Workplace Innovator Podcast | Enhancing Your Employee Experience | Facility Management | CRE | Digital Workplace Technology FINALE: "Be Intentional" – A Decade of Innovation & Designing for our Future with Kay Sargent of HOK
Nov 10, 2026
Kay Sargent, a senior HOK principal and author of Designing Neuroinclusive Workplaces, reflects on a decade of workplace innovation. She explores why AI should not overshadow human well-being, inclusion, climate change, or geopolitical shifts. Topics include Kodak’s missed future, long-term real estate choices, cognitive sovereignty, regenerative design, and creating workplaces that serve future generations.
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AI Focusing Can Hide The People We Serve
- Focusing exclusively on artificial intelligence can make workplaces forget the people they are meant to serve.
- Kay Sargent says conferences now redirect nearly every topic toward AI within five minutes, sidelining well-being and intentional design.
Kodak Shows The Cost Of Shelving Disruption
- Kodak invented digital photography but shelved it because leadership could not monetize or pivot around the disruption.
- Kay Sargent uses Kodak as a warning for real estate leaders who recognize broken systems but delay changing them.
Four Forces Should Shape Long-Term Workplace Decisions
- Long-lived buildings require decisions that account for human sustainability, climate change, geopolitical shifts, and AI together.
- Kay Sargent notes that average buildings stand over 70 years while 90% of buildings miss needed environmental standards.
