At the most recent Seamless KSA edition, Mark Dowdall sat down with innovation and e-commerce expert Karl Lillrud to discuss how to move forward with AI and innovation.
Karl is one of the world’s top online business experts and a keynote speaker on topics such as innovation, leadership and the future. He has extensive experience working with companies at various stages of development, from unicorn start-ups to Fortune 500 companies and has authored several books on running online businesses. See part one of the interview below.
Karl, many businesses here might be looking to see where is the next place that they can innovate in the next five to ten years. What are some of the key trends that they need to look out for that will help them to pinpoint areas that they can start innovating in?
I think obviously, the trend and the expectations are that we will see much more of Generative AI over the next few years. I would say don’t think of it as just polishing the surface of your company but think of it as actually disrupting how your company is operating. Where could you use different Generative AI modules or methods to actually drive what it is that you are looking to achieve?
One of the areas I’m very interested in is creating a culture within the workplace that can foster innovation. What would you say is the best way for businesses to go about creating this culture that encourages people innovate?
Firstly, to show trust. Internally, to show that you trust the people working within the company. It also may be necessary to show that for me [as an employer] to be able to trust you to play around with these innovative technologies, I need you to use a certain set of data or follow a certain set of guidelines or make sure you don’t share certain information. And maybe that starts with with internal education about AI and how you as a company want to protect but also enable the company.
We’ve seen many companies already that have said that the employees are free to use different AI tools without understanding the impact. That has backfired, in a way, for some of these companies when all of a sudden they see that some of their internal secrets have been made accessible in the large language models that have been trained as a result of their employees having conversation about these secrets.
Do you think this is, in a way, the price you have to pay by accepting that mistakes will happen?
If you’re looking at being innovative, mistakes will happen, but it’s a learning curve. So plan for this. in the best possible way and make sure that people understand more before they get started. The second thing I would say about innovation is don’t try to regulate it because you can’t really regulate innovation internally. Instead try to support it by giving them a better understanding.
Karl, you spoke at the Seamless Europe event in Berlin in October. Can you outline some of the differences you see in the e-commerce retail landscape between here in the Middle East and what you’re experiencing back in Europe?
The big difference is that Saudi Arabia is a new market for all this technology and innovation. It’s a market that has a tremendous appetite to make a difference and effect global change.
In contrast, the European market has been around and operating in a way more or less like one of these really old big companies that slowly changing and slowly adapting. Without that legacy a country like Saudi Arabia doesn’t need to slowly adapt. It can just quickly implement.
So I guess the key message is expect big change here, and for it to happen quick over the next few years?
Exactly. And we see it already. People in Europe have not started to understand what’s actually going on here. But as I’ve been here now a couple of times, I see it’s not just amazing mega projects on paper, it’s things that are going on. It’s not about to happen, It’s happening.
And we’ve got 40,000 visitors expected to arrive here today and tomorrow. That shows a real appetite to keep up with the pace of change that’s happening in the region right now. With things moving so quickly what are some of the big challenges that you think come with this?
Yes for any company, organisation or country that is growing too fast there will be some challenges. But if you plan for that in the process and you accept that there will be things that are not going exactly as intended, you will make progress. I keep on saying failing. With this kind of growth it is important for these countries to say they have learned even if they make a mistake moving forward.
Let me just touch on a little bit of the work you’re doing yourself? Obviously you’re an author, you speak at some of the biggest conferences in the world. What projects are you working on at the moment?
Yes I do a lot of work helping companies understand how to to incorporate innovation and AI within their organisation, but not just to support from an internal point of view, but actually making them understand the value that they need to produce from a consumer point of view.
The consumer could be an actual consumer on the outside, but it could also be a consumer on the inside of the company. It is important to understand more about the full breadth of the opportunities. And I do that as a consultant and an advisor. In some companies I will actually step in as a mentor to help them. But to a large extent, I help organisations like Seamless to inspire a big audience to actually bring about disruption themselves in a way, too.
