Maryrose Lyons has spent 25 years helping firms through every wave of new technology, and generative AI is the biggest she's seen. These days she runs the AI Institute, working alongside construction, engineering, architecture and QS teams across Ireland, the UK and EMEA, and has upskilled more than 2,800 professionals along the way. She's the voice behind the ChattingGPT podcast. Each bi-weekly edition pairs a piece of her thinking on AI at work with the latest episode. Pull up a chair with more than 5,800 readers.
Why I'm ditching the 20-minute call
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Hi Reader! One of my past guests on ChattingGPT builds voice-AI tools for a living. Matt Cortland, who runs Prime Directive AI, made something called the Guindex: a live map of what a pint costs in pubs around Ireland, built by getting people to simply say their local price out loud instead of filling in a form. It took off. Lots of contributions from nice publicans who wanted to take part, the press picked it up, and it became one of those small projects that tells you something bigger about where this is all going. It got me thinking about a job I usually dread. Every year we produce an AI adoption report, proper research into how architecture, engineering and construction firms are actually using AI rather than how they say they are doing it. Apart from giving a very local (Ireland and UK) insights into how the industry is adopting, the findings are genuinely useful to the people who take part.
The catch has always been the data. We've done it with 20-minute calls and one-to-one interviews, which give us rich answers but take forever and cap how many people we can reach. We looked at running LinkedIn ads to drive survey sign-ups and decided against it. We couldn't be confident we'd reach the right people, and you run a real risk of mostly hearing from folks who enjoy filling in surveys and live on LinkedIn, who aren't necessarily the practitioners whose answers we actually need. So this year we're doing it differently. We've engaged Prime Directive to run the data collection using voice AI. You'll get a call and will be able to voice your answers to the short questions, or if you haven't time when you get the call, you can send a WhatsApp voice note later and just talk, answering in your own words while you're waiting to collect your kid at football, no form to wade through. It's the depth of a phone interview, with a fraction of the effort on your side and ours. Another reason I'm happy to do this is because a company showing firms how to try new ways of working should be willing to do the same on its own work, right? Click this link if you want to receive a 'how we did it' report, later this summer after it's all done. Want to be part of it? Fieldwork starts in June. If you work in architecture, engineering, quantity surveying or construction, register your interest now and we'll send you the line the moment it opens. Your answers shape the one report that tells this sector where it really stands. Register your interest here. Previously, on Chatting GPTWe are currently recording season 8 which will be coming to Apple and Spotify soon. We've got some great guests lined up from the areas of Change Management, Built Environment, and Claude Code. In the meantime, why don't you catch up on the Guinndex episode that inspired a whole new way of work? Apple:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pints-petrol-and-prices/id1771177661?i=1000761242765
And finally...The AI Institute is delighted to be collaborating with Brand Marquee to bring an event for women leaders to Dublin Tech Week. Dublin Tech Week is a week-long celebration of innovation and technology, bringing together Dublin’s tech community and the general public. That's all for now. Yours in an AI voice activated kind of way Auto click |
Maryrose Lyons, Founder of the AI Institute
Maryrose Lyons has spent 25 years helping firms through every wave of new technology, and generative AI is the biggest she's seen. These days she runs the AI Institute, working alongside construction, engineering, architecture and QS teams across Ireland, the UK and EMEA, and has upskilled more than 2,800 professionals along the way. She's the voice behind the ChattingGPT podcast. Each bi-weekly edition pairs a piece of her thinking on AI at work with the latest episode. Pull up a chair with more than 5,800 readers.
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