Using AI to Prove Member Value and Future-Proof Associations With Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Full Transcript

Bill Sheehan:

Welcome to Learning By Association, a podcast brought to you by D2L, where we delve into the ever-evolving world of associations and the challenges they face in navigating the currents of change. I’m Bill Sheehan and I’m thrilled to be your host. Join me and our guests as we explore the role learning plays in driving associations forward and how it can impact every part of your organization from recruiting to engagement and renewals to staff development, business strategy, and more. So let’s dive in.

Hello, everyone. Bill Sheehan here, global head of association strategy for another, I think, creative Learning by Association podcast, and I’m basically honored and excited to be joined today by Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. I have been reading about some of the stuff that you have been doing with organizations and with associations, and I think some of the stuff you’re touching on is so critical and sometimes overlooked in the association space, and I know in other organizations as well. But for those of you who don’t know Dr. Gleb, and I apologize, Dr. Gleb in advance if I don’t give you a great bio, but you really are a globally recognized behavioral scientist.

You’re also a very bestselling author and you’re the future work strategist. And you spend a lot of your time helping leaders, both association leaders and organizational leaders, navigate the risk and opportunities of emerging technologies like AI, which we’re going to talk about today. But you’re the CEO of the future work of consultancy, Disaster Avoidance Experts, where you advise leaders on strategic decision making, risk management, hybrid, and remote work, and the practical adaption of generative AI, which I’m very interested in. And you really have been on the cutting edge of thought leadership, and you’ve been featured, I know, in the Harvard Business Review, Fortune Magazine, USA Today, CBS News, Fox News, Time, Business Insider, New York Times, just to name a few.

But you’ve also authored a lot of books as well, including ChatGPT for Leaders and Content Creators: Unlocking the Potential of Generative AI. And so you’ve really been in this, I think, AI for a while and has seen a lot of the changes. And today I just would like to talk to you a little bit about where you see AI affecting associations, how they can use AI, why it’s really not a choice anymore for AI. And so I wanted to jump into that. And so one, thank you for your time, and I just want to make sure I didn’t miss anything on your introduction, unless there’s some other things you’d like to add to that.

Dr. Gleb:

No, that’s pretty good. Thank you. The only thing in terms of specific association work, I’m a regular columnist for Associations Now, so that’s kind of another something that folks in the association space would know me from. So you’ve probably seen a bunch of my articles there specifically on AI.

Bill Sheehan:

Yeah. In fact, I’ve talked to a few CEOs who have mentioned you. So I’m really glad to have you on this podcast. I think there’s going to be some interesting things. One of the thing… And I’m going to kind of approach this from a big picture strategy, AI as a strategic asset. I’ve been in the association space for a little over 33 years, and I’ve seen some disruptors along the way. Obviously, the worldwide web, we saw COVID, we’ve had some economic downturns that have affected the industry. One of those biggest disruptors that I was involved in was that the advent of the internet and worldwide web and how that really changed moving from associations having a monologue with their membership. Usually it was one-way through newsletters or through magazines or the like, and when the web came on, it really opened up a dialogue. So now there could be some feedback and so forth.

And that took years to really to get involved in the association space. And you’ve probably seen this more than I, but AI as a strategic asset now, it’s happening, I think, four or five, six times faster than the web hit. What was happening six months ago is so much different now. So one of the things I was… From your perspective, what do you see are the most transformative ways AI can add value to an association, say, over the next year, two years, not the three to five, but really in the next year or two?

Dr. Gleb:

So I think the problem that so many associations are dealing with is decreasing member retention and specifically in the context of even if their profession is expanding. So basically less and less people in their profession are actually joining and staying members in association. That I think is the fundamental threat to associations going forward. The association membership is going more gray and it’s decreasing. I’ve been seeing this trend for a while and it has really accelerated with the pandemic, when people lost the habit of going to association meetings and some people have not picked it back up yet. And so some people may never pick it back up, especially young people. There’s a lot of worries and concerns among the more strategically-minded association leaders about, “Hey, how can we actually get people who are in the profession to see the value of association membership?”

And so AI I think is going to be the critical technology that’s going to enable associations that are going to survive and thrive to show members the value of association membership, both because associations can use AI to deliver their services more effectively and more efficiently. By more efficiently, I mean, using less resources to do the same thing. So basically you don’t need to increase membership fees. You can even decrease membership fees if that’s a road you want to go down and AI can provide alternative source of revenue, but that’s, I think… We can talk about that later. I’ll put a pin into that and I’ll give some examples of that. But basically, if you are using AI, you can keep membership fees stable or even decrease them, which of course, attracts more members while also delivering services that are far superior to anything you can deliver without AI. So that’s the more effective.

So both more effective, meaning doing more with the same resources. So AI enables associations to be both more efficient and more effective. When I usually work with associations, I see the first focus being on efficiency because that’s the easiest way to make headway. When you think about association AI adoption, there are a lot of people who are hyping the AI and saying, “You really need to change your workflows to adopt AI. That’s really what you need to do,” and I really don’t see that. I think that that causes a lot of resistance in a position among association staff and association volunteers, among chapters, even sometimes members, if you’re trying to change your workflows. So what I recommend associations do first is focus on efficiency, meaning making existing workflows more efficient so that you don’t need to hire more people to actually deliver the same level of service as your costs are increasing, which of course is happening right now with inflation and so on for many associations.

So that’s AI 101, efficiency, which is where I think most associations should start. The second is effectiveness. Once you are more comfortable using AI, that’s when you can use AI to be more effective, to deliver new services, to improve your workflows and processes. That can only happen once the staff and the volunteers are comfortable using AI to boost their efficiency and they don’t feel fear that replacement, which so many association staff fear. That’s a huge fear, huge anxiety. We can talk about that later that really impedes effective adoption at associations. And that’s when associations start with this complex tool that’s meant to provide better services and then staff don’t use it and it’s a problem. So that should be really 201, not 101.

So that’s where I see AI as the key strategic differentiator for associations that want to stop the bleeding of losing members and instead expand into the membership space within their profession because honestly, most associations don’t have too much competition. Their competition is just people not seeing value. So unlike companies which really do have to at some point reduce headcount if they’re going to compete with others, there’s limited market out there. Associations don’t have that much of a limited market. The vast amount of majority of associations are in a situation where their market is much bigger than the actual people who they’re reaching.

Bill Sheehan:

Yeah, that’s a very good point. Some of the surveys out there by companies like McKinley Advisors and so forth and Marketing General, they’ve done some surveys in the marketplace. And one of the biggest concerns, top concerns… The top concern has been producing non-dues revenue, the diversifying revenue streams. But right up there, I think in the top three is increasing organizational efficiencies, which you’ve just touched on. Because what has happened, and you’re familiar with this, what happened in the pandemic, it forced associations to move much quicker than they normally do. It also had an adverse effect on two things. Their budgets were cut because people weren’t joining, they weren’t getting reimbursed, and then because of that, they had to reduce staff. And so what didn’t change was current members’ expectations. So they literally had to do more with less.

And I want to get your perspective on this, because you and I spoke about this briefly before, is that there seems to be a hesitancy in allowing AI into the association, and I understand it from certain verticals, say, the pharmaceutical. You got to be very careful, you constantly got to trust but verify using AI to produce policy statements on stuff that’s affecting state, local, and national government, you just got to trust and verify. But I’ve seen, and maybe you have too, just this hesitancy to really accept and incorporate AI into the association. And I was speaking recently and I asked the audience, “How many of you feel like you’re cheating when you use a ChatGPT or some other generative AI?” And about half of them raised their hand, I was like, “It’s a tool. It can be a tool and it can be used in so many different ways.”

So how do associations overcome that speed bump, if you will, or that hurdle of saying, “Hey, AI is here. It’s not going away, and if you don’t get into it now, you can’t catch up. AI just won’t allow you to catch up.”? So I mean, have you been talking to some… With transformative type of change in the association, have you been seeing some of the same type of hesitancies or concerns about employing AI?

Dr. Gleb:

Absolutely. And so the concerns I think stem from a lot of black box tools that they’re seeing, tools that are being offered to associations that are not clear about how they function and that association staff and leaders are worried will replace their jobs. That I think is the fundamental threat, the fundamental anxiety that causes leaders and staff to be worried about AI, and the solution to that that I’ve seen to be most promising is to demystify AI, to instead of offering complex black box tools, like I don’t build complex tools for associations to just take and use, that’s kind of black box tool approach. Instead, what I work on with associations is using no-code, low-code tools that are as easy to learn as learning Excel. So if you can learn Excel, if you can learn a CRM, you can learn no-code low-code tools.

That’s essentially using what’s called natural language programming. You might’ve heard this term within AI, where you’re basically providing it with instructions for the system prompt, which is the system instructions in the backend of how to engage with your responses, with your input, with the user’s input, and then providing it with a knowledge base of how to engage with the user’s input. Those types of tools, no-code, low-code tools where you’re coding is essentially just this natural language programming. The information you’re giving it as a knowledge base and the instructions that you’re giving it as a knowledge base really helps demystify AI tools for association and helps people, staff members, volunteers even actually build their own AI tools. So that’s when you are getting into building the AI tool that you don’t feel like you’re cheating because you are actually building the tool.

So for example, a pretty common tool for associations is a communication tool, let’s say social media. So right now, traditionally associations have a staff member who spends a bunch of time working to customize social media posts from association content that goes into their LinkedIn, into their X, into their Facebook, into their Instagram, into their TikTok if they’re hip and trendy, and then they have a scheduling tool that schedules all this stuff and they have to have a lot of variety of posts and they have to customize it. They have to create graphics for each one. That’s a bunch of work. And that is a tool that is very, very easily replicated. So people do it by hand. Now, if you use natural language programming to work with, let’s say, Microsoft Copilot if you’re a Microsoft shop, or you can use Gemini, Google Gemini if you’re a Google shop, or you can use ChatGPT or Anthropic Claude. Those are really the four companies you should be using. You shouldn’t be using anything else.

You can use those, just a regular platform itself to create what’s called a Custom GPT using their backend. It’s very accessible where you upload certain instructions for how your branding should look and how typical examples of your social media posts of your LinkedIn, Facebook and so on, and then you provided those examples and you provide it with instructions on how to create those posts. Then when you have something, let’s say your association puts out a newsletter, you put the newsletter text into the prompt and you ask it to come up with five posts for LinkedIn, five posts for Twitter, five posts, whatever. You ask it to come up with images for each, and you ask it to come up with videos if you’re using TikTok or Instagram, and then it just produces those tools or those assets.

And that’s great. That’s very handy and convenient, saves a bunch of time, enables folks to do more with less, and people who are building that tool, that’s the association staff, that’s the social media staff, that’s the communication staff, they understand how it’s built. They can see transparently that, “Hey, I provided you with instructions on knowledge base of previous examples of successful posts and instructions on specific content, specific ways we want to frame our posts for various social media.” And they can change those instructions and it’ll produce different content. So they feel much more comfortable with it.

So when they say it’s cheating, the real thing that they’re expressing is anxiety and resistance and confusion and uncertainty. They feel that it’s cheating to use a black box tool, but when they understand how to use it, they build it themselves, they feel a sense of ownership, calm, and they can also then create many, many other tools. And it’s just using social media as an example, right? There are tons of other tools that you can create. I can give many more examples of stuff I’ve worked with associations on building that serve the same function and work in the same way, in a demystified way that help association staff and leaders and even volunteers feel comfortable building and using AI tools.

Bill Sheehan:

Yeah, it’s funny you say… What you’re talking about right now in essence can sound very complicated or challenging to do. And there’s an old saying, I think it was Einstein said that to make something very complicated seem simple is a sign of genius. And I think you did something recently with an association, I believe it may have been American Society of Nondestructive Testing, where you actually worked with some of the attendees, members, staff on how to create an AI tool or something. Explain to me… Because I think associations need to hear this, that it’s not something that requires a lot of time and a lot of effort and schooling and what have you, but some of this stuff is kind of easy to produce and it produces pretty good results based upon the human intelligence that you’re inputting.

So every association’s different. And if you can help create some of those chatbots or some of those AI tools for an association, it’s not as hard as it seems. In fact, you did it right during a session. Can you talk a little bit about that, if you’re allowed to, on how you did that and what the results were and what the acceptance of the attendees were about developing an AI tool?

Dr. Gleb:

I’ll be happy to talk about that, and it’s publicly available knowledge. Associations Now, the ASA magazine will publish an article about it in the next couple of months about what we did. So very public knowledge. So with the Association of American Society for Nondestructive Testing, what we did was at their annual conference, we did a pre-conference workshop where a selected group of people, I believe it was 20 people, were invited to… Well, they registered. We had a big waiting list, so that was nice that there was a lot of interest.

They registered for what’s called what we call the ASNT Battle of the AI Agents, and so here’s what it looked like: What the broad overview was that I explained and showed the background of exactly what I talked through earlier, how do you build an agent using specifically ChatGPT as a tool? So how do you build that agent and with some examples specific to nondestructive testing, and then the attendees had their own accounts, and this was just the typical $20 a month paid account, don’t need anything complex, and they used those accounts to produce tools specifically helpful for their jobs, so specifically as something that they would use in non-destructive testing. So they came up with everything from reporting to actual creating schematics that were surprisingly complex using the graphic ability of these tools to purchasing agents that would help them decide and evaluate various things that they would purchase within non-destructive testing.

My workshop, my initial workshop was two hours, and then we spent something like around four hours in a facilitated session where I coached them as… I coached teams of something like three to four people who were working as teams to build those tools, and I helped them out as they had questions. Then the next day was a little bit more building and me coaching, and then we had a public presentation where every team actually presented their tools, and these were ready tools. They’re ready to use, ready to rock. So people were able to show the tools that they built that are ready to use for actual nondestructive testing purposes. They built them in less than 24 hours. And in fact, just six hours of facilitated coaching, and so they previously took two hours to learn, so six hours, and maybe they worked at it a little bit in the evening between the first day and the second day.

Then they presented, and then judges evaluated the quality and awarded the winning team free registration to next year’s conference. And that’s excellent, but more strategically for the association for ASNT, they were able to show members the value of AI and they were able to put themselves in a position of thought leadership, demonstrating to their profession how they are on the cutting edge, the association itself, is in the cutting edge of AI adoption and how they will help their members adopt AI. And now the next steps is to work with the members and seeing the commercialization, the revenue generation potential of the tools they build because the association is going to gather these tools and offer them to members in revenue sharing agreements, and that is another benefit of the kind of options that are offered.

One of the tools that was built was actually had to do with a vendor. So vendor provided information… I mentioned the purchasing tool. So this was specific to a vendor that provided, I think was Boston Scientific, provided information about their specific catalog, and so the tool would take a prompt. So there was a question about what kind of nondestructive testing do you want to do, and then it would search within the Boston Scientific catalog for the best tool out of the many hundreds that are available to actually perform this and explain how you would use this tool and then explain, “Okay, so this is how you would use the tool, and this is how you would actually buy the tool. This is why it’s better than other options.” And so that provides a natural additional revenue-generating opportunity for associations, not only offering the AI agents themselves that members create, but also collaborating with vendors to then offer sponsored tools to their membership.

So there’s plenty of revenue opportunities, revenue-generating opportunities we can talk about. And so those are the spinoffs from this type of event. So an association is really in a win-win-win position. It’s winning through thought leadership, it’s winning through showing value to its members, and it’s winning through revenue generation in a number of ways.

Bill Sheehan:

Yeah, I talked to Neal Corture, who’s the CEO of American Society of Non-Destructive Testing about that. And he said it was phenomenal. He said the results of that, the members, all the attendees thought it was one of the best things that they’ve seen in many, many years, and so I think that’s very positive. One of the other things too, I think that’s important, that shows the value of AI, how it can help the members of an association. But you touched on something I think is just as important, and this is the relevancy of associations. The members of that particular industry, be it nondestructive testing or construction or nursing or engineering or whatever the vertical is, they’re looking to the association to be that leader, to be that thought leader, to be on the top of that technology or technological wave and providing a path to the future as an organization, and I think that’s a very, very good example of what ASNT did about saying, “This is the new world, you’re going to need upskilling, you’re going to need to know how to use it.”

Are associations coming to you also to say, “Hey, Dr. Gleb, how do we become that leader?” And I mean, a lot of our members are kind of experimenting with AI because they have to, they have to remain competitive. Are you working with some organizations, nonprofits, or some of the associations on how they need to kind of rise above that clutter and be that leader and take the reins and say, “This is how AI can not only improve the business for your members, but also how it can improve organizational efficiencies for the association itself.”? Are you having some of those type of engagements with organizations?

Dr. Gleb:

Yeah, so that would be some of the 201 engagements that I mentioned. So when associations typically start by figuring out how they can use… And ASNT is already using AI internally, and so they’re at the phase where they were more comfortable presenting it to members. In fact, they have a chatbot tool on their website, which is definitely something that all associations… I’m surprised when I see an association that doesn’t have a chatbot tool on its website that is trained on the association’s materials and is able to answer some questions for members, and we can talk about that. That’s a very basic, easy thing to do. Now, in terms of offering the ability to members, we have to think about where members are coming from. Just like association staff, members are worried, they’re scared about being replaced by AI. This is a pervasive fear.

There was a peer research survey that showed that 50% of Americans are more anxious than excited about AI. Only 10% are more excited than anxious, and so this is just an example of many, many other surveys that show the same thing. People are worried about their jobs being replaced by AI. So your association members are worried about their jobs being replaced by AI and you as an association need to provide a guiding light. Why should they keep paying their membership fees, basically? Why should they keep being a member of the association if you’re not providing leadership on this fundamental question, which will become only more and more fundamental as AI is increasingly impacting the economy. It’s already very clearly, we already have research showing that it’s impacting junior roles. So when you’re thinking about who you want to join your association, of course, if people don’t join when they’re junior, then they will be unlikely to join when they’re mid-career or senior. So you really want those junior folks to join.

And if the junior folks are not seeing you provide thought leadership, then you’re losing their lifetime value from the beginning. They know and they see that their job market prospects are getting more and more bleak. So how do you actually provide them with value? How do you provide them with comfort that, hey, they can still have a job in the future? Well, guess what? The people who participated in this workshop, the ASNT workshop, and they learned the ability to build AI tools that will help make them more efficient than other non-destructive testing professionals, they will be the ones who keep their jobs.

They will be the ones who keep their jobs when you’re thinking about how many nondestructive testing professionals do we need in the company? How many people does Shell need? It’s like, okay, if you are able to use other tools like AI to make your job more efficient, then you’re going to be much, much more likely to get a job. I mean, looking at all the job postings, AI skills are pretty much becoming more and more pervasive in nearly every type of profession that you can think of.

And going to this type of event and the training that I did for ASNT is something that will definitely build your AI skills, and you can have that agent in your portfolio that you can demonstrate, here’s an agent I built and here’s how it will make my work more efficient, and the work of all of your other nondestructive testing professionals who work at your company more efficient. I’m 20 and they’re 50 and they can benefit from my skills with AI, they can use the tools that I build. So people will be much happier and more excited about joining an association that’s providing them with this information.

Now, how associations tend to do it, there are two ways. One is they start with… And what typically happens is they start with using the AI tools internally and then seeing, okay, we can use these tools. Now let’s think about the value that we can provide to members through training them on how to use these tools to volunteers, to members, and offering training. So that’s kind of going into that next 201 phase of providing value. Some skip that and they just ask me to do this type of training, the one I did for ASNT, I done this for other associations as well. So the S&T is just one example of an association with which I did this training. So doing this sort of training for members even before they start adopting it massively internally, but most associations start adopting it internally and then start offering trainings to their members.

Bill Sheehan:

Yep. In fact, it’s funny you say that with ASNT. I think Neal actually has the chatbot as part of the organizational chart. So that’s truly incorporating it in there. One of the things that you’re touching on is the use of AI from a staff standpoint to help increase organizational efficiencies and uncover a lot of the content that an association has. They’re sitting on a gold mine, by the way. I mean, there’s just an enormous amount of content. But a recent study done by Tagoras found about the association marketplace that one of the top values that associations are seeing now is learning, to provide learning and education and training. And what’s happening now, it used to be considered as a program of the association. We had a learning program. Now it’s part of the strategy. It is a strategy. It’s in everything they do.

And we at D2L, we’re seeing a lot of that where associations are saying, “Hey, we need to update our content. We need to modernize our content. We need to update a lot of our content delivery systems, our learning management system to really maximize AI and the content we have, combining that and allowing that younger audience who wants to advance in their career and really having a personalized experience,” and the association can provide, but you touched on it… Somebody who’s been in the marketplace for 30 years as opposed to somebody who’s been in the marketplace for three years, the information they want to get from an association is going to be much different, and in the past, it’s been very difficult for associations to provide that. Now with AI, you’ve just demonstrated this, this can be done within 24 hours.

And so are you working with associations on really utilizing AI on multiple facets? One that we can kind of uncover the content to kind of go in and find the content and see what we have, as well as being able to provide a personalized experience for Dr. Gleb versus Bill coming into the association. Are you working with associations on that type of scenario and application?

Dr. Gleb:

Yes. So you mentioned the chatbot or we both mentioned the chatbot that ASNT is using. So that’s a perfect example of how you can do exactly that. And so associations that are thinking ahead are creating learning chatbots. So this is a chatbot that’s trained on the association’s content, and then association members can ask it questions. So the way that ASNT has it is that you can go to their website right now and you can talk to the agent for free, like the chatbot. It’s called Anita. So you don’t need to sign into their membership, but it’s limited. So it will not give you thorough, customized responses. If you sign in and show that you’re a member, then for members, it will give you a much more thorough and in-depth response and it will be much more customized to you as an individual. And so this is a fundamental basic tool that is quite, quite easy to set up for associations that as you rightly point out, Bill, they’re sitting in a gold mine of content.

And so what they need to do is simply combine that content into an appropriate database that they would feed into the chatbot, that’s going to be the knowledge piece, and then provide with instructions on how to answer and then provide two versions of the chatbot, one that’s smart, that’s gated and one that’s not quite as advanced. So the less advanced one can use something like Claud Anthropic 3.5 and the more advanced one can use Claude Anthropic 4.5, for example, so more advanced version of the tool. Again, pretty easy to set up, easy to show how. And then you can also give instructions on how complex to make the answer. So the tool customizes learning to each individual person. When the person asks about, “Hey, here are some questions I have.” Then depending on the level of the question and the level of the complexity of the question, the tool can answer, the AI chatbot can answer the question.

Let’s say you signed in, you’re a member and can show you, okay, let’s say you’re trying to explore a new area of your profession and can answer those questions. Maybe you’re even experienced personally, you’re trying to explore in your new area, it can customize the answers to your knowledge base. And then if you’re experienced and senior, you can ask complex questions and it will customize its answers to your knowledge. So that’s great, but what’s even better, and this is something that we’re talking about with ASNT, is the next step from that. So changing the chatbot… The way that they currently have the chatbot is just a knowledge bot. So it provides knowledge, provides answers, which is very valuable for members. But what we’re going to do next is going to get to the second part of your question, Bill, which is providing them with more customized tools.

So the next part of it is what we’re working on with ASNT, discussing with ASNT is how can the chatbot specifically offer people revenue-generating learning tools, some revenue-generating, some not. So let’s say it can offer them webinars, past webinars that members can access for free. Great. So that’s obviously providing them with additional value besides just answering their question if they can watch a thorough webinar on a topic that the chatbot can’t answer in a short chat, so that’s great. But then they also provide information on classes that are offered that are paid classes that the association offers, some CLEs that the association offers. And so then they can say, “Okay, here you can take these to further deepen your knowledge,” and that’s obviously a revenue-generating tool. Then if the member signed in, which here we’re talking about that one, the association can have knowledge about that member, which is another something we haven’t talked about, but AI is a great knowledge gathering tool about your members.

And so when you have that chatbot tool talking to the member, you save that conversation and so you can then have these sorts of revenue generation that’s going to be customized to this particular individual over time. And so that is another huge benefit of AI tools is the personalization that you can offer to members because you have more information about them and the AI tool can automatically… You can set it up to automatically have that personalization and revenue generation through a process that you develop, and it’s not that complex to develop. It’s a little bit more complex obviously than just a knowledge management tool. But with that upselling, revenue generation and coupons and so on and personalization, that’s a huge benefit that you offer to members while also improving your bottom line.

Bill Sheehan:

And not only that, Dr. Gleb, what you see is a person’s needs and expectations are going to change throughout their career, and so a lot of associations back in the day, you had to do a lot of surveying to find out where you are in your current professional cycle, and then you had to adapt accordingly, and that could take months. Now, I think with AI and some of these tools, you can adapt as long as the individual is self-selecting that, “I don’t need this anymore. I need this new information that you can provide me,” and AI can do that, because we have seen the very same results here at D2L. We have AI built into our learning management system, and what we have seen from an association standpoint is actually increased engagement and satisfaction because a lot of the SMEs, when they were developing courses and training and the like, and it would take weekends. They’d have to fly in somewhere and sit down and read books, do the tests and create this.

Now it can be done in a matter of hours versus a matter of days using our system, and the SMEs, the subject matter experts, have been thrilled. They’re seeing increased engagement. The SMEs themselves are now beginning to promote the value of the association out and learning and what have you, all because the learning management system that we have here at D2L allowed them to do that, but that was AI. And you’ve touched on something that I think is critically important is that when I was in the association space, the important feature was show me you know me. In other words, do you really know who I am as a person and can you provide me the content? And I think what you just touched on is AI can now do that automatically and then adapt as your expectations change as well. And so now you’re saying they’re constantly seeing the relevancy of that organization, but I think at times, I think associations don’t know where to start.

Where do we start with this? When you’re working with associations, there’s usually a tip of the spear. It might be education or it might be automating a typical task either in your government affairs or your HR department or your accounting communications events. When you work with associations, I mean, what are you telling them like, “Hey, you can’t do it all at once.” What’s that tip of the spear? What’s that point where you go into an association and say, “Hey, let’s start small. Let me show you this and then let’s work from there.” Are you helping associations say, “Hey, don’t get too anxious. Let’s focus on one thing where this can work and then you can see the results.”? Are you helping associations do that as well?

Dr. Gleb:

Yeah. So the most typical things that I see… There are three typical things that I see associations start with. One is communication. So I mentioned social media as an example. So social media is one area that’s very easy to automate and have AI tools that take a lot of burden of your communication staff and allow them to focus on more high level, high touch engagement with members. And social media, that’s just one example. Obviously you could do the same thing for blogs, you can do the same thing for newsletters.

So much of what associations do is communication to their members, and that is a great area to start with in order to have your staff members… Again, the goal is to have your staff members… Reduce that anxiety. So one of my, I have a new book coming out with Georgetown University Press called the Psychology of AI Adoption Network, and we studied the psychology of AI adoption and the biggest, biggest barrier whenever people talk about cheating or whatever they talk about is anxiety, is fear of the unknown. And that is an area that is very easy to address by starting with communications tools that they know how to build themselves and how to reprogram.

So that’s one big area, communications. A second area that I mentioned or that we talked about already is these chatbots. So associations that are forward-thinking and that want to actually provide value to their members in the short term and demonstrate to their members that, “Hey, we are actually using AI. You should be using it too,” they are creating these chatbots of the type that ASNT has on their website. And creating a chatbot is not difficult at all. So you can use… Let’s say if you’re using Zapier, that’s going to be a… I have a chatbot on my website, disasteravoidanceexperts.com. You can go to it and check it out right now. It’s going to help you figure out what the best first use of AI is for your association. So that’s kind of the purpose of that chatbot. We pay a $40 a month subscription to Zapier for that, and then for Claude Anthropic usage that’s going to be based on how much usage there is. A typical conversation is going to be maybe something like five cents. So you definitely want to pay that money if your members are using it.

So having that both demonstrates that you’re technology-forward and provides value to your members. And again, that’s something that the association staff can build themselves because all it involves is having a knowledge base and having instructions on how the agent interacts with members. So that’s the second area that provides immediate value to members. And the third area is education, that you mentioned already.

It’s much, much easier to create educational materials using AI and you can create them in a more customized, personalized manner. You can put it into… One of the things that associations that serve globally, internationally do with AI education is translate their education materials into a whole variety of languages, and you can create not only images and infographics, but even videos using AI tools. So you can create a lot of content, educational content. Using AI tools that’s going to be much easier and faster than if you are using the typical human approach. And again, these are tools because people know how to create education, you create a knowledge base and you create instructions, and then you use that to create the actual content.

And so again, it demystifies the process. Staff feel comfortable with it, that they know how to do it, they know how to manage it. Volunteers, to the extent that they’re involved, feel comfortable with it, that they know how to use it, how to manage it. And so that’s a third area that I see associations as really excelling in when they’re starting to use AI. So that’s a third area depending on association priority that I start with.

Bill Sheehan:

Yeah, we’ve been seeing a lot of that too here at D2L. AI is first, right? We lead with AI. And the thing with associations is they represent a wide variety of members, and so accessibility is important. Some are audio learners, some are video learners, some are a combination, and we have found the success of our system utilizing AI is we can really base the way the content is presented to each particular individual based upon the need where they feel most comfortable and they can see the results. And so AI has really, really been effective for us. And so a few years ago, we really put our foot in the sand and said, “We’re going to lead AI-first. We’re going to lead with AI.” And we’re really helping associations, universities, and all types of K through 12 institutions really incorporate AI in a much more effective and efficient manner that we’re seeing.

But really, I think the acceptance of AI has to start at the top, and what I mean by that is with associations, that board of directors, which typically will dictate the policies of the organization, then the staff will implement those policies and procedures for the year, they have to be on board too. And so are you finding yourself maybe even talking to the boards about AI is not a nice to have, it’s a need to have. Are you seeing some of that?

Dr. Gleb:

So it’s funny that you should mention that. I recently did a LinkedIn poll on my profile, which I do regularly these LinkedIn polls. I have something like 30-ish-thousand people following me, so it’s pretty good representation of folks. So this had hundreds of votes. I asked, “What percentage of your leadership is pushing you to use AI?” And it was something like 65% of the folks who responded to the poll said that their leadership is pushing them to use AI. Then in a subsequent poll, separate poll, different, so it wasn’t polluted by the same question, I asked, “Is your leadership team modeling the use of AI?” And only 26% of leaders are modeling the use of AI. And so that I think is the gap. I think a lot of association leaders are interested and they are trying to encourage their employees to use AI, and the big gap is that only something, less than half of them are actually modeling AI usage themselves. And it’s kind of understandable.

Association leaders tend to be folks in their 50s and 60s, far from all of them are as tech-forward as Neal is at ASNT, and they are hesitant to use this newfangled technology themselves. They want others to use it because they have heard so much about it and they’ve seen the interviews like this one and articles and so on about how much benefits associations are seeing from AI. So they’re pushing for AI usage, but they’re not using it themselves, and I think that’s the huge problem in terms of leaders not really leading by example, because of course, leaders know… I mean, everyone knows, this is leadership 101, that your people are going to emulate your behavior regardless of what you say, they will focus on what you do, and if you don’t do AI, if you don’t use it yourself, if you don’t demonstrably use it and show how you use it, then people are going to not follow your directives, even though you may be directing them to use AI.

And so that gap between the 65% of who are strongly encouraging it and the 26% who are actually modeling using AI is a huge one. So that I think is a problem that leaders need to really look in the mirror and think about, hey, am I one of these people who is falling into this gap? Am I interested in AI usage, and if I am, am I actually modeling how to use it? Am I actually not simply pushing my people to use it? Am I, let’s say, bringing in a trainer? And then am I actually participating in the training? And then am I demonstrating what I learned in the training in the kind of communication I have with people and how I’m using AI and giving some examples of this usage?

And so that is a big, big conversation that I think leaders need to have with themselves and other members of their leadership team about how they’re going to be modeling the usage of AI in order to ensure that AI integration and adoption is going to be actually effective in their organization. Because unlike previous technologies… So unlike let’s say an AMS system. So an AMS system is very standardized. You use it in a very standardized way. It has a certain if this, then that quality, like a typical computer program, that’s what happens.

Bill Sheehan:

It’s very Boolean.

Dr. Gleb:

Yeah, exactly. Very Boolean. Exactly. Yes, no. And AI is very different. It is not a typical yes, no program. It’s not going to be something that you just tell everyone, “Here’s how you use it, and you should go ahead and use it.” Each staff member needs to adapt it to their specific needs. It’s an incredibly powerful and flexible tool, and the flexibility is the key here. It’s very powerful, and it’s also very flexible, and that means it’s not customized to your specific workflows and needs. So you need to get staff bought into it. And so I started from the beginning talking about demystifying it and getting staff bought into it. People need to learn how to use these no-code, low-code tools to actually build the AI agents, the AI solutions for their own specific areas and start using it themselves. And in order for that to happen, leaders need to not simply just push AI, they need to model AI usage, and they need to have appropriate training and guidance for their staff to demystify AI usage effectively, and they need to show themselves how they’re using AI as a role model.

Bill Sheehan:

Yeah, and I been trying to promote this too, those who hesitate will be overtaken. And there is this hesitancy of, like I said, just welcoming in and applying AI and accepting AI within your organization, and I really believe this is one of those things with the web, when that came on, you could kind of wait it a little bit, but then you kind of… The AI is so much different, and that’s why… And we just have a few minutes left here, but what would be your mantra? What would be your advice to those associations who are kind of waiting for… Remember there used to be back in the day when Sam Altman and Elon Musk and those guys would say, “Hey, we need to police AI. We need to put some constraints on this from a government standpoint.” You can’t. You can’t. AI will not allow you to try and control it. It will continue to grow on its own.

But what would be your advice or counsel for those associations or organizations who are reticent or hesitant about, I want to do AI, but we’re going to wait and see what happens, or we’ll wait till next quarter to bring in a trainer, or we’ll wait a few months to see. What’s your advice to those type of organizations thinking about we want to do it, but we want to do a calculated risk?

Dr. Gleb:

Sure, sure. So I tell them that I understand their anxiety and I understand their fear and understand their concerns, and so that’s something that is totally understandable that they’ve… I mentioned before that more than half of the population is more anxious than excited about AI usage. Only 10% are more excited than anxious. The rest are not sure. And so you have a lot of folks, a lot of association leaders in the camp that are more anxious than excited. For understandable reasons, it’s a very powerful technology. It’s no question that it’s going to be as impactful as the worldwide web and likely more impactful, because right now, we’re only seeing its impact in the digital sphere and it’s increasingly… We have those robots, talking about Elon Musk, how he’s producing the humanoid robots in Tesla factories, and well, no question that it will have an impact on the physical world. So right now it’s impacting the digital world, that it will become impact the physical world.

And so you as an association right now is the crucial time to decide whether you want to be a leader in this space or whether you want to let the rest of the world race ahead. And you can let the rest of the world race ahead, but you will never catch up. So this is the problem that right now AI is already… If you’re not working on AI right now, you’re already kind of behind. You should at least be… And I understand the concerns of folks. You should at least be working on developing your AI policies. Now, if anyone wants to email me at gleb, G-L-E-B, @disasteravoidanceexperts.com, I can send you sanitized templates of association AI policies, that’s not a problem, that will help you then develop your own AI policies and governance structures.

So many associations that are hesitant, I mentioned this because you asked about the hesitancy question, they want to start with developing the AI governance policies, and I understand that. I recommend that they start with a pilot because then you’re actually using AI practically and seeing how it’s being used, but some want to start with governance and policies. So fine. So start with governance and policies. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. I have templates I can send you. And so you can use those templates to establish your AI policies in advance and you can have… Right now is a great time for it in terms of strategic planning in the new year. So thinking about how you’re going to strategically integrate AI into your work is a very nice opportunity. Right now, a lot of associations are doing that. ASNT is doing that. A number of other associations I’m working with are working specifically on that, integrating AI into their strategic planning.

And so thinking about those policies, that could be an approach, that I have seen that help calm the anxieties of leadership teams that are hesitant and that they feel, okay, now at least we have policies, we can go ahead and start piloting. Like I said, I recommend that you start with a pilot so that you can practically see the benefits, but that’s something that the leaders have to choose.

Bill Sheehan:

I agree, and I think that pilot can help you establish those policies and procedures. They can help you formulate that. Dr. Gleb, this has been the fastest hour I’ve had in probably the whole year. I could go on forever. Do me one favor. Where can people… I know you gave your email address. Can you give your website again just because there’s a lot of resources that you have, and I think it would be very helpful for our listeners to come and spend some time on your site. So what’s the web address?

Dr. Gleb:

Disasteravoidanceexperts.com. So you can go… So the first word is disaster, then avoidance, and then ends with an E and then starts with an E, experts with an S.com. And my email is [email protected]. Happy to send you templates and other resources for that. You can also look it up on the contact page of the website.

Bill Sheehan:

Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if I have you back on a panel. Maybe I’ll get you and Neal on a panel together and we can talk about how the associations have done this. You’ve been wonderful. Thank you so much for your time and input. This has been great. I wish you happy holidays and I’m sure our paths will cross again.

You’ve been listening to Learning by Association, a podcast where we delve into the ever-evolving world of associations and the challenges they face in navigating the currents of change. This episode was produced by D2L, a global learning innovation company helping organizations reshape the future of education and work. To learn more about our solutions, please visit www.d2l.com. And don’t forget to subscribe so you can stay up to date with new episodes. Thanks for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.

Resources Discussed in the Episode

• How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society