The European Trade Union Institute (ETUI) hosted the conference “Future of Work” in Brussels on February 10-11, 2026, bringing together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to examine how contemporary transformations are reshaping the world of work. Among the contributions was a presentation by DiPLab’s Paola Tubaro, who offered crucial insights into the relationship between artificial intelligence and job quality. Tubaro’s presentation centered on a forthcoming chapter titled “What is AI doing to Job Quality? Platformization, Fissured Workplaces and Dispersion,” co-authored with Antonio Casilli. This work will appear in the new edited volume Job Quality in a Turbulent Era, edited by Janine Leschke and Agnieszka Piasna and published by Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. The chapter’s key intervention challenges a common assumption in discussions about AI and work: that technology alone determines outcomes for workers. As Tubaro emphasized during her presentation, AI does not operate in a vacuum. Instead, its impacts on job quality emerge from the broader political economy and organizational contexts in which these technologies are introduced and deployed. The chapter explores three interconnected phenomena transforming contemporary work: * Platformization: The expansion of platform-based work arrangements that mediate labor through digital technologies, creating new forms of employment relationships and power dynamics. * Fissured Workplaces: The fragmentation of traditional employment structures, where work is increasingly outsourced, subcontracted, or restructured in ways that distance workers from the organizations that benefit from their labor. * Dispersion: The geographic and organizational scattering of work processes, enabled by digital technologies but shaped by strategic choices about how to organize production and manage labor. The conference featured a preview of the new book on job quality, with editors Leschke and Piasna exploring how AI, digitalisation, and decarbonisation are reshaping work organization and affecting core components of job quality—not through technological inevitability, but through deliberate choices made by organizations and policymakers. Dr. Funda Ustek Spilda complemented these discussions with concrete insights on datafication and surveillance practices at companies like Sama and Amazon UK, demonstrating how these dynamics transform work on the ground. Dr. Massimo Mensi, serving as discussant, reinforced a crucial theme: governance choices matter more than the technology itself. He also challenged the common framing of training as a cost, arguing instead that it should be understood as an investment in workers and work quality. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

We are pleased to announce that DiPLab’s co-director, Professor Antonio Casilli, contributed expert testimony to the International High-Level Expert Committee on Democracy at Work for the Spanish Government, whose final report will be publicly released tomorrow, Monday, February 2, 2026, at 11am CET in Madrid. ABOUT THE REPORT Established by the Ministry of Labour of the Government of Spain, the Expert Committee on Democracy at Work brought together international experts to examine critical challenges facing workers in the contemporary economy. The Committee’s comprehensive report represents months of research, deliberation, and expert testimony from leading scholars and practitioners worldwide. Professor Casilli’s testimony, delivered at online hearings in May 2025, focused on “The Crisis of Informality and the Global Value Chain,” bringing DiPLab’s groundbreaking research on data work and AI labor into this crucial policy conversation. In his testimony, Professor Casilli presented findings from DiPLab’s extensive research programme on Digital Platform Labor, highlighting a frequently overlooked dimension of algorithmic management: the externalized, largely invisible labor that powers artificial intelligence development. Professor Casilli’s complete testimony to the Committee is available below: Hearing_Casilli_Democracy_Work_Spain_May_2025Download The presentation examined data work as an essential but systematically undervalued component of AI production systems. Drawing on DiPLab’s field research across multiple continents—including French- and English-speaking countries in Africa (Madagascar, Kenya, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Uganda, Egypt), Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries in Latin America (Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina), and South and Southeast Asia (India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Nepal, China)—Professor Casilli documented stark disparities in compensation and working conditions. As Professor Casilli emphasized, while AI appears to be “produced” in the Global North where major technology companies maintain their headquarters, this masks a complex reality: data production remains concentrated in the Global South, with labor flowing through established patterns that reflect linguistic, colonial, and economic connections. REPORT RELEASE When: Monday, February 2, 2026, at 11:00 AM CET Where: Ministry of Labour, Madrid (live-streamed) Live stream: https://www.youtube.com/live/frTjUx2TOb8 The complete report will be published in both English and Spanish at noon CET on the dedicated website: * English: https://reportondemocracyatwork.org/en/home/ * Spanish: https://reportondemocracyatwork.org/es/home/