AI Mixtape: Insights from C-Suite Technologists

Avanti: Welcome to this special feature episode of our Zinnov Podcast’s Business Resilience series, where we will revisit key insights from a few of the many brilliant guests we’ve hosted this year. Hi, I’m Avanti from Zinnov and your host for today. We’d like to thank our extraordinary guests who have shared over 300 minutes of profound insights.
Also, thank you to our audience for tuning in from across the globe. Throughout last year, AI emerged as the central theme, shaping diverse industries. Generative AI’s impact has democratized artificial intelligence, offering much more universal accessibility. But rapid evolution has also prompted critical discussions on potential challenges such as job displacement, data privacy concerns, and the nuances of control in AI.

As we delve into this special AI feature, let’s revisit the valuable perspectives shared by our expert guests on the future role of AI.
First up, how is AI changing healthcare as a whole? Early this year, Matt Jennings, VP of Global Customer Success at Microsoft, told us how it can help doctors make better diagnoses.

Matt: Or maybe as a doctor, I specialize in say, cardiology, but I don’t know enough at the moment about oncology. And so maybe CHAT GPT can make some recommendations to say, hey, the three things and the symptoms that are pressing from a cardiologist perspective, there might be some recommendations you might want to bring some oncology expertise into this.

So there’s some relationships you may not draw just based on your field of study. And based on your field of expertise that when you look at the holistic amount of data, there’s other things that can be concluded from that. So I think that’s probably one of the major benefits that we’re going to see.

Avanti: That was Matt Jennings of Microsoft on AI’s multiple use cases in healthcare.
Transitioning to another healthcare application, back in April, Hema Purohit, Microsoft’s CTO for Healthcare and Public Sector in EMEA, highlighted how AI is moving medicine from reactive to predictive.

Hema: You know, the future of AI and analytics is, is very much around helping us to become predictive rather than being reactive in healthcare.
So if you’re a nurse, you’re a radiologist, whoever you are in the hospital today, the biggest problem is, is you just can’t see enough people. There aren’t enough hours in the day. But if we’re using AI and analytics to help you to do some of the more mundane administrative side of those tasks, then you’re being given that time back.

So, where healthcare today is seen as, it’s a really stressful job, it’s hard, it’s low pay, etc, etc. I think the use of technology in the future will attract more talent, because ultimately, people who go into healthcare do it because they have a passion. They want to help people lead better lives. They want to be able to contribute towards somebody’s wellness.

And I think some of that passion is taken away by the complexity of the job today. Tomorrow, hopefully, the use of that technology will simplify the role and relieve the burden, and it will make it a much more attractive and appealing industry to be in, I think.

Avanti: We just heard from Hema Purohit, Microsoft, about how healthcare is becoming a more aspirational profession because of AI’s ability to take on administrative tasks.
Now let’s explore a pressing conversation across all industries. Will AI replace human jobs and expertise? Here’s what James Heppelman, CEO of PTC, shared in June last year.

James: But I think we’re probably some distance away, you know, I’m not sure it’d be a good thing anyway if we took the engineers out of the process and just let AI, you know, make products for us. We might not like those products.
But certainly AI can be very helpful and I think it can bring great productivity. You know, on one hand you worry about losing jobs, but on the other hand, the real world we’re in, you can’t find anybody to hire. So it’d be nice if we didn’t need so many jobs in the real world here. So I think that tools that make engineers take another step function forward in productivity would be very welcome.

Avanti:
That was James Heppelman of PTC talking about AI’s promise to augment human abilities. Like he says, to really amplify what humans do best, AI has to be thoughtfully integrated to avoid pitfalls. Along similar lines, Pegasystems founder and CEO Alan Trefler emphasized that AI should augment human intelligence, not replace it.

Alan: So what we showed recently were these specific cases we’ve been working on since last year to bring generative AI into the fold, but do it, I would say carefully and wisely because, there’s an enormous amount of buzz, but there are some use cases that are just, you know, awesome and brilliant, and there are some use cases that are going to get companies candidly, in trouble.
I sometimes like to call AI, shouldn’t be artificial intelligence. It should be talked about as augmented intelligence, and this is where, you know, you have the engine driving the power and the human brain augmenting it and being augmented with this interplay.

Avanti: That was an interesting perspective from Alan Trefler of Pegasystems on how generative AI can amplify human abilities as against full automation that replaces human roles and responsibilities.

Speaking of risks, while the opportunities seem endless, what about the potential downsides of AI adoption? Rick Crandall, chairman of Donnelly Financial, addressed this in September when he talked about why companies need to implement these technologies thoughtfully.

Rick: It’s definitely looked upon as an opportunity. The threat part of it is if they don’t move as fast as their competitors. A real generative AI type application work and to make it scale, it takes some resources. Now, of course, a VC startup can get significant financing from the venture capitalists, but the bigger concern that’s expressed is, are we moving fast enough?
Are we learning how to use this technology fast enough so that we can stay apace or keep ahead of our competition?

Avanti: Great insights shared by Rick Crandall of the Donnelley Financial. Shifting gears now, let’s look at how AI can transform customer engagement and business operations. Here’s what Lanham Napier, President of Amelia, said earlier this year.

Lanham: And what’s happening now is AI is going to give us more access. And we’re going to get workflows. Meanwhile, the LLMs have been around and while the technology has been around, the rate shows us how fast it’s improving. So today when systems are knocking out over half the problems that show up, there’ll be a day where it’s knocking out almost all the problems that show up and the productivity boost.

The application of that tech in a business when you think about output per employee or whatnot. Now, what’s an employee? That’s going to be interesting thing to define. Chetan was just talking about digital employees. But I think net net means getting AI into a workflow and solving problems is what all is what is going to happen inside of businesses.

Avanti: That was a great real world example of AI chatbots shared by Lanham Napier of Amelia, talking about handling high volumes of repetitive customer inquiries and thus boosting productivity. As he noted, we’re still early in the AI revolution, but the future potential is tremendous. From reimagining healthcare to redefining work, it’s been eye-opening to explore AI’s wide ranging implications across sectors.

As this year unfolds, it’s important that companies look at AI more as a marathon rather than a one time sprint. Lasting success comes to those who pace themselves for the long haul. Early leaders might place ahead in each sprint, but winning isn’t everything. The goal is to experiment, learn, and keep adapting.
This experimentation can be done by setting up an AI center of excellence by starting small and scaling thoughtfully. How has your organization joined the AI marathon? What have your learnings been? Thank you for tuning in to this episode. Stay tuned as we bring to you more such interesting insights from global technology leaders.