Innovation is driving the world of work forward faster than ever before. But innovation doesn’t always happen in a straight line.

ADP’s Chief AI Officer Roberto Masiero shares how good innovation starts with listening to the people you’re trying to help.

For more information, visit ADP.com/AI

Video Transcript:

Roberto Masiero
I think AI changes the shape and the speed of innovation. We can create prototypes. We can test new solutions in a fraction of the speed that we used to.

Patricia Stark
So this space that we're in is one of the Innovation Labs. Can you tell us about it and the people in it?

Roberto Masiero
Yeah. This is my home away from home. This is where the, you know, the team that I love experiments, incubates, creates new products. They're right there. And and I think the thing that I like about this space is that we, we really care about listening to our users, understanding their problems, creating solutions for them. Everyone in here, it's a technologist.

It's an engineer, is a story teller, is a designer that are focused on resolving the problems of our clients. So this is yes, this is where the magic happens and where we try to to really make the life of our clients better.

Patricia Stark
So take us behind the scenes of your innovation process. How do you start developing an idea?

Roberto Masiero
I think everybody thinks that innovation is about this. Oh my God. A bright light went up in my head and I came up with an idea. And I'm just going to develop. I think that 90%- I'm not “I think”; I know 90% of innovation is listening, is understanding what our clients day to day is, where they see that they are losing time, that they are not performing as well as they would like to.

It's listening is is I ask my engineers to visit clients to understand how they work, where they feel there is friction. I think that's where innovation. That's where innovation is most impactful, because then you will connect that innovation to an outcome that will make the life of our clients better.

Patricia Stark
Yeah, it's like the old saying find a need and fill it.

Roberto Masiero
Yes. Exactly. Yes.

Patricia Stark
So what do you think people would find most surprising about the innovation process?

Roberto Masiero
For me, I think the surprise is the fact that we think about innovation as a straight line. And it's not. It's a lot of experimentation. It's a lot of trying things and learning from our mistakes. It's a lot about looking at what we've done in the past and using this legacy of learning to create the new, as I said, is not just chasing technology, is not just using the latest toys for no reason.

It's finding the right tools to resolve the challenges and the opportunities that we see to make our work better.

Patricia Stark
So how has the emergence of AI affected the way that you see innovation taking place?

Roberto Masiero
I think AI changes the shape and the speed of innovation, the shape, because AI allows us very quickly to understand patterns, to observe the world and create new solutions for where we see patterns that we don't like. And this speed, I mean, we can create prototypes, we can test new solutions in a fraction of the speed that we used to, and then use AI to not only on the development on, but also on deploying the solutions when we're I think now and now we're more we're seeing that the UI morphs to what the client needs to what the user needs.

We're no longer designing forms and reports. We're designing a system that it's focus on the outcome, and it can design itself dynamically depending on the flow of work of the user. So no longer the user needs to adapt to our system, adapt to our flow of work. The system can adapt to the way the user works. So I think, I think we're in the in the verge of a very new frontier here.