Irreplaceable | The Art of Being Human in the Age of AI

Jessica Estrella: All right. Thanks so much, Brian. Good afternoon and welcome everyone. As Brian said, I'm Jess and super excited to be here and join Panar in today's conversation. What I really love about today is that the discussion is not just going to talk about AI as a tech issue like Brian said. We're going to talk about it as a leadership issue, a talent issue, a judgment issue, a very much human issue, right? The other side of this. And I cannot think of a better person than having Pinar with us here to really help us kind of understand the way people are working and what AI can and really cannot do, but more importantly, what it can't replace. So just to kind of set the stage before we jump in and introduce Pinar, I just wanted to frame this for our audience. We've got CEOs, CFOs, business owners, professional service leaders, as well as a number of our internal colleagues with us here today.

So I think I'd love to really keep this practical. There's a lot of noise around AI. It's excitement, it's anxiety, it's confusion. It's really a hope about what the future looks like. And so I think clear answers about where AI fits and where it doesn't and how our leaders should be thinking about AI and preparing their organization is where we're focusing today. So Pinar, welcome. I guess if you're ready, let's kick off with question one. Let's move forward. Excellent. AI has moved very quickly from something people have been experimenting with to something that now feels like a business necessity. And with even all the attention that's out there, I think leaders are still trying to figure out what AI really means for their organization. So Panar, from your perspective, what do you think leaders most commonly misunderstand about AI's role in their business today?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Thank you. I actually would like to start with something that just happened now two times already since the five minutes that we are in. You both have placed AI in the position of a subject and independent decision maker and have eroded your own agency as human beings. And you both have done that unconsciously. If you allow me, I would like to highlight it. You both have said that AI has been developing and AI has a mind of its own. AI is progressing without consulting me. Even though these are said in the form of jokes or sort of like quick sentences, each time it actually, they reveal a subconscious part of ourselves that we have suppressed for so long, which is we are inferior. There is this thing called my neighbor, the government celebrities, my coworker, the secretary of my husband, somebody that is superior than me.

This is how our brains work. This is how our subconscious minds work. So we leaders unfortunately misunderstand and then position AI in the form of this independent entity that has a mind of its own and that is progressing and developing, but it's not truth. There are human beings behind AIs. There are corporations behind AIs. The software, the algorithm is not writing on its own and deciding, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. I'm going to progress. It's human beings that are progressing AI. But going back to your specific question of what leaders are misunderstanding is that we are currently seeing AI as an incredible human speed and efficiency tool. It's true. However, if ever we are welcoming AI into our organization without considering human beings as our essential infrastructure, it means that we are asking our workers to ingest speed and go to work.

If ever you do not understand who you are, if you do not develop the necessary human qualities that will always make you different than AIs, asking your organization to adopt AI, it's like asking them to take speed and go faster. So it is really, it may help you go faster today. It may help you execute better task and faster tasks today, but it will definitely be harming you in the long run. Second thing that I would say that I have observed leaders completely failing in understanding is that in the age of robots, robots will always be better robots than human beings. So our education, which is based on three Rs, then STEM, have programmed us and raised us to act like programmable robots. We do not understand that machines are bound to the past, meaning you create a data set, you create an algorithm, and machines execute what is in their data set based on how you program them.

Meaning no machine can stand outside of its own algorithm, look at its programming and snap outside of that. By nature, it's not possible today and it will not be possible tomorrow. Only human beings can snap out of their algorithm. So by having a culture that is obsessed with speed and efficiency, our leaders unfortunately completely fail in understanding that all business is human business. And what makes all companies stand out is the quality of the human beings that are working in there. So if all organizations can push a button and something great can come out, I'm asking you who's pushing that button and what is their qualities? What are their essential human qualities?

Jessica Estrella: So I guess, Pinar, maybe as a possible follow up here, is the bigger risk that leaders are overestimating what AI can do or is that they're underestimating how much it changes the way the humans, the people are going to work?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Yeah, I agree with both, of course. I think we are completely underestimating that humans are emotional beings. I'm new to corporate America. I live here since seven years. I'm a creative person. My background is artist. Then I turned into software CEO, which is completely odd. I know. But corporate America has never failed me in showing that they prefer programmable machines over emotional human beings. The moment we talk about our emotions is like the moment we reveal our weaknesses. However, just think about it. Speed, efficiency, speed of output, knowledge, information, STEM, reading, writing, arithmetic, these are all very AI qualities. These are programmable machine qualities. So if ever machines can do all these things that corporations and corporate America have valued, what is left? What are we going to do? This is time for us to. I see AI as a forcing function for us to wake up to our greatness as human beings.

If ever all senseless and speed and accuracy tasks are heightened by machines, and let's go back to what these tasks are, like forming spreadsheets, translating between languages. Languages I don't talk about Spanish to English. I'm talking about understanding the deeper meaning in conversations or like visual format to written format. All the tedious tasks that are not rewarding. If all of these are handled by machines, now we finally have the chance to get to know the glory of what it means to be human and completely embrace our humanity. Sorry, I had a tangent, but I would also like to highlight that I see in leaders the failure to understand that they're dealing with human beings. I saw organizations, especially in film and creativity where it was, I forbid you to use AI and now especially advertising agencies, here is your AI quota, you have to fill it.

And humans are like, "Excuse me. I'm going through an existential crisis. Are you currently training me so then you make me obsolete? Is my shelf life two years, three years? Am I ever going to be paid?" We're confused. Your team is confused. People are confused and they have the right to that confusion. But as a leader, it is your job. It is our job to understand their feelings, to assess them. And the most importantly, teach ourselves and every single person that works for us what judgment means. Because we don't understand that what will make the human different, what will make the human, I dare to say, superior to a machine is if they harbor qualities of judgment. What are they? Like justice, consciousness, ethics, understanding, interpretation, mercy, empathy. Because AI can spit out a knowledge and information a mile a minute. They don't fail in that.

But no AI can say if that sentence has integrity. Only human beings can do that.

Jessica Estrella: I think Finar, that's kind of where we wanted to head next. As we think about and move into the discussion on judgment, because I think this is where the conversation gets very real for a lot of folks that are on the line. As you said, AI can generate the answer quickly. It can summarize, draft, analyze, organize. It can do all of those, call them more tedious tasks. But I guess what I'd say is the answer's not always right. It may not be appropriate. It doesn't have human contextual awareness. It may not be complete. Your prompt may be biased. I've kind of talked a long time about how I'm pretty sure Copilot is like my personal intern some days. So for all of us that are sitting out here in the professional services world, judgment is often our actual product. It's not what we know, but maybe how we evaluate it, how we challenge what might be in front of us and how we really apply that knowledge.

So you've developed, I guess, a lot of frameworks around knowing when to use AI and when not to use AI. I guess what I'd ask you for our folks on the line is what are the biggest signals that a problem still requires human judgment rather than machine assistance?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: This is such a 2026, 2027 most important question. Thank you so much for asking this. Actually, let this be the first, I don't want to say reveal, but announcement of my new LinkedIn learning course. I believe that EisnerAmper is also a LinkedIn learning, like you guys are receiving LinkedIn learning courses. I've written the world's best selling generative AI course called What Is Generative AI? Sold more than three million copies. My new course is actually about exactly what you just told me. And I would like this moment to be the first public reveal and announcement of that, which is about when AI diminishes us and when AI amplifies us. And I would like to talk about, I categorize them under five and six main never to dos.

Let me talk to them a little bit. For example, if ever what you need to do has to do with taste, invention, original point of view, you should really never trust AI output. And this is going to be a long answer because I would like to give an example from my own company and something that I experienced on my own in my work as the CEO. I was working with our head of strategy. We developed a product that is originally made for filmmakers. It speeds up the production process. Let's keep it there. But it also turns every 2D flat image, any flat image in your iPhone, any phone into full 3D game-like spatial understanding, but we made it for filmmakers. So we were ideating about what other verticals can we venture out in?This is for filmmakers. So we of course though about animators, pre-visualization production, YouTube creators, social media, et cetera.

And then we actually asked AI, what do you think? We made this for filmmakers, but 2D to 3D, what do you think? This moment required original thinking. So AI spit up exactly what we expected, filmmakers, this and that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I was like, you know what? I really suck in furniture shopping. I remember that because I don't have spatial understanding. Meaning I can't look at my living room and go to a store and be like, this sofa will fit here. I don't have that intelligence. I have different intelligences, but I like that one. So I'm like, wouldn't it be nice, let's say that I'm on the Herman Miller or Wayfair website. Wouldn't it be nice that I upload the picture of my bedroom and then here is a bed that I drag this bed and then the bed replaces my bed and shows me in 360 how my bed will look like?

I'm like, oh my God, that's my own personal frustration. So here, what has happened is that my strategy meeting required original out of the box thinking. If I were to trust AI for the outcome, I would have completely failed in unlocking a new vertical for the go-to market of my product. So my first answer, whenever the outcome requires taste, original thinking, authenticity, point of view, do not trust AI outcome. Trust your own unique, authentic, personal intelligences. Second, I find it very important, courage and consequences. So if ever we trust AI output, I'm going to give a funny example because funny examples stick usually. If ever you need to stand behind your words, do not ever rely on the information AI is giving you. Because if ever you are giving a report and that report will be public or significantly influence the future of your company or has a great danger of tarnishing the reputation of yours and your companies with any metric that AI spits out.

And if your answer is like, sorry, AI gave it to me. It's like saying, sorry, I cheated on you because I was drunk.

If ever it will cost us much more to be wrong than the time we need to invest in doing it on our own, we should really not rely on AI for the answer. Coupled with that, my other story is that whenever I work with AI, I look at it and I'm like, you are a mediocrity and a mediocrity machine that spits out wrong information. I always look at AI like, of course it's a helper. I use it every single moment of my life, but I never trust the outcomes, especially if I have to present. Here is a crazy story. Story sticks. So I'm going to take my time in telling a crazy, true story. We all know Francis Fort Coppola, the director of Godfather, Apocalypse Now. His new movie, latest movie, Megalopolis.

It's a difficult movie, let's say. It's not for everyone. And people that were presenting that movie also knew that, that were marketing it. So they decided to lead their marketing campaign with sentences that journalists have written initially to criticize Godfather. Godfather is currently, as you know, one of the 10 greatest movies of all time, or even first top three or top five. So if ever a masterpiece is misunderstood in the beginning, it's a very good idea to market it that way to the next movie of that maestro. I like that. So if ever people criticizing Godfather and then saying, "Oh my God, they said that about Godfather." If people are criticizing Megalopolis, that means that it's a masterpiece too. So the marketing department of that film studio asked AI, write me all the negative reviews that Godfather had. And guess what? AI spit out hallucinated information, gave sentences from journalists, let's say variety, Hollywood reported that never existed.

So one of the world's biggest film studios led their campaign for their most highly anticipated movie with hallucinated fake information spit out from AI.

So basically, if ever, again, if your reputation is on the line, if it's a public information, and if you don't know if the information is correct, if you have no ways of checking, do not ever present AI information. Another important part that I think almost no one is talking about is that if ever the report we are asked to present requires us to learn something, we should not use AI. Let me give you an example. Every time I use AI, it is so inviting to tell a report, to give a report to my investors or to my team by pushing a button in AI, like write a report about this product development strategies in 2026, whatever. But if I do that, I will not be having the mind that is developed enough to be able to present that or teach that in 10 years. So before using AI, I ask myself, do I want to present that report or do I want to have the report that have the mind that can present itself without relying on AI in 10 years?

So if we need to learn something, I use AI to research. I'm like, talk to me about this thing. But then I go to YouTube and watch a video, order 10 books about it, listen to a podcast while I drive. So I become that information that I'm trying to present in a month, let's say. Another important part, it is human empathy and human connection. I said this before, all business is human business. So if ever, let's say I'm grieving something or I'm having a bad day, or I really need human connection, I just need somebody to relate to me or give me solace. And if I'm asking the opinion of that person and if they give me like we can all. I don't see anybody raising their hands, but if we were to be in an audience and if I were to ask the following question, I think all of us would raise our hands.

I can spot an AI written sentence a mile away.

There's always like, if it is not that, if it is this, hereby three bullet points. And then this hello sentence at the end of every paragraph and these M dashes, these predictable emojis. If ever I need human connection and I'm asking the precious time of someone, and if they reply to me with an AI cookie cutter sentence, it makes me feel like they didn't care enough to give their own time to me. So if ever that conversation you're having with that other person requires your own personally unique point of view, please don't use AI. Please use your own words. It's okay. Do make grammar mistakes. I just want to feel like your humanity, your full humanity is present. And the last one, do you relate to that?

Jessica Estrella: I absolutely relate. And I think a lot of people on the line are probably reliving those connections. The time where you get that AI response and you're like, "Oh God, was this even right? Did a bot just send me that back?" And so I think there's a time and a place, but let's finish with your last point before we drive on. And

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: The last one is the less sexy one. It is confidentiality. There's this thing called shadow AI. AI tools are so inviting and so fast and so fun that a lot of workers and corporations are using them with their personal accounts without understanding that the moment you are inputting any information in a non-enterprise version of an AI software, you're basically putting it on a board in the supermarket of your local store. You're making every information public. So it's very important for us to have a serious conversation in our teams about the difference between enterprise version and public version of any AI tool.

Jessica Estrella: I think that is super important. I want to make sure I'm listening well here, but I think what I'm hearing really is use AI to support the thinking and not outsource it. So when AI gives us something, it may sound polished, confident, complete. We've got to be the deciders of whether that is actually reliable. And I think your confidentiality point is spot on. So for any of our folks here today that are really starting off new, just dipping their toe into the AI waters, I think that enterprise tip is definitely key. So I'm going to switch topics a little bit here. Talk a little bit about talent and performance, because I think a lot of leaders, a lot of employees, I think a lot of people on the line are kind of feeling a little bit uncertain. So you had mentioned previously, people really rewarded speed or technical execution, responsiveness, and now AI kind of equalizes that.

We're all becoming real good at that. If AI helps with that production work, it takes over those more repetitive processes or process driven work. How do you see the definition of a high performing employee changing in this kind of new AI world?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Isn't it crazy that what we used to value the most top employee of the month may actually have no meaning? Our performance measure metrics that define a top athlete are now meaningless. Isn't that crazy? We really have to. So I would like to congratulate your company, EisnerAmper, one more time, to create space for these human centered conversations, which snap out of the algorithm of do the work. Unless we have these very deep conversations, we will be building a ginormous building on a hollow infrastructure. So I really would like to thank you one more time. The first one, basically you're asking the new KPIs, right? The new, what is the new value? What do we value?

What do we value? Yeah. I call them human edge indexed. I'm currently working on that. It's a framework that I would like to give it to corporations. You'll be the first to know when I finish it. I would like to start with, this is quite unexpected. It has to do with the worker's capacity, leader or employee, the worker's capacity to snap out of their own algorithm. Please, this is super important. Let me expand this a little bit. No machine can snap out of their algorithm. So we have seen it in our teams. Sorry, I can't change it. This is how I am. That's how a machine talks. If ever you have anyone, be it a leader, be it a manager, be it a worker, be it a secretary, and can say, "Sorry, I don't have a capacity for that." We're currently living in a time where we have the world's greatest capacity enabled machines at the end of our fingertips.

So unless we are completely asking someone for something outrageous, outrageously difficult, outrageously impossible for their capacity, I, as a leader in my organization, I do not accept, "Sorry, I cannot do that. I do not accept. Sorry, I don't have the capacity for that." You have the world's greatest enablement machine in your hands. Do it, learn it. And no machine can snap out of their own algorithm, but humans can do that. So refusal for change to me is the number one anti - KPI out there in the age of AI. So your capacity to be able to renew and grow is the number one KPI to me in the age of machines because it's definitely something that no machine can do.

Jessica Estrella: And I guess, how would you suggest that leaders out there in the audience start to kind of identify and develop those capabilities?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Reflection. I would love to get there. Let me first go to other human edge indexes before I forget. I have them in my mind now. I think we're also failing as humanity to define what intelligence truly means. We are unfortunately confusing processing with intelligence. Processing speed is not the same thing as intelligence. Human intelligence is something quite glorious that I think that was never taught to us at school. Emotional intelligence, creative intelligence, temporal intelligence, when to say something and when not to say something. Spatial intelligence, empathetical intelligence, ancestral intelligence, narrative intelligence. There are several different intelligences that basically AI will never harbor. So teaching that to ourselves and our team and putting that into KPIs to me is very important. Another very important thing is courage. AI doesn't have a courage. AI just spits out information, not even knowledge. So courage is basically look at data and say, "This is wrong." Whereas your leader will say, "No, AI says that this is right." But it's your capacity to say, "No, I have been around this block before.

I have experienced this with this customer. If we do that, it robs them wrong. We should really not do that even though information says that we should not do that." So to me, courage

And creating an environment of trust. If a person has courage, creates an environment of trust and invites everyone around them to be better and to grow, to me, it's the highest KPI. Another is like discernment and judgment. We talked about this before. The worker's capacity to discernment, to Baste, creativity, understanding the difference between right and wrong and integrity. These are things that no machine can do is also something quite important. And this is maybe more engineering, but I'm pretty sure that it also applies to your vertical, but patience. Because with engineering in my team, our engineers vibe code obviously, but vibe code creates technical depth. So you vibe code, you make something fast like. You present the sandbox, you present the experience, but then you have to have the patience to go back and clean it up, clean it up, clean it up. So if ever somebody lacks patience, they will be creating so much corporate and technical debt in their organization.

Jessica Estrella: I think that we see that every day. I think we see it in all sorts of parallels where I'll equate it back to what we see in our own practice. And it's someone who doesn't have the experience in their career or maybe is unsure about something that just goes out there, gets the quick answer and passes it along. I think that is the risk that a lot of folks on the line are trying to balance. How do we balance what is spit out of AI? People just kind of taking that for granted. I've got my own fear of what's it going to be like when we're out there trying to audit in this new AI world where we've got to be able to discern what is real and what is not? We're often misguided by incorrect data. We're humans. It's just natural to follow the data.

So we've got to be really sure we're checking that. And so I guess I would say in terms of the human edge, I think that phrase is super powerful because it shifts the conversation away from humans versus AI and more towards what do our humans do that what do they bring to the table that AI can't replace? And I think that is kind of where everybody in that whole anxiety side of this comes on. Leaders are talking about an AI strategy. And as we're having these conversations, I think a lot of people are personally reflecting on like, what does this mean for me? Will my job still exist in a few years from now? What advice would you give to all of those people who are just anxious about AI and what it really means for their career?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Actually, I will get to something very pragmatic, but I would like to have a diversion and talk about something very deep that you guys may or may not relate to, but I'm hoping that it will strike a chord because it really changed me as a human being first and foremost. And as a reflection, changed me personally and in business. So humans are emotional beings, right? And then corporate America has taught us to suppress our emotions. And in the age of robots, our damn emotions will be our damn difference from robots. So we have to be in touch with our emotions, correct? But there's no map. There's no how to. Of course, a majority of leadership courses basically teach us how to strengthen our emotions and be stoic. But I believe that this is halfway. So I discovered a map called, please take a note, called Map of Consciousness, Map of Emotions.

So a scientist that basically, his name is Richard Hawkins. David Hawkins, sorry.

He was a scientist. And then he realized that he could not succeed in his research solemnly basing himself on Newtonian physical truths and decided to research Nicola Tesla's sentence further, which has to do with if you want to understand life and humanity, you have to understand frequency. So he decided to measure human frequency, human emotional frequency. It's a map that is public. You can just Google it and map of consciousness, map of emotions, Hawkins. So that map, the following sentence is very important. That map charts human emotions starting from the lowest, which is shame, to the highest, which is enlightenment and wisdom. And in that map, there's a bar. It's courage. Courage is neutrality. Above courage is negative human emotions. Beyond courage is positive human emotions. So the following is my own discovery. When humans behave below courage, we think that courage is like Malcolm X, John of Ark, the world's greatest warriors.

It's actually no. Saying no to your boss is courage too. When AI says you have to do this, whereas you override it with your information and present to your team, you know guys, I think we should do it differently because all our competitors are doing it this way. We should do it this way. While your whole team says you are wrong saying, no, I understand. I respect you, but I think we really have to do this, is courage. So courage is something that we have the right to display every day. If you are below courage, if all your team is below courage, you are working like a programmable robot because you are stuck to the past. And you know who's stuck to the past? Robots, machines. All AIs are stuck to the past because you are afraid of being judged. You live in apathy, you live in pride, you live in shame.

These are calcified emotional states. If ever we live in these culcified emotional states, we live like programmable robots. But if ever we show courage, then we can jump to understanding, empathy, creativity, joy, happiness. Imagine a positive leader. Hello guys, how are you? This is going to be an amazing day. We are going to discover ourself. It's so nice. You want to be surrounded by that person. So that person can override their programming because they know how to be in the magical presence of today and now. So only when we are in the presence of now that we can display characteristics that are beyond virtues or sort of displays that any AI can do. And when we are operating below courage, actually we are in the mercy of any algorithm and any person because we require the significance, acceptance, approval, intelligence, and strength and power over other people.

Meaning we are open for manipulation because we constantly seek the approval for ourselves from other people. So I always, during these 40 minutes, we have glorified human beings. But I also, for the first time, would like to talk about the weaknesses of being human too. If ever we live below courage, we live in emotional states like anger, pride, shame, et cetera. We are open for manipulation of others because we outsource our power. We outsource our significance. We outsource our intelligence. We outsource our strength and we require the pity of other people. No machine does that. You can't bribe a machine. You can't give them too much praise. So then they do as you are told, even though it goes against their company culture. But unfortunately, if humans live in negative emotions, we are prone for manipulation.

Jessica Estrella: And I guess, Pinar, that kind of back to an earlier question, but really feeding off of what you just said, as people think about, does my job exist? Is AI taking over what I'm doing? They're feeling anxious in some way about the impact on its careers. How does one move from maybe that fear level to the agency level? Is it about gaining more education? Is it about embracing change? How would you say someone can practically kind of move between those emotional levels?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Thank you so much for asking this. To me, this is the most courageous thing we can ask because it opens us up to the possibility that we may be wrong. Seriously, this is so important because media makes money through adversarial displays of adversity. Sorry. Media makes money through display of adversity. This country bombed this. There will be ramifications. When that person does that, kill them. When person does that, you are the victim. So constantly we live in a perpetual state that other people are wrong and I am right. Your question opens us up to the possibility that I may be wrong. I may not know. I may have blind spots. I may have to be better. So I swear to you, every single day I ask AI, here's everything I have done. What are my blind spots? What am I not seeing? Where have I failed?

Where am I failing? I am sending this like 10 emails to these 10 customers. Why have I only got an answer from one? And what I regularly also do, I know that this is not corporate America toll, but this is really the toll we need to have to be better humans and to have any relevance and significance in the age of AI is to, I regularly work with AI about my childhood traumas. We're all human beings. If we're a human being, it means that we have a childhood trauma. Traumas do not need to be like horrendous things that we hear in the news. It can be something as simple as your father calling you stupid when you were three years old or your mother saying that you're not beautiful, you're fat. So you constantly have this identity of like being inferior, being less than, being something defect, something there is defect about you.

So what I regularly do is that I have this, especially with cloth, ChatGPT has that too, but I prefer clothed with these things, that it has core memories. So I wrote my memories from my childhood, 10 negative memories, 10 positive memories, repeatedive sentences that I heard in my household. And then I'm Turkish. We have this Turkish people constantly feel inferior. We have a misery culture. I also wrote down what are the things that I regularly heard in my culture in the news when I was growing up? And I asked AI to create a subconscious map. According to Carl Young, our minds, our functioning minds, our corporate minds are 99% governed by our subconscious. And unless we uncover what lies in our subconscious, we are operating like programmable robots and we call our life my fate. Oh, this is my fate. Me being fired is my fate.

AI came in, of course I had to be fired. I'm the world's first artist whose job was made obsolete with AI. 2018, Google started making art exactly like my art by pushing a button. And they were like, "We don't know why we're doing that. Can you please come here and explain?" I'm like, "I'm an artist. How do you expect me to explain anything relating to AI? But you know what? I'm going to read books about it and I'm going to learn." And then long story short, after five, six years, I became the CEO of an AI software company. So if I could do that, anybody can do anything seriously. So long and short answer to you is that work with AI as your subconscious reprogramming coach. Understand what are the true motivation behind your current failures? What are the truths behind your anxieties? And you can only do that by basically turning information into wisdom.

You cannot do it by simply reading something. It's by sitting with your feelings, working on them, trying to understand the true meaning behind your actions. And you can only do that by uncovering what lies in your subconscious.

Jessica Estrella: I think Pinar, you've definitely hit a chord with the audience. We're seeing some comments come in about just really resonating with what you're saying and the fact that I think a lot of the human fear is that AI, it doesn't get sick. It doesn't need time off to go to the doctor. It doesn't have to unexpectedly pick up their children. So I think a lot of people out there are just thinking about how to work with it. Someone had asked, are there any publications or talks on living in or above courage? How do we elevate ourselves to kind of get to that next level?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Oh, can I take a note? I need to write an article about this. Do you mind if I take a note?

Jessica Estrella: Yeah, take a note. I think that is the human side of all of this. So as we're kind of looking in here, and I know we're coming into our last 15 minutes, I guess, let's kind of go back to our leaders. So one of the tensions -

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: This is so important. May I just give an anecdote?

Jessica Estrella: Sure. Absolutely.

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: So I really relate to every single person that say AI does not get sick. AI does not need to pick up their child. AI does not have a double take. I would like to give a very personal example. So I will say the conclusion, give the example and conclude again. Every single challenge that we are given is a gift from the universe. Unless we thoroughly understand that, we will never thrive in the age of AI and never thrive in life, period. I was not a CEO. I had to learn to be a CEO. You have to understand that I was an artist with a capital A, paying tax as an artist. My art was in museums. Well, did I understand from metrics? CAG, CAG, like lifetime customer value, COGS. I didn't know any of this. I was thrown into it. I developed a software product with my husband three years ago.

He was our bank. He was my best friend, my only friend in the United States, and my co-founder. Only for one day for him to die in my arms. This was unexpected. So talking about picking your child from school, I'd rather pick up my child from school than have my husband die in my arms. So I've been through the challenge. I know what it is. But I knew that I had a personal development coach and she gave, of course, I sought for her help. And she said, "I give you two options. One, you have the right to close your company, downward spiral and go into oblivion. You have that right. The whole world will command you to do that because he was your everything. Two, I am inviting you to see this as the biggest blessing of forcing function for you to rise to your greatness that you always wanted to become.

To become an incredible CEO, a person that can sustain herself and her company, make the money you always wanted to make, touch the lives of the people you were always wanted to touch. So be sovereign. But I forbid you what is in between, which is to complain. You don't have the right to complain. You either will choose A or you will choose B. So how do we rise above courage? First, you have to understand that every challenge you are given, including AI, is a forcing function for you to rise to your greatness. If ever you need to pick up your child, if you are sick, you can generate the energy that is required in yourself during that time. If I could do it, you can do it as well. But thank you for this invitation. I'm really going to take my time in writing an article and creating videos about in the age of AI, how to rise above courage.

So thank you for the person that asked that question.

Jessica Estrella: I mean, listen, I think we're seeing this really everywhere. People are talking in our inbox here about humans aren't meant to sit in front of a screen all day. Do we believe that this AI augmented workflows will really lead to work redesign, to us becoming more human, making that human edge even more valuable than it is today?This maybe frees up that capacity you're talking about to get rid of the mundane and really bring yourself, elevate yourself to the next level. So I think there's just a lot of power in that that I really think people are picking up on.

Switching a little bit here. So there are some questions about governance. You've hit on confidentiality. But as I think about the industry we're all in, we want our people to experiment. We want our people to start embracing AI to be part of this change, but there's that worry, confidentiality, quality, consistency, governance. That's true all throughout professional services. Our leaders, they want innovation, but they can't afford carelessness. So for these organizations that are encouraging experimentation while having these worries in the back of their mind, how do you recommend leaders really balance that innovation with responsible adoption as they move forward? If you're just dipping your toe into the water, that's a big change.

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Yeah. I would like us to now relabel our AI adoption budget as human upgrade budget. I want us to spend that money, not in getting new AI tools, but in spending it in human infrastructure strengthening. How can we be better humans? Even put everybody into the same room and think about that for 10 minutes. You are way further than spending it on faster AIs that will strengthen, that will speed up your production workflow. So starting to ask that question, also creating an environment of we need to feel safe to open up. Right now, we're all feeling like this. What is going to happen? When we are like this, when we are guarded, we are below courage, of course. And if you ask me like, yo, show courage. How do you think I'm going to show courage when I'm like this? Of course I'm not going to display courage when you say, yo, show courage.

You have to create an environment for me to feel safe. I need to feel safe to say, I really feel bad about this. I have to talk about this. Can we please talk about it?

So create a nurturing, empathetic, it comes back to woman qualities, feminine qualities. We were like corporate America is very masculine qualities. Go, get it, hustle, kill it. Whereas I'm talking about, can we take a moment to talk about how we feel? Nurturing, blossoming. So create an environment of trust before asking anything from any of your employees. Talk about your own failures. Talk about your own anxieties. To be a better leader doesn't mean that you don't have fear. It's basically the showcase of display that you can still function and thrive in the face of fear by being honest. Another is that we talked about it. We all went from forbidding AI to compliance in adopting AI. So it's this hot and cold. I feel that a lot in Miami. The weather is so hot, but when you go to interior, it's like Antarctica ice cold. So every time I go to Miami, I come back sick.

So this is how I feel like organizations are treating AI. You're forbidden to use AI. Now you have to fill in your AI quota. So we have to create this in between environments where what are your. Basically create a space for people to open up and want to adopt AI instead of being forced to adopt AI because compliance is the first thing that kills innovation. Also, experimenting safely.

Every human being intelligence is unique. I would like every leader in this room to look at their employees as unique intelligences, even though they may be currently scared and fail to display their unique intelligences. What would be amazing is that every time you ask a person, only when you create a space of safety, go figure out a new way to use of AI. Watch them surprise you in coming up with things that you couldn't come up yourself. But this can only happen if we do the first two things, which is show your vulnerabilities, create a space where people feel safe, acknowledge their emotions, listen to them. And only after that, ask them to experiment.

Jessica Estrella: So I'm going to kind of balance my own question here that I've been thinking about with a question from the audience, which is I think we're seeing some members of leadership that are fearful about kind of dipping their toe in and trusting their clients, their business, everything they've built over the last however many years of their life to AI. How would you advise maybe a CEO, CFO, a business owner who's really just beginning their AI journey? What's that thing you would tell them like focus on this, embrace it this way? If they are feeling reserved, if they're not maybe as open to the suggestions coming in from maybe their more middle tier employees, what would you give them to focus in on? How do you get the leaders on the line to embrace that change?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Well, there are two things. We talked about trust. So inputting your precious IP into an AI tool, and if you have fear about that, that's an easy topic. It's legal. So you reach out to OpenAI, cloud, whatever, and you get an enterprise account. And when you get an enterprise account, it is strictly forbidden for any of these tools to use what you input and what you develop inside that tool into their training data. They're forbidden. It's law. You can sue them. You know how law works. However, there's a second trust issue. If you are fearful to open yourself up to the world and share your most intimate and private thoughts, and then a private IP, even after legal cleared, that's a human emotion issue. That's a courage issue. That's a human edge index issue. These are two separate issues. So I would say look at the business side of that.

Obviously get in touch with your general counsel for them to get in touch with any AI tool that you're using and enforce enterprise versions. But also look into yourself.

If ever you feel you have a fight or freeze function when you're thinking about using AI, even after legal has cleared it, it has to do with your subconscious codes that are not immediately visible to your conscious mind. And just research subconscious reprogramming. There are so many books out there. Even ask AI. I listen to this girl a bunch. How do you change the mind? Subconscious reprogramming. What is subconscious reprogramming? A thousand books out there. I program my AIs in sparring with me and taking on the role of a Jungian subconscious reprogramming expert. And I invite them to ask me questions to reveal the hidden biases and hidden belief systems and hidden fears. Because again, you have an example. I went from fricking artist to software thriving CEO in the urge of AI. If I do that, you can do it. Seriously, if I did that, you did it.

If during all of this insanity, I lost the person that I relied on the most for strength, for partnership, for life partnership and for money. If that person died and I still could do this with no knowledge of AI, no knowledge of AI, you can do it. But if you're failing to do it, then it has to. If you want to do it, but you're failing to do it, it has to do with your emotions, your traumas, your fears, your subconscious codes, then your capability.

Jessica Estrella: Amazing. So I guess I'd say there's a couple things you've said. The mediocrity machine, I love that. I think it's such a punchy phrase because it gets to the point of what we're all starting to see. It can get you average, but it's not going to make you excellent. I think I've heard you say only humans can transform something from ordinary into something that is truly extraordinary. And so I guess as we come upon the top of the hour here, I want to end by zooming out just a little bit. We're at this moment where I think a lot of organizations are making choices that are going to shape how AI shows up in the way they work, in leadership, in talent, in just society as they are as humans. And some of those choices are very technical, but a lot of them are cultural.

They're personal choices. So I would say last question for you here. A few years from now, when we look back at this moment and we reflect on these conversations, we'll have all stumbled a bit. We'll have our bumps and bruises. We'll have learned along the way. But what's the thing you kind of hope that leaders and organizations have gotten right? What's that one item that you're really hoping that they've embraced and look back on and feel good about?

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: Speed is not progress. Performance and human growth can work opposite ways. It's not the same thing. And so somebody who's performing well does not mean they are growing well. So only human beings can snap out of their algorithm and grow. No machine can do that. I hope humans understand that AI is a forcing function for us to grow. If ever we are refusing to grow and currently feeling pain and anxiety is because we are choosing habit perpetuation of the old ways versus displaying courage and becoming something else. And going back to another thing that you said. Yeah. I call AIs as mediocrity machines because just because we all own an iPhone, it doesn't mean that we can all shoot a Steven Spielberg movie.

Jessica Estrella: So that's why.

Pinar Seyhan Demirdag: So just because somebody is using AI, it doesn't mean that they're using it meaningfully. Just because I own a pen, I'm not writing. I'm not Tostojevsky. Just because I have a brush, I'm not Picasso. Just because I use AI, I'm not extraordinary. Humans are extraordinary. I really hope that we understand that what we should be in all of is ourselves. We are the extraordinary making machines because we have the touch of the infinite. All AIs are finite. All AIs are based on a limited data set and an algorithm. Even if you train AI with the sum total of all the knowledge in the world, it's still finite. Whereas as humans, we have the capacity to dip into the infinite through our link with the universe. That is why all the more Most amazing inventors of our time usually say that they are given this idea.

They dreamt of that idea. Google source code, singer sewing machine, DNA, chemical table. These were all the people that invented these dreamt of in their dreams. So they do not come from their waking minds. As humans, we are tapped into a source that no AI can tap in. So I really hope that all leaders and everyone joining this call understand that AI is an invention for us to start being fascinated with our own intelligences.

Jessica Estrella: Tanar, I couldn't have come up with a better ending and we are right at the top of the hour. So I guess first off, thank you. I think the conversation was valuable to me personally, but also to everyone in the audience. I guess I would end by saying AI is going to continue to challenge the way we work every day. I think listening to you here, the organizations that get this right, the people that get this right, won't be the ones that automate everything. They'll be the ones that were thoughtful about where the technology added value, where humans stayed fully engaged, where they drove the process, where teams were built not to just be productive, but were built to be capable. And so before we end and I pass it right back to you, Astrid, I'm going to leave our audience here with just a challenge, a question or two to think about and reflect on as you're stepping into whatever you're doing next.

Where we're using AI to simply move fast, where are we using AI to just move faster and where could we be using it to make our people or our decisions or our organizations better? How can it help you elevate your work where it requires that discernment, that creativity, the trust you spoke about? I think that's something we can all kind of leave and reflect on. So again, thank you, Pinar. Thank you to our audience who joined and back to you.

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