Brent Orrell

Brent Orrell is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies how artificial intelligence is transforming jobs and how policies can better prepare the workforce by ensuring that technology augments rather than automates workers. Mr. Orrell also focuses on economic mobility in urban and rural America, bringing extensive experience addressing unemployment, workforce displacement, and the barriers facing disconnected and disadvantaged populations, including youth, justice-involved persons, veterans, and neurodivergent persons.

Mr. Orrell leads AEI’s involvement in the Workforce Futures Initiative, a collaboration with the Brookings Institution and Harvard Kennedy School that has produced multiple reports, working group sessions, and interest from communities across the US. He also co-leads the Brookings-AEI Commission on US Rural Prosperity, which promotes America’s rural future by strengthening economic opportunity, local resilience, and quality of life across rural America.

Mr. Orrell has written, coauthored, and edited multiple reports for AEI, including De-Skilling the Knowledge Economy. His research and writing have appeared in The Bulwark, Deseret News, The Dispatch, Law & Liberty, The Hill, and RealClearPolicy.