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Life Under the Algorithm
AI Now's Katie Wells co-authors this piece with Veena Dubal in the Fall 2026 Issue, exploring how algorithmic wages and prices are reshaping our lives.
Dissent Magazine
Sep 8, 2026
Episode 20: Resisting AI Data Centers, with Alli Finn and Matt Rodriguez
Alli Finn, Director of Community Partnerships, joined the Dreaming Against the Machine podcast to talk about the speed and scale of data center construction, its impact on surrounding communities, and how people can fight back.
Dreaming Against the Machine
Aug 25, 2026
Waymo is eating into the ride-hailing market in some cities. The fallout for human drivers stays fuzzy.
Katie Wells, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute who has studied Uber drivers, told Business Insider that the lack of certain data makes it difficult to measure driver displacement.
Business Insider
Aug 16, 2026
Stop Saying There’s a Nursing Shortage
Yet rather than add nurses, many hospitals are paring back, sometimes turning to apps where they can hire nurses as gig workers. Such apps often allow hospitals to avoid paying for benefits for these workers, says Katie Wells, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute, which has studied gig apps for nursing. “Lean staffing has just become the norm."
TIME
Aug 7, 2026
20% of workers say they use AI for tasks that used to be given to colleagues, poll finds
“In the discourse around AI and disruption, it feels like so much of the conversation is framed as ‘this is what’s going to happen to workers,’ and less of how workers themselves are thinking of their own precarity," says Aya Ibrahim, senior economic and national security fellow at AI Now.
NBC News
Aug 6, 2026
New Study Sparks Questions Over Uber and Lyft’s Ride Pricing
A new Consumer Reports investigation finds Uber and Lyft customers are often given different fares when they book the same rides at the same time. While Uber and Lyft have long used surge pricing, the new findings are raising questions about whether the apps are using personalized or surveillance pricing based on customers’ personal data. NBC’s Vicky Nguyen reports for TODAY.
TODAY Show
Jun 16, 2026
Different Prices for the Same Ride: How Uber and Lyft Use AI to Get More Money Out of You
The way Uber uses algorithms and AI to change prices makes it near-impossible for consumers to comparison shop or understand why a friend standing nearby might receive an entirely different price, experts say. “Now they’re going further and attacking the idea of a reference price,” says Katie Wells, senior fellow at AI Now.
Consumer Reports
Jun 16, 2026
Silicon Valley Is Turning Nurses Into Gig Workers—With Katie J. Wells
The Uber model is finally coming for healthcare. Katie J. Wells joins Paris Marx on the Tech Won't Save Us podcast to discuss how much the healthcare gig apps resemble Uber’s rollout, why they aren’t being properly regulated, and the effects they’re having on staff and patients alike.
The Nation
Jun 11, 2026
An Uber-like app for nursing gigs?
Reporter Varsha Bansal talks to Katie Wells, a senior fellow at AI Now Institute, about gig nursing apps — think Uber or Hinge for nursing.
Proof News
Jun 2, 2026
To Save Democracy, We Need to Reimagine the Economy
When your paycheck is determined by an opaque algorithm that pits you against your neighbor in a race to the bottom, the political agency required for a functioning democracy evaporates.
TIME
Jun 2, 2026
Your boss’s AI may already be reading your Slack messages
Amba Kak, executive director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, previously told CNBC that the rise in message monitoring is concerning—not just because of what employees might say, but because of how doing so infringes on their rights.
Fast Company
May 19, 2026
AI is disrupting nursing as Uber-like apps grow and set earnings and work schedules
The gig-work apps for nursing share parallels with Uber and other established gig-work apps, said AI Now's Katie Wells. For both groups of apps, algorithms play a prominent role in how users work, from determining pay to handling potential account deactivations.
Business Insider
May 3, 2026
The tech industry is applying an Uber-style ‘gigification’ model to nursing. It means no workers’ comp, AI managers, and ‘surveillance wages’
In a similar vein to ridesharing apps, the "gigification" of health care might come at the expense of worker security and even allow companies to sidestep regulations, according to AI Now's new report on the state of nursing gig work.
Fortune
Apr 23, 2026
Nurses Sound Alarm as ‘Uber for Nursing’ Apps Push to Deregulate Healthcare
A new AI Now Institute report published April 21, 2026, warns that gig-work platforms marketed as "Uber for nursing" are aggressively lobbying states to rewrite healthcare staffing rules, a push that could leave nurses with less pay, fewer protections, and less control over their shifts, according to The Guardian.
nurse.org
Apr 22, 2026
‘Uber for nurses’: gig-work apps lobby to deregulate healthcare, report finds
Billion-dollar tech platforms are aggressively pushing for deregulation of the “Uber for nursing” industry in an effort to expand gig work in the healthcare sector, according to a report published on Tuesday.
The Guardian
Apr 21, 2026
Is AI being shoved down your throat at work? Here’s how to fight back.
“There’s a whole range of different examples where unions have been able to really be on the front foot in setting the terms for how AI gets used — and whether it gets used at all,” Sarah Myers West, co-executive director of the AI Now Institute, told me recently.
Vox
Nov 16, 2025
AI is costing jobs, but not always the way you think
Demand for AI is strong, but there’s no guarantee this gamble will pay off according to Sarah Myers West at the AI Now Institute.
Marketplace
Sep 9, 2025