Workforce Intelligence argues that companies can use AI to make their people more valuable, not obsolete. Sullivan thinks Buffalo can help prove it.
OneDigital cofounder Mike Sullivan has spent the past two years thinking intensely about a question facing virtually every major employer in America: What happens to people when artificial intelligence gets good enough to do significant portions of their jobs?
Sullivan, a 43North Foundation Ambassador, rejects the idea that the answer is inevitably job displacement.
At OneDigital, the $7 billion company he helped build, Sullivan and co-author Vinay Gidwaney have instead been working toward a model in which AI makes employees more capable, productive and valuable. The 6,000-person company now has more than 20 AI “coworkers” performing thousands of tasks each day, while its human workforce increasingly focuses on judgment, relationships and higher-value work.
They call the philosophy Workforce Intelligence. Now they’ve written the book on it.
Workforce Intelligence: The People-First Playbook for Leading Your Company Through AI Transformation debuted last week and has already climbed to No. 14 on USA Today’s bestseller list. The book sold more than 11,000 copies in its first week.
For Sullivan, a South Buffalo native who has become increasingly interested in investing his time, capital and network back into his hometown, the ambition extends beyond OneDigital. He believes Buffalo could become a place where this emerging model of work is not merely adopted, but advanced.
Series B caught up with Sullivan about AI, the dignity of work, what OneDigital has learned and why he thinks Buffalo belongs in the conversation.
Lots of companies are grappling with the implications of AI. Why did yours move so proactively as this new technology took hold?
Our firm and its revenue are tied to employment. So our future is tied to keeping employees at the top of the work stack.
I had this moment where the future was being presented by a bunch of billionaires as if AI and job destruction were a foregone conclusion, and we should just accept it. When I say that my South Buffalo Irish found this absolutely unacceptable … well, that is how this played out.
I kid that my Local 6 ironworker dad is looking down from heaven with a smile saying, “Finally, my son is pro-labor!”
It has become my mission to create an alternative narrative that is pro-humanity, pro-dignity of work, and I am convinced this is 100% possible. But we need to embrace AI and evolve how we work with it.
What has been the outcome of this work at OneDigital?
Our entire workforce works alongside AI coworkers every day, sorting reducible work from the work only a person can do. The goal isn’t efficiency for its own sake, it’s to free our people to spend more time in front of clients, and thinking about new ways to add value.
We have 21 enterprise-level, expert-trained, fully deployed coworkers that handle thousands of tasks per day, analyzing data, building spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides, and creating insights previously undetectable by our teams. We leverage that “compute” and use it to impact client outcomes.
When your employees trust that you are doing this in their best interest, it works amazingly well. Not all firms have or will earn that trust.
You’re a successful business leader with plenty to do in a given day. Why did you decide to write Workforce Intelligence?
Vinay and I became obsessed with helping our clients understand there is an alternative to job displacement. We brought in Harvard and MIT to study and validate our ways of leveraging AI and helping reshape how work gets done.
I am a 63-year-old guy who is reengaged like I was when we started OneDigital 26 years ago. We have to figure out how to get 6,000 team members and a growing number of AI coworkers to work together on behalf of our clients.
No firm has figured this out entirely yet. I also don’t believe anyone is farther ahead than we are.
It's so important to employment and the economy overall that we decided to put our learnings into a book for our clients, because the playbook we needed didn't exist.Workforce Intelligence is that playbook now, for every employer in the country. Writing the thing we couldn't find was a pretty cool way to spend our time.
How do you think the policies, processes and paradigm change outlined in the book could help a place like Buffalo?
We are trying to make Buffalo a place where these concepts and learnings thrive. I have been involved in an endless number of conversations with local business leaders about bringing Workforce Intelligence to life in Buffalo.
I am hopeful we can be part of new companies and new advances in Workforce Intelligence emerging here in Buffalo.
Talk to me about the reception to the book. You’ve generated some good media coverage and sales. Are you satisfied?
It has been out for a week, and we had a great first week. It sold out on Amazon on day one which told us something we already suspected: leaders weren't short on opinions about AI, they were short on a playbook for the conversation with their own people. But a week is a week. The real test is whether the ideas in it actually change how people lead six months from now. That's the number I care about more than this week's numbers.
What I enjoy is the fact that people who read the book are surprised it is such an easy, logical read. Our hope is that employers read the book and understand best practices for keeping their employees in the game long term.
It is a battle that is just beginning, and we are pro-labor!
