Episode 54: The Secret to Making AI Actually Work

Scott Rechler (0:00)

People can also leverage AI to become a specialist without having to be a specialist, right? So the real question is if you're a great communicator, if you are great as a manager, but you don't have necessarily the domain expertise, you can potentially leverage AI to get enough of that domain expertise to be successful that you wouldn't have been having that opportunity if it wasn't before.

Charlie Harary (0:19)

This is Crossing the Chasm, your front row seat to how leaders think in real time. My name is Charlie Harary, RXR's Chief People and Organizational Strategy Officer, and I'm joined with RXR's CEO and leader Scott Rechler. Join us as we break down what's happening in the world and we pull out the leadership lessons behind the headlines. Scott, thanks for taking the time.

Scott Rechler (0:37)

It's great to be here.

Charlie Harary (0:37)

Last week, I was in our physical AI meeting. I find them to be incredible. They're really blowing my mind what's possible today. I think there's a point where we talk about AI a lot, and we're looking at AI as it embeds into our workflows. What are you seeing in the world of AI through the physical lens and what it's going to be doing as almost like an outside component to our life?

Scott Rechler (1:01)

Yeah, I think what was very interesting about the physical AI is how quickly it's being integrated into workflows and you're able to see those returns on investments much more tangibly than you can see them if we're working on our organizational AI. And I think a takeaway for me, and maybe just maybe a couple of examples like where it's really been embedded effectively is in our construction and development tools. Right. And that's whether we've watched the robots that's working on our 61 Broadway conversion of Office to Resi and basically painting on the floors based on what the plans are of exactly what the flow should be from each trade as they go. So instead of following a set of plans, they're following different color paint on the floor to make sure that's right.

Or watching our job supers walk around with helmets with 3D cameras that's capturing everything on the site, that then are going back and comparing that against the plans using AI to see if there's any variances relative to schedule or to the specs that were on the plans. Right. So we're doing the same with the drones on our construction sites that every day go out and fly around our construction sites to see is on schedule and following the specs. Things that were absolutely impossible to think that you're going to do every day in that level of detail. And frankly, not only are you going to reduce schedule and you're going to decrease errors, but you also potentially avoid risks of things that are on the plans, not necessarily executed in the field as per the plan, and could be risky, create a challenge or something like you've seen at some other construction sites here in the city recently, right? The constructions on some of the conversions. So it's a major difference. But what's an interesting takeaway for me is, why is construction such a great use case? Because to be able to be part of a construction site all starts with a set of blueprints, a set of specs, a set of workflows that are very well defined. You don't start a construction project until everything's written down, until every trade knows what their role is going to be and their timing of how that goes. And so you have that operating flow in that blueprint that's established, which really becomes the baseline of how you can really operationalize AI. You got the information, you got the standards, you got now the data from the site that can compare it to what that standard was supposed to be, and it then gives you this power. And if you think about that, if you can transition the same mentality to developing the blueprints in your organization, that's where you're going to really see the empowerment of AI in the workplace.

Charlie Harary (3:43)

Wow, you've just demystified so much of AI. I think that when you look at this, as you began speaking, I'm like, wow, that is just the future. And then as you uncovered what you were getting at, which is the blueprint, what you're saying, and I just want to articulate it for the audience, is it's a product of real hard work to detail out a process.

And so it's the human who has to sit and blueprint it to allow the machine to work. And that's something that we all can do always.