WEBVTT

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- You've got to take some big, bold steps.

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Understand that it's not going
to be perfect along the way.

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- Jonathan, when you
look at your marketing

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and comms function,

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my understanding is that you've
viewed GenAI as the center

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and that the changes that you would make

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would be around GenAI,

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not something that you would
just layer on top of it.

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- Correct.

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- And from the research I've done,

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88% of people who sit in
the comms leadership seat

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feel like they can't
transform in that way.

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So tell us a little bit about

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what does closing that
gap look like to you?

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- You know, I think part of
why we're taking this approach

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is because if you really
started from scratch,

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what would you want to do today?

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So what we've done internally is

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we've looked at all the processes
across the organization,

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and we have spent time understanding

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how those processes
work, who owns a process,

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and then which of those processes
can you either automate,

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have AI touch it or impact
it, change, get rid of,

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or certain instances you have to,

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you'll leave them the same.

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But, Russell, I think
it's really important

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that if you don't lay out
a goal that's substantial,

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even if you're not going to get,

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even if you don't have full
confidence you can get there,

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if you just say,

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"Hey, we're going to go do 10%
of AI in the organization,"

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you're never going to change.

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You've got to take some big, bold steps.

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Understand that it's not going
to be perfect along the way,

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share those imperfect
moments with your team,

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with the broader organization,
so they understand it,

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and also celebrate the wins,

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because I think a lot of people,

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when they say they can't do it,

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it's either they don't know
how or they're afraid to fail.

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And I think that this is going to be

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a bumpy road for everybody,

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but we've all got to just lean in, try it,

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and learn from each other.

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- Where, for you,

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was there the greatest
skepticism in the organization?

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I'm sure there were
pockets where people said,

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"There's no way that AI has
anything to do with what I do.

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In fact, it's going to slow me down,

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you're going to get me off target.

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This is not the place;
focus somewhere else."

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- So where was there skepticism?

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I think it's easy to
say it was everywhere.

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And there's still pockets that exist.

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But I think an early use case

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that everybody was focusing on
for AI was content creation,

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and I think a lot of the content creators

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were very concerned that it
was going to take their jobs,

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that it was going to
cause them to not be able

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to do things the right way.

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In fact, when we did our research,

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we found that 80% of the creatives

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inside the organization at IBM

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were spending their time
on derivative assets.

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When I go talk to a creative and I say,

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"Hey, do you want to
spend 80% of your time

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on derivative assets?"

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they're like, "No, never."

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So now that number is at 40% and dropping,

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now that we've given them AI.

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When we went and we did
a takeover of the Sphere

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in Las Vegas for Adobe
Summit a few years ago,

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we used AI to help on
the ideation process,

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but we had planned that
the ideation process

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would be 15, 16 days.

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It took two days.

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And the creatives who were
involved with it said,

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"It gave us new ideas that we
hadn't thought about before."

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- So Jonathan, we've known
each other a long time.

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- Long time.
- You're a bold guy,

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you throw the javelin far ahead.

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For those who are a little more tentative,

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what advice can you give
them from what you've learned

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to go further faster?

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- So I think there are a few things.

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One, you've got to ask questions.

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It might be internal, it might be external

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to peers in similar roles.

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It might also be coming
to people like BCG.

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You all have been instrumental
in some of our changes.

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As we've looked at our revenue
technology, or rev tech,

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you all have been instrumental
in how do we change that

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and how do we modernize it
and bring it into an AI world?

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So go ask people questions.

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Two is find someplace relatively small,

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low-hanging fruit to try.

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Say, "I'm going to go
after this one thing,"

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and if you want to, just
go after it in one market

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or two markets, and run a test and say,

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"Does this work, does it not work?"

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But the fundamental,

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the biggest thing that I think
people have to do, Russell,

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is they've got to make
sure they're incorporating

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the change management and the
education into the process.

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You can layer in the technology,

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but if you're not using the technology

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because people don't know how

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or they're uncomfortable with it,

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that's where you're going to
have your biggest problem.

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- Thank you, Jonathan,

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really appreciate your making the time.

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- Thanks, Russell. Always
great to be with you.

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