ChatGPT has helped take Kenya Solomon from security guard to problem-solver, and then to a new promotion as project manager – all after he used the technology to fix an “unsolvable” problem.
In the summer of 2023, Kenya was working as a security guard at Kane Realty Corporation, a real estate development and management firm in Raleigh, NC. He’d come to the role after COVID had interrupted his previous career. ChatGPT was still new, but Kane's leadership recognized its potential and wanted to put it in the hands of their team and see what happened.
Kane partnered with Marina Chase Carreker of Galleon Strategies on a pilot to empower employees. The pilot’s training cohort was mostly knowledge workers, but Kenya was eager to learn, so Kane brought him in. Kenya was a quick study. During an early session, Kenya's mind went straight to a persistent challenge the Kane team experienced with its fire alarm panels.
Kane builds and manages large, mixed-use developments. In each building, there’s a fire alarm panel: a three-foot box that is notoriously difficult to disable. When alarms trigger, the panels throw messages that are nearly impossible to interpret, especially at 2 AM with sirens blaring. Only a few experienced guards and maintenance workers were truly adept at reading those panels. If those experts weren't available, everyone else had to scramble. Leadership had long considered this an unsolvable problem.
Kenya saw a solution with ChatGPT. He downloaded the panel's 300-page technical manual, uploaded it to a personalized version of ChatGPT, added institutional knowledge from Kane’s most experienced custodians and maintenance workers, and had a working prototype in days. Any team member rattled by a sudden alarm could now snap a picture of the code being displayed, upload the image to Kenya’s tool, and get precise, real-time instructions on how to respond. Now a new hire alone on the night shift is empowered to perform a high-pressure task like a 10-year veteran.
At the end of the enablement program, Kenya demoed his new tool to leadership, who confirmed that he’d fixed their “unsolvable” problem. His path shows how curiosity and creativity can drive AI innovation as much as technical expertise. He has since been promoted into a newly created Technical Project Manager role, tasked with building internal tools for his colleagues across the company. That move also revealed Kane’s culture: Kenya describes it as a company that trusts those closest to the work, giving frontline employees room to solve problems they can already see. Now Kenya uses ChatGPT as a design partner to improve Kane’s operations and his co-workers’ lives. His goal is to help people across Kane’s divisions solve problems for themselves. One recent example is a dashboard that links teams like property management to security, maintenance, and custodial to prepare spaces that must be blocked off for construction cranes. Before, requests arrived by email and were sometimes only partially understood and implemented in the field, delaying construction. His new dashboard extracts key details, posts them on a shared screen, and helps teams follow through to completion.
He also uses ChatGPT as a design partner to improve Kane’s operations and his co-workers’ lives. His goal is to help people across Kane’s divisions solve problems for themselves. As part of that, Kenya leads AI Lunch and Learns across Kane's divisions. He put his coaching philosophy like this: "Don't worry about the how. The tool handles the how. You just have to know what you want."
