Embracing AI to Drive Organizational Change - Season 1 Episode 13

Unlock the secrets of harnessing AI to revolutionize your organization with our latest episode, featuring my co-founder Brad Breininger. We explore the current landscape of AI adoption across various industries, from media buying to healthcare, and dive deep into the critical role data plays in these initiatives. Together, we address the common apprehensions organizations face, such as the fear of early investment or selecting the wrong technology, and offer insights on balancing innovation with caution, especially in highly regulated sectors.

Discover the groundbreaking advancements AI is bringing to the healthcare sector, including the use of Monjaro for diverse medical conditions and the latest AI-driven developments in Alzheimer’s research. Brad and I also discuss how AI is democratizing entrepreneurship, making it accessible to more individuals and businesses. We emphasize the need for involving the entire organization in AI strategy to foster a more inclusive and effective approach, contrasting it with traditional top-down decision-making processes.

Join us as we delve into how leaders are integrating AI into their everyday routines, using tools like ChatGPT and Adobe Firefly to boost creativity and productivity. Hear about the importance of effective prompt engineering and the necessity of being aware of AI's advantages and pitfalls, including data privacy. Lastly, we discuss the future of AI integration in leadership and work processes, stressing the importance of starting now to pioneer your industry. Don't miss our actionable insights and real-world examples designed to propel your organization into the future with AI.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hi everyone, welcome to this episode of the Future is Human podcast, and I'm really excited to have my co-founder of Super Crucial Leader Retreats with me today, brad Reiniger. Hi, brad.

Speaker 2: 0:17

Hi Cheryl.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Brad is, as you know if you've listened to our previous episodes he's a brilliant mind. He's a partner in the Super Crucial Leader Retreats, he's EVP of Strategy and AI Innovation Lab Leader at BelieveCo and he's also a member of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. So you know, brad is knowledgeable in his industry. They work in his role, works in multiple industries and as co-facilitator of Super Crucial Leader Retreat. We've got some dynamite stuff in the works that we'll share more with you as we get to the end of the podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:50

But for this podcast, brad, we're going to keep talking about AI. We've we talked about it in a LinkedIn live and we talked about it from a perspective of, you know, should people be afraid or should they be embracing? And we basically said they should be embracing. In this episode, I think we have an opportunity to dig a little deeper about how organizations are using AI your thoughts, my thoughts on what we think is going to happen next. You know the human component what is it going to mean for jobs? So, addressing all those sort of elements that are coming out of the AI discussion. So let's get right into it. And what do you think? You know where are most organizations when it comes to considering and or using AI, like where are they right now from your vantage point?

Speaker 2: 1:36

Yeah, it's interesting. I think a lot of organizations are at different points on the continuum and a lot of it depends on how much they've done technology in the past or how much they've done AI-related initiatives in the past, how much data is important to them, how much they rely on data. There's a lot of agencies that have used AI-enhanced products for quite a while. When you look at media buying and things like that, there's AI-enhanced products that help with that and that's well underway. But a lot of organizations are using some of the tools that are available, like Adobe or Midjourney or ChatGPT, of course, even to just begin their foray into the AI world. But then there's others where they're going much deeper.

Speaker 2: 2:33

You know I saw on the news the other day that there's a Alzheimer's research team that is using AI to go in and look at a correlation between eye health and being able to predict Alzheimer's well in advance of the disease setting in, and what they're doing is they're using AI to look for correlations, look for patterns, look for a whole bunch of different things within the data, and they have a lot of data to work from and they're having great success with that.

Speaker 2: 3:02

So, again, it's very different, but there's a lot of organizations out there that, and they're having great success with that. So, again, it's very different, um, but there's a lot of organizations out there that think that they're way behind others. And then there's others that think, oh my God, have we not done enough yet? Um, but the truth is is that wherever you are in the AI journey, um, you know, it's hopefully where you need to be, but you need to be considering all of the different products that are out there and even how your plan to innovate around AI for your organization is going to come to fruition over the next little while, because it's going to become more and more important as we move forward.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Yeah, and I was just reading NVIDIA, who's the AI chip leader in the industry, and their stocks have absolutely tripled in the last month. What I was reading as well is that they're trying to make AI accessible at every level within an organization and to touch everything that we do. So what I'm seeing with organizations and I do a lot of work in the insurance industry, the finance industry, the health industry I know you have an upcoming AI panel that you're a panelist on for pharma, which we'll talk about in a few moments but what I'm seeing in the industry is there's still a little bit of fence sitting. There's still a little bit of that. Let's wait to see how the dust settles. Let's not go ahead and spend a bunch of money and then have to.

Speaker 1: 4:23

You know, like, as you know, with digital transformation, a lot of companies, when they transitioned from legacy systems to cloud, there was a lot of money that was spent in the rush to get there and then and I know this because I have a lot of clients where they actually then had to backtrack because the products that they went with for cloud were not necessarily the right solution. So I think there's a little bit of gun shyness around. Do we leap in now or is there going to be further innovation or further? You know things that are going to happen that maybe we should wait a little bit and see, and so it's that push pull that's going on. You know we want to be with everybody else and embrace AI, but we also don't want to be too close out of the gate too soon, or are we spending money that we don't need to spend? So I don't know if you're seeing that as well, but that's what I've kind of observed with the organizations I'm working with.

Speaker 2: 5:11

Yeah, I mean it's the situation where you have your early adopters who jump in with both feet and want to be the innovators in certain areas.

Speaker 2: 5:20

And want to be the innovators in certain areas and you know, for some organizations, being first in can be a competitive advantage and they see that and they're willing to make that investment. But for most organizations, you know, sitting back and watching and seeing what works is not necessarily a bad strategy either if it fits within what that organization is trying to achieve. And the good part is that in highly regulated industries like, you know, pharma or insurance or some of those areas where you know there's kind of a group thinking that happens around how to innovate as an industry as opposed to just how to innovate as an organization. There is something to be said for disruption by some central. You know capabilities, but not necessarily pouring all of your you know resources into you know the R&D that goes with having to develop a product for some of those areas. So I think it really depends on the organization and the purpose and what the ultimate strategy of the organization is to, you know, put their best AI position forward.

Speaker 1: 6:36

Yeah, I think you know when you said you know some people want to be the early adopters. Are there certain industries that are ahead of others in your opinion? Like you know, what are you observing?

Speaker 2: 6:47

Yeah, I mean, I think that I don't know if it's industries that are ahead as opposed to you know ways of incorporating either the tools that have already been created for AI, or you know, for example, let's take ChatGPT, which is probably the most famous of all the AI tools right now.

Speaker 2: 7:09

I mean, although you know, Google and Adobe are quick on their heels, but a lot of it is content-based, and so organizations that deal in a lot of content and want to become more efficient on the content side deal in a lot of content and want to become more efficient on the content side.

Speaker 2: 7:27

It behooves them to participate as much as possible, and the truth is that, prior to ChatGPT, I'm sure that there was a lot of firms out there who were looking at content tools in the AI space that could drive their businesses forward, and I know that some of them were developed and some of them are proprietary and they are being used by those organizations. But the truth is is are they powerful? As powerful as ChatGPT? Are they going to progress as quickly as ChatGPT? Probably not. So there is definitely appetite for developing tools that are proprietary and tied to a single organization, but there's also a lot of good reason to look for these more common open source tools that are, you know, being developed and progressed at a much higher level and a much quicker rate to then be incorporated into an organization's processes, Right so?

Speaker 1: 8:26

I think it's yeah, when I think of industry. The one industry and I think we spoke about this before you and I is the is the healthcare industry, right? So yeah, I mean the just recently in the news. We'll go over the Monjaro pharma creators.

Speaker 1: 8:40

Now they're saying that that can be used far beyond diabetes, can be used for cancer vaccine, it can be used for, uh, memory loss, dementia yeah, so I think, ai in the head and I have a client that I interviewed for my book, super crucial human in the ai industry, based out of toronto, where that you know, medicine is, because there's so much available data.

Speaker 1: 9:02

Now, of course, there's privacy and, as you said, legislation and compliance and all those things, but healthcare industry right now, I believe, is in the front. They're running with this because the implications are like, for example, wagovi Mongera and I'm not an Ozempic and I'm not investor and I have no vested interest in using them as an example, other than to say that that's an example of pharma coming up with a global obesity and death. It's a major health challenge for humanity and it's being addressed this one way. It's not the only way. There's multiple ways to address it, but I'm saying that was created via AI and now all these offshoots of that is being created by AI. So healthcare we're going to see I think it's going to blow people's minds that the innovation that we're going to see in the next year or two.

Speaker 2: 9:55

Yeah, and the truth is and I referred to the Alzheimer's testing earlier, but the truth is is that the amount of data that rapidly and faster than the legislation or the policies and the privacy considerations can progress, done in a very regulated way, they are using what they do have access to right now in probably the most efficient way compared to other industries because of the pure amounts of data. But really, where the innovation is going to happen is as we figure out how to, you know, walk that line when it comes to privacy and all the other issues attached to it. The access to that data and the speed by which AI can look for those patterns and those insights is going to be a game changer for sure, a hundred percent.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Yeah, I mean other other industries.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Obviously the technology industry are right ahead of all of this, like uh industry, like, like companies that were already technologically ahead uber, airbnb, all of those ai has become part of and has been for a while part of how they operate the business.

Speaker 1: 11:36

So you know it's interesting because for the listeners or the viewers, if you're an entrepreneur like I am, you know you can run with AI in any way you want, because it's you don't have all the hoops to go through, right. You, you literally use it to write an article, or you use it to create an image, or you use it to brainstorm ideas or book titles or whatever. You know you can use it for a variety of applications. So I feel like access and democratization of AI a lot about creating success based on access is where we're also going to see I think we're going to see more entrepreneurism because of AI. I think we're going to see more development because AI is going to help define, through research and through analytics, what the public is wanting. Like. Again, I get excited because I don't think we even have any concept of how much change this is going to create for everybody in the next decade Massive.

Speaker 2: 12:29

Yeah, and the truth is is that you know we can predict as much as we want, but the truth is is that we don't know where this is all going to go. The truth is is that we don't know where this is all going to go Because you know, one of the most important things to consider is that a lot of times, you have, you know, a group of people who create the technology and then you have another group of people that build on the technology and then another group of people that build on that technology. So for the people who built the technology to do the final prediction of where this could go really doesn't make any sense, because it's going to take time and additional thinking and additional insights as we go along to arrive at the true power of what AI can be. The same way that AI learns through, ai learns through, you know, machine learning and NLP and all of the different ways that fuel it. It's the same on the human side, where you know generations will become better and better at using the technology and, you know, increasing its power and all of those things.

Speaker 2: 13:35

But I do think, cheryl, that one of the most important things for us to consider that you just said, is the democratization of AI. One of the things that we're doing at Believe Co is we're not looking at just a few people at the top of the organization to determine how AI is going to move forward through the organization, or what tools to use or how to productize or innovate with AI, but we're looking at our full firm and saying how can we engage everyone in the firm to be thinking in this direction and then ladder it up to, you know, a central hub where we can then, you know, look at product productization of certain ideas or, you know, using best practices across the entire organization, and I think that if organizations think about it from that way, it really allows for a broader based way of thinking in order to innovate in a much stronger way than perhaps a few people deciding what the AI policy is going forward.

Speaker 1: 14:43

And I think I've seen that even with my consulting clients were in the past. You know, using the example of legacy system to cloud, for example. Those decisions were made by leaders in an IT department in a vacuum. Now, I'm not saying that's bad or wrong, I'm just saying that's what happened.

Speaker 1: 14:58

And now, because the AI is so accessible and everybody needs to be contributing, that's where the democratize. In other words, everybody's data point matters. That's the big difference here. It used to be that you know top-down autocratic leadership in an organization, and now no, no, this is we need everyone's data points in order to make the most strategic decision or to move in the most strategic direction for the organization. Which leads me to the next question I have for you, which is how are leaders integrating AI into their everyday life?

Speaker 2: 15:29

from your vantage point, yeah, yeah, I think that what I was just saying about the democratization of it and empowering teams. I think that that's what a leader has to think about. Going forward is how am I empowering my team, how am I empowering myself to bring new ways of thinking forward? You know what tools are we utilizing. Utilizing and I know that there's a lot of trepidation for some folks around you know, if we're using AI, are we delivering a product? And you know the truth is is that you can use the tools to create, you know, an outline or a page and then use your human creativity and thinking to expand upon it. So I think that leaders have to look at what are the tools and how can we use them to be better at what we do. This isn't necessarily about replacing people. This isn't about, you know, looking at AI as the delivery mechanism, but it becomes a creative way of allowing for further innovation by the teams that you already have.

Speaker 2: 16:44

And I think that that human component you and I talk about this all the time the human component of it and the contextualization of the content, because, in the end, content is king. It's you know. You don't look at, you know albums or cassettes or DVDs or CDs, it's the music that matters, and it's the same with content. A lot of the AI tools are delivery mechanisms to arrive at content, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't need to be engineered. You know, you may have it's like with music you have to put multiple instruments together, you have to lay different tracks, and then you have to figure out, okay, how does this all go together, what does it all mean and how does it fit? And so that's where the human creativity can still come into the equation, at least for now, until AI becomes creative on its own. But we're not there yet.

Speaker 1: 17:35

I think and you and I talked about this before as well is like how I see leaders using it right now is almost everyone is using chat GPT. I mean when?

Speaker 2: 17:44

I do polling.

Speaker 1: 17:46

I say that now. I poll my audiences when I'm on stage with my keynotes, and the percentage of people that weren't not using any AI was about 30% as of May. But, as you know, we have people like you or I talking about. People like I got to go check that out and so the uptake and just general media, of course, and everybody being exposed to it. So chat GPT everybody's at least tried once. Some people are using it as a regular resource. I was using chat GPT a lot.

Speaker 1: 18:15

Now I'm I shared with you when we spoke before that I'm using Adobe Firefly for my images. I'm using a variety of different like specific AI tools for specific things. I have Rewrite AI, which helps me rewrite my posts, social posts. I've got Simplified AI, which is kind of like a Hootsuite, but it's AI driven, so it's on steroids. I'm seeing leaders using it to organize their calendars. They've got integrated into their calendars. As you know, microsoft is bringing a brand new AI integration into its whole suite, so we're going to actually see it become seamless. Just like when we talked before about things were all disjointed and different projects or different pieces of technology, but now they're going to come together GemEye for Google. Microsoft's going to have an integrated. Do you remember when Microsoft first came out and it had the little paper clip?

Speaker 2: 19:12

Oh yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1: 19:14

So now AI is going to be like it'll be everywhere where it is like like I don't know about you, but I have it. It pre-fills on our Apple devices. It pre-fills what it thinks we're going to say. I mean, it's already, it's already infiltrated. But the leaders that I'm seeing being very successful with it is they're using it to ask questions. Like I have a difficult conversation coming up with my team member. It's about performance. What are some suggestions on how I can approach it? And I've used it for that too, just to see what it comes up with, and the answers are excellent. You know you want to make sure you have a quiet place to talk. You want to like it's got really excellent insight, yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:50

Yeah, and it's a tool like any other tool. I think that you know, like you said, it's going to become more seamless as time goes on. Where you know it won't be just you know how are leaders using AI? Everything will be either AI enhanced AI or AI enabled, and it'll really be about what tools work for what it is that you're trying to achieve. And you know the same way that the tools have changed over time. You know where we used to. You know, write our reports on a typewriter. We would handwrite them, then we move to typewriter.

Speaker 2: 20:24

Then we move to, you know, computer. The tools continue to change, but ultimately, what we're trying to achieve is a higher level of capability and a higher level of creativity and a higher level of efficiency, and all of those things will lead into the choices that we make as leaders for ourselves and for our teams around. You know what's going to work for us and you know, as you know, there's 5,001 different products that are already available, and more coming every single day, and so it's really about efficiently understanding which of them are going to be most effective and most helpful to the tasks that you're trying to do. The other big thing that I think we're becoming better and better at is our prompting becoming stronger, prompt engineers, as I call them, and asking questions that are more in context with what it is that we're trying to achieve. You know, I think particularly chat, gpt or even mid journey and even Adobe. You know asking for certain things.

Speaker 2: 21:34

Before, in the early days, when we were using these products, we would be very general, and now we're kind of way more efficient and we understand what it is that we're trying to do. It's not, you know, create me a picture of a person standing in front of a mountain. It's create a picture of a person standing in front of a mountain at sunrise wearing a blue shirt, with, you know, this kind of beard or no beard, or hairstyle or no hairstyle you did talk about this, about how prompt engineering is actually causing us as humans to communicate more clearly, because with prompt engineering, the quality you get is only as good as what you prompt it with right.

Speaker 1: 22:12

So just even saying that, and for anybody listening and watching and you're going, most of you might know prompt engineering, but if you don't, it's what you put into the AI as your request to get what you want. So, for example, if you wanted a picture on Adobe Firefly, you might say exactly what Brad said. You know sunrise mountaintop leader. But I was sharing this with you in a previous conversation that you know when I do a article now or a blog post, I give it. I don't just say write me a thousand word article in the voice of Sheryl Cran, which I did at the very beginning when I first used it, when I first came out. Now, write me a thousand word article in the voice of Sheryl Cran in the brand of NextMapping, with the following points and please create reference points and links for each of these points. So my prompts now have gone from this to this, but the output is superb. Like I have to do less and less editing, the more concise we are with the prompting, agreed.

Speaker 2: 23:09

Yeah, and I mean. The only thing that we have to be careful and cognizant of is the fact that you know the data that's being fed into the AI for its learning could be proprietary data could be copyright protected, say, all the time, which is the whole human piece to it, is still really important, and you know being able to evaluate the content that comes from it and you know.

Speaker 2: 23:42

Going back to your original question, what can leaders do is just make themselves and their teams aware of the advantages and the pitfalls of AI and using AI enabled tools and making sure that you know that we're really aware of where they can benefit us and where they can trip us up potentially.

Speaker 1: 24:01

Yeah, last question for this podcast and we will have more, so you know we'll be talking about a variety of angles on this subject matter. You know, will we be left behind? Anybody listening, watching, if anybody is really kind of still sitting on the fence or they even started, but they're kind of like I don't feel like I'm fast enough for the speed of innovation. Do you think people will be left behind? Where do you think where we're going?

Speaker 2: 24:27

Yeah, I think, quite frankly, the future of work includes AI.

Speaker 2: 24:31

So the future of organizational success, the future of work, the future of you know how we show up to build careers all includes AI.

Speaker 2: 24:42

So I don't think anyone is left behind now, and you know there's a lot of work being done by a lot of very large, powerful organizations to create tools that will have AI embedded into them.

Speaker 2: 24:56

So I do think that as long as you're aware constantly around how you can be more efficient, use better tools, continue to evolve your teams and yourself and your organizations, then I don't think you'll be left behind when it comes to using AI to productize or build differentiation in your industries or whatever that might be. That takes a lot more focus on embedding the technology in a much stronger way. So if that is ultimately your goal, then I think you need to be thinking about that already, because there are people out there probably defining your industry as we speak when it comes to AI integration. But if really what you're doing is kind of sitting back and waiting for tools that will make certain elements of your work more efficient and easier to do, then I think you're not going to be left behind. But if you truly want to be a pioneer in your industry, then I think you need to be thinking about what does that look like now? Because everything is happening now.

Speaker 1: 26:06

Yeah, I think I agree with you completely and I think the future of work obviously is AI enabled with human contextualization.

Speaker 1: 26:13

So this whole future is human super crucial leader. All the things that we're doing is and you're right nobody knows. But as a futurist and as a person who does, you know exhaustive research in human behavior and social trends, I do feel that AI is going to become so integrated into our daily existence that it's going to be less We'll look back on these conversations and go why were we even talking that way? Because it'll become integrated into our, the way we live, and that's why I'm so passionate and you are as well about how do we be better humans, because humans are creating the impact and output of AI and to me there's an important focus yeah.

Speaker 2: 26:55

Yeah, and there's still bias issues, there's still content and copyright and privacy issues, so there's still a lot that has to be worked out. Recently, a group of organizations signed a treaty around being responsible, accountable and ethical in AI development and you know we're going to see more and more of that because there is a certain responsibility. What's the line? With great power comes great responsibility, and I do think that that's true to a large degree, and we can't lose our responsibility, our accountability, our ethics, our position as a society. We can't look at the degradation of society as a thing to happen in order for us to be better at technology. We still have to ensure that we're being good humans, but we're just enabling ourselves to be better at some of the things that we do. And, you know, becoming more efficient.

Speaker 2: 27:58

Whole conversation is that this is meant to make us better. This is part of our evolution. This is not. You know, we've had an industrial revolution, We've had an information age revolution and now we're having an AI evolution. We will continue to evolve as humans and technology will be a big part of that, but really we have to look at it from that perspective and say, okay, if this truly is part of our evolution. What are we doing to ensure the capability of ourselves to just be better humans as we do it?

Speaker 1: 28:52

I think it's going to up the integrity game, being of higher integrity, higher responsibility, higher accountability. Yeah, I mean another industry just before we sign off. Another industry that comes to mind is the whole law enforcement industry and how AI is making it much easier for crime to be deterred before it even happens. So if you look at that, Do you remember the movie?

Speaker 2: 29:15

Yeah. Do you remember the movie with Tom Cruise? Minority Report yes exactly, and that was and how many years ago was that? Like it's funny because it's interesting how science fiction, you know, can be a precursor to where we arrive, like if you look at the Star Trek effect on the iPhone, for example, or if you look at, you know exactly what you just said around AI. And truth is is that if we can continue to build in the integrity like you're talking about, then you know it can be a positive for our society.

Speaker 1: 30:00

Yeah, yeah, and I'm also excited about with the pool of data and looking at algorithms and looking at humanity as a whole of 7 billion people, I can only see the potential of us making really smart decisions based on those you know, sort of like what's good for humanity versus a few Right. I see that as well. So we always have these really enlightening, engaging conversations. Thank you so much. Maybe just tell everybody about the panel that you'll be speaking on, about AI and yeah, and then we'll talk a little bit about it later. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 30:34

Yeah, it's AI and pharma. It is sold out, so that's great, but basically what we're talking about is the agency of the future and how we can service, particularly on the pharmaceutical side. How we can, you know, within the regulatory framework, how we can use AI and position our agencies and ourselves to continue to, you know, bring forward marketing and communication and PR and all of those elements within the pharmaceutical framework and use AI to drive that engine as we move forward.

Speaker 1: 31:11

Yeah, excellent, and that's on June 18th, I believe, right. So we'll do another episode where you talk about that and what came out of that, I think?

Speaker 1: 31:21

that'd be really interesting. Awesome, yeah. And then also just reminding everybody that Brad and I are the co-founders of Super Crucial Leader Retreat. If you go to our website, supercrucialleadercom, you'll see more. Our next retreat is November 5th to 7th. Registration is now open. And if you're thinking to yourself, well, why would we want to go to spend time with Cheryl and Brad for three days? Well, more of what you heard on this particular podcast and previous ones that we've done on LinkedIn Live. But more important than that is the contextualization. So you know, information is only as good as the context that is behind it, and so, with my over 20 plus years as a leadership expert, future of work researcher Brad's over however many years, the same in leadership in branding, in marketing, in business.

Speaker 1: 32:09

That's context, and we'll be having special guests and special activities as well. So if you're looking to be inspired, innovative, hearing some really cool things that you can apply in the workplace right away, you might want to consider signing up Supercrucialleadercom.

Speaker 2: 32:23

Yeah, and we're fun, and we're fun, it'll be fun, and we are fun too. There's that as well.

Speaker 1: 32:29

Yeah, that's right, Thanks everybody.