Welcome to the inaugural Issue of my AI newsletter!

By: Michael Housman
June 9, 2024

Hello and thank you for joining my inaugural newsletter! It's been quite the journey navigating the AI whirlwind to get this first edition to you. If you find you don’t remember subscribing or you're no longer interested, no worries at all — the unsubscribe button is ready and waiting at the bottom.

Here, I'll share insights molded from 15 years of building and deploying machine learning at scale, and 7 years of discussing its impact on various stages. My aim? To keep you engaged with a unique perspective on the AI landscape.

AI Adoption: A Tale of Potential and Pitfalls

Let’s dive into our main topic: the AI adoption curve. In a recent blog post, Sequoia Capital highlighted a fascinating phenomenon. ChatGPT had the most explosive start ever—100 million sign-ups in just 2 months!

A graph of a graph of social media AI-generated content may be incorrect.

But its long-term engagement tells a different story. One month retention falls off a cliff compared to non-AI first applications:

A graph of different companies AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Why the drop-off? The key is in altering workflows. These tools are productivity powerhouses, but only if we adapt our day-to-day habits to include them.

I’ve seen this firsthand. As interim CTO at PetLabCo, introducing Copilot Chat dramatically changed the efficiency of developers. But the real challenge? Altering their daily routines. It took persistent brown bags, tutorials, and teach-ins to get developers on the adoption curve until I told them unequivocally: You won’t be replaced by AI, but you might be replaced by someone who knows how to use it.

This challenge echoes across large enterprises. There's a huge appetite for leveraging AI tools, and while proofs of concept often show promise, actual adoption lags. Bradley Miller, Chief Innovation Officer at Moderna, encapsulates it well: “90% of companies want to do GenAI, but only 10% of them are successful, and the reason they fail is because they haven’t built the mechanisms of actually transforming the workforce to adopt new technology and new capabilities.”

I’ve seen this trend borne out over and over in companies I’ve worked with: the AI works but it fails to reach its true potential because it doesn’t get utilized by the workforce. My gut sense is that the most successful companies invest in retraining and re-skilling their workforce approximately 3–5X whatever they spent on development and deploying the technology. Organizations need to think about their people as much as they think about their technology.

Introducing AI-ccelerator: Your Sherpa Through the AI Landscape

That perspective – that the best outcomes come from the collaboration of humans and machines – is what motivates the creation of AI-ccelerator (ai-ccelerator.com), a dual-structured company aimed at navigating these waters:

AI-ccelerator Academy focuses on AI education through dynamic workshops, bootcamps, and tailored programs.
AI-ccelerator Solutions provides expert AI consulting and development services, helping businesses strategize, implement, and optimize their AI initiatives.

This venture is an extension of my past 15 years of work, and with an incredible team alongside me, we're excited to explore the synergy between education, integration, and application.

Curious to learn more or need personalized guidance? Visit our website or reach out (replies go directly to me). Your feedback is invaluable as we journey through the evolving world of AI together.

Your support means everything—thank you for being here! Stay tuned for our next issue, and here’s to pioneering the AI frontier together!