Liberal arts, Walmart and GenUX

A weekly round-up—3 discoveries, 1 reflection and a quote worth remembering in the innovation & design space—for leaders invested in digital transformation.

By Maish Nichani

External happenings

Sal Khan on the critical human skills for an AI age

In this interview with Sal Khan, CEO and founder of Khan Academy, I found the question more interesting:

What are the enduring human work skills in a world with ever-advancing AI? Some people say students should study liberal arts. Others say deep domain expertise is the key to remaining professionally relevant. Others say you need to have the skills of a manager to be able to delegate to AI. What do you think are the skills or competencies that ensure continued relevance professionally, employability, etc.?

So, liberal arts, deep domain expertise and delegation.

Sal’s answer leans on this more:

Sal Kahn: “Almost every job has a human-interaction side to it. It has a personal connection, relationships, collaboration, selling aspect to it. And those are things where even the most ambitious optimist around AI doesn’t think AI is going to be able to do them well anytime soon. So people can lean into those things more.”

With AI, we can ponder and act on the future in more concrete ways. That is why the world is amazed at how Space X’s seven-story tall, 10-meter-wide, 250-ton booster was safely guided onto landing arms after rapidly returning from space. We can do more of this.

Walmart reveals AI, AR, and immersive commerce platforms

Walmart is racing ahead with new and deep tech, and based on the results, it has found an opportunity to outplay Amazon.

• Wallaby LLMs: Custom-trained LLMs for customer-facing experiences.
• Content Decision Platforms: Hyper-personalised content pages based on customer preferences
• Retina AR Platform: 3D shopping experiences

It is refreshing to see how Walmart, a large and complex organisation, is moving fast to capitalise on the future. I’m sure they have fears, uncertainties, and doubts (FUDs), but they are not letting it paralyse them.

Generative Design: AI-Driven UX paradigm shift

Let’s return to Walmart’s Content Decision Platforms to offer hyper-personalised pages. This article explains the shift from deterministic to generative or probabilistic designs. Since the birth of the web browser, we have been exposed to pages that have been ‘designed’ for us. These pages don't change. They cater to particular generic needs but not to specific ones. So, if you are looking for the measurements of the rise of a pair of jeans you want to purchase, you have to go through the whole page to find it. The experience is pre-determined (deterministic). GenAI can create personalised pages (probabilistic) based on your criteria. The page renders are based on your needs. Welcome to the age of GenUX.

Internal reflections

Last week, we completed our 10-week Google AI Trailblazer Programme. The team, including researchers and data scientists, achieved a fully working AI product. We learned how to work with internal documents, use templates and prompts, use Google’s Gemini AI stack and stitch everything together. I thank Google and the Singapore government for giving us this opportunity.

Quote worth remembering

“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”

— Henry Ford on the need to keep learning.