See you tomorrow?
My new keynote is about how to use the human touch to out-perform your competition in the age of AI and automation. It might be my best work, ever.
Live on Zoom. Tomorrow!
Human.Kind: How to Keep it Real and Win in the Age of AI
Wednesday, October 22
4pm ET
Jay's Faves
My fave place is my house in Puerto Vallarta. We're headed back there soon. When we're not in Mexico, the house is on Airbnb.
Currently available for American Thanksgiving, most of December, XMAS week, and next April and May.
Sleeps 8-10 comfortably. Interested? Email me! Big discount for The Baer Facts readers.
Book Report
Wow! My old friend Steve Spangler has done it again.
Not only is he an Emmy-winning TV star (you've maybe seen him doing science experiments on the Ellen show), but also one of the greatest educators of all time.
And his new book, The Engagement Effect, is fantastic. If you ever find yourself having to lead, or teach, or motivate....you'll get a TON out of this book.
Insightful, interesting, funny. It's just an excellent and inspirational read.
Is an AI Backlash on the Way?
In Minneapolis this week, a CEO of a very large wholesale distribution company asked me a great question after my keynote:
"Jay, do you think there will be a societal backlash over the use of AI?"
Today, there is a big gap between business' enthusiasm for AI, and customer enthusiasm for it.
More or less 65% of businesses say that AI improves customer experiences, and around 20% of customers concur at the moment.
But most of consumers' issues with AI are theoretical, not practical.
There's a lot of
"I don't want my problem to be solved by a robot."
Or "I want to deal with a PERSON with feelings and empathy."
Or "What happens when the robots take over and enslave us all?"
I get it. AI is freaky. We don't REALLY understand it (even the people building it). And that scares us - rightfully so.
But what the current research shows is that customers' objections to AI usually melt away once they actually encounter and use AI successfully.
Put more plainly: people dislike the IDEA of AI more than the OUTCOMES of AI.
I spend a lot of time with AI customer experience solutions (see the session from NICE mentioned above). And I can tell you first-hand that the capabilities of AI to solve many customer problems already exceeds human capabilities, in many instances. And we're in like the 2nd inning of the AI baseball game.
Don't get me wrong. AI is not infallible. It remains troublesome in terms of accuracy, ownership, privacy, ethics, inclusion, and a bunch of other aspects.
But the genie is NOT going back in the bottle, regardless of how much we might wish it to be so.
The efficiency gains provided by AI are so profound that some manner of AI implementation will essentially be required for most organizations to remain in business within two years.
And while the path to get there is admittedly difficult and somewhat frightening, the projected outcome is fantastic: ~ 25% more efficiency in your business. And as it improves, customers will begrudgingly set aside most of their AI objections.
Social media travels a similar path. So much debate (for good reason) about social media privacy - not to mention what it does to create angst and division. Yet, social media usage continues to increase and accelerate.
I'm not suggesting the relentless advance of technology is necessarily a net societal gain. That's a question for a bigger thinker than me.
But do I beleive there will be a backlash against AI that would fundamentally slow or halt its adoption? Nope.
We brought this puppy home, now we have to raise it together.
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