10 ways to build a more intelligent future

In a rapidly changing world, how can business leaders build an intelligent future? In the latest episode of Leaders in Innovation, we gather 10 lessons on the future of innovation with takeaways on human intelligence, artificial intelligence, and natural intelligence.



Lesson 1: Leaders need to participate in both the design and implementation of AI.In the first lesson, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky ponders if lessons from social media can be applied to AI—and what that means for AI developers. Chesky found that social media’s impact on loneliness was positive or negative depending on how it was used, either as a destination for social observation or as a gateway for launching personal interactions. “AI can be the same thing. AI can connect us with people like we’ve never seen,” Chesky says. The takeaway? Creators need to participate in both the design and implementation of AI.



Lesson 2: Who creates AI products matters too. Beyond how creators participate in AI, Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe Herd argues that who the creators are matters, too. “The output is a derivative of the input here,” Herd says. “It’s just based on whoever’s programming it.” If women aren’t involved in the process of designing AI programs, there’s a chance they will be overlooked in the product’s output. Herd brings up the example of a medical program that, if designed by men, could overlook female-specific factors like pregnancy. “We have to have women controlling to some degree the input,” Herd says, voicing a point reminiscent of Bumble’s mission. In both dating and AI, women need to make the first move.



Lesson 3: Don’t be limited by the old ways of thinking about education. Multiverse CEO Euan Blair adds that innovators shouldn’t be limited by their education, either. “There is something powerful in the idea of saying, let’s move away from this quite monopolistic environment we’ve existed in where people have assumed you have to get a degree to go into the best jobs. And that once you’re in a job, there’s very limited training or ability for progression, to one where actually we can give people multiple paths,” Blair says. Multiverse, an apprenticeships company, thrives on the belief that there are varied routes into the best jobs. As Blair puts it, “Anything’s possible because there are multiple realities.”



Lesson 4: Don’t fight progress.Some innovators recognize that as AI gains more strength, it will inevitably face pushback. Picsart’s president Hovhannes Avoyan says instead of fighting it, companies and individuals should lead it. “Technology is already there. You cannot un-invent it, right? Fighting with this technology is useless,” Avoyan says.



Lesson 5: Bring “light-hearted curiosity” to innovation.Some leaders in gaming are already jumping on that trend, consciously or not. Discord CEO Jason Citron says tech designed for gaming often paves the way forward for more serious, world-changing tech, on account of the “light-hearted curiosity” users often approach it with. “I think you see this time and time again that video games tend to take advantage of all the technology that’s available,” Citron says, pointing to how graphics processing units were originally intended for high resolution video games and are now used in self-driving cars. Citron suggests that once people become comfortable with new technology, it can have broader implications for more serious innovations.



Lesson 6: Include nature in your corporate structure.Sweep CEO Rachel Delacour argues that innovation relies not just on the people making it, but on nature, too. Delacour says nature should be in every CEO’s mandate in order to have a sustainable, lasting business model—so that in addition to business affecting climate, companies recognize that climate impacts business, too.



Lesson 7: Look to the natural world for solutions.Meati CEO Tyler Huggins echoes the importance of nature, and suggests looking to nature can provide an inspiring history of problem-solving, with solutions business leaders are looking for.



Lesson 8: Include collective intelligence. Another way to avoid reinventing the wheel? Thomas Clozel of Owkin suggests collective intelligence. “Even if you’re [a] Nobel Prize [winner], even if you’re amazing, you need some collective intelligence if you want to bring innovation,” Owkin says.



Lesson 9: AI is only as good as the data behind it.Other podcast guests build on Owkin’s point, proposing that in addition to combining intelligence, innovators need to see the relationships between different systems, too. Gro Intelligence CEO Sara Menker says knowing the differences between horizontal and vertical AI, and illuminating their interrelationships, is key to AI’s future. “An AI is only as good as the data behind it, garbage in, garbage out,” Menker says. When horizontal AI interfaces with vertical AI, users get the human approachability and reasoning of horizontal AI (seen in applications like Chat GPT) with the accuracy of high-quality data provided by vertical AI, she says.



Lesson 10: Design principles before designing innovation.In the last lesson, managing partner of Lux Capital Josh Wolfe uncovers the moral incentives behind tech—and argues that they’re just as important to tech as the speed driving it. “On the one hand is this beautiful democratization of the tools that used to be captive to the very large companies. The downside is what are the business models that will be perverting the virtues of that?” Wolfe asks.



Chesky echoes the importance of designing principles before designing innovation.



While modern innovation continues to take shape, it’s clear that business leaders are taking a stance on how that future should be built—and these lessons are just the start.Listen to the full episode of this week’s Leaders in Innovation podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.