Are You (Personally) an AI Leader or a Laggard?

Big News.

It was announced today that Google's Bard AI is now Gemini , and with this change, Google is ushering in a new series of mobile and desktop services where it can turn its AI investments into cash.

Our world is changing fast. Things I needed a team of subordinates to do last year, I can do myself. Whether it's researching a topic with the latest content online, curating content I've used before, or re-purposing insights to put it to work for a new purpose, in 2024 AI is proving itself to be not just a reliable worker, but a very willing workforce.

As an assistant, Gemini is something else. Gone are the days when my Personal Assistant would run around and crunch data, book meetings, find me a list of events to attend in my industry... AI does that.

So, does that make you a leader or a laggard in the use of AI?

AI is Evolving. So Are Humans to Embrace It.

I suspect most of us are in one of three camps right now. We are:

1. Repulsed by the human impact of AI and wish to stay as far away from it as possible.
2. All in to find ways to make AI work advantageously for ourselves and our businesses.
3. Curious but non-commital towards AI, begrudgingly treating it like an unwanted friend that keeps hanging around.

In truth, I lived through all these three states last year...

February 2023 was one of the worst business years of my life. Our marketing business took a real hit with the double-whammy of (1) a loss of confidence in the tech market owing to some silly Americans who decided to invest money 'at scale' into the tech start-up market; money they didn't actually have in their wallets, and (2) ChatGpt killed the need for companies to hire good copywriters and researchers to produce their cornerstone content for marketing.

In February 2023, AI repulsed me. But like any sensible businessperson, I took stock and saw the writing on the wall that the only way to move forward was to revisit our business model by embracing AI and see what we could do with it. In 3-months, I had transitioned from repulsed to curious. Here we are in Feb, '24 and I'm all in with AI applications.

Yes, my team is slightly smaller, but those that remain can achieve a factor of 10 times more output than we were ever previously capable of.

Want to Remain in Business? You Must (Personally) Become a Generative AI Leader.

Think of what happened in the business world when email was introduced in the 1990s. I don't think, even back then, people genuinely thought email was going to be a game-changer for productivity. Even then, we could see that constant interruptions from floods of emails would become a distraction rather than a net gain. Nevertheless, we saw the number of secretarial, office junior, and personal assistant roles slashed dramatically.

I recall an early morning meeting with the new head of an office equipment company in the mid-90s who was all at sea because in his new role, he hadn't been appointed a personal assistant! He had no idea how to navigate his new desktop PC environment to get things done. For most of us at the time, we didn't need a training course on email to get on with it. We just figured it out.

Generative AI is history repeating. Like any instrument of work (or indeed worker), you need to discover the AI tools that work for you, when to use them, and how to use them. You must invest time in working out how to get the best from them. What their weaknesses are.

Here are some instant thoughts:

Today, Google Gemini can:

• Search for things and summarise what it finds
• Recommend suppliers
• Perform research on your behalf
• Suggest content for articles and titles
• Contribute to copywriting (even if it isn't a particularly creative writer, it is well-informed)
• Draft contracts and emails
• Source best practice
• Summarise news and events

Tomorrow, Google Gemini will:

• Integrate with your Google apps
• Be available on your mobile to answer any questions you might have on the fly
• Check the availability of rooms, holidays, and other bookings
• Replace your PA!

Final thoughts

The moral and social impact issues of AI have not gone away.

Regrettably, I don't trust humanity to self-regulate its use of AI. How can governments possibly get this right when they have a track record of discourse and self-interest that goes back in time to the League of Nations? Governments have never been able to work together to prevent wars, and I suspect they won't prevent this one either.

That said, the wonderful thing about life is that it can sometimes (rarely) surprise you.

We trust in AI and pray for governments to work together to control it.