An Interview With Chad Silverstein
For me the most interesting thing is seeing the impact that AI has on other technologies — AI changes the things that change things. What this means is you see a constant increase in velocity of innovation. The rate of change has never been faster than it is now, and it will also never be this slow again.
In today’s tech-driven world, artificial intelligence has become a key enabler of business success. But the question remains — how can businesses effectively harness AI to address their unique challenges while staying true to ethical principles? To explore this topic further, we are interviewing Dave Wright.
Dave Wright is Chief Innovation Officer at ServiceNow, where he explores how AI and emerging technologies can reshape business and work. With nearly 30 years in the IT industry, Dave has spent his career helping organizations leverage technology to boost productivity, streamline operations, and create new value through business transformation. Dave has been featured in such publications as Forbes, The Times and CIO Magazine. He has delivered keynotes at many high profile industry and analyst events, as well as appearances on regional TV networks and CNBC.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into our discussion, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share the backstory of what brought you to your specific career path in AI?
My career is based around over 35 year of working in enterprise software, focusing on innovation and strategy for half of that time. In 2014 I was the Chief Strategy Officer for ServiceNow and I started to investigate AI to gauge its impact on business. At this point is was traditional machine learning (ML) technology. This was starting to gain traction in having the ability to predict data series based on historical information. Over time this interest developed going from conversational bots, to natural language systems and finally finishing up in the world of Generative AI and now Agentic AI. Each of these evolutions in AI have provided additional potential benefits or reinvention for enterprises, which is what lead me to work on the book Infinite with Brian Solis.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started working with artificial intelligence?
For me the most interesting thing is seeing the impact that AI has on other technologies — AI changes the things that change things. What this means is you see a constant increase in velocity of innovation. The rate of change has never been faster than it is now, and it will also never be this slow again.
You are successful leaders in the AI space. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
You have to be very aware of falling into the Iteration trap of doing the things you could already do. It is very easy to use AI to look at addressing productivity issues you have, instead of questioning why this issues exist. You need to get out of an iterative mindset and into an innovative one. For me that is what drives the most success — having a mindset that doesn’t focus on the “how” but does focus on the “why”.
Let’s jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you share a specific example of how you or your organization used AI to solve a major business challenge? What was the problem, and how did AI help address it?
We have used AI to solve many problems across the organization. The first is that we wanted to be to grow the function without having to grow all the support functions. We used AI to establish ways for employees to handle their own IT issues and now 90% of those IT requests are handled autonomously. We did the same looking at how we provided services out customers and now 89% of these requests are serviced by AI. In both these cases it is about using AI as an assistant to be Abel to answer people’s problems, but more impotently initiate the actual workflows to fix the issues. In other areas it is been the application of AI to assist people with issues. Not using AI as an Agent but using it as an assistant. This has produced a 20x increase in the resolution of HR queries and a 7x improvement in closing security issues. We us AI extensively to increate th productivity of the engineers producing code — and finally in a company that is continually bringing people on board we wanted to automate that entire onboarding process using AI and have now got to the point where 99%of employee pre-onboading tasks are completely before the nee employee even arrives at the company.
What are some of the common misconceptions you’ve encountered about using AI in business? How do you address those misconceptions?
I’m going to address this based on some of the research that Brian and I uncovered when we were researching the Infinite book. The first is that AI doesn’t deliver ROI the same way other investment do. Executives evaluate AI investments the same way they evaluate an ERP rollout, a cloud migration, or a call center automation project, what does it cost and what does it return over time. This can lead to people thinking AI in not returning value and abandoning project that might be about to compound returns. AI is always learning, iterating, and evolving. The returns it produces don’t plateau at a fixed level. They compound and become exponential as the system learns, data quality improves, and workflows are redesigned around intelligence rather than process.
The second misconception is that AI’s primary value lies in reducing costs by automating work, eliminating roles, shrinking headcount or improving margins. Companies that use AI primarily to cut costs realize linear, one-time gains while missing out on the compounding returns that come from using AI to create genuinely new value.
And the third misconception is that AI will just replace workers. That agents will take jobs, headcounts will shrink, and the people who really benefit will be the shareholders rather than employees. I think the fear is not unfounded, but the misconception lies in treating replacement as the inevitable and primary outcome, rather than as the consequence of a specific choice that leaders can make differently. The companies achieving the best results with AI are not the ones replacing the most workers. They are the ones redesigning work so humans and agents together create value that neither could alone.
In your opinion, what is the most significant way AI can positively impact businesses today?
This isn’t the most glamorous answer. It’s not “AI agents replace entire departments” or “AI creates new billion-dollar revenue streams overnight.” The biggest impact you can have on a business to increate EBITA is to redesign your workflows. I believe the biggest impact AI could have on business today is the ability to redesign workflows end-to-end so that the system learns and improves with every cycle. Implementing static workflows that are triggered by AI will just stagnate a company.
Ok, let’s dive deeper. Based on your experience and research, can you please share “5 Ways AI Can Solve Complex Business Problems”? These can be strategies, insights, or tools that companies can use to make the most of AI in addressing their challenges. If possible, please share examples or stories for each.
1. Redesign workflows end to end rather than just automating tasks. ServiceNow’s internal agents reduced IT service desk volume by 39%, autonomously handling 86% of interactions and we did that by redesigning the entire support workflow from the outcome backward. When you start with “what does resolution actually require?” instead of “how do we make our current process faster?”, AI reveals entirely new ways to do things.
2. Use AI to deploy people into new revenue opportunities. IKEA’s chatbot resolved 3.2 million customer interactions and saved €13 million — but the real breakthrough came when leadership asked what humans could now do instead, reskilling 8,500 employees as interior design advisors and generating €1.3 billion in new revenue.
3. Build learning loops that continual improve so that you compound the efficiency. JPMorgan’s AI suite compressed a task taking junior bankers hours into approximately 30 seconds. Jamie Dimon described their $2 billion AI investment already matched in savings as “the tip of the iceberg,” because every interaction makes the system smarter.
4. Think about the management structure and replace some of the overhead with autonomous agent networks. McKinsey’s research found that a human team of two to five people can supervise fifty to one hundred specialized agents running an entire end-to-end process. This meant they could deploy the resources that previously existed purely to coordinate handoffs. The “coordination tax” that silently suffocates most organizations simply disappears when agents own the connective tissue between functions.
5. Make sure that you employees are trained in AI fluency. Shopify made AI usage a baseline performance expectation tracked in reviews, while Zapier ran a company-wide hackathon where every employee built automations specific to their daily work. If you can increase the AI fluency of your company then the entire organization compounds rather than just the parts where AI has been officially deployed.
How can smaller businesses or startups, with limited budgets, effectively integrate AI into their operations?
To quote directly form Infinite — small is no longer a disadvantage! Companies have produced phenomenal results. Midjourney reached $200 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) with approximately 40 people. Cursor hit $200 million ARR with 20. Solvely.ai reports $6 million ARR with four employees. OpenArt AI reports $12 million ARR with 8. They have no legacy that they need to unlearn. They should adopt a three step decision process. First, check if an off-the-shelf AI tool already exists and adopt it. If not, build it, because the capabilities to “vibe-code” solutions, composing skills, data, and guardrails has never been easier. If without neither of those solutions work the hire someone to the task you need.
What advice would you give to business leaders who hesitate to adopt AI due to fear, misconceptions, or lack of understanding?
Most people do have a rational fear of AI, but most people are afraid of the wrong thing. The real risk isn’t moving too fast. It’s drifting into irrelevance while competitors improve things you haven’t started building yet. You don’t need to understand the technology AI transformation success depends on people and processes. This is a leadership challenge, not a technical one. You don’t need to transform everything at once. Pick one workflow that matters. Redesign it from the outcome backward. And one great quote from Brian — “If everything you try works, you’re not being bold enough.”
In your opinion, how will AI continue to shape the business world over the next 5–10 years? Are there any trends or emerging innovations you’re particularly excited about?
I think we will see the emergence of truly autonomous enterprises. In these companies the enterprise becomes an intelligent systems that can sense, decide, act, and learn continuously, 24/7, without human intervention in routine operations. We will see the ratio of humans to agents increase, but the fear of what this means to the workforce decrease. But I think the most exciting possibility is that new categories of value that haven’t been imagined yet will emerge. The will be created by human creativity and machine intelligence compounding together.
How do you think the use of AI to solve business problems influences relationships with customers, employees, and the broader community?
If we can use to augment work we can start to create elevated experience. We can personalize experiences, and freeing people for meaningful interaction will mean that relationships deepen. Customers will end up feeling better served. Employees should fine work more enjoyable and rewarding and. Communities benefit from organizations that can do more with the same resources.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people through AI, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would start something that looked at the true value AI could create. I would start a movement that uses machines to buy back human time, and spend that time on creation.
How can our readers further follow you online?
I can be contacted on Linked in https://www.linkedin.com/in/davewright2/ or via the website for my book, Infinite https://infinitecompany.ai/.
Thank you for sharing these insights!
About The Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator. Learn more at www.chadsilverstein.com
Dave Wright of ServiceNow On How Artificial Intelligence Can Solve Business Problems was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.