Episode 271
Adapting to Change: Surviving the Rapid AI Transformation in the Workplace
AI is reshaping learning and development faster than any of us expected. So how do we adapt? And what skills will matter most as tools, workflows and expectations keep changing in the workplace?
In this episode, Matt speaks with Josh Cavalier, an AI and L&D expert with more than two decades of experience helping organizations modernize the way they design learning. Josh is also the author of Applying AI in Learning and Development, a practical guide for teams looking to build confidence, capability and structure around AI-powered work.
Josh shares real-world insights on handling rapid change inside organizations, understanding how AI affects creative and instructional output, and building the skills to keep up. He explores how the role of L&D is shifting, why integrity matters more than ever, and what it looks like to create a personal AI training plan for 2026.
You'll also hear how to identify your 'sources of truth' so you can keep up with changes in your industry and in AI without getting overwhelmed, plus why having access to multiple AI models can dramatically improve the quality of your work.
Learning points from the episode include:
- 00:55 – 02:17 Introduction to Josh’s book
- 02:17 – 05:37 How do we apply AI to the jobs that we do?
- 05:37 – 08:13 How do we keep up and use AI in the day-to-day?
- 08:13 – 13:41 Why adaptability is paramount with AI
- 13:41 – 17:49 How AI has raised the bar in work
- 17:49 – 19:39 AI as an enabler for creativity
- 19:39 – 25:08 Maintaining your integrity
- 25:08 – 28:48 Avatars vs humans in video
- 28:48 – 30:30 The HUMAN framework
- 30:30 – 34:25 Faster? Or faster and better?
- 34:25 – 37:08 Josh’s final take
Important links and mentions:
- Find Josh’s book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Applying-Learning-Development-Platforms-Performance
- Visit Josh’s website: https://www.joshcavalier.com/
- Connect with Josh on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshcavalier/
- Learn more about The HUMAN framework: https://www.techsmith.com/blog/human-framework-for-ai-training-videos/
Transcript
Maintain your integrity. I mean, have fun. Get out there
Speaker:and find what your personal
Speaker:AI training plan is in 2026.
Speaker:Try different tools, get out there, push boundaries. But
Speaker:along the way, maintain your professionalism, maintain your
Speaker:integrity, and just show up better for yourself
Speaker:and for your business or whoever you support. Good
Speaker:morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are, wherever you're watching from, Matt Pierce
Speaker:here from the Visual Lounge, we've got our friend Josh
Speaker:Cavaliere. We're talking and diving into his new book, which if you
Speaker:don't have Applying AI in Learning Development, you should go check it
Speaker:out. It is fantastic. In fact, there's so much here I have not read
Speaker:it all. Sorry about that, Josh, but Josh has been a longtime friend of the
Speaker:show and we just want to jump into you because we've got so much to
Speaker:talk about here. So welcome to the Visual Lounge, Josh
Speaker:Cavaliere. Hey, Josh, I'm so glad that you're here.
Speaker:First of all, congratulations on the book. What a huge accomplishment to do
Speaker:that. Why don't you give us some, a quick high level overview? What,
Speaker:what are we looking at here? Yeah, so when
Speaker:I first got into doing workshops and
Speaker:consulting around AI and L&D in 2023,
Speaker:I began noticing patterns that were happening in the marketplace,
Speaker:like the maturation of a prompt into a prompt library. So notice all these
Speaker:tactics. But then it became evident that there was going to be significant
Speaker:impact with our profession and then also
Speaker:the tools and platforms that we use. And it's a lot, it's a lot to
Speaker:process when you have all these new
Speaker:capabilities that are impacting development tools and
Speaker:video tools and all these things that we've been using for decades. But then
Speaker:you also have all these, you know, how does this capability
Speaker:work? How does AI work? And so as
Speaker:I began interfacing with other professionals and doing
Speaker:these workshops, I realized where all the gaps were at. And so the
Speaker:book really is an output of recognizing that one,
Speaker:the profession is changing, our platforms and tools are
Speaker:changing, and the way that we work with AI is really
Speaker:instrumental in moving everything forward. And that, that essentially is the
Speaker:book. So what? One of the questions I have is,
Speaker:you know, I, like I said, I haven't had a chance to read it all.
Speaker:It's been a busy couple weeks since, since it arrived. But thank you for
Speaker:the, the copy for sure.
Speaker:One of the things I wonder about in terms of, you know,
Speaker:people diving into AI, if I was new
Speaker:and I'm struggling with maybe the approach to AI, or I'm just trying to wrap
Speaker:my head around it, Inside of my organization.
Speaker:High level. What, what's something that, like kind of big
Speaker:takeaway that I could, I could get here that's going to maybe change
Speaker:the, my. Either my relationship with AI or change the way my organization
Speaker:is looking at applying AI in, in the jobs that we do.
Speaker:Well, I would say go read the whole book, but if you had to, if
Speaker:you had to like really focus in on just a few chapters
Speaker:and what those topics are. One is the front matter, like
Speaker:the first couple chapters. One is how did we get here?
Speaker:Chapter one, Chapter two is the transformation of a
Speaker:learning development professional to a human machine performance analyst. What does
Speaker:that mean? What, what skills do you need? And then it's getting into
Speaker:the ethics and governance and security as we
Speaker:move forward. But then the rest of the,
Speaker:I guess the chapters four through seven get into the
Speaker:platforms and tools and how does
Speaker:that show up? And then there's tactics in the back in regards to prompts and
Speaker:the maturation all the way to an agent and chatbots. So
Speaker:to peg it, I mean, if I had to like, okay, if somebody is like
Speaker:really just getting into it new and they can only read or get through a
Speaker:few chapters is one and two, like, how
Speaker:did we get here? What's the transformation? And then I would jump right
Speaker:to eight, which is how to prompt, like, how, how can
Speaker:I start being like, I know where I sit, I know where I need to
Speaker:go now, I need to be productive tomorrow. Right.
Speaker:And that's going to go ahead and give you the base
Speaker:understanding of, you know, your trajectory, where you're
Speaker:headed. But then you can show up so much better tomorrow if you
Speaker:have access to some type of model. And then how do you start working
Speaker:with it? Yeah, well, I appreciate that kind of overview. Right. Because
Speaker:I do think there's, there's a lot in AI. I think a lot of people
Speaker:are just feeling their way through the systems there.
Speaker:Maybe they've experimented with it, they've tried one. Maybe their company's brought in
Speaker:Copilot or Gemini or something, depending on their back end system.
Speaker:One of the challenges I think our industry is facing and everyone who's listening
Speaker:just faced with the reality of AI is that it's changing
Speaker:incredibly fast. I know. I've seen stuff that you've posted and
Speaker:Sam Rogers have been posting about. I'm not even sure if I'm going to say
Speaker:this right. Nana Banana Pants. I don't remember. I don't even know
Speaker:the name of it. Nano Banana. Yes. Yep. Nano Banana. It
Speaker:seems like everything is just moving at speed where, I mean, look, technology
Speaker:has always changed. It's always changed rather rapidly. But this seems like at a
Speaker:magnitude faster, you know, scale a couple
Speaker:times faster than we, I think we've seen before. So particularly as you're, you know,
Speaker:you're thinking about, like, this information, I'm guessing this is pretty evergreen
Speaker:content in terms of solid concepts.
Speaker:But what do you say to us trying, to those of us who are just
Speaker:trying to keep up with our day jobs and follow along and maybe
Speaker:be a little bit productive with AI? I get that question all the time,
Speaker:like, how do I keep up with what's going on?
Speaker:And you have to find your sources of truth. Like, you have to sort
Speaker:through all of the noise that's out there and get signal as to,
Speaker:as to what's happening in the marketplace and
Speaker:be able to understand that whatever happens in the marketplace, how is it going
Speaker:to impact you as a professional? How does, what does that look like? How does
Speaker:it show up? And so for myself, I
Speaker:have my YouTubers that I'll watch either in the morning or while I'm
Speaker:working out or whatever. I have a couple newsletters. I
Speaker:have people that I subscribe to their
Speaker:substack because they're extremely intelligent and they write all kinds of
Speaker:great content. So you have to find your signals out there
Speaker:again. When the sands shift, as they did last
Speaker:week with Gemini, you know, Gemini 3 nano
Speaker:banana pro, the. The
Speaker:definition of work outputs changes.
Speaker:Like, how do we get to this work output? You start having new
Speaker:conversations around, how do we get to
Speaker:a slide deck, how do we get to this job
Speaker:aid? And when, when the, when the sands shift,
Speaker:how are you going to react to that? Like, can we get this technology
Speaker:in house so that we can reconstitute
Speaker:or rethink our workflows to support the business
Speaker:at a different level? Right. And that takes effort. Like, you
Speaker:have to be incredibly intentional. And I think one of the
Speaker:skills that everyone needs to acquire, if you
Speaker:don't already have it, is adaptability is being
Speaker:flexible. And some people don't operate like that. And
Speaker:I get it. You know, you get you enjoy what you
Speaker:do. You love going in deep and doing the work,
Speaker:but the world is changing around you at an exponential rate, and you
Speaker:have to respond accordingly. And I know that makes individuals very
Speaker:uncomfortable, especially when they've been doing their job
Speaker:or their role for a decade or two decades.
Speaker:So this adaptability and the notion
Speaker:or the thought of work is changing.
Speaker:If you lean into it, it's going to be a much easier ride. Than
Speaker:if you push away and say,
Speaker:no, I don't think this AI thing is for me.
Speaker:So I want to talk about that for a minute because I do think,
Speaker:let's assume someone listening is feeling like, well, I feel
Speaker:fairly adaptable. Like it's not maybe my strongest. But I'm not, Not
Speaker:completely. Ludi Clankers.
Speaker:Sorry. Robots. Sorry. I. You
Speaker:know, and they're making the changes. But there's.
Speaker:I know I've experienced it. Sometimes there's a mismatch between my willingness to do
Speaker:something, my organization's willingness to do something. Sometimes they're ahead,
Speaker:sometimes I'm ahead. So what advice would you
Speaker:give someone to. To help them, particularly with
Speaker:this case? I mean, there's lots of times we've had to be adaptable, but with
Speaker:AI again, we've got a couple of things I think are happening. We've got the
Speaker:speed, we've got. We haven't settled on necessarily. There's lots of
Speaker:platforms. Right. We could talk about Gemini. We can talk about things that OpenAI is
Speaker:doing. We could talk about Claude. You know, like, there's,
Speaker:there's, then there's a million other things that are integrating
Speaker:AI in different ways. So it feels like there's also this kind
Speaker:of flood of, of choice option.
Speaker:You know, it's, it's nice when one is in the lead because then
Speaker:I feel like I can have some confidence, but usually it's not clear.
Speaker:And so how does someone just.
Speaker:I almost want the therapy is to be a therapy session, like, how do I
Speaker:change? How do I change and adapt so quickly? But particularly when it's AI,
Speaker:Is this something that, like, would you recommend and maybe in your workshops you do
Speaker:this to. Should people be going out and should they just be making stuff
Speaker:like, how do we make this practical for people who are listening?
Speaker:This particularly in L and D. But also, you know, I think about the people
Speaker:who are doing imagery or videos. I mean, this is changing
Speaker:everything that we do in some way.
Speaker:It's a big question. Yeah. So, you know, for
Speaker:me, it's about understanding your
Speaker:expertise, you know, getting back to the human, like,
Speaker:knowing where you are at as a professional and being, being honest about, like any
Speaker:kind of deficiencies and whatnot. Like, maybe I need to up my skills
Speaker:and data and analytics. Maybe I need up my skills in business acumen.
Speaker:If I'm a videographer, maybe I, I want to go ahead and learn how to
Speaker:shoot with a new piece of equipment or whatever the case may be. Right,
Speaker:that's. That's the one that's so there you're, you got your own identified gap.
Speaker:Then you have, you want access to multiple models.
Speaker:That is the key. I say this to all of my
Speaker:customers, even individual students, that you need
Speaker:access to multiple models. You cannot park yourself
Speaker:into one ecosystem of just OpenAI or just a
Speaker:Google shop or anything like that. So how like, oh
Speaker:wow, I don't have a budget. Let's say I
Speaker:got 20 bucks like a month, right? To invest in yourself.
Speaker:Well, that's when you go to like po.com
Speaker:you get access to all of these different models, text based,
Speaker:right. Or you get access to
Speaker:Firefly from Adobe and then you have access to all of these
Speaker:various models. Right. And as opposed to like double down saying,
Speaker:oh, I'm just only using Google, some of the
Speaker:customers that I work with, they give their associates access
Speaker:to 14 or 15 different large language models and
Speaker:some video and some image models. I mean they're watching
Speaker:their budget around that. But it's all secure,
Speaker:it's all through Microsoft Azure via APIs.
Speaker:And it's wonderful because they can go ahead and test and pressure test
Speaker:all of their workflows against various models as those models
Speaker:change. That's where you want to be, right? So when
Speaker:you think about your workflows and doing tasks at the atomic
Speaker:level, there's going to be these radical shifts that happen in
Speaker:regards to capabilities and your awareness
Speaker:of those capabilities and how they impact what you do day in and day
Speaker:out is essential because the conversation is going
Speaker:to shift and change about that work output and how it's
Speaker:accomplished. And, and if you have your head in the sand and you come up
Speaker:after six months, you could, you could find yourself in a world
Speaker:that these particular outputs or capabilities have
Speaker:radically changed and you have to play catch up, right?
Speaker:So that adaptability and
Speaker:understanding that we're in a constant state of change.
Speaker:Preparing yourself for that and investing in yourself,
Speaker:like what is your personal Learning
Speaker:plan for 2026 in AI? You may have your workout plan
Speaker:set in January, New Year, New Me, but what does it look like with AI?
Speaker:And I mentioned that to everybody, like use whatever
Speaker:model, copilot, whatever you got access to to help you make that plan.
Speaker:Where are your sources of truth? What are the videos you watch, should watch every
Speaker:morning or once a week on Fridays? I know I do.
Speaker:I'm watching Matt Wolf, I'm watching Matthew Berman, I'm watching
Speaker:Nate B. Jones because they're great thinkers, they're
Speaker:pragmatic and they give you some guidance as far as what's happening out there.
Speaker:So it's a shift. It's most definitely a
Speaker:shift. But I think once everyone
Speaker:gets used to this pace,
Speaker:they'll begin to understand the relationship with the technology better and how they
Speaker:need to show up. Yeah, I guess I should be listed
Speaker:in all the mats. Maybe not great thinker, but I appreciated how many
Speaker:mats you listed out there. Josh, I want to talk a little bit
Speaker:about the work is changing because I do think on this show particularly, we
Speaker:talk a lot about images and video and the creation and from a learning
Speaker:development perspective primarily. But it is interesting
Speaker:the things AI is looking, it's looking more and more the things that
Speaker:you would do as an instructional designer traditionally or
Speaker:if you're, you know, training specialist or video producer or
Speaker:fill in role is starting to shift
Speaker:already, which I think is really interesting. Right. Like, and you said something to me
Speaker:before we got on the call about the bar raising. Can, can we
Speaker:revisit that? Because I do think, I do think that it's, it's
Speaker:interesting for us to think about. One, it's a, I think it ties back to
Speaker:the adaptability. But two, I think fundamentally,
Speaker:as you've said now, I think twice, work is changing and I think that's
Speaker:maybe not clear yet to everyone how
Speaker:that might be or what that might manifest itself like. Any
Speaker:thoughts? Yep. So when,
Speaker:you know, when this, when AI first came out, you know, we're getting
Speaker:reports in regards to AI's impact on tasks across various
Speaker:roles and people became very, very apprehensive, like,
Speaker:oh my gosh, this is going to completely take my job. And I think what
Speaker:we're actually seeing is a redefinition
Speaker:of the work output and what you do and how you get
Speaker:there. And because this technology
Speaker:is increasingly like it's constantly creating
Speaker:better, highly qualified, actionable
Speaker:outputs, then the bar gets raised for everybody.
Speaker:So for novices that are, maybe I'm not a graphic designer,
Speaker:but my gosh, last week with Nano Banana Pro, I
Speaker:can create an infographic in 10 seconds that is absolutely
Speaker:perfect and I can use it in my slide deck that has
Speaker:never happened before. So the bar is now set for those individuals
Speaker:to create picture perfect infographics. Now, let's say I'm a graphic
Speaker:designer. Well, now in my mind the
Speaker:bar is raised and I'm creating content pipelines, meaning
Speaker:I can go ahead and create an infographic that then feeds into a
Speaker:slide deck that then feeds into a video script that then feeds into
Speaker:a multimedia interactive presentation. Because I have
Speaker:all that experience and I know exactly how I'm solving The problems,
Speaker:it just shows up different because you have that experience. That's
Speaker:what we're getting at. And when it comes to specifically learning
Speaker:and development, it's the propagation of learning experiences at
Speaker:scale into work. And as an expert,
Speaker:there are many things that you need to know to make that happen
Speaker:at scale. Regardless of what other agents and
Speaker:platforms and what tools do you have to run policy on these
Speaker:things, you have to vet it out, you have to make sure that
Speaker:it's effective. So, you know, the
Speaker:rising tide lifts all boats. I think with technology
Speaker:it's the same thing. We're going to have so many professionals that
Speaker:were. And Matt, you and I have, we've done video workshops together
Speaker:where people are just apprehensive about video. Like there's, oh my gosh,
Speaker:there's so many different things that we have to learn. But when
Speaker:you can have a system that can do the lighting, that
Speaker:can do the characters, that can go ahead and set up the scenario, you're getting
Speaker:to the end product that you want, which is a great scenario based
Speaker:exchange or video and which, which is awesome. I mean, it's
Speaker:such an empowering feeling for people when they know they can go ahead and create
Speaker:a pointed solution that impacts the business, that impacts
Speaker:their associates, and that's where they're at to where
Speaker:now we have a baseline of how professionals are going to show up in regards
Speaker:to media creation. But for experts, the bar is going to
Speaker:be raised also as far as what they can create and
Speaker:you know, what the marketplace or what their business expects out of them.
Speaker:Yeah, I've often imagined that as we go through this change, it's like artisans of
Speaker:old, right? They would build, build, build. But now there's, there's
Speaker:boutiques, right? Like you have craftsman's crafts
Speaker:people who are doing things at a boutique kind of. It's a very special
Speaker:thing. It's, you know, very high quality. It's, you know, you get it
Speaker:because. Not because it's maybe perfect or mass produced, you get it because
Speaker:it's unique, it's special. And I do wonder there's going to be
Speaker:that kind of lane of traffic from an AI
Speaker:perspective that there's going to be things like, yeah, I just need to, I need
Speaker:the thing that's like ikea. I just need to assemble it. And then I also.
Speaker:But I want that piece over here to be the perfect piece. I want that
Speaker:to be the one that really speaks to the heart, not the fact that I
Speaker:need a cabinet. Yeah, I think there's
Speaker:gonna be plenty of room for that. And you're talking about
Speaker:massive creative unlocks for all kinds of different content
Speaker:at scale for individuals that they may have premeditated some
Speaker:type of book or some type of video or a movie
Speaker:or a TV show, but they had no way or the economics to
Speaker:produce anything. That's all changing. And
Speaker:I believe that's gonna go ahead and, and push
Speaker:all kinds of different media
Speaker:channels and in how outputs
Speaker:are created and who's part of that story and who can be
Speaker:included as part of that, whether it be on the small screen on
Speaker:YouTube or you're on some kind of cable or whatever, whatever the case may be,
Speaker:or just on an, in a learning environment.
Speaker:And that excites me because now
Speaker:we're being more inclusive as far as
Speaker:who can help tell that story or who can solve that
Speaker:problem. So one of the concerns with AI, Josh,
Speaker:and again, I would love to hear if you have
Speaker:perspectives or if you talk about this in the book at all, is we
Speaker:saw in the last couple months, channels like YouTube
Speaker:are cracking down on AI slot. People are generating, you know,
Speaker:these voice or faceless videos, we'll call it, with AI voice
Speaker:by cranking them out. Sometimes, you know, just
Speaker:we'll question the value of what they're. They're creating. And, and obviously we
Speaker:know that AI can get things wrong. You know, it does say very clearly we're
Speaker:responsible to make sure there's no mistakes in the information.
Speaker:When, when we look at our profession, we look at the changes that are happening,
Speaker:obviously move with the speed there, there's likelihood that things are
Speaker:gonna be wrong in the system.
Speaker:So what, what advice do you give to people who are out there? And that's
Speaker:the concern. And how do you, how do you make sure you're treating the stuff
Speaker:well, but not also maybe taking it just as is.
Speaker:Maintain your integrity. That's it. That is the word,
Speaker:integrity. Are you putting something
Speaker:out in the world that is noise or is it signal?
Speaker:And what is the, what is the process for vetting that
Speaker:information out? Are you just copying, pasting from the model and putting it out there
Speaker:on LinkedIn as a post, or using AI to make a comment?
Speaker:It doesn't resonate. Right. Humans are, I mean, we're
Speaker:really good at reading, you know, information
Speaker:that's in front of us and whether it's truly having an emotional
Speaker:connection. And that's where a lot of the AI content, whether
Speaker:you're reading it, whether you're viewing a video or even listening to
Speaker:music, you don't have those emotional
Speaker:attachments. Now that is changing though, right? So that is one of the
Speaker:unique things, is that we see this in some of the latest
Speaker:models and the way that they respond. I know that for myself
Speaker:personally, if I'm in an environment, like if I'm driving or something, I'll just flip
Speaker:on, chat GPT and have a conversation. Right? And
Speaker:it's kind of shocking how now there's more emotion in it.
Speaker:Same thing with audio specifically around.
Speaker:Not to name any vendors, but there's like some music creation tools that are out
Speaker:there that blow me away. Like we are at
Speaker:the cusp where you cannot tell it's AI,
Speaker:right? But for, and this is a
Speaker:perfect example of what I'm talking about, raising the bar for
Speaker:musicians to where they're like, oh, am I out of a
Speaker:job? No, they're not out of a job. They have a new tool that's going
Speaker:to allow them to play a riff and then that riff can go into AI
Speaker:and then they can orchestrate a whole new song within minutes. That would have taken
Speaker:them studio time and additional artists and bass players and
Speaker:all this other stuff. They're getting to their vision, to their end product
Speaker:faster, maintaining their integrity. Right, Going back to that word.
Speaker:And so that will eventually happen with video. So I think,
Speaker:you know, for the effort that we're putting out there, to put something out in
Speaker:the world, maintaining your integrity and maintaining
Speaker:the professionalism and consistency is critical
Speaker:because we're going to have these false. A false sense of security as
Speaker:far as the quality of an output. And you're going to put it out there
Speaker:and it's not going to resonate. Like you're going to get some negative feedback. And
Speaker:so I think having like rubrics of evaluation
Speaker:are critical even for your own personal self or if you're
Speaker:putting some kind of output for your company, if it's AI generated,
Speaker:what does that look like? Like, what is that evaluation rubric? What is the QA
Speaker:around it? Then when you put that out there,
Speaker:do your consumers understand that it was generated by AI,
Speaker:Right? What kind of transparency are you going to put out there? You put a
Speaker:little note saying, hey, these videos were created by AI or not.
Speaker:Because once an individual understands that it was created by AI, the way that they
Speaker:consume it is completely different than if they start consuming it and they're like,
Speaker:wait, this isn't a human. We get that a lot with avatar
Speaker:technology, right? Not naming any vendors, but
Speaker:you and I both know that with these avatars, if they're on the screen
Speaker:for too long, they don't resonate anymore. But
Speaker:if you bring them on the screen for about six to eight seconds for an
Speaker:emotional fence post and then you take them off the screen and you go to
Speaker:B roll, it's very effective. You don't even have time
Speaker:to process was that a real human or not. You're already on to the next
Speaker:thing and you know, it leaves your short term memory. So
Speaker:yeah, I keep going back to integrity. Well, I
Speaker:love that answer. And it makes me think that, you know, there's,
Speaker:there's obviously opportunities to really succeed there. And there's opportunities because
Speaker:people, you, you know, not everyone will have the same level of
Speaker:integrity that they'll do things that maybe make shortcuts and,
Speaker:but, and that's okay, right? People are going to figure this out. And humans are
Speaker:lazy, Matt. We are, we're so
Speaker:lazy. And I'm there with them at times. You know, and so,
Speaker:but I am too. But, but I love that, like having those, those check
Speaker:points in place makes a lot of sense to me,
Speaker:you know, And I did think with your comment about the music, right, Like I'm
Speaker:not looking forward to seeing the robots on stage anytime soon. So there's
Speaker:still opportunities for the humans, we hope. Although Chuck E.
Speaker:Cheese been doing the robot for a long time. Long
Speaker:time. Well, I can't wait to see how that evolves with AI. Well, Josh,
Speaker:I have two more things I want to just talk to you about.
Speaker:One is I want to get just your reaction to a stat and I don't
Speaker:have the exact numbers. We're going to release this research coming soon,
Speaker:but I want to see are you surprised or not surprised? So we did
Speaker:research, 600 people in the study about
Speaker:US or English speaking, but multiple countries, US UK.
Speaker:So not just a US audience. These are professionals, 18
Speaker:to whatever who were asked to watch a
Speaker:video. And they were asked and they got. There was four variations of video.
Speaker:There's one that was a, like
Speaker:an avatar. Like. No, it's a, like a static image
Speaker:with a visual, like visual graphic. Right. That moves with the audio.
Speaker:Right. So as metoxic moves, you got a, a human
Speaker:picture in picture, an actual human talking. You had an
Speaker:avatar picture in picture and then you had like a full screen
Speaker:avatar. Actually I think there was a full screen human in there. They were asked
Speaker:to watch this video, had these different kind of setups and
Speaker:then they were watching it. It was a task based,
Speaker:task based thing like do this thing, learn how to do this
Speaker:thing in Google. The research that we got back
Speaker:basically indicated that the Avatars,
Speaker:the performance that people did. So we'll call it, whether it's comprehension
Speaker:or capacity to do a task after the fact,
Speaker:the avatars both, they actually did better.
Speaker:But then, as you said, like, size of the avatar actually mattered.
Speaker:So does humans doing better on a task that involved
Speaker:avatar versus a human surprise you?
Speaker:Not at all. So again, it
Speaker:depends upon the composition of the window and cognitive load.
Speaker:Right. So if you go back to the empirical evidence of a human in the
Speaker:bottom left or right hand corner, sometimes it's a wash, depending upon
Speaker:the content that's being shown. As far as B roll or additional information
Speaker:in the background, I'm not surprised at all. If
Speaker:there are emotional pools that are happening during the knowledge transfer
Speaker:that maintains a human's attention on the screen to get
Speaker:that concept, that is a win. If you have information,
Speaker:and we both know this, if you have a human or an av, the screen
Speaker:and it's a distraction, people are going to not pay as much
Speaker:attention in the moment. Right. They're going to. Their mind's going to
Speaker:drift or they're going to think about how weird or odd the media is as
Speaker:opposed to being immersed in the experience. So
Speaker:what you orchestrated there, if the experience is
Speaker:immersive and it's not causing cognitive
Speaker:load, that's the reason why you're probably getting better
Speaker:scores or retention off the back end. Because it's a superior
Speaker:experience. Yeah, I like the emotional pull. Right. So
Speaker:the content was all the same base, basically just changing the delivery
Speaker:mechanisms. Right. But yeah, if the, like, it's less, could be less
Speaker:distraction. Like, I move a lot, I twitch, I move forward, you know, like,
Speaker:so that. That could absolutely play into it. Maybe it's my voice. Maybe
Speaker:it's the voice. Right. Was there more modulation or not as much
Speaker:modulation? So I do love that, that resonance. Okay, so that's one thing.
Speaker:It's just a. More. More data to come. There's some other interesting things. I
Speaker:can't wait. I'm looking forward to that. But definitely some. Some interesting
Speaker:things there because I know a lot of people. Avatars are definitely
Speaker:one of those things. And since you brought them up, very mixed bag. Right, people?
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, we want them, we want to use them. Or. Gosh, this is
Speaker:an uncanny valley. A lot of the way. The second thing I wanted to chat
Speaker:with you about is we recently released our human framework. You
Speaker:know, we did a podcast episode of it recently. So for those who maybe missed
Speaker:it, I'll just re. Let me just recap and Josh, refresh your memory as
Speaker:well, so it's human is just an acronym. So harness your
Speaker:expertise, understand your audience, make it authentic, not
Speaker:artificial, aim for better, not just faster, and never skip reviews.
Speaker:And I'm curious because you've, you've done way more thinking about
Speaker:applying AI and I'm curious how this resonates with
Speaker:you as a kind of approach to the work that we do, since we've
Speaker:been talking a lot about how work is changing. I don't know, everything you
Speaker:just said sounds like maintain your integrity.
Speaker:It sounds exactly like that, yes.
Speaker:All of it. You know, you just basically listed out a
Speaker:checklist of maintaining your integrity when creating video based
Speaker:media. And all of those elements are extremely
Speaker:important. They're all part of that process of
Speaker:maintaining your expertise, maintaining your integrity,
Speaker:being able to go ahead and put something out in the world that's going to
Speaker:resonate, that's truly going to have impact. You need those checklists,
Speaker:whether it be a mental checklist or something that you have to go through a
Speaker:few times manually so that you get it down, you have
Speaker:to go through them. I know that for myself that I go through so many
Speaker:different mental checklists and even before I put something out in the world, I
Speaker:may go back to a peer in the industry and say, what do you think
Speaker:about this through their lens and what do they think about, you
Speaker:know, about whatever content I'm putting out there. So, yeah, I absolutely
Speaker:love the human framework that you have there
Speaker:as far as video creation. So
Speaker:one of the things I think that I've heard, particularly in
Speaker:conversations I read a lot of LinkedIn, one of the promises
Speaker:of AI is faster. And there's nothing in here in our
Speaker:integrity that says we can't go faster. But I do get a sense
Speaker:that kind of broadly, when we say something
Speaker:like aim for better, not just faster people, I get a little bit like. But
Speaker:that's not the promise of AI. AI is faster. And I guess I just
Speaker:love your hot take. Is faster the outcome we're going for,
Speaker:or is it yes and faster and
Speaker:better? Yes. And so
Speaker:nobody knew AI was going to show up though it was going to show up
Speaker:three years ago, right? Nobody did. And
Speaker:so if you think about how AI is
Speaker:being implemented in orgs at scale, it shows
Speaker:up wildly different. And so what is happening in the meantime?
Speaker:In the meantime, there are goals, there are
Speaker:problems to be solved, there is deep work being done on initiatives
Speaker:that never stopped. And so all of those things
Speaker:need to happen. Why not lean in to make it faster?
Speaker:Right? I mean, obviously maintain your integrity and There was
Speaker:so many. You know, here's the thing. I read those posts too. And
Speaker:so many of my peers, well, maybe
Speaker:a few, A few peers be like, we shouldn't be focusing in on content
Speaker:creation. There's bigger stories here, I get it.
Speaker:But work needs to get done.
Speaker:That six month training build, if we can knock a month off of it
Speaker:and we can get back on schedule, my gosh, let's use this AI
Speaker:tool to streamline this workflow. I am
Speaker:all for the
Speaker:reconfiguration of workflows, of being able
Speaker:to go ahead and create content faster as long as the integrity is
Speaker:maintained and the intention is still there and you're just not
Speaker:checking a box and I think that's a qualifier there. That's really important
Speaker:because yes, you do have the
Speaker:abuse of the capability and that's
Speaker:happened forever. Where people just go and copy and paste and call it done. Or
Speaker:and you hear stories in the marketplace of lawyers losing their
Speaker:license because they're referencing case law that doesn't exist. Or
Speaker:you know, companies that get out in front of their skis and they do,
Speaker:you know, a drive through AI and next thing you know, it's ordering 20,000
Speaker:Chicken McNuggets. And you know, I mean, we, we, we try
Speaker:to improve what's going
Speaker:on out there, but as I mentioned before, humans are just lazy and they will
Speaker:go ahead and take advantage of the technology and think
Speaker:they're implementing a solve when actually they're creating friction.
Speaker:And I think that's what's happening is the content creation part
Speaker:gets a bad rap because one, it's been implemented
Speaker:probably improperly for a long period of time
Speaker:as far as an educational experience solve.
Speaker:And so the thought was, oh, we're going to go ahead and create a whole
Speaker:bunch of crap at scale. Right. But I think
Speaker:that we have to go through these pain points.
Speaker:Like we need to go through these
Speaker:moments to where there's a realization of more
Speaker:is not better, of that we have to have rigor, that we have to go
Speaker:ahead and have like a human framework to vet all this stuff
Speaker:out so that yes, we can go ahead and do these solves for the business.
Speaker:We're maintaining our integrity, we're putting great learning
Speaker:experiences out there for our associates and it's a win for everybody.
Speaker:But along the way, we are going to run through these periods where
Speaker:AI is going to get a bed rap for creating AI slop and creating
Speaker:poorly executed content. Yeah. Well, Josh,
Speaker:this has been a fantastic conversation. I'm looking forward to digging
Speaker:in more into the book and learning more. If
Speaker:people want to find the book, they want to learn more about you, connect with
Speaker:you. Where should they turn? Yeah, they can go right. Oh, right
Speaker:here over on Amazon. So yeah, Amazon
Speaker:is a great way to find the book. You can also get on ATD Press,
Speaker:JoshCavalier.com and soon to be JoshCavalier AI. I have to
Speaker:go and change those DNS settings here shortly to flip the book
Speaker:webpage up. The companion website can't wait.
Speaker:That's going to be amazing. The book website, so many
Speaker:additional pieces of content to support your journey
Speaker:as you read the book. Fantastic.
Speaker:I have you labeled as JoshCavalier AI. So maybe I'll just keep it in
Speaker:hopes that put some pressure on you, Josh. Push the pressure on you. Right, right,
Speaker:right. That's what we do over Thanksgiving holiday. That's right. Well, as
Speaker:we wrap up, we'd like to end the way we always do, Josh, which is
Speaker:with our final take as quick, fast summary. So, Josh, what is
Speaker:your final take for today's episode? Maintain your integrity.
Speaker:I mean, have fun. Get out there and
Speaker:find what your personal AI training plan
Speaker:is in 2026. Try different
Speaker:tools, get out there, push boundaries. But along the
Speaker:way, maintain your professionalism, maintain your integrity
Speaker:and just show up better for yourself and for your business
Speaker:or whoever you support. Fantastic. Well,
Speaker:Josh, always, always glad to have you here in the visual lens and thank you
Speaker:you again for, for sharing your book with us where hopefully a lot of people
Speaker:will take up the opportunity to read that and gain more wisdom and insight from
Speaker:you. Thanks, Matt. Appreciate it. All right, everybody, you hear
Speaker:it like, we've got, we've got lots of interesting challenges ahead. We gotta
Speaker:make sure we're focused on our integrity. We gotta make sure we're understanding the
Speaker:systems, playing with them, learning what's going to work for us, creating new,
Speaker:we're creating new work, new opportunities and that is.
