Founding AIFA board members, Adrian Farhat and Gordon Withrow provide a look inside the emerging world of Embodied AI. As Artificial Intelligence moves from the desktop tools or Agentic workflow helper to becoming the brains behind physical robots, vehicles, buildings, and other infrastructure, a whole new series of risks and opportunities are created that require governance.

Adrian and Gordon will explain the Embodied AI domain through the lens of:

• Current Developments
• Risks associated with this transformation on a global basis for privacy, safety, and security across multiple sub-domains:
  • The “Built Environment” (Smart Cities, buildings, etc.)
  • Robotics (focused and autonomous humanoid)
  • Manufacturing

Jennifer L. Wondracek is the Director of the Law Library and a Professor of Legal Research and Writing at Capital University Law School. She has extensive experience in law librarianship and legal technology. She has held positions in the law libraries at Barry University, Elon University, the University of Florida and UNT Dallas. While at UNT Dallas, Professor Wondracek became the founding director of the Legal Educational Technology department. Professor Wondracek's research focus includes VR, 360 photography, legal ethics, generative AI, and technology competence. A frequent speaker at conferences and CLE events, she was recognized as an ABA LTRC Women of Legal Tech Honoree and Fastcase 50 member in 2021.

Presentation Description:

U.S. AI regulation is moving quickly at both the federal and state levels, and it can be hard to keep track of what actually applies to a tech business today versus what's still on the horizon. This 50-minute session walks through the AI frameworks currently in place across the U.S., the proposals that look likely to pass soon, and several court cases that may influence how AI is built, deployed, and sold. The goal is general awareness, not legal advice. The session is built around conversation, so attendees are encouraged to raise questions as topics come up rather than wait until the end.

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly transforming how organizations operate — including nonprofit organizations that manage billions of dollars in assets and serve communities across the country.

Yet while AI adoption is accelerating, governance and oversight are not keeping pace.

In this engaging session, Dr. Patricia Larkins Hicks will explore the growing gap between the use of artificial intelligence and the governance structures needed to ensure it is used responsibly and effectively in nonprofit organizations.

Nonprofit boards carry the ultimate responsibility for ensuring their organizations achieve their missions. This requires moving beyond activity and outputs to a clear focus on alignment, measurement, and outcomes.

Participants explored:

• The current state of AI adoption in nonprofit organizations
• The widening gap between AI innovation and governance oversight
• The role of boards and leadership in ensuring responsible AI use
• Why alignment and measurement are essential for mission achievement
• How governance frameworks can help organizations harness AI to accelerate positive results while reducing the risks of bias, misuse, and loss of public trust

Artificial intelligence has the potential to dramatically accelerate mission impact — but only when organizations have the governance, oversight, and data integrity necessary to ensure the results it produces are trustworthy and aligned with organizational purpose.

Consumers are using AI more than ever-and simultaneously getting more uneasy about it. In 2025, Pew found 50% of Americans are more concerned than excited about AI's growing role in daily life, and 76% say it's important to tell whether content was made by AI or a human-yet 53% don't feel confident they can spot the difference. At the same time, small businesses are adopting AI tools at meaningful rates, even while worrying about compliance complexity and uneven rules.

This talk explains the "AI Trust Gap": the collision between customer expectations (authenticity, privacy, transparency, human accountability) and the messy reality of today's GenAI (inconsistent results, uneven ROI, and failure modes that appear "random" to users). You'll leave with a simple SMB-ready framework: what to automate, what to augment, what to keep human, and what to clearly disclose-including practical examples aligned to AIFA's emphasis on AI identification and user-facing indicators.

Outcome: attendees can adopt AI without damaging brand trust-using straightforward policies, disclosures, and human-in-the-loop controls that customers actually notice.