Building the AI-Driven Enterprise with Paul Cheek

Willy sat down with Paul Cheek, Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, serial entrepreneur, AI strategist, and author of the new book, No One Works Here (https://a.co/d/027lfluQ), for a conversation about AI, the future of work, and what it takes to build an AI-driven enterprise. They explored why AI is advancing faster than organizations can adapt, why leaders may be looking at AI ROI through the wrong lens, and why adopting AI tools and training alone isn’t enough to drive meaningful transformation. They also dove into Paul’s framework for deciding when AI should-and shouldn’t-do the work, why organizational redesign is essential to realizing AI’s potential, and how leaders can prepare their people and businesses for a future where humans and AI agents increasingly work together. Key Points In The Webcast: 0:00 Introduction 4:06 37 AI agents and a Claude usage limit 5:24 Has the AI narrative shifted from job killer to job creator? 6:13 How Paul’s LinkedIn followers named his book 8:22 NVIDIA’s record quarter and the muted market reaction 12:38 Data security, frontier models, and Walker & Dunlop’s approach 15:32 What makes a business “AI-driven” 17:50 Using AI to grow the top line versus shrink the middle line 21:19 Why short-term AI ROI is the wrong metric 28:37 The literacy gap: boards, C-suites, and getting buy-in 33:38 Human judgment, commodity money, and the value of the human interface 39:14 Paul’s four questions for deciding if AI should do the work 41:49 Can startups really disintermediate an incumbent like Walker & Dunlop? 44:22 Advice to founders: distribution, moats, and cores 48:26 Regulatory capture, Boeing, and why some industries move slowly 51:39 Building an AI-driven enterprise, one “tinker time” at a time 55:05 The one AI agent that transformed Paul’s life most 58:42 The Druckenmiller op-ed and the question of AI authorship 1:01:12 Why paying for outcomes will matter more than paying for hours GET NOTIFIED about upcoming shows: » Subscribe to our YouTube channel here:    / @walkerdunlop   » See upcoming guests on the #WalkerWebcast here: https://www.walkerdunlop.com/webcasts Related webcasts: Tune in on Wednesdays for fresh perspectives about leadership, business, the economy, commercial real estate, and more! #WillyWalker hosts a diverse network of leaders as they share the wisdom that cuts across industry lines. Check out our previous videos: » Full playlist:    • Walker Webcast   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1z3wDGM... Follow us: » LinkedIn:   / walker-&-dunlop   » Facebook:   / walkerdunlop   » Twitter:   / walkerdunlop   » Instagram:   / walkerdunlop   POSTING POLICY: Please bear in mind that this is a public and professional platform. We'll do our best to ensure that our postings on this page comply with our standards, which prohibit content that: is abusive, defamatory, threatening, or obscene is fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading violates the copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, right of privacy, right of publicity, or other intellectual property right of another contains or links to any virus, worm, Trojan horse, or other forms of malware or harmful code contains the personal information of others, such as names, addresses, and telephone numbers violates any law or regulation is otherwise offensive. We expect users not to post content that violates our standards. We cannot monitor postings or discussions in advance, but we reserve the right to remove any posting that does not meet our standards.