The new battle for AI supremacy is now moving to the application development space, or IDE (Integrated Development Environments). These companies, like Cursor, Windsurf, Github Copilot, Replit, Google AI Studio, and Microsoft Power tools, are exploding with growth. Why? Because in the world of AI, we’re all application developers!

(Listen to “We’re All Software Engineers Now” for more.)

Well, as I explain in this market, the big players like Workday now want to be your development environment. In this podcast I explain this space and some history of IDE’s in the client/server era. (It more or less predicts where this is going.)

Listen in and you’ll understand why billions of VC dollars are suddenly going into dev tools for AI, why you’ll be using one of these soon, and how Workday and others will respond. I also briefly explain how Galileo plays in this space.

We’re coming up on HR Tech season so come see us at HR Technology Conference in Vegas (September), Unleash (October), and SAP Connect.

More to Read

Workday Flowise Acquisition

Windsurf vs Copilot vs Cursor (a little geeky)

Galileo Venus Release (Video: Galileo for Managers, Task Library Tools, Learning Integration)

What Is Vibe Coding Anyway?

1994: Sybase Acquires Powersoft (how history repeats itself!) (NYT Download)

In this podcast I interview Eric Mosley, the Founder and CEO of Workhuman, a $Billion dollar company that pioneered the market for employee recognition. Today Workhuman has more than 7.7 million users and is widely used by many of the largest companies in the world.

What does Workhuman do? Well they help you build a corporate wide program for employee recognition and feedback that creates one of the most important positive engagement drivers one can find.

Employees who feel appreciated and recognized are 4X more likely to be highly engaged and 4X more likely to see a growth path in their companies. Our research found that companies with a high recognition culture have a 70% lower voluntary turnover rate.

And there’s much more: the information from recognition (Workhuman calls it “Human Intelligence”) gives you valuable information on skills, strengths, culture, and organizational health you can find.

This is a story about entrepreneurship, culture, and the importance of human centered leadership, something that’s refreshing in a world where everyone always wants to talk about AI!

Additional Information

Our Recognition Research, explaining the power of appreciation and thanks.

U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low (Gallup)

Why Are Managers So Miserable at Work?

This week I have an update on the “real world” of AI transformation, based on some important conversations I’ve had (and these folks will join the podcast soon.)

First, I talked with the Department of Labor and also reviewed new research from Goldman Sachs and we do find that “AI is not wiping out jobs.” As you’ll hear, there is a slowdown in hiring, but actually AI is “creating new work,” despite Dario Amodei’s predictions that white collar jobs are going away.

(I don’t know about you, but I rarely wear my white collar shirts any more, so he may be correct on the shirt front.)

Second, listen to the discussion about software automation, Thomas Dohmke, who was interviewed on The Verge. That convo was fascinating: despite AI’s ability to write code, engineers will just write more code. Listen to my explanation in the podcast.

Third, I had a wonderful conversation with Jacqui Canney, the CHRO and AI Enablement Officer at ServiceNow. As you’ll hear, Jacqui’s team at ServiceNow has published their AI Playbook and AI Maturity Model which I encourage you to read. She described their governance model, use case approach, and more – and further convinced me that AI transformation is a people problem, not a tech problem.

And one more thing: for those of you who think AI “destroys” or “disrupts” your company, I put together a ten minute video on our own AI journey and how AI amplifies and scales what we do, essentially creating a company of Superworkers. We are proving the Superworker company model right here.

Additional Resources

Get Galileo: Agent and Learn Bundle

Goldman Exchange podcast on labor market

The Verge interview with Thomas Dohmke from GitHub

The Rise of the Superworker: Four Stages of AI in the Workforce

The Josh Bersin Company’s AI Transformation

This week we introduce Galileo for Managers, an exciting new part of the Galileo Platform – designed to help business professionals with day-to-day management. As you’ll hear in this podcast, Galileo for Managers brings together the best of AI with 25+ years of research into management, leadership, business, and HR.

As I discuss in today’s announcement, Galileo for Managers revolutionizes the market for leadership development, coaching, and organizational change. And as HR budgets get tight, Galileo for Managers also helps HR teams scale and extend their leadership development to every manager and every leader. Listen to the details, you can license Galileo for Managers and learn more here.

Additional Information

Get Galileo for Managers (learn more)

The Galileo Platform Strategy Explained (Video)

This week SAP SuccessFactors announced the acquisition of SmartRecruiters, one of the fastest-growing talent acquisition platforms. This is much more than a technology deal: it demonstrates the value of talent and the massive redefinition of “applicant tracking systems” taking place today.

While the deal is not final and details are yet to come, I highlight the real implications of this acquisition and why SAP will see a lot of value out of this deal.

Stay tuned for more from us about SAP coming this Fall, and our new “Revolution in Talent Acquisition” research will be launched in September.

Additional Information

Research Shows It’s Time To Reinvent Talent Acquisition

Why Do Companies Hire Too Many People?

The Dynamic Organization: How To Design For Growth

This week the WSJ highlighted the latest trends. CEOs proudly announcing layoffs and hiring freezes, only to see their stock price go up in celebration. The AI Superworker era has arrived, and companies are now plowing ahead with automation-induced workforce reductions.

All this is not as simple as it sounds. AI budgets are skyrocketing (EY survey shows that 21% of large companies are spending more than $10M already on AI agents), well before the productivity benefits have occurred. So while many great AI use-cases exist, a lot of the headcount cuts are just budget-reallocation from labor to capital, with hopes for productivity to come.

I have no concerns that massive Superworker productivity is coming, but the process is spotty, messy, and uneven. So in this podcast I discuss our newest research on AI transformation and give you some perspectives on all these announcements. A few nuggets to think about:

• The economy is slowing, so most headcount freezes are not only AI automation bets, they’re also insurance against a slowdown
• Employees and mid-level managers are fearful, causing friction and complexity in automation
• AI strategies that ask “employees to figure out how to become more productive” have some but limited impact, while strategic projects are working better
• The HR focus on “task analysis” is interesting and useful, but not the optimum approach
• Companies are starting to get real about AI spending, so the “blank checkbook” to buy enterprise AI is slowing
• Companies that lay people off have plenty of other issues to consider, including brand, culture, and long term growth.

Additional Information

The Rise of The Superworker: AI Empowers Workers

The Four “New SoftSkills” We Need To Thrive In The Age of AI

A Revolution in Corporate Learning: Save Millions with AI-Native Learning

Get Galileo®, The AI Agent Exclusively Designed for Everything HR

After many dozens of conversations with companies and AI vendors about AI transforming work, I’m left with one burning question. If we actually succeed in automating all our work tasks, data analysis, coding, and content generation, are these systems truly able to replace humans?

I”m left with a very simple answer: NO. And the reason for this is not that AI won’t keep getting “smarter,” it’s the fact that we, as human organic animals, posses a magical power of intuition, largely fueled by our emotions. And emotions are built on millions of years of adaptation, genetics, and personal experiences – attributes that AI simply does not have.

My argument, as you’ll hear in this podcast, is that these emotions make up our intuitive decision-making power. And this very human part of our intelligence is what makes companies, teams, and individuals succeed. No matter how “superintelligent” the AI becomes, I advocate that human emotions and strong intuition is still the most powerful form of “intelligence” we have.

I look forward to talking with each of you about this idea, because it’s an important part of the AI transformations in our lives, careers, and companies.

Additional Ideas

The Six Major Theories Of Emotion

The Rise of The Superworker

My Fav Website about Happiness, GGSC

The Gene: An Intimate History, by Siddartha Mukhergee

ChatGPT’s Answer to “How Does Human Emotion and Intuition Compare to AI?”

Yesterday the White House released The American AI Action Plan, a 28-page policy document which covers many of the most important national (and global issues) we face in the new world of AI.

As I briefly discuss today, there are many fantastic policy positions in here (a few odd ones, but they’ll be worked out over time) and the bottom line is that the US Federal Government now has a deep understanding of AI technology, markets, businesses, and the impact on jobs and the workforce.

We will be talking more with the Department of Labor and sharing some of the more important initiatives in workforce skilling, career enablement, and support soon.

Lots more to discuss here, so I’ll make sure we keep you up to speed as more policy and important regulatory changes take place.

For those of you most interested in AI’s impact on jobs, careers, and your workforce, please read “The Rise of the Superworker” to get a good perspective on the future of work in this new AI era.

Additional Information

Why AI Harm To Jobs and Humanity are Vastly Over-Hyped

Prompting is Programming: We’re All Software Engineers Now!

No, Entry Level Jobs Are Not Going Away.

The Four “New SoftSkills” We Need To Thrive In The Age of AI

Get Galileo®, The AI Agent Exclusively Designed for Everything HR