Last year, Connor Grennan, dean of students at New York University's Stern School of Management, became a leading consultant on generative artificial intelligence and a vocal voice on social media.
Grennan leads generative AI training for students and faculty at NYU Stern, works with companies including OpenAI, McKinsey, NASA, and PwC, and co-hosts the podcast AI Applied. Masu.
In a discussion with PhocusWire, Grennan shared some of the reasons why travel is one of the most obvious use cases for generative AI and how consumer travel brands should capitalize on this opportunity. shared their thoughts. He also explained why using this technology internally is the easiest way for companies in any industry to gain a strategic advantage. The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
First, could you share your thoughts on generative AI more broadly?
It's not digital transformation. It's a change management issue.
There is no learning curve for this. Talk to them like humans and the results will be amazing. The problem is that our brains don't allow us to talk to computer screens the way we do. That's because our brains don't interact with computer screens the way we do.
So, if we were to ask you how to use ChatGPT, you might say…?
The problem with generative AI, and the reason I teach it this way, is that teaching it from a use case perspective doesn't really work.
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The brain really craves use cases because it thrives on patterns, predictions, automation, etc. And in terms of patterns, you need to know what is being replaced. When your brain sees ChatGPT, it thinks, “I know what this is, this is like Google.” The same goes if you see a shiny red metal that you know you shouldn't touch. No need to think about it, your brain will automate it.
The analogy I use is that this is more like electricity than a use case. If we went back in time and introduced electricity, people would say, how do we use it? And you won't get anywhere if you try to introduce only electricity use cases. But if you introduce light bulbs, people will understand how to use them. So it's like electricity. Generative AI allows you to do what you're already doing faster and better.
A year ago, when it started to seem like everyone was talking about generative AI, there was a lot of speculation about how quickly implementation and adoption would happen. What do you think about this speed?
From the perspective of people searching for things, AI will be here fairly quickly. One of the few use cases for something like ChatGPT that really gets talked about is travel planning. …This is one of the few use cases I see over and over again. That's why people lock onto it.
The first thing people go to is, “I'm planning a trip.'' So they go to his ChatGPT and say, “Look how amazing this trip is.'' If that's become something of a zeitgeist, its introduction in the travel field is like almost every other I think it will be much faster than the productivity field.
But in general, I don't think the adoption of generative AI will be blindingly fast. To be honest…it's pretty slow. Or if I say people are using it, and I don't mean to be condescending, they are using it, but they're just using it for little things like email. That's 2% of what they could potentially use it for.
How widely do you think generative AI is being used for business purposes?
The statistics on how many people are using generative AI are overwhelming. These statistics are highly skewed. This is a bit anecdotal, but no company is using generative AI in the way you're hearing about it.
So when you hear “80% of people in Fortune 500 companies use generative AI,” that’s just biased. What's happening is that OpenAI can track that here he is, someone from XYZ company. I think the company is using it. However, these are individuals, not companies with a company-wide strategy.
And even the people using it are only scratching the surface. Someone sends an email or writes some things and people think this is phenomenal.
Again, this isn't about your use case. It's about understanding what people in your company are already good at, and expanding and enhancing it. Please tell me what you are good at. Travel marketing experts, please let me know. We can discuss what is driving the change and how to strengthen it.
Speaking of marketing, one of the big questions being asked when it comes to travel is: What will our customer acquisition and marketing strategies look like?
People will continue to go to brands like Expedia and Kayak and all these other places to plan their trips because of how AI captures information.
It's not about use cases. It's about understanding what people in your company are already good at, and expanding and enhancing it.
conor grennan
Therefore, we first need to incorporate AI into the platform. For example, even if people go to his Expedia and find an amazing AI experience, there's not much reason to go there. [to ChatGPT or another tool].
Remember plugins? Very early on [OpenAI co-founder and CEO]
Sam Altman said he doesn't know if the plugin will work…because he doesn't know if the product and market will be a good fit. He's talking about his own products here. The reason is that people want to incorporate his GPT. [the platforms they
already use]. For example, people want to go to Kayak and have a GPT experience. Instead of going to ChatGPT and requesting, “Now let's use Kayak,” you say, “Now let's use Turo.”
So I think, number one, we need to have an incredible natural language experience on our platform. If companies could integrate that, it would be very powerful.
You already have the money, so customers, don't lose it.
And what will SEO look like in the new world of completely query-driven search powered by AI?
No one knows what will happen from an SEO perspective. Anyone who says they know doesn't know. We're all guessing.
But we want to position it as a brand that offers a unique, customized, tailored experience for you. That will give me a boost.
For Pure, keywords continue to be important, how do we attract people?
Generative AI works a bit like Google. Carvana has done this amazingly, creating his million different personalized, AI-generated animated videos for everyone who buys a car through the company. It was incredible. So I think it's personalization, landing pages, things that answer specific queries. I know people who have literally written 80,000 articles to address every question they can answer. Because you can do it right now.
Not a rocket since. But it becomes a numbers game. Can you create content tailored to what people are looking for? Combine that so that once you actually get them, it's a great experience.
However, don't think of this as just a tool. Because if you just come up with a tool, it becomes a commodity and everyone is going to catch up.
So what is step one for companies?
This is my soapbox – I train my employees. You hired these people because they were good, but now imagine that their abilities exceed theirs by 47%. That's a strategic advantage. When you get everyone in the company thinking about this, it's not just a tool, it's giving everyone across the company an Iron Man suit to pursue these things.
No one knows what will happen from an SEO perspective.No one who says they know doesn't know
conor grennan
That's why I train so hard. Once you figure that out and get everyone to really understand what this looks like, it becomes a strategic differentiator that will be very difficult for other companies to follow.
If you can strengthen your internal operations, it will show. Eating healthier can help you look healthier on the outside and look great in things like swimsuits. That's what goes into your company.
If you really want to differentiate, you hire people because they're really good at what they do, and you look at their job performance strategically, in terms of decision-making, in terms of communication, and in terms of business. You have to imagine improving. The time spent on strategic planning will increase significantly, provided that the non-value-added work will be reduced from 60% to 30%.
This is amazing for strategic planning. Things to postpone. Let's think about this again. You get back his 30% of the time that everyone can focus on while everyone else in the company is working on putting out the fire. What's inside is much more important than what's outside. You need to do both, but when it comes to long-term strategic advantage, it's the differentiator.
Finally, I'd like to hear your thoughts on AI agents.
I think they are coming very quickly, but who knows what they will look like.
There's a device called Rabbit, but no one knows how it works. I don't know how effective it is, but apparently how it works is that once you start connecting your app to this, it will start pulling you behind the scenes. In any case, forget about SEO, as the generated AI searches will go directly to your site. I don't know if it will turn out that way, but just thinking about it, it could be a great thing to lean into this. That is if the agent has a reliable source of information.
I don't know if it will be another device. The future is so uncertain that I don't think anyone knows what new devices will look like. I don't think rabbits really do that. I mean, our phones already have all the bells and whistles, so why are we talking about something new?
Indeed, we start with software and do it through mobile phones. Then, perhaps when a more user-friendly device comes along, you can probably do it.
