177: ‘The Digital Futures of Architectural Practice’, with Kristen Forward

177: ‘The Digital Futures of Architectural Practice’, with Kristen Forward

Evan Troxel: [00:00:00] Welcome to the TRXL podcast. I'm Evan Troxel. In this episode, I'm joined by Kristen Forward. As technology futures leader at NBBJ, Kristen leads the firm's strategy for integrating artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies into architectural practice.

She also contributes to industry research on data and AI and lectures and teaches on courses in design technology, strategic foresight, and design futures at institutions like the University of Calgary, where she serves as a seasonal instructor. Discuss her trajectory from computational design to leading emerging technology initiatives, particularly focusing on AI implementation and digital transformation in architecture. You'll hear her emphasize the importance of being future literate and having strategic foresight.

And she also addresses the challenges of managing rapid technological changes, the significance of data privacy, and the future of [00:01:00] agentic systems. Additional highlights from our conversation include NBBJ's innovative approach to integrating emerging technologies and applied research. including their practice embedded digital team structure, the importance of human centered technology adoption, and how NBBJ ensures team members maintain agency while embracing new tools, the role of design futures thinking and strategic foresight in shaping architectural practice. And as usual around here, we explore the intersection of traditional architecture and emerging technologies, offering insights into how firms can proactively shape their future while maintaining their core mission of creating impactful physical spaces.

Before we get into today's conversation, if you're new around here, I would very much appreciate your support by subscribing to the show wherever you watch or listen.

And please leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps others find the show. You can also support this incredible industry resource that I've created here by [00:02:00] becoming a paid member at trxl. co Just click the join button in the lower right hand corner or if you're on mobile, click one of the subscribe buttons at the top or the bottom of the page.

And finally, if you'd like to receive an email from me when new episodes are published with all the links and other information as they come out Sign up just like you would if you were going to look into membership. Click on one of those subscribe buttons at either the top or the bottom of the page to learn more.

This was a great conversation with Kristen and as usual there's an extensive amount of additional information in the show notes to explore if you're the curious type like me. So be sure to check that out. You can find that either in your podcast app if you're a paid member or if you're a free member, you can find them at trxl. co. And now, without further ado, I bring you my wide ranging conversation with Kristen Forward.

​[00:03:00]

Evan Troxel: Kristen, it's great to have you on the podcast. Welcome.

Kristen Forward: Thanks, Evan. I've been listening to your podcast for a while. It's pretty surreal to be here, actually.

Evan Troxel: Oh, thanks. I am very happy to host you on the show. I know we chatted, I think it was AU in Las Vegas. Is that the

last time I saw you? Yeah.

And, uh, we we've been working since then. Not too quick. too hard, but on getting you on the show and you've been doing a lot of things. Um, but I would love maybe before we get into what you're working on, I would love to hear your story of how you've gotten to where you are.

Kristen Forward: Oh, sure. so I guess in terms of career, I had a long stint in post secondary education. I started in an undergrad in business, um, at the University of Victoria, and I specialized in finance. I love mathematics. Uh, then I went to work for a construction company in Calgary, Alberta, uh, They lost a big transmission line project and I got laid off.

So I [00:04:00] did some soul searching, wanted to go back to school, thought about software development and UX design. Then architecture literally came up on the side of a Facebook ad. And it was like, have you thought about, attending the University of Calgary to attend architecture school. And I said, Oh, maybe that's what I should do.

And then it just totally became clear that that was the direction I should take. Um, everything about the profession seemed like, even if I didn't want to pursue becoming an architect, it would get me to where I want to go because of the nature of the thinking, the discipline, um, the technology. And so I basically went back to, um, Continuing studies, got a portfolio together, uh, did a bunch of fun creative stuff, and then entered the school, and I focused right away on computational design.

I had, um, the pleasure of a few professors that were very, very keen on digital practice, so I joined a laboratory, I did a [00:05:00] lot of design build, a lot of digital fabrication, we got some robot arms. Played with those, taught some courses with those, um, and then I graduated and then I did another degree focusing on just, uh, digital fabrication, um, circularity in digital design was really the, the focus.

Um, and then I presented my work at Acadia. I got discovered, I would say, at Acadia, um, by someone from NBBJ and they invited me to interview, uh, and I Got an interview to work at the Columbus office literally when the pandemic started. So, I asked them, are you sure? You know, like you're literally moving all of your, uh, you know, your infrastructure to go work from home.

And are you sure you want to bring me in? They're like, yeah, yeah, we, we want you. So I flew to Columbus and I landed the weekend that the Black Lives Matter movement started. That was pretty much, you know, that kind of says it all to how my, my entry into the United States was, um, you know, [00:06:00] that and the election and in 2020 and 2021.

Um, Yeah, so it was a, it was a really interesting start to my career, um, working at MPBJ in the States. And I started off as a computational designer, though it quickly turned into leadership in the computation team. Petr Mitev was the previous, uh, head of, or the global head of BIM and computational design and he left to go to work at Enscape and, um, said that he thought I would be good to step into the role.

And I interviewed for it, and then I, you know, that kind of made, made history, and I've been co leading that team with a colleague of mine since 2020.

Evan Troxel: Nice.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, uh, though, that's like just the first stage of how my role has transitioned in this company. Um, I've had, like, three or four different titles, and I, it progressed from computational design and leadership to specifically focusing on [00:07:00] performance design.

Um, we have a. a unique design performance group in the company. And I did a lot of performance analysis. I was very vocal about different sustainability, um, initiatives and circularity, and I joined the performance group and that brought me to Seattle. So I've been here for three years now. And since joining that group and getting a bit closer to the leadership in the company, cause Seattle is the hub, I was exposed to a lot more of the high level strategic questions.

And when AI. You know, started booming in, in our industry and, you know, everywhere around the world, I was very vocal about it. So they kind of put me in charge of it. And then I started just talking so much about emerging technology and educating our peers in that way. And my role turned into a technology futures leader.

So that's what I've been doing for over two years now. Um, I think and research the future. I, uh, think about how technology might play [00:08:00] a role. I develop and I implement emerging technology with a team. I train my colleagues and help them use new technologies on projects. Uh, I give them, I get a lot of feedback from them that drives the strategy and I'm very much a conduit between the highly technical people in the firm and the firm leadership.

And I, I do my best to communicate the value, um, the case studies and show people very simply, you know, what it means to get value from these tools. Um, And I by no means want to sort of impart them on anyone. Uh, I, I take a lot of concerns about the emerging technology, especially around AI to consideration.

And I make sure that people feel like they have agency, um, because the human needs to be in the center. So that's a big part of my work is, um, talking with people about their thoughts and feelings and hopes, because that's also a big part of future's work is understanding what's preferable to people, [00:09:00] to people Um, you know, a lot of people, because that's probably where we're going to move to, if that's a likable future.

Let's take a quick break from the conversation to tell you about Avail. Is your team struggling to find the BIM assets they need? Avail's content management system simplifies access to all of your firm's content in one easy to use platform. No matter where your files live, or what type of files they are, you can easily search and access them from Avail.

Evan Troxel: Now, designers can consistently find and reuse all types of content. So what does that mean? Well, standards compliant models and drawings are easier to create. The documentation process is less chaotic, new hires are easier to onboard, projects are delivered faster with fewer errors. You get the idea.

Visit getavail. com to try Avail for free and request a free demo. That's getavail. com, G E T A V A I L dot com. My thanks to Avail for supporting [00:10:00] this episode of the TRXL podcast. And now let's get back to the conversation.

Kristen Forward: yeah.

Evan Troxel: I, there's so many things that I want to talk to you about here, but I want to go back to the Facebook ad real quick. How did, so you, so you said, okay, you saw this Facebook ad and then, and then it became very clear that this was the path that there is a huge leap in there. And, and, and so Facebook obviously knew like, as it does more about you than you knew about yourself. Can you please just kind of, Build that little bridge of how did that become so clear to you of something that wasn't even on your radar to now being this kind of futures based person in architecture? Like that, that's where it's gone, right? If we look back to the beginning, you're like, I wasn't even looking for this here and this ad pops up. How, how did it become so clear to you? Um, it was, it was, it just like, wow, I didn't. I didn't. realize that's what architects did. I didn't realize that this is what the potential [00:11:00] was. Like kind of talk us through a little bit there because I think when we look back on our own journeys, we see those initial sparks too. And that helps us kind of restoke the fire of, of where we are. Um, but, but it's fun to hear other people's stories there too.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, definitely a funny sort of coincidence, and you're right, the algorithm was definitely tracking what I was doing and looking up on the internet. I, I clicked on it and I understood. from the description what the practice was, like it actually, you know, describe the program, what you learn. And then I just started from there researching what the architecture industry is about, and I, I had previously thought about going into engineering, but I didn't want to do another undergrad.

Um, then the computer science and the UX stuff that, you know, the whole design field was sort of lingering in my mind. And then I also thought back to how my parents predicted that I would be an architect, [00:12:00] but I always thought that it was a a very engineering heavy kind of focus. And since I wasn't going to go that direction, I didn't know it would be an option.

And I didn't know that I would, I didn't know that I didn't need a specific type of undergrad to go into a master of architecture. So once I looked at that description of what the degree actually means. I was like, okay, well, there you go. I can have a business background. I can have all these different interests.

I don't need to be an engineer and I can still do this. And then I just kept researching from there and discovered the whole world of digital design and computation. And it just spoke to me. I thought it was fantastic.

Evan Troxel: And you, you obviously have like this, um, proclivity towards, I mean, you're, you're doing computational design. You're talking about like the, the programs that you went through with robotic arms. It sounds like there's a really heavy emphasis on implementation of these [00:13:00] skills to produce things in the real world. And I'm just curious, like what your experience was with that? How, how. Perfect. Was that for you? Is that something that you're still interested in? I mean, obviously you work in architecture where we produce real physical buildings for people. And so I assume that there's still, um, you know, a lot there, there, but can you kind of talk about that aspect of it?

Because you talked about, um, you know, coding software development and, and those are very much, you know, the software side of things, but then there's this interface into the real world with physical buildings. You know, spaces that, that architects build and what, just give me kind of a sense of where you feel like you're fitting into the world when it comes to, because there's so many options out there, right?

A lot of students today are not looking at architecture anymore. They're looking at software development. They're looking at UI, UX. They're looking at these adjacent industries. Because. for many reasons, right? But then there's still kind of this, [00:14:00] you know, affecting the real world, the built environment through architecture. And I'm just curious what your experience was kind of navigating through all of that, because it sounds like it's not the too recent. It's not, it's not too recent, but it's also not the far distant past that you went through all of this.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, of course, architecture is near and dear to my heart and I was more interested in it than I was in pure UX design to start because it results in producing something physical and really impacting the physical world. It's very tangible. That was my argument against wanting to go into finance.

Because the finance industry, you know, money, stocks, all of it feels very intangible. And I just loved that whatever you put your mind to and you, you know, you draw, you program, all of that results in something that is a physical entity in the world. It's using materials and it's, um, you know, putting a space out there for people to experience and affect their behaviors and enjoy.

And I just thought that that [00:15:00] really was important than just going in the pure software route. And it's funny that you're asking this because I have gone a lot more to, you know, producing technology, doing UI UX design. Um, but I love that it's connected to the architecture industry. I love that I'm impacting like, yeah, I'm a little bit more removed from it.

Um, but at least I'm still helping create tools, uh, evangelize, evangelize tools that other people can use to then create built work that affects our environment.

Evan Troxel: When I was transitioning from designer to digital practice lead in my previous role. I had many people on the design side say, you know, when are you coming back from the dark side, right? They, they saw that the technology, the software side of things, the teaching others, the firm operation side is like not the real work, right?

Obviously all of that is, it's all the real work because it takes an army [00:16:00] to do the kinds of projects that we're talking about. And I always felt that like there, there definitely is kind of this perception, um, where there's architect, architects who are, you know, if you're not doing the work specifically working on a project, then it's some other place you're, you're, you're involved in some other thing and it's not your true calling as an architect. I'm just curious if you've kind of experienced that same thing in the work that you've been doing.

Kristen Forward: A little bit. Um, the company I work for, NBBJ, is a very, what's called, like, practice embedded. The digital team is sort of split between the operational team, you know, the infrastructure, network and security development, and then there's our practice embedded digital leaders. Who work within their studios and they're always on projects.

And that's, that's the, the model that has worked really well for the company. So there's always this sort of expectation that the digital leaning designers are embedded in the work [00:17:00] and the expectation. Has sort of swayed a little bit for me, but it's also coming back to, you need to impact the projects and the work.

And I'm not necessarily staffed like a regular designer on projects, but I act more as a consultant. So I sit in with the designers and I, Open up exactly what they're trying to work on, whether it's, you know, an AI image generation tool or like a research tool. Um, and I, I help them kind of get to where they need to be for that project.

So I feel like I am close to the work. Uh, I just not designing the spaces myself.

But I help with producing the outputs. And I would say the same attitude resonates with the leadership team. Higher above me too, the firm leadership team, the partners, they all, most of them, pretty much all of them are practicing architects or designers, or in some way they're on projects all the time.

And that's a, yeah, it's just a very important ethos for the company.

Evan Troxel: I found it extremely satisfying to help [00:18:00] others achieve more. than they could do

just themselves

by teaching those tools or by just exposing them to those tools in some cases, right? In other cases, it's like there's hand holding and there's training and there's all of these kind of different aspects to getting them to the next level. And I felt like that is so satisfying, even as a designer myself, because we are doing more. We are doing better. And it's not just like, Not just a pile on there, but that, that really, to me, was one of the goals of the evolution of practice was to actually self actualize that, right? And if you can't do that, you will just constantly be doing things the way you've always been doing them, right? I, I find it interesting with your role as, as a futurist because something that, a quote that came up on my last episode with my colleague, Cody Winchester, he said, just assume the way that you're doing things will not exist. [00:19:00] It's like he's being generous in saying, the way that you do things isn't going to be the same in 10 years.

And I'm curious from your point of view, like NBBJ is making an investment clearly with your position and you as an individual and, and plugging you into design teams and doing all of these things too. Uh, it's not just like make sure that that happens, but actually help them get to the point so that they're not falling behind.

Right? Um, maybe you can describe it in a better way than that, but I'm curious of if you can just kind of talk through the kind of proactive nature that the firm is taking toward creating its own future and not just being reactive to the way things have always been, but also, you know, lagging behind maybe what's, what's going on in the industry.

Kristen Forward: I would say that NBBJ has historically taken a very innovative, if you want operate. [00:20:00] at the forefront of emerging technologies. They're also very interested in bringing more applied research. They, you know, expand out to have consultants join the practice. We've had surgeons join our practice before we have nurses on staff, you know, really trying to push the, the edge of what it means to be designing and the different disciplines that we have that we consult with and, and, you know, work with clients on.

And, um, I think that it just keeps, keeps moving like that with emerging tech, especially the practice is just very, very open to trying to understand what that future looks like. They want to invent the future. I would say, I think our, our CEO has said something along those lines, you know, the best way to understand the future is to invent it.

And so that's, that's pretty much how I operate. And it's how I also tell other people the firm operates when I interview [00:21:00] them or have a discussion about what the firm is about. You know, they're, they're really interested in just having new discussions. Everyone is really curious. Everyone seems to enjoy playing around with new technologies, new ideas, thinking about the future, and it's just a really nice environment.

And so that's. It's just been very uplifting, and you're right, I have a very unique role that's, they've put a lot of investment into, and I'm super thankful for it, because I don't know, I mean I don't know much of how other firms would, would think about this in terms of my role, especially with like a new discipline bringing in design futures thinking, um, is brand new for them, so I'm just ultimately thankful that they're, they're willing to do it.

Evan Troxel: So maybe you can define a little bit more about what design futures thinking and how that is being applied to practices at NBBJ for us.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, uh, so like I said, it's, it's newer. Um, I've been taking courses, uh, mostly through [00:22:00] the institute, Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, uh, learning what it means to practice futurism in work, specifically design futures, of course, because I work in the design industry. And, um, it kind of starts with learning how to be futures literate.

So that was the first course that I took. Uh, and it's all about empowering the imagination. It's a skill to learn. It's, they, they joke that there's a poverty of the, of the mind of imagination and we need to solve that and becoming futures literate helps us do that. It helps us reveal our assumptions about the future.

It helps understand how the future plays a role into our current choices. And then there's the next level, which is strategic foresight. And this is sort of beyond analytics and trends and stuff. And it takes a super structured methodology to explore, imagine possibilities, and then transform those into actionable items.

Uh, and there's a lot of amazing ways [00:23:00] to do this work. There's a lot of different, um, tools and workshops that you can organize. Um, and it's all about a systematic way of just exploring futures. And that S in futures is very important because it's not one future. It's the probable, possible, plausible, possible, and preferable futures.

You know, it's all of those different alternate futures. So in MPBJ, I've done a handful of workshops. I've focused on futures of sustainable design within my studio, and I've also focused on futures of workplace, talking a lot about the uncertainties that are around the futures of work, specifically in the architecture industry.

And try to build scenarios of what that future workplace might look like so that we can then assess our strategies that we're building against those futures, see if they hold up in all these different scenarios that they played out. And the Futures of Sustainable Design has been really fun [00:24:00] and just identifying emerging key trends that we think are really important and will impact us the most.

We've done what's called implication mapping. So you take a key trend and then you think of a first, second, and third order consequences because of that trend. And you essentially work backwards. And And from that, you can identify what actions you might want to take today to, uh, I would say capitalize on an opportunity that you're seeing from these consequences or mitigate a risk that you're seeing from the consequences.

So again, it's super early, but I've been testing it out with different groups and different disciplines. And I'm hoping that by showcasing this more in the company. Uh, we'll be able to do it with clients is, is the goal, you know, it's, it's all about how to engage our clients and, and help them think about the futures that they might be interested in.

And I think the exercises would be amazing to bring more to the project [00:25:00] work. And I know that there are a lot of ways that we engage our, our clients in similar, a similar fashion. So I'm hoping that we can do it now more so with like foresight specifically in mind.

Let's take a short break from the conversation to invite you to join the most influential technology leaders in the AEC industry at Confluence. Composed of in person events and a podcast co hosted by yours truly, Confluence is designed to foster conversations between AEC firms and technology companies so they can learn, share, and engage with each other to support industry innovation.

Evan Troxel: Software company Avail, which creates content management solutions for the AEC industry, started hosting Confluence events in 2019 to understand what firms are needing, wanting, and thinking around technology. To learn more about Confluence, explore upcoming events, and listen to podcast episodes, go to confluence.

getavail. com. My thanks to Confluence for supporting this [00:26:00] episode of the TRXL podcast. And now, let's get back to the conversation.

Where do you look for data points or inspiration or, you know, obviously you're looking outside of architecture and there's the world at your fingertips, right? So give us kind of some ideas of the types of things that you're looking for that are sparking your interest out there, especially when you're looking at an idea like sustainability in the future.

Kristen Forward: There are futurist databases that exist where they're almost betting on trends. Not necessarily betting. There's no money. It's not like those betting markets that you can use for like betting on elections and stuff. It's uh, it's more Okay, here's, here's a signal. Let's decide collectively if we think it's a strong signal or a weak signal for the future.

And then there are make a trend catalogs that futurist organizations Periodically update together and there's like huge debates and conferences that they have on what is still a mega trend or where it's [00:27:00] going. And there's also, I have tons of news that just comes into my inbox. I have a lot of different newsletters that I look for that.

almost too much, I would say. I'm, I'm aware of what's new. Uh, but I have a few key journalists that I really rely on at this point to bring me news from the future, I would say. And those Futures Institutes, those Futures Organizations are just a really good resource.

There's another one that I love to tell people.

It's called Reasons to be Cheerful. And it's a resource that It's purely signals and trends that are positive, because when you're getting news so much, it can feel very doom and gloom. You know, there's a lot of fear mongering out there and I'm, I'm kind of desensitized to it. I mean, a part of me dies a little bit when I read a headline that's like, AI agents are going to take your job or like something, they're taking over the workforce.

But you know, I, I constantly am looking for the positive trends and [00:28:00] predictions as well.

Evan Troxel: It, it sounds like there's, I mean, this overwhelming amount of stuff to sift through. And so, I'm curious, like, what, especially when you're working with groups in your office, and, and really making it meaningful to go through these exercises for them, and not like something like, Oh, here, here comes Kristen, we're gonna do this stuff that's never gonna happen, right?

Like, I, I, I've been through scenarios like that, where it's like, why, why are we wasting our time on the stuff that is so far away? Maybe you can just kind of, obviously, there's so much for you that you could get into, but there's certain things that you're picking and you're saying, we're going to apply this, we're going to, we're going to look into this one.

Um, and, and what makes the difference, I guess, is my question, between all of the stuff that's out there and what you actually are putting into the basket of saying, this, this applies. Thanks.

Kristen Forward: I would say that. In order to practice futures work in a company [00:29:00] successfully, you have to be able to put together roadmaps and teach people, you know, here's the overall vision. Here's the ideal future, you know, 10, 15 years out. And. Let's work backwards to show how we're going to get there. And these are very actionable steps that you can take.

And so based on all of that, today, this is where we need to be. This is how we need to put together a team. This is how we need to think about our workforce. This is how we need to think about the tools and the infrastructure and the systems and kind of go from there. So I use it as a way to project out and then think about what I'm doing today, and I communicate it that way.

And I, I think it's been very helpful to ground. the decisions. When I communicate the roadmap for our AI systems in the company to our firm leadership, starting with that ideal future and then talking about what the signposts are, what we have to overcome, you know, all the different dimensions and going backwards really helps them understand, okay, I get it.

Like, this is why we're investing in this now. This is why we're doing [00:30:00] this. So I think it's all about framing that perspective, but it needs to come back to, you know, how we use the future today is essentially the goal.

Evan Troxel: And it seems like if you don't do these types of exercises and you don't get people's gears turning about the potential, the possible, the, the preferable, all of those things, those words that you used earlier. then what's the alternative, right? It's, it's like to me that to go back to the quote earlier, right?

If, if the way that you're doing the way that you're doing things doesn't exist in 10 years, like what is, what is the way that we're going to be doing things? And it's not that, you know, the way that we're going to be doing things, but there are many possible preferential, right? There are these words. And so, and so then it becomes at least opening up and exposing people to thinking like that so that they can also be open to change, right?

Because I think that's probably the hardest part [00:31:00] about working in architectural practice today is the unwillingness to change because, I mean, and there's good reasons. I've got a deadline, Friday, right? I have to get this done. I already know how to do this stuff. It's working fine in air quotes, right? Uh, and Yeah, I mean, what do I need to look at new ways to do it for because to do that because I already know how to do it.

And that also is what is holding so many firms back is just doing things at the way they've always done them.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, change is hard. So, a lot of the Futurist work is about change management, and then that plays a huge role in how I approach the technology, the structure of our initiatives, change management is kind of the key focus right now, and it's, it's difficult, um, I'm working collectively with a group of other firms in an innovation consortium to help identify how to approach it specifically around our data and AI initiative and figuring out the structure for [00:32:00] ownership and building legitimacy in the practice, not having it all come from a single central hub.

That's really important. I found that the key to sort of bringing people over to understanding and be willing to change is them seeing from their how it's benefited them. And so we do a lot of showcasing other people. I'm, I'm constantly trying to get people to share their work on a regular basis and give examples exactly how, you know, using this one tool or using this process and doing something a little bit different really helped the work.

And those kinds of stories are just like gold in this practice. So, but then of course it's, it's a lot of work to make sure the people are documenting and they're willing to tell the stories. You know, it's hard to convince some people to take their head out of the work and talk about the work. Um, but it's very, very important.

So I'm, I'm trying to find ways to make it easy for [00:33:00] people, I would say, and give them the platform. So other people are like, Oh, Hey, I could do that too. And my work might get a lot better.

Evan Troxel: What is the general appetite for? Adoption of new workflows, new technology in a firm like NBBJ. And I don't know if you have any experience outside of NBBJ because I, and I'm sure, you know, it's all over the map for, for all kinds of firms, but at NBBJ, what's it, what's it like for that appetite?

Kristen Forward: I would say there's a huge range. There are, of course, the very digitally inclined folks that are early adopters and they're evangelizing tools. They're taking it upon themselves to train their colleagues around. It doesn't have to come from a central group. And then there are architects and designers and, and others who are a little bit less willing to change.

But I would say in general, the firm has a aptitude for it. Like they're, they're just generally interested in it. And the [00:34:00] firm leadership, I think. It kind of comes from them and I've, I've witnessed it and I've been working with them closely now for a little while. And I see that they're just very interested in innovation.

So that attitude sprinkles down through the company. And when people join the firm, I think a common thing that's told to them is this is a very entrepreneurial firm. Like it's very non hierarchical. Uh, it's very. They're very interested in people discovering their own career path and they're very supportive of that.

And so I think that generally as like a way of thinking about the staff and you know, the, just the structure of the company gives a lot of platform for new technology, new ways of thinking to kind of approach because the people that are just coming together in the company, want to hear new things and want to learn from each other.

Evan Troxel: [00:35:00] Hey everyone, let's take a quick break from the conversation to pay some bills around here. This episode of TRXL is brought to you by TRXL+ members. That's right, my incredible paid supporter members are making this episode possible. Their direct support ensures that I can continue exploring the intersection of architecture, technology, and the future of design with the leading voices in our industry directly to you. So let's talk about why you might consider financially supporting the podcast to o by becoming a TRXL+ supporter, you're not just helping sustain these conversations. You're also gaining exclusive benefits like ad free episodes of the show and my Leadership Edge email newsletter where I analyze episodes and deliver the insights and key takeaways right into your inbox. Your small contribution makes a huge impact.

And if you've been enjoying TRXL and want to be part of the community that keeps it thriving, please consider joining

today. Head on over to [00:36:00] trxl. co and click the subscribe button, either in the upper right hand corner or at the bottom of the page. or you can visit the link that I've put into the show notes.

Once again, my sincerest thanks to the TRXL+ members who have made this episode of the podcast possible even though they aren't even hearing this ad because theirs are ad-free. Now, let's get back to the conversation.

So you mentioned sustainability as one of these kind of. projects that you took on for imagining the possible future. What other ones are you, can you talk about that, that you've worked on that are current of, of like, I, I assume AI has been a big, um, shift in the practice at NBBJ. Is that kind of a, another one that you've done this type of exercise in?

Kristen Forward: I've done similar exercises. I haven't gone through a, a very, uh, like participatory version of it yet. I've done a lot of [00:37:00] thinking with some of my closer colleagues, but I, I brought the AI discussion into the futures of workplace more. And I didn't, I didn't want to make it about AI because I think that, you know, It is the sort of the hot thing and it's just going to be a reality in the future.

And that was one of the first things that we identified when we did the workshop together to identify what's called critical uncertainties. We, I identified all these different trends and what might be uncertain of if they will be, um, you know, amplified in the future or not. And most groups just put it.

Like, we're gonna have these digital coworkers, it's gonna be, you know, making a big influence in our work. And it's just going to be the norm. So we kind of all decided on that. And then we focused on the things that are a bit more uncertain, like how much we're going to interact with emerging, or sorry, uh, with immersive technologies.

There's a lot of debate over whether or not it's going to be like, you know, fully hybrid virtual kind of [00:38:00] workplace or whether people are kind of go the other way and be like, no, I want it to be very in person, very, you know, tangible. And I don't want to have, you know, all these virtual worlds around me all the time.

Um, and then we also just focused on different attitudes about wellbeing. You know, I think there's a lot of discussion about work from home, uh, new methods of working in terms of how we engaged with the global workforce, and I think there's a lot of debate still over how much companies are going to prioritize sort of the, the employee well being versus productivity.

So, so yeah, like the AI conversation definitely came up in there, but more so as like an underpinning for these different scenarios, and then it played out differently in the different scenarios based on those other critical uncertainties. So, you know, the, the ways that we interact with AI changed depending on the different attitudes of the firm, the different ways that we incorporated immersive [00:39:00] technology.

So that was really, really fruitful. And I'm about to write a thought leadership piece that explains that. So maybe that'll be out by the time this podcast comes out. Um, um, Yeah, but the other way that I've engaged with AI and futures is to work backwards from an ideal scenario. And like I've said, map out exactly what our roadmap needs to be.

And it's come up from just a lot of research, a lot of discussions. And I put that together so that I could make it super clear to the firm leadership why we need to invest in building a team, why we need to invest in certain types of training, uh, certain types of tools and methods. Just the goals that we're after.

Evan Troxel: Do you see that kind of replacing existing roles or, or those roles shifting into that rather than just being additional stuff. I think one of the things that's hard for a lot of firms to grasp, I mean, and we've been hearing this on the digital practice side of things for [00:40:00] years now, it's like, We need experts in data, we need experts in data science, we need experts in, you mentioned a few, right, there's like psychology, nurses, you know, you're staffing up to round out the perspectives and the expertise, and it's more, more, more, right?

And so that is overwhelming, I think, for a lot of people. Do you see current roles shifting into those roles? Because it's just so obvious that that's the direction that we're going?

Kristen Forward: I definitely think that there will be some people that move more into like overseeing AI and really heading that kind of, those kinds of workflows in the companies. I think that companies are also going to be looking outside for disciplines that are focused on data science, that they just, I've already seen that in other companies, um, we're talking about it on the horizon to, you know, working with consultants first, and then that would pave the way towards eventually bringing in probably a machine learning engineer or a data scientist in house.

[00:41:00] Um, but I also think that there's that quote that's like, you know, AI isn't going to take your job. Someone using AI will. I think that, you know, Pretty much everyone is going to have to learn how to work with these tools in a way that keeps them productive and competitive, you know, that, that's just going to be the reality.

They're going to have to be able to compete with the people that are bringing them in a lot more into their workflows and getting the benefits. But I'm, I'm very wary of. forcing it upon people and being like, Hey, you need to learn these tools. You need to use these tools. Otherwise you're going to be out, you know, there's someone that's going to out compete with you.

I think that it should be very much up to the individual and giving them the agency to decide what the tools take over in terms of their workflow. It's a very personal question, you know, and this is a very general purpose technology. So there are ways that we'll be having it. Do things in our personal lives.

And I think it should just be a very individual choice of what [00:42:00] you want to have this take over and where you want to have agency. I think that one way that we could kind of think about future roles and the sort of the workforce composition is if we ask the question of what won't change in 10 years?

You know, what's going to stay the same? What will architects still be doing in terms of, you know, every piece of that process. And what will they most likely give up? And that's, again, a very sort of emotional question and where futures work can come in because you ask them what's preferable. But I, I also just really want to hone in that point that it should be very an individual choice

Evan Troxel: Yeah. Yeah.

Kristen Forward: with that pressure, I guess, a bit of being productive to some level as well.

And different firms, I also think will approach it very differently. Like that's definitely what I learned from our, our workplace futures exercises is this might be something that we foresee that is a way, like a firm like NBBJ might want to structure itself, but there might be other firms [00:43:00] that feel differently.

You know, you've seen it with the return to work mandates, you know, some are saying, no, you know, four day work week, anyone can work from every anywhere, you know, it's super flexible. And some are like five days in, you know, like it, it's just going to range in terms of the, the company and the sort of culture that they want to build.

Evan Troxel: So, when you're doing these, these exercises, like on Workplace, for example, are you doing these to, I mean, it seems to me like there's, there's obviously an internal, audience, right? But there's also your clients that you're working with. And is there an education component that goes along with the interactions that your firm is having with those clients or potential future projects on, from their side as well?

Is that really feeding into that side of it as well? Yeah.

Kristen Forward: I started with the workplace features because we have workplace strategists in our consulting studio. And I thought that If this work is going to be able to interface [00:44:00] with clients soon, this is the best group to introduce the thinking to and introduce the methods and the exercises to, because I think that they're the first ones that will be willing to test it out with clients.

Um, I think that there are other people that have sort of been exposed to this kind of work too. So I'm, I'm hopeful that it will get more embedded into work with clients. But like I said, it's still really early and I'm but one lowly person that's learning these skills, uh, and trying to implement them.

So it's going to be a bit of a process before we, we really bring it more to the client work and, and get those benefits that I'm hoping we can get.

Evan Troxel: I, I mentioned a minute ago about like adding, it's like we talked about adding people or adding roles, but also we're always adding tools and, and things. What do you see is like, like to your point about looking at what's not going to change in 10 years, um, let, let's look at the flip side of that. Like what are we taking away from practice that you're good to see, that you're happy to [00:45:00] see is, is going away or could potentially go away?

Kristen Forward: I think the general consensus is the documentation process. You know, the, the CDCA process is not necessarily where designers want to spend their time. They want to spend it on upfront designing, you know, the majority of designers would say that. I'm sure there are some people that like get a kick out of putting details together and just like really, really love that part.

But I think that a lot of the architects out there, um, Don't want to do that. And we spend a huge chunk of our time on it already. And it's a huge part of our fee. So it's going to be. I think just very, very different. It's going to be a lot more streamlined. You know, it needs to be something that's worked on with others in the industry.

It can't just come from the architects. It needs to be the way that we deliver that makes sense for the way that contractors are going to build, um, you know, all the other parties that would require information from models. It needs to be just [00:46:00] streamlined that way. And I think a lot of, a lot of that process when it comes to it is just.

administration. And so I think that that's going to be ripe for, you know, AI coming in and taking that away because people don't want to do that as much, or they want to at least have help that they can assess it, you know, decide where they want to be in that process rather than having to do all of the brunt work to begin with.

Evan Troxel: Yeah, the tedious part I think is, and it's not that it sounds like, um, when, when that type of thing is described, it's like, um, I'm trying to think of like my teenager who's just like, I don't want to do that. It's not that, right? I think it's, um, it's more like that's not where my value is. And so we know as architects that our value is in, it's not in drafting, right?

And, and so I think maybe that's a clear way to say it. And [00:47:00] because of the tedious nature of drafting and the, you know, But also the high stakes, right? Like there's, it's, it's high stress. It's tedious. It's complicated, or let's just call it complex. And that's where the coordination problems happen. And like, it's just kind of a mess, right?

And so to think that there's no answers there, is, is, I think that's just the, there's too many people who think that there's not enough, um, disruption that could happen in that area. It really makes sense, I think, and because it, it's, it's one of those, it's obvious, like, this is the place where we should not be competing against. Drafting services, contractors, whatever. Like, that's not our, that's not where our value is. And

so, I think it does make sense if you step back and look at this thing in the big picture. I think that's hard to do for some people who have spent their career,

you know, making a living doing that. [00:48:00] And their value is there as well, but at the same time, like, you want to be, they don't want to be stuck doing it.

They want, so, so I, I agree with you. I think that that's one of those things where it's like people won't miss it if it goes away,

Kristen Forward: Yeah, I think also that it's, it's hard to think about what you'll be doing in the future when you just talk about something that might be taken away. But what people aren't often thinking about is what new opportunities these tools are going to bring to what you can do and how you can add value. I mean, the forecasting tools, the prediction tools, the simulation tools, those are, Right for new kinds of capabilities that humans need to develop in order to interpret them and incorporate them into the work and coordinate.

So I'm just really excited to see what those new opportunities are for us to get more engaged in the meaningful decision making that we just can't conceive of right now because we don't have that kind of capability that these tools are providing. sort of promising, you know, people are looking at them for [00:49:00] that in the future, but I really do think that that will be the way we engage with them is to bring all of the pieces together.

And then as humans, we can make better decisions about what we think will benefit humans in the spaces we create.

Evan Troxel: Absolutely critical, I think, and that's something that I think about a lot, which is just to reiterate what you just said, which is this idea that it opens up new opportunities, and it opens up new pathways for people to get excited about and not continue to just to do the same thing that they've always done the way that they've always done it.

Like, stop looking at it as taking this thing away, or. making your role go away, right? Your role will evolve. It will turn into something else, right? This is a metamorphosis. It is an evolution. And I think Like, that's basically what industry is built on, right? It's not built on, I, unfortunately, there are many examples, I think, of, of industry being built on not changing,

right, and, and protecting, and that's where [00:50:00] gatekeepers come in and, but, but when we're really talking about moving and the, the speed at which things are moving, uh, that to me is the way you have to look at it, because if you don't look for those opportunities to find new ways of doing things.

of doing things, then you really are going to, I think, be set aside. I don't know if you'll be, like, you'll just absolutely disappear, but yeah, it is one of those things, for sure.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, I agree.

Evan Troxel: Let's take a short break from the conversation to tell you about something that I think is pretty great and you might be interested in it, and that is my exclusive newsletter available only to paid members of TRXL+ that I call Leadership Edge. If you're looking to stay ahead of the curve in architecture and technology, Leadership Edge delivers insights that you won't find anywhere else.

Why? Well, because they are my deep dives into the podcast conversations, just like the one that you're listening to in this episode [00:51:00] to give you an edge on the industry.

Each edition of the newsletter provides key insights for forward thinking leaders seeking innovation in AEC who are short on time (who isn't?) offering the context of each conversation without the need to listen to the full episode. I've actually designed them, though, to keep you updated, spark your interest and encourage you to tune into the full episodes if those ideas resonate.

And the best part is that they are packed with actionable takeaways to help you navigate the future of practice. By becoming a paid supporter, you get Leadership Edge delivered right to your inbox, and it's a direct way to support my podcast while getting exclusive, valuable content to sharpen your leadership mindset.

You can join today at TRXL. co and start receiving my Leadership Edge newsletters.

Just click the subscribe button either in the upper right hand corner or at the bottom of the page, or you can visit the link that I put in the show notes. Thanks. [00:52:00] Now back to the conversation.

What have been the challenges for, for you and for your firm with, with, um, keeping up with how fast technology is evolving? Is that, is that a, do you feel like it's, it's, it's too fast?

Do you feel like it's, like, you've got that under control? Or do you feel like you're, you're barely hanging on like the rest of us?

Kristen Forward: Yeah, I mean, I think I'd be lying if I said I feel like I'm that much in control. I think that me personally, I, I feel very informed because of the way that I'm getting information and the conversations that I'm having. But, you know, I can't say that about the rest of my colleagues. You know, it's, I don't know how much they're keeping up with the news.

I try to send things to them and you know, my, my team will keep people in the know when we think things are really, really important in sort of, you know, emerging technology news. Um, but the, the weirdest part about this new technology frontier is [00:53:00] it's so accessible. And so people just are getting access to the tools and playing around and sort of creating their individual productivity, but then it's not making it into the scalable infrastructure of the firm.

It's just, they decided, okay, well, I'm going to use notebook LM and I'm going to do this. And it's not something that everyone else can adopt because they're just doing something that works for them. So it's really, really difficult from. Like a leadership perspective in a company to keep track of all of that and bring it back to a scalable, uh, I guess, system that the company has and can offer everyone.

So it feels like the Wild West a lot at the time,

and most of the time, I know of tools, but sometimes I have colleagues that will bring new tools to me that I've never heard of, uh, and I have to look them up, and I'm like, okay, sure, um, another one, you know, they're coming out all the time, and [00:54:00] especially when AI, generative AI became super popular right away, There are people just creating these really shitty apps in their basements in an afternoon or, you know, overnight, and then they would crop up and people would be getting a hold of them.

And I think we've gotten a hold of that problem a little bit more now. And, um, people are learning to be a bit more choosy and particular about the things they look into because they're waiting for other people to talk about them and their social media or, you know, LinkedIn is a good place that people get their information.

Um, but. It was a little bit risky before I would say with people just picking up whatever tool that could have tons of security vulnerabilities. And so it's been just, it's just been very difficult. We've been trying to put a better pipeline in place for assessing technology. We have a security assessment that we need to send out.

We want to do. A lot more of automation in this area so that we can make it easier for people to get [00:55:00] feedback on, you know, if a tool makes sense to look into further and then eventually implement. So we've been creating these, you know, diagrammatic structures of how we would assess technology. You know, if there's a, someone has an idea or, or thinks of something and see something and they want to bring it to us, you know, what are the processes that have to go, we have to go through and how do we set up a pilot?

And can we give them access to, um, an untethered server so they can just go and test the tool in a safe environment? You know, all these questions came up, especially now because of the accessibility of these tools. So, yeah, it's, uh, I don't feel like I'm totally in control, but we're at least aware of the issues, most of them.

Uh, and we're doing our best to kind of encourage people at the same time as put a lot of guardrails on it.

Evan Troxel: Can you talk about those risks? Because, um, I'm sure there's a lot of people who bring tools to your, you know, like, Hey, have you seen this? Without understanding those risks at all. And so, like, what do you tell people about [00:56:00] the risks that are involved? And maybe tell the audience what some of the risks actually are that you're seeing crop up kind of time and time again, when it comes to privacy, security, data governance, all of those kinds of things.

Kristen Forward: Yes, I think that the main concern that I have is around IP. It's around data privacy and protecting the IP of our clients. It's very, very easy now, with a lot of the tools out there, to just plop in a document that you've created in your workplace that is very much private and confidential to the company or confidential to a client, and you just basically give away the rights to that information and some Technology company then has that data that they can use and train their new models on.

So I'm mostly concerned with that. And it comes up with how we're implementing mid journey, which has, you know, the worst terms of service out there. Everyone kind of agrees to the point where some firms have refused to implement it. Their legal teams were just like, Nope, [00:57:00] but ours has been quite flexible.

Uh, with the caveat that we have to very rigorously train people on what these terms of service mean. And they have to have an hour long orientation when we give them access to the tool. Because if they put in in progress sketches that essentially belong to the client, then they're violating the agreement that we have with our clients.

Because MidJourney has these terms in their service agreement that they have the right to, um, essentially reuse it in any way they want. It, they could turn it into a stock photo, weirdly, like it's kind of the, the gist of things and, and it's not put together in the best way. I think our legal counsel said that it read like a toddler put it together.

So I kind of have to tell these stories to our colleagues about, you know, what it means to be So that's a big piece of the image generation stuff. And then I talk about how we have other tools that are downloaded and on our personal [00:58:00] servers in the company. And those are safer. You can use them however you want.

It's not going to go outside. There's nothing calling to a model that's on the internet somewhere that, you know, the database will be outside of the company. Um, Um, and then especially when it comes to those tools, like I mentioned, Notebook LM, there's a big risk for people loading in anything in there that is just a confidential document.

So when I hear that, I tend to, I try not to discourage, you know, I want people to test things out, but I just say, you know, be very mindful about what you're putting in. You know, if it's a publicly available document, totally fine. If it's a YouTube video you're putting a link to, totally fine. But the second that it's something that's on a project, you need to stop and think about it.

And then I try to move the conversation more towards, if you wanted to do this with project data or with internal data, you know, Would you be interested in helping test a process that we develop that's more internal, that doesn't have this risk? And it's kind of like a, a [00:59:00] good way to find the needs and then get more buy in with people that can test workflows that we think would be beneficial for more people.

Evan Troxel: I mean, if you think about it, I mean, it makes total sense, right? Like, there's just more and more and more tools available all the time, and you want people to build competence in these tools, and at the same time, like, people don't realize that email is not secure. Right? They think if they email a private document to somebody outside the firm, that it's just between those two people.

And it's absolutely not.

Right? And, and it's a completely open protocol. And, and so how can they be expected to know the ins and outs of all of these? I mean, this is not an easy, there's no easy solution to this.

Kristen Forward: no, it takes a lot of training. Yeah. A lot of conversations to be had. Um, I did. What's called a studio roadshows. We do this when an internal [01:00:00] group has sort of created something that they want to share with everyone. Um, we'll go around and join their, their Monday meetings or their, you know, their studio meetings that are weekly and present on it.

So I went around with our legal counsel to every studio last year and presented on. The tools that we've been investing in, uh, the legal policy that we put together, the risks that they should be aware of. And we had our legal counsel actually, you know, make it very, very clear to them as well. So it was, it was great to have that combination and sort of make it feel more serious.

but also be mindful of the data and stuff like no like we actually had the legal counsel be like don't do this Like this is here like our contractual agreements and what you know, what our values are and you know Make it very very clear what we should and shouldn't do

Evan Troxel: I, I'm really happy that we've got to have this conversation because I think it gives a peek behind the scenes of what's actually going on [01:01:00] inside of firms. And I appreciate you being a voice of the practice on this podcast because, um, there's a lot of tech companies out there banging on our doors to get the latest, greatest, or the thing that you don't know about in front of you. And, um, It's, it's overwhelming, right, for, especially at the scale that you're operating at MVBJ, I can only imagine how overwhelming it is to be fielding all of this stuff and the budgets that have to go along with it to actually make it happen. You have to spool up internal teams, you have training, you have resources, you've, I mean, there's, it's just unending and the practice of architecture is rapidly changing right now, right? And it's one of those things where it's like, how do you get in front of that. And so I appreciate you taking the time to kind of help the audience understand. And the audience doesn't mean practitioners necessarily. It means people on all sides of that table. And so I think there's been a valuable conversation. [01:02:00] I guess what I'd like to maybe finish off with is what are what are you excited about? happening in 2025 or, you know, if you're talking about futures, like what, what do you have your eye on and, and what do you think 2025 and beyond is going to bring? I mean, it's, it's really hard to say what's going to be, what it's actually going to be like in five years, let alone 10 years, but, but like just what's, what's on the horizon that you can see now that you're, that's exciting.

Kristen Forward: Yeah, so exciting There's, there's things that I am

Evan Troxel: Worried about?

Kristen Forward: on, but it is very exciting at the same time. So one thing that I'm, I'm researching quite heavily, uh, not just in terms of the technology implementation, but the way that it's communicated in the company and also beyond our agent systems, agentic systems.

Uh, of course they've been making headlines and, you know, maybe a few, uh, fear mongering headlines that I'm not a big fan of, but. I think that they're gonna drastically change the future of soft [01:03:00] development and I want to get ahead of it. So I've been Working very closely with our software developer and our integration leader on how we're setting up that system to be successful in the future, basically, because people like Satya Nadella have said that apps are all going to go away in favor of agents.

Like the, you know, software system is dead, essentially. I mean, I don't know if that's true, but I think that the future of software as a system in terms of those companies are, is very much uncertain. So it's, it's very hard to predict, but at the same time, if you look at what they're doing, you can pretty much replace agents.

To be able to do that, Safra's a system is kind of a thin UI layer on top of a database and we're going to have these agents be able to just interact with them and they're going to have all the business logic and Then one thing that I actually think is exciting about that is the technology departments and companies are Probably going to become the HR team [01:04:00] for agent systems they're going to sort of build these agents to onboard other agents and And One question that I am so curious about is what it looks like when you have people joining a company that have built their personalized AI agent that's helping them be productive in all areas of their life.

And they want to bring that as a partner to their new position in a firm. You know, we, the technology teams are going to have this issue of how we onboard, not just the person, but how we onboard their agent and how those frameworks work, how connected they are, you know, how much can they go into our databases?

Like, those are just really interesting questions to me. So exciting. Also a little worrisome in terms of what the future of software development and software developers. Um, but then, yeah, I'm doing a lot of research on the, the agency aspect of it, uh, which I've mentioned before, just what it really means, what [01:05:00] that spectrum of agency is.

You know, right now we have super basic augmented language models, which is just, they have memory, they have retrieval, they have tools, and then you can go all the way to multi agent systems. And I want to make it very clear to people what agency really means, also against, you know,

Evan Troxel: I was going to ask you that.

I was going to ask if you could do that here, because I think that there's a hundred or a thousand different definitions when somebody says agent, like it's really, people can interpret that so differently. So can you be a little more specific about what you mean by agencies?

Kristen Forward: I think that there's something that's like natural agency, which is the ability to fully perceive, sense the environment and have the autonomy to act in it. But then when you have these agents, a lot of the time, they're just sophisticated orchestration tools. They're not actually making, they're not doing the goal setting.

And so humans are doing the goal setting and then these agents are going out. And yes, they're making very sophisticated [01:06:00] decisions on which tools, which workflows to leverage in order to get the best decision. And they're asking for feedback and then they eventually arrive at a result. But. The human is still setting the goals.

They're the ones that are orchestrating it from the highest level. So I don't think that that really says true agency. So I think there's a lot of, um, misplaced sense of, uh, you know, what these tools can actually do. And they're almost being anthropomorphized by calling them agents and them having agency, which I really don't like either.

I'm not a big fan of like humanoid robots and all of that. Um, so. Yeah, I think that for now we have natural agency which humans have and then there's the The systematic agency that we're seeing that is quite powerful, but it's not achieving that goal setting,

Evan Troxel: Yeah, I kind of think about it as, you know, in, in differently from algorithmic stuff, right? Algorithmic stuff is always going to approach. Whatever you throw at it the same [01:07:00] way. I mean, that's the definition of how it's going to accomplish. The goal. And maybe it's not even a goal, right? It's just a, uh, it's like a, a visual programming script, a grasshopper script.

It's like this component does this, right? It's not, that's not what agency is. Agency says like, here's the goal. I will figure out a way to achieve that goal. And I think that's what makes it so interesting, right? Is that it will look for ways that you probably didn't think about to achieve. The thing that you've asked it to do, and I think what's in, what's kind of terrifying about this is like you think about like the way that YouTube, the, the recommendation engine works or the Netflix. Netflix recommendation. Like, they don't know how it works anymore, right? They'll

say, why, why did you show me this video? And like, there's no answer. We don't know why it showed you that video. It's based on a million things. And I kind of feel like, you know, Paul Wintour's, um, article that he, his blog post about [01:08:00] technology that's, uh, you know, unused and, you know, it's, it's, it's like one of those things where it's like, these things become so hard to maintain. Can, if, if people are creating agents and agents are working on top of agents and there's this really complicated network of agents that are accomplishing tasks, it's like, how did, how did the answer come? I don't, I don't, I'm not quite sure because we're, it's not hard coded. Right? Like, I think that's the, the interesting thing here.

And at the same time, it's also kind of the scary thing. It's like, well, how do you know you can trust it? How do you know it ethically solves that problem? How do you know all of these things? And when the network gets big enough, it's going to be very difficult to kind of go back in and change something or remove it or whatever.

When, especially when they're learning from each other.

Kristen Forward: I think that the the notion of explainability and Researching what that means in these systems is really important now because of that there are ways that there are you can develop these tools to try to [01:09:00] explain in some sense, but it's a huge area of focus that the, the sort of big tech area focused on AI hasn't totally solved.

But I look to, um, Anthropic a lot, you know, they have their constitutional AI, they're constantly putting out research to develop an understanding of what it means to, you know, have these things take over your computer and make decisions over a period of, you know, minutes. days, months. And they're, you know, I think that they've given some really good ways to enable some sense of explainability and it helps build trust in the tools if you do implement some of that.

So I'm, I'm just looking to those researchers out there that are thinking about that aspect of it. So it, it isn't so such a black box. It isn't so scary to, you know, have it decide on what it's going to do and not be able to tell us how it got there.

Evan Troxel: There are a lot of deep thinkers out there who are looking at these problems and, uh, and at the same time, the tech space is [01:10:00] moving at a breakneck speed and, you know, moving fast and breaking things, right? So, uh, maybe not asking permission up front. It's interesting to watch this unfold if nothing else.

I mean, it's, uh, we live in an interesting time. So, uh. This has been a fun conversation. Thank you so much. I, I've learned a lot and I'm very much looking forward to your thought leadership piece that you're going to be putting out on LinkedIn. Send me a link to that and I will include it in the show notes for this episode. And, uh, is there anywhere, anything else that you'd like to mention to the audience or let people know where you can follow, where they can follow you online?

Kristen Forward: I honestly think I'm most active on LinkedIn. Uh, I don't, I don't love LinkedIn, but it's kind of the best platform. I'm decidedly moving away from meta platforms. Uh, as of this last week, we're recording this in the middle of January. Um, for those of you keep up with the news. Um, so yeah, LinkedIn is probably the place to [01:11:00] be.

Um, anything that is published through the company or through my own personal account will be there.

Evan Troxel: Great. Thank you so much for this conversation. It's been great.

Kristen Forward: Thank you. Yes, this is an absolute pleasure.

​