Data storytelling isn't just about presenting numbers—it's about creating shared wisdom that drives better decision-making. In our increasingly polarized world, we often miss that most people actually have reasonable views hidden behind the loudest voices. But how can technology help us cut through the noise and build genuine understanding? What if AI could help us share stories across different communities and contexts, making our collective knowledge more accessible? From reducing unnecessary meetings to enabling more effective collaboration, the way we exchange information is evolving rapidly. Are you prepared for a future where AI helps us communicate more effectively rather than replacing human judgment? Professor Alex “Sandy” Pentland is a leading computational scientist, co-founder of the MIT Media Lab and Media Lab Asia, and a HAI Fellow at Stanford. Recognized by Forbes as one of the world’s most powerful data scientists, he played a key role in shaping the GDPR through the World Economic Forum and contributed to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals as one of the Secretary General’s “Data Revolutionaries.” His accolades include MIT’s Toshiba Chair, election to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, the Harvard Business Review McKinsey Award, and the DARPA 40th Anniversary of the Internet Award. Pentland has served on advisory boards for organizations such as the UN Secretary General, UN Foundation, Consumers Union, and formerly for the OECD, Google, AT&T, and Nissan. Companies originating from his lab have driven major innovations, including India’s Aadhaar digital identity system, Alibaba’s news and advertising arm, and the world’s largest rural health service network. His more recent ventures span mental health (Ginger.io), AI interaction management (Cogito), delivery optimization (Wise Systems), financial privacy (Akoya), and fairness in social services (Prosperia). A mentor to over 80 PhD students—many now leading in academia, research, or entrepreneurship—Pentland helped pioneer fields such as computational social science, wearable computing, and modern biometrics. His books include Social Physics, Honest Signals, Building the New Economy, and Trusted Data. In the episode, Richie and Sandy explore the role of storytelling in data and AI, how technology reshapes our narratives, the impact of AI on decision-making, the importance of shared wisdom in communities, and much more. Links Mentioned in the Show: MIT Media LabSandy’s Booksdeliberation.ioConnect with SandySkill Track: Artificial Intelligence (AI) LeadershipRelated Episode: The Human Element of AI-Driven Transformation with Steve Lucas, CEO at BoomiRewatch RADAR AI  New to DataCamp? Learn on the go using the DataCamp mobile appEmpower your business with world-class data and AI skills with DataCamp for business

The pressure to innovate with AI is immense. There is seemingly a race against the clock for organizations to incorporate AI into their product offering, aside from continual digital transformation. As the speed of AI development accelerates, many organizations struggle to keep up, facing challenges from data readiness to changing traditional business processes. How can businesses ensure that their AI initiatives not only align with strategic goals but also foster real, tangible progress? What steps can leaders take to build AI fluency across their teams and turn potential into actionable outcomes? Alison McCauley is a Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker, AI Strategist. She is Chief Advocacy Officer at Think with AI and Founder of Unblocked Future, a consultancy that leads the way in adopting emerging technologies, and has been collaborating with AI pioneers since 2010. With nearly 30 years of experience at the intersection of enterprise and disruptive innovation, Alison specializes in unlocking business value from cutting-edge technologies by focusing on the human aspects of change. She has been recognized as a Top Voice in AI, authored the book Unblocked, is a keynote speaker at global conferences, and her writings have appeared in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Venture Beat. Additionally, over 90,000 students have taken her LinkedIn course. In the episode, Richie and Alison explore digital transformation and AI’s role in it, strategic alignment and shifting mindsets, AI fluency, challenges in data readiness, organizational resistance fuelled by fear, the role of management in AI transformation, practical steps to avoid AI risks, the long term impact of AI in the future and much more.  Links Mentioned in the Show: Think with AIUnlocked FutureUnblocked: How Blockchains Will Change Your Business (and What to Do About It)Connect with AlisonCourse - Artificial Intelligence (AI) StrategyRelated Episode: How are Businesses Really Using AI? With Tathagat Varma, Global TechOps Leader at Walmart Global TechRewatch sessions from RADAR: AI Edition New to DataCamp? Learn on the go using the DataCamp mobile appEmpower your business with world-class data and AI skills with DataCamp for business

We learned so much about generative AI and its impact for people and organizations in 2023, we must anticipate many more innovations in the data and AI space 2024. One of the best places to look for this information is through the wisdom of those that spend their time with the Fortune 1000 leaders that are helping shape data and AI practices. Wavestone’s annual Data and AI Executive Leadership Survey is a great way to gain insight into thoughts in current practices, as well as understand what to expect from business leaders and organizations in the near future. In this episode, we speak to the author of the survey.  Randy Bean is a start-up business founder, CEO, industry thought leader, author, and speaker in the field of data-driven business leadership.  He serves as Innovation Fellow, Data Strategy for Paris-based consultancy Wavestone. Randy is the creator of the Data and AI Leadership Executive Survey discussed in today's episode. He is the author of the bestselling "Fail Fast, Learn Faster: Lessons in Data-Driven Leadership in an Age of Disruption, Big Data, and AI", and a current contributor to Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and MIT Sloan Management Review.   In the episode, Richie and Randy explore the 2024 Data and AI Leadership Executive Survey, the impact of generative AI in 2023 and what to expect from it in 2024, the state of generative AI implementation in organizations, healthcare and AI, including examples of generative AI outperforming human doctors, the evolving responsibilities of CDOs, the increasing importance of data-driven decision-making in organizations, the barriers to becoming data-driven, insights on data skills and the generational shift towards more data-savvy business leaders, as well as much more.  Links Mentioned in the Show: Data and AI Leadership Executive SurveyRandy’s Articles in ForbesAlly FinancialResponsible AI InstituteCourse: Implementing AI Solutions in Business

There are a few caveats to using generative AI tools, those caveats have led to a few tips that have quickly become second nature to those that use LLMs like ChatGPT. The main one being: have the domain knowledge to validate the output in order to avoid hallucinations. Hallucinations are one of the weak spots for LLMs due to the nature of the way they are built, as they are trained to correlate data in order to predict what might come next in an incomplete sequence. Does this mean that we’ll always have to be wary of the output of AI products, with the expectation that there is no intelligent decision-making going on under the hood? Far from it. Causal AI is bound by reason—rather than looking at correlation, these exciting systems are able to focus on the underlying causal mechanisms and relationships. As the AI field rapidly evolves, Causal AI is an area of research that is likely to have a huge impact on a huge number of industries and problems.  Paul Hünermund is an Assistant Professor of Strategy and Innovation at Copenhagen Business School. In his research, Dr. Hünermund studies how firms can leverage new technologies in the space of machine learning and artificial intelligence such as Causal AI for value creation and competitive advantage. His work explores the potential for biases in organizational decision-making and ways for managers to counter them. It thereby sheds light on the origins of effective business strategies in markets characterized by a high degree of technological competition and the resulting implications for economic growth and environmental sustainability.  His work has been published in The Journal of Management Studies, the Econometrics Journal, Research Policy, Journal of Product Innovation Management, International Journal of Industrial Organization, MIT Sloan Management Review, and Harvard Business Review, among others.  In the full episode, Richie and Paul explore Causal AI, its differences when compared to other forms of AI, use cases of Causal AI in fields like drug development, marketing, manufacturing, and defense. They also discuss how Causal AI contributes to better decision-making, the role of domain experts in getting accurate results, what happens in the early stages of Causal AI adoption, exciting new developments within the Causal AI space and much more.  Links Mentioned in the Show: Causal Data Science in BusinessCausal AI by causaLensIntro to Causal AI Using the DoWhy Library in PythonLesson: Inference (causal) models

We are all guilty of getting excited about shiny new toys in whatever guise they present themselves to us. For many of us, lots of the recent shiny new toys have been ways of utilizing AI to update and iterate on the ways that we work. Leadership teams have been looking for ways that their organizations can incorporate AI solutions into their products, regardless of whether they might be the most valuable use of the company's time. A company that fails to incorporate new tools and technology will stagnate and fail altogether right? A failure to adapt to the new state of play will surely stop the company from becoming a high performer? Or will it? What sets apart high-performing organizations from their non high-performing counterparts? It’s not shiny new toys. It’s culture. Counter to conventional wisdom, the norms and beliefs of an organization, and not the technology and tools it uses, is what drives its performance. Andrew McAfee is a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, co-founder and co-director of MIT’s Initiative on the Digital Economy, and the inaugural Visiting Fellow at the Technology and Society organization at Google. He studies how technological progress changes the world. His book, The Geek Way, reveals a new way to get big things done. His previous books include More from Less and, with Erik Brynjolfsson, The Second Machine Age. McAfee has written for publications including Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. He's talked about his work on CNN and 60 Minutes, at the World Economic Forum, TED, and the Aspen Ideas Festival, with Tom Friedman and Fareed Zakaria, and in front of many international and domestic audiences. He’s also advised many of the world’s largest corporations and organizations ranging from the IMF to the Boston Red Sox to the US Intelligence Community. Throughout the episode, Adel and Andrew explore the four cultural norms of the Geek way, the evolutionary biological underpinnings of the traits high performing organizations exhibit, case studies in adapting organizational culture, the role of data in driving high performance teams, useful frameworks leaders can adopt to build high performing organizations, and a lot more. Link mentioned in the show: The Geek Way: The Radical Mindset That Drives Extraordinary Results by Andrew McAfeeThe Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies by Andrew McAfee and Erik BrynjolfssonThe Planning FallacyAnnie DukeSteven PinkerAdam Grant

It's been a year since ChatGPT burst onto the scene. It has given many of us a sense of the power and potential that LLMs hold in revolutionizing the global economy. But the power that generative AI brings also comes with inherent risks that need to be mitigated.  For those working in AI, the task at hand is monumental: to chart a safe and ethical course for the deployment and use of artificial intelligence. This isn't just a challenge; it's potentially one of the most important collective efforts of this decade. The stakes are high, involving not just technical and business considerations, but ethical and societal ones as well. How do we ensure that AI systems are designed responsibly? How do we mitigate risks such as bias, privacy violations, and the potential for misuse? How do we assemble the right multidisciplinary mindset and expertise for addressing AI safety?  Reid Blackman, Ph.D., is the author of “Ethical Machines” (Harvard Business Review Press), creator and host of the podcast “Ethical Machines,” and Founder and CEO of Virtue, a digital ethical risk consultancy. He is also an advisor to the Canadian government on their federal AI regulations, was a founding member of EY’s AI Advisory Board, and a Senior Advisor to the Deloitte AI Institute. His work, which includes advising and speaking to organizations including AWS, US Bank, the FBI, NASA, and the World Economic Forum, has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, and Forbes. His written work appears in The Harvard Business Review and The New York Times. Prior to founding Virtue, Reid was a professor of philosophy at Colgate University and UNC-Chapel Hill. In the episode, Reid and Richie discuss the dominant concerns in AI ethics, from biased AI and privacy violations to the challenges introduced by generative AI, such as manipulative agents and IP issues. They delve into the existential threats posed by AI, including shifts in the job market and disinformation. Reid also shares examples where unethical AI has led to AI projects being scrapped, the difficulty in mitigating bias, preemptive measures for ethical AI and much more.  Links mentioned in the show: Ethical Machines by Reid BlackmanVirtue Ethics ConsultancyAmazon’s Scrapped AI Recruiting ToolNIST AI Risk Management FrameworkCourse: AI EthicsDataCamp Radar: Data & AI Literacy

For the past few years, we've seen the importance of data literacy and why organizations must invest in a data-driven culture, mindset, and skillset. However, as generative AI tools like ChatGPT have risen to prominence in the past year, AI literacy has never been more important. But how do we begin to approach AI literacy? Is it an extension of data literacy, a complement, or a new paradigm altogether? How should you get started on your AI literacy ambitions?  Cindi Howson is the Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot and host of The Data Chief podcast. Cindi is a data analytics, AI, and BI thought leader and an expert with a flair for bridging business needs with technology. As Chief Data Strategy Officer at ThoughtSpot, she advises top clients on data strategy and best practices to become data-driven, speaks internationally on top trends such as AI ethics, and influences ThoughtSpot’s product strategy.

Cindi was previously a Gartner Research Vice President, the lead author for the data and analytics maturity model and analytics and BI Magic Quadrant, and a popular keynote speaker. She introduced new research in data and AI for good, NLP/BI Search, and augmented analytics, bringing both BI bake-offs and innovation panels to Gartner globally. She’s frequently quoted in MIT, Harvard Business Review, and Information Week. She is rated a top 12 influencer in big data and analytics by Analytics Insight, Onalytca, Solutions Review, and Humans of Data.

In the episode, Cindi and Adel discuss how generative AI accelerates an organization’s data literacy, how leaders can think beyond data literacy and start to think about AI literacy, the importance of responsible use of AI, how to best communicate the value of AI within your organization, what generative AI means for data teams, AI use-cases in the data space, the psychological barriers blocking AI adoption, and much more. 

Links Mentioned in the Show: The Data Chief Podcast  ThoughtSpot Sage  BloombergGPT  Radar: Data & AI Literacy Course: AI Ethics  Course: Generative AI Concepts Course: Implementing AI Solutions in Business 

In this show, Jeffrey Hull talks about his book Flex. He shared insights on the art and science of being a great leader. He shared the anatomy of leadership and the ingredients of those who do it successfully.

Bio: Jeffrey Hull, Ph.D. BCC is CEO of Leadershift, Inc. a leadership development consultancy based in New York City and author of the best-selling book, FLEX: The Art and Science of Leadership in A Changing World, from Penguin-Random House in 2019. A highly sought-after speaker, consultant, and executive coach with over twenty-five years working with C-suite leaders worldwide, Dr. Hull is also a Clinical Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School and adjunct Professor of Leadership at New York University. He is the Director of Education and Business Development at the Institute of Coaching, a Harvard Medical School Affiliate. Dr Hull has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, Investors Business Daily, and a wide range of media. He can be reached at www.jeffreyhull.com.

Jeffrey’s Book: Flex: The Art and Science of Leadership in a Changing World by Jeffrey Hull https://amzn.to/36xXRnZ

Timeline: 0:55 Jefferey's journey 3:17 How much of leadership is art and science? 5:55 The evolution of leadership over thousands of years. 11:02 Does leadership influence culture or culture influences a leader? 14:31 Empirical, scientific decision making Vs normal decision making. 19:05 The necessity of a leader in today's data-driven times. 21:57 The right leadership model for a well-led organization. 25:17 The role of leadership in a flattening organization. 28:54 Tenets of a good leader. 34:08 The importance of having a coach, a mentor in an employee's work-life. 37:39 The difference between a leader and a manager. 43:27 Misconceptions of leadership. 45:43 About the book "Flex". 49:02 The idea reader for "Flex". 50:31 Having access to a coaching book early on in an employee's career. 54:53 Rapid fire. 59:02 Jeffery's success mantra. 1:01:37 Being vulnerable as a leader. 1:03:22 Jeffery's favorite reads. 1:05:44 Closing remarks.

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