Ben Brennan, former guest, accomplished author, and QSTAC CEO, guest hosts today's "turn the tables" episode... and interviews Dan Turchin, PeopleReign CEO. Learn about Dan's vision for augmenting human intelligence with machine intelligence and how AI will be used to give the next billion employees back an hour a day.Listen and learn...The origin story behind this podcastWhat's required to use AI to improve employee experiences How many new jobs will be created by AI in the next five years according to The World Economic ForumThe right way for investors to identify talent and catalyze innovationHow Ben learned the value of human-centric AI from his days at Yahoo, Box, and TwitterReferences in this episode:Mark Settle, serial CIO, on AI and the Future of WorkDr. Mark van Rijmenam, The Digital Speaker, on AI and the Future of WorkRory O'Driscoll from Scale Ventures Partners on AI and the Future of WorkAshu Garg from Foundation Capital on AI and the Future of Work Glenn Solomon from GGV on AI and the Future of Work The great Katie Stanton, PeopleReign investor from Moxxie Ventures

Gadi Shamia, Replicant CEO and co-founder, has been delivering innovation to help customers have better service experiences for more than a decade. He helped grow and sell Echosign to Adobe for $400M in 2011 then went on to lead Talkdesk which most recently raised $230M at a $10B valuation. Gadi's a serial entrepreneur and a deep thinker who believes in the power of AI to make people better. Listen and learn:Why we hate calling customer support... and how AI is making the experience betterWhy automation beyond IVR is saving contact centersWhat happens when AI makes bad decisionsWhen it's ok to "nudge" users to work with the bot... even when they ask for a humanThe ethical implicatio ns of bots pretending to be human What new careers  will be created when call center agents are replaced by botsReferences in this episode:Replicant on TwitterThe Replicant blogThe Open Ethics AI initiativeKrishna Gade from Fiddler on AI and The Future of WorkJohn Oliver's riff on automation

Krish Ramineni, Fireflies CEO and Microsoft alum, learned the value of NLP working with Skype and Office as a Product Manager. He set out to solve a problem he had: note-taking in meetings and following up afterward. Fireflies has been used by more than 60,000 organizations to make meetings more efficient. Krish has raised nearly $20M from an A-list group of investors including Canaan Partners and Khosla Ventures. Listen and learn...The evolution of speech recognition technology in the enterpriseHow Krish and the team build an AI voice assistant that joins  meetings in 100 countries every dayHow to start with 85% ASR (automated speech recognition) accuracy and make it better using AIHow to mitigate the impact of biased training data where foreign accents and uncommon speech patterns are underrepresentedWho owns voice transcripts used to train AI modelsHow being recorded changes participant behavior in meetingsThe future of "voice-first" computingReferences in this episode:Krishna Gade from Fiddler discusses AI explainabilityFireflies on Twitter A whole breast, AI-based ultrasound system was cleared by the FDA to improve mammogram accuracyDentists now use AI to improve the accuracy of spotting cavities

Joel Eagle, McDonald's Senior Director of Technology and Architecture, started his career in healthcare and logistics before being promoted to technology leadership roles at one of the world's most iconic companies. Joel and his team manage the cloud infrastructure that powers 40,000 restaurants for two million employees... and helps serve happiness in 120 global markets to the equivalent of the  world's population every 100 days. The technology that makes McDonald's work is phenomenally complex. Joel makes it sound simple. Hear from the expert. Oh, and stick around to the end for McDonald's fun facts!Listen and learn...How Joel channels Ray Kroc's vision when architecting systems: "restaurants should run themselves... it should be as simple as a shoebox with money going in and going out."Why Joel says "if it's easier for the crew it's better for the consumer."How AI, wearables, IoT, and AR are all parts of the McDonald's technology vision.Why the shift supervisor at a McDonald's restaurant has one of the hardest jobs in the world.  The anatomy of a McDonald's restaurant: "...they're mini factories run by a server."How AI is improving the drive-thru experience and personalizing the dining experience.What's required to support the McDonald's app which generates 16% of the company's revenue and is the world's most downloaded food ordering app.References in this episode...McDonald's by the numbersMeta Research is improving NLP accuracy with less training data by using our understanding of how humans learn languagesGiselle Mota, TEDx speaker and top 100 "Future of Work" thought leader, on AI and the Future of Work

Ben Brennan, QSTAC CEO, author, and former IT exec at Yahoo and Verizon Media, is a world traveler, a musician, and a trained psychologist with passions for philosophy and psychotherapy. Not exactly the traditional background for an IT leader. Early roles at Pivotal Labs and Jawbone taught Ben that bringing humanity to technology is the future of work. He since published Badass IT Support and started QSTAC to measure the employee experience. Listen and learn...What Ben learned managing 100 people and supporting 15,000 employees at YahooHow the culture at Pivotal Labs inspired Ben's philosophy on quantifying the employee experienceHow Ben convinced a former Apple leader why QSTAC is better than NPSWhy CSAT scores don't actually correlate with how satisfied employees are at workHow the principles of Design Thinking can be used to run ITWhat IT must do to avoid being "Uber-ed" like the taxi industryReferences in this episode...Dion Hinchcliffe on AI and the Future of WorkTim Crawford on AI and the Future of WorkMatt K. Parker on AI and the Future of WorkO'Reilly's 2021 AI adoption in the enterprise surveyQSTAC

Francois Candelon, Managing Director at the BCG Henderson Institute, has spent 30 years researching how companies adopt modern technology.  His research spans business, technology, economics, and science. Francois is a popular speaker, author, and advisor who has been featured at events including Mobile World Congress, TED@BCG, Politico AI Summit, and Wuzhen Internet Conference. Francois is also a leader on BCG's GAMMA AI@Scale team. Listen and learn...The one company Francois says best illustrates how AI can transform legacy industriesWhy "artificial intelligence" isn't really "intelligent"What is an "AI strategy"... and what are the four questions to ask to define yoursHow a fintech company in the UK reduced costs to transfer money by 90% with AIWhat's required to earn the public's trust in AIWhy every company should be required to have a "social license" to use AIReferences in this episode...Fortune article on human-machine collaboration by FrancoisFrancois' "BCG Expert" profileDr. Eric Daimler, Obama's AI authority, on AI and the Future of WorkThe McKinsey "AI in 2020 Survey"

Stephen Messer, founder of Collective[i], was an attorney and teacher before discovering his passion for entrepreneurship. He started LinkShare (acquired by Rakuten in 2005) which made it possible to pay for clicks on the web. He changed how the web works and now he's using AI to change the world of B2B sales. The world needs more visionaries like Stephen. Hear what fuels him and learn about his process for disrupting legacy industries.Listen and learn...The four words that define what all the best entrepreneurs do better than everyone elseWhy sales is the only job function where "30% productivity is the norm"What's required to use AI to help B2B sales peopleHow to use RPA to automatically update CRM systemsHow Stephen's winning against Salesforce, Microsoft, and HubSpotWhat to look for in a mentorReferences in this episode...The Collective[i] blogStephen on TwitterGoogle PaLMMahesh Ram, Solvvy CEO (acquired by Zoom), on AI and the Future of Work

In this special episode, we unpack the controversy surrounding the sentient chatbot that "worries about its future". Google engineer Blake Lemoine published a transcript of a conversation with the chatbot LaMDA that generated strong reactions from technologists and AI ethicists. It conjured images from science fiction movies that always capture the public imagination.Tiernan Ray, ZDNet writer, accomplished tech journalist,  and good friend of the podcast, joined host Dan Turchin to reflect on the story based on his analysis of the 5,000-word LaMDA transcript.Listen and learn...What will it be like to co-habit a world with thinking machines?What does it mean for an AI to be sentient? Why should we care?Should AI be protected under the 13th amendment?How do we know LaMDA's not sentient from the transcript?What are the ethical implications of developing sentient bots?Did Google act responsibly in developing a bot that is sentient-like?References in this episode...Tiernan's analysis of the LaMDA transcriptMelanie Mitchell on MSNBCBlake Lemoine's interview with Steven Levy in Wire Alan Turing's Imitation Game

Kevin Dewalt, CEO of Prolego, built his first neural net at Stanford in 1995 after graduating from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. He popularized the term "AI abundance" to describe the path of exponential technologies and how AI adoption is five years from becoming mainstream. He now applies 25 years of studying AI to help organizations embrace the future. Listen and learn...What every company needs to know to succeed with AI.How the most successful organizations approach AI investments.Why Kevin says: "...we haven't had a single project where we've used AI to eliminate jobs."What Kevin feels is the most disruptive field within AI research.Practical applications of NLP and large language models (LLMs) Kevin's contrarian view on AI ethicsReferences in this episode:The world's first AI comic bookKevin's book: Become an AI Company in 90 daysKevin's company: ProlegoSnorkel to automate data labelingAndrew Yang on AI"D" Das, Founder and CEO of Sorcero, on AI and the Future of Work

Giselle Mota, Future of Work principal at ADP, overcame dyslexia and discovered passions for math and AI. Her parents immigrated from the Dominican Republic and taught Giselle the power of perseverance. Now she speaks frequently to global audiences about the importance of using AI responsibly to hire and nurture talent.Listen and learn...How AI accelerates the process of learning new skillsHow to mitigate the impact of bias in automated decision-makingThe dangers of using facial recognition in recruiting and hiring processesHow to design organizations that celebrate cognitive diversityHow to optimize hiring processes to avoid confirmation biasHow many jobs will be created by AI before 2025 according to the World Economic ForumGiselle's coaching for females and under-represented minorities in STEM fieldsReferences in this episode:Your $250 discount from Hello Landing using Giselle's promo code: giselle_itgBernard Marr, FuturistJoy Buolamwini, AI social justice advocateBryan Talebi from Ahura AI on AI and the Future of WorkKai Nunez from Salesforce on AI and the Future of Work