Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is gonna be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, Business RadioX. If you’re a business coach or consultant who’s tired of being a best kept secret, set up a call with Stone Payton at brookstone.com to unlock your perpetual prospect pipeline. Today on the show, we have with us Nathan Nifco, and he is with AugmentU.AI, welcome.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Thank you, thank you. Lee. Well, I.

Lee Kantor: I am so excited to talk to you because it is now, I think it’s a legal requirement for me to bring up AI in every conversation I have. So I’m excited to be speaking with an expert on this subject. Tell us about your business AugmentU.AI.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Well, you know, I mean, I’ve been in in AI since 1987 for decades, almost. Then I decided to help people and enterprises to learn how to better adopt this new revolution of AI in a sustainable, strategic and ethical manner. And for that, it’s not just the the tools and technologies, but rather a framework that needs to be put in place in order to make sure that we just don’t use the word ROI in, in purely financial terms, but also how the ROI can be measured in terms of a growth, people’s growth, people’s augmentation. That’s why we are called augment UI. And by developing a framework that is consistent and universal across all industries to give them some kind of a scorecard and a framework to build a more sustainable adoption and maturity in the world of generative artificial intelligence.

Lee Kantor: So now where are you seeing kind of the biggest disconnect when it becomes between like, say, the technical AI capabilities and then the actual kind of human organizational adoption that’s happening right now?

Dr Nathan Nifco: There’s definitely a gap. There’s definitely a gap that needs to be breached because technology moves very fast. It’s exponential growth in technology in the last couple of years have been just amazing. There’s myriads of tools, platforms, technologies, applications, and therefore the entire human aspect and organizational questions are actually falling a little bit behind. So we need to bridge those. And in order to bridge those are not necessarily new tools and new technologies, but rather a more solid and comprehensive framework to measure how these three dimensions can come together and evolve in a harmonic manner.

Lee Kantor: Now, as part of your career, you’ve written several books, um, charting AI’s regulatory frontier from one Extreme to Waves and Words. Um, maybe about the creative side of this. On the other side of the spectrum, how, how do you kind of, um, bridge kind of the creative part of this with the enterprise part of this?

Dr Nathan Nifco: That’s a good question. I mean, the the reason I this two paths coexist in my world is because exactly my doctoral dissertation was both human and organizational systems. So the path of human development and the path of organizational development that at some point truly depend on each other, they converge. And especially now in the world of AI developing, augmenting, humans go hand in hand with developing an augmenting organizational enterprises. And the question is, uh, what is the what, what is the human and the organization of the future is going to look like when we can no longer ignore AI? And at the same time, AI is here to stay. And there’s no question we can go back. So it’s a question that needs to be answered from this. Both two perspectives the organizational enterprise, the human enterprise, and the development of the individual through this new revolution.

Lee Kantor: Now, when it comes to the enterprise side of the, um, uh, how are you helping organizations? Because AI, to me, in a lot of ways is a blunt instrument. When you say AI, it means different things to different people. And when you’re trying to implement AI across an enterprise, the marketing team is going to use AI different differently than the IT team is, or the HR team or the or whatever this or the C-suite is going to be using it. How do you kind of create policies and regulations that serve everybody so they can kind of get the most effective use out of AI?

Dr Nathan Nifco: Very good question. So the 3D universal framework that we employ, we design and employ in every project, regardless of the type of industry and department, basically is based on looking at the capabilities the enterprise develops in terms of the Gen I world and the impact of those capabilities on the enterprise in order to measure and score the level of adoption and maturity. So it’s like a 3D mesh. And, you know, in the book, I explain exactly what this is all about and how this can be applicable to pretty much any project and any department, any, any industry and allows you also, the framework itself allows you also to mitigate the risk as you continue moving along. Certainly there will be no perfect journey, even though in the book I actually explain what a perfect journey looks like in terms of the 3D mesh representation, but also the edge cases and the real world cases where projects will actually have a variety of peaks and valleys as they evolve in terms of reaching a point of optimization and art and leadership. And this is exactly what the 3D framework provides the ability to visualize and measure and score, where each project, at what stage each project is at in order to support the decision making process moving forward.

Lee Kantor: So what are those three dimensions?

Dr Nathan Nifco: So the first dimension is capabilities. Enterprise capabilities. So in other words Gen I interpret capabilities. The second dimension is how does JNI. Enterprise capabilities affect the enterprise and when you look at the two. You will find the third dimension, which is the level of adoption and maturity of JNI. Enterprise level going from exploration all the way to becoming a leader and visionary.

Lee Kantor: Now in your work, are you seeing some common mistakes that leadership teams are making when they’re trying to do this? And if so, can you share what some of them are?

Dr Nathan Nifco: Sure. There’s certainly a lot of pilot projects that sometimes I, I actually don’t move forward because the capabilities and the enterprise and the actual impact on the enterprise have not been well articulated. And I find that the moment that articulation takes place before deploying any project will actually facilitate the ability to understand where the success and failure of each project is at, and allows you to basically make corrections before it’s too late. The ability to articulate the capabilities and the impact of the enterprise on the enterprise will provide a framework for people to communicate better and understand where the pitfalls, risks, and benefits there are in these three different areas that are important, which is the strategic, the sustainable, and the ethical dimension.

Lee Kantor: Now, are there kind of reliable metrics that a team can measure to see if this is actually working in the manner they hoped.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Yes. I mean, the what I put forward in this framework are very simple, uh, labels on each axis that allow any, any project to dive into more granular, uh, articulation in terms of capabilities. I mean, it can be the standard general capabilities of a general genai project, or it can be actually articulated in a more specific, detailed, granular way of capabilities that are really in the context of every project. And therefore, that kind of flexibility allows you to customize the framework, the 3D universal framework in a way that can be can fit into any context, into any project. And this is actually why I think it’s important. The ability to look at gen AI adoption project from a from a top level and also address the bottom up from a top down approach and also develop and evolve the project from a bottom up approach.

Lee Kantor: Now, what is kind of the problem or challenge that your clients are having right before they call you? What’s happening in their world where they’re like, you know what, I need Nathan and his team to get some eyes on this.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Sure. Most of the projects that actually we work with are, and, you know, in terms of the maturity level, you know, we go from exploration to adoption to integration to optimization to leadership and to visionary. So most of them are actually at the other exploration level or adoption level. So we help our clients move to the next level, which is, you know, from exploration to adoption or from adoption to integration or from integration to optimization. And we still have not yet worked with a client that basically is at the stage of optimization that wants to move to leadership, but the framework does support that as well. The ability to mitigate risk throughout the project is also a very important part of the application of this 3-D universal framework, because most of the time, a client will actually be in a stage of exploration, and the ability to understand the potential risks before moving to adoption are key to the success of the project.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there any advice for the leader? Um, when it comes to mitigating risk, are there some do’s and don’ts to make sure that you’re doing this right.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Yes. And you know, there’s the same way that it goes between the, um, there’s a parallel, uh, 3D visualization, uh, in the 3D universal framework that relates to the, the risks, the actual risks. And when we actually measure the evolution of a project in these three dimensions, we also measure the risks in a separate 3D mesh to understand where are the peaks and valleys, uh, of the vulnerability of the risks to the impact. So just like the capabilities and the impact on the enterprise is a symmetrical framework as well for the risks to actually know what are the vulnerabilities and the impact of those vulnerabilities on the enterprise, and this is exactly the same 3D universal framework that allows you to visualize as you move from step to step in developing the project. The ability to articulate. Of course, the labels on each axis is something that is critical for each project enterprise, and that’s how we help enterprises labeling those different, uh, axes, both in the development of a project and the risk mitigation of the project.

Lee Kantor: So now who is the ideal client for you?

Dr Nathan Nifco: We work with mid to large companies that actually are actually are in the exploration and exploratory adoption stage are exploratory or the adoption stage. And we have a few projects that are actually already in the integration and optimization. But our main core is the exploration and adoption level.

Lee Kantor: And it’s industry agnostic. Or are they primarily tech firms?

Dr Nathan Nifco: It’s fully, fully industry agnostic. Yes. That’s why we actually call it universal. It’s fully industry agnostic.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates what it’s like to work with you and your team? Um, can you share maybe the challenge that the organization came to you with and how you were able to help it get to a new level?

Dr Nathan Nifco: Yes. I mean, I believe that there’s a project that, uh, one of the important aspects of this project was to, uh, understand better how the collation of information from different sources in an enterprise will actually can, can be facilitated by the use of generative AI, for example, generative AI. So in other words, a person gets information, emails, and interruptions from all different sources like WhatsApp and emails, etc.. And, and one of the key that we were actually helping our client is to understand how this particular project in the exploratory stage will be, uh, score measured and evaluated using our 3D universal framework, the ability to articulate the capabilities and the in implications, the actual, uh, enterprise, the actual application implication of those capabilities was actually where the universal 3D framework helped our client visualizing better the, uh, potential of this project.

Lee Kantor: So now in your work, um, if somebody is implementing some of the strategy that you recommend. How long does it take for them to see some noticeable change?

Dr Nathan Nifco: The the, once we apply the application, the actual 3D universal framework to articulating the capabilities and the implication and the adoption maturity level we’re talking about weeks in weeks, we can actually basically apply the framework and understand better. Where are the risks? What are the potential and where are the things that actually need to be considered before developing or the fully deploying the project?

Lee Kantor: Now, is there, um, are you, uh, obviously, I would assume you’re optimistic about how this is going to go, but what are, what are some of your kind of best case scenarios and worst case scenarios as this evolves.

Dr Nathan Nifco: That’s a good question. I mean, certainly the best case scenario, which we call it the perfect journey, is the ability to, uh, project, to make, transform an organization to the level of visionary or leadership that’s in that particular niche that they’re, uh, deploying the project. So that is, at the end of the day, the perfect journey. The ability to go from exploration all the way to leadership and visionary when it comes to that particular deploying deployment of generative AI projects.

Lee Kantor: Now, what if you’re an individual contributor in a company today, or just maybe you’re just graduated college? What is what should you be doing to, um, to get yourself ready for this massive change that’s happening right now.

Dr Nathan Nifco: It’s interesting because most of the effort is spent in the technical technology side of things, the engineering of things, the architecture of things. This 3D universal framework allows you to ask questions beyond the technology and look at more into the level of, uh, implication and transformative journey on both the stakeholders and the enterprise. So I believe, we believe that this framework should be a, you know, a applicable, uh, should be applied first and foremost before writing any line of code and configuring any settings in any platform. In order to understand all these three dimensions of the adoption and maturity journey of an enterprise.

Lee Kantor: And are you optimistic that enterprise is going to remember the humanity of why and what they do?

Dr Nathan Nifco: That is the quest. And certainly that is something that we try very. We are very eager to us, when you articulate the labels of the axes about implications in consequences, if you know that you articulate these labels in the 3D universal framework in a way that reflect that human component and the benefits or pitfalls of developing those capabilities and the implication on the enterprise. That’s exactly what the 3D framework, the 3D universal framework, was designed for.

Lee Kantor: Right. And I’m sure you’re hopeful, but do you find that there’s going to be some organizations that aren’t going to maybe prioritize humanity as much as profits or other elements of success may be in their minds?

Dr Nathan Nifco: It’s it’s definitely a very important question because the balance between the financial ROI, the ethical aspect, and the sustainability go hand in hand. So at the end of the day, you cannot be a project cannot be sustainable and transformative without actually bringing the strategic, the sustainable and the ethical aspects of, uh, of the, of the, of what are the actual implications at the enterprise level and at the human level.

Lee Kantor: Now, aren’t there kind of unintended consequences when it comes to like, especially if an organization wants to say, okay, we have AI, we’re going to implement AI. Um, we don’t need any more junior people because our AI is smarter than any of the young people that we have that are just starting out. Um, and so we’re going to eliminate that kind of layer from our organization. Couldn’t that come back to, to, to bite you down the road when your teams that eventually get to the leadership level haven’t had kind of the, the, um, kind of the scars and, and battle stories of folks who have gone through the process and have that kind of wisdom.

Dr Nathan Nifco: One of the things that we cannot leave out in our delegate is the human in the loop. We cannot outsource judgment. Uh, if we actually do that, we can find ourselves in a catastrophic stage because the human aspect did not. Uh, do you see when you deal with the DNI, you deal with a, an ongoing expansion and contraction of possibilities. And if you’re not careful, you can actually have the DNI lead you to a rabbit hole that later on is going to be, uh, a problem. You can get out of it. So every single aspect of the project, the DNI project needs to have a human in the loop And the human has to basically bring about the guardrails of when it’s okay to expand scope and when it’s okay to contract scope and when it’s actually okay just to, you know, say, this is what we need. That’s it until here we can go about developing the project. If we don’t do that and we leave the gen I, if we, you know, on its own, uh, you know, I’ve seen, uh, I’ve seen interactions where things can actually go out of the scope and out of the margins that actually are required. So the human, uh, the judgment cannot be outsourced into the human has to be always part of the loop at every single step in a project.

Lee Kantor: Right? That’s a must have. That’s not, that’s kind of non-negotiable, right?

Dr Nathan Nifco: It’s non-negotiable. But sometimes what happens is that as humans, we actually see that the the the AI is doing things more and more, much more efficiently and much faster. And then we, you know, forget who’s the boss and therefore we subordinate ourselves into whatever the AI is doing. And that’s where things can actually go, uh, sideways. And that’s very important to understand what we should and we should not outsource.

Lee Kantor: And that’s part of what you’re kind of helping your clients do, right, is to create these tight loops that protect them from maybe letting some of this get out of hand.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Yes, exactly. And it’s a co-creation. It’s a co augmentation. There’s no question. It’s a co augmentation and co-creation. It’s not here or there who’s actually driving what. Because AI has the seeds, the cognitive capacity of humans to actually remember every single detail. But it’s the human that needs to know how to actually take advantage of that in order to avoid, uh, what will normally do without AI, which is basically a more limited approach to understand in depth and in breadth the potentiality and the scope of a project. So here is where I mean, co augmentation goes hand in hand and every single step in the interaction with AI needs to happen. That augmentation needs to be there. But the human always needs to be in the loop driving the boat.

Lee Kantor: Right. Like you can’t there’s there’s delegation and there’s abdication. You can’t abdicate. You have to still be involved.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Exactly. And the people that are actually in the project, I mean, this is a tool. Jenny is a tool. It’s a much more sophisticated tool than we’ve never seen before. We cannot actually use today. Or it’s actually very inefficient to use a typewriter to write a document. Well, the same thing will happen with Gen AI very soon. You cannot just basically build something without the collaboration and help of a of an AI just because they’re much faster and more efficient, but you need to actually use them as a tool.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Dr Nathan Nifco: Well, certainly augmentu.ai is our website and Mirability. We have also, uh, some books published already and are available in Amazon that actually talk about, uh, the general, the 3D universal framework. And sure, you know, I will be happy to, uh, chat with anybody that actually would like to understand and get more information about this 3D universal framework.

Lee Kantor: And that’s a UGMENT the letter u.ai for the website. Nathan, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Dr Nathan Nifco: Thank you for the invite.

Lee Kantor: All right, this is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you next time on High Velocity Radio.