With 900 plus radio interviews under my belt as a host, plus numerous television and webinar appearances, the only thing I have enjoyed more than the live broadcasts are the green room discussions before going live.
While the live events are energized and engaging, the raw, uncut, and unedited discussions have a different feel that is not as formal and can be unpredictable.
Joining me on December 5th to talk about Generative AI will be Dr. Marcell Vollmer, Bill Michels, and Rob Handfield. All industry experts and recognized thought leaders will take you on an AI journey of understanding, focusing on three core areas:
- Autonomous Procurement
- Cognitive Analytics
- Interactive Intelligence
Use the following link for details on how to attend.
In the meantime, here is the link to the Green Room Video Soundbite* with the corresponding transcript below. https://app.fireflies.ai/soundbites/9SW7s3bMchV
- *NOTE: Dr. Marcell Vollmer was not available for the Greene Room discussion but will join us for the live webinar on the 5th.
Jon Hansen
But if you think about it, when you look at, for example, autonomous procurement, Bill, what do you think that mean? How do you define that for someone? I mean, I know I have my definition, but how do you define now autonomous?
Bill Michels
I think it’s changing radically as we look in terms of what’s happening, what’s the capabilities within AI, what’s going to happen to people that are in transactional and tactical jobs, how are they going to be affected versus how is procurement going to change to be more strategic and more aligning of the supply chain? So I think it depends on which area you’re talking about. I think that the transactional tactical side can be totally autonomous, but I think the alignment and the strategic part cannot.
Jon Hansen
Well, and this is the thing I want to go into you, Robert, because we already have slides prepared for this and talking about it. And one of the slides related to this is autonomous procurement is a data driven approach. Remember, Rob, when we did that ebook a few years back, and, you know, AI would be great if it can help to automate the process of actually providing clean and usable data. I think you probably remember that very.
Rob Handfield
Do. Yeah, no, and I’m fine with the slides and going whichever direction you guys would like because I think you’re right. I think AI is a useful approach, but I don’t think we really fully understand it yet and what it can and can’t do. I think there’s a lot of really interesting stuff going on with spend analysis, supplier research, but it’s still in the early stages.
Jon Hansen
Well, and this is your mind. I want to flip back to you, Bill, because you’re talking about automating the transactional side of the equation. And to Rob’s point, I think you still need to have the strategic knowledge of human intervention in there. I mean, it’s not an either or scenario, is it?
Rob Handfield
That’s right. It’s absolutely humans in the loop. And I think that’s part of the discussion is humans have to really, even with chat GPT, humans have to ask it the right questions and putting the right boundary and scope conditions. And so, yeah, it’s absolutely part of that process. In fact, I read this morning Amazon is giving free lessons on AI because there’s such a shortage of people within the company that know how to work with AI.
Jon Hansen
So it’s quite, you know, this goes into cognitive, and I don’t want to digress too much, but Bill, I mean, what you do with lavender AI is you do bring together humans and technology to work together. I mean, there’s a co learning element there, isn’t it?
Bill Michels
Yeah, there sure mean, in fact, it’s interesting because what we’ve done, Rob, is we’ve got an e learning platform for negotiations, and then they go off on a case study and they actually can negotiate with conversational AI avatar, and then the Avatar comes back and gives them feedback on how they actually did and what they could have done better. And I think that every time I talk to the Avatar, I get a different response or a different thing, and it’s never the same. And I think what’s really happened initially it was really a battle in negotiation, but one of the two of us is learning. It’s either the Avatar or me, and I’m not sure who it is. I think our technical guys say it’s not the Avatar, but he tends to, next time he comes on, be different than before.
It could be me, but one of the two of us is learning, or both of us.
Jon Hansen
Yeah. Well, now I want to go back to you, Rob, for a second, because it’s interesting, because we now call this cognitive analytics, human like intelligence, but interaction. Remember the famous peloton case study where when the pandemic hit, their business went booming through the air ceiling, yet they couldn’t match delivery. They took hits. They had to switch from one method because of blockages on traditional transportation to go to air travel, of these things. And one of the things that I raised was, did they have the data? In many instances, it was told that they had the data. They didn’t know how to read it, they didn’t know how to do that. I mean, that’s really a big part of cognitive analytics, isn’t it? Isn’t just the system getting smarter, but it’s ourselves to adapt and get smarter. I mean, is that a reasonable thought?
Rob Handfield
I think so, yeah. I think we have to be able to figure out how to use the data in a productive manner. And to do that, you need to ask, what are the questions you’re trying to solve? And then what are the data that can be helpful in solving those questions? And then you can use Generative AI to say, well, go out and try to find that information for me. That’s out there on the web, and that’s the power of this generative AI technology. But you have to really frame the question correctly, and you have to know the data you’re trying to find. You can’t just say, well, solve this problem for me.
Once again, be sure to join me and this amazing panel on the 5th of December 2023 at 1:00 PM ET hosted on the SIG Power Hour!
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Procurement Insights
Generative AI Video: An Uncut, Unedited Webinar Sneak Peek with Bill Michels, Rob Handfield, (and Dr. Marcell Vollmer*)
Posted on November 20, 2023
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With 900 plus radio interviews under my belt as a host, plus numerous television and webinar appearances, the only thing I have enjoyed more than the live broadcasts are the green room discussions before going live.
While the live events are energized and engaging, the raw, uncut, and unedited discussions have a different feel that is not as formal and can be unpredictable.
Joining me on December 5th to talk about Generative AI will be Dr. Marcell Vollmer, Bill Michels, and Rob Handfield. All industry experts and recognized thought leaders will take you on an AI journey of understanding, focusing on three core areas:
Use the following link for details on how to attend.
In the meantime, here is the link to the Green Room Video Soundbite* with the corresponding transcript below. https://app.fireflies.ai/soundbites/9SW7s3bMchV
Jon Hansen
But if you think about it, when you look at, for example, autonomous procurement, Bill, what do you think that mean? How do you define that for someone? I mean, I know I have my definition, but how do you define now autonomous?
Bill Michels
I think it’s changing radically as we look in terms of what’s happening, what’s the capabilities within AI, what’s going to happen to people that are in transactional and tactical jobs, how are they going to be affected versus how is procurement going to change to be more strategic and more aligning of the supply chain? So I think it depends on which area you’re talking about. I think that the transactional tactical side can be totally autonomous, but I think the alignment and the strategic part cannot.
Jon Hansen
Well, and this is the thing I want to go into you, Robert, because we already have slides prepared for this and talking about it. And one of the slides related to this is autonomous procurement is a data driven approach. Remember, Rob, when we did that ebook a few years back, and, you know, AI would be great if it can help to automate the process of actually providing clean and usable data. I think you probably remember that very.
Rob Handfield
Do. Yeah, no, and I’m fine with the slides and going whichever direction you guys would like because I think you’re right. I think AI is a useful approach, but I don’t think we really fully understand it yet and what it can and can’t do. I think there’s a lot of really interesting stuff going on with spend analysis, supplier research, but it’s still in the early stages.
Jon Hansen
Well, and this is your mind. I want to flip back to you, Bill, because you’re talking about automating the transactional side of the equation. And to Rob’s point, I think you still need to have the strategic knowledge of human intervention in there. I mean, it’s not an either or scenario, is it?
Rob Handfield
That’s right. It’s absolutely humans in the loop. And I think that’s part of the discussion is humans have to really, even with chat GPT, humans have to ask it the right questions and putting the right boundary and scope conditions. And so, yeah, it’s absolutely part of that process. In fact, I read this morning Amazon is giving free lessons on AI because there’s such a shortage of people within the company that know how to work with AI.
Jon Hansen
So it’s quite, you know, this goes into cognitive, and I don’t want to digress too much, but Bill, I mean, what you do with lavender AI is you do bring together humans and technology to work together. I mean, there’s a co learning element there, isn’t it?
Bill Michels
Yeah, there sure mean, in fact, it’s interesting because what we’ve done, Rob, is we’ve got an e learning platform for negotiations, and then they go off on a case study and they actually can negotiate with conversational AI avatar, and then the Avatar comes back and gives them feedback on how they actually did and what they could have done better. And I think that every time I talk to the Avatar, I get a different response or a different thing, and it’s never the same. And I think what’s really happened initially it was really a battle in negotiation, but one of the two of us is learning. It’s either the Avatar or me, and I’m not sure who it is. I think our technical guys say it’s not the Avatar, but he tends to, next time he comes on, be different than before.
It could be me, but one of the two of us is learning, or both of us.
Jon Hansen
Yeah. Well, now I want to go back to you, Rob, for a second, because it’s interesting, because we now call this cognitive analytics, human like intelligence, but interaction. Remember the famous peloton case study where when the pandemic hit, their business went booming through the air ceiling, yet they couldn’t match delivery. They took hits. They had to switch from one method because of blockages on traditional transportation to go to air travel, of these things. And one of the things that I raised was, did they have the data? In many instances, it was told that they had the data. They didn’t know how to read it, they didn’t know how to do that. I mean, that’s really a big part of cognitive analytics, isn’t it? Isn’t just the system getting smarter, but it’s ourselves to adapt and get smarter. I mean, is that a reasonable thought?
Rob Handfield
I think so, yeah. I think we have to be able to figure out how to use the data in a productive manner. And to do that, you need to ask, what are the questions you’re trying to solve? And then what are the data that can be helpful in solving those questions? And then you can use Generative AI to say, well, go out and try to find that information for me. That’s out there on the web, and that’s the power of this generative AI technology. But you have to really frame the question correctly, and you have to know the data you’re trying to find. You can’t just say, well, solve this problem for me.
Once again, be sure to join me and this amazing panel on the 5th of December 2023 at 1:00 PM ET hosted on the SIG Power Hour!
30
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