As the property manager for the Sammamish office complex owned by her parents, Kate Macartney is responsible for both leasing and landscaping. She frequently turns to AI for things as varied as gardening advice or how to replace a leaky roof.
“I’ve asked AI on what I need to know about being a property manager,” she says. “Every time I go there and there’s something new, I’ll say, ‘Hey, AI, could you just kind of give me some tips?’”
Macartney, who is based near Seattle, has a background in technology and change management. She launched her own company, MVM Strategies, two-and-a-half years ago to help organizations tailor AI strategies and train teams to use it to increase efficiency.
Yesterday, Formidable talked with Macartney about AI’s strengths and weaknesses. She urges everyone to at least become tangentially familiar with it.
Edited for length and clarity.
Are you surprised that many people fear AI, or that they don’t know how to use it? Not at all. It’s changing so much. We’ve moved from a chat experience to how to create agents to do your work with you, as a digital assistant. Those are new things, and if people haven’t started to learn the basics of it, it’s hard. It can be very intimidating.
Why do you say everybody should become familiar with AI and start using it in some way? I always encourage people to turn off the training model if they’re playing with it just for fun. Start asking more questions. Don’t overthink it. Have a good time, but don’t give it information that is very sensitive to you, your family, your clients. Don’t be afraid. That’s the biggest thing.
Kate Macartney urges people to make discerning choices when using AI.
Some people say AI will transform society. Will it? I don’t know. It’s not going away. I think the biggest thing each person can do is just get familiar with this thing and determine what their comfort level is.
How can you learn to trust AI with all the noise out there? The more you play around with it, the more you start to pick up on whether something was written by AI.
Is there a particular chatbot you encourage people to start with? Do you have a favorite? It changes every couple months. I run most of my work out of Claude or Copilot. I use ChatGPT (by far the most popular AI platform) for bite-sized research chunks and for more of my personal fun projects. I use Claude when it comes time to do some pretty serious thinking.
Do you encourage companies, on a professional level, to use just one platform? If you’re using the Microsoft platform, lean into Copilot. If you’re using that whole Google suite, lean into Gemini. People will have individual preferences. You can always say as a leader to use whatever AI you want on your personal time, but when it comes to the company, let’s go hard on one platform and how our connected teams work with this tool.
Are you concerned about gender bias in AI models? I used to be. I hear about it, but I don’t pay close attention to the gender biases because I’m only focused on how to do the work.
Do you personally use medical chabots? No, but the gender bias in the medical space is where I’m keeping my eye on that the most. That’s more on the personal level.
What’s the most important aspect of using AI? Don’t let answers derail your perspective. When does it makes sense to use AI? When does it not? Don’t let AI dilute your unique voice. The biggest thing is not outsourcing your brilliance. It’s the human sandwich: Human is in the beginning and the end and AI is in the middle, so you always have that point of view, that filter on how you really want this to look from that human perspective.
