role or a fellowship where applied AI and learning are the question. The record of being chosen for rooms like that, so far:
Learning & Skill Development representative, enterprise AI governance, Genentech
Speaks for learning in the forums that decide how AI is adopted across the company; has also served on hiring committees for data-science and learning-design roles and on three promotion committees.
Chair, Department of Communication Studies, Young Harris College
Ran the department's curriculum, reviews and hiring; chaired four faculty searches.
Faculty representative, Presidential Search Committee
Elected by peers to interview the finalists and advise the board of trustees.
Elected member at large, executive committee, Popular Culture Association of Canada
Elected twice; chaired the conference planning committee in 2014 to 2015.
Curator, Andy Rowe Comics Collection
Coordinated gifts valued at $15,000 to found the collection and oversaw the cataloguing of more than 10,000 comics.
Review board member, The Journal of Social Media in Society; reviewer for three scholarly presses
Blind reviewer for six journals and for IGI, Intellect and Rowman and Littlefield.
Tell me about your audience, the format and the date you have in mind, and the question you want explored. I read every note myself.
No fee is listed here because it depends on the room; travel is my cost unless we agree otherwise. I do not speak for my employer.