Disclosure: 0:00
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Liza Adams: 0:26
It’s not very good with math because it’s not a computational model, it’s a language model, so it’s much, much better with language. However, that gap is starting to close because AI continues.
Nate Tonsager: 0:47
Welcome back everyone. Another episode of Off the Wall here, where we not only talk about what’s going on with Wall Street, but also dive deeper into the topics that people aren’t talking enough about on Wall Street Sometimes it gets so investment-focused. There’s a lot more going on. So, dave, I just want to say I’m Nate Tonsager. Thank you for allowing me to guest host today. How are you?
David Armstrong: 1:06
I’m great. I love it when you want to guest host. I get to kick back and just let you take over for a while. I love it.
Nate Tonsager: 1:11
Right, you’re just the color commentator.
David Armstrong: 1:13
I’m the play by play guy here, so you just show up chime in.
Nate Tonsager: 1:16
I kind of wanted to take the reins, because it’s a topic that I’m really passionate about, something we’ve really talked about a lot, not just here at Monument, but also within family events, it seems. With Passover last week, easter this weekend, I have talked a lot about artificial intelligence, which is kind of interesting talk over the holidays, but it seems like it’s what everyone really wants to think about and talk about, especially as it continues to pick up steam, especially over the past couple of years. It’s not just an investment theme that you’re seeing in markets. It’s really more a broad economic job market. It’s what business leaders, entrepreneurs, really need to be thinking about, and I don’t think it’s a very simple topic. So I wanted to set up the episode and to help us dive deeper and provide a unique perspective. We wanted to bring on someone that we thought can help us explain how impactful AI can and will be when it comes to careers and the future of work, and that’s Lisa Adams. So, lisa, thank you so much for joining us.
Liza Adams: 2:14
Yeah, glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Nate Tonsager: 2:17
Yeah, and Lisa, I know you’re an executive and an AI advisor, while also being a fractional chief marketing officer, or CMO. So, after being named one of the 50 CMOs to watch in 2024, a fractional advisor of the year finalist and with over 20 years of experience as a senior marketing executive, I’m definitely excited to hear what you want to say about AI. But also I want to rewind a little bit, because I know you’ve gotten a lot of experience on your way here. So what would be helpful, I think, to kind of set the stage is technology shifts happen all the time and so, with your time working with companies Smartsheet, juniper Networks, pure Storage and Encompass Technologies are there any other major technological shifts that you’ve kind of help guide these organizations through up into this point?
Liza Adams: 3:06
Yeah, and I’m really going to be dating myself, because it feels like I’ve gone through every single technology shift over the last few decades, you know, from internet, networking, cloud, mobile, social SaaS and then now AI, and I’ve pretty much written every single S-curve out there and reinvented myself. It feels like it, but I do feel that this AI era is by far the biggest shift that I’ve seen and it is also the fastest one that’s evolving, and I think there are some major opportunities but also some major challenges that goes along with that.
Nate Tonsager: 3:53
Yeah, it does seem like it kind of I don’t want to say it came out of nowhere, because they’ve been making movies about AI and robots taking over the world for decades. It seems like, but it all of a sudden one day, with ChatGPT, has really kicked off. Revolution is maybe too strong of a word, but it seems like it went from overnight. Everyone had to start developing a plan on how they want to use AI, the technology, and how to best implement it, especially at the business side. I think in personal lives, people are still adopting it for more fun tasks like create me an image of a dog riding a skateboard and stuff like that. But really, you know, I think there’s a lot of practical use cases that we’re just starting to explore. So, I mean, I guess kind of like to kick things off.
Nate Tonsager: 4:38
I just wanted to make it a little more fun and I know we talked about this a little bit previously, lisa, but I wanted to play a quick game with everyone. So, you know, I just wanted to play what I’m going to call two truths and a lie, which is a game everyone’s familiar with, but make it specifically about AI. So, lisa, I don’t know, do you have three statements that maybe you could give to Dave and I and we can maybe see which which one’s false. You know there’s a lot of misconceptions, I think, about AI, so this could be a fun way to kind of maybe see some.
Liza Adams: 5:03
Yeah, okay, all right, so let’s do okay. Ai will push us to be more strategic and more human. So that’s one. The second one is that AI is an amplifier. It will make the good better and it will make the broken more obvious. And then the third one is ai isn’t just a tool anymore, it is a teammate I don’t know, dave.
Nate Tonsager: 5:34
I like one and two as the truth. I think I don’t know. I see ai as a tool, but I don’t know.
David Armstrong: 5:39
I don’t know if you had any gut reactions to those yeah, it’s hard for me to say, because one side of my brain wants me to say all three are right, and then the other side of my brain wants me to say I’m being tricked, but I, I think, I think, or being set up. I think definitely number three. So nate, because you didn’t pick number three. I think definitely three was, was was true, and I’m gonna say one all right, I’m gonna stick.
Nate Tonsager: 6:03
I’ll say three is the false there.
Liza Adams: 6:04
Let’s hedge our bets, we’ll get two-thirds chance of being right between the two of us yeah, well, um, I was actually being tricky, but, but you know, this is like my opinion, right, like it’s, it’s my hypothesis and, um, all of them, in my opinion, are true. It will force us to be strategic and more human because, largely, ai is an amplifier. It makes the good better and the broken obvious, right. So if we are a good company, it will amplify that. If we are a bad company, it will also amplify that.
Liza Adams: 6:44
And, in fact, ai forms an opinion about people, about companies, about teams, before a human being ever dies. So just try it and chat GPT or perplexity, and put your brand or your name in there and say what do you think, or tell me about the credibility of Nate or of Lisa Adams or of Dave, and see what it says. So it automatically forms an opinion before others who may or may not know you have an opinion about you. And then, last but not least, I know many still use AI today primarily as a tool, but we can absolutely push its potential by using it as a teammate, meaning that we use it as a thought partner, we collaborate with it, we actually use it to help us do some of the mundane and repetitive tasks and you know it’s no longer just for content creation, but for many, many more things. That is more strategic rather than just the tactical pieces of it that is more strategic rather than just the tactical pieces of it.
David Armstrong: 7:50
Yeah, I think the thing that people don’t, people that I talk to about chat GPT I think what’s not being talked about that much is, for me personally, those two AI sites, chat GPT and perplexity. And for those of you just real quick, you know, chat GPT people must be able to. Perplexity is just asking a question, it gives you an answer. So rather than going to Google and saying what are some animal boarding facilities near me, you’ll get sponsored ads and all kinds of stuff and it’s you. Go to perplexity, it just tells you the answer. Ask you a question, tells you an answer. So I use both of them. I don’t use Google anymore for anything, I just. I haven’t been in Google as a search engine for over six weeks, maybe two months.
Nate Tonsager: 8:33
I think that’s the way that the world is moving too. It’s going to create a. It’s going to create a universe of not subject matter experts, but you do need to have kind of a general knowledge of what’s available to you. You know, if you don’t know what to search for, if you don’t know that physics or momentum, or you know a business plan is even something you need, ai is not going to be able to really create that for you, I think. I think that we’re still a ways away from that. You still are going to need to know hey, I need to be able to do this.
Nate Tonsager: 8:59
But then, lisa, I’d be really interested in this because I always have seen AI as a tool. I always say it’s something that you can use to be more efficient. I think that’s what a lot of the narrative is right now is use AI, do the mundane stuff be more efficient, to free you up for better tasks. But I think you said it really interesting. It’s going to be a collaboration between AI and even strategic thinkers as leaders. So you know, thinking about that specifically, I guess. How do you do that for a lot of our, for a lot of the business leaders, owners or anyone how do you use AI not as a tool but as a collaborator? Or maybe how have you seen?
Liza Adams: 9:34
it. Yeah, so I’ve actually created a digital twin, so, and it is called Lisa GPT. And if some of you listeners don’t play around with GPTs, they’re essentially AI that you could build and customize to do a very specific task, and you could do this in chat GPT. You could do it in Google Gemini Anthropic Cloud. A number of AI companies allow you to create your own AIs, right. So a digital twin, in essence, is one that you build and train to think and write like you.
Liza Adams: 10:17
So Lisa GPT has been trained by me, by me uploading my thinking, like my newsletters, my social posts, some of my frameworks, some of my strategies, my beliefs, even a little bit about my personal story when I came to the United States as a child immigrant, my writing style, my tone, my voice, my Myers-Briggs, my writing style, my tone, my voice, my Myers-Briggs. It knows a lot about me, right? But rather than simply using it to craft or draft writing, I use it as a thought partner. I might say things like I have this idea, I’m thinking that I have some hypotheses around the future of work and I share my hypotheses around the future of work and I would say, based on what you know about me and what you know about the market. Evaluate my hypotheses, you know. Give me an assessment of what you think of it. Don’t sugarcoat. Also, identify any potential blind spots that I might have based on what you know about me. So I have hypotheses around how teams should adopt and drive change management using AI, and I would say things like depending on where the audience is in the acceptance of AI, what would be some of the blind spots that I might have if I position it in this way?
Liza Adams: 11:49
So Lisa GPT helps me think about those things. You know, as human beings, we can’t always be our best selves, right Like. We’re impacted by what’s happening in our environment. Maybe my kid fell off the swing at school and I’m getting a call. Maybe I’m really hungry and I can’t really think straight. Lisa GPT helps me become more consistent. So that’s what I mean about not just using it as a toolassy, or it was very sassy. It told me that my ideas were sound. However, I needed to ensure that I’m not too far ahead in my thinking and that we needed to sharpen some of my points of view. And she even said it even said hell yeah, that’s a really good idea, but let’s sharpen some of your points of view.
Nate Tonsager: 12:49
So I love that she’s sassy or it sorry it was sassy with you and I mean that’s kind of. I mean it’s, if you’re going to make it a companion, you almost want that. You know, I think at Monument we talk a lot about having kind of unfiltered opinions, and what that really means is, you know, we’re not stripped, we’re not hamstrung by any kind of giant corporate office about, well, these are the corporate lines and we have to do it. You know, we really work as a collaborative team at Monument, so maybe we need to figure out our own version of Monument GPT. I love that, and I think that’s kind of what I’m seeing from a lot of the business leaders and executives that are going to be able to implement AI most effectively is getting a blank version of one of these kind of softwares, whether it’s the GPT or any kind of bot of that kind. I think that’s what they’re all trying to develop.
Nate Tonsager: 13:36
When we talk about, you know, open AI, you know deep sea Google who’s ever developing these bots really want to get blank versions that they can license out to different businesses and then you upload all your business data. You’ve got to be aware of privacy. That’s something we could talk about too, is the responsibility behind using AI. But when you upload all that data, what you’re essentially doing is creating a very specific collaborator. So no longer are you going to need how-to manuals or training guides because essentially, I’ll be able to log into Monument GPT you know, lisa GPT if you wanted to train another version of yourself, you know and ask it the questions. There’s no more updating processes, documents, because it’s a living, breathing thing that is guiding all the training and I think that’s kind of where then it gets into.
Nate Tonsager: 14:21
You know specifically about how to use it responsibly as well. I feel like that’s something that a lot is being talked about. When you look at education, you know that’s the big field is what is cheating, what is not, what should have to be disclosed and what not? I know, dave, we’re in a very regulated industry. I kind of feel like we have to disclose everything, and then we should definitely have to disclose when we’re using AI in some form of capacity with client proposals and things like that. And you know, I think we do use it very kind of responsibly at Monument. You know we’re definitely exploring with it, but I wonder what kind is a lot of the opinions are going to be developed and what are responsible uses for this kind of software?
David Armstrong: 15:02
I’ve been recently playing with it too, and so a couple of things. You just said we could get Monument GPT and we could load sensitive PII into it, but you’ve got to buy your own version that’s firewalled and as protected the PII is, as protected as it is, say, in the Salesforce cloud or anywhere else. It’s just so expensive right now. So it’s not an option, but one of the things that I. So, lisa, back to what you were saying and Nate, tagging on what you were saying, I used it the other day when I was writing a blog and I loaded the blog up to it and I said, argue with me about my points, blog.
David Armstrong: 15:44
And I loaded the blog up to it and I said, argue with me about my points and it, and I was like, oh well, that. So that informed me rewriting the blog a little bit, because they asked a question kind of challenging me on something. I was like, all right, well then, why don’t I just take away that challenge and write it in the blog? So I’ve used it for that too. But, nate, what you were talking about, one of the things I did recently was I went in and said I told it to find every single article on the SEC’s marketing rule that it could find white papers, pdfs, everything. I downloaded them all. I turned it into one PDF, I uploaded it into a new GPT project and I said here’s my blog.
David Armstrong: 16:27
Compare my blog against all of the marketing rules and regulations that the SEC has put out and all of these different opinions on my writing, and come back to me and tell me what doesn’t seem compliant to you about this and I was like, wow, so if we could have this GPT at Monument and Nate you write a LinkedIn post, you could go into the GPT and say like, please, please, compliance, test this for me and see what it says and then make your edits and things like that. So that is a huge collaborative tool for us because right now, when Nate writes something, I have to read it. So it’s just one Dave Armstrong saying like yes or no on something, whereas now got all of these different resources that I put into one PDF and’s cross-referencing all of that in real time. It’s amazing.
Nate Tonsager: 17:10
Yeah, I think that’s a great example, dave, of finding a creative way to solve problems, and creativity is really the key to solving any problems. For any business, any kind of executive, even my own personal life, creativity is key to solving problems and collaboration, I’ve found throughout my career, is the best way to boost creativity. And normally, like you were saying, dave, you and I will collaborate on a post or we’ll collaborate with different versions to boost our creativity. But it seems like now ChatGPT can do that. And, lisa, I think one thing I heard from you is, at the end, almost asking it to challenge you, or, dave, as you did. You know what am I missing? What can you? What am I missing to add from this? And I don’t know.
Nate Tonsager: 17:52
And then it kind of leads me into another topic I wanted to hit on a little bit about. You know what am I missing? I think there’s a conception out there and I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, so I’m interested in the group’s opinions about how accurate are chat GPT. You hear the stories about lawyers maybe using it to write legal briefs and seeing kind of pulling fake cases or making things up because again, it’s pulling from the internet. So I guess, how have you found ways to maybe, of course, trust but verify what you’re getting from the AI and I think it’s getting better as time goes on again, as more data comes in. But I guess maybe is there a way or strategies you’ve found that are most effective to getting quote, unquote the right answers back from ChatGPT or other AI softwares.
Liza Adams: 18:37
Yeah, so there’s actually a report from OpenAI that says that ChatGPT models could be anywhere from, I think, in the 30s to 80% wrong, so that’s a really high percentage, right, if you think about it, meaning that it can hallucinate that much. However, that only applies when you are using it as a question and answer machine. So what I mean by that is if you want absolutely, absolutely exacting answers, like you’re playing Jeopardy, right, like who is or when did you know those kinds of things and the large language models are not really optimized to do that. They’re not designed to be question and answer machines. They’re designed to be thought partners of us. So more nuanced situations are much better with these large language models.
Liza Adams: 19:38
So if you’re seeing a lot of hallucinations or wrong answers, I would contend my hypothesis is you’re probably using it as a question and answer machine. I would contend my hypothesis is you’re probably using it as a question and answer machine. However, if you’re using it, you know, in the way that it’s supposed to be used, as a thought partner. You have a specific hypothesis that you want to test, right, you have a process that you want ChatGPT to evaluate, you know. Give you the pros and cons of it, gpt to evaluate, you know, give you the pros and cons of it If you want it to give you what if? Scenario planning situations, those types of things. When it’s nuanced and it’s language oriented, then it becomes more accurate, if you want to call it that you know more helpful rather than when you want to play Jeopardy right.
Liza Adams: 20:28
It is also a large language model, not a computational model. So what’s interesting about this because it’s so counterintuitive is it’s not very good with math because it’s not a computational model, it’s a language model, so it’s much, much better with language. However, that gap is starting to close because AI continues to advance and, in fact, some of the more recent models the reasoning models and some of the like $200 a month subscription levels of ChatGPT are designed for very large, large data sets and very complex computations. So you know, when we see AI deviating from our expectation, just ask ourselves the questions first, what are we asking it to do? Are we asking it to do things that it’s designed to do? Are we asking it things that maybe it’s just a limitation today, but over time this thing will get better. As they say, you know, the AI that we use today is the dumbest form of AI that we’ll ever see moving forward. So you know, while those things like hallucinations are still relatively high, I do believe that it will get better over time.
Nate Tonsager: 21:47
Well, I think I agree with you and I think it’s the other thing that we really need to be aware of is, when you’re using AI software, is these kind of I’m going to call them question and answer bots? But that’s not really that, because I think the key word there is prompts, and it’s how you prompt the AI you get the best response. So, dave, I think you said it earlier and I really like the way you said this is you know, argue with me about this piece. You know, the question of what am I missing is also, I think, a very effective prompt after you’ve gotten some ideas out. So I mean kind of focusing in on prompts.
Nate Tonsager: 22:21
You know what kind of prompts have we found to be the most effective in our uses of AI? You know I can go first when I write and I use it kind of as my first line editor of a lot of my public facing content. I’m a very wordy person when I write and so, instead of having Dave or other Monument member teams make it more concise, one of my favorite prompts is help me make this piece more concise while also preserving its original tone and meaning. So I don’t know, are there other prompts? And leads a day that you guys have found that have really helped you narrow in and avoid those hallucinations that we were just talking about.
Liza Adams: 22:57
Yeah, well, I have a framework that I’ve used for quite some time now, but it will evolve over time as AI gets better, right? So the framework is GRACE. G stands for goals you need to give it a set of goals. R stands for role it needs to understand what role you want it to have. You know, are you a mom blogger or are you a you know field marketer? Are you a CEO? Right? So we need to give it a role.
Liza Adams: 23:29
A is for actions what do we want it to do? C is for context. It’s been trained on 85% of the internet, but for our particular situation, we need to give it context on what we want it to do and what the situation is. And then E I think it helps a lot when we give it examples, to the extent that we have those examples. So here’s my sample newsletter. Here’s my sample presentation that I shared with my leadership team. Then it gets an idea of what good looks like, right? So grace is is a framework that I’ve used with it, so it now remembers context easier for those who are more systematic in their thinking, but more for you know the rest, more people will be gravitating towards it.
Nate Tonsager: 24:55
Yeah, it almost seems that we need a class on prompting Like it’s no longer. Do you want to know how to code a computer? It’s how do you prompt chat GPT? Because it can code the computer program for you. You know I think we were I was recently at a JP Morgan conference and they had a whole breakout session around AI and within five minutes it had a AI, was prompted to create and create a demo a working demo of an application and it wrote over 700 line of codes in real time in five minutes.
Nate Tonsager: 25:27
But again, it came down to, I think, how effective the prompt was and what you were trying to achieve. So I think it’s learning how to prompt it and it’ll get better over time, like you said, lisa, but that’s going to change a lot of the global economy and jobs and the future of work. I can’t go three minutes without reading an article about how AI is going to replace all of these jobs. And you know, based on the you know this conversation we’re having, I’m not sure, if that’s the case, is there’s going to be that many jobs that get replaced. So I guess I’d be interested to hear you know are there jobs that you see or we see as a group that are easily replaceable by AI and which ones are maybe a little more protected from this shift that we’re seeing in the technology landscape.
Liza Adams: 26:11
So I did deep research on this and I looked at the last 100 years of jobs in the United States and it spit 25 pages with like 112 sources in 16 minutes. So I used AI to do this research and one of the interesting key takeaways is that 60% of the jobs that we have today did not exist in 1940. So just let that sink in, right, there was no social media manager in 1940. There was no web developer in 1940, right, and Lisa as an AI and executive advisor. That role did not exist two years ago. So even my role today did not exist just two years ago, right.
Liza Adams: 27:12
So you know, when I think about the evolution of work we have, we are one of the most, if not the most, adaptable creatures of this planet, you know, as human beings. Right, we have. We no longer have stenographers. We no longer have stenographers. We no longer have elevator operators. Those jobs are now obsolete.
Liza Adams: 27:35
I do believe that certain jobs will be obsolete, but certain jobs will evolve and then certain jobs will be new. So I think the question is not what will change. I think it will all change. The question is how quickly can we upskill and reskill people to learn how to collaborate and work with AI, and then how quickly can we create some of these new jobs that people will now have moving forward, some of these new jobs that people will now have moving forward? So you know, I wanted to just think about it at the highest levels, right? Because, as they say, our ability to reimagine the future is constrained by what we know and by history. But sometimes you forget that in history that, like I said, 60% of the jobs that we have today did not exist in 1940.
David Armstrong: 28:32
Yeah, and I’ve seen it even in my industry. I’m on my 25-year anniversary in this industry and what it looks like today, what I do for a living today, doesn’t look anything like what I did for a living when I first came into the business, what I did for a living when I first came into the business. So even in that span the industry and that’s had nothing to do with AI. I mean, maybe it will in the future, but so far. So things change all the time. I totally agree with you on that. There will be some things that don’t exist anymore, you’re right.
Liza Adams: 29:03
Yeah, and if I think about it, today we’re still doing very specific tasks, right, and that’s, by and large, using AI as a tool. Tomorrow, it might be guiding AI teammates, building and guiding AI teammates similar to the ones that we’ve been talking about, right, and then even you know, maybe the next step beyond that is orchestrating AI systems. Maybe the next step beyond that is orchestrating AI systems. So you can see the progression of how it might be from doing it yourself to having AI help you as a tool, to now using and guiding AI as a teammate, to ultimately orchestrating AI systems. That job is just different.
Liza Adams: 29:48
Now will there be less of those? Probably right, but there will be new ones, and it’s just unclear right now what those new ones might be and how quickly we can adapt to that, because the pace is mind-blowing. Right, you know the AI companies are are essentially building and launching towards the next best AI features, but it’s left to us users to work together and figure out how to use it responsibly in our work and in our personal lives and regulation ourselves. You know we can’t keep up with that pace that is being set right now, so the quicker that we, you know, narrow that gap, the likelihood of us succeeding and thriving in the era of AI is higher.
Nate Tonsager: 30:42
Yeah, I mean circling all the way back to our two truths and a lie game. You know, I think you said authentically human, I think was maybe one of the first points there, and that’s still going to matter. And that’s where I think I struggle personally with seeing as AI coming in and being your wealth advisor or being your lawyer or your doctor. I think there’s some benefits to it, but there’s always going to be a need to really have that human touch, and there’s a study out there that I read not too long ago about that. They looked at a group of doctors and they looked at an AI chatbot and they wanted to rate them not only on their medical advice but almost their bedside manner, and it’s amazing to me that when I looked at the results, the AI rated a lot better with the empathy than the real doctors, because I think, as you were saying, lisa, with your Lisa chat GPT version, it doesn’t have bad days and good days. Doctors have so much going on. You have no idea what their previous conversation is, and that allows AI to be more empathetic. And so what my takeaway was is always make sure that, at least on our side with wealth advisors, that you’re still connecting on that human to human level. Even if we’re training to AI, you still are going to be dealing with either end consumers, end users, who are human and want that human experience.
Nate Tonsager: 31:59
There’s a company out there Smartly, if I believe has now launched a fully autonomous AI advisor. I don’t know what that all entails I haven’t looked into it yet but that was something that was like okay, now the robots are coming for my job. It seems like even those different versions of it, but to your point, I think it just means a re-skilling and re-tooling of what we need to do. Dave, you said it when you started in the industry your job has changed. My role has changed in the 15 years that I’ve been in this industry. So if that much has changed over 15 years, give me another 15 years.
Nate Tonsager: 32:31
I bet it won’t look anywhere the same again, and it’s fascinating to me about how so many people are either putting their heads in the sand, saying, oh, my company, my business, won’t use AI because it’s going to make us robotic, and then to find out that usually a lot of their employees are using it anyway without having set policies, procedures. We need to embrace it now because, as you said, I think it’s going to change everything. There is going to be no one industry that’s affected. Maybe there’ll be some that are affected slightly more than others, but everyone is going to need to change about how we’re using it, and being an early adopter, getting your feet wet and using it as a sandbox, I think is so important for everyone to be doing right now If you want to stay ahead of the curve sort of the best of your ability maybe.
Liza Adams: 33:19
There’s a lot of chatter around. We need to change, we need to upscale, we need to do it now. Do it now or you’ll be, you’ll fall behind, but I I just um now, having helped a number of companies go through this. You know transformation, adoption, learning journey that we’re on. I’m so empathetic to the the plight of of people. Right, because we have to be so graceful in how we manage through this change, because it is less about AI. It’s actually more about a behavior and mindset shift.
Liza Adams: 33:57
Ai is not the complex part. We are the complex part, right, the human beings are. And if I just give my husband as an example, he hesitates to put his works in AI in chat TPT. He’s a published author because he feels that it will ingest his works and then somebody else will be able to write the next series of his novels. But at the same time, he is also a right leg amputee due to childhood cancer and he embraces AI from the perspective of robotics because he believes that it could change the way people work and live, especially those with disabilities.
Liza Adams: 34:36
So even in one person, the acceptance and adoption of AI varies by use case. There are people on you know that are so fearful of AI because they fear that it’s going to take their jobs and it paralyzes them. And then there are people who are leaning in so hard. They use AI in literally everything they do, but they don’t know how to use it responsibly. And then there’s people you know certainly all along that spectrum, right, but I am. You know. We need to be so empathetic and so graceful in how we drive change, because the personal reasons people have vary quite widely and we need to meet people where they are and help them and be compassionate around helping them through that journey, if that makes sense.
Nate Tonsager: 35:27
Yeah, it does. I mean, Dave, as a leader of a company, I guess how do you feel like we should be pushing people to adopt it? You know, I feel like, at least at Monument. I feel always and I appreciate it the pull to wanting to be better than we were before and never ignoring anything. But that’s an emotional journey a little bit.
David Armstrong: 35:47
Yeah, I mean, I think, okay, my answer is going to be irrelevant in a year, right, because everything’s going to change, everything’s going to be different, but right now, you know as the an adoption across monument or or the adoption of it at any corporation. I think if it’s making workers’ lives easier, it’s going to free up for one of two different things Either more time for people to not be doing work and doing what they love to do, or they’re just going to do, do old school, right? If I wrote a letter or a blog or something like that, I could walk across the desk and say, jessica, can you proofread this and print out three pages and have her go through with a pen and everything. Do it Now. I’m waiting for her, she’s reading it, she’s got her pen out, she’s going slow.
David Armstrong: 36:44
Or now, with some of the AI tools that are available, all that proofreading can be done. Everybody’s probably familiar with it. Just even the little red squiggly line under a word. Or just, hey, you forgot a comma here. I mean, that’s all happening right now and making people so much more efficient. I think that embracing that is something I’d really like to see everybody do, because I’d rather have people say, well, hey, with this newfound time I can go do something I love rather than doing more work. That’s my personal opinion.
Liza Adams: 37:16
Yeah, that’s such an interesting dynamic that we’re managing right now, right, because over the last 100 years, we have gotten so productive, you know, with computers, with the Internet, with Wi-Fi, everything, cloud, saas but we are still working the 40 to 60 hour weeks, right. So the question now then becomes with AI, will we choose to use the extra time it gives us or saves us to do more work, or will we do things that we love and care about? Or is the better question not? Will we do more or less work? Is the better question? Will we do more meaningful?
David Armstrong: 38:05
work. I agree it’s probably that that’s a cultural thing.
Liza Adams: 38:09
Absolutely. We continue to push the envelope right. We want to do more, we want to achieve more. So I think it’s going to be a personal decision, and for some it’s going to be easier than others.
Nate Tonsager: 38:21
And I never like to be the person that says it’s a mandate, but sometimes, in order to get the most growth from a company, I feel like a mandate can sometimes be powerful. Something that really stood out to me recently is it is an emotional thing, but Shopify, one of the major companies out there that has really seen a boom since the pandemic. Now, in order to get a new hire into the Shopify corporate payroll, you have to prove as the hiring manager that the job that you’re hiring for can’t be done with AI, and I think that what that does is, yes, it’s a mandate. It seems like they’re pushing jobs away, but what they’re really, I think, doing is setting you up to make sure that the work you’re doing is more meaningful. It’s exactly what she said, and mandates always have a rough connotation behind it Because, again, we do want to get the most around our people and I don’t usually like mandating certain things.
Nate Tonsager: 39:07
But when it comes to technology, technological change, you sometimes have to imagine if, when the typewriter was invented years ago, if we never adopted it, if the companies are large scale printing presses, we’re never allowed to use them because, again, it’s going to replace certain jobs of, you know, stenographers or writing of any kind.
Nate Tonsager: 39:25
You know you need to sometimes pull the bull by the nose a little bit just to get it to where you want to go, and then the momentum takes over. So I think that I think you’re going to see a lot more of that. To start off and again, it’s not my favorite thing because I don’t feel like you get the best worker feelings around that but I think they’re going to really appreciate it two to five years down the road when they do have all this free time and can use it however they see fit to do more work, do more meaningful work. As, dave, you said, work less but maybe pursue passions. You know there’s a way out there where we just can’t ignore this kind of technology and there’s emotions behind it. You got to be respectful of it. But ignoring it is not the solution, just because you’re going to make someone a little uncomfortable, if you ask me.
Liza Adams: 40:10
I think you know I wholly agree with the Shopify, if you want to call it a mandate. What is not obvious in that memo is how it’s actually going to happen. So, in my opinion, we can’t just give our employees tools and have them self-guide. This is one that we have to inspire what’s possible. We have to support learning experiences. You know, it can’t be something that they just add to their daily work. We have to create spaces for them to learn, spaces for them to succeed and also to fail, and that be OK. We have to have spaces where they can share with each other. Right? So it is truly a change management situation and not a mandate.
Liza Adams: 41:05
So, like I said, it wasn’t obvious how they’re actually going to do it, but to the extent that it has a support system not just the tools but the training required, the inspiration, the learning, sharing, the ability to track what works, what doesn’t work, learn from failures all sorts of things and then ultimately see what the impact looks like. Get some trailblazers out there, have those trailblazers, inspire others and then build momentum from there. Right, address some of the biggest concerns they have, concerns about job loss. How do you have those conversations? So it is not an easy process and I hope that, as companies create policies and mandates, that they really think about the human aspect of this, because, you know, we can have the best intentions, but without the support system that will truly guide the human being, I think we’re setting ourselves up for failure.
Nate Tonsager: 42:05
I think, as you said it’s just kind of wrapping up is it amplifies. Ai is an amplifier. If you have a lot of that good company culture already, you know AI can just make it better. So I don’t think businesses are changing and the business model isn’t changing, maybe, or what makes a good corporation, but AI can definitely help you make it a good thing even better. Let’s say it that way.
Nate Tonsager: 42:25
Soisa dave and I really can’t thank you enough for coming on the show. You know, I think we’ve learned a lot and I think, again, we could be talking about this in two months and it could be a very different conversation. So, uh, we really appreciate the time because, yeah, again at monument, we’re always focused on wanting to learn and the best ways to implement these tools, and I think our conversation today really at least helped me around ai. So I’m sure our listeners appreciate your insights as well. And if anyone out there wants to learn more about Lisa and her work, check out wwwgrowthpathnet and make sure to follow her on LinkedIn. Slash L, I, z, a, a, d, a, m, s.
Nate Tonsager: 43:07
So, lisa, lisa, thank you so much for coming on, and again to everyone listening or watching this episode of Off the Wall because they are a video podcast too. So if you ever want to see Dave, myself and our guests, you can always log in to see how we’re reacting in real time our facial cues. We really appreciate everyone tuning in for Off the Wall and make sure you’re following us. Follow us on YouTube. Make if you’re off the wall and make sure you’re following us. Follow us on YouTube. Make sure you’re subscribed to our private newsletter, which sends out monthly content, additional podcast episodes from the entire wealth management team, sometimes very investment focused. Other times we get into more broad topics, like we did today.
David Armstrong: 43:42
Yeah, definitely check out the YouTube video, because you’ll get to see my dogs walking around in the background and me yelling at the FedEx guy who wanted me to come out and sign something that. So it’s a little raw, but yeah, here we go, it’s good. So there’s there’s elsa in the background right now, so she knows I’m talking about her thank you for having me.
Liza Adams: 44:00
It was a pleasure.
Disclosure: 44:16
The previous presentation by Monument Capital Management LLC was intended for general information purposes only. No portion of the presentation serves as the receipt of or as a substitute for, personalized investment advice from Monument or any other investment professional of your choosing. Different types of investments involve varying degrees of risk. It should not be assumed that the future performance of any specific investment or investment strategy or any non-investment related planning services, discussion or content will be profitable, be suitable for your portfolio or individual situation or prove successful. Neither Monument’s investment advisor registration status nor any amount of prior experience or success should be construed that a certain level of results or satisfaction will be achieved if Monument is engaged or continues to be engaged to provide investment advice services.
Disclosure: 45:02
Monument is neither a law firm nor an accounting firm. No portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice or an accounting firm. No portion of its services should be construed as legal or accounting advice. No portion of the video content will be construed by a client or prospective client as a guarantee that he or she will experience a certain level of results if Monument is engaged or continues to be engaged to provide investment advisory services. A copy of Monument’s current written disclosure brochure discussing our advisory services and fees is available upon request.
