AI opportunity

When I first started working with ChatGPT, it made me feel like chopped liver.

Suddenly, I was confronted with the startling realization that three-fourths of the things I do — like research and recognizing patterns in my research — computers can do better. (Sometimes, much, much better!)

I’m good at these things, but WOW. ChatGPT absolutely blows me out of the water!

And that left me thinking, “What am I good for?”

If someone can find the answer, they don’t need me anymore. I keep asking and intuiting new approaches but keep arriving at the same answer: My obsolescence is on the horizon.

I’m not alone in my thinking. We’re falling into an existential crisis, especially when it comes to work.

AI is making us wonder what it means to be a human — and that’s its biggest disruptive power.

So how am I not scared? How did I go from questioning my capabilities to accepting the seemingly unstoppable force that is generative AI?

I see it as a beautiful challenge. And that energizes me. Now, I have a buddy, a competitive colleague, who pushes me to be better. Now, I can do so much more because I’m no longer burdened by the heavy lifting of basic tasks. Now, I can do higher value things — in fact, I’m required to!

I’m no stranger to this challenge.

As an analyst and researcher, I’m constantly reinventing myself to learn the newest technologies and run toward them. With AI, it’s been a little daunting because I don’t understand how it all works. But that’s why I talk to and learn from the experts. That’s why I ask a lot of questions. (After all, I don’t have the answers!)

And that’s the disruption mindset: If you think about things from the perspective of opportunity and abundance rather than loss and scarcity, you’ll look at the world and operate differently.

The world is full of opportunity and abundance right now. You just have to know where to look.

If I’d given in to the existential crisis, I never would have had the idea for my new book. I’m writing about how organizations and their leaders can deploy and use AI — particularly generative AI — in their organizations. This used to be in the wheelhouse of CIOs and CTOs, but AI affects every single part of your business. It’s coming in the back door. Your teams are using it and you don’t even know!

Even more importantly, these new technologies will redefine what it means to be human – the way we interact with each other, how we create impact and value, and what we consider to be our unique strengths and abilities.

I’ve never seen anything like this — and I’ve been in the technology and business disruption space for 30 years. I know disruption when I see it! There’s a lot of risk and opportunity, and organizations and their leaders need to be prepared.

I’m excited to see how this continues to unfold, to discover the new opportunities my next book will bring. And one of the things I’m doing is leaving PA Consulting at the end of May to make room for these opportunities. I’ll stay on as an advisor but shift my role to allow more time for researching and writing as well as speaking, advisory work, and coaching. I can’t wait to share more with you soon!

In the meantime, I’d love to hear where you’ve been applying the disruption mindset in your life. At work? With AI? Hit reply and let me know!

– Charlene

My Latest:

• We think empathy defines us as humans, but we get empathy fatigue. We’re not always our best — but AI could help us be better, more empathetic humans. Yes, even though we think AI can’t “care” the way we do! Check out my latest livestream to learn more about artificial empathy — and how leaders can use it to be more effective.

• AI is better at certain tasks than humans. But does that mean it’s smarter than us? Or that it has general intelligence? In Leading Disruption, I tackled some of these unsettling and existential questions about AI — and shared my perspective on what sets humans apart from the machines.

• Everyone HATES failing. So what if you decided to never fail again? 🤔 Join me on Tuesday, May 30 at 9 am PT for the unique story of a CEO who eliminated the word “failure” from his company’s vocabulary and shifted their entire perspective on success.

Good Things:

• App I’m loving: 5K Runner iOS Android. Now that it’s summer, I’m getting my running game on and signed up for a 5K race in late June. To prepare, I found this great little app based on the Couch to 5K training plan that gets you ready for that race in six weeks or less. My favorite part of the app is that since I already had a base level of fitness I started at Week 3! It tells me when to start running, when to walk and offers little bits of encouragement along the way.

• Mesmerizing screensaver to try: Electric Sheep. Inspired by the Philip C. Dick novel “Do Computers Dream of Electric Sheep?” the screensaver creates beautiful animations when your computer goes to sleep, interacting with other computers to create abstract animations. Humans can vote for their favorite pieces which reproduce based on a “genetic” algorithm. Give it a try – and happy dreaming!

• Newsletter I’m reading: The AI Exchange. While there’s a free news subscription, the real value is in the paid premium subscriber hub with frequently updated playbooks, from how to build automation to summarize your email in a Slack channel to building a personal “ask my book” bot. I’ve found it to be a great resource to try all sorts of crazy things with AI – and without coding for the most part!

Thank you for subscribing to the Disruption Dispatch, which goes out to thousands of disruptors every other week and which always offers a short content piece to help you on your disruption journey and a curated list of Three Good Things that I’m enjoying and recommend.