Monetizing the AI Revolution: Strategies for Success

You know, the purpose of AI is to be smarter, to be more efficient, to be more effective, and that's hyper-personalization. If you have a Netflix subscription, the personalization's have gotten better and better, and that's because of AI technology in there. What does that do? It saves you time from just scrolling their vast content network. And that's honestly what made streaming so palatable for the masses is because it is a time saver.

It is the continuous flow of information, and that's what we're seeing with AI is giving us continuous flow of information that's perfectly suited for us. Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast, a show for the new generation of leaders. Join Melissa R. Skagge as she speaks to a wide variety of guests that bring new insights into leadership, prosperity, and personal growth.

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Welcome to the Executive Connect podcast. I'm thrilled to have Solina Akaro here today to speak with us on AI. Solina is the vice president and founding practice leader in Gartner's Executive Advisory Services, where she is responsible for $100 million in recurring revenue and the P&L. She has also worked at Accenture, AIG, BMC Software. Welcome Solina. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. One of my favorite subjects to talk about is AI.

I'm thrilled to just get started with talking about the monetization of AI. Can you discuss some of the effective strategies in monetizing AI in various industries? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, AI is this hugely, it's not a disruptive technology, right? AI is a complementary technology. It's making everything we do and do it more effective and more efficiently. So people stand to make a lot of money by implementing AI technologies.

And effective strategies for utilizing AI in order to monetize it is, first and foremost, you need to have some key performance indicators in place, right? So how are you going to actually use it? It's really, really important. So I always recommend to people usage metering is really important. So how much has your usage increased by implementing AI LLMs?

How much more precise has your voting and pricing gotten for your organization and then forecasting demand of usage for your system and then just your modern billing practices? So various ways that you're seeing from a consumer standpoint though, you know, from monetizing AI is really, you know, I guess one of the best known ones is being, right? Microsoft purchased OpenAI and implemented it into their platform into the Bing search engine.

And what that did was it allowed a hyper-personalization aspects come into place and most people don't realize this. And now take your information that you put in and that you type in for your search and the things that you're interested in. And it will start hyper focusing, not only making the search results more precise, but it will start hyper focusing some of those banner ads that you have across the top, right? So that way your immersion is that much more specific and time savings.

And that's a huge monetization play because if they have the right ads coming your way, you're more than likely going to purchase the product that's coming, they're going to get ad revenue from that and it just keeps paying it forward. Yeah, I love all those pop-ups that I get.

And it's true because we're all guilty of clicking on ads that are, you know, tailored to us. I am absolutely guilty of it myself. And so although I do appreciate too, right? It saves me from searching for things. So it's both ways, you know, I love it because I'm getting what I need, but then I'm also like, do I really need those things that they're popping up and reminding me as well?

So, you know, another side to AI, I think of like cyber risk and governance and compliance are really hot topics right now, along with, you know, monetizing AI. So from your perspective, what are some common risks associated with AI deployments and how can organizations mitigate them when they're, you know, going through those, those migrations? Yeah, so a couple of things. So first and foremost, I think the key thing around AI, right? It's a complimentary technology again.

So it's not well regulated yet, meaning that, you know, we don't know what we don't know about AI. So if you have a data rich environment, if your organization that produces a lot of data, understand that while you may be pulling data from AI, like it's also consuming your data. So, you know, how much of your IP do you want to give up and, you know, how much risk are you comfortable with? And then from a consumer standpoint, how much of your personal information are you comfortable giving up?

And have frameworks in place yet because the technology is so new to opt out on personalization. I mean, those are more static type of data requests. So in terms of, you know, risks and governance, like one of the best ways I think to devise your governance structures, one, understand what you're, what you are comfortable sharing. So think about it from what you're comfortable sharing first. Because you can devise your governance structure from that aspect.

Like, we don't want it to go on these systems or we don't want to be allowing certain types of requests to come through, right? Because again, it's a, it's a, it's a pull, but it's also a consumption at the same time. To business making the engine smarter, that's how machine language works.

The other thing too is if you're in, you know, it's based on where you're located, whether you're international or you're domestic, understanding what are some of the governmental regulations that are in place. And I think, like, you know, there's Biden's framework that he just put in place for AI security and he put together a committee, but really understanding some of that China has won.

And so understanding those and how your business plays into that is is a good way to determine what are the, what's the risk framework to put in place? You know, well said, kind of pivoting gears a little bit, you know, moving on to more consumer use of AI. I know that I don't think there's a week that's gone by recently where I'm not asked by a CIO or somebody that's curious about chat GPT.

Like, how can we leverage these AI tools to enhance, you know, not only employee experiences, but customer experiences? Do you have any thoughts or thoughts on how organizations can use AI like chat GPT? Yeah, so chat GPT is actually a very wonderful product.

Like, I use it personally all the time. So like, when I'm wondering about stuff and it gives you much more precise interaction than Google, the other thing I think from a consumer standpoint is it really does help with grammar and writing. So, you know, when I'm creating emails or, you know, documents, whether it's personal or professional, you know, I run a through chat GPT a lot. So like, you know, how would you say this? So, and it, and not only does it help me, right?

It then makes me smart because I'm seeing the usage and, you know, the type of grammar is using and then how it's explaining things and so it makes me a better, a better writer. So, you know, so there's some really basic uses of chat GP if you need to update your resume, anything like that, right? It can give you some really great examples and help you with that.

The other thing I really like, like, some innovative AI applicant-like consumer companies that have utilized chat GPT or used it as the backbone for, you know, their AI powered support is like Tesla. So like, when, you know, Tesla is probably the epitome of smart design and innovative technologies. Well, you know, when you go to Tesla's website or you need to log in and speak with someone, you're actually talking with the bot, but basically, you know, from AI.

And same thing with Cardinal Health. So when you're actually, you know, going out to Cardinal Health, you want to find the right doctors, the right healthcare providers that fix your plan that's not going to, you know, Cardinal Health is implemented AI into their platform. So these are all like really, really great uses of it from a consumer support standpoint.

Yeah, I'm seeing that a lot right now is there's bots on every website, whether it's an exercise app like you said or Tesla, I do see a lot of, you know, quick help with AI instead of calling in and waiting and being transferred people or trying to organize calls better or, you know, help get people to the right people using AI. So I love that. I didn't even realize Tesla was doing that as much. You know, I think of like how it's shaping people's preferences and how people are using it.

And I think I heard a statistic, I don't know if this is correct, but 70% of the, of the US population is using AI in some fashion, whether it's chat GPT or they're using it out the company. And so when I think of AI, I'm wondering like how it's going to be evolving, like even just this year, this year, typically in tech, we talk like, you know, one to five years, but AI seems to be evolving so much faster than, you know, since I've been in tech.

So any, like how do you see it shaping behavior preferences and maybe challenges that go along with that?

So I think from a consumer standpoint, what we're going to see is because AI is really going to focus on hyper personalization, you know, from a marketing standpoint, there's nine touch points with the customer generally in the marketing life cycle. And that's with any product, any service, right? Well, you know, the purpose of AI is, is, is, is, is to be smarter, to be more efficient, to be more effective and that's hyper personalization.

So I mean, as you can see, like if you have a Netflix subscription, which I think just about everybody in the free world does, you know, the personalization's gotten better and better and that's because of AI technology in there. And what does that do, right? It saves you time from like just scrolling their vast content network. Well, think about if you can get that level of personalization in everything that you're doing, think about how much time you're saving.

I mean, I kind of liken this to what, when I saw kind of a merge with, in media with streaming services, right? One of the beauty of streaming services is they don't have commercials, right? That was one of the, the vast beauties like, I have a 19 year old son and a couple of years ago when he was a teenager in Stead Home, not in college yet. I had gotten a full usage version and I got in the full usage description through my son provider. So it actually did have commercial breaks, right?

So it wasn't straight streaming. And that was free through my, through my, my son, my son provider. Well he turned around without me knowing and upgraded it to the non commercial version, which was like 60 dollars a month. And so I see this show up and I'm like, wow, what is this? I'm not paying $60 a month for Hulu. And I asked myself, did you, did you change? And he was like, yeah, because I can't handle commercial's mom. That just waste my time.

And that's kind of when that hit me that like, oh my gosh, the generation, our generation currently, our kids, you know, the Gen Zs and Gen Alphas, they, they don't know what it's like to wait to see something. And that's honestly what made streaming show palatable for the masses is because it is a time saver. It is, you know, it does, it is a continuous flow of information. And that's what we're seeing with, with AI is giving us continuous flow of information.

That's perfectly suited for us, right? Like how fabulous would it be to go to Amazon? And yeah, you still get your search bar if there's any confine whatever you want, but based on your last browsing history, and it's very accurate. This is what you bought in the last 30 days and you're likely to need refills on it. This is what, you know, this is some of the content you've absorbed from Amazon Prime.

And you know, if you're some stuff that's very similar and it's not in disparate locations that it's all under personal, your personal portal. Yeah, it's convenient, right? It's convenient because it's, it's a lot of like you mentioned, it's a lot of cycles to remember. I may be out of a prescription or, you know, shampoo or whatever you get every 30 days. And it's, you know, in our busy lives, sometimes we tend to forget those kind of things.

And it is amazing to use those tools that can remind us when we're off doing more important things. I know I heard recently at a conference I went to where some of the employees at this hotel were inputting, you know, please help me craft a apology to Jane DeRouge.

And so it's a video, it 123 Main Street about how we did X, Y and Z. So I know it's really great to use the tool, but also it's really important to make sure we're aware of the information we're telling the AI tool to do and the private, you know, PII data that we're putting into it because there are some, you know, issues with privacy when we put, you know, our pertinent information into some of these tools.

So how do you think that plays, you know, into, you know, the advancement of AI and business is like educating their people on how to, and what to put in, you know, these tools. Any thoughts on how, from a compliance and regulatory standpoint from PII data?

Yeah. So I think that's really going to depend on the organization and what they do in terms of like if they're, if they're national or if they're international first and foremost, right? Because the privacy laws differ throughout the world and there's lots of confliances in place that you have to abide by if you do, if you do work, if you know, if you're selling products or goods in international markets, because other countries do have stronger PII, restrictions than we do in the US, right?

And so, you know, when I'm seeing a lot of times our organizations or first and foremost, if they don't have a handle on that, they're locking the use of AI in the corporation. So they're not going to have that. But then two, again, it goes back to what I was saying earlier, like you have to understand which national regulations touch the business that you're in. So if you're an international company, you do business with China, you do business in the United States.

You need to understand what they're stating as the minimal regulatory policy and then you need to follow that, right? Don't try to reinvent OEO because you might be missing something. Additionally, until you're sure, AI is not going anywhere and you're not going to miss the bandwagon if you don't jump on it this year, right? Now, I could be saying something different in five years, right? Because it is a rapidly expanding and changing technology.

But there's something to be said for people who observe and then go into play, right? You can learn from others mistakes instead of making them mistake yourselves. Yeah, absolutely. I've been hearing different metrics about how businesses are using AI. They're able to catch more of this or give employees an hour back in their day. Have you heard any specific metrics tied to AI and productivity in the workplace?

In terms of productivity, not yet. I've heard more effectiveness metrics like I was giving you the example and I think education is one of the really big ones, right? I've heard that students have become, you know, when there have been some pilot studies across some K through 12 schools that are utilizing AI tools like Socratic and Cheg to help the students and not be like, and not be a no-no, you can't use it, but actually utilizing them to help them prepare better.

And we've heard, you know, there is data, preliminary data to support that they are effective users. They're effective suppliers of quality information to students. So and that's what we want, right? I mean, we're educating our students. We want to make them smarter. We want to make them more effective. And so utilizing AI and those in that type of arena, I think can be very, very beneficial. And that's where I'm hearing some of those more effectiveness metrics in terms of productivity metrics.

I know some teachers, personally, who have experimented with utilizing AI like chat GPT or even Bing, right? Just putting it into the Bing search bar to help them refine their lesson plans and they have found that immensely helpful and put in some really creative things to help engage the students. So that's, you know, literally taking into account probably 50,000 brains, right? Versus two brains or three brains.

So I would think that that would be a strong effectiveness or productivity metric because, you know, one of the things I have some close friends that are teachers may tell me like what some planning is probably like the long tail on their day. Yeah. Now I'm curious, which one do you think is the best for those type of things?

So if you want to, let's say you want to clean up, you know, you're writing a thousand word article and you want to make sure your grand hours write or maybe expanding it to 1200 words, is there one that you go to typically?

So one that I've used typically and like my kids use it a lot because of school and everything is Grammarly, right? Grammarly. Because that's also embedded in most Microsoft applications or it embeds easily with Microsoft applications. Most kids are writing on word. And when I like it out, Grammarly, it doesn't write out your information for you have to write it and then it will improve it.

I find for business, business facing information, like if you just want to do like an email and you're not quite sure how to word it. You know, chat to your piece kind of fun to ask, like, how do I write this and make me sound empathetic if you're not a naturally empathetic person, right?

Or, you know, how do I sound directive or, you know, like I played around with stuff like that and chat to your piece popped out some pretty cool stuff, like some pretty cool concise emails that sound the way I want them to sound, not the way I personally would say it. And then, you know, another one that can be really helpful to help kids think further. And I know it's kind of big in schools is so chronic and then check, check's another big one.

So, yeah, I got to do, I keep saying I'm going to take one question and ask all, you know, the top five tools and see what, what responses I get. It kind of be a neat experience to take the same question and plug it into different tools and see what kind of content it, yeah, you know, outputs and I keep saying, you know, the same thing I'm going to do that, Selena and I haven't done it yet. So, it is on my to-do list to try one question and see how it comes out.

Just kind of two questions, two final questions. One, maybe the top ways that an employee could use AI from your perspective and then just maybe secondly be like, how can just, you know, regular people, moms, people that are, you know, looking to find a good cookie recipe? How can just outside of the work day, how can people use AI under data day? Kind of A and B.

Yeah, so how can employees use AI? Because again, it is so new. Honestly, I would use it for an exploratory manner. There's kind of things that you just deal with on a day-to-day basis that you need some assistance with. So, some people have trouble managing everything they have to do in their day. And so, you see lots of productivity tools and apps that are out there, right? So, there's like one called Motion and that's AI-powered.

And it's about like helping you get your calendar all in order and everything. But, you know, you could also just ask Chat GTP, what are some ways that I can, you know, improve my time and my day and see what it comes back with, like, again, so it's exploratory. Figure out the right way to ask the question to get the answer you're seeking. And then from, what was the second question? So just from your work, like an employee and then your day-to-day personal life.

Yeah, and so then from a personal life perspective, like, what are those things that you're really interested in that you just don't have a lot of time for? You know, like, I know I'm, I like to cook. I really do, but I don't have a total ton of time to cook. And so, I'm always trying to find the best recipes, but I'm also time constrained. So, you know, I've done Google search, especially like in 2020. Okay, what is a good 35-minute meal that I can prepare for my family?

And, you know, I found a website called 35-minute meals or 30-minute meals. And, you know, they had recipes in there that I did follow, but, I don't know if they were the best.

But, so, chat GTP because of the sheer power of the network that it has and all the nodes that it has basically spidering out, like literally asking it that question, I could get, I feel more confident in the search result that's going to give me, because it's likely going to give me a recipe that should take me 35 minutes, but it might not be from a website that says 35-minute meals. Yeah, I agree.

I've used it so many times for recipes because you never know, like, are people paying to, you know, to get their stuff boosted to the top? Or is it really that creative recipe, right? Right. Right. And the positive side right now, I haven't seen that. I have to be honest. I have a little digging in chat GTP if they do that, right? But we know with, you know, most blogs and most search engine results, right?

You can pay to play because they have figured out ways to monetize that technology, since we're still in the infancy stages of AI. I don't quite know if consumer facing AI has that embedded in it. I don't think it does yet. Yeah, exactly. I haven't looked myself either. Any final thoughts or anything that you want to leave with the listeners before we close out? You know, I guess just really be open minded. Like this can be a real benefit in our day to day lives. And it's not high.

You know, I've been an emerging technology's my entire career, which has spanned over 25 years. You know, and this is honestly the most robust, most exciting technology I've seen come to there. So I think we're going to see a lot of really good things coming up. And I'm excited.

I'm excited for what it could do because I don't know about you, but being a working mom and wife, you know, I'm always pressed for time and things I can do to make my day more efficient and effective or at the top of my list. And so if I can utilize the technology to do so, then I'm right there for it. You know that I think that's the number one reason I use AI is more efficiency and more productivity in my day.

And I think that's what I'm looking for, like you said, is faster ways to make food, faster ways to get places, faster ways to do things. So I could have more time in my day to do these things that I never get to do on my to do lives. In closing, Selena, thank you. First of all, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. I appreciate your time and the thoughts you've shared with our listeners. How do we get in touch with you?

Is there a way that our listeners can connect with you if they something resonated with them here today? Yeah, absolutely. So I am on LinkedIn, Selena, Acarto, just send me a message and I'm happy to accept it. And if you want to have a conversation, I'm always open for those. I'm always looking to network and discuss things openly with other like-minded professionals. So absolutely, Selena, Acarto, and I do follow the executive connect blog myself.

So hopefully I'll be, you know, coming across some other, some other listeners and some of the chats on there. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for being here today. And that's the executive connect podcast. You've been listening to the executive connect podcast. If you have questions or ideas on how to bring leadership to your next level, email us at executive connect podcast@gmail.com. And don't forget to subscribe, check and catch every new episode. Until next time. [MUSIC]