Is there a place for AI in TrAItors?

What a comedian, a heckler and a client pitch can teach us about the skills AI cannot simply download into people.

There is a wonderful moment in stand-up comedy when everything can go horribly wrong. The comedian has spent days polishing the material, working on the timing and getting the punchlines right. Then somebody in the audience decides to join in.

Jimmy Carr got a beauty in Stockport. He asked the audience about the worst present they had ever received. “A ticket for tonight,” came the reply. Carr asked the man what he did for a living. “Tax inspector.” Given the headlines about Carr’s tax affairs at the time, that could have been awkward. Instead, Carr fired back: “Well you’ve not been doing a very good job. You better get your finger out.” The audience cheered.

That exchange tells us something rather important about communication. Carr did not stop the show, consult his notes or ask for a minute to think. He listened, read the room and responded. In other words, he did what great communicators do. Now imagine a partner in a professional-services firm, halfway through a carefully prepared pitch, when the client interrupts: “Your competitors say they can do this for half the price. Why shouldn’t we go with them?” That is a heckle in a suit. And the ability to handle it might matter more than the previous 25 slides.

A recent BBC story about AI and education got me thinking about what we mean by learning. AI can explain an idea, help us prepare, challenge our thinking and even play the part of a difficult client. I think we should use it. It is a terrific tool. But I am not convinced we should confuse having the answer with having the ability to use it when the room takes an unexpected turn.

Comedians understand this better than most. The polished hour you see on stage is often the result of relentless practice, small adjustments and immediate feedback. They learn which words work, when to pause, when to push and when to leave well alone. The audience tells them. Sometimes with laughter. Sometimes with silence. Neither can be ignored. And some of the best moments come when somebody throws them a curveball.

Which brings me to The Traitors. There is even an AI hiding in the middle of TrAItors, although I suspect the producers did not put it there for this purpose. Think about the Round Table. People have to make their case, answer accusations, judge the mood and persuade others to believe them. Their beautifully constructed argument can fall apart with one question. They have to respond in real time. Could that be one reason comedians are such interesting contestants? They spend their working lives dealing with an audience that does not always behave as expected. That does not mean every comedian would win The Traitors, or that persuading someone in a game is the same as earning a client’s trust. But the skills overlap more than we might think.

The best pitch is rarely the one delivered most perfectly. It is the one that changes when the client tells you, perhaps without actually saying it, what really matters to them. When you see an accomplished professional owning the room by dealing with the sharpest questions from all comers, in fact inferring by their comportment everyone should “bring it on”, it’s like the comedian taking on a heckler with a sense of humour. And, by the way, AI is never going to do that for you in the room or help you much in the run up.

At KWC Global, we work with talented professionals who know their subjects inside out. Lawyers know the law. Accountants know the numbers. Consultants know their specialist fields. But technical expertise does not automatically make someone a rainmaker. We ask people to build relationships, challenge clients, win trust and persuade decisionmakers. Yet too often we prepare them to deliver a message rather than to have a conversation. What happens when the client disagrees? When somebody goes quiet? When the question comes from left field? When the room has plainly lost interest? Those are not interruptions to the real work. They are the real work.

That is why practice and feedback matter so much in our Rainmaker programmes. You have to try the pitch, face the awkward question, see the reaction and try again. Not to memorise a better script, but to become better at responding to another human being. I see a huge opportunity for AI in learning. Use it to research, prepare, rehearse and sharpen ideas. Let it give people more opportunities to practise between workshops. But do not mistake the rehearsal for the performance. AI can help you prepare for a client meeting. It cannot guarantee that you will notice the person at the end of the table who has stopped listening. It cannot win the trust of the person sitting opposite you on your behalf.

The comedian knows the difference. You can practise a joke a hundred times. Until a real audience laughs, you do not know whether it works. And you can rehearse a pitch a hundred times with AI. The real test comes when a client asks the question you did not expect. Perhaps the future of learning is not AI versus human trainers at all, but in using AI to make the practice better, so that when the heckler arrives, we are ready.