This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - AI, Hiring, and the Future of Work (Without Selling Your Soul) with Katie Fortunato | 395

Starting point is 00:00:00 Have you ever gazed in wonder at the Great Pyramid? Have you marvelled at the golden face of Tudankhamun? Or admired the delicate features of Queen Nefertiti? If you have, you'll probably like The History of Egypt podcast. Every week, we explore tales of this ancient culture. The history of Egypt is available wherever you get your podcasting fix. Come, let me introduce you to the world of ancient Eastern. Egypt. Are you earning and investing in the stock market? In real estate? How about in relationships? Are you earning

Starting point is 00:00:42 and investing in your life? I'm Doc G, semi-retired hospice physician and host of the Earn and Invest podcast where we have the 201 or next level conversations about money and life. Not only how you make money and grow it, but also how you use your wealth to create a better and more fulfilling existence. Join us every Monday and Thursday wherever you listen to Fine Podcasts. If you love the show, the best way to keep it going is simple. Share it, rate it, and support the sponsors who support us. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the This Is Woman's Work podcast. We're together. We're redefining what it means, what it looks and feels like to be doing

Starting point is 00:01:29 woman's work in the world today. From boardrooms to studios, kitchens to coating dens, we're here to shed expectations, give our finger to the shoulds and remind you that however it is that you choose to do this work, that's the right way for you, because you are always the decider. And today we're diving straight into something that's equal parts fascinating, inevitable, and mildly rage-inducing, at least for me, but let's be honest, I'm prone to rage. Today we're talking about AI and its place in the future of work. This will shock exactly no one, but I'm struggling hard with.

Starting point is 00:02:07 with AI. I use it at maybe 5% of its capabilities, and I know that I'm missing the boat. And yes, I'm also aware that it's wildly contradictory to my lifelong devotion to efficiency. I often feel like my parents must have when smartphones first showed up, suspicious and totally lost, convinced that this is the moment everything officially goes to hell in a handbasket, which is probably exactly how their parents felt about TVs and cars. AI brings out. my inner curmudgeon, get off my lawn and take your bots with you, right? And I think it's mostly because it pokes at the creator part of me, the part that labors over words, obsesses over nuance, rewrites emails for hours and really, really, really cares about connection. The part that

Starting point is 00:02:54 spends two hours preparing for every podcast episode who writes and rewrites and tweaks every open and close. It's those parts of me that get annoyed watching people crank out thought leadership in 10 minutes flat with AI doing all of the heavy lifting. I worry about losing creativity, critical thinking, humanity. Honestly, sometimes it just feels like everyone is cheating. And yet, stubbornly refusing to learn and grow isn't exactly a power move either. I am missing the boat. And I also know that staying planted on the doc yelling at the boat doesn't make me principled. It makes me stuck. Because the real question isn't whether AI is coming or if it's going to impact how every single one of us works.

Starting point is 00:03:42 It's how we engage with it. Ideally, without selling our souls, our creativity, or our humanity in the process, which is why we're having this conversation with someone who lives at the intersection of innovation and people and refuses to treat those as opposing forces. Today, we're joining by Katie Fortunato, co-founder and EVP of platform innovation and strategy at Hire Innovations, a global leader in human-centered AI talent technologies. Katie helps major brands modernize hiring while keeping people at the center. With a background at MTV, AOL, and the Wall Street Journal, and a deep commitment to workforce equity and responsible innovation, Katie sits right at the intersection of AI hiring and the

Starting point is 00:04:30 future of work. So Katie, welcome to the show. And I want to start by kicking off from your perspective, the good and the bad. So where does AI genuinely make work better? And I'm sure there are lots of ways. And where might it be being misused? Sure. So thank you for having me also, Nicole. And your comments about how intimidating it is is real for me too, even though in your nice intro, I'm living it and breathing it every day. I will say I spend 80% of that time and fear of it as well, even though I am being as proactive as I possibly can to be that expert. The truth is you're feeling overwhelmed and spending only 5% of your time working with it because it's new. Everybody is learning. And how we use it at work and how we use it in our daily lives is so individualized and it's easy to get intimidated

Starting point is 00:05:30 by the headlines that you see day after day about AI and also, you know, looking at what happened at the start of the year where the couple of first major news stories where AI is taking your job. So is it showing up at work? Absolutely. Are you right to be fearful that if you don't adopt, it's going to take over? Well, not necessarily, but if you don't adopt, somebody who, who has adopted it is going to take your job. And Nicole, not you, because you are a, you're, you've got your own thing going on. You never know. I mean, they're producing podcasts nowadays by AI and that scares the shit out of me, but, you know.

Starting point is 00:06:05 Generally. And that is a brand choice, right? And there are podcasts where if you have been somebody invited on podcasts, they'll say, hey, send me your script. I'm going to put it in an AI format. I've got an AI avatar for you. for me personally, that's not part of my brand because what you said in my intro is we are all about the human-centered nature of work and using technology in an ethical and responsible way,

Starting point is 00:06:32 that that means people like myself or yourself who are aligned with that want the human element to be the authentic, trustworthy part of their brand. As soon as you take that way with AI, you are risking your audience trust and credibility. So it becomes a, brand choice. And that's as far as, you know, how our company is going to be adopting it, how an individual person is going to be adopting it is also an individual. You know, well, how does it best serve my needs and align with my values? So this might be a difficult question because I imagine each of us is, as you said, going to use AI in different ways for different reasons. What is something, though, that maybe most of us or many of us should be adopting or

Starting point is 00:07:23 aware of or leveraging in order to make ourselves not replaceable and to stay with the times and basically to get ahead of the future of work here? Here's what we're seeing on a personal productivity level. And this is where if anybody is starting out, they should absolutely focus. And this is also how I manage my teams and how I managed the way that I approached this practice. But first of all, the first thing you need is a mentality shift from resistance. And I don't want to change. But for the same reason, all of the generations before us have evolved, you know, mindset shift. Be curious.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Be open-minded. Approach it from what can I learn from this? How can this help me as a tool? What I'd say to start with, if you're somebody who's just figuring out how do I use AI, is create a list of all of the things that you do on a repeat basis. And for me, as a working mom and, you know, I'm a founder, I'm a mom, I'm a wife, all the things, I've got that list. And it's the personal things that I do on repeat. It's the things I do for the family on repeat. It's the things that I do at work on repeat in that priority, right?

Starting point is 00:08:40 Like that's how I'm going to set my life up with AI for success. Some of the things that I find are things like grocery shopping, create your list. You don't have to think about it every week. Do you know what meals that you like? Well, hey, I love these meals. I love these recipes. Give me the basic ingredients that I need week over week. Takes a lot of the thinking and effort out of it.

Starting point is 00:09:03 And then you build your skill. That's so basic, right? Like starting with the list of essentials and then figure. you're out like that anyone can do that and right once you go through that list and say you know here are the 30 things I always do on repeat daily or weekly then decide what do I not like to do on this list you might find it's scheduling bills accounting and then figure out what's the AI tool that you're going to need to help facilitate those functions of your life and if you get stuck and you're like well how do I even do that. This is something that my boss says to me all the time and I hate it. And they say, well,

Starting point is 00:09:43 did you ask chat GPT how to do it? Which is the beauty of chat GBT and Gemini and you don't know how to do some. You have an education tool for free. So I think you just answered my next question for those of us who are really behind on the AI boat. How do we find which tool? And maybe it is ChatGPT or Gemini. but like even knowing which tool to use sometimes feels overwhelming because there's so much out there. So if we go through our list, repetitive tasks, how do we identify which AI tool to even leverage? It's like going to the gym. You just have to start small, start obvious. You might join a major gym and you want the membership so you can try everything. Or you already know specifically exactly what you like and you know which, you know, micro,

Starting point is 00:10:35 in fitness class to go check out. Same approach when you're selecting your AI tool. I'll tell you how I did it. I did the research on which tool serves which function best. And here's what I've personally found. Gemini, the nanobanana is lights out amazing for anything creative and graphic and visual. Now, I am also a creator and a creative person. So I'm not using that in a way that it's like, this is my advertising and this is my art.

Starting point is 00:11:05 but using it for the things in my life where that human piece doesn't matter. The other thing is like I looked at all the numerical stuff that I do across the business, across my personal finances, across the household management. And at the time that told me Claude was the best tool for that. And then I looked at, you know, where are the tools everybody's talking about that for my industry, I need to understand and know. and that was where Open AI came in. So even then, I did the research on which tool is best for me.

Starting point is 00:11:39 And if you're starting out and you want to take out that step, I would just say, sign up for those three. Personally, I'm a little cautious of going with the deep seek one and trying to also just harness more American dynamism in general and it's part of our brand, but like helping some of the more native. credible and trusted platforms succeed. And here's the thing. They're all getting better.

Starting point is 00:12:08 And if you're just starting out, it doesn't really matter which one you pick, but try to learn it to its fullest. That's the best way to get started. My next question is around, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think a lot of the work that you do is around hiring processes and tools for that. Talk to us about something like that. Like how do we incorporate innovation and responsibility at the same time? When I think of hiring people, there does feel like there should be some sort of human element.

Starting point is 00:12:39 I also worry, isn't it only as good as the information we put in? So using hiring practices as an example, can you walk us through how responsible AI works? What does that look like? What does it mean? So at higher innovations, we are a holding company. We do, we cover a bunch of different products and services in talent technology. That's where we got our start and our founders from 35 years ago. We're on the cutting edge of the talent industry. So they've been developing products, launching them for decades at this point. And what has held true that entire time and goes down to our core mission is we help employers find talent that they need to grow their business. And it is true for no matter what size business you are. You need talent and you need that talent to grow your business. And if you're a company who's also thinking about hiring and how do I retain my employees, how do I grow my employees, how do I set them up for success and upskill them?

Starting point is 00:13:42 And then how do I evolve with the changing skill sets at the companies? That is all a hiring problem. And that's where we looked at in my role. I manage the, I think about platforms. innovation. So what are the other new innovative products and growth strategies for our company we should be looking at? That includes MNA. That includes we have our own innovation lab, which I run. And it includes flourishing the features and products that we already have to continue to solve these problems of our customers. Most of our customers are like the center of people at an organization and or they're a founder. And if you ask any founder or leader, what they spend the most time doing is people-related things.

Starting point is 00:14:29 And especially as an earlier stage company, that is the business. 40% if you don't get your team right, you don't meet your goals that you need for it to be a profitable, viable, thriving business. So we believe that success for any company at its organization is its people. You don't have to become an AI engineer. You don't have to have everyone at your company become an AI engineer. There are other basic levels of AI that can help the business, but everybody should have and work towards a basic understanding of what fundamentally is AI and how do we predict and how do we predict AI is going to shape the industry that I am in and how does my business need to move to stay relevant?

Starting point is 00:15:14 Those are the questions. Once you answer those, then you figure out what the plan is. So let's say somebody or a team of people does that and they're leveraging AI in ways that work for them. Any thoughts or tips on, I'm just going to call it checks and balances for lack of a better term, but as you're using it to make sure that you're not losing the human, that you don't overrotate is basically the question I'm asking. Any thoughts there? The hard truth is, and you might not like this answer, but you cannot guarantee that Because we live in a world where data breaches happen all the time.

Starting point is 00:15:57 Cybersecurity is something that is consistently coming up in the safety and privacy of major organizations. So if it can happen to them, yes, it can happen to anyone. And there is no guarantee. So it becomes what, back to your point on creating the data and the foundation, what is the input? what data are we giving access to? And that's a brand decision, that you have to safeguard your brand. And there are tons of different compliance checkpoints that if you as an implementer of AI or you're shopping for an AI solution, you have to ask the right questions.

Starting point is 00:16:38 And I'd start with a place of credibility and trust out of the gate and doing a vendor evaluation. How long have they been in business? If it's a new business, you might consider looking at who's on their board, who's on their leadership team. Do I trust these people to do the right thing? Is really what you're buying into. If you can't say that about the tooler, you're not sure.

Starting point is 00:17:00 You know, test it in a way that is comfortable to your business that you feel, you know, ask two questions. Does this put my business at risk? Yes or no? Is this going to produce a product that I can stand behind and be proud of? Yes or no. And you'll find that with the tool. Yeah. There are things like SOC2 compliance, like to get really.

Starting point is 00:17:20 technical that you want to be looking for if you're a major organization and you probably already have a data privacy and cybersecurity policy anyway to make sure that there's a checklist before you download and just start using something at your organization. Absolutely don't do that because that happens all the time too with how freely and easily it is to just download any AI tool. So to be fair to AI, I don't think there's any tool that you can have 100% guarantee on you know, if we think of hiring, even if it's just 100% people, there's biases, there's, you know, there's all sorts of things. So I don't know that I, and I hope that nobody's looking for 100% guarantee. I just think leveraging AI and maintaining some of the human people

Starting point is 00:18:04 element might be the best way to ensure that we get the best of both worlds. So based on that, what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see companies making with AI right now that could create some legal security or trust issues that they may not see coming until it's too late. Like as we're innovating testing, what are some of the mistakes that we should be aware of so that we don't inadvertently fall in that trap? So on the topic of creating trust, preserving the human charm, what is a big red flag is, are you seeing, and maybe this is more I'm looking at this visually in the employer brand space, but are you seeing a company saying, hey, we are people-centric.

Starting point is 00:18:49 We love our people. We want the human elephant to be part of every aspect of our business, our customer services, this and that. And then are they advertising their brand with AI-led people? That's a question. Like, it's, I would question that value. And, I mean, we made a decision at one of our startups that the point of our startup, it's called Jobstream, but the point of it is connected.

Starting point is 00:19:14 humans. So we're not going to be advertising fake humans talking about the brand doing that. So again, it comes down to like the value proposition of the brand and the employer. So I think it's deciding where for your business and you personally, where are your values. If you're an artist, you might be thinking of incorporating AI into the research and brainstorming stage of your artistry process if you have one. If you're a writer, you might be considering AI for, hey, I need statistics, facts, and ideas and sources. Help me get those quickly because we all know how long it takes to sift through a library and encyclopedia to find those things the good old manual way. But that helps you write more books more quickly, right, if you get the

Starting point is 00:20:04 research part done faster. So thinking about like what are the things that are so authentically uniquely me and that is my value, my personal feeling is never give that up. And it becomes part of your personal brand then that you know it's always going to be you on the podcast and not some avatar. All of that speaks so much to my personal experience and sort of like belief I'm trying to create is my voice is my work and I need to maintain control. and ownership and authenticity over that. And so as an example, I write out my emails and my intros and my exits and all of those things. And then I use chat GPT as I call it a cleanup service.

Starting point is 00:20:54 I basically write everything out and dump it in and like bold anything that needs to be edited because it's flat out wrong or it doesn't flow or whatever. And I'm sure that there are more optimized ways that I could use it. But for me, my voice matters so much that that feels right now. When it comes to my grocery list or even like show notes for this episode, we just go the AI route because it doesn't matter that much. This isn't my voice. This is like a SEO, you know, to help people find podcasts.

Starting point is 00:21:28 So again, everything you said kind of resonated with me. As you're talking, I'm like trying to wrap my head around it for me. So then my next question, is it normal to feel like using? AI is cheating or is that just a me thing? How do we decide? You gave a few examples, but like, how do we wrestle with the, this is a smart and efficient asset versus I'm selling my soul over here. I'm being extreme, but you get the idea. How do we wrestle with it is going through the same example you just said that your process was, was what's important to my business and what am I going to make money doing? Can AI replace that?

Starting point is 00:22:09 better do it better. That's the question. And it no. The answer is no for you. It's absolutely not. You're a persona. You're a creator. And that is authentically unique about you. As soon as you give AI that access, you democratize access to what is unique to you. So that's how people should be thinking about it. It's like what is my personal identity that I need to protect and protecting your own personal brand? that's the best starting point. The other things around like, how else should I be using it? Does it feel like cheating? It depends on the situation and what's the outcome.

Starting point is 00:22:50 I would say where I'm very concerned and also involved in a philanthropic way and shaping is the digital well-being of our youth. And it's so critical to address it now and get it right because this is the future of the workforce and we're not setting them up for success by taking things like learning how critical thinking is done in school and we're not teaching them how to do the job or how, like, we're not teaching them how to even create their own intuition and judgment making skills if we let chat GPT and AI decide everything for them. So my prediction is and fundamentally believe that we need to protect our youth and we need to tell them what the rules are because

Starting point is 00:23:40 nobody has them right now. And the federal kind of regulating of this is years away. But what, you know, it comes down to the working mother. How do you want to run your household and how are you taking responsibility for the collective future? It really comes down to that. For right now, yeah, we don't want to be cheating with AI. We don't want that in. school because it's not ethical and it can get you in trouble and in some cases cheating is against the law so it's a federal or some kind of offense but yeah it's absolutely a problem that needs governance but it needs self-governance and that starts with you know the self-education on what is this tool and what do I need to know about it to to make sure I'm being safe so katie you took this

Starting point is 00:24:24 exactly where I was hoping to go and I couldn't agree more I worry for the younger generation learning critical thinking skills and so much more. I also worry for the older or adult generation that we're losing some of those skills, not just because of AI. I'll blame social media to, there are lots of things that I think are contributing. I do think, and I don't know if this is true,

Starting point is 00:24:51 but we can go into things like chat GPT and ask it at a question, and it'll give us facts, often that support our opinion. And I feel like it's usually this very supportive tool. It often tells me I'm right, even if I'm like, I'm not totally sure I'm right. I guess I'm agreeing with you and I agree that it is a personal responsibility thing and a collective responsibility thing, but it starts with us. What are some things that we should be doing differently or that we should protect at all costs?

Starting point is 00:25:22 Let's get a little bit granular with this idea of making sure people are learning critical thinking and then making sure that we're not losing it? Well, I'd say if you're on an airplane and they tell you if the oxygen mask drops down, put it on yourself first and then put it on your child, it's the same thing. Like, how are you setting your boundaries with AI? What are the guardrails and safety that you want to put in place? And then once you figure that out and what's aligned with your ethical and moral values, then go and do that for the people around you. And particularly if you are in a situation where you have little people. You have one of the largest responsibilities of probably any cusp of innovation has ever gone through. And it starts with educating and it starts with educating everyone around you.

Starting point is 00:26:17 Go to your school. Tell them that you want to force this agenda. Go to your local governance. Say, hey, what are we doing on a town level, region level, county level, state level, what are we doing? get curious about the policies because you actually can be more impactful in shaping what those are right now. And that's a blessing too. But what we don't want is the wrong people shaping those policies. So I always say it starts with moms because evolution tells us it does. And we believe we are literally put on this earth to meet people and repopulate. And in order for us to do that and continue to do that for our species, like the next generation has to have a playbook for success. They have to be set up for success. So it really starts with with the moms. The CEO of the household is

Starting point is 00:27:15 what I like to say. Yeah. Well, and I'll just throw out, like as parents, we are responsible for ourselves and our future. That's just a fundamental truth. And as citizens, I would say the same thing. So yes, I think being involved, being in the forefront, protecting our energy or kids' energy, and this critical thinking is probably one of the more important topics of the day. So Katie, thank you for joining us. I am sure people want to learn more about you and your work. So you can find Katie on LinkedIn at Katie Clark Fortunato. And we'll put the links to find and follow her in show notes. Katie, you had mentioned something for our listeners. So Nicole, for your community of listeners, and what I really wanted to, why I really wanted to come on your podcast was I understand this community that you've built. I consider myself one of you. And the tool that we have coming to market is, well, it's already live. It's just, we're launching it soon. It's called Jobstream. But it is a way for every person to take a hold of their own career. It's, it's, it's just, we're launching it soon. It's called Jobstream. It's a way for every person to take a hold of their own career.

Starting point is 00:28:22 It is a way to start giving yourself a platform. It's a way to start really cultivating your own community and network. And it's a new tool in an affiliate marketing space. So basically, if you're a creator like yourself, Nicole, you would join. You would share jobs with your network. And we're working with employers who are actively promoting and paying to advertise their jobs that you would get a commission for essentially making that referral. So I wanted to share that as I know there are many people looking for jobs right now. And if you are somebody who is having our time in the job market, because again, this is our business, but if you are struggling with that and the jobs are the foundation of ourselves and provide us economical stability and independence, like there are ways to cut through the job application hell that's going on right now. And I'm just ultra-sensitive to the headlines of, you know, peak unemployment rates. The next generation are also at the highest unemployment rate they've ever been. And what do we do about it?

Starting point is 00:29:30 The current systems aren't working and that's true. But Jobstream is a solution that I'd love to share with you and your audience. Amazing. So we'll put that link in show notes so you're able to find it. Katie, thank you for your important work and for being here today. Thank you, Nicole. It sounds like you're doing all the right things with me. I don't know about that.

Starting point is 00:29:50 working on it. All right, friend, here's what I am thinking. AI is neither a villain nor a savior. It's a tool, a powerful one. And like every powerful tool, it reflects the intention of the person using it. The real risk isn't that AI is replacing work. It's that we might be tempted to replace our thinking, our judgment, our creativity, our responsibility. Efficiency without discernment isn't progress. Automation without accountability isn't innovation and convenience without connection will always cost us more than we could ever gain. We don't need to opt out of AI to stay human, but we do need to stay awake at the wheel to decide what we're willing to outsource and what we're not. To use the tools to support our work, not strip the meaning out of it,

Starting point is 00:30:38 to let AI handle the repetitive, the administrative, the tedious so that we can double down on the parts of work that actually require us. Context, curiosity, critical, thinking and care because the future of work isn't just about what technology can do. It's about what we choose to protect as it does. And choosing intentionally and thoughtfully is always what it means to be doing woman's work. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared. That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train responder anytime.

Starting point is 00:31:34 988 suicide crisis helpline is funded by the government in Canada.

This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - AI, Hiring, and the Future of Work (Without Selling Your Soul) with Katie Fortunato | 395

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