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EP 6: The Adoption Gap: Why AI Isn't Working (Yet)" · AI'm Just Trying My Best

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I'm joined by my partner and colleague and friend, Chevelle Bedra, principal AI strategist and founder of Modern Workery.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Cheval, how are you?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm good.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing great.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: Doing wonderful.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for asking.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Chevel, I'm excited to talk to you today.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, week over week, we're always seeing, you know, changes and shifts.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's it's as if we're we're living in the windy city with of AI, right?
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Things are one week one way, the next week they're different.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to keep up.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is that's a good analogy.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: It does feel like you're kind of just like a leaf being tossed around, figuring, fingering out your way.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's a great way to put it.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, and that's kind of the way that I feel, right?
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like every week there's you know, an agent escaping a sandbox or people calling folks back to work after, you know, prematurely investing in in AI, right?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It just seems like one we're up, one week we're up, one week we're down, you know, the next week we're sideways and and forwards.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, excited to talk to you, especially about you know the recurring, you know, issues and concerns within AI, and maybe helping break it down a little bit to our listeners, you know, that whole person out there that's uh that's actually watching this.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully it's more than one person, our moms, you know, and and family members are you know, spouses are at least hopefully watching it.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: But um, it's funny, this stuff is changing really quickly.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we talk about it every week.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: But even for example, last episode, we talked about an instance of an agent escaping at sandbox.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as soon as we got done recording, news got released at like seven more.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how fast these things change, you know.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can go from like, hey, don't worry, to eh, you know, we might want to get this under control.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that's what we're here for.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're we're here to try to, you know, shed some light, at least provide some solace that we don't know what's going on either, if that's how you feel.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's how I'm feeling.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And hey, I'm just trying my best out here, you know.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Aren't we all?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't we all?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's a great, great segue into you know, a topic I want to get your opinion on.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, MIT uh released in 2005, it's uh Gen AI uh divide research.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they found out that only about five percent of enterprises have successfully integrated generative AI into their workflows at scale, which I can only imagine, you know, I feel I I feel like it's this this this break, right?
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's gas and go.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's yes, let's get to integrate AI within our workforce, and then it's break.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, what are we missing?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: What do we fail at?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, gas, go, bring it forward, and then break again.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, our our agents escape their sandbox.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Does that statistic that percentage of five percent?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, do you would you expect that to be higher, lower?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are your thoughts on that?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I think that's very accurate, and it and it's probably not any different than any other change, right?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And anybody in change management or has any experience in change management knows this stuff takes a long time and you gotta do it the right way.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of companies are are finding their way to use the right way, and I think what's different too is that uh typically when you're releasing like a technology, it's pretty cut and dry, right?
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's hey, use this new system.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the training, here's a guidebook, like you know, do it.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: But this is so different.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is fundamentally changing how people work.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there's a lot of identity crisis kind of woven in.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that change management kind of curve and and those issues are even more exasperated, you know, with AI, but it doesn't surprise me at all.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: What would your advice be?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, because it seems like AI is a great idea, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: When you look at it on paper, when you have conversations like I know that we've had with other business uh business leaders, you know, AI is great.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: The functionality that we can map out for them is fantastic, but there's a roadblock, there's a reason why only 5% of enterprises have successfully you know integrated it.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, it's almost as if it starts and stops with leadership.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: What can leadership do to increase that number from 5% onward and upward?
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is a good question.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I could be here for hours, but I'll I'll try not to bore bore you.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the one thing I see time and time again is leaders don't set a goal, right?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, so leaders, you know, as a leader, you're supposed to be up at the helm of the ship, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Trying to navigate to where you need to go, but they don't chart that course, right?
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: They they're not telling everybody where to go, what they should be using AI for, what it's gonna do to help the business.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so what that does is that leaves all the people like on deck just trying to figure out what might work, how they should use it.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so you have a lot of people and organizations using AI in a lot of different random ways that might be useful for them personally.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot, you know, again, if you have a rowboat and you have everybody kind of doing all this random stuff, like moving different directions, like you're not gonna go anywhere.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think the number one thing that a leader can do, whether you're a leader of a team, whether you're a leader of an organization, is just what do we want to do with AI and what goals do we want AI to help us with and start there?
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um another thing I think that you know we see time and time again is that they're not really sticking with it long enough.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: So the same, same analogy, right?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't create a path forward, you don't have a goal, you just want AI to fix all of your woes in your organization.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: If that's slow moving or the ship starts to kind of go in circles, which it will without a goal, you're like, oh, we need a new ship.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: We need a new tool.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, dude, you're you're gonna like the same people and the same, you know, like the same oars are gonna be on your your new ship.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Stop wasting time trying to find a new ship or a new AI tool.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like get a course, figure out what you need to do with your ship first.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, probably no different than any other technological kind of rollout in the past, but just a lot more headlines here.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a great analogy.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're in a canoe or you're in a paddle boat, you got you know, four people, five people all rowing in a different direction.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: All you're gonna do is spin in a circle without an actual strategy, without an actual moat um road map.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you're just gonna continue to go in circles.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you and I have these conversations with business leaders all all, you know, almost every week, uh, if not multiple times a week, where you know, here were the same thing.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's you know, we have copilot licenses, uh, we have chat GTP licenses where we're utilizing claws, we have all these tools.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not the engine, it's not the boat, it's the people rowing the boats, people driving the car, right?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: That need to have that strategy, need to have that, uh, those ideas that are given to them on how to how to properly execute it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And if not, you're just gonna spin it in a circle.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's you know, if you ask those same people that are like, oh, you know, AI, my people just aren't using AI, well, what do you want them to use it for?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: A lot very, very seldom does somebody have an answer to that.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's like the number one thing you can do is to get, and that solves so many other problems too, right, Adam?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Is like, so if you don't have that vision or goal, your people are all gonna they're gonna try to find a way to make it work for them.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, kind of rowing all in all different directions.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it's gonna be hard to quantify that.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So people might be rowing in a way that works for them and makes their lives easier, but it's not concentrated effort.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you're not gonna see the return on that.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because you're not moving the whole ship in the same direction.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's another big issue that leaders have is like, well, I don't know, I don't have the ROI.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I don't think ROI should be the only thing that we're measuring this against.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but you're never gonna get the ROI if if you don't know what you want them to do in the first place.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's a huge issue too.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and we see that a lot too.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: We see business leaders that are that that want to adopt AI, they want a strategy, and then their their next question is, well, how fast can we get our return on investment?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because they want it instantly.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't, you know, I I feel like it's a lot like fad diets, you know, you want instant results within two weeks, you want to lose 20 pounds in two weeks.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Just give me the magic pill.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and maybe that's the case now with all these GLP ones we have going on, but um, but you have to set uh an idea, you have to follow a strategy, you have to put in the work to see the results that that most of these companies want, you know, instantly.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to happen overnight.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You need to have a strategy.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, we just had a great conversation with a colleague earlier today that said the same thing.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It all starts with leadership, it all starts on getting buy-in from the leadership, getting them to be passionate about it and set and buy into the strategy and then and then hiring the right people, the right consultants, um, or you know, the right uh direct employee staff to get and execute that strategy.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's a good, a good point.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the people side of this is overlooked all the time because we talk about every week, Adam.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: We've had the same, you know, kind of a similar conversation around people are afraid, people are fearful, this is new technology.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of that emotion embedded in this.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I think also there's no ins, there's no motivation, there's no like incentive for most folks to to adopt this.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: You'll always have the the early, you know, the early birds that are just want to learn things, like you're always gonna have those folks.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: But for most of the organization, like that's probably not them, right?
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so what is their incentive to to use these tools?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And without the hey, use the tools to do this, right?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like increase sales, improve customer experience, whatever it may be, like they don't know what to use it for and they're not incentivized to use it.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're thinking they're you know, adopting a tool that's gonna take their job, because that's the narrative that's out there.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah, so of course they're not gonna be excited, you know, to so it's like I think there's a lot of salesmanship.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to chart the course, but you also have to get your people excited about it.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: And one thing that I think leaders can do too is when they're trying to figure out how to use AI and what those you know early use cases should be, without a doubt, it should be focused on making it easier for the employees to do their job.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think doing that may not be again like the sexiest way, like the most exciting use case, but it will get the employees on board.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: It'll get them excited.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, hey, this is cool.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: This took, you know, uh, you know, five hours for me to do before.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now it takes 10 minutes.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can do more valuable stuff.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think uh leaders kind of don't choose those like pebbles in your shoe enough.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that kind of comes up to bite them as well.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and to your point, you know, when when organizations want to say, hey, we want instant results, where can we get our ROI with with adopting AI?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of a lot of functions within organizations that lean heavily on AI as a startup is sales, right?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is the sales teams because you're able to utilize it to help generate sales, which is your quickest avenue to ROI.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: And at that point, the leadership says, Well, if it works this well in sales, what about our other functions?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should try it out in that.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and then you start to have a full-fledged adoption within your organization because you're utilizing the clock across all your functions within within your group, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So those are mainly you know the biggest sticking points of being able to show results.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: However, you know, it does come across with getting that buy-in.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and I can't help but think, you know, when you're navigating something that's uncertain, um, you know, just with what you said, instant leader pops in my head is Jack Sparrow.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jack Sparrow, right?
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: The pirate.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: How he can get his crew to believe in what he wants to accomplish without ever giving him the details, but he but his crew knows, hey, this guy's passionate about it.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: This guy's gonna get us to where we need to be.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: We just need to trust him.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe if all leaderships develop the Jack Sparrow mindset, I think they'd have a lot more success at AI adoption and raise that percentage from 5% on upward.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think they should all dress like Jack Sparrow as well.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think that would really help adoption.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which kind of brings up another point.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, like you need to make it fun.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like this, it sounds so silly, but like if people are naturally motivated, they're fearful of this, and you put them in a training that's like six hours long, that's just you know, some person like reading off of a script, like they're again, they're gonna be like, This sucks.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna use this.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: So if you make it fun, you make it engaging, you uh, you know, include them in the process, you do stupid stuff like dress as Jack Sparrow or whatever it may be.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I think that can really help with a it doesn't need to be that serious all the time.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um I've seen teams that do like the most ridiculous stuff, like have silly prompt a thons.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you can have like a prompt a thon for which is basically just like trying to crowdsource different like prompts for ridiculous tasks.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be like, you know, an actual business task, like I don't know, coming up with a rocket ship to go to Mars or something, right?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're still learning in that process, but you're learning in a way that's more engaging, that's probably a lot more memorable, um, versus just trying to learn a prompt to like improve a process or something like that.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's you just gotta make it fun.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: So for those of our listeners that are trying to figure out the best strategy of how to adopt AI within their business, step one, dress like Jack Sparrow.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, official, official, approved, dressed like Jack Sparrow, but I can't imagine Jack Sparrow smelling good.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, use that at his caution.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: And he's probably not um very PC, I would imagine.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you might want to tone it down for HR.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: He is a pirate after all.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just take some inspiration from Jack Sparrow.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe don't don't go hardcore, but um I I think that's that's the the biggest part is people are just fearful.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like I I'll say it a million times and I'll continue to say it, like you've got to find a way that makes it accessible, makes it engaging for them, and then give them some reason and purpose to do that.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that could be just like helping the organization, um, you know, but without that goal, they don't know what the hell they're doing.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that goal is extremely important and valuable when you're trying to get, you know, people to buy in, especially as a leader who's implementing something um as as as new as AI adoption.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's the key.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, all we can do is make it fun and make it engaging because again, listening to to training, depending on who your your audience is, that eight hours of just straight monologue, same tone can be very uh detrimental to one's mental state, so to speak.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think this is a tool where you can just have a six-hour training or whatever.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I I hear uh every week somebody, oh yeah, my company wants me to use AI.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: They sent me a link to some generic like two-hour recorded session.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's you're gonna get out of it what you put into it.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's like the investment that you're making in your adoption plan, like of course you're gonna have crappy adoption.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think one thing that I would also encourage, you know, leaders to do is is embed it in your processes, right?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure that you're talking about AI and and how folks are using it in your meetings.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking about it in your reviews, you're talking about it, but not in a way that's like, hey, you didn't use it enough, like you're on the naughty list, but like, hey, tell me about like what are some cool things you guys did with this?
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's one way that you found useful?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think the more that you talk about it and start to, you know, it's gonna take frequency and it's gonna take reps, but it's not something you can like train and be done.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if if if that's what you're doing, like of course what's gonna happen is your employees are gonna use it once and be like, oh, this sucks.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm doing, you know, and then that's where you get that that adoption gap.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like anything that's worth doing, right?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's a process, it takes reps, um, it takes practice.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna get it right the first time, you're not gonna get it right the second time.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta continuously practice it in order for it to be great.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and that you know, that resonates with with with everybody, right?
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: From you know, rowing a boat to diet plans to adopting AI.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you want success and you want it to truly work, you gotta be committed to the process, you got to have rep after rep after rep, and you got to surround yourself with individuals who know what they're doing, and as well as strong leadership that's going to back the adoption process, the strategy, and really gain buy-in from the entire organization.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, which kind of brings me up to my next point.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, McKenzie in a latest AI uh state of AI research survey, you know, stated that 88% of organizations reported using AI in at least one business function, but only about one-third begun scaling AI across their organization.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's another staggering statistic because 88% of organizations are using it, right?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, a light bulb goes off is as to what are they using it and how are they using it and what are they accomplishing while using it?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And especially in today's world where you have so much data, right?
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where you have you know individuals with sensitive information from their organizations or maybe client organizations, and the last thing they should be doing is implementing that data into you know a general chat GTP account, right?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is your take on hearing the staggering high volume of people utilizing AI, but the uncertainty of what they're actually using it for within an organization in a professional setting?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: So a couple of things I want to hit on there.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: One is that that doesn't mean that people aren't using AI in that organization, they're using AI in the way that you're describing it, like completely unsanctioned.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was funny.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was meeting with an executive and he was literally in charge of AI governance and preventing people from using Shadow AI.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he on like a committee call was talking about how we used his personal ChatGPT to like revive.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, what are you doing?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so one, if you haven't approved a tool or you don't have an approved tool, like you have to have one because you can't think that your people aren't using AI.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: They absolutely are.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: They're just using it in ways that you don't have visibility in and you don't have oversight entity.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the biggest thing.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I guarantee that more people and organizations are using it than you think.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then you know, the next thing is, you know, making sure that you are using an approved tool and they know that it's safe.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I've done like hundreds and hundreds of workshops with people.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the number one asked question I get is hey, is this tool safe?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is my data gonna be used?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so you need to make sure that your employees know that you have an approved tool.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what you can and can't do.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or otherwise they're not gonna feel comfortable using it.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants to lose their job or get in trouble.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: So making sure that that's like abundantly clear to everybody in your organization, I think could also help drive adoption.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have an approved tool, like you gotta find one.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so work with your IT department.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Typically, like if you're a Google shop, that's gonna be Gemini.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a Microsoft shop, that's gonna be Copilot.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, those are the two main, but whatever it is, you need to pay for it to make sure that your data is safe and make sure you review all that.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: But um, you have to have an improved tool or else you're gonna get yourself into a lot of trouble.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we know that there's multiple LLMs out there, you know, uh, and we've had conversations with companies where they're paying for multiple LLMs.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: Can for our listeners out there that aren't familiar with um the difference between these functions, the difference between these AI tools, is it safe to say that if an organization and Canada organization that's that is maybe a Microsoft shop that has access to copilot and they're paying for you know a chat GTP account, you know, what would the recommendation be for paying for both tools versus one?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: So kind of going back to The ship analogy, right?
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have a leader on a ship that they have not charted that course for their team, what happens a lot is then they decide, okay, well, this ship's not going anywhere.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna buy like 30 other ships.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem is, is those ships also don't know where they're going.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: So then they're just like colliding in with each other.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're, you know, I guess creating a big old mess, confusing everybody, frustrating everybody.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're seeing time and time again with these tools right now.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody and their brother has an AI tool that they've built.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what leaders need to have is a bit of discipline, right?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and for most of your organization, the tool that's in front of them is a perfectly sufficient tool, such as Copilot or Gemini, like the one that you have kind of embedded in your workflow.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's fine for most of the work that your team will do.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Start there.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: What will happen then is you'll start to notice that maybe those tools don't meet the needs of all of your employees.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, so for example, from a software engineering perspective, like, yeah, they're probably gonna need a tool like Cursor or you know, GitHub Copilot.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: Let then you take a look at those, and then you're like, okay, well, maybe our regatta, is that what a bunch of ships are called?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: I th I think so.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go with that.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Our regatta is going in this direction.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have a goal.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: I can add another ship.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Still kind of going in the same direction, but very nice and controlled.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, maybe our marketing team needs something like Adobe, adding another ship, right?
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just like everybody gets a ship.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's very start with one and then expand as your needs expand.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think that'll help you be more thoughtful to your original question around like cost, because a lot of companies are just throwing money at different tools hoping something sticks.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's not going to stick because your people aren't using it, they don't know how to use it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that will help you reduce cost as well if you'll really figure out, like, okay, what tool do I need to invest in?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, another thing you can do is like so you have your big ship, right?
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_01: You have your organization moving towards something, but you can have some experimental people, you know, maybe throw a ship out there, like, hey, you guys experiment, figure out what's out there.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think that's also a really good important thing for organizations to have because yeah, you want to kind of stay the course and you're kind of married to the ship that you're on, but you also want to keep an eye out for other ships.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think having, you know, the tool that you're using be the primary tool, but then also being open to other tools, but only committing to changing every year, every couple of years when that contract kind of comes up for renewal.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um I see that happen.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: People are too many ships.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Too many ships.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're saying is it's okay to test drive the ships, but just don't buy them all until you understand what exactly it is that you're sailing or waters that you're navigating, because you don't want to buy, you know, a speed boat if you're in an inland lake, right?
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now you can have a small team because what you want to do is creating all of these tools.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, think again, picture this like all these boat just like you know, it's a it's kind of a shit show out there, right?
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like all these boats are hitting each other.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna confuse your people, like that's creating a mess for your people.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when you want them to like get on one ship, they're gonna be like, I ain't getting on that ship.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: That last ship was a mess.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you have it like a smaller controlled team, they're and they know that they're getting into a mess.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like you're not impacting the rest of your organization, but you're still getting that intel that you need.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um, but you need to kind of limit that blast radius and and you know, just keep it smooth and controlled um as much as possible.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I know one thing that you're you're key on is is creating champions, right?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is creating teams of champions that can own processes, creating teams of champions that can become your your subject matter experts, right?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and really giving them the tools that they need to then uh allow other individuals to go to and ask those questions.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what would your advice be on that championship model?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, you absolutely need to have champions, whether it's formal or informal.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think you should make it too formal to start, because I think that could like, you know, you're over-engineering a process, but you're gonna naturally find people that are really into this technology.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: They're in your organization, whether you know it or not.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so for example, at PNC, we had a teller, he was amazing, you know, and he was so, you know, engaged in like our, we had Viva Engage as our platform.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we created a community that they could talk about AI and talk about like use cases.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: And he was so um prominent in this community, you know, and he served as a champion and he was looking out for use cases for for like, you know, people within the branch network.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it's important that you're gonna naturally find those people and be open to that and nurture them, you know, give them the tools, equip them with, you know, time, give them air cover for them to be able to experiment a little bit, you know, in this scenario, be like, hey, so-and-so is gonna be on this boat.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: Might look like a little bit of a mess, but he needs to be on this boat, you know, five hours a month.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need to be okay with that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Like you need to give them that.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you're gonna find the natural champions, and I think they should be at all levels of the organization as well.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think um you need to have people doing the work, you need to have people that are a little bit closer to the work, and you need to have like the leadership oversight.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: You need to have all of those level levels of the organization kind of activated and to have champions at different levels that that allow that.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um kind of on the same boat analogy, right?
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've ever, I was watching like cruise ship TikTok.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_01: Somehow I got on cruise ship TikTok.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: So a a cruise captain, like a cruise ship captain, they don't actually like port.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: So they actually have like a guest captain come out and kind of navigate in the ports that know the port best.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think about these champions as like, hey, you know the work best.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: You need those those champions to kind of get in and help you navigate the ship a little bit in an area that they're more familiar with than you are as a leader or executive that are a few levels removed from the work.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you don't have, you know, those champions and you're not listening to them, you're not really finding what those pockets of opportunity are.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um and again, I know sometimes that's not always exciting to tell the board, but that's what's really going to move, you know, move your ship in the right direction.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, coming from the manufacturing space, you hear a lot of committees, right?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like your safety committee, your quality committee, your employee committee, right?
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of committees of of just the general question of, hey, who's interested in doing this type of work?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: And with AI being so new, so fresh, you know, you might be sitting on those champions and those people that want to move the needle further.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you just simply need to ask, hey, who would be interested in joining the AI committee, right?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then formulating a group of champions that then pushing and driving that initiative.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and at the very least, getting the right, you know, consulting firms in, getting the right headcount in to help understand that and and move it forward within your organization.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, those are all excellent topics and excellent ideas that you've touched on.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing I would avoid is like calling a committee to start off the bat, because I think committees where fun and innovation goes to die.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like you call something a committee and I'm immediately like, oh, that that's lame, you know.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I think call it anything else but a committee.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think it can be as simple as like, and this is where I would say, like, don't over-engineer it.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_01: You could have a Teams chat and add people that are like really into AI or co-pilot.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can have, you know, if you're on site, you can have a a lunch, you know, throw some donuts or breakfast, you know, have people come together with their computers and show each other.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like it can be as simple or as complex as it needs to be.