How AI is reshaping discovery, trust, rights, value—and the boundaries between media.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to change more than how content is created. It is reshaping how books and ideas are discovered, distributed, recommended, valued, and connected across media.
As AI becomes a new interface between audiences and knowledge, publishers, authors, libraries, educators, and media companies face fundamental questions. Who will shape what audiences discover? What happens to trusted curation, intellectual property, attribution, and compensation? Where is AI creating meaningful value today—and where does it introduce risks that publishing and media leaders should not ignore?
Join the Wharton Media & Entertainment Affinity Group and the Wharton AI Affinity Group for a candid conversation with Steve Potash and Barbara Kline Pope, two leaders who have spent decades shaping the digital future of reading, publishing, and access to knowledge.
Drawing on firsthand operating experience rather than speculation, the speakers will explore:
Featured speakers:
Steve Potash, Founder and Chairman, OverDrive
Steve Potash is Founder & Chairman of OverDrive, a company he co-founded alongside his wife, Loree Potash, in 1986. Prior to becoming Chairman, he served as CEO for 40 years from 1986-2026. Steve leads the company focused on OverDrive’s vision to create “A World Enlightened by Reading.” Under his leadership, OverDrive has become the leading digital reading platform for eBooks, audiobooks, and other digital media serving more than 92,000 libraries, schools, government agencies, corporate learning centers, colleges, and universities worldwide.
A pioneer in the digital book and media distribution industry, Steve was among the first to develop useful applications for electronic books in the 1980s. OverDrive developed products and services for authors and publishers that produced early commercial applications for digital books including on floppy disks, CD-ROM, offering print-to-digital conversion services. The earliest electronic books produced by OverDrive were in partnership with leading law, accounting, and healthcare publishing partners. In 2000, Steve launched OverDrive’s flagship digital content distribution hub, OverDrive Marketplace, now one of the largest B2B catalogs in the world for institutional buyers of eBooks and other digital media in over 100 languages. Many of the world’s leading publishing houses rely on OverDrive to sell their premium content to a global network of 92,000 libraries and schools in 115 countries.
Steve has been recognized by the industry with various awards. In 2011 he received the first Ambassador Award from the US publishing industry at BookExpo America and in 2016 he was honored by the UJA-Federation of New York Publishing Division. In 2017, Steve was honored as a Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from Cleveland State University. In 2020, Harvard Business School Club of NE Ohio awarded Steve with the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award and in 2023, he received the Robert Motter Vendor Appreciation Award from the Oklahoma Library Association.
Steve was a founding member of the Open eBook Forum (renamed International Digital Publishing Forum) and a contributing author for the industry standard eBook format EPUB specification. In addition, through his collaboration with federal and state agencies, Steve has worked extensively for improved digital media accessibility for the visually impaired.
Prior to starting OverDrive, and while practicing law, Steve served as Special Counsel to the Ohio Attorney General, served as an acting Municipal Judge, and authored technology columns for the American Bar Association Journal. He was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court in 2019. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University and earned his J.D. at the Cleveland State University College of Law.
The Steve & Loree Potash Family Foundation has funded literacy programs in excess of $10 million dollars, including hundreds of grants through BelieveInReading.org. In 2021, Steve and Loree gifted $7.5 million to establish the Steve and Loree Potash Women & Newborn Center at the University Hospital Ahuja Medical Center.
In addition to the named center, Steve and Loree’s gift launched an innovative literacy program called Baby’s First Books, ensuring families go home with their first collection of baby books to be read to the newborn. In 2025, Steve and Loree donated $100,000 to the Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank and a $500,000 Challenge Grant to benefit the ALA 150th Anniversary Campaign.
Barbara Kline Pope, Executive Director, Johns Hopkins University Press
Barbara Kline Pope is Executive Director of Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP), one of the nation’s largest university presses, annually publishing 120 new books and 120 journals across the life, health, and social sciences, public health, and humanities. At JHUP, she is also responsible for Project MUSE, an innovative aggregation of 100,000 books and 800 journals from 400 scholarly publishers across the humanities and social sciences and for Hopkins Fulfillment Services. Prior to her role at JHUP, Barbara was Executive Director for Communications and the National Academies Press (NAP) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. There she transformed NAP’s traditional print business model to one that is digital open-access and developed ground-breaking programs for engaging public audiences with science and engineering. She serves as chair of the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) Generative AI Task Force, is on the advisory board of Stanford University Press, is on the coordinating committee of the Subscribe-to-Open Community of Practice, is a past-president of the AUPresses, and holds an M.S. from the University of Maryland.
Under her leadership, Hopkins Press has expanded its digital and open-access initiatives while addressing the opportunities and challenges AI presents for publishing workflows, intellectual property, scholarly integrity, and the stewardship of authors’ work in the emerging large-language-model environment. (Hopkins Press)
When:
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
6:00 PM ET – 7:30 PM ET
Cost:
WCNY Supporting Members - $20 (WCNY supporting membership costs $95/yr at Join/Renew Membership)
Other Wharton Alumni & Alumni Guests - $40
Gold & Benefactor Members - $0
Where:
Midtown location (Note: Address will be sent via email to all registered guests 24-48 hours prior to the email address provided during registration.)
Pre-registration is required. Please register early as events can and do sell out quickly.
Registration is subject to availability and will close on Tuesday, September 15th at 9:00AM. No exceptions can be made!
Cancellations must be made at least two business days prior to the event date by sending an email to Gabriela Sanchez. Refunds or credits for future events are not available for any no-shows or late cancellations. Click here for full details.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to change more than how content is created. It is reshaping how books and ideas are discovered, distributed, recommended, valued, and connected across media.
As AI becomes a new interface between audiences and knowledge, publishers, authors, libraries, educators, and media companies face fundamental questions. Who will shape what audiences discover? What happens to trusted curation, intellectual property, attribution, and compensation? Where is AI creating meaningful value today—and where does it introduce risks that publishing and media leaders should not ignore?
Join the Wharton Media & Entertainment Affinity Group and the Wharton AI Affinity Group for a candid conversation with Steve Potash and Barbara Kline Pope, two leaders who have spent decades shaping the digital future of reading, publishing, and access to knowledge.
Drawing on firsthand operating experience rather than speculation, the speakers will explore:
- Where AI is delivering practical value in publishing today
- How AI-driven discovery could alter the relationships among readers, authors, publishers, libraries, and platforms
- What the experience of OverDrive’s Inspire Me feature reveals about AI-enabled book discovery
- How publishers and all media companies should approach copyright, attribution, scholarly integrity, environmental impact, and responsible AI use
- Whether AI will accelerate convergence among publishing, audiobooks, film and television, education, streaming, and other media
- What media and publishing leaders should begin doing now—and what they should approach cautiously
Featured speakers:
Steve Potash, Founder and Chairman, OverDrive
Steve Potash is Founder & Chairman of OverDrive, a company he co-founded alongside his wife, Loree Potash, in 1986. Prior to becoming Chairman, he served as CEO for 40 years from 1986-2026. Steve leads the company focused on OverDrive’s vision to create “A World Enlightened by Reading.” Under his leadership, OverDrive has become the leading digital reading platform for eBooks, audiobooks, and other digital media serving more than 92,000 libraries, schools, government agencies, corporate learning centers, colleges, and universities worldwide.
A pioneer in the digital book and media distribution industry, Steve was among the first to develop useful applications for electronic books in the 1980s. OverDrive developed products and services for authors and publishers that produced early commercial applications for digital books including on floppy disks, CD-ROM, offering print-to-digital conversion services. The earliest electronic books produced by OverDrive were in partnership with leading law, accounting, and healthcare publishing partners. In 2000, Steve launched OverDrive’s flagship digital content distribution hub, OverDrive Marketplace, now one of the largest B2B catalogs in the world for institutional buyers of eBooks and other digital media in over 100 languages. Many of the world’s leading publishing houses rely on OverDrive to sell their premium content to a global network of 92,000 libraries and schools in 115 countries.
Steve has been recognized by the industry with various awards. In 2011 he received the first Ambassador Award from the US publishing industry at BookExpo America and in 2016 he was honored by the UJA-Federation of New York Publishing Division. In 2017, Steve was honored as a Distinguished Alumni Award recipient from Cleveland State University. In 2020, Harvard Business School Club of NE Ohio awarded Steve with the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award and in 2023, he received the Robert Motter Vendor Appreciation Award from the Oklahoma Library Association.
Steve was a founding member of the Open eBook Forum (renamed International Digital Publishing Forum) and a contributing author for the industry standard eBook format EPUB specification. In addition, through his collaboration with federal and state agencies, Steve has worked extensively for improved digital media accessibility for the visually impaired.
Prior to starting OverDrive, and while practicing law, Steve served as Special Counsel to the Ohio Attorney General, served as an acting Municipal Judge, and authored technology columns for the American Bar Association Journal. He was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court in 2019. He has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from The Ohio State University and earned his J.D. at the Cleveland State University College of Law.
The Steve & Loree Potash Family Foundation has funded literacy programs in excess of $10 million dollars, including hundreds of grants through BelieveInReading.org. In 2021, Steve and Loree gifted $7.5 million to establish the Steve and Loree Potash Women & Newborn Center at the University Hospital Ahuja Medical Center.
In addition to the named center, Steve and Loree’s gift launched an innovative literacy program called Baby’s First Books, ensuring families go home with their first collection of baby books to be read to the newborn. In 2025, Steve and Loree donated $100,000 to the Cleveland Kids’ Book Bank and a $500,000 Challenge Grant to benefit the ALA 150th Anniversary Campaign.
Barbara Kline Pope, Executive Director, Johns Hopkins University Press
Barbara Kline Pope is Executive Director of Johns Hopkins University Press (JHUP), one of the nation’s largest university presses, annually publishing 120 new books and 120 journals across the life, health, and social sciences, public health, and humanities. At JHUP, she is also responsible for Project MUSE, an innovative aggregation of 100,000 books and 800 journals from 400 scholarly publishers across the humanities and social sciences and for Hopkins Fulfillment Services. Prior to her role at JHUP, Barbara was Executive Director for Communications and the National Academies Press (NAP) at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. There she transformed NAP’s traditional print business model to one that is digital open-access and developed ground-breaking programs for engaging public audiences with science and engineering. She serves as chair of the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) Generative AI Task Force, is on the advisory board of Stanford University Press, is on the coordinating committee of the Subscribe-to-Open Community of Practice, is a past-president of the AUPresses, and holds an M.S. from the University of Maryland.
Under her leadership, Hopkins Press has expanded its digital and open-access initiatives while addressing the opportunities and challenges AI presents for publishing workflows, intellectual property, scholarly integrity, and the stewardship of authors’ work in the emerging large-language-model environment. (Hopkins Press)
When:
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
6:00 PM ET – 7:30 PM ET
Cost:
WCNY Supporting Members - $20 (WCNY supporting membership costs $95/yr at Join/Renew Membership)
Other Wharton Alumni & Alumni Guests - $40
Gold & Benefactor Members - $0
Where:
Midtown location (Note: Address will be sent via email to all registered guests 24-48 hours prior to the email address provided during registration.)
Pre-registration is required. Please register early as events can and do sell out quickly.
Registration is subject to availability and will close on Tuesday, September 15th at 9:00AM. No exceptions can be made!
Cancellations must be made at least two business days prior to the event date by sending an email to Gabriela Sanchez. Refunds or credits for future events are not available for any no-shows or late cancellations. Click here for full details.