AI-CEO

Earlier this year, a few folks from sparks & honey were interviewed about the story of s&h. We have taken excerpts from that interview and translated it into a 5 part “Story of Us.” A special thank you to Kendra Clarke, VP Data Sciences; Paul Butler, Chief Operating Officer; Camilo LaCruz, Chief Strategy Officer; Kristin Cohen, Head of Marketing and Business Development; Jared Alessandroni, Chief Technology Officer; Rob Gaige, Managing Partner Q™ and Laura Chiavonne, Managing Partner Transformation for your support and being part of the interview.

The Future of Work

“Our consulting team has built a body of knowledge around a concept called ‘The AI-CEO,” continued Camilo. “I’ll summarize the premise quickly: AI is not going to replace the CEOs of organizations, but CEOs who know how to work with AI will replace those who don’t. We believe AI will occupy a seat in the C-Suite in the most successful organizations. AI-CEOs will formulate paths forward with hypotheses they can quickly test and evaluate in market. They will make wiser decisions because they will rapidly process several orders of magnitude more of information than the non-AI CEOs.” 

“The fundamental question is simple. Are you a CEO who’s going to weigh advice from eight people, or are you going to look at millions of signals and then engage those eight people? That question then filters down through all the different levels of an organization. Are you a creative person who’s going to guess what someone is going to find sad, happy, or emotional? Or are you a creative person who’s going to have a system that knows that already? It can feel very threatening, but that’s where the world is already moving.” 

“What does it mean when AI isn’t just a tool, but is truly in symbiosis with the way you guide, lead, manage, and mentor?” asked Terry. “AI will be on the org chart. And in some cases, AI will be the manager.” 

“We have studied how CEOs of many large companies make decisions,” pointed out Jared. “They delegate analyses and then weigh recommendations that have come through multiple human filters. Certainly, no choice at these companies is made by mistake, but the truth is that the final decision often comes down to the CEO’s gut. That won’t need to be the case when AI becomes part of an organization’s DNA.” 

“We are already working on a CEO Dashboard where AI will literally say things like, ‘Your innovation team isn’t doing what they need to do. I’ve gone on LinkedIn and found four people who will.’ For our foreseeable future, AI won’t make a final decision for you, but it will change the depth with which you make that decision. And it will learn. Did that turn out to be a good long-term decision, or should we change our algorithms? AI will be the CEO that lasts through several CEOs, because institutional memory won’t disappear.“

“Today, we talk about AI as a massive timesaver right now, a huge amplifier in the near term, and then a symbiotic partner sometime in the future,” continued Jared. “There’s a lot of unspoken uneasiness about that in-between space. That’s because AI is going to change the nature of work. In some industries, those changes will be stark – think about what happens to truck drivers when automated, self-driving vehicles are a proven technology. But CEOs in every industry should be considering the potential dislocations in the composition of their workforces.” 

“Within s&h,” shared Terry, “our immediate attention is on the symbiosis between our people and machines, but I think there will always be a human premium to what we do. There are certain instinctual skills like curiosity and empathy innate to the human way. And we are still in a human business, where so many parts are non-mechanical and non-transactional. We need breakthrough creative and higher-order strategic thinking. We need to connect with clients and prospects. We must build trust. These are all tangible things humans do that algorithms can’t.” 

Sapient and Sentient? 

“I’m certainly not an expert on where and when we will see AI meaningfully emerge in the human spaces in our industry,” granted Camilo. “Nevertheless, I’m happy to share some initiatives that have piqued my interest, especially tools and applications spanning strategy and creative expression.” 

“We have already seen AI systems like Benjamin write scripts for a couple of short films, and AIVA compose music that has been recognized by the French music society, SACEM. In the generative design space, Project Dreamcatcher is a system that produces thousands of design options for a set of parameters. Designers’ first reactions to it were, ‘These are all completely wrong,’ but then they took a second look and said, ‘You know, I have never thought about it that way.’ The machine expands their perspectives in a way that isn’t humanly possible and adds elements of curation and refinement to their roles as creators.” 

“I’m also really inspired by Adobe’s Project Sensei. It’s amazing,” praised Camilo. “They are starting to use machine learning and emotion recognition technologies to understand how you operate their design software in real-time and adjust to your mode of working. It’s not just an augmentation of your intelligence; they envision an assistant that can understand you. When you’re ‘in the flow,’ it automatically blocks your calls. It also tells you when you need a break. It’s tackling many dimensions of human-machine symbiosis.” 

“We’re planning for similar developments in Q™. Someday, it will say, ‘Laura, you’re trying to learn about voice technology, but you missed the whole automotive sector and might want to take a look at heart monitoring, too.’ For me, that would be like working with a valued creative partner – someone who knows your strengths, learns from your mistakes, and adjusts as a result. Someday, I might even get mad at Q™ … the dilemma will be when it can get mad at me.”