I am always looking for ways to improve the services and experience that TOBIN provides to our clients. When the revolutionary new technology of AI leaped onto the scene, I knew that it was crucial to join in and discover ways to implement AI within our firm. In this spirit, I recently found myself on my old stomping grounds, attending an AI conference in New York City, this one focused on AI developments in the real estate industry. Our real estate clients are raising private capital for development, acquisitions, conversion or simply rental operations. I attended the conference to learn more about AI for the benefit of our valued clients.
At the conference, I was surprised to learn that, while numerous panelists had great experience with AI, the vast majority of attendees had yet to experiment with AI. Many were in attendance to explore the current terrain, looking for what others may be implementing. I commend them for taking the steps to learn about and leverage AI; my participation in the conference confirmed that TOBIN is on the right track.
Here is what I am doing and what you can do too:
Learning what AI is and what it can do. AI right now is like the game of baseball – we are nowhere close to the first inning; the game is just being invented. To my mind, it is critical to explore what AI can and can’t do, right now. When I find myself doubting my work product, I strive to find a solution, and I often do that now by asking one of my trusty AI bots for help.
Starting to use AI. I tinker around with ChapGPT and Gemini. I subscribed to Ren and then walked away feeling that something was missing. I engage with AI bots in my social media apps to see what they can really do. I think about starting to use Perplexity and Claude – but I am taking things one step at a time.
Empowering others to use AI. I engage with my teammates and our clients about AI. I speak to our software vendors about AI. I converse with AI about AI. All with the intention of trying to get others in my circle to do more with AI. I support my teammates in trying to get AI to build an Excel model from a PDF cash flow statement. I remind myself to speak to my AI bot by asking it to “act as,” in order to improve its performance for my benefit and I pass that tip on to others.
Developing business reasoning for AI. I know why I want to use artificial intelligence. I want to automate the mundane tasks that are inevitably part of everyone’s work life. I want AI to help me become more efficient with my time. I want to write better with AI, but right now I am less willing to let it actually write for me, unless the piece is unimportant, like a case study on our website. If I am writing an article for a magazine, I will let AI write a few different drafts and then I start again from scratch, on my own, with what I learned from those drafts.
I also know that I want AI to help our firm stay small and nimble, while growing in client base and revenue size. I want AI to help us stay super-responsive to our clients and to help document our files with necessary supervision and insights to protect our firm and clients from overly zealous regulators and litigants. I want AI to help us gain insights into our private placement issuers, insights that we might not otherwise have found, through the analysis that AI can conduct in our due diligence processes.
I want AI to help us to expand revenue without increasing expenses, especially the cost of human labor. I love paying our people that we deploy now and do so happily. I want to keep them gainfully employed and help them grow in their expertise and efficiency so that they are doing more for our clients and growing revenue within the confines of their own work week with the help of AI.
I am also very cautious about adding unnecessary software expenses to our firm. We all know how SaaS software can cannibalize our budgets – I remind myself often that I don’t want to pay for software that doesn’t really solve our problems.
I am having fun with AI. My current submersion into the technology and the reticence that I have seen in others reminds me of my experiences with the Internet at its dawning. I remember doing my Christmas shopping almost exclusively online 25 years ago. Everyone I knew thought I was crazy. They told me how dangerous it was, that the Internet cannot be trusted, that I would lose my money. On top of that, there were few online shopping choices back then – etoys.com comes to mind – but I thought, “How can you NOT do this?”
I can’t shake this feeling of Déjà Vu. History and my personal experience confirm my desire to continue diving, feet first, into this whole new world of possibility.
I hope my willingness to share my hopes, dreams and doubts for AI is helpful to you. To me, engaging with AI is not optional. We are in the midst of creating a new norm, so I think that it is best to embrace it with full commitment.
If you want to chat more, drop me an email or give me a call. I would love to hear from you.
Justine