From left, Chaitra Vedullapalli, Women in Cloud founder and president, Letty Cherry from Microsoft and EY’s Brenda Young.
As fears mount over AI’s impact on everything from jobs to daily life, two leaders are pushing back against a future dominated by machines.
Letty Cherry, partner and GM, Image & Culture at Microsoft, and Brenda Young, managing director in the technology consulting practice at EY, both said at a recent Women in Cloud event that AI will collaborate with, rather than replace, humans.
The panel discussion, “The Altitude Advantage: Why leaders who see further will win the AI era,” was moderated by Chaitra Vedullapalli, Women in Cloud founder and president.
Edited for length and clarity.
What will define the greatest leaders in the AI era?
Young: I think in being able to evaluate, judge, understand what the right questions are, the right outcomes, the right value that we’re trying to drive.
Cherry: I’m going to cheat and say two: Curiosity and humility.
What’s one leadership habit every executive should start tomorrow if they want greater altitude?
Cherry: Start with something hard and uncomfortable every week. Don’t be a perfectionist at everything but get yourself out of your comfort zone. Experiment. Try things that make you wrong and fail. That will help push you to understand what’s out there, what life is like.
Young: It’s about being able to listen and be on the ground to better understand what are the things (AI) is impacting, so that I can look further out and start to connect the dots.
What’s one quality you now hire for that wasn’t as important five years ago?
Young: Agility and being able to be adaptable.
Cherry: Are you able to adapt to change? Can you move? The past just moves so fast. If you can’t be resilient it’s going to be hard.
If you could give every leader a piece of guidance for the next decade, what would that be?
Cherry: Remember your humanity. Harness those things that make you real. Create that sense of belonging with people. Set people up for success. Motivate. Don't get all doomsday, like, “Oh, the like robots are going to change the world. “They will, but it'll be in a very good way. Harness that.
Young: I go back to empathy. When we talk about the human, we have to have that. That's really what AI is never going to replace, that empathy and those emotions and connections.
Complete the sentence: The leaders who will make history are the ones who…
Cherry: See probably 50 feet way ahead of anybody else. Maybe 50 miles.
Young: I think there is a lot of fear, so being able to help people see the future and what’s possible, getting them excited about it.
What does your future look like? What are you going to tell your grandkids?
Young: Well, I hope that I can tell my grandkids that I helped to utilize AI for human potential and better outcomes in the world, as opposed to just trying to be more efficient, get faster and replace humans. It’s really about how did we use AI to really help humanity.
Cherry: I would say that there was a point in time where we had the option of letting the technology take over and we made the concrete decision to put humans at the center of it to lead the technology. That’s what made the difference. Because right now, we're at this pivotal point, and it could go either way.
