AI Founder: 85% Spend More on AI, Only 22% Make It Work | Jeff Finkelstein

If you look at it, it at first was something around, you know, implementing technology strategy, but now AI is actually shifting towards more business strategy.

Absolutely.

Great example is the ATM.

45 years ago, it was built as a way to allow you to not have to walk into the bank and take out cash from your account.

You don't have to wait in line and talk to a teller who might have had a bad day and you have to only do it during business hours.

So now the absence of variation in that experience is quality.

So quality is defined as the absence of variation.

So An ATM is amazing.

I can go up to one day or night, probably a little bit more careful at nighttime, and take out cash, and it's a great experience.

But that's a problem that was solved 40 years ago.

I don't know.

I don't really use cash very much anymore.

There's one restaurant here in town that still requires cash.

There's my plumber who likes to get paid in cash.

But other than that, everything is like app.

I can pay for my coffee with my watch with Apple Pay.

I can use contactless stuff.

So there's a lot that you can do with it.

And I think that the biggest reason why AI software can fail is because a lot of times people treat it as this bright, shiny object.

And they don't focus on what really matters to that end customer.

And they don't take into account what the people who are actually working with need to do with it.

So, you know, I started this company in 2002 with the sole notion, the name of the company is Customer Paradigm, and the notion was, if you really focus on the needs of that end user, the end person on the other side of the screen, on the other side of the phone, How can we create interactions that make them feel better, faster, find information that they're trying to find, help them solve problems, help them avoid confusion, embarrassment by making the wrong decision.

And if we can filter all that through and automate when you can, That's the recipe for success.

But it's difficult because it's still kind of in flux.

So yes, I think that it can be something that an individual can use and people are using it all the time.