• Healthcare-focused AI startups are raising billions to help improve the US system.
• AI can help streamline clinical documentation, drug research, and medical billing.
• This article is part of "Trends in Healthcare," a series about the innovations and industry leaders shaping patient care.

The founder of Suki, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to automate healthcare documents, raised $70 million in funding from investors in a Series D round that was disclosed this past fall.

He said it really didn't take that much persuading: With an epidemic of stressed- and burned-out physicians, there was an obvious need for their AI software, he added.

"Most of the investor conversations over the last year and a half have been, 'Well, it looks like the market is here,'" said Punit Singh Soni, Suki's founder. "Are you going to be the winner or not?"

Suki sells an AI-powered assistant that takes notes during a conversation between patients and clinicians. The notes can be reviewed by the doctor and submitted as an electronic health record. This saves time on administrative tasks and allows physicians more time to take care of patients, a resource that's becoming increasingly limited among healthcare professionals.

Surveys have consistently found that doctors and other medical workers are burned out from working in an often overloaded, convoluted, and inefficient system. The US spent $4.8 trillion on healthcare in 2023, according to a January report from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation. The US also spends more per person than nearly all other developed nations, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Despite this, health outcomes were poorer, with Americans facing a lower life expectancy, higher rates of treatable and preventable excess deaths, and less efficient healthcare systems.

Cash-strapped hospitals and private practices have lagged behind the financial-services and telecommunications industries in applying newer technologies, but the healthcare industry is increasingly considering artificial intelligence as it contends with high labor costs and a lot of opportunities to automate routine tasks. The pandemic exacerbated these challenges with staffing shortages as overworked doctors and nurses quit the profession.

To make healthcare more efficient, AI startups like Suki, Zephyr AI, and Tennr have raised millions with vast promises, including making repetitive tasks like billing and note-taking easier, improving the accuracy of clinical diagnosis, and identifying the right patient population for emerging treatments.

But the challenges are vast. The healthcare industry's budget allocations for generative AI are trailing those of many other core industries, such as energy and materials, consumer goods, and retail. Clinical diagnosis will continue to require a human in the loop, so the process can't be fully automated. The healthcare industry is highly regulated, and quite often, venture capitalists will wait for clarity on laws from the federal government before aggressively pushing AI tech advancements forward.

A $370 billion bet on boosting the healthcare sector's productivity

The consulting firm McKinsey estimates that generative AI can boost productivity for the healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and medical-products industries by as much as $370 billion by accelerating drug research, making clinical documentation easier, speeding up medical billing, and helping doctors make diagnoses.

Some big funding rounds announced in 2024 highlight the diverse use cases for AI in the healthcare sector. They include $150 million raised by the clinical-documentation AI startup Abridge in February, the drug-discovery AI startup Xaira Therapeutics bringing in $1 billion before its launch in April, Atropos Health's $33 million Series B in May to help doctors analyze real-world evidence with generative AI, and the medical-billing-automation provider Candid Health raising $29 million in September.

Parth Desai, a partner at Flare Capital Partners, has steered investments into healthcare startups such as Photon Health and SmarterDx. He said that healthcare organizations had been dedicating more money to bolster their AI strategies, beginning in late 2022 and accelerating through 2024. That's boosting demand for the tools these startups are developing. There's also less pressure to immediately prove a return on investment, which budget-conscious health systems have closely monitored in the past when allocating dollars for technology.

"The thing that we're really studying before making an investment decision is: Do budgets exist today to pay for this technology?" Desai told Business Insider. "Or are they going to exist in a large-enough fashion in the next five to 10 years to support this technology?"

Candid Health and Akasa aim to cut costs and automate medical billing

One area of particular promise has been medical billing, which could benefit from large language model automation. An LLM could, for example, analyze a large volume of claims in a client's system and accurately match them with insurers' unique billing codes, a process required for repayment to a physician for their services. Hospitals have traditionally relied on human medical coders to hunt down reimbursements from insurers.

"The software used to do billing was built a long time ago and basically wasn't kept up to date," Nick Perry, a cofounder and the CEO of Candid Health, said.

Malinka Walaliyadde, the CEO of Akasa — another medical-billing-focused AI startup — said the company builds customized LLMs for each healthcare institution it serves. Typically, the aim for these LLMs is to lower costs by lessening the reliance on human medical coders. This often reduces errors in billing and speeds up repayment cycles.

"We looked at what are the biggest pain points for health systems," Walaliyadde told BI. He said that Akasa's focus is on developing LLM products for medical coding and simplifying prior authorization, a process that requires approval from a health-plan provider before a patient can receive a treatment. "Those are the ones where you could really move the needle," Walaliyadde said.

AI for health screenings

George Tomeski, the founder of Helfie AI, is in the middle of pitching investors to raise as much as $200 million in a new round of funding that he hopes to close by the first half of 2025.

Tomeski said the funding would help Helfie scale as it exits beta testing for the company's app. The app, also called Helfie, uses a smartphone camera to do medical "checks" that screen for illnesses including COVID-19, tuberculosis, and certain skin conditions.

"We're targeting all the health conditions that lead to avoidable mortality," Tomeski said, adding that the app focuses on respiratory and cardiovascular conditions. The intention is for these checks —which can cost as low as $0.20 a person per screen — to serve as a form of preventive care and as an incentive to go see a doctor in person.

While some funding is going toward sales and marketing, talent acquisition, and ensuring adherence to regulations around privacy and healthcare data, a large chunk is still being allocated to product development as AI tech advances quickly.

Dr. Brigham Hyde, a cofounder and the CEO of Atropos Health, said his latest funding announcement, in May, was timed to coincide with the geared-up launch of ChatRWD, an AI copilot that can answer doctors' questions and quickly churn out published studies based on healthcare data. Hyde said he's keen to bring in big partners this time, including the pharmaceutical giant Merck and the medical-supplies and equipment maker McKesson.

But Hyde also had to show some restraint. He said that when Atropos Health moved forward with its Series B rounds, dozens of venture capitalists expressed interest in leading the round. The company was offered up to $100 million but took only one-third of that amount.

"I don't always think that's a good idea," Hyde told BI. "As a founder, you want to raise the right amount of money for your business and for the stage you're at."

It may be tempting to take more, as many healthcare AI startups — a vast majority still in the seed and early-stage funding rounds — are racing to outmaneuver rivals. Even if the technology is right, it has to get past regulatory approvals and persuade cautious hospitals and health systems to open up their wallets.

"You can build as much product as you want, but you can never build a market," Soni of Suki said. "It shows up, or it doesn't show up."

• Motorola Solutions uses AI to help address delays in 911 emergency calls and improve response times.
• Its Vesta NXT software helps 911 call handlers gather and summarize data for quicker communication.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

Motorola Solutions is a Chicago-based provider of technology and communications solutions focused on public safety and enterprise security. It has about 21,000 employees worldwide.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

The National Emergency Number Association estimates that 240 million 911 calls are made in the US each year. But fragmented emergency-response systems across various agencies and organizations can lead to dangerous delays.

"You hope to never call 911, but when you do, it needs to work," Jehan Wickramasuriya, the corporate vice president of AI and platforms at Motorola Solutions, told Business Insider.

He added that call takers' jobs can be demanding and unpredictable, and they're often under intense pressure. "There can be a high level of stress if there's an active shooter or domestic disturbance," he said. "They're trying to keep a caller calm and simultaneously find out if they need medical help." Meanwhile, he said, callers may be "speaking so fast that it's difficult to understand and retain everything they say."

Pinpointing a caller's location adds a layer of complexity. Mobile 911 calls are typically routed based on cell-tower locations rather than the caller's actual position. This requires calls to be redirected, adding several seconds to response times.

"At the end of the day it's a data problem," Wickramasuriya said, "because a lot of information needs to get transmitted in each call."

Motorola Solutions is using AI to consolidate this data in a single platform.

Key staff and stakeholders

The company structures its AI research team around specialized AI domains, such as computer vision and speech and audio processing, rather than individual product lines.

Wickramasuriya said the core AI team consisted of about 50 scientists, developers, and engineers who collaborate closely with hundreds of product managers, designers, and user-experience specialists.

Motorola Solutions also works with various cloud and technology vendors on its AI-enabled products and services.

AI in action

In June, Motorola Solutions launched Vesta NXT, software designed to help 911 call handlers manage emergency calls. It brings data from various public-safety systems onto one platform, helping the handlers gather and summarize information.

The tool uses AI to surface details including the caller's location and, for callers who have opted to share their medical profile from their phone, any underlying health conditions. It can also suggest the best entrance to a building. "That's important information for first responders," Wickramasuriya said.

The software has translation and transcription capabilities, helping English speakers and non-English speakers communicate. AI also helps call handlers manage nonemergency calls — by streamlining the reporting of issues like abandoned cars or stolen property, call handlers can focus more on critical emergencies.

Most important, AI can improve the human element of emergency response. "AI is working in the background to help the call taker attend to the person on the other end of the line," Wickramasuriya said.

Did it work, and how did leaders know?

Motorola Solutions says roughly 60% of 911 call centers in the US use its call-handling software. It's transitioning existing Vesta 911 users to its new system with the AI features.

The company says these AI tools are already translating millions of minutes of audio each month and have helped lighten emergency-call handlers' workloads partly by resolving nonemergency calls and connecting callers to other resources.

Lee County is the first Public Safety Answering Point, which is a call center that handles emergency calls and coordinates responses, to use the VESTA NXT. Motorola Solutions said administrators there found the AI-generated searchable text transcripts and real-time summaries of 911 calls that call handlers can share with dispatchers and first responders helped save time and alleviate stress for call handlers.

What's next?

Wickramasuriya said the company was focused on improving Vesta NXT.

He said the goal was to "expand the usefulness" of the software by integrating it more deeply into existing workflows, including by developing features that connect first responders directly with dispatchers and call takers.

Another aim, he said, is to help understaffed 911 call centers "understand their staffing needs and identify which call takers are handling high-stress situations and address stress and fatigue among call handlers."

As AI rapidly transforms workplaces, employees are on edge.

Roughly two years after ChatGPT's release sparked widespread interest in generative AI, it's becoming clear that most workers' jobs will fundamentally change — and some may disappear. An analysis by the International Monetary Fund published in January forecast that artificial intelligence would affect nearly 40% of jobs.

But the impact of AI on employment is complex and far-reaching. Some roles may become obsolete; others may be augmented or even created by AI. Workers are simultaneously experiencing anxiety, doubt, and excitement. What new skills will I need to develop? How can I stay relevant? And importantly, is my organization prepared for this AI-driven future?

Whether employees can trust their organization's leaders to navigate these opportunities is a pivotal question, said Brian Solis, the head of global innovation at ServiceNow, a cloud-based automation platform, and author of the book "Mindshift: Transform Leadership, Drive Innovation, and Reshape the Future." He said that while many executives recognize AI's promise in increasing efficiency by automating repetitive tasks, they often fail to grasp the technology's profound potential.

"Leaders talk about the new normal or the next normal, but then they natively snap back to business as usual," Solis said. "It's the leaders who explore and ask: 'What if? Who will unlock entirely new ways of working?'"

Workers themselves have a responsibility to learn and grow, he added. They need to experiment with new technologies both in and outside work and challenge themselves to push beyond their comfort zones. "You need to literally rewire your brain," he said. "If you're waiting for someone to tell you what to do, you're on the wrong side of innovation."

'Workers need to be proactive'

Despite the breathless headlines about AI changing everything about the way we work, the reality is more mundane.

In a quarterly Gallup survey of American workers conducted in May, seven in 10 respondents said they never used AI in their jobs, and only one in 10 said they used it regularly. The survey used a random sample of 21,543 working adults. Among those who said they did use AI, the most common applications included generating ideas, consolidating information, and automating basic tasks.

Still, investment in AI continues to surge. A report from IDC predicted that global spending would reach $632 billion by 2028, more than double what it is now, covering AI apps, infrastructure, and related services.

Companies are investing in AI to avoid falling behind, said Mansour Javidan, an expert in digital transformation and the executive director of the Najafi Global Mindset Institute at Arizona State's Thunderbird School of Global Management. "There's a lot of hype driven by board expectations, and that's led to a herd mentality to move quickly," he said. "No CEO is going to look bad by investing in AI right now."

Workers, meanwhile, are caught between uncertainty and anticipation. "There's a disconnect," Javidan said. "At the highest levels of the organization, there's a lot of excitement about AI. But among lower- and midlevel employees, there's a good deal of anxiety and ambiguity because there's no clear path."

But "workers mustn't rely on senior executives and hope things will turn out rosy," he said.

Javidan advises employees to seize development opportunities within their organizations and seek out online courses. Many top universities, including MIT and Stanford, provide free classes and workshops to help people build their skills. Grassroots and community-based learning groups, such as Women Defining AI, can be valuable resources.

"Workers need to be proactive and educate themselves," he said.

AI as a strategic collaborator

Beyond formal training and coursework, getting comfortable with AI requires a fundamental mindset shift, experts say.

"We were born with skills like curiosity, wonder, and imagination, but we often unlearned these in schools," Solis said. "The aim with AI should not be to generate expected answers or reinforce existing thinking but to challenge our conventions."

Solis said he uses AI as a tool for perspective taking, asking it to generate responses from the personas of the Apple founder Steve Jobs and Walt Disney. This approach helps him identify blind spots, explore alternative viewpoints, and seek inspiration. "They're my personal coaches," he said.

Molly Sands, the head of the teamwork lab at the software company Atlassian, which studies teamwork in the age of AI and distributed work, recommends viewing AI as a creative partner, not just a task-completion machine. "The people who are saving the most time and seeing the biggest benefits are those who see AI as a strategic collaborator," she said.

This involves engaging with AI through dynamic, iterative conversations — much like working with a team of experts, she said. A new study by researchers at the MIT Sloan School of Management backed this up, finding that human-AI teams showed the most promise in creative tasks like generating content and imagery and translating software code.

"A lot of people use it for one or two use cases, but the growth we're going to see in the next year or two is the people who think about it more ubiquitously," Sands said. "Agents will be a key driver of this."

Her team at Atlassian, for example, has developed a custom agent designed to help employees write more clearly. Essentially, she said, workers "word-vomit" into the agent with information about their audience, context, and key details. The agent then offers up a tailored draft in the worker's voice.

"Our workdays are consumed by writing emails, creating slide decks, and other routine tasks," Sands said. "If AI can take on some of this load — freeing us up for creative thinking and solving meaty problems — the better off we'll be."

The value of soft skills

Learning how to work with AI is imperative for most workers, but it's important to recognize that human skills remain essential.

After all, said Hakan Ozcelik, a professor of management at California State University, Sacramento, the value of human workers lies in their cognitive, behavioral, and emotional abilities. "There are all sorts of skills that AI doesn't have yet, and maybe never will," he said.

"Humans are inherently social beings, constantly interacting with customers, colleagues, competitors, and their physical environment," Ozcelik said. "These interpersonal skills are invaluable assets for any organization."

While AI can process information and perform repetitive functions with speed and accuracy, it lacks the soft skills necessary for effective communication and strategic decision-making. A report by Cornerstone, a skills-development platform, said that while generative-AI-related job postings had risen 411% since 2023, the demand for soft skills such as leadership, communication, and emotional intelligence outpaced digital skills by 2.4 times in North America and 2.9 times in Europe.

This is why Ozcelik advises employees to embark on what he calls "a process of professional soul-searching." Closely analyze your daily activities to determine your unique contributions and core competencies that cannot be outsourced, he said: "Dissect your work and look at what you offer your organization in a given day or a week."

Also, identify areas where AI could offer assistance. For example, teachers may realize that while AI can handle grading for grammar and syntax, they should focus on evaluating students' ideas and nurturing creativity. Similarly, healthcare professionals can leverage AI for administrative tasks or data analysis while dedicating more quality time to patients.

In an AI-driven world, the need for human skills will not change; instead, these skills will become even more vital as workers learn to collaborate effectively with technology, Ozcelik said.

"It's about what you contribute and the value you bring," he said.

• EV owners experience range anxiety despite advancements in mileage numbers and charging speeds.
• Maintaining battery health requires optimal charging levels and managing temperature and speed.
• This article is part of "Getting Ready for Electric," a series of guides and practical advice for buying your next EV.

Electric vehicles have come a long way since their debut about 15 years ago. One of the first EVs, the Nissan Leaf, had just over 120 miles of range. Meanwhile, many of today's EVs boast 400-plus miles on a single charge.

That hasn't stopped EV owners from feeling what's known as "range anxiety." If your gas tank says you have only 50 miles left, there's comfort in knowing you can quickly find a gas station and fuel up in five minutes. With electric, though, "drivers tend to watch the miles-remaining estimate way more than they did in the gas car," John Higham, a board member of the Electric Vehicle Association, said.

So for many consumers who have purchased an electric vehicle, or are ready to take the plunge, range is a big factor. How do you keep your car's range going strong?

You don't need to become an engineer or battery expert to keep your EV in top shape. Following a few simple tips can help you make the most of your car.

As Higham said: "Arming yourself with a few facts will help alleviate some anxiety."

Find the charging sweet spot

Best practices for charging your car depend on which vehicle you have and the composition of its battery.

"When you buy or lease an EV, the dealer or manufacturer" lets you know "the best charging level for the vehicle," said Ingrid Malmgren, a senior policy director at Plug In America, an organization focused on EV education, advocacy, and research.

For many vehicles, keeping the battery charged between 20% and 80% can minimize stress on the battery cells, according to Aatish Patel, the president and cofounder of XCharge North America, a provider of EV charging solutions.

Think of it like charging your phone, said Mark Barrott, a partner in the automotive and mobility practice at the consulting firm Plante Moran. Leaving your phone plugged in for a long time after it's reached 100% can overcharge the battery and could reduce its capacity over time.

On the flip side, other vehicles and batteries function better when charged to 100%, Malmgren said.

She and Higham advised reading the owner's manual and following the manufacturer's recommendations for charging your car.

EV owners don't necessarily need to shy away from fast chargers. In extreme circumstances, like if the battery is under 5% or over 90%, fast charging could stress the battery, Malmgren said. But her organization has seen many EV drivers who used fast chargers for years and didn't see abnormal battery loss.

Car and battery makers have also refined the technology so that batteries can accept charge much faster. At this point, the time to charge your EV is similar to how long it takes to fill your gas tank, Barrott said. That helps with range anxiety, since a low battery doesn't mean you'll be waiting hours before you can get on the road again.

Regulate your car's temperature and speeds

Modern EVs are designed to maintain their own temperatures, but you can help further that. If possible, park in the shade when it's hot or inside a garage if it's cold.

Range can decrease in colder temperatures. It's a best practice not to leave your car with a nearly zero charge in extremely cold weather. Owning an EV in a cold climate isn't a dealbreaker, though.

"Hey, over 95% of car sales in Norway are electric, where it actually gets cold," Higham said. "EVs do work in the cold. You just need to know how they are affected."

You can also regulate your car's speeds, accelerating and braking smoothly when it's safe to do so, which helps prolong the vehicle's range. Aggressive acceleration can wear on the battery over time, Patel said.

Carmakers are betting big on EVs

The technology continues to advance as the auto industry invests in electric vehicles. Carmakers, battery manufacturers, and charging providers continue to look for ways to lengthen range, "working together in concert to design solutions that make sense," Barrott said.

If you're already an EV owner and suspect your car's range may be declining, contact your dealer or manufacturer. Technicians can check out your car, and there may be software updates to make the vehicle more efficient. Battery replacements, which are extremely rare, may be covered under warranty.

But for the most part, unless you spot a big red flag, experts say you don't need to worry about your car's battery health or have anxiety about your EV's range. Stick to the manufacturer's recommendations for charging, and do your best to avoid extreme temperatures or speeds.

"Focusing on proper habits ensures you get the most out of your EV for years to come," Patel said.

• Depop's new gen-AI feature creates item descriptions based on photos that users upload.
• The tool has boosted the number of listings on the company's website and saves sellers time.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

Depop is an online fashion marketplace where users can buy and sell secondhand clothing, accessories, and other products. Founded in 2011, the company is headquartered in London and has 35 million registered users. It was acquired by Etsy, an online marketplace, in 2021.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

Depop's business model encourages consumers to "participate in the circular economy rather than buying new," Rafe Colburn, its chief product and technology officer, told Business Insider. However, listing items to sell on the website and finding products to buy take time and effort, which he said can be a barrier to using Depop.

"By reducing that effort, we can make resale more accessible to busy people," he said.

To improve user experience, Depop has unveiled several features powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning, including pricing guidance to help sellers list items more quickly and personalized algorithms to help buyers identify trends and receive product recommendations.

In September, Depop launched a description-generation feature using image recognition and generative AI. The tool automatically creates a description for an item once sellers upload a product image to the platform.

"What we've tried to do is make it so that once people have photographed and uploaded their items, very little effort is required to complete their listing," Colburn said. He added that the AI description generator is especially useful for new sellers who aren't as familiar with listing on Depop.

Key staff and stakeholders

The AI description-generation feature was developed in-house by Depop's data science team, which trained large language models to create it. The team worked closely with product managers.

Colburn said that in 2022, the company moved its data science team from the engineering group to the product side of the business, which has enabled Depop to release features more quickly.

AI in action

To use the description generator, sellers upload an image of the item they want to list to the Depop platform and click a "generate description" button. Using image recognition and gen AI, the system generates a product description and populates item-attribute fields on the listing page, including category, subcategory, color, and brand.

The technology incorporates relevant hashtags and colloquial language to appeal to buyers, Colburn said. "We've done a lot of prompt engineering and fine-tuning to make sure that the tone and style of the descriptions that are generated really fit the norms of Depop," he added.

Sellers can use the generated description as is or adjust it. Even if they modify descriptions, sellers still save time compared to starting with "an empty box to work with," Colburn said.

Did it work, and how did leaders know?

Depop has about 180,000 new listings every day. Since rolling out the AI-powered description generation in September, the company has seen "a real uplift in listings created, listing time, and completeness of listings," Colburn said. However, as the tool was launched recently, a company spokesperson said that specific data was not yet available.

"Aside from the direct user benefits in terms of efficiency and listing quality, we have also really demonstrated to ourselves that users value features that use generative AI to reduce effort on their end," Colburn said.

Ultimately, Depop wants sellers to list more items, and the company's goal is to make it easier to do so, he added. Automating the process with AI means sellers can list items quicker, which Colburn said would create a more robust inventory on the platform, lead to more sales, and boost the secondhand market.

What's next?

Colburn said Depop continues to look for ways to apply AI to address users' needs.

For example, taking high-quality photos of items is another challenge for sellers. It's labor-intensive but important, as listings with multiple high-quality photos of garments are more likely to sell. He said Depop was exploring ways to make this easier and enhance image quality with AI.

A challenge for buyers is sometimes finding items that fit. Depop is also looking into how AI can help shoppers feel more confident that the clothing they purchase will fit so that their overall satisfaction with the platform will be enhanced, Colburn said.

• Shutterstock added gen AI to its stock-content library to generate $104 million in revenue.
• The company has partnered with tech giants including Meta, Amazon, Apple, OpenAI, and Nvidia.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

Shutterstock, founded in 2003 and based in New York, is a global leader in licensed digital content. It offers stock photos, videos, and music to creative professionals and enterprises.

In late 2022, Shutterstock made a strategic decision to embrace generative AI, becoming one of the first stock-content providers to integrate the tech into its platform.

Dade Orgeron, the vice president of innovation at Shutterstock, leads the company's artificial-intelligence initiatives. During his tenure, Shutterstock has transitioned from a traditional stock-content provider into one that provides several generative-AI services.

While Shutterstock's generative-AI offerings are focused on images, the company has an application programming interface for generating 3D models and plans to offer video generation.

Situation analysis: What problem was the company trying to solve?

When the first mainstream image-generation models, such as Dall-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney, were released in late 2022, Shutterstock recognized generative AI's potential to disrupt its business.

"It would be silly for me to say that we didn't see generative AI as a potential threat," Orgeron said. "I think we were fortunate at the beginning to realize that it was more of an opportunity."

He said Shutterstock embraced the technology ahead of many of its customers. He recalled attending CES in 2023 and said that many creative professionals there were unaware of generative AI and the impact it could have on the industry.

Orgeron said that many industry leaders he encountered had the misconception that generative AI would "come in and take everything from everyone." But that perspective felt pessimistic, he added. But Shutterstock recognized early that AI-powered prompting "was design," Orgeron told Business Insider.

Key staff and stakeholders

Orgeron's position as vice president of innovation made him responsible for guiding the company's generative-AI strategy and development.

However, the move toward generative AI was preceded by earlier acquisitions. Orgeron himself joined the company in 2021 as part of its acquisition of TurboSquid, a company focused on 3D assets.

Shutterstock also acquired three AI companies that same year: Pattern89, Datasine, and Shotzr. While they primarily used AI for data analytics, Orgeron said the expertise Shutterstock gained from these acquisitions helped it move aggressively on generative AI.

Externally, Shutterstock established partnerships with major tech companies including Meta, Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, OpenAI, Nvidia, and Reka. For example, Shutterstock's partnership with Nvidia enabled its generative 3D service.

AI in action

Shutterstock's approach to AI integration focused on the user experience.

Orgeron said the company's debut in image generation was "probably the easiest-to-use solution at that time," with a simple web interface that made AI image generation accessible to creative professionals unfamiliar with the technology.

That stood in contrast to competitors such as Midjourney and Stable Diffusion, which, at the time Shutterstock launched its service in January 2023, had a basic user interface. Midjourney, for instance, was initially available only through Discord, an online chat service more often used to communicate in multiplayer games.

This focus on accessibility set the stage for Shutterstock.AI, the company's dedicated AI-powered image-generation platform. While Shutterstock designed the tool's front end and integrated it into its online offerings, the images it generates rely on a combination of internally trained AI models and solutions from external partners.

Shutterstock.AI, like other image generators, lets customers request their desired image with a text prompt and then choose a specific image style, such as a watercolor painting or a photo taken with a fish-eye lens.

However, unlike many competitors, Shutterstock uses information about user interactions to decide on the most appropriate model to meet the prompt and style request. Orgeron said Shutterstock's various models provide an edge over other prominent image-generation services, which often rely on a single model.

But generative AI posed risks to Shutterstock's core business and to the photographers who contribute to the company's library. To curb this, Orgeron said, all of its AI models, whether internal or from partners, are trained exclusively on Shutterstock's legally owned data. The company also established a contributor fund to compensate content creators whose work was used in the models' training.

Orgeron said initial interest in Shutterstock.AI came from individual creators and small businesses. Enterprise customers followed more cautiously, taking time to address legal concerns and establish internal AI policies before adopting the tech. However, Orgeron said, enterprise interest has accelerated as companies recognize AI's competitive advantages.

Did it work, and how did leaders know?

Paul Hennessy, the CEO of Shutterstock, said in June the company earned $104 million in annual revenue from AI licensing agreements in 2023. He also projected that this revenue could reach up to $250 million annually by 2027.

Looking ahead, Shutterstock hopes to expand AI into its video and 3D offerings. The company's generative 3D API is in beta. While it doesn't offer an AI video-generation service yet, Orgeron said Shutterstock plans to launch a service soon. "The video front is where everyone is excited right now, and we are as well," he said. "For example, we see tremendous opportunity in being able to convert imagery into videos."

The company also sees value in AI beyond revenue figures. Orgeron said Shutterstock is expanding its partnerships, which now include many of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. In some cases, partners allow Shutterstock to use their tech to build new services; in others, they license data from Shutterstock to train AI.

"We're partnered with Nvidia, with Meta, with HP. These are great companies, and we're working closely with them," he said. "It's another measure to let us know we're on the right track."

• AI is opening new career tracks for software developers who want to shift to different roles.
• Developers at an AI roundtable said that the tech job market is fluctuating rapidly with gen AI.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

A few years ago, Kesha Williams was prepared to step away from her tech career — but then the AI boom brought her back.

"I've been in tech for 30 years, and before gen AI, I was ready to retire," she said. "I think I'll stay around just to see where this goes." Williams is the head of enterprise architecture and engineering at Slalom.

Williams and six other developers from companies including Amazon, Meta, Anaconda, and more joined Business Insider's virtual roundtable in November to discuss how AI is changing the software development landscape.

While hiring and recruitment in many tech jobs are dropping with the increased adoption of AI coding tools, developers say AI is also opening new career opportunities.

A new career path

Panelists said that the emergence of jobs focused on building AI models and features is a recent development in the industry.

"One of the biggest things I've noticed in the last two to three years is the rise of a job title called 'AI engineer,' which did not exist before, and it's kind of in between a machine-learning engineer and a traditional software engineer," Shruti Kapoor, a lead member of technical staff at Slack, said. "I'm starting to see more and more companies where 'AI engineer' is one of the top-paying jobs available for software engineers."

Salary trends from Levels.fyi, an online platform that allows tech workers to compare their compensation packages, found that in the past two years, entry-level AI engineers can earn 8% more than their non-AI engineer counterparts, and senior engineers can earn nearly 11% more.

Neeraj Verma, the head of applied AI at Nice, said at the roundtable that AI has enabled software engineers at his company to transition internally to AI roles. He said that over 20% of the developers at Nice have moved to AI-related positions in the past two years, with about 100 of those individuals considered experts in prompt engineering.

Verma said the company's developers are not just being supported by AI; they are actively involved in using the technology to build other AI features.

He added that many senior-level developers with strong coding abilities at the company have shown interest in moving to AI to apply their skill sets in new ways. Nice created training programs to help these employees learn the technology and make internal career shifts.

AI-specialized jobs encompass machine-learning engineers, prompt engineers, and AI researchers, among other roles. Although the skills that would be useful for each of these jobs can differ, Kapoor said that an AI engineering role does not necessarily require a specific tech background. Workers with prior experience in sectors like accounting and product management, for instance, have been able to pivot into the AI space.

Adapting to change

Just as AI is changing the software development process, developers say that the professional opportunities in AI could also be in constant flux.

"Software development will change in five years much more rapidly than anything we've seen before," Igor Ostrovsky, the cofounder of Augment, said at the roundtable. "How you architect, develop, test, and maintain software — that will all change, and how exactly you interact with AI will also evolve."

Researchers are already questioning the long-term potential of prompt engineering jobs, which skyrocketed in demand in 2023. They say that generative AI models could soon be trained to optimize their own prompts.

"I think prompt engineering is more of a sign that some developers have the desire to learn and are eager to figure out how to interact with artificial intelligence, but it won't necessarily be how you interact with AI in three years or five years," Ostrovsky said.

The pace of technological development means that software developers' ability to learn, adapt, and solve problems creatively will be more important than ever to stay ahead of the curve.

• I attended Art Basel Miami Beach for the first time from December 6 to 8.
• During the weekend, I viewed several exhibitions, spoke to artists, and went to a party and concert.
• This article is part of BI's 2024 Art Basel series, taking you inside the art fair's global scene.

On the second level of the expansive Miami Beach Convention Center, I sat on a chair and rummaged through my tote bag.

It was my first day at Art Basel Miami Beach, and after trekking from the main entrance to the media center, where I picked up my press pass, I was already weary from walking in heels. Thankfully, I packed a pair of flat sandals.

Based on my research, I knew that Art Basel Miami Beach would be equal parts exciting and overwhelming. So, as a first-timer, I went with a plan: "Bring extra shoes, grab a map, have an idea of which exhibitions to view, appreciate the art, talk to the artists … and have fun."

I was able to do all of that and then some. Throughout the weekend, I enjoyed the various multicultural exhibitions presented by 286 galleries from all over the world. Bridget Finn, the director of Art Basel Miami Beach, previously told me that she believes this event is "often the platform where new trends in art appear." Based on the works I saw, I'm inclined to agree.

From cool installations to lively social gatherings, here are some of the top highlights from my weekend at Art Basel Miami Beach.

I arrived on Friday and was eager to dive in.

I arrived at the fair in the early afternoon on Friday, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was keen to see all the different artworks, but my main goal was to find some of the most alluring activations and exhibitions and speak with the artists behind them.

An activation at the UBS Art Studio caught my eye right away.

I was immediately drawn to an interactive setup suffused with bold red hues and pillars covered in yarn. The UBS Art Studio was showcasing a collaboration between Sarah Zapata, a Peruvian-American fabric artist, and Larry Ossei-Mensah, the curator and cofounder of the nonprofit art organization Artnoir.

The installation, called "Upon the Divide of Vermilion," allowed attendees to make mini pom-poms using yarn. Zapata and Ossei-Mensah said the goal was to make art feel fun and accessible to anyone.

"This is my first time showing at Art Basel, so I feel so thankful," Zapata told me while showing me how to use a pom-pom maker.

Ossei-Mensah hadn't made his own pom-pom yet, so he sat down to craft with me and talk about his career journey in the art world. "I started out doing photography and then expanded into writing about artists of my generation," he said while picking out his yarn. "Then I realized there weren't enough platforms for them to be seen, so I started curating."

He cofounded Artnoir in 2013 to create "community and connectivity for Black and brown folks, queer folks, and folks who have always felt in the margins," he said.

Crafting made me feel relaxed even though my creation didn't last very long.

My pom-pom featured soft pink and dark purple yarns. Sadly, I didn't tie it together correctly, so it fell apart in my tote bag by the end of the day. I didn't get a picture of my pom-pom before its demise, but I had fun making it so that counts for something.

Zimbabwean sculptor Terrence Musekiwa's exhibition was one of my favorites.

I was excited to view Musekiwa's exhibition after researching some of the artists who would be in the Positions sector, which highlighted emerging artists. I saw some of his sculptures online, but studying his humanoid creations up close and personal was mesmerizing.

Musekiwa's sculptures were unlike anything I've seen before.

Musekiwa told me that he comes from a family of sculptors and likes to explore classical elements using discarded materials such as copper wires, brass, and artillery shells. "I have so much in my mind about how I can execute something," he said. "Sometimes, I try to choose materials, but I have to let the materials choose me."

His works clearly resonated with attendees: Catinca Tabacaru, the owner of the eponymous gallery representing Musekiwa, told me eight of his sculptures were sold that week. (VIP attendees received early access to Art Basel before the fair opened to the public on Friday.)

As I was speaking with Musekiwa, another sculpture was snapped up by a collector from Tokyo.

Sagarika Sundaram, an artist who uses raw, natural fibers and dyes in her works, had some of her stunning textiles on display.

UBS, the global lead partner of Art Basel, commissioned Sundaram to create a centerpiece for the UBS Lounge, and I got exclusive press access to view it. The final product, titled "Released Form," was a large, striking two-sided textile covered with colorfully dyed and meticulously layered wool. The installation, which was draped from the ceiling, opened on either side, revealing a three-dimensional quality.

I told Sundaram one side felt like a cosmic explosion of wool, and her eyes lit up. "Yes, it's controlled chaos," she said. She added that the other side was a "directional, pictorial abstraction." In the lounge, a large television played a short film shot by Ania Freer that showed how Sundaram brought the masterpiece to life with her team.

I saw captivating paintings created by the Brazilian artist collective MAHKU.

Finn told me MAHKU's exhibition was among the most exciting in the Positions sector. This particular work's bright hues and serpentine design had a charming energy.

On the second day of Art Basel, I gave myself a moment of stillness before jumping back in.

I was admittedly exhausted when I headed back to Art Basel on Saturday, but caffeinating with an iced chai latte helped. I also recharged a bit by taking some time to sit outside, soak up the sun, and enjoy the views before entering the venue.

I wanted to spend more time perusing as many exhibitions as I could.

I dedicated my second go-around to viewing Meridians, dedicated to large-scale projects, and Nova, which showcased works created within the last three years by one, two, or three artists, according to Art Basel's website.

Zhu Jinshi's oil paintings employed remarkable texture and color.

This piece, titled "This triptych is as gorgeous as the autumn in a scented room," featured thickly layered oil paints on a canvas that stretched nearly 16 feet wide.

A closeup of Zhu's work shows just how extraordinary it is.

Zhu's textural technique allowed qualities of beauty and heaviness to coexist.

Zhu's "Pathway" installation was another eye-catching display.

The colossal work was made from Xuan paper, cotton threads, steel frame structures, and bamboo.

Alice Aycock's "Goya Twister" created a dynamic illusion of movement.

Standing 15 feet tall, this structure — made from aluminum coated in white powder — was hard to miss and even harder to look away from.

Olafur Eliasson's "The galaxy of uncertainty," was made from beautiful glass spheres.

The reflections on the glass made this exhibit look different as viewers walked by it.

Art Basel Miami Beach also gave locals and visitors a chance to socialize at exclusive parties, including Nylon magazine's annual celebration.

The Nylon House party was an exclusive — albeit massive — bash. Celebrities such as Camila Cabello, who is Nylon's latest cover star, and Janelle Monáe attended the event.

Some VIPs were able to board a yacht.

A docked yacht behind the house added to the party's ritzy atmosphere — and allowed VIP guests to escape the larger crowd.

Hugel, a chart-topping DJ, performed a lively set.

A crowd full of celebrities, creatives, and influencers enjoyed mixes from the French-born DJ.

A dancer onstage also helped keep the energy up.

Hugel's set was entertaining, bringing good vibes and heart-thumping beats to the party.

Ludacris, the headliner at Nylon's party, came out and lit up the stage.

The Grammy-winning rapper performed hits such as "Stand Up," "Money Maker," and "My Chick Bad."

I also attended a Tribeca Festival concert hosted by Soul in the Horn at the Miami Beach Bandshell.

The concert kicked off with a set by L3NI, a DJ and producer. She's also the general manager of Soul in the Horn, a brand that unites music artists and creatives.

Luedji Luna, a Brazilian singer, took the stage in a stunning sequin dress and serenaded the audience.

Luna had a magnetic stage presence and connected with her band and the crowd as she sang and danced. I wasn't familiar with her music, but it didn't matter; I still had the most amazing time dancing and listening to her sultry vocals.

Natasha Diggs put on an electrifying set alongside a saxophonist and trumpeter.

Diggs, a Brooklyn-based DJ, brought her vibrant musical and sartorial style to Miami Beach. She mixed feel-good songs, including Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" and Bill Withers' "Lovely Day."

• There are many factors to consider when purchasing an electric vehicle.
• It can help to know your daily mileage and charging preferences and see if you qualify for tax credits.
• This article is part of "Getting Ready for Electric," a series of guides and practical advice for buying your next EV.

If you're considering an electric vehicle for your next car, there are various factors — like your anticipated daily mileage and charging needs — to consider.

Before buying, you may also want to think about EVs that are eligible for tax credits, which can lower the cost of your overall purchase.

Whether you go with a fully electric or hybrid model, there are plenty of new, used, and coming versions of this more sustainable car type to choose from.

In "Getting Ready for Electric," a series of shopping guides, Business Insider has been exploring the ins and outs of EV purchasing. Read on for the best tips for shopping for your next EV.

When choosing your EV, it's important to take stock of your lifestyle and surroundings.

Battery ranges can vary depending on your driving habits and the climate of where you live.

While driving a few dozen miles daily in a moderate climate like Florida could open a buyer to a wide variety of EV options, someone who drives hundreds of miles daily and lives in a locale prone to colder temperatures may have fewer options overall, Scott Case, a cofounder and the CEO of Recurrent, a startup that tracks EV-battery health, previously told BI.

Newer models tend to accommodate long-haul driving needs better than older models, but they usually have higher price tags.

For more budget-friendly options, consider EVs that come with government-provided tax credits.

The federal government offers tax incentives on certain EVs, while some states have rebate programs that can lower the cost of your purchase.

Each of these discount methods has its own requirements and varies for new versus used EVs.

For example, to get a federal tax credit of up to $7,500, your new EV must have:

• A battery capacity of 7 kilowatt-hours or more.
• A gross vehicle weight rating under 14,000 pounds.
• Final assembly in North America.
• At least 50% of the minerals used to make it extracted, processed, or recycled in the US, or in countries with which the US has a free-trade agreement.
• A suggested retail price of no more than $80,000 for vans, SUVs, and pickup trucks, and no more than $55,000 for all other vehicles.

If you meet some but not all of the requirements, you may qualify for a smaller tax credit.

When it comes to used EVs, you may be eligible for a tax credit — 30% of the vehicle price, up to $4,000 — if you have:

• An EV that is at least 2 model years old, under $25,000, and sold by a licensed dealership.
• An income that doesn't exceed $150,000 if you're a joint filer or surviving spouse, $112,500 if you're a head of household, or $75,000 if you're a single filer.
• Not used this credit in the past three years.

There's also a leasing loophole for the EV-curious.

For the EV-curious who don't want to pay for a yearslong commitment, the leasing approach could be the way to go.

Unlike bought EVs, leased ones fall into a different tax-incentive category because they don't undergo the same complex parts-sourcing process and don't have the same income caps.

Because of this distinction, dealerships get a $7,500 federal tax credit for each of their EVs. That's where the EV-leasing loophole comes in: Many dealerships are opting to pass these credits onto their lessees.

That extra cash, bumper-to-bumper coverage, and the ability to return the car at the lease's end are benefits worth considering when shopping.

When it comes to powering up your EV, public fast chargers are becoming more readily available.

The Department of Energy reported that there are more than 61,000 EV charging stations nationwide, double the number in 2020.

The majority of Americans — 95%, a Pew Research Center study found — live in counties with at least one of these stations.

If you're close to one of these stations, an EV could be a convenient and inexpensive alternative to a gas-powered car.

Or you can invest in an efficient at-home charging setup.

Though more of an investment, at-home EV chargers can make your green-car purchase that much more worthwhile, Jenni Newman, the editor in chief of Cars.com and an EV owner, previously told BI.

Not all public charging ports are compatible with all EV car models, and drivers have reported coming across broken chargers. An at-home charging setup could eliminate those issues.

EV owners can charge their cars within hours or overnight — a slower method that can prolong battery life — and end up with 250 to 300 miles of driving range without leaving their driveways.

These setups range in cost — from $250 to $7,000 — depending on your outlet location, the voltage your electric panel can support, and the speed at which you want to charge your vehicle.

Like with buying or leasing an EV, there are charger tax credits available from the federal government.

No matter your needs, you can expect to see a wider variety of EV options in the coming years.

As automakers adjust their EV-manufacturing strategies, they're investing in more hybrid EVs and models at lower price points.

Because of these strategic changes in the car industry, you can expect a bigger menu of EV options for both fully electric and hybrid cars.

• Many workers struggle with choosing their health-insurance plans during open enrollment.
• Some healthcare companies are employing mobile apps and generative AI to help smooth out the process.
• This article is part of "Trends in Healthcare," a series about the innovations and industry leaders shaping patient care.

During open-enrollment season, Reddit users inundate the platform's forums on health insurance and personal finance every day, asking how to best pick from their health-insurance options.

In one post, a recently unemployed married woman in Texas asked whether she should enroll with her husband's employer or stick to COBRA, which provides benefits to people who have lost their jobs. Another married person requested advice on which coverage to pick if they're planning to have a baby in 2025. For an employee in California, fellow Redditors were a sounding board as they navigated dental-plan options, with costs ranging from $0 to nearly $440 annually.

Open-enrollment season typically takes place between October and December, and companies have their own set periods within those months. During this time, Americans elect their health-insurance coverage through either a private employer or marketplaces via subsidies offered under the federal government's Affordable Care Act. Nearly all open-enrollment selections made this fall will go into effect on January 1 and be set until the following season, with a few exceptions.

The process can be immensely confusing.

Employees are expected to look both backward and forward, said Dan Beck, the president and chief product officer for SAP SuccessFactors, a cloud-based software platform that oversees HR, payroll, and talent management.

He told Business Insider that employees are tasked with reflecting on whether they maximized their benefits in the past year based on how much they tapped into the healthcare system. At the same time, they must anticipate health-related events, such as having a child or a major surgery.

To complicate matters further, workers may move to new roles with different insurance options or their employers could change providers or plan options, forcing employees to acquaint themselves with new choices. The makeup of their families could change, too: As employees' marital statuses change and they raise children, they'll likely want to optimize their healthcare plans for those life stages.

On Reddit, people making health-insurance decisions try to make sense of the complexities. If they choose health plans mismatched with their needs, they run the risk of overspending in two directions: shelling out for a premium-coverage plan they don't really need or skimping on coverage and then experiencing an expensive life change.

Employees also need to keep track of life events that could change their coverage, including moving, having a baby, or adopting a child. There is a special enrollment period, outside of open enrollment, for those life events, but also a limited period of time to make the changes and retain health care coverage.

Increasingly, employers are encouraged — by both their employees and their HR-benefits companies — to share more easily digestible benefits information.

"What employees are telling us, overwhelmingly, is that they need help when they are enrolling," Karen Frost, a senior vice president at the cloud-based employee-benefits vendor Alight, told BI.

Some employers are partnering with third-party companies that handle things like payroll and health benefits and have built software with with clear step-by-step prompts — which can help workers be confident about their healthcare elections.

Young workers want more employer support in demystifying healthcare

In Alight's 2024 annual survey of 2,500 employees in the US, the UK, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, 63% of workers said they felt confident about their most recent health-plan election.

There are, however, some generational splits in the data. In the survey, 70% of Gen Z and 72% of millennial workers said they wanted personalized support for navigating the health system versus just 46% of baby boomers.

Before the mass digitization of benefits elections, employers would hand their employees printed packets outlining their medical-insurance offerings and ancillary benefits such as dental and vision, retirement plans, commuter reimbursement, gym memberships, and other wellness programs. Employees would pick from that menu, largely without guidance or input on what they'd like to see as alternative or additional benefit options.

Though the paper-packet method is much less common now, the enrollment process can still be overwhelming to navigate.

Life changes, like moving to a new state or employer, or a company picking new insurance providers to work with can complicate the enrollment process.

"You have a narrow window to actually get benefits, and you want to be successful," Beck told BI.

Mobile apps and generative-AI tools aim to smooth out the open-enrollment process

To help employees sort through their options during the open-enrollment period, some healthcare startups are leveraging mobile apps and generative-AI chatbots.

Alight, for example, aims to learn more about employee preferences and the needs of their families through a Q&A and then make recommendations. Throughout this process, Alight's recommendations coincide with clear definitions of complex benefits, like a health savings account, which lets workers set aside pretax money for qualified medical expenses.

"Instead of just letting people make their own choice, we guide them," said Frost. As an example, if an employee were to pick a high-deductible health plan, Alight would guide them to an HSA and explain why enrolling in it may make sense to budget for potential healthcare expenses.

SAP SuccessFactors said it's not yet comfortable with offering suggestions for health-insurance elections, citing concerns about data privacy.

Instead, the company — which has customers including McDonald's, L'Oréal, and Delta Air Lines — said it's focusing on further developing its recently launched mobile app.

The SuccessFactors mobile app is targeted at two demographics: workers under 40 who tend to be mobile-first in nearly every aspect of their lives and frontline workers of all ages with jobs in manufacturing and other sectors where they may be without frequent access to computers.

SAP SuccessFactors is also using generative-AI chatbots to answer policy questions to improve the user experience. In the future, the company plans to use these chatbots to automate some open-enrollment processes.

To bolster the company's abilities to help employees navigate this process and other healthcare questions that may arise throughout the year, SAP earlier this year paid $1.5 billion in cash to buy WalkMe, a tool designed to provide real-time website navigation for healthcare, onboarding, and other employee-focused tasks.

AI-based virtual assistants are also becoming more pervasive in the open-enrollment process. Alight has Ask Lisa, SAP SuccessFactors is leaning on the company's artificial-intelligence copilot, Joule, and the HR- and financial-software provider Workday uses Wex, an AI chatbot that internal employees can access on Slack to get automatically generated responses to their benefits questions. The same tool is offered to customers but branded as Workday Assistant.

"We try to appeal to all generations and age groups," Ben Carter, the senior vice president of business partners and rewards at Workday, said. "Some people, the last thing they want to do is actually talk to somebody on the phone."

This emerging technology benefits employers, too. Earlier this year, Workday unveiled an AI-enabled tool called Workday Wellness, which integrates with insurance providers like Aetna and Cigna. It allows Workday's customers — like The Hartford, Guardian, and MetLife — to understand which wellness benefits employees are using and which ones aren't resonating so they can invest more strategically.

"It brings a nice story," Carter said, "to say, well, if I'm going to go invest another $20 million in my benefits programs next year, here's where I need to go, or here's where I need to double down, or here's where I need to stop investing."

• At an AI roundtable in November, developers said AI tools were playing a key role in coding.
• They said that while AI could boost productivity, stakeholders should understand its limitations.
• This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

At a Business Insider roundtable in November, Neeraj Verma, the head of applied AI at Nice, argued that generative AI "makes a good developer better and a worse developer worse."

He added that some companies expect employees to be able to use AI to create a webpage or HTML file and simply copy and paste solutions into their code. "Right now," he said, "they're expecting that everybody's a developer."

During the virtual event, software developers from companies such as Meta, Slack, Amazon, Slalom, and more discussed how AI influenced their roles and career paths.

They said that while AI could help with tasks like writing routine code and translating ideas between programming languages, foundational coding skills are necessary to use the AI tools effectively. Communicating these realities to nontech stakeholders is a primary challenge for many software developers.

Understanding limitations

Coding is just one part of a developer's job. As AI adoption surges, testing and quality assurance may become more important for verifying the accuracy of AI-generated work. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the number of software developers, quality-assurance analysts, and testers will grow by 17% in the next decade.

Expectations for productivity can overshadow concerns about AI ethics and security.

"Interacting with ChatGPT or Cloud AI is so easy and natural that it can be surprising how hard it is to control AI behavior," Igor Ostrovsky, a cofounder of Augment, said during the roundtable. "It is actually very difficult to, and there's a lot of risk in, trying to get AI to behave in a way that consistently gives you a delightful user experience that people expect."

Companies have faced some of these issues in recent AI launches. Microsoft's Copilot was found to have problems with oversharing and data security, though the company created internal programs to address the risk. Tech giants are investing billions of dollars in AI technology — Microsoft alone plans to spend over $100 billion on graphics processing units and data centers to power AI by 2027 — but not as much in AI governance, ethics, and risk analysis.

AI integration in practice

For many developers, managing stakeholders' expectations — communicating the limits, risks, and overlooked aspects of the technology — is a challenging yet crucial part of the job.

Kesha Williams, the head of enterprise architecture and engineering at Slalom, said in the roundtable that one way to bridge this conversation with stakeholders is to outline specific use cases for AI. Focusing on the technology's applications could highlight potential pitfalls while keeping an eye on the big picture.

"Good developers understand how to write good code and how good code integrates into projects," Verma said. "ChatGPT is just another tool to help write some of the code that fits into the project."

Ostrovsky predicted that the ways employees engage with AI would change over the years. In the age of rapidly evolving technology, he said, developers will need to have a "desire to adapt and learn and have the ability to solve hard problems."

• Alicia Pittman, BCG's global people-team chair, is a member of BI's Workforce Innovation board.
• She says building a company culture with opportunities for two-way learning and conversation is key.
• This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.

Alicia Pittman, the global people-team chair at BCG, has been at the consulting firm for nearly 20 years. It's a testament, she said, to the company's culture.

"It's a place built to make talent do things that they didn't even know they could do," Pittman said. "I'm included in that. I love the learning that comes with it."

Pittman said one aspect of leadership development she's focused on is ethical practices. "We teach and train our people to understand how small choices that don't seem like major ethical choices matter," she said. "The responsibility is to show up with high ethics in everything that you do and think about the bigger picture of how you do things."

She said the firm had implemented programming through partnerships to help the company's leaders navigate the need to drive innovation ethically: "It's a place that we continue to invest because it's quite important for us."

The following is edited for length and clarity.

Where is BCG on the adoption curve of artificial intelligence, and what do you want to see in 2025?

I am excited about how BCG is driving change and grabbing the reins on generative AI. Gen AI is important to our clients, industry, and people.

We have a suite of tools, some of which we developed internally and some that are available off the shelf, that we've made available to all of our staff. Nearly everyone is a user to some degree.

What we're focused on now is moving from casual use to what we refer to as habitual use. It's habitual use that gets the value so that you can change how work gets done, based on the frequency, sophistication, and depth to which they use the tools.

We have a lot of enablement resources for our people, both as individuals and as teams, to make sure that we're moving up that habitual usage curve as quickly as we can. A firm like BCG is under pressure to stay on top of things because its clients look to us.

So how do you strike that balance and not go so fast that you risk leaving some of your people behind? We have an enablement network of more than a thousand people who are there to help both individuals and teams adopt gen AI. It's in all of our core curriculums.

Just this fall, we held AI days across every one of our offices at BCG with hands-on training. So we have people who are naturally there and ready for it, but we're also investing heavily to bring people up the curve.

You've mentioned in Workforce Innovation-board roundtables that apprenticeship is now a two-way street. What advice would you give leaders looking to deploy apprenticeships differently?

At BCG, we're fortunate to have a pretty flat structure so that you always have a good proximity between your senior leaders and all your staff. There are two ways we focus on helping to support this idea of two-way mentorship.

One is we just talk about topics. I recently wrote a piece about a mental-health town hall we held. It was quite moving. We had BCG employees who were generous and vulnerable in talking to thousands of people on a virtual town-hall panel about their struggles with things like addiction, grief, and depression, both before their time at BCG and during their time at BCG, and how they work through it.

It's about having those difficult conversations, getting the points out there, and starting to have shared language or shared opportunities to talk about these topics.

The AI days that I mentioned already are another way we do this. A lot of it is about getting cross-cohort connections on technology and other topics, creating forums so that people can talk about it.

The other is ensuring continual, structured feedback. Our staff provides 360-degree feedback all the time. It's an important part of what we do, and we're piloting doing it even more frequently. For example, we're giving people 360 feedback on how to be an inclusive leader. So it's both the formal mechanisms and also just creating the formats and discussions.

So much of culture and moving culture forward is really about having the language so we can share and talk about things. Creating those forums helps. It's an invitation to engage in productive ways.

What innovations are happening around DEI, especially as the topic has become more politicized?

DEI is built into our business model. We need great talent. We grow way faster than our talent pools, so just to get people in at quality, we need to be able to reach a lot of people; we need them to thrive.

Our business requires innovation, which requires diverse thought and experience. So, for us, it's quite core. One of my areas of focus is on inclusion and inclusive leadership. In some ways, it's the simplest thing to focus on. We all know that when people feel comfortable being themselves at work, you get the best out of them. They're most motivated, ready to take risks, ready to collaborate, and all of those things.

In North America, where we have the best statistics, 75% of our workforce is part of one or more of our DEI groups. Whatever intersectionality people have, whatever group they belong to, it's about how you make everybody able to show up at their best. That's really where our focus is.

• The 2024 F1 season featured plenty of drama and memorable moments on the track.
• We saw everything from an impressive rookie debut to a feisty battle for the drivers' championship.
• This article is part of "Behind the Wheel," a series about the highly competitive and high-tech world of Formula 1.

From an impressive rookie debut to Max Verstappen winning his fourth-straight drivers' championship, this Formula 1 season was chock-full of drama, first-ever wins, and career-defining moments.

With just one more race left in the year, we take a look back at the defining moments of this F1 season.

The rookie driver Oliver Bearman's last-minute call-up and impressive drive

In just the second race of the season, Ferrari had to call up 18-year-old reserve driver Oliver Bearman. Taking the place of Carlos Sainz, who had to undergo an emergency appendectomy, Bearman shocked the F1 world with a seventh-place finish at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Bearman's impressive driving undoubtedly helped earn him a full-time F1 seat, as he would later sign with Haas.

Carlos Sainz's quick recovery and victory

Just 16 days after undergoing emergency surgery in Saudi Arabia, Sainz returned to his Ferrari and took home the checkered flag in Australia. Sainz's quick recovery and victory carried even more significance as it was announced before the season that Lewis Hamilton would take his seat in 2025 — meaning Sainz would be a free agent after this season. The Spanish driver eventually signed with Williams Racing.

Zhou Guanyu drives in his first home race

While Zhou Guanyu made his Formula 1 debut in 2022, the Chinese Grand Prix was suspended for a few years because of the pandemic. The Chinese driver was finally able to drive in his home race, which took place in his birth city of Shanghai.

Lando Norris breaks through and gets his first career win

It took over 100 races, but Lando Norris got his first-ever Formula 1 win at this year's Miami Grand Prix. This victory catapulted Norris toward the top of the standings, and he would go on to challenge Verstappen throughout the season for the drivers' championship.

Charles Leclerc wins his hometown Monaco Grand Prix for the first time

After years of mishaps and bad luck, Charles Leclerc overcame the "Monaco curse" and took home the checkered flag for his Ferrari team. He became the first-ever Monégasque to win the Monaco Grand Prix.

Drama between friends at the Austrian Grand Prix

After battling for the lead throughout much of the race, Verstappen and Norris made contact with just seven laps remaining. As a result, Norris retired his car, Verstappen dropped to fifth, and George Russell slid in for the win. Off the track, Verstappen and Norris are friends, but this race would lead to questions as to whether the top two drivers on the grid could maintain their friendship.

Lewis Hamilton wins at home

In his final race representing Mercedes at the British Grand Prix, Hamilton put together a vintage drive in front of his home fans. He took the checkered flag at Silverstone and snapped a 945-day winless streak.

Oscar Piastri claims his maiden victory amid team drama

Piastri crossed the finish line first at the Hungarian Grand Prix, but not without intrateam drama. Both McLaren drivers ran at the front for much of the race, with Piastri initially leading. But after McLaren's pit-stop strategy inadvertently put Norris ahead, the team instructed him to yield the position back to his teammate. After 15 laps and many tense radio exchanges with his race engineer, Norris finally let Piastri pass, and the drivers finished first and second on the grid.

Max Verstappen's epic comeback win in Brazil and clinching the title in Vegas

Starting from 17th on the grid in Brazil, Verstappen put on a clinical driving display as he overtook car after car in rainy conditions to take home the checkered flag. This would give Verstappen a sizable lead over Norris in points, with Verstappen clinching the drivers' championship one race later in Las Vegas.

The 2024 F1 season will end with Verstappen claiming his fourth drivers' championship, solidifying him among the top drivers in the history of the sport.

• Klaviyo achieved high growth with minimal cash burn after it IPO'ed in 2023.
• Klaviyo CEO Andrew Bialecki said to follow a similar path, a company needs to align with investors.
• This article is part of "Road to IPO," a series exploring the public-offering process from prelaunch to postlaunch.

In Silicon Valley, there's often a perceived dichotomy that startups must choose between chasing high growth or achieving profitability. But Klaviyo has shown that it’s possible to do both, the company's chief executive and founder, Andrew Bialecki, said.

"Businesses will pay you to solve real problems. You should be able to fund this stuff if you're good at building software," Bialecki said at the Underscore VC Core Summit, where Business Insider interviewed him in October.

Klaviyo uses artificial intelligence to help merchants sell more by stepping up their email and text marketing. In September 2023, the Boston-based company went public on the New York Stock Exchange, maneuvering through a logjam of initial public offerings for software startups.

Part of the investor buzz around Klaviyo's IPO was that it was an ideal model to go public. It had been able to scale and grow with very little cash burn, a rare feat even in software. One of Klaviyo's biggest flexes in its investor prospectus was that of the roughly $450 million in venture capital it had raised, it spent only $15 million.

Bialecki said in the past 10 years, many entrepreneurs have fallen into a cycle that looked something like this: raise cash, build something, and then get acquired by a bigger company. Companies that focused instead on steady, organic growth were often labeled as lifestyle businesses, seen as lacking the ambition or potential for the exponential returns that venture capitalists crave. That didn't sit well with Bialecki.

"You look at Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Intel, all these tech companies that came up in the 20th century. They all went public, and they were profitable — and they were growing really fast. Like, why is it that either-or?" Bialecki said.

Bialecki borderline-bootstrapped the company he started in 2012. It grew to a $1 million revenue run rate before hiring any employees or raising a cent of venture capital.

Even after it started selling equity, with a $1.5 million seed round of funding in 2015, Bialecki and his cofounder, Ed Hallen, raised as little cash as they needed and spent it scrupulously. They focused on getting the product right.

This self-reliant streak allowed the founders to secure capital on their terms without diluting themselves six ways to Sunday. Before the IPO, Bialecki owned a 38.1% equity stake, while Hallen had a 13.9% stake, putting them in the top echelon of founders of software and cloud startups with the largest pre-IPO ownership stakes.

Bialecki advises founders who want to follow a similar path to be disciplined and loud about it. For a company to pursue high growth and profitability, it needs to align with investors who share the founder's vision and values rather than pressure them into taking additional venture capital just to inflate valuations for their own gain.

"Be clear about what you stand for as a company, and you will get the investors that believe in that," Bialecki said.

• Bridget Finn is the new director of Art Basel Miami Beach, set to have 286 galleries this year.
• Finn spoke with Business Insider about planning the fair and giving a platform to emerging artists.
• This article is part of BI's 2024 Art Basel series, taking you inside the art fair's global scene.

Inside the contemporary-art gallery Bortolami, there's a stillness unperturbed by the bustling sounds of its Manhattan neighborhood. It's especially peaceful on a sunny Tuesday afternoon when Bridget Finn — a veteran gallerist, archivist, and art dealer — arrives for our editorial shoot.

She warmly greets me and the photographer, Paola Chapdelaine, before changing into her photo-shoot attire: a black button-down dress adorned with bows on either side, yellow mesh boots, and statement eyeglasses. I feel compelled to compliment her chic ensemble, and she responds with a gentle smile and a soft-spoken "thank you."

As Finn poses against the backdrop of the gallery's exhibits, she looks right at home. After all, she's worked in the art world for over 20 years, climbing the ranks and building rapport at galleries around the world, including Bortolami. The latest feather in her cap is helming this year's Art Basel Miami Beach show as its new director. Her directorship started in September 2023, and she's spent the past year planning the 2024 art fair, set to commence publicly on Friday.

"Thinking about the show as a platform and how to develop structures of support for peers was incredibly important to me," Finn told me on a video call a week before we met at Bortolami, one of 286 galleries presenting works at Art Basel. "I have always been drawn to art as a way of forging cross-culture dialogue, and I think that art fairs are a huge player in this realm."

Shepherding an event as massive and multicultural as Art Basel is a tall order. Finn said she tackled it by taking "the role of a listener" and meeting with several stakeholders, including artists, "connoisseur collectors," and gallerists that are interested in showcasing their exhibitions. The objective, she said, is to accommodate everyone's desired experience and "have the best show possible."

Admittedly, Finn added, trying to meet everyone's needs was a challenge.

For instance, when her team members mapped out the floor plan at the Miami Beach Convention Center, a 1.4 million-square-foot venue, they had to consider multiple factors: how to physically plot booths and exhibitions, how to make the space easy to navigate for attendees, and how to sensibly connect different sectors in the massive building. If they made a change that affected a gallery's placement on the show floor, they had to ensure the gallery was aware and aligned with the decision.

"With everything in the art world, there was a balance of flexibility — figuring out where we can be flexible and then what is an absolute must," Finn said. "It was a learning curve."

This year, 34 galleries will make their Art Basel Miami Beach debut, the most first-time participants at the fair in over 15 years. They're "international in scope," coming from different regions in the Americas, Asia, and Europe, Finn said.

Exhibitors are chosen by Art Basel's selection committee, which sifts through hundreds of proposals and applications from galleries. It's a "very layered and involved " process, Finn said, but essentially, they're looking for submissions that are "a cut above the rest."

"Of course, there is some subjectivity to that, and that is up to them to define," she added.

Finn said she hoped the galleries would bring "a dynamic energy" that attendees can feel when they step into the venue.

"I would be so bold as to say that Art Basel Miami Beach is often the platform where new trends in art appear. It's where they get pushed even further," she said. She added that the slate of emerging artists, part of the fair's Positions sector, would help create a "feeling of freshness."

Finn said she's excited to see all the Positions works, notably exhibitions from three artists and a group: Agosto Machado, a New York artist and activist of Chinese, Spanish, and Filipino descent; Terrence Musekiwa, a Zimbabwean sculpture and installation artist; Diego Vega Solorza, a Mexican dancer and choreographer; and MAHKU, a Brazilian artist collective that uses its proceeds to buy, preserve, and protect land around its native village in the Amazon region.

Artnet's "Intelligence Report" said the art industry saw a dip in fine-art auction sales in 2023 — a snapshot of a larger trend of global art sales declining last year.

But Finn said she's seen signs of a bounce back throughout this year.

"Things are appearing to go in the right direction in terms of market stability and sales," she said. "Galleries have started thinking very strategically about how to define themselves and their program and the artists they work with in an art-fair context."

When done right, this tactical approach can help support the enduring role of artists, Finn told me.

"Artists have led the way through difficult times of transition in society throughout history. This is nothing new," she said. "They have this ability to bring people together, start a conversation in a way that may be challenging in other arenas, and impact change in society. I believe that so fully."

The offers and details on this page may have updated or changed since the time of publication. See our article on Business Insider for current information.

Affiliate links for the products on this page are from partners that compensate us and terms apply to offers listed (see our advertiser disclosure with our list of partners for more details). However, our opinions are our own. See how we rate products and services to help you make smart decisions with your money.

• When I adopted my daughter, I had 24 hours' notice to prepare for her arrival.
• I'm a freelance worker, so it was easy to stop taking on work, but it was a big shift in how I earn.
• This article is part of "Milestone Moments," a series about financial planning for major life events.

This summer, my boyfriend and I adopted a newborn daughter — and we had only 24 hours' notice once we had confirmation that she had been placed with us. Between packing baby supplies and installing the car seat we'd already purchased, I notified my freelance clients I wouldn't be available for at least three months.

I didn't want to commit to a specific time period since I didn't know how much care my baby would need. As a freelancer, I'm used to my income varying, but this would be the first time in over 25 years that I wouldn't have any steady gigs. My career is already precarious, and I had to prepare for my income to nosedive.

I tried to squeeze in extra income where I could

I didn't fully quit working, because I still had a few deadlines to catch up on. While the baby slept, I edited a client's novel. In a burst of hubris, I told one client that I could keep writing their newsletter. I assumed I could squeeze in work around my daughter's schedule.

I didn't realize just how much juggling I would do during my spare hours — laundry, dishes, thank-you cards for the influx of gifts we received, organizing my things and the baby's.

Ever since we saved up all our anticipated adoption costs 1 1/2 years ago, I had tried to budget for my eventual time off. I'd been saving any spare income in an investment account that kept my money liquid and paid about 5% interest. On paper, my savings could cover my half of our mortgage and bills for at least a year, and my boyfriend, who has a full-time job, was happy to cover the rest.

But even though I know that I'm saving us the $40,000 to $50,000 a full-time nanny would cost, it's been extremely hard for me to stop working entirely. The idea that my savings might run out and leave me to borrow spending money from my boyfriend feels far too old-fashioned for someone who's considered herself a feminist since she learned what the word meant.

I want to keep working, but I love being a mom

Now, with my daughter sleeping through the night, I've found myself full of creative ideas begging to be put down on paper. I want to work, and I'm very grateful that I can make that choice, rather than having it made for me.

The three of us could live comfortably on my boyfriend's salary. Nevertheless, not having any income isn't something I can handle emotionally. As a child of divorce, in which money was a major factor, I worry that relying solely on him to provide for us could lead to resentment on his part, and leave me behind in the job market if we ever split up.

Because of that, I'm about to return to my part-time work-from-home copywriting job and have been taking on freelance writing assignments. I considered hiring a babysitter to free up my time, but the difference between my hourly rate and theirs wouldn't make it worthwhile. Furthermore, I'm 49 and waited a long time to fulfill my dream of becoming a mom.

I know that "having it all" isn't possible. I can't simultaneously give 100% to my job and 100% to being a mom. In just these first few months, there have been plenty of times when I've been pulled from my work upon seeing my baby's smiling face. Taking the time to have an impromptu dance party or blow gently on her face brings her more joy than I could have thought possible.

I'm earning the amount that's right for my mental well-being

One necessary expense has been my mental health. I had stopped seeing my therapist earlier this year to save money, but within two weeks of our adoption placement, I returned. I also found another provider to finally obtain medication for ADHD to allow me to not feel so overwhelmed by all the tasks on my plate.

Cutting back on work — but not abandoning it — is the compromise I've settled on to fulfill my duties as a mom, satisfy my need for mental stimulation, and stay financially stable. I'm not earning anywhere near what I was before, but it's enough for bills and occasional splurges without having to micromanage my budget. I've mourned grossing six figures annually, but someday, when my daughter's older, I hope I can get back to that level of success.

I've learned that while money is important and valuable, I can be "rich" in other ways — which I recognize is a privileged viewpoint I can afford to hold only because of my partner's income. When I walk into my daughter's nursery just as she's waking up, and she beams her drooling smile at me, I feel wealthy in love in a way no amount of money could ever hold a candle to.

What's given me the most satisfaction, though, is balancing my work projects with taking care of her. I may not be able to physically tend to her needs and work simultaneously, but I have found ways to bring motherhood into my work. Whether that's sitting her on my lap during Zoom calls or writing about the reality of my life as a mom, it has made my dip in income less scary.

• Marjorie Powell, AARP's CHRO, is a member of BI's Workforce Innovation board.
• Powell says creating a collaborative learning environment is key to helping employees adapt to AI.
• This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.

As the chief human resources officer at AARP, Marjorie Powell devotes much of her professional energy to meeting the needs of the multigenerational workforce. These days, much of that involves navigating AI's impact to ensure every employee at the nonprofit is prepared for the technological changes shaping the workplace.

"Our goal in everything we do for our employees is to provide the resources, support, and capabilities they need to make good decisions within the company's guidelines," she said. "We take the same approach with AI."

Powell's mission extends beyond AARP's workforce. As an advocate for the 50-and-over demographic, she champions the adaptability and contributions of older workers in a tech-driven economy.

"There's an assumption that people over a certain age are not comfortable with technology, but what's overlooked is that many older people — particularly those at the end of the baby boomer generation — were at the forefront of this technological revolution," she said.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

How did AARP handle the introduction of AI in its workforce?

We decided to use Copilot because we're already a Microsoft company. We got enough licenses to set up a working group with key people we thought would be super users. The idea was to experiment with AI tools and see how they fit into our workflows.

We wanted to learn and figure out what works and what doesn't. Then, we could make a decision about how we were going to roll it out to the company, since one, it's costly; and two, we wanted people to feel comfortable with it.

What were some of the outcomes of the working group, and how did those results shape the way AARP approached training and support?

We issued a policy, a generative AI use case approval process, and a mandatory training for all staff to complete to learn how to use gen AI in the workplace. The training focused on internal and external use and the types of information that can be shared, public versus private, and so on.

We encouraged our staff to 'Go out there and play with it.' We then surveyed them and asked, What are you using it for? What are some great use cases you've developed? How's it helping you enhance your productivity? How are you using this tool to further the AARP mission?

We also considered what existing structure we could use to encourage staff to use AI and explore the technology. We already had a structure in place called Communities of Practice — groups where employees learn and share. It's like an employee resource group (ERG), but focused on learning and development within industry, so we used this model to create an AI Community of Practice.

What are some of the 'great use cases' for AI for your HR team specifically?

We get a lot of calls and emails on simple things about AARP benefits and policies. People ask questions like: I'm having knee surgery next month. How do I sign up for FMLA? or Where do I find my W2? or I bought a Peloton. Is that eligible for the fitness credit? So we started building an HR chatbot to provide that kind of information. It's much easier for employees to ask the chatbot instead of overwhelming a team member with those queries.

We're currently piloting the chatbot with 300-400 frequently asked questions and answers preloaded. It directs employees to the right information without them having to dig and helps us understand what additional information we need to include.

Many employers are using AI tools in hiring, but there are concerns about potential bias. What's your perspective on this?

We use AI for sourcing candidates. All AARP recruiters are certified to conduct Boolean searches to increase the accuracy of identifying talent with specific skill sets in the marketplace.

But when it comes to screening and interviewing, we don't use AI. We find that the technology is still very biased, specifically when it comes to age. Until the technology matures enough to minimize bias, I don't believe it's a good idea to use it without that human component of judgement.

Speaking of age, what are your thoughts on ageism in the workplace today, especially from companies hesitant to hire older workers?

Companies don't want to be the kind of organization that isn't welcoming to talent, regardless of age. Due to the economy and the rising cost of healthcare, many people in the 50-plus community are re-entering the workforce.

Many in that age group have valuable skills and experience and are eager to return. They often say, 'I don't need to be in a leadership role. Been there, done that. I just want to help and be of use.' They also naturally take on mentorship roles, as people seek their guidance. By embracing this segment of the workforce, companies can gain huge value.

What do employers misunderstand about older workers and technology?

Baby boomers were at the forefront of the technology era, and they're more comfortable with technology than many people realize. In fact, they are among the largest consumers of technology products. Tech companies really need to pay attention to this demographic.

I look at myself — I'm about to turn 60 — and I was selling Commodore 64s when I was in high school. I've seen everything from floppy disks to CDs, to cassette tapes, to 8-tracks, to digital streaming and everything else. I've experienced all versions of technology, and I've adapted. I'm still willing to adapt, and I'm still learning.

This article is part of "Workforce Innovation," a series exploring the forces shaping enterprise transformation.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have become the subject of a heated, politicized debate over the past few years.

Several major corporations, including John Deere, Microsoft, and Molson Coors, have made headlines recently for rolling back their DEI initiatives.

Meanwhile, Walmart, the world's largest retailer, announced it would no longer use the acronym in its communications and would not extend its Center for Racial Equity, a nonprofit established in 2020 with a five-year, $100 million commitment to address racial disparities.

Even so, as we've reported in this series, many companies remain committed to the values of DEI — but are shifting their strategies for a new era. Whatever the motivation of the companies, it's clear that DEI is undergoing a period of change.

Business Insider asked its Workforce Innovation board to participate in a roundtable to discuss how DEI programs are evolving. We wanted to find out what structural changes are happening, how companies can continue to build trust with employees, and what role artificial intelligence is poised to play.

The consensus around the virtual table was that the focus of the DEI story is shifting to business outcomes and the skills needed to achieve them. "We can't do it the old way," Purvi Tailor, the vice president of human resources at Ferring Pharmaceuticals, said. "We have to have the conversation in a new way. It becomes much more about inclusion and changing mindsets and creating awareness about your own biases."

Skills-based hiring is one way companies are working to identify diverse candidates organically. "Let's focus on the skills that are required for the future of work and what we are looking for from leaders in our company," Maggie Hulce, the chief revenue officer at Indeed, said. "And then be more consistent in the application of holding that bar."

By homing in on the skills organizations need to succeed and how to use AI tools to help surface in-house talent, companies could move the DEI story away from conflicts and focus on its benefits.

"It dismisses this notion that you have to lower the bar if you want diversity in your organization," said Spring Lacy, the global head of talent acquisition and DEI at Verizon. "We've got lots of super smart, super skilled people of color, women, people with disabilities, LGBTQI community, who just aren't seen for all of the biases that you talked about. You don't have to lower the bar."

Roundtable participants included:

• Anant Adya, executive vice president, service offering head, and head of Americas Delivery, Infosys
• Lucrecia Borgonovo, chief talent and organizational effectiveness officer, Mastercard
• Chris Deri, president, Weber Shandwick Collective
• Maggie Hulce, chief revenue officer, Indeed
• Spring Lacy, vice president, chief talent acquisition and diversity officer, Verizon
• Purvi Tailor, vice president of human resources, Ferring Pharmaceuticals USA

Here are six key takeaways from the discussion.

Skills-based hiring, supercharged with AI tools, helps companies find 'hidden figures'

Skills-based hiring is a strategy that some companies are using to identify candidates and reduce bias in the hiring process. The approach focuses on the skills needed to fulfill the role, minimizing qualifications like college degrees or previous job titles.

With artificial intelligence, talent leaders can accelerate the hiring process and uncover strong candidates within their companies that they might have missed before.

Lacy, who was previously an HR leader at Prudential, said AI is empowering existing employees to showcase their abilities more effectively.

"When went to recruit internally, and we pulled people based on the skills profile and not based on proximity bias or any other bias, our slates were inherently more diverse," Lacy said.

The critical piece for companies is to figure out the best way to capture an accurate and comprehensive view of employees' skills.

Verizon uses the Workday HR platform and is piloting a program with its partner company, Censia, that uses an AI tool to help employees craft their profiles.

Lacy has seen how difficult it can be for employees to isolate their skills in ways that might help them be identified for new opportunities. "When we said to employees, 'Go build a skills profile,' the page was blank," she said. "It was really hard for people to get started." AI tools can pull information from a range of sources and serve up a framework that guides employees through the process.

Mastercard has launched an employee-skills initiative with the software company Gloat. "It has been a really great way to democratize access to opportunities for employees," said Lucrecia Borgonova, Mastercard's chief talent and organizational effectiveness officer.

The outcome for companies can be a more diverse talent pool from inside the house.

Lacy said Verizon is conscious of the potential for bias in the AI programs, but early indicators suggest that more individuals are being considered for roles than in the past.

"We are uncovering hidden figures in this organization because there are people who we don't know, because they are not well networked, they don't have sponsors," Lacy said. "If not for this technology, we wouldn't have known that they were there, to be able to lift them and perhaps provide them with other opportunities."

Leaning into the 'I' of DEI — inclusion

DEI programs have many aspects, including employer branding and attracting a diverse talent pool, screening and hiring, and compensation.

Inclusion relates to a person's workplace experience and their sense of belonging at an organization, which research suggests makes people want to join and stay at a company. Benefits are an essential part of that employee experience, and companies may want to think about how these packages reflect their values to staffers and prospects alike.

Ferring Pharmaceuticals introduced a program in 2022 that includes unlimited financial support for creating a family — through IVF, adoption, surrogacy, or birth — for all employees, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

Ferring's Tailor said it is one way that the company emphasizes its approach to its entire workforce.

"We talk about more of the 'I' than we do about the 'D' and the 'E,'" Tailor said. "We do it to show the kind of culture and working environment that we want to have. It's all about inclusion and bringing your whole self to the workplace."

Linking AI tools with culture and leadership

As companies develop new hiring strategies, culture does not stand still.

"Inclusion and belonging are essential parts of the culture, the value proposition, and key to driving the outcomes of our business," said Mastercard's Borgonovo. "It's really important that we drive shared accountability across our 34,000 employees around the role that each of us has to collectively play in creating this culture of inclusion where everybody feels that they can belong."

Borgonovo said that Mastercard is exploring ways to leverage AI to help business leaders across the organization improve efficiency and be more intentional about DEI and other workforce goals.

"How do we enable people, leaders, from an automation or efficiency standpoint? How do we help them be more proactive?" she said. "How do we help them create more bandwidth by automating certain processes so then they have more time to coach and develop their teams."

She said the company is exploring how AI can be used to coach leaders to role-play and get feedback on how they engage with their teams. "AI can be your coach, your copilot, and help augment your leadership," she said.

Ditching the DEI silo

Indeed's Hulce said a lot of time goes into optimizing the company's structure. "How do you make it the norm that equity needs to be built into processes, period," she said.

It's not just about interviewing and hiring diverse candidates, but about leading teams through every opportunity and decision, including promotions, performance bonuses, and assignments.

"How do you measure that? How do have regular conversations with managers at different levels in the organization about the expectation that we will be looking at equity in all of these steps," Hulce said.

Indeed once had a DEI team that worked parallel to the HR function. But when the previous HR leader left the company, they decided to reorganize and embed the DEI discipline across the business, elevating the previous head of DEI to chief people officer.

Hulce said realigning DEI was essential to scaling goals, standards, and accountability across the company. "It's almost an impossible task to ask a separate group to influence everybody else unless it's built into core processes somehow," she said.

Infosys is also considering its optimal DEI structure. "We are slightly decentralized," Anant Adya, an executive vice president, said. The global company has a centralized corporate DEI team, with DEI councils at the individual industry units. Adya said the company will leverage AI tools to help measure effectiveness.

Hulce emphasized the need to regularly and consistently review management decisions. "It can't be just once a year," she said. "You evaluate, you check, and if there's a correction to be made, you say, 'OK, guys, something looks amiss.' The expectation is we will be following equitable processes."

Using AI to scrutinize hiring, while retaining the human touch

Adya said Infosys is using AI to analyze patterns in its hiring data.

"It is very important to look at and analyze the data based on how hiring patterns are being used and if there is any bias in the hiring process itself," he said.

AI will grow increasingly important in analyzing the efficacy of various recruitment sources. "A lot of times we see that employee referrals actually work the best," he said. "But that might not be true when it comes to specific DEI initiatives."

By enlisting AI tools to analyze online sources, university partnerships, and other talent alliances and platforms the company is using, Adya said it should be able to optimize its approach around specific goals.

But all the AI analysis in the world does not negate the need for the human touch. Adya said that sometimes there's a perception at the company that hiring is being done only to hit certain DEI benchmarks and that the process is too onerous.

Adya said that hosting a "clear dialogue" about the company's decision-making process around recruitment methodology has helped employees understand the company's rationale.

"It's always better to sit down and explain why this is critical for the unit and why it is important," he said. "Sometimes open dialogues, going back to the old school, not using AI or gen AI, but just sitting and talking and removing that uncertainty and lack of transparency helps a lot."

Leveraging AI-powered insights to change the DEI story

Proponents of DEI maintain that a diverse, inclusive workplace yields better business results, and there are studies that also support that view.

Opponents of DEI, said Chris Deri, the president of Weber Shandwick's corporate advisory business, tend to focus on the methodology of achieving workplace diversity, such as companies actively seeking women for leadership positions, seemingly at the expense of male candidates.

"That's what DEI opponents are focused on," Deri said. "Like, how do you pull together a candidate pool, like having women candidates somehow be seen to be at the front of the line."

Deri said that companies should work to shift the perspective to DEI outcomes and tangible business benefits — and should leverage artificial intelligence to surface insights that might not be obvious.

"AI can do that in a way that human knowledge management and analysis is not going to be able to do," Deri said. "We can use the power of AI to look across our enterprises' data and knowledge and start to collect the outputs and outcomes of the principles of applying DEI. "

Deri said that if a large language model can be trained on the outcomes, such as attracting new customers, creating new products, and building community trust, "that might be something that uses technology to help the storytelling about DEI. We really need to change the entire story now."

• Exposure to light is key in adjusting drivers' body clocks to new time zones.
• The Las Vegas Grand Prix is "the nastiest one of the season," one performance coach said.
• This article is part of "Behind the Wheel," a series about the highly competitive and high-tech world of Formula 1.

In Formula 1, sleep is a precious commodity.

The global series' 24-race calendar spans 21 countries across five continents. Teams travel from China to Miami to Italy over the course of just a few weeks — making jet lag a constant problem throughout the season. It's such a concern that many teams employ doctors and coaches dedicated to helping drivers adjust quickly to different time zones.

"In the case of Formula 1 drivers, sleep is right up there as one of the main things we can control to put them in the best place possible to perform," Tom Clark, a senior performance coach with the Alpine F1 Team, said. "It's a thing we prioritize very highly. Being exposed to jet lag, we can manipulate it so we're ahead of the curve."

Even now, as the 2024 season heads into the home stretch, Clark is preparing for next year, looking up available flights for the team and mapping out calendars to see how early his drivers can make it out to a race based on other team responsibilities.

"Drivers have a great many commitments, so we can't always prioritize sleep and jet lag above all else," he said. "But we start planning right away so we have the best options available to negate jet lag and put the athletes in the best position."

Monitoring light and 'zeitgeber'

When it comes to fighting jet lag, Clark said, there's one main factor to consider: exposure to light.

"Light from the sun and light from electronic devices, and the absence of light — if we can manipulate those things in accordance to where we're trying to travel, we'll be able to shift the body clock closer to that given time zone," he said.

As an example, Clark points to Esteban Ocon, the Alpine driver with whom he works most closely. In preparation for heading to Las Vegas this week — about a nine-hour time shift from Ocon's home in Switzerland — Clark began shifting the driver's bedtime and wake-up time later and later last week.

"We also look at his timing to light exposure, which we try to replicate to the time zone he's traveling to," Clark said. "From a basic first principle, that's what we do fundamentally to thrive in the new environment."

Additionally, Clark closely monitors Ocon's "zeitgeber" — a German word for external circadian time cues that contribute to the body's clock. This includes physical activity and fitness, socializing, and eating.

"All of those have an influence on moving the body clock closer" to the new time zone, Clark said, adding: "But it's light that is the most influential, so that's what we prioritize the greatest."

'Las Vegas is the nastiest one of the season'

Plane travel is another factor. When traveling west, Clark wants his drivers to take daytime flights so that they stay awake. When flying east, he encourages them to sleep on flights — particularly when the series heads to Australia, which entails about a 24-hour door-to-door travel period.

With Formula 1 heading to Las Vegas this weekend to kick off the final triple-header of the season, Clark said the battle against jet lag would be particularly important.

"Las Vegas is the nastiest one of the season," he said, adding that because the race happens so late — the Grand Prix begins about 10 p.m. local time — drivers have to modify their sleep schedules so that they essentially become nocturnal, sleeping during most of the day.

"If you're like Esteban and you get a huge amount of sleep, he effectively will sleep the entire daylight hours of Las Vegas — which actually might be quite a normal thing for most Vegas visitors and tourists," Clark said with a laugh. "It's a bit of a weird way to live, but it's a necessity to cash in on the sleep opportunities that we have. We use other means to help with what we lose from not seeing the sun, like vitamin D supplements. We'll have to contend with that during the week."

Once the Las Vegas Grand Prix ends, the series immediately shifts to Qatar, meaning every team member once again has to rapidly adjust their body clocks.

"Effectively, you're doing a full circulation of the globe in time zones in the space of just a couple of weeks," Clark said. Last year, when Las Vegas was also part of a triple-header, many people discovered they could "continually be in a state of sleep deprivation and poor quality of sleep if you don't prioritize it," he added.

Clark began working with Alpine in 2018 in a performance role and said he viewed battling jet lag as an "elephant in the room" when it came to race prep. "We were doing everything we could from a training, nutrition, and recovery standpoint, but when it came to sleep, there wasn't much in place," he said. "That's where my appetite came from to pursue and understand jet lag more."

Most Formula 1 teams, he said, now task their performance coaches and doctors with monitoring drivers' sleep patterns and adjusting them to new time zones.

Outside Formula 1, Clark is pursuing doctoral work on jet lag — a topic that, he said, is not studied extensively in academic literature.

"Jet lag itself is a hard thing to research and understand just by the nature of it," he said. "You can study it in a lab environment, but you can't replicate getting on a plane, the large amount of time in the air, all the stresses you go through at the airport, and arriving in a widely different culture and environment."

That makes Formula 1 an ideal industry in which to conduct this research, with the sport featuring perhaps the most condensed global travel of any other sport series.

"I've been working within the Formula 1 population and yes, it's not the easiest thing to fit in around my day job," Clark said, laughing. "But it's fascinating, and I'm enjoying it very much."

This article is part of "CXO AI Playbook" — straight talk from business leaders on how they're testing and using AI.

The future of software-development jobs is changing rapidly as more companies adopt AI tools that can accelerate the coding process and close experience gaps between junior- and senior-level developers.

Increased AI adoption could be part of the tech industry's "white-collar recession," which has seen slumps in hiring and recruitment over the past year. Yet integrating AI into workflows can offer developers the tools to focus on creative problem-solving and building new features.

On November 14, Business Insider convened a roundtable of software developers as part of our "CXO AI Playbook" series to learn how artificial intelligence was changing their jobs and careers. The conversation was moderated by Julia Hood and Jean Paik from BI's Special Projects team.

These developers discussed the shifts in their day-to-day tasks, which skills people would need to stay competitive in the industry, and how they navigate the expectations of stakeholders who want to stay on the cutting edge of this new technology.

Panelists said AI has boosted their productivity by helping them write and debug code, which has freed up their time for higher-order problems, such as designing software and devising integration strategies.

However, they emphasized that some of the basics of software engineering — learning programming languages, scaling models, and handling large-scale data — would remain important.

The roundtable participants also said developers could provide critical insight into challenges around AI ethics and governance.

The roundtable participants were:

• Pooya Amini, software engineer, Meta.
• Greg Jennings, head of engineering for AI, Anaconda.
• Shruti Kapoor, lead member of technical staff, Slack.
• Aditi Mithal, software-development engineer, Amazon Q.
• Igor Ostrovsky, cofounder, Augment.
• Neeraj Verma, head of applied AI, Nice.
• Kesha Williams, head of enterprise architecture and engineering, Slalom.

The following discussion was edited for length and clarity.

Julia Hood: What has changed in your role since the popularization of gen AI?

Neeraj Verma: I think the expectations that are out there in the market for developers on the use of AI are actually almost a bigger impact than the AI itself. You hear about how generative AI is sort of solving this blank-paper syndrome. Humans have this concept that if you give them a blank paper and tell them to go write something, they'll be confused forever. And generative AI is helping overcome that.

The expectation from executives now is that developers are going to be significantly faster but that some of the creative work the developers are doing is going to be taken away — which we're not necessarily seeing. We're seeing it as more of a boilerplate creation mechanism for efficiency gains.

Aditi Mithal: I joined Amazon two years ago, and I've seen how my productivity has changed. I don't have to focus on doing repetitive tasks. I can just ask Amazon Q chat to do that for me, and I can focus on more-complex problems that can actually impact our stakeholders and our clients. I can focus on higher-order problems instead of more-repetitive tasks for which the code is already out there internally.

Shruti Kapoor: One of the big things I've noticed with writing code is how open companies have become to AI tools like Cursor and Copilot and how integrated they've become into the software-development cycle. It's no longer considered a no-no to use AI tools like ChatGPT. I think two years ago when ChatGPT came out, it was a big concern that you should not be putting your code out there. But now companies have kind of embraced that within the software-development cycle.

Pooya Amini: Looking back at smartphones and Google Maps, it's hard to remember how the world looked like before these technologies. It's a similar situation with gen AI — I can't remember how I was solving the problem without it. I can focus more on actual work.

Now I use AI as a kind of assisted tool. My main focus at work is on requirement gathering, like software design. When it comes to the coding, it's going to be very quick. Previously, it could take weeks. Now it's a matter of maybe one or two days, so then I can actually focus on other stuff as AI is solving the rest for me.

Kesha Williams: In my role, it's been trying to help my team rethink their roles and not see AI as a threat but more as a partner that can help boost productivity, and encouraging my team to make use of some of the new embedded AI and gen-AI tools. Really helping my team upskill and putting learning paths in place so that people can embrace AI and not be afraid of it. More of the junior-level developers are really afraid about AI replacing them.

Hood: Are there new career tracks opening up now that weren't here before?

Verma: At Nice, we have something like 3,000 developers, and over the last, I think, 24 months, 650 of them have shifted into AI-specific roles, which was sort of unheard of before. Even out of those 650, we've got about a hundred who are experts at things like prompt engineering. Over 20% of our developers are not just developers being supported by AI but developers using AI to write features.

Kapoor: I think one of the biggest things I've noticed in the last two to three years is the rise of a job title called "AI engineer," which did not exist before, and it's kind of in between an ML engineer and a traditional software engineer. I'm starting to see more and more companies where AI engineer is one of the top-paying jobs available for software engineers. One of the cool things about this job is that you don't need an ML-engineering background, which means it's accessible to a lot more people.

Greg Jennings: For developers who are relatively new or code-literate knowledge workers, I think they can now use code to solve problems where previously they might not have. We have designers internally that are now creating full-blown interactive UIs using AI to describe what they want and then providing that to engineers. They've never been able to do that before, and it greatly accelerates the cycle.

For more-experienced developers, I think there are a huge number of things that we still have to sort out: the architectures of these solutions, how we're actually going to implement them in practice. The nature of testing is going to have to change a lot as we start to include these applications in places where they're more mission-critical.

Amini: On the other side, looking at threats that can come out of AI, new technologies and new positions can emerge as well. We don't currently have clear regulations in terms of ownership or the issues related to gen AI, so I imagine there will be more positions in terms of ethics.

Mithal: I feel like a Ph.D. is not a requirement anymore to be a software developer. If you have some foundational ML, NLP knowledge, you can target some of these ML-engineer or AI-engineer roles, which gives you a great opportunity to be in the market.

Williams: I'm seeing new career paths in specialized fields around ML and LLM operations. For my developers, they're able to focus more on strategy and system design and creative problem-solving, and it seems to help them move faster into architecture. System design, system architecture, and integration strategies — they have more time to do that because of AI.

Jean Paik: What skills will developers need to stay competitive?

Verma: I think a developer operating an AI system requires product-level understanding of what you're trying to build at a high level. And I think a lot of developers struggle with prompt engineering from that perspective. Having the skills to clearly articulate what you want to an LLM is a very important skill.

Williams: Developers need to understand machine-learning concepts and how AI models work, not necessarily how to build and train these models from scratch but how to use them effectively. As we're starting to use Amazon Q, I've realized that our developers are now becoming prompt engineers because you have to get that prompt right in order to get the best results from your gen-AI system.

Jennings: Understanding how to communicate with these models is very different. I almost think that it imparts a need for engineers to have a little bit more of a product lens, where a deeper understanding of the actual business problem they're trying to solve is necessary to get the most out of it. Developing evaluations that you can use to optimize those prompts, so going from prompt engineering to actually tuning the prompts in a more-automated way, is going to emerge as a more common approach.

Igor Ostrovsky: Prompt engineering is really important. That's how you interact with AI systems, but this is something that's evolving very quickly. Software development will change in five years much more rapidly than anything we've seen before. How you architect, develop, test, and maintain software — that will all change, and how exactly you interact with AI will also evolve.

I think prompt engineering is more of a sign that some developers have the desire to learn and are eager to figure out how to interact with artificial intelligence, but it won't necessarily be how you interact with AI in three years or five years. Software developers will need this desire to adapt and learn and have the ability to solve hard problems.

Mithal: As a software developer, some of the basics won't change. You need to understand how to scale models, build scalable solutions, and handle large-scale data. When you're training an AI model, you need data to support it.

Kapoor: Knowledge of a programming language would be helpful, specifically Python or even JavaScript. Knowledge of ML or some familiarity with ML will be really helpful. Another thing is that we need to make sure our applications are a lot more fault-tolerant. That is also a skill that front-end or back-end engineers who want to transition to an AI-engineering role need to be aware of.

One of the biggest problems with prompts is that the answers can be very unpredictable and can lead to a lot of different outputs, even for the same prompt. So being able to make your application fault-tolerant is one of the biggest skills we need to apply in AI engineering.

Hood: What are the concerns and obstacles you have as AI gains momentum? How do you manage the expectations of nontech stakeholders in the organization who want to stay on the leading edge?

Ostrovsky: Part of the issue is that interacting with ChatGPT or cloud AI is so easy and natural that it can be surprising how hard it is actually to control AI behavior, where you need AI to understand constraints, have access to the right information at the right time, and understand the task.

When setting expectations with stakeholders, it is important they understand that we're working with this very advanced technology and they are realistic about the risk profile of the project.

Mithal: One is helping them understand the trade-offs. It could be security versus innovation or speed versus accuracy. The second is metrics. Is it actually improving the efficiency? How much is the acceptance rate for our given product? Communicating all those to the stakeholders gives them an idea of whether the product they're using is making an impact or if it's actually helping the team become more productive.

Williams: Some of the challenges I'm seeing are mainly around ethical AI concerns, data privacy, and costly and resource-intensive models that go against budget and infrastructure constraints. On the vendor or stakeholder side, it's really more about educating our nontechnical stakeholders about the capabilities of AI and the limitations and trying to set realistic expectations.

We try to help our teams understand for their specific business area how AI can be applied. So how can we use AI in marketing or HR or legal, and giving them real-world use cases.

Verma: Gen AI is really important, and it's so easy to use ChatGPT, but what we find is that gen AI makes a good developer better and a worse developer worse. Good developers understand how to write good code and how good code integrates into projects. ChatGPT is just another tool to help write some of the code that fits into the project. That's the big challenge that we try to make sure our executives understand, that not everybody can use this in the most effective manner.

Jennings: There are some practical governance concerns that have emerged. One is understanding the tolerance for bad responses in certain contexts. Some problems, you may be more willing to accept a bad response because you structure the interface in such a way that there's a human in the loop. If you're attempting to not have a human in the loop, that could be problematic depending on what you want the model to do. Just getting better muscle for the organization to have a good intuition about where these models can potentially fail and in what ways.

In addition to that, understanding what training data went into that model, especially as models are used more as agents and have privileged access to different applications and data sources that might be pretty sensitive.

Kapoor: I think one of the biggest challenges that can happen is how companies use the data that comes back from LLM models and how they're going to use it within the application. Removing the human component scares me a lot.

Verma: It's automation versus augmentation. There are a lot of cases where augmentation is the big gain. I think automation is a very small, closed case — there are very few things I think LLMs are ready in the world right now to automate.