00:00:00:00 - 00:00:31:08
Grant McDonald
Artificial intelligence isn't just transforming technology. It's reshaping influence, communication, and the way organizations connect with people. As AI becomes more embedded in everyday business, leaders face new questions. How do we communicate responsibly? How do we build trust? And how do we prepare teams for a future where human creativity and machine intelligence work side by side? I'm Grant McDonald and today on the Banking on AI Podcast, presented by TD Invent, we chat with Ron Alepian, Head of Corporate Affairs here at TD.
00:00:31:10 - 00:00:52:08
Grant McDonald
Rather than focusing on the latest headlines, Ron challenges us to consider questions that matter the most, questions that will shape how AI is adopted responsibly, and how organizations maintain trust in a rapidly changing world.
00:00:52:10 - 00:01:12:22
Grant McDonald
Ron, listen, thanks so much for being here. I'm really excited about the conversation we're going to have. I think a lot of people watching and listening are very curious about your take on things. That is because you are an individual who really helped shape the voice of TD. I'm curious how yourself and your team are looking at what that means as we bring in artificial intelligence?
00:01:13:00 - 00:01:32:17
Ronald Alepian
Well, first of all, thanks for, thanks for having me here. You know, I've been around for a while, and I've seen a variety of different changes taking place in, in our, in our, in our industry and in our profession. I've, I've seen the internet really take hold. I've seen social media take hold. And I've seen all kinds of digitization happen.
00:01:32:19 - 00:02:02:16
Ronald Alepian
Nothing has actually been as exciting as what's ahead in AI. And, and as we adopt AI and as we start using it more and more, I think the opportunities are just massive. And I'll just give you a simple, a simple example. You know, a lot of what we do is we try and figure out our story and then we take it out into the marketplace and we use focus groups and we test messages, and we do a variety of different things to see if it resonates and to see if it's actually having the impact AI is going to do over time.
00:02:02:16 - 00:02:19:12
Ronald Alepian
Allow us to do that testing before we say anything externally. So it's not that it's actually going to do our job, but it's going to fill hours and weeks of testing in the marketplace before we go live with the message. So we actually have a better sense of whether or not our message is resonating even before it goes out.
00:02:19:15 - 00:02:28:22
Ronald Alepian
It just makes us better at what we do. And that's about as exciting a thing as you can do, right? A piece of technology that makes you better. And that's how I look at AI.
00:02:29:00 - 00:02:42:19
Grant McDonald
You know. Yeah. You wrote an article for Forbes on this about AI in the workplace, and you essentially said, you know, it is helping to reshape or rewrite influence as a whole. What does that, what does that kind of mean to you?
00:02:42:21 - 00:03:01:04
Ronald Alepian
Yeah. So the main reason I wrote the article in Forbes is because there are a number of barriers to AI hitting its full potential. Right? And the first barrier is that people are a little bit worried. Right. They're worried about what it's going to do. They're worried about what it's going to mean for them personally. And we got to get over that stigma.
00:03:01:08 - 00:03:19:14
Ronald Alepian
So when I say things like it's going to reshape the way we think about influence and the way we influence, you know, part of it is what I just said a moment ago in terms of message testing. Part of it is that we're going to be able to listen way, way better at what's taking place. Part of it is because we're going to take our judgment and our knowledge, but use AI to produce better content.
00:03:19:16 - 00:03:44:16
Ronald Alepian
So it's one part that is going to change the way influence is, is seen or the way influence is exerted. But the real part that I'm trying to convince, you know, people who work on my team, people inside the Bank, people across society, is you always fear what you don't understand. And we've got to stop worrying and start embracing, in a very responsible way, obviously, so that we get more and more familiar with it.
00:03:44:16 - 00:03:56:07
Ronald Alepian
We started testing it and like anything else in life, as you start to understand it, you become more familiar with it and then it starts to become the positive versus the negative. And I think the negative is really around the fact that we don't understand.
00:03:56:09 - 00:04:13:04
Grant McDonald
I mean, you're right in terms of you fear of the unknown. And in that article as well, you talk about the question that you always get and you say, well, let's, let's reframe that. That's not the right question you're asking. And it's always, always, always about jobs. What does this look like for the marketplace? What's your approach to that?
00:04:13:05 - 00:04:19:11
Grant McDonald
You touched on it briefly in terms of shifting your mindset. But where, where do you go when you get that question? Because you, I'm sure you always do.
00:04:19:13 - 00:05:57:10
Ronald Alepian
Well, can you think of a technological evolution that hasn't led to that question at some point? Right. Blacksmiths were worried about their jobs when they had the automobile. Right? Drivers and truck drivers got worried about their jobs. You know, as more things were being transported by airplanes. Technology accelerated a bunch of things. Once upon a time, it took a chalkboard and hours to be able to do a calculation that can be done in a press of a button right now.
But the workforce has never been bigger, and the opportunities out there have never been bigger. Everybody doesn't have to get into machine learning and become an AI scientist. That's not the goal. I'm certainly never going to be able to do with some of our experts inside the Bank can do.
But we do all need to be users. Because if you fast forward a couple of years, using AI is going to be like, you know, do you know how to go online and search for something? Do you know how to send an email? Do you know how to turn on a laptop? Do you know how to use an iPhone to go online?
It's like you never even think about that today, and I have a feeling it's going to get to that at some point down the line. So I want people to embrace it today, because it's not about whether or not AI is going to replace you. It's about whether or not AI is going to allow you to be better, and there's going to be some people that are going to use it to be better at their jobs, and they're going to be some people that are over time are going to get left behind, and they're the ones who are going to have to get reskilled and find new opportunities.
So what I encourage my team or everybody inside the Bank for that matter, many even friends and family, is if you're conversant, if you're literate, if you're playing with it, even at this stage, let alone using it productively, as we're starting to do on our team, that that actually protects you more than anything else. But trying to sidestep it and avoid it, that's not going to that's not going to help you.
00:06:15:03 - 00:06:24:18
Grant McDonald
It's not going to work especially short or long term, really, if you look at it in terms of the gap, will just continue to grow. When you are looking at essentially what you do here, you tell stories. If Copilot just shows up on everyone's desktop one day, I don't know how effective that would be. Where do you come in, and your team come in across the Bank, as let's roll this out.
Let's help people explain what this is. Where do you see, you know, your role in ensuring that we're, we're not being left behind. Yeah.
00:06:24:23 - 00:06:46:22
Ronald Alepian
There's a third of people that are embracing it and finding ways to use it. There's a third of people that kind of want to but don't know where to start. And there's a third of people that are just wondering why that funny icon sitting up on their desktop now and want nothing to do with it. So, you know, there's a lot of programs run not just by our team, actually run by teams all over the Bank to teach you how to use it.
00:06:47:00 - 00:07:08:01
Ronald Alepian
But honestly, like anything else in life, you know, you learn by doing. So I'm not saying ,pop in Copilot and produce a 2,500-word speech and pop it into the system. We're not ready for that. But definitely get into the tool and see if it can help you. And by the way, I do it, right, like I've made my career as a writer.
00:07:08:03 - 00:07:25:06
Ronald Alepian
I do a bunch of other things now, too. But, you know, does it make me a better writer? Not really. I think I can still out-write Copilot. But does it help me organize my thoughts? Does it help me test my thoughts? Does allow me to say, hey, if I want to go in this direction, what does it look like?
00:07:25:08 - 00:07:43:18
Ronald Alepian
Absolutely. So the kinds of things that would be hours of trial and error before you write something that's really interesting and persuasive, I can get done in a few minutes now by testing it. So, you know, I encourage everybody to just start using it. That Copilot is not the dangerous AI. It's actually, think about it, like it's a it's a work tool, right?
00:07:43:19 - 00:07:54:14
Ronald Alepian
I think the biggest thing that we're going to do in our team is tell the stories of people that are using AI in their daytoday lives and how it's allowing them to be more efficient, work faster, and perhaps even work better.
00:07:54:16 - 00:08:11:09
Grant McDonald
We can look back and we can say we've seen lots of disruption happen in the past. When you look at the parallels of the internet and now AI, what are some of those lessons that we saw and what are lessons that we can learn? Maybe this time around, even though they're not identical.
00:08:11:11 - 00:08:31:12
Ronald Alepian
They're not identical. But there's a there's a couple of similarities and one big difference. So the similarities are, even go before the internet, right? I mean, it's been happening for 100 years. The telephone, then, you know, the internet, then email, then social media and all the communication vehicles we've seen sort of explode on the scene in the in the 21st century.
00:08:31:14 - 00:08:52:04
Ronald Alepian
Each one of them transformed the economy, right? Each one of them transformed product. AI is going to do that. It's going to do it faster than we've ever seen before. And the big difference is going to be that it's going to change the way we work. I mean, yeah, the internet changed the way we work and email changed the way we work.
00:08:52:09 - 00:09:13:16
Ronald Alepian
But this fundamentally will change the way we work. And for example, you know, in our world, we're storytellers and we're writers and we're strategists and we do that kind of stuff. It's not that we are going to stop being writers, it's that we're going to have AI come in and join with us. It's that, it's that, connection between human and machine coming together to be even better.
00:09:13:18 - 00:09:29:06
Ronald Alepian
And what's going to be different is that it's not ultimately, when it gets there, it's not going to be about people using AI or about AI doing something different. It's going to be these two things coming together very, very quickly and making everything either better or worse.
00:09:29:08 - 00:09:45:17
Grant McDonald
Right. And the idea is, you know, it is simpler, it is faster. And when you're looking at, let's call it AI literate, like what comes to mind for you and you're saying, AI literate I'm sure it's like a, you know, it changes to a certain degree. But to your point earlier, like you're not a software engineer. I'm certainly not a software engineer.
00:09:45:19 - 00:09:53:15
Grant McDonald
I will never be one, but I think I'm getting there when it comes to AI literacy. What does it look like to you across the Bank?
00:09:53:16 - 00:10:17:15
Ronald Alepian
I think the most important word that I would sort of use to answer your question, I think, is curiosity. Like we need, you know, as professionals, I actually think that curiosity is the difference between success and stagnating. If you're curious about it, even if you're not using it, if you're learning about it, if you're reading about it, then ultimately start testing it.
00:10:17:17 - 00:10:36:16
Ronald Alepian
And if you're interested in figuring things out and understanding this new evolving technology, well evolving, I mean, it's exploding onto the scene, frankly. And you bring that sort of curious mindset to it, that's going to make all the difference in terms of how it's done, in terms of how it's used, in terms of how people feel about it.
00:10:36:18 - 00:10:46:08
Ronald Alepian
It's all going to be different because it's that's going to be the, you know, at the beginning, I said, you fear what you don't understand. That's what's going to drive people to understanding what it can do for them.
00:10:46:10 - 00:11:09:10
Grant McDonald
And you and you talked about it earlier as well in terms of disruption. You know, we've been around long enough where we know how the internet kind of started. When you're looking at those parallels, to your point, this is beyond acceleration. It is one of the fastest moving things I've ever seen in my life. What are you expecting,
That could be some of those parallels that we see? And what, what did you kind of learn along the way, as you know, communication tactics changed?
00:11:09:12 - 00:12:08:03
Ronald Alepian
Well, speed is absolutely, something that I'd not seen before. And it is that have been through a variety of different what we thought were revolutions but were just natural, natural evolution of what's taking place in the world. But I think that, you know, that we, we had get into that mindset of, I'm a user. I'm not a user.
Right. That's like saying I like the internet. I don't like the internet. I use the phone, I don't use a phone. We've got to cross that threshold where AI is just part of what we do. We recognize that it's in the products that we're using, especially digital products. That it's out there. But I think that that,
I'll give you a funny example, of how we better get there. Right. So my daughter was looking for me to buy her an AirPod. She's 15, which by definition means it's only going to last for a week, right? It's going to get lost within a week. But she sent me the most eloquent email.
00:12:08:05-00:12:07:17
Grant McDonald
Interesting.
00:12:08:19 - 00:12:47:21
Ronald Alepian
Explaining the value it would give her in school and in life. And I flipped it to my wife, and I said, that was pretty impressive and she just emailed me back saying, 'AI.' Like you can't be that. So there's going to be people who win. And that that was actually the moment, a year or so ago where I said, I have got to get on top of this stuff because, a, I don't want to be more outsmarted than I already am as a parent, but b, because it's going to be that important.
There's a whole generation coming that's going to be native. We talked about digital natives. There's going to be there's going to be AI native. So, I want us to get to the point where we just recognize that that's where the world is, and we don't wonder about whether or not the, the, the world is going to get there, because it's actually getting there.
00:12:47:23 - 00:13:10:15
Grant McDonald
You know, Ron, people look to you in terms of career advice, what we might see coming down the road. And I think a lot of people listening are watching this. If they are interested in the world of storytelling, communications, the corporate side of things, what kind of advice do you give them in terms of, you know, to your point that younger generation, they're coming up, they're going to know this already, but what do you what are you telling young professionals right now?
00:13:10:16 - 00:13:10:15
Grant McDonald
And where do they where do they take their next steps?
00:13:13:21 – 14:57:12
Ronald Alepian
Yeah. It's interesting. So like contrary to this conversation that we're having, I don't actually give them a lot of advice about AI. I tell them that AI is not about whether you should or you shouldn't think. We're not debating this. Learn it, understand it, and figure it out. What I tell people is, as much as we think that artificial intelligence can think like humans, I don't know when that's going to happen, but it's nowhere near the near term, mid term, even the long term that I can see.
Focus on critical thinking. Focus on mastery of your craft. Focus on being persuasive, on understanding what that means. Focus on your audience. Do all of the things that you need to do to be an exceptional communicator, a strong storyteller, a strong marketer. You've got to continue to do all of those things. And only when you become good at that will AI make you better.
AI's not going to take somebody that's lousy and make them exceptional. It’s going to take some of the lousy and make them, like, not fail. But you can take somebody that's great and make them exceptional. Absolutely. Because the core is, the core is in you, is in people. And that's why, people are never going to be obsolete in the world of storytelling, persuasive communications, of marketing of all of those industries, because that, that critical thinking, that nuanced understanding.
AI doesn't have nuance as well as it should. That nuance, understanding that judgment is different for every single individual. And that's what makes life interesting, right? If you tell a story and I tell a story, if it's the exact same story, we'll tell it in different ways, whereas AI may not fully capture the nuances of why we would do those things differently, but it can make both of our stories just a little bit better as we, as we run.
00:14:57:12 - 00:15:16:08
Grant McDonald
It's a great way to that's a that's a great point to make and listen, it's so unique to hear your perspective because I think it is a unique perspective that you have. And so those who are listening, I'm sure are able to take away on a lot of different insights that you brought. So I just want to say thank you for taking the time and walking us through and talking us through a couple of unique angles.
00:15:16:13 - 00:15:30:15
Ronald Alepian
Well, thank you for the for taking the time or for inviting me on. I think it's, it's a really interesting area, and it's kind of cool, right? You get to live right in the middle of all this change taking place. Don't get scared. Just embrace it and go for the ride and you end up in a better spot.
00:15:30:17 - 00:15:31:19
Grant McDonald
Fantastic. Thank you. Ron.
00:15:32:01 - 00:15:32:10
Ronald Alepian
Thank you.
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