Jess: Hi, Graham. I’m really looking forward to hearing your insights, so let’s get started. A lot of business leaders are talking about the way AI is changing teamwork and business performance right now and about how that will require them to reimagine their businesses. I want to ask you, drawing on your background in this space, what are you seeing as changing for teams in this space?
Graham: So great question to start. I think there are four areas that we're seeing come up with organizations.
- The first is the way that AI is impacting the cognitive aspects of teams and specifically how they make decisions. We have lots of conversations around this area of hybrid intelligence and how AI is used to augment decision-making. So I think that's certainly an interesting area.
- Secondly, the cultural change that's going on and how leadership can create a safe space for teams to use AI. It's a conversation around freedoms and constraints. What are areas of risk that teams need to be aware of and what can they do and can't they do?
- Thirdly, collaboration between domain and AI expertise inside the organization is really important. I was on a call this morning where the AI experts in this organization were running a “lunch and learn” for the marketing organization. So they're sharing some of the things that they can do, sharing some of the tools that they can use by going onto Instagram, capturing sentiment analysis very, very quickly and showing them the value firsthand. So collaboration is a key part.
- And then finally, most importantly, is the commercial aspect. So how can we unlock the value of AI? That is definitely a question that I'm seeing and hearing CEOs ask all the time.
Jess: Can you expand a little on what you're seeing in delivering commercial results with AI?
Graham: Sure, so the conversations that we have with teams is about the promise of productivity through AI. For example, some of the metrics that we look at through our business simulations, our AI simulations, are:
- Time, so how is AI helping us save time every day?
- How is AI helping us win from an accuracy perspective and reduce error rates?
- How is AI tied to tasks and the completion of those tasks day to day across our teams?
- How is AI supporting decision-making?
I mentioned it earlier. Is it speeding up decision-making, which is the intent, frankly? And then finally, we're looking at team satisfaction and engagement. We start to have a conversation around meeting quality using some of the outputs of AI. So the headline, Jess, is productivity, but then you can find dollars within those areas that I just alluded to.
Jess: When you were on the panel at Grocery Shop, what were the key discussion points around artificial intelligence?
Graham: So artificial intelligence as a topic was everywhere, it came up certainly on the stage that I was on, but also all of the other breakout discussions that I was part of. What I found most interesting is great organizations like Nestle are starting to use AI across the organization. And I think the sentiment from that discussion was “start right now,” waiting three months or six months is going to put you at a significant disadvantage because of the pace at which the technology is moving. So this call for action was front and center from a lot of the executives on stage.
And then the discussion and questions that came from the audience were around, how can we move from hype to reality? How can we actually start to apply this amazing capability into the business. So C-suite are saying, it's right now, let's find value right now. And the business is asking, how do we do this? But you're seeing great organizations like Nestle building NestGPT. I think that was the example, which caused a huge amount of excitement in the crowd, honestly.
Jess: Perfect lead into my next question. So Graham, how do we start this process?
Graham: So let’s think about the stages of capability pull-through in an organization, the first stage being awareness and motivation, then providing teams with the tools and skills to use AI, thirdly giving them the opportunity to practice and apply, and then finally holding themselves accountable.
I think from an awareness and motivation perspective, we're there. Everybody knows what AI is. Everybody knows what these larger language models can do.
The next step, which is where we're at today, is giving teams the opportunity to practice using AI in a safe environment, so that they can codify the way that they're going to work. And this comes down to the individual, what does AI mean for me? How am I going to apply it in my job? When I go back to my desk, I now have a clear path forward. And then you can start talking about the application.
So right now, I think it's about giving teams the opportunity to practice in a safe, highly facilitated environment so that they can be really clear on what they are going to do, importantly, what they're not going to do, heading into 2024.
Jess: So that's a great point, but how do you win over a workforce that might be scared about incorporating AI into their ways of working?
Graham: I think that's a great question. And I do think that that fear is real. The first step I think is to help them understand what the capability does, show them how these language models work, show them what the synthesis of information can do for them and mean for them. And you don't have to give them a lecture on what a vector model does, but through simple interactive exercises, you can start breaking through those cognitive hurdles. And from that, once they understand what those tools can actually do, then you can give them the opportunity to practice using it. And simulation here is really powerful where you can gamify that human and AI interaction. That's how you really drive adoption.
And to your question, these simulations increase people’s levels of confidence in what the capability can do.
Jess: That's excellent. Is there an opportunity in this new world to create a competitive advantage by changing the way that teams of people work together with AI?
Graham: I think so. So the expression that I use frequently is, “you're not going to get replaced by AI, but you are going to get replaced by somebody else using AI.”
I think the competitive advantage is that human and AI synergy and this idea of hybrid intelligence. So competitive advantage is really gonna come from your ability to get your teams using it, as I've said so far in this interview, in a safe way, in a way that is meaningful for the business and for the commercial outcomes of those teams.
Jess: Is there anything else you think is important for teams to know as they start on their AI journey?
Graham: So I think two things. From the cognitive aspects, decision-making is the lifeblood of every organization. My background in the British commando forces taught me that. And the quality of decision-making is still a huge source of competitive advantage. So when it comes to AI, I think getting a human in the loop is critically important. So it's still that gray hair and experience and context that is still super important. So the augmentation of decision-making is where I think AI can play a really key role.
And then secondly, from a culture perspective, we know that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Leaders have a key role to play here, which is about putting in and defining the boundaries for using AI. And the best way to have that conversation is through talking about freedoms and constraints. So here's what you are allowed to do. Here are some tools that you can start using tomorrow, confidently. And here's what we don't want you to do. It’s important to manage the risk, so leaders still have a huge role to play in the cultural aspects of all of this.
Jess: Excellent. I have one final question for you. How do I know where my team currently stands when it comes to our AI journey?
Graham: So I at see6, we have a team AI benchmark where you can quickly see where your team is at from those four aspects that I discussed: culture, cognitive, collaboration, and commercial. You can see where you are in those four areas and then drill down into some of the behaviors and ways of working that we're seeing today as a snapshot. And then you can start to prioritize the things that you need to work on going forward. As I said, Jess, the technology is here. We see great organizations starting to put GPTs and their own secure language models into the business. Now it's about helping teams codify the way that they work with it.