Key Points
- Is AI Oxygen or Fire? AI is becoming as essential and seamless as oxygen – powering creativity and productivity – yet it must be used with care, like fire.
- Adapt or Be Outpaced. Jobs aren’t vanishing to AI, but professionals who use AI tools effectively will outperform those who don’t.
- Clean Data Is the New Gold. Just like gold, the value of data depends on its quality – clean, consistent information drives smarter, faster decisions.
- From Competitive to Collaborative Advantage. The future belongs to those who collaborate, experiment with AI, and continuously adapt to fast-paced technological change.
Fresh Perspectives on Technology and Innovation
Mike Carr recently returned from SXSW with fascinating observations about the technology revolution sweeping through the business world. The conference brimmed with talk about new tools and approaches that are changing how we work. Carr poses an intriguing question: Is AI more like oxygen – something natural and life-giving that we barely notice – or like fire – powerful but potentially destructive?
Staying Relevant in a Changing Workplace
One particularly thought-provoking SXSW session noted how technology isn’t directly eliminating jobs, but people who know how to use these new tools might outperform those who don’t. For knowledge workers, creative professionals, and brand builders, adapting to these new capabilities has become essential for staying relevant.
The Value of Good Information
The scale of investment in these new technologies is remarkable – nearly $16 trillion projected by 2030, according to one panelist from Lippencott. Another interesting comparison shared was that information is becoming “the new gold,” with cleaner, more consistent, and more complete information being the most valuable – just like the purest gold commands the highest price.
The scale of investment in these new technologies is remarkable – nearly $16 trillion projected by 2030, according to one panelist from Lippencott. Another interesting comparison shared was that information is becoming “the new gold,” with cleaner, more consistent, and more complete information being the most valuable – just like the purest gold commands the highest price.
Creating Seamless Experiences
Samsung’s approach focuses on making technology invisible. As their director of smartphone product management explained, they want to create experiences so frictionless that users don’t even notice the technology working behind the scenes – things just happen as if by magic, removing unnecessary clicks and complications.
Preparing for Tomorrow’s Workplace
For job seekers and businesses alike, several practical insights emerged from the discussions:
- Use new tools to research companies, understand their culture, and tailor your approach to their specific needs
- Experiment regularly with different tools to develop your skills and comfort level
- Practice creating effective requests to get better results
- Be aware of limitations, such as occasional inaccuracies in automated responses
The panelists emphasized a shift from competitive advantage to “collaborative advantage.” The rapid pace of change means no one has all the answers, making collaboration and continuous learning crucial for success.
A Natural Evolution
Ultimately, Carr concludes that these new technologies are more like oxygen – something we’ll use constantly throughout the day without noticing, fueling our thinking, creativity, and efficiency.
That said, we need to handle these powerful tools with care. Just like any important business asset, they deserve our respect and careful consideration – especially when it comes to keeping information secure and private.
The businesses that are thriving with these technologies aren’t simply rushing to implement them. They’re taking the time to use them, understand them, finding the right places to apply them, and teaching their teams how to use them effectively.
Don’t be the company that waits until everyone else has figured it out. The conversation is happening now, and the early adapters are already discovering invaluable shortcuts and insights. Jump in, start experimenting, and learn alongside your team – before you look up to find your competitors have quietly transformed while you weren’t looking.
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Podcast Transcription
Mike Carr (00:01):
Today I have some exciting observations from South by Southwest, which wrapped up last week in Austin, Texas. And one of the things that was super exciting was AI was everywhere. It was hard to get away from it whether presentations on the exhibition floor, conversations at lunch, dinner, everybody was talking about AI. So the question for you, is AI more like oxygen or is it more like fire? One of the most destructive forces on the planet, especially with the Texas wildfires still burning in northern part of the panhandle of the state. So back in 2017, Deepak at LinkedIn talked about how AI was like oxygen, natural life giving. You don’t even notice it, but you breathe it every second, every minute of every day. It reinvigorates, it powers everything, the planet, the animals, the humans. More recently, the CEO of Alphabet, Sundar Phai talked about how AI could be, could have a more profound effect than fire and electricity combined.
(01:29):
And fire is a very destructive force, but fire also is a force of energy. It allows you to melt things and create new metals, new alloys. It creates energy which powers the world, the internet. So is AI more like oxygen or is it more like fire and electricity? So one of the sessions at so by Southwest was AI isn’t coming for your job, but those using it will. AI isn’t coming for your job, but those people out there using AI will come after your job. I think that’s a true statement. There are some folks that are skeptics and don’t believe that’s the case, but for most knowledge workers, for most folks like us that practice a craft of naming, of brand, building of creative, we’re in the space where we’re using AI or we’re not using AI, we run the risk of being obsolete. And so it was interesting, some of the comments the panelists made to with Lippencott had a couple really interesting statements.
(02:41):
One was, nearly $16 trillion will be invested in AI by 2030. 16 trillion. That’s enough money to really move the needle. Another statement he made was the terminology around the value of data. Data is the new gold. And just like gold has different levels of purity, so does data, the pure, the gold, the cleaner, the gold, the closer to that 24 carat, the more valuable the gold. And data is the same way. The cleaner your data, the more consistent it is, the fewer errors in it, the more complete it is and the more valuable it’s going to be going forward. One of the other panelists was Blake Gaer from Samsung. He’s the director of smartphone product management, and he has some great comments about how Samsung is using AI. We want the user experience to be so easy and so frictionless that you don’t even know AI is behind the scenes, making a lot of those connections for you.
(03:57):
Allow those clicks for you. You don’t have to do that anymore, right? That things just almost happen by magic. And that’s paraphrasing what he said, but I think that’s the direction Samsung’s going to want to be having. Now, one of the audience members asked this question, which I thought was a very interesting question. He said, if you’re seeking a job, what do you need to bring to the table when it comes to AI? And Blake had a great answer to that. He said, well, one of the things you could certainly do is use AI to do research on the company, understand their culture, what they’re all about, what you can bring to the table based upon their needs, where they’re going, their products at their services. And then one of the other panelists, and I don’t know if it was Alison Sitman at Shutterstock or Chandra Davis at Expedia, made this observation, which I thought was really interesting.
(04:48):
She said, you need to be using AI right now in your job to learn it about it, to experiment with it, to try it. And we’re doing that at name stormers. We’ve recently run Claude three against ChatGPT-4, and we’re anticipating ChatGPT-5 to be out maybe next month in April, maybe in May, and it’s supposed to be a lot better than four. And we’re benchmarking those against Google’s Gemini. And then you have other variants out there. PI is sort of a fun conversational AI driven tool. And using these things and experimenting with these and trying these almost on a daily basis, you learn how to navigate. You learn how to prompt them and how to iterate through and get new ideas, fresh ideas, new insights, new paths to take. When it comes to naming, when it comes to research, when it comes to evaluate, how might a particular target react to a name?
(05:48):
What might the name mean in particular languages? Are there issues with the name from a legal trademark infringement standpoint? All these issues are that AI can help you start to address. And yeah, you need to be aware of hallucination. But the takeaway from all these panelists was in the past, it’s all been about competitive advantage. In the future, it’s going to be about collaborative advantage. That is because of the pace of change, because of all the new cool things AI is bringing to the table. No one has all the answers, right? No one knows the best solution. And even if they do, it’s going to be different the next day. So collaborating, experimenting, using it on a daily basis, talking to other folks, seems to be the key path forward for AI in naming, in branding, in strategy work, and probably in a lot of the things that you do.
(06:44):
So in conclusion, is AI more like oxygen or is it more like fire? We believe it’s more like oxygen. You’ll breathe it in constantly throughout the day. You won’t even notice it, but it will fuel your thinking. It will fuel your creativity. It’ll make you more efficient. It will streamline everything you do. But what does fire need to actually exist? So you need to be careful with AI. You need to use it the right way. You need to always be concerned about safety and confidentiality, but use properly. We’re so excited about the potential that AI has to offer us our clients. And you too.
