Stay On Top Of Generative AI Industry News (Guest: Conor Grennan)

In this episode, Conor Grennan (Dean of Students, MBA Program & Head of Generative AI, NYU Stern School of Business) and Andreas Welsch discuss how you can stay on top of Generative AI industry news. Conor shares his insights on learning about Generative AI and provides valuable advice for listeners looking to focus on the key AI news for their job and tasks.

Key topics:
- Decide if businesses need a Head of Generative AI role
- Discuss strategies for upskilling students and professionals in AI
- Distinguish between must-know AI news and seemingly important updates
- Receive tips to stay informed on AI developments

Listen to the full episode to hear how you can:
- Separate relevant AI news for your role and task from irrelevant noise
- Approach Generative AI as a conversational experience vs. a technology tool
- Stay ahead with training on ChatGPT, etc.
- Find a sparring partner to learn with about Generative AI and how to use it best

Watch this episode on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/4cRDqsmC19o

Transcript

Andreas Welsch: 0:21

Today we'll talk about how you can stay on top of the flood of AI news, and who better to talk about it than someone who's been covering just that. Conor Grennan. Hey, Conor, thanks so much for joining.

Conor Grennan: 0:31

Yeah, thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this Andreas.

Andreas Welsch: 0:35

Wonderful. Hey, same here. Hey, why don't you tell our audience a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do.

Conor Grennan: 0:40

Sure. Thanks. Yeah, it's again great to be here. So my name's Conor Grennan. So for the last, about almost 10 years now, I've been Dean of MBA students at NYU Stern School of Business where I also got my MBA from. That place has a special place in my heart. And then more recently, over the last year I created and run the Generative AI at Stern program which essentially teaches students, faculty and administrators really how to use Generative AI. And also over the last year, I've been working just a ton with companies and giving a ton of talks to high level people working with managing boards but also teams around how to use generative AI and using this sort of very specific framework that I that I developed around generative AI, which, which is a little different, but but I think seems to work well. So I've been able to work with companies from even OpenAI to McKinsey, to PwC to have done some stuff with ServiceNow and get to connect with NASA, just like some really fun places.

Andreas Welsch: 1:50

Cool. That's wonderful. And I've been following your content for a while and it's amazing to see the following you're building and how timely your comments and perspective are and how on point they are to things happening in, in the industry. And I saw you launched a podcast a couple of weeks ago. Maybe, if you wanna say a few words about that as well, because I think that's a great segue then also why I wanted to bring you on the show and talk about how can you stay on top of it.

Conor Grennan: 2:14

Yeah, thanks. Yeah. Anywhere you can get the information out is fun, right? So Jaeden Schaefer and I have the AI Applied podcast. Jaeden has a few podcasts on this. He's huge in the podcasting space. And yeah, and we really talk probably maybe three times a week or so just about what the latest news is and how we break it down, especially how you apply it to our job. Because I think that Generative AI is huge and it's amazing, but you have to see how it's applicable because Andreas, you talk about this a lot, just the fact that just knowing it, you can feel really overwhelmed. And so what do you actually need to know? And then how do you actually apply it to your work? So that, and I'm doing some stuff on YouTube as well, and obviously I'm on LinkedIn a lot as you are. So you and I track along and there's so much out there to share with the audience.

Andreas Welsch: 3:05

I'm really looking forward to our session today and everything that we'll cover. Now for those of you in the audience, if you're just joining the stream, drop a comment in the chat where you're joining us from, because I'm always curious to see how global our audience is, and I can't believe from what faraway places you're tuning in to watch the show. Conor, should we play a little game to kick things off?

Conor Grennan: 3:26

Yeah, let's do it.

Andreas Welsch: 3:27

So let's see. This one's called in your own words and wanna hit the buzzer, the wheels will start spinning. And I'd like you to answer with the first thing that comes to mind and why, in your own words. To make it a little more interesting, you'll only have 60 seconds for your answer, and for those of you watching us live, also, drop your answer in the chat and why. I'm really curious. Now, are you ready for What's the BUZZ?

Conor Grennan: 3:52

Yeah, let's do it.

Andreas Welsch: 3:53

Okay, here we go. If AI were a rock band, who would it be? Sixty seconds on the clock. Go.

Conor Grennan: 4:04

Okay, so maybe this is recency bias, but I just over the weekend saw U2 at the Sphere in Las Vegas, which as has a ton of Generative AI art coming in the back. And it made me think. U2 is in their sixties right now. Basically, the band, they have been all things to all people. They've been like a hard rock. They've been a revolutionary band. They've been let's change the world. Then they were just like, now let's just go into pop and act on baby. They've been everything and I feel like Generative AI is that what. We don't know about Generative AI and what we don't say enough is that it's all things to all people. And I mean that almost literally. So in much the same way that U2 is almost all things to across 40 years of its band's life. I think Generative AI can also be anything, no matter your age or where you are in life. That's Generative AI.

Andreas Welsch: 4:59

Right on time. Thank you so much. This is great. So looking at the chat here, right? Others are saying Daft Punk, for example, or WHO that would be good. Great example.

Conor Grennan: 5:09

Those are good examples.

Andreas Welsch: 5:10

Now to transition a bit more to the ones we've prepped and we wanted to cover today. So now you mentioned right, one of your titles at NYU is Head of Generative, AI and I'm curious, what does it entail and, then more relevant to our audience here, do businesses need that type of role as well?

Conor Grennan: 5:27

This is such a good question. I was just talking about this the other day. Yeah, look, I think that every university should definitely have Head of Generative AI and, at Stern what we were looking to do, and I started that role about a year ago, and what I was really looking to do was think, look, we have to prepare our students for what's coming next for this workforce that they're gonna be entering for the tools that they're going to be doing. But also, faculty has tended to teach the same way for very good reason, because it's very successful for years and years. But even now with schools and things like that you can't teach the same way. You can't just assign a paper and hope that students go back and don't use Generative AI. So we really have to think about new proxies for grading and things like that. That's in the university and academic setting. It's critical because it's really how we are grading and judging and everything like that. So students have to figure out a new way and faculty. But what I spend a ton of time on now is how it's used in business. And part of that is just to we can educate our students. But a lot of that has transitioned into me working with a ton of companies and a ton of talks to heads of boards and keynotes and things like that and teams around what would it look like to have somebody running this in their organization? And so for me, a Head of Generative AI or a Head of AI, there's a tech layer to it. Of course, you need to understand your tech stack and you need to understand what you can do. But really what Generative AI is, I find it's much more of a learning sort of thing and a culture thing. So what I tell companies when I'm talking to them and I talk to a lot, is just the fact that if I was to set up a Head of Generative AI in some way, just in the same way we've set up a Head of Data or the set of CTO or something after, at different points over the last, let's say 30 years, Head of Generative AI to me should live in the kind of the HR and talent space. It should almost be a Head of Learning, and I know some CTOs will push back. Of course, we need the tech aspect of what as well, but because this is so unbelievably accessible to every single knowledge worker in your organization, and that is agnostic to industry, company, department, role, anything, this has to be a new way of doing this. And so when people say what companies are doing it well? To be honest, not many, but the companies that are doing it well are the ones that are treating this as a culture issue, a learning issue, starting at the top, understanding what this is going to look like when all of your people are using this and augmenting what they do well. That's when it gets really powerful, and that's why I think of it more of as a like a talent play almost. Because every organization every department and every organization is gonna use it differently. And if you're just treating it like tech, people think I'm not that good at tech. It's not really tech, it's much more. Even when OpenAI is putting out their prompting guides and things like that, it's much more like a guide to how you would be a good leader to a brilliant intern. And that's why I feel like it's much more of a learning thing than a tech thing a Head of AI role.

Andreas Welsch: 8:28

That's awesome. That's a very interesting and unique perspective. I fully understand and fully agree with your perspective. It's a culture change and shift in many good ways, right? And we need to bring people along. We need to show them what can this AI thing do for you? How do you use it appropriately? How does it work? How do you use it in a sense that it helps you accomplish new tasks? It's not there to replace you, right? These types of messages that we need to get across. And I remember a couple months ago actually we had a Chief AI Officer on the show. The role reporting directly to the CEO. Now with what you're saying I think that makes a lot of sense too, right? Bring the culture and the learning and development aspect into the organization. So love the contrast here and I'm sure it's depends on the company, on, on the role, the types of products you're building. But definitely anchor it in the learning and.

Conor Grennan: 9:24

Yeah, I think so. And just to one other word on that I think you're exactly right. I mean it's, I think it needs to roll up right to the CEO because in order to get everybody on board with this, it is about training. It is in the same way, if you say, oh, we have a culture of collaboration or something like that's much closer than we have a culture of using ServiceNow or using Salesforce, or using Excel, that's, those aren't cultural things. When I'm talking about how people use Generative AI, it's much more akin to exercise or something like that, rather than learning. There's not really a learning curve, and I get in some trouble for saying that, but there really isn't. If you know how to talk to a human, you know how to use Generative AI. The challenge, Andreas, as you know as well is that the challenge isn't learning something. So with Excel or French or Calculus, you actually have to learn information. So you could be in a room of 800 and you'll have beginners and you'll have experts. This doesn't work that way. The way it works is if you can get your brain around the fact that you have to talk to your laptop or your phone as if it was a human. That's very difficult for the brain because the brain automates things, and and to free up your prefrontal cortex, which is why if you've been traveling to work the same day every day for 20 years, you still make that left outta your driveway.'cause your brain has automated it. So when your brain sees something like ChatGPT, it essentially sees Google. And so your neural pathways are like, I know what to do here. I'll treat it like Google. I'll give a command and get a response back when in fact, the real way to use it is what do I do in my role? And what if I had like basically cloned my brain? And give my brain everything that needed to know in the world to do it. And you had this incredibly brilliant thought partner that could strategize and help you do your work and help you make better decisions. That's what it is. But that requires a conversation. It's not asking a question. And most importantly, everybody's gonna be using it differently, which is why when I work with companies, it's agnostic to industry. It's just, it doesn't matter what I know about your company, it matters what you know about your company and what your people do well, and that's the important part.

Andreas Welsch: 11:23

So then building on that from there. With that opportunity, with that potential, how do you then upscale your workforce in more concrete steps other than in addition to saying, Hey, this is available to you. Go try it out. And we've talked about guardrails before and certainly there's some things that you should and you shouldn't do. But more operationally, how do you put that into practice to upscale your workforce?

Conor Grennan: 11:46

Yeah. No I think you're saying it exactly right. Because, I even come out and say, listen, I don't see this as a digital transformation even, which means it's much different from anything we've done in the past. So digital transformation is, you implement a new system and you basically burn down the old software and you give everybody training videos and give them all the help they need. And then you watch your workforce digitally migrate over to this new thing. And some people will do it better, some people will do it worse. That's not what this is. It's not that kind of learning thing, because they know who's gonna be using and who isn't gonna, Ethan Mollik and Allie Miller are fantastic followers on this front who go into this as well. And I think and, again, my co-pilot Jaeden in the AI Applied world talks about this as well. A lot like, you have to understand what you need to do in your work to do this. So instead of just like when we think of upskilling. It's not really training videos. It's in the same way. How would you get somebody into shape? That's a sort of a series of, it's inspiring, it's understanding what good shape looks like. It's having the information. So the framework that I use, I have a whole training framework. But when I think about the sort of order of events. What I tend to do is I tend to first work at the top, right, with the management committee, whatever that looks like, and kinda the line managers, whatever that looks like. So like Head of HR, Head of Sales, Head of Legal and Learning and all that kind of stuff. And the reason is that if I work with a team first, everybody will get excited and I inspire them and I teach them this framework for how to look at AI in a brand new way and all that kind of stuff. But then they still get to choose who uses it and who doesn't. And that's great for the employee. That's great for the worker. And I encourage that. The challenge is it doesn't really impact the company's bottom line in the same kind of way.'cause you're not systematizing it. So why aren't you systematizing it? It's because at the top, the CEO and the the C-Suite and the board of directors and the line managers, whoever they are, haven't yet set new benchmarks. And so now what they have to do, so you have to teach them first and really show them what this framework looks like and what this will look like at scale, if everybody's really using Generative AI in their own personal way. And what that means, and this is how you really differentiate a company, is you say, the new benchmarks for, let's just call it an eight hour day, should be this and not this or something. It's changing what a workday looks like. So if everybody's gonna be using this at scale. Then this will automatically reduce their non-value add hours, for example, from, I don't know, let's say three to one or something like that. And even just right there, forget about all the strategic stuff, everything else. You're just gaining back time, even if you did nothing else. And I hear from salespeople all the time we just want our time back. And I'm like, we can give you your time back. So you have to start at the top. And then once, then, once the sort of top understands what that upskilling looks like and what the result of it would be. Then you upscale with the workforce by not just teaching them what it is, giving them a new way of looking at it, a brand new paradigm for it, not just here's 10 use cases. Which doesn't work because everybody's use cases will be so radically different. It's like teaching use cases for like electricity. There's so many that you can't possibly, so you have to teach them how to look at it in a different kind of way. So then you have to inspire and you have to teach them and train them on how to use it. And then you have to look at hiring practices for your organization. That to me is the third step because you're gonna be hiring in a very different way and your organization will start to look differently. And the organizations that do that well will be going to a place where others can't follow. If you're just implementing a tool, that's a commodity, that's a commodity. Everybody will catch up. If you're implementing a whole new mindset and way of looking at it, that's you're going to a place where people can't really catch up.

Andreas Welsch: 15:30

I really like how you phrased that and that it's a lot more than just about another tool or just productivity in that sense. I think reframing how we look at work and what a good result looks like or what a productive and successful work day looks like, I think, is a whole different perspective I think more people need to take. And when you reframe it, I'm sure you see the outcomes a lot clearer than just another tool. Awesome. I see there's one question from Brent in the chat and he's asking, does the C-suite always get it when you present to them about adopting AI or do they ever push back?

Conor Grennan: 16:07

Yeah, they do. But here's the thing. But I've done it so many times that I think I've learned where the pushback comes. So some of the big pushback, this is why I deal with risks early on in any kind of conversation with a C-suite. Because they'll say we can't because the risks are this or this. A lot of companies have still just banned it outright, and we understand why, because we can't risk uploading proprietary data. So I actually go through what's actually happening when they upload proprietary data. Now, this is of course, is okay, first of all, don't upload proprietary data, okay? I'm not advocating for that at all, but I am saying that there's differences, right? So if you're in a regulated industry, there's actually legal implications to uploading obviously in, in healthcare. Obviously if you're violating third party agreements, things like that, those are actually legal issues that you'd have to deal with any kind of guideline in your ethical and legal framework for your organization. But with this, I think people think that if you upload a spreadsheet of your client list, that all of a sudden that's gonna be taken. And then the next person that says, Hey, give me Samsung's client list or JP Morgan's client list, ChatGPT will be like, sure, this idiot over here just uploaded it here. That's not how the system works at all. At all. So it's, you can't teach it things in that way. So that's, it just like deuces the barrier of what proprietary data is. So I go into that. We spend a lot of time on that because the pushback does come and also people say why start the C-suite when all the information probably comes from the employees? I'm like, that's why,'cause the C-suite often doesn't really understand what it looks like across the organization, right? So I go into not use cases. But a framework that I have called Learn, Execute, Strategize, and it goes through how we work just in general, how we make decisions, how we communicate, how we strategize, how we do all these things in our workflow. And then we talk about how Generative AI will speed those things up. So I haven't really had a lot of C-suite pushing back after I'm able to actually talk to'em. In theory, they love pushing back, but then when you actually say let me talk about that. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. And then when you show them what it looks like at scale, like imagine doing this and speeding up your process like this. And I take them through a whole set of things. And now imagine everybody in your workforce being able to do that because as you just saw, it required no new skills other than you have to be able to talk really like a human, not just talk to your phone or some other, but talk like a human. Once you show them that, then they're like, yes, come please teach our, the rest of our workforce because this is going to be an absolute epic game changer.

Andreas Welsch: 18:40

Thanks for sharing that. Now when I talk to leaders, I see there's also a good amount of confusion because I think there's so much AI news in a given week, in a given day, and it's getting to the point where it's really hard to know, what do I need? What's just nice to know or what seems like it's important. Yeah. But it's really not. So I think first of all, if you're in the tech space and you're following tech news, I'm sure you've seen that in the audience as well. But then from a leader's point of view, where AI is not your only priority or not the only field of interest. How do you stay on top of that information and disseminate what's really important and what's just in there for one or two news cycles?

Conor Grennan: 19:24

Yeah. It's such a good question, right? So I'd say that this was the idea behind the AI Applied podcast with me and Jaeden Schaefer is that we wanna show people like what they actually need to know versus I read eight or nine newsletters a day and there's some phenomenal ones out there and just you have one as well. It's these are the things that tell you everything. But then the problem is the FOMO, right? The problem is if I can, should I do that or should I do that? And in actuality, like what we talk about a ton is think about what you do. Forget about all the bells and whistles and everything else. If you are just like deep in your workday trying to get your work done and you don't have a lot of time to spend to figure out what all the AI news is, don't worry. Forget about FOMO for a second because this is what we talk about all the time is on the podcast and on LinkedIn and everything else is, understand like that the tools that you already use a ton are starting to build in AI. So if you're a designer or something, Canva has phenomenal AI tools built into it. Do you know what I mean? Like in. Obviously Google's getting a little better, but now I would say Perplexity it's the one call out, I say. Perplexity has replaced Google search for me. ChatGPT has replaced a lot of things for me. But you don't need to know all the the tiny things like what's this new open source from Mistral is beating this. I like that. A lot of people will like that, but if you're just trying to go about your day to day, just think, what am I trying to do? Not just in your work, but in your life. I'm trying to prepare this for my kids. It's okay, ask ChatGPT. I have all this work to do and all these meetings and all this research to do, ChatGPT is phenomenal at that. Like you can cut your research time down by 80% and then you don't even, don't stop at just researching. Then keep on going and stay in the flow of work. Then ask now put this in the form of this, or put this in the table, or process this for me. The point being is that people don't need to know everything that's out there because AI is starting to come to you. Now if your company is not using it or you're not really using it, or you don't feel like you're using it well, so again, I do a lot of this, but there's other people doing it too. I'll just say what I do a lot of training on this and all that kind of stuff. The reason is that if the danger there's an expression that says, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. And in this case, I would almost reverse it. There's a challenge where I think a lot of people are using it, but they're using it at such a fractional way that it could be used. So if people start to realize oh, I can use this to write emails faster. I think of it as if you gave a one of the marathon runners like a really bad bike. Yeah, that'd be great. And they'd be like, I don't need anything better than this.'cause I'm still winning the race and I'm outpacing everybody else here. But in fact I also have a Tour de France bike. And by the way, I also have a motorcycle. And by the way, I also have a car and I also have a Ferrari. And none of them require any more skills to know how to do. You just have to start working with them. So even if you are using it and you feel like, gosh, I think that there's much more I can be getting out of this, I don't know, I would seek out training like that's, and again that's what I do a lot of. But but, or just find somebody that you trust and and go and find training from them.

Andreas Welsch: 22:32

Now in terms of strategies. So the filtering out basically what do I need to know for what I want to accomplish? Are there any other strategies beyond that, that you recommend that you see are most effective?

Conor Grennan: 22:44

Yeah, I would say that in terms of just strategy and Generative AI, like what I would say is, I never like to say like just practice, because that's oh, you wanna lose weight, just eat less and exercise. It's yeah, man, everybody knows already. What I think is that if you just tell people to practice, they're not really going to be able to get much done on it. What I've found is really helpful is get together with a couple of people who also either are interested in knowing it. Or already know it and that will upskill you much, much faster. Because what I do like when I'm like running workshops and things like that is I tend to put people together. It's a little trick that I learned totally by accident, but I learned it just because I found that when people are working together on this, they just get much more creative and they stay more creative. And then they treat chat ChatGPT as like an additional thought partner rather than just working one-on-one, which by the way, if you have the stamina, just get in there, start. People say, just do take whatever you're doing at work and just start throwing it into ChatGPT. That's a pretty good way of doing it. And just to test the boundaries. Why are kids so good at this? Kids are so good at this. My son is phenomenal at it because he's not afraid to, he's 14. He's not afraid to say, I wonder if ChatGPT can do this. I wonder if it can do this. If you can ask that question over and over again. I wonder if ChatGPT can do this, and you just put it in and then ask it again. I wonder if it can do that. If it can do that. I wonder if it can do that. You'll be off and running in no time. Again, it may not expand as much as you want. That's where the training comes in. But I'm telling you, that is a great early step.

Andreas Welsch: 24:12

Now, Conor we're getting close to the end of the show and I was wondering if you can summarize the three key takeaways for our audience today?

Conor Grennan: 24:18

So I would say first of all when you're thinking about Generative AI, don't think of it as like some tech thing. Meaning if you're bad at tech, don't worry about it. If your company doesn't really spend on tech, don't worry about it. This is not for techies, it's also for techies. But what it's really for is for communicators. I talk about this all the time, and in fact, I think our last most recent podcast was on why English majors are going to basically rule the world. Okay? I'm a little biased on that. But if you are just a good communicator, if you study the humanities, if you are good at conversing with people, if you're good with relationships, you are going to be the ChatGPT expert. You don't need anything technical. So that's takeaway number one. Takeaway number two is you have to get training on this because if you don't, then you'll have one or two people in your office that are great at it. Their work day will go from eight hours to six hours. They'll get the promotions, all that kinda stuff, but it doesn't really help the team around them and it certainly doesn't help the company as a whole. So obviously, just please look into training and level everybody up together. It's going to be incredible for your company. And number three. Again, I don't like to say just practice, but what I do like to say is get together with other people, track the information, but don't get FOMO. Get support groups or whatever you need. But don't feel like you have to read every bit of information. Again, it's not like learning French verbs here. Like you just need to go into the tools that you are already using and trust that AI is probably being built into that.'cause every company I go into is gonna do that. If it's a travel site, if it's a design site, anything like that, just go in there and see what AI tools they have. Get started there. You're not behind. We're okay, but you do have to start now.

Andreas Welsch: 26:05

I think that part, especially around you're not behind resonates with me. And I think if you look at how long or how short of a time it has been since these technologies and tools have been available, what's a couple of months and anyways, right? And most, you're 12 months behind. It's not like you're years behind.

Conor Grennan: 26:25

You talk about this on LinkedIn, I do, too, and Andreas and I are both extremely active on LinkedIn. But that's, I just want emphasize what you just said. Don't worry about being behind. I promise you're not behind. But do get started now.

Andreas Welsch: 26:37

So Conor, thank you so much for joining us today and for sharing your expertise with us. I really appreciate you making the time, to be with us today. It's a great insight.

Conor Grennan: 26:47

It was super fun. Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.