AI: Transforming a Future-Ready, Flexible Workforce – Six Five On the Road

Patrick Moorhead: The Six Five is on the road in Las Vegas at HP Amplify 2024. It’s been an incredible conference. It’s been really the intersection of hybrid work and AI. Not to mention the star-studded keynote speech where literally the entire processor call… What do you call Microsoft and Google? I mean it’s not just operating systems, it’s services. It’s cloud.

Daniel Newman: Two of the magnificent seven.

Patrick Moorhead: There we go. Exactly.

Daniel Newman: Yeah, it was a really great start today. And Pat, we knew the AI PC was going to be in focus. It’s just the trend line. You know how I said ’23 was the year of the GPU? We both have said that in different iterations. And then of course ’24, I think you got on stage at the CES event with the whole vendor ecosystem and said “This will be the year of the AI PC.” And I think we’re seeing different maturation charts of how quickly that will happen. But what we do know for sure is that these new form factors powered by AI, new silicon that you and I love to talk about is changing the world. But in the end, all that silicon has to be put to work.

Patrick Moorhead: Exactly.

Daniel Newman: And that’s what this has been focused, hybrid work, AI and driving the future of experiences.

Patrick Moorhead: Yeah. And the promises that AI on the work side is going to make us more productive, maybe even more creative and maybe even more effective.

Daniel Newman: Yeah. We want to get productive, we want to get efficient. And of course I think it was Satya that made the comment about getting creative. And Pat, I mean we can paint pictures and write stories now with the click of a button. Now hopefully this stuff is really, really good. But that’s why getting on device, LLMs, putting all the data to work, that’s a great opportunity, Pat. But AI’s going to transform the world. But you know what? You and I are talking a lot.

Patrick Moorhead: Hey, I know, let’s bring out our guest. Guayente, how are you?

Guayente Sanmartin: I’m doing fine. Thank you for inviting me.

Patrick Moorhead: Yes, you’ve got such a big job. You run all of commercial systems and displays. I mean all this talk, it’s easy for analysts to sit up here and talk about what could be. You’re actually making this happen.

Guayente Sanmartin: Yeah. And this is one of the best moments in my career, to be in this moment, unique moment, transforming the way people work.

Patrick Moorhead: I know. When’s the last time we saw software transforming the hardware? And I know, listen, we talked a lot about services here. But to bring a solution, you have to have the hardware, software, and the services. It is such an exciting time.

Guayente Sanmartin: It is.

Patrick Moorhead: I agree with you.

Guayente Sanmartin: It is. As you saw this morning, the full ecosystem is transforming.

Patrick Moorhead: Yes.

Daniel Newman: Well, let’s talk about, I don’t know, AI.

Guayente Sanmartin: You changed the subject.

Daniel Newman: Well, I mean I feel like it hasn’t been covered. No, I’m kidding. Look, this is the most transformative trend that probably the world has ever seen and it’s only going to continue to accelerate. And AI has this big future of work vision. But I would love to understand in your role how you see AI shaping that, accelerating that, changing that, and really building a future-ready workforce.

Guayente Sanmartin: Let me tell you, I do really believe that the nature of work is changing dramatically. Not only because we have not even completely solved the hybrid. Still we are solving how to work remotely and in the room as well. Still we have not and now we have AI. And AI is going to transform the task, how we operate. And it’s going to help us remove those tasks that we call unproductive.

Things you do that are unproductive, summarize, like the meeting today. Things that is going to help us do things better, to be more productive. I’m already doing this, I can do it better. And as you were saying, it will give anyone superpowers. It will be in people capacity to do things, like as you were mentioning before, create an image that you could not, create a concept that you could not before. And even myself is speaking any language.

Patrick Moorhead: Right. And by the way, you’re speaking that different language phenomenally. Thank you.

Guayente Sanmartin: Thank you.

Patrick Moorhead: On stage today, and you introduced a… You fielded a very large research program. We both do research, but I think it was in the tens of thousands of people…

Guayente Sanmartin: 13,000.

Patrick Moorhead: That you contacted. And I want to make sure I get these numbers right. 27% said that today’s knowledge workers have a healthy relationship with work. Okay. Which seems super low. And only 26% of those same respondents said they have the right tools and equipment to be successful. I have to put you on the spot here. Is AI going to help fix these things? Or it seems like it would take a combination of technology and some culture and management tools to do this.

Guayente Sanmartin: I do think not only AI, but I think if we look at what HP and the solutions that we are going to be bringing together, how they are going to be helping on these better toolset, it is we are going to be creating toolsets that are better for the hybrid work. All the audio and video collaboration is going to be enhanced from the PC to the room.

I think all the AI tools are going to help every user to be more productive and be more creative. Okay. No doubt that for starting from the software to the hardware, you’re going to have people that are going to be more productive. But aside from this, we’re going to help many data scientists in every single company to be able to create their own models so that they can be internally more efficient.

Patrick Moorhead: Oh, that’s great.

Daniel Newman: First of all, it sounds like the relationship that employees have with work is complicated.

Patrick Moorhead: It’s complicated.

Daniel Newman: And I think there’s a lot of good habits and a lot of technology that was accelerated as a byproduct of the past five years, the health crisis that went on. I also think there was probably some bad habits. People got a little too… And then you see that’s why this pendulum swinging of returning to work. I think data can solve a lot of this. But I think I said this is the year of the AI PC. While you said the trend may not happen as fast as some are proclaiming, and I think that echoes Enrique, that echoes what we’ve heard from Alex Cho and others. It is happening. What are you most excited about with it?

Guayente Sanmartin: Let me tell you what I’m more excited about is AI in general, not only for the AI PC, AI is a journey and it’s a personal journey. This means every one of us, every company is going to go through this journey in different ways. I think that I think this how really I see it. The second thing I can tell you is that I see this year and with what we are launching here at the event, AI starts today. If you are a company and you are not starting AI today with a tool, with a hardware, with a software, you are going to be left behind. Those companies that implement today AI are going to be more advanced, more productive with happier people than those that don’t use it.

Patrick Moorhead: Yeah, I love that answer. And it really echoes I think what we saw with internet, mobile, local, social e-commerce. There were people who got in early, but if you were a laggard, you really risked your business. And I think we saw a lot of business who, “Hey, I’m only going to stick with printed catalogs.” Or and they didn’t go online or I’m not going to transact actual business online. A lot of them were left behind. And it sounds like you’re talking about this could be a scenario where if they don’t embrace AI solutions, they could be left behind as well.

Guayente Sanmartin: I really, really see it. And again, it’s a journey. This doesn’t mean that tomorrow 100% of the employees, 100% of the companies…

Patrick Moorhead: Sure.

Guayente Sanmartin: Across the globe need to jump. It’s a journey. And you need to start. What I think it’s very important is the start. And to really look at your industry and what personas. Like you are in the health industry, which are the type of employees, do you have, what personas, what are the use cases? What are the things that they are doing that aren’t productive? How can you make them better? Or the things that you can make them more creative. Analyzing this, this is the journey and it starts as I say today.

Patrick Moorhead: Yeah, and it sounds like it’s going to be a symbiotic relationship between companies like HP, your channel partners. And I don’t know, do analysts play a part in this, Dan? I think we do.

Guayente Sanmartin: You do.

Daniel Newman: We do the research. We tell the market what they’re supposed to think. And sometimes with the backing of the data and the opinion and the credibility of getting things right, which we do at times, often, yes, we do play a part.

Guayente Sanmartin: I think you do. I think in this industry today, it is going to be very important to understand the persona and educate. There are a lot of things that are happening, so not everybody understand why they have to use AI. Not like and as I told you is for the three tasks. Not like unproductive, productive and creative. But why an AI PC?

Well, you need to understand why first AI. Second, why an AI PC? Because as you were saying before, you can do things locally that are faster. If I was speaking in Spanish now, the instant translation will take three seconds. You will see me the difference. It’s faster. It may be more personal and will be cheaper or spend less energy. That’s the AI PC. We need to educate. The why AI PC? And then of course why HP?

Daniel Newman: And I’ll give you a bonus on the way out, Guayente, as it’ll be more secure.

Guayente Sanmartin: It will be more secure.

Daniel Newman: The data you have on the device is your data. It’s right.

Guayente Sanmartin: I forgot to tell you. I totally, you learning.

Daniel Newman: I’m just saying. I’ll give you a bonus for. But absolutely, it’s been amazing to have the chance to sit down with you, Guayente, and talk to you. Nice to meet you. And let’s have you back on the Six Five soon.

Guayente Sanmartin: Whenever you want.

Patrick Moorhead: Love to see that. Let’s put it on the calendar next year. Okay?

Guayente Sanmartin: Okay, done.

Daniel Newman: We’ll see you next year. All right, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode here at HP Amplify 2024. Hit subscribe. Join us for all of the episodes. We covered a lot of ground here at the event, but for this episode, for Patrick Moorhead and myself, it’s time to say goodbye. See you all later.