Hi guys. Yeah, that's me.

Background and a New Perspective on AI

A little background on me. Grew up in Melbourne, spent a whole bunch of time in Melbourne, then left Melbourne, spent 25 years in North America, came back to Melbourne, and decided to come to Singapore a month ago. So I've been here a month.

And And the most challenging thing I find is I can see the place, but I can't get to it because I can't cross the street because there's no, you know. And then I go down underneath, and then I come up, and it's like nowhere you can see. So that's my next challenge to overcome in Singapore.

Let's talk about this.

From Technology Implementation to Better Choices

So I've been doing transformation technology across banks, mining companies, oil companies, telecommunication firms across North America. I have a company in Canada. I have a company in Australia. And I've just started an operating entity here.

What I do is I help change the work. Well, that was the idea. More often than not, against better advice, ends up being implementing tools because that's what people want to do. Can you just implement this application, that application?

But I want to kind of get away from that. And I want to talk about AI, but I don't want to talk about AI, if that makes sense. I want to talk about choices. Your Your choices, our choices, what we make.

So I'm gonna preface this conversation with a quick note, which is we know from studies, quantum physics, so forth, when you observe something, you change it. When you notice something, you can change it. So I'll just leave you with that. Keep that in the back of your mind.

Notice, notice where you stop and why you stop, where you stopped and then where do you go from there so again keep that with you and that's something for you to think about oh yeah okay hands up if you

The Gap Between AI Adoption and Value

used AI today almost everybody keep your hands up keep it up if you've seen it provide real value in terms of move the needle that's good that's really good that's way better than most of the world this is where we are today based on so

Singapore has 63 .4 % usage of working -age people on a weekly basis it's the second highest highest is Dubai or sorry United Arab Emirates who has 73 % China for For surprise to me, it's actually 26 point something percent. I thought that'd be higher.

56 % of CEOs said they can't really get any value. So unlike you guys, which was more than 50%, they don't see any value. 37 % say mostly unchanged. Only 12 % look at lowering costs as well as look at the revenue side. And that's really what I want to talk about. talk about we're always talking about costs I want to move that conversation how do we talk about growth how do we talk about revenue but you can't get there unless you start changing the way you look at things right 84 % of companies have not redesigned job roles them or the way they work around it no No workflow changes, none of that.

Why Cost-Cutting Limits AI’s Potential

Where do we get stuck? So when we talk about AI and you hear AI, what's the first thing that comes into your head? First thing that comes, thought.

Often, it's cost. And when people think about cost, what do you think of it? Cost cutting. you know and that's how we get to job losses retrenchment organization that's how we get to AI is gonna take over the world cost is in your face so it hits you right up front and so that's that's where you look first but the problem is that's where you stop and that's the issue right last year whole bunch

executives thought oh we're gonna lose jobs blah blah blah approximately 32 % how many actually lost jobs in after a year 14 % now 16 Wow right so you see what I'm saying we're stuck we're stuck in this point where we just looking at our feet and we're not looking beyond and this is the conversation that I want to do like I said notice where you are and where you go from here where you stop matters because it leaves lasting impression so this whole costing cost has a floor growth has no ceiling and that's that's the key message right I'm

I'm not saying don't take away cost. You need to, but you need to go through it. You need to go through your productivity, then you get to cost optimization, and then you get to value. But you need to get to that value. We cannot stop. We're not even at cost optimization half the time.

Cost Has a Floor; Growth Has No Ceiling

So Warren Buffett made a statement. In 1985, he bought a bunch of textile looms, and he found a way to make it really efficient and so the price dropped that got transferred to the people but then everybody adopted the same thing so everybody ended up having the same price he had a floor so he said a comment he

He said, it's like watching people at a parade. Everybody tiptoes. So when everyone tiptoes, you only see right in front of you. You still don't see behind, right? So that's what cost does.

So savings, it's a fuel. It's what you do with savings that really, really, really count.

Redesigning Work Around Technology

So in 1880, we come up with electricity, pretty soon electricity. But it wasn't until 1920s when we really made use of it. And why did we do it? Because we started designing stuff around technology. 40 years later, hopefully it won't take us 40 years to make use of this technology.

So, economists talk about J -curves, so this is a J -curve, for example. Right now, we're in the pot, we've invested a bunch, we can't see, but if you just look at the cost side of it, you end up in this curve, and it will flatten, because, like I said, it has a floor, right? right?

When you look at the revenue side of it, it doesn't. It might not. How you look at what you're going to do with it will change the curve.

Again, notice. Notice where you are. Notice where you stop. Notice why you stop where you stop. And then think about where you want to go.

A Framework for Turning Data into Value

So how do we change the reality? Well, it's like being at a shopping center, right? Sometimes you go in the shopping center and if you don't know exactly where you're going, you kind of end up with a whole bunch of stuff that you didn't expect to get. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not that great.

It's also like me trying to find the, you know, gym that's five minutes away but but it's taking me 25 minutes to find it because I don't know where I'm going. So that's why you get you are here. What is you are here? It's data, information. It's key, critical.

But then how do we observe it? What do we do with it? How do you look at it? I think I was just having a conversation about data. It's the most important part, and we all know AI runs on data right then decision really what are we doing every time we're doing it anytime we do anything with AI it's decision -making

right then we get to design then you can actually deliver where will you go second half the process is a loop basically you're going higher and higher and higher and higher every time you go through that loop. This is just one process that that I've seen being used and we've used it. This is one example I'm just going to go through it.

Case Study: Redesigning a Professional Services Firm

It's a very large professional services firm in the US that came to us with a problem. They didn't know how good their consultants were.

So we, you know, measured them and exposed the data. That's the observation panel. Then we said, what do you want to do?

They didn't cut people. They didn't change the structure of the firm. They didn't, you know, have thousands thousands of people leave, they changed. They changed the design.

They used the best people for the best roles. They looked at their skills, they worked around the people, and then they came out with a brand new model.

They tiered their practices to differentiate between high touch, low touch. And they're doing it for 38 ,000 employees this year, potentially 140 ,000 employees next year, and 400 ,000 the year after.

AI as Dynamic Decision-Making

So where does AI fit? We all know this.

Some people don't take the data part of it. I think that's one of the most crucial part of it. People always talk about people, process, technology, leave out the data. Data is important.

But it's really not about technology. It's It's about what technology gets us. It's decision -making. It's decision -making at speed, at scale, and in dynamic mode. This is the key that AI gives us. It helps you make decision dynamically. It's like things we couldn't do before.

Imagine a race car not having to do a pit stop. You can change tires as you run. That's what it helps you do. Decision -making at speed. speed. Use it to see further, use it to pivot before you need to.

So this is what I want to leave you with. Data tells you what it is. Vision decides what it should be. Where do you go from here? That's it. Thanks.

Totally informal, informal questions, queries, comments, and I will walk around and don't talk about cost anymore. Talk about value. Talk about value. All right.

Discussion: Moving Beyond Short-Term Cuts

Who faces this issue? And who has an opinion, maybe, or a question? All of you, I know. Yes, please. Please introduce yourself, and it's just nice for all of us. Sure. My name is Bob Clark, and I'm currently working on my own startup.

So I guess mine is more a comment that this is nothing to do with AI, really. It's not really a new problem. this is the same problem that we have found for decades whenever new technology or new innovative processes come into the workplace and for some reason we never learn this we just continue to make the same mistake focus on costs move on to the next thing get rid of all the people that know how to do anything and you know then suffer afterwards big cuts of people then you find just hiring everyone back but it's short term short -lived so you're absolutely right that's we keep doing this because we don't we can't look past our feet that's the problem so I have one for you on my way here in another

whatsapp group I am from and he's from the North America he sent me a little photo of how uber I believe yeah uber cut 3 ,000 jobs and replaced the chat basically or the response to any questions with AI and now the chat works like this someone writes I have a problem the chat says how can I help you my pizza has not arrived the chat says what is the problem that my food is not here the chat says what is the problem and it continues to like and then it gets in a loop and basically nothing gets resolved so what is your answer about company like clarna and others and clarna then rehired a lot of stuff for their call centers following this idea of cutting costs and then they They do not a full loop backwards, but they bring people back in. What's your opinion about that?

It's what that gentleman just said before. It's short term because growth, what are you going to do? How are you going to grow? You can only cut so much cost. You have to inject before you cut cost again. So you want to grow, you have to grow. you can't you can't just cut costs so if you don't look at the revenue side of it if you don't expand right if you don't take your whole organization and see how do I increase the productivity of the whole organization with the people there it is then then you're you're just cost -cutting which is I look good for a AI helped us in this. Ah, for absolutely, right?

Now, what AI gives you is the ability to make decisions faster with more information, potentially, and pivot faster. What we couldn't do before is things like multivariate analysis. Couldn't do that in your head. But now you can have, you can change things as you're moving. That's the speed. Speed helps.

You know, before doing all this stuff, I spent a few years in the Army. And the number one thing in the field is speed. Because even if you make a wrong decision, speed will help you correct it. Great. Any questions or comments?

Human Value as a Competitive Advantage

Michael, please. Yeah, just how does it feel to get the microphone? Thank you very much. Michael Jenkins, do various things, running my own little business and doing stuff at business schools.

I thought your example just now, the professional services example, was very interesting because I've been doing some work with some consulting businesses. And I don't know whether it's an exaggeration, but the senior partner there got all of his people together and said we're entering a world where all of our competitors are more or less going to be able to use AI to do and produce exactly what we can produce so the differential advantage is not going to be through the AI it's going to be through how close we become to our customers in other words he said I don't want you just to you know be on friendly terms with your customer I want you to He was exaggerating to make a point, but he said, I need you to get to speed dial, where you're going to be helping your customer not just with their business issues, and this may be too much, but he said, actually helping them with some problems they have as a human being with their family and so forth. I thought that was very interesting. In other words, the value being generated by AI could actually be human value, if I could put it that way. Do you see that as just too much of a rarity? Is this too much of a narrow way of looking at things? Or do you think that can be replicated elsewhere?

You know, I tell you, again, I'm going to go back to my military example. The number one thing they want you to cut out is your ego. Because in the field, you don't have time and you're risking people's lives. Forget the ego. so if you take that then AI has its place even in helping you know humanity in being better themselves just a quick example another quick example I was

talking to a recruitment firm they're a small recruitment firm but they do really good work this place very high -end people in places I was talking to lady I was going through it and she's like and we kind of came to the topic of how do we how do we go from cost to like revenue kind of thing I said well now you don't just have to hire and sell just one big I can hire old team and she looked at me I said before because before you couldn't do that he had management cost of it all that stuff now you don't do that so yeah yeah, still using costs. See, I'm using costs. But now she's looking at producing an entire team, selling an entire team at a rate that's, and she can do it now with five, six people, whereas she couldn't do it now. That's my example in terms of going from just the cost conversation to turning it into a revenue conversation and growth.

Using AI to Help People Use AI

Before we let you go, Avik, in one sentence, Since you're a start -up and entrepreneur, what are you working on? I am working on using AI to help you use AI. Sounds good. All right, thank you very much. Thank you.