Ep. 232: Matt Harris | When AI Shifts the Balance of Power to Consumers: Preparing for a New Business Reality

Matt Harris, Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, argues that generative AI will soon empower customers in unexpected ways. Consumers, he predicts, will soon use AI tools to continuously discover lower loan rates, higher-yield savings accounts, or more attractive insurance policies.

As a result, Matt anticipates a shift in customer-company power dynamics. Imagine, for example, an AI agent able to continuously move your deposits to the highest-yielding savings accounts or refinance your loans to the best available rates with little intervention required from you. Imagine consumer tools for interpreting medical scans and providing a diagnosis to compare to your doctor's assessment. Generative AI could even transform the future of mental health therapy to be more effective, efficient, and streamlined.

Join us as we discuss the present and future of consumers' newfound AI-driven power and analyze where organizations and their leaders should be pointed next to remain competitive.

Guest: Matt Harris, Partner, Bain Capital Ventures

Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company

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Time-stamped list of topics covered:

• [02:53] How businesses use generative AI for productivity and future innovation
• [09:23] Discussion on the Gartner Hype Cycle for generative AI
• [17:09] What it means for customers to be “superpowered” and an overview of a few generative AI applications in finance and medicine
• [22:28] AI's impact on society and the future of work
• [27:44] Adapting to a world with superpowered customers who now demand more from businesses, emphasizing the need for deepened customer relationships and greater levels of innovation

Time-stamped list of notable quotes:

• [10:55] "Every new technology experiences [influx and they] disillusion the rest of the market because they have these spectacular failures.”
• [14:20] “[Generative AI] is a much more powerful tool for customers than it is for companies. And an equal or larger part of energy should be going in these boardrooms to imagining a world where customers have the power of generative AI and the implications for your entire business model.”
• [18:00] “I revere doctors. But how could we expect that a single human being would have all of the medical knowledge in their head? This is something computers will be better at.”
• [22:16] "I think I could make an argument that generative AI, combined with predictive machine learning, and being moved forward as fast as these technologies are advancing, will be better at almost everything.”
• [27:53] “We should be spending as much energy thinking and worrying and planning for a ‘superpowered’ customer world as we are thinking about how we use [technology] ourselves, and I’m just not seeing people doing that.”

Additional Resources:

• Read Matt’s article for BCV, The Age of the Superpowered Customer
• The Age of AI and Our Human Future by Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher
• The AI Advantage by Thomas H. Davenport
• Prediction Machines by Ajay Agrawal, Joshua Gans, and Avi Goldfarb
• Learn about Bain’s spin-off, Bain Capital, which has operated as a separate company since 1984

Learn More About Our Guest and Host:

• Guest: Matt Harris LinkedIn Profile
• Host: Rob Markey LinkedIn Profile