Latest / The Pulse of Politics / EP#11 - AI in Public Affairs: Strategy, Methodology & What Comes Next with Dr. Yoav Shechter

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EP#11 - AI in Public Affairs: Strategy, Methodology & What Comes Next with Dr. Yoav Shechter · The Pulse of Politics

• Silvan: Yoaf, a very well welcome to the Pulls of Politics podcast. It's a pleasure and a huge honor to have you as a guest today. Thank you for joining us. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Thank you, Silvan, for inviting me. I'm actually very excited to be here on your show. Silvan: So am I. We have plenty of topics to cover. Before we get there, I want to properly introduce you. You are an independent consultant in the public policy in Israel and abroad. You are an AI partner at Pugatch Concilium, but you also built policy function from the inside through multiple roles and engagements at Merck's Global Public Policy Innovation Hub, at Pharma Israel, at the Israeli Policy Promoters Forum, and you also held regional policy lead roles across APAC and EEMEA. So you have plenty of experience that we can borrow from today, and you actually argue, which I find really interesting, that policy is a profession with methodology, measurement, and now also an AI layer. So you see plenty of topics to cover. So I suggest we dive right in with the first question for you, Joaf. You actually wrote your PhD on how companies Actually, influence public policy. And your own summary of the finding is blunt that mostly there was no strategy to find. So take us back to that research and also your first operating role as external affairs director, what you learned, what you found in the field, and also what might be the problem or what was broken before thinking about methodology, etc. Dr. Yoav Shechter: There are many questions in what you just asked. but my PhD was on lobbying in the pharmaceutical industry in the European Union. And I studied three campaigns and I interviewed I think around fifty pharmaceutical companies and trade associations to get a full picture of the strategies, right? And what my thesis showed was that more than what companies did And what they wanted to do, more than that, they were influenced by several environmental factors that actually dictated what they are going to do, or how are they going to lobby. And one of them was the balance of power between EU institutions. So where will they go first? Another one was the nature of the policy community around a specific issue. Were they outsiders, were they insiders and so on. As much as they wanted to think that they are very independent in building their strategies, they were actually not. But I gotta tell you that when it comes to strategy, I haven't seen anywhere a place where you would come and someone will take you from beginning to end and show you a full strategy. And I gotta say my aha moment Even after doing five years of PhD thesis and five years establishing a trade associations and a few years at MSD, it was only when my managing director then, Adi bin Shushan, asked me, okay, I understand that we want to achieve this and you want to do this. But walk me through how do we get from here to here. And that was a ha moment for me. Silvan: I imagine. Dr. Yoav Shechter: From there and and that was where it all it it all clicked. It all clicked and I knew that there has to be a system. Silvan: Maybe before we talk about the system itself, it it sounds that many organizations they treat public policies, government relations, they focus on contacts, on meetings, on reports, but then they stop there. There's this lack of strategy of methodology behind it. What does it cost them to not have this methodology or strategy in place? Because it sounds that you can be very busy, but the question is then Do you get the maximum out for your organization? So what does it cost them to not have this strategy or methodology in place in the first place? Dr. Yoav Shechter: So don't get me wrong, I think that government relations is is very important. It's it's very important to you know, in the at the at the end of the day, what you want to have are engagements with policymakers, right? But that's for me, it's the top of the pyramid. You only get there after you've done preparatory work. I don't know if you if you know the saying that you know, if if I had six hours to chop down a tree. I would spend the first four sharpening the X. Yeah? So I think this is more or less this is true. This is true for for I would say government relations, but it's it's more comprehensive than that. And so if you just have an objective and then you go to see a policymaker and you speak about the this objective, yeah, you can do that, but If you really want to increase your chances, you have to do the preparatory work. And the preparatory work is sharpening your X. It's the four hours. It is where you understand that person. You learn that person. You know what messages will resonate with that person. You know their background. You know what they want to achieve. You know what not to say to them. Right? So it's really in that work that you do in advance when you can get traction. Now you ask me what do you lose? you lose all that. You lose you you you decrease your probability of success with a policymaker if you just do objective and then go to see a policymaker. You don't have all that prep work. You will probably reduce your your chances. Silvan: And that could cost potentially billions depending on the sector and the company w you're working in. It's it's crazy, right? Dr. Yoav Shechter: absolutely. I mean it's it's never about one meeting, right? It's it's it's a series of meetings, but it will cost you it will cost you it might cost you reputation, it must might cost you credibility with that person, because if you're not if you're not prepared and that person sees that you're not prepared, next time you'll want a meeting with that person, it might not go that easy. and yes, if you're not prepared, if you're not professional, you risk the entire campaign. And so Doing a strategy from beginning to end is is very important. And that's what I tell my clients today. I actually had a meeting yesterday with a potential client, right? And he's very, you know, he wanted the results and he wanted very fast because things are and I and I and I just say, you know, if if we don't sit down and do a proper strategy, first of all, I don't know how to work. I don't know how to work in that manner. So you'll have to Silvan: Right. Dr. Yoav Shechter: do it with somebody else. But if you really want to succeed, and you've tried several things until today, and the reason that you're here today with me is because that strategy was not sharpened enough. And so for for me it's the it's the basics of policy. And that's I think and I think many people don't understand that they go to government relations at the at the outset and forget that all the professional work that needs to be done in advance. Silvan: And that's exactly where the methodology comes in. And I think there you have a very good understanding. It's also closer related to something that some of us might be familiar with marketing. So please walk us through the methodology that you created and sort of apply now. Dr. Yoav Shechter: So that that was a great I think a pivot in what what I've done for the last you know let's say the the the second half of my career at at at Merck was to take what I know from marketing and implement it in policy with the required required changes. And and when you think about it, what do we do in policy? Don't we do marketing? Course we do marketing, right? We market an idea, we are market, we market a change, a public policy change. And that works in the same tools, more or less, right? With with with adjustments that marketing work. I'll give you an an example, right? So they do what they call segmentation. We do what we call stakeholder mapping. What is stakeholder mapping? It's segmentation, right? So I thought that Borrowing the methodology of marketing into policy was was very intuitive and it had also the advantages of one, you have a system, right? You borrow a system, so all of a sudden you have a system which is which is lacking in public policy. When you learn public policy, nobody teaches you what we know now is strategy, right? Two, you speak the language of marketeers. And when you are in a corporation, marketeers and salespeople, managing directors, they come usually they come from sales and marketing. You speak their language. So when you speak about stakeholder mapping, they hear segmentation, right? And it clicks with them. And so all of a sudden you have a common language with marketing. And so I built this strategy based on what I know in marketing after sitting in way too many. quarterly reviews, profit reviews and hearing how regional presidents give feedback to managing director then to product managers and so on. So you learn the language and I just I just borrowed it. That's what I did. Silvan: I especially love the shared language part because in the end it's usually the managing directors with the sales and marketing background who are also responsible to then give you the budget approval, right? And if you speak the same language, I imagine that conversation to go a bit easier probably. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Exactly, exactly. And that's why that managing director, Avi at the time, because he's a he's a great marketer, he asked me then that that particular question which was intuitive for him. Okay, I understand what why we're doing that at the end, but walk me through the funnel, walk me through the messages, walk me through the segmentation, you know, walk me through the the the the customer funnel, what we call today as the legislative path, right? There are similar things but so if you go through them you can really get a good marketing slash policy plan. Silvan: Love that. So let's pick a few examples out of this methodology and the concept of marketing. One of them is you want to have really measurable, smart objectives, I think you call them. Can you tell us why, for example, improve the relations with the ministry is not that good of an objective and how you actually move that to something smart that is measurable and that the team can actually work with? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah, I know, I I you know, I people knew that I have allergies when I hear objectives that sound like improved relations, enhanced reputation, and all that kind of things which are you get at the end of the year and you said yeah, we improved relations, don't prove it, you know. How how do you prove that we you know how do you prove it? And so I I really had allergies and I think people who were whom I work with know that For me, again, like in marketing, if you are coming to a managing director, original president, and you come with a fluffy kind of objective, they will see it right away. So you need to speak the language. And they speak smart language. So their objectives are specific, they are measurable, they are relevant, they are time-bound. All of that needs to be in objective. So if you ask me, improving relationships is not, or improving the regulatory environment is also not, but ensuring that the minister issues a decree on quota importations for our product by the end of twenty twenty seven, okay, that's a smart objective, that's something that everybody can look And agree or disagree, and then at the end of the year we can say whether we succeeded or not, which is very important. By the way, we'll get to that. This is the absolute gate to our AI journey. We first agree, sharpen on the objective. We want the client, the user, to understand themselves that. No, we don't work with objectives like enhance and improve. We work with smart. So we take what they give us, okay, and the AI does this process and comes back with a smart objective and asks the user, Do you mean that? Do you mean that or do you mean that? And then the user clicks on A, B, or C, and then we all agree on a smart objective. That's what AI do. I'm sorry I'm jumping into AI. Silvan: it's perfect. It's very intertwined, yeah, absolutely. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Because you know it's it's one of my passions. It's very intertwined. But even without AI, I always told my you know, I managed many external affairs directors at the national level and I looked at their plans before they were handed to managing directors and I told them, guys, you know, you cannot write in this manner because the managing director will not approve it. managing directors want to see smart objectives. Here is how a smart objective looks like. Let's work on it. to make sure that you all your objectives are policy related and smart. Silvan: I love that. Now we're talking exactly right. And Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah. Silvan: you also mentioned the segmentation, aka the stakeholders. So let's say we have the smart objectives and the stakeholders defined and mapped. Another very important thing is then what channel do you choose? In marketing, you have many different channels to choose from. So do Dr. Yoav Shechter: Right. Silvan: you have in policy work, right? So tell me a bit more about the channels and how to choose and identify the right channels to then get you to your smart objectives and actually achieve them. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Exactly, exactly. And I think that's that's exactly right. This is a critical, critical step. I'll tell you why. So I'm I'm getting an objective from a client and so I look at this objective and ask myself, what is this objective? Is it a legislative gap? So you need legislation, is it a regulatory gap, so you need regulation? Is is there regulation but it's not being implemented? That's another gap. Or is it an enforcement issue, which is yet another gap? And all those four gaps could be around that policy objective, but all four of them are so much different from one another, right? You really need to understand what's the gap. And then you can you can decide or you can choose one of the one of the paths, the legislative path, to co to to amend to to close that gap. So if it's legislation. you will choose legislation. And if it's legislation, it's years, it's a process, it's long, it are many stakeholders and so on. On the other hand, if it's just enforcement, maybe your solution is is just enforcement. You can do something very quick to fix it like that. Okay? And so I was I was always it always confused me why do people skip that that stage because it is so important. It really decides on your strategy. It decides on the timeline, it decides on the people, it decides on the milestones, right? All of this comes from the legislative path you choose. Yeah? So again, going to AI, it's an important an important step and now it's even easy. You don't need to to know public policy, to learn public policy, social sciences and know the particular of your geography and and jurisdiction. To know the process, AI does this for you. But even if it doesn't and you don't use our AI or any AI, you still need to do the research. Choosing a legislative path is critical for your strategy. Get it wrong and the whole the whole building collapses. Silvan: What is really impressive to me the more I talk to professionals like you is that you see there are so many moving pieces in the whole equation and it's not that you can just skip one or you can neglect one completely. You need to get all of them right to have the best possible outcome. It's a bit like five D chess or something like that, I feel, from the outside. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Absolutely. Absolutely it's a methodology. You know, you know, one of the things that I regret is that my mother and when I started my career back in the days and I I tried to tell her and she asked me, she was interested, what are you doing? And I said, you know, I'm doing public policy. Okay. My mother was intelligent, right? She sh she was intelligent, trust me. And she looks at me and says, Okay, but what are you doing? and I try to explain, and I and you know, I think she passed she passed away without really knowing what am I doing, and and that's a regret of mine. And one of the things that I try to instill today in the forum that we we talked about, and with people, even with my clients, is that this is really a profession. And as a profession, it has Like lawyers have their own profession and they know legislation and they know processes and they know how to litigate and like architects, like doctors. Public policy is is a profession. And so in that profession there are steps to do things. You would not expect a surgeon to skip a step in in in surgery, right? Right? And so it's the Silvan: Definitely not. No. Dr. Yoav Shechter: same with with policy with public policy. Silvan: You also work with international clients and I wonder when you work with them or in general have international conversations, what's the most difficult thing in those conversations? Is it a lack of understanding, a lack of methodology, or even like more when you talk to the C level that they say, Well, show me the return on investment of of our policy work? I I cannot see it. What's sort of the most difficult question you have with international clients? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah, it's you know it's it's strange and here comes the difference between corporate life and consultancy life, right? In corporate life you sometimes get a new managing director and the new managing director gets a tool, a public policy professional. And the managing director thinks to themselves, Hmm, what can I do with this tool? What can I do with this person? How can they, you know, promote a And and that's one conversation. And they come to you with sometimes with because they're not public policy professionals, right? They come with a wish list. And that wish list can be realistic or not realistic, and they don't care, right? Because they don't know what public policy is. And there's a lot of education to do. In consultancy, it's different. Today I'm getting clients who come to me with a problem. So they already know what they want to achieve. And when they know what they want to achieve, trust me. They've done the analysis and they know that if we achieve what we are set out to achieve, they are going to make a lot of money. Okay? So the return on investment is not it is not really an issue with with clients, it's more with the inside a company. What's the most difficult conversation I had? To be honest, it's not so much in the profession, it's more in the managerial kind of skill, it's it's always work life balance. And how do you get your your people to to balance their their time? And I learned a lot in this in this process also about myself, but also about them and about the limits of what you can do as a manager. In the end of the day, this is you know, you wanna tell people, Go home. I don't wanna see you on weekends, I don't wanna see you after after seven o'clock in the evening, which is also very late. And these were these were difficult discussions. Silvan: I I feel we could probably do a whole nother episode just on that topic with all your experience. But let's Dr. Yoav Shechter: absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Silvan: talk about AI because we touched on it already multiple times now. And you are a real trendsetter because you had this vision years ago and actually built the global public policy innovation hub around it. A CRM, a resource library, APIs that were supposed to connect. And that was before vibe coding was a thing. So it was like really difficult to build that technology. So tell us a bit more about what did you try there and where exactly did the technology not work as expected? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah, well I I think if if you think that the other one deserves an episode, this one deserves a full academic course Silvan: Ha ha. Dr. Yoav Shechter: about the the scars that I have from trying to do something which was, to be honest, required elements that that were simply not there in in the technology, right? And definitely not inside a corporation, right? And not not in let let's say core business. Because if it were like If I were working in a pharma company and what I did was bringing another molecule as a medicine, taking it through the research and development, maybe they would maybe I would have more traction. But trying to do what I did in policy with all the compliances and restrictions and corporate culture and all that, and technology. It was it was difficult to bring it all together, right? There were There were things that we've done we've done which were working by themselves, right? As standalone, like like the resource library that you mentioned, which was a novelty. I I I heard of I talked about a lot with other companies, not just in the pharma, but also in other sectors of the economy. It's it's an idea that was not implemented in public policy in any other company. And what we did was to create a shared approach. pool of resources that all policy professionals from around the world could throw in the resources and you had a Google-like search bar and you can get their resources and so you don't need to do the presentations all over again and the talking points all over again. So that was one. But as you said, I wanted a holistic approach where the the external affairs person who sits in front of computer type in their objective And they will get the resources they they want and they get the CRM and they will get an analysis from the internet and all of that together. When I started, and it was not that long ago, right? It was 2019. It was not that long ago. It was simply impossible. It was Silvan: Yep. Dr. Yoav Shechter: impossible. So the technology wasn't there. there were all also other restrictions with which which we can spend another chapter talking about. restrictions with technology cultural that really need to come together with technology. And so we did standalone things, but the holistic approach could not have implemented, to be honest, not just with me and with my company, but i it wasn't available at the time, twenty nineteen, not that long ago. Silvan: It's crazy how fast things can change because then Dr. Yoav Shechter: my god. Silvan: AI came around and you changed your approach and now you're basically running your own agent, so to speak. Tell us how you took the first experience and the concept and brought it to the to the AI age together with Professor Pugat. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah, so Professor Pugach has a consultancy. It's been there around for twenty years, been doing a lot of good, great international work with data, with analysis, with creating indices that have been used by industries around the world for many, many years. And he had a vision. And his vision was how do I take my consultancy to the next level? And so we teamed up. I built the the AI platform on his web page. And I took all the experience. I have thirty years of experience. He has thirty years of experience in a as a consultancy. I have my corporate world and my understanding in in AI, and so we brought it together. And and what we did was exactly my vision of twenty nineteen. To be honest, Silva, to be perfectly honest with you, it wasn't possible a year ago. Even a year ago it wasn't possible. Silvan: It's crazy. No. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Even a year ago it wasn't possible. But technology moves so fast and if you are updated with technology, you you all of a sudden understand, wow, Cloud Code can now build this. Okay, let's do this and let's take it and let's implement it in the agent so it can do public policy things. That's exactly what we've done. And so on his side, Pugaj Concilium, now there's an AI section where you go in, you have what we call the eight stage it's a full strategy. It's like what we talked about. It's a full strategy. It sharpens your objective. It decides together with you on the legislative path. It maps the stakeholders. It br it gives you profiles of the stakeholders, right? It writes a position paper. It gives you messages and it draws an engagement plan for you. What comes before what? When who do we meet when? Who does what? So it's a whole strategy. A whole strategy. In one cycle, it takes about an hour to complete because it has a lot of computing power that it needs to. So it it's this this agent is one thing, and the other one is standalone. So it's you don't always need a full strategy. Sometimes you need what we added yesterday, which I liked a lot. it's a feasibility assessor, right? So you write down an objective, again, it sharpens the objective with you. And then it goes out, it conducts twenty-eight independent regulatory, political, judicial examinations, and comes back with a score and tells you your objective is 70% has a 70% chance of of of stuff of achieving, right? And then you can decide, okay, I want to invest, I don't want to invest, I prioritize it. Don't prioritize it. It's a it's a it's a very small step, but it's an important one when you start a campaign. we had a I had a managing director at the time, we used to joke that because he had a lot of ambition, but he didn't do public policy, and we said next thing he will ask us is to change the color of our national flag to the corporate color, right? So they match. And so that objective will not pass our agent. So have Silvan: Difficult. Dr. Yoav Shechter: yeah, it's it's a difficult one. It's not achievable, right? And so we have standalone agents, we have a legislative pathfinder, we had a position paper, we had a profiler for decision makers. We even have a a presentation generator where let's say you have a meeting tomorrow, let's say you are at a conference tomorrow, right? And you want a presentation, you know your subject, right? So the agent takes you through a series of questions and then It builds a presentation for you, right? And it whatever issue, you just you just define the length, you define the target audience, you define the topics, you define what do you want to get out of this presentation, right? The first thing that people forget when they start presenting are well what's Silvan: Yeah. Dr. Yoav Shechter: your objective? What do you want the people to come out with? So it walks you through all that, it prov it produces a nice presentation, and you can ask it to produce speaking notes so you don't even have to bother with that as well. Silvan: I love that. It's amazing. It Dr. Yoav Shechter: It is. Silvan: sounds incredibly fascinating. You also gave me access to it. I checked it around and made some tests. It's super cool. I have Dr. Yoav Shechter: Excellent. Silvan: three sort of misconceptions I often hear when I talk to other people when it comes to AI. The first one is often, why do I need another system or someone else offering that to me? Can I not just do that myself in ChatGPT or cloud? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah. I love that. I I love that and we get that a lot. we even get the challenge that I don't want to waste people tell us, listen, I don't want to have the I don't want to waste your time. We already have co pilot in our corporation. And we say we we you know, we smile and we say, Okay, let us walk you through and then you can decide. I'll tell you one thing, Sylvan. what I came to realise because Sometimes you say, wow, but they also have AI and I have AI. Who says that my A AI is better? So two things. First of all, my AI is better because there's sixty years of methodology and experience goes into building those agents, right? So it's the guardrail around the AI, the structure around the AI that I'm not saying nobody has, but you really, really need to be a policy expert. to devise them. That's one. And two, which I'm sure you'll sympathize, corporations will never be at the same level as a consultancy when it comes to AI. There are so many restrictions, right? IT, compliance, legal, user experience, all of those functions that you need to go and jump through hooks to make things happen. They and I'll give an example that which which speaks volume, right? So my company was at the really at the top of I think it still is at the top of public policy. We really know how to do public policy. And we adopted AI. We were the first to adopt Claude Sonnet 3.5 at the time. But what companies do, they take because they can't have their AI connected with the internet and do searches. Because then it's a security risk. They take a snapshot of the internet and they put it on their server. And as the days go by, it gets obsolete every day. Every day it gets a little bit more obsolete. It doesn't Silvan: Yeah, that doesn't work in policy work. Yeah. Dr. Yoav Shechter: work it doesn't work. So so I remember I know I typed who is our company president? And it now it gave me the president that was two months ago. Now we have a new president. So it you can really not by the way, our agent does a full scan of all of our briefs every month to make sure we are up to date, right? Independent. I I have to tell you. So we will always be two, three, four steps ahead of anything that a company can a corporation can do. Always. Silvan: I feel there it's also a bit of an incentive problem because in in the corporate world you're often not incentivized to take risks or to try something new, but you're incentivized to avoid risks at all costs. And then you just say, Well, this is something new, I don't know it, I just don't try it. And not all of them, of course, but that's often a bit a cultural problem that is very hard to overcome after a certain size. Dr. Yoav Shechter: You're absolutely right. and it really depends on the on the people that are at the top, at the very top. If they believe and if they are visionaries, they make things happen. Many times. If they are skeptical, they make sure that things will not happen. so it it really is about a vision, but not just, because even if you have a head of function who is the greatest believer and they want AI. We had a we had a case like that. And they they do whatever they can. They live in the corporate world. And in the corporate world, they are not alone. They need to speak with other functions and they need to get approvals from other functions. And that takes a lot of time. Sometimes it fails the entire process, and we've seen that as well. It's unfortunate. But but you know, there are many advantages in the corporate world. Implementing AI is probably not one of those advantages yet. But it's great for us. Because we have a wonderful tool we can we can offer. Silvan: Course. Another misconception, the second one I often hear from people, and I think that might have been true two, three years ago, but I feel that got materially better over the past twelve months, is they often say, Well, but the results of the AI, they are often incorrect, they're hallucinating, or I need to check everything. So it's not really that much of a value add. How do you see that with your own experience? Dr. Yoav Shechter: So I think anyone who who had experienced AI know this and that's probably the first thing I tell corporations when I when I we also do workshops on on AI and one of the first things we say is that what comes from AI to you is fine. What goes from you outside is your responsibility, it's your reputation. And if you trust your AI to do all the way, then you are in big, big reputational risk. And I see it all the time. I work all the time with with AI. I do a lot of things. But I always, always check and recheck and refine and distill all the outputs to make sure that they are first of all factured. So sometimes I take things from one AI, put them in another. And ask it to fact check and then come back to the first and say, okay, let's check this again. Silvan: Same. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Never, never trust, never trust an AI. We are not at we're not maybe we'll get to that stage. We are not there yet. Never trust it, especially when you are working with a client or working with with the government. You always things that are coming from your desk are under your responsibility, not the AIs, right? So always, always check. On the other hand, come on, it shortens your it shortens the way, it does 80% of the work, it saves a lot of time, and it does research that would take you months, if not years to do, it does that in an hour. And you cannot beat that. So take what they do, check it, polish it, and send it out. That's the way to work. Silvan: Exactly. And that brings me to the third misconception. And I'm really curious to hear your take on that because when I talk to consultants from from different countries all around the world, some of them really embrace AI exactly the way that you do. They say, This is amazing with my experience and AI as a leverage. I can get more done than ever before. And then there's the other, the second category that says, Ooh, no, no, no, I'm I'm very cautious. I don't want to use AI. They might replace me one day. I don't want that. What's your take on that? Because I I think I know where you stand, but this discussion feels a bit that the discrepancy, the gap between the really, really good consultants and the average consultants will get bigger and bigger, in my perspective. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Absolutely. I think you're absolutely right, Silva. it will get bigger and bigger. And it's like, you know, those people who are show who seen the cars for the first time. They were riding a horse and carriage and there's no replacement, come on, to to really a horse and carriage. It's a living thing, right? You get you can smell the horse, right? You can feel the bumps. this this will never work, the cars, right? so i I think it's more or less like that. If And and you know, you asked me about consultancies that don't adopt AI in in some way, they are going to be obsolete in if they are already obsolete to be honest. They are already obsolete. On the other hand, there are the the other extreme that you know we saw I think it was I I don't wanna name names, but there was a case in Australia where a consultancy took a lot of money, used the AI, submit a report without reviewing it. and got slapped on the head on the hand so hard because it was clear that it was done by AI, it was not checked, it was the facts was not right. So, you know, you really need to know how to the limits, how to work with AI. And and you know, you need to learn it. And as you work with AI you you get to understand it or you get professional help to do it for you. Silvan: And that's why I really feel that the experience in combination with the right use of AI, checking the work, etc. But really using it to the maximum possible level, that's the winning combination. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And so you ask you you ask yourself, okay, so how how is the profession going to change if if that's the case, right? Silvan: Yeah. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Are there going to be people that are obsolete, and going to be redundant, gonna get fired, with AI coming, like in so many other professions? So I I I think to that it's first of all if if you and without even without AI. If you are not developing yourself, if you don't continue learning, if you don't advance, if you just get stuck in what you know from twenty years ago, ten years ago, slowly but surely you're going to get to get obsolete. And with AI, that's even that that trend I think is even more emphasized, right? If you don't use AI, so what is going to happen to people? Th there are two things, right? Three things. One, you're going to adjust to AI, continue working with AI, be the AI master of your function, which will give you job security if that's what you're after. Okay. If you are not going to use AI, if you're going to stay the way you are and things and think that things are not going to change, you're probably going to find yourself without a job very very very quickly. And so AI is here to stay, it's not going anywhere. if you are a public policy professional, you really need to adopt those those tools. by the way, there will be there will be people in the function that used to be analysis, used to do analysis. Now AI does most of the world. So let's say we had five people doing analysis. Now you already Silvan: Mm-hmm. Dr. Yoav Shechter: need one. What are we going to do with the four? So it's really a a corporate priority. So you have two options. Either you say, okay, I'm going to save course, I'm going to fire them all, but these are policy people, so maybe I can use them. Take them, move them to the engagement part, right? Silvan: Exactly. Dr. Yoav Shechter: And and let them engage with policy makers. Because in the end of the day, like we said at the beginning, the top of the pyramid is that engagement. You really have to do it, you really have to do it very, very, very well. Okay? So you have four people that are now enable you to cover much more ground in the policy space, what you used to have one or two, now you have six, which gives you much more power, much more presence, enhance your reputation. Here's the corporate that that really invests in engagements. There's a lot of value in it. And Silvan: And I also feel that's a way to stand out, right? Because if you have this physical touch point, you go to a conference, you go to the office, etcetera, to meet the right stakeholders that you need to engage with, you stand out between all the AI written emails that they have in their inbox, for example. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Absolutely. There's there's no replacement to physical engagement. Not even not even the you know the Zoom that we're doing now, the virtual meeting. I wish I was there with you, we were in the studio together and doing that and that. But Silvan: Same. Dr. Yoav Shechter: but okay, that's it's an alternative, it's not as as good. But there's no replacement to actually have a face to face meeting with a regulator or a policymaker. Now the transition between being in an analyst to being an engager is not that easy because these are two typecast which may not suit the the change between one to another may not suit everyone. An anal analyst is an analyst. somebody who's a salesperson in their soul is a salesperson. They are not always the the same. Silvan: It's bit the hunters and farmers that I know from the startup world. It's a very different personality. And some can switch, but not everyone can switch. Yeah. I Dr. Yoav Shechter: That's true. That's true. That's true. Silvan: have one more follow-up question about the business model with AI because some of the documents that your platform can now create in in like one hour, they used to take months or at least several weeks and cost five to six figures from an external consultancy. So obviously, with AI doing that faster. Usually what I hear is that also the corporations buying these reports, they are not willing to pay the same amount of money anymore. So I wonder how does your business model as a consultancy get affected, maybe also change more towards retainers or sort of a subscription fee or something like that. How do you see that change happening? Because I feel AI also have a very deep impact on the actual business model of an agency. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Wow, that's an excellent question. That's an excellent question. So let's take the consultancy that I work with now, Pukach Monsilium, okay? It used to be a a traditional boutique, top of the notch consultancy. It still is, it does things that I gotta tell you, I'm a part of the research team as well. And we have been tasked with doing in an index, okay? And no AI can produce this index, right? It has to have a human driver. Taking it from different stages to different indicators and sharpening the research and it has you it has to have a human dimension. So even in traditional products that companies will want, like indices, AI will not replace it and you continue doing that. If you are continuing if you think that you can continue charging what you what you did charge for centuries or decades, like I used to pay consultancy, I used to pay consultancy to do monitoring for me. I was the head of public policy in Asia Pacific, I had different various countries, I trusted my local people, but I also wanted an international perspective from you know what's going in the in the country. And I provided this report to my regional president and my regional management. And that took the agency, we had a quarterly report which costs us six figures. Right? Six figures. Today I have an agent who does the exact same function, goes out looking for news, filtering what's relevant and what is not, which sometimes very difficult for a consultancy to do, Silvan: Right. Dr. Yoav Shechter: gives you an estimate of how this development affects your business, which consultancies never do. Okay? And it does that continuously. You get a proactive report. So it it outreaches you and tells you, listen, this development you need to pay attention. Not all developments, but this one you really need to pay attention because one, two, three, four. An agent does that, it's a fraction of the price. It's no longer six figure, it's not even five figure. It is five figures, but it's much, much cheaper, much faster, much more relevant, with even more depth than what used to be. If consultancies don't adjust to that type of competition, because it's a competition, they're gone. They're gone. Silvan: Of course. No. So in that sense, to your clients you then also sell more of a subscription but you basically can generate more output with the same budget, or you can do the same output cheaper because of the the the AI that you're using along the process. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yes, I use AI when I do my when I create inputs or outputs for my clients, I do use AI. But I gotta tell you I invest a lot of time in reviewing, sharpening the reports, making sure that everything is in place, making sure that all the angles were checked because you know AI is is Silvan: Course. Dr. Yoav Shechter: AI, it's not a policy agent at the end if you have expert at the end of the day. I gotta tell you also another thing, another service that we we understand that we we needed to offer is vetting AI reports because when you look at our engine, right? We look at our agent Silvan: That's so cool. Dr. Yoav Shechter: and you say you tell the clients, honestly, you tell guys this is AI and it's written everywhere. Even in your reports, it written this is AI. When you go to Cloud now, it you have the same disclaimer. This is AI, right? It makes mistakes. If it does, you know, you need to make you need tell us about it and you need to make So we offer that service as a consultancy to say, AI can make mistakes. We can vet the output for you if you want, it costs additional because it requires a human to do that, to check all the facts, but it costs you a little bit more. So that's another service that I I think is is very relevant to corporations who really want the certainty that what they are getting is a hundred percent Silvan: I love that. That's very innovative. I never heard anyone else doing that. That's super cool. Well done. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Silvan: Now, if you look a bit into the future, because you really have been at the forefront of all these shifts and maybe even a bit ahead of time. So today is a good time to talk to you to see what is coming in the next year, maybe. So 10 years out, does public affairs get a real professional standard on a global level with a methodology, a strategy, maybe even a certification? Or does AI simply make everyone faster at doing it badly? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Interesting. let's start with a bit scepticism and pessimism. I heard yesterday a podcast on AI and you know there are two developments that are really coming, the general AI, which is the AI that can do everything, and the super AI, which is smarter than all the people in the world together. And that is a a crucial point and it comes way before ten years from now. my friend, don't ask me about ten years from now. it's a time span that today, you know, with everyone who's looking at the developments of AI, tells you that you know it's like talking it's like asking me what will happen in in ten thousand years. god, I don't know. But if you ask me what I want to happen, I definitely want, not just for my mother. rest in peace. But but for all the people who are doing public policy profession to have this profession recognised, taught, right? Taught doing apprenticeship where you go to a master and you learn the craft, right? Like you do with with accountancy, like you do with with legal, like you do with doctor. And there's no re by the way, what we do affects millions of people. Everything that we do affec affects the public, right? It's it has a bigger scale of influence, right? So if you ask me, I think I think there's definitely needs to be a school, a diploma, even you know taught in university, a degree in in not just public policy as it is today, it's in but the profession of public policy. I I I think it should come, but I don't know about ten years from now. Silvan: Fair enough. And we did talk about the impact of AI on different areas of the businesses. Who is most at risk in your point of view, three years from now, or whatever you want to say? The in-house team, the consultancy, or the trade associations, for example? Dr. Yoav Shechter: so let's start with the end because I think it's easy. trade associations are not at risk because there would always be a need for a trade association that knows how to bring all the interests together, to manage them, to prioritize them and present them as a unified front to policymakers. So the the the the core function of a trade association has nothing to do with AI. It's just it's just there. Now between consultancy and and and internal teams I think both are at risk. Maybe consultancies a little bit more. because as we said, you know, in in a corporation, if you don't do analysis, you can do something else. consultancies are built on providing input which is gradually being overtaken by by AI. And Silvan: Mm-hmm. Dr. Yoav Shechter: so I think consultancies, not maybe not yet, but gradually and I think they understand it and I think they are adopting themselves, developing really advanced AI tools. but w we are all at risk if we don't change. We are all at risk. Silvan: That's true. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Whatever we do, whatever profession we are, if we don't accustom to the new reality, then then then you know, there's there would be no work for us in the f in the future. Silvan: Yeah, good reminder to everyone listening to this. Dr. Yoav Shechter: I'm sorry I'm being pessimistic, yeah. Silvan: No no. I I wouldn't say pessimistic. I would say realistic because it's Dr. Yoav Shechter: Realistic. Silvan: really important to if you haven't played out with these tools yet and you have no idea where to start, the most important thing to take away is go there, create an account and just start playing around. That's the most important thing because that's how you can learn it. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Absolutely, I think people who are doing public policy, they're smart people. And usually we get quality quality people, people who are educated, who have a university degree, who understand a thing or two about public policy. So playing with AI is not that difficult. I really encourage you guys, you know, if you're out there listening Try first of all the chatbots that are available for free. You know, try ChatGPT if you haven't tried. Try Cloud, which is amazing, try Gemini. Really easy to do. And then when you advance, you can try the more policy specific specific kind of tools. And you will see how they can boost your effectiveness and your productivity. Silvan: Exactly. You have for the end of the episode, I have some rapid fire questions for you. I give you short question or Dr. Yoav Shechter: no. Silvan: options to choose from, and you have to answer in maximum one sentence if possible. You ready? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Wow. okay. I don't know. Well you ask and let's let's try. Silvan: We'll find out. Re ready or not, here we come. What is the most overrated government relations tactic? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Meeting with ministries I think is the most overrated because unless it's very effective, there's just a a photo op. That's it. Silvan: Exactly. The stage of a campaign that is most often skipped but shouldn't be skipped. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Yeah, I would say the choosing the right legislative path. And that that's something which is often often missed and if you don't get that right, the foundations are not right. Silvan: And which discipline should policy borrow more from marketing or law? Dr. Yoav Shechter: You know the answer, Sylvan. Definitely Silvan: I know, I know. Dr. Yoav Shechter: marketing, definitely marketing, because that's what we do. We don't do law. Yeah, we we work with law, we work with phrases, we work with jurisdiction, we we work with laws and regulations, but at the end of the day our work is a marketing work. Silvan: Exactly. What is one thing that you would never let an AI agent do in your name? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Absolutely nothing. I will let AI do nothing for me. Nothing in Silvan: Exactly. Dr. Yoav Shechter: my name. Nothing. Nothing. okay. Silvan: You you passed a test question. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Good. And if I wasn't clear before, nothing. I would let nothing AI do for me in my name. It's simply not relaxing Silvan: Love it. Dr. Yoav Shechter: enough at the moment. Silvan: What's the best career advice that you have ever received? Dr. Yoav Shechter: Follow your heart. That's it. Do what Silvan: Beautiful. Dr. Yoav Shechter: makes you do what makes you happy. Do the things that excite you. Go where your passion is. And like we say in Merck, profit will follow. And that always never it never disappointed me that approach. Even today, you know, I'm I'm making money, which is fine, but I s I'm so excited about what I'm doing. I gotta tell you, Sylvan, there are nights that I sleep awake and think about the things that I've done today. Silvan: Mm-hmm. Dr. Yoav Shechter: I get excited about the opportunities. I'm thinking what can I do more? What can I do next? How do I implement this? how do I speak to this client? How do I convince this one? It's it it's so exciting and that is alone is, you know, this is life. Money is okay, money Silvan: Exactly. Dr. Yoav Shechter: will come, money will go, but y when you f when you leave your passion, when you when you do what you what you like to do, when when you do the things that you're good at, I think that's the best advice I can can give people follow your heart, follow Silvan: Wow. Dr. Yoav Shechter: your passion. Silvan: One hundred percent. And even though we're not sitting in the same room, I feel this passion in you. It's it's amazing to see it. It's so cool. So the very last Dr. Yoav Shechter: thank you. Thank you, thank you. Silvan: question for you today, in one sentence, what separates good public affairs practitioners from truly exceptional ones? Dr. Yoav Shechter: I think it's the ability to change. I think it's the ability to try, to go out of your comfort zone, to try new things. And when you do that, when you experiment more, experience more, you become better at at what you do. I think that's the a differentiator. Silvan: I love that. Joaf, we have reached the end of my questions. Thank you Dr. Yoav Shechter: no. Silvan: so much for your time. It was a real pleasure. I learned so much from you, and I hope that we will have a chance to meet in person one day. thank you Dr. Yoav Shechter: I'm sure. Silvan: for your insights. I wish you all the best and lots of success and much more of these joyful moments where you feel like you're in the zone and you're enjoying the process. It's the best thing, the best place to be. Dr. Yoav Shechter: Thank you, Sylvan, and thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak about my passion. It's you know it's always a pleasure to speak with someone who really understands, right? Who is a policy person like you, who shares your passion. It's always it's a it's a delightful moment. And I really, really thank you for this interview. I enjoyed it a lot. Thank you.