November 28, 2024 • 26 mins
Futurist and technology trends advisor Athena Peppes discusses the challenges and opportunities of AI adoption in business. She addresses the varying pace of AI integration across industries, emphasising that while some sectors like consumer goods move quickly, others such as pharmaceuticals proceed more cautiously due to regulatory concerns. Athena highlights the importance of understanding AI's potential applications, from enhancing pricing strategies to improving data analysis, while also considering the ethical implications and regulatory landscape that shape its implementation.
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Episode Transcript
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Matt Best (00:00):
Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with
me, Matt Best, and Jonny Adams.
Jonny Adams (00:05):
Hello!
Matt Best (00:06):
Today we're absolutely thrilled to be joined
by Athena Peppes, and you'regoing to talk to us a lot around
navigating AI adoption, throughovercoming fear and embracing
foresight. We're going toaddress some of those ethical
challenges that come up as partof that today. So we're really
looking forward to getting intothat conversation. So Athena,
welcome and thank you for comingalong.
Athena Peppes (00:25):
Well, pleasure to be here today. Thank you for
inviting me.
Matt Best (00:28):
Brilliant, and just a bit about your background. So
you're a futurist speaker, andyou advise on trends in
technology and looking into thefuture and obviously, and also a
founder of Athena PeppesConsulting and Beacon Thought
Leadership. But I wonder, forthe benefit of our audience, if
you could just share a littlebit about your background, your
journey so far?
Athena Peppes (00:48):
Yes, absolutely. So I started off my career as an
economist, working in insuranceand then in shipping and mining,
and my role at the time involvedforecasting quite a lot, which
is very different to foresightand researching those sectors
and understanding a lot aboutthe policy issues, what the
(01:09):
demand, supply is and those inthose sectors. Then I moved to
Accenture, which is a majorconsulting and technology
company, and I worked in thoughtleadership there for 15 years,
focused on topics related to thefuture of business. More
recently, as you said, I'vefounded my own consultancies,
(01:32):
helping my clients with twoaspects of what I'm really
passionate about. One is aroundlong term thinking and really
understanding how technologytrends are going to shape
business, they're going tochange it, and how to help them
be prepared and actually turnthat change into an opportunity
and growth for theirorganization and the others
(01:55):
around the other consultanciesis a partnership focused on
helping them with their withtheir thought leadership
initiatives.
Matt Best (02:03):
Wow, fantastic. So I was going to try and come up
with some sort of pun there, butI think this is all going to be
very futuristic. I'm very much,very much looking forward to
diving into this with you.
Jonny Adams (02:12):
Glad that you finished it, because I was like,
is he? Is he going to do it onabsolutely super, super
interested about this topictoday, Athena. And really, I
think, in the last number ofconferences, or what's going on
in the news feed on LinkedIn atthe moment, it's all about the
future. And you know, what doestechnology mean to us? And
there's a lot more sort of thatpersonal impact. I'm really
(02:33):
super excited to spend some timefor you today. So thank you for
joining us.
Matt Best (02:36):
Perfect. And before we jump into the future, though,
what's customary on the growthworkshop podcast is for us to
ask a little bit about what'sbeen going on in your week. What
have you learned? What's beeninteresting? Maybe something
that you've experienced in yourpersonal life, but you'd be
happy to share with with us inthe audience today.
Athena Peppes (02:52):
Excellent question. I I'll draw on my
recent trip. I just came backfrom Dubai, actually, yesterday,
I spent five days there,visiting different sites, there
in Abu Dhabi as well. And I wasvery impressed. It was my first
(03:13):
time there. Was very impressedwith the focus they have on long
term thinking and futuregenerations. And have they, they
plan the city, and they plantheir economy with that in mind
and kind of working backwards.
Jonny Adams (03:29):
I've also heard good weather, good food and good
shopping. Is that fair to say?Things may have come into this?
What was your favorite out ofthose three?
Athena Peppes (03:41):
The weather not so much because I'm Greek, so I
should be used to the heat, butit's actually very humid there.
And yeah, so quite different.Shopping was excellent. I will
say I've never seen a shoppingmall like to buy more.
Jonny Adams (03:56):
Did you? Did you go out on the plane with a half
empty suitcase and come back,we'll see cases on the way
around. Good on you.
Matt Best (04:03):
Good on you. Brilliant. Well, I mean, thank
you for sharing that, Athena.And actually, when we dive into
the conversation today, Iimagine some of that reflection
from your trip to Dubai, thatsort of, that forward thinking
mindset will come out of it. SoJonny, how about you?
Jonny Adams (04:16):
This week's been amazing. So, I mean, it's great
to have Athena here. She'sworked and is a thought leader
herself, and one of my favoriteauthors, Steve Martin, some of
you may have read some of hisbooks in the past. I went to his
latest book launch. He's justcollaborated with the economist
and Matt, you and I have beenlucky, but also maybe you know,
(04:37):
showed how our business works isthat we've we've worked with his
organization for the last fiveyears. They are behavioral
scientists. They are anorganization called influence at
work, and as a SBR, from abusiness development
perspective, have sort of mergedtogether to bring science and
art together. And for the lastfive years, we've worked with
him, and I think some of thetips and techniques. That he
(05:00):
writes about in influence andpersuasion have really helped me
as an individual, become becomebetter at my job and as a
person. So he talks a lot aboutthe six principles of influence
and persuasion, and he's gotsome great insights around that
topic. So yeah, went to the booklaunch. Really good. Had a beer.
It was fantastic. What aboutyou?
Matt Best (05:15):
Nice. So I went to a slightly different event,
actually, and it was an engagedsales event recently in London,
which talked about Mark wasfocused on marketing and sales.
And a lot of what we talk abouton the growth workshop podcast
is, of course, around kind ofclient centricity and that focus
on bringing that, that alltogether in organizations. And
(05:37):
there's a lot of discussion atthat, at that event, actually,
which is really insightful, sosimilar came out with some Yeah,
I feel like I've learned a lotthis week, which is always a
good place to be.
Jonny Adams (05:46):
What was the one thing that you took away that
was like, Yeah, that was good?
Matt Best (05:49):
You know what? There's one of the speakers was
talking about the importance ofwhen it comes to sales and
marketing enablement, theimportance of creating a
community around it,acknowledging that normally
those teams are quite small, sothe ability to scale is
challenged, right? So, yes, it'sscaling through enabling
leaders, but also creating acommunity of people to support
(06:10):
getting that out into themarket. So selecting individuals
from different teams to be sortof champions and change
carriers, which I think isreally, really important to to
maximize the impact of that.SoAthena, as we look, as we look
to the future. Again, I'm goingto try not to say that too many
signs, but one of the we werereading in one of your blogs
recently, which is actuallytitled, could humanoid robots
(06:31):
close the gender equality gap inthat book, you or in that blog,
rather, you talk about, youknow, the process of adopting
technology, and how it involvesovercoming some of those
natural, understandable andjustified concerns, right? But
our challenge as humans is notto avoid this progress, but to
make productive, informed andmoral use of it. So certainly,
(06:53):
whenever I think about the sortof evolution of AI and look
around at some of the people satin those C suite jobs, right?
You can, you can sense some fearin that. What do you do? And how
do you help those leaders ingetting comfortable with that
and maybe being able to makeinformed decisions around how to
effectively and appropriatelyleverage these technologies?
Athena Peppes (07:16):
Yeah, it's a very good question. There's a lot to
unpack there. You You mentionedthe word fear, for example. I
think perhaps there is a littlebit of fear, but actually the
the main concern is around thoseleaders being fully prepared,
especially in an environmentwhere this technology is just
(07:36):
changing so fast. I think we'recurrently in a in a technology
or innovation super cycle. Soone development you see in
artificial intelligence isquickly bringing in another, and
that's how I ended up writingthe article around humanoid
robotics, because there's a lotof emphasis in the AI research
community at the moment in termsof how large language models and
(07:59):
generative AI can be embeddedinto the previous generation of
robotics, and that can bringabout another wave of growth.
You know, that's all happenedquite fast, and it's only been a
couple of years since chat GPTwas released. But actually, the
field of AI, the research that'sbeen done around that, has been
(08:19):
going on for much longer, sincethe release of chat GPT, there's
been a lot of hype, a lot ofmedia attention on it, a lot of
company investment. So all ofthat can make leaders feel like
things are changing really fast.What am I doing? Everyone's
doing this. What do I do? Thereality is that if you kind of
(08:40):
look at I was thinking aboutthis the other day, because in
the last six months, I thinkI've had more than 200
conversations with differentorganizations. The topic that
always comes up is artificialintelligence, in terms of what's
top of mind for those for thosecompanies, but the pace of
adoption is very, verydifferent, right? And that makes
sense, because if you are inconsumer goods, you will just
(09:04):
naturally move a lot faster andadopt and respond to trends a
lot faster. But some industries,like pharmaceuticals, are a lot
more heavily regulated, so you'dunderstand that there might be a
bit more hesitant or slowerreluctant, and want to be a bit
more prepared before adoptingany new technology. There's also
(09:24):
the dimension of size. Ipersonally have seen that a lot
of the narrative that we getaround technology trends,
including AI shaped by verylarge technology companies,
right? But as I just mentioned,the industry makes a difference.
The size makes a difference ofan organization in the UK, if
(09:44):
you if you look at the data, 99%of companies are actually SMEs.
If you look at that by revenues,it's about 50% employees, 60% so
they're the backbone of theeconomy, right? And so it can
feel like. Everyone's ahead ofyou in AI, there is a lot of
fear, you know, lack ofconfidence. How do I go about
(10:05):
this? Surely everyone knows whatthey're doing. And actually,
that's not the reality, becauseif you go a bit deeper, you'll
see there's a lot of variationin terms of adoption.
Jonny Adams (10:14):
There's a piece that I think was really
interesting. I know you're goingto continue on this trend of
asking the question is that youreference, you've had many
conversations, and we also do,like we did some market
analysis, where there isn'treally a growth consultancy in
the space that's taking andcapitalizing on this AI
conversation. But what I mean bythat, Athena, is that, could you
give like, a summary, andwithout putting you on the spot
(10:35):
too much, what are those commonquestions that you're getting
asked about, or common concerns?Maybe. So why I ask that
question is, I think thelisteners that are typically the
individuals that you're talkingto might go, Yeah, I also have
got those problems or questions.Do you have like, a trend of
what they're asking you at themoment?
Athena Peppes (10:52):
It's a little bit varied, I would say. And that's
why I mentioned kind of theindustry and size of company. I
won't mention names, I'll justgive you a couple of examples as
illustrations. So for example, Iwas talking to a marketing
agency that works a lot withlife sciences and pharmaceutical
(11:14):
companies, and they were theones that were saying, Look, we
see the potential to use AI andwhat we do, but it's very
important to take our clientsalong with us in that journey,
and they're a little bithesitant, because they worry
about that regulation. And whenyou say AI, that could mean a
lot of different things. Itcould be something very simple,
(11:35):
right? It can be something supersophisticated.
Jonny Adams (11:38):
Should be AI for dummies. You remember the book
that were your like, you know, Ithink my mom and dad got...
Matt Best (11:43):
How do you use a computer for dummies?
Jonny Adams (11:46):
There must be one.
Athena Peppes (11:47):
I'm sure there is. But it's a little bit like
that. And I think the issue issometimes, if you're very senior
executive or, you know, then itcan feel a little bit like, oh,
I can't say that. I don't knowexactly what's happening in that
space. And actually the best wayto kind of get around any fears
(12:08):
just better understanding,better knowledge, more
conversation around the talk.Expert, yeah. Another example is
how to use it for pricing. Howto use AI for pricing.
Jonny Adams (12:21):
Describe that a little bit more when I'm
curious, I've talked to aprofessional service firm. So
future will look like there'sbeen a lot of consolidation in
financial services over the lastnumber of years. There's going
to be a heavy pivot towardsprofessional services being
consolidating in the UK market,with a lot of classic sort of
money needed to be invested byinvestors, as we all know, it
was going on at the moment, andthat was sort of a bit of
(12:43):
insight shared to me this week,but, but pricing was the key
point that investors are lookingfor at the moment. So how do you
think AI and pricing? I'mcurious about that because
that's very topical.
Athena Peppes (12:53):
Yeah, that came from another kind of lead, and
they're just interested inunderstanding basically how they
can get better data faster, intotheir into their sales teams
using it, and how AI can helpthem do that, so that they can
have more competitive pricing,so they can think a little bit
(13:14):
differently about what theirpricing strategy. So my dynamic
sizing board, yes, or modelingdifferent scenarios, right? And
being able to understand, okay,if I do this, what if this
happens? What would the impactbe? And some of that might be
already there. But obviouslyit's becoming a lot more
sophisticated. The data sets onwhich these models are trained
(13:37):
are a lot bigger. So in theory,they should be better quality,
but then you also get issuesaround that, like, is it really
that robust? We know there's anissue with hallucinations,
right? So if you create a toolto help your teams with with
pricing, how can you make surethat the data gives them is also
(13:58):
very robust? You're also dealingwith very sensitive data, right?
How do you ensure that it's,it's secure when it when it
comes to pricing? So those aresome of the questions that are
coming up around this.
Matt Best (14:11):
Something that's sort of interesting, and I'd love
your perspective on on some ofthose industry type trends you
mentioned, sort of Life Sciencesand pharmaceutical fair to
assume that they're a kind offairly highly regulated
industry. I think, you know,some of the more consider it
kind of more straightforward,sort of AI technologies are
still struggling to get intointo some of these industries,
(14:33):
just as a result of theregulatory environment. Do you
see this as much the job ofregulators and policy and policy
makers as it is the businessesthemselves?
Athena Peppes (14:46):
Yeah, I think there is an element of that, in
the sense that sometimesorganizations might wait to see
what the regulation is beforethey adopt something right? I
think then culture comes into.Play and kind of how fast you
can be. Some organizations mightsay, well, but in the meantime,
we're still missing out on allthis potential, this growth. I
(15:09):
think the other thing with beingan early adopter is potentially,
of course, it's high risk, butalso you might be able to
illustrate the benefits to thepolicy makers as well as they
shape that policy. The keything, I think, around
regulation policy making, isthat, for sure, organizations
have to deal with just apatchwork of regulation, because
(15:30):
each country or each region,say, in the case of the EU,
takes a very different approach.That's another part of the
dynamic. You have to think aboutthat in the US, they tend to be
a bit more relaxed. I wouldargue, if you look at the trend
over time, that they areactually becoming a lot more
focused on on regulation, forsure, but look at the UI act
(15:52):
that's already come into intoforce, that is quite intense.
I'm not an expert in the space.I can't comment specifically,
but on a webinar recently aboutlike, how many assessments now
companies have to do? Becauseeven if you have the same tool
every time you use it, if youuse it for sales, you have to do
a different assessment than ifyou use the same tool for
(16:14):
marketing or internal employeetraining or different kind of
things. There is a lot of that.But I think the back then, it
comes back to the balance wetalked about a little bit
before, right of, how do youmake sure you take advantage of
the opportunity and not missout?
Matt Best (16:31):
And if we think about, kind of practically
diving into some of thepracticalities of the work that
you do, when you sit down with aC suite executive who's feels
maybe a little bit underqualified, is getting pressure
from the business to adopt newtechnology. He's worried about
the risk. And you know, whetherthat be, you know the because,
because risk is always on theother side of that, the other
(16:53):
side of that equation, how,what's your approach, typically,
to doing that you mentioned,sort of education and building
and understanding is soimportant. So is that at the
heart of what you do, in termsof you of helping these
executives in understanding whatthis looks like and how it could
shape the future of theirbusiness?
Athena Peppes (17:07):
Yes, in terms of how to help them, it really
depends on where they are onthat on that adoption journey,
because some come and say, weknow this is a trend. We know we
need to do something. We kind ofdon't know what to do. Others
are experimenting. They'vealready rolled out some proofs
of concept. And just want tothinking about scaling, you
(17:31):
know, across different businessfunctions. The way I help them
is to think a little bit aboutthe future of their
organization, and where is itthat they want to be, and to
also make sure that when they'rethinking about those
technologies, they're not justthinking about today, but what
will AI look like in five yearstime, so that you can be
(17:53):
whatever you introduce now, canbe more resilient, I would
always start with the problem.So what's the problem that
they're facing, right? It's theclassic consulting of trying to
understand, in some cases, it'snot them, it's their teams. How
do we take our teams along withus? In other cases, is like, Oh,
we feel resistance, becausepeople think this is going to
(18:15):
take over their jobs. How can wemake them sure there's actually
potential to help? It kind ofvaries a lot.
Matt Best (18:22):
If you're looking and again, I kind of digging into
this, and I'm really curious, isyour perspective? We talk a lot
when we when we're working withleaders, around, kind of toward
an away motivation of youremployees, right? So away
motivation being, I'm afraid ofsomething, so I'm going to do
something because of theconsequences of something else.
And toward motivation is I'mgoing to do something because I
really want to strive for it. Soit's sort of proactive versus
(18:45):
cat versus stick, if you like.Are you seeing that, if you had
to sort of balance the theequation on which side is that
falling? Is that? Is it moreabout with the executives that
you work within the businessesyou work with? Is it? Is it fear
of being left behind more thanwhat opportunity could we
unlock? Or is it the other wayaround?
Athena Peppes (19:04):
I think it's kind of, it's almost actually a
little bit above that, in thesense of, maybe, I'll give you a
stat, and that might help. Sosome of the research that I've
done in the past has beenfocused on change, quantifying
change, a pace of change, andunderstanding how the C suite
sees that and how that comparesto actual data on change on the
(19:28):
ground. Now, 88% of C suiteexecutives surveyed said that
they expect the pace of changeto accelerate, but 52% said they
not fully prepared for what thatchange will mean for their
organization.
Matt Best (19:42):
So there it is, right?
Athena Peppes (19:44):
So yeah, because, as I said that, and then you can
go deeper into that, but theimplications are huge, right?
Because they have to makedecisions about how to allocate
their budgets, their time, forpeople. So if you're not fully
prepared, then how are you goingto make. Those decisions. And
the idea is, most of the timethey spend dealing with the day
(20:06):
to day, operational delivery forthe next quarter, financial
results, that kind of thing. Sohow can you, or in this case,
me, help them kind of take sometime out of the day to day and
think about their organizationin the future and where they
want to go. And there'sdifferent ways to do that,
right? You can help them withrecognizing the trends that are
(20:28):
out there. I always use rise inmy mind as a way to kind of
structure that so eyes forrecognizing trends and just
understanding what signals areout there, what's happening, the
eyes around imagining thepossibilities. Okay, so, yes,
I've read about this interestingtrend. What does that mean? And
so the example of a humanoidrobotics I was just thinking,
(20:51):
Who knows whether, in thefuture, we might have companies
instead of giving you certaintypes of benefits like health
insurance, what if they gave youa home robot to do all your
housework for you, so youwouldn't have to spend your time
doing that, and you could bemore productive.
Jonny Adams (21:06):
Oh, please, that sounds amazing.
Athena Peppes (21:09):
I know, but I'm not. The point is not to predict
or to argue for it. It is justto say what if or what you know,
and to pose those kind ofquestions that really straight.
Jonny Adams (21:20):
And is that the "I", because it's unpacking that
sort of quite boxed view, andactually we're opening up our
blind spots to think, well, whatcould...
Athena Peppes (21:27):
Yes, so imagine, like different possibilities,
right? Then the S is for shapescenarios, because you can
imagine those kind ofpossibilities, but people
respond differently to seeing astory of what the organization
will actually look like. So youcan take, say, two dimensions.
If we take the example of AI,you can take a dimension around
(21:48):
advancement of the technology,and another one around regulate,
like fast to slow, and anotherone around regulation, lenient
to kind of tight, and thenalmost create stories of so you
can imagine like a littlequadrant of that, and think
about stories of what, whatwould that world look like, and
how, how do you operate? How doyou what does your organization
(22:11):
look like in that future? Andthen that's where the E comes in
around enabling action. Becauseonce you have those different
stories, what you can do is say,But hold on a second. If that
came to bear, that would meanwe're obsolete. Or if that came
to bear, that would mean we'llmake a lot more money. How you
influence that? You know? Sothat's the that's the idea
(22:33):
behind using foresightframeworks to help you think
about the future, but see growthtoday.
Matt Best (22:39):
I think anyone like you talk about that, that with
execs, you can imagine thecalmness that comes over the
boardroom when they all go, Oh,okay. So we can put this into
those mode, into those moments.And I can think about this in
the big, big picture, withoutfeeling all of that pressure.
And I can be, you know, I can beconscious of of those, of those
other stages. So I love that. Ithink that's really and I think
actually, for anyone listeningto this, whether, regardless of
(23:01):
where you sit in, in your own orin your own organization, is a
really, a really important wayof, kind of having that
perspective. Because youmentioned the robot in your
house doing the cleaning, andlike, some people will be
going...
Jonny Adams (23:11):
Athena doesn't have a robot in the house just yet.
Matt Best (23:14):
But some people will be going to the kind of I Robot
view, right? Will Smith. Theygo, Oh my gosh, it's gonna,
like, destroy us, Black Mirror.No, God, let's not go there.
Athena Peppes (23:22):
Which is very forward looking and excellent at
prediction.
Jonny Adams (23:25):
Somewhat worrying.
Matt Best (23:26):
But then the reality is that we take ourselves back,
kind of came back, kind of 2030,years and said autonomous cars,
everyone would be going havingexactly the same response that
people are probably having nowto the idea of having a robot
doing the cleaning. So I thinkit's just sort of, I guess,
being able to sort of see thatand put that in perspective,
it's really important.
Athena Peppes (23:45):
Well, and also to let you know that that already
actually exists. The I'll sendyou a video, which I'm sure
you'd love to watch. There's acompany called 1x they released
a robot, humanoid robot calledNeo. The video is of this. I
don't know. Would I say he, she?I don't, I don't know. It's Neo,
yeah, yeah, helping this personget ready for work, right? I
(24:08):
mean, it's kind of fascinating,and there's a lot of VC funding
and investment, and even the bigtech players like Nvidia are
really backing a lot ofcompanies in this space. So it
feels futuristic, and part ofthe job is to help organizations
see that perhaps it's not as outthere as you might think. Some
of that is already there. Yes,you could argue about the pace
(24:32):
of it, whether people will wantto adopt it or not. At the end
of the day, technology is notneutral. It's up to us to decide
if we would want a robot aroundchildren, for example. On the
other hand, if I was to put myeconomist hat on, I would argue
might be a good thing, becausewe have aging demographic, aging
(24:52):
population in many developedcountries. How do we care for
them when there's a lack ofcarers? Should policy. Makers be
investing in this shouldcompanies be working with them
to help address this problem?There's just so much to unpack there.
Matt Best (25:08):
Athena, thank you for joining us, and to everyone
listening. Join us for part twoas we continue this
conversation.
Hello and welcome to the Growth Workshop Podcast with
me, Matt Best, and Jonny Adams.
Jonny Adams (00:05):
Hello!
Matt Best (00:06):
Today we're absolutely thrilled to be joined
by Athena Peppes, and you'regoing to talk to us a lot around
navigating AI adoption, throughovercoming fear and embracing
foresight. We're going toaddress some of those ethical
challenges that come up as partof that today. So we're really
looking forward to getting intothat conversation. So Athena,
welcome and thank you for comingalong.
Athena Peppes (00:25):
Well, pleasure to be here today. Thank you for
inviting me.
Matt Best (00:28):
Brilliant, and just a bit about your background. So
you're a futurist speaker, andyou advise on trends in
technology and looking into thefuture and obviously, and also a
founder of Athena PeppesConsulting and Beacon Thought
Leadership. But I wonder, forthe benefit of our audience, if
you could just share a littlebit about your background, your
journey so far?
Athena Peppes (00:48):
Yes, absolutely. So I started off my career as an
economist, working in insuranceand then in shipping and mining,
and my role at the time involvedforecasting quite a lot, which
is very different to foresightand researching those sectors
and understanding a lot aboutthe policy issues, what the
(01:09):
demand, supply is and those inthose sectors. Then I moved to
Accenture, which is a majorconsulting and technology
company, and I worked in thoughtleadership there for 15 years,
focused on topics related to thefuture of business. More
recently, as you said, I'vefounded my own consultancies,
(01:32):
helping my clients with twoaspects of what I'm really
passionate about. One is aroundlong term thinking and really
understanding how technologytrends are going to shape
business, they're going tochange it, and how to help them
be prepared and actually turnthat change into an opportunity
and growth for theirorganization and the others
(01:55):
around the other consultanciesis a partnership focused on
helping them with their withtheir thought leadership
initiatives.
Matt Best (02:03):
Wow, fantastic. So I was going to try and come up
with some sort of pun there, butI think this is all going to be
very futuristic. I'm very much,very much looking forward to
diving into this with you.
Jonny Adams (02:12):
Glad that you finished it, because I was like,
is he? Is he going to do it onabsolutely super, super
interested about this topictoday, Athena. And really, I
think, in the last number ofconferences, or what's going on
in the news feed on LinkedIn atthe moment, it's all about the
future. And you know, what doestechnology mean to us? And
there's a lot more sort of thatpersonal impact. I'm really
(02:33):
super excited to spend some timefor you today. So thank you for
joining us.
Matt Best (02:36):
Perfect. And before we jump into the future, though,
what's customary on the growthworkshop podcast is for us to
ask a little bit about what'sbeen going on in your week. What
have you learned? What's beeninteresting? Maybe something
that you've experienced in yourpersonal life, but you'd be
happy to share with with us inthe audience today.
Athena Peppes (02:52):
Excellent question. I I'll draw on my
recent trip. I just came backfrom Dubai, actually, yesterday,
I spent five days there,visiting different sites, there
in Abu Dhabi as well. And I wasvery impressed. It was my first
(03:13):
time there. Was very impressedwith the focus they have on long
term thinking and futuregenerations. And have they, they
plan the city, and they plantheir economy with that in mind
and kind of working backwards.
Jonny Adams (03:29):
I've also heard good weather, good food and good
shopping. Is that fair to say?Things may have come into this?
What was your favorite out ofthose three?
Athena Peppes (03:41):
The weather not so much because I'm Greek, so I
should be used to the heat, butit's actually very humid there.
And yeah, so quite different.Shopping was excellent. I will
say I've never seen a shoppingmall like to buy more.
Jonny Adams (03:56):
Did you? Did you go out on the plane with a half
empty suitcase and come back,we'll see cases on the way
around. Good on you.
Matt Best (04:03):
Good on you. Brilliant. Well, I mean, thank
you for sharing that, Athena.And actually, when we dive into
the conversation today, Iimagine some of that reflection
from your trip to Dubai, thatsort of, that forward thinking
mindset will come out of it. SoJonny, how about you?
Jonny Adams (04:16):
This week's been amazing. So, I mean, it's great
to have Athena here. She'sworked and is a thought leader
herself, and one of my favoriteauthors, Steve Martin, some of
you may have read some of hisbooks in the past. I went to his
latest book launch. He's justcollaborated with the economist
and Matt, you and I have beenlucky, but also maybe you know,
(04:37):
showed how our business works isthat we've we've worked with his
organization for the last fiveyears. They are behavioral
scientists. They are anorganization called influence at
work, and as a SBR, from abusiness development
perspective, have sort of mergedtogether to bring science and
art together. And for the lastfive years, we've worked with
him, and I think some of thetips and techniques. That he
(05:00):
writes about in influence andpersuasion have really helped me
as an individual, become becomebetter at my job and as a
person. So he talks a lot aboutthe six principles of influence
and persuasion, and he's gotsome great insights around that
topic. So yeah, went to the booklaunch. Really good. Had a beer.
It was fantastic. What aboutyou?
Matt Best (05:15):
Nice. So I went to a slightly different event,
actually, and it was an engagedsales event recently in London,
which talked about Mark wasfocused on marketing and sales.
And a lot of what we talk abouton the growth workshop podcast
is, of course, around kind ofclient centricity and that focus
on bringing that, that alltogether in organizations. And
(05:37):
there's a lot of discussion atthat, at that event, actually,
which is really insightful, sosimilar came out with some Yeah,
I feel like I've learned a lotthis week, which is always a
good place to be.
Jonny Adams (05:46):
What was the one thing that you took away that
was like, Yeah, that was good?
Matt Best (05:49):
You know what? There's one of the speakers was
talking about the importance ofwhen it comes to sales and
marketing enablement, theimportance of creating a
community around it,acknowledging that normally
those teams are quite small, sothe ability to scale is
challenged, right? So, yes, it'sscaling through enabling
leaders, but also creating acommunity of people to support
(06:10):
getting that out into themarket. So selecting individuals
from different teams to be sortof champions and change
carriers, which I think isreally, really important to to
maximize the impact of that.SoAthena, as we look, as we look
to the future. Again, I'm goingto try not to say that too many
signs, but one of the we werereading in one of your blogs
recently, which is actuallytitled, could humanoid robots
(06:31):
close the gender equality gap inthat book, you or in that blog,
rather, you talk about, youknow, the process of adopting
technology, and how it involvesovercoming some of those
natural, understandable andjustified concerns, right? But
our challenge as humans is notto avoid this progress, but to
make productive, informed andmoral use of it. So certainly,
(06:53):
whenever I think about the sortof evolution of AI and look
around at some of the people satin those C suite jobs, right?
You can, you can sense some fearin that. What do you do? And how
do you help those leaders ingetting comfortable with that
and maybe being able to makeinformed decisions around how to
effectively and appropriatelyleverage these technologies?
Athena Peppes (07:16):
Yeah, it's a very good question. There's a lot to
unpack there. You You mentionedthe word fear, for example. I
think perhaps there is a littlebit of fear, but actually the
the main concern is around thoseleaders being fully prepared,
especially in an environmentwhere this technology is just
(07:36):
changing so fast. I think we'recurrently in a in a technology
or innovation super cycle. Soone development you see in
artificial intelligence isquickly bringing in another, and
that's how I ended up writingthe article around humanoid
robotics, because there's a lotof emphasis in the AI research
community at the moment in termsof how large language models and
(07:59):
generative AI can be embeddedinto the previous generation of
robotics, and that can bringabout another wave of growth.
You know, that's all happenedquite fast, and it's only been a
couple of years since chat GPTwas released. But actually, the
field of AI, the research that'sbeen done around that, has been
(08:19):
going on for much longer, sincethe release of chat GPT, there's
been a lot of hype, a lot ofmedia attention on it, a lot of
company investment. So all ofthat can make leaders feel like
things are changing really fast.What am I doing? Everyone's
doing this. What do I do? Thereality is that if you kind of
(08:40):
look at I was thinking aboutthis the other day, because in
the last six months, I thinkI've had more than 200
conversations with differentorganizations. The topic that
always comes up is artificialintelligence, in terms of what's
top of mind for those for thosecompanies, but the pace of
adoption is very, verydifferent, right? And that makes
sense, because if you are inconsumer goods, you will just
(09:04):
naturally move a lot faster andadopt and respond to trends a
lot faster. But some industries,like pharmaceuticals, are a lot
more heavily regulated, so you'dunderstand that there might be a
bit more hesitant or slowerreluctant, and want to be a bit
more prepared before adoptingany new technology. There's also
(09:24):
the dimension of size. Ipersonally have seen that a lot
of the narrative that we getaround technology trends,
including AI shaped by verylarge technology companies,
right? But as I just mentioned,the industry makes a difference.
The size makes a difference ofan organization in the UK, if
(09:44):
you if you look at the data, 99%of companies are actually SMEs.
If you look at that by revenues,it's about 50% employees, 60% so
they're the backbone of theeconomy, right? And so it can
feel like. Everyone's ahead ofyou in AI, there is a lot of
fear, you know, lack ofconfidence. How do I go about
(10:05):
this? Surely everyone knows whatthey're doing. And actually,
that's not the reality, becauseif you go a bit deeper, you'll
see there's a lot of variationin terms of adoption.
Jonny Adams (10:14):
There's a piece that I think was really
interesting. I know you're goingto continue on this trend of
asking the question is that youreference, you've had many
conversations, and we also do,like we did some market
analysis, where there isn'treally a growth consultancy in
the space that's taking andcapitalizing on this AI
conversation. But what I mean bythat, Athena, is that, could you
give like, a summary, andwithout putting you on the spot
(10:35):
too much, what are those commonquestions that you're getting
asked about, or common concerns?Maybe. So why I ask that
question is, I think thelisteners that are typically the
individuals that you're talkingto might go, Yeah, I also have
got those problems or questions.Do you have like, a trend of
what they're asking you at themoment?
Athena Peppes (10:52):
It's a little bit varied, I would say. And that's
why I mentioned kind of theindustry and size of company. I
won't mention names, I'll justgive you a couple of examples as
illustrations. So for example, Iwas talking to a marketing
agency that works a lot withlife sciences and pharmaceutical
(11:14):
companies, and they were theones that were saying, Look, we
see the potential to use AI andwhat we do, but it's very
important to take our clientsalong with us in that journey,
and they're a little bithesitant, because they worry
about that regulation. And whenyou say AI, that could mean a
lot of different things. Itcould be something very simple,
(11:35):
right? It can be something supersophisticated.
Jonny Adams (11:38):
Should be AI for dummies. You remember the book
that were your like, you know, Ithink my mom and dad got...
Matt Best (11:43):
How do you use a computer for dummies?
Jonny Adams (11:46):
There must be one.
Athena Peppes (11:47):
I'm sure there is. But it's a little bit like
that. And I think the issue issometimes, if you're very senior
executive or, you know, then itcan feel a little bit like, oh,
I can't say that. I don't knowexactly what's happening in that
space. And actually the best wayto kind of get around any fears
(12:08):
just better understanding,better knowledge, more
conversation around the talk.Expert, yeah. Another example is
how to use it for pricing. Howto use AI for pricing.
Jonny Adams (12:21):
Describe that a little bit more when I'm
curious, I've talked to aprofessional service firm. So
future will look like there'sbeen a lot of consolidation in
financial services over the lastnumber of years. There's going
to be a heavy pivot towardsprofessional services being
consolidating in the UK market,with a lot of classic sort of
money needed to be invested byinvestors, as we all know, it
was going on at the moment, andthat was sort of a bit of
(12:43):
insight shared to me this week,but, but pricing was the key
point that investors are lookingfor at the moment. So how do you
think AI and pricing? I'mcurious about that because
that's very topical.
Athena Peppes (12:53):
Yeah, that came from another kind of lead, and
they're just interested inunderstanding basically how they
can get better data faster, intotheir into their sales teams
using it, and how AI can helpthem do that, so that they can
have more competitive pricing,so they can think a little bit
(13:14):
differently about what theirpricing strategy. So my dynamic
sizing board, yes, or modelingdifferent scenarios, right? And
being able to understand, okay,if I do this, what if this
happens? What would the impactbe? And some of that might be
already there. But obviouslyit's becoming a lot more
sophisticated. The data sets onwhich these models are trained
(13:37):
are a lot bigger. So in theory,they should be better quality,
but then you also get issuesaround that, like, is it really
that robust? We know there's anissue with hallucinations,
right? So if you create a toolto help your teams with with
pricing, how can you make surethat the data gives them is also
(13:58):
very robust? You're also dealingwith very sensitive data, right?
How do you ensure that it's,it's secure when it when it
comes to pricing? So those aresome of the questions that are
coming up around this.
Matt Best (14:11):
Something that's sort of interesting, and I'd love
your perspective on on some ofthose industry type trends you
mentioned, sort of Life Sciencesand pharmaceutical fair to
assume that they're a kind offairly highly regulated
industry. I think, you know,some of the more consider it
kind of more straightforward,sort of AI technologies are
still struggling to get intointo some of these industries,
(14:33):
just as a result of theregulatory environment. Do you
see this as much the job ofregulators and policy and policy
makers as it is the businessesthemselves?
Athena Peppes (14:46):
Yeah, I think there is an element of that, in
the sense that sometimesorganizations might wait to see
what the regulation is beforethey adopt something right? I
think then culture comes into.Play and kind of how fast you
can be. Some organizations mightsay, well, but in the meantime,
we're still missing out on allthis potential, this growth. I
(15:09):
think the other thing with beingan early adopter is potentially,
of course, it's high risk, butalso you might be able to
illustrate the benefits to thepolicy makers as well as they
shape that policy. The keything, I think, around
regulation policy making, isthat, for sure, organizations
have to deal with just apatchwork of regulation, because
(15:30):
each country or each region,say, in the case of the EU,
takes a very different approach.That's another part of the
dynamic. You have to think aboutthat in the US, they tend to be
a bit more relaxed. I wouldargue, if you look at the trend
over time, that they areactually becoming a lot more
focused on on regulation, forsure, but look at the UI act
(15:52):
that's already come into intoforce, that is quite intense.
I'm not an expert in the space.I can't comment specifically,
but on a webinar recently aboutlike, how many assessments now
companies have to do? Becauseeven if you have the same tool
every time you use it, if youuse it for sales, you have to do
a different assessment than ifyou use the same tool for
(16:14):
marketing or internal employeetraining or different kind of
things. There is a lot of that.But I think the back then, it
comes back to the balance wetalked about a little bit
before, right of, how do youmake sure you take advantage of
the opportunity and not missout?
Matt Best (16:31):
And if we think about, kind of practically
diving into some of thepracticalities of the work that
you do, when you sit down with aC suite executive who's feels
maybe a little bit underqualified, is getting pressure
from the business to adopt newtechnology. He's worried about
the risk. And you know, whetherthat be, you know the because,
because risk is always on theother side of that, the other
(16:53):
side of that equation, how,what's your approach, typically,
to doing that you mentioned,sort of education and building
and understanding is soimportant. So is that at the
heart of what you do, in termsof you of helping these
executives in understanding whatthis looks like and how it could
shape the future of theirbusiness?
Athena Peppes (17:07):
Yes, in terms of how to help them, it really
depends on where they are onthat on that adoption journey,
because some come and say, weknow this is a trend. We know we
need to do something. We kind ofdon't know what to do. Others
are experimenting. They'vealready rolled out some proofs
of concept. And just want tothinking about scaling, you
(17:31):
know, across different businessfunctions. The way I help them
is to think a little bit aboutthe future of their
organization, and where is itthat they want to be, and to
also make sure that when they'rethinking about those
technologies, they're not justthinking about today, but what
will AI look like in five yearstime, so that you can be
(17:53):
whatever you introduce now, canbe more resilient, I would
always start with the problem.So what's the problem that
they're facing, right? It's theclassic consulting of trying to
understand, in some cases, it'snot them, it's their teams. How
do we take our teams along withus? In other cases, is like, Oh,
we feel resistance, becausepeople think this is going to
(18:15):
take over their jobs. How can wemake them sure there's actually
potential to help? It kind ofvaries a lot.
Matt Best (18:22):
If you're looking and again, I kind of digging into
this, and I'm really curious, isyour perspective? We talk a lot
when we when we're working withleaders, around, kind of toward
an away motivation of youremployees, right? So away
motivation being, I'm afraid ofsomething, so I'm going to do
something because of theconsequences of something else.
And toward motivation is I'mgoing to do something because I
really want to strive for it. Soit's sort of proactive versus
(18:45):
cat versus stick, if you like.Are you seeing that, if you had
to sort of balance the theequation on which side is that
falling? Is that? Is it moreabout with the executives that
you work within the businessesyou work with? Is it? Is it fear
of being left behind more thanwhat opportunity could we
unlock? Or is it the other wayaround?
Athena Peppes (19:04):
I think it's kind of, it's almost actually a
little bit above that, in thesense of, maybe, I'll give you a
stat, and that might help. Sosome of the research that I've
done in the past has beenfocused on change, quantifying
change, a pace of change, andunderstanding how the C suite
sees that and how that comparesto actual data on change on the
(19:28):
ground. Now, 88% of C suiteexecutives surveyed said that
they expect the pace of changeto accelerate, but 52% said they
not fully prepared for what thatchange will mean for their
organization.
Matt Best (19:42):
So there it is, right?
Athena Peppes (19:44):
So yeah, because, as I said that, and then you can
go deeper into that, but theimplications are huge, right?
Because they have to makedecisions about how to allocate
their budgets, their time, forpeople. So if you're not fully
prepared, then how are you goingto make. Those decisions. And
the idea is, most of the timethey spend dealing with the day
(20:06):
to day, operational delivery forthe next quarter, financial
results, that kind of thing. Sohow can you, or in this case,
me, help them kind of take sometime out of the day to day and
think about their organizationin the future and where they
want to go. And there'sdifferent ways to do that,
right? You can help them withrecognizing the trends that are
(20:28):
out there. I always use rise inmy mind as a way to kind of
structure that so eyes forrecognizing trends and just
understanding what signals areout there, what's happening, the
eyes around imagining thepossibilities. Okay, so, yes,
I've read about this interestingtrend. What does that mean? And
so the example of a humanoidrobotics I was just thinking,
(20:51):
Who knows whether, in thefuture, we might have companies
instead of giving you certaintypes of benefits like health
insurance, what if they gave youa home robot to do all your
housework for you, so youwouldn't have to spend your time
doing that, and you could bemore productive.
Jonny Adams (21:06):
Oh, please, that sounds amazing.
Athena Peppes (21:09):
I know, but I'm not. The point is not to predict
or to argue for it. It is justto say what if or what you know,
and to pose those kind ofquestions that really straight.
Jonny Adams (21:20):
And is that the "I", because it's unpacking that
sort of quite boxed view, andactually we're opening up our
blind spots to think, well, whatcould...
Athena Peppes (21:27):
Yes, so imagine, like different possibilities,
right? Then the S is for shapescenarios, because you can
imagine those kind ofpossibilities, but people
respond differently to seeing astory of what the organization
will actually look like. So youcan take, say, two dimensions.
If we take the example of AI,you can take a dimension around
(21:48):
advancement of the technology,and another one around regulate,
like fast to slow, and anotherone around regulation, lenient
to kind of tight, and thenalmost create stories of so you
can imagine like a littlequadrant of that, and think
about stories of what, whatwould that world look like, and
how, how do you operate? How doyou what does your organization
(22:11):
look like in that future? Andthen that's where the E comes in
around enabling action. Becauseonce you have those different
stories, what you can do is say,But hold on a second. If that
came to bear, that would meanwe're obsolete. Or if that came
to bear, that would mean we'llmake a lot more money. How you
influence that? You know? Sothat's the that's the idea
(22:33):
behind using foresightframeworks to help you think
about the future, but see growthtoday.
Matt Best (22:39):
I think anyone like you talk about that, that with
execs, you can imagine thecalmness that comes over the
boardroom when they all go, Oh,okay. So we can put this into
those mode, into those moments.And I can think about this in
the big, big picture, withoutfeeling all of that pressure.
And I can be, you know, I can beconscious of of those, of those
other stages. So I love that. Ithink that's really and I think
actually, for anyone listeningto this, whether, regardless of
(23:01):
where you sit in, in your own orin your own organization, is a
really, a really important wayof, kind of having that
perspective. Because youmentioned the robot in your
house doing the cleaning, andlike, some people will be
going...
Jonny Adams (23:11):
Athena doesn't have a robot in the house just yet.
Matt Best (23:14):
But some people will be going to the kind of I Robot
view, right? Will Smith. Theygo, Oh my gosh, it's gonna,
like, destroy us, Black Mirror.No, God, let's not go there.
Athena Peppes (23:22):
Which is very forward looking and excellent at
prediction.
Jonny Adams (23:25):
Somewhat worrying.
Matt Best (23:26):
But then the reality is that we take ourselves back,
kind of came back, kind of 2030,years and said autonomous cars,
everyone would be going havingexactly the same response that
people are probably having nowto the idea of having a robot
doing the cleaning. So I thinkit's just sort of, I guess,
being able to sort of see thatand put that in perspective,
it's really important.
Athena Peppes (23:45):
Well, and also to let you know that that already
actually exists. The I'll sendyou a video, which I'm sure
you'd love to watch. There's acompany called 1x they released
a robot, humanoid robot calledNeo. The video is of this. I
don't know. Would I say he, she?I don't, I don't know. It's Neo,
yeah, yeah, helping this personget ready for work, right? I
(24:08):
mean, it's kind of fascinating,and there's a lot of VC funding
and investment, and even the bigtech players like Nvidia are
really backing a lot ofcompanies in this space. So it
feels futuristic, and part ofthe job is to help organizations
see that perhaps it's not as outthere as you might think. Some
of that is already there. Yes,you could argue about the pace
(24:32):
of it, whether people will wantto adopt it or not. At the end
of the day, technology is notneutral. It's up to us to decide
if we would want a robot aroundchildren, for example. On the
other hand, if I was to put myeconomist hat on, I would argue
might be a good thing, becausewe have aging demographic, aging
(24:52):
population in many developedcountries. How do we care for
them when there's a lack ofcarers? Should policy. Makers be
investing in this shouldcompanies be working with them
to help address this problem?There's just so much to unpack there.
Matt Best (25:08):
Athena, thank you for joining us, and to everyone
listening. Join us for part twoas we continue this
conversation.
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