AI is on everyone’s mind, but there’s also mass confusion about what it is and where it applies. Our fan-favorite AI expert will break down the state of the art in his signature style.

Key Takeaways

Here are a few highlights that we gleaned from this session.

• Referencing the “Don’t Blink” theme in his session’s title, Christian said, “We are all feeling this.”
• Early in his talk, Christian said it’s wise to keep Amara’s law in mind. That’s the one that says we tend to overestimate technology’s impact in the short run and underestimate its longer-term impact.
• Christian cited “Five inevitables” related to artificial intelligence that will guide how AI unfolds in the near term. The five are:
  • AI Efficiency Expansion
    • As AI improves, efficiency gains will be dramatic, and this begins in the workplace. Christian cited a BCG/Harvard study showing work gets done 25% faster and at 40% higher quality using ChatGPT.
  • Prompt Inversion
    • Christian said AI will soon be prompting humans, which will render the notion of prompt engineering obsolete.
  • AI Model Convergence
    • The various AI models are moving towards all being able to do the same things. “Claude 3 Opus. Perplexity and Grok2 are all moving quickly toward capability convergence.”
  • AI Strategy for Local Data
    • In other words, how will AI get its local data? This led to a discussion of the Search Generative Experience (SGE) Christian argued that AI is already a significant factor in local search results. He noted that 86.8% of queries are resulting in AI-generated answers. And in only 13.2% of queries, the Google algorithm decides the best thing is to serve up old-school blue links.
  • The Science of Digital Presence
    • Here Christian talked about how knowledge graphs
• Where is this all heading? Christian argues that we are on the cusp of the “decentralization of search” and that AI will “decentralize the customer journey.”
• Christian says that data in both search and AI will be grounded in five key principles: consistency, recency, accuracy, frequency, and trustworthiness.

Ep. 25 Explores Emerging Tech with Yext’s Christian Ward

Don’t Blink, it Might Change – What’s New and Next in AI

AI is on everyone’s mind, but there’s also mass confusion on what it is and where it applies. Our fan-favorite and resident AI expert will break down the state of the art in his signature style. 

Christian Ward, Yext