We’re seeing successive new generations of large language models pop up and dominate our industries routinely, but there’s also a new generation of humans coming of age in today’s business environment to work with this exciting technology.
How will Gen Z be different in the ways that they start businesses, grow them, and interact with the greater economy? And how will that involve artificial intelligence?
Confidence in the Digital Space
One overarching principle that seems true is that Gen Z entrepreneurs will move more confidently through a digital landscape
“Values-driven, socially conscious, and unafraid, the class of 2023 is challenging leaders in new ways and prodding companies to put a premium on transparency, flexibility, and authenticity,” writes Stephan Scholl for Fast Company. “These eager young adults, who were college freshmen during the pandemic lockdown, are demanding a different kind of work experience—with technology at the center. The American workplace is undergoing a seismic shift as this latest wave of graduates enters the workforce.”
The technology curve has been notably hard for past generations, including the boomers, and even generation X. Business leaders of these epochs tend to see technology as a challenge to be dealt with, rather than an opportunity to be, in a sense, “surfed” for success.
And I think that’s a good metaphor – imagine someone who’s used to the water, surfing, (seemingly effortlessly), an enormous wave, riding the energy of that wave to the shore. That’s sort of the ethos of how Gen Z is working with nascent LLM capabilities.
The People Portion
But, in a sense, Gen Z entrepreneurs are also good at working with people. They tend to be good at forming connections, making collaboration work, and breaking out of blinders that see business as ultra-competitive and isolated.
“Rather than viewing the business world as purely competitive, Gen Z sees opportunities for collaboration,” writes Spencer Hulse at GritDaily. “They actively seek out mentors, partners, and communities that align with their goals, understanding that shared knowledge and resources can benefit everyone.”
Riz, bro.
“This collaborative spirit not only accelerates their growth but also helps them navigate complex decisions, something many beginning entrepreneurs struggle with,” Hulse continues. “For those just starting, this is a key lesson: building a supportive network can help demystify the process and make decision-making easier. Whether it’s joining online communities or finding local business groups, having others to share insights with can simplify the path forward.”
So that dual confidence – confidence in the digital world and confidence in the meatspace – can have big ramifications in the economy.
Brands, Bosses and Innovation
I recently watched a talk by Elijah Muraoka at a Stanford event, where the younger innovator spoke about the potential for this new generation of creators. The Oahu-native co-founder and CEO of Soshi put forward some concrete ideas about how this kind of opportunity works, based partly on his own experience building a brand in social media.
Here’s one interesting part of what Muraoka had to say: think about this carefully, as we all try to read the tea leaves for the future of AI:
Muraoka posited three different case scenarios that could explain our collective approach to AI.
The first would be banning AI outright, which most people understand is not likely to happen. As Muraoka pointed out, there would be a lot of groundswell underneath any attempted ban that would probably render it ineffective.
The second case is a “Wild West” scenario much like with the Internet, where we had insufficient regulation to really create any kind of rules, and business simply went amok. People are concerned about this partly because of the enormous power of AI to create deepfakes, confuse people and distort markets, to say the least. Dystopia, anyone?
A third scenario he visioned is the double track, where human-created content coexists with AI-created content in a very labeled and structured way. He called it the Great Divide.
“There’s going to be dedicated streams for AI and dedicated streams for human feeds on every single social media platform that we encounter,” he said of this outcome. “The requirement (in this case) is having a sophisticated human verification technology, or having a sophisticated AI detection technology. And there are a lot of people working in this space to figure out what content is real and what’s not, but it’s a very difficult problem to solve.”
Muraoka described this “Great Divide” a little more.
“In this case scenario, money follows attention,” Muraoka continued. “In this case scenario, if people are resonating more with the human-verified content, then you, yourself, (as the business) need to be focused on making more human-verified content. But if you see a lot of people are focused on the AI content and a lot of the attention is going there, then you should be trying to leverage these AI tools effectively yourself, and make sure that you stay ahead of the curve, so that you don’t get left behind.”
This type of approach could have a lot of potential to protect us from some of the larger negative effects of AI, while giving the new technology its “lane,” so to speak.
And that brings me to what I see as the challenge for this new generation – harnessing AI in ethical and beneficial ways.
Muraoka provided a four-point suggestion for businesses. I’ll see if I can try to boil these down:
Point 1 had to do with “owning” and not “renting” your platforms: Muraoka called out walled gardens like Facebook, and promoted freer social media environments like, for example, Discord. This type of thing seems analogous to rules for more traditional businesses, that benefited from ownership of startup machinery or physical assets, or, in some cases, real estate.
Point 2 involved using AI to, in Muraoka’s words, “increase volume.”
That demonstrates the scaling power of AI: business used to be limited to what humans could do in a day, or, to be more accurate, an eight-hour shift. Not anymore.
Point 3 is that businesses should “become a category of one,” as Muraoka exhorts. What is that? Well, Microsoft Copilot terms it as a business that is “unique and distinct” from its competitors, citing an article by Ashley Murphy at Openview where Murphy encourages a business to “become the Beyonce” of its sector.
“The most extraordinary companies set themselves apart by focusing on differentiation and thus evolving into a category of their own,” Murphy writes, citing the input of business author Joe Calloway. “This differentiation comes from a company’s ability to deliver superior value to their customers – think Apple, Coca Cola, Disney or Tesla. But there is no one-size-fits-all approach to obtaining this standout success. You must determine your company’s own path to delivering truly unmatched value to would-be customers in order to outpace competition so drastically you create a new category.”
We can presume that the startups utilizing this advice are not going to be like Apple, Coca-Cola, Disney, or Tesla. But – point taken.
Point 4 of Muraoka’s template for business? Hyper-personalization, in his words, will win.
“As AI becomes smarter and smarter, the targeting systems on these algorithms will also become smarter and smarter, and you will be forced to essentially adapt to the system, and create content that matches the hyper personalization level of these AI tools,” he said.
I found all four of those points to be instructive. To be sure, tomorrow’s founders and CEOs will largely have that confidence that comes with growing up with AI, but will they have the business savvy outlined here? Hard to say.
We can also be vigilant about the effects of AI in our world, and start planning now for the kinds of change that are going to happen in the next few years. Whether it’s in healthcare or retail or defense or any other sector, AI is transformative and has the power to change. But the results will also rely on human planning and determination.
