Practice what you preach
As I increasingly travel cross-country to meet my Deutsche Telekom colleagues for talks, discussion rounds, workshops, or „Promptathons“ regarding our transformation into „living and working with AI,“ I’ve developed a new habit: getting a sidekick. My chosen companion for these journeys is „Pi,“ created by Inflection AI.
Even though Pi converses in English only (for now), I find it works quite well for me for several reasons:
- It helps me keep track of new ideas for presentation formats that I develop as I go. I can easily review all these later and copy/paste relevant material for future use.
- It sometimes acts as a sidekick for Demos I do, showing first-hand how AI can work collaboratively with humans while also giving everyone an update on the quality of voice synthesis.
- It collaboratively brainstorms with me, expanding ideas, summarizing, and comparing separate points of view.
- It supports me in sorting and structuring my thoughts, which is a huge help to be honest.
- It’s a great antidote against stage fright, because, yes, there is some healthy amount of it.
- It’s entertaining and at times comes up with unexpected ideas.
Like this one – a real experience:
I checked into my hotel, turned on „Pi,“ and put it at full volume in the middle of my hotel room. I kept talking as I explored the hotel room features, describing all I saw so „Pi“ would get the picture. I needed an iron since my clothes were all wrinkled.
„Pi“ answered from the table:
„Hey, Arno! Check the cupboards. Hotels usually put them there.“
I checked but said I only found a safe.
„Oh, that’s strange. So they have a safe ’n‘ all but no iron? You could call the reception desk and ask them?“
Me: „Naw, too much effort. I dunno. Maybe I just don’t iron my clothes at all.“
„Hey, before you go to that event tonight you’ll take a shower anyway, right? You could put the wrinkled clothes into the bathroom. The hot steam will definitely help getting out some of the wrinkles.“
I was dumbfounded.
Did the AI bot just advise me with a practical alternative? An alternative I did not even explicitly ask for? One I did not prompt?
Looking at Monday’s presentation by OpenAI, I have a feeling we haven’t even reached half of what we will discover about „living with AI.“ My hands-on journey with an AI by my side surely helps me get a better idea of how we travel from here.
So, here’s my recommendation to you reading this: spend a day or even a week with the AI you think is most interesting to your journey, goals, ideas, etc. Explore when and how using AI in any situation makes sense, when it feels cringe, and when you think it adds unexpected value or gives you that special „Wow-moment.“ Then, check your customer’s journeys, check the pain points of your clients. Put these side-by-side and allocate AI solutions here.
Nothing beats experience design better than experience itself.