Stanford | Digital Economy Lab & HAI

Ciao, I’m Luca —
I study how AI is transforming work and organizations.

I'm a Researcher at the Stanford Digital Economy Lab (DEL) and the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI).

I collaborate with large organizations across different sectors using a research approach that combines interviews, field observations, and field experiments.

Reach outHave a look at my research

Latest Updates

  • The GenAI Wall: Examining the Limits to Job Role Expansion with Generative AI

    Vendraminelli, L., DiSorbo, M.D.S.,  Hildebrandt, A., McFowland III, E., Karunakaran, A., Bojinov, I.
    In this experiment, we examine how individuals use Generative AI (GenAI) to expand their job roles into tasks typically performed by colleagues. We advance that a “GenAI Wall” emerges when new tasks lie too far from a person’s existing expertise and the expertise distance becomes too large. Up to that point, GenAI enables horizontal role expansion, but beyond it, its supportive power begins to fray.

Research

How is Artificial Intelligence reshaping work and organizations? My work employs a full-cycle research approach, combining fieldwork and experimentation. Typically, my research process begins with inductive exploration to uncover organizational challenges and hypothesize novel mechanisms. I then test these mechanisms with field experiments, complemented by further fieldwork to validate findings and enrich organizational theory. My research is divided into two main areas:

View of Venice, painted by Canaletto around 1723–1724 (Harvard Art Museums).

How is AI transforming work and organizations?

I study how AI transforms job tasks, redefines expertise, and affords novel configurations of organizational design and the division of labor.

The Prato della Valle, Padua, painted by Canaletto around 1741–1746 (National Gallery, London).

Why do AI projects fail?

I study the roadblocks in the AI development lifecycle across all the phases of the innovation process: during problem definition, solution ideation, prototyping, testing, and final user adoption.

Selected work

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  • Innovation and Design in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

    Work and Organizations
    Fieldwork
    Verganti, R., Vendraminelli, L., Iansiti, M.
    ‍Journal of Product Innovation Management
    We theorize how AI is reshaping design and innovation: as algorithms take over much of creative problem-solving, human designers move from crafting solutions to making sense of which problems matter, fundamentally changing the nature of innovation work.
    Download PDF

  • The GenAI Wall: Examining the Limits to Job Role Expansion with Generative AI

    Work and Organizations
    Experiments
    Fieldwork
    Vendraminelli, L., DiSorbo, M.D.S.,  Hildebrandt, A., McFowland III, E., Karunakaran, A., Bojinov, I.
    In this experiment, we examine how individuals use Generative AI (GenAI) to expand their job roles into tasks typically performed by colleagues. We show that a “GenAI Wall” emerges when the new task lies too far from a person’s existing expertise—when the expertise distance becomes too large. Up to that point, GenAI enables horizontal role expansion, but beyond it, its supportive power begins to fray.
    Download PDF

  • Make, then Buy? Occupational
    Repositioning, Technology Bundling, and the Processes of AI Sourcing in a Large Firm

    AI Development
    Fieldwork
    Vendraminelli, L., Narayanan, D., and Karunakaran, A.
    ‍Under review
    Based on an ethnographic study of a global fashion company, this paper explains why firms that start by building AI internally may end up buying AI from vendors, revealing that internal role threats and vendors’ bundled AI stacks jointly push organizations toward outsourcing despite initial commitments to in-house development.
    Download PDF

  • On AI to Optimize “Products” versus “People”

    AI Development
    Fieldwork
    Vendraminelli, L., Narayanan, D., and Karunakaran, A.
    Second Round of Review
    Based on an ethnographic study of a global fashion company, this paper explains why firms that start by building AI internally may end up buying AI from vendors, revealing that internal role threats and vendors’ bundled AI stacks jointly push organizations toward outsourcing despite initial commitments to in-house development.
    Download PDF

  • Structural Foundations of Relational Work: Examining How and When “Relational Work” Does not Work for Facilitating Cross-Occupational Collaboration in AI Development

    AI Development
    Fieldwork
    Narayanan, D., Vendraminelli, L., and Karunakaran, A.,
    Second Round of Review
    Based on an ethnographic study of a global fashion company, this paper explains why firms that start by building AI internally may end up buying AI from vendors, revealing that internal role threats and vendors’ bundled AI stacks jointly push organizations toward outsourcing despite initial commitments to in-house development.
    Download PDF

  • Why providing humans with
    interpretable algorithms may, counterintuitively, lead to lower decision-making performance.

    AI Development
    Fieldwork
    Experiments
    De Stefano, T., Kellogg, K., Menietti, M., Vendraminelli L.,
    Through a field experiment at a global fashion company, this paper finds that more accurate but less interpretable AI recommendations improve task performance more than interpretable rule-based ones—because when algorithms are easy to understand, people tend to overrule them, whereas when they are opaque, they rely on trusted peers, a process we call “social proofing” to determine their deviation behavior.
    Download PDF

Other activities

Teaching

I delivered executive education for CxO of large corporates such as Accenture, McKinsey, OBoticário, OTB Group, Tapestry, and others.

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Awards

2025: Winner of the 2025 Abbie Griffin High Impact Award

2023: Chris Voss Best Paper Award Winner, Euroma Conference

2020: Winner of the 2020 Albert Page Award Winner for Outstanding Professional Contribution

Startup and Corporate Advisory

I advised entrepreneurs identify their product–market fit and shape their business model. I was an equity shareholder in Quindi, an AI startup building GenAI-driven Manufacturing Execution Systems for manufacturing plants, and I currently serve on the board of directors of Azzurro Digitale.

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