Latest / The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers / 🎙️ Reality Bytes: How AI Drive Will Help YOU Win the AI Race (w/ Matt Rose)

Transcript

🎙️ Reality Bytes: How AI Drive Will Help YOU Win the AI Race (w/ Matt Rose) · The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, change makers. Tom McGrath here just wanted to take
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a moment of your time before we get on with
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: today's fantastic show to give a big, resounding plug two
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: the world's biggest digital employee Experience event, which is of
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: course next Thing's experience, or should I say events, since
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: there are two. There is one this month starting this
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: month for thirtieth of September in London at the Intercontinental
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: that's on the thirtieth of September and the first of October.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: And there is one for our for all of our
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: friends in North America at the Omni Boston Hotel at
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the Seaport in Boston that's on the fourteenth and fifteenth
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: of October. They're both two day events. They both host
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: appearances from many of full world's biggest brands and best
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: digital workplaces that are incredible networking and learning and training
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: opportunities throughout the two locations. You'll even be joined by
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: the likes of Gartner and in Boston, nildegrat Tyson and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: last but not least, the Deck Show itself. Tim and
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I and many of our show colleagues will be at
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the events. We'll be doing a live presentation, a live
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: show at London and at Boston, so do come and
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: say hello if you're there, and we look forward to
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: it very very very much. So thank you so much
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: and on with your show.
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Bye.
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: Welcome it, change Makers to the Deck Show with Tim
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: Flower and Tom McGrath. Let's get into it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Hello, change Makers, Welcome back to the Deck Show. Show
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: within a show within a show. You know what it is,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: it's those episodes of reality bites. We have a panel
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: and myself get to interview another fascinating next thinker and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we've got to believe a first time fascinating next thinker
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: on the show with us today. But I have to
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: just add as well as I should mention of our
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: favorite Stena and Tim. Hi, guys, But I should just
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: add that one of the joys of reality bias is
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: not only that we get to welcome so many fascinating
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: next thing because there are so many to talk to,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: but what we work for an organization, but it is
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: so relentlessly creative and innovative, and it gives us so
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: much to talk to them about. And today is absolutely
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: no exception. It is the opposite of an exception. Is
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: a case in point, which is because we are announcing
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: an amazing, fascinating new next thing product today. It's called
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: AI drive. Might not be today this week, Madd'll tell
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: us and Matt Matt Rose is the product marketing manager
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: here at Next Think and is leading the charge around
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: AI drive, so let's welcome him to the show. First
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  Speaker 1: of all, welcome along, Matt.
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  Speaker 2: Tom, thanks very much, great to be here.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: And how wrong am I about the dates? What is
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the official date? Remind us?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, so we've actually got customers utilizing AI
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  Speaker 2: drive right now. On September fifteenth will be the biggernouncement,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and then a couple of weeks after that everybody will
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: be able to jump in, give it a try and
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  Speaker 2: start making some great progress with their with their AI strategy.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: What wonderful timing, ladies and gentlemen. But look, welcome Matt,
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  Speaker 1: and first of all, let's tell us a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about yourself to begin with, sir.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, So Matt Rose, based out of Boston.
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  Speaker 2: I've been with Next Think for closing in on three
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: years now in the product marketing space. Have a myriad
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: of different responsibilities, but I think a few that as
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: listeners and potentially Next Think power users that you may
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: have leveraged in the past, would be most recently Next
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Think assist in the continued enhancements that we're making there,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: and really a lot of the other I have my
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: hand in a lot of the other AI capabilities that
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: that Next Think is working to to continue to evolve
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: and unlock for everybody.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Fantastic. And I have to say, of all the innovation
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: that's come out of Next Thing cover of the last
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: year or so, maybe AI drive is the thing I'm
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  Speaker 1: most excited about. And before we get into why that
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  Speaker 1: is and what it does, set the stage for us, Matt,
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  Speaker 1: how do you see the current corporate landscape when it
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: comes to shall we say, AI driven digital transformation over
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the coming year or three. What are the big forces
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  Speaker 1: of play right now as you see them?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think, you know, I think a lot
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  Speaker 2: of people say, oh, we're at the beginning stages, but
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  Speaker 2: I would say we're past the beginning. We're more kind
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  Speaker 2: of at the early stages. Right. It's no secret that
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  Speaker 2: there's billions of dollars of investment that are taking place
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  Speaker 2: each year in terms of AI implementation at every single organization.
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  Speaker 2: So I think the realization and understanding of heye AI
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  Speaker 2: is extremely necessary and we need to make investments there
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  Speaker 2: and we need to get everybody leveraging and utilizing it.
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  Speaker 2: Has pushed us past the kind of initial beginning stage
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  Speaker 2: of how do we justify this and how do we
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  Speaker 2: ensure that you know, this is something that we want
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  Speaker 2: to put our money and dollars behind, And now we're
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  Speaker 2: into kind of the early stages, right, how are we
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  Speaker 2: actually kind of putting processes in place to getting AI
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  Speaker 2: up and running and running efficiently for every single employee
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: throughout the organization. So I would say we're we're still
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: kind of early days, but it's moving quickly. To avoid
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  Speaker 2: the cliche, if you know, everything's moving faster than ever before,
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  Speaker 2: but it really is. I mean, I think there's so
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  Speaker 2: much adoption that's continuing to happen, and now that there's
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: some checkboxes that have been kind of put in place
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  Speaker 2: with many different organizations, we're making some great progress. Right
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  Speaker 2: first and foremost, I think I think about AI governance.
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  Speaker 2: It's always the hot button topic. I'm not going to
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  Speaker 2: spend a lot of time talking about it here today,
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  Speaker 2: but it's a box that's necessary and needs to be checked.
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  Speaker 2: Many organizations have already put in place, you know, these
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: different committees to ensure that things are being run through
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  Speaker 2: the right protocols and that everything is going to be
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: safe and secure for their organization, that data isn't going
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: to leak, and people are utilizing AI in the wrong way,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: so on and so forth. And now it's really about
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: how do we unlock value from the sheer amount of
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: tools that are out there? Right? How do we find
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: what's right for each single task at hand and then
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: integrate it throughout our entire kind of digital ecosystem.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And when you think about the distinction between winners and
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: losers of the coming years, what do you think separates
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: the two categories?
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  Speaker 2: To me, I think it's really about a balance of
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: structure and flexibility, right. I don't think you can swing
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: too far in either direction. I think is there a
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  Speaker 2: set of tools that employees can choose from that they
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  Speaker 2: can utilize for the tasks that they have at hand, right,
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  Speaker 2: not pigeonholing people into you must utilize this thing every
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: single time for this particular way of working. Now, certainly
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: are there kind of going to be some mandates and
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: parameters put around that. Yes, And there's going to be
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: certain industries that have more rules and regulations than others.
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  Speaker 2: But the hope, I think is that you don't have
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  Speaker 2: to stray too far any of the direction. That there's
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  Speaker 2: going to be many, many, many AI tools that are
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: deployed throughout every single organization. It's just finding which ones
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: are right for which employee, and then how do we
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: drive kind of adoption of them. I think about this
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: like even just a few years ago, with what happened
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: in the communication collaboration space, right think about Zoom and
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: how that took off. That Zoom wasn't anywhere and then
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden everybody utilized it in their personal life,
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  Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden it took off inside
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  Speaker 2: of every single organization. Is a great tool that needs
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: to be invested in and something that people feel comfortable
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  Speaker 2: with utilizing. They know how to use it, and they
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: know how to get the value from it. And I
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  Speaker 2: think that can be kind of similar here in terms
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  Speaker 2: of you've got AI tools that people are utilizing in
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  Speaker 2: their personal life, how do we put the right structure
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  Speaker 2: and parameters around them so that people feel comfortable and
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  Speaker 2: utilizing AI in the workplace as well, and making sure
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  Speaker 2: that you know they're able to get the value out
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  Speaker 2: of that they need in order to get their job
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  Speaker 2: done faster than ever before.
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  Speaker 4: Hey, Matt, well, come on the show. It's always good
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  Speaker 4: to see you.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: Great to be here. Great to see you too too.
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  Speaker 4: So let's get into some details. I think it's pretty
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: apparent that I talked to a ton of people around
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: the world, our customers, prospective customers, everybody that I talked
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  Speaker 4: to about AI is still trying to get a handle
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  Speaker 4: on it. Right, you talk about the need for some
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: governance and some controls, but I think they've had, in
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: my experience, they've had a tough time articulating what the
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: problem really is. Right. They'll talk about risk, they'll talk
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: about security. They're not quite sure what a solution looks
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: like us. What exactly is AI drive. I look at
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  Speaker 4: it as AI for AI, But what problem does it solve?
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  Speaker 4: And what's the vision and the value problem?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think I'll start with the latter and
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  Speaker 2: kind of vision. I think what we see as an
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  Speaker 2: organization and our feel is really strongly about it is
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  Speaker 2: almost like flipping the script. I think there's the whole
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: notion out in the market of you know, how do
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: we ensure that we are making our business the most
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: you know, cost effective or doing more with less and
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: things along those lines by by leveraging artificial intelligence. But
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  Speaker 2: I think really what we are finding, what we are
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  Speaker 2: trying to kind of push and showcase, is that you
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: can make your workforce so much more productive by having
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: them leverage artificial intelligence. And that's really how you're going
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  Speaker 2: to be able to get ahead of the competition, how
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: you're going to ensure you're not going to be left
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: behind in you know, the industry that you work. So
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: how do we make sure that you know, AI is
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: being pushed to the forefront and that we're driving we
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  Speaker 2: flip the script to really working towards productivity. I think
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  Speaker 2: what we know right is that today over seventy five
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: percent of people are actually already utilizing artificial intelligence, but
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  Speaker 2: it's highly distributed across many different tools. It's potentially the
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: things that they're bringing into it to bring your own AI.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: So what really AI drive does is it can it
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  Speaker 2: consolidates you know, all of this different fragmented AI activity
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  Speaker 2: into what we're calling a quantifiable business impact. Right, We're
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: going to be able to centralize AI visibility of the
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: different tools that are out there. How they're being utilized,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: the how do we guide people to actually utilize it
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: more effectively and adopt it better? And then how do
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: we measure all of these things into this kind of
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: like single actionable vantage point inside the next thing infinity platform,
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: so that people can really drive impact throughout end productivity
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: throughout their organization.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: I think that's an important part to highlight, which is
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: that AI can bring tremendous benefits, but it's not an
• 11:11
  Speaker 4: easy button and you can't just roll out an AI
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: solution to your employees and say here, go use this
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: and automatically they're going to be more productive. I think
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: a lot of reports right now are saying people are
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: less productive because they've got all this new learning curve.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: Things are changing so quickly. But get into a little
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: bit more detail, break down some of the key capabilities
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: and possibilities for Yeah.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: So I had kind of just alluded to what we're
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: calling almost like four different pillars of when AI drive
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: represents right, And the first one is along the lines
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: of visibility. How do we first and foremost get an
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: understanding of what are the tools that are actually being
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: utilized in every single organization's environment. Are they the ones
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: that are corporate approved. Are they the ones that are
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: most effective in terms of of making sure that people
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: have the right tool for the right kind of thing.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: Visibility around the actual departments of people that are utilizing them.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: Are there certain groups that are utilizing AI more than
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: others and which and if so, which tools are they?
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: So I think visibility is kind of a key core
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: starting place to make sure that you have kind of
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: a bird's eye view of what your digital landscape looks like,
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: similar to what we do on the deck side kind
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: of today. Right. The second one is around usage. The
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: visibility is great, but if you're only getting you know,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: data around, hey, here are the tools that are actually
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: being deployed throughout your organization, it doesn't take you as
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: far as you need to be in order to like
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: get to where we were just saying with the driving
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: of the productivity element. So how do we look at usage?
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: How do we say that there are you know, x
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: amount of people in your organization that are really AI champions,
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: They're utilizing AI a lot, they're finding value from it.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: And how do we drive almost like the ball down
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: the hill or some forward momentum right and ensure that
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: you're you're you're utilizing the champions in the organization to
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: push forward the AI adoption and and highlight the value
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: that they're getting from AI through to all the you know,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: other people in the organizations that may be you know,
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: just gabbling in AI at this point in time. And similarly,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: on the usage side of the house, how do we
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: look at the actual kind of prompts and things like
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: that that are being pushed into place so that we
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: can say, okay, you know what, here are the most
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: common ways that people are generating value from AI, whether
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: it's something as basic as you know, crafting an email
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: to something more in depth like creating code. So I
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: think the usage element is kind of that second core
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: key pillar that we look at. Following that at a
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: guidance is number three. How do we ensure that we're
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: creating action points to drive additional pieces of adoption throughout
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: looking at not only just hard metrics, but also getting
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: insight into employee sentiment.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: That's and sentiment has always been a core part of
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: the next Thing platform. It's something that is key in
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: terms of pushing everybody forward in terms of driving adoption.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: So what happens if you know people are struggling with
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: you know, certain rules or policies or not having access
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: and you may not have ever seen that before, but
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, if you have contextual sentiment pieces
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: that are coming into play, now, all of a sudden,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: you're able to put in place the programs, the trainings,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: the communications that are necessary in order to drive adoption
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: through of AI throughout the organization and with the right
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: tools that maybe people are asking for because you have
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: their actual sentiment that they feel around it. And then finally,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: is the measurement kind of piece, right, what are the
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: key metrics that organizations can leverage to be able to
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: do Provide a roll up to the executive leadership team
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: and make sure that they're saying, hey, here's you know,
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: the amount of active users and the trend of active
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: usage for AI and the different tools across our organization.
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: We're making great progress here. We're seeing, you know, an
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: uptick in the actual number amount of engage time with
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: artificial intelligence across each user. And now all of a sudden,
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: we can find out, you know, what is the value
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: or the time saved by utilizing AI, and gain context
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: by really benchmarking that against other organizations which I think
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: is a key piece because without that kind of benchmarking
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: and context, you're just measuring against yourself, and with something
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: so new in the industry, there's really no kind of
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: internal comparison that you can have, So those are kind
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: of key pieces.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: There's a lot there. I think that it high lights,
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: and we talked about it a little bit. The vision
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: that next think has our ability to execute being being
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: developed on a foundation of an AI platform. It allows
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: us to move quickly in doing these things. What's being used,
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: who's using it, how is it being used, where is
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: it successful versus where is it struggling. How do we
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: share those best practices with the rest of our enterprise
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: and help people come up to speed. I think are
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: all things that in our vision and our ability to
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: execute that others aren't able to do. Using AI inside
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: the platform to help manage AI outside the platform is
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: something that no one else has, and I think lots
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: of people share our excitement on this AI drive coming
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: out to help really manage this transformational change in it
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: to a different level. Do you see it as a
• 16:57
  Speaker 4: natural extension of what we've been doing all along in
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: our core dex principles that are now just reaching into
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: some new apps and new technologies, or is it the
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: flip of that where it's fun fundamentally new approach tailored
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: to the wave of AI.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: I think it's actually closer to the former. I think
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: what we want to make sure that we're doing is
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: keeping structure and process the same. Right, we've had customers
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: with us for so long they've been able to see
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: value out of and great value out of the next
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: in infinity platform. We don't need to reinvent the wheel
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: on that front, but we do need to ensure that
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: we're continuing to move forward to innovate to be to
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: provide the right resources to be the most beneficial kind
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: of DEX platform for every single customer you know out there.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And really, I think that's an extension of the core
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: kind of DEX principles that you know you've been seeing.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: I think you've probably if you're listening, you've probably heard
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: us talk about ce diagnosed and fix so many times.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: And I think there's a natural kind of extension of
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: how that comes into play even here, right we talked
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: about visibility, see diagnose, usage and guidance and making sure
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: and fix kind of all coming into play there where
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: it's now you know what's going on in the environment.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: You're able to understand what are the great things that
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: are happening, and how can I kind of extrabulate that
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: but also fix some of the kind of issues that
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: people may be having from an adoption standpoint or from
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: a measurability standpoint. So and ultimately it all stems back
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to our greater goal of creating a better digital employee experience.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: If you're able to utilize the latest technology because organizations
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: feel like they have the visibility and foresight and control
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: over it, then now you're providing not only a better
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: digital employee experience, but a more productive workforce as well.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: So certainly extension and I think there's kind of continued
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: ways that decks and AI will continue to come together
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: and we'll push push the industry forward. Here, Hi'm Matt Dina.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: Here. Have you had early feedback from customers or prospects
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: on AI drive and what would be the thing that
• 19:16
  Speaker 5: resonates the most with them?
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have And hello Dina, how are you
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: the thing that we hear most as of right now
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: from a lot of the customers that have been leveraging
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: AI drive for I guess a couple of months now
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: in preview mode has been really all about adoption, adoption, adoption, right.
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: I think I started off the top of the call
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: by saying, everybody's investing in artificial intelligence. That's the case,
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the numbers don't lie, and we've heard that from all
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: the different customers that have been utilizing AI drive to date.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: But they're really kind of stuck at a point of
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: how do I ensure that I'm driving adoption of artificial
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: intelligence in the right way? I think Tim you might
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: have alluded to it that you know, AI is only
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: as good as the proficiency of the workforce utilizing it.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: So how do we ensure that we're training people up
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: the right way? How do we ensure people aren't going
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: around in circles, which is pretty easy to do with
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: AI if you're continuing prompting and prompting and prompting, waiting
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: to get to the answer that you are hoping for.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: So what are the best practices for kind of changing
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: things together and moving that forward? So adoption is probably
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: number one, and then measurement is number two, right, especially
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: with some of the customers that we work with that
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: may have been a little that may be a little
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: bit more mature in nature in terms of their AI strategy.
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: You know, maybe they've been able to see to a
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: certain extent what tools have been out there. Maybe they've
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: seen some success with driving the adoption of some of
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: the corporate owned tools or corporate mandated tools that they're
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: they're uh, put a bit put in place inside their organization,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: but they don't know how to continue to make sure
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: that they're unlocking the insight into how much did that
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: actually save me? How much? Why has this been so important?
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: And why should I articulate this as a great outcome
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: that I can then push to the other people throughout
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: the organization that may not have adopted that now have
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: a real sense of Look at my colleagues who are
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: seeing all this value and time saved and productivity and
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: things along those lines.
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: Fantastic. It feels like a cornerstone product with a big,
• 21:30
  Speaker 5: big future. What can you share about the roadmap in
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: general for AI drive over the next couple of years.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Well, the one thing that I will say is there
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: will be continued investment here. I'm on the product marketing side,
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: so roadmaps a little bit out of my full jurisdiction.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: But what I will say, is that we know that
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: we want to continue to invest in this product, that
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: there's going to be continued evolution of it that as
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: we hear more and more from customers about you know,
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: the AI value gap that you know Gardner has coined,
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: and how we can best represent the data to be
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: able to showcase how that can be unlocked the better.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And we're going to continue to leverage you know, a
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: lot of the different dex capabilities that we have and
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: infuse them in there to make sure that you know,
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: we're taking full advantage of the Infinity platform, you know
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: that's already out there because there are so many kind
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: of tie ins, right I alluded to some of the
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: engagement pieces before, but there's so much more than that,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: especially as it relates to some of the digital adoption
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: pieces as well. So continued investment, continued breadth of scope
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: across the platform, and ultimately continued learnings for for our
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: customers as well.
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: Great does AI drive itself? Leverage AI today and how
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: do you see that evolving in the future more less?
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, multiple different facets actually, So as of right now,
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: there's functionality in there that makes it extremely easy to
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: be able to As I mentioned, kind of ladder up
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: success in the status. Right, we're leveraging our own artificial
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: intelligence to scan across the next in coffinity platform and
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: gain learnings from what the data is saying. Right, how
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: do I quickly, if I'm managing the next Thing platform,
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: get a read from our official intelligence on you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: here's the progress that was made week over week. Here
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: are some of the action items that we should take
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: to continue to drive more productivity and drive more kind
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: of active usage, and then summarize that and be able
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: to provide it up the ladder without even really having
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: to spend too much time kind of analyzing everything that's
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: going on inside the AI drive dashboard, because it's already
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: been there and correlated against, like I was mentioning before,
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: the benchmarks of other organizations out there, so that they
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: can gain some context. The other one that I think
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: is extremely important on the AI front is we had recently,
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I guess it was a few months ago now launch
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: AI sentiment analysis as part of our kind of employee
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: engagement campaigns. And so now all of a sudden, this
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: becomes this key way of leveraging AI for you know,
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: AI purposes. If I send a survey out that is
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: tailored to each individual AI application and get you know,
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: thousands upon thousands of responses back. How do we leverage
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: AI to culminate all of those things, find trends, find categories,
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: and then make recommendations on ways to actually improve some
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: of the processes that are out there. If everybody's saying, hey,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: you know what, I have been utilizing chat GPT, but
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: I'm willing to make the move over to Microsoft Copilot
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: if you know, we can do X, y and Z
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: with it, and that becomes something that has been said,
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: you know, ten times, one hundred times, two hundred times.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Now in your your large organization. Now you've got some
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: backing and some guidance as to how you can kind
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: of better make an approach to providing that shift in
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: the organization and driving additional AI adoption. So yeah, multipleffer,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: multiple different levels of AI within AI drive today.
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: Definitely that the insight that you would get back to
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: your point of thus you diagnose fix with the power
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: of AI drive gives you a lot of actionable information
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: that would really help with the decision making based off
• 25:36
  Speaker 5: of data. Not just that, but also the analysis that
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: you do from the engage campaigns alluding to that how
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: might the roadmap intersect with other nexting solutions like assist
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: or adult in the future.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think assist is already live and well
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: today right in terms of how these two kind of
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: pieces come together. If I'm utilized in the next Thing
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: platform and i have a question about the artificial intelligence
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: tools that are deployed throughout my organization, I'm going to
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: be able to ask Assist and it's going to be
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: able to provide answers for me based on the data
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: that we're already collecting. It's part of the big benefit
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: of AI drive being embedded inside of the Infinity platform
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: and coming standard kind of out of the box. Is
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: now all of a sudden, all of the different additional
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: pieces of data that are nicely collected, that are nicely
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: displayed and easy to read, are already kind of being surfaced,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: and Assist is reading into all those things, and you're
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: going to be able to effectively ask additional questions on
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: top of what's already displayed on screen to get additional insights.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: So Assist is out there, and the assist also has
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: engagement campaign creation capabilities as well, which is nice. So
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: while we're coming with pre configured AI engage campaigns for
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: or specific tools you know you could there's nothing stopping
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: for you from asking assists to create an additional one
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: and continue to get you know, quick value and be
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: able to see things progress forward. On the adopt side
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: of the house, this is another one that I'll just
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: lightly touch on now, but I think the correlation is
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: certainly there. Right, we talked about guidance as that third pillar,
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: and there are many many different things that you can
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: do with AI drive out of the box from a
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: guidance perspective, but the layering addition of adopt on there
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: takes that one step further. Right, think about custom guides
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: that you could put in top of AI tools through next,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: think adopt and be able to effectively have you know,
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: these in real time, contextually relevant guided ways to not
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: only you know, push people to the right tools, but
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: also have them utilize those tools most effectively because we
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: have you know, the guys set up for every single
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: employee to be able to do so so and customize
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: for that particular tool to make sure that the user
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: experience is the most intuitive possible. So I think we
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: touched upon you know, breath. The next thing platform and
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: continued intersection of AI Drive, and that's no different for
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: what we're doing with Assistant Adopt and AI Drive as well.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: So, Matt, I think many others are like me with
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: the art of the possible spinning through their head, the
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: breadth of our platform and where this might apply itself.
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: Let's let's hone in on for our listeners, who in
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: an organization should be paying the closest attention to AI
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: drive right now? So a role or some specific priorities.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: Where does it serve itself best? And what are the
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: risks if this kind of arena is ignored, and what's
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: the best way to learn more? Especially how much does
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: it cost?
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: All right, well, you know what, let's start and reverse
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: because it's the question that everybody always asks, how much
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: does it move? And we shouldn't have kept everybody waiting
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: till the end. But AI drive is available for free
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: for everybody as part of the next Think Infinity platform.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: So if you are utilizing next Think Infinity today, in
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: a few weeks time, you'll see AI drive roll out
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: to your particular instance, which is great because I think
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: it's a key, as I think we said, cornerstone of
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: you know, driving digital employee experience forward is the you know, visibility,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: adoption and value that's garnered from artificial intelligence. So having
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: AI drive available to everybody will go a long way,
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: and there's no need to even have to further justify
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: additional expense in terms of you know, who should be
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: paying closest attention to this. I think it's it's threefold,
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: if you will. So one is it's no secret that
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: end user computing teams are the teams that are utilizing
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Next Think Infinity the most as of right now, right
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: and I don't anticipate that on changing, but I think
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: there is a major tie in between what AI drive
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: can do and the value that end user computing teams
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: can see. And it can be as simple as, hey,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: you know, you've just been responsible for deploying a whole
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: bunch of AI tools across the organization. Aren't you curious
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: about how they're being adopted, what the actual kind of
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: number of people are in terms of utilizing them, how
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: what are they utilizing them? And then ultimately are there
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: things that we may need to roll back? Right like
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: are there particular tools, I think tools that can be
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: you know, positioned as Hey, this was a pilot. But
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: the pilot, you know, didn't didn't surface the value that
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: we were looking for, So let's try something else. That's
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: the thing with AI. There's so many tools out there
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: that it's going to be a trial error run for
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: a lot of organizations in terms of what are the
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: most effective ones for their organizations. So how do you
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: reallocate and repurpose a lot of the different kind of
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: budgetary components that may be invested in one place and
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: repurpose them in another in order to ensure you're finding
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: overall efficiency. And I think a lot of that kind
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: of falls back into the hands of end user computing
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: teams having full kind of knowledge and scale over what
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: their environment entails. The other two I think in some
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: organizations AI centers of excellence, right, those are people who
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: are putting in place, here's what the rules of the
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: laws of the land are in terms of the AI
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: tools that we'd like to use. So having them have
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: the visibility and understanding of you know, what are our
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: people actually utilizing the tools that we're recommending, are they
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: utilizing them effectively? And how can we drive continued adoption
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of them? Because they're the ones that are kind of
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: wanting to put them in place is key for them
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: to continue to provide learnings back to the organization. And
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: then finally it's all the way up the ladder, right.
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: It's no secret that every single organization has AI top
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: of mind on their kind of strategy planning sessions each
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: and every single quarter in year. So how do we
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: ensure that C suite has visibility over these kind of
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: key components as well and really be able to provide
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: that information all the way up to be able to say, Yep,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: here's the impact that it's making and here's how we're
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: driving our organization forward, because we don't want to be
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: left behind by not utilizing AI to its fullest potential phenomenal.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And I have to say that before we leave AI
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: drive behind and take our leave. I really loved what
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: you said Tim about using AI inside the platform to
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: help manage AI outside the platform. It's such a cool
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: way to put it, really succinctly articulate. It's not just
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: AI drive, but I think that the total next thing
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: strategy around AI adoption and transformation very very cool breakdown
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: as well, and Matt really really appreciate it. And look,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: before you go, sometimes we have our guests on reality bites,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: and I dust off this question usually because I'm genuinely
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: curious about it in the individual case, and there's somebody
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: who works with you, I'm genuinely curious to know your answer, Matt,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: What do what do? What do you most like about
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: being a next thing or what's top of your list?
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Two four. One, of course, is working with both
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: perspective and current clients on a regular basis. Understanding, you know,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: what they've got going on, their environment, the challenges they're facing,
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: and how can we continue to help and propel them
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: forward is one, and then two is really long lines
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: of uh, making impact right and understanding of hey, here's
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: the things that you know we're hearing from our customers
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: and how do we ensure that we're taking that back
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: to you know, product and engineering teams and say, you know,
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: these are the things that we need to develop. And
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: I feel, I guess in the role that I currently have,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: that I have an opportunity to be you know, voice
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: of the customer in terms of being able to relay
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: that back and ensure that we're building the things that
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: are going to be the most impactful for every single
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: one of our customers, like I said, to propel their
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: organization forward and get the most out of digital employee
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: experience platform like next Think.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: Well said Matt, and thank you so much about breakdown.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Of course, interested listeners can learn more about AI drive
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: by looking at the show notes. We'll have links to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: all kinds of resources and places you can get a
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: bit more information inside and even perhaps make contact with
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: somebody to discuss it in your account. Thank you Matt
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: for joining us, for telling us about this amazing, amazing
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: new product.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Man really appreciate it.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: To make sure that you never miss an episode, subscribe
• 35:06
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• 35:09
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• 35:12
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• 35:14
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• 35:17
  Speaker 3: you'd like to learn more about how next Think can
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: help me improve your digital employee experience, head over to
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: next think dot com. Thank you so much for listening.
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: Until next time,