You Ask, I Answer: Adoption of Generative AI and Impact?

In today's episode, Paul asks, well, Paul sent over a really, really long thing. Paul is Paul Retzer from Marketing AI conference, the Marketing AI Institute. He said, one, the vast majority of organizations are just getting started with AI. Even those that have been using it for a while were not prepared for generative AI and the transformative impact it's having on any industry, every industry. Two, most organizations are still thinking about AI solely as a technology challenge, not addressing the significant near-term comprehensive change management through the organization.

Three, there's a lack of urgency to solve for the wider impact of AI. Why leadership that many of these organizations lack even a baseline understanding of what it is and the effects it's going to have. What are your thoughts? Wow. There is a lot to unpack there.

So let's tackle this piece by piece because yeah, there's a lot uh to talk about. Number one, the vast majority of companies are just getting started with AI, with generative AI. 100% true. Most companies don't have a generative AI strategy, uh, if they even have an AI strategy at all. And specifically, there's a lack of process and governance around the use of generative AI within organizations.

Even something as simple as, hey, are you even allowed to use this thing? So we take something like ChatGPT that is owned and operated by a third party, a company called OpenAI. OpenAI is not your company. If you copy and paste corporate data that is owned by your company into somebody else's system, you are effectively giving them that information. It is being recorded, it is being logged, and it may be used to train models, or who knows what else.

You don't know. So companies absolutely need to have some kind of standards about what tools you are and are not allowed to use. And that's really important and it's not happening. Um secondly, the transformative effect that Paul is referencing about generative AI is the effect of lay people, non-technical people, people who do not code, people who do not play with servers, and their ability to use AI tools, right? That's the transformation.

Suddenly everyone can. You can open up ChatGPT and you can have a conversation with it as if you were talking to another person. Very often we talk about how it's it's it's like an intern, a very, very smart intern that you have on your staff now that can do lots and lots of things, but you need to be very specific about uh your instructions. Most people are not ready to have an intern, right? Most people aren't sure how to manage an intern.

And so this transformation is a big deal. It's a big deal that people aren't ready for. So that's part one. And I completely agree, most companies are not prepared. They're still not prepared, and they're not thinking about what this is going to do to their companies.

If you check out this past week's um newsletter on uh the death of the hourly business, this there's a lot of companies that are going to be adversely affected if they don't get on board and figure out how to do value-based building and then how to implement AI. Point two uh people thinking of AI as a technology challenge. 100% agree with this. So at Trust Insights, we have a five part framework uh purpose, people, process, platform, performance, purpose. What are you doing and why?

People, who's involved, process, what are the things that are involved that you know, process wise in your organization, platform is the technology, and performance is the outcome. Did you did you get done what you needed to get done? People don't think of AI as encompassing all of those, but you've got to. Um, you've got to think about AI as it is a technology, but it is a technology that a lot of people can use in a lot of different ways throughout your organization. It's not just a marketing tool, it's not just a uh finance tool, it's an everything tool in the same way that a spreadsheet is an everything tool, right?

Every department in your organization can use a spreadsheet, and most of them probably do. AI is the same thing. And no one's thinking about how does this impact the organization as a whole. Change management is hard. Change management is hard because it involves that really, really complex system known as people, human beings.

And when you have a transformative technology like AI that can just eat up tasks and radically change how you do business, you need to have a change management platform in place, a change management system, um, a change management strategy to deal with everything that's going to happen. And many of the effects of AI still are not completely clear. This is another really important part. We are in the early innings of the AI game, if you will. We are seeing the technology evolve very, very, very fast and in ways that we did not anticipate.

And so people need to be very clear about what's happening and be prepared to have lots of scenario planning. And who's doing scenario planning about AI? Almost no one. Almost no one is doing any kind of scenario planning. And that's really bad because when surprising things happen, you're totally unprepared.

So, number two on on Paul's uh questions, agree. Most people are not prepared. Number three, the lack of urgency to solve for the wider impact of AI because people don't understand what it is. Yes, I agree with that. I don't know that it is not just a baseline understanding.

It varies based on the organization, the people we talk to. There's some people who think it, like, you know, the smartphone or the internet is a fad. Um, and in fairness to those people, there have been plenty of technology-based fads that have come and gone, right? Um, blockchain and and Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies were really hot for like a hot minute there, uh, and then not so much. Uh things like uh Clubhouse, the audio app was like red hot for nine minutes and then it vanished.

And so folks who are in who are not in the AI space are probably looking at generative AI going, is this just another clubhouse? Are we going to be still be talking about this in three months, or will we we have moved on to something else? This is a transformative technology that changes how you work, and it changes how everyone works, and that's what is going to make it much more durable than say a cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency, as an example, is really difficult to use, right? You have to buy into it, you have to figure out the technology to buy into it, then you have to figure out what ecosystems even accept it as a form of currency.

Chat GPT, there's a very low, very, very, very, very low barrier to entry there, which is sign up for a free account and then start chatting. And the capabilities of large language models are such that they can be applied to just about everything. If it's language based, it can be applied to it. So education is part of it, and so so is cynicism in the sense of tech trends that come and go very quickly. So I think on that last point, it's a mixed bag based on who you're talking to.

But there definitely is a need for more education. There definitely is a need for more understanding of the technology, the implications, the risks, the opportunities. If your company has not done an AI-based SWOT analysis, you really should. You really should. What are your strengths with regard to gender of AI?

What are your weaknesses externally? What are your opportunities? What are your threats? Are there competitors that are ahead of you in adoption? Are there competitors that are reaping productivity gains that you can't see yet?

But you're like, huh, that's weird. They seem to be cornering the market in specific ways that we can't get what's going on over there. And so having an understanding of the technology, an understanding of the application of the technology, and then a sense of where your comp your competition is is really important. And one of the things I think that everyone in every role in corporations should be doing at a leadership level, the CFO, the CMO, the CEO, the COO, everybody who is has a leadership role should be attending events and conferences and things, just regular industry events, and just be listening, be listening, going, huh? I sat down at that lunch round table and everyone else is talking about AI.

I wonder if we should be doing something. I wonder if we're behind, right? Or you sit down at that table and nobody's talking about AI. And you're like, uh, there's a market opportunity here. No one else is paying attention attention to this thing.

Maybe we could get a sizable competitive advantage. And you don't, you don't have to go to a conference, right? You can go on LinkedIn and look at the profiles of your your peer competitors and their their executive, uh, their executives and say, oh, look, you know, 20% of our competitors are talking about AI, and 80%, they never mention it. That will give you a sense of the urgency that you need to adopt it, the and implement it and get get on board. Whether people want it or not, it is coming to every piece of software that there is.

And we'll talk about this later on, but um it's coming. And as a result, you need to have a strategy, a plan, and a system of measurement to make it work. So, Paul, really good questions, as always. Um this transformation is still in its early days. At the speed at which the technology is picking up from newer models, open sourcing, um, agent networks.

It's it's difficult to even look at the landscape now and try to see where it's going because it's just going so fast. But if even if you froze it the technology to where it is today, that would still be transformative to every company. And the sooner people are on board with it, the sooner people are ready for it, the more benefit you will reap from it. So, really good questions. Thanks for asking.

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