Jessica Annalena Steppe is a PhD candidate at NTNU working on Human-AI Collaboration. She spent three months at Stanford University in California as part of the NorwAI project.

Stanford University is located in an area that offers some of the most beautiful nature, such as the redwood forests and the Pacific Ocean, as well as the bustling city of San Francisco and the tech-heavy Silicon Valley. The campus itself is one of the largest in the US and feels like a small city, with libraries, museums, gardens, coffee shops, and a weekly food market. When it comes to research, Stanford is undoubtedly known for its world leading research on artificial intelligence (AI)—home to the Institute for Human-Centered AI and the Digital Economy Lab, with AI scholars such as Dr. Fei-Fei Li and Dr. Erik Brynjolfsson.

Earlier this year, I had the chance to spend three months at Stanford University as a visiting PhD researcher hosted by the Scandinavian Consortium for Organizational Research (SCANCOR). SCANCOR is a program affiliated with the Stanford Graduate School of Education that invites a cohort of Scandinavian researchers each quarter for a scholarly exchange within the cohort and with Stanford faculty. For me, it provided an excellent environment to deepen my knowledge and sharpen my research.

My PhD project focuses on human-AI collaboration in creativity and knowledge work. Specifically, I study how employees work with generative AI tools (primarily large language models) and how that collaboration can enhance creativity. Drawing on 55 qualitative interviews with knowledge workers in Norwegian organizations, a recurring insight from that research is that the value of generative AI depends less on the technology and more on how employees engage with it and on the individual and organizational conditions that shape this engagement. The time at Stanford enriched my findings by deepening my understanding of the field and revealing interesting contrasts between how AI is talked about and adopted in the US versus Norway.  

What made the stay particularly valuable was the chance to engage with the AI community at Stanford. AI is everywhere on campus with AI-focused talks, workshops, and seminars happening almost every day. With Stanford's close ties to big tech companies in Silicon Valley, academic research and industry practice is closely connected. One day I would attend a talk by a former OpenAI research scientist on the cost and benefits of various human-AI interaction modes; the next, a fireside chat with the publisher of The New York Times on the paper's digital transition and its lawsuit against OpenAI over training data. The mix of academic and industry perspectives is reshaping how I think about AI—the benefits for organizations alongside the risks and the question of responsible use.

Outside the university, I collected a lot of new experiences. The surroundings offered beautiful hikes along the Stanford Dish Trail and through Muir Woods, stunning sunsets over the Pacific, and easy access to San Francisco, which quickly became a city I loved spending time in. One highlight was a road trip down the cinematic Pacific Coast Highway of the Pacific Coast Highway, through Big Sur to Los Angeles. Another highlight was an exciting trip with the whole SCANCOR cohort to Las Vegas, including a day trip out to the breathtaking Grand Canyon. I won't pretend I missed the Norwegian winter, especially on the days I biked to campus past palm trees in the warm sun in January.

The stay shaped me both on a professional and personal level. Back at NTNU, I'm applying what I learned as I finalize my dissertation this year, bringing new perspectives on human-AI interaction and AI-augmented knowledge work to the project. One habit I hope to carry forward is reaching out to other researchers directly, for feedback and for conversations—for the kind of exchanges that came so easily at Stanford. Most of all, I want to hold onto the energy of this enriching experience, along with the reminder of what a privilege it is to spend every day working on something I enjoy and that matters to me and to others.

Thank you to SCANCOR and NorwAI for making this stay possible. Thank you to everyone who made my stay so special, especially the entire SCANCOR Winter 2026 cohort and my family, who came to visit me on the other side of the world.
 

Published 2026-06-12