3207: The Future of AI in Business: Learn, Apply, and Lead

[00:00:04] Artificial intelligence is revolutionising how businesses operate. And yet many executives are still getting AI adoption all wrong. So, how should leaders approach AI to drive efficiency without alienating their workforce? And with CFOs embracing AI for cost-saving, what does this mean for the future of jobs?

[00:00:27] Well, my guest today is the CEO of Section and they are an AI education company which was founded by Scott Galloway. And my guest today, Greg, he's a seven-time entrepreneur. He's got deep expertise in AI adoption, business strategy, digital transformation, and has helped countless organisations integrate AI effectively, not just as a tool, but as a strategic partner.

[00:00:55] So, today we're going to bust a few myths and misconceptions, talk about the biggest mistakes that executives make when implementing AI, learn more about some of the positives, how it's transforming work, productivity, and job security for the better, and some practical ways that anyone listening today, no matter what your background is, can incorporate AI into your daily life. I always try and give everybody a valuable takeaway from every episode.

[00:01:24] And let me tell you, this episode has got more than most. So, as AI becomes as ubiquitous as electricity, how can businesses and indeed ourselves stay ahead without losing sight of what makes us unique, our human element? Let's find out now. So, thanks for joining me on the show, Greg. Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do? Greg. Sure, Neil. Great to be here. And let's go back, but we'll go forward next.

[00:01:54] Back as a seven-time founder, came to California to go to business school, stayed, fell in love with this idea, drank the Kool-Aid of Silicon Valley. And the Kool-Aid is, hey, start companies, sell them, make a shit ton of money. It didn't really work out for me, meaning I didn't get the unicorn. I didn't get the billion-dollar exit. I have, I think, a more typical career, which is a lot of attempts, a lot of at-bats, we would say, here in the U.S. And some strikeouts, right? Companies failed. It got on first or second base a couple times.

[00:02:23] You sold a couple companies. Again, no billion-dollar outcomes. Sometimes my kids are like, hey, Dad, your career is kind of mediocre. Like, where's the jet? And I'm like, yeah, listen, I got a more typical Silicon Valley career, which is a lot of hard work, a lot of grinding, some ups and a lot of downs. And I think that's what most entrepreneurs should expect. And that's been my career. On the whole, good but hard.

[00:02:46] The easier ways to, I think, make a living is to try to start companies with products or services that don't exist and bring those new products or services kind of into existence. But mostly fun along the way. So that's my story. Oh, awesome. There's so much I want to talk with you about today. And every day on this podcast, we try and demystify a little area in business and technology, some of the big problems that they're talking about, and try and add a few valuable pieces of advice.

[00:03:14] And, of course, right now, many executives are eager to implement AI. It's a big buzzword. We're entering a third year of Gen AI madness right now. But often they make critical mistakes in that headfirst rush that they're going on. So what are some of the most common missteps that you're seeing? And how can leaders avoid them? Maybe we can help a few stop making those same mistakes. Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, it's probably not buy into all the hype.

[00:03:41] And I'd start with don't get your information about AI from the media, because all the media wants to do is get us to click. And that means they want to mostly scare us. Right. So this idea that it's coming for our jobs, we're all going to be unemployed. We're going to have to be sitting around getting our universal basic income check in a few years because the AI is doing everything for us and running our companies. And I also see this meme in Silicon Valley all the time. It'll happen once for sure. But the meme is we're going to have a hundred million dollar company with like five employees.

[00:04:11] Yeah, I don't think so. I think a hundred million dollar company requires probably more than five employees. Maybe one genius will figure out how to sit in his basement and have his AIs creating a whole bunch of revenue and he'll be the only employee. But that's not likely. Not for the rest of us. Right. So first of all, the first mistake is don't buy the hype. The second is get your hands on yourself. And that's my advice, Mini. And the mistake is not getting your hands on. Talking about AI. Running around the company saying, you're not going to get laid off by AI.

[00:04:40] You're going to get laid off by someone who uses AI. Yeah, that is sort of right. And for a CEO to be saying that, and I hear a CEO say that all the time. Okay, that's kind of a rallying cry. But do you know anything about AI? Do you use AI? Or do you have hands on yourself? And if not, then don't be the AI pundit or the AI booster or the supposed AI expert if you're not getting your hands on AI yourself. I meet so many leaders who are telling their team, use AI, and they don't use AI themselves.

[00:05:08] You're not doing it from a place of authority or authenticity. You're just doing it from a place of hype. So don't be one of those people, right? Find out your own personal use cases for AI and use it. And that might be at work in terms of using AI as a thought partner. Or that might be at home using AI to help you travel or travel planning or medical advice or parenting advice. I've got older kids. They use GPT all the time for parenting advice. That's smart, right? Why go refer to the book or some website? Just ask GPT.

[00:05:38] So get your hands on yourself. Third thing is start small but with high expectations. So don't roll out AI to everybody. Let's say chat GPT or Microsoft Copilot. Don't roll it out for everybody but have low expectations. That to me is just a recipe for failure. Roll it out to a group of people, 100 out of the 1,000 or 10 out of the 100. Whatever size your team is, take a part of that team.

[00:06:08] Give them AI but set the expectations high. Train them, support them, and set the expectations high. We want you using AI every day. And then you'll see some transformation. You'll see the productivity gains. You'll find the workflows and the use cases where AI can really help out the team. And then expand that through the rest of the team, right? Again, don't roll out to everybody with low expectations and low support. And the last thing I'd say, Neil, is we've got it.

[00:06:34] You've got to be a champion not of AI but how we work with AI. That we have so many deeply held beliefs about work, particularly in the United States but particularly in the West, which is don't cut corners. We use expressions like don't cut corners or hard work is a virtue and don't cheat. All these sort of beliefs we have that come from school originally, right? And then they sort of follow us into work about we should own our ideas matter, like our unique ideas.

[00:07:02] That's how you get credit in an organization is to come up with a new idea. Well, all those beliefs are challenged by AI and we want to acknowledge that with our workforce. We want to say to our workforce, it's good to cut corners with AI. It's not cheating to use AI. You don't have to work, maybe not as hard, but you have to work smarter, right? With AI. So we want to kind of really culturally change the beliefs about work in order to accept AI into our work lives. And leaders need to do that.

[00:07:31] They typically roll out AI rules and regulations. You need those. You know, here's where to use AI. Here's where not to use AI. Or here's what data you can share with AI, company data. Here's what company data we don't want you sharing with AI. So you need AI rules and regulations, but you also need an AI manifesto or you need an AI kind of point of view, which is how do we work with AI? How do we accept AI? How do we acknowledge AI?

[00:07:55] The reason shadow AI is really high inside of our companies, people using their personal AI is that we're not talking about this stuff. Do we make it feel like you shouldn't be using it or you should only use it in a certain way? No, we want to acknowledge AI. I don't want to put AI in the org chart. Not yet. Like, I don't think AI is not human. It doesn't go in the org chart. But at the same time, I want to acknowledge AI. I want to celebrate its use when we're using it well. I want everybody to know when it doesn't work.

[00:08:24] Like, so share your wins and share your losses in your team meetings and in your all hands and your off sites. Like, talk about AI and share what's working, what's not. So everybody else can figure it out faster rather than make it like something you do on the side or something you do at home or it's not sort of really endorsed. That's just, again, to me, a recipe for failure. Wow. So many great points in your answer there. And AI is often framed as a tool.

[00:08:51] But before you came on the podcast, I was reading how you emphasize its role as more of a strategic thought partner. But the question I've got to ask on behalf of executives who may be stuck in their old ways or maybe they're just a little bit scared or overwhelmed with the pace of change. How can they shift their mindset to fully leverage AI for decision making and innovation and all that cool stuff? Because I think very often we get distracted by the technology, but it's the change, the culture change, the change of mindset.

[00:09:20] That's what we should be focusing on more, possibly. Yeah, I think that's right. Listen, I think most executives think about AI is everybody else needs it, but I don't. Because I'm an executive and I think big thoughts and I make big decisions and I set strategy. And AI is for the grunt work. AI is going to help the copywriters write copy. AI is going to help the engineers code faster, which it will, right? AI is going to help the marketers create landing pages or whatever. So all that's true. But also, AI is an amazing thought partner.

[00:09:47] So what I would say, what I say to every executive is you have a bunch of medium to high stakes decisions that you need to make every week or every month. And you do use thought partners today. You use colleagues on the management team. You use your, maybe your board, maybe a friend, maybe a spouse or partner. You use thought partners, but they're not always available and they don't always have the expertise that you need in a thought partner. And or they have their own biases. And by the way, you have your own biases as an executive. You make decisions a certain way. You have blind spots.

[00:10:16] You have mental models that you typically use, but you forget about other mental models or strategic frameworks by which to make a decision. AI doesn't forget anything. AI has all the mental models. AI has all the strategic frameworks. AI doesn't have blind spots. AI crosses domains. AI crosses industries. AI crosses cultures and languages and countries. You do not as an executive.

[00:10:40] So I just think for any medium to high stakes decision, I think it's irresponsible of an executive not to be using AI. I think the same for our home lives, for any high stakes decision at home, where to live, what house to buy, how to handle a disease or medical condition, a parenting decision. I think it's irresponsible not to be consulting with AI to get a second opinion and to help you think through what's the right decision. And by the way, it's free.

[00:11:09] AI is essentially free and it's always available 24 seven. So like there's a little bit of friction and you got to learn how to use AI. But after that, once you learn how to use it, have your conversation with AI, I think pretty much every time. So my point of view on this is as an executive, use it personally as a business thought partner. Think about on a Monday morning or a Sunday night when you plan your week, look at the decisions you're making or look at the conversations you're going to be involved in.

[00:11:36] Pick a couple of the higher stakes ones and then allocate 15, 20 minutes before that conversation or before that meeting or before that decision is made and have a conversation with AI about it. And remember, it's not Google. Don't ask it a question. It's not a search engine. It's a co-intelligence. This is something that you're going to have a conversation with. That's why you have to learn how to prompt. And what prompting means is have a conversation.

[00:12:03] Learn how to have a productive conversation with your AI about this decision. I'm not saying you're going to do what AI tells you to do. I'm not saying that. People think, oh, I'll get the answer from AI. No, you're going to have a conversation and maybe expose some things you hadn't thought about that AI can help you think about about this decision. And that's the point of it. Some AI business models are proving more valuable and viable than others right now.

[00:12:30] So I'm going to ask you the big AI gold rush question every business leader is trying to try and learn from is which AI driven strategies do you think or are you seeing are the most promising? And where should companies be investing more of their efforts? Any advice around that? I appreciate it's a big question. But any advice? Yeah, Neil, it's a great question. I have a framework I use and I teach this to executives. It's called Optimize, Accelerate, Transform, O-A-T or OAT.

[00:12:59] So OAT means how do you, first of all, optimize the workforce using AI? So for me, the move there is pay for an AI and give it to either, as I said earlier, part of the team and then eventually the whole team. So they have access to a general purpose AI or LLM. That would be ChatGPT. That would be Anthropic Claude. That would be Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini.

[00:13:26] Get that in everybody's hands and train them and help them optimize their own workflows using AI. Accelerate, the A in OAT, is all about finding the workflows or the tasks that are a pain in the ass, that are repetitive, that a lot of people have to do. Things that if you really could automate them with AI or improve them with AI, you'd accelerate your business. Your team would really get higher levels of output. So that's Accelerate.

[00:13:56] Transform is find the one or two bets that if you could completely change them with AI, change the workflow, change the output that you provide customers, change the product that you sell to customers or service that you sell to customers, really make it AI enabled or AI first, it would be transformative to your customers and therefore to your business. There's not going to be many of those. There'll be a couple. So I think about it as everybody's optimizing. 100% of companies today should be optimizing.

[00:14:25] Probably 50%, maybe more, can be accelerating. They can find meaningful improvements with AI. And then a few of us should be transforming right now. Because if we don't, AI is going to eat our lunch. So there's lots of examples now. The obvious one is translation services. If you were in a business doing human translation, you're probably not in business anymore. Or your business needs to transform overnight.

[00:14:50] Because AI is coming so quickly and will really kind of overwhelm that industry or that company. So some of us need to transform. Eventually, I think all of us will. I think all of us will be, our businesses will be changed very dramatically by AI. The way I think about it, Neil, is, and I use a new product from OpenAI now pretty much every day. It's called Deep Research. Deep Research. It used to be available only to the premium tier of OpenAI users, of ChatGPT users. Now it's available to everybody.

[00:15:19] So Deep Research is a tool that allows you to do very complex research projects using ChatGPT. The way I think about it is it's an hour of human work that's been turned into one minute of AI time. So I've been giving deep research tasks that would take a human, an MBA level kind of analyst, four to six hours of work. And Deep Research is doing that at comparable quality in four to six minutes of thinking time.

[00:15:49] So I ask the question or I give AI the prompt, ChatGPT, Deep Research. I wait four or five minutes. I get back a 20-page report. So I think for all executives, I pose this question. What will your business look like if the cost of thinking, the cost of cognition is close to zero? Or another way to think about it would be if it was an hour of human work and now it's done by a minute of AI work, how does that change your company? How does that change your product?

[00:16:19] How does it change your service? How does it change your customers' lives? Like that's the world in which we are kind of beginning to live. We're not all there yet all the way, right? And these AIs make mistakes and they hallucinate. It's still lots of challenges. But this is the world in which we're going to be living relatively quickly, I think, in the next three to five years, where the cost of thinking, the cost of doing that kind of work is close to zero. Eventually, the cost will likely rise. By the way, Neil, we know what Silicon Valley is doing because they've run the playbook before.

[00:16:49] The playbook is use investor capital, build something that's a great new service, lower the price of it, get us addicted, and then raise the price later. That's what Amazon did. It's what Uber did. That's what AWS, Amazon Cloud did. Make this amazing new thing really affordable and accessible. Get it into our lives, our business lives or our personal lives. AI is going to live in both, right? Our business lives and our personal lives.

[00:17:16] And then later, we'll raise the prices on you and figure out how to make a shit ton of money. That's what the AI companies are trying to do. They're not trying to save humanity. Let's be clear. The AI companies and big tech, they're not trying to solve for medical breakthroughs. They're not trying to fix education. They're not trying to fix climate change. They're not trying to do any of that. They're just trying to get really rich and really powerful. That's what big tech is trying to do right now.

[00:17:39] And AI is a moment in which they intend to try to kind of exploit this capability so they can be even bigger companies and even more powerful, even more valuable in terms of their market caps. And we need to be the ones, I think, managing ourselves through this moment. Yeah, completely agree with you. And you mentioned at the very beginning of our conversation that people should get hands-on with AI. They should give it a try. And I would say to all of them, as you said then, deep research. Get on that. Have a play around with it.

[00:18:08] It will blow your mind, but it will equally help you change your mindset. Think bigger. And I'd love to bust a myth as well. The AI adoption isn't just for those big enterprises with the deepest pockets. Certainly not right now. So what advice would you have for startups or mid-sized businesses that are looking to implement AI in a more scrappy yet effective way? Yeah, I mean, do what I've been doing at Section. We're a small company. We're only 30 people at Section.

[00:18:36] And we've got probably a 25% productivity gain over 12 months by putting AI, multiple AIs. We use primarily ChatGPT for teams. We use Anthropics Claude. And we use Perplexity a lot, which is sort of the research AI. So we put those AIs in everybody's hands, whoever wants them, plus some other more niche AIs.

[00:18:58] And we've seen a significant productivity lift across the company, such that we're saving several headcount equivalents. And by the way, AI is being driven by consumers and small business. I think that's what's been sort of the surprise here. And at some level, which is just how people really have sort of got their hands on it. 400 million active users is what OpenAI is reporting. I think big companies have a harder time with AI. They have got more rules and regulations.

[00:19:27] They've got bigger organizations. They're more conservative. They don't want to screw up. They're more worried about their data being. And so their data being sort of stolen by the AI companies or whatever. I think small business and side hustlers and entrepreneurs and people like you and I, we're like, no, we want an edge. We're overworked. Like I'm buried in stuff to do. I'm working on the weekends. How can I? What can help me out? And what AI can help me out?

[00:19:51] So I think that the story of AI is that it's small business and entrepreneurs and individuals, consumers that are really powering the growth here and the revenue growth here, which is great. Eventually, the enterprise will have to pay for it. The cost of AI over time will eventually, I think most of that cost will get picked up by large companies. That's typical in enterprise software, right? So I think we'll see that here. But for now, my advice is get a GPT license for yourself.

[00:20:18] Pay the 20 bucks a month or whatever it is in euros or pounds and just get started. Get started on the weekend kind of thing. And then probably buy a package. If you have a small team or a small company, then buy the team's version of AI and give it to your team. And give them a little bit of training. And as I said, tell them what your point of view is. Your point of view is you're not cheating if you use AI. I can't believe we're telling kids in high school or college you're cheating if you use AI.

[00:20:44] Because by the way, when they graduate, I'm not going to hire them unless they're AI proficient. So if you're telling these kids that they're cheating and then they're going to graduate, they're going to have a hard time finding a job, at least in the knowledge economy. Because I think employers want people coming out of college that are AI proficient. And I'm sure they will be because they'll just ignore what their teachers tell them and they'll just use it on the side. And they should. I tell every kid in school, you'd be using AI all the time.

[00:21:11] And teachers and the school system needs to react to that and figure out how to teach kids in the age of AI. And we should be teaching them different skills. We should teach them how to fact check. We should teach them how to manage their AIs. We should teach them how to improve an output from AI. One of our assignments when we hire people, Neil, is do this task with AI and then make it better as the human and then show us that. That's the assignment we're going to give you in the interview process. Not do it on your own.

[00:21:41] That's dumb. I don't want people to say, oh, look, I did this all on my own. Don't brag about that. Don't brag about you work with AI. You got a good V1. And then you as a human made it a better V1, meaning V2. Then show me that work because that's the employer I want to hire. Wow. What an incredible thought process. I never thought of it that way. But you are absolutely bang on the money.

[00:22:05] And before you came on the podcast, for anybody listening here, I was also reading about, I think it is a one-day program on April the 3rd where you can become an AI leader in a day, I think it's called. And it's a free virtual event designed to help professionals, executives, entrepreneurs. I think it's hosted by Scott Galloway. Is that right? Yeah. Well, no, Scott's actually the founder of the company. So, but Section is hosting this. Yeah. My head of marketing, this is my head of marketing's idea, Rachel Fields. She's brilliant.

[00:22:33] And she's giving away most of what we charge for. So, I love her bold move here, which is she wants to introduce as many people as possible to what Section offers, which is obviously AI upskilling and helping people get ready for the age of AI. So, she's decided to package a lot of great stuff that we normally charge for into a one-day become an AI leader in a day event. And we've already got, I think, 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 people signed up. It's pretty crazy.

[00:23:01] So, yeah, listen, if you're listening, go to sectionai.com and find, or we can put the link in the show notes, Neil. And we absolutely want people to sign on. Neil, I think this is what's happening right now in the knowledge workforce is there's a new AI class emerging. Those are people that are teaching themselves, getting their hands on AI and improving their own sort of productivity and workflows. They are going to have an advantage. Eventually, all of us will be in the AI class.

[00:23:29] Eventually, all of us will be working with AI. But in this moment of transition, which will probably last a few years, those who are using AI get an advantage. It's going to be an accelerant for people. And I want as many people in the AI class as possible. And I'm part American, part British, and part Canadian. And my British, sort of Canadian part of me says, let's make this accessible and affordable for more people.

[00:23:57] Let's enable more people to have this advantage. My American part of me is more Darwinian, which is survival of the fittest. But I want as many people as possible to be fit here and cognitively fit. And what that means is, I want to make a living doing it. I want Section to make some money and venture back. So we eventually have to return on that investment to our investors.

[00:24:22] But our mission in this section is to bring a million people into the AI class as fast as we can so that they can thrive in this moment. And if not, we'll start with a million, hopefully millions after that. But yeah, this is an important moment for the knowledge workforce. And I want people to recognize that and get their hands on AI. Well, I'll be adding a link to the show notes so people can find that nice and easy. And you did mention the financial aspect.

[00:24:50] And one of the things I've noticed is CFOs are becoming some of AI's biggest advocates. What is it about the AI that makes it so appealing to financial leaders? And what implications do you think this has for the future of jobs and workforce planning, etc.? Yeah, I think CFOs like it because they think they can lay off people, quite frankly. I mean, that's the hard truth. So I think that AI will augment us.

[00:25:16] And in some functions, in some roles, in some jobs, AI will replace us. That doesn't mean we'll necessarily be unemployed. That means we'll have to find something else to do, meaning with our AI skills, move into a different role. So I think we're going to create over time, I think we're going to create a lot of jobs, a lot of new jobs. But, you know, AI can certainly do tasks. AI can't yet do jobs with some exceptions.

[00:25:40] But eventually, when AI is doing not just tasks, but AI is doing jobs, listen, there's going to be an impact on the workforce. And I think CFOs see this as a way to be more productive and a way for the organization to be more productive, which means it can either slow hiring or eliminate some roles. And I think that's right, meaning that's what's going to happen. And I think AI-enabled organizations are going to be more efficient. And so, as I mentioned earlier, we're more efficient at Section.

[00:26:10] Now, Section is growing as a business, so we're not laying off anyone. We're still hiring. We're hiring less people than we would have needed to hire because our team is more capable and more efficient. So I think that's why CFOs like it. And that's why I think when you look at where AI automations happen fastest, it's in call centers. And it makes sense, right? If you think about a typical call center, we train humans to be robots, right? Do so many calls per hour, so many outcomes per minute.

[00:26:37] We basically train humans to behave like robots. So now we're actually going to put in the robots to do that work, right? We're going to put in the AI to do that work. And that's clearly going to impact that workforce, meaning there'll be less humans working in customer service and call centers in five years than there are today, probably a lot less. And those people will obviously need to kind of find new jobs and new tasks, I guess. So it makes sense to me, and that's why CFOs are excited about it.

[00:27:03] And there is growing concern around AI's impact on things like employee morale and self-worth. And yes, many people have read far too many of those clickbait headlines that frequent their news feeds, and that probably plays a big part in it as well. So how can leaders integrate AI in a way that empowers their teams rather than making them feel replaceable and showing that they come along for the ride? I think, Neil, that's the hardest question of the day. I think the only way is to be honest as you can about it.

[00:27:33] And that's hard to do right in this moment. But I think the right thing to say is, listen, AI is going to automate tasks, and we want to do that. We need to stay competitive. And by the way, there are a lot of tasks that you want us to automate with AI. It's a lot of knowledge work that is repetitive and is boring and can be handled by AI. And if you can free people up, that is a good thing. Having said that, we don't know where this goes.

[00:27:58] And we don't know when will AI start doing jobs, start doing roles, not just tasks. But it is starting to happen, and it will continue to evolve. And I think a leader just has to acknowledge that and say to his or her team, guys, work with AI and then bring your best self. Bring what makes you special. Bring what makes you human to this work. Make it better. Don't just outsource it to AI. Improve it.

[00:28:23] And the way I think about this, Neil, is in my sort of advice to my own kids, be in the top half of your team. If you're working on a team and you're in the bottom half of the team, that's not going to be a good place to be in the next five years, in my opinion. So I think the reality is that AI is coming. It does automate tasks. It will probably automate jobs, some jobs. And some teams, many teams, will likely be smaller because of AI.

[00:28:51] And therefore, as the humans on the team, you're going to have to be in the top half of that team. You're going to have to be one of the better members of that team. That I think is just a reality, and I think we should acknowledge it. And I think leaders should be saying that. And a few moments ago, you made an incredibly powerful point that big techers have vested interest in getting people hooked on AI. Those prices will eventually go up like Uber did, like Amazon did, like cloud costs have throughout businesses.

[00:29:20] Do you think companies that are rushing into AI adoption don't fully understand that long-term impact or can't see it coming? No, I think they probably do. I mean, if you're a CIO or a CTO, you know that what you're paying today is probably not what you're going to pay in a few years. And that's okay, meaning if it delivers value, you'll pay more for it.

[00:29:40] If AI doesn't deliver value, if all this is a bust in five years because hallucinations are still too high and the AIs are still sort of erratic in their behavior and the agents don't actually deliver on the hype of agents. Like if it doesn't really pay out, then you're not going to pay more. If it does pay out and organizations are more productive and gain these efficiencies and so on, then I think frankly the CFO and the CTO are going to be happy to pay more because the math will work, right? The kind of the trade works.

[00:30:09] I think that the thing that probably executives aren't realizing is that if you offload a lot of your cognitive thinking to AI, now one or two or three companies, the ones that dominate AI, are really who you're relying on for your thinking. I think this is the issue we all should be thinking about. Are we going to lose our minds? And are we going to lose our minds to one or two or three companies?

[00:30:39] And how does that work? And what are the implications of that for knowledge work, for us as individuals, for our organizations, for society? Like if OpenAI in 10 years still has 75% market share, some number like that, like if they're the dominant AI vendor in the world, so much of our thinking, our cognition, we will have outsourced to OpenAI.

[00:31:05] We'll be relying on one company to help us do our thinking. That to me is pretty scary. Even if it was three companies, that'll make them the most valuable companies in the world for sure. It'll make them the most influential and powerful companies in the world with, I think, some unintended consequences and probably not good ones.

[00:31:26] So I think we as leaders need to really sort of be engaged in this moment and think about these questions and just kind of at least talk about it and consider what we would be doing as a company. Maybe as a company, as a leader, I want two AIs. I don't want just one AI in my company. I want two vendors, right? Keep them honest, so to speak, and not be relying just on one. But if I've outsourced all my thinking or a lot of my thinking to one vendor, I'm really reliant on one vendor.

[00:31:54] So I think this is a race to build the most valuable company in the world, the most powerful company in the world. And as I said, there's probably some consequences we need to think about. And beyond the workplace, you've spoken today about how AI can advance everything from personal productivity to even parenting. So if I was to ask you to look into a virtual crystal ball, how do you see AI shaping everyday life in the years ahead? Anything you'd like to predict or think about there?

[00:32:22] Yeah, I just, my prediction is that we are going to, we need AI. First of all, Neil, our brains haven't changed in 70,000 years. Evolution is slow. And so our brains work largely the same way as they did tens of thousands of years ago. We have limited memory capacity. That's why phone numbers are seven digits. We have limited processing speed. We're easily distracted.

[00:32:47] When I think about an open office, right, you're working and a conversation is happening down the hall or you're playing music, you're getting distracted by the music. Like our brains are quite limited and they haven't really improved much over tens of thousands of years. So we kind of need AI. AI is going to help us with what is our limited brain capacity. So I think that's mostly good. And I think my prediction is we'll just have AI around us all the time, on our phones, on our desktop.

[00:33:17] It'll be listening. It'll be helping us work. Today, there's a lot of friction to use AI. You have to sort of go and prompt and ask questions and then cut and paste the results of your conversation with AI into your work or into your slide deck. Like it's a lot of friction to use AI. That friction is going to go away. AI is just going to be sort of around us all the time. And we're going to end up relying on it. I think that analogy is kind of a cliche, but AI like electricity. I think that's what's going to happen.

[00:33:46] I'm putting iPads in my house. They're just going to be sort of AI iPads. So I can just kind of learn what's it like to be able just to talk to AI that easily. I've added a third monitor, Neil, in my office here. It's my AI monitor. So I've got it on a vertical kind of orientation. I'm looking at it right now. It's over on the right of my main screen there. And on that is one browser with three tabs with three AIs. And so I've put it right in front of my face, right? And I did this delivery.

[00:34:16] I did it in January as a test, basically, as an experiment. What I've noticed is it does reduce the friction for me to work with AI because I can just turn to it and start typing in it or talking to it. And it keeps it kind of front and center, right? In my sight line. So, you know, it keeps it present. I use AI more because of that. So this was the kind of clue for me to realize that when AI is everywhere, we're going to just use it all the time. That's one prediction. I think it's kind of an obvious one.

[00:34:44] Again, that'll come with a lot of benefits and some unintended consequences, just like social media did, just like smartphones have. We get a lot of upside from these tools and technologies, and then we get some unintended consequences and downsides. And I'm addicted to my smartphone. I'm addicted to notifications, right? That's not good, right? That takes me away from my family, my friends, my wife. And I think we're of a similar age and we've seen this technology evolve. It feels incredibly fortunate.

[00:35:11] I feel incredibly fortunate to have been there from the beginning, see how everything has evolved to where we are now and where we're going. And if you were to look back at your career, you've probably picked up a few stories and interesting stories, amusing stories along the way. Is there anything you could share around that? The funniest or most interesting story that you've had during your career? Yeah, sure. I think the one I want to share is turning down a job at Google. And there was a guy that worked for me. I was working at AOL at the time. AOL, people don't even remember probably.

[00:35:40] But for a while, it was like a very hot company. It was really the internet was AOL. It was a company that really commercialized the internet. So I was at AOL and a guy that was working for me went to work for Google. And then a few months later, he called me and said, listen, do you want to come work with me or consult with me, help me out? I'm at Google. And he was pretty much the first business hire at Google. And I'm like, OK. But my ego got in the way. And I didn't open the aperture in terms of making that decision. So I turned the guy down.

[00:36:09] I did not go work for Google. If I'd gone and taken that job, Neil, I'd probably be a billionaire. And I'm not exaggerating. It was very early in the history of Google. And I think that the lesson for me there was I just needed to step out of the place I was in and take a look at Google and what was going on. I was at AOL, and they were the winner at the time. And I had a great job. I had a great title. And it felt like I'd be stepping down in terms of title. And I didn't.

[00:36:36] Google was really early and a kind of nascent business. But I didn't stop and really reflect on, well, how many people were using Google? How much better Google was than Yahoo and the other search engines? I really didn't kind of get out of my zone and look at it, look at this new opportunity from a different perspective and get some data about the new opportunity. And I think so I think when we get these moments and we're in another moment right now, right? I'm sure a lot of people might be thinking, well, should I go work for an AI company? Or is this real?

[00:37:05] What's really going on? Well, we have enough data now. There's 400 million people using ChatGPT. This is not a flash in the pan, right? So I just think that the story here is, yeah, I turned that one down. And I probably shouldn't have. That would have been a good company to go work for. And it was early, right, at the right stage. But really, when we get these decisions and options in our careers and in our personal lives, pause, set aside what you think,

[00:37:33] and really kind of approach it with a fresh set of eyes. Do some research. Look for some new data. Imagine what the world might be like in the future. And is this the right company or opportunity or investment opportunity even? So I just think that we've got to sometimes get out of ourselves, set our ego aside, and look at something with a fresh set of eyes. Oh, man. That takes me back to the sweet sound of a U.S. robotics modem connecting. Every magazine having AOL and Netscape CDs.

[00:38:04] Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And I just didn't see the future in that moment. Bill Gurley, one of Silicon Valley's best venture capitalists the last 20 years from Benchmark Capital, he makes this observation that we learn more from the opportunities that we turn away from, or the deals that we don't do, or the jobs we don't take. We learn from those. It's easy to learn from successes, but is it really? Because a lot of luck and success as well.

[00:38:31] I think we can learn as much from the deals we don't do, the jobs we don't take, or the projects that don't work out. Why? And learn from those and try to apply that to the next one. Wow. Well, we've covered so much in a short amount of time today. For anyone listening, maybe they want to check out the Become an AI Leader in a Day, find out more information about you and your team and anything we talked about. Anywhere you'd like to point to anyone listening? Yeah, sectionai.com is great.

[00:38:59] Or ping me, greg at sectionai.com via email, and I'll respond. I want to help as many people as I can and as we can to get into the AI class. Wow. Well, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. We've covered everything from using AI in your personal life to the workplace and the impact of AI on the workplace as well. And so many, I think we've covered just about everything. But anyone listening who want to find out more information, I'll add links to everything.

[00:39:28] I'll also encourage people to contact me. Let's keep this conversation going. But thank you for starting it today, Greg. Oh, thank you for inviting me. Great chat. AI is reshaping the business world faster than most leaders realize. And I think Greg offered so many... And I think Greg offered a practical blueprint for navigating this transformation successfully. And there were so many nuggets of gold in what he was saying there and the message he was delivering. And encouraging everybody to think bigger.

[00:39:57] AI isn't just a tool. It's a thought partner. Leaders need hands-on experience starting small but setting high expectations. And yes, AI will augment some roles and replace others. Requiring employees to bring their best skills forward. And there was also a huge moment in the podcast where Jeff was talking about education. And telling kids in school now you cannot use AI is actually going to be a disadvantage when they're preparing to enter the workplace.

[00:40:26] Because long term, AI is going to be everywhere. And for business leaders, that means they must remain intentional about how they implement it and how they govern it. And as Greg said, the future belongs to those who embrace AI thoughtfully. The question is, will businesses, will your business use AI to empower your teams or simply cut costs? There were so many big talking points and I suspect that many of you would like to respond.

[00:40:56] So please email me, techblogwriteroutlook.com, LinkedIn, X, Instagram, just at Neil C. Hughes. Let me know your thoughts. I'll be back again tomorrow for your listening pleasure. Same time, same place. Bye for now. Bye for now. Bye for now.