Cybernomics Radio
Welcome to Cybernomics, the podcast where we break down the latest enterprise innovations and challenges shaping the Information Security industry. Whether it’s AI, cloud computing, or digital transformation, we dive deep into the forces driving businesses forward.
Join host Josh Bruyning as he engages with industry experts and technology leaders to explore how businesses are leveraging technology for growth. From cutting-edge advancements to the economic impact of tech decisions, Cybernomics delivers insights that keep you ahead of the curve.
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Cybernomics Radio
#39 How to Leverage AI and Save your Job with Jenna Gardner
We explore the emergence of a new AI-driven economy that's creating unprecedented opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes to compete at enterprise levels with minimal resources.
• AI represents the most significant technological advancement since the wheel, democratizing powerful capabilities previously available only to large corporations
• Small and medium businesses can move quickly to adopt AI while enterprises struggle with implementation, creating a competitive advantage window
• AI tools like HeyGen for video avatars and Eleven Labs for voiceovers enable solo entrepreneurs to produce professional content at fraction of traditional costs
• The combination of domain expertise with AI literacy creates a "superpower" in today's marketplace
• Junior-level positions face disruption while experienced professionals can leverage AI to launch specialized service businesses
• The most valuable approach combines AI efficiency with uniquely human abilities like empathy, creativity, and relationship building
• Teaching others to use AI effectively represents a significant business opportunity in itself
• Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, HeyGen, ElevenLabs, and Accio represent the current state of accessible AI technology
• Entrepreneurs can now experience the freedom and reward of business ownership with substantially lower barriers to entry
Check out Jenna Gardner on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram at Jenna_Gardner_AI to learn more about implementing AI in your business.
Jenna, you've made this your life's mission. Well, I don't know if I'd go as far to say your life's mission, but at least it's your mission today and this is what you're doing. I found you on TikTok, which is crazy. I've never found somebody on TikTok and then reached out to them, and now they're here on the podcast and it's blowing my mind a little bit.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm always excited to talk AI.
Speaker 1:When I think about education around AI, I don't want to offend anybody, but the first thing that comes to mind is baby boomers, legacy users, people who are not super in tune with technology, much less with AI. It's such a nebulous concept and so far removed from the day-to-day lives of so many people in business. Yet it is the biggest technology. I mean, it is the best thing next to sliced bread and since the invention of the wheel and fire, I do not think that mankind has had this kind of power that is democratized and in the hands of everybody, and you've made it your mission to make sure that everybody can wield that power to their advantage to become cyborgs, if you will.
Speaker 2:Yep, exactly. Oh, yes, it's just. I mean, it's ripe for so much opportunity, especially for small to medium sized businesses. Honestly, everyone personal business enterprises but that's my special passion is empowering small to medium-sized businesses to be able to harness AI. It's a huge impact for their business. But you're completely right that there is a big education gap in the technology, not only just the initial foundation of it, but then it's evolving so quickly that it's really hard to keep up.
Speaker 1:One of the trends that I've been keeping my eyes on and I don't know if other people are talking about this in this way. I'm sure they are, but just not on my radar but I'm particularly interested in this new economy that's being created by AI. As millennials, we understand the gig economy and the boomers understand, I think, a lot of the economy around manufacturing and there were factories and you know that was kind of the industry that defined a generation, and so the gig economy defined our generation in a way. And now AI has snuck up on us and I think that there's another economy that's being introduced and there are lots of opportunities for people like you and me and others to make some money. Really, that's the long and short of it is that where there are inefficiencies, you can find business opportunities, and AI is one of those technologies that allows you to find inefficiencies and really help create and drive a lot of value.
Speaker 1:So that's our topic for today the new economy of AI. It's replacing the gig economy and actually maybe it's augmenting the gig economy, because AI touches everything. As a matter of fact, it's augmenting the manufacturing industry and it's just crazy. So how can people harness AI? And I'm not talking about the end users. I know we'll get a little bit into how the legacy users and how businesses can use AI to do their everyday tasks, but how do people take advantage of this new AI boom from a job creation or from a business creation standpoint?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. I think it's a really good point. I'm happy to share what I'm doing in case it can be a blueprint and inspiration for anybody else is that there's this huge gap, first of all, in education, if you want to teach people how to use AI, huge opportunity there, and people are really willing to first pay for it, of course, but it's also you're doing really good because people need to. They need AI literacy to help navigate this new world that is coming and changing and coming very quickly. There's also projects, because now you're able to solve people's problems that maybe we're not equipped to otherwise, but with the help of AI, you can.
Speaker 2:So, for example, I had a client call me and they're like I don't know, like I heard about AI, I don't know that much about it. Could it help me, like, draft this complex real estate investment proposal? And I was like, well, maybe. And then there was a template that I could use and, yes, I was able to do that for them. And so, where, they could save a bunch of money on a lawyer drafting it up and, of course, a lawyer is going to be able to review it.
Speaker 1:The most expensive thing in a business is labor. It's always going to be. Can you hire more help? And if you're starting out and you wake up one day, you're an entrepreneur and you say I want to start a business, I want to go out there and get money, I want to help people, I want to create value, I want to put something good in the world, I want to build an empire that I can hand to my kids. Whatever your reason is, whatever the why is, there's this huge barrier to entry and it's called money, cost and labor, and so what I'm seeing is that AI is creating opportunities for people who can basically take their skills and, with relatively low cost, spin up a new company. So, like you're coming from the world of marketing.
Speaker 2:The perfect, like the Venn diagram that we love with all of this is taking your expertise and then applying AI expertise and skills, and then in the middle is that sweet spot. So, for example, like as a marketer, oh my gosh, like the amount that I can produce. It's not only just the amount and I'm more efficient, but it's also the quality is increased as well. I mean, I can do so for a fractional. If I wanted to be offered services as a fractional CMO, yes, absolutely. With Empowered by AI, knowing those skills, it makes me able to produce so much more. Whatever your skill set or your special interest is if it's sales, if it's engineering, if it's something that being able to apply AI skills on top of that makes you so formidable in this new market, oh my gosh, like yeah, yeah, formidable is the right word.
Speaker 1:It's like a superpower. It is, yeah, yeah, like Randy Blasick. Shout out to Randy. So Randy built his company, compliance Aid with I think it was like 75% of the companies just built with AI. He woke up one day and was like you know what? I think there's a better way to do compliance and I don't want to really go out there and hire a bunch of people, so I'm just going to create a bunch of AI agents. He calls them his team. The way that Randy talks about AI is it's a little.
Speaker 2:It's a little scary, it's honestly, you know like he's on the right track because Asana did a study, a research study, in partnership with Anthropic this past year and they really dug into a lot of fascinating facts about ai at work. But one of the findings was that people that refer to, or workers that refer to, ai as a teammate instead of a tool are like 32 percent more productive. Like it's like changing your mindset to being like, oh, this is just a tool. To being like, no, this is an advisor, this is a partner, this is an advisor, this is a partner, this is like a teammate. And having that type of oddly like machine human relationship really helps to improve the output.
Speaker 1:So he's on it, yeah. What are some of the tools that you're using in your day-to-day work?
Speaker 2:The ones that, and it's ones it's like the typical. But I love, of course, chatgpt. I have the Plus account and I'm loving the new model of a one that came out, and then I use Cloud too. I like to go back and forth, so those are baselines that I sometimes, with all the other tools that come out, I think they can be distraction of, like learn your basics there with the LLMs, because that's really powerful. But then other ones that I've been having fun with is HeyGen is pretty cool. It's really powerful. But then other ones that I've been having fun with is hey Jin is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:It's a video avatar Really. Yes, it's a little spooky. Tell me more. It's becoming pretty good. And Synthesia is another one that folks use. I just prefer hey Jin because I'm more used to it. But it's creating video avatars. You can select different stock image avatars of just like people to represent your brand and where you can input a script and then just it creates a video for you. That's pretty realistic. I'd say we're like 90 of the way there. There's still a little bit of improvements, but good enough depending on your use case. And now you can do a custom avatar with it as well. So, like there's a video like I can just I uploaded footage of myself. I'm just saying, like my name is Jenna, here is me and how I talk, and now it's able to create videos of me just being able to say anything that I want, and so you can personalize it for outreach, it could be use it for training videos it's just an example of scaling and then, of course, you can localize it to four different regions and languages.
Speaker 1:So does it get better the more footage you upload to it?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, as with any AI, the output is only as good as the input, and so if you upload high quality footage, there's like certain kind of weird things like you should close your mouth after saying certain words. I don't't, naturally, so that was a challenge. So the better footage you give it, the better output you'll have.
Speaker 1:Well, I've got lots of footage of me online for better or worse, and maybe I can dig up some more and feed it. I'll feed it too much and it'll probably just say Josh, ok, that's enough, I don't need. I don't need any more footage. One of the scary things about AI is that when you upload personal data, it kind of lives in somebody's database, right? So if I'm uploading tons of video of myself, can other people access that and can threat actors potentially use that to cause harm?
Speaker 2:That is a great question, and so my answer is depends on the tool that you're using and their terms of service, and so, be careful, is the caution the one that I'm using. They have a very high security, good terms of service, and so no, it's not publicly accessible. It wouldn't be used for training data. It's just used for my custom avatars. This isn't the only tool that's using the technology. If you don't want to be a reputable business and use this technology, I'm sure that there's a lot of unfortunate ways that you can use it too. So it's definitely a double-edged sword.
Speaker 1:What are some of the other applications of this particular technology the AI avatars and if I were a sole proprietor, what are some services that I can offer based on that technology?
Speaker 2:It could be services, but I'm definitely thinking from a marketing perspective. And so if you wanted to educational content, that maybe you don't have the bandwidth to be able to record all of it I mean, if you're a sole proprietor you're so busy and so you can just, but you can create scripts and then feed that in and it generates videos quickly for you, and in multiple languages maybe. How to videos that you put on YouTube? It's great for search. I mean, those are ways that you can expand your reach pretty easily and with very little money too. So that's just one example. If you're a larger company, sometimes coordinating educational videos with other people's schedules is really hard. You can have an avatar of them and just have them approve the scripts, which is much easier and you don't have to deal with scheduling. So those are some examples. Some people even use it for sales pitches. I'm still going back and forth on like Sales is one of those things.
Speaker 1:You just got to ask people who hate sales and ask them to do sales and you'll see really quickly why there's this human element to sales.
Speaker 1:There's something about the human spirit that if you're good at sales, you're good at things like persuasion, you're good at finding opportunities, you're good at finding value, you're good at listening and empathy is a really big part of sales and I just don't see that AI can do that. I've overheard some of these AI calls, and it's not the fact that they don't sound realistic, they sound pretty realistic. It sounds like you're talking to a person, but even the yeah, yeah, you know. Okay, yeah, I get why you say that Uh-huh Well, can you tell me more? It'll ask these follow-up questions, but nothing will beat being able to probe and ask somebody something as simple as unearthing some of the human aspects that allow you to connect with another person asking about their family, asking about their kids and what that means to a human being. I don't think AI understands how important someone's child may be to that person and how important that could be to establishing a connection with someone.
Speaker 2:You're so right and I heard a saying and sometimes I'm like is that correct? But maybe it is. It's that sometimes things that are really hard for people are easy for AI, like like create, like writing a research paper really fast or something but things that are really easy for people are actually hard for AI, just kind of like that innate way to connect with someone or that little like way to add warmth, like that is actually hard for it, and so it makes me feel comforted as a human to have that to offer. But yeah, so, maybe not for sales, although, I have to say, have you played much with the advanced voice mode within ChatGPT4 and 0.1? Yes, it seems to be kind of empathetic.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's the simulation of empathy which comes pretty, you know, because there's this element of chaos that I don't think that computers have really tapped into. I think they might. I'm not saying that they never will, they probably will. But I think that there's this element of chaos, whether it's quantum fluctuations and probability distributions and us trying to collapse the probability wave function by entering some sort of deal with the present. You know this is getting into really philosophical stuff.
Speaker 1:But if you're thinking about the universe as being just sort of a probability wave function where there's ultimate chaos, there's total entropy and there's some sort of order that comes out of that chaos and human beings sort of harness that chaos or that order I don't know which one to produce things like art, things that cannot be easily reproduced. So there's some of that in AI, where they are dealing in the world of probability and they can produce novel items. But I think that the range, maybe that they're capable of accessing, the range of order outside of that chaos, may be limited to the point where I don't think they're going to be able to replicate things like truly writing the next great American novel. It just doesn't sound as good.
Speaker 2:I know what you mean Exactly. And it's all like crazy because it's like, technically, you can program chaos, like because you can have, like you can set the temperature.
Speaker 2:you can yes, you can program chaos yes and there's um, but I know what you mean of like when it comes to the heart of art. I man and I love getting into the philosophy of it all too, because there's so many implications and there's so many new questions, and even for artists too, I think it's both also double-edged sword where it's like you have all of these new mediums to work with.
Speaker 2:Now you have a if ai itself is a medium to work with, you know, and to be able to, but, um, I mean, like I was a literature major, like I love English major, English English major, exactly, you were too, yeah, oh, my gosh, love an English major. Um, so you know that's. There's just certain things that are so precious to me, and so it's hard to imagine just giving that to a machine and for that to have the same weight, because it's so much more than just the words, it's the experience, um, however, I don't know. When we think about the future, sometimes it's initially to think like change equals bad, and I've changed just equals different, and so we're gonna, it's just gonna be different yeah, don't get me wrong, I have no bias against robots taking over and producing art.
Speaker 1:I really don't. If they can do it and it's really well done. If it's a well-written novel, I'll read it. I don't care, I'm just struggling with at this present moment. Can it really do that?
Speaker 1:When we're talking again about something like sales, there are elements of sales that AI is really good at. For example, if I were to upload a transcript of a conversation that I had where I'm really probing a prospect and trying to find the value, and trying to find value along every step of the sales process, the AI is really good at catching things that I can miss. Like you said, ai is really good at things that human beings are bad at. Human beings are limited on memory. We're really bad at remembering what somebody you know. I don't even know what I had for breakfast. Yeah, you know what I mean. So, like, we're really bad at listening. Ask any married couple. Like, that's one of the things that you work on for the rest of your life is listening.
Speaker 1:And so it's really good to be able to plug something into AI and say and so it's really good to be able to plug something into AI and say this is what they want, here's what they can swing. This is their budget. What can we do for them? How can we fit into their budget, stuff, value into that proposal and give that prospect and that company everything that they can possibly get? And so it's a powerful tool to be able to deliver value to companies and to people. But I don't know, I don't know the human element. What do you think that human element is?
Speaker 2:I think, actually because I might have a counter argument to you about how it could write that novel now and even could do a good sales pitch as well.
Speaker 2:And it's because, like, as things most ai, it's their general, so as they are, just without being, you know, manipulated um is it's not going to produce something that's going to be intriguing or interesting. However, the power is and that's also what comes with working with businesses is just like shaping it to be specialized and bespoke output for you, and so for you, for example, it would be all right. Well, like in Josh's process, like if you are and that's the thing you have to be able to name in your process, like kind of the special sauce, like the things that you do, your approach, what makes it special. If you are able to distill that and then teach the AI that, then it can. I mean, of course, it might not be as natural, but it's going to be much more improved. Or if you're an incredible author and you're like, you know what. This is my approach, this is my process, this is what makes this, is what's special, and you can teach that to the AI then it can produce something that's really unique.
Speaker 1:Here's the thing, jenna. I don't even know what makes it special. Like, I don't know what makes me special, I don't know what. When I make a sale, sometimes I go back and there's certain random things that are introduced into the process. You randomly meet somebody at a bar. There might be a game on that. You didn't plan for, but there might be a moment in that game that you connect with somebody at the bar and you start a conversation and out of that you wind up exchanging LinkedIn information, and so even artists. If you ask an artist, what is it that? What is your process? How do you write a novel? How do you create a painting? And the truth is most, I'm a novelist and I write short stories and I write poetry, and I can tell you I don't know how this thing works.
Speaker 2:It's true and it's and you bring up a really good point and it's also like different types of like. Maybe you need, you need someone to like that's super, like a robot to grill you about it. So you're like, okay, yeah, you're like, all right, I guess it's this and this um, pull it out. Um, because it doesn't come natural. And even when it comes to back to businesses, when it comes to implementing ai, admittedly, like you kind of can't do it unless they have a process, or at least they have. Like, all right, we know what we, you know in our marketing, like this is how we talk about things. Or, if you don't have one, then you need to establish one, because otherwise, like, you're not going to really like the output, because it's not going to sound like you. It's like, okay, let's nail down like what is you, and then we teach that to the AI.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, brand tone. That's a big one.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So to your point and this is where I think we can shake hands and we're on the same page I think that businesses that are large enough, or at least organized enough, to develop processes, repeatable processes, whether it's a way of speaking scripts, it's things that you want your employees to do all the time so that you can deliver a consistent product or service, which in the most time. For us, the value is that, or for the business, the value is that you can get data from that and you can see what works, what doesn't work, you can tweak it. Ai can help you do all of that, and if you're a one-man shop or a one-woman shop, what you can get from that is enterprise-level repeatability, and that's huge, oh, it's huge.
Speaker 2:And even enterprises don't have that type of consistency often we're flexible enough to do it.
Speaker 1:So for once we can compete with the big boys.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is it, and thank you. Cause I'm so passionate about this is that there is also part of that. Asana study is a big gap between what leaders within enterprises think about AI. They're really excited, they're like, yay, yay, we're stoked, but that their workers are like, okay, well, we don't have any, like we haven't be re-skilled for this, there's no strategy for it, like there's, they're playing catch up because you know it's moving really fast, it's just and it's a big ship to turn and so, yes, in time, it's a lot of people to train if you're small, medium-sized business, you are like a jet ski, like you're just yes, bob and weave.
Speaker 2:Bob and weave exactly. Like all right, who needs to learn this? Me? Or like, yes, you know, maybe my, you know 30 employees. Or like a certain core people, and so I'm just feel very passionate. It's like now is the time, because they are going to figure this out and and when they do, it's going to be tougher to compete with them. You still can, but do it now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, learn a technology, get really good at it and offer it to a company, because I think that companies are starting to lay off their junior people, I mean for better or worse.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is opening up. The value prop is very simple. Let's say a company has a marketing department. They've got two junior people on their team. Those junior people are running them roughly let's say, 150 to $200,000 a year and now they're realizing that those junior people are using AI and so half of the time they're twiddling their thumbs. They're not a part of the strategy team, they're only there for execution, and so now you have to give them more work, which probably doesn't exist, and what's going to happen is you're going to lay one of them off, or both of them, and then here comes a small little, tiny little firm that says hey, we actually know how to use that technology that your junior people were kind of using. We know how to use that really well to deliver maximum value, optimal efficiency, and we can do this really, really well for a fraction of the cost. So your quality goes up, your processes get better, so you're a revenue driver and you're also cost cutting. So now there's this whole fractional thing piece that's being created.
Speaker 2:That's so true and it's like I mean, I feel torn because I'm like and it's something that I naturally have to come to grips with too is like, with AI, it can equal job loss.
Speaker 2:And so my hope and my philosophy is like, as I empower businesses, it's like reinvest that time in your people and in your growth, especially if you have good people.
Speaker 2:But with that being said, let's be honest you know businesses are going to do what they need to do in this economy, and so it's tricky because that is like, of course, if you're a business, you're going to say yes, that also and this is kind of a larger issue which I'm so curious how it's going to go is the reason why I think I am so effective at AI is because I have that experience within the industry to then apply that.
Speaker 2:And you can do a lot if you are an experienced with AI. But you have, you know, you kind of have a wall as of now, and so I do feel concerned about the junior folks and I want to make sure because you just kind of you learn and you get experience through reps and through having that time, and so it's like what we need to be sure that in businesses just need to be mindful of like how do you mentor? And just not just like OK, all of those tasks are all go to AI. It's like well, how are you? Eventually your workforce is going to retire, like you need to have people in your workforce, that a lot of the junior jobs.
Speaker 1:I think that if you entered your field in the last year or two, it's going to be tough. It's going to be a lot tougher, especially in the computer sciences. If you're a developer, a programmer, even if you're a junior marketing person, it's going to be really tough because, like you said, you're not going to be able to develop that experience because your job may no longer exist. And for the ones who just made it into the senior echelons of the workplace, those people are going to do pretty well because what they become you and me, they become the people who go. You know what. We could do this on our own and we can do this for other companies, because we've spent the last three years learning how to do this better and using AI.
Speaker 2:Maybe, that's sad but no, I think it's. I mean, we need to talk realistically and also with that, you know, dose of reality is like what skills do people need to foster? Skills do people need to foster? And it's like those junior folks. It's like how you become super valuable is knowing ai and then teaching it, because they're still like, oh my gosh, so many people don't know anything about it yeah they.
Speaker 2:It's been, very honestly, very personally rewarding to be able to blow boomers minds about ai and what, and it's just like tip of the iceberg too. They're like can you summarize a contract. I'm like yes, yeah, it's it's probably still.
Speaker 1:they're still awake at night, thinking I mean, I'm in the goddamn future.
Speaker 2:It's terrifying and exciting to them. It's terrifying and exciting to them.
Speaker 1:And so I mean, of course, like yes, it's just change. And there's this phrase that's like everybody loves progress, nobody likes change. I put that right next to everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
Speaker 2:Same thing. I'm taking that one.
Speaker 1:That's good. That's a really good one. I came up with it.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, mine was from a fortune cookie, I'll take credit for it, but I didn't do it. Mine was straight up from a fortune cookie, but it's on my fridge because I was like that's a good one. It's painful, and there's a lot of things that are going to change, and that change is going to hurt. That doesn't mean, though, that there are no more jobs, like it's just it's. It's just going to look different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that we just came up with a new business model. I don't think that you even realize what you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you just you put your finger on something accidentally, which is there's probably room for people like us to help others, especially those junior folks, harness the power of AI to start their own businesses. Yeah, I mean, the sky is the limit here. It's like businesses can spawn, businesses can spawn businesses. And for those people who are finding it very difficult to find a job and they don't really understand entrepreneurship which we do then some of the big brother, big sister entrepreneurs who have been messing with this technology and creating value, I think that there's a real opportunity for us, and I think this is what you're doing.
Speaker 1:On TikTok, there are probably a lot of people who are like. I know that when I first landed on your TikTok page, I was like, okay, that thing that she, that technology that she just talked about I think you were talking about the avatar, actually and I was like how can I use that to make money? And there are two things that you need in order to do that you need to be an entrepreneur, so you have to have some sort of entrepreneurial skills and you need to understand the technology, and so I think that this is another gold rush, right, and the only difference between this gold rush and the old one is that there's so much gold here that you don't even know. You can't distinguish gold from the trees, from the rivers, it's just. The opportunities are blinding, and I think there's a huge opportunity for people like us to introduce expertise around entrepreneurship and technology. What do you think?
Speaker 2:Oh, I completely agree. I love that and also, like there is, it's just dripping in opportunity. It's almost it's kind of hard to choose something sometimes because there's so much opportunity.
Speaker 1:I like that.
Speaker 2:And I love this younger generation too, because I feel like naturally they just have this beautiful entrepreneurial spirit anyways.
Speaker 1:Let's do it. Let's start a company.
Speaker 1:I don't know I think somebody, I think somebody and that's I mean that's a business in itself. Education, that's. That's the realm that you're in. I mean that's. The future here is that there are so many opportunities in AI, and Randy was talking about this the other day. We were talking about open AI being one of those technologies that just had like a really crazy adoption rate. Like millions of people used it right out of the gate and so it goes down in history as being one of the biggest companies with the fastest adoption ever. But I said, you know what? That's not really totally fair, because it's not just one technology. Ai, especially generative AI, is a billion technologies in one and it comes with its own manual. So the only limit here is imagination.
Speaker 2:I think, yes, oh, absolutely. And it's like I'm just personally so excited about AI itself that that's why I kind of like, I'm like I want to. I just naturally talk people's ear off about it, so I'm like, all right, I guess that's the space I'm going to be in. However, like, if you're someone that's like I really want to make X or I really want to do Y, that should be your business and Just have it supported by AI. That is so in your reach and you only need a few tools. It will not be that expensive. You just maybe need a little bit of direction and it's so possible. I just want everyone to own their own business too.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I do want everybody to own their own business. I can tell you, owning your own business is great. You have flexibility, and I was talking to my business partner about this this morning. We enjoy helping our customers do better and we love it when our customers are happy. This was great. This was an excellent production. You know, we are in 40 different countries and we're the number one podcast in our industry. I'm like I can die happy. You know, I don't want to die just yet. I do want to go to heaven, but I don't want to die just yet. But it's such a rewarding thing that I think that some people have just never even considered it's one of those things the pleasures of owning your own business and having freedom and taking control of your own life and your destiny. I mean, I'm not overstating this. I think that it is within reach and within grasp and we're at the forefront of it.
Speaker 2:Oh, you're so right, and rewarding is a perfect way to say it. It was like such a weird shift to be paid for doing things I liked, because I kind of thought you only got money.
Speaker 1:It's weird, it feels wrong.
Speaker 2:It's like wait, I'm enjoying it. Should I actually charge someone?
Speaker 1:money. Yes, yes, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. It feels like cheating it does, but that's just called being a business owner.
Speaker 2:It's just like Like all right, no, we've just been conditioned that, like work is tends to be so unenjoyable that having that shift is, I want everyone to feel that.
Speaker 1:All right, in the time that we have left, I do want to get to some of the applications that you've been working with and some of the education that you're going around. So what are the?
Speaker 2:applications and the AI technologies that are on your radar today. Absolutely. We already talked about OpenAI, ChatGPT, of course, and doing custom GPTs within that. We also have Anthropics Cloud. Use those table stakes. The video avatars are really interesting. Something I also feel like should be table stakes too, at least for your marketing material, is Eleven Labs has. For your marketing material is 11 Labs has. It's just AI voiceover, but it's easy, Like it's very spooky good, and so if you're, if ChatGPT is creating articles for you, you can easily be able to do audio for those articles. You can like have some type of visual and then do a audio overlay of it. It's so the technology is good. It's very affordable I think it's like $11 a month and it's ethical, because only voice actors that are getting paid for it are being sampled to.
Speaker 1:Oh, so it's sampling real people. It's not just trying to create a script. Yeah, and it's people that have volunteered for it.
Speaker 2:And there's almost kind of like I need to look back, but I think it's almost like a spotify type of arrangement for them. So it's huge people are getting um it's and it was. It's interesting. I know there's a I won't digress too much but it was started, I believe, by someone in the czech republic that was, or somewhere somewhere in in europe. Um, that was so frustrated by the awful dubbing of us films, and so they're like I gotta find a technology that can make this better. Love and it.
Speaker 2:And they did, and now it is just like it's crazy how much it's blown up Wow. And you can do multiple languages.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if back in the day you had, like a dubbing company you know you had a company that just did that for movies you'd probably need voice actors and expensive equipment and your startup cost would be through the roof. Now it's just going to cost you 11 bucks a month.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes exactly.
Speaker 2:That's nuts, that is crazy Ten dollars a month. Like, and it's really. Is it as licensed and ethical? Those are different questions, so big enterprises should be careful. If you're a small business, I think you're fine to use it. It is astounding how much it's progressed in the last six months. It's looking. It's much better than any other graphic model that I've seen. And then um. And then also another interesting one is accio. Um, it's for if you're in data and it's. It's a way that you can upload data or you can integrate all of your different data sources and then just talk to it like in a chat, so you have all of these different like. Ok, how did that campaign do? Can you create a graph?
Speaker 1:Oh man that is like I used to be in paid media, and if I had that back then, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, the hours it would have saved me. Oh my gosh. Yeah, you know, when I was working at a small credit union in Bloomington, minnesota, one of the things that we were working on in-house and it was too expensive for us to even complete the project was something called Analyzer, where they wanted to feed CRM data Not CRM. Is it CRM data? Yeah, probably. Yeah, like CRM data, like member data, customer data, buying habits, locations, that kind of stuff into a, a proprietary tool, and then be able to ask it questions like where should we put an atm?
Speaker 1:Um, and we try to make this thing work, and because ai wasn't a thing at the time, our team was just like banging your head against the wall and we had this programmer that, honestly, was taking us for a ride, and now it's going to. It cost us, probably, in the end. If we had actually done it, what we were doing was trying to build an AI model from scratch. Right, it would have cost millions. Yes, it would have cost millions of dollars. Now, it'll cost how much is that Accio tool?
Speaker 2:I think it's not that bad at most 60 a month, but it's uh.
Speaker 2:there's tears to it of course but, um, but it's like it's in your reach. If you're like, if you're an agency, I feel like it's a no-brainer paid media agency, um, but yeah, oh. And then another one. That's fun that I haven't found really an application for it yet, but I hope that one of my clients wants to experiment with it. It's for, um, a cgi avatar creation and so like, think like gollum from lord of the rings, like he was cgi in the movies, um, and it took like a team of at least six people to be able to do it. Very time intensive, very difficult to do. Now, um, I just uploaded a video of myself like walking across the room and now I can just click it and say character one. You can even do multi-characters. So I could have you and I could be in the room and I could click you as character two and then pull over and pull it, make you into a cgi character.
Speaker 1:You could be a robot, you could be wow uh, so that would revolutionize the movie industry, the gaming industry. If you're an independent game creator, now you've got more tools.
Speaker 2:It's helpful because now those types of stories are more accessible to be told. Maybe it's something that's a bit more complex that otherwise would just be way too cost prohibitive to create. Now you can do it.
Speaker 1:Once this power is in your hand and you reap the benefits of owning your own business, it is scary because you feel like you're cheating and you feel like you should not be having as much fun and it should not be as easy to do what you're doing.
Speaker 1:But you know what, jenna? You're the embodiment, I'm the embodiment, and so many other people Randy Blasick again shout out to Randy I mean, he is kind of my poster child for this thing spinning up a company with AI. 75% of his company was built out of AI and that's an enterprise tech company that we're talking about. This is revolutionizing the world. It's moving at breakneck speed and we're on the forefront of it and I really appreciate you talking about this today and I appreciate the work that you're of it. I really appreciate you talking about this today and I appreciate the work that you're doing, because I really think that it's God's work. I think that what you're doing is helping the world become better by using AI and putting it into the hands of people who may otherwise have never thought about this and may not think that they're powerful enough. And AI is a force multiplier and you're helping put that power into the hands of people. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you, and thank you for the great conversation and I just look forward to hopefully more people utilizing it.
Speaker 1:Yes, if you're listening to this for the first time. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Cybernomics. If you're tuning in again, thank you. Thank you for being a listener, jenna. If people want to find you, I know you're on TikTok, they can look you up there. That's where I found you, but is there anywhere else that people can find you?
Speaker 2:TikTok, and then also YouTube and Instagram. The handle is Jenna underscore Gardner underscore AI.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and I am Josh Bruning. Check out Bruning Media B-R-U-Y-N-I-N-G dot com. Check me out on LinkedIn, or you can tweet at me at X, or do you X me at X. Whatever it is, and it's the Bruning. We'll see you in the next one. Bye, all right. Did I miss anything? No, that was so much fun. Thank you.
Speaker 2:I like it.