TDM S3 Ep5 - How Slack is Changing DevRel with AI – Kurtis Kemple (Slack & Salesforce AI)

And just like that, we’re back with another exciting episode of The Data Mix! 🚀 This week, we dive into a candid discussion on how AI can transform your career in 2025 with the brilliant Kurtis Kemple, Senior Director of Developer Relations at Salesforce, focusing on Slack.

In this insightful episode, Kurtis shares:

• His incredible personal journey from incarceration to becoming a leader in tech.  
• A sharp analysis of how AI and data analytics are reshaping the future of work and education.  
• A thoughtful look at the importance of democratizing AI for accessibility and empowering neurodivergent individuals.  
• The game-changing potential of tools like Salesforce's AgentForce and how businesses can harness AI-driven solutions to thrive.  
  
  

Don’t miss this engaging conversation packed with practical tips, inspiring stories, and expert insights into the evolving world of business intelligence and AI. Whether you're a data enthusiast, a professional navigating the AI revolution, or someone passionate about accessibility, this episode is for you.

Watch now and discover how you can ride the AI wave to supercharge your career!

#aiautomationagency #aiautomation #aiagents #salesforcedeveloper #dataanalystroadmap

#aiautomation #dataanalystroadmap #datamining #bigdatanews #workforcetransformation

CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Intro
03:32 - The DataFix
10:18 - Introducing Kurt Kemple
11:23 - Angel's Accidental Hardware
11:48 - Legal Data Overview
13:37 - Welcome Kurt Kemple
17:45 - Salesforce Agentforce Insights
22:23 - Importance of Accessible AI
29:01 - Kurt's Personal Journey in AI
32:40 - Importance of Data Management
34:13 - Data Guardrails Explained
37:37 - AI for Neurodivergent Individuals
39:04 - Neurodiversity and AI Integration
42:45 - AI as a Conversational Tool
46:04 - Neurodiversity Impact on AI

Transcript

regular fix of the best guests from the world of data and analytics this is the data mix with Brian buen and George [Music] Beer big George hello big George how you doing I'm good thank you how are you today pretty well pretty well like I feel like technically in control today which is like sometimes a difference for us a difference of opinion but like camera's situation feeling good the lighting is working to my favor so I'm I'm having a good start mate how about you good um I'm kind of running aroundall over the place we had some pretty bad storms uh earlier this late last week um and there's still a bit of clear up going on around that I'm at my brother's house at the moment we had some a power cut at the end of last week which we're kind of we've resolved um but I'm still sort of messing around here so not quite feeling grounded not as grounded as you anyway well yeah I I hear you on the AO in front right if if the data fix was a weather event then I'm sure that's whatwe'd be talking about but it's it's not so yeah we're we're in recovery mode on on the weather side of things but we're getting there we're getting there so um absolute pleasure to have you here as always and uh again no secrets here with our with our guest who we will have on very shortly but to the order of the day first of all right let's get our our bits and Bobs out the way right so like we we're really lucky to have you as an audience guys we we are not ashamed to say that we we we love the fact that youyou you download the pods you you join us on YouTube um we're working really hard on the YouTube channel just now to sort of make that more accessible for you um in terms of you know pulling all that together so please if you do have a second please just join us and and sub us on on YouTube Spotify or apple we really do appreciate it and it helps you keep up to date with all the latest stuff that's going on George any comments I think the um actions are speaking for themselves we've had our um subscriptions uh are going fantasticallyever since you started this Brian we're uh we're I think we're way over six 00 in fact pushing 700 now which is fantastic yeah I think I think we just landed another like 60 or 70 Subs in the last few days as well so I think we're actually even higher than that now which is totally awesome let's keep it going folks we appreciate your support thank you very much it means we can get better and better guests not that that but it's is incredibly important so thank you very much for everyone as wellso um so thank you very much um so into our regular segment of the data fix so George how are you feeling about this shall I line you up and get you in there yes please because we all right let's do it hope one today all right okay let's get you in so here we go so today's episode of the data data fix is brought to you by your friendly jingle in the background so George what have we got going on in the world of tech today I have a sneaking suspicion I might know what this is but I'm going to let youtalk I think you do it's the one that's been setting the stock markets um uh a light at the moment um I think um uh I heard somebody call it um America's Sputnik moment when the Americans thought that the Russians had won the Space Race um it is of course deep seek uh so this um is a new AI model um by a Chinese AI startup that was only uh founded two years ago um they have uh released a model an AI model um that is um reportedly outperforming openis um 01 in all sorts of maths and reasoning um criteria um it's justit's blown onto the onto the scene um and really taken the World by surprise um I think we've seen um stock prices tech stocks tumble um I have have some Nvidia shares um I was watching them crashing yesterday I would say crashing but they dropped 12 and a half% um I'm still up slightly um but uh it it really is sending the the shock waves through the the stock market and I think it's raising questions I think that's the key thing it's rais raising questions around why does it take at least 100 million uhfor open AI anthropic Etc uh to train a model when deep seek reportedly trained their model for under six million so 6% or less um of what these other um big AI companies are and this this is trained with data so apparently supposedly allegedly up to like um q1 2024 right so it's not right up to date but it's getting there so yeah I've got a I haven't tested it myself a couple of my friends have tested it and they're saying damn this this is real this is good so um it's it's one to watch um andit'll be really interesting to see how the market goes I did have a a a conversation with some of my buddies last night about what what their feelings are it could be good for the industry if you think um that this could mean that you can have uh um uh your own personal AI running on an Nvidia Jetson for example um or on a a modern iPhone um in your pocket this is really where what this technology is saying so maybe it'll make it um far more ubiquitous everybody will have one um and uh in their pocket they'll be able to keeptheir data to themselves there won't be this latency of sending information over the net so who knows but it's very it's it's kind of fascinating right because it puts Sam Alman and Co in quite a situation doesn't it after they've not only a couple of months ago they launched their um their $200 a month sub or whatever it was for the very latest models of chat GPT and now out of nowhere the little upstart has has turned up and all of a sudden everyone can have an llm in their pocket so it's it's quite a it's quite amarket Shaker at this point in time specifically with the political elements of it as well we've already seen a little bit of the the blowback with that um anyone who's turned on a TV over the last few days we'll have seen that so it's interesting times it really is and this announcement of 500 billion for Stargate which is America's um sort of belts and Roads program to build AI data centers across the country now there's going to be a question mark do you need 500 billion to do this well exactly and I think you canargue whether um whether this was politically motivated in terms of the time of its release depending on everything that's happening with current events in the world but we're not a politics show and we wouldn't surise on that but does seem quite um quite a coincidence shall we say that it's all happening at this particular time so but I think if to turn a positive spin on it I think um and you know we'll chat to Our Guest very very soon but um you know he has big views on on democratizationof AI for for everyone that that can possibly get it so um this this could be a bit of a game Cher I don't want to sound like a chat GPT description right by using words like game but I think honestly it is a bit of a watermark and and time will tell how how quickly this pushes forward but from what we've learned over about AI over the last 18 to 24 months it won't take long for this for this to accelerate so all right fabulous anything else on your plate mate or um well there's all sorts of things we could talk about butI think just about everything in Tech nowadays has got a political angle uh to um probably let's just um underscore it we've talked about deep seek we mentioned Stargate um I think AI is still definitely number one up there um in the uh in the technology news everything seems to have a an AI angle at the moment you just can't get away from it well well that's it and um again we are relatively it's important to say we're still relatively in the dark we're still really at press release stage wedon't really know what this thing is where it's come from how it Works how it's going to impact um everyday life so it'll be fascinating to see that and I can already see some comments in the chat so we might just have a quick quick chat about that um but thank you very much mate that was a that was a storming data fix this week it's on everyone's minds and um it needed to be talked about so thank you very much for that all right let's let's pop out of this segment then and get back into theshow for real thank you very much mate that was awesome so the data fix is here every two weeks keep you up toate with tech in the current day lovely lovely so that was if that was like the entree then I guess it's time to move on to the main course right do you want to talk a little bit about our guest today mate before we bring them on yes I've met uh Curtis um on a call we had was it before Christmas but honestly the uh the energy uh Curtis's story um where he's got to in his career all inspiring umall uh riveting actually I think we are in for um a fantastic segment here and I can't wait to get them on well let's do that right now let's get let's get Kurt on hey Kurt can you hear us okay yeah I can hear you all uh am I coming through okay oh yeah you're all good perfect superb to see you mate thank you so much for coming on and spending time with us today uh yeah absolute pleasure to be here uh happy to talk about data anytime big fan awesome well well look I think before we get into introductionsand this thing I think it's fair that we we call out some of these comments in the chat and give you a chance to see see what you think about these recent developments as well Kurt but um welcome anhel thank you for joining in are we are we positive that this thing does not run an oxident now I don't know if that's a terminology thing for me I'm not sure what idental Hardware is but I don't know is the answer I don't know if either of you guys have a viewpoint on that but I'm assuming we're talkingabout the Chinese AI here but I guess not so we'll um we'll we'll swiftly move on anel if you want to ask another question please do and our good friend Luke who's a previous friend of the show um has been on for an episode before legally acquired data in line with global data protection legislation oh my goodness yes this is a massive can of worms that we cannot possibly cover today but look seen the rumors back discuss in more detail yeah I mean there's there's a lot of gray areas here cut right and you'vehad quite experience of AI and that like new tools just coming out of the woodwork and becoming globally dominant is not a good sign for gdpr or any other data regulation that exists out there right yeah I mean we have to imagine that any generalized model is you know um pulling lots of information from the internet they do what they can you know to control where they're scraping from but you know um a lot of times you know like you said it's a very big gray area who knows where they're getting thesedata sets it's also uh a lot of times companies will use thirdparty data sets instead of doing a lot of the bulk work on their own and so you know you have to like kind of follow the trail there so definitely gets into a gray area I'd be very curious to see if they open source like the um data that has been trained on uh or at least give some sort of indication of where they're pulling it from I think you know that's really for me like the next step in like the true open sourness of uh AI uh we see thiswith hugging face right like you can upload your data sets there and so it's pretty transparent like what you've trained your models on I would love to see more transparency around that for sure I think that would help move um uh like AI trust a very long way especially for end users trust is a big word there right and we'll I'm sure we'll get into that as as we talk more but um you know again I I just wanted to to say welcome again Kurt and obviously you know um it was it was awesome to meet you out in in SanJose um it feels like a long time ago but it really wasn't that long ago it just feels that way so yeah Kurt and I were lucky enough to meet out at Tech field day and it was our first exp both of us our first experience of that how did you find that whole thing mate it's a bit of a whirlwind for me so I'd be interested to hear what you thought about it yeah I mean I it is definitely a bit of a a whirlwind but I really enjoy that structure um you know to me it feels much like uh so I work in developer relations I would put this AKinto like an accelerator program right it's like you're closing the feedback loop between uh companies and people who can provide really useful insight into like you know what they're doing uh so I think you know when you look at that and then it's it's both ways one it helps the companies understand maybe where they can make adjustments or following the right track right like green l oh we're doing the right thing here uh and on the flip side it gives experts an opportunity to expand the breadth of uhyou know information that they have available to them to help make even more and more informed uh decisions context is everything so that's something I live within developer relations uh and I think anytime you can shorten a feedback loop you know everyone's going to benefit but yeah overall very great experience cool well I'll I'll just chip in with one more and then I'll let I'll let George get Unleashed on the other side there um so why don't you just tell us a little bit about um you know whoyou are what you're and what you're doing as well because obviously we met um in Zan Jose but um tell us a bit about yourself C to start with yeah so hey everyone Curtis kle uh currently senior director of developer relations at Salesforce but I focus on slack as a platform so I've uh been there for a couple years now now uh I was first focused on growth and engagement for platform and then uh took over deel pretty recently about six seven months ago so it's been a very uh fun and interesting challenge I've enjoyed itquite a lot uh before that I was doing consulting and developer relations helping uh startup scale ups and Enterprise businesses understand devil what they need from it you know uh given their different characteristics and goals uh and just like sometimes how to like build those teams and help them start on those Journeys uh and so uh prior to that i' you know I've been in engineering uh software development for over a decade uh that culminated uh I was Tech lead uh of the UI team for Major League Soccer soanything fanf facing we like rebuilt the mobile app uh Greenfield uh uh migrated to graphql for a lot of their apis um rebuilt all the like the sets processing Pipeline and stuff it was real fun I also built their Fire TV app uh their uh Facebook um chat box my first intro to AI like eight years ago uh back before uh you know we really hit the mark on natural language processing so I was really trying to do a lot there to improve the experience for our chat bot so it really cool uh but yeah that's kind of you know I've always enjoyedhelping folks be successful and that kind of led me into Education and Training which is you know what led me to developer relations uh and then I think what you know really grounds this in this show in particular is I take a very data informed approach especially when you're working in an Enterprise company we cannot um undervalue the importance of having quantitive data you need that qualitative as well but you really need to understand the quantitative data that is available to you uh and what people care about inyour business so that you can show impact and continue to uh grow and succeed in developer relations yeah fantastic so um are you are you remote based or are you actually in the in the Salesforce office uh I am remote based so I'm on the East Coast excuse me roughly the Virginia Beach area uh but I'm in San Francisco all the time so yeah okay awesome um the I mean we certainly the industry that I'm in um we hear about Salesforce all the time it's a huge player in Enterprise software um I don't want to labor the AI Point toomuch but um from an Enterprise point of view um it seems that um Salesforce is um right there at the Cutting Edge of how Enterprises are using um uh Ai and I think um uh you've got quite a a strong program um and road map um of AI and some like quite ambitious targets as well do you want to talk about them for a second I would love to yeah absolutely yeah uh you know I think Salesforce with agent force is like you said extremely well positioned in the Enterprise space I mean Salesforce is such an an expansive platform right like you canintegrate anything into it and because you can integrate anything into it that means you can bring it into agent force uh on top of that there's been a lot of work put in uh within the atlas reasoning engine and trust and privacy layer right like to make sure that you know all of your data is protected in and out you can even connect like thirdparty llms and still like the data is protected on the way in and out like you know what's going out exactly and what's in um and so it's just a reallynice setup but long story short you can bring all of that anything all of that into these actions for your agents and so like you can you know um I I just think like it's fundamentally about to uh uh change uh we know that like smaller more specialized uh models uh with guard rails and and better instruction perform better it's why we have like uh Cloud projects and your own custom gpts that you can upload your rag data to and Define how you want them to behave right like so we know that that is that uh and so I just think that ayou know sales force and agent force are so well positioned and then when you put slack as that conversational interface in front of these agents they can definitely be working externally with customers as well but you know when you have these internal facing agents Gap filling expertise picking up all of that you know low-end Toil and automation stuff off of your team's plate to free you up to focus on the the work that matters right like the stuff that drives impact you know and we're just at the beginning of it I'm already buildingagents um that are doing pretty incredible things and you know I just think about how we're in the infancy stages of this the MVP like in a few years Atlas reasoning engine will be like unreal it's already impressive some of the things that it does um and so yeah long story short I do think we are well positioned uh I do think agent force will provide a lot of value uh to a lot of businesses and it's already providing value to me and my team like we're building agents so I'm I listened a couple of weeks ago I listened to apodcast um where Mark benof was being um was being interviewed so it's an hour long u podcast he was talking about the AI strategy in Salesforce s sorry to labor Salesforce I know your focus is slack oh no this is yeah it's all I it's all trust me one company yeah awesome but but what came across really was um Mark's um sort of vision and enthusiasm so I was kind of keen to know how much is um do do you kind of get that energy that that Benny off energy down through the rest of the business um into thestuff that you're doing on a daily basis that's a great question yeah that's a that yeah it is absolutely a great question I'll tell you this like uh agent force uh fundamental to Salesforce that energy is literally in every team like everybody uh is understanding you know how we can uh contribute to the successive agent force it's a very exciting time and unprecedented um uh product you know it feels like uh you know when mobile first came out or the expansion to cloud like all these things like fundamentallychanged the the shape of of the company product offerings and so you know I just think that you know um agent force is well it's a it's a force and yeah that energy is carried all throughout everything uh we all see a lot of potential with it um you know and on the slack side it's like an excellent um integration between those two platforms that just unlocks like a lot and so we've been working at finding those real sweet spots of keeping slack slack and tying into Salesforce real well and agent force unlocks a lot it really doesit's really nice and and car I know that um you know we've already used words like Ai and agentic and everything that we possibly could have used we have already right but I I know from I know from you from speaking to you personally how much this like means to you and I don't just mean from a technological standpoint right and I want to just shift a little gears a little bit into how Ai and data and all of those things that have been important to you how much you feel should be important to other people aswell and not only important but accessible right because oh yeah this is a bit we we spent a lot of time talking about this and um I I was pretty amazed to hear your thoughts on it so why don't you tell us a little bit about where you're coming from yeah yeah so much like what I just described with this world that we have in Salesforce where you'll be able to you know uh build these uh agents right that can handle anything from you from teaching you code instruction to taking action uh on on different apps now that's very powerfulright but that's like trapped in the ENT Enterprise right but like you know as we look at things like deep seek and your ability to have this on your phone right like wouldn't it be really nice if the end user like the just the everyday person could also have access to just like you know an ecosystem of models or agents that can help them do anything from figure out how to start a restaurant because they're an amazing chef but they don't have a business background or maybe they're a civilengineer and they want to uh you know take into account uh climate effects on on what materials they're planning to use and so they could you know rely on these these models and uh agents to help them navigate and figure out these again Gap filling expertise or removing toil from people so that they can focus their energy on times and time on things that matter so I just I think there's a ton of opportunity but especially in the education space um you know with my personal background so I'm formerlyincarcerated right I was incarcerated in uh 2004 roughly uh released in 2010 and that's actually where I got my introduction to programming now I didn't really have access to anything I had like a book we had a computer with no internet and I had a teacher who had like a rough understanding of HTML CSS and JavaScript luckily like it just really fueled a fire in me and I I was persistent and I stuck with it and I continued to educate myself and upon release I continued to educate myself and follow that path that path couldhave been greatly shortened for me and I could have learned a lot if they had given me a tablet with no internet but did have an agent on it agentic that could review my code for me and offer suggestions right and like show me diffs and where I M made my mistake and like teach me further and or you know now everyone in the the room's questions can be answered at the same time to free up uh the teacher but hey we can keep human in the loop if we're unsure about the results here from what we're gettingfrom this agent and I still have a teacher there right like something to reach out to so I just think is like as these models get smaller and as these reasoning engines get better and we start making them more specialized right and and uh uh powered by contextual data you know rag like all these things you know um they matter right so they matter U because they all can lead to the democratization of like information and AI to to everyone uh you know and you could look at uh humanitarian use cases that this could benefit you know asidefrom educational use cases that this could benefit and so you know as someone who like you know would benefited from discovering front-end development which only requires a computer to have access to which is still a lot for some people I I do understand that as well but you know it's a lower barrier to entry than a lot of other for of like software development or other fields and so you know I think if we could continue to reduce that barrier to entry or provide more and more resources uh to people whouh might lack access to them you'd be amazed at like what that might do um uh globally like you know the impact that that could have and so all that to say is I think as models get smaller and more specialized and and as we push this scale uh more towards userfriendly and like hugging face is a great example again because they've pushed the scale to developers it's an amazing DX now to work with models train them right uh uh uh deploy them share them it's going to push further to the end user and Soeventually we'll see something like a Marketplace or marketplaces where people are deploying models and agents and there's like some sort of like Revenue sharing system with the people who are putting them up there and it gives access to you through your phone or computer or whatever access to all of all of these things and I think like I love the cost um aspect of of deep seek because like yeah you know traditionally you know you're trapped in the Hundred Million Dollar Club right like if you don't have aund million you can't trainlike a a really significant model and so you know to see the price drop to six billion right like if you know once that's like actually um you know consistent right like that will continue to happen right like we'll we'll have more and more Innovations and how we train how we build models and you know the price will continue to drop and so I think all things lead to democratization but like you know I think we could get there quicker if more people were thinking about it you know uh and so from my perspective it's it's just youknow I want to see AI democratized because I understand the intrinsic like value and and the true transform like I don't want to sound like AI but the transformative nature that like this Ai and smaller and and and better Tech actually unlocks for people you know like AI is a very big umbrella and a lot of it you know probably not as you useful honestly but like there's a lot of parts of AI that are gonna change things pretty fundamentally um and you know I think it's just again everything's on a scaleright nothing is is binary and so I'm very interested to see how it shakes out but I just hope it gets here faster than you know than later sooner than later yeah look and I'm smiling in the most warm-hearted way that that I can CT because I know like how much of a personal difference that's made to you and how much of a personal mission this is for you as well given your background that I think look I think it's amazing that you're you're so open to just talking about it and just putting itright out there there's no there's no awkwardness there and I think I think that's incredible but I could focus on so many of the things that you said but I'm going to just take one because I was going to actually say it as well was the the barrier for entry right I think that is the key part of all of this and you can say that the like Chinese AI might help accelerate this in a massive way when people realize that cost at scale is not as much of a factor um but ultimately we need to always look atways that we can lower the barrier for entry so that you know AB people can use like a 40 pound phone to get the things that they need rather than having to have a high-end Apple 16 iPhone or whatever it is plus a a data subscription plus a chat GPT subscription or whatever your your L&M provider is that's a lot of cost for people that just can't necessarily afford that so when we talk about democratization that's highly tied in with affordability and economics as well and that's why I think these recentannouncements are very very exciting and as George mentioned in the data fix as well and I'll just finish with this one um in terms of like Stargate and the value that's been por portioned to that project how does all of that now get because it must be re-evaluated now that given these Revelations you can't just come out and say 500 billion was it George yeah allocated over four years that that you're playing in a different ballpark now so back to your back to your sports background as well there Curso there's so many things that we could just talk on and on about but I think it really is like a super pivotal time just given all of the ways that these things these inflections are hitting each other from different angles so yeah it's a lot and one final thought on this is just I think it'll be a while even as the technology catches up like to enable this um you know uh even at all uh there's still we're in the again the MVP or infancy stages of user experience for AI so far because we've cracked naturallanguage processing we've said everything is a conversation right and so so um you know I think we'll start to see a fundamental shift there because uh right now I still feel that um you have to have a certain level of like understanding and expertise beyond what you would expect from an everyday user to really truly maximize your use of AI like if you look at a chat GPT or or anthropic right like these models you know uh like clog right Sonet and all them it doesn't matter the they all uh you know it's law of averages right soif I just hit it with a question I'm going to get like a pretty average response like unless I start to learn how to fine-tune how I interact with this model I.E prompt engineering um you know my results will vary and so I think that you know we have a lot of work to do in that space as well which is like thinking differently about how we do it but again look at 2D interfaces like we we we spent decades just cracking that people said computers would never be for end users right like it was just for businesses uh that's all it would sit ineven when they got smaller it's still the interface nobody's going to want this it's just going to take time yeah C I really like Brian said there's like so many really really good nuggets there that that you've touched on but um the one that I want to just draw out a little bit is um is what you mentioned about uh about data um because um I think uh We've mentioned data a few times so far in this podcast um data is now becoming one of the most important things in the um in the AI race and thethe reason for that is that um there's a there's this law of diminishing returns you can even before deep seek came along we were seeing these bigger and bigger data centers not quite giving the same um the same jump jump that we had from gpt3 to GPT 4 for example um yes just wasn't there so then the focus goes on things like reasoning but data um and there's come companies like scale AI out there that have just got huge because they are providing curated data for um for AI models but again going back tothat podcast I listened to with um with Ben off um he was talking about the huge um uh projects within within the whole Salesforce business um around getting the data in shape uh to be able to build out agent force for example to make sure that you don't have these scary things that Microsoft did where I think um the AI was reading the CEO's emails and giving you um you know you were able to question the things so um can you about what's going on um on the data side within uh within the Salesforcebusiness uh yeah yeah so absolutely yeah so like the way the data works like your data is your data first of all so I just want to make like that clear like nothing is trained within Salesforce on anyone's data uh second of all all data is isolated between you and your company and the deployment of like your models right so like that is all again specific to you and what you want to set up really where the AI comes into place on the Salesforce side is atlas reasoning engine which is like deciding the actions right like that should be takenby a given agent uh and then there's an entire trust and privacy layer that when data is pulled from any Source whether that's coming in third party that's coming out of uh your CRM or even slack uh that it's going through first like the permissions and authentication layer right like am I like if I say actually this is a great example right like I could query and get responses around the CEO's emails it's likely a breakdown in the permissions chain right and like something being transferred thereuh and gave that agent access to something outside of the person who actually did the asking right so it should essentially adopt my uh permissions in Access levels whenever it makes a request and so I think that that is number one and we made sure that that works seamlessly right so you only ever see or can get access to or make changes to things that you have within any system that that agent is operating on uh whether that is CRM slack thirdparty Integrations you've got connected like GitHub or databases anything it respectsthat and Salesforce has a huge platform on credentials and permissions that allows this to be uh set up right and so uh there is work there for sure uh you know you want to make sure um uh that you as you build agents or custom actions for agents are taking these things into account but they're always there protecting at the end of the day making sure that agents can can only access what they've been given access to um and I think it starts to get you know like I said like a um a fuzzy line between like who's responsible for whatpermissions uh if you're building thirdparty Integrations into Salesforce but within Salesforce like it is locked down like you will never get the data you're not supposed to um you know and it does a great job right like anonymizing key data points and stuff like that before being sent anywhere and then refilling them back in on the other side as well so it's a pretty extensive system all the stuff is available on Salesforce as well you can like go through um uh really deep um uh technical analysis and like uh uhdiagrams and everything on like how Atlas reasoning engine and the trust layer all work I'm sure like a lot of our audience would be quite interested in that we try not to go too deep on on the Pod here itself but yeah um who doesn't love reading a ton of documentation that is um or you could throw it at a new Chinese AI app and see how it handles it absolutely yeah no but I mean that's that's amazing stuff car but another thing that I wanted to mention to you as well was just in terms of just goingback to your you know AI for the masses type of thing as well I think I think there's another sort of angle that we haven't touched on there and it's not I wouldn't say it's just AI for the masses right but I think I think neurod Divergence is a thing that is becoming more well it's look it's always been there there but it's only now starting to be recognized um right and now that it's starting to be recognized in specific Industries I think this is really interesting conversation thatwe're having now right around Ai and like NE diversity you might want to Peg it down to ADHD if you want to but you could say a couple of things about that right first of all how much how much AI could benefit those people in terms of the way that they can handle their behavioral um facets um and also from the other side from the diagnostic element and my my wife works in in the arena of counseling and she's doing a thesis at the moment around how AI can help in that area and I saw another couple of comments in the chat about howwe have to be super careful about how we democratize AI in the right way because yeah asking it to give me a road map of how to do something is very difficult very different from saying um can you fix my mental health right so oh yes there's just a few can of worms for to to to open up and and talk about in the way that you the way that you want to but what do you overall what do you think like neur neurodiversity and Ai and data where where's that heading right now yeah so well I think interestingly enough for when we throwdata into the mix I think uh for me like I'm a super curious um person uh like I said I've uh uh I've been redefining our developer funnel uh at slack right and so I've been just very deep in our analytics now I am not a data scientist um you know I do have ton of experience with SQL but again I'm not like a data engineer I'm not familiar with all the tables that we have available to us and so you know for me I look at a tool like AI as a way for me to um be more Curious um lacking the knowledge of how tofigure that stuff out on my own and so like I built essentially my own agent to help me um Define that developer funnel that understood data science understood how to write really good SQL and again keeping human in the loop so as I'm defining what we want and I'm building these queries I'm dropping them over in our data science office hours channels and saying Hey I want to accomplish X here's where I'm at with my query how does this look and I'm getting my feedback right both from Ai and fromhumans and that allowed me to build out the entire funnel by myself right without having to include anyone and I mean not not include right I got from others but I mean like as a core responsibility of their job like to take on the work of like building this out um and so I think you know it it will enable people and this happens a lot and uh for folks who are neuro neurod Divergent who have an idea that you focus on and you know you want to bring to life it might be valuable but you lack like the resources or thingsavailable to you and just to interject it very really sorry to Brak you up but I I think what one of the things that because I'm kind of on that side of things as well right in terms of NE Divergence and you know when you find it difficult to sit down and write a paper for six hours but you have all the ideas in your head about how to do the thing that you want to do for me that's where this process really kicks in right I was just about to get there and write for six hours or even type for six hours tobuild a report that's not because I don't have the skills to do it and this is the differential right if you've got skills to do something but you can't translate it into the physical output that's that's where AI is there to help right exactly and I can understand where the Dilemma is because if some people use AI to say I am a copywriter write me my copy for the next 10 weeks that's a bit different from saying I have these 12 ideas trapped in my head and I can talk about them for an hour can you helpme untangle them so that I can present them to other people and then we can start a feed back Loop right so we're using our hands we're doing this but it's a real thing right it is a real thing and I think that's the difference I think people get tripped up in that like in my personal opinion like don't rely on AI to generate like the the artifact you want to use like rely on AI to guide you to creating that artifact that you want to use sometimes it might even just be as simple as I will tell itto write me a dock on something so that I can go oh this is awful and then I go in and and fix it right because like starting from a blank page versus having something there that I know I can just go in and make correct where it's not is a lot different both in time and like level of energy invested on my behalf and that was kind of kind of lead into the next thing uh for me especially with ADHD like if a task is not stimulating I do not want to do it and like will mentally like like unsubconsciously doavoidance like Behavior avors to put it off and that's really bad you know and some of these things like I'll do that for and it's like as could be as simple as like rescheduling my doctor's appointment right but it's just something that is so mundane I'm like I would much rather be diving into slack analytics to figure out how many new developers to platform we get each month and per year and Etc and then segment that down on X Y and Z right like like that sounds so much more useful uh valueof my time so having if we go back to democratizing AI what if we had AI agents right that could just help me with that on my phone just make the call for me and we're kind of seeing this right with like Google and Siri like they're starting to get there but again I don't really feel like that is at the level at which we could be operating um this day and age and so I just think like what if you had agents that did that like just reduced all the toil for you like got all that stuff out of the way and for folks who are Nur Divergentand anxious about these tasks but maybe it doesn't just do it for you getting into the therapeutic side Maybe it also does it for you but offers behavioral suggestions to help you do it yourself next time hey made that call for you here's a couple tips if you want to try this on your own next time that's that's super important and that's why llms in my opinion should always when they give you an output return a question to say are you sure about this what do you want to do next here's three suggestionswhich one would you like to do next rather than just spit out the output at you because if that happens your brain gets trained just to ask the question question get the answer and then just wait until the next time you need to ask a question and get the answer whereas it should be a feedback loop and a conversation tell I tell people all the time treat treat models treat your conversations with a like a conversation with a person in that like you rarely take anything someone says just 100% as like you know uh face value orcompletely useful to you right and like absorb it and use it right like I wouldn't ask someone to like you know like write a rough blog post to help me and just like publish that you know what I mean um and so I think that we do we get trapped in that like uh because AI is very uh what I like to say confidently wrong um pretty often and so you know when it's confident about being wrong if you don't have enough knowledge about the topic to understand that right the expertise to know if it was corrector not that's the area where people get in a lot of trouble yeah I mean I think what we're about to see now is is uh the uh the rise of the neuro Divergence which um you know I think I think could be a good thing for the world I've been wanting to write a fantasy book for as long as I can remember and now that I've had the ability to have ai help me through it I am still authoring this book right like it's my book my story I'm working on the pacing the characters Journeys and growth all that but it is helping meI've been able to get further than I've been able to get in like two months than in the past two and a half years with it so yeah I think it's going to have an impact on people yeah that is absolutely inspiring one of the I I mean I hope nobody sees my um my chat history with my um my AI my preference is Claude but I ask Claude all the dumb questions that I that I'm too scared to ask anybody else because it's going to be wait a minute George you you should know that you're I mean you're a freakingconsultant in the industry why are you asking that question so yeah it's absolutely yeah it it's it's fantastic for that and I really think that it's um uh the neurod Divergent Community is going to be one of the communities that benefit from this first um because it's there and it's already got a place in their pockets right now whereas for most people it's just a chat bot it's maybe a um a cool little experiment or cool um uh party trick I think if for new Divergence it's like it becomesessential yeah I agree it it's becoming great in in in my life in a couple ways yeah and and it's and it's there to help um fill all of these kind of weak spots that you have um that's it I thought your example not your specific weak spots C just to be fair got plenty of them and I use I use Ai and agents to help fill those gaps I have a dietician and Chef agent because like I've got a picky kid there's four of us I never have time so I put in a bunch of CR CA no meals take more than30 minutes preferably these types are the things we like like give me a weekly menu and it'll give me options and'll be like oh you can have pasta on Tuesday and you can make it this style for your daughter because she's a picky eater and like I don't have the time to sit down every week and figure that out now I've got a grocery list I've got recipes and you know I've got it all figured out for me and now and soon hopefully those groceries I can have an agentic experience where it just orders them forme and then they're delivered to my house and you know I've not had to do anything except work with and I to decide yes this is the final we've got this right here's what I want go off and take action please yeah I think that's a really exciting experience to end up on is that if you can say you know say for example you've got a food intolerance issue and you can just say I have these food intolerances I need you to go to the shopping list from this supermarket and pick me out six meals 10 days worthof snacks and you know make sure the Frid just stopped that that is very exciting to think that that is something that is really not that far away especially and that's a Full Circle to all of why all of this agentic Ai and doing it at Cost with democratization is important so important ultimately you want to be able to and I won't say her name but you want to be able to tell your um whoever is on your desk just I am this I need this you need to check these things and bring me the results I expect it tomorrow afternoon you knowand this is where we're trying to be in this industry right now so yeah and and again I think we're getting there in Enterprise which makes sense most things right like start out in in in that kind of use case literally what we're describing is kind of what agent force is right it's like building hey hey Shameless plug but it's like building these bespoke agents that can handle these very specific skill sets and tasks for you and then letting them go but you keep a humanid in the loop and it's gotthe trust layer an atlas reasoning engine all behind it to like Ensure it's doing things uh in a way that like will bring you positive results as opposed to making work harder for you right um so yeah yeah incred incredible stuff George right I think we're we're coming up um pretty close to I can't believe we've sort of hit 50 minutes already but um follow because uh wow still so many questions um but I I think if if if I can just end on on on a quick one then um Kurt just um as advice for peoplecoming into the industry now so I've got I've got um a son who's 22 um who's going to be looking for a job soon I've got another one who's doing um computer science um at University he's got a couple of years to go um and then I've got loads of cousins and um and other relatives and even at at work um I'm talk talking to other parents my age who are all anxious about how do we get our kids into um help them get these first steps um into industry and I should also say that I'm part of a neurod Divergentgroup at work um and I know a lot of them will be tuning in um to the recording of this uh to um to listen um into some of your advice so it's just a little bit with a bit of angle on on neurod Divergence because I've got a few of them in my family um can you kind of just talk for just a minute because we don't have a long lot lot of time for sure on uh on how you would motivate them and the sort of advice you would give them to inspire them yeah so uh the thing and because putting like that neurod Divergent lens the the techindustry is vast and so you can very quickly get swallowed up in like going down a million different paths and becoming overwhelmed uh by what's out there right like for me it could be hard to stay on track to stay focused so something that can help me do that is I prefer to do project-based learning uh because then that gives me something really grounded that I'm always coming back to uh uh and then that helps me stay more focused on like completing a task right so if I have a project let's say that is I want to build my ownpersonal website well now I have to like know HTML and I have to start like understanding the different spots but I don't have to learn all of HTML before I can start working on my website right I just need to know how to like have a page show up and then work through that so it's Progressive and that it allows you to have that that um uh you know learning path and stick to it because you stay focused on an end go and you can always add features to a project right and then the best thing is you pick a project related to something thatyou're interested in like I love photography motorcycles like gaming so I could think of a million projects that I could build that would like benefit me or my friends or someone around that field and so this going to do a couple things like I said it'll keep you grounded uh and so that will be helpful to not um deviate from the path the second is when you're breaking into the industry you don't have um uh um uh credibility in your resume yet right like you haven't you haven't built oneup uh if you're transferring from another industry you do have transferable skills but for the tech industry you don't have credibility in a resume but if you build a bunch of projects you can build credibility in a portfolio they can see the work that you've done they've seen you take projects from an idea to completion which is honestly a lot more impressive in a lot of ways than like you know seeing that listed on a resume uh you'd be amazed at how um impactful it can be for someone to uh you know be able tointeract with or visualize the actual thing that you've created as opposed to reading on it on a piece of paper um so I think that those are things that can be pretty impactful I will still say that I think front-end development if you're just like learning on your own is probably still the most like friendly path into um development but there's nothing wrong with starting out and more backend driven Technologies uh you'll never go wrong with either JavaScript or python uh JavaScript runs literallyeverywhere and python is heavily um embedded in the AI space and we're just at the cusp of that so I think if you're in one of those two languages and you can also do a ton of stuff with python as well it actually runs pretty much everywhere too so I I think you know that would be it try you know try to stick with uh either front end or JavaScript and python um go Project based learn your fundamentals but then maybe try to figure out how to mix a little AI in there it might be allow tools maybe maybe you build like a photoum you know website and maybe you can try to have like AI categorize it for you or do something else or provide the alt um text for your images or something like that right um and so you know uh it doesn't have to be big you don't have to understand all of AI to benefit from using like little libraries or tools that are available today um and yeah I hope that was fast enough awesome I love that advice thanks C you're quite welcome that's amazing we don't we don't all need to be like ZachWilson and have Auto marking homework right so yeah that was that was an amazing recommendation thank you so much k um and it's been just so cool to have you on there was just flown by and um just just thank you for making the time mate thank you so much it's been a pleasure uh I enjoyed chatting with you all so much thanks for having me on I'd be glad to come anytime yeah all right superb so that was um that was CT um just a quick wrap up from us at our end just a few things if you enjoyed the conversation please do let us know thatyou enjoyed the conversation we really appreciate it as normal um and our next episode we are still running every two weeks let me just see if I can just share let me just see if I can share a second I might not be able to do this but our next guest our next guest I am just trying to bring up here so let's just see if we can do this one and you'll know this guy right so our next guest is going to be um which I think we spotted you on there as well so have Taylor in a couple of weeks as well hopefully this is coming up on my screenit's looking but we'll get there the end there we go so so tayor has decided to take picture off his profile which is makes things that like very interesting but we're really really excited to have him to be totally honest um Community Management ties in very nicely with your topics of Bell as well and so we're really excited to see how you build a how you start to think about building the data community that really cares about what you're doing in your business so yeah thank you so much to Taylor foragreeing to join us for the next episode as well if if you oh sorry if you're looking for recommendations K also works oh I'm so sorry um I was gonna say real quick if you're looking for recommendations Ken Collins who is VP of product at torque is also a great person to have on very data driven uh in their work and so could be you know interesting person to reach out to good friend of mine as well if you see this hey K very nice we love a recommendation and we'll be tapping you up for those anywaycart so you done part of your job to on the call which is amazing um so so that's it for us really guys um thank you very very much uh George final closing comments from you C always expire inspiring I was going to say expiring always inspiring uh to to hear you talking and there's a lot of good nuggets in um in this conversation today um and I think we're going to get a lot of lessens um in on the back of it so thank you very much for sharing your experiences and your insights yeah you're welcome like I said pleasure tobe here awesome well thanks very much everyone this was episode um episode five of season 3 of the data mix we will see you for episode 6 in two weeks time see you then all the best bye thank you [Music] oh