What drives an AI-ready culture? (You do!)

?? Welcome to Notes to My (Legal) Self, the frequently fun newsletter focused on helping you build the legal career of your dreams.

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Hello Friends and Colleagues,

“ChatGPT is just a gimmick to get people to share more sensitive information online. My company banned it instantly.”?

“Our firm hailed AI as a productivity game changer. It’s helped my personal creativity soar!”?

“I don’t know what our policy is and don’t want to ask. ChatGPT and DALL-E slash my workload by half, and I don’t want to be told I can’t use them.”

“My bosses are using ChatGPT, but they’re not talking to me about it. I wonder when I’ll be out of a job.”

Company culture can greatly impact individual attitudes toward tech innovations like AI. Companies build their culture through policies on things like dress codes, seniority, and technology use. Lawyers often significantly influence the direction of company policies.?

Are you cultivating an AI-ready culture? Or would you be ready to do so if you were in an in-house role??

AI and other disruptive technologies will undoubtedly transform the workplace in the next decade and beyond. We may soon work with:

• A robot office assistant that schedules meetings, orders lunch, engages in witty banter, and laughs at our lame jokes.?
• AI supervisory tools that prioritize workloads, delegate responsibilities, and monitor compliance tasks for you.
• An AI tool that suggests team outings and activities based on employees' hobbies or favorite movies, runs polls, then instructs the robot assistant to schedule the events.
• Immersive training in metaverse environments and more virtual work options.

Company culture will be more important than ever for helping employees adapt, as policies can significantly influence the adoption and evolution of advancements from AI, Web3, 5G, blockchain, crypto, and beyond.??

Ways to foster open-mindedness and experimentation and present transformational change as a growth opportunity rather than a threat include:

• Encourage employees to explore technology, make mistakes, and learn from them without fear of retribution.
• Support open communication for employees to share concerns and challenges with managers.
• Implement training programs that help people feel more confident and competent in incorporating AI into their roles.
• Celebrate successes and milestones related to workplace strategies using AI and other tech.

What other ways could we create an open, supportive company culture that helps individuals navigate new technologies with less fear, stress, and anxiety?

Best,

Olga

AI has a fun side, too.

Need a fast laugh? These were pulled from an online list of AI-produced jokes :

• Why do AI robots only order fish? Because they already have chips.” ??
• “Why did the tomato turn red? Because it saw the salad dressing!” ??
• “Why did the golfer wear two pairs of pants? In case he got a hole in one!” ??

Clearly, AI didn’t come up with these jokes on its own. It produced them on request--a major difference.

Any time you need a quick chuckle, pop in and ask Tell Me AI’s chat tool for a new joke.

“Disruptive technologies give us a golden ticket to question how things are done. It's an invitation to reimagine entire industries, one groundbreaking innovation at a time.”

— Olga V. Mack

The Latest in Company Culture and Workplace Strategies

3 Steps to Prepare Your Culture for AI . AI promises to allow us to focus on the most meaningful work. But becoming an AI-powered organization will require us to work in entirely new ways. Discover three steps to get your culture ready for an AI-powered future.

Putting Humans First: Solving Real-Life Problems with Legal Innovation . A symbiotic relationship exists between business and legal problems. True legal innovation should address the human experience within these interconnected worlds.

How to Create an AI-Ready Company Culture . AI will impact work in many small ways before it transforms companies in giant leaps. Clearing a path for those small successes enables big moves later. You can’t supervise every quick win from the top, so you’ll need a supportive culture to make them occur.

For AI Adoption, ‘Culture eats strategy for breakfast” . Change is never simple. Because AI’s core objective is to be customer- and people-centric, cultural transformation requires a shift in focus toward using AI to aid innovation and democratizing its use across the organization.?

Keep an Eye on AI: AI audits, coming to you soon!

As of July 5, New York City Law 144 aims to ensure the use of automated employment decision tools (AEDTs) remains fair and unbiased. For companies that use AEDTs to make hiring and promotion decisions, it's time to commission an independent bias audit to detect potential biases lurking and assess their impact on decision-making processes.

For lawyers everywhere, it’s time to welcome AI audits as a useful tool for ensuring fairness and transparency in the workplace. Publishing AI audit summaries demonstrates your company is committed to eliminating bias and promoting diversity.

The NYT article, A Hiring Law Blazes a Path for AI Regulation , offers an interesting look at the factors shaping AI regulations.

Meanwhile, keep this comprehensive AI Glossary handy to stay current on the conversation.

What You Said: Highlights from July’s newsletter

In July’s newsletter , we discussed going from a spectator to a difference maker by getting involved and showing up for people who need us. Your comments were fantastic!

Notes to My (Legal) Self Corner:? The Role of AI & Data in Law

Client Consent & AI . Explore the evolving challenges and legal dilemmas surrounding the use of AI in client consent processes. Get practical insights and emerging best practices to help you navigate the legal complexities involved.?

How the SALI Alliance is Standardizing Legal Data . AI is nothing without the right data. Damien Riehl and Jim Hannigan discuss how vendors like Thomson Reuters and Lexis, large law firms, and clients like Microsoft and Intel implement SALI and how the SALI API project makes the legal ecosystem more interoperable.

Game Changer: Machines vs Attorneys . Legal ops/AI specialist Jordan Chapnik-Kadec discusses where the AI evolution meets the legal industry, analyzing and comparing it to ways AI changes other industries. Are we heading into the future where machines replace attorneys and paralegals? What would that be like?

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Olga Mack is a Digital Transformation Executive at LexisNexis , and an award-winning general counsel, operations specialist, and tech startup advisor who encourages lawyers to embrace disruptive technologies that make law more functional and accessible.

A three-time TEDx presenter with an exceptional blend of legal, technological, and business expertise, Olga is one of today’s top speakers and thought leaders. Find her latest insights at Above the Law, Forbes, Bloomberg Law, ACC Docket, MIT Computational Law Report, Newsweek, and Venture Beat.

Olga founded the Women Serve on Boards movement, sparking a national conversation on the need for more women on Fortune 500 company boards. She also co-founded SunLaw and WISE , organizations that help female lawyers thrive.?

As a Berkeley Law lecturer, a fellow of CodeX, the Stanford Law Center for Legal Informatics, and a fellow of the College of Law Practice Management, Olga is confident the law’s future is secure in the hands of innovators.?

Olga’s numerous awards include the Silicon Valley Women of Influence, ABA Women in Legal Tech, Make Your Mark, Corporate Counsel of the Year, and Women Leaders in Technology Law.?

In examining how disruptive technologies impact laws, society, business, and commerce, Olga authored Blockchain Value: Transforming Business Models, Society, and Communities and co-authored Fundamentals of Smart Contract Security . Her next book, Visual IQ for Lawyers (ABA 2023), shows how lawyers can use practical design and visual elements to make law more understandable to all.