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Building Amotions AI w/ Pianpian Xu Guthrie
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Pianpian Xu Guthrie is founder and CEO of Amotions AI, a startup that provides an emotionally intelligent real-time AI coach live in calls and AI role play for leaders and employees in areas like sales.
Before founding Amotions AI, she led product management and growth at multiple tech companies such as GoDaddy and Ticketmaster.
She aims to use technology to improve people's lives across socioeconomic circumstances and cultures.
LINKS
HOSTS
- Andrea Goulet LinkedIn | andreagoulet.com
- Ray Myers LinkedIn | Craft vs Cruft on YouTube
ABOUT EMPATHY IN TECH
Empathy in Tech is a fiscally sponsored project of Superbloom Design, a US 501c3 nonprofit. Together, we are on a mission to accelerate the responsible adoption of empathy in the tech industry by:
- Closing the empathy skills gap by treating empathy as a technical skill.
- Teaching technical empathy through accessible, affordable, actionable training.
- Building community and breaking down harmful stereotypes and tropes.
- Promoting technical empathy for ethics, equity, and social justice.
Recommended
Transcript
Empathy in Technology: Societal Implications
00:00:00
Speaker
It's our responsibility to think through what are the human interactions as people use the product and what are the implications on the society. I do believe that it has a huge potential of unlocking people's potentials.
00:00:16
Speaker
Welcome to Empathy in Tech, where we explore the deeply technical side of
Introductions: Andrea, Ray, and Pianpan
00:00:21
Speaker
empathy. And the critical need for empathy in technology. I'm Andrea Goulet. And I'm Ray Myers. And today we have Pianpan Guthrie.
Pianpan Guthrie and Emotions AI
00:00:30
Speaker
He's a founder and CEO of a Emotions AI, a startup that provides an emotionally intelligent, real-time ai coach live and calls an AI role play for leaders and employees in areas like sales. Before founding a Emotions AI, she led product management and growth at multiple tech companies such as GoDaddy and Ticketmaster. She can have several degrees, including masters in sociology from Yale with a thesis on social mobility and psychological well-being. a Master's in Social Science from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a Bachelor's of Arts in Japanese from Sun Yat-sen University.
00:01:05
Speaker
She aims to use technology to improve people's lives across socioeconomic circumstances and cultures.
From Rural China to Silicon Valley
00:01:10
Speaker
Thank you so much for being here, Pim Pian. Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to talk to you, Andre and Ray.
00:01:19
Speaker
So we might start by talking about your background in in different cultures. know you're originally from rural China and you have a degree in Japanese, and now you're leading a startup in Silicon Valley. So what drew you to studying the overlap between technology and sociology?
Sociology and Psychology: A Career in AI
00:01:38
Speaker
Yeah, thanks again for having me, Andrea and ah Ray. So excited to speak with you. And yeah, thank you for the question. So yeah, i grew up in a village in China. And in high school, I was and math and physics oriented. But I was also good at languages. So my teachers suggested that besides English, it would be beneficial for me to learn another language. So In college, I majored in Japanese language and culture and I got a scholarship to study in Japan. And i and got the opportunity to choose a different major when I was studying at Kobe University in Japan. So I chose sociology because I was very interested in people ah growing up. So I thought it's a good way to learn about people and the world. and
00:02:27
Speaker
And after my master's in social science from Hong Kong, and studied initially for my PhD in sociology at Yale, when I was studying at Yale, I was thinking kind of like what what I would do after graduation. And I started to get interested in the business, the internet world, because I felt like internet was a really empowering tool. Without that, I wouldn't be able to come to study in the US s from a village in China.
00:02:55
Speaker
yeah. That's how kind of the ah people side and the tech side got merged. and And I chose to start my career as a, actually it was by luck. I got a new job as a product manager after grad school and that's where I started.
00:03:11
Speaker
So sociology is kind of a broad term, right? Like you can think of it it's like, oh, it's people. And, you know, but how do you define it? And then what aspects of it do you find the most interesting?
00:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, sociology is a study of group behaviors and organizations. So ah I was kind of looking at both psychology and so sociology.
00:03:38
Speaker
Psychology often is kind of looking at individual behaviors versus sociology is ah iss often looking at group behaviors and patterns. um And I did, ah for five years, I did quantitative sociology.
00:03:52
Speaker
So it's looking at a lot of quantitative data to study how one thing affects the another thing. So my thesis in college was how women's, how family structure affect women's employment in Japan and China. And then my thesis at Yale was actually kind of how social ah mobility influenced people's psychological well being. So it's combining so sociology and psychology.
00:04:21
Speaker
And when you say social mobility, is that like the like way that people can improve like their monetary status? Or is it like opportunities? Like, how do you define social mobility?
00:04:34
Speaker
When we were doing research, it was defined as social status, so and it was categorized like you have blue collar, white collar, and executives. and So it's like if you're able to move from one status to another, that's considered social mobility.
Social Mobility and AI Development
00:04:50
Speaker
That's beneficial as kind of now I'm i thinking I'm building a ah startup that's kind of actually how how to leverage ah technology, especially ai the newest generative AI and AI technology to improve people's lives because we need to look at it as patterns as well, like human behaviors is not...
00:05:11
Speaker
I mean, yes, we're very important to look at, think about each user and kind of think about the journey, but also important to look at kind of the social trends and how it affects people as well. Yeah. What were some of the results of your studies? Like how did social mobility impact people's psychological well-being?
00:05:28
Speaker
So i at the time, for my master thesis, was comparing China and um and the U.S. And we learned that for the people who did not change any social status was actually the most miserable. And then...
00:05:43
Speaker
of Of course, the people who moved up was the happiest. and And it was little bit counterintuitive because you think, well, if you're front coming from certain class and if you maintain it, you might be happy. But it seems like some people are just kind of not necessarily satisfied.
00:06:01
Speaker
with the status status quo. That was interesting. like if If you're coming from a white collar and you maintain and stay in that white collar status, you might not be the happiest person. And that's kind of correlated to some ah some studies in economics that once you reach a certain threshold of income level, more money is not going to buy you more happiness.
00:06:26
Speaker
Yeah, I remember reading this book, The Psychology of Money, and it talks a little bit about that as well. Yeah, how we're thinking about as we're building software products that now impacts people's productivity and growth. And um it's like how we can help people yet be more productive and reach their full
AI in Sales: Emotion Detection and Cognitive Load
00:06:44
Speaker
potentials. But also in a way that can help them feel like they are kind of the next level after income is self-actualization, like feeling like they kind of reached the next level of psychological needs.
00:06:58
Speaker
Moving to your current company, Emotions AI, ah you have this real-time AI coach that functions and calls in this role-play ah scenario that that you provide.
00:07:10
Speaker
What problem are you trying to solve at the core and and why do you believe that AI is the right tool for it? So the new product that we just launched and the core product we're currently building is a real-time AI that can listen in calls and give people real-time guidance and suggestions such as sales calls. And one of customers used the analogy of Google Maps sales calls. So it's like you're a salesperson, as you're talking to a customer,
00:07:43
Speaker
You can glance at the Google map, make sure you're in on the right track. You can kind of see what are the next steps, what is the next thing you should do. So can help you detect customers' and emotions and be aware of how how people are feeling and adjust it according to um to that And it can kind of combine company framework and playbook as well.
00:08:05
Speaker
And the core problem we're addressing is that interactions with customer is a really important piece of the puzzle. When you're in the middle of the call, you might not remember, like, the actually, empathy is a really big piece. It's having empathy for other side, in the sales case, is the customer, and really understand the needs and figure out, like, what they really need.
00:08:30
Speaker
It's easy for someone to kind of a salesperson to go more into the pitch mode and demo mode instead of staying the empathy side, listen more. So part of the thing is helping the salespeople kind of remind them on how to ask questions, how to listen better, especially in the discovery phase. It's very important for for salespeople to really understand the customer's needs. and ah So that's one of one of the pieces. And then another piece is sometimes like in the middle of the call, you someone asks a question, salespeople might not always think about how to handle objections or might not always think about how to answer some of the technical questions or product questions. So AI can help answer some of those questions as well.
00:09:20
Speaker
And then lastly, if the salespeople are following a framework, kind like a sales methodology, that the AI can help kind of guide them on where they are. ah The AI can guide them on like how is their customer annoyed? Are they still engaged?
00:09:35
Speaker
And then how they can kind of flexible adjust. And the original idea actually came ah came because when I was a new product manager after my master's at Yale, and I found it very challenging to build good connections with my colleagues and managers.
00:09:53
Speaker
um And I would argue like for for a long time with my engineering managers for long time, so for certain topics and I would kind of regret it afterward.
00:10:04
Speaker
So and I was hoping to have something to guide me on in conversations, especially in the moment to like listen better and talk better with people. and So I was, I wanted some, something like an AI coach before, like that was,
00:10:20
Speaker
more than six, seven years ago before AI was a hit. I was dreaming to have something like that for myself because I know that even if you have an executive coach, they cannot be with you in any meeting at any time. So a tool that like really can be with you in any any meeting is crucial for that.
00:10:39
Speaker
and So, and then as I was kind starting building the product, we initially started as more general like communication and leadership oriented. And then I was doing some founder sales and I realized sales, it's a space that this kind of skill is really important. And then we started talking to more different personas and realized kind of sales leaders and sales professionals included. That's like one of the key areas. So that's kind of how we have the focus of what it is now. Now we do have the role play functions. So that's more for practice. So it's like before you get into a,
00:11:16
Speaker
a real conversation with the customer, you can practice and making sure you get kind of like being able to handle some of the objections or articulate yourself. So let's test my understanding of kind of where this ah sits, because I haven't done much sales myself, but I am aware that sometimes they have call scripts and then those can be kind of choose your own adventure.
00:11:45
Speaker
There are these flow charts. I'm not sure exactly what they're they're called in that domain, and but it's like a decision tree where you might ask a question depending on the answer. Okay, we go to this branch of the tree or that branch of the tree as far as where we're going to map the conversation. yeah But ultimately, that is somewhat fixed to like, okay, what can we draw on a page or...
00:12:06
Speaker
if they so are using a program for it, but what is the fixed tree that we've established? And so it seems like this is in a similar vein, trying to go that that next level to where there are just sort of more dynamic possibilities that it can it can draw on. But ultimately, that's kind of the space that it's in. Is this a good comparison?
00:12:29
Speaker
Yeah. Interestingly, you mentioned decision tree. One of our users just sent us like a long list of feedback and our ideas. And one of the things he mentioned is decision tree, and kind of helping people navigate from when, when,
00:12:44
Speaker
one uh one branch of the tree to the next so yeah it is uh and we're working with companies on that and they often have some of these paths laid out they know what is the best practice but we know that every every person is different every call is different so they need to be flexible to adjust and our ai needs to be flexible to adjust as well yeah that's really interesting you know my first part of my career was in sales so I was on the phone all the time I sold payroll to small businesses and yeah I mean like the way I learned was you know they had me go to an off-site for a week or two where I learned everything about the customer methodology I had a huge buy this but i had an actual like
00:13:29
Speaker
paper binder, like a three ring binder, where it's talking about all the objections and, you know, kind of training you. i you know, spent a lot of time just learning a lot of different frameworks. One of my favorites was Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, where it's like, okay, situation, and then what's the problem? And then what's the implication? And then what's the need payoff? Like, what's the benefit? And so Having all of those, but yeah, I mean, I think what I'm hearing is a lot of it is the cognitive load, because when you're on those sales calls, it can be really dynamic, like Ray was saying, and trying to figure out, okay, what do I say in this situation?
00:14:09
Speaker
And some of the cognitive load is really, really high. So I'm imagining that, you know, it might be useful because, you in order to really listen, like a lot of times when I was, you know, in these sales conversations, and I didn't feel like I was able to listen as much as I wanted to because I kept having to think about, okay, what's the objection to this?
00:14:31
Speaker
And having to hold those dual things in my mind. so Yeah, that's that's a really good point. It's like kind of how to um handle some of the cognitive issues load for the salespeople. So at least like kind of helping them be more um aware of the customer and like have more empathy and listen better when you know that, okay, don't worry if if you can't think of some technical term, the AI could help assist you or the AI actually could also help you listen to the customer and analyze their emotions as well. So be there to assist and and share some of the cognitive load.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, and I think some of that too is, you know, making sure that, you know, anytime an AI or anytime anybody like human or technology says, you know, a suggestion of how someone feels, knowing that that's just a suggestion. It's not a concrete, like, this is how they feel because this is their, you know, facial expression at this point. But it does, it sounds like give you kind of a starting point to then further conversation.
00:15:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's a a lot of materials for salespeople to remember, like all of the product information, newly launched product information, technical information, case studies, how to handle objections. So, yeah. Yeah. so Focusing a little bit more on kind of the workplace, what do you see as some of the potential benefits and then some of the potential pitfalls of people relying on ai and technology, and not just generally, but in the workplace? And yeah how do you suggest thinking about this as we move forward?
00:16:13
Speaker
oh That's a great question. I was just discussing that with the a sales operations leader yesterday and she's asking me, is AI going to help our people grow and help them do be better? Or is the AI going to just kind of be so good that they're actually going to stop thinking about some of the things when they duck into customers and thinking the AI will give them the answers? Yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
and And I said, our overall philosophy is to help people reach their full potentials and help them maximize their their growth and productivity. We're not here to kind of replace humans. We're not here to ah we're not here to say like, now you can just rely on AI. You don't have to think or you don't have to listen. You don't have to feel kind of things. So it's more...
00:16:59
Speaker
It's a tool to assist ah people not to replace. um and And as you mentioned earlier, it's informational. So anyone using AI kind of still kind of be aware that it's informational and they still need to adjust ah use it accordingly.
00:17:19
Speaker
And I mean, with the technologies in place and the steps that we're taking, we we we have less and less hallucination, but sometimes it could still happen. We need to keep that in mind as well.
00:17:33
Speaker
It's not like just reading word by word with what AI suggests. It's also, it's more like kind of having a quick glance and then adjust it in the context and situation.
00:17:44
Speaker
Yeah, so still having that discernment, but having more information. i like i liked that, um you know, analogy, of you know, Google Maps for sales conversation. That's interesting.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, and mean another analogy is bringing a like sales coach real time with you all the time and when they when they don't have the capacity to be with you or a sales manager with you when they don't have the capacity to join every call to give suggestions.
00:18:14
Speaker
Sometimes people also say it's bringing a solution engineer that can help you answer the technical questions. So that's like a few kind of, ah I mean, right now people are are humans are doing some of the help, but they they just don't have the capacity to join everyone.
00:18:30
Speaker
so over the past two years of the AI boom, we've seen you know a lot of excitement, also a lot of fears. And one of the things that that comes up is is people have some concern that an AI tool that is is focused somehow on human connection might feed into some kind of loneliness epidemic where we're just interacting with with machines more and people less.
00:18:58
Speaker
So what are your thoughts as someone who's architecting an emotion related AI, like what are the potential broader impacts on society?
00:19:09
Speaker
That's a
Enhancing Human Interactions with AI
00:19:10
Speaker
great question. The real-time AI we're that we're building, is you will only find it useful when you're talking with another human. like it It doesn't do anything you're just talking to yourself. or or i mean you can You can actually technically use it to analyze a recording of your call and give you suggestions as well.
00:19:30
Speaker
But the core of it is to help improve your interactions with other humans. Now, we do have another tool that the AI coach, conversational AI coach and role play that you can use without talking, just use it as interact, like talking to the AI and getting the role.
00:19:49
Speaker
doing the role play and without interacting with other humans. they Our goal is to help you prepare better for interactions with other humans. Our goal is not to kind of encourage people only use the AI and not talk to other the humans.
00:20:03
Speaker
Now, I mean, there there are people kind of starting to use it more and it might reduce a little bit of the human interaction. But and I think the AI can can help people to some extent. And then if they need a deeper kind of ah support, they might need to go to other humans for that. So there's still limitations of what the AI can do. But um but we do encourage, especially kind of if they're younger people, teenagers or younger people, and then parents should really kind of
00:20:38
Speaker
ah guide them on how to use AI and not kind of thinking that's our replacement of a human and for them to interact with. So You mentioned designing a product such that it will help people reach their full potential rather than give them assistance that just sort of makes them disengage from the active thought process.
00:21:01
Speaker
I mean, that sounds really good and desirable and the direction that we should be going, but it seems a little subtle how you actually make a product do that, right? Like we may have people who who listen that,
00:21:16
Speaker
are in the process of fitting AI assistants into their product and are and are trying to to to make these kinds of calls. Do you have an example of what it looks like to make ah a product decision in a way that will like stimulate ah someone's potential as opposed to just making them disengage?
00:21:35
Speaker
Yeah. That's a good point. An example, a big part of our product is to the other people in the call, it's emotions, and it gives suggestions to the salespeople on what questions to ask as a follow-up to understand that the other person's needs better or their the other person's process and feelings better.
00:21:58
Speaker
So yeah, the AI give you a suggestion on what questions to ask. You kind of do need to decide if this is the right questions to ask in the moment. And if you do you ask that in a question in that direction, now the customer started talking, now you need to start listening to see what the what the person is saying and understand and digest their need.
00:22:21
Speaker
So it's actually kind of, it's a step-by-step process to get to have you to think more about the other person instead of, okay, now I i use i adopt AI's question, I can just sit back and and not engage kind of thing.
00:22:38
Speaker
This is fantastic. I love the exploration of kind of the you know societal and you know how do you use AI in a way that you're reducing some cognitive load, but then retain that humanity. I think that's a really interesting problem that you're working on solving.
00:22:56
Speaker
We have one question that we ask everyone on the show. I'm really interested in getting your take since you've got that combination between sociology and technology. But what do you think is the most important thing that should happen at the intersection of empathy and technology?
00:23:14
Speaker
That's a really good question that kind of thinking ah in terms of thinking about the whole society and the tech spectrum. AI is built by humans and it's, I know a lot of the audience are builders.
00:23:28
Speaker
It's our responsibility to think through what are the human interactions as people use the product and what are the implications on the society as we are building these things. What kind of data, what kind of training we give to the AI but for it to understand what are the human interactions, for it to understand different perspectives, different backgrounds, and for it to make it useful for people. So ah the responsibility starts with us building the AI products.
00:24:02
Speaker
And then as people use the AI products, they could also think about what is this tool and how it could impact myself and other people around me. And AI is pretty popular in Silicon Valley. I know it's not necessarily well adopted around the world or even outside of Silicon Valley yet. And some people might have the fear, like, will it replace me? Will it would take my job?
00:24:29
Speaker
Does it really help? So some people are still trying to understand like its value and what it is. I think there's a lot of potential. There's a lot of value it could bring.
00:24:39
Speaker
We need to be thoughtful about what are the different use cases and how we can approach this and what everyone's role is. is I do believe that it has a huge potential of unlocking people's potentials.
Connect with Pianpan Guthrie
00:24:52
Speaker
So how can people get in touch with you and learn more about your work? They can reach me on LinkedIn, PNPNGuffrey. They can also reach me by email, PNPN at emotionsinc.com. It's A-M-O-T-I-O-N-S-I-N-C.com.
00:25:10
Speaker
ah They can check out website, emotionsinc.com. Or if you Google search a Emotion AI, it should come up. You can contact us through there. I'm always happy to chat, brainstorm, see how it can help anyone or the team.
00:25:25
Speaker
we're also looking to We're also looking for more people who are interested in our mission and mission to join us to help build a great product and a great company. And we're also looking for ah people like sales leaders, companies who might be interested in trying piloting, partnering with us to help their teams ah grow and their business and their employees, as well as investors, angels, as all we VCs who want to join us in the journey of leveraging technology and AI to make the world a better place. So always happy to connect.
00:26:05
Speaker
Thank you so much for coming on the show, Pian Pian. This was a great conversation. And thanks to everyone for listening. Just as a reminder, Empathy in Tech is a nonprofit project of Super Bloom Design.
00:26:16
Speaker
And together, we are on a mission to accelerate the responsible adoption of empathy in the tech industry by doing four things. Closing the empathy skill gap by treating empathy as a technical skill, teaching technical empathy through accessible, affordable, and actionable training, building community and breaking down harmful stereotypes and tropes, and promoting technical empathy for ethics, equity, and social justice.
00:26:39
Speaker
So head on over to empathyintech.com to learn how you can get involved. And thanks again for listening, and we will see you in the next episode.