The Truth About AI in Business: Why Most Get It Wrong - Michelle Hamilton

 What if getting laid off… was the exact moment your next level began?
 And what if AI isn’t as complicated as you’ve been told? 

A layoff can feel like the floor disappears. For Michelle Hamilton, it became a door opening, and that choice changed everything.

After 30 years as an executive, Michelle stepped into artificial intelligence early, testing real-world use cases and learning how to translate AI into human language that actually makes sense. In this conversation, we break down AI, leadership, reinvention, and how to move forward when everything shifts.

We talk about:
 ✨ Why most AI initiatives fail inside companies (and it’s NOT the tech)
 ✨ The real problem: change management, fear, and lack of training
 ✨ How leaders can implement AI in a way that actually works
 ✨ Why fear-based policies create “shadow AI” in organizations
 ✨ How to train executives vs. frontline teams differently
 ✨ What a people-first AI strategy looks like tied to real KPIs

Then we make it practical and fun:
 ✔️ Using AI to plan trips from conversations
 ✔️ Voice mode as your hands-free assistant
 ✔️ Preparing for interviews and drafting documents
 ✔️ Comparing health insurance by uploading files
 ✔️ Using multiple AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) for better results

We also cover what you need to watch for:
 ⚠️ AI hallucinations
 ⚠️ Verifying sources
 ⚠️ How to safely use AI in your daily life and business

If you’ve felt behind on AI, or unsure where to start, this episode will give you language, confidence, and real tools you can use immediately.

👉 Subscribe for real conversations on reinvention, leadership, and personal growth
 👉 Share this with someone ready for their next chapter

FIND MICHELLE HERE:  https://sparkaistrategy.com/

If this conversation stirred something in you… good. That’s where change begins.

Make sure you’re subscribed, share this with someone who needs it, and if you’re ready to tell your story, step into your voice, or build a life that actually feels like yours… You’re in the right place.

I’m Julie Fairhurst, and this is where stories turn into power.

Go to my website if you would like to be a guest on the Women Like Me Stories & Business in the toolbar click Let's Podcast

Julie's Website

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Well, welcome everyone to another episode of Women Like Me Stories and Business. I'm your host, Julie Fairhurst. Oh, we are all going to learn so much today from this fabulous lady. So let me just give you a little bit of an intro into her and then we're going to jump in. So there's a moment in a woman's life when she has a choice. Stay where you've mastered the game or walk straight into the unknown and build something entirely new. And that can be very scary. Most people call that risky, but today's guest calls it strategy. So Michelle Hamilton, after 30 years as an executive, she didn't slow down. She ramped up, she stepped into the rapidly evolving world of AI. Now, not just to understand it, but also to learn how to lead with it and how it actually and actually how to adopt it into organizations. So this conversation is going to be about leadership, reinvention, power, and what happens when a woman decides she's not done yet. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Oh, Julie, thank you. What a great introduction. I appreciate that and I love everything that you just said.

How She Found AI Early

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself before we get started?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Sure. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think your intro really said it well. But I, yeah, I had spent 30 years in the commercial real estate space serving architecture firms, design firms, construction. And about three and a half years ago, before the world had ever heard of Chat GPT, my son, who was still in college at the time, got a very early beta version of it and shared it with me. And he and I have very similar brains. And he said, let's play with this together, mom. I think we can use this to really find some ways to strategically, for him, think about school, think about his future in education. And for me, I was at an architecture firm and he said, you know, you could use it for business development, marketing. And so we spent six months together, and then the rest of the world heard of Chat GPT. And by then we had really begun to build out our own practice. And indeed, I decided to enter into it full-time because I saw such immediate wins, use cases. But really more importantly, I felt like I could talk to people about it in language that felt so much less threatening and IT-based. I can have a conversation with people just about the way that they already do their jobs or have their lives and how AI can simply become your personal assistant.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yes. And I loved what you just said, speaking to people, like not in that IT level where we don't understand what the heck you're what the heck's going on. Just like what I would say, explain it to me like I'm five. That'll help me.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah. Well, you know what? And I I mean, I work with some unbelievable IT departments and some enterprise organizations. I mean, they are so valuable, they keep the company protected, but their job is not to necessarily think about the language that their team is going to need in order to achieve all of the KPIs that have been put in front of them. Their job is to protect the company and then work with someone like me that is a true listener and dot connector, and that says, tell me about your job. Tell me about what keeps you up at night. And then let's talk about some strategies that you can immediately begin to apply that aren't going to overwhelm you, but that are simply going to improve your efficiencies.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

Wonderful. Ooh, love that. Okay, so you had a successful career for 30 years. So what made you, what made you? I mean, I sort of get what made you do the shift. You've sort of explained that a little bit, but but why did you not wind down? Why were you just getting started?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Oh my gosh. You know what? My I don't have a wind down kind of brain. I I have a brain that is perpetually hungry for knowledge and growth and information. But also I was just so excited about that I could finally communicate with technology and use the words that I was already using. I didn't feel overwhelmed by it personally because I could use natural language to simply describe what I was trying to do. And there was just something about that for me that was incredibly engaging. We won't go into it now, but my background, my master's degree is actually in glass blowing. I have had a glass blowing studio for almost 40 years and have work actually all over the world in a museum. I mean, I'm really I've been very blessed with a successful glass career, but it does not put kids through college. Right. But my thought process when I am designing a large glass sculpture is the exact same thought process that I go through when I am designing an AI solution and strategy. It is very visually and vision-based in understanding the ultimate end viewer, both end viewer or end user. And so I realized that my left brain, right brain are having a very similar conversation. And so for me, it's very exciting and logical, even though I'm sure everybody is kind of thinking, I don't see how those connect, but they really do.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah, yeah. Well, let me ask you so, what was the moment when you realized staying where you were was actually going to cost you more than leaving? Because I find that there's so many men and women, but we're talking to women today, that um that that they just they're frozen, they want to make that that move into whatever that might be, but they're terrified. So what was what was that? What was the cost if you were to stay?

Layoff As A Strategic Release

SPEAKER_01 6:38

You know, actually, I will tell you it was a double terror because I was working for a construction management firm and they had a layoff, and I was part of that layoff, and had been already coaching businesses and people on the side with their blessing, but on the side for a year. And instead of just saying, you know what, most of my friends were retiring. I'm just gonna go ahead and retire too. I thought, no, this is like the best moment to actually say thank you so much for releasing me so that now I can explore this thing that lights me up, unlike anything other than my art. Nothing else has ever lit me up internally and externally in the same way before. So I've always been really grateful and have stayed very close with the owners of that company because they gave me the release and I had to release my own fears and terror and say, it's okay, you can do this, lean into it, start a company, and know that you are in the right place at the right time. And I it was exactly right. And I will tell you, of all amazing things, I ran that company for 14 months and was recently recruited by an incredible global AI transformation company to lead their uh global AI change management. And so I'm going to be doing what I do here just in St. Louis and surrounding states around the world. And so Answer Rocket and I just kicked off yesterday, and I could not be more excited. It is, it's an astonishing moment for me to even think back to that layoff 15 months ago and realizing you just have to let serendipity sometimes take hold and truly believe that you are moving on that right path.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

I agree with you 100%. I was fired from a job once, and after crying for three days in a row, I pulled up my big girl panties and said, Okay, well, maybe this is actually a blessing. And it was. And so I think for any of us that have that one foot in, but that one foot out, and we want both feet out, but we're scared. Sometimes the universe says, Oh, you're not going to do it on your own. Okay, here you go. Yeah, get over to where you're supposed to be. That's where the good stuff is.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

Yes. And and then anybody that has been laid off or fired that ultimately does not say, Yeah, that was one of the best things. I am so much better today than I ever was before. And I I happen to sit on a women's board, and all of the women that I have had spent this time with over the years, every one of them would tell you that exact same thing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

And I liked how you explained it because you had you were being released.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

And so if we, if we, if we can, as human beings, can see these things that happened to us. My brother had in one week his his uh long-term relationship ended, his poor little doggy died, and he got fired from his 25-year-year job. And I said, Congratulations! Wow, what the heck's coming next for you? And good stuff has come, other than the poor little doggy, of course. But you know, but he saw his life as falling apart.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

And I thought, well, that sometimes. I mean, I have definitely had those things in life. But if you can hold those times in life as part of your future and how, because I don't necessarily believe things happen for a reason, but I do believe it's what you do with it that counts.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

And so if you can hold both the positive and the negative life events and then make those part of your journey, you are only better for it.

Why AI Adoption Fails

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yes, yeah, for sure. Okay, let's talk about AI. So you've identified a massive failure in AI adoption, but not the tech. So you're thinking more of the human side. So, what do you think leaders are are getting wrong right now?

SPEAKER_01 10:56

You know, and thank you for that question, because we're where I am absolutely seeing one of our biggest current failure points is the fact that companies are investing in AI products, AI licensure, or even building out custom AI models, and they have not been investing in their people. And this is a change management problem. You are asking an entire planet of people to change the way that they work and to release the fear that their jobs are going to be taken by this AI, which I'm not the person to say that that is not going to happen because that can happen. But companies are not thinking about this as a people problem. They are thinking of this as an IT investment, a product investment. And they forgot the foundation of the company are the people. And those are the tribal knowledge keepers of what has made those companies so successful from the start by investing in those people and truly training them with the language that they are already using, not just shoving new terms down their throats, not making them feel like they are getting, you know, an IT degree. They are just going to continue doing their jobs. They're just going to have this new opportunity to use a product that the company has invested in. I think that is one of the biggest problems. The second is companies that say you may not use it, or we're only going to give you one model and that's the only one you're allowed to use. And that is actually probably the biggest point of data failure for companies because employees do what's called shadow AI and they say, okay, you tell me I can't use it, then I'm going to just put it on my phone and use it anyway. And you have not trained them properly. Once again, back to the people first approach.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

You're leading with fear and restriction as opposed to enablement and power.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Yeah, it's not going away.

unknown 13:03

No.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

So we should embrace, and it's a fabulous tool. I agree. I think have, you know, it's it's a little scary for certain sectors of the population because I I agree that it could cause quite the shift happen, but but it's here and we should embrace it and we should learn to use it to our benefit. And so I can't imagine why a company would not want to get their people trained on it. Right. Well, unless they just don't understand it.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

I think that actually may be more it because I actually privately train a lot of business owners and leaders who bring me in to quietly train them because they will whisper to me, I don't know how to use it. I don't, I'm telling my my employees they have to use it and I don't know what to do. So train us privately first so that we can speak about this with confidence. And so, you know, it's it comes in on both fronts, training presidents of the companies, you know. I had real estate company last week, though, invest in having me come in and train their entire building engineering division, which are the maintenance workers. They wanted to invest in that group of people. And there was 20, it happened to be all men in this group, but 20 men who learned how to use AI on their phone and on their phone only to help them with their maintenance operation jobs. And I loved that the this large real estate company wanted to make sure that they were investing in this group just the same way that I've been training their brokers.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Yes, yes, because yeah, I I mean, even myself, I'm like, oh, well, I wonder what I should do for that. And, you know, how do I get that stain out of my carpet or how do I do this? Or how do I do, you know, what should I do with this? And the answer is just there. I don't have to run to that big encyclopedia to try to, you know, or call a friend.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Right. Yeah. No, I agree. Although I will say, right now, when I step into a firm, people are tending to use it predominantly as a hyper Google, like your example, or use it as only to help them write an email, when in fact they can really be thinking about it on a much broader basis, uh, as far as building out strategies, building out, you know, long, you know, scope of work documents, thinking about what are all of the aspects of a business and how can AI become a safe part of that? And that's part of what we teach is both the safety and ensuring that it is really reflective of who you are and your brand, your brand standards, and how you represent yourself, not replace yourself, but how are you working alongside the AI to really represent your company in the absolute best light or just your own use case, your own life, because uh we are still all humans at the end of the day, and just the personal use cases are so much fun, in addition to you know the businesses. So I think it depends. I've I've had companies have me come in and train only their resistant employees. They say, here's a group, and they are so afraid. How can you make them feel less afraid and make this approachable for them so that they can see now how they can use it? You know, you'll then start training them for their jobs, but make it fun first and then tie those together. And I just think that's a brilliant approach for people who are feeling fearful.

Fearless By Design Mindset

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yes, yeah. You use the phrase fearless by design. What does that mean? Or like does that mean fear, feel the fear and do it anyway? Or what does that mean, fearless by design?

SPEAKER_01 17:07

I think it means recognize the fear, acknowledge that it exists, and acknowledge that you know, we we live in a fearful world, and AI is moving so quickly that it makes it difficult for people to not either be overwhelmed by it because of everything they see on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, the news. You just don't know where to turn. Yes. Like what I mean by fearless by design is believe in yourself and understand your true nature. Yes, there is definitely going to be a lot of instances where AI is used for, I think, really uh negative use cases, but that is the people behind it who are coming at it to, you know, fool us the same way they have been taking advantage, stealing from, and trying to alter people's thoughts since the beginning of time. That is a once again a human issue. And I have such a belief in AI for good, and I see the unbelievable strides that it is making in solving some of our world's biggest problems that, frankly, we have cause to begin with, but it is becoming part of medicine, food scarcity, you know, really thinking about the globe as a whole. And one of my favorite things is that AI doesn't care who you are, it doesn't care what neighborhood you grew up in, it doesn't care who you know or whether you went to school. It really just is wants to work with you to understand what is your goal, what is your dream, what are you trying to achieve. And it turns out that we are all natural communicators to begin with. And it is that natural language processing, which is an AI term, MLNLP, but just talking to it is literally your first step. And that all day long. Use that transcribe button, use the voice mode, and just have a conversation and tell it what you are trying to achieve.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yes, yes. I have done that a few times and I was quite surprised. I had a personal situation going on, so I thought, I don't know what to do. I threw it in there, and oh my goodness, by the time I was done, it just reinferred re-re my word is gone. It just helped me to understand that what I was already thinking was right. Yes, yes, yes. And then a bunch of us girls got together and we thought uh from a networking group, and we thought, let's ask AI how to make our businesses better. Well, oh my goodness, stuff that you never would think of.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

And it was just I love that you came together as a group.

Fun Personal AI Use Cases

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Yes, it was fun, it was fun, yeah. And but just the ideas and and things that and and little things I thought of, but then now it there's a bigger picture. So I I I I quite I love it. I just love it. I I I can't wait to see what's going to come next and what's gonna see, you know, what's gonna come next. But what would you say to a woman who who feels the pull to grow? And we can use that in the terms of you know, using AI, but they're afraid to to jump in, they're just not sure what to do as far as the use of AI or grow as a human.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Maybe both ways. Okay, I love that. Let's let's just start with the AI since that's what why we are starting. I first want to address some of the fear. I have so many people that come to me and say, it's just gonna steal all my information, it's going to learn everything about me and it's gonna tell everybody. And I do have to tell you, if any of your listeners have ever used social media before, it's too late. Yeah, it already knows all about you. Your Instagram, Facebook, your LinkedIn knows how you're gonna vote, it knows what you gifts you should buy for your loved ones, it knows what gifts you want to buy for yourself, yeah. And it is too late. But you can be in control of your own information and you get to decide what goes into the AI. So if you think about that, and if you think about how to just get started, instead of worrying about for work to kick things off, think about a couple of just daily use cases. And I loved your idea of planning a business, but what if this group of girlfriends got together and said, Let's plan a girls' trip? Oh my gosh, we are overdue for some time together. Here's what I want people to think about first. You actually want to find one of the women in that group that uses a prescription product, like uh Fireflies or Team. Or AI, one of those. And I want you to record the conversation or just use your phone. Your phone has recording. Record the conversation. Have every person identify themselves just by their first name if you want. How do they like to travel? What are their hopes? What are their dreams? What's important to them for traveling? How do they feel about budgets and food and tourism? I mean, literally tell your story about your perfect travel adventure. And then you get to take that whole transcription and upload it to your AI model and say, all right, five girlfriends and I want to take a trip. We've identified maybe we'd like to, you know, go to, you know, someplace warm or maybe go to the mountains, whatever that might be. I want you to learn from this transcription about everybody who's going. And then let's begin to talk about planning this trip. Now you've already informed the AI model about all of the preferences of all six of these people. It takes into consideration all of their hopes and dreams. And it's going to come back to you with questions. Well, what kinds of dates are we thinking? How many days would you like to go? Do you, you know, are they going to share rooms? I mean, it'll begin to ask you questions, but it picks up the emotional context and the joy that people want to experience. So that as it is planning a trip for six friends, it says, well, today some of you can go do this, but some of you might just want to sit on the beach and read a book. And I notice that, you know, that Julie really loves to get up early and do Pilates. Let's also put together a group of friends that, you know, that want to do those kinds of things. It can begin to lay out, let's say, a four-day trip in such refined detail, but taking everyone's needs into consideration. And that's a fun place to start.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

That is such a wonderful way to explain what AI does. Yeah. For the average people out there that, you know, maybe aren't using it, you know, in those big technical ways. That's what it can do for us. It can.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

It is the who, where, when, why, how. Yes. You want to get done. Or just how about an easy example? My I'm fortunate. My parents are in their middle 80s. They're both AI users, which I'm thrilled about. But I've taught my mother how to use voice mode as her sous chef in the kitchen. So she'll upload a recipe, press that voice, and she has named her AI model Marjorie after her mother. And we'll say, Marjorie, let's cook this recipe together. And Marjorie will say, That sounds great, Linda. How do you want to do this? And my mom will say, Well, I tell you what, if you could just let me know one ingredient at a time and I'll let you know once I've added it. The AI just stays on in the background. And my mom walks around in the kitchen and puts stuff in the bowl and says, Okay, Marjorie, I added the flour. Marjorie will say, Okay, great. Linda, get a teaspoon of salt. Go ahead and whisk those together. And it becomes this fun, iterative process. Yeah. She's having a good time. You forget that you're even using AI. And it turns out now you can also use that for business, help you prepare for interviews, help you prepare for RFP presentations. I mean, there are so many ways to take everything I just shared with you on a personal level and apply that to business use cases.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Wow. That is just, I just love it. You you're just really, even for myself and my mind, and I use AI often, but my now I'm like, my my brain is just expanding on where it could go. Yeah. I love that.

SPEAKER_01 26:18

And and I love that you're already using it. I mean, I would think with you having such a successful podcast, it has really become a great tool in helping you to prepare for episodes. AI is great in helping all sorts of people. I actually, with my new job, had to select my new health insurance for my husband and I this week. I just uploaded all of the options to it and said, here are things that you know we are concerned about. Here's our budget. Here's help me begin to fill out these forms and select the best insurance for us. And it reads, I mean, it'll read up to 250 pages in under 10 seconds. And it just became a very fast conversation with me today, so that I could pick the perfect healthcare dental eye vision for my husband and I. You see my mouth, right?

Smarter Business Research With Two Models

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Like I'm like, oh my gosh. Right. And you wouldn't even think of that. No, I would never have thought of that. Yeah. But why not? It's brilliant. Well, of course, why not? Yeah. Oh, that's a good one. Oh my goodness, that's super good. Absolutely. Yeah. So, what do you think then for someone who's listening? They might be feeling like they're on a plateau. And maybe they're, you know, let's. I have a lot of ladies in my in my network that are multi-level marketing ladies. They're they're ladies who need to be involved in sales, but but they they fear them. So what would you so uh use how could they use AI to help them?

SPEAKER_01 27:56

Okay, great first step for them is if they are currently only using one model, let's say Chat GPT, I call it the Kleenex of AI, it's the one that everybody heard of first. Yes, there's some other really incredible models out there. I'm agnostic about it because my job is to simply teach people how to use it. But I would encourage people to investigate other models like uh Claude or a Gemini, Google's uh Gemini product. And here's why. If you are only using Chat GPT, it is really only giving you one perspective on, let's say, your business development or your business growth. What you can do is take all of that information that comes out of Chat GPT or even just your first prompt, now load it into your second model. It's like getting a friend's second opinion. Now you've got two competing answers because AI is generative, it is never going to be the same answer twice. What I love about this is if you are doing some fact-based research, maybe you're trying to figure out how to connect with your ideal client profile and it is research a particular target market. Well, some of that is going to be very factually based. You can say to your AI model, I need you to cite all of your sources. I need you to give me a hyperlinked bibliography of where you got all of this research from. Prove to me that it is correct and verifiable. But don't stop there. Take whatever that first model told you, the whole report, the citations, the bibliography, load that into your second model and say, Hey, Gemini, here's what Claude just told me. And I think there's some things in here that aren't true. Your job is to find all of the hallucinations, all the correct hyperlinks, and you give me a competing opinion. Go do the research on everything it told me and compare and contrast for me. So now you've got all of this super research in your hand that has been double verified as far as what is correct and what can you prove. Now you get to start using that information to build out your business and build out your prospecting.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Wow. I only use I only use one model. I am going to open, I'm going to start another one. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

And you know, I I'm a big believer that you should pay for one of the models mostly because you get such a I already pay for chat GDP.

unknown 30:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Then get a free version of one of the others and use them. Try using them that way.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I'm going to give that a shot.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Yeah. And within Chat GPT as well, there are so many hidden tools and features that people are unaware of. Yes. All the models have those. So if you're not using things like projects and GPTs and personalization, look into that. Just use those three, those three buckets I just shared and start figuring out how you can use those to really supersize the work that you are already doing and ask it to continuously improve itself.

Deepfakes Misinformation And Verification

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Wow. That is, you are just like a wealth of AI information. I can see why they grabbed you. My goodness. Wow. So, so how can we, or is there any like so in the very beginning, and I don't remember if it was when we went on to air or with whether we were chatting before we started, but it was about how AI can be used for things not so great. And I know that I'll watch, you know, I'll get into the scrolling of the little short videos in there. And I'm watching, I'm thinking, that's not that can't possibly be true. Like, is there any way for us to be able to, is there any tricks or tips that you can give us to look at something and go, wait a minute? As an example, I get a lot of a lot of spam and a lot of like, hmm. And the first thing I do now is I go up and I look at the email address that it came from. That's that's a dead giveaway.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Always.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Always. And so that's my that's what I use when I'm checking through my emails to see if it's something true or not. So what do you think we could do with with, I don't know, we're on Facebook or Instagram.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

You know, when it comes to image production and video, that is becoming incredibly hard. And and I will tell you, it is very difficult to tell. And I don't have a solution for you in that, other than go with your gut, because almost always, if it seems too good to be true, there is a really good chance that your intuition, which is what you should believe in, first of all, to begin with, is correct. Your intuition usually can feel it. Now, when it comes to facts, and we are getting inundated, AI writes so beautifully that it seems entirely believable, which is why people feel so free to just copy paste whatever their AI tells them without verifying that it is true. And by the way, that is not the AI's fault, it is the person who copy pasted it. If you chose to share the rumor, then you have to own the result. And if it was not true and you didn't verify, just like if I was at a party and somebody whispered a rumor to me and then I repeated it. Well, first of all, not very nice. But second of all, if it's not true, then it's on me for repeating it. The same goes for AI. The way that you can get around that is by actually giving it so much information up front. I even recommend to people, and especially for someone like in your role, you can build out your persona in a document. What is your ideal podcast guest? What is your best performing episodes? What lights you up? What excites you? You know, your ideal client profile. Who are you trying to reach? What does that audience look like? You can actually have a conversation with your AI and say, I need you to build out my persona to use for podcasting, for shopping, for vacations, whatever that might be. Then when you are having a conversation and starting to do research on what should be my next topic or focus, you've already got that pre-built for you. You can upload that document and say, familiarize yourself with this document and understand who I am and what my goals are. Follow that. Now let's talk about my next steps. That's why some of those tools that you most people aren't aware of, projects, for instance, within ChatGPT, those can be permanently loaded into a project. And then that way every conversation is informed about the most important and relevant facts about you and about your, you know, your job, your ideal uh target audience.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

Yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, what are you doing with these for these big corporations? Like, like, so are they have they brought you in for, okay, I want, you know, we're are you training different segments? Are you dealing with marketing? What just give us a little taste of what you're up to?

How Companies Train AI At Scale

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Well, thank you. I it when I was the CEO of Spark, my company that I started, and now that I'm working for Answer Rocket, two somewhat different roles, but both of them do have to uh are really focused on training users on how to apply AI strategies to their job and their work. So a large enterprise organization might bring me in to train a thousand of their employees on just AI 101. Let's just get everybody leveled up at the same time together so that they can get some of the really refined strategies that we all should be using, all at the same time. Superusers, beginner users, everybody at once. And then generally they start having me go department by department and really zero in and focus on that company's particular goals and that particular department's KPIs and help them to become their own best AI users. Nobody wants to pay to keep me around forever. No teach people how to be their own best AI user and how to continuously improve, how to capture their intellectual property in prompt libraries, things like that. With Answer Rocket, because they absolutely work with some of the world's largest companies, they are already building out amazing agentic AI, predictive analytics. I mean, they're helping these companies make sense of years of data, but a lot of the users in those organizations really won't understand how to take the information that they are being handed and asked to use and understand how to talk to that information. So that's where I'll come in and really go back to that very human-based, humanizing approach to tell me about you, tell me about your job, tell me about your goals. I know the product or the consulting services that my company has built out for you, but I'm more concerned about you and what matters for your division. Let me help you tie that together so that all of my data consultants, my agent consultants, now they've got someone to just explain it in human terms to the people that will be using this unbelievable, robust. It's not even a product. I mean, they are a consulting company, but they the the work that they are doing around the world is absolutely astonishing. But we are all still humans and it doesn't matter where you live. You just need someone to explain it to you in words that you understand.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Yes. Wow. Well, I can tell you're doing what you're what you're I won't say meant to do, but what your passion is because you light up when you're talking about this.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Oh, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 38:43

I do, I feel that light on the inside.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

So yeah, it was that day I got laid off was the best day ever.

Practical Next Steps And Closing

SPEAKER_00 38:51

Yeah. Well, let me ask you then, as we're as we're getting close to closing, if someone's listening right now and knows they're meant for more, but they've been waiting, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

I would say be brave, be fearless, try some of just the easy lifts that we talked about today. Try it for yourself. And then go online, start learning. There are some unbelievable free courses that are available to anyone that you can take or pay to take a course. I mean, it is really each person's own individual use case. But here's my secret: it's called meta prompting. At the end of the day, just tell your AI bot what you want to learn and ask it to teach you how to use it and it will do that. That's simple. It is simple. And you can literally ask it to be your teacher and it will say, Okay, Julia, I've got you. Would you like to learn about my tools? Do you want to learn about the best way to let's turn this into a lesson and we'll just go back and forth together.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Michelle, you have helped me. I can't even imagine how many uh who are gonna watch this podcast are are I'm gonna tell all of the ladies in my networking group, this is one you ladies need to see. This is gonna help. Very good, very good. And it really you helped to expand my thought process and my mind about what what I need to be using this for, not cleaning stains off the floor. And for that too. But it's great to that too. I can use it for that all the time. Yeah, that too. But but helping, yeah, just helping us progress in in our businesses and and life and vacations. I never even thought to use that. I mean, that scenario was fabulous. That was wonderful. Well, everyone, I want you to know that I will have Michelle's website in the show notes. So if you want to reach out to her, you want to snoop around, you want to hire her to help you out your business, all of that information will be there. And and and she's obviously very approachable. So don't be shy, people. Feel free. So I am just, yeah, I'm just uh so happy that you did this with me. And thank you so much. And I appreciate your willingness to just share and and and to to listening to you. I don't feel like sometimes people are so technical, it makes you almost feel inferior, right? And you feel kind of almost bad because, and then you don't want to ask questions because I guess I'm stupid, but that you don't come across that way. You're very approachable, and you've explained it very clearly for the average person, and and I appreciate that. So thank you so much for doing this with us.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

I yeah, it's been great to have you here. Well, Julie, this has just been so much fun and thank you for the work that you do. And I'm looking forward to continuing to listen in myself because I just enjoy your program so much. So this is great. Well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Okay, everyone. Well, we will see you next time on on what do I do? Stories like women, women like me, stories and business. That's what I do. Talk to you later.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Bye, Julie.

SPEAKER_00 42:17

Bye.