Bianca Bruhn

In this episode of AI & Os, host Veronica D’Souza talks with Bianca Bruhn, Country Director for Google Denmark, about navigating the fast-evolving AI landscape from a tech-optimist perspective. Together, they explore the transition into the "Agentic Era" - a shift where AI transforms from simple conversational chatbots into active, personalized partners capable of reasoning, prioritizing, and taking action on our behalf. Bianca shares how personal custom agents (like her own financial AI assistant, "Sani") can streamline everyday administrative tasks, freeing up humans to focus on what they do best: empathy, presence, and critical thinking. They also dive into the critical societal choices lying ahead, including the urgent need for AI upskilling, balancing innovation with EU regulation, addressing the expanding gender gap in AI usage, and shifting our strategy to "protect the human, not the job."

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We all have a relationship with Google. It's something we do to find answers, get directions, or meet. And of course, Google is also one of the most influential players in artificial intelligence. The company sits at the intersection of applications, infrastructure, and data. It helps build the systems that increasingly shape how we work, create, communicate, and make decisions. Therefore, Google is also at the center of some of the biggest debates surrounding AI. Questions of power, responsibility, and competition in the future that we're building. What Google does matters to all of us. My guest today is Bianca T. She is the country director of Google Democratic. And in this episode, we talk about the era of agentic AI. What happens as AI moves from answering questions to taking actions for us? And what choices do we need to make while we're still the ones making them? I'm your host, Veronica D'Souza. Welcome back to AI and Us. Thank you very much. So excited to have you here. I'm very excited to be here. I know you have a busy calendar, so really appreciate you taking the time. Absolutely. So I just gave the listeners, you know, a little bit more official, the official intro. But I would like to ask you, who are you also in addition to your work?

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Well, I think my most important title in life is being a mom. Um, I think that has taught me more about myself, uh, has taught me more about personal development and being present than anything else I've ever done, right? Um, and then I grew up on the countryside in Denmark uh with my parents and my brother, an older brother. And I think when I sort of look back, it's not something you start doing until you're sort of starting to be my age, I think, uh really reflecting on where did I actually come from. And I think my dad has always been, still is, a tech optimist, was the person who brought home a computer very early on. Um, that, you know, before anybody else had it. He's always been super excited about technology and particularly what technology could do to make life better for human beings. And my mom was always about uh social interactions, how important it is to have social skills, much more important than maybe what you were able to get in math or something else. Um, and really this all-inclusive, very um, you know, big heart, and that was the most important thing. And then I had my brother, who was this daredevil who would just do the most crazy things, drive my parents crazy. But what he taught me was that it's just much more fun outside of the comfort zone, right? So I think all three of them in my upbringing on the countryside have all given me something uh that I've taken with me. And then, of course, sort of later on, living abroad for many years in many different countries have been really important for who I am today. Um, I think that is definitely where sort of my sort of focus on diversity and inclusion and so forth was absolutely part of uh of that, being exposed to so many different cultures and having to live and work in so many countries uh is really important. And then I think um this thing about always saying yes. I am always sort of have leaned into it's just more fun to say yes, I think, and you get certainly outside of your comfort zone. Um and I think then also about just having fun, smile, a big part of it. My absolute favorite emoji is the dancing, little dancing emoji. And that I feel says sort of like that. I love using that, right? So yeah, so I think that's who I am.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Sort of in that gives the listeners a perfect image. Yeah, I mean, that is what I can definitely see why that's your perfect image.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

I don't think I have a red dress, even if that emoji sort of have that very. I think I need to have a red dress as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

This needs to be fixed, yeah, we need to give it away, because then you can be the emoji in real life.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Thank you so much. I want to ask you, because this is what we do in this podcast, we're trying to kind of get smarter about what conversations we should be having, what's important and in this time, right? Yeah. So I want to ask you, in this crazy era we're living in where development is happening so fast, and from the position, of course, that you're having it at Google, what is occupying your mind right now? What do you think is the most important in terms of how AI is transforming our society?

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I think one of the things that I'm mostly uh sort of focusing on at the moment, and the reason why Google is in Denmark, in the Nordics, and Europe in general is that we want to help companies with their competitiveness. We want to help companies win. Um and what I've seen is that we kind of, for Europe, for the Nordics, for Denmark, a lot of companies missed the first wave of AI. We weren't there. And we saw companies in the US and in China uh winning on the global scene because they were really leaning into AI. They were adopting AI much more fundamentally than uh our European companies were. But now we are sort of in a second wave, which is this agentic wave. And I really, really believe in the bottom of my heart that this is Europe's and certainly the Nordics and Denmark's chance to really win. Because I think there's so many elements of this wave that uh really speaks to our advantages, both the way that our societies are built, uh, the way that our sort of structures are in terms of the labor market, we have small populations, etc. A lot of things that plays really to our advantage. So I'm very excited about this next wave, and I think we will do incredibly well in that, and that is definitely also one of my hopes.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

So let's talk a little bit about that. I mean, can you just explain so that we all understand what is a genseic AI?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

And I think this is so important, right? That we sort of uh just sort of put some labels and I'll try. And now I'm sitting here with my hands and waving in the air, and that's really hard for the listeners to get. Did that come from Italy? I mean, I don't know, I think it has always been with me, but it was definitely strengthened when I was living in Italy. I mean, it just helps get the point across. Not not in the podcast. But um, but I think what we have seen is that the first layer of AI is is is the fundamental layer. That's the intelligence, that's the brain. The next layer is the identic layer that is able to reason and take action on our behalf. And that layer is built, it's sitting on top of AI. So it's actually making AI more useful for all of us, it's making it more accessible to us. Where before it was really just like chatbots that would that would give us access to this generative AI. And now the agents are making it both much more personal because you can train agents for different things. And I'm constantly sort of playing around with agents because I think this is amazing, and I think it's amazing what it can do for us. And I just a little bit of an example of one of my favorite agents is one that I did back in January as I was pulling together all my financial information for doing my taxes. And I was literally pulling, you know, pension and banks and trading platforms and all that, sitting with all these different platforms where you need to download kind of everything. And I sort of decided to put that into a personal finance agent. And I call her Sunny, she's absolutely amazing. And what I found was that all of a sudden I had a more impactful uh sort of sparing partner than I've ever had. You know, she's better than a uh a personal banker or anybody to actually have a conversation with me who understands exactly my uh my context. And I think the one challenge that I have right now with that agent, but many agents, is that I can't give her access to all my different platforms that, you know, that might be the bank, my pension, etc., because the companies aren't agent ready yet. So we will see a massive shift happening, and this is the transformation that we're getting into, that consumers, all of us, are now being empowered with these agents that we can basically design and create just for our purpose, whatever it is that we want to have an agent and an assistant for. But we need them to be able to be connected with the rest of the world. So what the brands and all the companies need to do now is getting ready for becoming agent ready and be able to connect with my agent and your agent, etc. So I think what I'm seeing, and also work-wise, is of course my coaching agent that I have at work. I love it because it's kind of looking through all my emails, it's looking through all my uh, you know, my calendar. It can really help me be more present and be more human in my daily life because it's helping me prioritize. It's helping me uh look for things that I haven't maybe been um sort of uh mindful of myself. It could be an employee that I have, you know, who is doing something extraordinary in another department, but it's maybe not on my radar, but it has picked up from other things that, hey, somebody there is actually doing exactly one of those things that really needs to be celebrated and seen and heard. Um, and really helping me with all the with all the sort of admin work. And we're seeing that also, you know, I see it in healthcare, healthcare workers that are talking about how much it has helped that they are no longer having to do this admin work after they've seen a patient, you know, that can actually spend more time with the patients and being human and doing the stuff that your humans are best at, right? And I feel the same way. Working with these agents, I'm very optimistic for it being coming, uh enabling us to be more human and spending more time on the human side of things, presence, etc.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

We we will talk more about that. Yeah because I think that's that's the whole kind of connection, right? And also some of the dilemmas with this technology and where are the boundaries, etc. But I just want to ask you while you are kind of describing this agentic era, in your perspective, and in this podcast, by the way, you are allowed to have um a magic wand, you're also allowed to have a glass ball, you're allowed to predict the future, you can be a witch, you can decide. So, because I mean none of us know. So indeed. Yeah. But if you look forward, you know, from the strategies that you're doing, what will this identic era mean for us humans? Like on the kind of bigger picture, can you kind of map out what you're envisioning? Will our lives be completely transformed? Or will we go to work the same way?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Or like what are you working towards when you're designing this agency era and kind of and I think now we're definitely looking into certainly things that I do not have uh an answer for, but but I certainly see what we're working towards. And and what I see is very present. Um, and and of course, Google and employees at Google are leaning into AI in a in a very engaged way because they have got all the tools available, they've got the the latest before they're launched, then they can play around and test. And I think the biggest thing for me is that we want to make sure that everybody is actually on this journey of upskilling and leaning into AI because it's not going away. And I think this is probably the thing at the moment where there's a lot of debate and a lot of sort of anxiety around what is this go, is it going to take my job? You know, all these and complete fair uh concerns that people have. And and how do we make sure that AI is actually responsible and you know that we that we deal with it in a responsible way? But I think how it will change our society is that I honestly believe in the way that I see it working and giving me value back today, is that I do think that a lot of the work that we're all sitting and doing every day that we don't really want to do because it's like, oh, it is just not inspiring, it's just not exciting in any way. It's really helping with that. And it's helping with those things where you kind of do want to conclude. There's something like personal finances. There's so many people that are like, oh my God, you know. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, oh, yeah, it's like I can't be bothered, you know. And all of a sudden you can sit there and have a conversation and you don't feel stupid either. You can ask the most, you know, the questions where you wouldn't ask your bank uh advisor or something because you're like, then I might sort of expose myself. Or, but there's a lot of things that you can now do with AI. But I don't think that it's going to uh I know there's a lot of worry about, you know, that it'll take so many jobs. And I think, particularly in sort of engineering, software engineers that are super worried about it. But I'm sitting and looking at lots of engineers that we're also having here in Denmark, and the way they're operating, I think, is fascinating, right? Because they are having multiple agents sit and do some of the coding work. It works brilliantly, and they're all saying, look, it's speeding up what I'm able to do, but it's not going to take my job. I'm just able to go through a lot more faster, right? Um, and they still have, you know, the overall governance, the overall um kind of control of it, right? So they're not losing interrupt. So I think we'll see a shift in the way we work, but I don't think it'll be um I I I honestly think it'll be as with many other sort of tech technology transformations that we've been through through the last hundred years, where yes, it has definitely made some jobs um obsolete, yeah. But it has also created a whole lot of jobs that we could not foresee uh would exist, right? Because of it. So I'm I'm quite optimistic and I do feel that there's so much to be excited about, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

So but I mean, I think that's there's space for all of it in the studio. And I think uh and in in the world, you know, because these are important times. Yeah. So we need to grapple with this. Yes. What are the things about this agency era that are more problematic for you? Like when you think about it, what are kind of the biggest ethical questions? I mean, what should an agent be allowed to do and what should it never be allowed to do?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

I think it's all about making sure that the human is always in the center of decision making, right? I think we're seeing that is absolutely core. We are looking at, and some are, you know, playing with the, you know, what if you have a complete governance system of agents, right? Where agents are all you know, overlooking other agents' work and so forth. And I think uh there is an element to what extent that you can do that, and then you know, you need humans in the um in the processes. And I think most organizations and everybody that I work with are absolutely that, and that's also where we find the productivity lifts and the the great solutions, is when it's a great balance between the agents and the human beings. Um, I do think it's really good that we're thinking about the most extreme cases of, okay, could we put agents on all of this, right? So we start to sort of get a feel of, okay, no, that's not what we want, right? So we we gotta feel out those extreme cases. It's very important. And I think, you know, Sunda Pichai, who's our CEO of Google, um, said very early on about AI is that AI is is going to be absolutely important for humanity. But it's so important that it's actually too important not to regulate, right? Because it also has uh, as everybody sees, that it has uh a um a side to it that we need to be super mindful of and control and make some guardrails around. And I think that's what we're we're doing as a society. I do think Europe in particular, uh, you know, we are thinking through those things. And I think that might have been partly why we were um sort of a little bit behind in the first wave. But I also think some of the things that we have spent time on, the regulation that we've been thinking through, I think hopefully will enable us to actually speed up things and make sure that people actually trust what we're doing because we have thought things through, right? So I do think, and and of course, there is a there is an element of this industry who are, you know, running a thousand kilometers an hour on on, and we see it, it goes incredibly fast. But I do think that is one of the things that I do think uh Google has tried again and still they're constantly insisting on there's certain things that we just need to take time before we release or before we do, because we really need to think through the the consequences of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Thank you. I think it's uh it's interesting to hear, you know, also from you because uh you're Danish. You're European. Yes. Um you're the country director for Google. Of course, you can't represent Google in all aspects. You also need to represent some other elements. And I wonder from what you're saying, are there any areas where you feel conflicted? And what I I think what I'm curious about is, I mean, we discuss a lot about, you know, who, who, this technology, this superpower, right? Now it will be agents governing. Like it's in very few kind of companies' hands. You could call it either feudalism or you know it's been called a lot of things. And um the conversations in Europe, of course, are different, right? They're like, how can we decentralize this? Or what do we need to do in order to get on board so we don't rely only on American tech, etc. Yeah. Where do you stand in kind of that democratic slash monopoly slash your work slash being European? And I don't know, that's a very unclear question, but how do you navigate, maybe, is what I'm curious about.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

And I think first you're absolutely right, right? It's uh I'm definitely European at heart and and and European societies, we rely so much on the success of our companies, right? We if our companies aren't thriving, our societies aren't thriving. So we have to make sure that our companies are doing incredibly well. Now, when I look at what has made European companies do really well, looking back, we've been amazing at adopting technology and using technology to deliver value. It's not the technology, we've never been great at developing technology, but we've been amazing at using technology innovatively and to gain competitive edge, right? So I have every belief that we will do that again. And it is one of those things that technology in itself is not the value, right? It is how you apply it and how you use it. Then of course, we want to make sure that it's also sovereign, right? Like we are given uh sovereign solutions now because we do realize, and and and luckily, I think, just generally in Europe, we've sort of said, okay, we need to make sure that we can 100%, you know, uh control the environment ourselves. And I think all big tech companies who want to play in Europe, that's that's you know, they've sort of said, okay, we understand that, and that's what we're doing. It doesn't mean that I don't think that Europe should be investing in technology more, because I do think that Europe has not been investing to the degree that we should be investing. And we're right now making massive investments in defense, uh, which I think will actually have a potential positive impact on technology development as well. That's also a recent change, right? From Google's perspective. Absolutely. Um But I do think we want to make sure that, or I do think Europe needs to think about how do we not that the best technology that exists right now is American, because we have not been, we've not been we missed the train. We missed the train. And it'll take us many years to get up to a point where we can really compete on on the technology itself. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it. We should absolutely be investing. But I think at the same time, we cannot be afraid of using the technology that's, of course, we want to set the right guardrails around that technology, but we got to find our way back to wanting to be the ones who show the way and how to use the technology innovatively. And uh yeah, I think we have a fantastic historical track record, especially in the Nordics, for doing that, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

What are some, I mean, just building on that for you personally, what are some of the hardest dilemmas when you look at AI, power and democracy?

SPEAKER_01 23:12

But I think um at the moment at the moment, I think one of the biggest challenges is this we are uh incredibly careful because we as a as a society uh on behalf of our young people, because I think we um we've sort of immediately been saying, oh, but it's it's cheating using AI in the school and in universities, etc. And we're seeing a lot of um you know concerned uh you know, young people about what is AI going to do to the job markets that we're getting into, etc. And I think uh we really need to both be super respectful around that concern and meet the young people uh with those concerns, but also help them become critical thinkers and be responsible users of AI because again, AI is not going away. So we can't just close the door to it. So I think it's so important that we open the door, really figure out how do we make our young people feel comfortable from very early on about using AI, being critical towards AI, uh, but using it to the best of AI's abilities, right? Um, so I do think we got to balance that very carefully now. And we're I think we have we have gone on the edge of caution, like we've been very careful, and and I think uh that again speaks to we were quite late to the game in the beginning because we were all standing and being uh quite concerned and looking at all the concerning things around AI. Um, and now I think we've got to sort of say, look, how do we bring trust into the room, both in the schools, in the universities, in the workplaces? And that is about skills, right? Skills is fundamental because as soon as you start working with something and you figure out how to work with it, and yes, you find out that there's certain things that no, it's crap at and you don't want to use it for that, but there are things that, wow, this is this is making my work even better, my creativity even better, or you know, whatever it is that the young people will will sort of discover. So I think there's something there that we we gotta bring trust back into it, and I think skills is the main thing to uh to do that.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

I read somewhere that you said, you know, protect the human, not the job.

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

Right? Yes. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:51

And that is actually at the moment, we are very concerned about okay, but we're not going to use AI here because we can see that this can take over this job. So we're going to keep AI out because we want to keep these people, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Is that is that uh is that what you're experiencing with? Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Yeah. And um and I think what luckily is happening, and I was speaking at an at a conference just a couple of weeks ago with a lot of the unions in Denmark, which was amazing to see how they're also leaning in now and everybody could really come together around, well, the key thing is to protect the the human. And the way that we protect the human is to give them skills, right? We need to upskill uh both in the schools, but again, certainly and all the workplaces, and protect the human being so that they get a different, so that they can perform whatever that job that they may have today is actually transforming into, because a lot of jobs will transform, and we need to make sure that the human can stay and and and perform that job and and protect the human being. So that's really the idea.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

So one of the million-dollar questions I tend to ask, I think almost all the guests that I've had in the studio, I'm gonna give it to what are those skills for all the young people right now who took a degree and they are you know coming out into this world and fearing that whatever they studied or you know, junior positions might not be there, etc. So maybe they're not like extreme layovers yet um predicted to be somehow, maybe, but upskilling is necessary. What are those skills? What are you looking at? And what would you recommend?

SPEAKER_01 27:30

But the key thing is to really understand that AI is an amplifier. It's not going to, in my mind, take, yes, there will be a few roles that, yeah, there will be some jobs, as always, with these tech transitions where they they will be obsolete. But for the most part, AI is an amplifier. It's going to help you do that particular job better. So the most important skills right now is to help really get them to use all the different AI tools, to help them build agents, to help them feel comfortable. How are they going to make AI and the agents be an amplifier for what they're good at, you know, be their help them, you know, bring out their best superpowers with this AI amplifier. And therefore, I think what we need to make sure, because this is very different to, you know, back in the days when we were rolling out a big ERP or new CRM system or whatever, the company and the organizations would educate everybody and saying, okay, this is how we're going to use this SAP system or whatever it might be. Everybody was getting educated and your skills would last for the next, you know, potentially five years, right? When you'd sort of been educated and using a system. And it was very general because we were all going to use that system the same way. AI is very different because it's much more personal. The way that I train an agent, like, yes, there'll be some similarities between what you and I would kind of do with agents, but it is going to be much more personal. So this whole test and learn mindset, like really being curious and open to sort of say, okay, inspire me and then I'll do my sort of thing. And I think this is very different, which is also why it's very uncomfortable. Because many people sort of said, Oh, but yeah, I've been sitting and I've been taking these training courses for how I do prompting or something like that. That's not it, right? We need to get under the skin of everybody in terms of like inspire them for what is it that it can do to make your life better, to amplify the superpowers that you already have, and and how do you use that, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

So just walk me through it. So let's uh take me as an example. I'm thinking, yes, Bianca, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna go into this agency era and I'm not gonna fire myself. I mean, I'm independent, but uh I'm gonna amplify my skill set. So I'm gonna sit down with my computer and I'm gonna build how many X amount of agents to amplify that? How do I do the next step? I'm just thinking it's pretty nice to have a walkthrough. How do we do this?

SPEAKER_01 30:10

And so we actually just recently just invested another couple of millions into uh upskilling Danish society, which we've done many times in in technology transformation in general, where Google has sort of said, look, we have a responsibility to help uh you know qualify and and and sort of give the skills to society in general. So we've had you know thousands, hundreds of thousands of people through our um sort of courses in in in the past many years. And now we're uh you know honing in on AI, making sure that we're giving these courses both physically but also online. So we have a portal online where you can go in and get a course on how to build agents, but you can also turn up physically, right? So, and be there, get you know guidance on how do you actually start building. And once you've tried, you know, to build one, you will, you will get, you know, you'll get the hang of it, but you'll also be, you'll be inspired, I can almost guarantee, because you'll find something where you're like, oh my god, I did not think that it could do this for me. This is amazing, right? So I think, I think it is that first uh, and companies need to, so it's a it's a responsibility across society, right? We need to do it in in sort of both the public and the private sector. It's something that we all have responsibility for. And I do see companies right now truly leaning into making sure that they give AI upskilling courses in in the companies. And I think this is really, really important. And I hear very excited employees sometimes out there in the different uh companies and partners that we work with that are just like, you know, like, oh my God, I have tried this. I'm like, oh my God, this is so, this is so inspiring and so good, right? So I think there is an unlock which is very different from previously, because uh how we were all taught to use Excel or PowerPoint back in the days, like those were skills that have been there for a long. Like, yes, there's been some updates along the way, but we could basically rely on those uh skills for a long, long time. And I think here there is a curiosity, there is a test and learn mindset that needs to be there constantly. And it's this, you know, lifelong learning that I think we've been talking about for a long time, not in context with AI, but and back to what should young people do, what should they choose? Well, I think, you know, I have a 15-year-old who is just finishing, you know, her ninth grade, going into gymnasium in uh after summer. You know, we had a lot of talk about that. And she was like, But mom, what should I, what should I choose, right? You, you must be the one to be able to tell me, you know, what I and I think for me, you go to school, you know, gymnasium, university to learn how to learn, to learn to take in information and process information, reflect on information and do your critical thinking. And that won't change. We still, that is exactly what we need, right? Maybe we even need it even more. Exactly right now. I think we will spend more time on those things because I could see right now when my daughter's preparing her for her uh ninth grade exams, and you know, I'm the one sometimes saying, Well, haven't you had a conversation with AI about this? Like, have you, you know, debated? Because I do that all the time. Like, if I have something, you know, it's an amazing sparring partner, but it doesn't mean that I think it's right always. Or, but, you know, together with AI, I am able to make some reflections and see things from different perspectives that I wouldn't be just with my own thoughts and reading something, but actually having a conversation and sharing sort of between. And yes, it's super frustrating sometimes to go like, no, that was not what I was, you know, and you're completely, you know, going off on a track. But using it that way, and I think that is what we need our young people to learn, and therefore they will still need to go to gymnasium and university and so forth, because they need to lean into that continuous learning, learn how to learn critical thinking. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Critical thinking, I think, is it's something that has come up a lot. Um, and as you mentioned before, I think, you know, AI is everything right now, touching every facet of society. Yeah, I mean, some talk about it as you know, the the size of the transformation of the industrial revolution. Some even said, you know, the fire, what you know, the invention of the fire did for humanity. So obviously, we're talking big picture here. Yeah. And um I think you know it has this double-edged edged sword. Sword. So, and I'm curious to hear from you because uh I love your tech optimism. That's wonderful. But even from your tech optimist chair, what are some of the places where you think we really need to apply our critical thinking right now? Because it's going so fast. Yeah. Um, and I mean, bias, uh, climate, I mean, it's just it's it's everything that's kind of crucial for democracy, power, data. You work with this every day, and the company workforce makes choices that kind of affects all of us. Where do you see it's most important right now for all of us critical thinkers to engage? What kind of keeps you up if you ever worry in your No, I do.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

And and I do think this is a time, and and I think Demis Asabis, who's our uh AI leader, who founded Deep Mind and founded Deep Mind because he really wanted to solve the biggest uh challenges in life, particularly in healthcare, right? And he got a Nobel Prize uh in 24 for their work with Alpha Fault, which have you know amazingly uh uh sort of speeded up. Uh I don't know if that's what you say, uh accelerated uh, you know, how we do drug discovery, etc., right? So, and and some amazing things there. Now, his point has been from the beginning, uh, and and for the last couple of years, he'd been saying it again and again and again. He's calling upon, you know, economists, uh strategic thinkers to really think about what this will mean for society, for the labor market, for our schools and educational system. So I still think there is a bigger conversation that we are not having, and that does worry me, right? Because there is a part of, you know, we can see at Danish elections recently, there was no talk about AI. Really surprised me, right? It's something that is so incredibly impactful for our entire society, and we're not talking about it. So there is definitely an element of um we are avoiding bringing, you know, the best minds who are sitting both with AI at the moment, and I know Demas have put himself out there many times into saying, look, I'm so yeah, I can share what it is that I see, what it is that I can, but I also need all the strategic thinkers, economists, etc., to come and be part of this conversation. And I think that's not on a global scale, but it's on a regional scale, and it's certainly on a you know, domestic, then, then Danish, you know, Nordic. We need to come together and talk about some of these things. So there's still elements where, and also to set those guardrails for this, right? Um, so the critical thinking, I think is incredibly important in everything that we step into. And I must say, like, I do find that that is where Europe is great. And of course, we need to constantly balance, you know, we cannot be holding back innovation because there is also a lot of things that are going to change our society for something much better. And we want to make sure that the guardrails give us the the responsible AI, but certainly also allow us to innovate and use it for all the amazing things.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

Yeah, where do you stand on that? That's another kind of EU, US um competitiveness company for the listeners. Sorry, we've we've talked about this in in several episodes, but of course, the EU is one of the only places right now that is kind of in certain regulation in terms of AI, uh, which is being debated, right? Yeah. Um so yeah, where do you how do you look at that? Um how much regulation do we need and for what?

SPEAKER_01 39:08

And I think I am coming back to, you know, Sundas saying early on, AI is too important not to be regulated. We've we've had that opinion, still have that opinion. We lean into discussing because we need to find the balance with the regulation, right? That's that's the key thing, because it's not either all, right? It's it's it's we need regulation, but we need enough flexibility that we don't stop innovation and that we don't hold our small entrepreneurs and small companies out of the game, right? Because that is one of the things that we're seeing with too much regulation in Europe, that it's too much of a burden on our uh on our small companies, right? The bigger companies can absorb it, but the small can't. So we gotta find that balance. And I don't think any of us have the answer to it, unfortunately. That would be amazing, but but I think, and and and we also need to think about um, you know, there is a lot of things that AI can also be used for in um in harmful ways that we are also constantly not just regulating, and EU is doing a good job on that and looking at that, but also as companies. So Google is every minute of the day removing 16,000 harmless ads ads. Every minute, 16,000 harmless ads, right? That we're removing from the platform. No human being could possibly, you know, do that. AI is doing that, and and and there is tons of things. Like when you dive into what AI is also bringing to the plate, uh is one of these areas where we we AI is the solution for many things, um, but it's also giving us challenges that we have to, as a as society, as companies, etc., to come together around uh solving, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:08

I want to give you because you are such a tech optimist, and I, you know, we we we we represent a lot of different things, and I tend to sway a lot when I'm in this studio. I can go all sorts of ways. Um but I really would love for you if you want to share in this studio only. We will not hold you responsible for it, but let's go with your tech optimism. Yeah, can you tell us in 10 years how has the world changed from now? What if what does it look like for you in the world that you're in?

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Well, I hope that we are no longer um talking about uh that we cannot get nurses or people to um support our elderlies, etc. Because now it's all about presence with patients or elderly or even at the schools, you know, presence with uh the students because a lot of the admin work and all the things that we don't really want to do, we actually have support. We've been amplif amplified with with AI. We have, you know, agents that are helping us with different things. We actually have robots that are not sort of, you know, they can't really, I mean, we've all been disappointed with the lawn mover or whatever, you know, like that's not really working, is it? Um, you know, I hope that we're getting to a point where we are actually going to be able to be supported by uh proper, well-working uh, you know, robotic uh uh kind of support. Like I'm a big fan of our Waymo's, which is the uh self-driving cars that Google has got. And they're now driving everywhere or I don't know, 10, 15 cities in the US, and they're coming to London, so we'll have them there from September. And I cannot wait to sitting into a car that is self-driving. Like it's amazing. Like tried in the US is an amazing experience. First, you're kind of like, oh my God, this is like lost control completely, and all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, but this is so much more smooth. It has, you know, eyes and ears everywhere, and it's so much more safe because it's been driving a trillion, you know, uh kilometers, miles, whatever, uh, more than a human being has, and so forth. So I think there's some of those things that would we don't feel quite ready for it now, but I think in 10 years there will be a lot of those things where we'll look back and say, wow, did we let a human being do that before? Uh so good that we've got a machine to do that so that we can do take care of the things that are really obviously only the human being who can do.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

Um, so that's uh so in 10 years from now we have more time to be present as humans. Yes, that's the dream.

SPEAKER_01 44:09

Absolutely my dream.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Okay. Thank you. We're almost time is almost up, even though I've I mean, I could talk to you for a lot longer. I mean, I there's it's also relieving sometimes, you know, to be in this tech optimist space because I hope I hope this is where we're going. So if you could have the power, you have some power, but if you could have all the power, just for a minute. Not sure. And hopefully it has to be yeah, yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah. But what would you what would you say right now is kind of the most important decision or choice we need to be making as humanity in order to get to that utopia?

SPEAKER_01 44:56

I think really it is that every single person out there, everybody who's listening here, and hopefully many more, will actually take that step to think, okay, I want to lean in and understand how I can work with AI. How can AI do something for me? Be curious, and um, and I think there is a particular point. What we're seeing is that the that the gap uh between men and women using AI is actually increasing. When we sort of started having AI coming in, we saw men were using AI a lot more. There was sort of a 20% gap between, and that has just increased. So, particular women, we absolutely need to see them come into uh the space and be super curious and not think that it's treat that it's cheating to use AI, right? It's certainly not. We need everybody in society to get the productivity uplift and the and the magic from uh from AI. So I do really hope that we can get everybody to um to be curious, to lean in, see what it is, not be afraid of it, and start using it critically, definitely. Uh, but use it and get comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Um, yeah. Thank you so much, Bianca. I mean, we normally end with a good advice. I felt that you already just gave that. Everyone tomorrow, particularly women, but everyone, go build an agent tomorrow, be critical, use it critically.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

The ones who are the ones who are uh uh super users in the organizations, which is predominantly men, uh there are a few we sort of see between three to seven percent of superusers in AI in the different companies, uh mainly men, they are ten times more productive. So we need women to become super users as well. But we need more people to become super users. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

You still get the final word. So uh if you have a message um for anyone who's listening right now, in this crucial time, and maybe not every day as tech optimistic as you are. Um what is your advice to them in this time and day? Like what how should they cope with this? What should they what should they do?

SPEAKER_01 47:21

I think uh there is this point of acknowledging that this is a it is sort of a worrying uh point in the sense that it's a big transformation. So I can absolutely appreciate, I acknowledge that uh it can create a lot of worry, and you hear so many things out there that that are really worrying. Um but I do think you want to try and find into your inner sort of saying, well, I am somebody who has my own critical lens on things. I can uh be very reflective on what I see and experience and still lean into it with an open mind and a curiosity, and try to find the things that you can see can actually give you, bring you value either in your daily life or your business in your work or whatever it might be. So I think that's my advice. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 48:23

What is the next agent you're gonna build? Do you know?

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Oh, I've tried this agent at home, which is like a facility manager because I'm so annoyed of having to deal with my um uh ground heating kind of thing and the whole sort of uh system for that. Um, I have not succeeded yet. It's not working. But the day I can have like a facility manager at home that will turn off the heating, you know, when the weather starts that kind of predicts, you know, look at the weather forecast and see, so I don't like that will be amazing, right? So that is my dream agent at some point to have something like that. But I still it's not working. So still, I'm still curious and uh test and learn on that one. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for coming.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Thank you so much.