Transcript
Speaker: You're listening to From the Horse's Mouth, intrepid conversations with Phil First.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the latest edition of From the Horse's Mouth podcast. I'm your host, Phil First. Joining me today is somebody I've got to know quite well in the last couple of years. He is Steve Chase, who's the Global Head of AI and Innovation at KPMG. Did I get that right?
Speaker: You did. Yeah, nice work. Good see you, Phil. And we're going to start talking about our favorite topic du jour, which is AI. And can you tell us a little bit about your journey into the world of AI and why you're fronting that for KPMG today?
Speaker: So first off, you know, we've been doing and and you've been um covering us for a long time, so you already know this, but we've been ah making sizable investments in AI going way but before this generative wave. um So we started a global um AI incubator within the firm we called Lighthouse. And um over the years, that really helped us with um a lot of the real you know the the deterministic ai work that we were doing and machine learning work and optimization and what have you so anyway so that business used to roll up through me when i ran the consulting business um and when we were faced with the moment i'm sure you remember this when you saw 3
Speaker: And then quickly after, 3.5 came out, and you could just tell the pace of was different, that the interaction was completely... You could just tell there was something really different there.
Speaker: And it was the moment we'd been tracking for a while, and we said, look... this pace is going to be different. We think it's going to be disruptive ah in the professional services sector, but but across all sectors. We think it's something our clients are going to be really interested ah in, with you know not entirely knowing. I was asked to put a team together with some others um who you know well, like Cliff Justice and say, hey, what um what is this going to mean to us and how should we react and you know this goes back over three years ago um i think i actually not we didn't first meet but i was literally talking to you at a conference we were both at the kpmg innovation conference and we were talking a little bit about what was going on and what was changing so to be there in that moment we said
Speaker: Like, hey, well, let's put together the plan. And we said, well, first off, this is going to be enterprise wide. It's going to be across audit, tax advisory. It's going to change the way our firms are run. And it's going to be every one of our client sectors, maybe not at the same pace.
Speaker: And, but here's what we need to go do and put together a whole group of investments and other things we thought needed to be in place. Some of which were exactly right. Not all of which were. And we um so when we presented it to board, they said, this is awesome. maybe We really like this. This what we need to go do. We're all committed behind it, and we want you to come run it. And so I guess stepping out of running the consulting business, it was sort of the culmination of all the business transformation work and technology work and ah different alliance relationships and client relationships that I've had over the years. on Anyway, that's I think that's what happened. That's how I got here. And that's how KPMG sort of got here.
Speaker: And for us, it also sparked a a you know both the same project we were doing in our US member firm, ended up being the same project we're doing across all of our member firms, which is how I ended up in the global program you know and with that global responsibility.
Speaker: It really feels like, you know, listening back, I remember the conversation we had about three years ago, I think, when this was really starting steamroll. But it feels like we're now kind of entering, I call it AI2.io. We've just come through, i think, a bunch of time of just kicking the tires, experimenting, throwing a bunch of money at it, trying to figure out what the hell is this, what does this mean? and So are we in a new phase? Do you feel we're generally in new phase? And what does that phase look like?
Speaker: Well, I feel the same thing you do. um I don't think this is, I don't think it's really a question at this point. I think it's 100% validated in the data. and We've entered into a new acceleration phase. Like, you know, it felt like like we've gone through a couple of these. This isn't the first, I'm not sure this is 2.0. I mean, we've been through a few of these where it felt like we plateaued for a little bit and then, you know, so we're getting like sort of uh normal gains and all of a sudden man this acceleration of capability the the prominence of harness layers and what that's doing is an unlock for agents the the absolute i mean we we're out of the ai phase into the uh the agentic phase now and that means more than just experimentation that you know going strongly into production ah we you know we do a um
Speaker: We do a pulse survey quarterly and you can see the results building over time, you know, especially ramping into end of last year, kind of you know, but really accelerating the last two quarters.
Speaker: I tell, might get a chance to talk to you know, client teams all the time, you know, our our our leadership teams at clients and their, you know so They're in different versions of their journey. What i I'm always saying is is the leaders are right now breaking who are already leaders are materially breaking away from the pack.
Speaker: And depending on where you sit, you might not even realize it's going on. right And then then you find out and you hear, what you know oh my goodness, I'm feeling pretty far behind. so there's a lot of nervousness in this phase right now too, Phil.
Speaker: wait a second, the my pilot programs didn't work. What do I need to do different? There's a real introspection moment going on right now. Even in the best firms, like, hey, well, some of those things weren't working. What do we need to do different?
Speaker: And I think it's a real moment for leadership as well, because this is not, this has long since stopped being a technology thing and became about business transformation, rewiring the organization, the the will to really lean into these things and make different kinds of investments.
Speaker: All the things that come up when you do enterprise transformation are going on right now, which by the way, most organizations struggle with enterprise transformation, right? Like it's it's not easy. Well, we've been struggling with enterprise transformation for decades. I mean, that's what we build our careers on, right?
Speaker: Do we finally have something worth transforming for? I think is the is the trillion dollar question here is, is this worth the pain and the change and the real effort?
Speaker: Finally, we see what's coming on the other side of this thing. Are we at that point yet where most companies are seeing it or do you think it's just a small number that are generally seeing the light on what is possible?
Speaker: Well, I'm a firm believer in the opportunity. And we can talk about different versions of that. um i'm I'm a firm believer in it. I know there are a lot of companies that are firm believers in that, that are having real success in in and are launched off in doing that.
Speaker: I know there's skeptics around that and there's some wait and see folks. I worry a little bit for the, like when I hear that, like what about, i mean, can you actually catch up to the speeding bullet?
Speaker: in your sector if you happen to be not one of the ones who's making making the progress and does win or take most. And i don't want to be alarmist around that, but I do think like like the workforce transformation you've got to go through, just take that one in general, just as a specific.
Speaker: mean, I feel really advantaged that we've got, you know three and a half years of investment into training and talking about it and motivating people and going through the learning lessons. And by the way, you know, in the next round, in the next round, you're building on top of a base.
Speaker: just recently i had a couple of conversations with clients that are really saying, Hey, we we got to get started. Right. I'm like, wow. Okay. And this is how much that's going to require. So anyway, I think there is something there. I i firmly believe it. I believe it my heart. I always have.
Speaker: ah That the folks who get this right will break away from the ones who don't. And we'll start to see that. and Maybe we already are in the financial statements of those firms over time. And the and it won't show up as cost differential. It'll show up as growth. That's what we should be looking.
Speaker: Yeah, i mean I mean, it's interesting. and we hear a lot about CFOs getting sticker shock when they see the cost of yeah tokens and and my realizing this stuff ain't free and there's a bunch of firms out there trying to make a bunch of money on this.
Speaker: Do you think that is changing the conversation to bringing in broader moments of the C-suite, making this a CEO priority conversation? That is absolutely one of those dynamics in this acceleration phase is the change exactly the time it was accelerating.
Speaker: And it's entirely predictable because all of a sudden, you know, agents are going to be chewing up tokens at a completely different rate than the chatbots were. Right. So um we've moved into a new pricing regime and a lot of measures that's much more consumption based.
Speaker: for those who are adopting or at the edge of the frontier curve, um prediction around token usage um has, you know, the instrumentation of that hasn't caught up with the, especially in like you know in terms of like what people implemented, hasn't caught up with where the capabilities are. So your ability to measure maybe doesn't match your ability to spend. That that would make any CFO um concerned.
Speaker: And then that that then turns into a conversation, you know, about like some really notable, companies where have have talked about it. But, you know, that where the premise of the articles that get written is that the token usage wasn't valuable.
Speaker: And I always look at those and go, well, what did he get for it? That I used my token budget up in, you know, whatever to the extent I had a token budget, you know, good news that I had a token budget, but I've used it up early.
Speaker: But what value did I get? Did I just clear my whole backlog of ah technology? Now I'm on to the next round of technology investments? So I think that does engage the CFO in a different kind of a conversation, not just watching the purse, but also what's the value discussion.
Speaker: So I think that has the potential right now to be a bit of a a foot on the brake while there's a foot on the accelerator. nothing You know, we had a, we had a, uh, a guy I worked with a long time always talked about that.
Speaker: Um, you know, race car drivers drive with one foot on the gas and one on the brake. Right. And that's how they go fast, not how they go slow. Um, so maybe that's a, if you get that mindset, right. Uh, Phil, maybe that's, maybe that's part.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a mindset shift because when we came through the, maybe the last dynamic, obviously we went to the cloud and before that we went through globalization at the workforce where it was, well, if you can make the numbers work, let's do it.
Speaker: And then we'll worry about the outcomes. Now it's like, well, the numbers are different because you can't just lay off half your half your staff and then replace them with a bunch of agents. It's like we're buying agents to make our staff more dynamic and make information move around the company more. So it's isn't this like the first time ever we're in a real business outcomes discussion?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, it's funny. um I got my career start in the in the early to mid 90s. And, you know, there was all that reengineering revolution stuff going on and it crashed into the reality of, know,
Speaker: um what was possible with the technology, the pace that it could change, etc., right? And I would suggest to you we're kind of coming back around to that phase where those unlocks, um actually the technology can move way faster than the people can move.
Speaker: Right now the the issue is change, which, you know, we have a history of not being, you know, companies you know, hey, well, the the change budget gets it to is one of the first ones to get cut. You know, that's just not going to cut it in this phase, right, where we've got to bring everyone along and we've got to the company. It won't just be the companies using AI effectively. one It'll be or or it'll be like the be the ones who get that right, get their people using it correctly.
Speaker: And that's not as intuitive as you think. you know People working with agents is actually not the same thing as working with chatbots, and it's definitely not the same thing as like delegating to employees, although some of those skill sets are the same.
Speaker: love to explore that with you. I mean i'm really worried i i really think the ah that we are in that outcome space. It does feel like I have the chance to reimagine the enterprise, and I could execute on it.
Speaker: I mean, you're doing it at HFS. We're doing it at KPMG, transforming the way we do audits, transforming the way we serve clients, stra transforming the way we do tax.
Speaker: But what is the number one thing you got to do is just it feels like it's the people. And if and there's a whole set of things you said CEO, we're finding that, you know, companies that where the CEO is directly engaged and pushing this and the leadership team is creating the environment meaningfully are substantially outperforming on those outcomes to the ones that aren't.
Speaker: Right. So I think the advantage a company like KPMG has and some of your competitors is you have a world. that crosses the C-suite into the CFO, CPO, CMO, all these types of individuals.
Speaker: And, um, I keep hearing CFOs do not understand AI. This is the problem. Like you need to educate them. Then you need to, you know, CMOs get it completely, get it. Cause it's a direct that threat to.
Speaker: how marketing is run. But when we get to the world of finance and stuff, it's a different conversation. So how do you turn that conversation from a traditional IT-led discussion to something that is CEO-led?
Speaker: Is it very much they've got to be educated? is it i mean, what is breaking through to some of these folks versus what is it? so So on the CFO question, i mean, I get to talk to a lot of CFOs. I actually think CFOs do get it.
Speaker: They just are stuck with that foot on the brake, foot on the gas thing, um you know, because they keep getting it presented to them like a technology conversation. And then it's really difficult for people to articulate all of the value points.
Speaker: As opposed to where it turns into this, a different kind of a conversation altogether, which is, this is a growth narrative about taking share, about expanding our total addressable market or what have you, being able to go faster into these things.
Speaker: I think when it's told that way, um the CFOs end up being the most um strongest advocates within the organization. um I mean, there are certainly skeptics.
Speaker: it's Funny enough, I see some almost more of the skeptics in like the IT folks who are feeling quite harassed by how fast they feel like they've got to move. But but i I don't know. So I'm going to land on that, which is I'm actually having great conversations with CFOs who are wanting to um have that conversation described in the way we just were around growth. And ah clearly they want profitability. and But you know digital transformation always been about um unlocking organizational profitability. And so that that is part of it.
Speaker: CEOs, their number one role to play is is unlocking the organization, right? like expecting a different set of results, expecting a different pace, holding the organization accountable to doing the things and not doing it the way you always did. Yeah, I was going to was going to turn it back on you because you are a CEO about just how much the unlock happened differently when you're involved as opposed to when you're not.
Speaker: mean, it's just such an obvious point. that We know this from enterprise transformation. When the CEO stays engaged, when they talk about it, when they talk about it to their people, they make it relevant to the what's in it for me, to the stakeholders, whether that's shareholders or what have you, the the programs are way more likely to be successful. We're seeing in our data three x three times more um when they do it. But sometimes we don't want to go tell them that that's their job, especially if they haven't really come around to it.
Speaker: How do we combat that? Well, we're doing a lot of executive education, Phil, and we were doing a lot more of this before. It seems like less of a of an issue now. But if you have an organization that isn't, and we're also doing a lot of that with board of directors as well that want to hear this and they're trying to understand what their own role and how do they do the...
Speaker: The are you doing enough? Are you doing too much? Do you have the right governance? Do you have the right, um you know, big, hairy, audacious goals or whatever, you know? So anyway, some some thoughts I have on that.
Speaker: Yeah, it's about getting things done faster. So in the old days, often if you're on a C-suite role, by the time you've got data on something, it's already too late to act on right And in today's environment, there's an opportunity to have the data we need to act much faster. So you can start operating in real-time with your organization.
Speaker: And it's like, I don't want to know about all these six different enterprise apps we're using. I just want to go to one interface and ask a question or type a prompt or get information on this market, that market, understand what everything is immediate.
Speaker: Yeah. You want, you want it now. You want to make this, and we were joking earlier, you know, I can make a PowerPoint presentation in five minutes would have taken me all fricking day back in the fall two days. yeah Well, this immediacy and slickness of movement is what influences leaders and organizations are saying, if we can operate this quickly,
Speaker: We can get ahead of our competition. We can get in front of our customers quicker. We can understand our customers better, our suppliers better. We start to do more ourselves. You can actually do more yourself because you more capabilities. I don't need to rely on so many external parties.
Speaker: And then when you start to get things like financial information faster, that's when it starts to get really exciting. And you can start to look at Let's really look at where the business is going. Let's really think strategically about what we're trying to achieve here and and move as a collective. And then you don't think twice about how much does this cost?
Speaker: Cost starts become irrelevant because it's more like if we don't do this, we're going to literally keel over because everybody else is doing it. I think most organizations that I'm talking to get that. and then So then they're wondering, okay, well, i believe I'm a believer.
Speaker: How do I go do it? And then they take their old process that they do that is like how they did their ERP project or what have you. And they try to apply that here and it doesn't end up working. And then they're confused. Right. Or like we've done a ton of pilots. We haven't gotten value out of it. Well, OK.
Speaker: I mean, you can't you need to do pilots. But you can't do a bunch of federated piloting that doesn't roll up to something. Another thing we found is organizations that put a person in charge and it's clear that with at the right organizational authority and not somebody who was available, but the a person who wasn't available,
Speaker: pull them in and give them responsibility with direct reporting to the CEO, those programs end up unlocking as well. They end up tend to be more successful. That's just good hygiene for enterprise transformation as well, right?
Speaker: Another thing you're seeing is, is you gotta to put dollar you know a lot of technology dollars, great, but what are the what are the workforce dollars, right? even if Even if agents are going to do a bunch of new work, well, but ah I'm going to have a bunch of people interacting with these um digital teammates, right? i'm gonna have And they need to know how to how they're going to go do it. we just ah We're releasing, by the time this podcast comes out, we'll have released ah ah ah another study we did with the University of Texas. Because we've been studying impacts on workforce, about what that means and how we can be most effective in preparing our workforce, both to serve clients with AI and also help clients on their AI journey.
Speaker: counterintuitively, people do not, even though your best employee doesn't necessarily work really well with digital teammates. Right. Like it's it's an interesting finding.
Speaker: It's actually a different set of skills that can be trained. And so we're actually going through and have revamped a bunch of our training to teach people about how to work with these agents, the role that they need to play. That's more the way that you interact with it and the expectations you have, the way you drive it to to get better outcomes.
Speaker: Anyway, so I'm really excited about that study. And and that's the kind of work that that's paid work. Doesn't feel very sexy maybe to some people, but this is the stuff like transform the organization.
Speaker: At the same time, like, you know, the way that finance gets done, the way that HR gets done, those are going to be different. I need to train you in the way that you're going to do work with those digital teammates in the function that you're in as well. If I train you on AI, that's not very good training.
Speaker: If I train you on how to do an audit with the AI tools we're giving you in the platform where you're going to be where you're goingnna be doing your work, that's completely different, right? Yeah. Yeah, it takes me to kind of one of the things I really want to get your view on is the more we're relying on this rented technology.
Speaker: um how do we protect what are our differentiators within our organization, which is our business context, it's our people, it's our culture, all this sort of stuff. I had a fascinating pod with the CAIO at BMO the other day. and She came out with one thing, which was, she said, like, we're all using the same AI as everybody else in capital markets right now. The only thing that really sets us apart is our people and the ability to actually communicate with our clients about the value we can add over and above the the standard operations.
Speaker: So as we start to look at this kind of phase two of AI, how do we start to work on what needs to stay human versus what can be agendified? Because I think that's the real critical layer between know, what can we stick on a Chinese or a U.S. model versus what we really need to focus on, maybe open source ourselves, what needs to be proprietary, you know, that that sort of thing. Because that's where i feel the real interesting conversations are happening, Steve.
Speaker: Well, I agree with you, you know, this idea of um getting that context layer right for the organization, but like, why do we make those decisions? Like, when we're at our best, what are we doing? And and why are we doing it that way? And what have you? And um part of that is, again, like, you know,
Speaker: You can't be the best employee if you're not um really effective using AI in the future, right? Like there's just no, it'd be like, ah you know, ah maybe the guy I used to work for who I loved, who didn't know how to use his email when I joined, you know, until it ages me a little bit, but you know, but that didn't like there's nobody like that anymore. You know what Just not like, so you gotta to be, you gotta to be that part of it. You gotta train the people to be able to do the work and recognize it's not, you don't get, it's not almost one time and done.
Speaker: Like we always talk about access, awareness and adoption, right? Access to really high quality AI, the definition of that has changed radically over the last three years, right? Like what you have your employees working with, what I have mine it's completely different than what we were even imagining ah three years ago.
Speaker: And then I got to keep training them on the next, you know, and and the pace of that is really high. So the cognitive load is really high. But to get to the question of what's it mean to be human, well, I don't know very many clients, um customers, what have you, that prefer to interact digitally, right?
Speaker: It's never about the idea. That's like never so much of it. Like you might spit out of of a list of like 13 or 14 things. It's about the work you do to actually turn that into an outcome.
Speaker: Right. That we actually executed on that idea that we worked really hard day to day. This discussion can't be replaced by AI, I don't believe. Right. And and so we're really, you know, well, we're we we talk all the time. This is freeing us up now to be more in front of our customers, to be more relevant to them.
Speaker: and then we do have to be really clear about how we containerize our knowledge you can't you want that stuff leaking out one of the reasons we talk about access is if we did a study with the university of melbourne if you don't give people access to something near the what they can have at home which keeps changing they will start using their own systems and they will they will they will exfiltrate your data your clients data what have you into those systems so that makes it an imperative to stay ahead on the access game um It's especially true in the developing world where, um you know, there's actually really quite high AI use, but not great access. So we talked to our global clients about that.
Speaker: I mean, the crown jewels of the organization sit in the context layer, right? I don't want that leaking out. um I certainly don't want my clients' data leaking out. I don't know, Phil. i think I think depending on whatever your service is, it all starts with the customer. What's that customer experience going to be What do they want it to be?
Speaker: and and then delighting them by providing that in more. And I think our people are going to be critically important to that. You know, if everybody talks about, I'll use one little minor example. People talk about you're not going to have call center reps in the future. I'm actually not a believer of that. I actually think the differentiated experience that we'll have after we've used the digital concierge, right?
Speaker: I'm delighted by how well it worked. And now that I need to talk to a person, I'm talking to somebody who is a superstar. And so likely it'll be quite well paid, be quite a, uh, a different kind of a job. And I guarantee you will still have them. you know what i mean?
Speaker: Yeah. But those need to evolve as well. Like, um, I don't like talking to a consumer rep if they can't do anything for me. you know I mean? Like if they're just sitting there looking at the same screen that you are, don't, I don't care if the rep from the American express calls me out then.
Speaker: He goes, hey, Phil, how are you doing? And I'm like, good. they Actually, not too good. I want to complain about something. And and then, said no, this is a true story. And then eventually I said to him, you can't do anything for me, can you? And he said, no, I can't. when The conversation was over. but so but But that's a great point. Right now we're in a position where we can create that unlock.
Speaker: and put way more tools in the hands of, ah and we're doing that. I mean, I literally was just in a client meeting where we were talking about exactly a version of this story. and And they were so delighted by the, what we now were able to unlock for the sales rep,
Speaker: who, mean, they have very complex pricing. It's a B2B situation. They were able to be able to, you know, in the meeting almost, you know, but, you know, within within minutes of leaving the meeting, be able to re-quote the price because all the controls, all the other things come.
Speaker: But that pricing agent and all the 11 other things that were needed to be able to do that, that's how replacing the person who's standing there and and then executing on it, right?
Speaker: It's certainly changing how we're working together with with people. yeah and ah yeah i i so I read a piece of research other day, just a model, and I sent it to like six people I knew because I wanted their inputs.
Speaker: And I'm not joking. Every single one sent me something back, which had clearly been, they just put the thing through Claude or something and sent me back some sanitized And I literally, I went to all six people back and said, can you give me your opinion? I don't want to hear from freaking Claude. I can get that myself.
Speaker: I've already got it. I've already got it. And it's things like that going on where you just, you know, it's like, you know, I find that personally, im mean I'm in the knowledge business and I have a voice. My company has a voice and our brand is tied to being unique and human.
Speaker: And it's an effort for me to tell my team, you got to sound human. Yeah. you know i don't i don't The minute my clients think they're talking to a freaking LLM, we're out of business. and i And I worry for some of my...
Speaker: research competitors who are obsessed with AI. And I think if you're going to literally start chunting out research on AI, I guarantee you CFOs are not going to turn around and say, I'm going to spend $6 million dollars on Gartner or whatever a year when I can get this stuff from the LLMs.
Speaker: so so really Hey, Phil, can I kind of interrupt you there? Because I think you asked the question of like, what does it mean to be, um I mean, we we're we're sort of getting at this question about Like not not what does it mean to be to be human, but all these things we've been talking about since we got into this is is where's my differentiation in my organization company, right? And I will say um an observation I have is, you know, we we always talk in terms of like the the the scope of this enterprise transformation includes like how I market, sell my services, how I establish my brand, you know, so I'm You know, that that market facing thing, including the enablers to sell better and market better and whatever goes into your your sales effort. um
Speaker: It includes the definition of of where your products are and how you make them. um But it also includes thinking through um how they're going to evolve, what a client's going to want from them, etc.,
Speaker: I already mentioned the the what what you make and then how you run the corporate services and are other things like, you know, how you interact with your suppliers and whatnot, but like how I run the firm. um And there's a lot of operating model and listen, like one of the big unlocks is to stop talking about the technology and start talking about the operating operating model transformation. already talked about that.
Speaker: there's a There's a fifth one, we call it pillar four, but there's a fifth pillar to this though, which is highly aligned to the product and the and how I make it or the service and how I deliver it is where's disruption coming from? And both in terms of like, where can I have opportunity to be, where where do I have to be worried about? I'll be disrupted in terms of what I do. Someone else could do it differently or maybe an LLM could do it.
Speaker: Versus and but there's also the other side of it, which is where am I going to grow? Where am I going to get um ah my addressable market from? I just don't see that as a part of enough of the programs, the strategy and that then informed strategy informs the the investment cases that people are going to make, you innovators dilemma is real it's really real in this space right and so like like the the white blood cells come out and attack the great new idea that someone has you got to find space to like carve that aside um you got to have something that you're doing to understand where the disruption is coming from where you'll profit from it and grow and also how you're going to overcome your internal white blood cells to be able to go after that differentiation that thing that's going to make you different
Speaker: in the market mean you know the smaller the organization the easier it is the ceo can be more influential but larger organizations ceos still got to drive that and um you know i had this thing services as a software you probably heard about it's it's really it's a human transformation driven by technology that that's how we defined it and um trying to get there is it you know i sat through this round table the other day we'd spoken with two thousand companies and we tried to quantify enterprise debts and everyone was going on about process and technology and data and people.
Speaker: Process debt came up number one by a mile. But once we got through the conversation, the real issue was culture and talent. And it was all down to the culture within the organizations on, can you lean into this without fear and braces versus how are we just, you know constantly obsessing with the fact that these processes don't work, these systems can't do this. So that really was where this all came down to. And I think the CEOs are going to win.
Speaker: in this market are those who one, align AI to revenue growth, two, stop talking about AI in about a year's time because it's just the way things are.
Speaker: And um you know three, focus very much on the culture of the organization and really double down on that because the tech the more mature the technology gets,
Speaker: the more that becomes a side product of what we're really trying to do here, which is innovate and be different. wish i disagreed with you. Then we we could have an argument about it, but I agree entirely with you, right? so its not But um yeah, it's a fascinating time.
Speaker: It's a fascinating time of possibility because the other thing that's about to happen, Phil, I mean, i I don't know what your take on this is. We don't talk about it that much in these discussions, but maybe we'll unlock it a little bit here is I think that it's about to lead to the most um frothy ah discovery, growth and innovation across all these different domains, whether it's in healthcare, care it's in manufacturing. it's but like We're about to see everything moving. like That hasn't happened.
Speaker: what, like two or three times in our in our history, you know, like an industrial revolution or something like that where so many different pieces were coming together to then leapfrog. It's like a, I sometimes say it' like a Cambrian explosion of discovery about to occur.
Speaker: And then just think about like how much like, like, um, pressure that puts on organizations to also be sort of surfing that wave.
Speaker: Um, cause it's going to be happening all the way across from drug discovery, you know, all the different places. So I just couldn't, it's what an awesome time to be in, uh, in business, you know? Yeah. Well, it's all about tooling up for the speed of innovation.
Speaker: So it took us, what, 15 years for internet and e-commerce. This is probably five years. Uh, we can go back to the industrial revolution and the, building of the railroads where they overbuilt massively on railroad infrastructure in the 19th century. And it took like 50 years to backfill that compute.
Speaker: But you're exactly right about um this. It's about the speed. And I think AI 2.0 to conclude this is we're just getting used to the speed of this thing.
Speaker: We're no longer talking about job losses to AI, which was the dominant conversation with of 2025.
Speaker: There isn't job losses due to AI. Companies are going out desperately trying to find talent to help them adopt this stuff. There's job change and skills change, but this is creating ultimately a huge amount of opportunity. And you mentioned healthcare care and areas like that where it's all about goodness and advancement and innovation and discovery. So, yeah.
Speaker: and Coming out of this, I'm way more excited about AI today than I was, I'd say, six months ago. I don't know if I'm more excited about it. Um, I just will say that I feel like this promise that you've been talking about, that I've been talking about others, I mean, like that, that we were starting to see it. We're starting to be like, it's very real right now. So it's not like conceptual.
Speaker: And so, and I think I probably thrive best when it's actually hitting ground. So, um, so that it's a really good phase to be in right now. I lost his fa phenomenal conversation, really, really enjoyed it. And, uh,
Speaker: yeah uh always enjoy coming together with you and thinking through where things are headed my friend yeah well you've been a great partner to us thanks for uh you know for for the work you've been and helping us in some of those same i mean you i'm sure you were smiling a little bit when i talking about how we think about the problem because you've helped us with some of that as well but you know um but like we said there's there's just so much coming we're going to completely change the way the interaction layer happens in organizations we're going to change the way the org charts are constructed I mean, what are we, 200 years, 150 years into this org chart? Like, i I think that, you know, three to five years, the org chart's going look radically different. That's kind of a cool thing. Like, we get to ah we get to lead it, Phil. So it's exciting. Yeah.
Speaker: so tough Thank you, Steve. Thank you for listening to From the Horse's Mouth. Don't forget to subscribe and like wherever you listen to podcasts. Got something to add to the discussion?
Speaker: Drop us a line at fromthehorsesmouth at hfsresearch.com or connect with Phil on LinkedIn.
