About Us

The Intelligent Futures Lab (IF Lab) is an interdisciplinary expert research group at the University of Oregon dedicated to understanding how emerging technologies are transforming work, organizations, and systems of governance.

We study how artificial intelligence, blockchain, and related digital technologies are reshaping coordination, authority, and value creation, with particular attention to the human consequences of these shifts.

Our work is grounded in organization theory and spans four focus areas: decentralized governance, algorithmic organizing, digital assets, and human-AI interaction.

Across these domains, we develop theory to explain how intelligent and distributed technologies alter decision-making, collaboration, and organizational design. The IF Lab's central objective is to advance human-centered approaches to technological change, ensuring that innovation enhances accountability, inclusion, and long-term societal value.

We combine inductive field research, experiments, and quantitative analyses to generate insights that are both theoretically rigorous and practically relevant. We collaborate with scholars, students, and external partners to explore new organizational forms, governance mechanisms, and institutional arrangements emerging alongside AI-driven and blockchain-enabled systems.

By integrating foundational theory with emerging technological realities, the IF Lab aims to shape how organizations responsibly design and govern the future of work.

What We Study

Decentralized
Governance

How blockchain and DAOs reshape authority and collective decision-making.

Algorithmic
Organizing

How AI systems alter coordination, roles, and organizational design.

Digital
Assets

How tokenization and crypto markets transform value creation and exchange.

Human-AI
Interaction

How people collaborate with intelligent systems and what it means for work.