Lilli, The Next Avenger?

When I was at school, way back in the 80’s, we had a ‘library period’ every week - my most favorite period of all.? Naturally, between drawing and writing from a very young age, for me, books were the next best thing to ice cream.? Did you know that a typical individual apparently reads approximately 700 books in his lifetime? Only 700. ?This includes fiction and non-fiction.? An enthusiastic reader may read 50 books, or an avid reader may read up to 100 books every year, but both those scenarios are now becoming increasingly rare – thanks to the hours spent daily on social media, including mindless scrolling on the smartphone.

The point: How many of the books we’ve read, we remember? ?We may recall overarching themes, or a couple of key points from some of the ones we liked, but it is humanly impossible to recollect all the data and examples, the references, and the subjects discussed in research books.?

Fast-forward three decades, and here we are with ‘superpowers’ that technology is bestowing upon us, dissolving our human limitations, and helping us speed up our personal knowledge base. With no repository in the brain yet – not until we can inject computer chips into it to hold every single piece of information that we’ve read or seen or heard or experienced in any form. That day may not be too far given that Elon Musk’s Neuralink got the nod from USFDA a few months ago for clinical trials, which could potentially address severe conditions like paralysis and blindness, and is meant to enhance human cognition and mitigate neurological disorders, by merging human intelligence with AI.

The potential enhancing power of AI for the human brain

In the business world, things are rapidly changing in terms of productivity with the advent of generative AI, and so are the expectations from business leaders.? It is not fear that is driving progress and a desire to maximize industrial potential, but a sense of expansion for all of humanity.? Technology has changed the way we are evolving as a species.? For now, the good news is, even without implanting a chip in our brain, we may not be required to memorize or remember the dozens of books we have read. ?

A recent McKinsey report spoke of “The Economic Potential of Generative AI” which we’re all witnessing with apps, such as Chat-GPT, Dall-E, Leoardo.ai., Midjourney, Story.ai, Rephrase.ai, Writesonic, Synthesia, Soundraw, Jasper, and Synchronicity to name a few. ?Some of these may fall off your bandwagon in a couple of years while others may morph into something more capable as they get acquired by conglomerates and technologies get merged.? Anything is possible.

In my view, the most rewarding aspect of generative AI for humans has arrived – in the form of AI technology for research.? AI is not only helping us save time and effort already, it appears it can also literally transform the very quality of our output. ?Beyond productivity apps, the whole new world of research and knowledge scoring apps is going to take the lead.?

Why? ??

·?????? Because research is most time-consuming and requires dedicated teams and resources who are trained at it to get superlative insights.?

·?????? Well researched materials supporting a subject can stoke our creativity and imagination.

·?????? It can help us reimagine how we can solve a business problem with newly found information and knowledge that might have been beyond our reach up until now.

·?????? And, none of us are reading hundreds of books related to business, economy, technology, and industry every year!

McKinsey's take on enabling business with quality research

McKinsey has taken the lead to fix the research handicap for companies and individuals with Lilli. McKinsey’s Lilli is a generative AI solution, a platform that “provides a streamlined, impartial search and synthesis of the firm’s vast stores of knowledge to bring our best insights, quickly and efficiently, to clients.”

Generative AI for research would give a big boost to professionals and students.? The extent to which it could enhance the human potential to use the best possible knowledge, and derive the most appropriate insights, is anybody’s guess. ?Not to mention, how fast that would, in turn, speed up decision making, industrial progress, and the economic growth of a nation. Too fast? It may get tougher for some companies to keep up with another's innovations, and even more so, for our clients, to implement actions based on the deep research that surfaces.?

However, when I recall the long hours we spent as students, and later as professionals, researching subjects, business papers, publications, and text books for information before producing papers, or giving exams, or doing a client pitch – all I can do is marvel at the human spirit and its ability to slog!

And, we were overwhelmed with the tomes of information, and most likely, may not have even scratched the surface of greatness in our sights and deductions.

Let us just say, research wasn’t too fun back then, and it isn’t now without technology.? However, not every kind of research using technology – think ChatGPT – is pertinent research. ?Aggregation of knowledge has always been an uphill task even for brilliant researchers, and for us now…to get access to generative AI technologies that can aggregate, and help us activate those insights and recommendations without wasting months on end, letting us focus on our core capabilities instead, is really worth noting.

McKinsey's Lilli - a natural evolution

For a consulting firm like McKinsey, it is a natural evolution with Lilli. ““Knowledge is the lifeforce of McKinsey,” says?Kitti Lakner, an associate partner and director of design for Lilli. Now McKinsey clients can access all of the knowledge created by their experts over nearly a century in the form of playbooks, case studies, and white papers. Today all of that content anyway is being used to service their clients in the form of data, digital solutions, and analytics tools such as?Wave,?Corporate Performance Analytics?(CPA), and?Periscope.”

According to McKinsey, Lilli, named after Lillian Dombrowski, was the first professional woman hired by McKinsey in 1945, who became the controller and corporate secretary for the firm, has superpowers. It “can use technology to access and leverage their entire body of knowledge assets to drive new levels of productivity.”

Now, if only humans could do that by themselves. Unfortunately, most of us have trouble remembering what we learned in our careers last year.

What’s unique about Lilli?

The ability to inspire new ways of looking at problems. A user can type in a question, and Lilli can scan the McKinsey landscape of knowledge, identify between five to seven of most relevant pieces of content, summarize key points, include links, and even identify experts in the appropriate fields. It can also search for external sources.

Dare I ask: Is this platform similar to Chat-GPT? I’d let you answer that but in my view, NO. Lilli has the distinct and unique advantage of curated and original knowledge pieces based on facts and research done over the decades. Invaluable for a marketer or a business planner or a CEO to say the least. Definitely not what Chat-GPT throws up for the same questions asked three times - three different answers!

Josh Sternberg, a McKinsey partner in our Life Sciences Practice, uses Lilli “to answer one of the most frequently asked questions from clients: What can we learn from someone who’s done this before? According to Josh, he was “looking for an example of a company that manufactures a product in a very precise way.” Lilli came up with the example of a device used to measure paint thickness. It was unexpected but very apt.”

Everyone knows that the human tendency is to look for “comparables” to derive expertise or knowledge from that before coming up with a current day solution. But if Lilli is super smart like an Avenger with superpowers, and it can come up with unique and apt ways of finding parallels, it can inspire and birth new ideas in the minds of its users. Do you see the rich creative potential in problem solving with AI or finding the unmatched insights that come from curated content, tested use cases, and verified success stories? Cognitive enhancement, without the chip.

The quality of output and the accuracy will make all the difference between standard research done using the World Wide Web, Chat-GPT or such, and the bodies of work that have been created with intention for over nearly a century. No doubt generative AI is going to continue to surprise us over the next couple of years as it starts to spread its tentacles across industries and all aspects of our lives. Being in communications or marketing where technology is indispensable now to be productive, fast, and accurate, I for one, would certainly love to acquire some research superpowers.?

Or having someone like Lilli…my very own Avenger.

?

Image created by Michelle Mendez

Sources/References:

https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/new-at-mckinsey-blog/meet-lilli-our-generative-ai-tool

https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/the-economic-potential-of-generative-ai-the-next-productivity-frontier#introduction

P.S. Please excuse typos if any.

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