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The Path to AGI and The Business Altitudes of AI

Knownwell

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is a hot topic in the AI community, with OpenAI recently outlining their five levels to AGI, or the point where AI matches or surpasses human-level knowledge. How do these levels correspond to the five altitudes of AI in business we’ve often discussed on AI Knowhow?

In this episode of the show, we dive into these two frameworks for how to think about AI and what they mean for businesses.

Knownwell CEO David DeWolf walks listeners through the five altitudes of AI in business, which he defines as manual labor, execution, operations, strategy, and ideology. Today, AI is largely just being deployed at the manual labor and execution layer of the business. As leaders get more comfortable deploying AI and tapping into its power to solve increasingly difficult problems, it will continue moving up to the next altitude.

Knownwell CPO and CTO Mohan Rao helps break down the five levels to AGI that OpenAI recently introduced: conversational AI, reasoning AI, autonomous AI, innovating AI, and organizational AI.

With both frameworks laid out, Courtney, David and Mohan explore where they intersect and what that means for future business applications.

David highlights that OpenAI’s Level 2 (Reasoning AI) corresponds closely with the Execution level in business, where AI performs high-level knowledge tasks. The conversation then moves to Autonomous AI (Level 3), which overlaps with the Operational level of business, involving the execution of complex processes towards specific business outcomes without continuous human intervention.

Mohan emphasizes the importance of narrowing the scope to specific use cases, which can accelerate the practical application of these AI advancements. They agree that AI’s potential in defined domains, like radiology in healthcare or personalized learning in education, shows more immediate steps towards higher-level autonomy.

AI in Customer Management and Experience

The episode also features a discussion with Blake Morgan, a customer experience futurist and author of the new book The 8 Laws of Customer-Focused Leadership. Blake shares insights into how AI is transforming customer interactions and the importance of integrating tech thoughtfully to enhance the customer experience.

Blake’s research for her book showed that the biggest hindrance to creating exceptional customer experiences is having to focus on improving omnichannel customer experiences in the present while also creating a vision and building for the future. Change management is an area that Blake says will continue to loom large as AI becomes more deeply integrated into customer support and customer service functions.

Blake also shares a cautionary tale of what can go wrong when AI is left unchecked without any human intervention: a recent lawsuit that Air Canada lost is a prime example of why companies must pay close attention to how AI may impact their customer experience and brand perception. After a passenger traveling to a funeral was given incorrect information by a chatbot on the company’s website about when to submit a request for a bereavement policy discount, Air Canada tried to deflect liability and deny a fare refund.

The end result? They lost the court case, were raked over the coals in the court of public opinion, and are no longer utilizing the chatbot feature on their website.

A Look Back at Nearly A Year of AI Knowhow

As we approach next week’s 50th episode of AI Knowhow (!), Chief Strategy Officer Pete Buer chats with Courtney about the lasting impression all guests in the last year have made, with one guest in particular standing out. Listen to the full episode to find out why Pete’s conversation with author Christian Madsbjerg about What it Means to be Human in the Age of AI stood out as a particularly memorable and impactful conversation.

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