Reese Witherspoon doesn’t believe it’s artificial intelligence “coming for your job,” but rather the people who know how to use it.
On stage with Julia White, Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer of SAP, as the closing keynote guest at this year’s SAP Sapphire conference in Orlando, the famed actor, storyteller, and entrepreneur discussed her outlook on the AI revolution, along with her thoughts on the importance of effective leadership and diversity.
“It’s here to stay,” Witherspoon said of AI. “It’s the same as when social media came up, and people were like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be on it.’ I was like, ‘OK, well, they invented the car, and you’re riding a bicycle...’ I see it as something I need to lean into.”
Addressing “women and or people who are not typically in those developmental spaces with AI and tech,” Witherspoon added, “You’ve got to get in there, because tech can only do so much, but then we have to layer our own creativity on top of it. We have to layer our own humanity on top of it, our own ethics.”
Witherspoon spoke candidly about the challenges she’s faced in finding meaningful roles from the traditional Hollywood machine, This, she explained to the audience of tech professionals, is why she eventually decided to take matters into her own hands, founding media company Hello Sunshine to create more opportunities for women in the industry. Throughout the conversation, Witherspoon touched on universal themes of leadership, entrepreneurship, reinvention, surrounding oneself with positive and supportive people, and taking risks.
Understanding the relevance—and power—of AI is important to Witherspoon, and she also discussed how it can reshape the way creative projects, such as those created by Hello Sunshine production and media company, are conceived and executed.
Witherspoon told White about her own usage of the technology, including taking online courses focused on AI and experimenting with ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Dall-E. Said Witherspoon: “I gave a speech the other day and I ChatGPT’d, ‘What would Reese Witherspoon say to Vanderbilt Owen Business School graduates about entrepreneurship, in a humorous Southern tone that is lighthearted but also informational?’”
What is unique about Witherspoon’s perspective on the innovation economy is how she put creativity into a practical context based on an evaluation of her personal strengths and weaknesses, along with her willingness to take risks by teaming up with people and organizations that complemented what she brought to the table. In addition to her success in business, including the sale of Hello Sunshine to the Blackstone Group in 2021 for over $900 million, Witherspoon has received numerous acting accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She won the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of June Carter Cash in the 2005 biographical film Walk the Line and won Golden Globe awards for Big Little Lies and Legally Blonde.
Below are a few more pieces of Reese’s insights:
On embracing artificial intelligence
It's here to stay. It’s the same as when social media came up, and people were like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to be on it.’ I was like, ‘OK, well, they invented the car, and you’re riding a bicycle...’ You also have empirical data that you can share with companies to help leverage your deals. I see AI as something that I need to lean into.
I said before, AI is not going to take your job, but the person who understands AI is going to take your job, so I’ve been doing online courses… I gave a speech the other day and I ChatGPT’d, ‘What would Reese Witherspoon say to Vanderbilt Owen Business School graduates about entrepreneurship, in a humorous Southern tone that is lighthearted but also informational?’”
Women and people who are not typically in those developmental spaces with AI and tech, you’ve got to get in there, because tech can only do so much, but then we have to layer our own creativity on top of it. We have to layer our own humanity on top of it, our own ethics.
I always encourage the young people in my life, whatever your major is right now, just to take an AI class. Whatever you are excited about, go one step further, and there’s so much online. I was just on an airplane to London, and I took a course… and it was fabulous. It gave me all these things about how to build better prompts on AI tools.
On building Hello Sunshine
I was determined to make this company work and I was determined to return to my investors what I had gotten, and it all worked out. I want to say it worked out because I had an incredible CEO who joined me, Sarah Harden, who created culture and infrastructure and never treated me like I couldn't do it even though I was more of the creative counterpart.
Then, I found like-minded people who felt the same way. When your company is based around a vision or a problem that you want to solve, which was women weren't authoring their own stories and women weren't starring in enough. But we knew empirically that women were consuming three times more media than men. And with the emergence of social media and streaming, there was this need for content and community around that content. I was so lucky. I have the best team and we did it together and we all had equity and we all benefited from the sale, which is great.
On leadership
I have this idea that if you hire well, you shouldn't micromanage. I try to get out of people's way and let them do their best work. And I come in at pivotal moments where I say, okay, what do you need from me and call me when you're stuck. I'm a really good decision-maker.
I've done this for 35 years, so I kind of can prognosticate what is going to get bought and where, and who is the right screenwriter for things and director for things and the right casting, I'm always reading and trying to understand where things are going. I think leadership is about trusting the people you employ and hiring the best people.
On building the right culture
She [Sarah Harden] and I spent a lot of time at the very beginning about what were our hopes and dreams and what are some of our biggest tenets at work, which are humor, optimism, honesty, integrity. We all do it. We have a DIY culture, which [means] 'clean the dirty cup in the sink, and put it in the dishwasher.' And I don't care what position you hold; that means a lot. It's the little micro-interactions that mean so much.
I also think it's important to be really clear about what you expect from people. If you really define it easily, then people know if they've done a good job, or they haven't done a good job based on those definitions. If you're murky about what people's jobs are, they're going to be murky about how they do it or if they do it. And I also think it's important to continue to communicate and say, ‘That was something I expected, and you really delivered. This is something expected, but you didn't deliver that.’ We talk about how, so there's just constant communication going on.
On courage
Every time I get on a new project, I'm out-of-my-mind scared that I can't do it, but I just do it anyway. And that's just the difference. You can sit and worry and wonder and wonder and worry, or you can just do it. Jump two feet in a cold pool at least once in your life. You have to be brave to have bold lives. And you can do it. You can do it. I said that you guys can do it. I didn't have a safety net. I didn't. And it didn't always work out, too. I'm not afraid of failure.
On bringing out your best
My grandmother used to always say, you could either be a radiator or a drain. And we all know a bunch of drains, don't we? There's something wrong, something. You finish a project and they're like, 'Yeah, but it wasn't that. It could be this.' Or they just start the day with a draining comment. 'Did you see this terrible story on the news?' You know that person? I call them the Bad News Gazette.
Every day I surround myself with people who are radiators, who radiate positivity, great ideas, to have a positive attitude towards getting the job done, and then also celebrate the wins. That's something that we’ve got to remember too. So, be a radiator, not a drain.