Ep 13: Using AI to Realize Human Potential with Ioanna Onasi

[00:00:00] Feeling kind of left out at work on Monday morning? Check out The Barf, Breaking News, Acquisitions, Research and Funding.

[00:00:07] It's a look back at the week that was so you can prepare for the week that is. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app.

[00:00:25] Hello again everyone, it's Bob Pulver. In this episode I sat down with my friend and entrepreneur Ayanna Onasi, co-founder of Dextego, an AI powered coaching platform to explore how AI is revolutionizing learning and development.

[00:00:38] Delve into the power of personalized experiential learning, the impact of AI on job roles and the balance between automation and human skills.

[00:00:47] Ayanna shares insights on building a learning culture, the importance of what we used to call soft skills and how AI can drive productivity and career growth.

[00:00:55] Tune in for valuable strategies on embracing AI for upskilling, including to elevate your AIQ. Thanks for listening.

[00:01:03] Welcome everyone to another episode of Elevate Your AIQ.

[00:01:07] I'm your host, Bob Pulver. With me today is my friend Ayanna Nasi. How you doing, Ayanna?

[00:01:13] I'm good. How are you, Bob?

[00:01:14] I'm great. Thank you so much for being here.

[00:01:16] Thank you for having me.

[00:01:18] Absolutely.

[00:01:19] Thank you for having me.

[00:01:20] Yes, yes. So why don't you just start off by giving a little bit of your background and how you wound up starting Dextego.

[00:01:28] Yeah, sure. So I'm originally from Greece, if you can tell by my accent. I've been in the States for eight years now.

[00:01:36] And I'm originally came for school. So I really was coming since I was 15 for different summer programs.

[00:01:43] And I got fascinated with the educational system in the US because it's much more experiential.

[00:01:49] And I think you will agree that the most important lessons we learn in life are not in classroom, rather through experiences we go through.

[00:01:58] Sometimes more intense than others, but that's how humans learn.

[00:02:02] And that's how anyone would come here for school, as I did for my undergrad in psychology and communications, then masters in talent development and strategic management.

[00:02:14] And I had met an amazing professor in talent development where, I mean, without him, I don't think I would have gotten into HR, to be honest.

[00:02:23] But he sparked that interest in me. I did a lot of extra like courses and things to catch up because I wasn't coming from that background before.

[00:02:33] Got into it, got an internship in the field of another startup where I really grew with a CEO and became the VP of people and chief of staff there, taking care of, you know, the hiring talent development.

[00:02:47] And as a CEO and chief of staff, you do a little bit of everything, honestly.

[00:02:50] So it opened my eyes on startups.

[00:02:52] And very briefly, I saw a big gap in enablement, in particular sales enablement, because back to my point earlier, reps are not allowed to practice in front of the client.

[00:03:06] That would be very bad for revenue.

[00:03:09] Therefore, there is this gap where leaders want them to have stellar skills, but they don't have time for one-on-one coaching.

[00:03:16] And so today, with the power of Gen.AI, we can actually create a very personalized coach where they can get access to the realistic and personalized training they want based on what works for them, their personality, their skills, and the best of the best from sales experts that we work with to get the support and close more deals faster.

[00:03:43] And so, with the ability to get the skills that we work with to get the skills that really differentiate them from others, which are soft skills, empathy, collaboration, communication skills.

[00:03:52] That's fantastic.

[00:03:53] And you have one co-founder, right?

[00:03:55] Yes.

[00:03:56] I'm a co-founder in CTO, Sean Vasquez.

[00:03:59] Yes, I met him in the city.

[00:04:01] Right.

[00:04:01] Yeah.

[00:04:02] And that's a little funny because I've known him for 10 years now, and sometimes we look at Saturn like, wow, if we only knew 10 years ago when we met, we would be here today building a company together.

[00:04:16] It's so funny how life brings you places.

[00:04:21] No, I think it's fantastic.

[00:04:23] First of all, I think you're exactly right.

[00:04:25] The way that the people learn, I mean, everyone learns in their own way, I suppose, but I do think getting people out of, you know, self-paced learning, you know, even obviously plenty of resources online, whether it's, you know, LinkedIn Learning or Udemy or Coursera and Maven, all these courses that you can take just by sort of listening and trying to be a sponge.

[00:04:46] But you've really got to get your hands dirty and start experiencing it for yourself.

[00:04:51] A lot of people to really absorb and make practical use of, you know, this new knowledge.

[00:04:56] And I think in your sales example, one of the reasons I love it is because there's so much focus right now when it comes to generative AI on like individual productivity.

[00:05:06] I mean, it's not that that's not important because if you can free up time, then it allows you to move on and do higher value activities, which is certainly the goal.

[00:05:15] But I think the almost maniacal focus on that individual productivity is a little bit short sighted because there's so much more that could be done.

[00:05:26] And so if generative AI and other forms of AI can help you in how you make decisions or just, you know, and that could be small decisions.

[00:05:35] It doesn't have to be major life decisions, right? Like which maybe which which accounts, which prospects to prioritize and pursue?

[00:05:42] Or how do I adjust my own time and attention to focus on these things based on data that I may not have my human brain may not have been able to fully absorb?

[00:05:55] So I think there's a lot of value that once people get over this sort of honeymoon phase of individual productivity and automation and really think about higher order tasks and decision making and, you know, co-pilot in the broad sense, not in an agent GPT kind of way, but just having that expertise of the sales team leader or the sales executive basically at your side.

[00:06:22] It just makes your time to revenue for a salesperson that much better, that much quicker.

[00:06:31] I couldn't agree more. I think there's two points also in what you were saying here.

[00:06:36] One being the point about the courses and the online platforms that you can go to.

[00:06:44] The big problem there is that, A, they're not as personalized.

[00:06:49] And also there's not so much micro learning still like a course is a course.

[00:06:52] You probably have to spend one to two hours, you know.

[00:06:55] But the other important thing is that there's no feedback loop.

[00:06:58] It's either you pass it or not.

[00:07:00] So the problem with that is you don't create that self-awareness of, OK, give me a different perspective.

[00:07:05] Tell me what I did great.

[00:07:07] How can I improve?

[00:07:08] Where do I stand in comparison to others in my industry, in my team?

[00:07:13] And there's not lots of context.

[00:07:16] Plus, you know, by the time someone creates that course, a lot has changed.

[00:07:20] So it's not real time.

[00:07:22] And where I think the value comes with what you were saying on the team's side of things is an autonomous sales coach can understand much faster than that sales leader.

[00:07:33] What's happening in the field.

[00:07:35] I think the best practices across the team members.

[00:07:38] There's now scaling that for everyone and coaching reps in the way that they will understand it best.

[00:07:44] Because you might like direct feedback.

[00:07:46] Someone else might like confidence boosting feedback.

[00:07:48] Someone might learn, to your point, with metaphors and another one by doing.

[00:07:52] So all these things that we don't know as an individual because we don't have the time to spend one-on-one with every single person on our team.

[00:08:01] AI can know for us and can guide us on how to make much more of an impact when we meet with them.

[00:08:07] I still always say, and I made a post even yesterday about it.

[00:08:11] But AI is always less than the human with the skills.

[00:08:15] Because people, at least for the next five to ten years, still will prefer to speak to humans at the end of the day when it comes to major important decisions.

[00:08:24] And that's why I say that it's a little ironic that we use AI to help people develop skills so that they beat AI.

[00:08:32] But it is really that inflection point that we're in today.

[00:08:36] Because work is changing.

[00:08:37] The way people collaborate is changing.

[00:08:40] But if you don't know that there's also a human in the loop at the end of the day, it's very scary.

[00:08:47] People freak out.

[00:08:48] Right.

[00:08:49] Yeah.

[00:08:50] I was in a session with the New York City People Analytics meetup.

[00:08:54] And one of the leaders, Jeremy, who runs People Analytics at Merck, we're talking about how to pitch this, right?

[00:09:00] How to get funding for these kinds of initiatives.

[00:09:03] And it's like, you need to understand, we're doing this for you, not to you, right?

[00:09:09] This is to help you.

[00:09:10] And it is kind of messing with your head a little bit to think that we're implementing more AI to make the whole thing more human, right?

[00:09:18] Or to bring out the best of what humans are capable of.

[00:09:22] We weren't meant to spend.

[00:09:23] I mean, I don't want to sound like a paycom commercial.

[00:09:25] But we weren't meant to shuffle papers and do all this administrative work.

[00:09:32] I mean, we do it because somebody's got to do it.

[00:09:34] And it's just part of almost everybody's job.

[00:09:36] Or at least it was part of everyone's job.

[00:09:38] And so, yes, there's a lot of things that we can automate.

[00:09:41] But when it comes to learning, everyone's going to have to learn how to work with AI at their side.

[00:09:49] Certainly, everyone's role is different.

[00:09:51] And the pace at which AI can be used for different use cases will be different depending on your industry or your role or your seniority, whether you're a deskless worker or a knowledge worker, et cetera.

[00:10:03] But it is coming.

[00:10:05] And so you've got to help everyone sort of move themselves up that ladder as we evolve and as we adapt.

[00:10:13] And so I think the personalized learning that you're talking about is incredibly important.

[00:10:18] It's one thing, just to go back to those online learning platforms, it's one thing to give it a bunch of criteria or for it to know something about you just to create a map or a path for you.

[00:10:32] And recommend specific courses.

[00:10:35] It's quite another to do what you're doing with the Cigo, which is, okay, now that I'm here, now that I'm in the course or now that I know what I want to learn, you've got context.

[00:10:48] You've got an understanding of who I am as an individual and my learning style and my personality, maybe some of my competencies and strengths.

[00:10:56] And to be able to basically have that at scale is incredibly powerful.

[00:11:03] And, you know, we talk also about accessibility.

[00:11:05] The point is that you have a safe space to practice 24-7 when you like it and as much as you like without feeling the need that, hey, I need to go and find a colleague and find my manager and do role plays.

[00:11:19] And especially if you're an introvert, that you're more unlikely to go and seek for help.

[00:11:25] Now there's more accessibility.

[00:11:27] So we truly are providing equal access to career growth here.

[00:11:31] And the last thing I'll say here, which actually is also a question for you, I see the work overall change in so many ways, right?

[00:11:41] Like we have older people for the first time now expanding that career trajectory, wanting a second career.

[00:11:48] We have Gen Z coming with different styles.

[00:11:51] Like there's just so much change that at the end of the day, I think the skills we help our dexters, as we call them, learn are allowing them to be productive, but also be able to indeed coexist with others and collaborate with others and communicate, whether it's cross-generational, cross-functional.

[00:12:12] I do see an interesting question arise a lot with AI tools, which is, okay, when everything is automated and everything's AI powered, there will be this crisis of purpose, right?

[00:12:25] There will be this crisis of like atrophy, like what do we do now?

[00:12:29] And again, I think that with the skills we help them develop, we're preparing them for this too, the future.

[00:12:35] When you make a solution or you throw out their product in the market, it should be at least, I know it's not always the case, but it should be for the long term.

[00:12:44] So it's not just, okay, we're helping them now close more deals.

[00:12:47] Sure, because they need to hit quota and they need to make money and the companies need to sustain themselves.

[00:12:52] But at the end of the day, to prepare the next generation of workforce, be able to adapt in this AI era.

[00:12:59] So the question to you is...

[00:13:01] Hi, I'm Steven Rothberg.

[00:13:03] And I'm Jeanette Leeds.

[00:13:03] And together, we're the co-hosts of the High Volume Hiring Podcast.

[00:13:08] Are you involved in hiring dozens or even hundreds of employees a year?

[00:13:11] If so, you know that the typical sourcing tools, tactics, and strategies, they just don't scale.

[00:13:17] Yeah.

[00:13:18] Our bi-weekly podcast features news, tips, case studies, and interviews with the world's leading experts about the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to high volume hiring.

[00:13:29] Make sure to subscribe today.

[00:13:30] What do you think will happen when, indeed, most of the tasks will be automated?

[00:13:37] Do you see people having that purpose crisis already?

[00:13:41] Yeah.

[00:13:42] No, it's a very valid point.

[00:13:43] I do think about it.

[00:13:45] I won't say I've read extensively about some of the research, and I'm not an IO psychologist.

[00:13:52] But I think the first thing is there's always more work to be done.

[00:13:56] And I know that's come up in recent conversations around, I forget if it was Scott Galloway or another professor.

[00:14:05] But it's like, do we really think that there's going to be a lack of work to do?

[00:14:09] Right?

[00:14:09] We always find more things to do.

[00:14:12] There's always work left undone, whether it's within a particular department or organization or just societally.

[00:14:20] There's always more that we can be doing.

[00:14:23] And I think just like previous iterations of massive transformation or industrial revolutions and things like that, we've always moved on.

[00:14:33] We were always nervous about just mass displacement of the labor force.

[00:14:37] And so I think as long as people keep a learning mindset and adapt, don't have to be at the absolute forefront and know everything, especially the technical details of how all of this is going to work.

[00:14:48] What you need to understand is what your strengths are, what transferable skills do you have such that you can either upskill yourself and continue on your current trajectory working with AI and accepting that it will be working with AI, among others.

[00:15:06] Or how do you take those transferable skills?

[00:15:10] Maybe some of the skills that you didn't even really think that would be in demand in another domain.

[00:15:17] And could you reskill yourself probably also with AI to some extent?

[00:15:23] I just think you need to be proactive and paying attention.

[00:15:28] And that's why I think education, our education system, I just don't know that we're prepared.

[00:15:33] We're certainly not being proactive in that area.

[00:15:38] Right. And for practical applications.

[00:15:40] I mean, I had told you, like I go through this book with some professors around all the things that we need to change about education.

[00:15:47] And my angle was the need to include soft skills as part of the core curriculum.

[00:15:51] But in particular, I think the gap there becomes so big because they have no clue what type of assignments they will have to face at work.

[00:16:02] And when they're interns, the tasks that they get are so low value.

[00:16:06] So I hire interns and I actually get them very much into the weeds because it's the only way to understand how business operates, how they can add value, become creative.

[00:16:18] And it's key that their first experiences are meaningful or else they associate work with something boring, just to check.

[00:16:25] And that's where we have all the issues where they're strictly like, nine to five.

[00:16:29] I'm not giving you five more minutes of my day, Mr. Employer.

[00:16:33] I'm going to go work on extra things outside to make my own income.

[00:16:37] It's just so important to allow the new generation to have practical application with empowerment,

[00:16:46] like feeling that they can actually do things that will impact the job and the business's future rather than just, okay, here are some photocopies to make.

[00:16:56] It's all connected.

[00:16:58] And we are, as employers, we really are creating that path for them now.

[00:17:04] Absolutely important.

[00:17:05] And I think professors can also do so much, right?

[00:17:09] Like there's other things that impact, of course, students and response of organizations,

[00:17:14] bands of mentors they'll have that will impact them too.

[00:17:17] So it's about educating these people as well on how to be educators and how to be mentors for this next gen.

[00:17:26] It's really complex.

[00:17:28] I mean, look, the world is becoming super complex.

[00:17:30] People are confused and we're all trying to figure it out as we go.

[00:17:35] But I think if you keep your horizons open and you have a systems thinking approach

[00:17:40] and you see how things interconnect, then you have more chances of succeeding rather than if you succeed only from one angle.

[00:17:48] Absolutely.

[00:17:49] And I think many people just haven't, they may have that ability, but haven't exercised it.

[00:17:57] So they don't necessarily realize it.

[00:17:59] I mean, I, you know, just as you were making your intro, talking about one particular professor that had an impact.

[00:18:04] I was at IBM for over two decades.

[00:18:07] There was exactly one class that I was able to take that I have fond memories of.

[00:18:13] And that was a systems thinking class.

[00:18:16] I remember the instructor's name.

[00:18:17] I remember the exercises that we did because that was the kind of thing that really, you know, gets my juices, you know, flowing.

[00:18:26] And just being able to connect dots that other people aren't connecting.

[00:18:31] I mean, that is, that's a powerful, you know, capability.

[00:18:34] And so you've got to balance, you know, the tactical with the strategic, just like you've got to balance, you know, the needs of, you know, your particular team and your domain,

[00:18:43] but also incorporating, you know, ideas that could be sort of cross-pollinated from other areas because that's how innovation happens.

[00:18:53] 100%.

[00:18:54] And that is the future employee.

[00:18:56] And we already see, like, the role of a chief of staff that has been something like what you're describing a little bit of everything is now everyone's role.

[00:19:04] Like, if you're in marketing and you don't know about sales, vice versa, if you're an engineer that don't understand the business plan, you can go far.

[00:19:13] So, you know, I would like to go to a liberal arts school.

[00:19:17] And actually, I think every school should be a liberal arts school.

[00:19:20] And every business should have a mandatory rotational program and expose people to these things.

[00:19:27] Because that's how you create also the empathy to work better with others because you understand how your actions can impact their KPIs in a much more vivid way than just listening to it through a call, you know.

[00:19:42] And someone argues, like, customer success, hey, product, I need you to launch this feature because the clients are yelling at me.

[00:19:49] And they're like, okay, whatever, we'll put on the next screen.

[00:19:51] Now, now everybody's hands on deck and we move faster and we have one common goal.

[00:19:56] And that's how also I think the average zero to five years of failure of a startup will go down.

[00:20:03] So now it's like 90%.

[00:20:05] And this has to go down if you really want to accelerate innovation.

[00:20:09] Yeah, I agree.

[00:20:11] No, the chief of staff, I've played that role a couple of times.

[00:20:14] It's an amazing learning experience.

[00:20:16] Very stressful.

[00:20:17] Yeah.

[00:20:17] But amazing learning experience.

[00:20:19] You do get the perspectives of all these different stakeholders who might have competing priorities and you've got to find the right balance.

[00:20:26] I think you also get, you could say, I suppose, the same for people managers as well and junior executives like, you know, director level.

[00:20:33] You also have the balance of, you know, hearing input and listening to frontline employees of where the problems and challenges really are and getting your hands dirty with, you know, some of these newer solutions as well.

[00:20:50] But balancing that with the perspective of leadership, you know, and where incentives may be misaligned or you're just, again, trying to play this sort of trapeze, you know, balancing act.

[00:21:03] You can't please everybody, but you can gather data and input and listen to people in, you know, horizontally and vertically.

[00:21:11] And if you like swiping, then head over to Substack and search up work defined, WRK defined and subscribe to the weekly newsletter.

[00:21:21] Hi there.

[00:21:21] I'm Peter Zollman.

[00:21:23] I'm a co-host of the Inside Job Boards and Recruitment Marketplaces podcast.

[00:21:28] And I'm Steven Rothberg.

[00:21:29] And I guess that makes me the other co-host.

[00:21:30] Every other week, we're joined by guests from the world's leading job sites.

[00:21:35] Together, we analyze news about general niche and aggregator job board and recruitment marketplaces sites.

[00:21:41] Make sure you sign up and subscribe today.

[00:21:45] From that, try to make, you know, the best decisions.

[00:21:49] So to me, having like a good chief of staff plus with an AI co-pilot is probably really, really powerful, powerful combo.

[00:21:58] So when we think about the organization and I'm just thinking about like the implementation and adoption of DixTego within an organization, do you find that when your clients are building their business cases and you may be helping them build that business case, is it tied to learning and development?

[00:22:21] Is it tied to employee experience?

[00:22:24] Is it tied to something else or many things?

[00:22:28] I mean, where are people getting the most traction when they want to get you adopted?

[00:22:34] Yeah, great question.

[00:22:35] I mean, now that we're very focused on sales, we see directly under sales enablement.

[00:22:41] Okay.

[00:22:41] Depending on the size of the org, it could still be L&D that is responsible for it.

[00:22:47] It just depends on if they have the sales enablement function or not.

[00:22:50] But the use cases really vary.

[00:22:53] It could be that they need it for onboarding purposes to cut onboarding time and get those reps wrapped up.

[00:23:00] It could be for continuous support so they can shorten their sales cycles.

[00:23:05] It could be, hey, we have these senior salespeople out there that they don't follow a script.

[00:23:11] They just go based on experience and we can replicate the best practices if it's new ones.

[00:23:17] So we need an AI, an autonomous source code to understand what's going on and suggest what is that ideal script and what's the playbook we need to follow.

[00:23:25] So you'll see different pain points which has to do also with the size of the organization.

[00:23:33] But at the end of the day, the organizations we talk to really prioritize enablement.

[00:23:39] They've tried a bunch of things, but they just don't work.

[00:23:42] Back to what we're saying earlier, it could be just those courses that they're doing or just seminars.

[00:23:47] But this person doesn't have the gift of actually transmitting the information in a sticky way or it's at the wrong time.

[00:23:56] So I think back to the complexity of training, people are trying.

[00:24:01] They're doing things, it's just they're not effective.

[00:24:04] And primarily it's because they're not tech enabled.

[00:24:07] I know engagement is still a problem at most organizations.

[00:24:13] I know L&D is still underfunded.

[00:24:17] Underfunded.

[00:24:18] And so, and then just in terms of, you know, retention, people often leave because they don't see opportunities or they haven't been presented with opportunities to grow.

[00:24:31] And, you know, part of that, of course, is, you know, new roles, you know, maybe elsewhere in the organization.

[00:24:38] But it's also, are you investing in me?

[00:24:43] And do you recognize that I have the potential to be successful in one of those other roles if only we fill this particular gap?

[00:24:54] Correct.

[00:24:54] And having an L&D person doesn't mean that they're successful in having a learning culture, by the way.

[00:25:01] That's the biggest gap.

[00:25:02] Like, learning cultures are created by a combination of things, not just by one person leading an LMS.

[00:25:10] And it has to be tied with incentives.

[00:25:13] I mean, you've seen our platform.

[00:25:14] It's very simple UI, not complex enterprise platform, very gamified.

[00:25:19] And it's on purpose to get that user attractive, to not create any confusion on where do I go next and want to come back.

[00:25:28] But I always say to clients, I understand and acknowledge that 50% of the success of you utilizing it is on us to make good products with good feedback and good quality coaching.

[00:25:41] But 50% is totally on you.

[00:25:44] No matter if you're small, medium or big, you have to create that learning culture so that the end user feels like they will get something out of it from you too.

[00:25:53] So at the end of the day, there's only 1-2% of people in your company that truly will do everything for their learning because they have the drive.

[00:26:02] Everybody else needs to know that the effort they will put will have an external reward.

[00:26:09] That could be just a, hey, great job or hey, I'll give you a bonus or something that makes them look good and that will fulfill them and satisfy them personally.

[00:26:20] So that is just like straight up math.

[00:26:23] It's I wish more people truly cared, but that's the gap that companies know enablement is important for employees to be successful.

[00:26:31] Yet they don't know how to do it in a way that employees are bought in this process and vice versa.

[00:26:39] Then you have the ones that truly those few want it and then they can get their bosses buying to sponsor them.

[00:26:47] So I find a lot of the times it's always about change management and creating that mindset so people understand what they have to do next.

[00:26:57] Whether you sell an AI coaching platform or anything else transformation or AI related, this will be something we'll have to do.

[00:27:06] Yeah, I think we've got to show people how their roles are evolving and how they themselves are evolving through this transformation, which I think has spent most of my career in enterprise transformation.

[00:27:18] And there hasn't really been anything like this short of giving everyone their first computer, perhaps.

[00:27:24] Yeah, right.

[00:27:24] Or their first smart device.

[00:27:26] But I know people throw out different analogies around, you know, is this like the adoption of social media?

[00:27:32] Is it like the Internet?

[00:27:33] And there are some correlations to all of those things.

[00:27:37] But I think the breadth and complexity of this particular, you know, AI driven transformation is is unlike any that I've seen.

[00:27:47] And just because, you know, no one's really spared.

[00:27:51] I also think it's for AI in general.

[00:27:54] Well, I should say for generative AI, there's no other set of technologies that you've ever had to learn where the set of tools is also your guide and your tutor.

[00:28:08] Right.

[00:28:08] If you don't know how to use it, you just ask it.

[00:28:12] How do I get a better response from you?

[00:28:15] I mean, that's that's a pretty unique situation.

[00:28:19] It's also a very powerful one.

[00:28:21] So I think that's something that maybe that would, you know, allay some fears about, you know, what it's doing.

[00:28:29] But I think everyone just needs to get in and start playing with it and seeing what what it can do.

[00:28:35] But but also apply their own critical thinking to, you know, its output, because it's not perfect.

[00:28:41] It's not a calculator.

[00:28:42] Right.

[00:28:42] I think, first of all, life has changed for good.

[00:28:46] I totally see it in all aspects.

[00:28:49] And we have the responsibility to create responsibly, as that's also your your motto, responsible AI.

[00:28:58] I was talking to a founder the other day that enlightened me on the fact which is that one out of three elderly are lonely.

[00:29:06] He created the basically companion teddy bots to help them.

[00:29:11] And it's just if you start thinking along these lines, there's really endless use cases of how we can improve the world.

[00:29:18] And back to your earlier point, like there will never be a lack of work unless we all die and the world ends.

[00:29:26] So we should not let the fear overtake us no matter or all and say, hey, this will be automated.

[00:29:35] This will be automated.

[00:29:36] Like there's no purpose for me.

[00:29:37] No, the purpose is of thinking of these use cases because the world has been seen through human eyes.

[00:29:44] And that's what the AI will know, whatever we can tell it.

[00:29:49] It won't be able to make all these use cases unless we explain and express the emotion around it.

[00:29:56] Like what does it mean to be lonely?

[00:29:58] How do we fix that?

[00:30:00] What are the things this bot has to talk about with this human to make them feel as lonely?

[00:30:05] Like bringing past memories, positive images, things like that.

[00:30:11] So if we let, for example, only AI to create products, they wouldn't be applied to our day to day the same way that a human can think about it.

[00:30:22] So I just want to say that because I feel like lots of times people become hopeless thinking, oh, everything I do in a day can be automated.

[00:30:30] Then you're not doing the right thing.

[00:30:32] Then you're doing things you shouldn't be doing.

[00:30:34] And it's a harsh realization, but people have to acknowledge it so that they can unlock the part of the brain that can think more creatively about what they need to be doing.

[00:30:43] I think that's a perfect example of why it's obvious we're still in the very early stages of all this.

[00:30:51] I mean, generative AI has really only entered most of our collective consciousness since a year and a half ago.

[00:30:59] Right. And so and obviously there's there was AI before generative AI.

[00:31:05] So but this particular one where that touches everyone that's on, you know, basically at your your fingertips or at your beck and call for the average user.

[00:31:16] Most people haven't experienced anything like this before, but I think we've got to understand.

[00:31:22] I want to take a break real quick just to let you know about a new show we've just added to the network.

[00:31:28] Up next at work hosted by Gene and Kate Akil of the Devon Group.

[00:31:35] Fantastic show.

[00:31:36] If you're looking for something that pushes the norm, pushes the boundaries, has some really spirited conversations.

[00:31:43] Google up next at work.

[00:31:46] Gene and Kate Akil from the Devon Group.

[00:31:51] As early as possible, how to use it properly.

[00:31:54] What's it what's it good for?

[00:31:55] What's it not good for?

[00:31:56] But also be aware that it's whatever it's good at or not good at.

[00:32:01] That's going to evolve over time, too.

[00:32:03] So it will get smarter and smarter.

[00:32:06] And that seems to be happening at an incredibly fast pace.

[00:32:10] But that doesn't mean that it is a substitute for human judgment, human creativity and our own critical thinking on the things that we need to get done.

[00:32:20] But I think just going back to the education example, I just think, why would you wait until someone has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on higher education for them to then go back and live at home before they realize that maybe this isn't a great career path?

[00:32:39] Or, you know, why not expose people to alternative careers or exposed to the technology and let them use their own creativity and intuition?

[00:32:49] Oh, I wonder if I could use it for this.

[00:32:51] I wonder if I could use it for that.

[00:32:52] Because a lot of the jobs that will exist, a lot of those jobs don't exist yet.

[00:32:57] So we're making them up as we go.

[00:33:00] Right.

[00:33:01] And some of the new job titles that we hear about are going to have longevity.

[00:33:06] And some of them may not just because the technology will advance so fast.

[00:33:11] That's not it's no longer, you know, a career.

[00:33:13] I mean, it's a job.

[00:33:15] You know, prompt engineer comes to mind.

[00:33:17] Right.

[00:33:17] Right now, it's a it's a job, but I don't know that it's a it's a career.

[00:33:22] This is a very, very good point.

[00:33:25] Right.

[00:33:25] Because careers are not linear anymore, too.

[00:33:28] So you can't really predict.

[00:33:30] And for so long, we've lived in the world where students does a city depending on that grade.

[00:33:35] They go to school.

[00:33:36] They have these options.

[00:33:37] You start with entry level.

[00:33:39] You go to senior level.

[00:33:40] This doesn't exist anymore.

[00:33:42] And that's why the L&D role and the HR role are becoming so much more interesting.

[00:33:48] Because now they are creating paths according to skills.

[00:33:53] They're looking to hire people based on skills and culture fit.

[00:33:58] Everything is being built as we speak.

[00:34:02] Like every day I speak to founders building in this space and creating better ways to match people.

[00:34:08] I mean, recruiters are so up to here that they can't find an application without it being chat CPT created.

[00:34:16] Right.

[00:34:16] Like applications are faked all around.

[00:34:20] So it's so broken that unless we know what's coming, we can prepare students.

[00:34:26] So how do we make it where we're also discovering things as we go?

[00:34:33] There has to be stellar communication across academia, workforce, recruitment.

[00:34:40] And today these are three things that are not so well connected.

[00:34:44] Like organizations think, okay, we have a recruiter going on this campus.

[00:34:47] It's great.

[00:34:48] We're going to get a pool of candidates from there.

[00:34:51] It's just not as easy.

[00:34:52] It's also a very tactical mindset.

[00:34:55] Look, we've got, you know, the process itself is linear as opposed to being more organic and adaptive.

[00:35:04] Right.

[00:35:04] So you have a business case.

[00:35:06] This is what we want to do.

[00:35:07] These are the projects we want to do.

[00:35:09] These are, you know, post investments.

[00:35:12] CFO, you know, says yes.

[00:35:14] And then somebody's got to immediately scramble to go and fill out these, you know, job descriptions, you know, one at a time for each of these specific roles instead of, to your point.

[00:35:25] Looking at it from, wait, how am I building a true, you know, skills-based organization and talent ecosystem that's going to be able to morph and adapt as needed in order to do that.

[00:35:37] Maybe I do need to go and talk to academia.

[00:35:42] But not in a tactical sense.

[00:35:44] Hey, can I come to campus and do a job fair?

[00:35:47] But how do we incorporate, you know, academia and, you know, other maybe hidden talent pools, you know, fair chance hiring?

[00:35:59] You know, how do we bring all of that information, all of those perspectives and all of that data together in a true, like, strategic workforce planning exercise?

[00:36:11] Because otherwise, if you're doing horizon two, horizon three kind of forecast, I mean, you might as well just throw darts at the wall.

[00:36:18] Right.

[00:36:19] And the ability to do succession planning is so much harder when we're talking about a workforce that's not, quote unquote, loyal, like they're living from one job to the next.

[00:36:30] So this puts even more of an emphasis on creating a culture that people want to work for rather than a culture that just attracts.

[00:36:39] Because everybody can do the latter.

[00:36:42] It's easy.

[00:36:43] You get a branding strategies, you get a nice specialist, whatever.

[00:36:47] You can fake that.

[00:36:48] But the moment you get people in and they'll start living, good luck trying to find your second set of applicants.

[00:36:56] That's exactly right.

[00:36:58] It's just so illogical to me that people are using these traditional methods.

[00:37:03] It's just like it seems more robotic to do it the traditional way, ironically, than it is to use AI and take a more modern approach.

[00:37:14] If you just look at the track record that you've had trying to do it the traditional way, and now you're just trying to make these small sort of tweaks.

[00:37:25] But you really need to reimagine how you build an organization, to your point, and have people that want to stay.

[00:37:33] I mean, shouldn't we be trying to reverse the shortening tenures?

[00:37:37] Because if not, if you're accepting of the fact that tenures are getting shorter, you're spending an awful lot of time and effort and money to get these perfect candidates who aren't going to stay past 18 months anyway.

[00:37:54] But when you put these data points together, it's frustrating to think about.

[00:38:01] Let's talk also about the fact that every single organization wants to hire A players.

[00:38:06] There are not enough A players in the world.

[00:38:09] And then you get also B players trying to manage A players, which is also unsuccessful.

[00:38:14] So these A players leave and start their own thing.

[00:38:16] And organizational structures are becoming, I think, literally something that only I can fix.

[00:38:26] Because I think humans' capacity to manage all these complexities is failing.

[00:38:31] And we see there's always news, you know, how X company that looks good on paper is actually terrible and everybody leaves.

[00:38:40] And so much around this topic the last couple of years since COVID, I think, has been out there in public.

[00:38:47] And I don't see any solutions around it.

[00:38:50] I feel like people are easy to critique.

[00:38:52] But do you know if anyone that comes out and tells us how to fix this mess?

[00:38:58] If they do, then that would help a lot of HR people.

[00:39:02] But I think right now there's all this pressure and not enough solutions being suggested on how to unblock this.

[00:39:10] You have a lot of stakeholders that are unhappy and the tension is just getting bigger and bigger because of the need to also grow the org and hit metrics that it's breaking down.

[00:39:21] Yeah, I think there are some amazing solutions out there.

[00:39:25] And it would be easy to say, oh, you know, I could if we just built your tech stack from scratch, you know, here's what you do.

[00:39:31] You do this, that and the other.

[00:39:33] But, you know, life doesn't really work that way.

[00:39:36] Most companies don't have the luxury of just, you know, sort of starting over.

[00:39:40] I mean, every time you replace a big, you know, platform, not just a single, you know, SaaS solution, but replace a platform where there's a lot of, you know, ins and outs.

[00:39:51] That's like sort of the heart of or one of the hubs of your tech stack.

[00:39:56] I mean, that is a multi-year engagement to try to do that, unfortunately.

[00:40:01] Maybe AI can start to tackle that.

[00:40:03] But I do think, you know, every company's situation is somewhat unique.

[00:40:08] And, you know, that's why there is no perfect, you know, tech stack.

[00:40:12] It's got to be just like you're learning.

[00:40:13] It's got to be sort of personalized and customized based on the needs and the plans and, you know, the strategy that you have as you look to grow.

[00:40:23] So are you bringing the right people that can help you execute that strategy?

[00:40:27] Ultimately, I think that's one of the keys.

[00:40:29] If you don't align your talent strategy to your business and your workforce strategy and, excuse me, your technical strategy, you know, those strategies aren't going to execute themselves.

[00:40:40] You've got to have the right talent to do that.

[00:40:43] And so you're right.

[00:40:44] It's going to be a mix of, you know, A and B and maybe some C players.

[00:40:49] But you know what, if you give some AI support to some C players, maybe they won't be, maybe they'll be C pluses or B minus players.

[00:40:59] But that's the key.

[00:41:00] How do you, I guess maybe I'm doing your sales pitch for you.

[00:41:04] So maybe that's the key to getting everyone the customized and personalized support that they need, because then their potential is more likely to be realized.

[00:41:14] They'll be more confident.

[00:41:15] They'll be more engaged.

[00:41:17] And there's a ripple effect through that kind of exercise.

[00:41:21] Then you're ready to sell.

[00:41:24] Very true.

[00:41:25] Perfect.

[00:41:26] So just in terms of the generative AI space, you know, are there any tools that you like or any favorite, like, use cases besides, you know, sales, upscaling, obviously, and coaching?

[00:41:39] But anything you use as an entrepreneur to help you behind the scenes?

[00:41:44] Very interesting.

[00:41:45] You know, that's so funny, because I feel like everybody uses, like, recorders and stuff, and they are all surprised when I'm in a call with that one.

[00:41:53] I'm like, actually, I still take, you know, notes, like, with my, with my note.

[00:41:58] Like, a lot of the things that I used to do years ago, I still do, although I know the tools that exist to automate them, because it's just connected to the self-awareness.

[00:42:08] Like, I know how I learned.

[00:42:09] I learned by writing.

[00:42:11] But when it comes to more, like, day-to-day, I think, like, on the tech side, we definitely use a lot of, like, GitHub co-pilots and a lot of support on the coding side.

[00:42:21] But me, personally, I'm trying to stay.

[00:42:25] I mean, I use a lot of AI within solutions that I had from before, just like they had enhancements and the launch, like, features to help out.

[00:42:36] But, yeah, I can't really think of one, to be honest now.

[00:42:40] How about you?

[00:42:41] Do you have any hybrid ones?

[00:42:42] Well, I mean, this Riverside platform has some cool AI features, to your point.

[00:42:46] Some of it is existing solutions that now have some AI features.

[00:42:51] I mean, I have Gemini now inside my Gmail, trying to help me, you know, write email.

[00:42:57] I don't need help writing emails.

[00:42:59] Just faster.

[00:43:00] Well, yeah, maybe cranking them out faster.

[00:43:02] But I don't know.

[00:43:03] I write in a very deliberate, measured way.

[00:43:06] So it just seems odd that I would have, like, sort of a ghostwriter doing that.

[00:43:10] But I guess, you know, to generate drafts and stuff, I've definitely used some of that.

[00:43:15] I use Perplexity.

[00:43:16] It's plugged into my Chrome browser.

[00:43:19] So it's basically replaced my Google search.

[00:43:22] So that's been working pretty well.

[00:43:24] I like Claude.

[00:43:25] I haven't tried the new version of Claude.

[00:43:28] I do have a ChatGPT plus license because I created a couple custom GPTs myself.

[00:43:34] So I wanted to get my hands dirty and play around with that.

[00:43:37] So I have one for Responsible AI and...

[00:43:39] I get it.

[00:43:40] The podcast just isn't enough.

[00:43:43] That's all right.

[00:43:44] Head over to your favorite social app, search up Work Defined, WRK Defined, and connect with us.

[00:43:51] I'm going to have one for this podcast, actually.

[00:43:53] And so some of the, you know, more sort of general purpose ones I've been playing with,

[00:43:58] but Canva for presentations and AI features.

[00:44:02] But I don't know.

[00:44:03] I think some of that stuff, it's just kind of, you know, a little bit of window dressing.

[00:44:08] I mean, it's definitely, there's definitely some value there.

[00:44:11] But I don't know.

[00:44:12] I get a little critical when people call some of that stuff AI.

[00:44:16] I mean...

[00:44:17] That's why, yeah.

[00:44:17] That's why you saw me thinking.

[00:44:19] Like, for instance, I use Notion, I use Journey, which also has AI.

[00:44:24] But straight up, like, just one platform, I don't know.

[00:44:30] Yeah.

[00:44:31] I'm more interested in what's coming and some of the platforms I've seen that are doing what they call agentic, you know, workflows.

[00:44:40] Right?

[00:44:40] So you have one agent talking to another agent, talking to another agent.

[00:44:44] So to me, you know, as a solopreneur, that would be incredibly valuable because it's...

[00:44:52] I lose a lot of time and focus just from task switching, moving from one tool to the other.

[00:44:58] So, I mean, just like a job is more than a collection of tasks, you've got to understand, you know, the workflow.

[00:45:05] So if I do one task, you know, five times faster than I used to, but it doesn't help me move quicker through the other tasks, then at the end of the day, the productivity improvement is marginal compared to what it could be if you had it working all the way through.

[00:45:24] So I haven't seen a good, you know, platform that does all of that.

[00:45:27] But, you know, I think you and I are probably both in and out of a lot of different systems throughout the day.

[00:45:33] And it's hard to imagine AI being able to sort of navigate all of it.

[00:45:39] But I know people are trying to do exactly that.

[00:45:42] I think it will.

[00:45:43] We're getting there slowly.

[00:45:45] Yeah.

[00:45:45] So the one specific question I ask all my guests is related to the title of this podcast.

[00:45:52] So when you think about how the average person can elevate their AIQ, what advice would you give them or what thoughts come to mind?

[00:46:01] I think they need to start joining communities connected to the topic.

[00:46:08] There is a lot of information out there, but it's always better when you learn it in the context of the community because you immediately accelerate that learning.

[00:46:17] You can understand how everybody else is leveraging it and how it affects their day-to-day rather than just you consuming, again, courses, YouTube videos, etc.

[00:46:26] So try to find a community around this and in particular connect it to your role.

[00:46:33] Like whether it's you're a lawyer or a dentist or a go-to-market expert, there's, I'm sure, a group of people right now thinking about how to use AI in your field.

[00:46:44] Start with that.

[00:46:45] Yeah.

[00:46:46] Thank you so much for being here.

[00:46:47] This was great, as always.

[00:46:49] Great to talk to you.

[00:46:50] Thank you.

[00:46:50] I appreciate you both.

[00:46:52] Awesome.

[00:46:52] So thank you, everyone, for listening.

[00:46:54] That concludes another episode of Elevate Your AIQ.

[00:46:57] We'll see you next time.

[00:46:58] Thanks again, Ayanna.

[00:46:59] Bye.

[00:46:59] Thank you.

[00:47:00] Thank you.