AI Poverty Is Real: Why Trades Businesses Can't Afford to Wait

Artificial intelligence is no longer coming. It is already here, and the gap between businesses that understand it and businesses that don't is widening faster than most people realize. Manuj Aggarwal has spent years at the center of that conversation, and today he brings it straight to the trades.

As the founder and Chief Innovation Officer of TetraNoodle Technologies, Manuj has touched over 10 million lives and generated more than $500 million in value through AI. His frameworks have been peer-reviewed and published in the Mensa Research Journal, recognized by President Obama and Bill Gates, and presented at the United Nations alongside Nobel Peace Prize winners. He holds four AI patents and has built a reputation as one of the most credible voices in the industry on how AI creates or destroys opportunity for everyday business owners.

In this episode, Mandeep sits down with Manuj to unpack something that every trades business owner needs to understand right now: AI poverty and the sovereignty gap. This isn't a conversation about robots taking over. It's a real, practical look at what happens to the HVAC company, the plumber, the electrician, and the contractor who falls behind on AI versus the one who leans in. Manuj breaks down where AI actually fits inside hands-on service businesses, what a smart first implementation looks like, and whether robots will ever show up to do the physical work itself.

He also gets honest about the most dangerous misconceptions trades owners carry around AI, why actively trying to adopt it still isn't enough for some businesses, and what the industry is going to look like five years from now for the owners who got this right versus those who waited too long.

This episode is brought to you by Broccoli AI, helping trades and service businesses unlock the power of artificial intelligence to grow smarter and faster, and Grow Reviews, the reputation platform built for home service companies ready to win more customers through the power of trust. We're grateful for their continued support of the Born For The Trades community.

If you want to find out where you stand in the AI revolution, Manuj offers a free AI readiness resource at aimerge.live that gives you a score on how prepared your business actually is. You can also connect with him directly on LinkedIn or visit his personal website at manujaggarwal.com.

Don't wait until the gap is too wide to close. This episode is your starting point.

Transcript

00;00;11;14 - 00;00;43;12
Speaker 1
Hello. Welcome, everyone. Welcome to born for the trades, a home service podcast, and I'm your host, Mandy Bala. Today we have someone who is operating at a level most people only read about. Manage other. Well, he's the founder and chief innovation officer of, taps on Noodle Technologies, an elite AI engineering company that has touched over 10 million lives and generated over more than 500 million in value.

00;00;43;13 - 00;01;14;16
Speaker 1
His work has been recognized by President Obama and Bill gates, published in the Mensa Research Journal, and presented at the United States and Cornell University. But today's he is here to talk about something that hits close to home for every trades business owner listening, AI, poverty, and the serenity gap, this one is going to make you think differently about where you stand in the AI revolution.

00;01;14;23 - 00;01;18;17
Speaker 1
Let's go. Welcome to the show manage.

00;01;18;19 - 00;01;21;27
Speaker 2
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for that great introduction.

00;01;22;00 - 00;01;42;25
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. It's good to have you. I'm glad that you we got connected on social media and you're producing massive content related to AI. You have impacted, like, you know, millions of lives generated revenue. It's impressive. And, we want to just start with, like, you know, your journey, like your journey, just like maybe, maybe 1 or 2 minutes.

00;01;42;25 - 00;01;49;19
Speaker 1
You want to touch base who you are, what you have done. Like, your journey. That will matter a lot to the audience.

00;01;49;19 - 00;02;10;07
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. I mean, before the interview, we were talking right? Like, so I grew up in, India, in Punjab, small town Jalandhar, and 30, 30, 35 years ago, it was pretty tiny place. Not a lot of opportunities there. There was just like one community college for boys and one community college for girls.

00;02;10;08 - 00;02;41;03
Speaker 2
I sort of joined whatever was, available. But then I fell in wrong company. I started doing drugs and things like that and dropped out in first three months. And then, you know, just trying to figure out what to do with my life. And, always was a troublemaker, introvert. And somehow I found my way into computers and technology and software, and I really fell in love with, technology because, being an introvert, you know, it's easy to talk to the machines rather than human, right?

00;02;41;05 - 00;03;09;24
Speaker 2
And, one thing led to another. Came to, Canada in 1998. It was the.com boom time, right? I got into the industry very easily, very quickly. But then.com bust happened. So I lost four jobs, around 2001. And then that forced me into entrepreneurship, starting my own company, building products for startups, for corporations like Microsoft, IBM, T-Mobile.

00;03;09;26 - 00;03;29;15
Speaker 2
And I started getting into AI around 2005. So now I have, four patterns in AI and the fifth, product, or platform that we have created called the AI merges, scientifically reviewed and published in the journal. So that's a little bit of my journey.

00;03;29;18 - 00;03;50;01
Speaker 1
Love it. Love it. That's amazing. Yeah. Like, you know what a great journey. Like, you know, coming from India and now in Canada, like, you know, India AI great great. You have you have touched over like, you know, ten millions, 10 million lives and generated 500 million in value through AI. What did what did this all start for you?

00;03;50;01 - 00;03;53;29
Speaker 1
What was the problem you originally set out to solve?

00;03;54;01 - 00;04;19;08
Speaker 2
Yeah. For, you know, just like, there are specific industries which touch large population like you are in home services industries. Everybody needs it. Everybody needs, you know, furnace repair, whatever, whatever it is. So it touches a large population. So what, we, what I always look for is, okay, what what product or what industry should we impact?

00;04;19;13 - 00;04;43;06
Speaker 2
But it will touch many, many lives. So a few industries that I really, dug deep into our education. So we created a platform that was serving over 5 million students across the world, even more now, like, I think it's now it should be like, around like 10 to 15 million easily. But back then, it was 5 million, students across the world.

00;04;43;06 - 00;05;11;00
Speaker 2
And then healthcare was another one where, you know, we did a lot of work in healthcare, and obviously the products and the platforms that we built, they were adopted first in the province of British Columbia. So British Columbia, quite, large, province here in Canada and then Canada wide and then internationally as well. So these are just like rough estimates, that, you know, impacting people through education.

00;05;11;02 - 00;05;21;04
Speaker 2
That's around 5 million impacting people through healthcare, around 5 million. But I think the actual number is much bigger. Right. Like to be a little bit more conservative.

00;05;21;06 - 00;05;36;29
Speaker 1
Yeah I love that. Love that. That's great. I think I think most people here like AI engineering company and think big tech and like, you know, fortune 500 corporations. Who are you actually building for and why does that matter?

00;05;37;01 - 00;05;58;27
Speaker 2
You see, this is, this is a paradigm shift. Now that what we are talking about, what what is happening, in front of our eyes, we we are not noticing it yet, but in a few years, we will it will be clear to most people, there is no longer this categorization of fortune 500 or small medium business.

00;05;58;27 - 00;06;30;05
Speaker 2
Because AI as a technology is a universal technology. So it's think of it as electricity or think of it as fire. We don't say, okay, we are producing electricity for fortune 500. Maybe, you know, they have a different, you know, high voltage equipment that needs a specific type of electricity, but but generally for, you know, normal use, it's the exact same electricity that the, hydropower, station or the nuclear power station produces.

00;06;30;11 - 00;07;00;14
Speaker 2
Right? It just, gets distributed, you know, through different channels. So AI is, general purpose technology that serves all, industries. The key is to recognize how to utilize this technology and how to interface that with the humans. Using this technology, because unlike unlike any other technology you can take, you know, the car, you can take the train, you can take a hammer or anything else.

00;07;00;16 - 00;07;30;22
Speaker 2
Right? It's an external entity to the human being, like, you know, we use the technology to do something, right. But, you know, it is the first technology that interacts with your mind and actually starts to impact how your nervous system reacts to the world. So. So once you understand neuroscience, I am that is why, you know, the work that we do is spread across 13 or 14 fields of study, including neuroscience, including psychology.

00;07;30;22 - 00;07;55;27
Speaker 2
Because AI is such a technology that that we need to understand these things. So once you understand it and then you can say, okay, this is how one human being or a group of human beings will use this technology to get the output that they are looking for. Those are first principles, foundational knowledge. Right? So once you understand that, right, then you can apply it for a solopreneur.

00;07;56;00 - 00;08;08;23
Speaker 2
You can apply it for a small business, you can apply it for a fortune 500 company. You can apply it for government. Right. Any, any other, entity. So so that's how we look at things and, design. Yeah.

00;08;08;23 - 00;08;30;08
Speaker 1
Technology's great. Great. Yeah. I think, a lot of people are, they are scared. And, those who are actually implementing AI, especially with like, you know, trades, they going to be like, you know, dominating, in their market. Those are like, you know, builders. They are going to build something which is like, I think people are shying or just like, you know, they are scared of.

00;08;30;16 - 00;08;46;11
Speaker 1
So is I, I think I poverty we are talking about. So I'm really excited to ask this one. So I is I poverty something that happens to people who ignore technology. Or can a business owner be trying to adopt AI and still fall into it?

00;08;46;14 - 00;09;06;12
Speaker 2
Yes, yes yes yes. So let's let's look at you know, what is happening. So there is something called a poverty line international internationally kind of like agreed upon that if you make a certain amount of money, like I think it's $0.50 a day or something like that, if you if you make less than that, you fall below the poverty line, okay.

00;09;06;15 - 00;09;35;15
Speaker 2
And this power, this poverty line is sort of, directly proportional, directly related to your ability to generate value in the world, meaning, you know, do you have any specific skill set to generate, income? Do you have any connections? Do you have any, you know, you have high IQ or something along those lines. And if if you have those things, then generally you fall above the poverty line because you can generate your own income and everything.

00;09;35;18 - 00;09;59;08
Speaker 2
Now, what is happening is most people are going to apply the same logic and say, hey, I'm smart, I have high IQ, I have connections, right? And I should be able to move up above the high poverty line. But that is not the case because IQ and but our ability to generate problems is no longer an advantage.

00;09;59;11 - 00;10;25;05
Speaker 2
Because everyone has the same kind of intellect. By using I mean, everybody has a genius level IQ, right? So what will differentiate our ability to rise above the AI poverty line? Remember, I'm I'm not calling. I'm not saying the the regular AI, poverty line. There is a new poverty line, AI poverty line above which people will rely on.

00;10;25;07 - 00;10;27;29
Speaker 2
They're decision quality then.

00;10;27;29 - 00;10;28;10
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;10;28;10 - 00;10;51;29
Speaker 2
So if you if you understand they are regulated nervous system meaning they can see things clearly and make the right decisions at the right time. You know, an example will be like if you have if you are a fan of any science fiction movie, Star Trek, Star Wars, you will notice that those, those, characters in those movies, they don't do anything by themselves.

00;10;52;01 - 00;11;04;17
Speaker 2
Right. They just say, hey, oh, hey, R2d2 go attack this, you know, ship or whatever and get, get, you know, do this work right. And I will monitor what is happening and make the right decisions.

00;11;04;19 - 00;11;31;16
Speaker 1
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00;11;31;16 - 00;11;54;21
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
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00;12;16;23 - 00;12;37;09
Speaker 1
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00;12;37;13 - 00;12;45;18
Speaker 1
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00;12;45;20 - 00;13;18;06
Speaker 2
The human mind is not capable of doing this, inherently, because society today has been set up to go deep in one area but not think broadly. Okay. So so this is kind of the way that what we have in my company, I have created this new, new kind of like how can I say new, asset on human human general intelligence.

00;13;18;09 - 00;13;40;17
Speaker 2
So the whole AI industry is, running after artificial general intelligence, AGI, which they will achieve, which they will achieve in a, in a in a couple of years. But imagine if you have such a powerful AI and your mind is full of, you know, daily, you know, problems you will not be able to, use AGI.

00;13;40;17 - 00;13;49;03
Speaker 2
So in order to use AGI you need human general intelligence HDI. And then when you combine it, then you become unstoppable.

00;13;49;06 - 00;14;10;13
Speaker 1
Love it, love it, love it. That's amazing. On a side note, like, you know, I'm also like, you know, Bollywood fan, you look like I don't know if you have ever got this compliment. Like, have you heard about the Oscars with the art you look like? No, no. Yeah. Like I look like, you know, I'm talking to, like a celebrity too.

00;14;10;13 - 00;14;11;21
Speaker 1
But yes, I know.

00;14;11;24 - 00;14;12;19
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00;14;12;22 - 00;14;26;07
Speaker 1
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And I think this is what people, I think they that's the gap. Like how fast is this gap widening and what happens to the businesses on the wrong side of it over the next 3 to 5 years?

00;14;26;10 - 00;14;52;23
Speaker 2
It's exponential curve. You you you don't see it until you kind of like, you know, let's until you actually see the effect. So I'll, I'll share a few things. Right. One is don't get mistaken by the noise about the AI agents automation. This is happening. This is actually a tsunami. So if you if you understand like, you know, in 2011 Japan experienced a tsunami, right?

00;14;52;27 - 00;15;16;07
Speaker 2
Yes. A lot of devastation was caused because when a phenomena hits, most people are not even prepared. What the hell is going on? Right. They just so I is so nami of epic proportions that is going to wipe out industries and create new ones. Wow. Okay. And how far behind people are. I'll give you some simple examples.

00;15;16;07 - 00;15;54;25
Speaker 2
Right. Look at the Forbes richest people. Top 100. Yeah I can guarantee you about 85 of them can directly attribute their wealth. When did they start using it. Okay. So people have this misconception that ChatGPT is the I know the AI has been around since 1960s, and people who I started implementing AI system in 2005. So people who started using AI very early on, they started compounding their wealth.

00;15;54;28 - 00;16;03;18
Speaker 2
Right? Okay. Now look at the richest person, Elon Musk. Yeah, he is managing, I think, 5 or 6 companies.

00;16;03;20 - 00;16;05;12
Speaker 1
Right.

00;16;05;14 - 00;16;17;28
Speaker 2
So Space-x became the the first private space company and it's it's doing work for NASA. The Tesla, was launched around like 2005. Okay.

00;16;18;01 - 00;16;19;12
Speaker 1
Right. Yeah.

00;16;19;14 - 00;16;27;25
Speaker 2
Today Tesla is bigger than Ford, Chrysler and GM combined. Okay.

00;16;27;26 - 00;16;29;01
Speaker 1
Yeah it is.

00;16;29;02 - 00;16;34;02
Speaker 2
And these these companies have been in business for at least 100 years.

00;16;34;04 - 00;16;36;04
Speaker 1
Yeah 100%.

00;16;36;06 - 00;16;41;02
Speaker 2
Now take another example Jeff Bezos started Amazon in 1997.

00;16;41;04 - 00;16;42;04
Speaker 1
Right.

00;16;42;07 - 00;16;57;08
Speaker 2
And Walmart was the biggest retailer by far. And Walmart started about I think 78 years ago. Yeah. Okay. And Amazon became the number one retailer within like 15, 16 years.

00;16;57;11 - 00;16;58;15
Speaker 1
Yeah that's true.

00;16;58;18 - 00;17;12;04
Speaker 2
So when you ask me this question, are people behind the you can just look at these examples and you can see what happens when you do not pay attention. How fast people move fast people move.

00;17;12;04 - 00;17;26;16
Speaker 1
Love that. Love that. I, I think this has been the I has been exhausted. It's just that like, you know, we haven't applied and those like, you know, people, those who are like big shocks now they have been using it. It's not new to them. Right.

00;17;26;17 - 00;17;45;26
Speaker 2
So the other thing is I will also add here people, you know, this they when they implement I was on something they became they become quite excited that. Oh look, I used to, I used to make one social media post. It used to take me two hours. Now it take me five minutes.

00;17;45;27 - 00;17;46;11
Speaker 1
Yeah.

00;17;46;15 - 00;18;09;21
Speaker 2
You know what? They are scratching the surface. So it's like you have a deep ocean of, You know, they where you can find invaluable pearls. But you just collect a little bit of pieces on the top and you say oh my god like this is amazing. But yeah if you go ten meters deep you will find a giant a giant pearls.

00;18;09;28 - 00;18;19;00
Speaker 2
If you go 100m deep you will find like you know what? Just full of more and more wealth and more and more treasure.

00;18;19;04 - 00;18;20;00
Speaker 1
Treasure out there.

00;18;20;03 - 00;18;21;16
Speaker 2
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

00;18;21;17 - 00;18;38;27
Speaker 1
No, this is amazing. Yeah. Good stuff. Now, I've been like, you know, diving into built, like, in a lot of, like, you know, AI systems for our internal purposes and for home service industry. The deeper I go, I look at, wow, like, this is something I should have done it long time ago. I don't we have eight minutes.

00;18;38;27 - 00;18;56;15
Speaker 1
I'm going to dive into our AI in the trades with you. So our next segment. So Hvac, plumbing, electrical and home services. These are hands on businesses. Where does I actually fit in and what problems can it realistically like solve for a trades owner right now.

00;18;56;18 - 00;19;24;25
Speaker 2
Yeah. First of all, let's take this misconception that these are hands on, industries. Everything is going to be automated. Trust me on this. The second thing is, the, home industry is primarily, relational industry, meaning the person is going to talk to the homeowner and, their success will rely on how well they have understood the problem and how well they have understood the client.

00;19;24;28 - 00;19;47;19
Speaker 2
Right. Looking at the side, you know, giving the right, estimates, you know, making sure that the work is, done as per specification. It can pass the security, the equipment that they use, you know, and there's no errors in their the parts that they order. All of these are very, very small.

00;19;47;19 - 00;20;08;12
Speaker 2
Little details that people have to take care of so that they can serve their clients best. Right, right. Right. Now, all of these things can slowly, be the realm of AI. And, you know, you can just take a few pictures or video or even in a couple of years, you will be able to send your robot and say, hey, go survey.

00;20;08;14 - 00;20;08;24
Speaker 2


00;20;08;27 - 00;20;16;25
Speaker 1
So do you think that that that can happen like robots can do, like, you know, pressure washing, like, you know, maybe plumbing jobs, right?

00;20;16;28 - 00;20;19;00
Speaker 2
Absolutely. But better than humans.

00;20;19;07 - 00;20;23;16
Speaker 1
Better than. Better than humans. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

00;20;23;18 - 00;20;34;25
Speaker 2
So that's amazing. The job that will be remaining for the owner of the services company is to get really, really good at building relationships with the customers.

00;20;34;28 - 00;20;48;11
Speaker 1
With the customers and robots. They can do the job they can replace. I know, I think this home service industry, they are they have been saying that no robots can actually replace what they have been doing. But I think that's the future. That's the future right there.

00;20;48;12 - 00;21;14;19
Speaker 2
Well, so let me just quickly address that. You know, the taxi drivers around the world used to say, oh, nobody can take away. Yeah. Before that, you know, hotels used to say, oh, nobody is going to stay in somebody else's home. But then Airbnb came. Yes. It's only when we as humans, we only, you know, when some other industry is disrupted and it provides convenience to me.

00;21;14;19 - 00;21;30;01
Speaker 2
I'm okay with that. Like, I can take almost what up and I can get a, a car. But if I was a taxi, you know, if I had taxi company, then I will say, oh, no, no, no, Uber will not be able to take my job. But that's the blind spot that we all have.

00;21;30;03 - 00;21;49;26
Speaker 1
Wow. Yeah, I think I think that's the like in a era where people are not ready. But yes, this is this is going to happen. Thanks for sharing. A lot of like trade owners are either intimidated by AI or think it doesn't apply to them. Like which misconception is more dangerous?

00;21;49;29 - 00;22;11;15
Speaker 2
So both of them are same thing. They are avoiding. They're avoiding because human nature is when we when there is an unknown, darker side, we try to hide from it. We try to stay away from it. So it's the same thing. Like they are either scared, which is, you know, lack of knowledge and they say it's not going to affect it.

00;22;11;22 - 00;22;38;22
Speaker 2
It's like denial. Yeah. Okay. So the right, right thing to do is not to hide from it, not to be scared from it because life is constant change. The only constant in life is change, right? This is a big change coming. The idea is to prepare for it. The idea is to listen to experts like, you know, both of us or, you know, work with people who understand this technology so that you can be well prepared.

00;22;38;24 - 00;23;01;06
Speaker 2
So when a tsunami comes and you know there is a tsunami signal, you either say, oh, I'm going to just stay here, let you know what you know. Nothing is going to happen to me, but that is denial. Rather than that, you need to you need to find a higher spot. Yeah. Or get a life jacket or get on a boat or something like that.

00;23;01;09 - 00;23;05;29
Speaker 2
That will be a better plan. Rather than saying, oh, this is not going to set, this.

00;23;05;29 - 00;23;20;24
Speaker 1
Is not going. Yeah, I think better be like, you know, prepared to like, you know, regret later. Love that was was the one I application you would tell every home service business owner to implement before anything else or anything custom.

00;23;20;26 - 00;23;51;02
Speaker 2
The key is to use AI chat, you know, any platform. But really this is this is going to sound strange. Get really, really good at human interaction and human communication. Use these platforms. You know, let's say if you are having a conversation with the client, take the recording of that conversation, upload it into ChatGPT and say, tell me how I can improve my communication with my clients.

00;23;51;04 - 00;23;54;08
Speaker 2
That is the best way to start using this and.

00;23;54;11 - 00;24;08;20
Speaker 1
Start using love that, love that. We're going gonna wrap up with our last question here five years from now. What does the trade business like in a landscape look like for owners who took AI seriously versus those who didn't?

00;24;08;23 - 00;24;25;24
Speaker 2
I think the people who are going to take AI seriously, they will grow by ten next to 50 in the next five years. And obviously, people who do not take it take this seriously, they will be either, out of the industry or they will be working for the people who are growing exponentially.

00;24;25;28 - 00;24;40;11
Speaker 1
Those who are growing, or those who have dominated with I love that love that. So my notes, like, I think, what are we going to do is we're going to link everything, like, you know, in the description so that people can reach out to you. And I think it was short time. I think we will definitely have part two.

00;24;40;12 - 00;24;50;03
Speaker 1
We will invite you again as well because it's a lot to learn from you. So how to reach out to you, like, what's the best? Like, you know.

00;24;50;05 - 00;25;11;08
Speaker 2
You can go to you can go to my website manager, Worldcom or my LinkedIn. But one free, resource we provide is called a I merge dot live. And so it will actually give you a score, on how well prepared you are for AI in evolution. So that's a very useful thing for people to understand where they stand.

00;25;11;10 - 00;25;33;04
Speaker 1
Okay. Awesome. Love it. Love it. Thank you again. Like, you know, for sharing everything with us. To the home service audience, those who are listening, I hope it was helpful. If you are not ready for AI, better be. Because that's not the future. It's already there. You got to start implementing and shout out to like, you know, our sponsors grow reviews and broccoli.

00;25;33;10 - 00;25;45;06
Speaker 1
Thank you for all the love and support and thank you manage for your time. We'll definitely invite you for the second episode. I think we have a lot to cover with you. So thank you so much. And you have a wonderful week.