Artificial Intelligence is a HOT topic right now. With headlines like “If You Aren’t Using AI, You’re Falling Behind” and “AI is changing jobs across industries” and “Forget about the AI apocalypse. The real dangers are already here” no average person can not be thinking about AI. But as product leaders, we bring a different lens. We need to be thinking through how the ubiquity of AI and machine learning can benefit our users, our processes, our products.
To get your team thinking about how AI might affect them - and generally change the world - try having a stand-up discussion dedicated to it. These YouTube videos can be good thought-starters:
- How Will AI Change the World - a 6 minute TED Ed video
- The Urgent Risks of Runaway AI - a 15 minute TED Talk by Gary Marcus, an AI researcher
Like so many technologies and innovations, there is no one right way to incorporate AI into your product or processes. It is on us as product leaders and within our product teams to learn about the technology and the options available and determine if this will be useful. However, it is also important to understand our team’s hesitancies or excitement about the possibilities. It is hard to maximize the effects of something that you are fearful of. The below prompts can help open up discussion.
And after the discussion, if your team wants to learn more, this free learning path from Google Cloud Skills Boost could be beneficial.
STAND-UP EXERCISE
Before stand-up, ask your team to watch one of the videos above that provide an introduction to some AI concepts. At stand-up, focus on how the team feels about the rise of AI, and if they have any fears or concerns.
One way to do this would be to imagine the future a few years from now. Using a whiteboarding platform, they can place themselves along a spectrum of opinion on various parts of AI. Another way could be to just ask open ended questions about their concerns or what questions they have. Likely, you’ll have a wide range of responses, as well as a wide range of familiarity with AI and its concepts.
To add some humor, maybe show your team this meme.