Episode 79: AI Isn’t an IT Project: Why Leadership Owns the Future of Work
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Who is Paul Gormley and what is his role at CIRAS?
Okay. You're listening to Industry Iowa, presented by CIRIS, the Center for Industrial Research and Service. Here's your host. Steven Wilson. Well welcome to Industry Iowa. My name's Steven Wilson and today with us is Paul Gormley. And I'm gonna allow Paul to to uh to introduce himself. He's been with Cirus a uh a very long time. But he's gonna be talking about AI. Paul, I didn't and I didn't mean that in any what other than positive way, Paul. You've been with with uh uh Cirrus for for uh a very long time, let's say longer than I have. Uh but Paul's gonna be talking about AI. We're just gonna be scratching the surface here today. Uh but Paul, thanks for being a guest on Industry Iowa and give us a little introduction.
Who's Paul Gormland?
Yeah. Oh okay. Well and you're right. I've been with Cirus uh For twenty coming up on twenty seven years. Um I've done a number of different things at Cirrus and kind of the latest quote unquote thing I'm doing is artificial intelligence, helping organizations understand its impact on their um their operations and and kind of how to uh navigate this this new world. Um
When when did when did the uh When did this come on the scene? Uh I know obviously there's been an uptick in interest, but When did you first begin to to kind of catch wind of of what this is and and its potential impact.
Well You know, to be honest, I think I think everyone knows that artificial intelligence has been around for many, many years. You know, we're we're going on sixty-five or seventy years, quite honestly, of artificial intelligence in one way, shape, or form. Uh things have changed over time, of course. And um You know, so it's been around a long time. Uh organizations, you know, we've all been living in an age of artificial intelligence. Uh For some time, probably some where it's been affecting us probably since the early 2000s. Um, and and more so and more so. But But really I think people have been noticing it since it's been more accessible to them personally, uh more controllable, if you will. And that probably would have been with the advent of Chat GPT back in 2022, late 2022.
Um It was very coincidental. I had others in our digital marketing Uh strategies team. who were noticing or suggesting that artificial intelligence was really important to that. Uh marketing in general is a canary in the coal mine, as some of the things that have come about more recently, like the large language models, can really uh affect the activities in marketing. And so I I heard about it. We were probably uh talking about it about six months prior to that, November uh 2022. And when November twenty twenty two came about, we were just happened to be primed for it. And when we saw that, we said, Oh my goodness, here it is. And uh ChatGPT three point five wasn't much of anything compared to what we have now.
As as a matter of fact, it would be uh not good at all compared to what we have now, but boy when you looked at it and thought, Okay, well if it can do this and it can get better That's really when we started saying, oh, we're going to have to do something about this, more so than what we were doing.
So you've been talking with again, Cirrus works primarily with manufacturers, but there's a lot of other organizations uh out there. So when the subject of AI comes up And it has been. Uh I would Since you you see a an array of uh responses, but Where are people at with it now?
Well, that's a good question. Um Here's here's a funny thing that I've been telling people recently, especially when they ask me this question. A lot of times they they come to me and they say, Hey, can you tell me what other manufacturers or what other companies are doing with artificial intelligence? And uh my kind of joking response is, Oh, they're doing the same thing you're doing. They're asking me what you're doing with artificial intelligence. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And and and for the most part, that's that that is I I'm gonna say that's mostly what people are doing is they're trying to figure out where this artificial intelligence things fits into their business, but they're doing it by asking, oh, so what's that tool that I'm supposed to buy and plug in and it's going to do all my work for me?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Paul Gormley and what is his role at CIRAS?
0:00–4:43
2
When did AI become widely accessible for manufacturers and why?
4:43–10:47
3
What practical AI use cases are manufacturers seeing today (vision, maintenance, scheduling, supply‑chain)?
10:47–15:24
4
Why should AI be treated as a strategic business decision rather than an IT project?
15:24–20:06
5
How does CIRAS’ three‑level AI training curriculum (literacy, fluency, integration) work?
20:06–25:49
6
What common mistakes should organizations avoid when using AI (search‑engine mindset, perfect‑prompt expectation)?
25:49–31:04
7
How can leaders use AI to create new products, markets, and growth instead of just efficiency gains?
31:04–35:41
8
What will separate manufacturers who use AI wisely from those who don’t in the next five years?
35:41–40:54