In the first episode of Cut to Context, a new podcast focused on AI, Q2 CTO Adam Blue sets the table for the conversations ahead about how Q2 is thinking about AI in a way that stays grounded in people, trust, and real work. It's an introduction and an invitation to think about AI not as spectacle, but as a tool for better judgment, better systems, and better banking.
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Adam Blue
Hey everybody, I'm Adam Blue and welcome to the first episode of Cut to Context. This is a new podcast we're doing here at Q2 to talk about AI, more specifically AI in the real world as it relates to our business of building strong and diverse communities by strengthening community financial institutions.
So why start this podcast now? I think it's actually kind of interesting at the place we are in the hype cycle today, as the benefits of AI become more clear and the way we use AI becomes a little more concrete than it was maybe in the last year or two. To start talking about real things that we're doing with AI across our business and with our customers, and the real impact that that's having on driving the mission that we've had for 20 years here at Q2.
So why call it Cut to Context? Well, it's a little bit like cut to the chase, you know, which you can imagine a producer flinging during a test screening of a slow movie, you know, to a director that's gotten a little too in love with their framing or their long, long takes. The idea is that for us, AI is going to really center on the context within which the AI is deployed and making sure that we retain the human elements and the key characteristics that are so important in our industry about the way people need to do their banking to drive their financial lives.
So Cut to Context is our reminder that our core value here is talking about the things around AI that make it valuable. And we'll talk about a lot of different aspects of that. But again, the context of it in the business, in the way we change people's lives, that's the part that's going to be the most compelling for us as a topic for the podcast.
Also, we're going to focus on AI as an amplification of human potential, not as a replacement story around taking away the kinds of things people do today. And so the focus will be on how we can get more humanity, more discretion, more taste, more design, more talent in play by using AI and not just a story about reduction of headcount or cost minimization. And there may be cases where that's a really valid use of the technology so that resources can be shifted and deployed elsewhere. But I think what we're really going to be interested in in this context is thinking through how do we make people more effective and more human in the workflows that we supported in the business that we do, as opposed to kind of an arbitrage on labor banking?
I think that is a really interesting place to talk about AI and AI technology, because there are some challenges in being in a regulated industry around repeatability and traceability. You would not think of your average community banker as a riverboat gambler, as our CEO Matt Flake is fond of saying. And so the places where we use AI, we have to get the best of it. And we can't just deliver innovation and then claim that we don't have to be responsible for some of the downside of driving that innovation at a rapid pace.
So the idea around banking and AI coming together, I think, is a really interesting one, because it really focuses on some of the areas where the nondeterministic nature of AI or the newness of the technology can be a real challenge. And so for us, that's going to be an area that we really dig deep into with a lot of the topics that we cover.
We're also going to talk about AI a lot in the context of other things. I find it really valuable in my own thought process, and when I'm working with other people on new concepts, to relate them to things that already exist. And there's so many aspects of the way that generative AI, in particular, works that I find really strong parallels in the creative process or some of the elements that are outside of core banking. So I think you can also look forward to some interesting kind of off axis discussions around concepts and the way that the technologies can have impact that don't just focus on straight down the middle kind of technology and it delivery and change narratives in the same vein as that.
One of the things I'm starting to see that's really interesting that we'll spend some time on is thinking through the coordination improvements that you can get from AI. There's a great article, I think, in the Harvard Business Review in the last couple of weeks that talked about maybe some of the value of AI is not cognitive as much as it's in coordinating the efforts of lots of different people, a lot of organizations, you know, as they grow larger, struggle with how to keep people aligned and face everybody in the same direction. And part of the promise of AI is by speeding and making more efficient communication and the communication of ideas, not just the underlying information, we could be more aligned in a way that creates more value and higher impact over a shorter period of time. And so the coordination burden of a decent sized business is pretty significant. And if you think through AI generating a new way to collaborate, that's pretty valuable. I think that's an interesting topic.
The other side of that also is there is a certain amount of AI slop that circulates. And I can't tell you how many times I've gotten an email with something that could have been two paragraphs and ends up being six pages because I know somebody ran it through ChatGPT. And so that's something we'll probably talk about a little bit as well.
And so in terms of what you can expect from the series, I think it's going to be really grounded. Topics around how do you work with AI in a regulated industry? How do you intersect security concerns and concerns about privacy with AI? What does it mean for talent in a software business that works in an industry like the financial services industry? And, you know, what does it mean for people as employees in terms of how they think about themselves, their identity in the workplace and how to manage your way through that? These are kind of the breadth of some of the things we'll really want to really want to work our way through.
And then at the end, I think at least partially, just for my own amusement, we'll have a recommendation of a piece of human-created art from somewhere in history that is parallel to kind of some of the topics we discussed that you can also enjoy and review. And so coming out of today's episode, for instance, my recommendation would be go listen to the first Pixies album, excuse me, the second Pixies album, which is “Doolittle.” It has an extraordinary dichotomy of sound on the album. It draws from a wide range of influences, from surrealist cinema to, you know, real kind of punch in the face musical dynamics. And it was an extraordinarily influential piece of art at the time when it dropped—artists that are much more popular and much more widely known than the Pixies frequently cite their work and that album in particular as being really formative for them. So “Doolittle” by the Pixies is today's recommendation as a companion to the podcast. Listen to it, enjoy it, maybe even let us know what you think.
And then thanks for joining today on this inaugural introductory episode of Cut to Context with me, Adam Blue. I appreciate your time. Thanks for joining, and I look forward to really digging into this over the next few weeks and months.