AI for All: Getting the Benefits of AI to Main Street

This transcript was created using AI tools and is not a verbatim, word-for-word transcript of the episode. Please forgive any errors or omissions from the finished product.

Courtney: [00:00:00] How can we ensure that employees, not just Wall Street, benefit from the productivity and efficiency gains of AI, and which of us at Knownwell has very strong feelings about why a shift to a 32 hour work week would actually be a bad thing? PS it’s not me.

Hi, I’m Courtney Baker and this is AI Knowhow from Knownwell, helping you reimagine your business in the AI era. As always, I’m joined by Knownwell CEO, David DeWolf, Chief Product Officer Mohan Rao, and Chief Strategy Officer Pete Buer. We also have a discussion with Dr. Mfon Akpan about how AI is going to change the way accounting and other professional service companies operate. But first, put on those safari hats and bust out your binoculars because it’s time to bring back “AI in the Wild.”

Courtney: Pete Buer is back with us again this week to talk about AI in the wild. Hey Pete, how are you?

Pete: Hey Courtney, how [00:01:00] are you?

Courtney: I’m good. So Pete, the Rabbit r1 device famously did more than $10 million in sales before even shipping its very first unit. Uh, the first R one device hit consumers recently, and the reviews are…Actually, I don’t wanna say, because I wanna get your take.

Um, and Pete, if I recall correctly from a previous episode, we talked about this device in the news and you had tried to order one. Did you ever get your hands on one?

Pete: Yeah, it’s ironic that this episode will be called AI in the Wild because as far as I can tell, this rabbit does not exist in the wild. Uh, and, uh, I’ll, I’ll get, I’ll continue to express my frustration over that as we talk.

Courtney: Let us know what is happening with this device and what are people saying about it right now.

Pete: Well, so first for listeners who may not have heard our first pass, uh, just a. Little bit of background on what the rabbit, uh, r1 is. This is an [00:02:00] AI powered handheld device that not only promises the equivalent of kind of visual and voice access of, uh, chat, GPT type capabilities, multimodal capabilities, but also integrated.

Access across all the apps on your phone. So you’re walking around with a device, you point it at a restaurant and you can find out everything you need to know and, uh, maybe even place an order, right? So cool and concept, set aside the question of why, why would you. Not just have it on your phone, why do you need a separate device?

It, at least to us sounded like a really cool idea and maybe something fun to play with. So a couple of us on the team ordered one back in November and still haven’t received it. I’ve been semi jokingly, semi honestly, getting more and more annoyed with time. But with these reviews coming out, I think maybe I [00:03:00] just don’t care all that much anymore.

And here’s why. So, um, sounds like those exciting demos that we saw back in CES were somewhere on a continuum between sort of fantastical and fake as the tool apparently does very little, um, that it promised to do first. The multimodal generative AI capabilities sound like they are a fail. Um, in one of the articles, the author.

Describes pointing the r1 device at a red dog toy and being told, first it was a stress ball, second it was a tomato and third, it was a red pepper that, by the way, was totally safe to eat. Right.

Courtney: Oh,

Pete: Um, and then the, uh, the cross app application access sounds like it’s a fail as well, apparently. Um, the authors, r1 only spoke to four apps.

Uh, on his phone and in each case, um, [00:04:00] uh, they performed less well or incorrectly, or not at all as compared to when just using the apps, um, directly. I can’t offer anything redeeming, sadly. other than maybe there’s a lesson here for leaders. And the lesson can’t be, don’t try to shoot the moon with your ideas.

I mean, AI will enable that and you can’t give up on your dreams. But it’s more about being balanced and transparent in your communication to customers about the promise of an innovation and being careful in your timing between promise and delivery. and in fact, maybe also just deliver it at some point.

That would be kind of nice. I. the Rabbit r1, sadly, is a, just a bad case of overpromising. Um, and under, under-delivering. It’s all just kind of a bummer in that this is the kind of story that feeds the hype assessment around AI rather than the genuine utility. And I hope, [00:05:00] uh, other customers who tried to order it and were, um, unsatisfied, uh, don’t give up on the promise of ai.

Courtney: Thank you as always.

Pete: Okay, Courtney. Take care. All the best.

Courtney: How can AI stand the traditional business model on its head so that employees get to appreciate some of its benefits? I sat down with David Dul and Mohan Rao recently to get their thoughts.

David Mohan. Something that we’re not known for on this podcast is getting political, but you two are in the nation’s capital or thereabout.

Pete: But that’s what we hate about the nation’s capital. It’s like the only that and the traffic are the only things we don’t like around here. Yeah. yes. heard about a new bill in the Senate that was basically proposing a shorter workday, for Americans because of the productivity gains of [00:06:00] ai. What was really interesting about the bill was actually both parties agreed.

Courtney: the premise of how do we start to rethink how like our social constructs around work with the productivity gains of ai. The bill kind of breaks down because you realize like, Hey, a restaurant I. Down the street doesn’t get the same productivity gains as, you know, maybe a marketing firm would get.

And so it breaks down, you’re like, you can’t have a 32 hour, you know, work week as a waitress. But it really got me thinking about this moment in time. And, I’m not sure if you two are familiar with this John Maynard Keens quote, but in 1915 he predicted that his grandkids would only work a two day work week a five day weekend. Because of all the promises of technology and the [00:07:00] advancements, obviously we know that is. Nowhere close to the truth.

We just produce more and differently today. But I think it’s an interesting moment of time of how do we as executives start thinking about, are there some of the productivity gains that get passed down to our employees? I know this is a little different than normal, but where, where do you land on this?

How do we think

Pete: And. So, Courtney, you’re, you’re treading in waters here, um, that I, I’m gonna just argue with the fundamental premise of this question, right? When you phrase it that way of are they gonna get passed on? There’s an underlying assumption in this argument that actually drives me bonkers, which is that it’s

Courtney: my

Pete: better for people. That the, the assumption is that it’s actually better for people, that it’s a benefit to work less. And I fundamentally disagree with that. That goes in direct conflict with my human anthropology. [00:08:00] I believe that as human beings a core part of what we are made to do, what we thrive off of, how we are fulfill.

Filled is to work and make this world a better place and add value to it. Now, that doesn’t mean we have to be workaholics and there’s extremes in everything, but I feel like this extreme of we are better off if we don’t work is being pushed out there as a default assumption, and nothing could be further from the truth.

Look at. All of the research on depression and on, um, the mental health and it all shows when people don’t have a purpose bigger than themselves when they’re not doing meaningful work, when they’re not engaged, if you’re just a person of leisure, um, you’re not happy, you’re not fulfilled. And so I, I think we have to like really pause even before we get to the.

Arguments about the work itself and whether it’s possible and, and all of that type of thing, and say what’s really good for [00:09:00] humanity.

Courtney: Okay. Before you respond, Mohan, I do wanna say. We can have this talk and I think it’ll be really interesting ’cause it’s probably about to get real spicy over here. But the premise really is about are there societal gains that. everyday person gets, or is Wall Street and you know, is Wall Street gonna be the big winner here?

Or are there some gains with AI that are actually gonna trickle down into everyday society that you’re gonna see a shift in how the constructs of society change? And that is where I think it’s interesting.

Pete: I, I think this intersects with a trend that’s going on in society right now already, which is just with the globalization of work with more virtual work. Like do you have to be in the office? All of this kinda, I think this is all intersecting because where did the 40 hour week come from? I don’t really know.

I’m not a [00:10:00] history major. Um, but I was just gonna say manufacturing where you had to be on the assembly line and we needed people to fill roles. That’s not work these days for the vast majority of people. And so this idea of flexibility and crafting a role. To me, that’s not a time question to me. It’s not a location question.

To me, it’s an underlying philosophy question of how do we allow people to participate in our workforce in a way. That fits their personal lives and is optimal for them and optimal for the company at the same time. And when we try to force it, whether we’re demanding you’re in the office for 40 hours a week, or we’re demanding that you are only working 32 hours a week, doesn’t matter to me.

I think it’s the lack of flexibility and personal consideration that’s getting in the way more than anything else in my [00:11:00] mind.

Mohan: You know where this is, um, interesting for me is the 40 hour work week is a thing, right? It, uh, it comes from I think, fair labor.

Courtney: Yep.

Mohan: it’s been around since the second World War, right. And we are shaped by it. Uh, right. Most people think of, uh, their week as 40 hour work week. Uh, right. It’s pervasive out there.

Right. And, and all the flexibility, David, you are talking about is there in the Information Society and the knowledge society. You can be wherever, work whenever, that sort of thing, but that’s not a luxury that. A majority of, um, the workforce has, right? So you’ve gotta be at the restaurant, uh, at certain hours.

You, uh, have to be on the factory shop floor, certain hours, right? So think there are two questions of my mind, whether the 32 hour week is a good thing or not. Um, and two, is that something that you universally apply or do you kind of figure out for each sector to, uh, to [00:12:00] make their own policies?

Pete: See, I’m gonna disagree with the premise there, Mohan, because I see that this is the power of the gig economy, is we actually handed to. The taxi cab driver, the ability to define their own hours and get on Uber whenever they wanted to. Um, the ability for the restaurant worker to only deliver pizzas, you know, via DoorDash at that point in time, like we handed a bunch of this back.

I’m not saying that it is pervasive across society yet, but I’m saying that that trend is starting and I think it’s not just the knowledge workers and the ones at the top of the luxury. I think we’re seeing a groundswell of that where. As a society, we’re tr really trying to figure out how do we equip people to move away from those limitations and that kind of rigid society that we have historically come from and, and, and push further into that idea of flexibility.

I.

Mohan: Yeah. Uh, you know, my point is simply, uh, I agree that the gig workers [00:13:00] are on the rise, but it’s still a minority of the people out there. so I’m really, uh, debating the wide applicability of this, right? Uh, for most people. hour week means they make less money. Uh, right, right.

It’s, uh, right. That’s that sort of a, a fact. Now that’s a very static analysis of the world and maybe you can argue that the productivity goes up and therefore your hourly rate goes up and therefore you make the same thing. But my point is, the flexibility argument is for a minority of the people currently and in the foreseeable future.

Uh, and, uh, so it’s not why it. It’s something that’s, uh, unevenly distributed in this society, is hard

Courtney: I want to ask, I know obviously this was all about, we kind of dug in about this bill, which I am so sure the senators involved with it are gonna be listening to this show to get our take on it. am so sure, again, I am just curious, is there anything [00:14:00] else in the workforce as executives that we need to be thinking about it comes to this?

What we, we would all agree is gonna be a foundational shift in how we do business? Are there other areas that. We need to think about, you know, how the flexibility might be one of them. Um, like how I phrased that Mohan, uh, the flexibility. Uh, um, are there other things that you think executives should be?

Again, I don’t know that that word there yet, but maybe coming about how we disseminate, actually changing. Foundationally changing our business and how it’s run.

Mohan: with the extra productivity that’s gonna come, there’s no question about it, right? So we are already seeing this in several areas. Uh, the question is around what would you do with this extra productivity [00:15:00] Yeah. Mm-Hmm. that’s question Yeah. So well said. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.

Secondly, uh, thinking about your workforce and maybe the increases in productivity is gonna be uneven across in your company, that’s gonna create constraints in other areas. And, uh, thinking through how would you get to a good, uh, view of your entire business where everybody can be elevated? And as we’ve discussed on this podcast, the human in each of us can be elevated.

Uh, the, the, the, the workforce design question is paramount going

Courtney: Hmm.

Yeah.

Pete: I, I think the other aspect, like I think there are other default assumptions, uh, about how business operates today that are, these societal expectations that I think do need to be fundamentally addressed. We, we talked about pivoting. Not just from the number of hours, but also to other aspects of, of work environment, right?

Like the, the grappling of virtual versus office cultures and how does that play out? Like things like that are already in flux, but need to be [00:16:00] rethought. Um, I think another one where a lot of this conversation actually stems from, if people are honest, is the economics. In a world where we have had An economic picture that has created more and more separation between the haves and the have nots. I think people are scared that this is going to fuel that. How do we start to rethink ownership? How do we start to rethink, um, the compensation? So it’s not just I’m compensating you for your time. Am I compensating you for your impact?

Right. And, and I can take both sides of this argument of. What owners and entrepreneurs do to create that massive value. And I can also say how it is, um, the, the system is created to not reward those that are participating in it, to share fairly in those rewards, right? And instead of getting political about it and, and thinking about these sides, what I’d like to do [00:17:00] with all of these is get back to first causes and root.

Issues and say, how do we rethink this from the ground up and use this as an inflection point to tear everything down and then build it back up from the get go. I’d like to solve that and then after some tests with certain aspects, start to push it out societally from the grassroots up versus from the top down thinking we can solve this in an ivory tower.

Um, to me that’s the level of conversation we should be having.

Courtney: All right, David Mohan, thank you for your thoughts here. Very interesting. And, um, are we fired yet? No, I’m just.

Mohan: I am done with my 32 hours this week, so I’ll see you on Monday. and Courtney.

Courtney: Yeah. Mo Mohan, our, my plan of getting us a 32 hour work week, um, has now officially failed. No, I’m kidding. [00:18:00] Oh, David Mohan. Uh, thank you.

Pete: That was fun.

Courtney: I’ll be working 60 hours this week. No, I’m just kidding.

Courtney: Are you interested in forging stronger relationship with your clients?

Of course you are. We all are. The good news. Knownwell. Our team is hard at work. Building an AI powered product that can help leaders drive customer retention and reduce churn. You can go to Knownwell dot com now to sign up for our beta wait list. Dr. Mfon Akpan is an assistant professor of accounting at Methodist University. He chatted with Pete Buer recently about how AI is setting to change professional service industries like the world of accounting.

Pete: Thank you so much for joining the show. We’re so glad to have you here. I.

Mfon Akpan: Hey, I’m happy to be here. Really [00:19:00] appreciate it.

Pete: If we could just frame things up for our listeners. Uh, could you give us a little background on your role at, uh, the university and where AI fits into your story?

Mfon Akpan: so I am assistant professor of accounting, at Methodist University, which means I teach, accounting courses at the undergraduate level and at the graduate level. And, um, I also, I. Teach a few courses in, in the business analytics program as well. And, and, and I think AI is a very important, part of the curriculum.

Pete: As, as you’ve looked at all the different ways that AI can increase productivity, are there, some lead candidates where you’re just seeing amazing, um, differences?

Mfon Akpan: here’s the question I get from particularly accountants. Okay, how can I use it? So why, why does it matter? How can I use it? And I think. When you think about large language models, [00:20:00] GPT-4, uh, we’ve got Claude three. My response is you need to add it to your workflow where you can.

So in other words, you need to figure out how to use it and to put it into what you’re doing every day. and by doing that, then you can reap the benefits of the productivity.

Pete: Yeah. are, are you finding that accountants, accounting students, uh, are open to adoption, you know, accounting. Legal, for instance. They’re such, um, precise, sciences or practices and the, the role of the human has always been to make sure it’s right in the end. You know, like there’s, there’s something of your personality or your, you know, your, your professional identity wrapped up in the work of accounting, but here we’re suggesting that, you know, a sophisticated machine can do it for you.

How are, how’s the community receiving it?

Mfon Akpan: Well, there’s different [00:21:00] camps, so you have some camps that are completely, uh, against it. I think it’s horrible. And then you have other camps that are for it. when I do, so I’ve done some webinars, uh, where I had, uh, professionals. So I had people have their own firms. They’re asking me, I don’t like it, so you know, why, why should I?

They’re curious about it, but why should I use this? So I get that question. Well, you don’t have to use it, but here’s the thing, your employees are probably using it. Your clients are probably using it, and most likely your competitors are using it. So if you don’t want to use it, that’s great. However, you should at least know what everyone else in your, in your business environment is doing with it and how they’re using it.

That’s gonna impact you indirectly and ultimately [00:22:00] directly. I had one of my students, we were talking about co-pilot, and one of my students was saying, well, you know, it’s great because it can make you more productive. It can help you to get more done, especially if you know what you’re doing.

So it’s sort of like you’ve got superpowers. So now something that might take you an hour to do, you can get it done in 20 minutes, but then the expectation increases. So another student was like, well, wait a minute. So now if, if you take longer to do something, your manager’s gonna be upset.

 

Like, why are you taking so long to do this when you can finish it, you know, in, in a shorter time,

Pete: And I think that pressure only increases once, um, the productivity gains start getting passed through to customers, assuming they do in the form of cost savings. Like it seems like all pressures are on. Adopt the daylights out of it, right.

Mfon Akpan: Well, yeah, that’s one side. If, if there’s going to be [00:23:00] a, a, uh, passing on of the, the cost savings. And, uh, I had another conversation yesterday with students, uh, where I. Brought up the Nvidia. I think it’s an AI nurse. So there’s a video where, you know, you have someone, they’re talking to an AI nurse, and supposedly the cost to the, to the healthcare provider would be $9 for this.

Uh, I think it’s $9 an hour is $9 for this, uh, ai, uh, nurse. So the question was, do you think healthcare providers will pass on that savings or will they keep the profits?

Pete: Right.

Mfon Akpan: if they don’t have to pay an actual nurse, will they reduce the cost savings? And many of the students were saying no, they don’t believe so that the companies will keep the profits.

Pete: The countervailing pre pressure, at least in business to business sales, is that procurement, of course, you know, is a [00:24:00] cold, hard science and, and Procurement executives have figured out the AI advantage on the supplier side and are putting pressure on, on pricing. So it’ll be, it’s gonna be interesting to see how it plays out

Mfon Akpan: Well to circle back on what I mentioned about practitioners Understanding how your employees are using the platforms. And what I mean by that is having codes of conduct for AI use outside of the office. For example, you know, many, you, you may have an office and you may think, well, okay, we, we don’t use, uh, chat GPT on our computers or in the office, but you can have an employee that has the app.

Maybe that employee wants to get more work done, or maybe the, again, adding, AI to their workflow. Okay. They use vision. They take a picture of something on the computer screen, and then they work on it from home. So what, what [00:25:00] are policies around the, the privacy and the ethical issues around that?

I, I see a lot of that arising.

Pete: Switch from. The accounting world to the teaching world, how is the advent of generative AI changing the way you’re teaching the next generation of accountants?

Mfon Akpan: this is my challenge, is that my job is not to prepare them.

For, for today. I’ve gotta work on preparing them for when they get out and get their job right. So I have to kind of look ahead and say, well, okay, this is how things, just like right now, I’ve gotta change my class. There’s co-pilot there in Power bi, so that means maybe not the students I have this semester, but when they get out into the work world in two, three years, they’ve gotta know how to use copilot.

So I’ve gotta start working with them now. [00:26:00] So I think that’s the, the balancing act as an educator, because you’ve gotta kind think about how can I expose them to this and get them using this even though it’s not widely adopted at the moment. Because when they do graduate in three or four years, they’re gonna have to to to know how to use it to be able to, to compete.

So I think that. Is the big, big challenge.

Pete: You are an active ingredient in the long-term process of building learning cultures. So thank you for what you do. and Dr. Aon, thank you just so much for joining. It’s been a pleasure to have you, uh, on the podcast today.

 

Mfon Akpan: Hey, it’s been a pleasure being here. Appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Courtney: Thanks as always for listening and watching, and don’t forget to give us a five star rating on your podcast player of Choice, we’d really appreciate it if you can leave a review or share this [00:27:00] episode with another executive.

At the end of every episode, we like to get one of the large language models to weigh in on episode at hand. So hey, chat, GBT. Welcome back to the party. This episode we’re talking about how to make sure. Employees get some of the benefit from ai. What do you think? And now you are in the know. Thanks as always for listening.

We’ll see you next week with more headlines, round table discussions and interviews with AI experts. [00:28:00]