State of the MOPro - Mid 2026/with Naomi, Mike, and Michael

What does mid-2026 actually feel like for the people running marketing and revenue ops? And has AI made the work better, or just harder in new ways?

Michael Hartmann is back with co-hosts Naomi Liu and Mike Rizzo for one of their rare three-amigos episodes, a wide-open conversation recorded at the halfway point of 2026. No guest, no agenda, just three ops practitioners talking honestly about what's happening in the field, what they're seeing in the community, and where things feel like they're heading.

The conversation moves from the present state of AI in marketing ops to the bigger, harder questions underneath it. These questions are about the gap between AI hype and actual operationalisation, what it means to lead teams through expectations that keep changing, and what none of them know how to tell their kids about the world those kids are going to inherit.

Topics covered in this episode:

• Whether AI has made marketing ops and revenue ops easier or harder, and why "harder" might be the more honest answer
• The gap between how educated people are on what technology can do and how difficult it still is to actually operationalise
• Findings (early) from the MO Pros AI assessment benchmark study, including how bots contaminated the data and what human intuition caught that the AI missed
• Jensen Huang's pushback on CEOs blaming AI for layoffs, and what the ops community thinks about that framing
• How the current AI moment is different from previous technology waves: it is changing who does things, not just how they get done
• The post-scarcity economy concept and what it might mean for the future of labour and value

Episode Brought to You By MO Pros 
The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals

Transcript

Michael Hartmann

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of OpsCast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by all the MoPros out there. Today I’m your—well, first I’m your host, Michael Hartmann, joined today by my • partners-in-crime, Naomi Lu, Mike Rizzo. • How’s it going?

Mike Rizzo

Hello, hello. •

Naomi

Good. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

It’s going, it’s going, it’s been a while.

Michael Hartmann

^

Michael Hartmann

It has been a while.

Naomi

Last time we chatted, I think, was the three amigos. Last time I chatted, anyways. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Could have been.

Mike Rizzo

I wanna

Mike Rizzo

say that is also true for me. Poor, poor Hartmann just running solo. ^ We’re actually just gonna shoot a whole entire new intro for the show, ’cause it’s really just like instead of the three of us, it should just be Hartmann. We’ll just cut our two voices out, Naomi. ^

Michael Hartmann

It’s all good.

Naomi

Yeah, yeah. ^

Michael Hartmann

Nah,

Michael Hartmann

It’s all good, it’s all good. You ^ guys know, like I just stopped like trying to work around your schedules ’cause it’s just too too hard. Right? Like no • no shade. Like it’s all good. •

Mike Rizzo

I keep saying yes. The worst part is I say yes, and then I’m like, dang! I can’t make that one either. It’s the worst.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^ •

Michael Hartmann

yeah. So I think when we started we talked about getting to do a • ’cause I always enjoyed these. It’s like it’s kind of this now, let’s see, last was it kind of in the last week or so of June twenty twenty six. • It’s weird that I have to say the year these days. Like that’s ^• but it’s kind of a mid-year thing and just kind of see where things are, like • almost like a mini state of the mo pro. •

Mike Rizzo

I know. ^

Michael Hartmann

And see where like I know we’ve talked a little bit before we start hit record about a couple of things, but • where do you want to start? Should we start with like • is the world just gone AI crazy? Like • so ?

The Impact of AI on Marketing Operations 01:30

Naomi

Yeah, I mean

Naomi

^• do you think that AI has made marketing ops, • revenue ops, ^ everything ops? Has it made it better, • worse, or the same? •• Neutral? • I don’t think it’s neutral, but I guess depends on who you ask, I guess. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. • I think it’s dependent upon who you ask. ^ So I have a • slight I I don’t have all the data compiled and the written report done, but we did this • AI assessment benchmark • sort of study. • ^ and it’s it’s coming together now. ^• no surprise we we had a whole bunch of bots fill out the form, so we had to go we had to go like yeah, right.

Michael Hartmann

Mm.

Naomi

^ no.

Michael Hartmann

^ It’s

Michael Hartmann

so crazy.

Mike Rizzo

We had to go scrape out the data ^ to make sure we were just looking at what we believe is like truly valid inputs. ^ and there was there was a question in there around like hiring and headcount and support for the role. And I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me, but I can tell you that at first glance it was pretty clear that • for those that at least participated in that study, • ^•

AI has not made things, ^ you know, ^ much easier necessarily in terms of like advocating for headcount or anything like that. ^ they certainly are • leveraging it to do ^ what we heard for many, many years, which is like do more with less. ^ but I think just to lend • my perspective on it ^ and ^ my response to your question is I think it’s ^ •

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo

I think it’s harder. I think it’s a lot harder. ^ •

Michael Hartmann

Do you think that’s because

Michael Hartmann

it’s actually like a bunch of new stuff ^ or the expectations are that it’s gonna make things so much better so quickly? or ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, fair fair question. I think it’s harder because it feels ^ ••

I think it’s it’s a mix of two things. ^• if we go back in time and we look at like the MarTech landscape and the explosion of marketing automation, right? And we kind of remember that now, ^ at least for those of us that have been around long enough to have seen most of it. ^• there was there was a level of excitement about the opportunity in front of you back then. •

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo

But it was an unknown sort of territory, right? And so that ^ excitement carried you into this I’m gonna try these new tools and learn new things and adopt new things. And • I think there’s elements of that are present today ^• in this in this current environment with AI. But the difference now, ^ the second part of why it’s harder, • is that people are generally more educated on what is possible • around • technology. •

And so because you’re more educated on the possibilities of technology, it it simultaneously feels like even more is possible. Right? Like it’s just that much easier. Well, • it’s already been done that way before. And so ^ if it’s already been done that way, I know that that can do that. So can it do this? Could it be doing this instead? And it just sort of like opened up this . .

… the land of opportunity where it feels like all of it’s tangible and accessible.

But the reality is that • it’s actually quite hard and it’s ^ and it takes a lot

of orchestration and a lot of work and a lot of like really sitting down to try

to figure out how to make the thing work. • But everybody’s like, well it

should be easy. Like hey, I can just do it for you. ^

Michael Hartmann

It’s kinda like the paradox

of marketing automation is that it’s not truly automated, • right? It still

requires human like .  Yeah, I I think my my answer is more like I think about actually it was funny, I was just when you asked the question, I was thinking about our the question we had, was it probably a year ago about is marketing • is marketing ops actually marketing? And ^ I think that was the r I can’t remember if I got the phrasing right, but

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, right.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. ^ yeah. I

Mike Rizzo

I posted I was like, if marketing ops isn’t marketing thoughts. That was the whole post on LinkedIn.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

And and and I I think I think I think it’s too early it’s still a little too early to tell, but I think I I think I’m with you, Mike, is I think it feels like •• there was a lot of like • hope and hype and a lot of action. It seems like people are now coming back to this like, ^ it didn’t do what we thought it would do, right? Totally. ^ and things are shifting. ••

And so I still think there’s the op still feel like I have an open question. Like I’m not sure if I know an answer. Right. Right now it does I’m like you might. I think it feels like it’s generally been a net negative • in two ways. One, I think there’s • whether it’s been real or not, right? The layoffs that have been coming around and hitting marketing in general and marketing ops • to some degree • are being ^ blamed on AI. Like we I do actually believe that’s true in all the cases? No. Like •

maybe not even half of • but like there’s some but I do think that like the people who are making those decisions probably do believe to some degree like AI can replace some of this stuff. But I think • where I’m starting to land is that • all these AI tool are tools are tools, • right? • And

… hammer we use them is like we’re still figuring out • which one is the right hammer for the right thing and which one is the right wrench for the right thing, Like I don’t think that we’ve figured that out. ^ And because of that, right , the

There’s this pressure to do this • do AI , but • like it’s really unclear like what what things could happen. And when I think about like How how are the what are the use cases? We get started out with, • we can develop content and we can take content and you like create pieces we can use across different channels •. That pretty quickly was • pretty standard . But then you’ve got things like, okay, what can it do to automate things? What can it do to clean our data? What can it do to exec like deal scoring or like • .

And then like • and there’s orchestration stuff. • What I think is • gonna happen, like the whole Martec landscape, I think is gonna get blown up . • Then I really don’t know what’s gonna happen. ••

Generational Perspectives on AI and Future Implications   07:56

Naomi

I think like that’s interesting because, you know, I I I to ^ new grads a lot or people who are going into where are going into university trying to figure out what to study and • interested in marketing ops and whatnot. ^ And, you know, I think those of us who have been in industry for a while, like we try to • be mentors, right? And mentor like the next wave and the next generation. And a lot of us who have been in •

Mike Rizzo

But ^

Naomi

the industry from like the very beginning, a lot of us are at the age where we’re parents now to young kids. And ^ I think • and I’m not speaking for everyone. I’m this is just my self. Like I feel like this ^ strange mix of • like excitement and also like unease about AI because ••

I think • for the majority of the last few generations, right? Like you could – like our parents could reasonably and our grandparents could too, right? They could reasonably ^ assume ^ that, you know, my kids and my grandkids will grow up in every similar world to the one I grew up in , ^ right? Regardless of like cell phones, ^ space travel, like • it’s gonna be ^ pretty ^ similar, right? • ^

But I think about just how fast things are changing. And I’m like, okay, my daughter , she’s five this year. ^ When she’s 18 or when she’s 28, like, what is the world gonna look like? Right? It could be entirely possible that, you know, by the time she hits university, even high school, ^ AI tutors are better equipped than actual teachers, right? Or ^

Michael Hartmann

AI teachers are better equipment than actual teachers, so like it will universial even be a thing? Like

Naomi

Yeah,

Naomi

like most ^ the idea of like you don’t need to learn facts anymore when you can just look it up. It’s more gonna be about like • your judgment, your interpersonal skills, your like , • you know ••

Are people gonna have interpersonal skills when all they’re doing is talking to each other on ^ you know, social media or on their phones or in whatever like, ^ you know, ^ chip that’s been implanted in their brain so they can like brainwave their text to each other? I have no idea, right? You know? ^ You know, and it’s like unsettling because like, you know, as ^ a parent, you want to ^ best prepare your child for • their future. But how do you prepare them for their future? Well, you don’t know what that future is gonna look like . •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Naomi

Right. ^ This is a whole other kind of forms of this like. So for everyone listening, we had no idea what we’re gonna talk about on this podcast. So we’re just kinda winging it. Like ^
Mike Rizzo

Yeah,

Michael Hartmann

No. Yeah. ^

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, but but I think

Mike Rizzo

you know, I think that’s the I think that’s the value of ^ of • opportunities like this ^ and this show in general is like • if you’re listening or watching, I guess, ^• you ^ you know, you may have some of these thoughts and I ^ and you know, we’re talking about it today. So ^ come talk to us if you ever want to talk about it ^• Come to the community.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^ Well, it’s funny,

Naomi

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

so I have I have kids who are older than either of you and in college a college right now. And like we have this conversation on a regular basis about like • what it’s like for them and their friends who are just graduated and things like that. And the job’s tough, right? And part of that’s just general economy, I think, and some of it is • yeah, uncertainty and all that. ^•

It was interesting, my oldest he’s a big history buff. He he and I were talking, he’s like he he’s sort of describing • the world that I think was Rockefeller, like one of the • whatever you call him, the tycoons from the like • late 1800s , ^ who lived ^ long enough to see • like essentially like a Civil War, • the US Civil War, , ^• steam engines, trains summing, automobiles, airplanes ^• that within a few years were used in a war . •

Right, to rock like • the amount of stuff and then he was like, And dad, you like • I grew up in an age where like we didn’t have like cellphone the first cell phone I saw was in • my one summer home after col like my freshman year in college. And it was like the military style, right? Where it’s carried the the box and the headset was yeah, yeah. • and we had car phones insta like • I’ve gone through like record players to tapes to CDs to •

Naomi

briefcase and the it was tied yeah.

Michael Hartmann

MP3s to • like all this like and I’ve like I never really thought about it until

he’s like • my lifetime has gone through like this massive change and this is

just another one. • And there’s a part of me that goes like, is it • truly

different than like •• what happened in the turn of the last century • time

frame, like early nineteen late 1800s, early 1900s? • Or is it something really

like is it the similar different? Like like is the disruption, like it’s I don’t

know. • •

So that’s part of like I’m I hesitate to go like • •

The Evolution of Technology and Its Effects on Society   12:35

Michael Hartmann

I’m trying to be optimistic, but like I don’t know what like I really don’t it’s

hard to predict what’s gonna happen ’cause it doesn’t like the what feels

different here is the pace at which things are changing. ’Cause it feels like

every time I feel like I start ing to understand, I could do this with AI, •

something changes. • •

+

Naomi

But I • I think the biggest difference, Michael, is like • most of the changes

that you’re talking about were •• things or like tools that changed how we

like did things, right? Instead of like picking up a rotary phone ^ and doing

the turns, like now all of a sudden we’re like just telling Siri to call Michael Hartmann

Right.

Naomi

changing like who does the things • right I think that’s the big difference too

and like we also went through a period where • a lot of things were analog

and we saw the difference between • like if we look at something we can

critically say I mean it’s getting harder now right like is this AI is this not AI is

this real is this not real we lived in a world and grew up in a world where like

we had to bike to our friend’s house or like pick up a phone and • say what

are you doing or like • look at a TV guide and say like here

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Naomi

Here’s

when our show’s on, right? • ^• that’s not the case now. Like if you grow

up now and you see something online, do you just take it as like fact

because ^• you don’t know any different? I don’t know. • Right. •

Mike Rizzo

Mhm. Yeah, the the • the difference of technology before was like ^

always making something for humans ^• in a lot of ways, it was it was

often geared toward geared towards • humans still do the thing, they just do it easier. ^• Or it’s just like a little bit better than it was before. Or in some

cases a lot of bit better, right? Like ar arguably moving from car from

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. • No, it’s it’s

Michael Hartmann

Right.

Mike Rizzo

from horse and buggy to car is like a significant • shift. ^• but but ^ you

know the innovation of of industrial revolution and technology there was

about sort of • momentum and energy and machinery, all making things

like, you know, going from place A to place B or do you know doing X X to

Y faster and • reducing labor. And then there were labor markets that were

shifted and as as ^

Michael Hartmann

And there were labor markets that were shifted and as as

Mike Rizzo

A

lot of you know, I’m not a • economist, ^ you know, student. I don’t I don’t

pretend to know all the ins and outs of the history of how technology’s

impacted the job market before. But I, you know, yeah, technology’s

always impacted the job market in some way. And • from from the little …… nuggets that I’ve pulled out from some of the people talking out there, ^

you know, it it also • creates new opportunities in new new ways too. And

so •

Michael Hartmann

So

Mike Rizzo

You know, to echo a bit of what you were saying, Hartman. Like I I think we

don’t know exactly ^• what’s gonna come of all this. And and Naomi, I’ve

thought a lot. I mean, you know, I’ve got two kids. For those of you who

don’t know, I’ve I’ve got an eight year old and near six year old and ^• and ^

yeah, I genuinely have no idea what to expect for their for their horizon in

front of them. And • if you if you ever spent I don’t know if we talked about

this the last time that the three of us were on or not, but •

If for those of you watching or listening, if you ever spend a moment and

you’re • that you got that curiosity bug, ^ and you kind of look at what is

called like the post scarcity economy, like the concept of this, ^ it’s it’s a

fascinating ^• exploration of of a of a topic. And and the idea, of course, is

that ^ if you if you ever studied like ^• economics, like ^ you know the •

Michael Hartmann

^• it’s it’s always fascinating. And the idea of course is that ^ if you’ve ever

studied like economics, yeah.

… nuggets that I’ve pulled out from some of the people talking out there, ^

you know, it it also • creates new opportunities in new new ways too. And

so •

Michael Hartmann

So

Mike Rizzo

You know, to echo a bit of what you were saying, Hartman. Like I I think we

don’t know exactly ^• what’s gonna come of all this. And and Naomi, I’ve

thought a lot. I mean, you know, I’ve got two kids. For those of you who

don’t know, I’ve I’ve got an eight year old and near six year old and ^• and ^

yeah, I genuinely have no idea what to expect for their for their horizon in

front of them. And • if you if you ever spent I don’t know if we talked about

this the last time that the three of us were on or not, but •

If for those of you watching or listening, if you ever spend a moment and

you’re • that you got that curiosity bug, ^ and you kind of look at what is

called like the post scarcity economy, like the concept of this, ^ it’s it’s a

fascinating ^• exploration of of a of a topic. And and the idea, of course, is

that ^ if you if you ever studied like ^• economics, like ^ you know the •

Michael Hartmann

^• it’s it’s always fascinating. And the idea of course is that ^ if you’ve ever

studied like economics, yeah. Mike Rizzo

supply and demand type of stuff, right? ^• if there’s • high demand, you

know, price gets up and all these kinds of things, right? The the the the

supply chain and and unit economics concepts. Well ^ when you look at

the post scarcity economy concepts, it takes this idea of like if the unit cost

of production effectively moves to zero, • because you’re able to just

rudimentary example like • ca you know, a head of cabbage is grown at the

farm. •

Well, if if that head of cabbage can effectively be grown at the farm in

mostly autonomous ways, in fact, picked, • curated, and shipped on a truck

that is self-driving, on a robot that never sleeps, that eventually puts it in •

the grocery store ^ or • just delivers it straight to your house, ^ the the

production cost of that thing no longer has human capital behind it. And

you don’t have to pay the robot. ^ You have to pay the company that makes

the thing that does the thing, right? •

Michael Hartmann

^• Right, pay the mobile. ^•

Mike Rizzo

And so it’s like where right or maintains a robot, but in theory, it should be a

lower unit cost overall because • they don’t have to take a break. • They

don’t have • health benefits that they need, right? Like there’s just like all

like as you start to unpack and unravel the the things that go into just

getting something like a head of cabbage to your grocery store and to your

kit to …Naomi

Or maintains the robot, the person that maintains it, yeah, yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Right. ^•

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^• •

Mike Rizzo

What happens to that pile of money that eventually in that supply chain was

distributed along the mix, right, to all of those places? Where does that

money go now? •• And what happened just generally, what happens to the,

you know, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of different types of

products out there. And there’s now just genuine genuinely a pile of money

that has nowhere to go • in theory. That I can because I can’t rationalize it in

my head. I’m too small minded for it. But in theory, like if there’s no human. •

Michael Hartmann

^• Where does that

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^• 

Mike Rizzo

to give that to. So where does it go and what happens next? And and so this

whole exploration of like we don’t know what’s gonna happen, • you

know, ^ it’s just fascinating.

Naomi

But do you think that in that situation that there would

Naomi

be nobody though? It’s just like if you think about back when, • you know,

we were like • people would get milk delivered to their house or like

newspapers were printed at like proper letter prep like the typesetting and

whatnot. Those jobs don’t exist anymore, really, right? But there’s still

people. ^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. I I I I I delivered newspapers

Michael Hartmann

when I was yeah, a teenager.

Naomi

Yeah. Like

Naomi

no exactly. But there’s still ^ there it ^ it just those things changed, right?

And that kind of ^ goes back to what I was saying about like • the changes …… were •• how we did things versus who yeah. ^• Exactly. ^• Versus who’s

doing the things, right? Because like • •

Michael Hartmann

It’s more like biomechanical replacement as opposed to cognitive. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Mm-hmm.

The Cognitive Shift: Who Does the Work?   19:10

Naomi

You know, before Photoshop ^• would change how we used to edit images,

right? But like, you know, AI is now • changing who creates the image in the

first place, • you know? Like who’s creating it? Who can change who can

edit it? Does it even exist? You’re just making an image out of thin air, you

know? • So I don’t know. I just have I have lots of thoughts on this. •

Michael Hartmann

^• No, I mean this could easily go down this whole rabbit hole of like ^• •

whatever preceded the abacus and you did the abacus. And eventually you

had some sort of calculator ^• and then you had spreadsheets. And like it’s

like ^• so there are things that I think there I think there are other • things

like that that are probably maybe a better analogy to the cognitive •

impacts. Like I mean that’s my fear. Like you you point out Amy is that ^•… like peop I think a lot of people and I know we were kind of ••

Naomi

Yeah, yeah. ^• Yeah. ^•

Michael Hartmann

dissing on LinkedIn earlier too, a little bit about how much AI slap there is. ^•

But I think a lot of people have of have ^• outsourced their their thinking ••

because of AI, like completely. And I think that I think • that’s dangerous

because if what is going to make a difference from a human standpoint in

the future is our ability to • be discerning and understand and and • make be

able to make connections again. And like • I don’t know that we’ve got pe I

don’t know that we’ve got •

a generation or two of people who’ve got those skills. •

Naomi

Yeah. I mean, do you remember going to the library and doing your own

research and having to like cite sources and ^ look at, you know, a hundred

percent. Yeah. Some people listening are Googling like, what is microfiche?

^• Yeah, yeah. They’re like, and they used to do what? Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

^• yes. Yeah. Card catalogue, microfish and yeah. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. 

Mike Rizzo  

Yeah.  

Mike Rizzo  

Yep.  

Mike Rizzo  

Yep.  

Michael Hartmann  

Yeah. It’s if you wonder how it’s spelled, it’s ^ 

Mike Rizzo  

^ You’ll have to wait till the end of the episode. ^  

Michael Hartmann  

I C R O F I C H E.  

Michael Hartmann  

No,  

Michael Hartmann  

I mean I was telling my x my kids were sort of like wide eyed the other day.

I was like I don’t I guess we’ve never talked about it ’cause I’m like I love

all kinds of music . I explained to them what it was like to do mixtape

where you had where you’re trying to record something off the radio. 

Cause you hit you didn’t know what was gonna come, but you were like, I

wanna get this song. I know it’s gonna be in the rotation. So you have your

boom box ready, tape player with the two fluke buttons you could flip right

^ and + for one song.  

Naomi  

What is the Dewey Decimal system?  

Mike Rizzo  

Mm-hmm.  

Naomi  

Hmm. Yep. And then you make  

Naomi  

another copy where you’d like cut out all of the, you know, extraneous stuff

that you didn’t want. ^ •  

Michael Hartmann  

Yeah, exact yeah. Yeah.  

Mike Rizzo  

^ So good. None of that exists. Like no one will ever know.  

Michael Hartmann  

Like like I mean like that’s like we’ll and you bring you like TV like 

Michael Hartmann  

TV guide, like I • you don’t need it now ’cause like back then, like

we used I still remember we had another couple friend before we had kids

who like • our thing was every Sunday we’d get together at one of our

houses, we’d cook dinner, hang out , because we s and it was all around a

TV show that was only broadcast • at a certain time on Sunday or

whatever, right? You don’t have to do that now. • •  

Mike Rizzo  

Yep. Yep.  

Mike Rizzo  

Yep. It’s all instant gratification these days. My kids actually really enjoy

commercials because they never see • When we’re on like some sort of

terrestrial TV like ^• pl channel and they’re like, commercial came on dad.

Don’t skip it. I wanna see it. • Like, no, because now you’re gonna wanna

buy the thing. ^• Commercials are I arguably more • impactful today. ^ •

Naomi  

Shh. ^ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.  

Michael Hartmann  

Yeah, they’re they’re it can be entertaining. Right. 

Mike Rizzo  

… to the consumer market, I think, than they’ve ever been because they’re just

like never seen anymore. It’s almost like, something new. Yeah. It’s • so like

weird to say that. ^•  

Michael Hartmann  

^• so funny. Yeah.  

Michael Hartmann  

Yeah . Well, I will tell you, I think ^ I wish I’d seen it earlier, but if you for

you to anybody else who has kids who are • even in the teenage

age , the e-book • The Anxious Generation. It’s this whole idea like how

people • and and there was a study, I can’t remember if we talked about

this. I know I’ve talked to some people about it, that I heard about where •

the average number of words that we speak.  

Mike Rizzo  

Mm.  

Michael Hartmann  

have spoken has dropped over ten years like by thirty percent , • like daily.

• Yeah . And it’s like it was like across a bunch of different studies that

weren’t necessarily intended to be looking for that. So it was like and I

haven’t ^• full transparency, I’ve not gone back and looked at the full study

or the ones that it references . But • like it feels • like the like that that

doesn’t feel far off. • • 

Mike Rizzo  

Yeah. • As a person of very few words I wholeheartedly agree. ^ My

daughter, on the other hand, has a word quota to hit every single night

before bed. Just putting that out there. ^  

Michael Hartmann  

Ha ha ha. ^  

Naomi  

Yeah. ^  

Michael Hartmann  

Yeah.  

The Impact of AI on Communication   23:39

Mike Rizzo  

Yeah, yeah.  

She’s got a word count. She’s six, so almost six. ^ I I wanted to go back f

for a second on this topic of ^ again on AI, you know, we haven’t really

gone off of it, but I wanted to go back to ^ this idea of like ^ what it’s done

currently, you know, in in our market. I think a lot of us have felt • or seen

at least, seen the impacts of it. You know, there’s layoffs and all this other

kind of stuff. 

Michael Hartmann  

Mm-hmm.  

^•  

Mike Rizzo  

LinkedIn feeds  

Mike Rizzo  

galore around around people who are looking for new work and • all that

stuff. If you don’t follow me, by the way, I’m not asking you to follow me on

LinkedIn, but if you’d happen to pay attention to some of the things that I

comment on, most of the time I’m commenting, it’s because someone’s

hiring for a job . So if you’re looking for a job, I’m usually dropping a

comment that says, Hey, • like , someone who follows the community, like

the here’s a new job. ^• I I I I literally almost • three, four, five times a

day I’m doing that. So for what it’s worth, •  

Lots of opportunities out there despite the market landscape . • And

speaking of all of this, ^ this article’s dated now. ^ dated in the world of AI,

that is, ^ back to whopping May 25th , so just about a month ago from this

recording date. ^ yeah, super, super dated. ^• it’s a sin it’s ^ it’s not relevant

anymore, obviously. ^• but the the article I’m referencing ^ is NVIDIA . • 

Michael Hartmann  

Wow.  

Naomi  

^ No, ^ it’s not relevant anymore. No.  

Mike Rizzo  

^ it’s it’s it’s ^ it’s actually Jensen, ^ the CEO of NVIDIA who ^• who says

that CEOs who are blaming AI for layoffs are giving a quote lazy and quote

excuse. ^ and so he really • hammered home this point a whether if I I

could quote it here, it says, I think • the narrative that connects AI to jobs,

for many of the CEOs that are doing it, it is just too lazy . •  

… and quote, ^ and then he goes on to say AI has just arrived. How is it

possible they’re already ^ how • is it possible they’re already losing jobs?

^• And ^ and as you kind of unpack the rest of the statements and

stuff like that, really it I’ll was to T L D R for you , it’s like • obviously those

two sentences say a lot, but he’s arguing that we’re at the infancy ^ of • of

what AI is possible of. And yet everybody’s jumping to the conclusion that

it’s at its maturity. If you think of that like a hype cycle type of thing, and what 

… and it’s in ^ I think, you know, I think you kind of touched on this either

during the recording or pre-recording, Hartman, I can’t remember which, ^

but ^ we it ^ it’s all blurring together. But really it scratches at this idea

that like ^ we’ve we’ve sort of ^ •  

Michael Hartmann  

^• it all comes to like blends together.  

Mike Rizzo  

What is it called? Like jumped the shark ^ on this a little bit . • And people

are realizing ^ that ^ hey, I might have ^• made a mistake or you know,

companies in theory are realizing they might have made a mistake here • and we’ve

kind of jumped too far ahead. ^ If I could I could illustrate it with a

practical example of ^ even touching back on this AI assessment study, I

mentioned that we had bots that filled out the form, right?  

Michael Hartmann  

Yeah.  

Michael Hartmann  

Sure. • •

Identifying AI in Data Analysis   27:01

Mike Rizzo  

anybody wanna take a gander or a guess at ^• how I came to figure out

that there were bots that filled out the form? •••

Michael Hartmann

Did you capture email address? • •

Mike Rizzo

We did. Yeah. For those that left the email address, yes. •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, so it netto

Michael Hartmann

Yeah , okay, so it was an optional thing. Yeah, so that would have been that

to me that was probably the first clue, but other than that, I’m I’m • waiting

to hear . Naomi, do you have a guess? • •

Mike Rizzo

Yep, yep. • It was optional.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Let’s put it in I’ll ask differently. Do you think the AI figured it out?

Naomi

Well the bots that the bots that we had,

Naomi

well, the bots that we have on our form like it just seems too complete, if … that makes sense. Like the I don’t know. •

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. Does the do do you think ^ so here’s the question I guess ^•

differently. Do you think the AI figured it out or do you think the humans

figured it out? • •

Michael Hartmann

Was it dashes?

Naomi

^ Yeah.

Naomi

Humans. ^

Michael Hartmann

Humans. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Humans. I’m

Mike Rizzo

not tooting my horn. It was me, but it was humans. ^ and and the reason I

was able to figure it out at the end of the day is and and if you if you

didn’t listen to hardly any of the rest of this episode, maybe just take this

clip and send it to your boss. ^ The reason • that we were able to figure out

that + the analysis we were performing was incorrect and that there were bots in there is because I know my data . • it’s because I know what to

expect from the database. •

And so when we sent out a survey and we got a bunch of results, ^ and

I started to unpack the current analysis and I was like, now show me the

N number of how many survey respondents there were and break it down

by the demographics and all that stuff. There’s this huge swath of like CEO

C level titles that came in. And I was like, that’s not our database. That’s not

us. I would love to have it be us and have more people at the C level role

in our community. Sure. But you know, I love all of our members, but it’s

generally not us. •

Michael Hartmann

^ Yeah. ^

Michael Hartmann

That’s funny.

Mike Rizzo

And so I started to look at it and I was like, lo and behold, they all came in at

right around the exact time, just a couple minutes apart from each other.

They all had CEO titles. ^ All of those CEO titles , most of them , 99% of

them , were • Gmail addresses . • It’s like, yeah, you’re right. The CEO

came in and just like was like, Yeah, I’m gonna use my personal email

address. ^ Like, you know. Yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe. But

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Naomi

Maybe they’re just autofilling their form. You never know,

Michael. ^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, they’re reusing their home computer. Well, it’s it’s it’s so it’s

Michael Hartmann

it’s it’s funny ’cause I I assumed it was human caught because so I’m •

we’ll be probably talking about this, but I’m a big fan of ^ a YouTube

channel, a YouTube • production guy whose guys named Rick Beato • is a

music guy and he talks all the time. His kids who are teenagers and

there’s so like a lot of AI generated music now that is becoming like going

out on Spotify and whatever .  And like his kids can tell instantly, •

what it what’s AI generated, at least right now, right? • And so I think there’s •

there’s something about • what gets produced by these ^ AI bots that just

something about it and I don’t know what I’m sure somebody’s analyzed

what it is, but • it just doesn’t feel right. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. • Yeah, I know. There’s there’s a you know, I don’t know if it’s that

• you know, when I think about like a drummer, right, and the rhythm that

they put into a drum, even though like the precision of the movement

between instrumentation and syllables that they’re using across that drum

set can be pretty symbolic in the sense that’s on a pattern. •

The Human Touch in AI Interactions   30:00

Mike Rizzo

There’s still enough of a flaw that I think maybe the human ear, as subtle

as it might be, we can tell the difference between that and like the machine

doing like perfect rhythmic, you know, ^ movement between these

things. And so perhaps it’s that. And • yeah, I would imagine at some point

AI could probably mimic it, right? And it’d be even harder to tell. Just like •

in the same survey data, I was able to uncover it. ^• the AI had no idea. I •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Arguably I could have told like here’s our TAM, here’s our current

audience, here’s our database, here’s who we expect to see. I could have

prepped it for all of that stuff, but frankly, that would have taken me

longer. Right. So why spend all that work doing all that when I could have

just like looked at the data myself? It took me three seconds to figure out

… that that was not the right data set to be looking at .  Right. And so I don’t

know. ^ Cause I I l try to make the argument that like humans still need to

be involved in all this stuff. •

And you need to be intimately familiar with the the the items you’re

interacting with, because the AI won’t know that it’s wrong unless you go

out of your way to really teach it all your stuff. And even then , it rar begs

the • argument that a person needs to take the time • to go teach it the

things and learn, you know, a human has to do that, right? And so anyway,

• it’s ^• I don’t know. I think I think is all started with is it making it harder? I

think it’s making a lot harder. It feels like •

There’s a lot more opportunity in front of you. I actually have probably •

five multi-threads of , • you know, things that I’m doing at once

throughout a day now because I’ve got one agent doing one thing, one

agent doing another. And I’ll come back and I’ll rework those things as I go

do other. ^ You know, right now, right on this pod, I have a whole like work

stream happening for • Claude working through some stuff with me as a

thought partner. Right. I’m not taking a break to talk to it, but .

I started it and I know it was processing and it’ll come back to later I’m

done. We all feel superhuman. ^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, I’ve got Yeah, no,

Michael Hartmann

I’ve got something that’s going through a whole bunch of stuff ^• and I’ve

been working through it of a really broad thing I’m I’m trying to accomplish.

• And it’s been going on for weeks. • Simply because I don’t have time

again, it’s not automated, so it’s really more interactive and • like one step

at a time . And it’s you know, I’m having to lie it is like a thought partner,

like and it’s • it’s good , but it’s not it’s not re

Like it’s not something that’s • chewing up some of my my time and

resources. • So I think that’s • like it’s • and I think that’s part of like the

like what everyone feels is little bit like, ^ like I should be able to be I think

there’s a lot of, you know, FOMO out there that I think is unwarranted. •

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I think so too. I think ^ we you know, we’ll I I don’t wanna dismiss

this idea of mental health. We had a session today for those of you ^ who

weren’t able to join. It is not recorded. It was a town hall session dedicated

to mental health. And so I don’t wanna completely dismiss this because we

only have a couple of minutes left and we’re gonna wrap the show today.

But ^ 

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I think all of this does create a level of, you know, we talked about the

book that you were referencing, right? This anxious culture that we anxious

generation. ^ and it’s creating new ^ new levels of anxiety . ^ because it 

does feel like you you you should be doing more, plugged in more, always

on, or you know, you have more access to more information and •

Michael Hartmann

Youngster generation. Yep. Yep.

Mike Rizzo

I I asked the community ^ a couple of weeks back. I was like, is anybody

getting to like to me, I’ve gotten to a point now where it actually feels like

more work to have to guess the AI to like take the next step. You know,

like I wouldn’t have otherwise taken the step to do the next things as

quickly as I did, but now I feel almost obligated to go do it because it’s

there. ^ I’m like, I know the output’s gonna be great, but I feel like I have to

do it now. And so it’s like creating this like new weird tension. Naomi,

you’re muted. • •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Naomi

Sorry, do you feel less unsure? Like almost like you need something to

sanity check you? • •

Michael Hartmann

^ it

Mike Rizzo

I’ve ought to be fair, if you look at my disc profile, I’ve always wanted

sanity checks. ^ I’m not a decisive person. ^

Naomi

Yeah. But even more snow, do you almost feel

Naomi

like even more snow you need like • because you know it’s there, do you

feel like you need • something to almost • validate • or do a secondary

validation, • you know? 

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I I I’ll sometimes cross check it. ^• yeah, I think I do that on a fairly

regular basis. And part of it is that ^ I’ve created a system for myself to

allow me to do that and it brings me a level of comfort. I don’t know that

everybody would do that, right? ^ but my personality is that like • If I’ve set

up this environment to help cross-check myself, then it benefits me to feel

like I’m not . • •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

speaking on a on a subject or in a direction that doesn’t ^ match ^  

where I want us to go as an organization. Right. Like, • you know, why  

why you know, why talk about that if it doesn’t actually bring any value to ^  

my my members of my community, right? Like don’t create noise just for  

the sake of creating noise. • Maybe I’m using it the • right way or the  

wrong way, I don’t know. But I think there’s a lot of people that just use it  

to create noise.

Michael Hartmann

There’s of people that this is great about these.

Michael Hartmann

^ Like like it was it feels like it wasn’t that long ago where like all of my  

LinkedIn feed post • feed was filled with people telling us all the great ways  

to prompt, + • You know, Chat GPT or Claude or whatever and those have  

like disappeared. • They quietly just gone away.

Mike Rizzo

They have •

Mike Rizzo

they have I’ve seen make their way into my feed on Instagram, ^ with like  

here’s the like • set of instructions that you should use or whatever. Yeah.  

Yeah. I took one of 

Michael Hartmann

The stack.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah . Yeah, I mean I think I saw more on Instagram,

Michael Hartmann

but • like there were so many. But they’ve like there’s very few now. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah . Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I agree. I will say that I actually I grabbed one of them recently and it  

was like • I particularly love it. ^ • maybe I’ll drop it in the show notes and  

and just like share with y’all which settings I ended up putting in. But I  

basically gave my • instructions for Claude. ^ ••

Reevaluating AI Relationships   35:29

Mike Rizzo

Like, I don’t know, these five or six or seven rules that I found. And I was  

like, I like those rules a lot. Like 1 it has to rate its confidence before any  

claim. It has to tag as certain, likely, or guessing. It has to kill certain  

phrases. It has to disagree with me first. It has to tell me when I’m wrong, ^  

even when it’s like gonna make me uncomfortable. • Like it’ll it never start  

with an agreement. Like it’s actually it’s completely changed my … relationship with the AI. So ••

Michael Hartmann

Mhm-hmm. It has to range its confidence before getting

Michael Hartmann

^ It has to kill certain phrases, it has to disagree with me first, it has to tell  

me when I’m wrong and when it’s like gonna make me.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, I mean I started doing I started doing some of those things ^ within ex  

like • chats or whatever you know, • directly as opposed to like an  

overarching set of directions . Because I was start I was like I was sensing  

like, it’s agreeing with me, • tell me what I want to hear,  you know,  

sometimes making stuff up ^ and like • basically I’ve told it like • like be  

really direct and ^ critical. ••

Mike Rizzo

Some of it’s good.

Michael Hartmann

So yeah. •

Mike Rizzo

Yep.

Mike Rizzo

Yep. I love it . I know we’re at time. Naomi’s gotta jump. I gotta jump too. •

Michael Hartmann

All right. Well, as always it’s

Mike Rizzo

For those of you

Mike Rizzo

^ that listen, thanks. ^ •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. •• Always fun. Naomi, thanks for letting us hear the birds chirp in the  

background. I can’t have my windows open here in Texas at this time of  

year. It’s steamy.

Naomi

^ Anytime.

Mike Rizzo

I had I had my

Mike Rizzo

birds chirping too, but now the trash trucks driving up inside I’m like muting  

constantly. ^ 

Naomi

Mm-hmm.

Michael Hartmann

^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, not exactly the same ^ relaxing sound. Anyway, hey, it’s always a  

pleasure. I know you guys gotta go, you know, so I’ll just wrap up here. So  

everyone, yeah, as always, if you ^ wanna • wanna jump in on the  

conversation or • go on a tangent with us and ^ or you have a n idea for  

somebody who would be a good guest, you know, reach out to one of us  

and we’d be happy to get the ball rolling. • Til next time. Bye everybody.

Naomi

^ Bye. ^

Mike Rizzo

Bye. ^