How Founders Build AI First Organizations and Partner with Machines + Steve Brown

0:00 The final step is where you stop thinking about how do we use AI and instead you ask the question, how do we build the entire organisation around AI at the centre? How do you put AI? Make the AI the engine of your business. That doesn't mean that you're replacing people. It means you wrap people around that engine and they are there to steer and guide it, oversee it. And if you can do that, that unlocks so much potential instead of thinking, well, I'm going to grow my business by 15% next year or 20% or 25% now you can say I'm going to grow my business 100 percent, 1000% next year. Because by using AI at the core of your business, you're able to collapse the constraints of time and money and re reimagine how you go to market so you can

0:49 start playing a different game than your competitors. And. Hi there, are you a professional or business owner teaching investors or sharing big ideas what your presentations just are? Not keeping up with your vision? That's exactly why I use Gamma app are proud partners. Gamma is an AI powered platform that helps you build beautiful decks, documents and web pages in just minutes. No complicated formatting, no design headaches, just clean modern presentations that communicate your ideas clearly unprofessionally.

1:25 If you want to present like a pro, Sign up today using the tool stack link in the description below and start creating smarter with Gamma app. We are live. Ladies and gentlemen, you once again welcome to the Kingdom's podcast and diary of a CFO. And today I've got will be a very, very special guest fighting out of Portland OR Mcwalkin. This team, I feel like I'm about to get a. Piercing match with an introduction like that. Yeah, that is a fear that that is a Bruce Buffer introduction in the UFC.

2:03 So I'm a very, very deep fan of the UFC and, you know, interesting, you know, growing up in Nigeria when I was younger, a lot of people thought, oh, we're competing this one because I was a skinny kid and then I took to martial arts to learn self defence. And also interestingly, you've had world champions in boxing and MMA on on the podcast as well. So OK, we also now we have a champion in, in, in the AI space and a champion futurist.

2:32 So sit back while I read your introduction. So true, Ladies and gentlemen, today's guest is someone who doesn't just talk about the future. He helps leaders build it. Steve Brown is a globally recognised AI futurist and formerly tech teacher Google, DeepMind and Intel. He is one of the most trusting voices guiding organisations through the Intelligence age.

2:58 But over 25 years at the forefront of technology and innovation, Steve has advised Fortune 100 companies, governments, and global brands on how to turn artificial intelligence into real competitive advantage. What makes Steve different is simple. He does not deal in hype. He delivers clarity. He translates complex AI into practical strategy that leaders can actually use to grow, scale, and stay relevant.

3:28 In this conversation, we go beyond buzzwords. We break down what AI really means with your instance, your career, and your future. Steve Brown, welcome again to the podcast. Wow, thank you. That was a mark. Happy to be here you're. Welcome. You're welcome. That's. Quite the intro, yeah. Of course, your career is a globe fool actually, so you deserve it. In my country, Nigeria would say give honour to whom honour is due.

3:58 And of course, you know it's very nice. Earned the stripes, you've earned the stripes. So let's actually go to the origin story and of course, you know the mindset. You've actually worked at the highest levels of AI innovation. Please take us back to the beginning. What just pulled you into this space? Back to the beginning, I've been fascinated by technology in the future since I was a little boy.

4:23 My dad was a university lecturer in the 70s. I'm an age myself here and he would bring computers home from the office, from university and I got to play with them. You know, kids play with computers when they're quite young now, but that back then that was a bit unusual for a 10 year old to be, you know, playing around with computers.

4:42 And I could see then they were going to change the world. And I've been fascinated with them ever since. I got a couple of degrees to learn how to make them, how to build them. So there was a time when I could design computer chips and motherboards and and write software. I don't do any of that now, but I've just been fascinated by the future and had a future orientation my entire life, and particularly the intersection of technology and culture. How does technology change the way we live our lives? What does it make possible and what do people want from technology in the future?

5:11 So I became one of Intel's two futurists. So thinking about what the world's going to be like 5-10 and 15 years out from here. I was with Intel until 2016 and then I I realised as one of Intel's two futurists that Intel had a bit of a bleak future. Things were going to get difficult there for a while. So I part a company with Intel and started out as an independent and I've been helping businesses to figure out how is technology going to shape their future And now more specifically, how is AI going to shape their future and how will they use that to become AI first organisations. And I took a little detour on the way. I got to do an assignment in London. I live on the West Coast as you

5:53 mentioned, but I went back to London and recharged my British accent and worked for Google DeepMind for a bit. DeepMind is Google's AI research labs based in London and one of the roles I had for them was also as their in house futurist. So that's. Far amazing, amazing, amazing. But you know at what moment or what was that aha moment that you realise that AI was not just another technology but a defining source for the future? You know, I wrote a book in 19 and it was called The Innovation Ultimatum and it was about 6 technologies and how they were going to reshape the world of business. And the biggest and the 1st chapter was AI because I realised that was, you know, outsized difference. But I would say it became really

6:39 crystal clear for me when I was at Deep Mind in 2021, and I had early access to some of the stuff that they were building there. So I got to see the Google equivalent of ChatGPT before ChatGPT came out in the world in November 22. And was just blown away by what large language models could do and the potential there.

7:00 And you know, my future's brain just shot forward and I thought this is going to change everything about the way we do work, the way that people live their lives. That was probably the big aha moment. AI has been around for 15 plus years. It's not like this is new new. It just it had an A smaller impact. Let's say it's been there to optimise the back offices of global business for 15 years.

7:24 And it, you know, does patent matching and sorts data. But it was really that breakthrough with generative AI that that made me wake up and realise, oh, we're going to have digital employees in our lives. Robots are actually going to be a thing in my lifetime. This is going to change everything. The Gentek AI in the speed of the British culture as have a cup of tea.

7:45 A cup of tea never hurt anyone, so they say. Being British, I'm I'm powered by tea, but I've, I've had my, I've had my quota for tea today, so I'm on the water now. OK, interesting. What disease is the most healthy drink on the planet? You know, so many people actually feel overwhelmed by AI. What might achieve separates those who try from those who get left behind?

8:09 I think AI can be scary for people, either because they've watched The Terminator too many times or they're worried about being replaced by AI. It's threatening to our identity, but also we worry about our livelihoods and that maybe AI can get smart enough to replace us and do some of the things that we do. So I understand the fear, but I encourage everybody to be curious about AI, not to think of AI as a way to replace a task or to offload.

8:37 But how could I partner with AI to build something either better than I could build on my own or to build something I could not build myself and to use AI as an amplifier? So I think that's the mindset shift is, is not seeing AI as a threat, but seeing, being curious about it, seeing it as an amplifier and then having the bold vision and the courage to actually use it to do something amazing.

9:02 I love that. You know, I do have an episode titled Humans Best AI Next. That is the approach that I believe in. But a lot of people are AI doomsayers. Did you ever see the Speaking of the movies? Did you ever see the movie Ex Machina? Of course, say one of my favourites. Oh, interested that that's still my favourite AI movie till date. And of course, you know you've actually seen a lot of waves of innovation.

9:30 What makes AI fundamentally different from everything before I? Think the main difference is that previous technologies have been ingredients or tools. AI can be those too, but what we're talking about is unlimited intelligence on demand, and that complements us in ways that technology has not been able to do in the past.

9:52 That's the big difference. Amazing. For for me, I feel like the the speed is very, very outrageous. Like I have never seen any technology with this level of efficiency before in my lifetime, you know? Yeah, like that, the efficiency is outrageous. Is it, is it media features, you know, you know, like cutting through the noise is something that you are well known for, right. And if you had to explain AI in the simplest way to a founder or executive, how would you define it? I suppose it's the term I just used. It's, it's unlimited intelligence on demand. And what makes it so powerful is the cost of that intelligence is plummeting.

10:42 So it's now cheap unlimited intelligence on. Extremely, extremely cheap. And of course, I think that that still speaks back to the efficiency, like achieving the highest possible outcome with the least possible of resource being shoot, you know, and you know, there's been a lot of noise in the marketplace about AI.

11:04 But what are the biggest misconceptions about AI right now? I think the thing I come up with most when I'm working with CEOs, you know, I'll go into a company, I'm going to help them understand AI and the CEO will come over and they'll be so proud because they say, oh, we've, we've got a Co pilot licence for the enterprise, right? We basically they're saying we've bought AI tools for our employees and they're so proud because they think that's it. That's all they have to do.

11:32 And that's the biggest misconception because honestly, enabling it is, is necessary. You have to do that. You want to make sure that all the tools that your employees are using, you know, you've got the AI bells and whistles turned on because you want the best tools for your employees who can do the best work. But honestly, that's 2% of the effort and probably 2 to 3% of the impact.

11:56 So it's understanding that there are steps beyond that and there are two more steps you have to go through to get to the point where you could say we're fully utilising AI and getting the biggest value from it. Interesting. So I'm quite curious, what are those two sets right. But before you give us those two steps, right, yeah.

12:14 It's interesting that either sort of aligns with the philosophy of this podcast, the philosophy of this broadcasters mindset, skill sets, then tool sets. Because the tool set is the last thing for you to achieve, you know, reasonable success in any endeavour, right? You need to get the right mindset, then equip yourself with the right skill set and then when you get equipped with the tool set. But I think a lot of people place a lot of premium and make a lot of noise about the tool sets because the tool sets are only as good as, you know, the human using that tool set. So I'd like for you to talk about the steps before adopting the AI tools.

12:59 Yeah. So let me walk you through that. And then I thought I can actually link it back to your three steps, but in the reverse order. So the first step is enabling enable your team with AI powered tools. Got to be done. Necessary but insufficient. Step 2 is to look at every workflow you have, every business process that you have, break it down to tasks, and then ask the question, which of these tasks is still best done by a human?

13:25 There'll be many that are. Which of the tasks can now be better done by an AI agent? And if you have a physical component to your work, a robot. And then how do I gracefully coordinate all of those three groups? So people, agents, digital employees and robots, how do they work together so they can hand off tasks to each other?

13:46 How do they work effectively as a team? So that's really about re engineering your organisation in your parents, maybe that skill set and then the final step. And, and then by the way, that's probably about 30% of the work and maybe 30-40 to 40% of the impact. The final step is where you stop thinking about how do we use AI and instead you ask the question, how do we build the entire organisation around AI at the centre?

14:15 How do you put AI, make the AI the engine of your business. That doesn't mean that you're replacing people. It means you wrap people around that engine and they are there to steer and guide it, oversee it. And if you can do that, that unlocks so much potential. Instead of thinking, well, I'm going to grow my business by 15% next year or 20% or 25% now you can say I'm going to grow my business 100 percent, 1000% next year.

14:44 Because by using AI at the core of your business, you're able to collapse the constraints of time and money and IT reimagine how you go to market so you can start playing a different game than your competitors. And that's probably the mindset. So tool set, skill set, mindset, but in that order. Just get your. AI tools in place get the skill set. Yep, exactly.

15:08 Get the skill set there to be able to coordinate humans and machines working side by side in effective teams. And then eventually get the mindset of how do we become an AI first organisation, Collapse those constraints and use AI to amplify our people so they become superhuman. Amazing, amazing. And, you know, it's, they say great minds think of life. And I love the fact that you are able to connect with, you know, with our philosophy.

15:37 And, you know, it's really crazy how a lot of organisations are now claiming to be AI native. We had Ron Shevlin on the podcast in the last episode. Ron Shevlin is actually the chief research officer of Cornerstone Advisors. And he was named in the top 10 fintech influencers globally by the Fintech Magazine for 2026. And he expressed his displeasure at, you know, people now taking being AI native, like the new buzzword. And he also talked about how Jack Dorsey laid off 40% of the staff at Lock, which is formerly known as Square. I would like to, you know, know what your take is on CEOs, you know, on the C-Suite, you know, now easily replacing humans, right with AI back what what what is happening in the world to be.

16:42 It just feels like the layoffs are really scary. And I think that's what makes a lot of people, you know, have that phobia for AI because it feels like nobody's job is safe any longer. So what's your? Take let's recognise first like that there's some yeah, there's some AI washing going on. You know, there are certainly some leaders who have over hired or, you know, they just need to cut anyway and they blame it on AI, right?

17:11 It's a nice cover story because if you say, oh, we over hired and then you let people go, your stock price takes a hammering. These bozos don't know what they're doing. If you let go of people and say, oh, it's AI, then you get rewarded on the stock price because people think, oh, they're they're doing all the things well done, right?

17:30 So there's some of that going on and we need to recognise that. That said, I think there are, there's, there's an old way of thinking and there's the right way of thinking. So let me talk you through what I mean by that 20th century thinking. 20th century advice would be to use AI the way we have used every other technology.

17:49 Use it for productivity gains and efficiencies, save costs, all right, Get rid of some heads and that'll make the shareholders happy. And so when a new technology like AI comes along, if you're a seasoned leader, you think I know what to do, I'm going to use this for productivity, efficiency and to lose some headcount.

18:08 That is a absolutely the wrong thing to do. What you need is fresh 21st century thinking, which recognises AI is different. Sure, you can use it to replace people, but AI is different because not only does it boost productivity, it can amplify your employees creativity, their intuition, boost their decision making abilities, expand their knowledge and so on. So what you should really be doing is finding ways to partner your people with machines to amplify them. That's what the unlock is so that you can start to grow your business 30% and 50% rather than, OK, let's cut some headcount and save some cost and let it let go of some people and stay at the 10% growth mark, right? It's, it's thinking about how do

18:59 I amplify the business. Jensen Wong has this right. He was asked late 2024 what his plans were for employees and he said, oh, we've got about 32,000 employees right now and over time we plan to grow that to 50,000 people supported by 100 million AI assistants across every group. So he's thinking about workforce planning in a completely different way. He didn't say I've got 32,000 employees today and I'm going to reduce that to 25,000 by using lots of AI. He's thinking about amplifying the impact that they collectively have by partnering people with machines. And that is the right way to think about it. I think I I totally agree with that approach, but what would you say people are getting wrong

19:50 about generative AI and AI agents? I mean, generative AI isn't just there to create text and images and video. I think generative AI can generate a lot more than that. So at the heart of generative AI is, is the transformer. That's what's in a large language model. That's what translates between a question and answer. Or a caption and an image, right? You think about like a translator. We can get much more sophisticated than that. There are people building generative AI to translate between the desired properties of the material and the crystalline structure of a material that has those properties so that we can develop new materials. These are the types of applications which we really focused on.

20:35 And I think when people think generative AI, they're much more bounded. They're thinking about a chat bot, whereas in a we can find all of these amazing applications. That's probably the a big one. And when it comes to agents, people think of agents as just being for offload. So I've identified there are three types of agents, AI agents, offload, elevate and extend. Offload agents just take a task that you don't want to do and they handle it right?

21:00 Booking a flight or organising a meeting, whatever it might be. They take the suck out of your job is kind of the idea of that. And most people think that that's the only type of agent there will be. But there will also be agents that elevate. They work in partnership with a human to elevate that person's performance at a task they could already do themselves, but they're just going to help them do it better. Then there are extend agents that partner with a human and through that partnership they enabled the human to extend their abilities so they can do things they could not do before, turning them into superhumans.

21:34 So those are the things I think people have not really thought about with agencies. How do I partner them with a human so they can do more or do something incredible they could never have done before in their lives? Amazing. I love, I love that illustration because, you know, personally I've been able to, you know, use the AI agents in those three ways.

21:56 So actually he's a home broker and putting you on the spot as a futurist. Where would you say we are in the AI revolution? Are we early? Are we in the mid stage or are we late in the AI revolution? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, the term AI was invented in the 50s and it's been used by most businesses for the last 15 years. So, you know, as time goes, yeah, we're probably mid, maybe late, but in terms of the impact, early, early, early, because, you know, we ain't seen nothing yet. We're going to be living in a world of 10 billion humanoid robots and probably a trillion AI agents. And they're going to change the way that business operates, the way that people live their lives, the fabric of the world we live in.

22:48 I'll be, I'll look out the window and see robots walking down the street. The world is going to feel very different just five years from now. And so in that regard, we're still very early. Interesting, you know. And of course, Speaking of the impact, let's talk about the business impact. You have actually advised global organisations.

23:07 What are the smartest companies doing differently with AI today? I mean, back to those three steps of enable Reengineer, reimagine, they're the ones that have already moved into that reengineer phase. They are figuring out how do my workflows change, where do where can I use AI alongside my people and how do I amplify my people using AI.

23:31 They're the ones the smartest companies are doing that and the really the smartest ones. They are figuring out how do I become an AI first company, putting AI as the engine of the business and wrapping their people around it. Interesting. So Speaking of returning investment, what would you say are the highest ROI use cases for AI that every business should explore right now?

23:55 You know, because it's really crazy. Everybody's adopting AI, but they are not, it seems like a lot of people are not thinking about the return on investment and then you just invest in before even evaluating what is that return like what are the highest IOI use cases right now? It. Really varies by industry and I work with every industry out there from, you know, mining to banking to retail and everything in between.

24:23 I mean, customer support is an obvious one that most people have leaned into and a find finding some good returns supporting their customer support humans with AI that works in partnership with them to help them be more productive. There's some customer experience stuff, but I think the real opportunity is going to be with agents figuring out how to partner agents with humans to elevate their performance.

24:48 The companies that are thinking about it that way, that are not thinking the wrong headed way to think about this is all right, we've got to get some AI in it. Where do we start? Let's put some AI here and some AI there that's the wrong way. You always start with people, whether that is a customer or an employee. And you're asking the question, how could we use AI to make their life easier so they can do more? Whether that's, you know, making a customer journey easier on a website or making it easier for an employee to create and deliver value by partnering with an AI. Amazing.

25:23 You know, it's quite interesting to see how people just being that when you slap the name AI on any product or any project, it just makes it more fancy, more attractive. And interestingly, in London, I do know a fellow founder, like new founder and you know, in the healthcare industry, he was working on something and he was like, oh, my product is AI enabled. So it's different from the others in the market. Excuse me, I don't get it.

25:57 But you know, it's crazy to see how like most AI transformation projects feel. But why do they feel? And how can leaders avoid that truck? Oh, they fell for a number of reasons. The big one is, I mean, AI is powered by data. And if you haven't got your proprietary data clean and organised so that you can connect your AIS to it, it's garbage in, garbage out, right? So that's the number one reason is just not being ready. If you have data engineers, data scientists increase their pay because you need to keep them.

26:31 They're going to help you be successful with an AI transformation. So that's reason #1 you know, people just don't have the data ready. It's either incomplete or it's mismatching, right? They have a customer database that says customer name, this one says client name, and they just don't match up.

26:46 So, you know, you've got to do all of that cleaning before you can really implement AI successfully. Another one is not bringing people along. It's, you know, it's classic change management stuff. I had a client who was so proud because they'd rolled out some AI agents to their teams and the teams hated them.

27:04 And some of them threatened to quit and in fact did quit. They said, I'm not working with AI. And I asked the client and I said, so when did you involve employees in the design process for these AI agents? And they looked at me like we didn't think of that. Just crazy stuff because there's two reasons why you include people. One, you're trying to get people's buy in to say, hey, this is going to be great for me. I can see why AI in my life as an employee is going to be better.

27:35 I'm going to enjoy my day when I go home. At the end of the day, I'm going to be happier because I've been using AI. It's helped me offload the things I don't want to do and helps me be more successful at things I do enjoy doing. It's what you're trying to do there is create supporters rather than saboteurs.

27:52 So that's the big one. You just include people out of human decency to bring them along for the ride. The other reason is the way that management thinks work gets done or the way it's written in the manual is not the way work actually gets done. Humans are very adaptable and they figure out different ways to do things.

28:12 And so if you design an AI solution for the way you think work is being done, when you go to deploy it, you'll find it's actually you've designed for a world that doesn't exist. And so that's the other reason needs to engage your employees in the design process to make sure you're designing something that will actually work. Amazing, amazing.

28:33 You know, I've said this on the podcast before in order to achieve change, there are three things you know, the people, the processes and the C stands. But I will take you on, on the data, on the data point, right? Because it feels like you, you, you were eavesdropping on the last episode's conversation with LeBron Scheblin. And I'm going to quote Bronch Scheblin here. He says if your data quality is low, your AI strategy will blow. And I I love that.

29:05 Yep, that's right. So guys, go get your data in order, right? So how should ACEO think about AI today? Is it a tool, a strategy, or a complete business redesign? Yes, here's the answer. And it depends what which of those 3 stages I described you're in. If you think of it as a tool, you're stuck in stage 1. If you can make it to that re engineering phase, then you figured out, oh, this is a strategy now if you make it to AI first, then you've realised, oh, this is a mindset change. I have to completely redesign the business and build it around AI.

29:47 So the answer is yes. It just depends which step in the process you're at. Interesting. You know, let's talk about the practical. If you see if you're CEO, you better be thinking about the long game. So let's say you should be thinking about it as a complete business redesign. There you go, There's my, there's my final answer.

30:05 It's just, you know, big like a futurist, not like a now East. There you go. But you know, I'm really, really blessed, you know, just to speak with the, the brilliant minds of my generation, you know, and for me, I always say that gratitude is good attitude. You know, growing up in Nigeria, I, I was privileged to have a father that had a massive library. I still today, I said, describe myself as a nerd, right? And I own it, you know, reading the likes of Aristotle, you know, the ancient Greek philosophers, you know, Plateau, even up to some contemporary ones like Immanuel Cannes, you know, Bertrand Russell and even the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.

30:54 A lot of people do not realise that Winston Churchill won a Nobel Prize for literature. And, you know, bring up, I usually feel like how I wish I could have a conversation with these great minds, but now I'm frivolous, you know, with technology to have, you know, interactions with the great minds of my time. So from me to you, it's, you know, it's a big appreciation, you know, and to like, I feel very blessed and grateful like having these interactions and, you know, talking about the practical execution, you know, and let's make this practical. If someone listening to us today wants to start using AI today, what is the step one for the average person? I mean, we all need to boost our

31:36 AI acumen. The best thing anybody can do is to invest in themselves and learn how to use AI. And that means practising, you know, you get better at it the same way, you know, when I was your age, I had to learn how to use Word and Excel and PowerPoint and all that kind of garbage, right? And you know, you, you amplify yourself by being better and in master those tools.

31:59 The same is going to be true with AI. So you just have to lean in and try it. Now I get asked this question a lot, so to help people out, I actually created an online resource for people to help them on this journey. So if you go to my website, Steve Brown dot AI very easy to remember Steve Brown dot AI we'll have. That at the bottom.

32:18 You'll see it. Yeah, There you go. So you Scroll down to the bottom and you'll see this thing called artificial wisdom. And if you click on that, it gets you to a Notion page I created. And it's got AI books you might want to read, podcasts you might want to listen to, like focus on AI, YouTube channels to watch, and most importantly, AI tools to try organised by different genres. So AI tools to make music, AI tools to make presentations, AI tools to help you programme, whatever it might be. So check that out.

32:49 Artificial wisdom, my free gift to everybody that's listening to this podcast. Amazing, amazing. And of course we should have our own podcast as well added on there. Quick one. So I've actually seen a lot of law on the Internet lately. You know, people saying oh, Saturday AI challenge, Saturday AI adoption, blah blah blah. That's a day AI plan.

33:14 So what does a simple 30 day AI adoption plan look like for a business? I I wish it could be that simple. Wish it could be that simple. Yeah. I I don't think, I don't think I can give you 1. I mean, if you've only got 30 days, this is going to be a multi year effort. If your first 30 days, it's just build your AI acumen, get smart about what the possibilities are, and then you've got maybe the first step of the journey under your belt.

33:44 But that's that's all you can really hope to get in 30 days. But really start thinking about those 3 phases I described and what would it take to build an AI first organisation? What does that look like? If you can achieve that in the 1st 30 days, you're golden. Interested. Please try another laugh because I just remembered some adverts I'm always seen on YouTube that is always annoying me.

34:07 You know it starts with most people over the age of 14. Only use ChatGPT. You can become you can become an AI expert in 30 days by following this plan. I don't like who are these? People this money, Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's, it's, it's really crazy. So how should you know teams be structured in and an AI first organisation? Good question.

34:37 And the difference between them, it's probably worth thinking back to the Internet days, right? 25 years ago, you could, you could organise companies into 3 buckets. There was traditional companies, Internet first companies and Internet native companies. So your Internet first here in the US where I live, it would be your Sears and JC Penney's, right?

34:58 Brands that just faded away at your Internet first companies would be target.com, walmart.com, right? They were retail companies that made the jump and they've made Internet the centre of the way they fulfil go to market. All of it invented Omni channel retail. And then the canonical example of an Internet native retailer would be Amazon, right? So that no one could be Amazon because they weren't starting from the beginning of being natively Internet focused. So Internet first was the best you could hope for. We're repeating that all over again now. You're going to have traditional companies, AI first companies, which are traditional companies that put AI at the centre of what they do.

35:39 And there will be some AI native businesses. So the only way to inoculate yourself against an attack from an AI native company that is built from the ground up around AI is to become AI 1st. And how do you do that? You put you make AI the engine of your business. For most companies, people are the engine of their business.

36:00 So you make AI the engine at the centre of the business and then you wrap people around. It doesn't mean you don't need people anymore. The people are there to oversee direct. It means that the people you have shift from doing work to designing work and then overseeing that work. So it's a mindset change.

36:19 But I'll give you an example of a company that's moving in this direction, cleveland.com, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which is a newspaper in Ohio and they have a digital website, cleveland.com. Their editor is moving to be an AI first organisation. He's realised that reporters, human reporters are best at reporting and writing has been sort of it became part of their job.

36:46 But you can have an AI do that. AI is a very good writers now. So free up the humans to become reporters and then have another AI that generates leads for them. So it feeds them leads by looking at event calendars, listening to the police radio, watching Twitter and feeds the reporters a lead. So they can do the, the very human thing of working with sources, getting quotes, fact checking, you know, pulsing their own sources for information, doing investigative journalism.

37:20 And then they pull all of the information, all the facts, They hand it to an AI that writes the story very quickly. They oversee that to make sure the AI doesn't get it wrong, and then they move on to the next story. So you're creating this flywheel where the AI is generating lots of great leads, finding great stories.

37:39 The humans report and then the AI writes it, and you get more stories and better investigative journalism because you're freeing up people to do the hard work that an AI can't do. And of course, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's a lot of heavily beliefs in rubber. And again goes back to my point of efficiency, like the efficiency is unimaginable but what skills will become non negotiable in the next five years? Depends who people I mean.

38:10 Certainly entrepreneurialism will be a very valuable skill. The ability to grow businesses using AI, of course. The ability to use AI to get things done. But I think a big one will be change management. Can you, can you help other people navigate through what will be the fastest change in human history?

38:31 And can you successfully navigate that change? So you have to be adaptable. And I think just having that boldness of vision, that will be the skill that really separates great leaders. Do you have the curiosity to constantly learn the boldness to come up with audacious visions and then the courage to use AI to execute on those audacious visions? I think that's what will really separate the true leaders from the wannabe leaders in the next five years. Interesting.

39:01 I love that. And of course, you know, you're reminding me of the episode where Brett King, I think, yeah, that's about one year ago. And, you know, this year he was named in the top ten global features list by Global Gurus. And we're talking about how I've been able to express boldness and, you know, like ask questions and, you know, speak with, you know, elite level leaders in the world.

39:29 And he told me something that Elijah, what you said is that what you need to tell people is you are that person with the curiosity to ask the right questions. And it is what it is. It's amazing. It's amazing. Like to look at, I look at Mike Harvey on podcasting, but we're globally, we're currently globally brand that is in the top 2% of the world, two podcasts, the first global top 2%, the second global top 3%.

39:58 And interestingly, the Diary of the CFO. Thank you very much, Sir. And Diary of a CFO clocked 100 countries today. So it means we have audience in 100 countries. And when I think about it, we only started nine months ago, Diary of the CFO, the Kingdom's podcast two years ago. And it's massive. It's scary what you could do with AI.

40:23 Yeah. It's, it's, it's really, really scary. And you know, but importantly, like prohibiting your point. We, we as humans need to realise that we need to have that boldness. We need to have that curiosity to ask the right questions. And the place of human judgments will never be replaced by AI. Do you agree with that sentiment?

40:46 Yeah, I mean, you want to try and keep. Yeah, You want humans in the loop to provide oversight, right? We want the ultimate the the arbiter, the decider to be a human being. There will be times when you know you want AI to be out in front because they can do things better than humans can. And we already are in a situation where an AI will diagnose disease better than a doctor can because an AI has read every medical paper out there and it can look at all of these different pieces of the puzzle and find patterns in that that maybe a human will miss. That said, I don't want an AI doctor because I want a human connection, someone who understands what it is to be human to tell me, hey, Steve,

41:35 you've got stage 3 liver cancer, or you've got a hard time coming or whatever might be right. You still want the human to oversee that, but you want that human to be elevated by a diagnostics AI that helps them to catch disease that probably the human wouldn't. Not interesting. You know is actually also came up with in that conversation with Breaking. He was like very soon when you ask a person when they go to the doctor and he asked them, did the doctor use AI and the person says no, Hey, you black you and that doctor must be really crazy.

42:17 So it's it's interested, it's really interesting. But you know, Speaking of the future of work and society, you talk about agents being digital coworkers. What does the future actually look like for the day-to-day? Well, agents are at the moment. It's a tech space interface. So with an agent like an open Claw, whichever is excited about right now, or Nemo Claw or whatever the the 24/7 agent running on the computer might look like initially, that's a text interface. Very quickly, I think later this year, you're going to see that become voice 1st and these agents will have voices and you can just speak to them and have a conversation. And soon after that they're going to have faces. They're going to feel like

43:05 forever remote employees on a Zoom call that you can see but never meet, and they're going to feel like human beings. And I think that is where we're going very, very quickly. You already have companies like Synthesia that are helping people to build video, what they call video agents. And over time, when you see that videos technology and a technology like Open Claw start to merge, that's what it's going to feel like. Synthetic humans that are just part of your team. It's just then I think even companies like Mac or Micro one are already using that, especially in like the recruitment industry and it's really amazing to see. But like, what industries do you think will be the most disrupted by AI, you know, or would I say

43:53 in terms of the speed, yeah, which ones will be the most disrupted and which ones will be the most resilient? There is nowhere to hide. Every industry will be disrupted, so there's. Going. To be just yeah, every industry will be disrupted, every role will be changed, whether you're ACEO or a frontline worker, right. AI will change the way you do your work for sure. Now are they going to be some areas which will be changed more than others or more quickly than others? Sure.

44:23 You know, one that's often chosen as accountancy. Accountancy may fall to automation much more quickly if it's the basics of accounting. Yeah, it's coming for you. I'm sorry if it's the broader thinking and, you know, the oversight stuff that still needs to be human in the loop. But the things that will go slower, probably the regulated industries. So things that are heavy, heavily regulated healthcare, you know, that's which ironically is the place where it can probably help the most.

44:57 But we're going to have to have that discussion as a as a society, as a culture of how quickly do we want to have AI come into these parts of our lives? Education is another one. Lots of unions, lots of regulation. And quite rightly so. You don't experiment on our children. But there's so much that we could do differently and better by bringing AI into education, into healthcare.

45:19 I just hope it happens sooner than than I actually anticipate. Sooner than later? Well, should people be worried about job loss or excited about new opportunities? Yes. So there will of course be some job losses if you're able to make your teams more effective. Maybe you needed ten people before, maybe you only need 7 now. This is all going to come down to the conversation we had about 30 minutes ago about 20th century versus 1st century thinking.

45:51 If you're in that, if your leadership team is in that 20th century mindset, let's cut costs, let's use AI to displace headcount, yeah, that's going to lose some jobs. If they're able to make the leap to 21st century thinking and instead use AI to amplify the people that they have and recognise that the people they have are actually the biggest differentiation they have in their brand, then yes, then I think we can see more excitement about those new opportunities and less worry about job loss. But it's going to come down to leadership teams and their vision or lack of it.

46:25 All right, interesting. So what does the AI native company of the future look like? It's probably 5 savvy people who have figured out how to harness the power of AI to build entire teams of digital agents that are well directed, well organised. And they're building a new business that you to do something you could not do before or at a price point you could not do before. And they're probably developing a new business model which undercuts everybody that they're competing with. I think that's what an AI native company looks like. They're small, they're lean, and because they are scaling themselves with digital technology, with digital employees, AI agents, they're not only the Internet helped companies to appear bigger than

47:16 they really were online, right? And and then play on the global stage. AI native companies will act and have an impact that is bigger than the number of employees they have because you've maybe got five people who are amplifying themselves to act like 50,000. That's the opportunity for an AI native company starting today.

47:38 Interested. You know, I did have a webinar earlier today with a cyber security expert in your neck of the weeds And she, she, she, she was asking me to explain to the audience what is an AI agent or, or what does an AI agent feel like? And then, you know, I said, think about yourself as a professional being amplified and working with 1000 or a million other professionals like yourself who can work faster than you.

48:08 And I think you're aligned with that narrative. It's interesting. It's interesting to see. But let's talk about leadership and responsibility. What does leadership look like in the age of AII? Mean great change management. I love what Simon Sinek says. His definition of leaders said leaders need only one thing, followers. That's it.

48:28 That's what defines a leader is if people follow you. And so I think what I've talked about with the people I coach who are leaders is that they need to show up in a different way. Now they leaders get to the position they're in because they've been around the block a few times, right? They know where the bodies are buried. They know how to get stuff done.

48:46 They just have lots of experience and knowledge that they've accrued over decades now. And and that's given them this identity as a sage, right? They know a lot of things in the era of AI. We are figuring this stuff out as we go, right? Leaders are operating by the seat of their pants these days and they're figuring out because AI is moving so quickly and there are, there are not many great examples of AI first companies out there yet where they can identify what they need to do. So very often they're going to be making it up as they go along.

49:20 Now that is a very different identity as a leader. I'm no longer the sage who knows everything. I'm now the leader who says, you know what? I don't have all the answers, but I'm going to lead you anyway and we're going to figure this. Out without a map, not the gates without a. Map you may have a compass, you know, but because and and you're going to use your experience still, but you have to be much more humble and say, I don't know the answers. I'm going to we're going to figure this out together as a team.

49:48 And so it's an identity as a philosopher explorer, a thoughtful explorer that leads people to, you know, a better place. And it means you have to have a strong vision for what you're trying to build and get people excited about that so they will follow you into an exciting imagined future. That's that's the big difference. All right, I love that.

50:09 I love that. But you know, how do the leaders balance Peed with responsibility when deploying AI? I'm not an advocate for move fast and break things. Especially when you're working with AI, you need to be responsible. Responsible means is the data I've got something that I have the rights to? Am I honouring people's privacy appropriately?

50:33 Is there bias inherent in my data, which when I train an AI will mean that my AI is biassed in a way that doesn't represent our brand? Are we building this safely? Have we trained everybody to bring them along for this, for this ride? So there's a lot, a lot of aspects or dimensions of responsible AI.

50:54 You need to go as fast as you can while being responsible. Because if you're not, you'll trip over your feet and you'll end up going slower because you've got to go and go back and clean up all the mess you made by not being responsible because it will come and bite you in the butt. Amazing. Amazing.

51:13 And you know with responsibility also comes ethics, right? So what? Ethical lines should never be crossed, no matter how powerful AI becomes. I don't think there's anything particularly different about AII mean the ethics that you would stick by. Whatever business you're in, whatever technology you're using, you should still stick with AI does let you surveil your customers at scale. So you know, should you be using sensors and cameras to do deep surveillance on your customers using AI? Just because you can doesn't mean you should. So that one of the things I talk about in my book is the 2 by two matrix of things you can do and things you can't do and things you should do and things you

51:59 shouldn't do. And I think the biggest challenge for leaders is when you get empowered with AI, there'll be a lot of things that you can do now that you couldn't do before, but should you do them? And if you shouldn't do them, but you can do them, that's the box which says resist temptation in big flashing letters.

52:20 Because this is about continuing to build long term value for your brand, whether that's your personal brand or your company's brand. If you make decisions that violate that, you will destroy that brand value and a heartbeat. There's a whole chapter on responsibility and ethics in my book. Can encourage any leader to check it out because there's a lot to think about. Oh wow, amazing.

52:44 And he, he, you know something. When I look at the demographics of this forecast, the the highest population in terms of the age group are those between the ages of 28 to 34 and the ages of 35 to 44. That forms about 50% of the population of the people who listen to this podcast. And I'd like for you to provide advice to these young entrepreneurs and professionals. How should they position themselves for the next decade? Find a big problem that you're passionate about solving and solve it with AI.

53:31 Become an AI native company. Support AI at the heart of your business from day one, and figure out how to show up in the world and behave like, you know, a giant enterprise because you're using AI and using that to scale the talent that you bring. So be fearless, be bold, have a big vision, and figure out how you can solve a problem for people using technology in a way that no one's doing before, or in a way that's significantly better than anybody has thought to do before. Perhaps because you have a different business model, but that's the advice I give people.

54:07 So you need to become super AI savvy. Doesn't mean you need to know how to build it, but you need to know what the possibilities are to fuel that vision and then go and make a difference in the world. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. So, speaking about your personal edge, what beliefs about the future do you hold that most people disagree with? Well, that's a tough one.

54:31 That's a very tough one. I mean, there's some simple little ones like I think, I think robots are coming a lot faster than most people do. Even some futurists will tell you, oh, we're not going to get a robots in the home for another decade. I think it's going to come much quicker than that. What's the belief about the future that most people disagree with?

54:49 And I suppose the majority of people at the moment are pretty negative about the future. They're worried about a pretty dystopian future, perhaps because they've seen too many Hollywood movies or they just turned on the news. Because then the news, the news isn't much fun to watch these days. See What sci-fi?

55:05 I'm very. Yeah. Well, most sci-fi is dystopian because if if the Terminator had dropped through a hole in the future and then just shook everybody's hand and said, hello, nice to meet you, and wasn't a killing machine going after Sarah Connor, it would be a very boring movie. So you have to know that Hollywood has skewed things somewhat because it makes for a much more interesting couple of hours in the movie theatre.

55:30 But I'm very positive about the future. I think the opportunity with a is to perhaps move us into a third stage of humanity, Stage 1, survival, subsistence farming. Just want to try and get through till tomorrow. Phase 2, the era of work, right? As an economy, we're all creating value, we're exchanging value. We all work hard.

55:52 We maybe get a bit of retirement to the end of our lives. Stage 3, If we can get it right, work becomes optional. We get to liberate ourselves to focus on the things that truly make us happy. And for some people, that will be still working in some regard, taking care of people or inventing things, whatever it might be.

56:10 For others, it'll be creating great works of art, exploring the universe, discovering more about science, whatever your thing might be. And so that's what I'm excited about, is getting to that third phase of humanity where we all focus on acts of service, whether that's for other people or for exploring the universe. Interesting active service and words of affirmation. So we're going to focus it on our love languages. That's just sort of like to do so. What has been your biggest personal shift as you have worked with AI?

56:43 Biggest personal shift, I suppose when I figured out that AI is not just a tool that it is, we should start thinking about it as a as a collaborator, as an opportunity to amplify what we do and to start treating it with some respect. I mean, sure, they're machines, but they're growing to the point now where they already feel like people.

57:09 And I think that's going to become more and more the case. So that's been a big shift for me is just the sort of the way I frame thinking about AI is not just a dumb tool in a box now, but there's, it's almost like we've captured some kind of magic and put it in a bottle. And that's that opens up opportunities for me because my expectations of AI have gone up exponentially as a result. I totally agree with you.

57:37 And you know, it's amazing, you know, how like the level of respect that I have for AI grows exponentially as time goes on because it's really amazing that the learning capabilities are basically. And of course, I feel like if you are a person who is a lifelong learner by attitude, you would definitely would, I say, develop that respect for for for this kind of a tool. And, you know, Speaking of respect, like me, I respect your body of work.

58:10 And of course, I'm like really, really grateful having that opportunity to speak with you today. Thanks, man. So you're welcome. And you know, towards the end, we usually put our guests in the quick fire round and that's five questions. OK. Before I put you through the quick fire round right, we have a tradition.

58:34 At the end of the podcast you tell me two guests you would like to see other podcasts, 1 you would invite yourself and one I should invite myself. So who would you like to see on the podcast? Two names. My name is. Partner in Crime? Yeah, I've got one that immediately came to mind. Brian David Johnson, when I was at Intel, working Intel labs as a futurist. He was the other futurist.

58:58 He was the first futurist. I was #2 He's a really interesting dude. He's well worth chatting with. And he's got a he comes up from a design standpoint, I come at it from a technology standpoint. So he's different in the way he looks at things, but he's a really great human being. Oh wow amazing, So I think I should I should send him would I say a connection request on LinkedIn and you'll do your thing? So who should I invite?

59:22 Yeah, or you e-mail me and I'll connect you to him. Who should you invite? I mean, do I get to vote for Brian David Johnson twice? OK, OK, amazing that is. He's not just amazing, it means he's a super amazing guest. So shout out to him. We hope you see this. Yeah, we will keep this and ensure that you see this.

59:42 Wow. So there we go and press into the Creek fire. Round five questions, quick answers. So #1 is AI will create more jobs or eliminate more jobs? In the short term, it'll create more jobs. In the long term I think it will eliminate more jobs, but at that point things will be much cheaper. We'll we'll be rewiring society and it'll be OK. Interesting take it so #2 what is 1 AI tool everyone should try right now?

1:00:14 There's so many. I mean, personally, I like Gemini. It's so flexible. Well, yeah, I. Used ChatGPT. Mostly, well, yeah, I worked at Google. But what I was going to say is I use ChatGPT most of the time. That's my go to day-to-day. But I like Gemini more and more and I'm starting to move more to Gemini just because it's more flexible. I can create video, it's got nano bananas. It creates better images now.

1:00:46 So I'm starting to move that way, if I had to pick one. But Lovable's great. Suno's great for making music. There's so many. You know, it's interesting. I was telling somebody something I think last week that last year I was primarily using charity, but I don't understand, it feels like Gemini just came from behind and just like sort of overtook charity because the, the level of improvements that I'm seeing on Gemini, I'm like, oh, this thing is on steroids.

1:01:21 This thing, you know, it's on PEDs, you know, performance enhancing drugs. That that's just what I'll say. You know, I'm not paid by, I'm not paid by Google or open AI. But I just have to say the truth, right? Gemini has made massive, massive improvements in like very recent time. And you know, I'm happy with it.

1:01:41 So #4 What is the biggest mistake that founders make with AI? Probably thinking it's a tool and not recognising it as an amplifier and a Co worker. That's the big one. It's the it's the framing. They're not thinking about it the right way. Interesting, so #4 what is 1 skill that will dominate the next decade? Entrepreneurialism.

1:02:04 AI is a creates a lot of opportunity for frustrated entrepreneurs who were not able to get funding, not able to build what they what their vision was, because AI makes it so much easier to do both. It helps you build value very quickly, to scale very quickly, and it also unlocks funding for you. Yeah, very, very cheap.

1:02:27 And of course the last one is in one sentence. The future belongs to who? The future belongs to people. That's as simple as it. And that's how I end all my keynotes. I explained this dramatic landscape of change. And at the end of it, my closing line is the future is still human, assuming that we all decide to make it. So if we do this right, we're going to we're going to amplify humanity.

1:02:57 We're going to liberate people and free people up to do more of the things that they enjoy doing. One of the things that AI could do is it's it's very deflationary. It could drop the cost because the most of the cost of goods and services is labour. If you remove labour from that equation, then things get much cheaper and much more accessible to all of us.

1:03:19 Elon Musk talks about universal high income. We could get to a point where we're all living like kings and that could happen quite quickly if we get this right. Amazing, amazing tape. And of course, you know, for those people who want to learn more about your body of work and explore ways to collaborate with you, where is the best place to connect with you? You just want to find me is my website Steve Brown dot AI. You can find me on LinkedIn.

1:03:48 There are many Steve Browns. I do not have a very unique name, so look for Steve Brown, AI Futurist, or you can go to linkedin.com/IN/future Steve and that's how you'll find me. And the third way, check out my book. I wrote this for leaders who need help figuring out this AI transformation thing. It's written in plain language, straightforward, and it walks you through with recipes on how to do AI transformation and how to maintain relevance and thrive in the AI era. So I hope you'll enjoy it.

1:04:21 Amazing SLR. I hope the book is available on Amazon. Can we have the Amazon link in the description? Oh yeah, I'll get that to you. No worries. OK, OK, amazing. So I always say this when a person shares their time with you, they share their life with you because the SI unit for measuring life this time and of course gratitude is good attitude. So for me to you.

1:04:46 It's a great way to put it. And respect, thank you very much for for sharing your time on your life today. Thanks man, I really enjoyed that. That was great fun. I really enjoyed chatting with you. Thanks for having. Me OK, thank you very much and of course to the audience, you know what to do guys like subscribe, share with your network and of course always go for something in your lives right and see believe strata pride and go achieve.

1:05:10 Till next time it's bye and of course from Steve Brown, it's a goodbye as well. Take care guys.