Washington Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting: Reclaiming Your Time
Erin Fuller of MCI USA discusses ideas and strategies for reclaiming your time at the Washington Women Leaders Association Chapter Meeting.
Transcript
Well, now we are going to move on to our keynote presentation for the afternoon. So, Aaron, can you turn your camera on and say hello? Hi everybody. How are you? I'm Aaron Fuller. Uh I'm uh the global head of association work for a company called MCI. We have 2,000 people in 60 offices in 31 countries. So, I split time between my base in Arlington, Virginia. I'm actually in Chicago. uh today uh kind of in the corner of a hotel uh and then Geneva, Switzerland. Um and so I I in some of what I do, I serve uh on the global uh AI leadership team and lead our US AI strategy um with a focus on the association market.
Um and uh and I also serve as uh the uh associate professor at American University. Um, and uh would be uh remiss if I didn't mention that I'm a proud single mom uh to two feminist sons. Uh they are 17 and 20. Um and uh and just really thrilled to be here today. Um and so I I use this quote purposely from the great Maxine Waters about reclaiming your time. Um but uh really thinking about how we can kind of use AI as a superpower uh and and think about uh leadership and innovation. So definitely a switch from the great panel um that just uh concluded. Thank you so much uh so so uh everyone was so vulnerable and and so great and and and sharing so much.
I took lots of notes. Um but I do think that there is a throughine here which is really thinking about the status of of women in terms of leadership, in terms of employment, in terms of oftentimes women's reticence to get involved with technology. uh and really thinking about, you know, this is a moment that needs to be seized for uh several reasons. So, I will go ahead and kind of walk you through some of those. Now, um I did want to say, I know I'm a fast talker. I hear that all the time from my global colleagues in particular. Um I have if you if you hover over this um there is a landing page that we developed um that uh has links to some of the articles and studies I mentioned as well as some of the AI tools just so you have that so you can uh listen and and uh and and hopefully not feel um uh too too ownorous in terms of taking notes etc.
So you know when we think about who you know AI it's everywhere it's all we read about. I know some of us have just we're kind of hoping we can just get through maybe the rest of our careers without talking about it or using it. I'm sure others of you uh on this call um have started to integrate it into your work. But I think a lot of times when we think about who owns and creates and uses AI, we often see this guy right like in our in our head, right? Kind of this text tech bro guy. You can maybe name him Chad or something. Um and and I think by the end of the day, the end of of this kind of quick time I have with you today, I hope that we can kind of maybe see ourselves.
Um a study by Harvard Business School found that women are adopting generative AI tools at significantly lower rate than men. On average, women are 25% less likely to use these tools compared to men. And um this gap is attributed about the concerns of the ethics of AI, which is absolutely legit. um and and fear being judged uh for relying on these on these tools. And then Pew Research Center did a report that women are generally more worried about the future use of AI in the workplace compared to men. So twice as much more likely to be anxious about that. And um and then basically in general, Harvard's also found that um the number or the the share of women using AI tools is consistently 10 to 40% smaller than that of men.
So these are all kind of things and we'll walk through some of these today, but uh my goal is to kind of, you know, have you think um change your thinking about uh AI. So a lot of times I find this is kind of the mindset, right? It's like a big bowl of kale. We know it's a superfood and you should use it more, eat more of it, and it'll make you better, but realistically doing this each day just feels kind of depressing. Um and and the goal is to really view uh move you or some of you towards viewing AI as a trusted partner giving you a hand when you need it to help you succeed in less time.
And and I think one of the things that I really like and this is of course an AI generated image right is that digging right in the wrong place is still digging wrong. We all got to our current roles and listening to the examples that were just given by the prior panel. we got there by doing all the work and showing our work and putting in the time. And so I think there's this this burden um maybe for women leaders in particular um and and a real shift that we don't get points for that anymore. So if you tell me that you spent three weeks doing something that might take me a few hours now that I have a tool set, I might start questioning kind of your efficiency, choices, decision-making skills, etc.
And so that's one way where we can really see AI having um having a difference. So when I thought about kind of AI and leadership as someone who has a global global leadership role and I work as I mentioned a pretty large team we have 350 talents in the US uh in 2000 globally and so I spent a lot of time thinking about uh how I can be kind of the the best uh leader possible and I kind of thought about some some key tenants of leadership and tried to overlay AI on those. Um and I think that you know sometimes we forget that women have a strong history of co-opting all kinds of technology right so the bicycle which started out of course for boys and men to have a cheaper form of transportation and deliver was quickly adopted by women in fact it became the symbol of women's independence especially white women's independence uh and suffrage um the telephone um was designed for wealthy men and corporations to use for B2B work um but quickly became one of the first places for women, both black and white, to have a profession, to actually have uh professional opportunities um once they shifted kind of the mindset of who the ideal operator can be.
Um I bet a lot of people on the call might know what these these symbols are. Um that uh I always I always think of it as like a girl a girl reading with a little bow in her hair. That's what I see. That's probably some kind of litmus test, but that's Libby. um and overdrive. Um women are um far more they're three times likely to read more than 30 books a year than men and two times more likely to uh read at least one book. And the use of um of of ebooks of course is is really dominated by women. And we know that e-commerce is dominated by women. When we look at sites like Etsy and eBay um as well as the ability to um start uh up businesses and and do kind of um homebased businesses, etc.
Um there's a real equalizer there. Um there's health apps, right? So app tracking um you know, women have um leaned in on that. Fitness tracking, this is a wearable ring. Um and e-learning. Um so these are all areas where these these technologies were created. many many times by men probably with men in mind um but women have become the dominant users in the space so just something to keep in mind so this is a really great study it's it's taken from SSIR a research project with 10,000 knowledge workers surveyed on AI use and basically there are two groups there are people who feel more optimistic and more capable in using AI and then people who feel less optimistic and capable and it's about the same it's always interesting right when we see a bell curve and and they kind of frame this as pilots and passengers.
And we really want to shift more women in particular to be pilots. When you think about the data that I shared at the beginning of this conversation about women using tools less, we are then opening the door for more men to kind of feed into this pilot space. And I know that there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of people in this call um are have spoken about or are experiencing career transition. I loved this this from the World Economic Forum which is really kind of what the core skills will be in five years and this is really driven by AI. So obviously we see AI up there. Um but we see things like curiosity and lifelong learning and creative thinking, leadership and social influence, right?
These are all things that are very much to stay. And when those of us who are thinking about recering or I have uh one kid in college and one about to go and so we have a lot of conversations about what skills um it makes sense to kind of invest our time in. Then we look at kind of the things that are potentially falling off. Some of these I think are really concerning. Global citizenship we're seeing that happen right now. multilingualism, right? Because um maybe this is finally when Americans have a leveled field, but uh when we have the ability to do simultaneous translation with AI, some of that will get lost as a result. So, it's not all good news, but I do think that a lot of what we hear about AI and the impact on career tends to be careers will go away.
Um I would argue that there have been careers that have been going away due to technology for a long time. Toll booth collectors, right? Parking lot attendants. there's all of these jobs that used to exist that uh technology has kind of replaced and and probably improved safety uh as a result. Um so just kind of thinking about it differently and I think the other piece is that right now so this isn't looking ahead this is right at this moment 60% of the tasks done by someone with at least a bachelor's degree 57% for those with a master's or PhD can be done by AI and um AI open AI just scored a perfect 10 on the US medical residency exam uh we have uh open AI also outperforming PhD humans on the GPQA diamond exam So, it's not thinking ahead to when will the AI be smarter.
AI has the the language and the information. It really needs humans uh to be kind of um reviewing and helping and prompting and using that creative thinking to help push it along. Um but, you know, I always say we can't kind of throw this at people and just expect people to magically be able to use it. We have to make sure that we're creating a safe spa space in wherever we're working um to make sure that people have the learning and the opportunity um and exposure to experts um that lets people fail fast uh and learn from mistakes. So, one of the things I always say is you can't break the AI. So, before I kind of dive into some tools and examples, I always just want to say, you know, be safe, right?
So, when you test tools out, if you're looking at a tool, use something generic. Don't obviously share your personal information or work information. When you find a tool that you think will be helpful, always pay for it. These tools just aren't that expensive. Make sure you're toggling all the privacy settings. Otherwise, if you're in an open AI environment, um, and you're not paying for it, it can take whatever you put in there and use it to train AI. And for those of us who are in an environment with proprietary information, highly regulated industries, etc. Um, it's really important uh for us to kind of use those privacy tools. So, I won't spend a lot of time here, but but always want to do that caveat.
And just one more time, here's where the workshop resources are if I went too fast earlier. Okay. So looking at kind of leadership, I'm looking I've combined the strengths of AI and some standard tenants of leadership development to show how uh how why AI can help you grow as a leader and a manager and improve outcomes for you personally and professionally. So the first one is delegation which we all hear about and we all probably struggle with right the ability that we can do it better ourselves right I hear women say that all the time I say that to my kids all the time and have to stop myself. So, here's kind of an example. I pulled this from open-ended survey responses from an organization uh that I've worked with, and this is, you don't have to look at what it is.
It's just um I I laugh because this is such a very um typical response to an event, which is kind of like the room was too cold, the content was great, I hated the salad, I didn't have time to change for the event. I mean, you name it, it's kind of on here. These were uh a lot of events, right? So, this is to the question, what did you want to see in the next event in 2025? And so what I did is I opened up chat um and I put this as my prompt, right? The prompt is what you tell AI to do. So please analyze and summarize this attendee feedback. So when you think about kind of this massive amount of data and the ability within 30 seconds to have this organized for you, um it's incredibly helpful.
Any of us who had to deal with open-ended text uh responses uh can appreciate this is this is great. Um and then you can kind of go further. So based on that summary, could you write a 250word blog post to get people excited about coming to next year's event? So leveraging that data not just to do an analysis, but to create a marketing piece uh that can go ahead and and leverage that. And you can go further. Can you do a 150word marketing email, right? And so again, using exactly what people said they liked, what they were looking forward to in 25, having that work to create that content for you. Um, another example I have, um, and Ginger, just so you know, I can't if there's any questions or anything coming in, and I hope you'll you'll interrupt me, uh, since I can't see that as I'm presenting, but, um, here's an example, too.
All of us are on webinars all the time, like this one, and a lot of times, um, there'll be a transcript that's running. Um, I used Co-Pilot for this example. Um, you could use chat just as easily. So, within Zoom calls, there's an AI assistant that's oftentimes enabled. Um, and so I got this transcript. This is from um, uh, ironically a presentation on cutting through the baloney of AI for associations. Um, and so I took the transcript and I pasted it into Word. Um, and then I went ahead or you could paste this all directly into chat and I gave I gave it a few uh, a few prompts um, based on the tools. Um, so based on this conversation, so long long you know hour and a half webinar, what are three things I should actually be doing?
What are the three action steps I should take? So, here's kind of the first thing I used it for. Then I said, can you do a blog post based on this transcript since I attended this session? What could I write about attending this session that would show that I'm participating in professional development and I'm smarter about AI? Um, maybe I'm interviewing someone and I want to test if they're up to speed on AI. Leveraging this transcript, what are questions I could ask about a prospective employee? And then could you draft a LinkedIn post for me that shows I attended this session? And I loved this like so just attended an insightful session on AI tools. What I love is at the the end they even hashtagged it, you know, # AI productivity # innovation.
So these are some ways where you can take what you're doing and add a little extra to it, right? So thinking about how you can delegate some of that to to AI. The second thing I said is just kind of cut to the chase. I love chat PDF. This is a free tool. I have this posted on the workshop resources. This allows you to take any PDF, drag it right here, um, and then ask it questions about the PDF. And I know a lot of us have highly technical uh, areas of study or profession and and so there can be a lot of information. Um, this is amazing. So, I went ahead and just pulled an association, the American Library Association, an organization that's in a pretty dynamic environment right now, and pulled the state of America's libraries in 24.
I imagine this will change a lot for 25. Um, and so basically, I asked the question, I'm the new director of marketing at this organization. Here's the most recent association report. What are five takeaways that will make me look smarter when talking to staff and leaders? Right? And so, it went ahead and gave me these. I was like, gosh, so many of us are thrown into new experiences and the ability to um have AI help us get up to speed or when we have massive imposttor syndrome when we start something new, the ability to have that support is really great. You know, I also think that the ability to minimize the boring stuff uh with AI is great.
Um, so when we think about meeting agendas, presentations, organizing emails, um, I have C-Pilot, which is integrated with the Microsoft suite. So I'm able to do a search. It will search through my team's chats and my emails and all of my documents. And it's such a timesaver versus searching for things kind of individually and and as I said, summarizing large amounts of information. Um, and then, you know, also the ability to strengthen writing. So many times we're staring at kind of that blinking cursor uh when we have to start a project. And so using AI to help you with some prompts, you know, can you give me I'm I'm struggling to start a presentation or report on this.
Could you give me the first few sentences, right? Um you know, you you have a lot that you can do with AI in terms of here are a few other things I've written or here's an other report I did. Can you use this as a model or a template? Um you know, have it edit something you've already done. Uh, and then one of my favorites is taking something that I've done in one format and having it turn into something else like an article or a white paper or a blog post. So, really helping you maximize the value. And I think this is something that we don't always think about for AI, but you know, a leader takes control of difficult conversations, uh, right?
We eat the frog. We we go ahead and do kind of the hardest thing on our list, and a lot of times that's with other people. the ability to um have AI as your sparring partner or your coach. Uh sometimes I will go ahead and say, you know, I've got someone coming in. She she has two years of experience and wants to know when her next promotion's happening. Here are all the things I think she does great. Here are areas I want her to develop. How would you structure this conversation? Right? And and AI can be really helpful of giving you an outline. I think a lot of times when we're prepared, uh it's easy. Um I just bought a new car two weeks ago.
Uh, and when I went into that uh, that interaction, AI had kind of I I knew what I was trading in. I knew um, and AI nailed within a dollar of what my monthly payment ended up being. And so, I think I went into I'm 54 and I went into that that experience for the first time really feeling incredibly confident um, and prepared. And I think also idea generation, a lot of times we're looking to theme something uh, for marketing um, etc. And then I think you know from this is kind of a big one. I was I was just listening to a podcast um as I was driving to this conference yesterday. Chelsea Handler was saying saying something about how fear really limits our possibilities.
When we are afraid um we cut off a whole bunch of options um as a result of that fear. If you're afraid to fly, for instance, it can limit your travel, you know, as kind of a an easy example. And so I I really think that this kind of curiosity versus fear is is so powerful. Um especially for women who I think um oftentimes um are taught or encouraged or reinforced to be more fearful. Um and then there's just the simple fact of being a woman where um a lot of our choices and decisions are are marked a little bit by the need to be cautious, right? And be concerned about our safety. But I think that mistakes show that you tried something out.
Um, when my kids were little and they mispronounced something, I always would say, 'Well, the only reason you could be mispronouncing something is because you read it somewhere.' And reading is amazing. So, good for you for learning a new word and trying it out, right? Like kind of in this in this safe space. And let's work on how we actually pronounce that. Um, and I I think that it's it's kind of the same when we think about leadership in incorporating new new technology because some mistakes show leaderships, right? So, mistakes of ambition. Um, so sometimes we fail on big goals. Um, sometimes we launch something that maybe isn't as successful as we'd hope it would be.
But I think that we always lead these can lead to us learning and applying that to a future situation. When we don't attempt something new because it's too big or too new, um, then that, you know, when we consume instead of create, right, which I I really like that kind of paradigm, um, then that can often give us short-term comfort. And so I often say, you know, don't be distracted by waiting until you know everything. Needing something to be perfect. Um, waiting for it to be extremely customized exactly for your situation or circumstance. Um, pressure to have total consensus. Sometimes women in particular are consensus driven leaders and you're waiting for everybody to kind of gather around something and sometimes you just have to um, you got to kind of move things ahead.
The other thing I'll say about AI before if we have any questions I can answer them is that you've got to think about who you're talking to. A lot of times when we think about the technology we're thinking about, you know, kind of all of these buttons and gadgets um and uh and um and very much uh uh experts at the helm. But I would suggest maybe and this is like definitely a prototype of my older son by the way, not him, but it could be. Um you know, is it co-pilot or is it a team? So, for example, when I tell my kids, 'Clean your room.' Maybe there are other parents on this call that are more successful.
But for me, I don't always get the results that I want. Um, but if I'm if I'm really specific, please put away your laundry, take all of the cups and plates downstairs. Why were they there in the first place? And make your bed. Um, I tend to get the results that I want, right? So, being really specific um with prompts and making sure you're really telling the technology to do what you want it to do, I think is important. So, you know, being really specific, as I said, you can't break it. Um, you can have a conversation. So, it's not a oneanddone. You're like, 'Oh, I used it and it gave me something that was garbage.' Well, what about it was garbage.
How could you refine it? Right? Um, I think that there's this trend going on right now where everyone's using AI to create their action figures. It's never going to be right the first time. It's never going to have my glasses the right shade or um, you know, all of these different things, right? So, you can go back and forth and have a dialogue and it will help you learn how to be a better prompter. Um, and I always I always use um polite language. Uh, when I'm I'm speaking with the AI, I think that I get um a nicer response um and it it helps me kind of interact in a more positive way. And when we have AI do something we don't know how to do, we don't know how to fix its mistakes.
And this is where the human element really comes in. uh where we have to make sure that there is human checkpoints and quality control and that back and forth dialogue I'm I'm speaking about um so that we're not just kind of producing things that are soulless or uninformed. Um AI is trained by the internet uh which can be a dumpster fire of misogyny and racism and all kinds of isms um and biases and so it's our jobs I think to correct it. When I ask for an image of an accountant and it gives me the image of a man I will tell the AI actually 62% of practicing CPAs are women right and so therefore and and x are women of color and so this is not a representative image that you should be giving me.
I will take the time to correct the AI because I want to make sure I'm driving better results. Um, so, you know, I hope before I kind of move to any Q&A if we have some, you know, hopefully we've gone a little bit from the kale um to feeling like maybe we could use AI to kind of give us um a hand. Uh, and I think that the ability everybody on this call, I'm sure, has a to-do list a mile long. Um, I know I do as well. And kind of going through that list and thinking about how I could use AI, how I could use technology to help me accomplish some of the things on this list.
And every day having that approach will help more women get up the curve. Um, and and I think, you know, some questions to ask yourself uh about this is, you know, how much on your list is human work and how much could could be done by a machine? How much of what you do is truly yours, right? are you repackaging um information that somebody else gives for another audience um in which case AI is great at that um versus your own original content. I write articles for Fast Company. I wrote those articles. I don't have AI do that for me. I may have AR AI spar with me a little bit for topic generation, but I know what's mine.
Um and then how much of what you do is this uh this command and control piece, the piece I mentioned at the beginning of I do it the best myself. I don't need help. it's faster this way. Um or I've always done this particular thing. Um and and I I think that in in general sometimes women I call it the illusion of productivity. We all get maybe too much value of being busy. Um, and so, you know, really taking a step back and having the AI help us do things more efficiently and more effectively, I think, can be really powerful because it's here, right? So, it's it's not, you know, we're kind of too late to say, 'Oh, I'm afraid of it or I I don't think we should be using, etc.
It's already fully integrated. I'm at a conference right now that's the AI innovation summit, and it's uh mind-blowing what's happening.' So, so change is inevitable. Um, you don't really have a choice there about the change. you do have a chi a choice of whether you're going to engage and be part of progress. Um, and I think that, you know, when we think about why we should care and why we should lean in, regardless of where you are in your career, you know, there's widening economic inequality. So, women may struggle to advance in careers if they're not using AI technology that um uh increase productivity. If we don't have uh diverse perspectives in AI development, there's a higher risk of embedding gender biases into these systems, right?
And so these can perpetuate the stereotypes that I just gave an example of and and can have real impact from hiring algorithms to healthcare diagnostics. Um and then just in general missing innovation opportunities. And so I think the goal is for more of us to feel fluent and comfortable here so that that this guy asks us for help. Um, and so, you know, with that, um, I would just say here are the resources. Um, and then if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, there's a link right here as well. Um, I love talking about this stuff. It is not my core job. I just have kind of a passion about it. I feel like it's given me, uh, my superpower.
Um, and so, um, you know, with that, um, I can I can pause here. Um, and if there are any questions that have come in, I would I would love to to go ahead and take a look at those. Yes, Erin, thank you so much. Um, let's see. We've had a few questions that have come in. Um, I'll start with our first question from Beth and she said, 'What is your opinion on using AI services for a job search? Several companies are offering this service.' Well, I guess I don't know enough about the product, so I'm going to be product agnostic. I would also say in general I wouldn't fall in love with any one product fall in love with the functionality because there's so much M&A happening.
Um so whether for instance you use Otter or Fireflies or Teams to take notes I'm I'm pretty agnostic about that. So on the job search piece I I I don't know if I understand is it for you seeking a job um and and using a service for that. I think that there's a couple ways you could do that. One is to AI optimize your resume for better or worse. AI is definitely looking like a lot of a lot of most hiring uh entities are using AI to do an initial screening. So if it's someone looking at your resume and CV and seeing how you can optimize your experience to be noticed and picked up by AI, I think that's great.
Um if it's if it's combing for job postings, um I'm not as familiar with that kind of service. But in general, I mean, we're all using AI. Google is AIdriven, right? So, if this is an an engine someone's created to help identify opportunities, I think that's great. I think the price point uh is something that I would be curious about. Um and so would be happy to to kind of feel that. Um oh, they'll apply for you using AI. Well, I mean, I don't love that. Although you could argue that using a search firm um or executive search where they're creating a package for you and putting you in front of employers is that and this does it to scale.
Um, so you know, you have to kind of walk through, you know, what are they doing? Are they bombarding employers with your information, etc. I think I'd want to know more about the quality versus quantity there before I could uh give um give kind of a verdict on that. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, let's see. Um, here's an interesting one from Tony. Tony says, 'Um, I have hard copies of participant evaluation forms from an in-person training session.' We've all been there, Tony. How can I take these forms and have AI kind of develop a summary analysis of open-ended questions? Super easy. So, just take them scan them into take them to a scanner, a photocopy or whatever.
Make a PDF out of them. Um, and then I would load the PDF up um, into either chat uh, probably chat or or chat PDF which I I listed here. I always try to I always try to focus on the free tools, you know, if you're starting into this. You the the the tools can now read um, the the imagery in these like exceptionally well. Um, and then you're able to ask questions from it. So um, basically you would, you know, you would feed those in, you'd create your PDF, you would then go ahead and use the prompts that I shared today. Um, and you would be able to say, you know, do an analysis of the open-ended questions.
You can have it make a table. You can have it, um, if you have demographic questions on those, uh, on those evaluations, you can say, can you please organize the information by say age or years of tenure or whatever information you have. So, um, the these tools have come such a long way. So, even if there's handwritten information, these tools are are are getting very very good at at reading handwriting. Um if we think about the note-taking products that are out there, Remarkables, etc., um those are all AI enhanced as well. Um but that would be super easy. So the first step would be to create a PDF. Oh, that is good to know. Thank you.
All right, this will be our final question, then we'll ask you for final thoughts before we go to our panel for the day. Kayla says, 'When does using AI border on not being real or possibly dishonest since some are since some people can use it to um create 100% of their own writings content and some are just creating rough drafts and then you know going from there. So talk about I guess the ethical ethical concerns maybe. Yeah, I mean I think that I mean I would take a step back and say somebody who's using AI to do that is probably not an ethical worker in general, right? So they're also probably I don't know taking some post-its home.
Um so you know I I would you know and I would look at their expense reports. So I I think that for me I want to be transparent. I have last year I would say was the year of our clients on the consulting side who be like oh I don't want you to use any AI. Um and I would kind of unpack that with them a little bit you know like okay well do you know that this is AI or this is not AI. Do you want me to be clear about the portions where AI helped do you know collect some data for us? etc. Do you want to pay more for us to hand pick these research things, you know, versus so so being really clear about kind of there's there's different spectrum, right?
If you're conducting um original research, clearly AI has no place in that. Um if you're doing a meta analysis of a whole bunch of research, AI can do that incredibly well. So, some of it depends on the work. Uh, I think that being transparent and having full disclosure, you know, there's a great study that was done by LinkedIn that's probably dated now, but about a year ago, they did a study that was basically 75% of workers that were younger than 40 were using AI on a daily basis, but only less than 30% felt comfortable telling their bosses they were actually using AI. So, when we treat it as something that's like dirty or should be hidden, um, then I think we have people using it and acting in toxic ways.
Uh I think like a lot of things if we're transparent and open um and really clear about where the b boundaries should be be for its use then I think we can uh avoid a lot of those ethical issues. Um but you know I don't know we could all go back um you know we could think about cliff's notes and the internet and calculators like all of these things right that you know were were were positioned as cheating or not doing your own work throughout history. Um, you know, for those of us like me who started work where we didn't have email and then kind of went through that, we we can think back to each of those things, the fax machine, how magical that was.
Um, and and all of those things, you know, were viewed with suspicion at first. So, I think that might be where we're at with this, but I also appreciate there there absolutely are ethical issues. And when you look at peer-reviewed journals out there for instance and the standards that they have to um implement to make sure that they are um looking at original material and content, there are tools that are out there to help vet that when it's really important. Um and there's probably always a way to outsmart the tech, right? So, um, again, I have teenagers, so I'm confident whatever thing I put on my phone, uh, to see what they're doing, uh, when they were a little bit younger, I'm like, I'm sure that they have already figured out how to, you know, how how to get around this if they really wanted to.
So, I I think that this is, um, a time of evolution. Um, but I think you're very smart to be concerned about ethics. Ethics are a huge issue and AI, that's a whole a whole other conversation I could have. Um, Jinger, do you want me to kind of just close so you can move to your your Yes. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I I think you know we don't get points for spending more time or work on doing something or doing something less efficiently. So we have to let that go. We have to break out of that trap of busyiness and focus on results and and leveraging technology to help us drive that. So you know I think you know reclaim your time, get your time back.
There's there's a lot out there to see and do and accomplish and uh I hope that some of these tools uh may help you do that. So really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. We appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
Um and uh and I also serve as uh the uh associate professor at American University. Um, and uh would be uh remiss if I didn't mention that I'm a proud single mom uh to two feminist sons. Uh they are 17 and 20. Um and uh and just really thrilled to be here today. Um and so I I use this quote purposely from the great Maxine Waters about reclaiming your time. Um but uh really thinking about how we can kind of use AI as a superpower uh and and think about uh leadership and innovation. So definitely a switch from the great panel um that just uh concluded. Thank you so much uh so so uh everyone was so vulnerable and and so great and and and sharing so much.
I took lots of notes. Um but I do think that there is a throughine here which is really thinking about the status of of women in terms of leadership, in terms of employment, in terms of oftentimes women's reticence to get involved with technology. uh and really thinking about, you know, this is a moment that needs to be seized for uh several reasons. So, I will go ahead and kind of walk you through some of those. Now, um I did want to say, I know I'm a fast talker. I hear that all the time from my global colleagues in particular. Um I have if you if you hover over this um there is a landing page that we developed um that uh has links to some of the articles and studies I mentioned as well as some of the AI tools just so you have that so you can uh listen and and uh and and hopefully not feel um uh too too ownorous in terms of taking notes etc.
So you know when we think about who you know AI it's everywhere it's all we read about. I know some of us have just we're kind of hoping we can just get through maybe the rest of our careers without talking about it or using it. I'm sure others of you uh on this call um have started to integrate it into your work. But I think a lot of times when we think about who owns and creates and uses AI, we often see this guy right like in our in our head, right? Kind of this text tech bro guy. You can maybe name him Chad or something. Um and and I think by the end of the day, the end of of this kind of quick time I have with you today, I hope that we can kind of maybe see ourselves.
Um a study by Harvard Business School found that women are adopting generative AI tools at significantly lower rate than men. On average, women are 25% less likely to use these tools compared to men. And um this gap is attributed about the concerns of the ethics of AI, which is absolutely legit. um and and fear being judged uh for relying on these on these tools. And then Pew Research Center did a report that women are generally more worried about the future use of AI in the workplace compared to men. So twice as much more likely to be anxious about that. And um and then basically in general, Harvard's also found that um the number or the the share of women using AI tools is consistently 10 to 40% smaller than that of men.
So these are all kind of things and we'll walk through some of these today, but uh my goal is to kind of, you know, have you think um change your thinking about uh AI. So a lot of times I find this is kind of the mindset, right? It's like a big bowl of kale. We know it's a superfood and you should use it more, eat more of it, and it'll make you better, but realistically doing this each day just feels kind of depressing. Um and and the goal is to really view uh move you or some of you towards viewing AI as a trusted partner giving you a hand when you need it to help you succeed in less time.
And and I think one of the things that I really like and this is of course an AI generated image right is that digging right in the wrong place is still digging wrong. We all got to our current roles and listening to the examples that were just given by the prior panel. we got there by doing all the work and showing our work and putting in the time. And so I think there's this this burden um maybe for women leaders in particular um and and a real shift that we don't get points for that anymore. So if you tell me that you spent three weeks doing something that might take me a few hours now that I have a tool set, I might start questioning kind of your efficiency, choices, decision-making skills, etc.
And so that's one way where we can really see AI having um having a difference. So when I thought about kind of AI and leadership as someone who has a global global leadership role and I work as I mentioned a pretty large team we have 350 talents in the US uh in 2000 globally and so I spent a lot of time thinking about uh how I can be kind of the the best uh leader possible and I kind of thought about some some key tenants of leadership and tried to overlay AI on those. Um and I think that you know sometimes we forget that women have a strong history of co-opting all kinds of technology right so the bicycle which started out of course for boys and men to have a cheaper form of transportation and deliver was quickly adopted by women in fact it became the symbol of women's independence especially white women's independence uh and suffrage um the telephone um was designed for wealthy men and corporations to use for B2B work um but quickly became one of the first places for women, both black and white, to have a profession, to actually have uh professional opportunities um once they shifted kind of the mindset of who the ideal operator can be.
Um I bet a lot of people on the call might know what these these symbols are. Um that uh I always I always think of it as like a girl a girl reading with a little bow in her hair. That's what I see. That's probably some kind of litmus test, but that's Libby. um and overdrive. Um women are um far more they're three times likely to read more than 30 books a year than men and two times more likely to uh read at least one book. And the use of um of of ebooks of course is is really dominated by women. And we know that e-commerce is dominated by women. When we look at sites like Etsy and eBay um as well as the ability to um start uh up businesses and and do kind of um homebased businesses, etc.
Um there's a real equalizer there. Um there's health apps, right? So app tracking um you know, women have um leaned in on that. Fitness tracking, this is a wearable ring. Um and e-learning. Um so these are all areas where these these technologies were created. many many times by men probably with men in mind um but women have become the dominant users in the space so just something to keep in mind so this is a really great study it's it's taken from SSIR a research project with 10,000 knowledge workers surveyed on AI use and basically there are two groups there are people who feel more optimistic and more capable in using AI and then people who feel less optimistic and capable and it's about the same it's always interesting right when we see a bell curve and and they kind of frame this as pilots and passengers.
And we really want to shift more women in particular to be pilots. When you think about the data that I shared at the beginning of this conversation about women using tools less, we are then opening the door for more men to kind of feed into this pilot space. And I know that there's a lot of anxiety and a lot of people in this call um are have spoken about or are experiencing career transition. I loved this this from the World Economic Forum which is really kind of what the core skills will be in five years and this is really driven by AI. So obviously we see AI up there. Um but we see things like curiosity and lifelong learning and creative thinking, leadership and social influence, right?
These are all things that are very much to stay. And when those of us who are thinking about recering or I have uh one kid in college and one about to go and so we have a lot of conversations about what skills um it makes sense to kind of invest our time in. Then we look at kind of the things that are potentially falling off. Some of these I think are really concerning. Global citizenship we're seeing that happen right now. multilingualism, right? Because um maybe this is finally when Americans have a leveled field, but uh when we have the ability to do simultaneous translation with AI, some of that will get lost as a result. So, it's not all good news, but I do think that a lot of what we hear about AI and the impact on career tends to be careers will go away.
Um I would argue that there have been careers that have been going away due to technology for a long time. Toll booth collectors, right? Parking lot attendants. there's all of these jobs that used to exist that uh technology has kind of replaced and and probably improved safety uh as a result. Um so just kind of thinking about it differently and I think the other piece is that right now so this isn't looking ahead this is right at this moment 60% of the tasks done by someone with at least a bachelor's degree 57% for those with a master's or PhD can be done by AI and um AI open AI just scored a perfect 10 on the US medical residency exam uh we have uh open AI also outperforming PhD humans on the GPQA diamond exam So, it's not thinking ahead to when will the AI be smarter.
AI has the the language and the information. It really needs humans uh to be kind of um reviewing and helping and prompting and using that creative thinking to help push it along. Um but, you know, I always say we can't kind of throw this at people and just expect people to magically be able to use it. We have to make sure that we're creating a safe spa space in wherever we're working um to make sure that people have the learning and the opportunity um and exposure to experts um that lets people fail fast uh and learn from mistakes. So, one of the things I always say is you can't break the AI. So, before I kind of dive into some tools and examples, I always just want to say, you know, be safe, right?
So, when you test tools out, if you're looking at a tool, use something generic. Don't obviously share your personal information or work information. When you find a tool that you think will be helpful, always pay for it. These tools just aren't that expensive. Make sure you're toggling all the privacy settings. Otherwise, if you're in an open AI environment, um, and you're not paying for it, it can take whatever you put in there and use it to train AI. And for those of us who are in an environment with proprietary information, highly regulated industries, etc. Um, it's really important uh for us to kind of use those privacy tools. So, I won't spend a lot of time here, but but always want to do that caveat.
And just one more time, here's where the workshop resources are if I went too fast earlier. Okay. So looking at kind of leadership, I'm looking I've combined the strengths of AI and some standard tenants of leadership development to show how uh how why AI can help you grow as a leader and a manager and improve outcomes for you personally and professionally. So the first one is delegation which we all hear about and we all probably struggle with right the ability that we can do it better ourselves right I hear women say that all the time I say that to my kids all the time and have to stop myself. So, here's kind of an example. I pulled this from open-ended survey responses from an organization uh that I've worked with, and this is, you don't have to look at what it is.
It's just um I I laugh because this is such a very um typical response to an event, which is kind of like the room was too cold, the content was great, I hated the salad, I didn't have time to change for the event. I mean, you name it, it's kind of on here. These were uh a lot of events, right? So, this is to the question, what did you want to see in the next event in 2025? And so what I did is I opened up chat um and I put this as my prompt, right? The prompt is what you tell AI to do. So please analyze and summarize this attendee feedback. So when you think about kind of this massive amount of data and the ability within 30 seconds to have this organized for you, um it's incredibly helpful.
Any of us who had to deal with open-ended text uh responses uh can appreciate this is this is great. Um and then you can kind of go further. So based on that summary, could you write a 250word blog post to get people excited about coming to next year's event? So leveraging that data not just to do an analysis, but to create a marketing piece uh that can go ahead and and leverage that. And you can go further. Can you do a 150word marketing email, right? And so again, using exactly what people said they liked, what they were looking forward to in 25, having that work to create that content for you. Um, another example I have, um, and Ginger, just so you know, I can't if there's any questions or anything coming in, and I hope you'll you'll interrupt me, uh, since I can't see that as I'm presenting, but, um, here's an example, too.
All of us are on webinars all the time, like this one, and a lot of times, um, there'll be a transcript that's running. Um, I used Co-Pilot for this example. Um, you could use chat just as easily. So, within Zoom calls, there's an AI assistant that's oftentimes enabled. Um, and so I got this transcript. This is from um, uh, ironically a presentation on cutting through the baloney of AI for associations. Um, and so I took the transcript and I pasted it into Word. Um, and then I went ahead or you could paste this all directly into chat and I gave I gave it a few uh, a few prompts um, based on the tools. Um, so based on this conversation, so long long you know hour and a half webinar, what are three things I should actually be doing?
What are the three action steps I should take? So, here's kind of the first thing I used it for. Then I said, can you do a blog post based on this transcript since I attended this session? What could I write about attending this session that would show that I'm participating in professional development and I'm smarter about AI? Um, maybe I'm interviewing someone and I want to test if they're up to speed on AI. Leveraging this transcript, what are questions I could ask about a prospective employee? And then could you draft a LinkedIn post for me that shows I attended this session? And I loved this like so just attended an insightful session on AI tools. What I love is at the the end they even hashtagged it, you know, # AI productivity # innovation.
So these are some ways where you can take what you're doing and add a little extra to it, right? So thinking about how you can delegate some of that to to AI. The second thing I said is just kind of cut to the chase. I love chat PDF. This is a free tool. I have this posted on the workshop resources. This allows you to take any PDF, drag it right here, um, and then ask it questions about the PDF. And I know a lot of us have highly technical uh, areas of study or profession and and so there can be a lot of information. Um, this is amazing. So, I went ahead and just pulled an association, the American Library Association, an organization that's in a pretty dynamic environment right now, and pulled the state of America's libraries in 24.
I imagine this will change a lot for 25. Um, and so basically, I asked the question, I'm the new director of marketing at this organization. Here's the most recent association report. What are five takeaways that will make me look smarter when talking to staff and leaders? Right? And so, it went ahead and gave me these. I was like, gosh, so many of us are thrown into new experiences and the ability to um have AI help us get up to speed or when we have massive imposttor syndrome when we start something new, the ability to have that support is really great. You know, I also think that the ability to minimize the boring stuff uh with AI is great.
Um, so when we think about meeting agendas, presentations, organizing emails, um, I have C-Pilot, which is integrated with the Microsoft suite. So I'm able to do a search. It will search through my team's chats and my emails and all of my documents. And it's such a timesaver versus searching for things kind of individually and and as I said, summarizing large amounts of information. Um, and then, you know, also the ability to strengthen writing. So many times we're staring at kind of that blinking cursor uh when we have to start a project. And so using AI to help you with some prompts, you know, can you give me I'm I'm struggling to start a presentation or report on this.
Could you give me the first few sentences, right? Um you know, you you have a lot that you can do with AI in terms of here are a few other things I've written or here's an other report I did. Can you use this as a model or a template? Um you know, have it edit something you've already done. Uh, and then one of my favorites is taking something that I've done in one format and having it turn into something else like an article or a white paper or a blog post. So, really helping you maximize the value. And I think this is something that we don't always think about for AI, but you know, a leader takes control of difficult conversations, uh, right?
We eat the frog. We we go ahead and do kind of the hardest thing on our list, and a lot of times that's with other people. the ability to um have AI as your sparring partner or your coach. Uh sometimes I will go ahead and say, you know, I've got someone coming in. She she has two years of experience and wants to know when her next promotion's happening. Here are all the things I think she does great. Here are areas I want her to develop. How would you structure this conversation? Right? And and AI can be really helpful of giving you an outline. I think a lot of times when we're prepared, uh it's easy. Um I just bought a new car two weeks ago.
Uh, and when I went into that uh, that interaction, AI had kind of I I knew what I was trading in. I knew um, and AI nailed within a dollar of what my monthly payment ended up being. And so, I think I went into I'm 54 and I went into that that experience for the first time really feeling incredibly confident um, and prepared. And I think also idea generation, a lot of times we're looking to theme something uh, for marketing um, etc. And then I think you know from this is kind of a big one. I was I was just listening to a podcast um as I was driving to this conference yesterday. Chelsea Handler was saying saying something about how fear really limits our possibilities.
When we are afraid um we cut off a whole bunch of options um as a result of that fear. If you're afraid to fly, for instance, it can limit your travel, you know, as kind of a an easy example. And so I I really think that this kind of curiosity versus fear is is so powerful. Um especially for women who I think um oftentimes um are taught or encouraged or reinforced to be more fearful. Um and then there's just the simple fact of being a woman where um a lot of our choices and decisions are are marked a little bit by the need to be cautious, right? And be concerned about our safety. But I think that mistakes show that you tried something out.
Um, when my kids were little and they mispronounced something, I always would say, 'Well, the only reason you could be mispronouncing something is because you read it somewhere.' And reading is amazing. So, good for you for learning a new word and trying it out, right? Like kind of in this in this safe space. And let's work on how we actually pronounce that. Um, and I I think that it's it's kind of the same when we think about leadership in incorporating new new technology because some mistakes show leaderships, right? So, mistakes of ambition. Um, so sometimes we fail on big goals. Um, sometimes we launch something that maybe isn't as successful as we'd hope it would be.
But I think that we always lead these can lead to us learning and applying that to a future situation. When we don't attempt something new because it's too big or too new, um, then that, you know, when we consume instead of create, right, which I I really like that kind of paradigm, um, then that can often give us short-term comfort. And so I often say, you know, don't be distracted by waiting until you know everything. Needing something to be perfect. Um, waiting for it to be extremely customized exactly for your situation or circumstance. Um, pressure to have total consensus. Sometimes women in particular are consensus driven leaders and you're waiting for everybody to kind of gather around something and sometimes you just have to um, you got to kind of move things ahead.
The other thing I'll say about AI before if we have any questions I can answer them is that you've got to think about who you're talking to. A lot of times when we think about the technology we're thinking about, you know, kind of all of these buttons and gadgets um and uh and um and very much uh uh experts at the helm. But I would suggest maybe and this is like definitely a prototype of my older son by the way, not him, but it could be. Um you know, is it co-pilot or is it a team? So, for example, when I tell my kids, 'Clean your room.' Maybe there are other parents on this call that are more successful.
But for me, I don't always get the results that I want. Um, but if I'm if I'm really specific, please put away your laundry, take all of the cups and plates downstairs. Why were they there in the first place? And make your bed. Um, I tend to get the results that I want, right? So, being really specific um with prompts and making sure you're really telling the technology to do what you want it to do, I think is important. So, you know, being really specific, as I said, you can't break it. Um, you can have a conversation. So, it's not a oneanddone. You're like, 'Oh, I used it and it gave me something that was garbage.' Well, what about it was garbage.
How could you refine it? Right? Um, I think that there's this trend going on right now where everyone's using AI to create their action figures. It's never going to be right the first time. It's never going to have my glasses the right shade or um, you know, all of these different things, right? So, you can go back and forth and have a dialogue and it will help you learn how to be a better prompter. Um, and I always I always use um polite language. Uh, when I'm I'm speaking with the AI, I think that I get um a nicer response um and it it helps me kind of interact in a more positive way. And when we have AI do something we don't know how to do, we don't know how to fix its mistakes.
And this is where the human element really comes in. uh where we have to make sure that there is human checkpoints and quality control and that back and forth dialogue I'm I'm speaking about um so that we're not just kind of producing things that are soulless or uninformed. Um AI is trained by the internet uh which can be a dumpster fire of misogyny and racism and all kinds of isms um and biases and so it's our jobs I think to correct it. When I ask for an image of an accountant and it gives me the image of a man I will tell the AI actually 62% of practicing CPAs are women right and so therefore and and x are women of color and so this is not a representative image that you should be giving me.
I will take the time to correct the AI because I want to make sure I'm driving better results. Um, so, you know, I hope before I kind of move to any Q&A if we have some, you know, hopefully we've gone a little bit from the kale um to feeling like maybe we could use AI to kind of give us um a hand. Uh, and I think that the ability everybody on this call, I'm sure, has a to-do list a mile long. Um, I know I do as well. And kind of going through that list and thinking about how I could use AI, how I could use technology to help me accomplish some of the things on this list.
And every day having that approach will help more women get up the curve. Um, and and I think, you know, some questions to ask yourself uh about this is, you know, how much on your list is human work and how much could could be done by a machine? How much of what you do is truly yours, right? are you repackaging um information that somebody else gives for another audience um in which case AI is great at that um versus your own original content. I write articles for Fast Company. I wrote those articles. I don't have AI do that for me. I may have AR AI spar with me a little bit for topic generation, but I know what's mine.
Um and then how much of what you do is this uh this command and control piece, the piece I mentioned at the beginning of I do it the best myself. I don't need help. it's faster this way. Um or I've always done this particular thing. Um and and I I think that in in general sometimes women I call it the illusion of productivity. We all get maybe too much value of being busy. Um, and so, you know, really taking a step back and having the AI help us do things more efficiently and more effectively, I think, can be really powerful because it's here, right? So, it's it's not, you know, we're kind of too late to say, 'Oh, I'm afraid of it or I I don't think we should be using, etc.
It's already fully integrated. I'm at a conference right now that's the AI innovation summit, and it's uh mind-blowing what's happening.' So, so change is inevitable. Um, you don't really have a choice there about the change. you do have a chi a choice of whether you're going to engage and be part of progress. Um, and I think that, you know, when we think about why we should care and why we should lean in, regardless of where you are in your career, you know, there's widening economic inequality. So, women may struggle to advance in careers if they're not using AI technology that um uh increase productivity. If we don't have uh diverse perspectives in AI development, there's a higher risk of embedding gender biases into these systems, right?
And so these can perpetuate the stereotypes that I just gave an example of and and can have real impact from hiring algorithms to healthcare diagnostics. Um and then just in general missing innovation opportunities. And so I think the goal is for more of us to feel fluent and comfortable here so that that this guy asks us for help. Um, and so, you know, with that, um, I would just say here are the resources. Um, and then if you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, there's a link right here as well. Um, I love talking about this stuff. It is not my core job. I just have kind of a passion about it. I feel like it's given me, uh, my superpower.
Um, and so, um, you know, with that, um, I can I can pause here. Um, and if there are any questions that have come in, I would I would love to to go ahead and take a look at those. Yes, Erin, thank you so much. Um, let's see. We've had a few questions that have come in. Um, I'll start with our first question from Beth and she said, 'What is your opinion on using AI services for a job search? Several companies are offering this service.' Well, I guess I don't know enough about the product, so I'm going to be product agnostic. I would also say in general I wouldn't fall in love with any one product fall in love with the functionality because there's so much M&A happening.
Um so whether for instance you use Otter or Fireflies or Teams to take notes I'm I'm pretty agnostic about that. So on the job search piece I I I don't know if I understand is it for you seeking a job um and and using a service for that. I think that there's a couple ways you could do that. One is to AI optimize your resume for better or worse. AI is definitely looking like a lot of a lot of most hiring uh entities are using AI to do an initial screening. So if it's someone looking at your resume and CV and seeing how you can optimize your experience to be noticed and picked up by AI, I think that's great.
Um if it's if it's combing for job postings, um I'm not as familiar with that kind of service. But in general, I mean, we're all using AI. Google is AIdriven, right? So, if this is an an engine someone's created to help identify opportunities, I think that's great. I think the price point uh is something that I would be curious about. Um and so would be happy to to kind of feel that. Um oh, they'll apply for you using AI. Well, I mean, I don't love that. Although you could argue that using a search firm um or executive search where they're creating a package for you and putting you in front of employers is that and this does it to scale.
Um, so you know, you have to kind of walk through, you know, what are they doing? Are they bombarding employers with your information, etc. I think I'd want to know more about the quality versus quantity there before I could uh give um give kind of a verdict on that. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, let's see. Um, here's an interesting one from Tony. Tony says, 'Um, I have hard copies of participant evaluation forms from an in-person training session.' We've all been there, Tony. How can I take these forms and have AI kind of develop a summary analysis of open-ended questions? Super easy. So, just take them scan them into take them to a scanner, a photocopy or whatever.
Make a PDF out of them. Um, and then I would load the PDF up um, into either chat uh, probably chat or or chat PDF which I I listed here. I always try to I always try to focus on the free tools, you know, if you're starting into this. You the the the tools can now read um, the the imagery in these like exceptionally well. Um, and then you're able to ask questions from it. So um, basically you would, you know, you would feed those in, you'd create your PDF, you would then go ahead and use the prompts that I shared today. Um, and you would be able to say, you know, do an analysis of the open-ended questions.
You can have it make a table. You can have it, um, if you have demographic questions on those, uh, on those evaluations, you can say, can you please organize the information by say age or years of tenure or whatever information you have. So, um, the these tools have come such a long way. So, even if there's handwritten information, these tools are are are getting very very good at at reading handwriting. Um if we think about the note-taking products that are out there, Remarkables, etc., um those are all AI enhanced as well. Um but that would be super easy. So the first step would be to create a PDF. Oh, that is good to know. Thank you.
All right, this will be our final question, then we'll ask you for final thoughts before we go to our panel for the day. Kayla says, 'When does using AI border on not being real or possibly dishonest since some are since some people can use it to um create 100% of their own writings content and some are just creating rough drafts and then you know going from there. So talk about I guess the ethical ethical concerns maybe. Yeah, I mean I think that I mean I would take a step back and say somebody who's using AI to do that is probably not an ethical worker in general, right? So they're also probably I don't know taking some post-its home.
Um so you know I I would you know and I would look at their expense reports. So I I think that for me I want to be transparent. I have last year I would say was the year of our clients on the consulting side who be like oh I don't want you to use any AI. Um and I would kind of unpack that with them a little bit you know like okay well do you know that this is AI or this is not AI. Do you want me to be clear about the portions where AI helped do you know collect some data for us? etc. Do you want to pay more for us to hand pick these research things, you know, versus so so being really clear about kind of there's there's different spectrum, right?
If you're conducting um original research, clearly AI has no place in that. Um if you're doing a meta analysis of a whole bunch of research, AI can do that incredibly well. So, some of it depends on the work. Uh, I think that being transparent and having full disclosure, you know, there's a great study that was done by LinkedIn that's probably dated now, but about a year ago, they did a study that was basically 75% of workers that were younger than 40 were using AI on a daily basis, but only less than 30% felt comfortable telling their bosses they were actually using AI. So, when we treat it as something that's like dirty or should be hidden, um, then I think we have people using it and acting in toxic ways.
Uh I think like a lot of things if we're transparent and open um and really clear about where the b boundaries should be be for its use then I think we can uh avoid a lot of those ethical issues. Um but you know I don't know we could all go back um you know we could think about cliff's notes and the internet and calculators like all of these things right that you know were were were positioned as cheating or not doing your own work throughout history. Um, you know, for those of us like me who started work where we didn't have email and then kind of went through that, we we can think back to each of those things, the fax machine, how magical that was.
Um, and and all of those things, you know, were viewed with suspicion at first. So, I think that might be where we're at with this, but I also appreciate there there absolutely are ethical issues. And when you look at peer-reviewed journals out there for instance and the standards that they have to um implement to make sure that they are um looking at original material and content, there are tools that are out there to help vet that when it's really important. Um and there's probably always a way to outsmart the tech, right? So, um, again, I have teenagers, so I'm confident whatever thing I put on my phone, uh, to see what they're doing, uh, when they were a little bit younger, I'm like, I'm sure that they have already figured out how to, you know, how how to get around this if they really wanted to.
So, I I think that this is, um, a time of evolution. Um, but I think you're very smart to be concerned about ethics. Ethics are a huge issue and AI, that's a whole a whole other conversation I could have. Um, Jinger, do you want me to kind of just close so you can move to your your Yes. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I I think you know we don't get points for spending more time or work on doing something or doing something less efficiently. So we have to let that go. We have to break out of that trap of busyiness and focus on results and and leveraging technology to help us drive that. So you know I think you know reclaim your time, get your time back.
There's there's a lot out there to see and do and accomplish and uh I hope that some of these tools uh may help you do that. So really appreciate the opportunity to be here today. We appreciate your time. Thank you so much.