Airtable's CEO says he wants his staff to play with AI, even if it means taking time off from regular work

Howie Liu, the CEO of Airtable, is breaking the mold by urging his staff to step away from their routine tasks and engage in creative experimentation with artificial intelligence. In a recent episode of Lenny's Podcast, Liu made a bold statement, advocating for employees to cancel meetings and dedicate time to explore various AI tools that could enhance their work at Airtable. "If you want to take a day or even a week to dive into every AI product that you believe might benefit Airtable, go for it," Liu emphasized. He believes that the essence of innovation lies in play and experimentation, a philosophy he is keen to instill throughout his organization. Liu revealed his own commitment to AI, proudly declaring himself as the top user of Airtable AI, not only within the company but on a global scale. He described his approach to using AI as "extremely, intentionally wasteful," indicating that he spends significant amounts of money on inference costs to gain insights from data, such as sales call transcripts. "Spending hundreds of dollars on this is trivial compared to the strategic value of better insights," he asserted. This forward-thinking attitude toward AI usage is not unique to Liu. Other tech leaders, like Duolingo's CEO Luis von Ahn, are also promoting active AI engagement within their teams. Von Ahn mentioned that Duolingo hosts a weekly event, humorously named 'f-r-AI-days,' allowing teams to find new ways to leverage AI for efficiency. Founded in 2013, Airtable has evolved from a simple spreadsheet application to an innovative platform aimed at transforming how users interact with AI. With a workforce exceeding 700 and a valuation of nearly $12 billion as of December 2021, Liu sees the rise of vibe coding as a significant opportunity for the company. He believes that while AI chat interactions excel in handling straightforward requests, the future of AI work scalability relies on dedicated AI applications.