For the latest episode of our Innovation Answered podcast, we decided to do something experimental.
We looked at all of the AI tools that could possibly help us create a podcast episode — and then leveraged a handful to summarize some of our best content from 2024, and also hone in on some of the important dynamics that will impact corporate innovation work in 2025.
We deployed ChatGPT, of course, but also Suno, Google’s NotebookLM, and ElevenLabs to clone the voices of our co-hosts, Scott Kirsner and Alex Slawsby of InnoLead.
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Episode Transcript:
AI Scott Kirsner: Welcome. You’re listening to the Innovation Answered podcast. Innovation Answered is the podcast from InnoLead, the web’s most useful resource for corporate innovators and change-makers. If that sounds like you, we encourage you to subscribe to the podcast, so you’ll catch all of our future episodes.
I’m Scott Kirsner, CEO and Co-founder of InnoLead, and in this episode, we are doing something different. We’re leveraging all of the AI tools that can possibly help us create a podcast episode — and using them to summarize some of our best content from 2024, and also hone in on some of the important dynamics that will impact corporate innovation work in 2025. With me is my colleague Alex Slawsby, Chief Growth Officer of InnoLead.
AI Alex Slawsby: Thanks, Scott. I think at this point, it’d be good to mention that what you’re listening to are AI voice clones of myself and Scott, which we created using a platform from ElevenLabs, a New York City startup that has raised about $100 million in venture capital funding. We shelled out for two of their $11 a month Creator subscriptions, which let us create what they call pro-level clones of both of our voices. The pro level clone asks for about a half hour of speech samples, and they like to get more than two hours. What do you think, Scott?
AI Scott: It sounds like a member of the Slawsby family, but not exactly like you. Also I know you had to do eight or nine different generations of that line to get it to that point – and sometimes the voice would go off the rails, in terms of pacing or getting stuck on a word in a really strange way.
AI Alex: If we’re using our real voices as the true measuring stick, I’d say, well, your voice clone doesn’t measure up – it’s clear that there’s something different going on. But, if we step back to consider what’s actually happening here – that we’ve given ElevenLabs voice samples and then text to share in our voices…all I can say is: wow.
AI Scott: Mine was good enough that I sent it to some family members, and reminded them that if they think I’m calling them on the phone to ask for their bank account info or their social security number, they should ask me a few challenge questions that only the real me would know the answer to.
AI Alex: That was wise. What’s really cool is that we could output versions of this podcast in basically any language with this. Why don’t you ask the Spanish, German, and Japanese speakers what they think of these translations.
¿Qué opinas sobre la calidad de esta traducción?
AI Scott: Deutschsprachige: Was haltet ihr von der Qualität dieser Übersetzung?
Espera, isso está divertido demais! Vou adicionar mais um para os falantes de português. O que acham?
AI Alex: そして最後に、日本語を話す皆さん、この翻訳の質についてどう思いますか？
I love that we can now speak an infinite number of languages.
AI Scott: Me too! So let’s continue our experiment by using ChatGPT 4o to summarize a bunch of content we published this year, including two major research reports, slide decks from our Impact conference and our occasional LinkedIn Live discussions, and other materials — and distill it all into five big ideas for how corporate innovation needs to evolve in the year ahead. I also asked ChatGPT to take some data from an ongoing survey, and an assessment we have on the site, and incorporate that where appropriate. Here’s what we got.
AI Alex: OK, idea #1: AI is the New Workplace Ally. AI is reshaping corporate innovation, but adoption isn’t seamless. Nearly 40% of organizations expect significant AI adoption in three years to support internal operations, but concerns about ROI and risks remain. Leaders stress using AI responsibly to augment workflows, with early adopters already reporting improvements in efficiency and decision-making. The challenge is striking a balance: embracing AI’s potential while mitigating risks like cybersecurity and data integrity.
AI Scott: OK, Idea #2. Democratizing Innovation Within Organizations. Innovation is moving out of silos. Almost 48% of companies report discussions about “decentralizing” or “distributing”innovation in the organization, so that “everyone is responsible” for it. This approach empowers employees with tools and frameworks to experiment, breaking down barriers between departments. Companies that democratize innovation see faster alignment with business goals and better adoption of new ideas. It’s not just about creating; it’s about collaboration and shared accountability.
AI Alex: Number three: Metrics Matter More Than Ever. Proving innovation’s ROI is no longer optional. Only about a quarter of innovation teams can say that more than half of the projects they’ve launched have produced tangible results or outcomes in the past year; 12 percent say none of their projects have hit that target. Companies that succeed focus on aligning innovation metrics with strategic goals, such as revenue growth or operational efficiency. Nearly 77% of respondents believe strong leadership support is essential for sustaining innovation. The takeaway? Clear KPIs and leadership buy-in are crucial to demonstrate value and secure long-term investment.
AI Scott: Idea #4: Partnering for Progress. No one can innovate in isolation anymore. Companies are teaming up with startups, academic institutions, and even competitors to accelerate progress. Partnerships reduce risk, bring fresh perspectives, and speed up development. Organizations like CarMax and the Mayo Clinic have found that working with external experts can solve problems faster than trying to go it alone. In a fast-paced market, collaboration isn’t just smart; it’s essential
AI Alex: OK, rounding it out with Idea #5. Core Over Edge: Refocusing Innovation. Economic uncertainty has shifted priorities. 64% of the people who participated in our assessment about whether their innovation program is at risk say that they’re either entirely focused on Horizon 1 work, or that their focus has shifted toward it, and away from Horizon 2 and 3 work. This doesn’t mean innovation is sidelined; it means recalibrating efforts to deliver immediate value. By focusing on solving customer pain points or improving operational workflows, businesses ensure innovation stays relevant and impactful.
AI Scott: OK, let’s do a little constructive criticism, and maybe some commentary here. I have to say that I continue to be really underwhelmed by ChatGPT’s ability to handle numbers, like the data from our research reports, especially when it appears in charts or graphs. I went through all of the datapoints that it cited in the text we just read, and made corrections to just about every one to make sure it was presenting the right data in the right context. Alex, your take — are the five trends generally right? Is there anything you’d add that you think will be important in the year ahead?
AI Alex: I think they’re good points to keep in mind, but the devil is always in the details. The one word that keeps coming to my mind is “change” – it’s part of all five. Innovation requires change. Adopting AI requires changing an organization. You democratize innovation within an organization to change – positively, we hope – an organization’s innovation ROI. The right innovation metrics are those that enable you to tell a compelling story to get your leaders to support the change you’re trying to make happen and so on. And so I would emphasize that to be successful, innovation leaders need to be highly skilled at change management and, therefore, at selling change to their colleagues and leaders.
AI Scott: I have two issues. First, with Idea #2. Yes, we are seeing pull to democratize innovation and make it everybody’s job — and certainly the wave of generative AI tools, low code tools, and new ways to prototype are helping to drive that. But I still think there’s an argument for a central coordinating team to make sure that things aren’t falling through the cracks, or potentially to do training work, or external sensing and partnering. So I think ChatGPT presented that gravitational pull to make innovation everyone’s job sound positive in a way that it isn’t always. Sometimes it’s really a cover story for firing the innovation team. Which I’m hoping is not a trend for 2025.
AI Alex: That’s a great point. Organizations need to think about their innovation investments like creating the optimal toolkit to achieve profitable growth – which is the goal of innovation in most organizations. There will be tools for core innovation, some for adjacent innovation, and some for transformational innovation. There will be tools for organic innovation and tools for inorganic innovation and the list goes on. Who ensures the toolkit is optimal and that all tools are used optimally? Again, a great point.
AI Scott: My second issue is I think it missed something that’ll be an important conversation to have in 2025 around innovation standards, or at least committing to a standardized process that other people in the organization understand and trust. I would call this “Committing to the Recipe.” You don’t go to a Panera, for example, on two different days and find them using two different chicken soup recipes. I think there’s been a lot of float, drift, change — whatever you want to call it — in the corporate innovation space. One day they’re using this term, then the next day they’re using that one. Some of it is driven by consultants, who always have their own special new model or methodology to sell.
Now, you may not want to embrace the new ISO 56000 standard for innovation management — which was finalized in 2024 — but I do think you need a new commitment to consistency and using language that stays the same from year to year. By the way, I did send ChatGPT at least two things that talked about the new ISO standard, so it could have made this one of the 5 big ideas. I think one of the best articles we published this year was by Felipe Negritto, a former Disney tech exec who recently earned his doctorate. It’s called “Marketing Became Indispensable to Corporations. Can Innovation Follow Suit?”
AI Alex: I fully agree. As our friend, Gina O’Connor, often says, senior leadership teams must make consistent and unwavering commitments to supporting and investing in innovation for at least 3 years to see results and her data shows that with such commitments, those results will come.
AI Scott: I liked that article so much that I thought it’d be fun content to use to try out the latest edition of Suno, one of the music-generating AI platforms. They just released version 4 of their AI songwriting platform in November. So I took that article, and first I went to ChatGPT and asked it to read Negrito’s article and write song lyrics. This was my first prompt to ChatGPT:
“I’m going to upload a Word document to you, and I’d like you to turn it into song lyrics. It needs to summarize this piece accurately, and include a chorus that focuses on something like, can innovation become as essential as marketing to corporations? Are you ready?”
I asked it for five versus plus a chorus. ChatGPT got the gist of Negritto’s argument, but its rhymes were kind of lame. The chorus included this couplet:
“Can innovation stand tall, like marketing’s might,
Become essential in the corporate fight?”
So I gave ChatGPT another nudge with this prompt:
“Let’s just do one more version. Same number of verses and a catchy chorus. Imagine you are a hit songwriter like Pharrell. Let’s avoid basic rhymes and try to be a little bit humorous. You can do it!”
I got a better result that time, and so I brought the lyrics over to Suno.
…Where I quickly realized that to get access to the latest version of their platform, v4, you need to be a paying subscriber. So I coughed up $10 with the InnoLead credit card and gave it a whirl. With Suno, you can either give it a prompt and have it write music and lyrics for you, or in my case, I uploaded the lyrics and asked it to write the music. I had it generate 28 different versions, with various prompts, and this one was my favorite. The prompt was pretty simple: “Prince funky pop.” See if you can hear the hat tip to the article’s author in there.
AI Alex: That’s great. Suno is one of the few generative AI-enabled solutions that really blew my mind when I first tried it. There’s a musician who shares videos of him supposedly asking random people for a few words and then, on the spot, he comes up with a very catchy song that includes those random words. I watched one of his videos and then put the song’s three random words into Suno and it created a very catchy song. Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote in 2008 about how mastering a skill takes 10,000 hours of practice. I feel badly for that musician and others who put in those 10,000 hours only to have people without any musical talent create pretty good music with just a short prompt.
AI Scott: OK, since we’re talking about Suno, I think we have to play your song about Jobs to Be Done Theory. You worked with Clay Christensen earlier in your career, so this is a fitting tribute to him. I should mention that this was created with an earlier version of Suno. How did you create the lyrics for it — just with a prompt?
AI Alex: Yep.
AI Scott: OK, this is “The Holes We Make.”
AI Scott: The last thing I want to do is a little weird.
AI Alex: Let’s do it!
AI Scott: We’re going to introduce you to two podcast hosts who were created by Google. They don’t have names, but they are part of Notebook LM. It’s free to use, and Google describes it as “the ultimate tool for understanding the information that matters most to you,” built on top of Google’s Gemini AI platform.
Let’s imagine you had to become an overnight expert on a specific topic like fusion energy. You can upload PDFs, Google Docs, podcasts, web links, and YouTube videos, and then Notebook LM provides you with lots of ways to access that content. You can chat with it, see an FAQ document, or look at a timeline of all the key dates mentioned in the content.
AI Alex: You can also hear an “audio conversation” that summarizes all of that content — basically an AI podcast.
AI Scott: OK, so here’s how I used NotebookLM, because I was trying to get it to give us something short that we could integrate into the podcast — not 30 minutes of audio. I uploaded just one of our most popular articles, by our friend Rachel Antalek. It’s called “5 Techniques to Get Aligned — and Stay Aligned — with your C-Suite.” Here’s what Notebook LM did with it. This lasts about ten minutes, and it’s worth a listen — though you’ll hear the AI glitch out on a word or two here.
AI Alex: Without a doubt, it’s not perfect and I think most people can tell they’re not real people discussing Rachel’s thoughts. That being said, you used NotebookLM to get, what, 80% there, without any of the cost (time, money, frustration) of planning, recording, and editing a podcast. Talk about disruptive.
AI Scott: I think what I don’t like about it is that the woman is basically a sidekick, and the guy is the one presenting the ideas. She does a lot of agreeing and elaborating, and that’s true with other Notebook LM audio conversations. I don’t know if it was a conscious choice, but I sure would like to see the make-up of the Google team that created this offering.
And also, the vibe of it is so milk-toasty, so plain, that I have trouble staying focused on it after a few minutes. It turns into audio wallpaper for me.
AI Alex: OK, I think the way we should wrap up this episode is by trading our AI voice clones for our actual voices…
Real Alex: …to say thanks to you for listening to this experimental episode of Innovation Answered.
Real Scott: We’re still here — for the time being — as actual human beings who are really interested in your reactions, and also eager to hear about some of the AI tools you’re using in your own work. So drop me a note: scott at innolead dot com.
Real Alex: Here’s wishing you an enjoyable, productive, and innovative 2025.
