Alex: Imagine being in a Formula One race where the track is
being billed as your drive.
There are no pit stops and the slowest speed is yesterday's maximum.
That's how fast artificial intelligence is changing the business world.
Some leaders are accelerating with it, others are falling behind.
So what does it take to stay in the race?
My name is Alexandre Nevski and this is Innovation Tales.
My guest today insists that AI is not just a tool, it's an intelligence, and
it's rewriting the rules of business.
Fahed Bizzari is the founder of a Dubai based AI consultancy, where
he helps chief digital officers move beyond experimentation into
real, scalable transformation.
He has developed frameworks that bridge AI's technical power with the
human experience, an often overlooked factor in digital transformation.
For Fahed, success with AI isn't about chasing hype.
It's about knowing how to integrate it into strategy,
operations, and the workforce.
In this episode, we cut through the noise and get straight
into the practical insights.
How do you turn skeptical executives into AI advocates?
How do you identify use cases with the highest ROI?
And most importantly, how do you ensure AI enhances your
workforce rather than replacing it?
His approach is pragmatic, battle tested, and built for
decision makers who need results.
Without further ado, here's my conversation with Fahed Bizzari.
Fahed, welcome to the show.
Fahed: Thank you for having me.
Alex: Glad you could join.
You've built a strong reputation in the field of AI literacy
in the corporate world.
Before we dive in, how did you first get into that?
Fahed: There's the long story and then there's the final part.
So the long story is my whole career, the 20 years since my first
business, which I set up in 2002, it was a purely digital business.
So if you can imagine 2002, ahead of everybody else.
it was a fully automated business as early as 2005.
The whole idea of the online world and digital, it just seemed
so strange for most people.
So because I had a fully automated business that was running in my sleep.
I saw everybody else just the way that they were doing things and the
long queues that would take three hours and the paper forms and so on.
One of the, one of the blessings about having your own business that runs itself
is the amount of free time that you have.
And if you are addicted to work like I am, it means that you can have years spent on
self development and developing others.
The culmination, of course, was in 2022.
When we started using GPT, not ChatGPT, but GPT, the underlying tech, about six
months before ChatGPT became a thing.
And at that time we started using for very small use cases
inside one of my businesses.
And of course, when ChatGPT came out, I had the very good fortune of
being on a sabbatical with my father.
One of the things that keeps people from learning AI is that they're
so busy in their day to day lives, they can't make time for it.
And when ChatGPT was released in November, 2022, I had all the time in the world.
I was working on a nonprofit project.
But I had all the time in the world.
And every day I was pushing it and pushing it and pushing it because
I have a technical background, because I have business expertise.
And then we finally hit one use case in December, 2022.
I was on a transit back from London to Sri Lanka, where my development team is.
And, when I reached Dubai for a 10 day transit, I was asking
people, you know, you guys tell me about your use of ChatGPT.
This is February 2023 now.
ChatGPT's been out for three months, and they all said the same thing.
But we haven't started using it.
So, during that 10 days, I told my old network, listen, round up your friends and
I'll give you guys a free seminar to help you understand what this is all about and
help you break the ice and start using it.
And I did about 5 seminars and webinars completely free and then they all
said, listen, this is not enough.
You have to show us more.
You can't just tease us like this.
You have to give us step by step walkthroughs so that we can get
to the types of productivity that you're talking about.
So I extended my 10 days into 20, turned into 30, turned into
two months, three months, started getting corporate requests and so on.
And then, ultimately, this has now been my full time work for the
last two, for the last two years.
Alex: Wow.
What's an amazing story.
And so what was that first use case when you were using GPT before ChatGPT?
Fahed: My main business was involved in communication.
So we were using GPT to evaluate the messages that were going
through, to see whether they were spam or phishing messages.
And also to see if there was any swearing and things like that going through.
So by the time we got to ChatGPT, I was already over these small use cases.
I was already over content creation and by December, 2022, I was already
using it as a thinking partner.
Alex: And so as you described in your story in the last two and a
half years, you've been accompanying large and, smaller enterprises,
through that new transformation, can you tell us more about this?
is there maybe one story that stands out?
Fahed: I think it's useful to know about the evolution of the journey
because when it started, my entire focus was actually on individuals.
Myself as an individual, I wasn't thinking about it as a business at the start.
I was just thinking about, AI is coming along and it's transforming society.
It's going to transform humanity.
It's going to transform the way that we think.
It's going to transform the way that we communicate.
It's going to transform.
The extent to which we live our life and achieve our goals.
And that was the only thing on my mind at the time when I started
was how can we facilitate as many people embracing this as possible?
And even when the corporates were reaching out for training, I still
had it in my mind that I was training individuals and that the individuals are
part of a company, of course, but it was still, focused on training individuals.
Eventually, it came to realize that, look, the needs of corporates are very
different to the needs of individuals.
So the individual focus, you could say, was for the first year.
I'd say the first year and four months.
And then the focus on corporates was the last eight months.
so in terms of stories, it happens all the time.
the most common outreach that we receive is people looking for training.
But they don't realize really the extent to which AI is
going to change their world.
They just think of it as being a tool, like it's Microsoft Word
or, like a Google Doc, or they just need a bit of tool training.
And then when they actually get the training, now their whole world changes.
I remember when we did with one corporate, it was an investment bank.
And the most senior person we had in the room was their chief operating officer.
And he got it from the word Go.
once we actually, he'd never, he had at that time with the training was being
done through ChatGPT and he created his ChatGPT account in the session.
In fact, I think he created the night before a session, his executive
assistant created it for him.
His first time opening it was during the session and he was just blown away.
And anytime any of the people in the class were like distracted by anything, he was
getting genuinely angry with them saying, guys, this is going to change your world.
Please stay focused.
This is, so he got it and he came back the following day
cause it was a two day program.
He came back the following day and he said, I couldn't sleep last night.
so people don't really understand what it is until they start to go deep.
When they go deep, Then really the whole world of AI and the potential
of AI to augment us as humans and to transform us as humans.
Uh, starts to open up.
Alex: So if I understand correctly, this investment bank approaches you and
asks you for training on the tool, which is, if I understand correctly, ChatGPT.
And then through, the exposure, the experience of the workshop, they, and
this, the COO discovers that this is more than just a tool, but in finance
and investment banking is one of those industries where it's a bit hard,
let's say, to apply, generative AI indiscriminately because of the, risk
tolerance, let's say, of these businesses.
So can you share your insights about, maybe not with this specific,
person and organization, but how in a context like this, then, these tools
change the way that, these businesses and these people then operate.
Fahed: Well of course, if you take investment management as an
example, and you look at it as a core function, you'll see that there are
many different roles within that.
So one of the things that they're always trying to do is find
new deal opportunities and then they are looking to market those
opportunities to their clients.
that's a very classical, generative AI use case.
Where through AI they're now able to monitor far more sources than they could
before and then they're able to package it All those new deals they're able to
package them much quicker and get them out to their client base much quicker
So the fact that we're looking at the number side, if you think about it,
when we're looking at AI transformation, we're looking at a couple of levels.
So the first level are basically the quick wins within the company.
What are those things that are bottlenecks?
So we're not necessarily talking about, level five, which is
actually working with the numbers.
We're looking at the lowest level, which is what are these bottlenecks?
you've got a hundred deals on the, on, in the queue and you've got
two research analysts that are looking at these hundred deals.
For these two analysts to reach deal number 50, it's
going to take them a few weeks.
Whereas now when you bring and I like to call it more general AI.
I don't like using the phrase generative AI.
I know that everybody does, but I prefer to call it general AI because general AI
is adaptable into all sorts of scenarios.
Whereas generative AI is just suggests the word generate, that
it can generate content, but when it generates intelligence, is
it really just generating now?
No, now it's actually acting as an intelligent being, right?
so those two taking those research analysts as an example, we now got
ourselves in a situation where those guys can actually complete that
list of a hundred in no time at all.
something that would have taken them months.
It's not that each individual task took them months.
And now it's being brought down to hours.
It's the whole backlog that would have taken the month.
And of course, new items are being added to that backlog.
The velocity, the operational velocity speeds up dramatically.
Now eventually, so this specific company that I have in mind as I'm talking
to you, the numbers element to it, if you think about, if you think about
traditional business process automation.
The challenge in traditional business process automation is programming
complicated communication between systems.
So when it comes to general AI, you could have a calculator, you could
have an AI that specializes in numbers.
Now the challenge is, how do we get information from one
system to the other accurately?
And then all you have to do is put evaluations in place to make
sure that checks are taking place.
So it's not like you're going to ChatGPT or some, even GPT and saying, do this
for me and then just accepting it.
No, you're saying do this for me and then you have checks and measures to
make sure that it was done correctly as it's, as the information and the, the
processes are going through that workflow.
Alex: I think the way I'm thinking about this is, there is some good
patterns that you can follow in order to identify the use cases with
the highest return on investment.
Looking more traditionally, thinking of your core process and doing like a
little bit of a six sigma or something, and just focusing on what would have
been more the territory of traditional machine learning algorithm, predictive
analytics, in investment banking, of course, focused on the numbers.
there is a certain number use cases for that as well.
But I think what you were referring to is different pattern, as I would name it.
Because now it's something that is more on the research side, on the
scaling outreach or communications.
It's not directly an actor of the process.
It's more like something used to augment the capability of
the human actors of the process.
Would you agree with that?
Fahed: Yeah, absolutely.
with all businesses, the number one expense in every business without fail is
always going to be human resources, right?
And it's not about eliminating the human resources.
It's about using the human resources more efficiently and more effectively, right?
Because if you take a company, let's say, for example, these
guys have two research analysts.
And now they want to add a third.
Why do they want to add a third?
they want to add a third because the first two are feeling they can't handle
the capacity that's being asked of them.
Okay, how about if we reduce the demand on those two, right?
So we don't need to hire the third anymore.
Now let's imagine we reduce, they were thinking about going from two to three.
And now we've reduced the burden from two to one.
If it's a small company, they don't need to let go of that second person.
Now what they can do is they say, okay, what value do these two
bring that the AI can't bring, which is presenting it to clients.
So let's improve, let's upskill them in their presentation skills.
Let's upskill them in their communication skills so that now they
can be presenting these to clients, whether it's through presentations.
or through, online presentations and so on.
that's the biggest thing is always going to be the cost of human resources.
And the goal is not to reduce the cost so that you get rid of the human resources.
Although truth be told in very large corporates, that is a thing, but in
small corporates, it's about becoming more efficient, small, more efficient
and more effective with the workforce.
Alex: That's a very interesting observation.
How it creates a slightly more level playing field between the
larger and the smaller corporates.
And that's maybe one of the myths that concerns a lot of people.
Are companies is going to be letting go of people en mass?
But there is something that's related to that, that I think
is also a valid concern.
And I wanted to get your take on it.
So in, in the scenario you were giving with, team doing something
for a small organization that might have gone from two to three.
Very often, this is also down to the natural progression that
we all aspire to in our jobs.
We join companies, maybe as juniors at least for the specific
role, we develop in that role.
And then eventually we are asked to take responsibility for onboarding more junior
members of the team who, in order to bring themselves up to speed initially
deal with some of the more mundane tasks.
And that's a bit of a generalization, of course, but I do think that this
is a typical pattern for how human teams organize, but how does, from your
perspective, does the introduction of AI tools who are taking care of the
more mundane tasks affect this dynamic?
Fahed: The first effect, unfortunately, and I have children that are in university
now, and the traditional career paths that we thought we would see them taking, where
they go and get experience as juniors and then they graduate from there and so on.
the first thing AI is doing is even eliminating the need for juniors.
And, that is, overall, I think that's a devastating impact on the world.
Because that kind of mundane work was the buffer between a life of studies and
the life of more advanced work, right?
So that's the first thing.
The second thing, from a future of work point of view, is that where is
the value of humans in the AI era?
The value of humans is When AI can do so many of the tasks that so many of us
used to be able to do is in two places.
Number one in being able to direct the AI.
Being able to work with the AI to produce the results.
Now, I don't know if you remember many years ago, there was a film called Aliens.
And Sigourney Weaver, the female actress, she has to beat these aliens.
And the only way she can do that was to step into this exoskeleton,
like this huge metal suit.
And despite her being quite a weak human being, when she stepped into
this big machine, now she could command all sorts of superpower.
So that's the first value that we will have, in the future of work is our
ability to work with the AI, because the AI has proven itself to be so
competent, to be so effective, to be so efficient, but it's not running by itself.
It still needs direction.
It still needs people to work with it and make sure that it's
doing what it's supposed to do.
And the second area where we will be valuable is contributing
towards the AI engine.
When we think about the current workforce, everybody in the current
workforce who still wants to be valuable in the AI era, not only do they need
to understand how to work with the AI, but they also need to understand how to
contribute to their company's AI engine.
If these research analysts, for example, they have to be thinking themselves,
Oh my god, we're doing this process.
It's taking us this much time.
With AI, couldn't we do this much quicker?
Hey, boss, I have an idea.
If we work with AI, we could do this and this and this and this, and
this will speed things up and so on.
He or she now becomes very valuable to the company because he's a
contributor to their AI engine.
And then the third area where of course will be valuable is actually
the human interaction element, right?
Especially if you're in a high value business like investment management
where you are dealing with ultra high net worth individuals, you are
dealing with banks, you're dealing with a whole lot of high profile people
who are demanding human connection.
So anywhere that human connection is needed, will all still be relevant.
So AI is going to affect, it has already started to affect all of these dynamics.
It's moving at different speeds in different places, different
cities, different regions, different industries, and so on.
And the question that we all have to be asking is how we can stay relevant
in the face of AI's rising relevance?
Alex: Very good.
So adaptability was your third point, and I guess that relates to what each of
us, when we come to work have to embrace.
And then the first two you've mentioned is using the exoskeleton from Alien.
So being, ready at work to, take on these, very powerful tools.
And the second you said was to contribute to them.
But now I'd like to also look at it from the perspective of leadership, right?
And I know you've been working a lot with, corporates.
So what kind of definition do you give them when you start working with them?
They say, we want to learn a tool.
You say, hold on.
it's AI literacy.
It's not just a tool.
And so what do you say to them?
What is that thing that they now need to embrace from a leadership perspective?
Fahed: Actually, I try not to say anything.
I try to give them a firsthand experience.
So when working with leaders of large enterprises, what we do in advance
of any training that we do is that we do background research to understand
the company in full, as well as understanding the leadership themselves.
So we will go in and make profiles for each of the participants
that we know will be there.
We then use the company information and the profiles of each of the individuals
and we create micro AI models.
Where effectively, the AI knows exactly who is using the AI at that
moment we'll have one AI that is trained as the CFO of that company.
We'll have one AI that is trained as the CEO of that company.
when these leaders sit down to have their conversations, we give them a
bunch of conversations to have, and we give them some guided conversations.
So they themselves experience the level where the AI has reached in understanding
the nuances of their individual roles and their responsibilities with the company.
So we could have something like, having the CMO asking a question, literally
opening up the model and saying something like, where do you think we might
be going wrong with our marketing?
And instantly the AI is talking in the context of their specific company.
Knowing that it's speaking to the CMO, which is the most
senior marketer in the company.
And so the CMO, the CFO, the CEO, all of them are having uh, the
AI epiphany moments, where now without being told anything about
AI, they're having a taste of how advanced the intelligence has become.
And that's the most important point, Alex, is that people need to understand
that we're talking about an intelligence.
We're not talking about a tool.
We're not talking about chatbots.
We're not talking about, any of these surface level things.
What we're talking about is a new type of intelligence.
It's a synthetic intelligence that can emulate the intelligence of human beings.
And so when they experience it, emulate their own intelligence, that's when
they have the moment that they realize, oh my god, this thing is serious.
Okay, I'm focused now.
Let's talk.
Help me understand.
How do we deploy this intelligence in the service of our company?
How do we deploy this intelligence in the service of our staff?
How do we deploy this intelligence in the pursuit of our short term
goals and our long term goals?
What are the opportunities that this intelligence can provide us?
What are the challenges, the threats, the risks, the mitigations?
How are we going to now bring this into our company?
What's involved?
So it all starts without telling them anything.
It starts with letting them experience it.
Once they've experienced it, now we can start moving forward.
Alex: Amazing.
Thank you very much for sharing this unique insight.
And as we're about to wrap up, is there one thing that you would expect
to remain constant 10 years from now?
Fahed: the only constant that we have is change now.
The situation we're in, as I explained to corporate leaders, I said, look, for the
last 10, 20, 30 years, it's like we've been, it's like you've been racing in a
race, if you go to the F1, whether it's in Qatar or Azerbaijan or Abu Dhabi or
straight, like anywhere you go for an F1 race, you're going to find the same teams.
Every team knows who's racing, every team knows the tracks, they know the
turns, they know everything about everything, and now all they've been
doing is making these small changes.
In the last two years, and that's basically what the corporate
world has been like for the last 10, 20, 30, 50, 100 years.
And two years ago, the race owners came along and said, okay,
we're changing the race now.
Rule number one, the previous maximum speed is now the minimum speed.
Rule number two, there's no pit stops anymore.
You have to just keep going.
Number three, we're changing the track and we're building it as you go along.
You can't prepare for it.
There's no preparation anymore.
We're building the track as we go along and good luck.
So we're in, it's going to keep on changing and changing and changing.
And that's where that whole adaptability that you highlighted earlier on
is the importance of adaptability.
And adaptability, it's not just about mindset.
It's also about resources.
You can have the most adaptable mindset on earth, but you also have to put
resources to support that adaptability.
And I think that's going to be, maybe they even need to make an adaptability budget
from now on, 5% adaptability budget.
Alex: All right.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's a very nice metaphor.
I'm sure I'll be using that.
And I think with that, Fahed, it's been a real pleasure.
Thank you very much.
Fahed: Thank you for having me.
Alex: Fahed argues that adaptability and AI literacy are no longer optional.
Companies that use AI wisely see major efficiency gains.
But success isn't just about technology, it's about people.
The best leaders ensure AI helps their teams work smarter, not replaces them.
Fahed's journey leaves us with a key question though.
As AI transforms business, how will you keep your organization ahead?
To continue the conversation, connect with him on LinkedIn.
The link is in the description.
As always, we have more exciting topics and guest appearances lined up, so
stay tuned for more tales of innovation that inspire, challenge, and transform.
Until next time, peace.