That every generation has approached technology differently has been true since the dawn of the wheel, if not before. Toy? Transportation? Machine for grinding your enemies to dust? It is what you make of it.
And while this is true, it doesn’t always go in the direction you’d expect; look at the enthusiasm for music cassettes over digital for some members of Gen Z, eager for an experience they can keep rather than rent.
As I look at if and how we should deploy various AI solutions for our clients, I have been struck by the different ways that the various generations have been using AI; whether that is in bespoke hospitality products, or the versions we are able to access on the generalist software found on every phone and computer.
You’re probably thinking you can stop reading here and go and ask your own AI assistant what you should be making for dinner, because you know what’s coming next. Few other technologies have made it into the mainstream as such a generator of column inches. It’s not just techies and cabbies, everyone has their thoughts on how AI is being used and whether it’s a good, bad or world-ending thing.
The prevailing opinion on Gen Z is that they use AI to do their texting, posting and emotional heavy lifting. Had an argument with your significant other? Consult the AI. Can’t think of a witty comment for social? AI can strike them dead with your wit. Should I buy that hat? AI can show you how you’d look and whether that’s a good or bad thing.
The older generations? Still posting, but dominated by LinkedIn.
I couldn’t tell you how true these uses are in people’s personal lives, but I can speak to having observed a striking split at work.
I was in a meeting recently with a team where the leader — younger than George Clooney, older than Ryan Gosling — had just started using an AI chatbot. What he’d been doing for the past year is anyone’s guess, but it was new to him and he was fascinated. Pretty soon he was using it throughout his working day and he was finding that he was a lot more productive.
In that same meeting, I was reviewing a business case which one of the more junior team members had put together about how they could access more information about their guests using AI. They’d put together a full business case based on this.
On the one side, the team’s leader was thinking about how he could use AI to summarize a report, on the other, someone significantly beneath him was thinking about how they could get information to the team serving on a Friday night to let them know what I like to eat and drink when I stay.
And I am seeing this with more and more businesses. The more mature team members are looking at what AI can do to help them, how it can help them to do their work quicker, while the younger people are thinking about how they can help the business which, really, is what leadership should be focusing on.
One group is thinking about how they can use AI to spend more time kicking back in the sun, and it’s not the group you might have picked.
Why this difference exists is a question for psychologists, who might also want to look into whether Gen Z finds constantly winding the cassette tape back in with a Bic pen frustrating or not. What I have seen is that the younger generations have realized that if they use AI selfishly to try and do their work more quickly, they might not have a job soon.
Whereas if they used it to come up with ideas that can help the business, they can create a job for themselves. They can become the person that you can't replace because they've come up with this amazing idea that someone on four times the salary should have.
In a world of headlines about how AI is going to take our jobs and possibly lives, they are looking past those threats to find opportunities, something our sector needs plenty of right now.
Kevin Edwards is CEO of Hospitality Technology Advisory and based in London.
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