BCBusiness

30 B C B U S I N E S S . C A J U N E 2 0 24 will be as obvious a prerequisite as the ability to type: "It's not hard to imagine that, during an interview, candidates will be asked how AI is integrated with their workflow and productivity." Mitch Joel, a Montreal-based tech com- mentator and creator of the Six Pixels of Separation podcast, feels that the distinc- tion between those who embrace such tools and those who don't "is going to be a greater problem than the original digi- tal divide. This is going to scale to a much more dramatic place." Getting employ- ees comfortable with tools like answer engines—and fast—will be crucial work. When an app like Perplexity can pro- vide such immediate and comprehensive content, however, it's also worth wonder- ing whether answer engines will replace more workers than they aid. The Business Council of B.C. published an assessment of our province's vulnerability to automa- tion, which found that 42 percent of B.C. jobs could be automated in the near future. Ninety percent of jobs, meanwhile, could be partly automated. And it's not only rank-and-file employees who'll have their work lives reimagined. Managers and execs, says Singh, will need to vet answer engines and the data banks that fuel them. At the same time, he predicts, "companies will have to adopt circumvention measures to protect their own IP and privacy. At some point, there will be several B2B tools to help with this." Joel agrees, suggesting that companies decide "effective ways to implement these tools so there's no IP leak... outside of the corporate structure." The attraction of using third-party tech must be balanced against the threat of that technology's abil- ity to harvest data. A company that creates its own guide- lines and then leans into answer engines and other AI tools will have a competitive advantage in the short run, Singh predicts. But, he adds, "With this adoption, they'll need a strong investment in security and preventative measures." No free lunch, in other words; those who allow answer engines to supercharge their company's productivity will have to do the honest work of safely and responsibly wield- ing that new power. And those planning to punt that responsibility may want to read up on Air Canada's recent courtroom loss—the airline was found liable for its chatbot's mistakes and was forced to repay a customer who was denied bereave- ment fare. Finding intelligent ways to work with new technologies, and not against them, is usually a better way to bulletproof one's work. Singh's advice is to bring AI tools into your wheelhouse by first letting go of static ideas about your specialization. "Leverage generative AI so you have a broader range of problem-solving abili- ties," he says. "And make it unique to you and the way you think, work and create." Answer engines, for example, are only as useful as the humans who prompt them. And there's an enormous difference between naive users—who don't know how to think critically about an answer engine's source material or outputs—and someone able to navigate an app like Per- plexity to quickly create strong, far-reach- ing and actionable material. Joel calls the move to answer engines an inevitability. "I don't think it's an either/or thing; I think it's a with prob- lem," he says. And how best to work with an answer engine? "I'm not looking for it to provide me with correct answers. I'm looking for it to help me with my own thinking. I ask very specific things—keep it as tight as possible—because what I really want is my own creative work." Holding on to one's own intentions while receiving a flood of prefabricated "answers" may feel like dealing with a blowhard at a cocktail party. But it's a skill that will define tomor- row's workplace. "I don't think it's an either/or thing; I think it's a with problem... I'm not looking for it to provide me with correct answers. I'm looking for it to help me with my own thinking. I ask very specific things—keep it as tight as possible—because what I really want is my own creative work." –Mitch Joel, creator, Six Pixels of Separation Illu s t r a t i o n : i S t o c k /g r i v i n a

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