What's actually happening with AI in the workplace, and how can you stay ahead of the curve? In this can't-miss episode, we're joined by two powerhouse experts: Carol Scott, Senior Director at Microsoft and founder of The Action Imperative, and Teresa Fesinstine, founder of People Power AI and former Fortune 500 HR executive. They cut through the noise to reveal what's really changing in 2025, which jobs are being transformed (not just replaced), and how to position yourself for success in an AI-enhanced workplace.
From practical tips on getting started with AI tools to inspiring insights about the future of work, this episode delivers actionable advice for everyone – whether you're a tech novice or an AI enthusiast. Our guests share candid perspectives on everything from performance reviews and employee engagement to the surprising ways AI is reshaping creative industries.
Key Topics:
- The biggest myths about AI in the workplace
- How AI is actually changing jobs (not just eliminating them)
- Essential skills for staying relevant in an AI-driven workplace
- Practical ways to start using AI tools today
- The unexpected benefits of AI for non-technical professionals
- Real predictions for workplace changes in 2025
Featured Guests: Carol Scott - Senior Director at Microsoft, founder of The Action Imperative Teresa Fesinstine - Founder of People Power AI, CUNY Professor, 25-year HR executive
Perfect for: Professionals at any level looking to understand and adapt to AI in the workplace, team leaders wanting to guide their teams through AI adoption, and anyone curious about how AI will shape the future of work.
#FutureOfWork #ArtificialIntelligence #CareerDevelopment #AI #WorkTrends
Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. The views expressed in this podcast may not be those of the host or the management.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think that for a lot of leaders that are
non-technical, they make theassumption that the technical
team is sort of the knowledgekeepers on AI.
We shouldn't be held back frominserting ourselves into the
process, into the conversation,into the strategy around
cascading these tools outbecause we're afraid that we
(00:23):
don't know enough or that we'renot informed.
Don't believe that hype.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So welcome everybody to your work friends.
I'm Mel Plett and with me is mywork friend, francesca, and
with us tonight we have guestspeakers Carol Scott from
Microsoft and Teresa Fezensteinfrom People Power AI, who are
our experts, to talk about AI atwork.
What's real, what's the hype,what can you really expect in
(01:03):
2025?
So with that, I'd like tointroduce Carol and Teresa.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
So, carol, why don't you introduce yourself?
Thank you for inviting me, andI do want to kick off with
saying that Mel and Francesca wemet through work and we're work
friends, and so I appreciatethe opportunity at Deloitte and
we spent a lot of great yearsthere.
But real quick, carol Scott.
I'm a senior director in oursoftware and digital platforms
group at Microsoft, and wemanage our largest partners that
(01:36):
go to market and lead with AIglobally and also a recent
founder of the Action Imperative, which is really focused on how
women and others that need tospeak up and have a voice can do
that using AI, and we're veryexcited about that as well, and
(01:57):
I'm excited to be here today.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well welcome friends.
All right, Teresa, well welcomefriends.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
All right, Teresa.
Oh, I definitely ditto Carol'ssentiment around just the
appreciation of being here andthe ask.
You know, I kind of feel leftout because I've never been
technically work friends withyou guys.
You are now.
I am now.
I love this.
I love that everybody I meet isa work friend because I have my
(02:24):
own business.
So I'm Teresa Fessenstein.
It's so nice to be here.
I spent 25 years in corporate HR, so, whether it was vice
president of learning anddevelopment or moving into CHR
roles, I had the amazingopportunity to work for large
global enterprise organizationsas well as small, bespoke
(02:45):
commercial real estate,privately owned businesses and
all of the kind of been throughthe gamut of experiences.
And then, in 22, I decided toleave to start a culture
consulting business, which thenevolved into People Power AI
after I became immediatelyabsorbed and obsessed with
learning more about ChatGPT inDecember of 22.
(03:05):
And that's really led methrough two and a half years of
my own learning and then takingthat learning and sharing it out
with others, whether that'sthrough workshops or conferences
.
I also have the opportunitywhich is amazing to be an
adjunct professor at CityCollege of New York, teaching HR
management as well as AI inbusiness and I'm a very proud
(03:27):
member of organizations likeTroop, HR Women Defining AI, and
I'm a mentor for All.
Tech is Human, where we reallyfocus on making sure that AI is
democratized and people have anopportunity to learn more about
it and to learn how to use itand bring it into their world of
work.
So thank you so much for havingme again.
I'm so excited for thisconversation.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, thank you for being here.
We're so appreciative of youboth.
This is a conversation that ourlisteners have shared with us
is one of the biggest thingsthat is top of mind for them.
We know this is 60 minutes andwe are going to move quick.
So here are the four thingswe're going to cover tonight AI
at work what's real versuswhat's the hype.
Will AI take your job or makeit better?
How to stay ahead?
(04:10):
So skills, tools and mindsetsand we'll get through some
listener Q&A and we want to hearyour bold predictions.
With that, I'm going to jumpright into what's real versus
what's the hype.
So what's the biggest AI mythemployees should stop believing
today?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Well, I'll start out and say one of the myths is that
they can wait because theircompany is not doing anything.
Or you know, it's not requiredin the job because things are
moving really quickly and yourcompany also, big or small, may
be doing more than you think.
But I would say I'll just startwith that is you might be
(04:53):
thinking about it, you might bedabbling in it.
I think you need to know morethan you think you do because
it's moving so quickly, teresa.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I'll honestly play a little bit of a like I think
it's a both and I think that alot of organizational leadership
, certainly in small tomid-sized businesses that I've
seen, are sort of figuring outwhat the walk and the talk
around AI is going to look likewithout, without kind of with
(05:23):
the ideology that employeesaren't actually digging in and
BYOAI-ing at work, right.
And so I talk with a lot oforganizations, organization
leaders, hr teams where when Iask you know how many of you
have put, you know, guidelines,out, roadmaps for your AI
strategy it's quiet in the room,I'll put it that way.
(05:46):
And there's this, I think,intrinsic belief that people are
going to wait for that and theyreally aren't.
They are sitting at their desksand have their iPads and their
phones on the side of them usingChatGPT, whether we've endorsed
it or not.
I also think in terms of Sorry,go ahead, no, no, go ahead.
I was just going to not.
I also think in terms of sorry,go ahead, no, no, go ahead.
I was just going to say I alsothink you know and I don't know
(06:09):
if we want to jump into this yetbut I do think that there's
this.
I think the conversation youmentioned, mel around.
Is AI going to take jobs?
Is also a both end conversation.
We should be having both endconversation we should be having
.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, and I would say a myth is that, oh, you know,
ai is going to replace a lot ofjobs.
I do think it will replace somejobs or some tasks where things
can be consolidated.
I also think and we've seenthis in the tech industry I
think there are new jobs and newroles that are going to come
out and that people will beworking differently.
(06:44):
And I also just want to add oneother thing that you know, some
people think, oh, ai is onlypredominant in tech companies,
or they're leading, but it iseverywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, we're seeing that too.
We're hearing a lot of whatyou're saying.
So one of the things I recentlyread, for example, is there the
biggest disconnect is in termsof, you know, employers'
expectations of how theiremployees are using it, and
employees are saying tell me howyou want me to use it.
So there's a big conversationthat seems not to be happening.
So that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Well, I also think, Mel, that it's not just tell me
how you want to use it, but tellme how to use it, and I think
that's a huge gap right now.
There've been a few reports outin the past, say, five months,
four months, around thedisgruntledness of CEOs that
haven't seen the productivitygains but they also haven't put
(07:37):
the investment through to makesure people understand the what
and the how of it.
It's like we've kind of youknow, either if we have the
policies out there, we are sortof not really giving the
guidelines or the support inorder to effectuate the skill
development that we need, orwe're just not saying anything.
I don't want to switch topics,but I have another really good
(07:59):
myth too in a second.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Okay, I will hold that thought in a second.
Okay, I will hold that thought.
What's changing for real in2025?
That will actually affect theway people work.
So what's what's a change youthink is going to go full effect
in 2025?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Well, I will say I will start with AI powered
hiring and AI powered likeemployment reviews.
And we're already seeing this onLinkedIn and you know we're
seeing with LinkedIn not onlyhelping with our profile, but
you're also seeing on LinkedInoffering with AI to help
recruiters find people.
(08:36):
And we're also hearing about youknow and know and Tracy you may
know more than I do on this,but being used in the recruiting
process to sort through and Imean, I know not every company
is as big as a Microsoft.
There's a lot out there, butyou know we could get a thousand
resumes for a role right, orcompanies, even for smaller
(08:58):
companies.
They're seeing that and so Ithink it's important to
understand how to use AI.
And so I think it's importantto understand how to use AI,
understand what that impact isthere, and then also we use it
and it's being used, even if,just like I use AI and my
employee reviews and again, yes,I use it myself, but I have a
(09:20):
great team and we do theseconnects.
You know I have a great teamand you know we do these
connects and then I use thatcontent from them.
And then also, you know, andhow I'm looking at evaluating
things, you know, using Copilotinternally with our own tools.
So yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, I would say one of the things that leaders
really should be honing in on is, even though we are a lot of
companies that we're seeing comeout with sort of focused
solutions In 2025, I do thinkwe're going to start to see,
(10:00):
faster than in the past,consolidation of some of these
really unique tools beingacquired, incorporated, the
tools that we have used in thepast.
Our systems are going to have alot more front forward AI
capabilities versus kind of inthe back end, where we don't
(10:21):
really see or touch it or feelit so much.
It's going to become much morein our face, which is why I
think this education, this focuson not only the organizations
themselves but the partners andthe vendors and the teams that
are coming in and providingthese solutions, making sure
that there's not only a skillgrowth opportunity but there's
(10:44):
real enthusiasm around likelet's get everybody on your team
up to speed, let's get themusing it, share your case
studies so to show the dynamicnature of it, getting people
past some of the baseline what Icall sort of a toe in the water
.
Utilization of AI.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Can I ask a follow-up question on that?
Yeah, because I feel likethere's a lot of everyone on
this call has been through somesort of like technology
implementation, whether it'sOracle or SAP or Workday right,
or we're bringing in SharePoint,we're bringing in.
I mean, I'm 45.
It's been like I've beenthrough every single
technological thing here at work.
(11:24):
I'm curious about, ofeverything both of you mentioned
for employees, what's one thingwhere you're like we're
actually going to solve thisproblem for employees this year
with AI, like there's thiscoming and it's going to make
your life super easy.
Is it going to do that?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I can speak to specifically in the world of HR.
I absolutely see and predict ayear end where functional tasks
that do need to be completed sothings like the automation of
communication, taking processesand being able to streamline the
(12:03):
entire process instead of justpieces I do see that for some
companies who are already in thewater, I see that being
executed by the end of the year.
The automation is just going tobecome so fast People are going
to recognize that they don'tneed complicated skills in order
to do some of these things.
Which takes me back to my otherhot take, and so I do think for
(12:25):
HR leaders, we're going to seesome of that and it's going to
be really exciting.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, normal manual pulling from LinkedIn to fill up
people's talent managementprofiles.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh my gosh, would that be something if you never
had to fill in multipleapplications Again.
That would be a game changerfor applicants for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I actually wonder too like do you, do you both think
that because I used to work in alot in like the tech stack for
the L&D space, right?
And how do you streamline allof the technology?
Because we have all of thesetools, or you're building a
Franken tool that connects allof these tools together to
operate, right?
Do you see this potentiallyreally simplifying our tech
stacks going forward in order tosupport business, to make work
just a little bit easier?
There's not a millionapplications to go to at some
(13:12):
point.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, I mean, I do have the benefit, you know,
being at Microsoft and again,this is not necessarily a plug
for Microsoft, even though Ithink we're doing a great job at
this.
This is just, you know.
Also, my lived experience is,you know, we have co-pilot and
it's primarily on open AI, butwe have 1600 different language
models, so I can't say a hundredpercent what's behind
(13:34):
everything.
But and initially, once youlearn how to prompt, like every
different application now thatwe have, and then we have this,
these connectors into othercompanies and as as other
partners and in ERP systems,Right.
So it's like anything I go into, there's a little co-pilot
(13:54):
symbol there and it's like oh,you need this.
Now it's a chat bot.
Oh, you need.
Before, when you had to call oryou had to click, you just ask
a question and it does it.
Now I don't know.
I know some of this is in othertools, but, like in meetings,
now we don't even ask like, hey,can we record this?
It's like, why take notes?
But?
(14:14):
And then the notes and theaction items and how that flow.
I think I know this may soundsimple, but it's very time
consuming Note taking, follow up, administration, email.
I mean, the amount of.
It's just been a game changer.
And then you miss a meeting.
You go in there.
I can multitask.
I'm invited to a call.
I can't go to that call becauseI'm on, I'm invited to like
(14:39):
four calls, but I can actuallykeep up and say what was said
about this customer, thatcustomer.
So you know, and you say thetech stack.
I think there's going to be afew things that kind of sit
across.
I think a lot of these smallerbespoke tools are primarily used
in, like smaller businesses,like maybe they can't afford
some of these larger ones, but Ithink where you have, but you
(15:01):
are having these layers that siton top of a lot of the
different technologies.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Okay, I want to get back to your myth, teresa.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
My last question, for both of you in this area?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What are the biggest misconceptions about AI in the
workplace?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Mine's not necessarily a myth about AI, oh,
okay.
Mine is more a myth yeah, mineis more a myth around who knows
what and who has expertise andwho might not.
I think that for a lot ofleaders that are non-technical,
they make the assumption thatthe technical team is sort of
(15:48):
the knowledge keepers on AI andwhat's happening.
And, through my own explorationworking with leaders, working
with organizations, we shouldn'tbe held back from inserting
ourselves into the process, intothe conversation, into the
strategy around cascading thesetools out because we're afraid
(16:08):
that we don't know enough orthat we're not informed.
My very own brother, who'sincredibly smart, has been in
computer science since he was 17years old.
I had him as a guest on my.
I have a free session that Irun once a month called AI Quick
Clinics.
I had him as a guest and it wasa real eye-opening experience
what I thought he would knowabout it and what he actually
(16:31):
did know.
And I think there's aperception that I might not know
enough to jump into theconversation or to ask how this
is going to affect ourorganizations.
Don't believe that hype.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
It's not always true.
I love that.
Don't put yourself in a boxright, right away, just be
curious.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I want to give a plug for the liberal arts majors out
there.
One of the myths is you have tobe practical and shout out to
my bff I'm not going to say hername on here top platinum club
winner a couple years ago,english major and if you follow
me on linkedin, I'm likegenerative ai.
(17:09):
The people that are thriving init are those that know how to
communicate, know how to write,know how to reason, and I.
We have a lot.
There's a lot of people inliberal arts that are in
technical sales and differentthings, and so I just want to
say, like, if people think GenAI is technical, the beauty is
(17:32):
it's AI for the general publicand this is why, even though I
am very technical, like I dohave a liberal arts brain and in
which I think complements it,but I'm like, I'm just like
power, power to the liberal arts.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
We'll take it.
We'll take it.
Well, it helps us tap intothose human capabilities.
I think it comes naturally toour liberal arts folks.
I'm going to hand it over toyou, Francesca.
On going to take your job ornot, let's talk about it.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Yeah, I mean it is.
I think for all of the scaryconversations about AI, I don't
think people do realize that itcan be.
Honestly, there's a greatequalizer here in the sense that
we're all learning about it nowand we can interact with it in
different ways and come fromdifferent backgrounds.
You don't just have to be thetechnical, you could be the
liberal arts major, which cracksme up, because the last time I
(18:22):
heard you could be a liberalarts major and get a job at
Microsoft, it was like 2000.
And this girl was a tuba majorand she's like but I'm a liberal
arts major and AndersonConsulting just picked me up.
I'm like what?
So it's like everything.
Everything kind of comes aroundfull circle.
Yeah, All right, I do want to.
I do want to address theelephant in the room.
We did this a little bitearlier.
(18:44):
But AI taking jobs.
I, you know, World EconomicForum just came out with their
latest on what's going to happenin the next five years with AI.
Carol, to your very good point,we're seeing that there's some
jobs that are going to go away.
There's some job creation aswell.
That's going to happen, right,so it's, and actually there's a
(19:04):
lot of predictions that it'sgoing to create more jobs than
it's going to take away.
That's the latest data.
But I'm curious, from both ofyour perspectives 2025, what are
the job markets that you'reseeing really get disrupted by
AI?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, I'll just kick off with.
I do think in the area ofcustomer service and customer
support, and especially eitheronline or even, you know,
calling in, and I know sometimeswe get really frustrated
Sometimes you know how it's likeyou're hitting zero, you want
to talk to somebody, but it'sgetting so much better when it
(19:43):
comes to that and also beingable to upskill people faster
because we actually have botsthat are.
What's really cool is, let'ssay you're a customer service
person, it can actually evaluatewhat the person is saying and
then it can prompt the agent onwhat to say.
If they are speaking, they cantell, like, say, you're an
(20:04):
insurance company and you get acall you know somebody's had an
accident, it'll prompt you tosay are you safe, are you okay?
And then, based on what theysay, and so we're really seeing
in that industry and a lot ofthings like that, that can be
automated.
But we also have to rememberlike the workforce is shrinking.
(20:25):
Yes, I don't want to minimizethat.
We have that.
There are challenges findingjobs, but there are not as many
people with a lot of the jobsthat we have.
So I think it's kind of abalance.
But I see that and a lot of youknow more self-checkout, ai,
powered payments, things likethat where where we have that.
(20:48):
And then also, I think there'sgoing to be a lot of just
consolidation of roles or aperson can do more.
We jokingly say, you know, it'slike, okay, do more with less,
and we're like, yeah, you'reactually doing less with less,
but I do think you will be ableto have access to do more, you
(21:10):
know, in what you're doing ifyou have the right AI tools.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Teresa, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I would mirror Carol's sentiment that a lot of
customer service.
One of the places I spent sometime in commercial real estate,
one of the places I'm seeing alot of value pickup, is the use
of assistance in the middle ofinopportune or non-traditional
(21:38):
times, right.
So the times that you want tofind an apartment or you're
looking for an office spacemight not be coincide with the
times when people or agents aretechnically available.
So I think in that way it's alittle bit of an augmentation,
less a loss.
But I do think that one of thethings that would be actually
(22:00):
quite phenomenal Carol mentionedbefore that you know she's
invited to four meetings.
She can attend one becausewe've got these tools and these
transcripts that help guide usthrough that.
It would be really lovely toideate around.
What do we want to lose, like,what do we want to do less of in
(22:20):
the work that we're in?
I'm sort of.
And then on the whole scope oflike there's a quote that I
won't repeat because it'sliterally my least favorite
quote in the world around AI andthe impact it's going to have.
My position is this If we canget people enthused and excited
and curious about the ways AIcan reinforce what they need to
(22:41):
do.
Save them some of their neededtime so they can focus on the
things that are more important.
It becomes less around you know, I'm learning because I'm
afraid I'm going to lose my joband more around gosh, what is
what could be the art of thepossible right, and that's
that's really exciting.
So I'm not a huge fan and it'sjust my style of like digging
(23:01):
into the like where the loss isgoing to be and like what's the
massacre.
Much more like let's figure outhow to support people in
leveraging, and there is goingto be natural attrition there's
been.
I always tell this story when Ipresent to groups that at one
point there was a job called acomputer.
That was a job that a humanperson did, and now there are
(23:23):
thousands of jobs to take theplace of that person, so to
speak.
So I think it's and I also,just to kind of cap this a
little bit of a meanderingthought is that I earnestly
believe that no matter who'sputting their predictions out
there aside from, you know,those that are in it, microsoft
and a lot of these amazingcompanies like we have no idea.
(23:45):
Like we have no idea what'sgoing to come in the next six
months.
I mean, the past three weekshave been phenomenal in terms of
just growth and development andavailability, so it's like
what's going to happen in fiveyears, who knows, like.
I think what we need to learnabout is how do we get
comfortable with the idea thatfive years from now our lives
(24:06):
are going to be very, verydifferent and get okay with that
and like, enjoy the ride.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I love that sentiment .
Teresa HBR just put out areally nice decision matrix that
can be used with teams to havea fun conversation about this.
Right, how do you make thiswork for your team?
How do you want it to work foryour team?
So I feel like, if you're doingnothing else, especially if
you're a team leader you shouldat least use this matrix like
(24:33):
this and make it a funconversation with your team so
people aren't so afraid, butthey're leaning into the
possibility of how this can helpthem right, make their lives a
little easier at work.
What do they want to focustheir time on?
It's such a rich conversation.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, I've seen.
I think the most amazing thingI saw last year was I had the
opportunity to go work with theHR team the full team for Mazda
North America out in California,and in the front row the most
amazing woman was sitting there.
I want to say her name wasDolly, but I may get that wrong.
She'd been with Mazda for over40 years working in their
(25:12):
compliance and benefitsdepartment and like she was
right in the front wanting tolearn, she was so excited about
logging in and asking questionsand seeing what it could do.
And like that energy I justwant everybody to take in their
soul when it comes to embracingwhat's new, because when you've
been in a job for 40 years, youknow your shit, but you also
(25:34):
have been doing that for a longtime.
I love that embracing of likelet's make it fun, let's make it
interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Lead with curiosity and not judgment on this.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Both of you talked about this idea of like,
enhancing, and I kind of thinkabout the super worker, if you
will.
How can AI enhance?
Not replace necessarily, butI'd like to go down this, I'd
like to go down the enhanceroute for a hot second.
Carol, you mentioned earlierthings like Copilot can, or
Otterai there's other tools toobut especially Copilot because,
(26:04):
let's be frank, microsoft isembedded in most enterprise
organizations as well, right,but it can take notes for you,
right, you can pull it in thereand it can pull out themes and
that sort of thing.
What are some of the, I thinkmaybe I would like to ask this,
either from the easiest ways orthe most effective ways that
you've seen employees enhancetheir jobs with AI?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah.
So I'll give a couple ofexamples, because a lot of times
and I've been such an earlyadopter, like from the very
beginning, chat GBT I literallyspent hours like on it and
learning it and stuff.
So like if it's new or whatever, I'm like, okay, let's try.
And I also I'm like, okay, isit true, right.
So I do want to mention thenote taking because even though
(26:50):
some people may oh yeah, I cantake notes, but the way it has
changed our culture at Microsoftand Microsoft Teams, so you can
do a transcript or you can,like you know, do a video, but
that notes being in the record,and you think, ok, well, I'll
get the notes, but I'll makesure they're accurate, or the
detail, and they have levels ofdetail.
It even takes the action itemsafterwards.
(27:12):
So then, like it's like, ok,you have those and then you can
follow up on those.
But just the idea that you canpay attention in a meeting and
not have to take the notes andyou may take one or two, that
has been huge.
So the engagement has gone up.
But also it's become a culturalexpectation, I mean, unless
you're having a sensitive HRrelated conversation or you're
(27:35):
trying to have a conversationwhere you want to one.
Maybe you want to havesomething open.
It's now become an expectation.
I'm like, why would I takenotes Right now?
The other thing I just want toquickly mention is at microsoft,
we have an like an awardculture.
We have a lot of things that wehave to do write-ups for people
.
I just had something like twodays ago.
(27:58):
My boss sent me this messageand said hey, I want to nominate
somebody for this, can youwrite it up?
Well, that normally would havetaken me an hour, but I I
already had a write up on thisperson.
I literally copied thequestions, copied the write up,
popped it in Copilot, looked atthe answers, barely had to tweak
it.
It literally took me like threeminutes to write because, like,
(28:22):
you have this body of content,like your resume or like we do
connects, and so, oh, you wantto write up this award instead
of me having to go do that.
Like I can just go to that orI'll go to people and say, hey,
can I talk to you for fiveminutes and ask you these five
questions, and then I take thenotes and I use it for something
(28:44):
.
So I'll pause there, but I willjust say that in and of itself
on that topic.
And then I do want to introduceone other topic and we can pull
the thread on it if we havetime is I talked about using it
also for empowerment and usingit as a coach?
I've used it in difficult HRsituations where I'm like, hey,
(29:06):
I want to have this conversation, I want to be professional.
This is going to be tough, youknow.
Sometimes.
You know, extroverted peoplecan be too wordy.
Help me do this Like, help memake it shorter.
Or it's like, hey, I want tocoach or give somebody feedback
and I've even taught you knowpeople in my world of like, hey,
(29:27):
you're in this conversation,somebody speaking over you.
You can have AI go in and say,hey, I want to simulate this
conversation and I want to goback and forth three times and I
want you to challenge me, tolike step up there.
So I just think the idea I lovewhat you're saying of the
enhanced worker that is the bestway is to make yourself better
(29:49):
in what you're doing and that'sgoing to prepare you to be
flexible for what comes.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah, I.
One of the things that I'vealways thought about, too, with
AI is like what are those waysthat you can enhance it?
And also, on the flip of it toyour earlier point, to what are
those things that we can?
If we didn't want to do, wecould offshoot it, so it gives
us more time to do those thingsthat we want to do as well, too,
so we can be in theconversation like note-taking.
(30:15):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
It's awesome, yeah, and just to kind of yeah, I was
just going to jump in.
I I think that.
So I, I've lived in a Microsoftworld for a lot of my career.
I still use Microsoft, but Ialso venture out and use a lot
of other tools, and I think thatI, you know, I appreciate what,
what Microsoft can do, but Ialso appreciate that there are
(30:38):
other tools that do certainthings better.
And so, you know, I think, whenit comes down to, I want to be
very specific.
I always I'm very practicalperson, so, like, what can I
actually take away and look upRight?
So I think, when it comes to,what are the things that, as an
HR leader, say I spend a lot oftime doing?
I'll start with.
I have three examples ofdifferent things, but the first
(30:59):
one I'll use is employeeengagement.
One of the most time consumingprocesses and projects that any
company takes on is evaluatingfeedback from employees and I
think what the history of theprocess has led us to do all of
these Likert scale questionsthat don't really give us a deep
(31:21):
understanding of what'shappening.
But with AI and naturallanguage processing and tools,
there's a company called IncaI-N-Q-Q-A.
For those that are listening.
It does phenomenal work atbreaking down long form question
commentary question, complexquestions in native languages
and different approaches.
(31:42):
What would take me months and Iknow I've talked to thousands
and thousands of HR leaders ittakes us months to do, to do the
work what would take months nowgets boiled down and is
explainable, which is a wholeconcept if we have time we
should talk about, but isexplainable in a matter of
minutes.
So when you talk about like,how does this actually help me
(32:05):
be more productive, instead ofeither sitting at home, when I
should be enjoying my time withmy family, sitting on the couch
working through spreadsheets ofcommentary and trying to come up
with my own bias views of whatthose comments mean, using tools
and systems like Inca toactually get me the most
important part, which is themeaningful feedback, the
(32:26):
meaningful insights, so then Ican turn that around in a
month's time instead of sixmonths and actually take action
on those things, I think anotherspace that we're going to start
to see real exciting change.
Because if you've been like amanager sitting in the middle of
performance reviews, sure, I'msure a ton of people in 24 and
their year end reviews were likeusing chat, but I think, when
(32:50):
you look at, there are tools.
There's an organization calledOpry, based out of Nashville,
female founder, is doing someamazing things with sort of
contextualizing performancefeedback using the tools and the
communications that are alreadyhappening natively.
So it changes from you know.
(33:11):
Imagine not having to sit thereand remember a year or six
months or you know, a quarter'sworth of work, but being able to
get reports in that help youguide the performance
conversation.
So there are these tools thatjust it's just very different.
It's a different way that wewill be able to work and use
(33:32):
data to actually have theconversation and build culture.
Which, to me, is certainly oneof my primary focuses throughout
my career as an HR leader is tohow do we really speak directly
to and create environments thatsupport employee experience and
employee sentiment?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, you know that's such an interesting question.
I've been having a lot ofconversations lately about
organizations trying to fit AIinto their processes versus
building AI first processes, ifyou will and I think a lot of
what we're talking about is howit's making these existing
processes even better.
Is, even when you think aboutthe performance review like you
(34:15):
kind of married Carol, what youtalked about with, like
note-taking, and then Teresa,what you talked about with the
performance review AI isactually gonna force us to
change even the way we thinkabout performance.
Potentially and I actuallythink it's gonna change it for
the better because, if we thinkabout it, if you can in like, in
a way, have AI on a weeklybasis, you're just giving
(34:36):
examples about what youremployees are doing or how
you're feeling about theirperformance, and AI is logging
that all along, and then the PMcomes in at the year end to
aggregate all of that.
It's actually forcing bettertalent processes as opposed to
what we have now, which isbasically let me remember this
at the year end and we never do.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, not only that, francesca, it's doing it in a
bespoke, curated way for theneeds of that you as an
individual.
It's now taking mass processesand boiling it down to what are
the needs that Mel has.
What is unique to Francesca inher background, her experience,
(35:16):
the way she's operating, hercommunication style, you know?
I think it's its ability totake in so much insight, and
certainly not without some biasand some you know some of the
negatives, but do a pretty damnamazing job at getting us
insights that we can then act onfor one another.
(35:39):
Or to carol's point about usingit as sort of a culture guide,
like use it for ourselves, forour own growth.
That's just fantastic that'sexciting.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I do think there's a little bit related to, though,
like this human element and andagain, I know I, I know I'm
going to tell them myself alittle bit working for Microsoft
, but, like we know, we arecustomer zero right.
Everything at Microsoft ismeasured.
You know these work, trends,reports and what people are
(36:11):
doing and stuff.
So we, you know it's our jokeis like Microsoft is always
listening, so there areconversations instead of having
them on teams.
It's like I just laugh at thenumber of things that like we
text or we talk on our phonesand again, it's not that we're
(36:31):
hiding anything as much as it is.
It's like you know, and so, butI do also think there's going to
be an element of, especiallywith AI powered insights, of
people being more thoughtful ofhow am I going to be measured?
Oh, what is going in here, howis this going to look right?
And I do think it's good tohave some transparency.
(36:53):
I mean, obviously not everybodyknows the secret sauce behind
the curtains of HR, but I dothink, over time, as there start
being more measurementconsequences and I'll give an
example.
So we did we have, like thistraining platform to help us,
coach us on, like securityselling.
(37:13):
Okay, and you know Microsoft'spiloting it, it's one that's out
there, and so when they rolledit out, you know they were like,
hey, we want you to do this,but it's not going to impact
your performance review, likewe're not going to have you do
this.
And then we're going to, likebehind the scenes, be like, oh,
this person doesn't know how totalk about security.
(37:34):
But I thought that was reallyinteresting.
It's like are people willing touse these tools?
I mean, I will admit like andthey asked me to help test it,
which I thought was cool, and Igave feedback because I was
technically right in what I saidand it rated me high on some
things and low on some things,and I'm like, oh, it just gave
it, kind of gave up.
So my only point in this is Ido think, as a human, we need to
(37:59):
be thoughtful, we need to beaware, we need to be willing to
ask questions, and so, as muchas I am a champion of AI, I do
have a lot of issues with it.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
So yeah, I think it's healthy skepticism, you know
it's good to have.
It's good to have but I'm sold,teresa, like you add, cutting
synthesis on employee engagementand culture down to three
minutes where, and somethingthat can be continuously
measured, so you have realinsights in real time that you
can take action on, like that'sjust super powerful.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I mean, just think back to, like your starting days
in HR or in, you know, in youras a manager.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
As you know, like sticky notes and one thought on
each one.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I laugh and I say, like I, I it was actually.
It was actually after seeingthe initial demo of Inca.
This was back in the beginningof of end of 23.
And I had this thought thatlike, oh my gosh, I'm going to
turn into my father.
So, side story, I grew up inMilwaukee, wisconsin, and I
moved at 13.
But before then I never got aday off of school.
(39:04):
I don't remember us evergetting like a snow day.
My mom was four, nine, likesnow above her head a lot of the
time, no snow days.
And my dad used to tell thisjoke right about how he would
walk uphill both ways to get toschool with no shoes, that whole
thing.
And that's how I feel aboutfuture HR leaders.
They're never going to know thepain that I had to go through
(39:29):
for engagement surveys or to doperformance reviews at a major
enterprise company using Excelspreadsheets or like, and
there's something so wonderfulabout there about that.
But I do agree for sure withCarol that you know just because
and that's another sort of myththat I had thought about just
because it can doesn't mean itshould.
(39:51):
And so making sure that humanin the loop, always reviewing
your output, the last, I use ametric that is, 40% of people
use AI outputs exactly asthey're delivered, and that's
terrifying.
It is terrifying.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Well, half your LinkedIn page is people with the
Zoom rocket.
You know like it's all chat tobe content.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Does anyone?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
have an original content I can.
So yeah, I laugh because I dofeel like it's all chat-shippy
content Does anyone have anoriginal thought, I can.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, I laugh because I do feel like it's important.
There's a lot on LinkedIn alsoabout like criticism of people
that use Gen AI posts and myresponse is pretty much the same
, which is these are I assumethese are people that are just
dipping their toe, they're juststarting and we have to
encourage that exploration, evenif it means I've got to look at
a lot of like green check marksand rocket ships.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I, by the way, I actually physically put those in
myself, but now I'm like Idefinitely was not using it.
All right, you're going to stopthat.
I prefer to show people Like aweird millennial with my icons,
okay, well, I wonder if we canpivot over to how you can stay
ahead, and we've talked a littlebit about this.
Right, be curious, notjudgmental.
Play.
Get out there, start theconversation.
(41:05):
What skills should employeesreally focus on to stay relevant
in an AI driven workplace?
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Yeah.
So I know we talked about thisand you were like, yeah, this
seems obvious.
But first of all, I would say,how much have you used it?
Like look at the last day, week, month, because, yes, I have
Copilot at work and sometimes Iuse it more than others.
I mean, I use Teams every day,I use ChatGPT all the time and,
(41:34):
yes, I know how to prompt, Ispend a lot of time on it.
But I would say, do you knowthe basics?
And if not, and they're like,well, where do I start?
Because I was going to say thisat the beginning like AI is
kind of like Google.
People are like, oh well, aiwill transform the world.
Well, what can it do?
(41:54):
It's kind of like Google.
It's like, well, what does itsay?
You have to have ideas, right,but I would say, just learning
how.
And if you prompt, like focuson more complex prompts, focus
on asking it questions, ask ithow to help you to solve
something like that.
And then, if you have tools atwork that have been introduced,
use them that have beenintroduced, use them.
(42:17):
And a lot of it is like anyskill building and to stay ahead
.
The other is and this is goingto sound obvious and I know
we're all on LinkedIn but Ifollow people on it and then
when something's out there, Ijust try it, and so I know I
(42:39):
speak on it and I work forMicrosoft.
But people have asked me youknow, how do you know all this
stuff?
Like Microsoft didn't say, oh,ai is coming, here's the
training.
This is what they do, you know,because they have to keep
everything quiet.
It comes out there, then wefigure it out and the training
comes later.
So I just learned it because Iwanted to right.
(43:01):
So it's just, if you, it's thatcuriosity and the access to the
tools.
Copilot's free.
The basic version of chat GPT isfree, and so I would say that's
, that's the start, and I willjust give one quick example of
how I got started at the verybeginning and how I use it now.
So you know, deloitte, mckinsey, all these companies we've
(43:22):
worked with or know about theyproduce these really long PDFs
and I'm like I'm sorry I don'thave time to read.
You know, 57 pages on CEOresearch.
But what I do is I upload itinto ChatGPT and I'll say
summarize it and give me the keypoints, and then I'll say make
(43:43):
it an executive one hour webinarand then I'll say turn it into
a training program, because youknow we've all done, you know,
training together.
It's like turning it into atraining program.
So I'll take content and playwith it and in different ways to
kind of learn how to use it.
But instead of saying like,what do I do?
Think of something that is longand tedious to do and just
(44:06):
start there, but now it's kindof fun, like I'll get an article
and then I'll say summarizethis and I'll be like okay, this
piece, and then I'll go intothat article and so I can
consume a lot of research byputting it in there.
And then I try to say how wouldI present this on a podcast?
(44:27):
How would I present this to anexecutive?
You know, if I'm new to this,anyway, I'll pause there, but
that's how I've learned is likejust take a document, take your
resume or something, and justplay around.
So it seems simple, but that'show I still learn that way.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And there's so much happening and so many tools and
resources a lot of them thatprovide free kind of initial
trial, kind of initial trial.
So there's actually a greattool called Oasis that will do
sort of what Carol mentioned,but it gives you a few different
prompts so you might not besomebody who thinks about like,
(45:07):
oh, what would I do as anexecutive summary for this?
And it will give you some ofthose prompts so you could think
about, like, what if I wantedto turn XYZ into ABC, if you
will Like, what if I wanted toturn XYZ into ABC, if you will.
The other thing and this isjust a personal tip there's so
much private information that wehave online.
If you are clicking off theterms of service without copying
(45:28):
and pasting them into ChatGPTand asking it what you need to
be aware of, that's like just alittle that one's for free.
I'll give you that tip for free.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Check every EULA.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah yeah exactly.
Oh my gosh, please, I never dothat, I never do that.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Who does you should?
Speaker 2 (45:46):
You're going to do it now.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I love that.
The other thing I would say, Ithink, in terms of when we talk
about real skill building, isrecognize that you can tell that
it's wrong, that if you have askill, if you have a knowledge
in something, using yourcritical thinking and
challenging it, that isincredibly helpful for training
these models, giving feedback.
(46:15):
So in your own learning, makingsure you're giving that
feedback and then, like, rallysome of that adaptability in
terms of skill building.
We all became a ton moreadaptable during COVID, right.
Like what I thought I would bedoing in 2020, in January, is
most certainly not what I'mdoing in 2025, but we all
(46:36):
learned adaptability and that iswhat we're going to have to
hone into.
You know, if you have a, if youhave said to yourself in the
past two years but that's nothow we do, it really get like
put the rubber band on your armand snap it every time.
You think you have thatinstinct Because it's like we
(46:58):
are.
If we continue to think aboutthe way things used to be, it's
really just going to hold usback versus embracing this idea
of what could be.
So in terms of skills, I thinkthis like get literate to
Carol's point, understand theterminology, use it, but also
challenge it.
You can tell it it's doing abad job.
(47:19):
You can tell it it was biasedin its information.
You should tell it all thesethings and don't just take what
it says as unfaithful.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah, and then there's a lot of tools out there
.
Like I was just playing or ithad been a while.
So and I'm already spending somuch on tools I upgraded to the
$200 version of chat GPT to tryit out.
I, like I got even though I'mat Microsoft got rid of
perplexity.
I want to know everythingthat's out there.
I have the meta AI glasses Ishould have.
(47:50):
I should have had them here.
I'd put them on and show themto you.
But, like I like to experiment,there's a lot of stuff that has
free stuff, and so I tried thatapp where you could like turn
yourself into an avatar or itwas like an AI generated picture
and and then, of course, mykids were like really creeped
out by that.
They're like don't do that.
(48:12):
And then 11 labs like they havea free version and you can go
in and it's really cool.
You can put in text and thenit'll do different voices, so
and you can learn how, likevoice Synthesia.
Like they have a free.
It's like the avatars and whatI would love to do.
I haven't.
I'm, I don't really have ajustification to spend the money
(48:35):
, but you can actually.
I think it's Synthesia whereyou can actually go and record
yourself and then they wouldturn like you into an avatar.
So think about, like when wewere at Deloitte and stuff, you
know they could have KathyEngelbert in there like be her
own avatar or whatever.
But yeah, I'm not quite ready tolike spend my money on that yet
(48:56):
as a as an experiment, but Idon't know.
It's like it's scary, but italso helps me know, like what
could be done.
You know so, but there'sthere's a lot of stuff.
If you truly want to learn,just go look for free trials of
AI tools.
There's video.
There's voice to text.
There's turn yourself into.
(49:16):
It was fun.
There's voice to text.
There's turn yourself into.
It was fun.
It was like I had a lot of funwith like turning myself into.
You know different versions ofmy face and different things.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So but that's what.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
I learned from all of that there's a really good.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
I'm sure you both know it and I'd love to pivot
into this question for you both.
I know for me, even with thetesting and learning, carol,
like you I think, I spend acouple hours each week on
there's an AI for that justexploring what new.
AI tools are out there, becauseyou just never know.
I'm like what's this?
Okay, let's see what this isall about.
So I love that concept.
I'd love to hear from both ofyou.
(49:52):
It looks like, carol, we mayhave lost your visual, so I'll
start with you, teresa first, onwhat tools are you testing with
and or who are you reading andlistening to right now to, to
stay ahead of this evolvinglandscape?
Speaker 1 (50:07):
So I'm not sure what I'm looking at there on Carol's,
but I'm going to try not to bedistracted.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
I'm not sure either.
I went to the wrong camera, soI'm trying to turn this off.
My apologies on that.
No worries, carol, okay allgood.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
So, similar to Carol, I also just recently purchased
the pro version, so it's anexpensive investment.
Obviously, it's what I do formy business, so being able to
leverage the automation and thecapabilities and just really
learn about agent AI and howit's working in real time is
really interesting.
(50:45):
I have some of the tools that Iconsistently go to.
I think you know a cloud isreally great.
Some of the functionality thathas come out over the past year
has really been amazing in termsof you know, I've created for
clients interactive totalcompensation summary tools
within Claude and then I'm ableto share them even if they don't
(51:06):
have a paid version.
What's really great about thatis, even though a lot of
companies benefits providers,things like that have those
tools, they very rarely take ineverything that an HR team can
provide, so this is a reallycomprehensive tool for employees
.
So I really love this likedynamic nature in which things
are coming out.
I really love Notebook LM.
(51:27):
I use it a lot.
I you know you talk aboutuploading one article into
ChatGPT.
I uploaded 50 of the lastrecent articles and I've
provided that to my AI andbusiness students as a sort of
whole repository for learningand querying, and it's just been
really interesting to see howthey use that dynamically and to
(51:49):
be able to build stuff likethat.
I'm a huge Canva user so I goback and forth on the AI
capabilities in a tool likeCanva, but I really think this
year it's going to be peoplelearning.
I call it tool stacking, so Imay go from ChatGPT to Canva, to
Perplexity for Research, toClaude, because it just has a
(52:11):
better humanistic approach tocommunication, less bias and
things like that.
So I kind of do this toolstacking and work my way around
to get to the solution that it'skind of a blend of all
different solutions.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
And who are you reading, listening to?
To stay ahead.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
I don't even feel like I have like a person or two
people.
I listen to a lot of AIpodcasts.
I kind of jockey it aroundbecause I think every, every
different podcast is focusing onsomething different.
I do get like the AI toolreport, which I think is really
helpful just to stay on top ofwhich tools are out there.
Connor Grennan there's a fewthat kind of seem to.
(52:56):
You know, in his role he reallyhas his finger on the pulse of
what's happening.
You know he's the one that Ifollow that always has access to
these things early, so it'sreally nice to just kind of get
my eye on him.
And then there are some HRleaders that I really that are
starting to lean in.
I didn't ask them if I couldmention them, so I'm not going
(53:17):
to, but a few HR leaders thatI'll give credit to in the
follow-up of this when this islaunched that are really trying
and experimenting andintegrating AI in awesome ways
and that's been really fun towatch.
So I have the clients I workwith, but to see what other
people are doing has been reallyamazing.
And Amanda Halle she has anawesome newsletter that really
(53:37):
focuses in on HR leaders usingAI, which I follow.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
Okay, and can you guys hear me?
Yeah, okay, perfect, perfect.
And so my unfortunately, myMicrosoft Surface laptop has let
me down, so I'm on my videohere.
So reality here.
But no, I really like LoriMazur.
She wrote a book calledTemperature and the Age of AI
and I got to meet Lori in personand it's really about
(54:05):
understanding the type ofcreative person you are, the
type of person you are and howyou show up and engage with AI
and instead of being like, oh,you're this kind of worker, that
kind of worker AI and insteadof being like, oh, you're this
kind of worker, that kind ofworker, looking at yourself from
a creative lens.
And, of course, I know a lot ofpeople follow Allie Miller and
Allie and I worked at AWS at thesame time, but I wanted to just
(54:28):
pivot here a little bit of.
You know, we work in tech andwe think of consulting.
My middle daughter is a fashiondesign major and I will admit,
admit like when AI first cameout, I was like, oh my gosh, is
this like going to obliteratethat industry and the creative
industry?
And so I've been following alot in like industry magazines.
(54:51):
So instead of just followinglike AI people and this goes
back to like in our days ofbeing industry focused, I think
it's important that we look atdifferent industries.
Yes, there's a lot in roboticsand aerospace, but in fashion, I
really love the way AI has beenlike integrated into fashion.
But then I'm also seeing alittle bit I wouldn't call it a
(55:14):
backlash, but it's like valuingthat this was created by a human
right, and I don't thinkthere's been a lot of love of
like commercials that are likeall AI right, like we really
like, and not that there's notAI elements right and so.
But when you're talking aboutwho to follow, I would follow
(55:35):
industries that you care aboutto follow, I would follow
industries that you care about.
And also law Law is beingmassively disrupted.
We have customers I'm not goingto say their names, but we have
customers that have legaljournals and all this different
type of stuff, and obviouslystuff has to be double-checked
(55:55):
in certain areas.
But I actually think thatindustry and the fashion
industry we're going to see alot of change and then there's
going to have to be a lot ofadaptability.
So that doesn't mean therewon't be a human.
That doesn't mean that allfashion design is going to be
done that way.
But if you're.
Again, it goes back to ifyou're in that industry or
(56:18):
you're thinking about industriesaround you, like how are you
going to have to interactdifferently?
And you know the more, thefaster you learn it or you at
least pay attention.
There are some industries.
I mean, I can't know everything, obviously, but I'm keeping my
eye on it and I I'm like, oh I,when this matures to a certain
(56:38):
point, I'm probably going tohave to pay more attention here.
So I'll pause there.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
I have one more.
If, if you're in HR and you'relooking to to find somebody to
follow, follow me.
Yeah, I'm writing a book.
I'm getting ready to launch itin a month and a half, but I
wrote a kind of a workingplaybook for HR leaders on how
(57:08):
to integrate.
There are so many of us outthere that are just trying to
figure it out and be a part ofthe change we want to see and
have the conversations and talkabout it.
I do that every single day.
I'm very blessed to be able tohave this as my career in my
life now, so it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
I can ask a technical question.
I just want to go back tosomething really quickly because
I genuinely have this question.
I genuinely have this question.
You both are paying the $200 amonth for the pro version of
chat GPT.
Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 3 (57:41):
Yeah.
So let me tell you why and Ihaven't decided if I'm going to
keep it because all of these AItools like I speak on AI, I'm a
global AI speaker for MicrosoftI like I can't just focus on
their tools and also I'minterested in it.
I and I speak on things likethis.
So I want to know what's goingon.
So when I watched the video,when they were showing agents
(58:03):
and things like that, I want tobe like does this really work?
And so I have to.
This is going to be like amonth to month thing, but I mean
I did have.
I do pay for like five differenttools and but when I use the
$200 version on agents, I'mworking on my own branded
(58:28):
website on Squarespace.
So the agent actually I waspracticing with it it actually
went in and updated the titles,changed the pictures, changed
the stuff, like it did it, and Iwas just using the agents and
stuff.
So you know, because we useagents at Microsoft, but I'm
like can the average person?
I mean I know I have aboveaverage AI skills, but can I get
(58:51):
it to do anything meaningful?
And the answer was yes, but I'mnot.
I might just use it and thenwait and see like it may go back
and forth, but yes, I am payingfor it.
Speaker 4 (59:03):
And so you're using it for agents which are like,
basically the equivalent ispushing it to be more of an
assistant, where it can do taskson its own without having you
having to prompt it right.
That's what an agent is.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yes, but basically what it does is it goes in and
takes over, when it doesn't takeover your computer but like the
website and and you can watchit as it does it, it does it for
you.
But agents I mean I know a lotabout agents and how we're doing
at Microsoft.
I was trying to look at it moreon the consumer side and see
(59:33):
because I will say this to theaudience learn about agents,
because everything is way farfarther ahead than you think it
is.
Learn I'm not saying you haveto know how to build them or
whatever, but that it would be agreat area because this is the
year of more agents coming out.
So, teresa, anything you wantto add.
Speaker 1 (59:52):
Yeah.
So I just made the decision,like on Friday, to I have a
friend who posted about it and Iwas like, if you're willing to
join me on a every Fridayconversation and like do this
together.
And he was like 100%.
And then my friend, amandaHalle, who I'm very close
friends with as well, she's likeI'm in, I want to do it too.
(01:00:14):
And so I believe my mindsettoday is the same as Carol's,
which is like I feel like basedon my business, I need to
understand it.
Would I recommend that theaverage Jane go out there and
spend $200?
No, I don't even know that Iwould recommend the average Jane
has to spend the $20.
I think it really depends onwhat your use is, and for me,
(01:00:37):
part of it is because I am asolopreneur and figuring out how
some of that automation worksand how it can work for me is
really important.
But I also want to be part ofthe leadership saying, hey,
everybody, here's what's comingand here's what it looks like
and here's why you don't need tobe afraid of it.
And I can't do that in the sameway that I talk with leaders
(01:00:58):
and say, look, you can't be apart of the strategy to support
the launch of AI if you don'tuse it and you don't understand
the vernacular.
I have to educate myself, justlike I would expect those people
that are still standing in theseagrass waiting to jump into
the water about AI.
They've got to start exploringit and that's what I'm doing,
(01:01:18):
but I wouldn't recommend it toanybody, and I think that there
are to the point earlier.
There's a lot of tools outthere.
They're going to come fast andfurious this year.
You know the fact that a toollike that, a launch like that,
didn't even have like a here'sthe launch party for it.
It's just like quietly on aThursday.
They're like, okay, we have proversion now.
(01:01:41):
And then you know Claude comesand then perplexity is like we
have it too, like it's justhappening so fast, and that's
where you know staying on top ofit is so important.
Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
All right.
No, I appreciate it, I justwanted to know.
I need to know if I need tomake space in the budget.
Do I need to make space in thebudget this?
Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
is what I'm doing, not now.
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Read up on agents.
Make sure we know what they are, I understand.
Noted Noted.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
And understand the term agent is used a lot.
There's the way that I sort ofdescribe it is there's sort of
assistance, which you know, theword chatbot or custom GPT or
assistance.
They're all this like kind ofinterchangeable vernacular.
In some ways.
Agents are very specificallyfocused on being able to take
action, not just regurgitateinformation but actually do take
(01:02:26):
action.
So they do kind of take overyour computer Right, right,
right, yeah Awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Mel.
Well, we're going to transferover to you, francesca, for
listener Q&A and our boldpredictions, so we can close out
this live with you guys.
How does that sound?
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
I'm just going to ask one of the bold predictions,
because we're already, we're attime.
Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Sorry guys, no, no no , no, no.
Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
I'm going to do an employee-centric question just
to wrap it.
It could be something you'vealready said, but if there's one
thing an employee should startdoing today to future-proof
their career, what is it?
Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Download a generative AI tool of your choice to your
phone.
Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
And every morning when you wake it up, have a
conversation with it.
Nice, I would echo that.
And on the iPhone, there's aquick action button on the top
left and that's where I have mychat GPT app, yep.
And so I agree.
And I would say pick one thingand just go do it.
Like, don't, you know, break itdown into parts.
(01:03:34):
You can feel overwhelmed.
Think of something you need todo, something you need to read,
you need to update your resume,you're going on a trip, doesn't
matter what it is, just pick onething and do it and don't give
up.
I always say and people say thisseems simple to me, but they're
like this really helped methink of ai as a conversation.
(01:03:55):
A lot of people give up toofast.
Oh, I put in this prompt anddidn't get the answer.
You're having a conversationand and you can like, oh, in
your mind, if you're thinkingthat wasn't specific enough,
type it out.
That wasn't specific enough.
Oh, I didn't like that answer,I really wanted something that
was funnier.
Oh, that like whatever you'rethinking in your head, stream of
(01:04:18):
consciousness, type it in, andyou have to have the patience to
play with it and tell it whatyou think and ask it and it's
also fun, like once you getgoing.
But that's what I would say.
Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
All right.
Well, friends, you can findTeresa Fezenstein and Carol
Scott on LinkedIn, so please dofollow them, as they mentioned
LinkedIn.
So please do follow them, asthey mentioned.
We will also tag them on ourpost for the podcast and you can
listen to the playback on yourWork Friends.
And your Work Friends podcastalso has a community on LinkedIn
(01:04:54):
.
Join us over there, where wepost weekly episodes with
special guest experts likeTeresa and Carol on various
topics.
So please join us over thereand you can find us on every
social media platform.
So go out and find us, andwe're on Spotify and Apple, and
thank you for joining us thisevening for the conversation.
Thank you, friends.
Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
And it's been so fun Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Thank you, sorry about the video, but this has
been awesome.
Thank you so much.
I think that for a lot of leaders that are
non-technical, they make theassumption that the technical
team is sort of the knowledgekeepers on AI.
We shouldn't be held back frominserting ourselves into the
process, into the conversation,into the strategy around
cascading these tools outbecause we're afraid that we
(00:23):
don't know enough or that we'renot informed.
Don't believe that hype.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
So welcome everybody to your work friends.
I'm Mel Plett and with me is mywork friend, francesca, and
with us tonight we have guestspeakers Carol Scott from
Microsoft and Teresa Fezensteinfrom People Power AI, who are
our experts, to talk about AI atwork.
What's real, what's the hype,what can you really expect in
(01:03):
2025?
So with that, I'd like tointroduce Carol and Teresa.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
So, carol, why don't you introduce yourself?
Thank you for inviting me, andI do want to kick off with
saying that Mel and Francesca wemet through work and we're work
friends, and so I appreciatethe opportunity at Deloitte and
we spent a lot of great yearsthere.
But real quick, carol Scott.
I'm a senior director in oursoftware and digital platforms
group at Microsoft, and wemanage our largest partners that
(01:36):
go to market and lead with AIglobally and also a recent
founder of the Action Imperative, which is really focused on how
women and others that need tospeak up and have a voice can do
that using AI, and we're veryexcited about that as well, and
(01:57):
I'm excited to be here today.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well welcome friends.
All right, Teresa, well welcomefriends.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
All right, Teresa.
Oh, I definitely ditto Carol'ssentiment around just the
appreciation of being here andthe ask.
You know, I kind of feel leftout because I've never been
technically work friends withyou guys.
You are now.
I am now.
I love this.
I love that everybody I meet isa work friend because I have my
(02:24):
own business.
So I'm Teresa Fessenstein.
It's so nice to be here.
I spent 25 years in corporate HR, so, whether it was vice
president of learning anddevelopment or moving into CHR
roles, I had the amazingopportunity to work for large
global enterprise organizationsas well as small, bespoke
(02:45):
commercial real estate,privately owned businesses and
all of the kind of been throughthe gamut of experiences.
And then, in 22, I decided toleave to start a culture
consulting business, which thenevolved into People Power AI
after I became immediatelyabsorbed and obsessed with
learning more about ChatGPT inDecember of 22.
(03:05):
And that's really led methrough two and a half years of
my own learning and then takingthat learning and sharing it out
with others, whether that'sthrough workshops or conferences
.
I also have the opportunitywhich is amazing to be an
adjunct professor at CityCollege of New York, teaching HR
management as well as AI inbusiness and I'm a very proud
(03:27):
member of organizations likeTroop, HR Women Defining AI, and
I'm a mentor for All.
Tech is Human, where we reallyfocus on making sure that AI is
democratized and people have anopportunity to learn more about
it and to learn how to use itand bring it into their world of
work.
So thank you so much for havingme again.
I'm so excited for thisconversation.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Well, thank you for being here.
We're so appreciative of youboth.
This is a conversation that ourlisteners have shared with us
is one of the biggest thingsthat is top of mind for them.
We know this is 60 minutes andwe are going to move quick.
So here are the four thingswe're going to cover tonight AI
at work what's real versuswhat's the hype.
Will AI take your job or makeit better?
How to stay ahead?
(04:10):
So skills, tools and mindsetsand we'll get through some
listener Q&A and we want to hearyour bold predictions.
With that, I'm going to jumpright into what's real versus
what's the hype.
So what's the biggest AI mythemployees should stop believing
today?
Speaker 3 (04:28):
Well, I'll start out and say one of the myths is that
they can wait because theircompany is not doing anything.
Or you know, it's not requiredin the job because things are
moving really quickly and yourcompany also, big or small, may
be doing more than you think.
But I would say I'll just startwith that is you might be
(04:53):
thinking about it, you might bedabbling in it.
I think you need to know morethan you think you do because
it's moving so quickly, teresa.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I'll honestly play a little bit of a like I think
it's a both and I think that alot of organizational leadership
, certainly in small tomid-sized businesses that I've
seen, are sort of figuring outwhat the walk and the talk
around AI is going to look likewithout, without kind of with
(05:23):
the ideology that employeesaren't actually digging in and
BYOAI-ing at work, right.
And so I talk with a lot oforganizations, organization
leaders, hr teams where when Iask you know how many of you
have put, you know, guidelines,out, roadmaps for your AI
strategy it's quiet in the room,I'll put it that way.
(05:46):
And there's this, I think,intrinsic belief that people are
going to wait for that and theyreally aren't.
They are sitting at their desksand have their iPads and their
phones on the side of them usingChatGPT, whether we've endorsed
it or not.
I also think in terms of Sorry,go ahead, no, no, go ahead.
I was just going to not.
I also think in terms of sorry,go ahead, no, no, go ahead.
I was just going to say I alsothink you know and I don't know
(06:09):
if we want to jump into this yetbut I do think that there's
this.
I think the conversation youmentioned, mel around.
Is AI going to take jobs?
Is also a both end conversation.
We should be having both endconversation we should be having
.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
Yeah, and I would say a myth is that, oh, you know,
ai is going to replace a lot ofjobs.
I do think it will replace somejobs or some tasks where things
can be consolidated.
I also think and we've seenthis in the tech industry I
think there are new jobs and newroles that are going to come
out and that people will beworking differently.
(06:44):
And I also just want to add oneother thing that you know, some
people think, oh, ai is onlypredominant in tech companies,
or they're leading, but it iseverywhere.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Yeah, we're seeing that too.
We're hearing a lot of whatyou're saying.
So one of the things I recentlyread, for example, is there the
biggest disconnect is in termsof, you know, employers'
expectations of how theiremployees are using it, and
employees are saying tell me howyou want me to use it.
So there's a big conversationthat seems not to be happening.
So that's interesting.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Well, I also think, Mel, that it's not just tell me
how you want to use it, but tellme how to use it, and I think
that's a huge gap right now.
There've been a few reports outin the past, say, five months,
four months, around thedisgruntledness of CEOs that
haven't seen the productivitygains but they also haven't put
(07:37):
the investment through to makesure people understand the what
and the how of it.
It's like we've kind of youknow, either if we have the
policies out there, we are sortof not really giving the
guidelines or the support inorder to effectuate the skill
development that we need, orwe're just not saying anything.
I don't want to switch topics,but I have another really good
(07:59):
myth too in a second.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Okay, I will hold that thought in a second.
Okay, I will hold that thought.
What's changing for real in2025?
That will actually affect theway people work.
So what's what's a change youthink is going to go full effect
in 2025?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Well, I will say I will start with AI powered
hiring and AI powered likeemployment reviews.
And we're already seeing this onLinkedIn and you know we're
seeing with LinkedIn not onlyhelping with our profile, but
you're also seeing on LinkedInoffering with AI to help
recruiters find people.
(08:36):
And we're also hearing about youknow and know and Tracy you may
know more than I do on this,but being used in the recruiting
process to sort through and Imean, I know not every company
is as big as a Microsoft.
There's a lot out there, butyou know we could get a thousand
resumes for a role right, orcompanies, even for smaller
(08:58):
companies.
They're seeing that and so Ithink it's important to
understand how to use AI.
And so I think it's importantto understand how to use AI,
understand what that impact isthere, and then also we use it
and it's being used, even if,just like I use AI and my
employee reviews and again, yes,I use it myself, but I have a
(09:20):
great team and we do theseconnects.
You know I have a great teamand you know we do these
connects and then I use thatcontent from them.
And then also, you know, andhow I'm looking at evaluating
things, you know, using Copilotinternally with our own tools.
So yeah, yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
Yeah, I would say one of the things that leaders
really should be honing in on is, even though we are a lot of
companies that we're seeing comeout with sort of focused
solutions In 2025, I do thinkwe're going to start to see,
(10:00):
faster than in the past,consolidation of some of these
really unique tools beingacquired, incorporated, the
tools that we have used in thepast.
Our systems are going to have alot more front forward AI
capabilities versus kind of inthe back end, where we don't
(10:21):
really see or touch it or feelit so much.
It's going to become much morein our face, which is why I
think this education, this focuson not only the organizations
themselves but the partners andthe vendors and the teams that
are coming in and providingthese solutions, making sure
that there's not only a skillgrowth opportunity but there's
(10:44):
real enthusiasm around likelet's get everybody on your team
up to speed, let's get themusing it, share your case
studies so to show the dynamicnature of it, getting people
past some of the baseline what Icall sort of a toe in the water
.
Utilization of AI.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
Can I ask a follow-up question on that?
Yeah, because I feel likethere's a lot of everyone on
this call has been through somesort of like technology
implementation, whether it'sOracle or SAP or Workday right,
or we're bringing in SharePoint,we're bringing in.
I mean, I'm 45.
It's been like I've beenthrough every single
technological thing here at work.
(11:24):
I'm curious about, ofeverything both of you mentioned
for employees, what's one thingwhere you're like we're
actually going to solve thisproblem for employees this year
with AI, like there's thiscoming and it's going to make
your life super easy.
Is it going to do that?
Speaker 1 (11:40):
I can speak to specifically in the world of HR.
I absolutely see and predict ayear end where functional tasks
that do need to be completed sothings like the automation of
communication, taking processesand being able to streamline the
(12:03):
entire process instead of justpieces I do see that for some
companies who are already in thewater, I see that being
executed by the end of the year.
The automation is just going tobecome so fast People are going
to recognize that they don'tneed complicated skills in order
to do some of these things.
Which takes me back to my otherhot take, and so I do think for
(12:25):
HR leaders, we're going to seesome of that and it's going to
be really exciting.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Yeah, normal manual pulling from LinkedIn to fill up
people's talent managementprofiles.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Oh my gosh, would that be something if you never
had to fill in multipleapplications Again.
That would be a game changerfor applicants for sure.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I actually wonder too like do you, do you both think
that because I used to work in alot in like the tech stack for
the L&D space, right?
And how do you streamline allof the technology?
Because we have all of thesetools, or you're building a
Franken tool that connects allof these tools together to
operate, right?
Do you see this potentiallyreally simplifying our tech
stacks going forward in order tosupport business, to make work
just a little bit easier?
There's not a millionapplications to go to at some
(13:12):
point.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Yeah, I mean, I do have the benefit, you know,
being at Microsoft and again,this is not necessarily a plug
for Microsoft, even though Ithink we're doing a great job at
this.
This is just, you know.
Also, my lived experience is,you know, we have co-pilot and
it's primarily on open AI, butwe have 1600 different language
models, so I can't say a hundredpercent what's behind
(13:34):
everything.
But and initially, once youlearn how to prompt, like every
different application now thatwe have, and then we have this,
these connectors into othercompanies and as as other
partners and in ERP systems,Right.
So it's like anything I go into, there's a little co-pilot
(13:54):
symbol there and it's like oh,you need this.
Now it's a chat bot.
Oh, you need.
Before, when you had to call oryou had to click, you just ask
a question and it does it.
Now I don't know.
I know some of this is in othertools, but, like in meetings,
now we don't even ask like, hey,can we record this?
It's like, why take notes?
But?
(14:14):
And then the notes and theaction items and how that flow.
I think I know this may soundsimple, but it's very time
consuming Note taking, follow up, administration, email.
I mean, the amount of.
It's just been a game changer.
And then you miss a meeting.
You go in there.
I can multitask.
I'm invited to a call.
I can't go to that call becauseI'm on, I'm invited to like
(14:39):
four calls, but I can actuallykeep up and say what was said
about this customer, thatcustomer.
So you know, and you say thetech stack.
I think there's going to be afew things that kind of sit
across.
I think a lot of these smallerbespoke tools are primarily used
in, like smaller businesses,like maybe they can't afford
some of these larger ones, but Ithink where you have, but you
(15:01):
are having these layers that siton top of a lot of the
different technologies.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Okay, I want to get back to your myth, teresa.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
My last question, for both of you in this area?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What are the biggest misconceptions about AI in the
workplace?
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Mine's not necessarily a myth about AI, oh,
okay.
Mine is more a myth yeah, mineis more a myth around who knows
what and who has expertise andwho might not.
I think that for a lot ofleaders that are non-technical,
they make the assumption thatthe technical team is sort of
(15:48):
the knowledge keepers on AI andwhat's happening.
And, through my own explorationworking with leaders, working
with organizations, we shouldn'tbe held back from inserting
ourselves into the process, intothe conversation, into the
strategy around cascading thesetools out because we're afraid
(16:08):
that we don't know enough orthat we're not informed.
My very own brother, who'sincredibly smart, has been in
computer science since he was 17years old.
I had him as a guest on my.
I have a free session that Irun once a month called AI Quick
Clinics.
I had him as a guest and it wasa real eye-opening experience
what I thought he would knowabout it and what he actually
(16:31):
did know.
And I think there's aperception that I might not know
enough to jump into theconversation or to ask how this
is going to affect ourorganizations.
Don't believe that hype.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
It's not always true.
I love that.
Don't put yourself in a boxright, right away, just be
curious.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
I want to give a plug for the liberal arts majors out
there.
One of the myths is you have tobe practical and shout out to
my bff I'm not going to say hername on here top platinum club
winner a couple years ago,english major and if you follow
me on linkedin, I'm likegenerative ai.
(17:09):
The people that are thriving init are those that know how to
communicate, know how to write,know how to reason, and I.
We have a lot.
There's a lot of people inliberal arts that are in
technical sales and differentthings, and so I just want to
say, like, if people think GenAI is technical, the beauty is
(17:32):
it's AI for the general publicand this is why, even though I
am very technical, like I dohave a liberal arts brain and in
which I think complements it,but I'm like, I'm just like
power, power to the liberal arts.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
We'll take it.
We'll take it.
Well, it helps us tap intothose human capabilities.
I think it comes naturally toour liberal arts folks.
I'm going to hand it over toyou, Francesca.
On going to take your job ornot, let's talk about it.
Speaker 4 (18:02):
Yeah, I mean it is.
I think for all of the scaryconversations about AI, I don't
think people do realize that itcan be.
Honestly, there's a greatequalizer here in the sense that
we're all learning about it nowand we can interact with it in
different ways and come fromdifferent backgrounds.
You don't just have to be thetechnical, you could be the
liberal arts major, which cracksme up, because the last time I
(18:22):
heard you could be a liberalarts major and get a job at
Microsoft, it was like 2000.
And this girl was a tuba majorand she's like but I'm a liberal
arts major and AndersonConsulting just picked me up.
I'm like what?
So it's like everything.
Everything kind of comes aroundfull circle.
Yeah, All right, I do want to.
I do want to address theelephant in the room.
We did this a little bitearlier.
(18:44):
But AI taking jobs.
I, you know, World EconomicForum just came out with their
latest on what's going to happenin the next five years with AI.
Carol, to your very good point,we're seeing that there's some
jobs that are going to go away.
There's some job creation aswell.
That's going to happen, right,so it's, and actually there's a
(19:04):
lot of predictions that it'sgoing to create more jobs than
it's going to take away.
That's the latest data.
But I'm curious, from both ofyour perspectives 2025, what are
the job markets that you'reseeing really get disrupted by
AI?
Speaker 3 (19:20):
Yeah, I'll just kick off with.
I do think in the area ofcustomer service and customer
support, and especially eitheronline or even, you know,
calling in, and I know sometimeswe get really frustrated
Sometimes you know how it's likeyou're hitting zero, you want
to talk to somebody, but it'sgetting so much better when it
(19:43):
comes to that and also beingable to upskill people faster
because we actually have botsthat are.
What's really cool is, let'ssay you're a customer service
person, it can actually evaluatewhat the person is saying and
then it can prompt the agent onwhat to say.
If they are speaking, they cantell, like, say, you're an
(20:04):
insurance company and you get acall you know somebody's had an
accident, it'll prompt you tosay are you safe, are you okay?
And then, based on what theysay, and so we're really seeing
in that industry and a lot ofthings like that, that can be
automated.
But we also have to rememberlike the workforce is shrinking.
(20:25):
Yes, I don't want to minimizethat.
We have that.
There are challenges findingjobs, but there are not as many
people with a lot of the jobsthat we have.
So I think it's kind of abalance.
But I see that and a lot of youknow more self-checkout, ai,
powered payments, things likethat where where we have that.
(20:48):
And then also, I think there'sgoing to be a lot of just
consolidation of roles or aperson can do more.
We jokingly say, you know, it'slike, okay, do more with less,
and we're like, yeah, you'reactually doing less with less,
but I do think you will be ableto have access to do more, you
(21:10):
know, in what you're doing ifyou have the right AI tools.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
Teresa, what do you think?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
I would mirror Carol's sentiment that a lot of
customer service.
One of the places I spent sometime in commercial real estate,
one of the places I'm seeing alot of value pickup, is the use
of assistance in the middle ofinopportune or non-traditional
(21:38):
times, right.
So the times that you want tofind an apartment or you're
looking for an office spacemight not be coincide with the
times when people or agents aretechnically available.
So I think in that way it's alittle bit of an augmentation,
less a loss.
But I do think that one of thethings that would be actually
(22:00):
quite phenomenal Carol mentionedbefore that you know she's
invited to four meetings.
She can attend one becausewe've got these tools and these
transcripts that help guide usthrough that.
It would be really lovely toideate around.
What do we want to lose, like,what do we want to do less of in
(22:20):
the work that we're in?
I'm sort of.
And then on the whole scope oflike there's a quote that I
won't repeat because it'sliterally my least favorite
quote in the world around AI andthe impact it's going to have.
My position is this If we canget people enthused and excited
and curious about the ways AIcan reinforce what they need to
(22:41):
do.
Save them some of their neededtime so they can focus on the
things that are more important.
It becomes less around you know, I'm learning because I'm
afraid I'm going to lose my joband more around gosh, what is
what could be the art of thepossible right, and that's
that's really exciting.
So I'm not a huge fan and it'sjust my style of like digging
(23:01):
into the like where the loss isgoing to be and like what's the
massacre.
Much more like let's figure outhow to support people in
leveraging, and there is goingto be natural attrition there's
been.
I always tell this story when Ipresent to groups that at one
point there was a job called acomputer.
That was a job that a humanperson did, and now there are
(23:23):
thousands of jobs to take theplace of that person, so to
speak.
So I think it's and I also,just to kind of cap this a
little bit of a meanderingthought is that I earnestly
believe that no matter who'sputting their predictions out
there aside from, you know,those that are in it, microsoft
and a lot of these amazingcompanies like we have no idea.
(23:45):
Like we have no idea what'sgoing to come in the next six
months.
I mean, the past three weekshave been phenomenal in terms of
just growth and development andavailability, so it's like
what's going to happen in fiveyears, who knows, like.
I think what we need to learnabout is how do we get
comfortable with the idea thatfive years from now our lives
(24:06):
are going to be very, verydifferent and get okay with that
and like, enjoy the ride.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
I love that sentiment .
Teresa HBR just put out areally nice decision matrix that
can be used with teams to havea fun conversation about this.
Right, how do you make thiswork for your team?
How do you want it to work foryour team?
So I feel like, if you're doingnothing else, especially if
you're a team leader you shouldat least use this matrix like
(24:33):
this and make it a funconversation with your team so
people aren't so afraid, butthey're leaning into the
possibility of how this can helpthem right, make their lives a
little easier at work.
What do they want to focustheir time on?
It's such a rich conversation.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah, I've seen.
I think the most amazing thingI saw last year was I had the
opportunity to go work with theHR team the full team for Mazda
North America out in California,and in the front row the most
amazing woman was sitting there.
I want to say her name wasDolly, but I may get that wrong.
She'd been with Mazda for over40 years working in their
(25:12):
compliance and benefitsdepartment and like she was
right in the front wanting tolearn, she was so excited about
logging in and asking questionsand seeing what it could do.
And like that energy I justwant everybody to take in their
soul when it comes to embracingwhat's new, because when you've
been in a job for 40 years, youknow your shit, but you also
(25:34):
have been doing that for a longtime.
I love that embracing of likelet's make it fun, let's make it
interesting.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
Lead with curiosity and not judgment on this.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (25:44):
Both of you talked about this idea of like,
enhancing, and I kind of thinkabout the super worker, if you
will.
How can AI enhance?
Not replace necessarily, butI'd like to go down this, I'd
like to go down the enhanceroute for a hot second.
Carol, you mentioned earlierthings like Copilot can, or
Otterai there's other tools toobut especially Copilot because,
(26:04):
let's be frank, microsoft isembedded in most enterprise
organizations as well, right,but it can take notes for you,
right, you can pull it in thereand it can pull out themes and
that sort of thing.
What are some of the, I thinkmaybe I would like to ask this,
either from the easiest ways orthe most effective ways that
you've seen employees enhancetheir jobs with AI?
Speaker 3 (26:26):
Yeah.
So I'll give a couple ofexamples, because a lot of times
and I've been such an earlyadopter, like from the very
beginning, chat GBT I literallyspent hours like on it and
learning it and stuff.
So like if it's new or whatever, I'm like, okay, let's try.
And I also I'm like, okay, isit true, right.
So I do want to mention thenote taking because even though
(26:50):
some people may oh yeah, I cantake notes, but the way it has
changed our culture at Microsoftand Microsoft Teams, so you can
do a transcript or you can,like you know, do a video, but
that notes being in the record,and you think, ok, well, I'll
get the notes, but I'll makesure they're accurate, or the
detail, and they have levels ofdetail.
It even takes the action itemsafterwards.
(27:12):
So then, like it's like, ok,you have those and then you can
follow up on those.
But just the idea that you canpay attention in a meeting and
not have to take the notes andyou may take one or two, that
has been huge.
So the engagement has gone up.
But also it's become a culturalexpectation, I mean, unless
you're having a sensitive HRrelated conversation or you're
(27:35):
trying to have a conversationwhere you want to one.
Maybe you want to havesomething open.
It's now become an expectation.
I'm like, why would I takenotes Right now?
The other thing I just want toquickly mention is at microsoft,
we have an like an awardculture.
We have a lot of things that wehave to do write-ups for people
.
I just had something like twodays ago.
(27:58):
My boss sent me this messageand said hey, I want to nominate
somebody for this, can youwrite it up?
Well, that normally would havetaken me an hour, but I I
already had a write up on thisperson.
I literally copied thequestions, copied the write up,
popped it in Copilot, looked atthe answers, barely had to tweak
it.
It literally took me like threeminutes to write because, like,
(28:22):
you have this body of content,like your resume or like we do
connects, and so, oh, you wantto write up this award instead
of me having to go do that.
Like I can just go to that orI'll go to people and say, hey,
can I talk to you for fiveminutes and ask you these five
questions, and then I take thenotes and I use it for something
(28:44):
.
So I'll pause there, but I willjust say that in and of itself
on that topic.
And then I do want to introduceone other topic and we can pull
the thread on it if we havetime is I talked about using it
also for empowerment and usingit as a coach?
I've used it in difficult HRsituations where I'm like, hey,
(29:06):
I want to have this conversation, I want to be professional.
This is going to be tough, youknow.
Sometimes.
You know, extroverted peoplecan be too wordy.
Help me do this Like, help memake it shorter.
Or it's like, hey, I want tocoach or give somebody feedback
and I've even taught you knowpeople in my world of like, hey,
(29:27):
you're in this conversation,somebody speaking over you.
You can have AI go in and say,hey, I want to simulate this
conversation and I want to goback and forth three times and I
want you to challenge me, tolike step up there.
So I just think the idea I lovewhat you're saying of the
enhanced worker that is the bestway is to make yourself better
(29:49):
in what you're doing and that'sgoing to prepare you to be
flexible for what comes.
Speaker 4 (29:55):
Yeah, I.
One of the things that I'vealways thought about, too, with
AI is like what are those waysthat you can enhance it?
And also, on the flip of it toyour earlier point, to what are
those things that we can?
If we didn't want to do, wecould offshoot it, so it gives
us more time to do those thingsthat we want to do as well, too,
so we can be in theconversation like note-taking.
(30:15):
It's awesome.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
It's awesome, yeah, and just to kind of yeah, I was
just going to jump in.
I I think that.
So I, I've lived in a Microsoftworld for a lot of my career.
I still use Microsoft, but Ialso venture out and use a lot
of other tools, and I think thatI, you know, I appreciate what,
what Microsoft can do, but Ialso appreciate that there are
(30:38):
other tools that do certainthings better.
And so, you know, I think, whenit comes down to, I want to be
very specific.
I always I'm very practicalperson, so, like, what can I
actually take away and look upRight?
So I think, when it comes to,what are the things that, as an
HR leader, say I spend a lot oftime doing?
I'll start with.
I have three examples ofdifferent things, but the first
(30:59):
one I'll use is employeeengagement.
One of the most time consumingprocesses and projects that any
company takes on is evaluatingfeedback from employees and I
think what the history of theprocess has led us to do all of
these Likert scale questionsthat don't really give us a deep
(31:21):
understanding of what'shappening.
But with AI and naturallanguage processing and tools,
there's a company called IncaI-N-Q-Q-A.
For those that are listening.
It does phenomenal work atbreaking down long form question
commentary question, complexquestions in native languages
and different approaches.
(31:42):
What would take me months and Iknow I've talked to thousands
and thousands of HR leaders ittakes us months to do, to do the
work what would take months nowgets boiled down and is
explainable, which is a wholeconcept if we have time we
should talk about, but isexplainable in a matter of
minutes.
So when you talk about like,how does this actually help me
(32:05):
be more productive, instead ofeither sitting at home, when I
should be enjoying my time withmy family, sitting on the couch
working through spreadsheets ofcommentary and trying to come up
with my own bias views of whatthose comments mean, using tools
and systems like Inca toactually get me the most
important part, which is themeaningful feedback, the
(32:26):
meaningful insights, so then Ican turn that around in a
month's time instead of sixmonths and actually take action
on those things, I think anotherspace that we're going to start
to see real exciting change.
Because if you've been like amanager sitting in the middle of
performance reviews, sure, I'msure a ton of people in 24 and
their year end reviews were likeusing chat, but I think, when
(32:50):
you look at, there are tools.
There's an organization calledOpry, based out of Nashville,
female founder, is doing someamazing things with sort of
contextualizing performancefeedback using the tools and the
communications that are alreadyhappening natively.
So it changes from you know.
(33:11):
Imagine not having to sit thereand remember a year or six
months or you know, a quarter'sworth of work, but being able to
get reports in that help youguide the performance
conversation.
So there are these tools thatjust it's just very different.
It's a different way that wewill be able to work and use
(33:32):
data to actually have theconversation and build culture.
Which, to me, is certainly oneof my primary focuses throughout
my career as an HR leader is tohow do we really speak directly
to and create environments thatsupport employee experience and
employee sentiment?
Speaker 4 (33:52):
Yeah, you know that's such an interesting question.
I've been having a lot ofconversations lately about
organizations trying to fit AIinto their processes versus
building AI first processes, ifyou will and I think a lot of
what we're talking about is howit's making these existing
processes even better.
Is, even when you think aboutthe performance review like you
(34:15):
kind of married Carol, what youtalked about with, like
note-taking, and then Teresa,what you talked about with the
performance review AI isactually gonna force us to
change even the way we thinkabout performance.
Potentially and I actuallythink it's gonna change it for
the better because, if we thinkabout it, if you can in like, in
a way, have AI on a weeklybasis, you're just giving
(34:36):
examples about what youremployees are doing or how
you're feeling about theirperformance, and AI is logging
that all along, and then the PMcomes in at the year end to
aggregate all of that.
It's actually forcing bettertalent processes as opposed to
what we have now, which isbasically let me remember this
at the year end and we never do.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Well, not only that, francesca, it's doing it in a
bespoke, curated way for theneeds of that you as an
individual.
It's now taking mass processesand boiling it down to what are
the needs that Mel has.
What is unique to Francesca inher background, her experience,
(35:16):
the way she's operating, hercommunication style, you know?
I think it's its ability totake in so much insight, and
certainly not without some biasand some you know some of the
negatives, but do a pretty damnamazing job at getting us
insights that we can then act onfor one another.
(35:39):
Or to carol's point about usingit as sort of a culture guide,
like use it for ourselves, forour own growth.
That's just fantastic that'sexciting.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
I do think there's a little bit related to, though,
like this human element and andagain, I know I, I know I'm
going to tell them myself alittle bit working for Microsoft
, but, like we know, we arecustomer zero right.
Everything at Microsoft ismeasured.
You know these work, trends,reports and what people are
(36:11):
doing and stuff.
So we, you know it's our jokeis like Microsoft is always
listening, so there areconversations instead of having
them on teams.
It's like I just laugh at thenumber of things that like we
text or we talk on our phonesand again, it's not that we're
(36:31):
hiding anything as much as it is.
It's like you know, and so, butI do also think there's going to
be an element of, especiallywith AI powered insights, of
people being more thoughtful ofhow am I going to be measured?
Oh, what is going in here, howis this going to look right?
And I do think it's good tohave some transparency.
(36:53):
I mean, obviously not everybodyknows the secret sauce behind
the curtains of HR, but I dothink, over time, as there start
being more measurementconsequences and I'll give an
example.
So we did we have, like thistraining platform to help us,
coach us on, like securityselling.
(37:13):
Okay, and you know Microsoft'spiloting it, it's one that's out
there, and so when they rolledit out, you know they were like,
hey, we want you to do this,but it's not going to impact
your performance review, likewe're not going to have you do
this.
And then we're going to, likebehind the scenes, be like, oh,
this person doesn't know how totalk about security.
(37:34):
But I thought that was reallyinteresting.
It's like are people willing touse these tools?
I mean, I will admit like andthey asked me to help test it,
which I thought was cool, and Igave feedback because I was
technically right in what I saidand it rated me high on some
things and low on some things,and I'm like, oh, it just gave
it, kind of gave up.
So my only point in this is Ido think, as a human, we need to
(37:59):
be thoughtful, we need to beaware, we need to be willing to
ask questions, and so, as muchas I am a champion of AI, I do
have a lot of issues with it.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
So yeah, I think it's healthy skepticism, you know
it's good to have.
It's good to have but I'm sold,teresa, like you add, cutting
synthesis on employee engagementand culture down to three
minutes where, and somethingthat can be continuously
measured, so you have realinsights in real time that you
can take action on, like that'sjust super powerful.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
I mean, just think back to, like your starting days
in HR or in, you know, in youras a manager.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
As you know, like sticky notes and one thought on
each one.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
I laugh and I say, like I, I it was actually.
It was actually after seeingthe initial demo of Inca.
This was back in the beginningof of end of 23.
And I had this thought thatlike, oh my gosh, I'm going to
turn into my father.
So, side story, I grew up inMilwaukee, wisconsin, and I
moved at 13.
But before then I never got aday off of school.
(39:04):
I don't remember us evergetting like a snow day.
My mom was four, nine, likesnow above her head a lot of the
time, no snow days.
And my dad used to tell thisjoke right about how he would
walk uphill both ways to get toschool with no shoes, that whole
thing.
And that's how I feel aboutfuture HR leaders.
They're never going to know thepain that I had to go through
(39:29):
for engagement surveys or to doperformance reviews at a major
enterprise company using Excelspreadsheets or like, and
there's something so wonderfulabout there about that.
But I do agree for sure withCarol that you know just because
and that's another sort of myththat I had thought about just
because it can doesn't mean itshould.
(39:51):
And so making sure that humanin the loop, always reviewing
your output, the last, I use ametric that is, 40% of people
use AI outputs exactly asthey're delivered, and that's
terrifying.
It is terrifying.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Well, half your LinkedIn page is people with the
Zoom rocket.
You know like it's all chat tobe content.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Does anyone?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
have an original content I can.
So yeah, I laugh because I dofeel like it's all chat-shippy
content Does anyone have anoriginal thought, I can.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, I laugh because I do feel like it's important.
There's a lot on LinkedIn alsoabout like criticism of people
that use Gen AI posts and myresponse is pretty much the same
, which is these are I assumethese are people that are just
dipping their toe, they're juststarting and we have to
encourage that exploration, evenif it means I've got to look at
a lot of like green check marksand rocket ships.
Speaker 2 (40:44):
I, by the way, I actually physically put those in
myself, but now I'm like Idefinitely was not using it.
All right, you're going to stopthat.
I prefer to show people Like aweird millennial with my icons,
okay, well, I wonder if we canpivot over to how you can stay
ahead, and we've talked a littlebit about this.
Right, be curious, notjudgmental.
Play.
Get out there, start theconversation.
(41:05):
What skills should employeesreally focus on to stay relevant
in an AI driven workplace?
Speaker 3 (41:11):
Yeah.
So I know we talked about thisand you were like, yeah, this
seems obvious.
But first of all, I would say,how much have you used it?
Like look at the last day, week, month, because, yes, I have
Copilot at work and sometimes Iuse it more than others.
I mean, I use Teams every day,I use ChatGPT all the time and,
(41:34):
yes, I know how to prompt, Ispend a lot of time on it.
But I would say, do you knowthe basics?
And if not, and they're like,well, where do I start?
Because I was going to say thisat the beginning like AI is
kind of like Google.
People are like, oh well, aiwill transform the world.
Well, what can it do?
(41:54):
It's kind of like Google.
It's like, well, what does itsay?
You have to have ideas, right,but I would say, just learning
how.
And if you prompt, like focuson more complex prompts, focus
on asking it questions, ask ithow to help you to solve
something like that.
And then, if you have tools atwork that have been introduced,
use them that have beenintroduced, use them.
(42:17):
And a lot of it is like anyskill building and to stay ahead
.
The other is and this is goingto sound obvious and I know
we're all on LinkedIn but Ifollow people on it and then
when something's out there, Ijust try it, and so I know I
(42:39):
speak on it and I work forMicrosoft.
But people have asked me youknow, how do you know all this
stuff?
Like Microsoft didn't say, oh,ai is coming, here's the
training.
This is what they do, you know,because they have to keep
everything quiet.
It comes out there, then wefigure it out and the training
comes later.
So I just learned it because Iwanted to right.
(43:01):
So it's just, if you, it's thatcuriosity and the access to the
tools.
Copilot's free.
The basic version of chat GPT isfree, and so I would say that's
, that's the start, and I willjust give one quick example of
how I got started at the verybeginning and how I use it now.
So you know, deloitte, mckinsey, all these companies we've
(43:22):
worked with or know about theyproduce these really long PDFs
and I'm like I'm sorry I don'thave time to read.
You know, 57 pages on CEOresearch.
But what I do is I upload itinto ChatGPT and I'll say
summarize it and give me the keypoints, and then I'll say make
(43:43):
it an executive one hour webinarand then I'll say turn it into
a training program, because youknow we've all done, you know,
training together.
It's like turning it into atraining program.
So I'll take content and playwith it and in different ways to
kind of learn how to use it.
But instead of saying like,what do I do?
Think of something that is longand tedious to do and just
(44:06):
start there, but now it's kindof fun, like I'll get an article
and then I'll say summarizethis and I'll be like okay, this
piece, and then I'll go intothat article and so I can
consume a lot of research byputting it in there.
And then I try to say how wouldI present this on a podcast?
(44:27):
How would I present this to anexecutive?
You know, if I'm new to this,anyway, I'll pause there, but
that's how I've learned is likejust take a document, take your
resume or something, and justplay around.
So it seems simple, but that'show I still learn that way.
Speaker 1 (44:46):
And there's so much happening and so many tools and
resources a lot of them thatprovide free kind of initial
trial, kind of initial trial.
So there's actually a greattool called Oasis that will do
sort of what Carol mentioned,but it gives you a few different
prompts so you might not besomebody who thinks about like,
(45:07):
oh, what would I do as anexecutive summary for this?
And it will give you some ofthose prompts so you could think
about, like, what if I wantedto turn XYZ into ABC, if you
will Like, what if I wanted toturn XYZ into ABC, if you will.
The other thing and this isjust a personal tip there's so
much private information that wehave online.
If you are clicking off theterms of service without copying
(45:28):
and pasting them into ChatGPTand asking it what you need to
be aware of, that's like just alittle that one's for free.
I'll give you that tip for free.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Check every EULA.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Yeah yeah exactly.
Oh my gosh, please, I never dothat, I never do that.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Who does you should?
Speaker 2 (45:46):
You're going to do it now.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
I love that.
The other thing I would say, Ithink, in terms of when we talk
about real skill building, isrecognize that you can tell that
it's wrong, that if you have askill, if you have a knowledge
in something, using yourcritical thinking and
challenging it, that isincredibly helpful for training
these models, giving feedback.
(46:15):
So in your own learning, makingsure you're giving that
feedback and then, like, rallysome of that adaptability in
terms of skill building.
We all became a ton moreadaptable during COVID, right.
Like what I thought I would bedoing in 2020, in January, is
most certainly not what I'mdoing in 2025, but we all
(46:36):
learned adaptability and that iswhat we're going to have to
hone into.
You know, if you have a, if youhave said to yourself in the
past two years but that's nothow we do, it really get like
put the rubber band on your armand snap it every time.
You think you have thatinstinct Because it's like we
(46:58):
are.
If we continue to think aboutthe way things used to be, it's
really just going to hold usback versus embracing this idea
of what could be.
So in terms of skills, I thinkthis like get literate to
Carol's point, understand theterminology, use it, but also
challenge it.
You can tell it it's doing abad job.
(47:19):
You can tell it it was biasedin its information.
You should tell it all thesethings and don't just take what
it says as unfaithful.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
Yeah, and then there's a lot of tools out there
.
Like I was just playing or ithad been a while.
So and I'm already spending somuch on tools I upgraded to the
$200 version of chat GPT to tryit out.
I, like I got even though I'mat Microsoft got rid of
perplexity.
I want to know everythingthat's out there.
I have the meta AI glasses Ishould have.
(47:50):
I should have had them here.
I'd put them on and show themto you.
But, like I like to experiment,there's a lot of stuff that has
free stuff, and so I tried thatapp where you could like turn
yourself into an avatar or itwas like an AI generated picture
and and then, of course, mykids were like really creeped
out by that.
They're like don't do that.
(48:12):
And then 11 labs like they havea free version and you can go
in and it's really cool.
You can put in text and thenit'll do different voices, so
and you can learn how, likevoice Synthesia.
Like they have a free.
It's like the avatars and whatI would love to do.
I haven't.
I'm, I don't really have ajustification to spend the money
(48:35):
, but you can actually.
I think it's Synthesia whereyou can actually go and record
yourself and then they wouldturn like you into an avatar.
So think about, like when wewere at Deloitte and stuff, you
know they could have KathyEngelbert in there like be her
own avatar or whatever.
But yeah, I'm not quite ready tolike spend my money on that yet
(48:56):
as a as an experiment, but Idon't know.
It's like it's scary, but italso helps me know, like what
could be done.
You know so, but there'sthere's a lot of stuff.
If you truly want to learn,just go look for free trials of
AI tools.
There's video.
There's voice to text.
There's turn yourself into.
(49:16):
It was fun.
There's voice to text.
There's turn yourself into.
It was fun.
It was like I had a lot of funwith like turning myself into.
You know different versions ofmy face and different things.
Speaker 2 (49:26):
So but that's what.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
I learned from all of that there's a really good.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
I'm sure you both know it and I'd love to pivot
into this question for you both.
I know for me, even with thetesting and learning, carol,
like you I think, I spend acouple hours each week on
there's an AI for that justexploring what new.
AI tools are out there, becauseyou just never know.
I'm like what's this?
Okay, let's see what this isall about.
So I love that concept.
I'd love to hear from both ofyou.
(49:52):
It looks like, carol, we mayhave lost your visual, so I'll
start with you, teresa first, onwhat tools are you testing with
and or who are you reading andlistening to right now to, to
stay ahead of this evolvinglandscape?
Speaker 1 (50:07):
So I'm not sure what I'm looking at there on Carol's,
but I'm going to try not to bedistracted.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
I'm not sure either.
I went to the wrong camera, soI'm trying to turn this off.
My apologies on that.
No worries, carol, okay allgood.
Speaker 1 (50:25):
So, similar to Carol, I also just recently purchased
the pro version, so it's anexpensive investment.
Obviously, it's what I do formy business, so being able to
leverage the automation and thecapabilities and just really
learn about agent AI and howit's working in real time is
really interesting.
(50:45):
I have some of the tools that Iconsistently go to.
I think you know a cloud isreally great.
Some of the functionality thathas come out over the past year
has really been amazing in termsof you know, I've created for
clients interactive totalcompensation summary tools
within Claude and then I'm ableto share them even if they don't
(51:06):
have a paid version.
What's really great about thatis, even though a lot of
companies benefits providers,things like that have those
tools, they very rarely take ineverything that an HR team can
provide, so this is a reallycomprehensive tool for employees
.
So I really love this likedynamic nature in which things
are coming out.
I really love Notebook LM.
(51:27):
I use it a lot.
I you know you talk aboutuploading one article into
ChatGPT.
I uploaded 50 of the lastrecent articles and I've
provided that to my AI andbusiness students as a sort of
whole repository for learningand querying, and it's just been
really interesting to see howthey use that dynamically and to
(51:49):
be able to build stuff likethat.
I'm a huge Canva user so I goback and forth on the AI
capabilities in a tool likeCanva, but I really think this
year it's going to be peoplelearning.
I call it tool stacking, so Imay go from ChatGPT to Canva, to
Perplexity for Research, toClaude, because it just has a
(52:11):
better humanistic approach tocommunication, less bias and
things like that.
So I kind of do this toolstacking and work my way around
to get to the solution that it'skind of a blend of all
different solutions.
Speaker 2 (52:26):
And who are you reading, listening to?
To stay ahead.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
I don't even feel like I have like a person or two
people.
I listen to a lot of AIpodcasts.
I kind of jockey it aroundbecause I think every, every
different podcast is focusing onsomething different.
I do get like the AI toolreport, which I think is really
helpful just to stay on top ofwhich tools are out there.
Connor Grennan there's a fewthat kind of seem to.
(52:56):
You know, in his role he reallyhas his finger on the pulse of
what's happening.
You know he's the one that Ifollow that always has access to
these things early, so it'sreally nice to just kind of get
my eye on him.
And then there are some HRleaders that I really that are
starting to lean in.
I didn't ask them if I couldmention them, so I'm not going
(53:17):
to, but a few HR leaders thatI'll give credit to in the
follow-up of this when this islaunched that are really trying
and experimenting andintegrating AI in awesome ways
and that's been really fun towatch.
So I have the clients I workwith, but to see what other
people are doing has been reallyamazing.
And Amanda Halle she has anawesome newsletter that really
(53:37):
focuses in on HR leaders usingAI, which I follow.
Speaker 3 (53:42):
Okay, and can you guys hear me?
Yeah, okay, perfect, perfect.
And so my unfortunately, myMicrosoft Surface laptop has let
me down, so I'm on my videohere.
So reality here.
But no, I really like LoriMazur.
She wrote a book calledTemperature and the Age of AI
and I got to meet Lori in personand it's really about
(54:05):
understanding the type ofcreative person you are, the
type of person you are and howyou show up and engage with AI
and instead of being like, oh,you're this kind of worker, that
kind of worker AI and insteadof being like, oh, you're this
kind of worker, that kind ofworker, looking at yourself from
a creative lens.
And, of course, I know a lot ofpeople follow Allie Miller and
Allie and I worked at AWS at thesame time, but I wanted to just
(54:28):
pivot here a little bit of.
You know, we work in tech andwe think of consulting.
My middle daughter is a fashiondesign major and I will admit,
admit like when AI first cameout, I was like, oh my gosh, is
this like going to obliteratethat industry and the creative
industry?
And so I've been following alot in like industry magazines.
(54:51):
So instead of just followinglike AI people and this goes
back to like in our days ofbeing industry focused, I think
it's important that we look atdifferent industries.
Yes, there's a lot in roboticsand aerospace, but in fashion, I
really love the way AI has beenlike integrated into fashion.
But then I'm also seeing alittle bit I wouldn't call it a
(55:14):
backlash, but it's like valuingthat this was created by a human
right, and I don't thinkthere's been a lot of love of
like commercials that are likeall AI right, like we really
like, and not that there's notAI elements right and so.
But when you're talking aboutwho to follow, I would follow
(55:35):
industries that you care aboutto follow, I would follow
industries that you care about.
And also law Law is beingmassively disrupted.
We have customers I'm not goingto say their names, but we have
customers that have legaljournals and all this different
type of stuff, and obviouslystuff has to be double-checked
(55:55):
in certain areas.
But I actually think thatindustry and the fashion
industry we're going to see alot of change and then there's
going to have to be a lot ofadaptability.
So that doesn't mean therewon't be a human.
That doesn't mean that allfashion design is going to be
done that way.
But if you're.
Again, it goes back to ifyou're in that industry or
(56:18):
you're thinking about industriesaround you, like how are you
going to have to interactdifferently?
And you know the more, thefaster you learn it or you at
least pay attention.
There are some industries.
I mean, I can't know everything, obviously, but I'm keeping my
eye on it and I I'm like, oh I,when this matures to a certain
(56:38):
point, I'm probably going tohave to pay more attention here.
So I'll pause there.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
I have one more.
If, if you're in HR and you'relooking to to find somebody to
follow, follow me.
Yeah, I'm writing a book.
I'm getting ready to launch itin a month and a half, but I
wrote a kind of a workingplaybook for HR leaders on how
(57:08):
to integrate.
There are so many of us outthere that are just trying to
figure it out and be a part ofthe change we want to see and
have the conversations and talkabout it.
I do that every single day.
I'm very blessed to be able tohave this as my career in my
life now, so it's awesome.
Speaker 4 (57:27):
I can ask a technical question.
I just want to go back tosomething really quickly because
I genuinely have this question.
I genuinely have this question.
You both are paying the $200 amonth for the pro version of
chat GPT.
Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 3 (57:41):
Yeah.
So let me tell you why and Ihaven't decided if I'm going to
keep it because all of these AItools like I speak on AI, I'm a
global AI speaker for MicrosoftI like I can't just focus on
their tools and also I'minterested in it.
I and I speak on things likethis.
So I want to know what's goingon.
So when I watched the video,when they were showing agents
(58:03):
and things like that, I want tobe like does this really work?
And so I have to.
This is going to be like amonth to month thing, but I mean
I did have.
I do pay for like five differenttools and but when I use the
$200 version on agents, I'mworking on my own branded
(58:28):
website on Squarespace.
So the agent actually I waspracticing with it it actually
went in and updated the titles,changed the pictures, changed
the stuff, like it did it, and Iwas just using the agents and
stuff.
So you know, because we useagents at Microsoft, but I'm
like can the average person?
I mean I know I have aboveaverage AI skills, but can I get
(58:51):
it to do anything meaningful?
And the answer was yes, but I'mnot.
I might just use it and thenwait and see like it may go back
and forth, but yes, I am payingfor it.
Speaker 4 (59:03):
And so you're using it for agents which are like,
basically the equivalent ispushing it to be more of an
assistant, where it can do taskson its own without having you
having to prompt it right.
That's what an agent is.
Speaker 3 (59:13):
Yes, but basically what it does is it goes in and
takes over, when it doesn't takeover your computer but like the
website and and you can watchit as it does it, it does it for
you.
But agents I mean I know a lotabout agents and how we're doing
at Microsoft.
I was trying to look at it moreon the consumer side and see
(59:33):
because I will say this to theaudience learn about agents,
because everything is way farfarther ahead than you think it
is.
Learn I'm not saying you haveto know how to build them or
whatever, but that it would be agreat area because this is the
year of more agents coming out.
So, teresa, anything you wantto add.
Speaker 1 (59:52):
Yeah.
So I just made the decision,like on Friday, to I have a
friend who posted about it and Iwas like, if you're willing to
join me on a every Fridayconversation and like do this
together.
And he was like 100%.
And then my friend, amandaHalle, who I'm very close
friends with as well, she's likeI'm in, I want to do it too.
(01:00:14):
And so I believe my mindsettoday is the same as Carol's,
which is like I feel like basedon my business, I need to
understand it.
Would I recommend that theaverage Jane go out there and
spend $200?
No, I don't even know that Iwould recommend the average Jane
has to spend the $20.
I think it really depends onwhat your use is, and for me,
(01:00:37):
part of it is because I am asolopreneur and figuring out how
some of that automation worksand how it can work for me is
really important.
But I also want to be part ofthe leadership saying, hey,
everybody, here's what's comingand here's what it looks like
and here's why you don't need tobe afraid of it.
And I can't do that in the sameway that I talk with leaders
(01:00:58):
and say, look, you can't be apart of the strategy to support
the launch of AI if you don'tuse it and you don't understand
the vernacular.
I have to educate myself, justlike I would expect those people
that are still standing in theseagrass waiting to jump into
the water about AI.
They've got to start exploringit and that's what I'm doing,
(01:01:18):
but I wouldn't recommend it toanybody, and I think that there
are to the point earlier.
There's a lot of tools outthere.
They're going to come fast andfurious this year.
You know the fact that a toollike that, a launch like that,
didn't even have like a here'sthe launch party for it.
It's just like quietly on aThursday.
They're like, okay, we have proversion now.
(01:01:41):
And then you know Claude comesand then perplexity is like we
have it too, like it's justhappening so fast, and that's
where you know staying on top ofit is so important.
Speaker 4 (01:01:51):
All right.
No, I appreciate it, I justwanted to know.
I need to know if I need tomake space in the budget.
Do I need to make space in thebudget this?
Speaker 1 (01:01:57):
is what I'm doing, not now.
Speaker 4 (01:02:00):
Read up on agents.
Make sure we know what they are, I understand.
Noted Noted.
Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
And understand the term agent is used a lot.
There's the way that I sort ofdescribe it is there's sort of
assistance, which you know, theword chatbot or custom GPT or
assistance.
They're all this like kind ofinterchangeable vernacular.
In some ways.
Agents are very specificallyfocused on being able to take
action, not just regurgitateinformation but actually do take
(01:02:26):
action.
So they do kind of take overyour computer Right, right,
right, yeah Awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Mel.
Well, we're going to transferover to you, francesca, for
listener Q&A and our boldpredictions, so we can close out
this live with you guys.
How does that sound?
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
I'm just going to ask one of the bold predictions,
because we're already, we're attime.
Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
Sorry guys, no, no no , no, no.
Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
I'm going to do an employee-centric question just
to wrap it.
It could be something you'vealready said, but if there's one
thing an employee should startdoing today to future-proof
their career, what is it?
Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Download a generative AI tool of your choice to your
phone.
Speaker 3 (01:03:11):
And every morning when you wake it up, have a
conversation with it.
Nice, I would echo that.
And on the iPhone, there's aquick action button on the top
left and that's where I have mychat GPT app, yep.
And so I agree.
And I would say pick one thingand just go do it.
Like, don't, you know, break itdown into parts.
(01:03:34):
You can feel overwhelmed.
Think of something you need todo, something you need to read,
you need to update your resume,you're going on a trip, doesn't
matter what it is, just pick onething and do it and don't give
up.
I always say and people say thisseems simple to me, but they're
like this really helped methink of ai as a conversation.
(01:03:55):
A lot of people give up toofast.
Oh, I put in this prompt anddidn't get the answer.
You're having a conversationand and you can like, oh, in
your mind, if you're thinkingthat wasn't specific enough,
type it out.
That wasn't specific enough.
Oh, I didn't like that answer,I really wanted something that
was funnier.
Oh, that like whatever you'rethinking in your head, stream of
(01:04:18):
consciousness, type it in, andyou have to have the patience to
play with it and tell it whatyou think and ask it and it's
also fun, like once you getgoing.
But that's what I would say.
Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
All right.
Well, friends, you can findTeresa Fezenstein and Carol
Scott on LinkedIn, so please dofollow them, as they mentioned
LinkedIn.
So please do follow them, asthey mentioned.
We will also tag them on ourpost for the podcast and you can
listen to the playback on yourWork Friends.
And your Work Friends podcastalso has a community on LinkedIn
(01:04:54):
.
Join us over there, where wepost weekly episodes with
special guest experts likeTeresa and Carol on various
topics.
So please join us over thereand you can find us on every
social media platform.
So go out and find us, andwe're on Spotify and Apple, and
thank you for joining us thisevening for the conversation.
Thank you, friends.
Speaker 1 (01:05:13):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
And it's been so fun Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
Thank you, sorry about the video, but this has
been awesome.
Thank you so much.
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