I feel as though I spend the majority of my time these days messing around with anything and everything related to AI. This means following the news with varying levels of obsession, trying out any and every new project, and using as many frameworks and platforms as possible to see what they can do. In fact, I've lost track of how many services I've just signed up for with my Google account.
As you've gathered from my past posts, I think know AI is the future of the digital space. The long-ranging implications affect almost every aspect of the digital services business. We could be on the verge of disrupting things that have been the norm for the past 30 years. SaaS software, the web itself, search, all these things will be disrupted in a big way.
I realize that not everybody can dedicate a ton of time to AI. Many people are already busy with their lives. And that is the challenge, because everybody's starting more or less from the same place. Learning is essential. So, this post is to share some observations and thoughts related to AI that I've gathered over the past year or so. They're in no particular order, but hopefully, they will help you jumpstart your thinking around this incredible innovation.
People Outside of Tech Have No Idea of the Depth of AI
ChatGPT has over 400 million monthly users, so clearly the cat is out of the bag. What shocks me is that I'd wager that over 90% of those users have no idea of what it can do beyond just generating simple content or answering questions (a search replacement). Much of this observation is anecdotal, but I don't think I'm alone in saying that if you talk to ten people that you know outside of the tech world about AI, at least nine of them will not understand the capabilities of these systems. On top of that, they may not understand the repercussions or the implications.
I firmly believe that whether you work in tech or not, AI is going to affect your business, career, and life, so it's essential to have some understanding of what's happening.
This doesn't mean you have to become an expert or even know how these systems work, but you have to know that they're there and be willing to utilize them to make your life easier.
People on Wall Street Want to Throw Money at It
We're in a weird economic time with political and economic uncertainty. The markets are moving sideways in a downward trajectory (I know what I just said!), and regardless of your political position, I think we can agree there's a little bit of chaos making everything indeterminate. The one true thing is that companies are investing heavily in AI. It's become somewhat of a gold rush, and with its coming, a lot of confusion as well.
Areas where I see confusion are understanding the capabilities of the large language models, understanding what AI agents really mean, and understanding the opportunities and limitations of this software.
I don't expect this to change in the near term. I'm not an investment guru, nor should anyone listen to my advice, but we haven't even seen the markets respond to many of these startups that are out there with incredible products. Many of the most groundbreaking companies aren't even available to investors in the public market, which means when they do go public, I expect there to be opportunities for everyone to benefit from this wave of innovation.
We're Still in the First Inning
It's still so early in terms of the future of artificial intelligence. I have moments of amazement almost every day with the products that are being announced, and I still think they're going to advance so much more quickly. I've already seen AI systems do what used to take me two or three weeks in a couple of hours.
Even more impressive is the ability of AI to generate avatars and characters that we can communicate with with all of the human intelligence behind them in real-time. I was blown away last week when I saw an avatar that logged onto a Zoom meeting and was able to communicate with me. This has implications for so many different service areas, such as therapists, doctors, financial advisors, tutors. Sure, the quality isn't perfect, but it's pretty close and it's only going to get better. This is really groundbreaking stuff.
With all that said, we're still very early in this process, so there's still plenty of opportunity to adapt and embrace this technology to further our careers and our own knowledge. The window will close at some point, but we aren't there yet.
It's Not as Complicated or Expensive as it Seems
I think a lot of companies are scared away from AI because of all the news they hear about the expense and the costs of generating the models. But in reality, this is one of the most accessible technological revolutions I think I've ever seen. All of the model providers have made their systems fully accessible via APIs and they've made methodologies easy to understand, so you can fine-tune and train these systems for whatever purposes you can imagine. The biggest infrastructure providers, such as AWS, have already built out systems for hosting models at affordable levels, and it's pretty easy to learn how all this stuff works. If you're in a bind, you just ask it and it'll tell you. There really has been nothing like it before.
Any company that does not put in R&D dollars, regardless of their size and scale, is making a big mistake.
It Makes Custom Software a Breeze
New AI tools are making custom software a breeze. So often clients are priced out of the possibility of building their own software solutions that are unique to their business. As I detailed in a recent post, AI should bring about an era of innovation for the next three to five years where companies of all sizes learn about the benefits of custom software.
This all sounds good, but let me give a practical example of how this comes into play. Our billing system, which we've been using for over ten years, has some limitations that have always frustrated us. In the past, when my development team wasn't busy (which isn't very often), I would have them attempt to make me a custom portal for better understanding the analytics that our billing system keeps track of. But inevitably we would always be distracted and never able to finish the project.
This week, I had some free time, so I thought perhaps AI could help me build something. So I set up a dev environment, got myself an API key to my billing software, and started talking to Claude about it. Within about 90 minutes, I had a working portal with API authentication that was bringing in my billing data and presenting it in the unique ways that we do business.
This is just one example. Now, we have a custom dashboard where all my staff has better visibility, which results in better services for our clients, and also the ability to learn where efficiencies may be needed.
Now, granted I have a head start because this is what I do for a living, so I'm able to spin these apps out quickly and build them in an effective way given my experience. With that said, though, hiring agencies to create software for you is now a completely different ball game, especially if you are looking to develop internal-use software where you won't need to worry as much about third-party security, data privacy, and things like that.
I'm sure that if you thought for a little bit about some areas of frustration that would benefit from automation or a custom software solution, you'd be able to think of many ideas, and the potential benefits of those ideas would be valuable for the health of your business.
The Limitations Are Our Own Imagination
Often, I find myself frustrated that I don't have more ideas about how I can utilize these tools. I find that the only limitation I see in this new era is my own mind's ability to generate ideas to act on. As I was saying to a colleague recently, this reminds me of when I was beginning my career in the late 90s - everything was new and there was a magic about what we were able to do. The only difference here is that it's at a hyper-accelerated scale.
Though I guess if I run out of ideas I can ask AI, and it'll help me generate a few more!
Don't Worry – It Won't Replace You
I'm a big fan of Scott Galloway and his podcasts, and one of the things he likes to say, I think, is very thoughtful and relevant to this post. He's been known to say that "AI is not going to take your job. Someone who understands AI is going to take your job."
So, what does this mean? It means the time is now to begin understanding more about what AI is, how it works today, and what it will do in the future - especially in relation to your career.
My advice is to find somebody in your industry, whatever the industry may be, who's become an adopter of AI and can help navigate the waters of innovation specific to your focus area.
Use it to Beat Imposter Syndrome
I've been doing what I do since the late 90s, and the agency has been in business since 2001. So, you would think that after almost 30 years of doing this stuff, I would have no problem in accepting that I have some level of expert knowledge.
I wish I could say that was true, but I will be real here. I, like everybody else, have my bouts of imposter syndrome.
For those who don't know, they say that the more knowledge you have, the less you think you know. The inverse of this is the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people who do a little bit of research think that they're experts on a topic.
AI gives you the ability to beat imposter syndrome by validating your wisdom and experience, therefore making tasks easier to approach and navigate. I think this is especially important for professionals who have been in their careers for quite some time.
Of course, the concern here is for people on the other end of the spectrum who are just starting out who now think they might be experts. We might very well get to a time where AI does almost everything for people and they don't need to make their own judgments on the fly, but we're definitely not there yet. There is a real risk that determining who is an expert and who isn't will be difficult, especially for people who are looking to hire professional services. That's a problem that I'll save for another post.
Wrapping Up
I know this post went on a lot longer than I wanted it to, but I feel that these points are very important. It's essential for everybody to understand the implications of AI in their business and their career, and spend a little bit of time learning. We're still early. There's still plenty of time to be an early adopter. And in times of economic uncertainty, being knowledgeable about the latest and greatest things is never a bad quality to have.
