Dr Annja Neumann

I work at the intersection of sociotechnical systems design, systems psychodynamics, arts-based methods and realist evaluation – folded into a single organisational consulting practice focused on human-AI systems – here understood as socio-technical systems (STS), interactions where social and cultural aspects matter as much as technical infrastructures.

As Principal STS Consultant and Artist-Researcher I help organisations, teams and senior leaders build the adaptive capabilities they need to work with uncertainty, social and technological change including human-AI interaction design – not just technically, but socially and humanly. This is a matter of systems change and of human agency; how to effectively embed human autonomy in automated systems with ROI, this questions has always been at the heart of my work: in organisational consulting, in academia and as an artist.

I lead the Creative Digital Futures Lab and serve on the boards of the Global Socio-technical Systems Network Group and the Organisational Aesthetics Journal. I also contribute to EU Horizon-funded policy research and consultancy on equitable evaluation of complex AI systems (EU-ALMPO). As faculty member of Deepening Creative Practice in London and the Organisational Change and System Dynamician programme in China, I facilitate learning about STS Consulting and AI for leaders and HR/OD practitioners using experimental methods.

Most organisations navigating AI transformation can access change management or technical support. What they struggle to find is someone who understands the unconscious dynamics playing out in human-AI teams – the anxieties, the shifts in role and authority, the resistance that never quite names itself. That is where my work begins.

My methods combine anthropological and social-analytical approaches, STS and systems psychodynamic frameworks with participatory mixed-reality theatre, role rehearsals and simulations – making unconscious assumptions and system pressures visible and actionable through experiential learning. I have co-developed and led this work together with multidisciplinary teams across tech companies, hospitals, universities, cultural institutions and third sector organisations.

At the University of Cambridge, I hold concurrent posts as Affiliated Lecturer in Digital Humanities and Senior Research Fellow in German and Medical Humanities at Magdalene College.

 My background as a consultant is cross-disciplinary by design: cultural anthropologist, literary scholar (PhD, DAAD-funded), performance researcher and media artist. I listen for what is beneath the surface. That hermeneutic discipline – attending to what is said, what is left unsaid, and how form carries meaning – shapes everything I do as a consultant.

Affiliated Lecturer in Digital Humanities, Cambridge Digital Humanities, University of Cambridge

Senior Research Fellow in Medical Humanities and German Studies, Magdalene College, Cambridge

Co-Director and Founder, Lower Street Atelier, cross-disciplinary co-working space, Stroud (Gloucestershire)