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00:00:01
AI in Business Mentoring
29 Plays2 months ago
In this Mentoring Playbook episode, ABM founder Kerrie Dorman discusses exciting advancements in three AI spaces with expert guest Cian Duggan, founder and CEO of Applied Insights AI.
Key themes include:
- AI Evolution and Small Business Implications
- How to use AI tools to optimise processes
- AI: Threats and Opportunities for SMEs
- Enhancing SME Operations with AI Tools
- Key AI Insights for Mentors and Mentees
- About FindingInsights A
About Applied Insights AI
At Applied Insights, we know leadership is evolving, and we’re here to empower leaders to navigate today’s complex, exponential world. Using leading cognitive science, AI-powered tools, and a vibrant community of business leaders, we provide real-time insights and tailored coaching that help leaders make informed decisions and scale their organizations with confidence.
Our goal is to enhance decision-making, improve team connectivity, and drive sustainable growth, supporting leaders at every stage of their journey. Whether you’re a new CEO or a seasoned executive, Applied Insights equips you with the insights, solutions and network to thrive in uncertainty and lead with clarity.
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Transcript
Welcome and Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, welcome to the ABM Mentoring Playbook. This is your podcast on all things mentoring, tools, techniques, and best practices.
Meet the Host: Kerry Dorman
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm your host, Kerry Dorman. I'm the founder and chief ambassador of the Association of Business Mentors. And every month I'm going to be speaking with an expert guest about a specific tool to help you elevate your mentoring practice. So without further ado, let's crack on to this month's episode.
Guest Introduction: Kian Duggan and AI Insights
00:00:32
Speaker
Good morning, Kian. Thank you very much for joining me here today on the Mentoring Playbook Podcast here at the ABM. I'm very, very excited to talk to you about AI. It's been a recent mission of mine to try and understand it a little bit more. and so But firstly, I just wanted to introduce you, you're Kian Duggan and you're from Applied Insights and I just wanted to get you to tell us a little bit about that.
AI's Value for SMEs
00:00:58
Speaker
Certainly. um So yes, Key and Duggan applied insights AI. So we help small, medium-sized businesses to to basically capture the value of of AI. um We've been doing it. I've been involved in AI for, gosh, 10, 15 years at least. Our previous business, we did a lot of of AI analysis on big data sets. um And I realized a couple of years ago that large businesses are definitely gaining the benefit of AI and small businesses were kind of falling behind. And so I thought it was definitely time to to try and see how small businesses can can use all these incredibly numerous and the the proliferation of of AI tools and how they can use those practically and quickly within their businesses. So that was the genesis of the Blight Insights.
00:01:48
Speaker
I see. So why do you think it is or was that SMEs were falling behind? Was that a resource issue? Yeah, so so what we were beginning to see, so I had ah a business which I sold a couple of years ago, and we consulted into some of the largest businesses in across the world. um And what we saw was that they had significant departments dedicated to in technology yeah in its various formats, including of course, artificial intelligence, where they had large data sets. So so it was the
00:02:24
Speaker
The larger companies tended to have larger data sets, which was particularly suited for AI up until relatively recently. The yeah the kind of the value the value case for AI was using AI techniques on your own large data sets.
AI Evolution and Small Business Implications
00:02:41
Speaker
What changed? I mean, there was a significant, a seminal moment in November 2022 when OpenAI came out with ChatGPT. That was kind of like the yeah the the mobile moment when when things changed. and And all of a sudden, small businesses were able to, at a cost-effective price point, use some of the generative AI tools. ChatGPT being one of the first, but you know then you know Google and Met and others came out with and their versions pretty quickly.
00:03:10
Speaker
And that was a real game changer. yeah you know So from from late 22 until now, there have been this explosion. There's been an explosion of AI tools built both on top of the technologies that ah chat GPT use, the generative pre-trained and transformer technologies, GPT, um but also other AI technologies as well. And I suppose As has always been the case, when when new technologies come to the fore, engineers and software developers start just thinking crazy thoughts about how they can use this new tech to solve sometimes new problems, but often solving age old problems. yeah and um And that's definitely the case ah at the moment, like SMEs, small, medium sized businesses have got, you know, classic problems that have plagued them for for decades.
The Historical Journey of AI
00:04:04
Speaker
and And some of these new AI tools can help solve some of those problems really, really well and really cost effectively. So actually that feeds in beautifully. Well, it it it encroaches beautifully on my first question to you, which is what exactly is AI and how has it evolved, especially evolved so quickly in the last two years?
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah. i'm I mean, it's a fascinating area of of technology development. I mean, you know, you could say that the birth of AI was back in the birth of computing's back in, you know, the the the mid 1800s or 1830s, 40s with Babbage and his engine and Ada Lovelace and what they did. But AI kind of kicked into being, um it was in the 1950s, a chap, Alan Turing, who came up with the Turing test. and And that was basically, you know, that AI, he kind of considered that AI would be when it was indistinguishable um to to determine whether an answer coming back from a question was
00:05:07
Speaker
provided by a human or provided by a machine or or a computer. um So that was kind of like the the general kind of, you know,
Milestones in AI Development
00:05:14
Speaker
definition of of AI. um And then through the 50s, 60s, 80s, there were lots of different kind of technology improvements, but ah so there's there's been a lot of academic activity and academic findings for decades, um but without massive application in the real world. um I think it kind of came to came to the fore when um it was back in you know the late 90s, 1997, when there IBM had a computer. Do you remember Deep Blue? ah yeah you yes It Gary Kasparov. Yes, that's that's right. without one yeah yeah And that was the first time that people went, oh, so a computer can now play chess well enough to beat the world chess champion. So so that was quite a big one. And and that kind of kick started again, a bit of activity investment into into AI.
00:06:08
Speaker
You know, not that ah investment hadn't been happening, but it had just kind of drained a little bit because the promise hadn't really been realized. Um, so then in the, the 2010s and through 2012, 2016, uh, 2016 was a big one. Google created ah a program called AlphaGo, which, um, was able to then beat the, uh, the Go champion again, you know, playing with games or having AI win games that were very complex. Go was about the most complex game, no demand. Um,
00:06:36
Speaker
So that, that, that happened there and you know, there there were image recognition was a big one as well. That was in the early kind of 2010s, 2012, um, image recognition kind of happened. Um, kind of neural networks came to the fore.
00:06:52
Speaker
And then we get to kind of the more more modern recent history where, you know, AI is beginning to to go into applications, you know, and and the applications being healthcare care was a big one at first, you know, kind of with image recognition, we could start to use AI to try and pick out better than humans, things like pre-cancer cells or or things like that, personalized treatment. Of course, the finance the finance world, algorithmic trading became a thing and then you know people trying to to make money on stock market and an ever smaller changes in in stock prices, that became a big thing. um you know Follow the money is often a good way for technology to to to grow.
AI's Rapid Growth and Future Impacts
00:07:34
Speaker
Um, people like Elon Musk were kicking off his kind of autonomous driving, you know, autonomous vehicles, automotive side of things. Um, and, and we also started to see things like, uh, you know, customer service applications like chat bots or virtual assistants or, you know, a variety of what, what often started as quite annoying and kind of, you know, applications. So he's like, I just want to talk to a human.
00:07:59
Speaker
but but Yeah, no, I know. I've experienced that frustration myself. so you know It's absolutely fascinating, isn't it? it's it's For me, it's the curiosity that has fed the innovation, which has then snowballed. Would that be right?
00:08:17
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, human ingenuity is amazing. you know And you know the the goal of artificial intelligence or and and and even the goal of artificial general intelligence, you know where the kind of IQ of of a computing engine gets higher than the average human and and then starts to go exponential. you know That's been a goal ah ah for for decades.
00:08:41
Speaker
And we're getting closer, you know, of course, then we got to be careful. So, you know, the comedians are are having a field day with this. Stephen Colbert recently saying things like, you know, artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity. You know, I love things like that. Or Sarah Silverman saying, A.I. is like a teenager knows everything but understands nothing, you know.
00:09:03
Speaker
Well, the thing is, though, is that teenagers grow and grow up mentally. and And that's exactly what's going to happen, isn't it? I mean, if it's snowballed in the last two years, as it has done, then I can only can't even begin to imagine actually what the next two years has in store for us in terms of AI.
00:09:21
Speaker
Absolutely. ah you're You're absolutely right, Kerry. And the the exponential nature of technology in general, I mean, if you think back to you know the 90s with the the dawn of the internet era and people doing e-commerce and trading online, and then the mobile phone and what that enabled us to do. And now we're having AI sitting on top of internet technology and mobile technology.
00:09:44
Speaker
And it's it's going at a rate that we've never seen before. you know and And the combination of of AI and and things like robotics is going to make a massive difference to how we live our lives. yeah mean The world is full of of movies of dystopian and a less dystopian future kind of scenarios.
00:10:04
Speaker
Any or all of which may happen, because you know, technology can be used for good and for ill. um But yes, the the rate of change is, it's quite unbelievable. I mean, I've been in business for decades and I've kind of run my own small businesses for decades. And I've never seen change happen as fast as it is right now. And it's going to get faster.
00:10:26
Speaker
so So what does that
AI: Threats and Opportunities for SMEs
00:10:28
Speaker
mean? What is the possible impact of all of that for SMEs? So I suppose simplistically, and that this is what we're how we're kind of chatting to our our customers is that, you know,
00:10:41
Speaker
AI is there whether you like it or not. Your competitors are probably using it either a lot or a little. um So it's probably an existential problem for most businesses. if they If they don't use it, it's a significant threat. But of course the positive or the flip side is, you know, using AI are beginning to be more comfortable with AI tools, using AI in it in its various forms um can can provide you know a huge positive impact, a huge positive set of benefits to to small, medium-sized businesses. i mean you know If I just kind of clip through the the kind of the high level, small, medium-sized businesses, they they can
00:11:23
Speaker
become significantly more efficient, so' so really reduce wastage. Sustainability, which was my previous world, you know I had a working definition of sustainability, which is just simplistically, do more with less. And AI definitely helps small, medium-sized businesses do that, become more sustainable, more efficient, more productive. you know It's more fun because AI tools can help take away a lot of the drudgery or the pain or the painful activities that that that we tend to just have to do when we're running small businesses. and you know It can get a bit more specific. you know it can AI tools help with you know core challenges that people running small businesses have, i.e. staff attracting and retaining good staff. AI tools can help with that.
00:12:10
Speaker
how how How would that give us an example? Sure. so um i mean It's one of the classic examples. I don't know many small businesses that don't have a challenge with A, finding good staff. And so now there are AI tools where you can, for first of all, you you can get a job description faster using tools like you know the the classic GPTs like you know yeah chat GPT etc so so you can write better job descriptions and it can help you to get your ideas out of your head onto paper in a much faster way so that's kind of you know part one defining what it is that you want and then finding a group of or ah so a short list of of suitable candidates what AI tools can now do is they can basically
00:12:55
Speaker
you can say I want to find someone who has these skills and these who seems to you know embody these values because you know value selection for for staff is often as port as important as skills so you can ask AI tools to go and can find you a short list and they can drill down into the likes of all that the they kind of ah HR databases the public ones like LinkedIn and and various others as well to find you good candidates um and then can even do things like ah you know request those candidates to do little videos or or to kind of fill out some basic questions to again pre-select good candidates for you because if you've ever tried to hire someone you know there are a number of problem areas that that that you go through number one
00:13:44
Speaker
again, defining what you want. Number two, finding good candidates. Number three, shortlisting it to you know your top two or three that you want to interview. And then during your interview process, you can now ah record
Enhancing SME Operations with AI Tools
00:13:57
Speaker
all of the the conversations. You can get AI to do sentiment analysis on on candidate answers so you can get a much better understanding and have some some kind of quantitative, very clear quantitative outputs from the interview process. That's all to get to a point of, you know, let's say giving somebody a job offer. So a bunch of AI tools that can help with all of that, all of those different kinds of pain points or problem areas.
00:14:25
Speaker
And then once you have people, so, you know, you once you have good people within, then, you know, things like employee training, AI driven training programs, personalized learning experiences, you know, improving employee skills and productivity. and And of course that's just on the employee side, but most employees leave or the single biggest reason employees leave a business is because of their manager. Yeah.
00:14:51
Speaker
you know, AI training programs, AI-based or driven training programs can also help us as business leaders, as as employers, as managers to be better managers and therefore help our staff, you know, get out of our staff's way, provide the air cover for them and and allow them to be their best. um so So yeah, on on the the HR, you know, both on recruitment, on retention,
00:15:18
Speaker
I mean, out of our, so we at the moment, Kerry, we've got about 1200 plus AI tools that we've curated out of a universe of about 13 or 14,000 AI tools that we know of. And, and and I would say a good 10 to 15% of those tools that we've curated are in some way, shape or form linked to human resources.
00:15:41
Speaker
So actually, the one of the barriers that I feel is out there at the moment, just speaking to SME owners, is that is the fear of starting to get onto the AI wheel, so to speak, because it's it's just it's so massive. And and I guess, so so what you do is you break down those barriers and show SME owners where to find these tools and help implement them, is that right?
00:16:08
Speaker
Yeah, or or even
Actionable AI Recommendations for SMEs
00:16:09
Speaker
more specifically. So I'm an engineer. that That's my background. and and And I suppose what I was trained to do through my my university and and then beyond was you know to find a problem, define the problem, and then break it down into small parts and find solutions, practical solutions. And for For SMEs, it's very different providing recommendations or suggestions or consulting to small, medium-sized businesses in comparison to larger. you know Small, medium-sized businesses don't have time to do lots of naval gazing and introspection and analysis.
00:16:46
Speaker
you know People running small businesses are usually firefighting, you know, at least three or four at the same time. So they need really practical, so actionable recommendations, which is what we we we look to provide.
00:16:58
Speaker
Okay, fantastic. thats That was one of the key things that came out at that round table event that we did with Be The Business, wasn't it? It was the time factor. You're absolutely right. Yeah, so you're absolutely right, Kerry. I mean, when when we met up and we had, what, about 30 or 40 small, medium-sized businesses there, and and and we had, you know, well, fear and time were were the two reasons why people weren't doing it.
00:17:24
Speaker
if you remember, um which which was interesting. And what we try and do is help businesses to overcome the fear and then reduce the time needed. Lovely. So what I really loved out of that yeah explanation was the three points, find, defined and solve with AI.
00:17:44
Speaker
yeah Yeah, because you know, if if you're not starting with the problem, if you're not starting with the definition of a problem. So we always ask our clients at the at the start, you know, people running small businesses, what's keeping you awake at night? You know, but what what is just taking up your brain space at the moment and and and causing you frustration, pain, that because AI tools can be one of the most effective painkillers for for business challenges. That's what I have found anyway in the last the last while. boom The effectiveness of AI tools to solve business problems is it is it's quite amazing. you know i love I love that painkiller, SME painkiller. Oh my God. yeah that That makes it a no brainer actually. Okay.
Key AI Insights for Mentors and Mentees
00:18:30
Speaker
So we're going to finish up with three key facts that mentors should know for themselves and their mentees. Can you bullet point?
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, so so the first one we've already mentioned, so the fear and time, so understanding that you know small businesses are not doing something because a fear it will be complex, a fear it will be costly, a fear it might be disruptive. And and certainly what we've found over the last 12 to 18 months is that AI tools have become so good in a relatively short space of time.
00:19:02
Speaker
that that that fear can be overcome with just sometimes it's as little as like five to ten minutes of a chat with someone telling stories you know so um we need to have a nice collection of kind of analogies and stories in our back pocket um the yeah and that's probably the the second one you know the yeah the the the analogies like helping people to understand why they might want to do this based on some case studies, examples, and analogies. um One that that we heard actually at that ah event in Canary Wharf, Kerry, that you and I were at was the yeah that the analogy that like, you know, AI is like the sea. We're on the shore and AI is the the sea. and And, you know, that there's a boat which is is on its way out and and you need to be on that that boat because it's only getting further away. So, you know,
00:19:51
Speaker
um Yeah, that's right. and we And time is running out. We need to get on that boat like yesterday. And that was the that message. yeah Exactly. The further analogy on you know that, you can just start a paddle. You can go into the sea and just have a little paddle. You don't need to go deep sea diving straight away. Just have a little bit of a try. Yes, brilliant.
00:20:12
Speaker
Okay, so we've got about 30 seconds to go. Is there any last thing that you can give us for our mentors? um' look what What I heard clearly in in a variety of roundtables, from ones I've been doing with Goldman Sachs and at the University of Oxford and at 10 Downing Street recently and and various others, the main thing is for small businesses to just try something. AI tools may not be perfect, but they will that they are great painkillers, as we've touched on, and you know give it a try, become a little bit more confident, and then the snowball starts to grow and and grow and and roll faster downhill. That is what we have definitely seen.
00:20:53
Speaker
Brilliant. Well, thank you very, very much. And I hope our mentors take that on board and try and encourage their mentees just to have a paddle and then and ah hopefully get on that boat. Brilliant, Kin. Thank you so, so very, very much. And um let's keep in touch and um see where this wonderful AI journey is going to take us. Indeed. Thank you very much, Carrie. Love you, Dore. Bye now.
00:21:20
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this month's ABM Mentoring Playbook. You can find all of our previous episodes in your ABM members area, including some fantastic downloadable resources to further support you on your mentoring journey. Each one accompanies the topic that I've just been talking about. If you have any suggestions or questions for future tools that we should cover, please do get in touch with the ABM team via email. Happy mentoring. Remember to have fun.