Michael Edwards has spent 35 years leading downtown organizations across America. In his final months as CEO of the Chicago Loop Alliance, he joins the podcast to discuss downtown narratives in the age of AI with Khullani Abdullahi.

He challenges the dominant narrative about urban decline. The data tells a different story: 1.2 million people visited the Loop for arts and culture in Q4 2025, spending $512 million.

Weekend foot traffic now exceeds pre-pandemic levels. We discuss the shift from office occupancy as the defining metric, why Chicago's arts patrons visit five times more often than the national average, and how 145,000 Loop residents are reshaping the economic calculus of downtown living.

In an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping industries, labor markets, and communities at an unprecedented pace, the question of who benefits—and who gets left behind—has never been more urgent.

At the forefront of this challenge stands Karen Freeman-Wilson, President and CEO of the Chicago Urban League, who brings a unique combination of legal expertise, executive experience, and deep community roots to the mission of ensuring AI becomes a force for equity rather than exclusion.

On the latest episode of the AI in Chicago Podcast, I had the privilege of speaking with Elena Vekilov, Chief Privacy Officer and Global General Counsel for Data Security, Product, and AI at NielsenIQ. With responsibility for privacy governance across more than 90 markets, Elena sits at an intersection few executives occupy: where data protection, product innovation, and AI governance collide at a global scale.

Our conversation crystallized an insight that every leader racing to implement AI should absorb: People don't resist technology. They resist ambiguity.

Elena reserves particular passion for redefining legal's role in AI adoption. "If your legal team is known as the Department of No, you're doing something wrong," she states bluntly.

The alternative is embedding legal into the product development process from the start – not as a final rubber stamp but as a navigation tool. "Think of legal not as a roadblock, but as a GPS: helping the organization reach its goals without unexpected detours or collisions."