Latest / AI'm Just Trying My Best / Ep. 2: AI Is Only as Good as the People Using It — The Ford Story

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Ep. 2: AI Is Only as Good as the People Using It — The Ford Story · AI'm Just Trying My Best

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to episode two of IAI Just Trying My Best Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't we all, Adam?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't we all?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's the whole show in one line.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I'm joined by my business partner and friend Chevelle Bedra, principal AI strategist for Modern Workery.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Chevel, how are how are you today?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I am doing fantastic, Adam.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing wonderful.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for asking.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We finally got out of this heat wave that has been blanketing the Midwest, especially in the Metro Detroit area.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So uh it's it's nice to get out of that.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: We're not sweating profusely, just going outside.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we tried to record this podcast last week, I think, Adam, and I had a bit of a Gilligan's Island situation with a storm and a boat, and then it was like 90 uh thousand degrees, and I was sweating.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so yeah, it's it's nice.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I still um I'm hosting my family up north.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So just if there's a random child that runs by or you hear, you know, um, where's my meatloaf?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um I apologize.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm just trying my best here.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are we all?
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, how is that meatloaf?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: You make a mean meatloaf?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, I do not.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I am not a very good cook.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm more of like a Door Dasher.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really good at DoorDash ordering, but um, you're a pretty good cook.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: You cook a lot, right?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I wouldn't say I'm uh I'm a chef, but I do like to dabble in the culinary arts a little bit here and there.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you know, maybe if uh this podcast goes south, you might see me on the next episode of uh next level chef.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: I would I would vote for you.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are you are you able to vote?
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's really good.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I you know, I don't think I would be.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's uh I think it's just the three expert chefs that get to say so.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, if there's a phone of Fred, I'll definitely call you.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't call me, call co-pilot.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't help you, but I will vote for you.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I will support you.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, interestingly enough, like co-pilot has been, you know, kind of one of those go-tos for things like that, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's insane that the other day I was looking up, you know, uh chicken, southwestern chicken egg roll recipe, and I had no idea where to start.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: So what did I do?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I opened up co-pilot and said, Hey, I need a Southwest chicken egg roll recipe.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then boom, there it was, right?
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: All the ingredients, what to do step by step.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my god, this is like a cheat code for life.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I use AI for everything.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I joke, I don't have an original thought anymore.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I use it for for literally everything.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one thing you can do, Adam, is uh you can also just take a picture of your pantry or your fridge and say, hey, here's the ingredients I have.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: What can I make?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just a little I can't try that cooking, but I can teach you how you can use AI to help you cook cooking.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I just get to taste it.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's fair.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if we listen to social media, soon we'll all have robots like the Jetsons that will be able to prepare our food for us.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, take my money.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would have a robot.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: If I could have a robot that would just like fold my laundry, like sign me up.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I will worry about any complications from that later down the line.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Take my money.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think we would all benefit from having somebody or some object be able to fold our laundry and cook and clean for us.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds like a dream.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think it's a good lesson, right?
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you have this robot that can do some of these tasks that we don't like doing, that's not really enriching our lives, so that way we can spend more time with our families or spend more time.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's and that's kind of exactly what AI and this technology is supposed to do, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is like take over some of the stuff that we're not good at, we don't like to do, so we could spend time on more value adding enriching things.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it would be a good, you know, I think I need to buy one just to illustrate that.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: So right, right.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, hopefully, I I I don't think it'll be too long until we uh we we are able to utilize technology for that.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: But you're absolutely right.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, AI should be utilized in a in a functionality that um takes away malicious tasks, or not malicious because that means wean, but takes away everyday tasks, right?
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: To uh to help us have better lives, enjoy time with our family.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think we're kind of in the building stages, you know, not only us, but within other organizations of being able to identify, hey, what can AI do, right?
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: What can it do to help improve our processes, our organizations, our workflows, um, and give our our our employees a little bit better helping hands, so to speak.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I would say that your word choice was spot on because I think laundry is malicious.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think some of the tasks that we do every day.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's, you know, again, there's so much stuff that we do every day that we just don't find value from or we don't enjoy.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes away from that stuff that we really do enjoy.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really the goal of like, you know, and the real benefit that I think a lot of people are just kind of glossing over, um, is just those small things that we can do to to make our lives a little bit better, make us more efficient, make us more successful.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, if we can get rid of the malicious laundry, I think, you know, that's a good first step.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm all for that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sign me up.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: What would your robot's name be if you if you had a robot?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's I feel like that's something that you know the name needs to come with with the environment, right?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like I feel like like I need to I need to be able to see my robot and then it'll be like a click, right?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be like, oh, this this robot's name's Henry, right?
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It just fits.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: What about you?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: What would your robot name be?
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I asked the question, I don't have a good answer.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, maybe Rob?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Rob's robot.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: I you know what I would do, Adam, is I would use Copilot to help me come up with a clever name for my robot.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: There we go.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: There we go.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's funny that you say that.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I I guess we are in a time where robot names are gonna become just as important as what you name your child, right?
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not as as important, but I mean, I think this technology is gonna become a part of our our lives, and um, you know, so you might as well have some fun with it, make it a little less intimidating.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, it I think it is a part of our lives, regardless if we're directly involved or if we're not directly involved.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody knows uh somebody who maybe has been affected or says they're gonna be affected, right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: With with AI replacing jobs, hopefully replacing laundry folding and dishes at some point in time.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but right now there's a big story on social media about Ford Mortar Company releasing 350 engineers and then bringing them back, uh, all due to insufficient AI strategy, right?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard anything about that?
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, so um we're in Detroit, so my husband's actually in the automotive industry.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So this is kind of interesting uh for us.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I mean, I think it's a good illustration of a company that moved a little bit too quickly, got a little bit too ahead of themselves with some of the stuff.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And now they're kind of having to, you know, go back and maybe write some some missteps that they took.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm seeing a lot of that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we're gonna see even more of that in coming months and and even maybe years of people just feel this need to move quickly because that's kind of the pace that it feels like.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But companies are just trying to move too quickly, and I think they're gonna make some mistakes along the way.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think it's like a perfect illustration of that.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and it sounds like the Ford Motor Company leaned a little bit too hard uh on a strategy for quality control.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they top for the first time in 16 years, the JD Power uh initial quality study for the first for the first time, uh, which you know always makes me think of what you just mentioned, companies going so fast, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to reach some sort of end target the quickest, the fastest, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but with this technology and what things can utilize, like such as copilot to help streamline workflow and processes.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think that companies, you know, big, small, medium, feel some sort of intimidation or some sort of uh reflection of getting to a certain point the quickest?
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you hear in the headlines, and it's doing such a disservice.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like there, you see this a lot in tech right now, that a lot of these tech companies are laying off, you know, 10,000 people, 20,000 people, and they're citing AI as the reason for that.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's not what's actually happening.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that they're maybe overcorrecting some mismanagement over recent years.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they're getting some pressure from their board or shareholders to maybe cut costs and they're using AI.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you say AI and uh an earnings call and your stock price, right, like kind of jumps.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's been happening.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think a lot of companies are using that as a way to you know trim things up a little bit, citing AI.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then they're getting that lift from that.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: But what's happening though is it's really risky because it's short-sighted.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So your employees, then that are remaining in that company, they're not gonna feel very confident, you know, and in their role.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're not gonna be like, hey, I really want to learn AI when I just saw Bill down the hall get displaced by AI.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's very short-sighted that that companies are doing this.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, company, it's still early, like companies don't even know yet how it's gonna work out.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I I see a lot of organizations doing this as they're jumping the gun a bit.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like with the Ford example.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what what might have been a better approach for them is to, hey, talk to the engineers, hey, what's getting in your way?
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of those challenges?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can we use AI to support you and help you be more efficient?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you're the expert, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But they kind of completely eliminated that and then they found that it wasn't working.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, whereas if they would have taken that like smoke like slow, slow but steady approach, they would be far better off than they are now.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and again, I think we're gonna see a lot of that in in coming weeks and months.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think from a leadership level approach, talking to your employees and integrating something that's new, something that changed, something that's more so fearful right now, right?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And being able to have that level of vulnerability where it's more of a, hey, what can we do for you?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: How can we make this adapt more and make your workload less uh and be a tool and not a replacement for people?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think especially now with organizations, you know, having layoffs due to AI or saying they're they're you know restructuring their workforce because the AI capabilities are there, you know, that's gonna bring fear, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna be resistance to change when the real issue should be what can how can we utilize AI to help you with your everyday tasks and make your life easier?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, talk about a retention strategy.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you were to, you know, tell employees, hey, would you be open to having access to a tool that will delegate your administrative responsibilities, free up time, have you leave the office at five o'clock every day, spend time with your family, or would you rather the message be, would you want a tool that can replace you?
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say probably the first option, right?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is gonna help you retain your workforce.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what it should be looked at as a tool to help you with your daily tasks, help you automate some things.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the different functionalities across, you know, organizations, whether it's your finance department, your operations, your HR, I mean, the capability and the help and support that AI can offer you is, you know, is is crazy, right?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think that a lot of organizations are just really utilizing it right now to say, hey, re-spell, spell check this email or reformat this email so I can send it off, where sure it can do that, right?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: It can save you some time.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, that's just very the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what the the actual benefit could be.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're right.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think messaging is so important, and I think that's a part that people are missing.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: They're focusing too much on the technology and they're not focusing enough on the adoption and kind of messaging.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I met with uh, I was meeting with an executive, and he wouldn't wanted to create like a narrative around the job loss that was going to happen in his organization related to AI and wanted to be transparent and and uh upfront about that.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm like, dude, you don't even have an AI tool that's working in your organization.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why are you telling people that they're losing their jobs or going to lose their jobs in the future when you don't, you A, you don't even know that.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and B, like you, you're nowhere even near where that would be, you know?
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think, and he's not wrong.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a bad thing.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to be transparent and for, you know, actually be protective of his people in the sense, but like I think that pressure, you know, the keeping up with the Joneses, that pressure to move faster and faster and faster is causing people to make just really kind of irrational decisions.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you're right.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if you could just help your people figure out, just I call them like pebbles in your shoe.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we all have pebbles in our shoe, those annoying things that just we hate, whether it be a process, whether it be like some type of approval, you know, process that we need or steps that we need to take, like that are just super annoying.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: We don't add value to, they don't add value to us.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like get rid of that stuff first.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, people are gonna be really excited, they're gonna be bought in, they're gonna want more, just naturally.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, they're gonna be advocates then for it versus very defensive and not one to.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I see leaders time and time again um just try to skip over those steps.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of value still with Copilot, just helping people be more efficient in their day.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think one challenge with that, though, that we're seeing is it is hard to calculate that, right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to show your board, hey, we're saving millions of dollars or we're, you know, be able to bring this much more revenue in because it's like all these little micro moments of productivity.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to kind of aggregate that, but you have to kind of trust the process a bit and and have faith that it is getting better before you start to just, you know, laying people off and having to hire them back, which is very counterproductive.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, kudos to Ford though for having the vulnerability to to talk about it and you know say, hey, like we we didn't really make the right decision.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we learned from it, here's what we're gonna do going forward.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean it's not the first time that that Ford Motor Company has made a jump like this, right?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: You think about that's what they came from, they built the first automobile, right?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So going from horse and carriage to to this, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And now they're they're showing the right way to you know show that level of vulnerability of hey, we didn't get it right the first time, and we have to call people back, right?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: But to your point, too, where a lot of organizations are looking at AI as a quick financial fix.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: What can we reduce headcount?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: What can we utilize it for to save us money?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: However, the bigger picture is how much money is it gonna cost when you have to rehire 350 engineers back to your organization, right?
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know the details, but I can imagine there might have been severances involved or benefit, uh, you know, durations of where Ford was covering portions of coverage.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So all of that adding into it, and I would like to see the spreadsheet that says, was it worth it or was it not?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: Again, you know, giving the technology to those engineers to help them do their job more efficient, um, might have been the solution instead of just replacement, right?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think one thing I found in, you know, 20 years of working in like change management people is like the employee does not have a seat at the table enough.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like this could have all been avoided if they brought some engineers in, sat them down, and said, Hey, do you think this will work?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: They probably would have said no, and here's why, you know, and and I think that's also something I see a lot of people making mistakes on is they're like designing all these, like, you know, agentic workflows and and all of this really cool stuff, but like they're not doing it based on feedback from the people actually doing the work.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're just you you're just kind of compounding problems potentially at that point.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So you've got to talk to your people.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't need to be like some fancy survey, you know, it doesn't need to be a thing.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I just go, right?
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're in manufacturing, like go down and talk to some of the people on the shop floor.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, what what's three things that annoy you about your your work you do?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like they'll tell you.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we gotta listen, you know, and and not need a fancy study um or you know, uh a group of consultants to come in and tell us what those problems are.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we just have to kind of open our ears a bit.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you talk about the uncertainty, right?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: The level of trust that would be built if, you know, leadership was walking around, you mentioned manufacturing, you know, the shop floor, asking them, hey, what would it, what are three things that you can't stand doing, right?
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: And what if you're utilizing, you know, co-pilot to eliminate those three things, right?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but just being heard, and you mentioned it, a lot of employees don't have a seat at the table.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that true leadership organizations that have great cultures have those leaders in place that actually go talk to their employees, find out what they're what they're doing, what their headaches are, and trying to alleviate those headaches.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, AI is gonna be a huge one, right?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: Of navigating just the fear behind it, the fear of is this going to be replaced?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or if maybe the the leadership isn't used to walking that shop floor, and now you have employees that are like, oh my God, you know, uh leadership just talked to me.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: Are they gonna replace me?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because they're asking me like what I don't like to do, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like normalizing conversations, getting to know your workforce and figuring out ways to be authentic, ways to show vulnerability, uh, is really can one build great rapport with your workforce, but two, build that trust so that when you do implement something like an AI adoption strategy that you have buy-in versus the fear of it.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think leaders need to go into it knowing that, like with the intention of not using AI to replace jobs.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I know again, you know, there are shareholders, and I know it's hard to do that, but I think if you look back at history, you know, I have a lot of spirited debates about this with people because that's one of the first things I say is like AI is going to take all of our jobs.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look back at history, every technological revolution actually creates jobs.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, think about us, Adam.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I did a uh middle school um career day, and I, you know, most of the jobs that these kids wanted or we're talking about, like they didn't exist when we were in middle school.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we're not like super old.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're old, but we're not, you know, we're not too old.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so ever this fear and this panic is natural.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of the process.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think leaders can really kind of reduce that by saying, hey, our job is we don't want to eliminate jobs.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: We want to make the jobs that you have more valuable.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, will jobs look different in the future?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, absolutely.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what should that look like?
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: What could that look like?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, and then again, like working with your employees, getting their feedback, getting your customers' feedback to design that um is a far better approach than going at it with a goal of like, hey, we want to cut X number of people.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's short-sighted, and I don't think it's gonna serve these organizations uh in the in the long run.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, coming from like the HR side of organizations, you know, retention, attraction, being able to staff your workforce properly, you know, your workforce, your people are your biggest asset to any organization, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: And often so don't get treated as much.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something that where if you were to have a strong AI adoption strategy where you're considering it and you're viewing, you know, every angle of where it can help and where it couldn't.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm a if I'm in the if I'm searching for a job, right, I'm going to be asking the question to my future employer, like, hey, where are you at with your AI strategy?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I'm gonna ask that question is because I will now know whether or not you've gone through the AI adoption process and you absolutely need this job, right?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Versus you haven't, and is this job replaceable in the next six months once you do adopt that strategy?
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Because we all know it's coming, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: The wave's coming.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's just how what are we gonna get?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there's still a lot of companies that have not adopted, you know, like Copilot, because for whatever reason.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are, you know, co pilot, I think is hands down um the best.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: From like a data security and per you know, um, you know, data governance perspective, if if you're a Microsoft shop, but um, you know, they they have concerns about that, which are valid, you want to verify that, but like the risks of shadow AI, the risks of like uh employee attraction and retention.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: If I was interviewing at a company, they're like, oh, we don't have AI because we're scared, like that's a big red flag.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or we have AI and you know, it's our view is like that we're gonna try to replace jobs or something.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's companies need to think a few steps ahead of how people are gonna be thinking and feeling about this before they're they're making these decisions.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's something, you know, they just need to think about the people side of this more so than any technological change we've seen in in recent years.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, there's phases right now, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you came from PNC.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're clearly a large, you know, banking organization ahead of the game.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: You've been working on AI strategy for years now, where there's organizations that haven't even dipped their toe in that water yet, right?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're gonna have organizations that are just saying, hey, you know what, we'll deal with it when the time comes.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right now, we don't have the head head count, we don't have the manpower, we don't have the people in place to help us, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this isn't just a fad, right?
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: This isn't just something that is gonna be here now for the next, you know, two years or three years.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: This is something that's going to change the way that we work, right?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: And change the way that jobs are created.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: So um, instead of embracing the bad, I think we should look at that from an optimistic standpoint of like how good this can be for you know, not only organizations, but for our everyday lives, like you know, making Southwest chicken egg rolls.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean slow and steady.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of leaders still are like, oh, okay, great.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know I need to use, but how do I do it?
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is using copilot to make chicken egg rolls, right?
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Find smart, simple, low-risk ways for you to use the tool, whether if you're a leader, if you're not comfortable, like you using it personally and figuring out, you know, this is not a tool that you're gonna be able to take a course or read a book and you know everything.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: You need to get your hands in there and get dirty and start using it and and start very simple.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I gave a presentation to a group at um uh the Kentucky Derby, like Tertial Downs.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the analogies I gave is like, you're like a horse.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: You need to put your blinders on.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: You need to not worry about the race that everybody else is running because everybody's running their own individual race.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like you need to run your race given your strengths, your people, your culture, your goals, and just have faith in the process and start small, you know?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so many people aren't like they're they may know that, but they're just giving in to the pressure to move too fast.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there's gonna be a lot of mistakes along the way.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So start small, start with stuff you know, simple stuff, and then get more sophisticated.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like you'll advance your understanding, your your acumen, the technology advances and kind of working in parallel together versus trying to, you know, run a marathon before you know how to walk.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that's great advice.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, especially as we're coming into uncertainties with AI, what can do for the workforce, um, you know, how we can improve it, right?
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and even so when you are looking for a position, right?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think being able to say, hey, I can utilize AI to make this position better by doing X, Y, and Z.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way you're gonna be able to experience that is if you're dabbling in it on a day-to-day basis.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you you will understand.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so clear, like leaders that know AI versus don't, you know, because you could just tell and how they're thinking about it.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's really important for you to make a strategy decisions.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you need to understand like what it's capable of, what it's not capable of.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would reckon that the people that were maybe making those decisions, and this is probably a bold assumption, but the people at Ford that were making those kind of like rash decisions to eliminate those roles, like probably weren't super well-versed themselves.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they may have been able to see that, yeah, you know, it's not the way to go just yet.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's it's funny because anybody in AI that I know that's like really deep in the trenches, like they know like AI is not gonna replace jobs anytime soon.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be it'll restructure them and the roles will look different, but they're not worried about that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the people that aren't using it, that aren't familiar, that have their head in the sand, they're the ones that are worried about it.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so just start using it um is is the best way to go.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And using it, you know, try to be familiar with it.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's nothing scary, it's something that's going to be, you know, available.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can you can download co-pilot apps, you can download chat gdp, you can download claude, you know, these are all great tools that offer a free service just to get your your your foot in the in the water a little bit, get comfortable, get used to it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: So um, you know, any advice for what you would do if you were say somebody watching this podcast saying, hey, I don't even know where to start.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: What advice would you recommend?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So when I'm working with with companies and leaders, I think the first thing you need to do is figure out what your goal is.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times you may not even have well-defined goals for your company or your team or yourself personally, right?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to know what your goals are.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: What do you want to achieve?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first step.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Then, you know, we work together, you know, the where I've seen be very helpful is okay, how I could how can AI help you achieve those goals, right?
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: How can it support you when doing that?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to have that goal and that clarity first because I see a lot of companies again just grasping at, you know, oh uh my friend Bill, I was talking to him at an industry conference and he says he has an agent for this.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: I need an agent for this, you know, or uh, you know, I heard on this article that I need an agent for that, you know.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they're just trying to do too much and it's all very fragmented.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it you do too much, you do nothing.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So have that goal, have that clarity, then start very small, you know, just one pebble in your shoe that you can eliminate.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one way to make your employees' lives a little bit easier and more productive, and then you do another, and then another and another.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: And throughout that process, like you're not going slow, you're going steady and you're learning and you're able to pivot a lot faster.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, like the Ford example.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: If they were kind of making, you know, these decisions like, you know, along the way, they wouldn't have laid off, you know, a bunch of people had to hire that gun.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: They would have been able to be, you know, a little bit more dynamic.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: So slow and steady, you know, like the old like tortoise and the hare, I think it was.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um just kind of, you know, keep uh keep repeating that to yourself.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Read that to yourself.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: If maybe maybe we should have like a reading of that the next podcast, Adam.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can address it as the tortoise or the hare.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it is it is an excellent read.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: I will give you that.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh very inspiring read.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So those of you look it up, tortoise in the hare.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um but you know, whether it's your personal life, whether it's your AI life, we don't have it figured out.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ford doesn't have it figured out, right?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we're all just really trying our best.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly, that's more than enough.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_01: Chevelle, it's always a pleasure.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you next time.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Take care.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Bye.