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Career education is a vital pipeline to high demand jobs in the workforce. Students from all walks of life benefit from the opportunity to pursue their career education goals and find new employment opportunities. Join Dr. Jason Altmire, President and CEO of Career Education Colleges and Universities (CECU), as he discusses the issues and innovations affecting postsecondary career education. Twice monthly, he and his guests discuss politics, business, and current events impacting education and public policy.
Jason Altmire (00:00)
Hello and welcome to another edition of Career Education Report. I'm Jason Altmire and today we are going to talk about AI as we have done artificial intelligence many times before, but we have, and I know I've said this at other times, but we really do have one of the nation's foremost experts on how AI is impacting the future of work and the workforce more generally.
She is Kelly Monahan and she has started her own consulting firm related to this. is a public speaker, has gone all over the country. She is an accomplished author, wrote a bestselling book on some of these topics. She previously has been the managing director and she was the founder of the Upwork Research Institute, which did research on emerging technologies and workforce transformation. And she's held
leadership roles in the past with Meta, Accenture, and Deloitte shaping the future of work strategies and global organizations. So she really does know what she's talking about. And Kelly, we are thrilled to have you with us.
Kelly Monahan (01:10)
Thank you so much for having me today.
Jason Altmire (01:12)
Maybe start a little bit by talking about your current consulting firm and the work that you do.
Kelly Monahan (01:17)
Yeah, know, Jason, I don't know you feel the same way. just, so many leaders today and educators are at a crossroads of not knowing what to do with AI. And I think many people today are asking themselves, am I going to be on the right side of history? Am I going to be using this technology in a way that's creating jobs and augmenting workers? Or am going to be on the flip side and actually be on the wrong side of history and creating harm and using this as substitution and a lot of unintended consequences, you know, that may be happening with AI. So.
I decided to go all in and I'm helping advise executive leaders right now as they start incorporating AI into their workforce, how do they do this in a way that they're on the right side of history and really leave a legacy behind that helps us all as a society get better because of these tools and technologies that we now have.
Jason Altmire (02:01)
And I really feel like the need for this is great because people, would say myself included, who are not yet fully competent in AI and all the ways that we can use it to our benefit, I think are a little bit worried about where the future is going, how it's going to affect the workforce more because of the unknown nature.
than skepticism about the validity of it or the need for it, or even the success it's going to have moving forward. How do you address those topics of helping business leaders and organizations adjust to and become more comfortable with the concept of AI and being able to use it to their benefit?
Kelly Monahan (02:46)
That's such a great question. And here's one thing that I use examples of anytime, whether I'm giving a keynote or going in and doing advisory. Two examples to help ground us in the reality. One is the airline industry. We could have fully automated planes if we wanted to. We don't need pilots necessarily doing the takeoff and landing, but we still mandate a human in the loop to do those tasks and activities because it's the right thing to do to maintain that human muscle. God forbid there's an emergency and you need a human to take over. They need to have that level of
experience in order to do that. And so even though we could have fully automated airlines, we've decided that's probably not in the best interest as a society. And here's where we need humans in the loop. The second area is there's no reason to have checkouts anymore with humans at them. But the majority of grocery stores and retail still rely on human based checkouts because they found the customer experience needs them. And so what I am doing right now with a lot of executives is helping them figure out
What are your non-negotiables? What are things, no matter how good technology gets, that you are going to always have humans in the loop? I was with a hotel company the other day, and the gentleman said, you know what, Kelly? We're never going to automate that check-in experience. I want a human there at the desk. I want the very first point of contact, being a human. I don't care if the line gets long and it's not efficient, but that's what it is. You know, a table stakes for us. That's something that's a non-negotiable. And so I think what we have to do is take a big step back and figure out what is our brand value? What's our identity? Where do we
constantly want humans in the loop and no matter how good or bad the technology gets, those are going to be decisions you make that you're in control of and you're leading AI, not the other way around.
Jason Altmire (04:19)
You wrote an article last year that really struck me and it was related to how AI is reshaping the workforce. And so much has been written about that, but most of the concerns that you've heard people express are jobs that are going to go away displaced by the emergence of AI. You take a different viewpoint. I don't want to characterize what you've said, but you seem to be saying that AI is more of a benefit.
than a negative that people are going to be able to use AI in ways that will enhance their ability to carry out work and be productive in what they're doing. Can you talk a little bit more about that aspect? There's been so much fear of the jobs that are going to be lost. Whereas you focus more on how you can help people do their job.
Kelly Monahan (05:10)
So when I was at Upwork, the advantage was I saw an online labor market every day. And so for three years, as I was running the research institute, we would go in and actually see where is AI actually creating disruption on our platform? And I still hold this belief. There's very few full-time jobs that AI can come in and do a true substitution effect and say, hey, I'm a researcher. Kelly's not going to exist anymore. We're going to have AI do that.
I don't think that's what's gonna actually play out in the future. I just, don't see that reality happening. And largely because of some of the error rates and some of those examples, you we just talked about is we still need humans a loop for value creation. But what I do see happening, when I saw happening when I was at Upwork is the freelancer market is a great area to study because that's a component, you know, composed of tasks and skill sets. And so that's where we can begin to see, is there actually substitution taking place here? And what I found was so fascinating is that you think in some of our top categories,
at Upwork is going to be virtual assistants, project management, you those sort of support roles that everyone said AI is going to take over. We found the exact opposite phenomenon happening is that the market share actually grew bigger. So if you're a virtual assistant, maybe before without some of the AI tools, you could support five to seven clients at a time. But because you're able to automate some of the email outreach or the calendar, you now can take on 10 to 12 clients. And so your income just increased without necessarily having to increase your hours per se.
Same thing with project management, as that became more automated. Tools like Asana is a big one that's in this space, becomes more AI-ified, I call it. You can take on more projects and really increase your revenue and income. And so in a lot of those areas, I actually saw income and revenue increasing because people were able to take on more market share than they would without these AI tools. We saw this a lot in marketing as well, content creation. And I'll tell you what, now even a few months later, since the report came out,
There is so much AI content out there on social media. People are now paying a premium to have a human come back in the loop and create content and really verify that this is human content. And so to me, I think we're going to continue to see these trends play out. I'm much less concerned about a true substitution effect taking place. Where I am concerned, and we can talk a little bit about, is making sure, that these humans don't just become evaluators and auditors of AI output. Like, I do see some of that beginning to take place in the marketing side.
and content creation side and figuring out how do we make sure that work remains meaningful and that human remain creators and contributors and not just auditors of AI generated content.
Jason Altmire (07:43)
As you're aware, our association, we represent career colleges, trade schools. So you think of the blue collar skilled trades, the healthcare programs, graphic design, film production, cosmetology, beauty and wellness, information technology, computer science, commercial drone application, things like that. And most of those fields.
Are fields that people assumed were immune to AI, least the negative aspects of AI, but you've written how fields, not just the technical, but the non-technical fields are going to experience great growth because of AI. If you can use it correctly, can you talk about what you mean by that?
Kelly Monahan (08:31)
Yeah, and I'm so glad your association exists because as I think about the future of work, I actually think we're going to continue to see trades and apprenticeships continue to be the preferred pathway for Gen Z and soon to be Gen Alpha. If you're looking for career stability, that is where you're going to continue to see demand take place. Now, the reason why I think AI could still be disruptive for those professions you just named off is because
When we think of AI, most people, in my research, 90 % of people think of chat GPT or copilot. That's what people think of with AI. When I think of AI in the trades, I'm thinking it beyond a large language model. And I'm thinking about it more in terms of diagnosing and sensors and the ability to work remotely and be able to actually, you whether it's an AC system or refrigerator, everything's got sensors now. And so the ability to diagnose and be able to work alongside this technology, I think is going to become absolutely critical.
for these trades because if you're still going to be operating old school mom and pop way going in, your market share might get eaten up by someone who's really able to come in and install remote sensors and diagnostics and be able to do and again, scale more homes, more commercial real estate that way than someone who's just still servicing kind of from that one-to-one relationship. So we call this in the book, Essential that I wrote this year, we call it the gray-collared worker because that's actually where I think the growth is.
You've got blue collar that we've traditionally described as the trades and you've got these white collar knowledge service workers. I think both ends are going to start to be disrupted by AI and IoT, Internet of Things technologies. Instead, what we're going to need is really that blend of expertise in the trades with technology or in a white collar profession with technology. And that gray collar workforce is where I'm really bullish on the growth in the coming years.
Jason Altmire (10:16)
The example that we use similar to yours is whether it be in a healthcare setting or in the trades picture and HVAC as you talked about, but, the same is true in healthcare. you encounter a problem that you've either never seen before. You're not quite sure what's going on. You want kind of a second opinion through AI. literally have every word that's ever been spoken, every word that's ever been written on that subject.
at your fingertips and you can use AI to say, here's the situation I've encountered. What do you think it is? AI can give you information. can then use that information however you wish, but you have that information immediate in a way that has not been the case before. And you think about physicians that, know, they've always talked about keeping up with the literature. You want to know what's new and what's innovative and what's been said and what was
The case in the past for whatever you're dealing with AI helps you in real time have all of that, everything all in one place. And I just think that is an enormous benefit to anyone who's in those lines of work.
Kelly Monahan (11:32)
Absolutely. there's so much research has been so interesting that I've been looking at right now is that AI plus human teams working together outperforming any other combination, even than just an AI and individual. And the reason is when you can bring in, like let's use your healthcare example, if you can bring in a group of doctors or nurse practitioners together using AI as that way to diagnose and help brainstorm, the reality is large language models today still have about 10 to 12 % inaccuracies that are, you know, come up.
as part of that information. And so being able to still have that crowd of wisdom of human experts in the room, being able to actually interact and go back and forth, we are seeing such high patient outcomes, in particular in the healthcare field, when you have that combination. so as you think about, I think we're just at the tipping point of what we actually are gonna see as healthcare and medicine. I think the question then becomes, as intelligence becomes democratized, is expertise quite frankly matters less than less?
What is that business value? What is that new model that looks like that you're still providing really high patient value and outcomes? And what do you do with some of this newfound capacity and time that I'm sure right now doctors and nurses are certainly not feeling, because I know there's such a labor shortage, but if we were actually able to equalize that labor market, what does that new value creation look like amongst those teams and those experts?
Jason Altmire (12:50)
And on that, where does the robotics aspect of this come into play? lot of what we're talking about are on your computer information technology, but there's also going to be physical applications of AI, literally robotics and things like that. Where is that going in the future?
Kelly Monahan (13:11)
So I think this is where AI is going to really super power our existing robotic paradigm. The reality is robotics have been actually pretty powerful. We've seen them a lot in manufacturing settings. But I use the case of Mercedes. They went fully automated with a robotic factory, then ended up bringing the humans back in because when it came to that last mile of precision and that quality, that's where things started to fall apart. But I think where robotics is going to continue to go, the one negative thing has been
having enough compute power to sense the external environment in the context around them. Amazon has gotten really good with this and they're continuing to unlock this at scale within their manufacturing, you know, in their facilities. But I think that is where the true unlock is going to be, especially from a healthcare medicine perspective, is as AI gets better at understanding who's the patient on the table, what's the context around me, you know, even understanding and reading the emotions and the heart palpitations of the physicians around them.
then making the right decisions and being able to do movement in a way that's reading the context. I think that's where the true unlock's gonna be. I don't think we're quite there yet, but that's certainly, if you're following Elon Musk, that's certainly what he's trying to establish within his robotics, is really being able to have that situational contextual awareness so that it can move with more precision than we currently have today.
Jason Altmire (14:27)
I feel like with these things, both the physical application through robotics and other technologies, but also the uses of AI that can benefit people doing their jobs and maybe displace work that, you know, doesn't need to be done by people anymore, whatever it might be.
We're at the very beginning. It's been three years since people were introduced to chat GPT and think about where we're going to be in five years, 10 years, a hundred years. I have always felt that, you know, how we delineate years, the passage of time BC and AD, right? Based upon that moment, right? So I have always felt with AI that in the future, people are going to look back at this.
As the dividing line between the way things used to be and the way things are now are now being the AI aspect and that everything that came before, while maybe not being completely discredited or dismissed, but will be viewed differently because the world has changed so much due to artificial intelligence. What do you think about that concept?
Kelly Monahan (15:42)
think it's a super interesting take on it. I'm reflecting in real time, as you said that, two initial just thoughts come to me. One, I think that could be true if artificial intelligence continues to develop at the rate it is. My only hesitation is we've been trying to tackle artificial intelligence since the 1950s, and this moment feels like we've actually finally crossed over to what they call generalized intelligence. So I do think you're right, that there's going to be an aspect of before we had generalized intelligence.
and not. So that to me is probably more of the marker than AI itself is when does AI actually become generally intelligent. And we are at that error today. The question is going to be, though, like, are we going to actually be able to harness its power and value to continue to create good? And is it going to be able to grow at the rate it is? The reality is most of these AI companies are not making money. They're bleeding money, actually. And the cost of data and data centers is very expensive. And the energy that's required is expensive. And so I still think we've got to get that business model right.
I mean, I'm confident that we eventually will. And then I'm also just reflecting to think through the internet was probably the last time in our at least lifetime that we've had such a revolutionary moment. And so I'm just also thinking through like, it's probably a pretty good analogy because I would also say there was life before the internet and life after the internet. And I think you're right in thinking through this as our next big revolution. What's crazy is that we're seeing two in our lifetime where you've had generations go an entire lifetime without seeing the level of disruption and change.
at a societal level. And to me, I'm excited about that. I'm like, how cool is this that we get to live in such a moment to see us transform as a species and really see what we end up doing with this technology.
Jason Altmire (17:21)
Yeah, it's definitely interesting to think about how we'll be perceived in the future. And so many leaders are thinking about AI. Everybody's thinking about AI. And I'm sure at this very moment, there's a hundred other podcasts being recorded about this topic. And it's something that we're all trying to get our hands around. But if you were to advise business leaders about what they should be doing.
Other than reading and talking about it, but how to prepare for this future that we're talking about beyond simply keeping up with the news and trying to learn what actually should people do to make sure they are well positioned themselves for leadership in the future.
Kelly Monahan (18:06)
So a couple of things that I'm telling and advising leaders on right now. Number one, this stat always continues to blow my mind. 42 % of American workers today don't understand the value proposition of their business or why their business exists. And so number one is, what is your fundamental why? Like, why does your business exist and what value are you providing? That I think, especially coming out of the pandemic, so many leaders have lost their way and have become in this really hyper reactionary mode that we've, you know, I've got a book coming out this year.
or in 2026 called We Lost the Plot. And so that's one of the things I do think we've lost the plot a bit as leaders of what this is really all about. So number one, what's your business value? Whether there's AI involved or not, you have to have a corner star. Because once you're able to do that, you can better see where does AI fit into helping you deliver value, whether that's to your workforce or whether that's your end customer or whether that's going into a new market segment. And I think that's where I'm seeing the miss happen right now, if I'm going to be honest, is many people are just ad hoc.
playing around experimenting with an AI tool with no purpose or value creation in mind. And I think efficiency and productivity is a good short-term metric. I don't think that's gonna be what changes the world. You where we think about a pre and post world of AI, that actually has to have value creation, not just, we become much more productive. And then third, I'm really particular about this right now as I engage with leaders. We have got to double down. I say this right now, for every dollar invested in the technology, there should be an equal dollar match.
and the talent side to ensure that we're being able to keep pace with this. And I think that's where I'm seeing a lot of leaders fumble the ball right now is to your point, they're learning, they're investing in AI, but they're really falling short when it comes to making sure their workforce is ready and really from a skilling perspective, staying on top of what's happening right now, because it's so rapid and it's accelerating at a pace we're not used to. And that means we have to really rethink how we're training and developing on the front lines and knowledge work on the blue collar side.
to make sure that the workforce is actually prepared for this revolution that's taking place in real time.
Jason Altmire (20:08)
In addition to that skills training in the workplace, it's also a huge, very fast growing major at colleges and universities, right? I mean, people learning about how to implement AI and use it in the way that they can then become a trainer for other people.
Kelly Monahan (20:28)
I have like a mixed, I don't know how spicy you wanna get on your podcast. I've got like a mixed opinion on that because 20 years ago when the internet came around, we told everyone to go get a computer science degree. Now fast forward to today, that's like the third top unemployed degree right now for people 21 and 25. I'm a little worried we're repeating that a bit with AI where as opposed to this becoming something that's just inherent to what we do, like I'm not sure we're gonna have to like for the next 15, 20 years, absolutely I think AI.
training and degrees are going to be super important. But I do think there's going to come that time where we are today where it's, hey, I actually don't know if you need a computer science degree, but I do need you to make sure that you've got really strong judgment and domain expertise and an ability to have a growth mindset and learn with these technologies and tools. And a lot of that time that's on the job training that takes place of how do you actually apply the tool, not just know about the tool. And so I think that's going to be the real paradox of our time is so many people are geening up.
theoretical understanding of AI per se, but not necessarily that applied, here's how I'm gonna actually change my job. Here's how I'm gonna actually change my ability to earn more money because of this tool. That I actually think is where I'd love to see people double down on is much more experiential learning with this technology.
Jason Altmire (21:42)
Our guest today has been Dr. Kelly Monahan. She is the author of three books, third one coming out this year. Her most recent book was Essential, How Distributed Teams Generative AI and Global Shifts Are Creating a New Human-Powered Leadership. So I would recommend people check that out. Look for the third book when it comes out. And if people wanted to get in touch with you, Kelly, and learn more about the work that you do, how would they find you?
Kelly Monahan (22:10)
Yes, two ways. I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. So Kelly Monahan on LinkedIn. And then you can also visit my website, beyondthedusk.com.
Jason Altmire (22:19)
Thank you for being with us.
Kelly Monahan (22:21)
Thank you so much.
Jason Altmire (22:30)
Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Career Education Report. Subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. For more information, visit our website at career.org and follow us on Twitter @CECUED. That's at C-E-C-U-E-D. Thank you for listening.