Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast - From Automation to Autonomy: Practical Steps for Enterprise AI Adoption with Accenture's Mary Hamilton (Replay)

Starting point is 00:00:00 This is the Everyday AI Show, the everyday podcast where we simplify AI and bring its power to your fingertips. Listen daily for practical advice to boost your career, business, and everyday life. Meet Firefly AI Assistant, now live in Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one creative AI studio. Just describe what you want to create and the assistant handles the rest, orchestrating multi-step workflows across Photoshop, Premiere Express, and more in one conversational interface. You direct the outcome. The assistant accelerates execution. For decades, the business world has slowly become more and more autonomous.

Starting point is 00:00:51 But obviously, generative AI and large language models have changed that conversation completely. What is capable now and in the future of work when it comes to AI powered technologies is almost unheard of. And it feels sometimes unreal, right? how we're able to work today and how we're able to automate our work and think about even just autonomy in general. So that's a conversation I'm excited to have today on Everyday AI as we tackle how the future is being shaped by AI powered autonomy. I'm excited for this one. Hope you are too. Welcome to Everyday AI. What's going on, y'all? My name's Jordan Wilson and I'm the host. And Everyday AI, it's for you. This is your daily live stream podcast and free daily newsletter

Starting point is 00:01:39 are helping everyday business leaders like you and me, not just keep up with what's happening in the world of AI, but how we can actually use all this information and expertise to get ahead to grow our companies and our careers. So if that's what you're trying to do, you're in the right place. Welcome home. It starts here with the unedited, unscripted daily live stream and podcast. But if you want to take it to the next level, make sure you go to our website at your everyday AI.com. So there, we're going to be recapping the highlights from today's interview. And I'm excited for our guests, as well as We're going to keep you up to date with everything else happening in the world of AI.

Starting point is 00:02:13 So for all the latest and freshest AI news, it's going to be in the newsletter. All right, enough chit chat. I'm excited to have a great guest on today's show so we can talk about how the future of our work is being shaped by AI powered autonomy. Because like I said, I think the business world has been more and more automated over the past few decades. but when you combine traditional automation with what is capable today and moving forward with AI and large language models, the possibilities, well, they're pretty exciting. All right. So enough of me, chit-chat, and I'm excited for our guests. So live stream, audience, please help me welcome to the show.

Starting point is 00:02:50 Mary Hamilton, the managing director at Accenture, leading the connected innovation centers globally. Mary, thank you so much for joining the Everyday AI show. Thanks for having me, Jordan. All right. Can you tell us a little bit about what you do at Accenture? Yeah, absolutely. So I have been part of our innovation organization for many, many years. And I lead our basically physical platform, our innovation centers around the world.

Starting point is 00:03:14 They're connected as one network. And it's really our global standard for how we engage our clients in a physical way. We bring them into our centers to do strategic visioning, design, co-creating, learning, connecting them with ecosystem partners to help them drive continuous innovation and transformation. Yeah, and I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of our audience, especially here in the U.S., is very aware of what Accenture does. But maybe for those that, I don't know, maybe have been living under Iraq recently, can you tell a little bit about just the overall work that Accenture does? And maybe even talk to us a little bit, how that work has maybe changed over the past few years, kind of since this generative AI boom has really started to take over how we all think about work. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:04:03 So Accenture is an extremely large company. You may not know we're over 750,000 people employees. And we are a global consultancy. We focus on everything from technology to operations, strategy, consulting, basically run the full gamut. And what's really exciting about how our business and work has changed over the last few years is we really are, truly a unique partner to help drive reinvention at our clients. So if you think about Fortune 500 companies and the changes they need to go through and make in this new era, we have basically all the capabilities brought together with the focus on generative AI and AI, data,

Starting point is 00:04:51 the whole platform, digital core, et cetera, to help our clients go through that reinvention journey, really like solve the harvest problems that all of our clients have. And, you know, I'd say let's just start with this right away. So we're always in our daily newsletter, we're always, you know, putting out when big companies such as Accenture do these very in-depth studies on how AI is impacting work and impacting the future of work. So maybe could you even, we did share this one. I went back and looked earlier this year when you released the Accenture Technology Vision 2025 report. Could you tell us a little bit about what that report, number one, what is it and what were some of the key findings inside that report?

Starting point is 00:05:39 Yeah, absolutely. So we do a technology vision report every year. We've been doing it. This happens to be 2025. We've been doing it for 25 years. It tends to be, it's an accurate forecast of the trends that we see coming from both technology and business and what companies can expect. And, you know, as I said, we've been pretty, we've done pretty well of a batting average of of what comes to life. This year, and normally it goes across all technology, but this year AI has really taken center stage. It's been the highlight.

Starting point is 00:06:14 And it's because we're hitting this inflection point of rapid acceleration where the technology is gaining more and more human-like capabilities, right? And that's through vision, language, reasoning, and it's changing the game. It's fundamentally shifting how businesses are using that technology. And we believe that, you know, as we see this technology proliferate and accessibility, you know, it's an everyday technology that people are using is going to drive new levels of autonomy in the business. It's going to change the way people do business.

Starting point is 00:06:48 It's going to change the contract and the way people think about the work that they do within the enterprise and also how companies and brands interact with their customers and their clients. So it truly, we see this as game-changing. And so that's what's driven the broader theme of the tech vision. So we always have a broad theme. And it really is this year around autonomy. And then we have within that four different trends that talk about, you know, specific areas that we think are changing significantly or will have an impact to businesses. And I do want to maybe dive a little bit more into those four trends identified in the report.

Starting point is 00:07:29 But maybe first, I kind of want to give people just the answer. Can we just skip to the end? So like when we look at what the future looks like and how the future is actually being shaped by AI powered autonomy, what would you say was your biggest findings specifically toward that? Yeah. You know, I would say it really is about how that autonomy is giving people skills that they never had before. And in turn, people are using it. in new ways that we never expected to be possible.

Starting point is 00:08:03 And one of the things that that has created that change and made it so game changing is that we've really truly broken the language barrier, right? We can now have a conversation with this technology. And that goes back to those human-like capabilities that we've never seen with technology before. So that gives us the ability to, I mean, I think in the future it superpowers us, right? gives us superpowers that we never had before. So the autonomy isn't just in the technology being able to go do things with, you know, limited human intervention. It's also giving us humans more

Starting point is 00:08:41 autonomy. And I'll, you know, just take a simple example of something like Adobe Photoshop. Historically, you know, I had to be, you know, an expert to be able to edit a photo and add this in the background and take out that, you know, this thing. And I had to know how to use all those tools. Now, I can just, you know, give a quick direction, you know, add this background, give me a photo with, you know, with this and this, and it can do it. And suddenly I have the autonomy to design something that I was never able to do. So the autonomy, for me, I think it's really important that it's going both ways and it's giving people the ability to have more capabilities and to supercharge what they do. So, you know, I love your example there.

Starting point is 00:09:27 that you brought up because, you know, it just so happens that, you know, 20 plus years ago when I first started using Photoshop, right? I remember gaining some of that autonomy or agency very manual, right? Like, I'm sure I spent dozens of hours doing a certain variation of what you just laid out, right? Like in something like Adobe Photoshop. So how does that change the future of work? for a lot of people, you know, who have that domain expertise that maybe, you know, for your example, maybe they spent a decade or two decades, really refining those skills that now you can kind of do with a couple clicks of a button. So how does that kind of change, you know, human domain expertise, you know, moving forward? Yeah, it does change the game. I see this technology

Starting point is 00:10:21 is a partner, right? So it becomes a partner, a sidekick, if you will, to help people up-level, to change the rules. You know, make no mistake. We're not going to be doing the same kinds of things that we do. Work is changing. And I think the companies that are going to be successful and the employees that are going to be successful are going to start thinking about how do we actually transform the outcomes that we're trying to achieve. And to do that, use technology as a partner to achieve them. So, you know, a day-to-day, you know, yes, I'm not going to be clicking through and using each of these tools, but I might be able to create more content, more quickly, and more in a more personalized way to deliver than I'd ever been able to do before. So it opens up new possibilities

Starting point is 00:11:06 because I can do more and not have to spend the time on the, you know, the detailed, clicking through using the tool. Does that make sense? No, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I know there's not one perfect answer to this question because I think that this is what so many of us are trying to figure out, right? As we're tackling with issues, you know, like, you know, AI powered autonomy or, you know, human agency, you know, and I'm sure it's something as Accenture, one of the largest global consulting companies in the world are constantly having to talk to businesses about all the time. But what are those steps, right? So for me, even myself personally, you know, I have to manually unlearn how I've successfully done a certain task for maybe decades. And that can be a very

Starting point is 00:11:54 challenging and sometimes daunting endeavor. What are some of those best steps that leaders in the enterprise need to be making as we look at a future that is more shaped day to day by AI powered autonomy? Yeah. And to that, the technology continues to evolve and change, even as we're doing, as we're unlearning and, you know, creating this change. So it's not a one-time set of steps, right? It's a continual cycle of change. But I would say, you know, one, lead with value, right? Think about what is the outcome that you're trying to achieve?

Starting point is 00:12:31 What is the value you're trying to achieve, whether it's interacting with a customer or, you know, doing a day-to-day job? What are you ultimately trying to get to? Not the steps within it, but what are you trying to, to, to, to, to, to, to, drive. And then think about, you know, how do you unlearn, how do you reinvent the ways that you're working? How do you,

Starting point is 00:12:53 I think it's important to think carefully about the responsible use of this technology, right? So, you know, how do you close the gap on some of the responsible, you know, biases and things that we've all seen in the past? And then the last piece, I think, is really

Starting point is 00:13:08 around, well, for the enterprise, maybe for the individual, but for the enterprise, it's about how do you make sure that we have the right data, the right digital core enabled to allow this technology to be used more effectively. So I think there's a lot of pieces to, you know, it's the individual changing their process, but it's also enterprises taking that step back and saying, what are the outcomes, what are the processes that we need to change, what is the digital core, how do we address our data in a way that's going to make this technology successful because that leads to you, and I'm sure we're going to talk about

Starting point is 00:13:48 this, about the trust, right? And if you don't have the trust that these systems are going to work, it's all going to fall down. And those are kind of the core steps that I think are critical when we, you know, when we think about how to make these systems successful and scalable and usable for employees, for customers, et cetera. Yeah. And let's even just tackle that one right now. So when it comes to trust, how should we all be thinking about AI? Because, you know, you see these model updates, right? And as someone that has been covering AI every single day for almost three years, it's even hard for someone like me to keep up, right?

Starting point is 00:14:25 But the average, you know, decision maker is not spending 10 hours every single day keeping up with AI. So how do you find that sweet spot between taking advantage of the most innovative technology that you don't really have a choice but to adopt to. But at the same time, most, you know, 99% of people can't even explain what a large language model is or how it works or what a tokenizer file is. Right. So how do you find that balance between kind of grasping today's and tomorrow's innovation with being the trust and explainability piece? Yeah. It's a great question. I think it all comes with building it in the small moments.

Starting point is 00:15:08 Right, that is at the core. Every interaction someone has, they learn a little bit more about what the system will and won't do. And to your point, it continues to evolve and change. So we have to have those channels. We have to have those ways to continuously connect, to continuously educate folks on what it is, what it can do, what it can do next, what's coming, and continue to create that virtuous cycle around the learning, right? It learns, the more we use it, it learns, and it becomes more efficient, more effective. You know, I know I talk to my AI assistance all the time, and I tell it I want less snark, and I want more accuracy, and I want more, you know, I want it this way.

Starting point is 00:15:53 And I'm constantly fine-tuning how it's responding to me, not just the answers itself, but the way in which it's having that communication so that I can consider it a trusted partner. And I think there are two pieces of the trust that we need to think about. One is, you know, really around this responsible AI, you know, as I mentioned, addressing things like the biases, et cetera. But the other part is around the accuracy, right? Is it predictable? Is it consistent?

Starting point is 00:16:19 Is it traceable? Or do I understand how it got its answer? And that is all, you know, inextricably linked to autonomy. The more I trust someone, the more trust something, the more I will allow it to do something on my behalf. So we're never going to get to that autonomy unless we trust the system to do things for us. And that trust is really, again, built in those micro moments. So, you know, did I ask it something? Did it come back with the right answer? Did it come back with the, you know, answer that I can understand? Can I adjust the answer? Can I adjust the way it's speaking to me? All of that's

Starting point is 00:17:00 going to play into creating that out. Adobe just introduced an entirely new way to create, bringing the power and precision of its creative suite into one conversational experience. Meet Firefly AI Assistant, now live in the Adobe Firefly app, the all-in-one creative AI studio. Powered by Adobe's creative agent, Firefly AI Assistant lets you start with your vision, just describe what you want, and shape the outcome as it takes form with the assistant. The assistant orchestrates multi-step work.

Starting point is 00:17:35 Workflows drawing on 60 plus pro-grade tools across Adobe Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop, Illustrator Premier, Lightroom Express, and more to help bring your ideas to life. You can also get started with creative skills, a growing library of pre-built workflows for common creative tasks, like batch editing photos, creating mood boards, portrait retouching, and creating social variations. Every step the assistant takes is visible so you can refine, redirect, or take over at any time. You stay in the driver's seat as the creative director. Adobe Firefly AI assistant now in public beta. See it today at firefly.adobie.com. So, you know, I'm curious. You kind of mentioned a little bit of your own, you know,

Starting point is 00:18:23 personal use of AI and, you know, obviously, Accentures at the forefront. Can you give any examples of what that kind of observability or traceability or, you know, going and looking at an answer and saying, do I trust this, what does that actually look like, right? Because I think for the most part, a lot of people are just now trying to do more and be more productive and they're not necessarily going back in reverse engineering, you know, how a, you know, agentic model with tool use got from point A to point B. So what does that actually look like to start to develop, to develop that

Starting point is 00:19:01 trust in transparency and traceability? Yeah, let me take an example. So when we started our, our responsible AI practice, one of the things we did was not just outline what does it mean to be responsible and have good practices, have frameworks around it, but we actually built technology solutions to help ensure that the systems and the responses and the data are not compromised, that they're providing the right answers, that they're responsible answers, and to flag when there are challenges or things that aren't working. So, I mean, in my personal life, you know, when I'm using chat, I'm, you know, I frequently call it on, you know, hey, that's not right because of this. Can you remember next time, you know, to double check or to cross check this?

Starting point is 00:19:50 But the more we bring systems on board in the enterprise to help provide those cross checks and to ensure that the answers we're getting are correct, the better data that we have in place, right? you know, we're doing a ton on the data platform side from, you know, knowledge graphs to provide the ontology of, you know, how do these, what's the context around this data? What does it mean in this specific business process? Those are all going to create better answers on the enterprise side that start to build that trust. So for me, you know, it's really about, you know, how do you go into things with the lens that, you know, this new way, of technology and the new wave of everything we're seeing from social media to your own technology, we have to approach it with a lens of it's not trusted yet until it's verified, right,

Starting point is 00:20:47 as opposed to how we used to operate, you know, we read something, you kind of trust it, and then, you know, maybe you double check it to see. We should operate on a basis of not sure it's trusted yet, let me make sure that it's verified. And in the enterprise, providing those technology solutions providing those double checks, whether Tiemann or technology, to ensure that we are providing the right answer, I think is really critical. Yeah, I think that's a great call out there. I do want to rewind a little bit and talk a little bit more briefly about this new Accenture Technology Vision 2025 report. I know it did come out earlier this year. And we will share, if you're listening on the podcast, make sure to check

Starting point is 00:21:27 out today's newsletter. We will link to the full, I think, 60, page report. But it seemed like there were four kind of big pillars from that report. Could you briefly walk us through what those findings were? I sure can't. In case you don't have time to read the 67 pages. Let me give you the quick download. So the first trend, and again, these are all tied to AI and autonomy. The first trend we called the binary Big Bang. And that is really thinking about the enterprise. And as generative AI is becoming central to digital. As generative AI is becoming central to enterprise tech, development costs are plummeting. There's lots of new systems everywhere.

Starting point is 00:22:11 And those digital agents that we've been talking about, everyone's been talking about, are gaining more and more autonomy. And that is really transforming applications as we know them today. And again, it's that language barrier that I can come up with an idea, and I can very quickly build out an application to test out that idea. we're having a proliferation of applications within the enterprise that are going to be able to use these new generative AI systems. So that's the binary big bang. The second one is called Your Face in the Future.

Starting point is 00:22:45 And that's really about thinking about how brands are interfacing with their customers. When we're starting to see AI agents, personalized customer interactions at scale, brands have to be really careful that if, everybody's using the same agents, that every brand doesn't start to have the same voice. And brands have to protect their unique voice and how they can do that still through AI agents and personalization, but do it in a much more careful way so that their brand and personality comes through. And we talk about this if you wonder, but I'll share. I've experimented with this a little bit myself. I have my own digital twin, you know, my own kind of personal brand, and getting her to, you know, have that personality and be, you know, like me.

Starting point is 00:23:35 It's been something really interesting and has been a journey over the last couple years as we've evolved my digital twin. So something I've tried out in real life here. The third trend is around when large language models get their bodies. So this is really around how this is going to change the game for robotics. It gives the ability now to create more generalist robotics. It's bringing the 3D world, the multimodal aspect to robotics and really changing the game about how we can not go through such painful programming of robotics, but really start to be intention-driven about how we use these.

Starting point is 00:24:15 And we're going to see a boom. We think we're going to see a tremendous boom around AI-driven robotics. We've got a partnership with Kian Group as a great example. where they are using robots to perform warehouse tasks more seamlessly and partner and interact with warehouse staff to fulfill orders faster, more cost-effectively, more safely. So it's a great example of bringing this stuff to life. And then the last trend is called the new learning loop.

Starting point is 00:24:46 And that's really where we see this technology as one that it's a continuous cycle of So as people learn from the technology, they will become more effective at using it. And as the technology learns from people, obviously we're going to have smarter and smarter systems. So it's really about enabling that continuous learning. And I love the last one especially because this is something that I personally talk so much about on this show is, you know, everyone's wondering like, okay, if these, you know, large language models are able to give us, you know, 60, 50 or even 40 percent more productivity. productivity, right? What should we be doing with that time? And I love the thought of the learning loop. And I always tell people, well, go through if you're using a reasoning model, right, go through and look at it, summarize change of thought, see where it went wrong, where it didn't. And then

Starting point is 00:25:38 run the same thing again and improve it and put in, you know, better inputs, you know, to try to get better outputs and learn how the model is working. So, you know, when we are looking at the future of work and we're talking about models that are now agentic by default, you know, You know, we're talking about models that are getting very high in terms of, you know, kind of their their benchmarks compared to the smartest humans in the world. How should we be, you know, keeping up with these models and, you know, being an active participant in that learning loop when they are changing so much? Yeah, 100%.

Starting point is 00:26:17 It is a huge challenge. And I think, especially in the enterprise, again, going back to trust, if folks don't understand, if employees don't understand how these things are working and how they're evolving and how they can use it, it's all going to fall apart very quickly, right? There was a study done that a lot of employees are actually using generative AI, but not telling their employers that they're using it because they're concerned about the consequences, you know, but hey, well, if I'm using it, you know, could it take my job? but they're using it as a sidekick. They're using it to be more effective and more efficient and to do more. And so it's about that acknowledgement. You know, I'll share another example that we built an online course with Stanford

Starting point is 00:27:03 called the Gender of AI Scholars Program. And it's really about helping our clients sharpen their AI skills and knowledge so that we help employees up level. Because one of the things we've found is that organizations, that have that commitment to up-level and continue, help their employees continuously learn, have better trust and have better adoption, have better likelihood of driving this technology to scale than if they, you know, did it, you know, folks don't understand what they're trying to learn. So I agree with this. It's just a really important point that people need to continue to

Starting point is 00:27:44 adapt and learn with this technology. All right. So Mary, we've covered a ton in today's conversation. But, you know, as we wrap, maybe what is the one most actionable takeaway, right? So if you pique someone's interest and they're like, yeah, like, I really do need to be looking at, you know, the future of the workplace and not the workplace of yesterday. What's your one most important takeaway for those people? I would say, I mean, I'm most excited about where we're going.

Starting point is 00:28:14 with Agenic, and it is something we're investing a huge amount of focus, time, energy, dollars, driving this with our clients. So the takeaway for me is to start thinking about the outcomes of the work that you're doing. What are you trying to achieve? Kind of full circle back to where we started. What is the value that you're trying to drive? And then how could gender of AI start to take on parts of those roles. And if you, you know, if we think about the whole agentic landscape, right, there's, there's utility agents, there's super agents, there's orchestrator agents, and thinking about your role and job, maybe not in terms of agents, but how does it get done? How could you be more efficient? What more could you do if you start to pull in some of these,

Starting point is 00:29:05 autonomous capabilities that could help you do that. So for me, you know, that's the takeaway. And I try to do that every day with my own digital twin. What else could she do? What more could I do? What other locations could I, you know, could I be doing other podcasts? Maybe. And what do I need to enable then to make that happen from a data, from an agent platform standpoint?

Starting point is 00:29:31 Great, great advice and a great way to wrap up today's show. Mary, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join Every Day AI. We really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. This is fun. And as a reminder, y'all, we are going to link to that report and a lot more that we didn't have the time to get to. So if you maybe miss something while you're out on your morning jog and you're like, what was that knowledge that Mary just dropped on my head? Don't worry.

Starting point is 00:29:55 It's going to be in our newsletter. So if you haven't already, please go to your EverydayaI.com. Sign up for the free daily newsletter. Thank you for tuning in. Hope to see back tomorrow. and every day for more every day. Meet Firefly AI Assistant. Now live in Adobe Firefly, the Allman One Creative AI Studio.

Starting point is 00:30:15 Just describe what you want to create in your own words, and the assistant handles the rest, orchestrating multi-step workflows across Adobe Creative Cloud apps, including Photoshop, Premiere Express, and more in one conversational interface. You direct the outcome while the assistant accelerates execution. Stand control with the ability to step in and refine at any time. See it today at FireFly. fly.adobby.com. And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI.

Starting point is 00:30:47 Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going. For a little more AI magic, visit Your EverydayAI.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.

Everyday AI Podcast – An AI and ChatGPT Podcast - From Automation to Autonomy: Practical Steps for Enterprise AI Adoption with Accenture's Mary Hamilton (Replay)

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