Leading through influence and a human-centered approach

David Armano: To bring a full circle, I used to write a blog called "Logic Plus Emotion," and there were... We stayed on theme.

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Tammy Soares: You know, I want to tell you, ChatGPT told me about that blog.

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David: There you go.

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(CATALYST INTRO MUSIC)

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Tammy: Hey everybody, welcome to Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. I'm your host, Tammy Soares. At Launch, we get to work with some of the most incredible companies and organizations to create digital products that improve lives, solve problems, and hopefully make a difference. And since we're a part of NTT Data, one of the world's largest leading technology companies, it means these experiences impact millions of people. But the show isn't about what we do. It's about the people making it happen, the people that shape the future. So, today's guest is David Armano. I mean, David is just this really rare mix of creativity, he has vision, and deep humanity. And hands down, one of the most real leaders that I know, personally. And our paths first crossed... Well, back in 2008 they kind of crossed when we were both working on the BlackBerry account, but we were working on the account from different agencies, and we didn't really meet back then. But life has, like, a really funny way of connecting the dots. You fast forward to 2022, and I had the privilege of working with David at Soul Machines, where we were using generative AI to bring digital humans to life, and really just thinking about reimagining how people and technology can connect. He's had an incredible career with leadership roles at top agencies like Edelman and Digitas, all the way to driving innovation and emerging tech with companies like Soul Machines and with Ringer, where they focus AI on shaping the future of healthcare. But what I really admire the most about David is who he is as a leader. He is one of the most open and vulnerable people I know. He's always willing to share the really hard stuff, like being laid off, imposter syndrome, and, like, the tough pivots he's had to make in his life and his career. And he does it not from the perspective of setbacks, but he uses them as stories that help others navigate the journeys that they're on at that time. So. Today, we're going to dive deep into what makes David tick, why he leads the way he does, and of course, we'll get into some shop talk, talk about tech, AI and the future of where it's all headed. So please join me in welcoming David Armano.

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David: Thank you, Tammy. It's a pleasure to be here. It's great to see your face. It feels like yesterday... It almost was yesterday. (Laughs)

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Tammy: It was yesterday. And, the exciting news that I just found out this morning is that you were going to be joining us here at Launch by NTT Data. So, welcome to the team. Congratulations.

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David: Thank you. I'm so excited. I feel really honored. And... I mean, the fact that we worked, sort of, in parallel many, many years ago, and we'll get into that a little bit, and then more recently, we worked a lot more closer, it was a big part of my decision to say, yeah, I'm going to jump on this. Because, you've seen me work and you've seen me operate. And you are a high-performing person, Tammy, if I may say so myself. And so, I just thought, you know, she's seen me in action, she gets it. There's not going to be huge surprises. And so, to me, that's just a no-brainer. So, I'm excited. It's a great company in a really, really interesting space. I love the fact that there's scale there, but I also love the innovation that you're bringing, tip of the spear organization that you're building. So... What did I say? The Digital Innovation Avengers that you're putting together? I'm super honored to be a part of that.

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Tammy: (Laughs) Well, we're really happy to have you. I want to start with chatting with you about, just, your overall leadership style. I mean, you... We've talked about it before, but I think one of the things that really stands out about your work is how much of your heart you bring into it. And whether it's your posts or your leadership and really navigating the complexities of, not just technology, but the human experience. I saw, even this morning, you posted about some of your colleagues, former colleagues that may have been let go recently at one of the organizations that you work at, you worked at in your past. And you just approached it with so much vulnerability. What... I'm just curious, like, what drives you to do that? Like, how do you put yourself out there? And.... Talk to me more about that.

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David: You know, no one's ever asked me the why. I'll try to break it down. I think it's a couple of different things. I think one of the things that I learned at Edelman, the company that you're referencing, I was there for almost 11 years. And, with the exception of one year, I was definitely a leader. But in most of the roles there, I was sort of a non-conventional leader. And it's interesting because I think these roles are becoming more common. I had to lead through influence a lot. And so, I didn't have an organization of 100 people. There was one job where I did have that, actually, you know, kind of rolling up into me. But the rest of the time it was highly visible within the organization, out of the organization. Definitely a leadership role, but a non-conventional role where I didn't have this, like, huge team behind me, you know, with the reporting, formal structure. And so, when you lead through influence, I think you have no choice but to develop that empathy. And something I didn't realize until later on when I started talking to CEOs and actual leaders, I actually initially saw that as, am I really a leader? Like, I questioned it and I almost devalued it. And then the more that you talk to high-functioning leaders, you realize, that's the number one thing that they do, is lead through influence. They have to figure out how to get people on board, even if they do have the, sort of, the badge and the chart to go with it. It's the number one thing that they do. So, I think that was part of it. I think when you lead through influence, if you're going to do it well, you have to bake empathy into the cake and it has to be real. Because you have to figure out what motivates people. You have to build connections. Mentoring is a part of it. I was a huge mentor during that time, and I realized I love to mentor and I love to be, I love to learn. So, I continue to do it. So that was a part of it. And I think the other is... gosh, it kind of goes back to my, sort of, origin story. You know, I started off my career as a visual designer. I went to Pratt, which is a well-known design school. And... Any creative has sort of a natural EQ built in. And even though a lot of people see me as being highly strategic, and I definitely can be very right-brained in a lot of ways, I think, organically, I just had the EQ sort of built in. And so, then it becomes a question of, do you lean into that? Now, this kind of brings to an interesting territory. I will say there's been many times in the corporate world where I've kind of been at the crossroads. And I've been around people who don't show weakness. I mean, the corporate world, and high-functioning people, it's like... I really feel like there's two types of people. There are the people that just, they're sort of built that way, and they will never show weakness. And then there's people that actually are, just sort of have that emotional intelligence built in, but they put on the armor. In order to sort of, like, do battle in the corporate world. And so, I'm probably in that more second group. But at the core, I think a lot of the sort of emotional intelligence is kind of built in. And I choose to lean into it, versus run away from it.

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Tammy: I think what... You just hit on something that I talk about quite a bit, even with my executive coach, is like, the armoring up. You know, I think that I personally go into a lot of situations, especially in corporate America, where I do feel like I've got to armor up. And that armor looks differently depending upon where I'm going or who I'm meeting with. And, one of the things that I've done recently is, that's not something I would have openly talked about, actually. Like, to even say that I put on armor means that I need the armor in the first place. So, like, I'm actually showing vulnerability by saying, I have to go put on this armor so that I can go into this situation. And I've been talking more openly about it, because I do think that vulnerability, when you share with people who you work with or clients that you work with that you are human, and that you don't have all the answers, I think it actually connects people to you more, and that's a way to mentor them as well, right?

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David: Yeah. And... It's a choice, but I actually believe it's the smart choice, because in the business world, yes. You're dealing with sharks. Some of the time. You are. But you're also relying on the people you work with and you're relying on teams. You may be interfacing with a client that's an executive, or maybe even a peer that's an executive. But you're working with your teams, and you need them to be vested in you to support you. And, if that connection isn't there, how would they have your back? And when they have your back, that is the best armor you can ever have.

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Tammy: Yeah. And I think, too, I don't necessarily armor up just because of, like, the person I'm going to meet with. That's something that I use almost to, like, if you think about imposter syndrome, that's something... And I've gone on... On LinkedIn, I've said, I'm pretty much at the point when that voice comes into my head, I just tell it to eff off...

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David: Yep.

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Tammy: ...At this point, because I'm so over it. I'm so over the down talk. But sometimes that's what that armor is for. The armor is to say, okay, well, I may, in my head, think I'm not ready for this or I'm not good enough for this, but I'm going to put on the armor. Like, I am, and I'm going to charge at it. And that's... That's sort of what, you know... So, when I put on, when I talk about the armor, it's not necessarily because of the person I'm meeting with. It's something that's very intrinsically inside of me that, I feel like I need the armor in order to go into whatever that situation is.

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David: Yeah. I honestly, I relate to both. For me it's a combination of the two.

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Tammy: Yeah.

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David: But I understand that. And... Especially the imposter syndrome. And it took me... You know, Tammy, when we first crossed paths, I sort of, in a way, kind of was experiencing this micro-fame through social media. And that, like, threw me for a loop. That actually... That was when, for me, imposter syndrome was at the highest. And I've written about it even recently, and similar to you. Now, it's like, I know what it is and I know how to deal with it. But at that point it was kind of a struggle.

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Tammy: Well, it's funny that you brought that up. Because I was thinking about, I mentioned, when I was introducing you, that we worked together way back in the day on BlackBerry from two different companies. But that's how I heard about you. And then, we worked together, what was it? A lot of many years later at Soul Machines a couple of years ago. And I felt like I had stayed so in contact with you, because I was one of those people that followed you through your fame, right? You're a very famous influencer in the technology and the creative space as well. And so, it's interesting that you said that, because I felt like... I, when I heard you were at Soul Machines, I was like, I know David Armano. I felt like I knew you so well, because I had followed you on Twitter and I had followed you on LinkedIn, and we hadn't talked... If ever. I don't think we actually talked to each other while we were on BlackBerry.

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David: No. We didn't. But I know you told me, and I knew that you... And again, this is one of the reasons why I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go work for Tammy. Because I knew you saw that part of me, right? And by the way, a lot of people were like, who's this guy? And then people would work with me, would see another side, and they would be like, oh, this guy actually knows what he's doing. And so, I knew that you had that knowledge. And I was like, okay, great. But then, when you first came on, I remember I was presenting some of the work that we were doing for a certain automotive company. And I saw you, like, nodding, and it was good work, and I was working with, you know, a very small but talented team, and it was great work, but I was very heavily embedded in it. And I was watching your face, and watching you nod, and I was like, okay, now she's... Now she sees what I really do. Not just the stuff that I think about. And because you experienced that and you saw it and you know it, that's why I was like, great. She knows how I operate. She knows what I do for real, for real. You know, outside of the public eye. And so, I feel great working for her.

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Tammy: It was amazing work, by the way. I was like, how do we get more of that? So much so that I recruited you to come work for me here.

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David: Thank you.

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Tammy: So let's talk about, like, leave leadership behind a little bit. Let's get into some of the cool tech stuff. Like, you've been posting a lot about intelligent experience. I'm a huge advocate of, how do we bring humanity and technology together? You know this about me. I think the work that you're talking about around the intelligent experience is amazing. You want to talk a little bit about that?

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David: Yeah, sure. I mean, I'll just kind of reflect... What's crazy about our brief time at Soul Machines was, we were working on AI agents before AI agents even became a category. (Laughs) And we were there when it was done the old way. You know, NLP technology connecting with very dated... Non-... They were not large language models. We literally were one of the first to take the API, remember? Plug it in to our technology, the early version of it, and make it happen. And so, yes, I've been talking to you about this kind of bigger idea, which is that you and I have been in this digital transformation space for a long time. And so, if you think about the broad stages, like, first was the information age, and then was sort of the commercialization of the internet, you know, all things e-commerce and then some. And then we saw the convergence of mobile and social come together. We saw the whole, sort of, gig economy and all the new business models built around that. And we really haven't had a major... Blockchain is kind of, there's a long runway there. Crypto is its own financial thing. But we haven't had a major, major, major transformation like those other ones until AI. And it's in so many ways transformational. But one of them is how we are going to just experience technologies. the actual user experience that we have, and customer experience that we have, with technologies. And it's going to create a whole new paradigm. And you're seeing it already, even with the large language models. The fact that, we previously have used, sort of, these graphic user interfaces. And now we're having conversations with an AI. It's not just the, I'm searching for something and I get a page and I'm scrolling, and... This is just basic. This has now been in play for a couple of years. So that convention of, kind of moving from tool-based, I'm going to, you know, put in X and get Y, and I'm going to do it through a graphic interface, to now a future where, it's more conversational. These agents that are going to be developed, I mean, they absolutely have the potential to be intuitive. They will learn based on, sort of, the prompting that you do, the conversations that you have with them. We're going to become less dependent on, sort of, these graphic user interfaces. I've actually talked about them being conversational user interfaces. But at the end of the day, these are going to be these intelligent experiences. We're kind of moving from only having these UX, these user experiences, and more broadly, customer experiences, to an intelligent experience, which kind of, is going to have a new set of rules created for it. So, I think we're in the early days, not unlike those early days of UX, where we went from, like, information architecture to interaction design and building these systems and building them in a way that are intuitive, that's going to now happen with AI. And... Sort of the ground zero are the business cases and the use cases. Actually figuring out where it makes sense to, sort of, have more AI built into a customer experience, where... Or an employee experience. Or, you know, for a smaller group like doctors, where it makes sense to build in those experiences. So my kind of... My hypothesis is, we're entering the era of intelligent experiences, and we need to approach it by design.

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Tammy: I love that. My team is probably tired of hearing me talk about it, but when I think about digital transformation back, you know, I'm talking about when we first started saying it, 25, 30... I mean, we're about to say 30 years pretty soon, which is terrifying. But, like, we basically, when we did the digital transformation, one of the things that we did was actually remove humanity between the brand and the consumer, or between the entity and the person, right? Like, if you think about old school, had to call an 800 number, ask questions. They ask questions to understand context. Then the person would make a set of recommendations around - let's just stick with, you know, consumer - make a set of recommendation around products. Great, we'll make that purchase. And then, you know, they move on. Whereas, what we did with digital is, we got rid of the phone number. We actually hid it on the website. We didn't want anyone calling. And then we exposed the product catalog to the customer, who then had to, like, you know, even the first search capability was terrible. It's gotten better. But you've got to figure out, like... You have to kind of almost know what you're looking for when you're searching.

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David: Yeah.

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Tammy: And I think it's just been, it's really interesting to think about technology being the thing that can bring humanity back. So, you talked about, you know, voice. Like, what if instead of going to a website that has, you know, all the content there and you've got to figure out how to navigate to get to it, you've got a voice that's asking you, what can I help you with today? And it removes that sort of creepiness factor around cookies. You know, like, well, we'll make a guess at what they want to do here based on what they did before they got here and the things they've done since they've been here, and make guesses around what to put in front of them, instead of it being, hey, what are you up to? What can I help you with? What are you here for today? How can I support you? And in that really natural language, even though it's technology behind it, it makes me feel like I'm talking to the brand again. I'm getting help, I'm getting support, I'm making that connection. And, you know, our work with Soul Machines, you brought it up. Like, I remember, like you said, we used to have to type the conversations. We had conversation designers who we would hire from...

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David: Right. Yep.

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Tammy: ...Like, one of our brilliant writers was, like, actually a sitcom writer, because it's hard to write the way humans speak, right? And I remember, I was in front of a partner event, and I had a digital person up on the screen, and we had just connected it to ChatGPT when it first came out, and we had kind of, using RAG had taught it some of the things I knew we'd be talking about. And I remember I said to it, hey, tell me about Soul Machines. And it, like, launched into this whole thing about sewing machines. And I said, whoa, no, no, no, wait, I didn't say sewing machines. I said Soul Machines. And because of that cool tech, it was like, it put its hand to its forehead and said, oh my gosh, I am so embarrassed. I thought you said sewing machines. Let me tell you about Soul Machines. And then, of course, it launched into this thing. So I guess... I actually found myself saying thank you. I found myself, like, being really connected. Because, again, even though it was a digital person, it was a voice. It was, like, language that was natural.

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David: Yeah. This is just going to reinforce what you're talking about. And this is mind-blowing. In the past, it was just in the past few months, there were results of a study that was published where they actually put... I'm forgetting the source, so forgive me, but I have a newsletter coming out and I link to the source. But in this study, they had a number of medical doctors and patients, and they compared the guidance that these medical doctors provided to a large language model, and the findings were that the large language models, in terms of recommendations and actual information, were outperforming the medical doctors. Okay? So that's the knowledge part. But guess where else they outperform? And this part blew me away. As told by the patients, they felt that the large language models were more empathetic in their responses. And that is mind-blowing. We were not shocked, as digital transformation professionals, that even at this stage, and we know that trust is going to be an issue, and what we know, the large language models, we're going to get to this point where they were going to get more accurate. So we're not shocked that the information is solid, and the recommendations are comparable, if not better. But that the patients were actually receiving what they were getting back from large language models as being more empathetic, that the large language model had better bedside manners, that's mind-blowing.

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Tammy: We have a client that we work with who was talking about doctors having pajama time. Which is the time that they have to work at night, to basically get ready for the next day, and they don't have time in the day. And I've worked with, within the healthcare space for a little while, so there's this always, like... There's the human component of being a doctor, where there was a study that said doctors have an average of five minutes to spend with their patients, and in some cases even keep their hand on the door as they're talking to you, right? They'll come in, talk to you, give you the diagnosis, talk to, whatever, their hand's on the door because they've got to get to the next thing. You know, technology, large language models aren't going to have the dialogue that's happening in your head around, I've got to get this patient, then I have the next patient. So there's this very human reaction you would have around keeping your hand on the door or thinking about your next thing that you have to do, which takes you out of being empathetic, actually. And there's just none of that. And you can actually program... This is something we know from Soul Machines as well. You can actually teach them what empathy looks like, and no matter what, they are not going to get rattled. They're going to be, and express that empathy regardless of how much, you know, someone yells or complains, or, no matter how tired, they don't get tired. And so they can continuously be in that empathetic state.

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David: Yeah. And I talk about this in the whole intelligent experience thing, that it's sort of shifting from the useful and usable that we saw in user experience to intelligent and intuitive and anticipatory, almost sort of getting to the point where the AI begins to know you so well that it can almost predict what you're going to ask for next or say next. Which is what machine learning is, right? It's predictive learning.

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Tammy: Yes.

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David: And, I mean, that is literally the technology. It's just that it's going to continue to get better.

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Tammy: And I think, you know, it's funny, because we are in the space. And this is something that continually, like, surprises me. I have a friend of mine who's trying to help me with some of my LinkedIn, like, how do I get more LinkedIn stuff up? You know, it's always... Content's always an issue. And so, I went to ChatGPT and I asked it to, hey, help me write a prompt that my friend can use to use with another ChatGPT to help find the things Tammy might be interested in and what she might comment or say about it. And I figured it would come back to me with, like, a series of questions, like, okay, well, let's get to know you a little bit. And instead it was like, here's the prompt. And it was like... Me. It was like, what I was interested in, how I would comment on it, my tone, how I write, what I think about when I write. And it came back with the answer. Instead of, I figured it would be, okay, here's a series of questions you need to answer for me so that I can help you write it. But it didn't. And I literally said back, if I go back to the chat, I said, how did you know this? And it was like, oh, because... And it went through all the... You're Tammy, you're the president of Launch by NTT Data. This is what Launch does. And it was really incredible. And again, I'm not usually surprised. Like, you know, you don't usually get surprised when you're in it, but it continually just...

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David: Yeah.

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Tammy: Even surprises me with the kinds of things that, from my own personal interactions with it.

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David: Yeah, I think it also... It puts on us, it's going to challenge us as the humans to harness it, but also know where we bring value. I'm going to give a non-work experience, um, reference. My... This is a habit that I've gotten into with my sons, my younger son especially, who's about to enter the workforce. And so, he's doing an internship. He just started it. And his boss asked if he could start, you know, basically detailing everything he does. He just, he's been there for a few weeks, and then the boss put in this request, and he got nervous about it. He researched, like, am I in trouble? And just had all these questions. And so, he got really nervous and he asked me about it. And, honestly, I plugged in his question in ChatGPT. I did. And I'm transparent about it. And ChatGPT gave a lot of great advice, I have to say. And it said things like... It gave soft advice from, like, this is actually pretty normal, it's not anything to be nervous about, but it's understandable. When you're doing your reports, you might want to ask clarifying questions like X, Y, and Z. Gave pretty granular, like... Things, honestly, I probably wouldn't have thought of. But, I gave him one piece of advice that was nowhere in the ChatGPT, and I shouldn't undersell how important it was. I said, you know, Mason, in this process, you've been there a couple of weeks, check in with your boss and ask them about your performance and how you're doing. Ask for feedback early on. Like, it's proactive. You know, it shows that you're open to it. You're curious. You're interested. Like, those are the kinds of things that we as humans, it's the only one thing I said versus the laundry list that Chat... And in the laundry list was all good counsel, honestly. So, I feel like I did my job as a dad, because I gave him the best of, you know, really good advice that I frankly, I wouldn't have been that detailed. But I also gave him the one thing that I feel like, honestly, is probably the most important out of all of those. Like, use this as an opportunity. Like, not right now, but two weeks from now, check in with your boss and get feedback. You'll be... On, at the end of your first month. It's one of the best things you can do.

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Tammy: That's exactly right. I think it's... I use it a lot more than I want to say. For, even personal stuff. Like, me and ChatGPT, we hang out now, pretty much. Like, it's interesting the conversations we have. I want to talk to you a little bit about, like, humans need to harness it. I see a lot of... A lot more experimentation happening with generative AI than I have with other technologies, like you mentioned. You know, no one can experiment with blockchain. Like, everyone can't experiment with blockchain.

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David: Yep.

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Tammy: Whereas generative AI, especially with ChatGPT coming on the scene a couple of years ago, like... It's in every hand, the hand of every single consumer out there, almost. I always like to say, if my husband's talking about a new technology, like, it's on the scene.

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David: Yeah.

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Like he's a CPA, and an accounting guy, so... It's on the scene. But I'm seeing a ton of experimentation. Like the use case, use case, use case. Tech first. Instead of, what is it that we want it to do? So, for example, I talk a lot about, like, creatives are like, I don't want it to do my writing. I don't want it to come up with my designs. I don't want it to do that creative part. Maybe it can do the research part for me. Or... But if you're like, the research or more analytical, like, maybe you struggle with the creative and the copywriting, or the writing part of it. And so, how do we make sure that, as we're creating this intelligent experiences that you were talking about, how do you take that design-first approach? How do you take that humanity-led? Versus this sort of approach that I'm seeing a lot of, which is let's throw out 100 use cases and see which one's going to stick.

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David: This is where the work needs to be done. And this is where, Tammy, I think we can... How did we do it in the past? You know, we would get a bunch of people in rooms. We would get all different kinds of stakeholders involved, ask them questions, get them involved. We would talk to customers. I remember Agency.com, I was there for almost six years, and one of my long-term clients was Grainger. And I think now probably north of 70% of their sales is all, it's all through the website. And at that point it was maybe 15%. And the team that I led, they built the foundation of that, which now is the majority of their business. We did user testing all the time. Baked it in. Put in front of, like, someone who would actually be a purchasing agent, five different versions of something and get feedback, just include the customer. These are the kinds of things that we will need to start doing with these intelligent experiences. It's not all that different from how we approached it way back. Tammy, we saw this. Like, we've seen this movie play out. The early days of many of these innovations, the early days of e-commerce and commercialization on the web, they were also tech-first. It's kind of interesting, because I would say... Especially, like, in the field of UX, and now it's become so commoditized, too, and it's almost been diluted. But there was sort of almost, like, a point in time where everything was firing off right. And, like, you noticeably saw how there were better inventions, there were better experiences. And, not to say that they're not now. But that foundation has yet to be built when it comes to these sort of pioneering. So we need to build that in. Not overprocess, but bring the customers into it, bring the end users into it, bring the different stakeholders together. Figure out where there's value. I mean, it goes back to, sort of, business, brand, user, right? What is it going to be the thing that delivers value to all three of those?

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Tammy: Okay, first of all, the fact that you brought up Agency.com and you were there, like, I'm not going to let that just go by. Like, wow. Like, you are a legend, dude. Like six... (Laughs) Agency.com.

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David: Six years.

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Tammy: That's amazing.

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David: I was there for almost six years. Yeah. I mean, and that was early in my career, and it was so formative. I feel like I learned so much about the world of communications and other things. We did a lot of digital work that was similar to things that we had done in previous lives when I was at Edelman. But I did learn the communications business. But at Agency.com, we were building out those early days of the web.

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Tammy: So, something that you said, like, really, like, triggered something for me. If you think about, like, the new entrants into, like, brands. Like if you think about Uber...

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David: Yep.

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Tammy: This is an old use case. The old study, case study now. But the reason they were so successful is they looked at a broken an industry that refused to pay attention to the pain points around their customers, and they invented a net, like, using the technology that was available at that time to invent a new way to get a ride. And they've obviously improved upon it along that time. And I think, this is another moment where, if companies don't figure out how to use this kind of new technology to, like, reinvent themselves, really. If we're just looking at making, sort of, those incremental changes, you're going to miss the boat and there's going to be somebody else who comes on the scene that truly looks at what this technology enables, and reinvents the way that we shop. Or reinvents the way that we get health care. Or reinvents the way that we buy cars, or, et cetera, right? So I think it's like, it's a really interesting, pivotal moment. And I think, if you think about Uber, if you think about Netflix. Like, they started with understanding the people that they were there to serve, and how did they get, how do they create the right experience first? Instead of, you know, making the incremental improvements? And I think that, like, you're right. Like, it is as simple as, what do the people need, or the humans need, that we're not meeting today? And then how, and can this new technology solve for it? 

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David: Yeah. And Uber could not be possible without broadband, without mobile.

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Tammy: Right.

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David: Right? I mean, it is dependent on mobile.

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Tammy: Yep.

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David: Without the app ecosystem that operates, you know, and then translates into both Apple and Android and everything else. And, what happens is, these technologies, they're behavior-shifting, right? Like, we're seeing it in the search world. Google had to do what they had to do, and are doing it, rightly, because... Search won't go away overnight. But absolutely, people are using ChatGPT in place of search. And in many ways it's so much better. I think I shared with you, as we were talking about, as you were bringing me on, I planned a trip, right? I went out to the desert. And I didn't Google a single thing. I literally just sat down with ChatGPT and I said, I want to go out to Big Bend, these are the types of things I like to do, I like to hike, I like to, like, stop and grab coffee, I like doing X, Y, and Z. I just talked about the experience that I wanted, and I said, plan out my itinerary for four days. You know, driving. And it literally, for four days, you know, do these things at Big Bend, do this trail. Literally every single day. And I had it on my iPad, and I printed it out, because I wasn't going to get a connection on the trail. And that was it. And I followed everything and it was great. It was fantastic. And Google knows. They know that people are no longer going to be... I mean, we lived through, remember the zero moment of truth? ZMOT? With Google, right? Like, that is going out the window when it comes. So, this is a customer, consumer, employee, you know, pick your stakeholder, behavior-changing technology. And the expectations will change with the behavior.

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Tammy: The behavior, as well, as like... Think about what you just told ChatGPT to get ready for your trip. Like, think about that data. That contextual data about you.

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David: Oh yes.

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Tammy: Now I'll put on my marketing hat. I don't do a lot of digital marketing anymore, but, you know, it's in my blood. But I think about the data around what you just told ChatGPT.

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David: That's right.

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Tammy: And I think the thing about advertising, digital advertising, is, when you get content that is meaningful to you, that really does map to your likes, dislikes, needs, it doesn't feel like an ad anymore. It feels like a very helpful, like, hey David, you said that you really love to do these kinds of things. Did you know a new restaurant opened up around the corner with this kind of food? Like, right? Like... That doesn't feel like advertising anymore. I mean, Instagram, Facebook are better at it than most. Like, I'm embarrassed to admit how much stuff I actually buy through Instagram ads because they do pay attention in a different way. But I think about, like, that, like, the data that you're going to get, that they're going to get from you, and how are they going to monetize that? And that's something that you could get through, you know, think about Expedia. If they were using this kind of technology, that kind of conversation you could have with Expedia around crafting and creating your experience and booking it all. And then Agentic, right? Ah!

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David: Look at the massive...

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Tammy: They'll book me that trip.

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David: Well, that's coming next. But...

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Tammy: Yeah.

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David: Let's stay on the data part for a second. Because we talked about this, and I'm really bullish on this. Prompt data is the new search data. And then some prompt data is the new gold. Google knows this. They built their entire model off of the massive amounts... And search data is pure. It's intent-based, right? Like, there's no lying. Now, Meta and other social companies got social data. And that's also really valuable as well. So now we have, like, think about this as legs to the stool. Search data is still going to be really valuable for a long time, okay? Social data is valuable, right? Targeting everything else. But think about this outside of advertising as well. Prompt data. Anything that goes into a prompt... Now, that could be through voice. That could be through typing. The interface doesn't matter. There's a back and forth. That's really valuable information. Who gets that data? How do you parse it? Where does it get stored? Who owns it? So, in the enterprise AI space, you can lock it down, but... You can't see that data. You can't analyze that data. Someone's going to have that data. You could build it a certain way, where actually, if you customize it, you can own all that data, and you could be the beneficiary of that data. It could be... That's... Do you want to be the owner of all, everything that your employees are prompting? Or do you, you know, and have the ability to analyze that data? Or are you going to trust Microsoft or someone else to do that? And that's fine. You can trust that, we trust these enterprise software platforms, but we don't have access to that data. Even if we trust it, we will never have access to that data. And that's our data.

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Tammy: I think, like, the prompt data, like... Play that out. Okay. So you get the prompt data. Think about the things that you would learn about where your employees are needing development, where they're needing coaching, where the tools that you're providing aren't doing what they need to do. Ideas. Like, how the things are...

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David: What are they researching? How many times is this phrase being used, or this word being mentioned? What are they...? It is so valuable. It literally, in its abstract... I just was sitting around one night, literally the first time I used ChatGPT, I just thought of the search field, and all the data that I've given Google through the years in that search field. And then I thought, prompt field. And all the data I'm now about to give a different organization. And it's a different type of data that's equally valuable in a different way. So, I'm very bullish on this. And I think it's such early days, and I think there's massive amounts of opportunities for large enterprises to learn from that data and build better businesses on that data. Because of that data.

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Tammy: I feel like I could talk to you for, like, three more, four more hours. I'm really excited that I do get to, very soon, because you're going to be here in a couple of weeks and I can pick your brain all I want.

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David: We're gonna have fun.

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Tammy: All right. Well, David, thank you so much for being on Catalyst. Super excited to have you. And, look forward to working together in real life, on real projects together.

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David: Thanks, Tammy. I'm excited as well.

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Tammy: To our listeners, thank you so much for joining us on Catalyst, the Launch by NTT Data podcast. We'll see you back here next week.

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