The Future of Data Privacy in Personalisation

Special guest Stephen Scheeler (former CEO of Facebook ANZ) shares expert strategies for building trust - showing how businesses can deliver seamless, data-driven experiences while putting privacy and transparency first.

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SPEAKER_02 0:04

Hi then, it's Nicholas Kontopoulos. I'm the VP of Marketing for Twilio Asia Pacific Japan. And welcome back to Decoding Trust. In this series, we're going to explore what is it, what it takes to build and maintain trust in today's business world, from company culture to customer experience, security, and beyond. In our last episode, we talked about why trust is essential for businesses and for the people inside and outside of the organizations. Today, we're diving into one of the most complex and pressing challenges businesses face. That is balancing privacy, transparency, and personalization. We as all, we're all consumers and we all want personalized experiences. I don't know about you, but I love when I get personalized experiences. And we know this. Businesses know this. But it's a real challenge for a lot of businesses. Like last year, 76% of businesses said that personalizing customer engagement was a high or critical priority for their businesses. This is taken from our Twilio State of Customer Engagement report for last year. So I think you should be able to access that in the resource section. So we're on the right track, but it isn't easy. While the majority of customers want personalization, guess what? They're also demanding privacy and transparency. This is the balance that businesses are struggling to get right. Again, if I refer to our state of customer engagement report, 40% of businesses called finding the balance between security and customer experience is one of their most pressing challenges. So today we're going to explore this delicate balance. We'll explore how brands can personalize experiences without crossing privacy boundaries. And we'll talk about the role technology plays in ensuring transparency while keeping data secure. So I'm really excited today. We've got Stefan Sheela here with me today. Stefan is uh Stephen, sorry, is an influential voice in technology and AI. He was the former CEO of Facebook, ANZ, and is now the CEO of OmniNescent, a groundbreaking AI startup that has won numerous awards. He advises global brands like Google and Qantas and is a regular media commentator on the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and ABC. So, Steven, thanks for being here, mate. I'd love uh to have you just also introduce yourself to the audience and maybe uh share a little bit more about your fascinating company that you've launched um and the work you're doing, because it really is true, truly groundbreaking.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah, great to be here, Nick. Thanks for to Twilio for asking me to be here. Thanks to you for hosting it. I I'm really lucky in my journey, Nick, as you mentioned before, I was at Facebook for a long time. Back when it was Facebook, now it's uh called something else. Uh but since I left Facebook, one of the things I was um fascinated by was how do how do we use AI, not just to you know serve you with more ads or optimize your feed, but how do we use it to really shift humanity forward? Uh use AI for the benefit of humankind. And I started to get fascinated by the human brain, which is the most complex thing in the universe. So everything open AI is building today is dwarfed by what your the complexity of what's between your two ears. And luckily, with the rise of AI and computing power and the algorithm we have today, we can now start to make sense of the brain in a way it was never possible before. So the company I built over the past few years with some other amazing people is the world leader in using AI to decode the brain. We build tools for mapping the human brain. Almost think of it a Google maps for the human brain. And the so what of all that is it's it's a real breakthrough for things like mental illness and neurodegenerative diagnosis, treatment, treatment, targeting. And you know, you think about when you you take a, you, you get a say you get depressed today, which many of us uh tragically do, you know, you go and you get a you get a pill. Well, it's the same pill that everybody else gets. Um, but that pill, of course, 40% of the time it doesn't work. Why? Because it's not targeted at your specific problem because doctors say don't understand the complexity of the brain. So we're building tools into that space today using AI, and it's you know, it's truly revolutionary technology. So um I'm very lucky to build that with the the people I do today.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

I mean, it's a bold vision and and ultimately really groundbreaking and exciting. And again, you know, that what you just described there, the the uh ability to tailor and target at an individual level, I think is uh amazing. Um, that's the same theme. Yeah, I would think it ties nicely into the theme of that, uh of what we're exploring, but obviously it a in a in a really uh beneficial way in from a ultimately what will benefit a lot of humans um in terms of their ability to battle some of the struggles they've got. Yeah, so that's amazing, Mighty. So thanks for that intro. And we're gonna kick start off with a poll. I like making my audiences work. So um I really would love to bring the audience into the poll, which will get pushed in front of you right now. And and what I want to hear is everyone's um ultimately, you know, is experiencing challenges on this topic in one way, shape, or form. So what do you feel is the biggest challenge? Um, this is a question to the audience. What do you feel is the biggest challenge in balancing privacy, transparency, and personalization? And you've got several choices here. We've got earning customer trust while collecting and using data, you know, providing personalized experiences without overstepping uh privacy boundaries, which is always tough because everyone has different boundaries, communicating data practices in a clear and transparent way, keeping up with changing privacy regulations, which also is a real challenge for uh marketing leaders that operate in a region like uh Amir or uh in particular an APJ, where we've got lots of different regulations. And there's another option, so feel free to put some free text in there. So if you can start uh, you know, marking up uh what option you feel is the biggest challenge, and uh we can then get a sense or pulse check of where everyone's at in that respect. So, Marco, hopefully you've got the uh poll up and running. Not sure if that's been pushed.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

Uh while it's going while it's going on, Nick. I uh I noticed there wasn't an all of the all of the above option, which I think that would be my choice if I had one. It will be all of the above. Everything you mentioned there um it it all comes together as a huge challenge to figure out where's where's the balance. Um, and I think that's what we're gonna explore more today. And I think part of that balance is just born out of the fact that what you privacy used to be uh assumed, you know, you knew that nobody, nobody, the butcher didn't know anything about you until you told the butcher about yourself. You know, Toyo didn't know who you were until you walked in the dealership and asked that asked to buy a car. We know that world is different now. So you want personalization, but you also want privacy. And I even think consumers don't know where they they're drawing the line themselves.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

100%. And I agree with you. Uh it is this definitely should have been all of the above because that is uh, if I think about it just from my world, it I'm considering all those. I can't actually see the actual results. I'm not sure that there's a glitch going on here. So, Marco in the chat, I don't know if you can give me an indication of which one was a top choice. Otherwise, what we'll we'll do is we'll move on. Um, you know, maybe setting the scene. All right. Well, let's set the scene. Amazon was fined $25 million back in 23 for retaining children's voice data captured through Alexa devices. Um, I remember my kids talking to these devices quite excitedly. So, why do you think it's a challenge it's so challenging uh for businesses to strike this right balance between privacy and personalization, Steven?

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Well, let me let me go back a little bit because I think it's I think for all of us in business, it's it's good to know where we are sitting and the kind of the evolution of trust and privacy. And I've I've read a lot about this. I build companies in this space, I've talked to leaders, uh, but so this is based on my own experience. I'm not quoting for a from a poll or a survey, but in and I I what I think has happened over the past 20, 30 years is we went from a world where privacy was essentially assumed, in the sense as the example I gave before, Toyota didn't know anything about you, and I'm just using them as an example, until you walked into the dealership and you said you want to buy a car. And that's when the relationship started. Now, you would have triggered the relationship, most likely. You would have you've given them the information. Here's my name, phone number, kind of car I want, how many kids I have, whatever it is that was informing your purchase, you would have shared at that point. Um, fast forward to today, and I asked this question what do others know about you and what are they doing with it? And the truth is, not even Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos know the answer to that question. We none of us do. So I think there's this, there's been this move, and it has happened because of largely because of the rise of the internet and the rise of data as the the key asset that all of us as consumers didn't know was so valuable, but companies like Google and Facebook and others did realize it was valuable and started to hoover it up. And so we have these data profiles that have been assembled by all the companies trying to reach us, and that can be good because it can create more personalization, but I think it can also be um invasive, it can be creepy, it can be um, it can go wrong in a way that we don't have full control of or transparency of what's going on. And um, there's been obviously there's been changes in regulation, GDPR, other privacy rules the past uh you know 10, 15 years. But still, I actually before um we got on this call, I was uh I start to ponder things and I I actually thought to myself, you know, how how many words are in like Meta's privacy statement, right? How many words are in Google's? How many words in Telstras or CBA's or you know, you know, or or Grab or you know, you and aim your company. Well, it's thousands. I mean, just to give you a sense, Meta has 9,000 words, you know, uh, Google has 8,000 words, you know, even the banks in Australia six, 7,000 words in the privacy statements. Now, how long would it take you to read that and absorb it? And it probably would take you, uh and I've tried, takes you hours, right? There's all kinds of deles and nomenclature understand, and click here to read another document. And you know, here's what does GDPR do and not do? Does it apply to you? And all these definitions. So the reality is, now which is the irony, is none of us understand that. Yet in the age of regenerative AI, you know, I can type anything I want into one of these, uh, you know, one of these Gen AI chatbots, and I get, you know, here's a PhD on any topic in the world. Yet I'm still like left to read your 9,000 word privacy statement. So I think brands are not putting themselves in a in a position to win. It's simply they're they've got a very clunky old way of understanding what are the rules and and then how do I move as a consumer? Where do I move the the the cursor along, you know, from super private to more open in in a sort of an exchange with you? So that's uh just some thoughts about where the moment we're in. And I think you know, I think brands are still still kind of living in the old world that we all, many of us grew up in, but the new world is very, very different.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And it's moving at pace, right? Like the the speed. I mean, I'm um Gary Hamilton, I'm a big fan of, and I remember him saying a long time ago, and it it couldn't be more true today, is change is changing in itself in terms of the pace and rate of change. And that's putting a huge pressure, like you said, on an architecture that powers a lot of the businesses that is quite data, built really for the 19th and 20th century, if you really think about where a lot of the models that are still being used by businesses is really inhibiting their ability to keep pace with um uh their consumer base that and and employees that are serving them, right? I think that's another thing we often talk about customers, but it's also where is the the role of the employee in this picture also is how do we ensure that when they're having those conversations with customers, they're also being uh given the capabilities to explain what the privacy statement is, for example. Like you said, I would hate to try to imagine the difficulty I'd have doing that. Maybe um that's a good way to sort of if I because I like thinking in terms of people, process, and technology, uh Stephen. Um, and we as a technologist, people expect me to always go to technology straight away. But I really feel, and I'd love to get your thoughts on this, the importance of really exploring the impact of, you know, if we think about business transformation, we need to always start with the people side of the equation. And that's ultimately the customers we're serving, the employees that are going to serve them, and even the partners that are involved in that process. So with that in mind, I mean, how do you see businesses ultimately successfully uh successfully empowering their employees to champion the importance of balancing privacy and transparency and personalization? I mean, you know, the privacy policy. Again, someone wrote that, right? So, you know, how do we how do we set our employees up for success in navigating this new world?

SPEAKER_03 12:51

Yeah, I it's interesting because I I've been building a company in AI in and very sensitive data the past few years. The business I built in brain AI called it's called omniscient. And we're looking into the heart of what it is to be human. I mean, we're decoding people's brains, we're seeing things that or could see things that are no more personal than any data you have anywhere else. It's it's essentially your your soul. We can start to almost decode. And um we have our very we think we're very thoughtful and ethical about how we build in that world. And we tried to build the company from uh the first principles have been around ethics and and giving people agency over their data. Now, um partly this is true for us because my um one of my co-founders is a is a medical doctor. We build into the medical system today, the healthcare system, and there are a lot of controls there. You know, you're in most countries in the world, there's there's no data that's more protected than medical and healthcare data in every country in the world. So we don't see, for example, we never, even though I'm building a map of your brain, I don't know, I don't see personal personal data view. Everything we have is anonymized. We're not allowed to see P what's called PHI personal health, uh personal health information that we actually doesn't sit on our service, doesn't come into our cloud. But still, one thing I worry about is giving people agency over their data and their healthcare data. And there's a and data not just about what you did on the internet or you know, your social security number or your, you know, your any other identifying data, but data that's related to your biology, your genomics, your other omics, your connectomics, which is your connections, your brain. And then having agency over that data in a way that um you can make sensible decisions in your life. Now, the great thing about generative AI is it it's what is it? It's a copilot, it's an agent, an assistant. So I see a future, I'm not building this company, but I'd like I want to build it where there's agents that can help me monetize or control or control access to my data in a way that doesn't force me to read every 9,000 page or 9,000 words. So it seems like 9,000 page privacy statement, right? Of all the apps and tools that I use. Now, coming back to empowering employees, as you said, what we've tried to do is build a culture of transparency, disclosure, um, building with privacy by design in how we build everything that we do. And I think there's again, there's legacy companies. We we started five years ago, so we've been born in the age of AI. But companies that have been born, you know, decades ago or 100 years ago, you have legacy systems, legacy processes, legacy cultural norms. I really think you need to revisit and really work hard on privacy by design, which may run completely counter to how you do things today. And there's a lot of hard choices, I think, that need to be made inside organizations about, you know, what is truly right for the customer or for the ethical decisions you want to make as a business versus what's right for the bottom line. Those are not easy decisions, but I think having an honest discussion and debate with your organization and making sure people understand, you know, this is where we've landed as an organization. And these are the trade-offs that we understand we're making by landing there. So I find many um many businesses don't have that discussion with their employees. We we haven't really had that in many, many um, particularly legacy businesses. And I think that's really important, not just discussion to have, but we, you know, what's the new landing place that we need to get to? So that's sort of my my macro view. And I've got a lot of uh passion about it because of the company I've just been building the past few years.

SPEAKER_02 16:35

Well, I mean, yeah, it couldn't come from uh a better person. Obviously, you're living and breathing this now as an owner and builder of a business. I I yeah, I often say to folks, you is your company even AI ready before you even embark on unlocking this next generation of AI? And that's also an important distinction to make because I think AI has been around for a while, right? Like predictive AI. I mean, actually, AI as a term was coined back in 1953, machine learning three years later. So these aren't new concepts, they've been around for a while. But I think what we've seen is the convergence of sort of, you know, um, you know, the different technologies or capabilities coming together in recent times, which has obviously thrust this topic back into the spotlight in a in a way that is driving transformation. So therefore, we do need to think about, to your point, how do we prepare the organization and and and ensure that we're ultimately moving in the right direction and understanding what the roles and responsibilities are. Is that a fair statement?

SPEAKER_03 17:36

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a great what's happened the last few years, you're right, AI has been around a long time, but what has changed in the past couple years is the rise of generative AI on LLMs, which really we didn't have until three years ago. And now with the rise of that, what's it meant it's AI is much more accessible, much more usable, the user interface and the the natural language and human interface, the multimodal way human humans work, which is by vision, by by by sound, by by language. AI is now conversing in the same way. You don't to be a coder, you don't need to learn coding no learner coding language anymore. You can just you can just speak whatever language you speak. That's a huge change, right? That didn't exist before. And yet organizations are kind of as they need to be, they need to leap and get on to the AI revolution quickly. But the point you make, you need to be, you need to be, your culture needs to be AI ready. And I think I think there's a lot of organizations that are making mistakes in playing ahead of their culture. And you may not see the damage today, but the damage may start to come out in the next couple of years as we see wrong decisions being made, AI being applied in ways it shouldn't be, um disruption or destruction of customer trust and value when um you're trying to you're trying to the opposite, you're trying to make better experiences and you wind up making it worse. So um, and the re the reason I think we get there is and this is why I with this assumption I see a lot in a lot of business leaders that you know we know what's right for even even though you talk about customer centricity, there's still this assumption that, well, we know what's right for customers. They want more technology, they want more AI, they want more um options, they want more. And I don't think that's always true. I don't think that customers always want more to more technology, more AI, or even more options. I think they would just want to get to what matters quickly and they want to have some control over the nature of the relationship. Just like back in the old days, you know, when you when you walked into the Toyota dealership, it's what you told that dealer is what you disclosed. You were in control of it. Rather than, you know, you you shook his hand and he said, Oh, good to meet you. I'll tell you all about your needs as a as a car buyer because I know you're better than yourself. That might say sound exciting um as a personalization experience, but I think in terms of a privacy experience, it's it's not very exciting at all. It's a little, it's it's it's intrusive. So that balance, I think we're not with AI, we we are don't have cultures that are built to really make the right choices on that balance today.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

No, I I I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_02 20:08

And actually, I think it's um a nice little quick segue into where I want to double-click next um is uh really exploring this uh notion of the role of AI and and how we'll ultimately be collecting data and consent that enables that personalization. I I thought the Toyota example is a good example there, like in terms of where we've come from and where we're where where we are now. Um, how do you yeah? So, what do you see the role of AI being when it comes to collecting data and and you know playing a role in the consent uh that process that enables that personalization?

SPEAKER_03 20:44

I think there's an opportunity, a huge opportunity for brands. Um, and I've I've spoken about this before. I I think we've entered an age of permission-based marketing or consent-based marketing. And by that I mean getting permission and consent from consumers to go deeper into data collection, personalization, use of AI. I think that's what winning brands are going to do, rather than assuming there's a default setting for everybody. I think we've got an opportunity to say, no, where do you want your setting to be? And I just as an aside, I think one of those settings should be I want no AI in my product or service with you. I'm I'm I'm happy to go back to the the the analog way. You know, maybe I want to live an AI-free uh world. And and I almost think, I mean, I don't I'm not a big family regulation, but I almost think in some ways you know the government should encourage um you know many services and brands that they have to provide an AI-free alternative. Now I'm I'm big on AI, but I also believe that I think an AI free alternative should be available. So if you want to deal with your bank in a way that involves no AI, you should have the right to do that, or your telco or your or your social media provider, whoever. So I and it's just uh uh an aside, if I if you want to live an AI free life, I think you should have the right to do that. Um But coming back to data collection and AI, so uh I mean I said that I said before, what do people know about me and what are they doing with it? Well, that was hard enough before Generative AI came along. Now I would argue it's it's it's impossible. It truly is impossible to know what does uh generative AI know. What even even the you know the architects, the you know, even open AI doesn't know how open how ChatGPT is making its decisions or how it's uh processing things. And so we're living with black boxes all around us. I think the thing that's going to change though is one thing the opportunity, one is I said allowing consumers to s to to choose their setting in terms of how how AI fied they want their experience with you to be. I think that's uh that's an important way to, and that's and includes the data collection that takes place and or the data processing as well that takes place. But I think the second thing is to uh to allow consumers to uh I'm sorry, let me step back, not allow consumers. What's going to change is this, and it's changing already, is it's not going to be a my AI, you know, company X's AI talking to the consumer or approaching the consumer. It's going to be company X's AI talking to my AI. All right. So, and being another step removed from that consumer. Now, think about that challenge, right? So if I want to, if if if I'm a company and and I'm going to get to you, Nick, by to give you service or sell your product or show you an ad, but you've got your AI and you're talking to my AI. Well, now I got to get through your AI to get to your wallet somehow. And so optimizing this world is is happening, it's it's it's arrived. So optimizing for how what's the data exchange, what's the value exchange, what's the consent exchange in that interface, I think is going to be where again we're winning brands win.

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Ah, I couldn't agree more so much there. Um, yeah, definitely um the battle is going to be won or lost in that space. And I think it's also like we've obviously for the longest time marketers lived with the you know, relied on third-party data as a fuel to power their ability to personalize at scale. And, you know, I think where we've quickly moving to, and we'll even this is going to present some of the challenges you spoke about with you know the AIs working with one another, is the importance of first party and even zero-party data. And we define the latter as being the data that you know you willingly share with a brand, knowingly, you know, rich data that tells that brand who I am, what what I like, what I'm looking for, etc. And you know, obviously first party data being the data that you know I share, maybe not consciously or subconsciously and not aware of what what it's how it's being used, but those two data sets coming together and being used in a way that can really individualize that engagement. But there has to be a catalyst in order for me to want to share that data. And I think trust is a big part of that, right? So, you know, that trust anchors ultimately everything. And, you know, we need to create a, I guess as a business, you need to be creating a value proposition. If we go back to your your own endeavor in this space, obviously that is highly personal data that folks are sharing, right? So you've got to look after that data, cherish that data, and create a use the data in a way that actually creates a value back to the the giver of that data, right? Is that a fair statement? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Absolutely. I mean, there's a um we have a sort of truism on our business around, you know, we we hold nothing that's not necessary, right? That so anything that's not necessary, we we do not hold. And and secondly, giving as much sovereign control to the owner of that data as we possibly can. In fact, trying to look for ways to give more control to them and more agency to them, I think is the long term is going to benefit not just uh our business, but I think will benefit the the world. And we're trying to build tools that benefit humanity. And I think without giving humans agency over all their data and true transparency and control, the world is not going to be a better place. So that's like a meta thing that I believe in. Meta meta meaning big, not necessarily Facebook. Um and I know not all companies necessarily agree with that. And so, and perhaps all regulators don't agree with that, but that's the that's the philosophy that we have with our business because we're dealing with the most important data set in the world, which is which is your brain. There's nothing more critical and personal than that.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

And when it comes to looking after that data, um, you know, either in your sort of past roles or even in the current um capacities, what what processes do you recommend companies implement to prevent accident accidental exposure of personal um identifiable information during that collection aggregation process? Is there any sort of um pitfalls that can be avoided? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

I mean, we we we have three buckets or three ways of thinking about safeguarding personal data in terms of processes, policies, et cetera. One is like the what are the organizational safeguards we put in place, right? So that's the what's the I mean there's a term there's like binding corporate rules and you know what are the what are the rules that we establish? How do we train our people in it? How do we how do we audit that um either internally or have external auditors audit that? The second is around sort of the technical safeguards, which is the deep space around, you know, you know, what are all the technical safety ones for if you're ICL compliance or SOC2 compliance? And a lot of that is you know laid out by other bodies, so it's not that you're dreaming up. There's there's ways to become compliant. And sometimes in our space, you have to be compliant. You know, a hospital won't deal with us unless we are so certified, SOC2 compliant, HIPAA compliant, all these, all these things, hip in the US. It's about healthcare, uh, how we control healthcare data. And then there's the contractual safeguards, not just that you have with customers, but it's how you choose your partners and your um, you know, the the trusted network of third parties that you have, because it's never just you and the customer, there's always others that have a potential access and potential positive and negative effects around security and the use of data. That's, you know, this is where vulnerabilities come in and cybersecurity becomes so important. You know, all these uh, you know, the data breaches we all hear about aren't, you know, rogue employees, they're they're third-party vulnerabilities generally that come through the door. So those three, those are the three chunks we think through, sort of organizational, technical, and then contractual. And we have kind of checkpoints for figuring out each one of those and whether we and you know, whether we're robust enough in each, and then continue to evolve it as our technology evolves, as rules and regulations evolve, as consumer uh expectations evolve. You know, do we evolve those as well? Because right now, as you know, particularly the AI, regulations changing fast. Consumer expectations are really almost unknown and certainly going to change fast. And then the data, the importance of data and this and the nature of data, the cleanliness of data is more important than ever. So there's a there's such a it's moving so quickly, it's almost like a, you know, these are living, living documents, living processes that need to be almost updated in real time as the world moves forward so quickly.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Couldn't agree more. And actually, I love what you were saying there. Um uh it's a constantly evolution uh evolutionary process, right? It's not a once and done, let's put it on the shelf, come back, dust it off in a year's time and update. Um, interestingly, uh again, uh, I think what is faster than government regulation is actually human expectation. And uh that that's the real uh tip of the spear, right, in terms of trying to keep up with that. And that's where I think there is pressure on businesses, the smart businesses, to stay ahead of that as best as they can, because regulation, like you said, is moving to address issues that are surfacing up. But that still takes a little bit of time to work its way through the process. But our expectation as consumers isn't isn't uh is is is always going to be preceding that process, right? And therefore, brands, if they want to build that trust, need to be trying to anticipate where the changes need to occur before they actually occur, right? Is that a fair statement?

SPEAKER_03 30:39

Absolutely. Consumers change on a turn on a dime, regulators take years to catch up, um, and companies are caught in the middle, right? Trying to deal with the regulatory changes that are always lagging, but the consumers are always out ahead. And uh you said something earlier. I just wanted to give a it sort of sparked something in my mind, and and maybe the the the audience will definitely have this experience uh as consumers or as as business people. The um and this is my personal experience. I want to be able to choose where I get hyper-personalization, right? I I don't want it chosen for me. Now maybe that's just me, but I do think a lot of people are like this. And and I find I'll give you an example the other day. I um I was uh I had I was booking an airline, a flight on an airline. We'll go unnamed. Um, and uh great airline. I fly them a lot, and uh it was a frequent flyer flight, a lot of points, and it was going to be for somebody else in my family who's a miner. She's she's under 14, and so and she was gonna fly alone, unaccompanied. Okay, so online you can't do that for certain legal reasons. You have to then call in. And then I called in. They said, Well, you need to book it online as if it was an adult, then you need to call this number, and then they'll be able to change it to a to a uh unaccompanied minor. Okay, and they charge you a fee for that as well, which is good. So um they really they hit you every time they can, which is great. Um, but anyway, okay, got it. So when I called back, the person I spoke to, I'd explained everything, you know, and I my time is precious. My wife couldn't do it for me because she's not the cangle holder, it's my point, so I had to do it, you know. And then I wind up talking to a human being, and the truth is that human being had an accent that didn't really understand, it wasn't a good line. I'm like, why isn't AI doing this? You know, and then she said she couldn't handle it, and so she transferred me to somebody else, and then I had to wait on hold and eventually that other person comes on, and then they said, How can I help you? And all I said was, Didn't your colleague explain to you what my what my query is? No, they didn't. I had to re-explain it all again. And again, I'm sitting there going, like, I would have pressed the have a gen AI solve my problem button now on the phone, like choose one because I don't want to do this, right? This is not a big thing, and and it's a process. It took me, it took me 55 minutes to sort that out, and it's the simplest thing, uh, that at least in you know my experience. So in that case, I wanted hyper-personalization and I want it solved immediately. Yeah, but then other cases, I don't want to be hyper-personalized things, I want to be more anonymous. So, but I don't have the right to choose. And so I think that's a that's a big opportunity again. It's a challenge, but it's an opportunity, I think, for brands to to give that level of choice.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

No, I I love I love that example because I think uh most people will connect with that in one way, shape, or form, uh, having gone through that. And I think you you also referenced earlier the toggling idea, right? Like being able to toggle um sort of where you want that deeper personalization, but other areas where you won't want that. And I think this is again where the new frontier is of opportunity for a lot of brands, is to start thinking about how they can give that, you know, hyper individualization, dare I say it, right? In terms of what I'm comfortable with and what I'm not comfortable with. But also I think it's really important in the spirit of transparency, because we at Twitter we talk about accountability, transparency, and responsibility as being the three core pillars and how we think about AI, both not in terms of just how we build that into our products, but how we use the tools internally ourselves, right? Um, and I think being um transparent with uh customers about when they're using an AI is really important. And also creating off-ramps, right? I think like a good example you gave there, you may maybe I I am comfortable with AI chatbots. I want to start with that, but also if it gets complicated, or if this is a you know uh really important topic or you know, there's risk involved, i.e., fraud in my account, whatever it might be, I want to then talk to a human. So I think that's Stephen is where we're what we also see is a new opportunity for folks in how they work with AIs. Do you would you agree?

SPEAKER_03 34:52

I love the idea of off-ramps because I think there's this idea that once you're on the AI highway, you're on the AI highway, whether the consumer wants it or not. And I think this idea that I'm happy that or I prefer to step off or step into another uh lane, I think should be uh should be offered. Um again, I think winning brands will will figure that out. I think the other thing, you just mentioned transparency, right? And I and we're talking about processes, and um I find a lot of brands still don't really think deeply about transparency and maybe think about the present. So I'll give you I'll give you an example. Pricing is a great example. So why does something cost what it does? Now there's all kinds of detail behind that, right? Like everybody, Twilio, my company, anybody listening, you price your product a certain way for certain consumers for a reason. But 99% of the time, you the you do all you tell all you tell the consumer is the price. You don't tell them what's behind it. And I think that's an opportunity to start to uh build trust, coming to building trusts. And again, with AI, this become much more dynamic, but to build trust with consumers about exactly why is that why is that price there versus somewhere else? And giving people agency about uh maybe what they want to pay. I mean, I'll give you an example from years ago. I was working in the auto industry, this is like 25 years ago, and we had this big debate around um the around in car dealerships. And if you've ever bought a car, this happened yourself. If you walk in a dealership, you know, you negotiate, the car costs 50,000 or 70,000, and then you start to haggle. And the old um joke that, you know, I'll go talk to the sales guy says, I'll go talk to my boss and see if I can, and he doesn't talk to anybody, he just goes off and has a cigarette and comes back. But the problem is you don't know how much that guy is making. Like if we we did a survey, and the survey showed of consumers that they always assumed it was saying it's a $50,000 car, they assumed the sales guy was making like $10,000 on that sale. And the reality is the sales guy's making like $1,500, right, for solving that car. It's not making that much money, but because of this disparity in uh in assumptions, you they the consumer would like try to negotiate hard. And the reason the sales guy stops stops is I'm not gonna make any money on the sale if the price goes too low. And so I would argue that in that case, it's maybe it's better to tell the consumer, hey, I'm only making a little bit of money on this, you know. I'm I'm doing it, I'm we're on the same side here, but you know, I still need to pay my bills. I got and I got a family. And and they're trying to establish that human relationship. That's what good salespeople do, right? I it's human human. And so I don't I think with AI, you could you could supercharge those sorts of opportunities around true transparency. And maybe pricing is one place every brand could start.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

I I couldn't agree more. And again, um, you know, I you the word transparency is used a lot, and I think it does require double clicking into that and really exploring how we can apply that from pricing to how we manage your data through to um uh even how we would respond to it being uh breached in some way, shape, or form and being open with community. So I think that is increasingly gonna become more and more important in how brands ultimately that connection and ultimately trust. Um, and we sort of we've been moving towards a bit more focus on technology. I'm gonna use that as a segue because I knew we're gonna uh be able to fill an hour easily in terms of conversation here. I want to go to the next poll um because uh I'd like to get the audience back in here and really get their view on what is your biggest trust or challenge, sorry, biggest challenge when it comes to using technology to balance privacy and personalization. Um, we've got a few choices here, ensuring data security while providing personalized experiences, gaining customer trust through transparent data practices, managing compliance with evolving privacy regulations or something else entirely, let us know in the chat. Um, I've now figured out what my problem was with the poll, I think, before I was it was user error, it wasn't technology glitch. So um I can now see the poll. Um, so I'll give it give folks a little bit of a moment to fill that in. But if you think about this, both in terms of whether it's for you, Stephen, or or brands you've worked with in the past, what do you see as being the biggest challenge when it comes to technology's use in balancing privacy and personalization?

SPEAKER_03 39:33

I think it's what I referred to before. It's the idea that because a technology exists doesn't necessarily mean you should you should interpose it between you and the consumer. And you know, being truly focused on what's the what's the how do I build trust and and and confidence in that consumer that I'm going to treat them in the way that they want to be treated at that point in their journey. And I think there's so many technologies now, there's not just AI, there's you know different channels, different ways of uh, you know, different ways of using data, different ways you can build you can build data and technology into your product in a way that wasn't possible before, that you almost get dazzled by it as a as a as a brand. But I think you're gonna pull back from that dazzle to say, what am I trying to achieve here? What's what matters? And I think with with with that framing about what really matters and what comes from that human connection, that human need of the consumer, that's then where you will figure out how to and where to apply that technology, either in the back end or in the front end when you're interfacing with them. And I think again, too many times we just the technology almost takes over, it's like uh Frankenstein's monster. It just kind of takes over what you're doing without really thinking about the person at the other end of it. And I and I no, I see options you have in the poll reflects the yeah, it does actually, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Uh, and uh, I think it looks like the top ones actually, there's two of them are pretty close. So ensuring data security while providing personalized experiences and gaining uh customer trust through transparent data practices are the two top ones there. But I I love what you were saying again. Um, sometimes can or two leave people surprised by this, but you know, I I love the quote from Steve Jobs. Um, but when he said he talked start with a customer experience and work back to the technology. Um, don't start with the technology, is always my advice um when working with customers, because um, you really need to really be clear and understanding what is the problem I'm trying to solve. Because nine times out of ten, I don't know about you, Stephen, but what I see is folks addressing symptoms and not prop the core pro root cause of the problem. Um, and that can lead you down a completely wrong path, especially when it comes to then selecting the right technology solutions that you are ultimately really need to get where you want to get to. And look, you know, one thing's for sure, you we need technology, right? There's no doubt about that. That's ultimately going to be the enabler of any sort of business transformation. But again, that's not the starting point, is what I'm hearing from you, because there's just so many choices. And I think folks get overwhelmed as a as a result of that.

SPEAKER_03 42:16

Well, Apple's Apple's a really great example. I mean, let's you know, tip our hat to the greatest, one of the greatest companies in the world, um, in terms of the technology they've built and the impact they've had and the tech and the industries they've disrupted. But if you go back to the to a technology choice here, which was grounded in consumer behavior and consumer need, and someone in the audience will remember this moment. And there was a moment when the we'll remember the Blackberry was the personal, you know, the personal device of dominance, right? And the Blackberry's big differentiator was just the clicky keyboard that we all remember. Um, and there was even a film about this, right? There's a there's a film about Blackberry, it's a funny film, but it's got a very profound kind of message in there. And one of the messages, several messages, but one of them is the idea that they were obsessed by the idea that no, it the keyboard, the keyboard with your thumbs matters. People want to feel the clicking, they want the tech, the tactile nature of it. The choice around technology that Jobs made was that no, you you need to not have any buttons that are permanent, you need to have a touch screen where you can put any button you want on that screen. Now, that was not an easy technology to build or to deploy, but it turns out Steve Jobs and Apple were absolutely right. The touch screen was where people wanted to go, not the not the keyboard. And yet all the evidence in the early in those days showed that you know people were obsessed and loved the tactile uh keyboard that that Blackberry had. But but Jobs had another insight that went a completely different way, and there was a big risk. So I think that, you know, getting deep in what customers really want and really starting to and see the, almost see like, I don't want to say the long distance future, but see the next evolution about where you can take consumers. Again, I think brands really need to think about not just what they want today, but where are they going to go tomorrow and then how can you take them there? And that's where the winning brands are going to be.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Oh, I couldn't agree more. I mean, uh, I was working for a company at the time that was working with BlackBerry from a global partnership perspective. And I remember working with some pretty senior people at Blackberry, and this is around 2008, and um, the company I work for was a global enterprise software company. Um, and I said, guys, I'm seeing my execs starting to use the iPhone. I think there's a change afoot here. And they were so sure, certain that that wasn't happening. But once you see execs in a company switching devices or to a new technology, there's a good potential uh signifier that there's a change afoot. But there was a hubris, I think, that gets that existed. And I think that's the risk for all companies is that you've got to not get so focused on what you do, and to your point, have an over-the-horizon sort of uh uh focus in trying to anticipate what's coming next.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

Yeah, it's looking at your it's looking at your product, your service, and your experience for your consumer and saying, what's the clicking keyboard in our world that like it seems to be the right thing today? But the truth is we could use technology to make it a lot better or to transform it. And where are we at risk, too? That's some something about our product or service, our our experience for our consumers, it risks going down the route of black of a Blackberry clicking keyboard. Um, and I think a again, a lot of brands I think aren't aren't grappling with that because uh generative I is this great, I mean, the best, uh the great that we haven't had a technology in 30 years or longer that's been so potential for such transformation of custom consumer experience as generative AI. And yet I see brand after brand of brand, I think, doing kind of simple, dumb, you know, not the smartest things, um, and or doing nothing or not getting it. I mean, when I talked to the airline the other day, I'm like, why haven't they solved this problem? Literally, I mean it's that is you would you don't need generative AI to tell the next caller that what I called about. Um, and so it's so in some of that's just that stuff needs to just still be ironed out even before we get to generative AI.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Well, maybe maybe jumping in there, what role do you see AI and machine learning playing when it comes to optimizing personalization and privacy and compliance? I mean, yeah, maybe we can explore that.

SPEAKER_03 46:46

Compliance. Yeah, this should be the compliance used to be the topic I hated the most, like the idea that you know, uh, you know, we need to uh you know, you have guardrails, safeguards, all this sort of stuff. And I when I worked at Facebook back in the day, look, I was in the I was in the commercial side of the organization, not in the technical side of the business. But the idea of putting guardrails on things and can you know and worrying about compliance was almost foreign to the the culture and the and the business. I think it's part of the reason that Facebook made uh did great things, but also made some mistakes along the way because we didn't have enough of those guardrails. Now, since I've come over to building AI uh for the human brain, the first products and applications we're building are into the healthcare system and into medical land. Well, there you don't understand compliance and safety and security. You will not survive. You need to deal with the TA or the FDA. Your product needs to be safe and effective. You you get audited all the time. If there's anything that goes wrong, it has to be reported. You know, you have to uh document everything, nothing gets swept under the rug. And so we've now built a much more uh I've we had a project in the early days of the company which was called up, which was called Project Comply. That was literally the name of it. And I fell in love with Project Comply because I realized the better we were at compliance, the better we would be able to make our products and services for our customers and the more successful our business would be. So I went for it's almost a joke inside the company about how I fell in love with Project Comply after I was, you know, that word would have repelled me before. And so in the age of AI around compliance and how do we think about it, you know, we've got uh we've got so many opportunities and challenges, fraud, risk, you know, there's a huge space now. Um how do we how do we get a unified view of our customer and how do we make sure that all that data is accurate and we're using it in an appropriate way with the right safeguards and transparency? Um, how do we incorporate AI into our existing platforms, customer experience platforms, CRM, you know, um customer SaaS platforms. So um, and what's the what's the right level of and the balance between constraining yourself and in our in our business we have to be quite constrained because we build for the world of healthcare, but also thinking about how can we where where's the white space? Where can we actually be less how can compliance not slow us down in terms of innovating, pushing the boundaries, building new things for customers, um, and moving fast. So that balance, I think AI's only made it more challenging. And I think it's going to be not just true for my company, but for every company in the world.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

I think I was just thinking, I love again, I love that. I think that constraint, though. So the comply piece, I love that journey of you you had there. Um again, the the the the objective of complying is ultimately end of the day to still deliver a great experience and product to the end customer, right? That's the intent there. So if that is at the center of what you're trying to do, but also the constraints that that created for you guys obviously then forces you to be more creative in thinking around how do you solve for that, I would imagine. Is that a fair statement? And that that those constraints can help you actually innovate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:25

So if if you look at great artists, I would when I started my career as a long, long time, I was a musician, I was a classical pianist and violinist. I didn't have the talent to go to where I wanted to go, so I left it behind. But the thing you learn about when you're uh particularly let's take music, for example, is um music is full of compliance, right? Which is, you know, you have to tune your instrument a certain way. There's certain notes that are part of the you know, the part of how you play, right? How different instruments play with each other all has to comply to the same rules. There's you know, there's tonal and there's melodic rules about how at least Western music is produced. Why do things like Indian music sound different? Because the rules are different. The tonal structures and the and the the melod, the melodic structures or the the the frameworks that they use are different. That sounds different. But Western music, you know, if you hear something that sounds dissonant or it's uh it's uh or it's out of tune, it's like, oh, this might hits my ear wrong. Your ears fine. It's just that you're used to a complied, a compliance framework around how music is produced. So being a former musician, what happens is with when you put constraints on people, constraints don't um they don't inhibit creativity, they they encourage creativity within those constraints. So, you know, why was there's been there's been hundreds and hundreds of classical music composers over the centuries, thousands. But why does Mozart stand above? Is it was it because he broke all the rules and used the different uh different instruments or used different uh tonal scales? No, no, he used the same, he was in the same rules inside the same box of compliance to everybody else. But what he did is he he would he was more creative within that those that box of compliance, and so it's not a constraint uh at all. Um, it's you you have to draw a box somewhere, and then within that box, you can be a genius. And so I tell our company that doesn't matter, we can be geniuses within this box, uh, and we have to be a genius within that box because without some compliant compliance and constraint, you don't have a business. You have a you're you have you're an anarchy, and you don't have something that's safe and effective in the in the world of what we build, brain-related technology.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

But I I also think that that's fully transferable, irrespective of your and uh your industry. That's why I wanted to double-click on that, because I feel what you just shared there for those that are listening, irrespective of the industry in, you know, don't see compliance and privacy and um you know as a restriction. See it as well, it is a restriction. There, there's there's it's it's it's gonna be a forcing mechanism for you to be more creative in in thinking through how you could solve for those specific needs. Because at the end of the day, it is about delivering your customer that ability to trust that you have their best interests at heart, right? I think that's that's sort of what I take away from that. So I I really love the fact that you you shared that. That was brilliant. I knew look, we're we're coming up on time. I've got a uh one final question for you, then I'm gonna throw to the to the audience for um, I think one final survey. Oh no, no, we don't. Um actually, I'll just wrap up with you on one final question and then we'll wrap up the session. What do you think um is the single most important thing that companies need to do differently um right now in striking the right balance between privacy and personalization?

SPEAKER_03 53:57

Yeah. So I think coming back to something I said earlier about giving choice across the spectrum, I think the ability for consumers to choose their level of personalization with your product or service is going to become the new expectation. I I it's up to me to choose. So many brands, many companies, there it's more of a one, it's a one size fits all. We will, you know, everybody gets the same type of personalization. So we're not we're not all getting the same message or the same experience anymore, but we're all getting the same le assumption about the level that we want. I think that's wrong. I think the age of AI, what's AI? AI is hyper-personalized everything. I mean, no more searching Google and getting blue links. No, no, the the the answer is hyper-personalized to your uh you know, to your your prompt engineering. By the way, is that that's a term that needs a rebrand. I think it's worse sounds painful, prompt engineering. But prompt engineering is just asking the right questions and asking a question that's specific to your needs. So that idea that you can give different levels of choice around privacy and personalization to every single customer and giving off ramps, that I think is the number one thing that brand should be thinking about today.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Awesome. I I I couldn't agree more. I think it's a great insight to share with the audience. Um I I really want to thank you. Um, I'm gonna actually ask you, I didn't sort of set this up, so uh I would like to ask you what is a resource that you go to to stay abreast of the latest and greatest, or a thinker that really influences or is having an influence on you in how you navigate um, you know, today's business world.

SPEAKER_03 55:40

So that's good. You know, I'm sure each one of us has I spent a lot of time in AI. I try to figure out not just what are the big things going on, but also like what's happening at the core face of of consumer experience of how companies are running themselves. And so there is a um uh uh through LinkedIn and through social media, there's a there's something called the rundown. I think it's called the rundown of AI. And so the rundown is I'm sure there's other newsletters, but it's a really simple. I get it in my inbox every day. You can go to you can go online to find out socials, but the rundown is a really good summary of just like the what are the big things happening in AI and some folks on AI today, but also more importantly, like what are the two it's like spotlight on different tools, different apps, different edge and AI tools that are coming out, and you know, a little and discussions about you know pros and cons of them, what are different alternatives, etc. I cannot keep up. I was just went to uh Google's website the other day. I mean, they had like 321 different use cases for generative AI. Like that was literally the the title. And there's thousands of use cases for generative AI, but you can't even keep up with it all. So the rundown AI I find pretty useful. I think it has several million subscribers. That's a good one for me. You're uh the audience will probably have other ones they find uh useful as well. There's only so many hours in the day I can spend digging in. I've got to still run my business, but that's been a really useful one for me.

SPEAKER_02 57:05

Perfect. Look, I I've just shared the link with the team. Hopefully they can push it out to the audience. I'm gonna subscribe. That wasn't one uh that I was subscribed to. So definitely doing it. Look, I really want to thank you, Mighty, for taking the time out. Um, again, the goal with this series is to share insights that can hopefully help the audience uh go back into their offices tomorrow or today and start noodling on ways that they can drive the business forward in you know, meeting the challenges that sit before ahead of us all, right? We're all grappling with this. So really appreciate that.