Why Care? 46 Generative AI & Alleviating Inequity with Tarek Kamil
“ I love technology, and I think the common thread in my career is, how can you use technology to make the world a better place. That's it. It is never about making money. It is about how the world would be better if ‘fill in the blank’ existed. I like to think about the ‘fill in the blank part,’ and I like to make that thing, whatever that thing is, and try to make the world a better place. And it's funny. You know, when you add value to people, whether you're saving them time, making their life easier, money follows that, but it's not, it's not the lead. It's never, it's never the goal. It has never been the goal..”
In this episode of Why Care?, host Nadia Nagamootoo speaks with Tarek Kamil, a serial entrepreneur and the founder of Cerkl. Tarek shares his fascinating journey, from leaving a stable career in software engineering to launching multiple tech ventures aimed at making the world a better place. They dive deep into how AI is transforming workplace communication, the importance of personalised experiences for employees, and the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in tech. Tarek also emphasises the value of taking risks, minimising regret, and embracing discomfort to drive personal and professional growth.
Key Takeaways:
Tarek’s journey emphasises the importance of using technology to solve meaningful problems and create value.
His focus is on making the world a better place through innovation and solving real-world challenges.
Personalising communication in workplaces through AI makes employees feel included and valued, enhancing productivity and engagement.
Embracing discomfort and minimising regret are key themes in Tarek’s entrepreneurial philosophy.
Taking risks and stepping out of your comfort zone is essential for growth, both personally and professionally.
Tarek encourages leaders to think long-term, asking themselves how AI and tech will disrupt their industries.
Highlights:
Tarek’s Entrepreneurial Mindset: From his immigrant roots to becoming a tech entrepreneur, Tarek shares how he has always been driven by the desire to create value and solve problems.
Minimising Regret: Tarek discusses his philosophy of minimising regret by taking risks and pursuing his passions, rather than playing it safe.
AI and Workplace Transformation: Discover how Tarek’s company, Cerkl, is leveraging AI to personalise communication and make every employee feel valued, regardless of their role.
Diversity and Inclusion in Tech: Tarek emphasises the importance of creating inclusive environments and how technology can be a key driver in building equitable workplaces.
The Future of AI: Tarek shares his insights into the rapidly advancing world of AI, and the potential challenges and opportunities it presents for businesses and individuals.
Overcoming Discomfort: Tarek explains his belief that embracing discomfort and taking on challenging situations leads to the greatest personal and professional growth.
Guest Bio
Tarek Kamil is the CEO and Founder of Cerkl, where he leads a team dedicated to transforming how organisations communicate through AI and big data. With over a decade of experience, Tarek has built platforms that leverage machine learning and behavioural analytics to personalise content delivery, ensuring that the right message reaches the right audience at the right time. His mission is to use AI to revolutionise modern communication, driving engagement, saving resources, and enhancing efficiency for organisations globally.
Links
Tarek Kamil: LinkedIn
Avenir Consulting: https://linktr.ee/avenirconsultingservices
Transcript
Tarek Kamil 00:00
I think overall, this will be a massive lift for humanity. As long as we are super careful about the inputs. The interesting thing with a model like ChatGPT, no one can explain to you how it works. Not one single person, you type in any prompt and it gives you a response, there's no one that can say, this is how it came up with that response. It's a black box, and so it's a massive amount of learning. But, if the inputs were bad, the outputs will absolutely be bad. And, where I worry is, if people are using generative AI to create content, they're going to propagate very quickly something that was wrong. Because, they got it from ChatGPT, they wrote a blog post about it, ChatGPT reads the blog post, it reinforces the wrong thing, and all of a sudden, the wrong thing becomes factual. That is what I worry about the most.
Nadia Nagamootoo 01:11
Hi, my name is Nadia Nagamootoo, business psychologist, coach, speaker, and founder of Avenir Consulting, which creates organizational growth and success via inclusion and diversity. We've been discussing the benefits that diversity brings to a company's bottom line performance for decades, with more and more evidence. But, there are so many questions organizations still have about how to achieve it. How do you create a culture where people feel valued for their uniqueness and the qualities they bring? I believe it's crucial to the future success and sustainability of every organization that they find the answer to this question, to make sure that each employee is not only supported, but also appreciated. With this podcast, I aim to get some of the key challenges to creating inclusive workplaces out in the open, and start uncovering the solutions to embracing a culture that cares for everyone.
I'm going to be having conversations with some of the most inspiring people in different countries and across industries who are pushing the boundaries on inclusion and diversity in the workplace, from topics such as parenting in the workplace, ethnicity, age, gender, mental health, and all things inclusion. I want to create a movement to change society through sharing life experiences and creating more empathy and connection. Why care? I believe that once we have organizations and societies that accept and value everyone for who they are, we become healthier, happier, and better in our roles, both inside and outside work.
Hello, and welcome to episode 46 of Why Care. My name is Nadia Nagamootoo, and I am your host. In this episode, I am delighted to welcome Tarek Kamil, CEO and founder of Circle, an AI-powered platform that elevates internal communications. As a passionate tech enthusiast, Tarek strives to create innovative solutions that positively impact the digital world. He has lived his life with a no-regrets mindset, and to this end, it has led him down a path of a serial tech entrepreneur. One of his past ventures, What If Sports, offered sports simulation technology, games, and content and grew to over 500,000 members before it was acquired by Fox Interactive Media. Tarek founded Circle in 2013 when he set out to disrupt the internal communications industry using AI to deliver messages that are personalised and relevant to each individual. To me, this is one of the best ways for organizations to demonstrate that they truly see and hear each employee's needs. Inclusion at its best. We discuss the pros and cons of artificial intelligence when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Tarek shares the jobs and roles that AI will likely make redundant in the reasonably near future.
However, he also explains how AI can be our fast track to creating equity, using the example of education to illustrate how a classroom of students with diverse abilities can each get tailored material and support to learn at their own pace. This conversation is gold for any organizational leader wanting further insight into the future of generative AI and machine learning. Enjoy.
Hello, Tarek. A wonderful, wonderful welcome to Why Care. Thank you so much for joining me.
Tarek Kamil 04:27
Thanks for having me. I can't wait to have this conversation.
Nadia Nagamootoo 04:30
Me too. I'm excited to see where it goes. I have to say that I was really delighted to receive an email from you, your colleague, having then stalked you a little bit to find out more about this incredible serial entrepreneur.I was like, yeah, I'm definitely having you on my, you're up for it. I'm up for it. So thank you for reaching out. I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background. So more than what I've read, I'm sure you can tell more about your story. You have founded and sold a few companies in your career. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about your background and what drives you.
Tarek Kamil 05:10
Relatively simple. I'm a nerd. I love technology. And I think the common thread in my career is how can you use technology to make the world a better place? That's it. It is never about making money. It is about the world would be better if fill-in-the-blank existed. I like to think about the fill-in-the-blank part. And I like to make that thing, whatever that thing is, and try to make the world a better place. And it's funny, when you add value to people, whether you're saving them time, making their life easier, money follows that, but it's not the lead. It's never been the goal.
Nadia Nagamootoo 05:56
So where did you get that sense of social value, that wanting to make a change in the world?
Tarek Kamil 06:01
My parents immigrated from Egypt when I was very young. I think it might come from being an immigrant and wanting to create value because you're not like everybody else. I think if I had to guess, that's probably it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 06:20
And so just talk us through a little bit about your first venture into entrepreneurship. What was it that you did at a fairly young age, I believe?
Tarek Kamil 06:29
I was in my twenties, and I'd left a well-paying software engineering job at a big, big company. And my approach is really, how do you get through life minimizing the amount of regret that you have? Everyone has things that they wish they would have done. They have great ideas, but then they don't take the next step. So I'm thinking, I want to minimise regret. And so that all started with, I've always wanted to start a business. And I didn't want to get to the end and say, oh, I've always wanted to do that, but I never did it. I think there's a safe route, and then there is the route which minimises regret. And so early on, I would say at the age of 20 or 21, I started making decisions based on which path would minimise regret.And I always pick that path.
Nadia Nagamootoo 07:39
There's quite a unique and mature mindset for an early 20s person, no? I mean, it feels to me, I don't think I had that. That's certainly not how I made my decisions when I was 20, 21.
Tarek Kamil 07:54
Well, don't get me wrong, I was a moron also. So a lot of stupid things. But I was raised, you've got two immigrant Egyptian parents, and they want you to be a doctor. That's just the culture. And so after three years of university, I realised I don't want to be a doctor. I hate the sight of blood.I will pass out at work every day. I can't imagine this. And so after three years, I decided I don't want that to be my life. And I got the courage to tell them I want to do things that I actually find interesting and make me happy. I'm not worried about money. I'm worried about not having any regret. So I think being raised that way, it forced me into a corner where I had to get to this place of at a very early age, if you take the route of safety, you could be very unhappy. Safe, but unhappy. I would rather take risk and have the opportunity to be really, really happy. That was my learning at the age of 20.
Nadia Nagamootoo 09:09
Gosh. And so in terms of what led you to Circle, is there a short version of your career or the path that took you to setting up Circle?
Tarek Kamil 09:20
Yeah, the short version is I was volunteering on my kids' school board here in Cincinnati. And I wanted to find a better way to get more people engaged with our kids' education. That's the very, very short version. And I thought technology can help us get there by driving engagement through personalization. Just like Netflix and Amazon and Hulu and Spotify, they're all tailored to you. Why isn't the communication tailored to each parent so they can see things and save them time where they can get engaged in a way that's meaningful to them? That was never intended to be a business. It was just trying to solve that problem.
Nadia Nagamootoo 10:04
For example, for that problem, what is it that the parents were lacking? What information could they have had that they weren't getting, for example? What's the personalization part?
Tarek Kamil 10:14
It's a great question. So if you think about it, it wasn't that they were lacking information. So as a parent, you're probably receiving an email from the school saying, here's everything that's going on every week. And we have no time. We're busy. There's so much demand on people's attention, it's hard to really cut through the noise. And so parents weren't reading because there's too much to filter through 50 things and find the one thing that's actually interesting to them. So how do we refactor that, knowing what each parent is interested in, and deliver that experience to them, which is exactly what Netflix and Amazon and others do to you every day. And so I thought if we could refactor that experience, people will be more likely to be engaged because the things they find most important will be the first things they see.
Nadia Nagamootoo 11:17
Makes sense. And so that's where Circle was born from, out of that vision. And now, how does Circle use that purpose that you've just described?How does it serve other corporates and other organizations out there?
Tarek Kamil 11:35
Where it really found a home, this technology, was when a large healthcare organization came to me and said, could we use this technology to tailor what each employee is receiving throughout our organization? So the way most people communicate today is they speak to the middle of the bell curve. That will grab no one's attention because it's so watered down. And I said, sure, let's try this. What are you doing today in terms of communication? They said, well, we use SharePoint as an intranet and we use Outlook for email. I said, that's shocking. They all do. And I said, that hasn't changed in 20 years. And so the advances we've seen with marketing and understanding your customers, your prospects, none of that is translated into how we think about communicating with, engaging, and understanding your workforce. And so it was a big eye-opener for me that there's a real opportunity to make the workplace more human, really. Treat them like individuals because they are.
Nadia Nagamootoo 12:53
And really that's where, from an inclusion perspective, from a diversity perspective, really recognising each individual's needs. What is the information that they require to be able to communicate that effectively so that it's filtered for them, for their needs? Can you just expand a little bit more on the diversity and inclusion angle of your work? Because I know that you spend quite a lot of time thinking about this and trying to integrate diversity, equity, inclusion into everything you do at Circle.
Tarek Kamil13:26
Correct. Yes, I think it's a big deal. I really do. I think that making people feel included makes them more tied to the mission of the organisation. They will produce better work. They'll be more productive. They'll stay longer. They'll tell their friends about what a great place this is to work. So there's so much value around just the idea of making everyone feel included. And so as Circle has evolved as a business, we're really thinking about that relationship between the employer and the employee. And if you take a very simple example, so let's say I go back to healthcare. I've got surgeons. I've got nurses, IT. I've got accounting. I've also got facilities. I've got people that are fixing things. How do you make that person feel as valued and as included as the surgeon? And we don't do that today. The surgeon's getting a tablet, a laptop. They have access to all the technology within the organization. Person in facilities doesn't. They don't receive that type of technology. They don't receive that type of experience. So for us, it is thinking from top to bottom, we want everyone to feel the same. We want everyone to feel like this organization cares about me, values me, and communication is the one way that you're touching every employee every day.
Nadia Nagamootoo 15:12
It's such a good point. I've got a few clients where either if it's retail-oriented client, they've got so many people on the shop floor, and then there's quite a distinction between the access that those in head office, the corporate center gets in terms of learning and development opportunities, just any form of communication. It's just easier because they are generally sitting in front of a computer compared to those who are on the shop floor.
And similarly, other clients where there's quite a large percentage of the workforce that are in call centers. And again, you've got that at all factories. So there's those sorts of industries where there's a good proportional group of individuals whose access to information isn't purely through a computer and by sitting at their desk. How would you then at Circle make sure that those organisations that have non-desk, non-office-based, how could your approach support the communication with those people?
Tarek Kamil 16:16
We think about the experience we want people to feel. And that's the key. So does that experience talk to you? Is it relevant to you? Is it about you? That's it. Let's start there. How you deliver the experience is ancillary. Whether it's through a mobile app, whether it's through SMS, whether it's through a tablet, a laptop, intranet, Teams, Slack, it doesn't matter.
And Netflix does not care how you consume Netflix. I want a big TV because I'm old and my eyesight is not fantastic. My kids can consume it on the phone because they have really good eyes. Netflix doesn't care. They don't drive you to any channel. But if you think about how companies operate today, they're driving certain types of employees to certain channels because you have access to that and others don't. That's fine based on technology, what you've deployed, but at the end of the day, the experience should, everyone should be the same. And that's what Broadcast, our product, allows organizations to do at scale.
Nadia Nagamootoo 17:38
Are you able to measure the impact of Broadcast, of your product, across different staffing demographics? So say, for example, comparing head office and their experience of the organisation and how they feel included. Are you able to compare it to those who are in the call center or frontline shop people?
Tarek Kamil 18:03
Yes. They can measure anything they would like. So for us, we give them the tools. It is up to each organization to decide what is important to them. It's any attribute within their people data. So if they wanted to compare locations, if they wanted to compare by who reports to whom, who's our most engaging people manager? If you wanted to understand based on tenure, do new employees feel as engaged as people that have been here 10 years or longer? How about by generation? Gen Z, Gen X, Millennials, Baby Boomers, all of it.I would love to know that. Now, of course you can use that for segmentation. So I want to send messages by any of these attributes.
Exactly. But the real value is what you're alluding to, that I can see engagement by any of these metrics and now I can start to adjust. If I see one is not engaging in the way that others are, maybe we need to change our messaging. Maybe we need to be more conscious about that group and talk to them in a different way. But if you don't have the data, you're working in the dark.
Nadia Nagamootoo 19:17
Yeah.
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Let's talk about AI because this is, I suppose, a new era. AI's been around for a while, but it certainly feels like of recent times, there's been a huge surgence into the world of AI, which now seems to be everywhere, you know, ChatGPT and all the other tools. And I know that you leverage AI at Circle. So let's talk, how do you use AI to the benefit of communication and tailored communication?
Tarek Kamil 20:58
So as I was thinking through this problem when I first started this and thinking about communication in general, it really follows the model of I can only tailor and be relevant to you if I understand what matters to you. If Netflix were to just have 10 movies or shows that they recommend and everyone who logs in sees the same 10, Netflix would be out of business because it's monitoring your behavior, it's seeing how quickly you get through shows, what type of shows, who are the actors in the shows, what genre is the show or movie. And then that's how they learn you will probably like these five shows because of your behavior.
Nadia Nagamootoo 21:47
What supermarkets do, right? They're seeing what we're buying on a regular basis and then they can send us offers based on what's in our regular shop.
Tarek Kamil 21:56
Oh, there's a great, great story. So this is all machine learning. So machine learning is what AI is based on. So how does it know what you like and what you don't like? How does Gmail know what is spam and what isn't spam? How does it know that that photo is of a cat? That's all machine learning. And so it's the training of AI. Well, I think it was Target.
Nadia Nagamootoo 22:24
We don't have it here in the UK, but I have heard of it.
Tarek Kamil 22:26
They're all over the United States and I'm pretty sure it was Target that was doing this. So they're monitoring people's buying habits and machines are learning. And this young lady, she started to receive offers for diapers, formula, whatever. And her father went in and said, why are you sending my daughter, who's 15 or something, all of these things around baby? And they said, we're sorry, we apologise, whatever. Well, it turns out she was pregnant. He didn't know. She had changed her buying habits, non-scented this, certain vitamins. And so the machines learn when someone changes their behavior, it's most likely she is pregnant. They didn't know she was 15. So the machines knew it before the father did. That's how machine learning works. And so within the world of internal communication, there's lots of things an organisation can be saying to any one employee. Where it differs is organizations need you to see certain things. A message from the CEO, open enrollments for your benefits starts September 1st, product announcement, we just acquired a company, leadership change, whatever it is.
Those are not optional. Then there's all these other things that are going on within the organization that are optional. How do we learn about from that bucket of optional content what you would most like to see? Well, that's machine learning. Yes. That's based on everything that this organization has said around community service or volunteering. That's really important to you. We know that. We've seen it from your behavior. So when future content around community service and learning comes out, that's going to be very high priority for you and maybe your colleague very low priority. So in an organization with 10,000 employees, every one of their experiences will be tailored to that individual based on what they need to see and what they want to see and haven't already seen. So that's how within the world of internal communication, machine learning, and AI are used today. We do that today. And then if you layer on top chat GPT and generative AI, I think you're going to see another acceleration in terms of personalization within the next 12 to 24 months.
Nadia Nagamootoo 25:08
The speed at which this technology is advancing is incredible. And certainly for a lot of us in diversity, equity, and inclusion and in the HR space and leaders as well, more generally, there's some caution there, right? Because when there's a huge disruption to what we know and there's a change in how things are working and particularly when it's sort of unknown, it feels like we're losing control a little bit to AI.AI is taking over the world. AI knows more than we do. It knows we're pregnant before we do that sort of thing. How cautious do we need to be around AI? Because there's all this kind of talk around AI is only as good as the people who design it, right? Which we know. It's still humans that are creating this artificial intelligence. And then, so it's whatever we feed it, that's what it's going to use to churn out. So if it's biased from the input, it's going to be biased from the output. So there's all of these fears, all of these concerns around AI. What's your take on it?
Tarek Kamil 26:14
I think they're all warranted, honestly. I think it's early days. It's like any new technology. When the automobile was first invented, right? People are crashing and running into things because they hadn't thought of all the precautions that they need to build in, and the safety. But would we ever say that the automobile wasn't good for humanity? No. We would never say that. Or the plane. Of course those are good for humanity. The positive far outweighs the negative. And I think that the same is true for AI. I think in the beginning, yes, we're going to have some situations that will cause us to fine-tune and refine and put in more precautions around this technology. But I think overall, this will be a massive lift for humanity, as long as we are super careful about the inputs. The interesting thing with a model like ChatGPT, no one can explain to you how it works.
No one, not one single person, you type in any prompt and it gives you a response, there's no one that can say, this is how it came up with that response. It's a black box. It's a massive amount of learning. But if the inputs were bad, the outputs will absolutely be bad. And where I worry is, if people are using generative AI to create content, they're going to propagate very quickly something that was wrong. Because they got it from ChatGPT, they wrote a blog post about it, ChatGPT reads the blog post, it reinforces the wrong thing, and all of a sudden the wrong thing becomes factual. That is what I worry about the most.
Nadia Nagamootoo 28:18
Have you got any examples of where that's happened?
Tarek Kamil 28:19
There have been some obvious kind of funny examples of ChatGPT just giving completely wrong answers. People are catching them and highlighting them and making fun of it. There's probably a lot that no one is discovering. They just assume it to be true, no one is fact-checking this. They're not double-checking, they're not cross-checking. And so I think that's happening quite a bit. I think also, especially from a corporate environment, you have examples of people uploading software code and it's not public. This is all private, confidential information. And now ChatGPT has that and it is now making it available to others. Oh gosh.
Obviously we need to put policies around within your corporate environment which you can and can't do. There have been advances in ChatGPT just in the last year to alleviate some of those concerns where it's walled off. It's for your company only. You upload something, no one else will ever have access to it. It's the same thing. It's just like with the car. We're going to learn a lot in the beginning and it's already gotten so much better.
Nadia Nagamootoo 29:33
With Zoom, if you remember, like, you know, Zoom was a small startup and then 2020 hit and from, I don't know, I can't remember the number of users they had pre-lockdown to what rapid acceleration of people signing up and using Zoom. It wasn't set up for that volume, for that scale. And of course what happened was people then starting to abuse the loopholes.The security wasn't as tight as it could have been and all of that. And so Zoom very quickly learnt the people behind the scenes rapidly creating passcodes and what have you, right? And I remember that so vividly in lockdown where there was a judge and jury wasn't there and the court hearing or something can start a doodling on the Zoom call.
So funny. So how, okay, so it's a genuine concern that the input isn't going to be right. It is going to be biased. What do we put in place? What are the precautions? How do we make sure that we're creating generative AI that alleviates inequity rather than reinforces inequity?
Tarek Kamil 30:47
Such a great question. So if you think about where is, it's the internet, it's the web. Who created that, right? And so it's mostly people of a certain demographic and so there is inherent bias on the web today. How they solve for this, I don't know. I don't know how we're going to get from one side to the other without bias. And it probably is going to be the biggest roadblock with generative AI in general being just accepted as the truth because it is based on inputs that were written by.
Nadia Nagamootoo 31:41
Yeah.
Tarek Kamil 31:42
That's a problem. I don't know how we're going to get from here to there. I'm sure someone will figure it out. I think given the acceleration that we've seen just in the last 12 months and the sheer volume of money being thrown at AI is unbelievable. Is unlike anything we have ever seen before. So I'm positive we'll be able to figure it out given how many smart people are thinking about this problem and how much money is being thrown at this problem. But today there is no good answer for that question.
Nadia Nagamootoo 32:29
Hi, I hope you're enjoying this episode of Why Care? I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you more about the work we do at Avenir. We have a global team of DEI facilitators and coaches with a collective purpose to create a world where everyone feels like it was designed for them. We do this through our signature inclusive leadership programme, which includes a cutting edge online simulation tool, sponsorship programmes, intersectional talent development programmes, and workshops that generate new and powerful conversations at all levels of organisations. If you're interested in learning more about what we do, please drop me a note either via our website or through socials. I'd love to hear from you. Back to the episode.
What do you see if you were to predict the changes in technology and AI in combination over the next 5 to 10 years? What's on the horizon? What is it that we should be expecting do you think?
Tarek Kamil 33:19
I think the ability for us to use generative AI to help save us time to give you ideas to get started. I think certain professions that are based on holding on to knowledge take the legal profession for example they should be terrified of generative AI. Today you can upload contracts and have it review your contracts or compare these two agreements and it highlights all the differences and the meaning this means this that means that you should focus on paragraph 2 section C it's unbelievable and it's milliseconds to get that. So it's going to lead people that have different skills I think they will do really well. Generative AI is not going back in the bottle. So people that are really good at communication collaboration problem solving these skills are going to be invaluable and other professions I think should be concerned when we speak specifically about internal communication it really is more about letting AI help them.
So you don't have to do the dirty work of creating a piece of content and then going to all these different channels understanding who has seen it not seen it AI is doing that today. It is going to be more about I need to write a memo in the voice of my CEO that's going to talk about the next quarter or leadership changes in words that a 5th grader would understand. It's going to be fantastic at helping you get started so it's going to save people time. Then the next logical question would be what do you do with the saved time? Now you can do things like what we were talking about earlier. Dive into the data. Dive into the data understand analytics understand segmentation really show your value because you have chat GPT and other tools like it that's going to save you so much time so how can you show your value in other ways?
Nadia Nagamootoo 35:49
So there's some reskilling probably for some people do you feel like those people whose jobs fit into this job description actually those job descriptions will morph and change quite rapidly over the next 5-10 years with generative AI taking some of that on and being able to do it at like 100 times the speed as a human would be able to do it. Is there any concern of certain socio-demographic groups being more affected than others? So those jobs, I mean you've spoken about the legal profession which is obviously more on the higher end of socio-economic backgrounds typically. Are there any other socio-economic groups that you think particularly of maybe a lower socio-economic background who might be inadvertently affected by AI pushed out of the workforce potentially if they don't reskill?
Tarek Kamil 36:49
Absolutely I think this is going to take jobs kind of lower level jobs from people I think it will be harder to get into the workforce people that aren't exposed to technology they're at risk. I think people at a socio-economic disadvantage are going to have a much more difficult time working their way up. Because now you're competing with computers kind of to get into the workforce. So you can't really start at step one so I do worry that certain socio-economic groups will be more negatively impacted, yes
Nadia Nagamootoo 37:30
What do we do about that because there's obviously there's a concern there certainly for me with an equity lens, with a lens around we're already struggling to get underrepresented groups into the workplace and at senior levels in the organization. If they're actually they're now potentially not skilled in the right way to enter the workforce to progress with the knowledge that they have what's the positive action that we need to take for that demographic group now to predict and to support for the future?
Tarek Kamil 38:08
Unfortunately I think education is the answer to this problem. Why I say unfortunately is it lags, our educational systems lag. From something like generative AI it's years and years before our educational system catches up to figure out how do we embrace this, how do we arm our children to be successful going forward. It will be seven to ten years and we're gonna have a valley where you're going to have people in this valley ChatGPT and others bar Gemini exist. And seven to ten years of kids being taught the old way they are going to be completely unprepared for what they're walking into. So ten years from now I think we'll be fine. Now to say all of that I think if I stick with education the upside to this is that I believe generative AI will be the single biggest thing to positively impact education since the computer or the pencil. Why? Because our biggest issue with education is we're moving entire cohorts along together. If you've got twenty-five children in a classroom we're moving them together at the same pace where you have five kids that are five chapters ahead and you've got five kids that are five chapters behind and we're teaching to the middle. Generative AI is going to change all of that, it is going to be tailored to each student so you're not going to have kids left behind it's going to take us a couple of years to get there. When it is there I think it will be the biggest impact in terms of leveling education and removing bias as part of our educational process. So we've talked about a lot of the downsides of AI and new technology I think this will be tremendous for all of humanity in terms of really removing bias when it comes to education.
Nadia Nagamootoo 40:28
And how powerful because there's so many children who enter the education system and come out with less self-worth, less self-confidence than they entered. Really feeling like they're not capable compared to their peers. They're benchmarking against everyone else who seems to think a certain way and be able to answer the questions that the teacher's asking without any issues and there they're sitting struggling to focus or they can't keep up or they don't know what question to ask or they do know what question to ask but they don't know how to ask it. I mean there's just so much that technology and AI can support with if it can offer that personalised approach if you think about self-worth and self-belief and self-confidence. And obviously the correlation between that and mental health and well-being which is a constant decline in the mental health of young people certainly in the UK and I'm pretty sure in the US too and in many countries around the world. So I wonder how we might see a correlation there between that tailored personalised approach where children aren't being left behind where they're being educated to serve their needs, what their requirements are, tailored to their learning style and hopefully positive correlation with mental health and well-being. Bringing it back to the workplace then what advice do you have for leaders as AI disrupts and transforms how we do business, how we communicate how we learn how we navigate life in general?
Tarek Kamil 42:03
This is not my idea this was stolen from Facebook but I love it. Try to do this every day and I think all leaders should is to really take some time and ask yourself the question if fill in the blank existed we would be out of business. Get them to really think about the future. What is going to disrupt you and then build that thing. I think leaders sadly are often very short term focused especially with larger organizations, it's quarter to quarter it's the next three months and they're not thinking long term. And so if you spent every day and had your people answer the same question, if fill in the blank existed we would be out of business what is that, what's the answer to that question and why are we not building it, why don't we make it. They get stuck with how things have always been done. And so AI is part of that. So you've got it now on the horizon it is never going away. How would AI disrupt your business go build that thing. That's probably the most important piece of advice I could give to leaders is to think that way. And then secondarily, I think the value of your people if you look at any organization their single largest expense is their people it's what they're spending the most money on, it's also your single greatest asset. I don't know that all leaders see that. I think many leaders would say their customers are more important, their product or service is more important. And I would argue it is always your people invest in your people because they're the foundation for everything else. How you deliver your product, your service, retention, retaining your knowledge your future leaders are going to come from your workforce. So to think about making sure you understand that your people are an asset not a liability.
Nadia Nagamootoo 44:22
Yeah. Unfortunately, I have to agree with you with the number of leaders that I come across and the number who still need convincing that inclusion isn't just a tag on to the business strategy, that they focus on the business strategy and they'll continue doing just as well as they've always done. So if inclusion hasn't been a focus up to date and they've been successful why bother focusing on inclusion now right it's just be part and parcel of the work that we do. And it's such a gap in thinking. Because when you layer over everything we've been speaking about and the disruption that's inevitable for every industry and every organisation when it comes to technology and AI alone we can't afford, businesses can't afford not to have inclusion front and centre their people making sure their people have a tailored approach to how they're experiencing the organization. To their needs to how they're being communicated with, to how they're being listened to and heard will be central right to their business proposition and the sustainability and whether they're here in five to ten years time. You're spot on spot on with everything you've said Tarek. I mean I could talk to you for ages about this and I feel like we just sort of skimmed the surface of technology and AI and everything that we do but we're coming closely to the end of our conversation. And I'm asking all of my guests this season having released my book Beyond Discomfort in March this year, to talk about a personal experience that you have had which has pushed you beyond discomfort something diversity equity and inclusion related whether as a leader at Circle whether just in your day-to-day life or maybe something you've observed but something that's really made you think and stop and question yourself in that moment of oh have I quite got this right?
Tarek Kamil 46:22
How much time do you have? Because I fundamentally believe in this idea of discomfort. So I learned at an early age goes back to that conversation I had with my parents very uncomfortable and taking the road less travelled taking risk all uncomfortable but that is where growth comes from. It is when you put yourself out there and you are uncomfortable and you do it anyway. And so I try to think all the time what makes me feel nervous or anxious? And instead of people running away from that feeling they should run towards it. Instead of society getting you to believe no one should ever feel uncomfortable. No one should ever feel anxious. I said if that was actually true you would never grow. You need to run towards those feelings. So when you have something put in front of you they might come to you and say we want you to talk to the entire company for 30 minutes. That is going to make you very very nervous. And it's okay you're human you should be nervous. But you should also understand that those feelings make you. The more nervous you are it's the bigger the opportunity for you to grow as a human being. How do you maximise the potential you can become? That is how you do it. I love the idea of discomfort and I wish more people talked about it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 47:59
Is there a time when you've been alert to that feeling that nervousness that anxiety feeling of maybe mis-stepping or making a mistake when it comes to diversity and inclusion and doing it anyway like walking towards it is there an example?
Tarek Kamil 48:13
I'm not sure necessarily with DE and I but it's anything. It's you know meeting with presenting to the board of directors, going on a big sales call you know where it's a massive opportunity to grow the business anything right that makes you feel nervous. I like everyone else used to dread that feeling and try to minimise that feeling and now I run towards it. I can't wait. That's my body telling me the big growth opportunity right in front of you go embrace it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 48:50
Brilliant. Well, I love that philosophy. I love how you from such a young age have seemed to have this mindset which is look no regrets, let's go for this. Let's run towards the anxiety and the potential failure and let's see what happens and you have created some incredible things from that mindset and everything that you do. Thank you so much for sharing Tarek. It's been a pleasure to have you on Why Care and yeah, I'm just really grateful for your time.
Tarek Kamil 49:23
Likewise. This was a wonderful conversation. I really enjoyed it.
Nadia Nagamootoo 49:28
If people want to get hold of you, where's the best place? You're on social as I assume.
Tarek Kamil 49:33
Yes, mostly LinkedIn. So just go out to LinkedIn, find me, people ask me send me questions all the time. I love nerding out about these topics.So if anyone wants to reach out to me ask questions have a conversation. I'm also happy to just pick up the phone and talk to people just want to help people. Yeah, absolutely.
Nadia Nagamootoo 49:55
Amazing. Well the link to everything that Tarek and I have spoken about today is on the usual show notes page Nadia nagamootoo.com under podcasts. Thank you once again Tarek, a pleasure to chat to you today. Thank you.
Tarek Kamil 50:09
Nadia. Thank you very much.
Nadia Nagamootoo 50:11
That concludes episode 46 of Why Care? Tarek's insights are a real wake-up call in how organizations can leverage AI to create a more inclusive organization that offers a personalised approach for its employees users and stakeholders. As with any disruption to life as we know it, it can be scary to think of the number of jobs that won't exist and how much will be taken over by machines. However, Tarek is right. It can bring about so many positives if leveraged in the right way. Do let Tarek and I know what you thought of today's show. You can find me on LinkedIn and Insta with the handle at Nadia Nagamootoo.
As always, I really appreciate your support of this podcast through leaving a review on whatever platform you're listening and spreading the word by sharing it with your friends and family. Huge thanks to Mauro at Kenji Productions for editing this podcast and Jenny Lynton for getting it out there on social media.
