Anthropic is in talks with Blackstone and other private equity firms to form a joint AI consulting venture, The Information reported. It’s the latest sign of how much companies are leaning on AI firms to teach them how to integrate the technology into their own businesses.
At an AI- and creativity-focused conference held by design software company Canva this week, Anthropic product designer Jenny Wen explained that “where users are at and what they understand is a moving target.”
We’ve covered companies’ efforts to educate their workforces on AI, from hosting boot camps to offering prizes for those who best integrate the technology into their workflows. But how to do that is pitting some firms, like Anthropic — which has indicated it’s the company’s responsibility to find use cases for their products — against others that say those decisions should be left up to the end user.
“It’s a behavior change. It doesn’t fail on the technology side. It fails on the user side,” Tim Moore, CEO of AI-content studio Vū Technologies, said at the conference. “The value you get out is often how much time and learning you put into it.”
It’s probably true that employees who take the initiative will get the most out of AI. But it stands in contrast to views from some successful technologists, like Steve Jobs, who is known for saying, “It’s not the consumers’ job to know what they want.” It worked pretty well for Apple.