Broadening Horizons, Digital Twins, Accessibility and More – Digital CxO Podcast EP 74

Hello and welcome to the digital CXO podcast. I'm Amanda Razani and if you've been tuning in for any length of time, you know I'm here with Mike Baard. How are you doing today?

I'm Doing great. How are you? Doing well.

We have so much news to share and um, some really fun, fun things too today. So we're gonna start with a survey, and you can find this over on Techstrong ai. It's about, uh, Microsoft and 75% of workers using AI that are using AI despite slow business adoption.

So we're seeing this a lot where, um, employees, they're embracing this artificial intelligence and they're using it both personally and professionally, uh, but business leaders are, are a little slow to adopt it within companies. So what are you hearing and why is there a gap here? I think it comes down to the following.

It's an awesome personal productivity tool, helps me do emails better and helps me do all kinds of interesting things. But when it comes to business, right, if I look at these large language models, they do hallucinate and they are probabilistic, which means that the machine is guessing what the right answer's gonna be. And a lot of times they do get the answer right, but a lot of times they don't.

The problem is businesses deterministic, right? We have workflows and processes with customers and they can't be right 90% of the time. They gotta be right a hundred percent of the time.

So a lot of organizations are trying to figure out, well how do I train this model into doing something that would be a hundred percent right all the time? And that's gonna be very hard. And even if you take your data and expose to that LLM, um, even then you might not get the level of accuracy that you're looking for.

So a lot of folks are still scratching their head about, well, what is the exact use case that's gonna benefit me? I think a lot of businesses are like, well, we'll use this internally to increase productivity, but they're are very hesitant to expose this stuff at this point to their customers. And that's gonna be kind of an interesting, uh, problematic challenge for at least the rest of this year.

I think digital CXOs need to step in here and kind of start figuring out what exactly are the use cases gonna be for generative AI that makes sense for the business. Because right now, um, all those things and all those promises that we're making about the level of automation that's gonna be providing, well all great, we're just making all the individual employees a little more efficient, but that doesn't necessarily drive a whole lot of improvement to the bottom line. Yeah.

And, and ultimately that's what matters is that ROI and uh, you know, as we've talked about it before, don't just jump on AI for the sake of it. There really does need to be a clear cut plan for its use, right? So that's gonna take a bit.

Now there is some cool things happening in the world. Um, Google, uh, has shown a an AI assistant that hears and talks. So rather than just being a, a prompt that you kind of engage, this is what we all thought that Siri and all these things were gonna evolve too.

Now honestly, you know, it's a prototype so I don't know when it's actually gonna be ready, but you can assume that OpenAI is already down the same path with a tool that they've been showing as well. I think in the last week, uh, we can assume that Microsoft and Apple will probably align on some core technology since they're all agreed to use the OpenAI technologies. So we're gonna have a battle of the AI assistance.

And this is just cool because I mean, you know, and the demos that they showed the same AI assistant can be used to um, you know, track through your video to help you find you where you left your glasses to helping you debug software code. And this is relevant because today we're kinda every vendor and his brother is building out their own AI assistance. So how many AI assistants do we really need or do I need just need an Uber AI assistant capable of performing multiple tasks and maybe offloading a handful to something that's a little more specialized?

I think this whole space is gonna play out and it matters to digital CXOs. 'cause ultimately it comes down to how are those workflows gonna be orchestrated when not just I have my AI assisted, but so does everybody else. And now you have one.

I have one. There's 30 of us. Each has one, maybe each of us has five.

So five Italian 30 employees just randomly picking a number. It's 150 AI assistants that I'm trying to orchestrate. So, um, not quite clear that the average digital CXO has wrapped their heads around that concept yet.

But um, yeah, the staff as we know it going forward is gonna be made up by a mix of people and AI assistants and are supposed to build something called a workflow. Yeah, it's a large array of connected tools to get ahold of there. I for one, like AI tools that allow me to just speak to them.

I, I think that's really efficient and helpful just to be able to talk to an AI and get assistance. Yeah, I think that the idea that you're all gonna become prompt engineer specialists is kind of silly, but that's just me. Well, next, this is a big one we've talked about quite a bit is healthcare and the digital transformation of healthcare being not white digital transformation at this point.

There's some serious flaws there, um, but it seems like a lot of business leaders in this industry are looking at artificial intelligence as a solution. And um, to that note, we do have, uh, an article AI is being embraced by the healthcare profession over on tech strong ai. So what are your thoughts on this, Mike?

I think FOMO is a very powerful thing. Fear of missing out. So everybody's like, oh my God, there's this thing and everybody's talking about it and we should figure out what's going on.

Um, I think the healthcare people are gonna experience what everybody else has seen so far, right? The nice thing about healthcare is there's a lot of, uh, structured data. It's all sits in these electronic record systems and, um, and that's reasonably well organized.

And fortunately that's not the data we need to train the AI models. So what we need is all the, uh, unstructured data that sits in, um, prescription files and it sits in notes that people took and it sits in word documents and all that stuff has to be aggregated. And then it's gotta be kinda put into some sort of system that, or like that creates a vector that I can show to a large language model, which in turn will look at that and make a recommendation, uh, that we should not trust because it's healthcare.

And so somebody's gotta view all that as well and kind of supervise that whole thing. 'cause the one place where you absolutely cannot be wrong is in healthcare. So I think, uh, it, it's great aspirations, but I think the healthcare industry may be accurate here just because the risk level is so much higher.

Yeah, absolutely. And as far as the data, I just think it would be so helpful. And I know there's, you know, laws and regulations and privacy issues, but there has to be some better way that all the different healthcare facilities could somehow have access to all the same health information for each individual so that we don't have to share that over and over again.

And they can, they can look at that for reference when you go in for any sort of problem and um, you know, if you're in an emergency situation, you're not gonna give them that information at the time. So it would be helpful. Yeah, And we have to be very careful to understand exactly what the tech community is sending here.

Right? They are saying that while humans are flawed, so the machines that are gonna process this stuff are also flawed. They're just less flawed than the humans.

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't, you know, abandon governance because we have machines that are convincingly telling us something. 'cause it turns out that the machines that are still pro to be flawed as well, and sometimes they're more flawed than humans and sometimes the humans will be more flawed than the machines and we will never know when that is. So somebody's gotta check.

This is true. A checks and balances system, humans and machines, because I certainly wouldn't wanna leave my health in the care of just a machine which could make mistakes just like a human. Yeah.

I'm already scared what the humans are doing. Humans plus machines doesn't exactly increase my confidence. It's always gonna be an issue for sure.

So next, I love hearing about digital twin technology. This is a great technology. Many different enterprises are using this, uh, especially in, um, recently, um, the science field and the medical industry.

So this one has to do with manufacturing. And um, this is, uh, on digital CXO and it's, uh, written by George Hume and it's about the benefits of digital twins and manufacturing and how sometimes it almost looks identical, um, to the manufacturing process. It's a very interesting story.

So what are you hearing, Mike? I'm just excited about this in the same way you are. I feel like we've been talking about digital twins forever and a day.

I think it's been more expensive to implement than a lot of manufacturing companies have been willing to play with. But I think those costs are coming down. I think, um, we need this data organized anyway, if we're ever gonna apply AI to manufacturing in the first place.

So we might as well start benefiting from the digital twin technology. It just creates a huge opportunity to, for training people, for fixing thes, for, um, understanding the potential impact of something experimentation. I mean, it's a shame that it's taken this long, but I think this is one of those technologies where we're gonna look back and say, wow, when it first came out, everybody thought it was gonna be this awesome thing, and then it kind of had the trough, the disillusionment, and then we're gonna look up one morning and say, wow, the impact of that was much greater than we realized.

Absolutely. It it's very fascinating. I I've seen some really neat stories about how they're using this digital twin technology.

Um, and uh, then the next article we have is about accessibility. And I don't think we've talked a lot about this and it's, it's something to really focus on is accessibility. So the article closing the digital accessibility gap in your transformation strategy is all about how business leaders can ensure that they are taking this into account when they're implementing technology or change management projects, that they are ensuring accessibility for all.

So what are you hearing from business leaders? I feel like nobody knows exactly what to do about this. Everybody will nod their head and say, yes, we should do something about this.

But there are technologies you need to implement for people who are partially blind or folks that have hearing issues or, um, there's just a, a broad spectrum of things here and I don't feel like there's a good set of, and probably somebody has created this, but it's just not distributed enough where everybody can go, yep, here are the 20 things that I need to check off before I roll something out that addresses these accessibility issues. And I think, so part of this thing is just like, for whatever reason, we cannot seem to get the institutional memory in place to go address these things. And of course it's frustrating for a lot of folks who are perfectly productive and can do all kinds of interesting things, but uh, you know, they have to kind of fight the technology to participate.

Yeah, absolutely. We do wanna keep these people in mind and, and, and make it accessible for all. Uh, but there could be some better awareness training, I feel like, or um, a team that's really designed to focus on this issue because it is difficult, uh, to understand what needs to be implemented sometimes.

So some training or knowledge awareness would be helpful. Mm-Hmm, Exactly. I I wish that you know more, I don't know if it's a regulation kind of thing.

I'm sure it eventually will be, but I sure wish that, you know, we would be more proactive about this because we wait for, um, regulations to show up that probably not do the job as well as we want 'em to do. They'll be the bare minimum and everybody will check a box and we'll still be talking about this five years from now. Yeah.

And I know we have, you know, we see those regulations when it comes to buildings or city plans, you know, with construction zones and things like that. So, um, seeing those move into the digital world would be great. There you go.

Everybody needs a little, uh, wheelchair accessibility for the digital age kind of thing, right? Absolutely. And last up, this is so fun.

I love this very, it seems kind of sci-fi in a way, but it's not really. Um, but we have the second of a world portal, which is in New York, and it's a portal between New York and Dublin. This isn't one that's gonna port you over there, but you can stand in front of it and wave and see what other people are doing across the world in Dublin, um, that people are having a lot of fun with this.

And you have some, some interesting backstory to this, don't you, Mike? Well, uh, it's a great idea and I will hope to see more of it because I, you know, anything like this helps bring down the barriers between people's, uh, now that there's a big barrier between Dublin and New York, since there's more Irish and Dublin and in New York than probably anywhere else in the world. Um, but there's an issue.

So, uh, there's been some boorish behavior, shockingly, and it turns out well, the one in New York is on fifth Avenue and everybody can kind of see it and it's out in broad daylight. So there's not a lot of, uh, shall we say, uh, boorish behavior because, you know, people would look at you funny. The one in Dublin is, uh, an area where there's a lot of bars and there's a lot of folks coming out of those bars in the late at night or in the afternoon after work or whatever.

And, um, you know, they forget their manners, shall we say. And so they start to, you know, do everything from exposing themselves to, you know, uh, holding up signs with, you know, vulgar turns and all this other stuff. So it's not been the greatest experience.

They're trying to figure out how to apply some quote unquote technology to resolve that issue, which may, I don't know, just require some sort of delay in the transmission. But alternatively it may require just, you know, somebody has to stand in front of these things and make sure nobody's being an idiot. But, um, that's a tough job if we're at 24 by seven.

So I'm not quite clear how they're gonna do that. They might have to turn it off during certain hours of the day and we'll see. But it's a lovely idea, but I'm afraid, you know, for all the technology in the world, people are still be, I know I hate that that's gonna ruin such a good thing, but, you know, hopefully maybe, maybe there will be a way to afford to have some sort of portal guard, because I know their goal is to have I think, six more portals.

Um, I can't remember the timeframe, but, uh, they're looking at six more portals. And I love the fact that it, it lowers those boundaries and, and takes away that distance so you can kind of feel like you're there in a way. I think that's so neat.

Yeah, someday there might add audio to this thing and we can actually talk to each other through it. Um, but right now, you know, people, this is why we can't have nice things is because you don't know how to behave. Oh goodness, isn't that the truth?

Well, if you're in New York or Dublin, go enjoy it and, uh, enjoy it in a behaved manner so we can get some more portals. That would be so neat. Alright, and that is the end of our list today.

So go check out those articles both on digital CXO and Techstrong ai. And if you missed last week, that's on there too. You can catch up with all the podcasts you've missed.

And let us know what you wanna hear more about. What is the most interesting to you? What articles did you like reading the most after hearing our podcast?

And with that, I'll turn it over to Mike to conclude. All right, folks, thanks for listening to this episode. We enjoy doing these things and by all means, be able share some insights.

And hey, if you've got a great digital CXO story, let us know and we'll get somebody to cover it and talk about it on this podcast. So there you go. All right, see you.

All right, let's see y'all next time. All right, bye everyone.