Speaker

photo credit_Shoko Takayasu

KAREN HAO
Author of Empire of AI

Karen Hao is The New York Times bestselling author of EMPIRE OF AI and an award-winning reporter covering the impacts of artificial intelligence on society. She co-hosts the BBC podcast The Interface and contributes to publications including More Perfect Union and The Atlantic. She co-created the Pulitzer Center's AI Spotlight Series, a program that has trained thousands of journalists around the world on how to cover AI. She was formerly a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, covering American and Chinese tech companies, and a senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review.

Hao has received numerous accolades for her coverage, including an American Humanist Media Award and an American National Magazine Award for Journalists Under 30. EMPIRE OF AI was also named a New York Times Notable Book of 2025, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, and a winner of the Porchlight Business Book Award. In honoring her on its TIME100 AI list, Time magazine wrote, “Empire of AI instantly struck a cultural nerve...Hao is fundamentally shaping many people’s perceptions and understanding of the company at the center of the AI revolution.”

She received her Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from MIT.