Brad Smith on AI divide
From Microsoft President Brad Smith Talks Using AI to Advance the Global South | Bloomberg Talks · · Bloomberg Podcasts
“I do think we need to act with urgency today. About a quarter of the population in the global north has access to and is using generative AI but only 14% in the global south and when you look at the rates of growth it's almost double in the global north what we're seeing in the south so just as electricity divided the world the countries that had access to it for a century industrialized that grew their economies the countries that lacked access to electricity fell behind we will turn this moment, I believe, either into a moment where we will close this divide, we can use AI to really enable the global south to catch up in terms of economic growth, or we will continue and maybe risk even exacerbating the great economic divide that defines our world today.”
On , Brad Smith, Former Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Intuit, spoke about AI divide during Microsoft President Brad Smith Talks Using AI to Advance the Global South | Bloomberg Talks on Bloomberg Podcasts.
About Brad Smith
Brad Smith, former Chairman and CEO of Intuit, has spoken at multiple QuickBooks Connect events between 2014 and 2018, where he discussed the company's strategy, product innovations, and the role of small businesses in the economy. At the 2014 event, Smith described Intuit's goal to be "the operating system behind small business success" and highlighted features such as QuickBooks financing, which he said had increased loan acceptance rates from 60% to 70% by using business data rather than FICO scores. He also stated that small businesses had created 60% of new jobs since the beginning of the recession and that if one in three small businesses hired one more employee, it would eliminate unemployment in the U.S. In 2015, Smith announced a $100 million fund for QuickBooks financing and said the company had facilitated over a quarter of a billion dollars in loans. He also noted that the company had testified before Congress as an advocate for self-employed workers. In a 2018 interview, Smith said he heard from customers that they valued connecting with one another, new product launches such as practice management, and innovations in payments, payroll, and capital access. He stated that "people don't care what you know until they know that you care" and expressed optimism about the company's future. In other appearances, Smith discussed Intuit's operating values, including a "70-20-10" resource allocation model and a "delight pyramid" for product design. He described an experiment where engineers developed a mobile feature allowing users to photograph tax documents for automatic data entry, which he said became a significant growth driver for TurboTax. Smith also spoke about his upbringing in West Virginia and his education at Marshall University, stating that leadership involves being true to oneself and playing to one's strengths.