🍔 Kernel. ✈️ Kayak. 💃 AI Marilyn
3 People-First AI Stories from last week.
Each week we go beyond the headlines and explore what AI will mean – for people, for businesses, the future of work, learning and culture, and more.
These updates will help inspire your team to see new opportunities to use AI. They’ll inspire you to ask the right questions. Most importantly, they’ll show you why putting people at the heart of your AI strategy will be the key to success.
This week, learn from:
Kernel and how the future of work is less, but better.
Kayak’s auto-magical screenshot savings.
Soul Machine’s Digital Marilyn Monroe and the future of education and entertainment.
🍔 Kernel and the future of work: “less, but better”.
The founder of Chipotle, Steve Ellis, is opening the first Kernel, his new robot-powered vegan quick service restaurant. Robots and its centralised kitchens mean that each outlet needs just three staff. The entrepreneur told Axios:
"it's really reinventing this 'McJob' that excites me so much … [with only three workers] you can afford to pay $27 an hour and a paid vacation.
I’m obsessed with how AI and robotics could (positively) transform the world of work. For the humans involved, less work for more pay is a no-brainer. But what might employers get from less but better?
More loyalty. Less turnover.
More experience. Better service.
Less burnout. More connection.
Smaller outlets. More local.
In other words – a better customer experience for the same money.
Ellis says, “we’ve taken a lot of human interaction out of the process and left just enough.”
Your job is to find where just enough is. And remember, there won’t be a ‘right’ answer. Consider the following spectrum:
At one extreme, could we see a front of house host or waiter making $200k? Imagine there are no chefs, no dishwashers, and no supervisors. Just a team of two or three magnetic front of house staff who give you the a uniquely fun, life-affirming, and human dining experience?
Equally, you can also imagine a uniquely brilliant chef being able to focus completely on their craft, thanks to a turnkey restaurant operation where everything else – from mid-week ordering to basic prep to delivery, service and cleaning – is completely automated and hassle-free.
Imagine you could give 80% of your wages to 20% of your staff. How would this change your business model?
Henry will be delivering a keynote on “Designing A People-First AI Strategy” at the Future Hospitality Summit in Riyadh on 30 April.
Interested in having a similar session for your team?
✈️ Kayak’s PriceCheck: auto-magical screenshot savings
My feed is full of breathless talk of robots, agents, avatars, sentience, AGI, and all the other things that normal people outside of the tech bubble don’t really care about.
It’s far rarer to see a post about something people very much do care about: a fast way they can save money.
Which is why Kayak’s latest initiative jumped out at me. People can take a screenshot of a flight they are thinking of booking, submit it and and the site will see if it can find a cheaper price. It’s that simple.
Too many AI initiatives focus on the tech, rather than the people. One way to check which camp you fall into is to ask yourself, “would anyone care if we didn’t have the letters ‘A’ and ‘I’ in our product description?” If not, then it’s unlikely to stick.
The bigger insight?
Changing people’s behaviour is hard. It’s 100x easier – and more welcome! – to find the little hacks and workarounds that customers are already turning to (often to save time or money). Then think about how you can use AI to help them do it effortlessly.
Now that’s a people-first AI strategy worth pursuing…
VisuAIse Futures: SXSW & beyond
This week, Natalia has been running around Austin at SXSW (giving Henry major FOMO at his client event back in London 😅) doing podcasts, graphics, and also testing an exciting new interactive AI-powered creative workshop that we’re developing.
If you want to your team to design a people-first AI strategy – then let’s talk!
💃 Soul Machines’ Digital Marilyn
Soul Machines were one of the companies we profiled last year in our piece on Authorised Celebrity Deepfakes, writing:
Deepfakes aren’t just about revenge porn or misinformation any more. Jennifer Lopez can now personally invite you (yes, you!) on a cruise. Your favourite Snapchat influencer can be your girlfriend. Virtually, and for a price. Bands can tour for years, even when their bodies aren’t able to dance for hours each night. Soon your imagination will be the only limit when it comes to content-driven experiences. That, and an army of lawyers ;)
This week, it released its Digital Marilyn at SXSW – a digital avatar which can answer questions from fans “in Marilyn’s signature voice and style.”
Virtual celebrity avatars are now increasingly common. Yet we’re still right at the start of this phenomenon. Three areas to watch:
Education is about to get 100x more interesting. Character.ai allows people to chat with historical figures. What happens when this moves to Vision Pro quality levels?
Deepfaked fan fiction will be a big grey area. However, expect smart public figures to embrace the most popular unauthorised outputs (especially positive ones that make them look good).
Longer term, we’re still finding out the cultural implications of celebrities performing for decades after after they die. Will they block up and upcoming new talent? Or will we see exciting new, cross-generational collaborations?
We live in interesting times…
About VisuAIse Futures
VisuAIse Futures is a graphic collaboration between 👩🎨 Natalia Talkowska and 🕵🏻♂️ Henry Coutinho-Mason – two curious humans with 20+ years collective experience of helping large organisations navigate change.
We love helping companies increase the reach and impact of their thinking, so if you want to bring us to run a workshop at your next AI event or meeting, and co-create a custom graphic for your organisation – then let’s chat!
“Inspiring, energetic, and entertaining. Henry's session for 2,000 senior executives from a Fortune 100 healthcare company received the highest rating from the attendees.” Brent Turner, SVP Head of Strategy, Cramer Events
Each issue of VisuAlse provides insights that bring the practical application of AI into sharper focus. I found this latest issue particularly thought provoking, with the short article on Kernel one that I'm likely to retain for some time as I sense there could be many variants of the original thinking and not just in the hospitality section. Thanks to Henry and Natalia for producing https://visuaisefutures.substack.com/
The VisuAIse graphics are dope!