How AI is Raising the Bar at Every Job (Most People Haven't Felt It Yet)

Kayvon Kay (0:00)

Can You Delegate Tasks Successfully to Other Human Beings?

Sean Campbell, founder of Cascade Insights, says that single answer predicts who wins with AI better than any technical skill ever will. Sean spent years inside competitive intelligence and market research for some of the biggest technology brands in the world, studying why people adopt new technology and what gets in their way. Today at Cascade Insights, his team steps into a company picks a job role, a team, or a business process, and rebuilds it with AI in the room. He also teaches AI at George Fox University, so he sees both sides, what founders need today and what the next generation of sellers walks in expecting. Then he names the one thing he says to start following right now, because it is coming faster than AI did. This is The Vault. Let's unlock it.

Sean, welcome to the show.

Sean Campbell (1:08)

Thanks for having me on, man.

Kayvon Kay (1:09)

Yeah, I'm excited. I know we were just talking about the world of AI, and you come from a unique background where you're teaching people AI, but you've also been behind some of the biggest businesses and some of the know-hows of where these AI are coming from and whatnot. I'm excited to dive in to talk about where is AI today? Where is it going? How do you see where it goes and everything in between?

Sean Campbell (1:36)

Yeah. Looking forward to it, man.

Kayvon Kay (1:38)

So tell us a little bit about who Sean is. Where did Sean and AI meet?

Sean Campbell (1:44)

Well, my experience with AI grew in a foundation that my entire professional career, I'm 55, so I'm squarely GenX, has always been at some kind of service or engagement around how people adopt technology. Meaning, I left my master's degree and basically promptly started teaching people how to use networking databases, programming systems, all that kind of stuff.

Then I found a company that does competitive intelligence work initially, and then market research work as well with extremely leading technology brands. Again, like the Microsofts, the Googles, the Salesforce, et cetera. So we're spending years and years and years trying to understand like, okay, why do people adopt technology? What moves them to adopt technology? What gets in the way?

And all along that time, I've also had multiple stints on a college campus where I've been a professor kind of engaging with students around different aspects of that same problem. So sometimes I sum it up and I'm like, I've kind of had both a professional and an academic stint as professor in a way, right? Lots of research, lots of training, lots of observing, lots of mentoring. And so where I'm at now, the AI specific is about three years ago.

I'm like, like everybody else, I'm like, okay, well, this is changing everything. This is bigger than every other tech change, you know, step change wise. And I don't want people to get run over by it. You know, my heart as an operator, you know, a guy who's owned a couple of businesses is, I looked at it from that angle and I'm like, I don't, you know, there's going to be people who won't get it and they won't move fast enough.

And then I was looking at it from the perspective of, can I get back into the university system and actually teach students this? And that led to a role where I'm an assistant professor of artificial intelligence at George Fox University. And I'm also the AI integration lead for the MBA program there. And, you know, obviously, there's lots of discussion at the university level just of, how should we integrate this? You know, and I can speak to some things I see in the College of Business, but I think it's reasonable to assume that, you know, any department on any campus is probably trying to figure out what they do with it. And then you're talking about, what does that mean for future generation? Like this morning, I was talking about AI and sales in the class, because I cover a bunch of different job roles. And I said, you know, I could give examples if you want me to get into examples, because we did some cool stuff. But I basically said, trying to set the kids into the framework of, you know, let's try to figure out what this is going to be like when you leave here in four years. You know, in your first sales job, what is AI going to actually do for you? And what should it not do for you? And, you know, what does it mean for your career? So, you know, I find myself in kind of this interesting position, I guess you'd sum it up, of like, you know, I'm researching what's happening while working for some of the guys who are making leading AI solutions. At the same time, I'm teaching and mentoring on a college campus. And then the third thing is we help companies meaningfully adopt AI. Like we deal with all this, like, reimagining the job and what does it mean to basically, you know, change a sales or marketing or HR role with AI in a room and, you know, it's a lot of fun. It's also really chaotic. Not in the sense of I think like my work output is chaotic, but I think I think I do good work. But, you know, man, like every single day there is something new. And if you're really trying to keep everything current, that's which I do, right? That's a big, big deal. It's a huge deal.