BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Arianna Huffington, author and founder of The Huffington Post, now HuffPost, stopped by Lehigh University on Tuesday to talk about how artificial intelligence can help people build positive habits and improve their health.
“I’m a believer that you can change behaviors,” said Huffington, whose technology company, Thrive Global, aims to do just that.
Hundreds of attendees gathered at Zoellner Arts Center, where Lehigh President Joseph Helble interviewed Huffington as part of the 2025-26 iteration of the university’s Compelling Perspectives program.
The speaker series creates a space for “open,” “respectful” conversations on challenging topics.
In the previous two years of its existence, guests included journalist Katie Couric and former British Prime Minister Theresa May, among others.
This year’s theme is “AI: Innovation, Responsibility and the Future We Shape.”
Huffington’s background
Originally from Greece, Huffington moved to the United Kingdom as a teenager and attended Cambridge University, where she studied economics.
She became the first international president of the famous debate society, the Cambridge Union.
“Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen."Arianna Huffington, author and founder of The Huffington Post, now HuffPost
Her performance in a televised debate, in which she critiqued the women’s liberation movement, landed Huffington her first book deal at the age of 23.
“Life is a dance between making it happen and letting it happen,” she told the crowd at Lehigh.
Huffington since has written 14 more books, including international bestsellers “Thrive” and “The Sleep Revolution.”
She eventually moved to the United States and unsuccessfully ran for governor of California in 2003.
Two years later, she founded The Huffington Post, comprised of blogging and investigative journalism. In 2012, it became the first digital outlet to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Huffington founded her technology company, Thrive Global, in 2016. Its mission to strengthen habits and improve overall health was informed by Huffington’s personal experience with burnout years earlier, when she collapsed at home from exhaustion and injured herself.
Huffington said at the time she had “bought into the collective delusion” that she “didn’t have the luxury to take care of herself.”
That experience led her to founding the technology company, which is focused on sleep, food, movement, stress management and connection.
Those topics are all “important for longevity,” Huffington said.
Thrive Global’s uses AI for coaching
Thrive Global works with employers and health care companies to “democratize and scale” coaching for employees and patients.
Huffington’s company created the Thrive AI Health Coach in collaboration with the OpenAI Startup Fund, which supports companies at the forefront of AI.
The AI health coach provides personalized guidance through microsteps that are personalized to a user's life.
“You have to meet people where they are,” she said.
To deal with stress, a 60-second reset might prompt users with poetry, music or photos of their children to help them calm down.
“Neuroscience tells us that gratitude and joy cannot coexist with stress and anxiety,” Huffington said.
The biggest benefits of AI, Huffington said, are hyper-personalization and memory.
“AI can know you better than you know yourself because it remembers everything,” she said.
That knowledge lets AI help users with research and suggestions, she said. The technology also can make predictions based on the previous information fed into it.
When asked a question about her fears around AI, Huffington said there’s a disconnect between leaders and the majority of people, who, for instance, may be afraid AI will cause them to lose their jobs.
Leaders need to “tell a better AI story based on how AI can help people in their everyday lives,” Huffington said.
Students express skepticism
Stavros Marangos, the freshman engineering student who asked Huffington that question, called her response an “interesting deflection.”
“I thought it was appropriate because she’s very hopeful,” he said. “I think that’s her whole platform — is the hope for the future of AI and the need for positive dialogue.”
“Especially around here at Lehigh, we have a lot of conversations centering around how to not use AI.”Olivia Link, senior journalism student at Lehigh
Olivia Link, a senior journalism student, said she was surprised how supportive Huffington was of AI, given that most of her professors take a harsher view.
“Especially around here at Lehigh, we have a lot of conversations centering around how to not use AI.”
Almost all of Link’s professors have banned the use of AI for their courses, though some allow AI to be used to create outlines, Link said.
Link said she understands her professors’ policies. While AI has benefits, Link has concerns about the downfalls of AI, too.
“If we are in support of it too much, then we’ll become reliant on it and not be able to be creative or form [many] of our own ideas,” she said.
While Huffington sang the praises of AI, she also encouraged students to disconnect from their phones, especially at nighttime, and to focus on spirituality, or their own consciousness.
“I think it’s time to reconnect with what makes us uniquely human," Huffington said.
The next Compelling Perspectives event will be on Dec. 4, when Lehigh welcomes U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pennsylvania.
On Jan. 29, Lehigh will welcome Silicon Valley icon Steve Wozniak, who with Steve Jobs co-founded Apple Computer Inc.
