Elizabeth Beasley: A Financial-Industry “Risk Nerd” Navigates AI Adoption – Episode 21

Elizabeth Beasley As AI is storming into content design and operations, Elizabeth Beasley is taking a patient and deliberate approach to adopting it in her practice. Elizabeth works on security and identity products at Intuit, so the experiences she designs have to be reliable and trustworthy, hence her identification as a "risk nerd." She has also navigated big business changes before, like the shift from cable broadcasting to video streaming, and saw in those transitions the benefits of being a cautious and curious adopter of new technology. We talked about: her role as a content designer working on security, identity, and fraud at Intuit how her background in media and technology have made her a slower adopter of new technology like AI how being a "risk nerd" informs her concern around reliability and trustworthiness in AI how her cautious approach to AI adoption may actually put her in a better position to develop trustworthy AI experiences the new collaborators she is working with as AI arrives on the scene her work on an industry standards body around new security technology the utility of having troops back at the fort to keep the old operations running as your org explores new tech like gen AI how her interest in history informs her approach to change the inherent risks in being first to adopt new technologies her "peaceful Wednesday" practice for preventing and coping with stress and burnout how times of rapid change like this can prompt useful career reflections the recent evolution of her thinking on the "seat at the table" issue Elizabeth's bio Elizabeth Beasley a Senior Content Designer with Intuit’s Identity team. She approaches life with a healthy balance of optimism and skepticism. Because everything is going to be okay, maybe. She used to have hobbies like performing improv comedy and ballroom dancing. Now she enjoys watching other people doing their hobbies on YouTube. Connect with Elizabeth online LinkedIn Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/Ny2l_mZgLXQ Podcast intro transcript This is the Content and AI podcast, episode number 21. It's easy to get caught up in the frenetic pace of generative AI technology adoption - unless you have already created rituals to help slow your life down. Elizabeth Beasley created her "peaceful Wednesday" ritual ten years ago to bring some calm to her increasingly fast-paced work life. That practice is serving her well now as she and her colleagues at Intuit develop their approach to incorporating AI tools while continuing to deliver trustworthy experiences. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 21 of the Content and AI podcast. I am really happy today to welcome to the show Elizabeth Beasley. Elizabeth is a Senior Content Designer at Intuit, the big financial software company. Welcome, Elizabeth. Tell the folks a little bit more about what you're up to these days. Elizabeth: Hey, it's so fun to be here. Yes, I'm at Intuit. Financial services is my life lately, and I've worked in a fun space. I think it's fun, security, identity. I always describe it to my mom or my friends like, I do the part where you create your account, you sign back into your account, you manage your account and I make that easy for you with content design, they still don't quite understand that, but that's the space I work in and I really, surprisingly enjoyed. I worked in banking previously and got into security and now I'm sort of obsessed with security and identity and fraud and it's a fun, exciting space to work, and also I love it because everyone uses it, so it's very relatable and it affects many, many people. So it has a lot of impact. Larry: You can't do anything until you get past that experience that you're designing. Elizabeth: Yeah. Larry: Then you're in and then you can start doing stuff. But you sort of established your cred.