On this week's episode, we had the privilege of having Ashley Gross join us to discuss generative AI in the role of marketing. Ashley was an early adopter of generative AI and marketing, and because she took the initiative to figure this stuff out, she was tapped to lead an enterprise rollout of generative AI in her previous employer, where she learned some fantastic insights that she shares today. She's also a strong believer in making sure that AI makes its way to Main Street and is launching her own AI training community to make sure that happens. You can bet I'm already on the wait list. We had a lot of fun doing this episode, and like every interview I do, I learned tons. Let's get started. Welcome to Using AI at Word. I'm your host, Chris Dable. Each week we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs, and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. All right, everybody. Welcome to a very exciting episode of Using AI at work. Ashley and I had a chance to catch up before we started recording, and she's got some very exciting things going on in her life that I'm uh proud to be able to let her share here with you at the uh on the episode today. So, Ashley, um, those who may not be familiar with it, you're everywhere, but if they're not familiar with you yet, what would what should they know about you?
SPEAKER_01They should probably know that if they land on my LinkedIn, um, I might show up with disco balls. I might show up and drop some AI knowledge on you. You never really know what to expect, but I keep it very fun and authentic, and it's it's supposed to be enjoyable. So that's what they can expect from me.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful outlook.
SPEAKER_01I know my knowledge, but I always try to have fun with it.
SPEAKER_00That's a wonderful outlook. A lot of people um that may have intimidation, I would suggest that following Ashley will help put you at ease when it comes to, hey, can I do this stuff? Right? Is this stuff for me? Um and how Ashley and I got connected. There's a podcast that I've been listening to for a very long time called Leveraging AI with Isar Matis. Um, Isar had a did a LinkedIn live randomly one day, and Ashley was the guest. I happen to be on LinkedIn at the moment, and I could tell that this was somebody that wasn't new to the game. And then um we were just talking about the topic that she shared during that that webinar. But Ashley, you've been using uh generative AI well before November 2023. Uh how did you how did this how did this come about, your AI involvement?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So sometime during the pandemic, I can't place my finger on like the month. I would love to know when the light bulb moment hit, but at some point in time in 2020 with the rest of the world while we were shut down, I was like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do for a job? The world's shut down. I don't know what my options are. And I was sending so many emails out to prospective employers. And I, you know, when you don't talk to people for a while, you have a little bit of cabin fever and you're like, is my tone right? Am I using too many emojis? What am I doing? And so I stumbled upon it, it was Jarvis, now Jasper. Um, and I just started using it in my everyday emailing. And I realized that it gave me more confidence and it made my communication better when accessibility to other people wasn't necessarily something I could afford. Um, and then from there it kind of grew, right? So once I started using Jasper, then I stumbled into other generative AI tools and I still had a pretty strong conviction to Jasper. I think that their front end experience is great, especially for newbies. Um, but I really truly started using this tool every single day and everything that I did. And I didn't do it because I was like, wow, generative AI, it's so cool. Love this technology. I think it's cool. Um, but I was more so like, all right, I'm a new mom. I want to have a balance in my work life and I don't want to be working 18-hour days. And so from there, fast forward, and it was February of 2023, and my CMO came to me and she was like, Hey, I we're gonna roll out generative AI. Um, we would love you to be the AI task force lead and work with the marketing team on ways to roll this out. And this was before ChatGBT came out. This was before anything, any resources were mainstream. Um, I actually remember distinctly when this conversation was had, everyone was like, Who knows how to do AI? And I didn't want to raise my hand because if you saw, if you were online anywhere, a lot of the articles in the mass media were like, well, if you're using AI, you're not working. And there was this fundamental knowledge gap of prompt engineering, and people did not yet have the mass adoption rates to know that that is a skill set that takes time because you are not going to be good at it right away. So you were still very much working, right? So I took this as an opportunity to just kind of learn as much as I can. I'm very big on ongoing education. And I all I did was I went to every single department in marketing and I said, What do you not necessarily love about your job that you would like to automate? They all gave me answers and I said, Cool, next time you're doing one of those things, can you take a Loom video and just send it to me? And what I did was I worked with three to four generative AI vendors and I said, This is the workflow and this is what the problem looks like with this workflow. Show me what this would look like on your app with your product. Um, and I did that for a variety of reasons, but I used that as like a baseline for making sure it would be a good match. And then I worked with those leaders and I said, this was what the workflow would look like now. Is that cool with you? And if they said yes, we moved on to the next phase. And the next phase was, you know, going through SEC agreements and making sure that data policy and protections were in place and that it jived with my current company's, you know, policies. And then the last part was, you know, if they made it through those first two barriers, the last part was I sat down with the product teams for those remaining two to three vendors for each department. And I said, How are let's talk about sustainability and bias mitigation? Because it's not a sexy conversation, but it's very much needed. And I quite literally asked them to give me an example of when their technology created a bias and how did they mitigate it or did they not mitigate it? And what are they going to do next time? Because we're looking at the worst iterations of generative AI right now. They are there. So if they tell you they're not there, that is concerning, right? We have to go at this with transparency. And so lo and behold, I got through this whole process and it kind of left me thinking, all right, I've used generative AI now for four years. I've seen the use cases, right? Some of them were mind-blowing. Everything from um it took, you know, an hour to create a meta description to 15 minutes. It took our product marketing team, 45 minutes for competitive intelligence and market analysis. Now it's 10 minutes. I was just seeing so much more happiness in the employees. And that human-centric approach really kind of flicked a light bulb on for me. And I was like, okay, where are we missing the mark now? Small business owners. And I thought, okay, these are the people that have to be scrappy. Entrepreneurs know that starting their own business takes many sacrifices. And they are most likely the ones that are working these 18-hour days and need the accessibility to these tools and guidance more than probably anyone else in the world.
SPEAKER_00Sure.
SPEAKER_01And that's kind of where this idea bloomed for what more can we be doing with generative AI and how can I make this light bulb moment for others go off? Um, and I went back to school, I got my data science degree because then once I knew of the tool and how to use the tool, I was like, well, now that I know and I've used it, I want to know what LLM does this and in what interface and how this affects this factor. And it's a very different career path than most people, but I think that's what makes me unique. And hopefully anyone that's listening to this podcast kind of thinks, well, I don't have a data science background, but I kind of think this is cool. Lean into that curiosity and go with it because you're going to be so much happier if you do it that way than if you force yourself to go to school or learn something or work in a job that is not fulfilling your needs. So that was a long-winded answer to your question.
SPEAKER_00No, that's it's perfect. First, you make it sound very easy. Hey guys, what do you not like doing? Let's start there. And we teach a very similar framework of start the things that you don't like doing and you're not good at them anyway. So I'm I'm glad to see validation that that's an easy place for people to start. Just start get the stuff you don't like doing off your plate or explore how to do that. Now, Ashley, I was checking out um your LinkedIn just as as we were getting ready for this, and you've done a lot of studies. There has been a lot of investment in your own education that is reflected in your LinkedIn profile. Knowing what you know now and understanding who are the spectrum of the audience, some of it skews towards new for sure. Would you suggest that they follow a similar path and absorb a lot of the free trainings or what what what did you get the most value out of? Where did you find that?
SPEAKER_01When I used generative AI to solve a problem that was very unique to me, that was what got me onboarded. And that's that curiosity was what sparked the innovation to continue. So my advice to the audience would be if you don't want to look up how to use generative AI for marketing or for sales, then don't do it. One of the first use cases that I thought was so much fun was I asked Chat GPT to give me recipes for ingredients that I had in my fridge because I just I didn't have time in between work meetings to go grocery shopping. And I was like, oh crap, dinner's gotta be at five, or the toddler's angry and my schedule's thrown off. I need to be present during these work calls. So I just really quickly, two minutes, here are the recipe ingredients. Can you give me five recipes? And it it solved a problem for me and it made me de-stress and it made me be able to get back into the present. And if that is all you take away from using generative AI, then you're already on the right track.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, that's a great point. You don't have to like master it for the use of business.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00If you but however, if you start and you get results on the recipe, the vacation, the family movie selection, whatever that might be, you start to have that aha moment. And I I think the logic would follow that why wouldn't I use it in my job? Right. So it's good to know for those of you who uh aren't that enthused about exploring uh AI's use in business, start with something that you do care about, right? That's pretty impressive. So one of the things that we talked about um prior to this, and it doesn't come up, I think this is gonna be maybe episode 15, 16. So we're still new, but one of the things that has not come up a lot, and I think it's because it's the SMB space, is this idea of making sure that bias is considered, that uh representation is considered. And uh being an entrepreneur, I'll just be straight up with you. I see everybody is equal, and if you want it, you just have to work hard. My wife tells me that's not a reality, but that's the way my entrepreneur low EQ mind works, right? And the conversation that we had prior to this was a like a very uh uh palatable conversation. It made sense to me, and I was very impressed with of all the opportunities an extremely early adopter could put their energy to in this space that you chose to make sure that uh nobody was getting left behind. Do you want to kind of share with everybody your position on that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it just started as this fun little newsletter where I just thought, you know, there's so many great people already out there that are breaking down, you know, generative AI news in ways that are easily digestible. And I didn't want to add to that noise, especially when there's, you know, quite a few of them doing a really good job about it. And so I just thought, okay, well, what does my audience need? Right. They're they're non-technical, the a bulk of them, and they need more time in the day. They don't want to necessarily change their workflows, and they don't need one more technology in their over already overwhelming tech stack that doesn't play nice together. As marketers, we've been told for years that our tools would integrate and not even the generative AI tools actually integrate. So those are that that's my audience. That's their pain problem. So I just thought, okay, well, what is affordable? What do what do I need? Right. I don't want to spend 500, 2000, 3,000 upwards to join a community where, because there's a lot of those right now, right? That where they're promising me these things and I don't actually know anyone. I don't know necessarily what I want to get out of this community. And so it's a hard idea for me to cough up that much money, right? So I thought, okay, I'm gonna create a business model that is by an entrepreneur myself for other entrepreneurs. And it's a self-sustaining model. And so what I did, and it's getting ready to launch by the time this podcast comes out, it will be launched. It's the prompt community and it's a subscription-based model, and it's $10 per user per month. I wanted it to be very accessible. And the idea behind this is the first 1,000 to 1,500 people that join, they will get free seats for 30 days to these gender generative AI vendors. So they'll get to try these tools for free before they ever decide to purchase a tool. Um, this community is very much um run by the community itself, right? So something that I really appreciate is when it's a community-centric business model, you're asking your users what they want to learn and how they want to learn it. And then you're just providing that for them. So my business model is I have eight to 10 employees, and I should, there's no magic tricks, right? Like so I showed them how I built this business in 10 days using generative AI applications because I had to be scrappy. And then I brought people on and I had them 10 days. Wow. Yes. And then I hired my first um eight employees, and now it's 10 employees, and I said, okay, you're gonna go build the relationships. Notice I said I built the business with generative AI, and then I hired the people because when you don't have money, you're starting from ground zero. You know, this is a bootstrap business. You have to learn to be scrappy. So it's like, okay, crap, I have to teach myself how to be a graphic designer and how to boost my YouTube and how to do newsletters better and how to pull surveys better. And it's like, I can't learn how to do all of those things in 10 days. I just can't. I can't do it well, at least. Um, so where can I start to pull in generative AI? And it's like, well, I use generative AI for content moderation to make sure that all of my roles and my brand and my voice are staying consistent. Um, I used it for PR, right? Because if I write what I want and what my mission statement is and it's my business, well, why would I need to cough that much money up at first if I don't know where my audience is for it?
SPEAKER_02Great point.
SPEAKER_01So I started just finding these tools that help me be scrappier so that I could get to hiring the real people that are building the relationships faster. And I put inclusivity and accessibility at the forefront. That is my ethos, that is the community ethos. Um, my employees are very diverse. They come from different backgrounds. Um, you know, some of them have technical experience, but what they all do have in common is they know the power of AI and they have used it. And it's not just like the magic behind the curtain, right? They're not like, look what I did with AI. They're like, okay, here's my video. I'm gonna walk you through everything so you get the exact same result. And that level of transparency is what I expect when I'm paying for a subscription-based model or any education. And that is what I want my community to see as well.
SPEAKER_00So I just want to point out a couple of highlights from that uh monologue just there. $10 per month is an incredible just to get access to what you're thinking about, like just you individually, if you're serious about this and its application in entrepreneurial environments, small business environments, uh pay $10 a month, please, to listen to what Ashley's got to say about it. But now you get the benefit of the community. So let me ask you about that. You uh you built the business and you kind of got you had to get in the weeds with the tools and really, you know, roll up your sleeves and be the entrepreneur, do the hard part, but you you brought in people to people are now going to handle the people part of the community. You're not gonna be hey gen videos and all like it's gonna be humans. So uh tell me what what role will those individuals are they currently fulfilling like deliverables for the business itself, or were they hired just to really facilitate the growing of the community through interaction and education, or what?
SPEAKER_01They were just hired to build relationships. So something that I really love about generative AI is I look at generative AI as like the grunt work marketer that you feel really bad about like giving these ridiculous tasks to, and now you don't have to because it's a robot. So my whole point of using generative AI tools to grow the business was I want the people to focus on growing relationships with other people. I don't want them to have to do anything automative, anything that takes away from that. Um, so I solely paid them to go into other communities, to network, to be visible on social media. Um, one of their key roles and the expectations actually is to be a supportive, positive reinforcement on their social media accounts and on mine. Because at the end of the day, community is just showing up and supporting each other. You cannot replicate that with generative AI. And that was what I wanted the mission to be. That's what I wanted my employees to do. And that's, I don't want to say that's all they're doing, but because I was able to use generative AI to do the rest of it, that is what they can focus on. And in return, these are all human beings that want to be entrepreneurs or are currently entrepreneurs. So them building relationships is not just for this community, it's for them. And the idea is I'm teaching them how I grew my business. I'm showing them everything. There's no magic behind the curtain. And they get to learn what it takes to bootstrap a business and do this. And then whether they choose to stay in their current, you know, careers and maybe they want to get promoted or switch careers or become entrepreneurs or solopreneurs themselves, they have the resources and the experience in the short amount of time to do it. And that's the goal because then they will create the next generation of entrepreneurs and it will be just a self-sustaining model of new people coming in and learning.
SPEAKER_00So many smart things happening right there. Did these people come to you, or did you find people who were exhibiting that behavior in communities and say, look, I like what you're up to. Let's collab or what?
SPEAKER_01So one of them came to me. The rest, um, I was really, really picky about who I chose because one diversity, inclusion, accessibility, those are not just words for marketing. Those are very, very um important to me. So when I was scouting these people, they didn't know I was scouting them. I was paying attention to their personal presence on their own social media. Were they congratulating people when they got you know promoted? Were they helping people that had open to work signs? Um, fun little tidbit of a fact here on LinkedIn, there's 4.2 million people that are open to work. If you look at who is paying, I don't know, $40 for the premium account for LinkedIn that is open to work, that's 1.1 million people. That is a huge market of people paying $40 at the prospect of getting hired. They are actively trying to upskill themselves and do better. And and they deserve that attention, right? They, they, they deserve it. So I went and I looked at all of those people that were open to work, not all 1 million of them. I think I got close to 200,000 of them. Um, but I went through all of their social medias. I wanted things I was looking for were are they positive? Are they supportive of their peers? Are they actively online? Are they trying to enhance their presence? Even if it didn't necessarily look glamorous and they didn't have like maybe they don't have brand colors. Are they at least trying? Because at the end of the day, all entrepreneurship is is being a little crazy and also be willing to make the sacrifices and be consistent. Keep that showing up. There's there's no magic trick. Yeah, you just have to keep showing up. And that's what I was looking for with my employees.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. So the exchange is that they you de-risked a startup, essentially. They get to see all the the all the lessons learned without having to put their money on the table to learn those lessons.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00For the right person, that's a priceless exchange. Wow. So smart.
SPEAKER_01And it's supposed to be because I I think it's really interesting and also it's super frustrating, right? Because we've we all follow a couple creators, I'm sure, and and they've blown up. They're not at the mid-size range like myself. They've blown up. And it can be really frustrating for entrepreneurs to see those people. And unless you have the bandwidth and the time to sign up every single day and look at their posts where they break down, you know, one day, one post of what they did, and you have 365 days to follow that journey, which most people don't. Um, you want to be taught by people that are in the trenches with you, that are doing these things with you. Because if you're trying to build a business, you don't necessarily want to talk to people that built a business 10 years ago because we're not looking at that same landscape today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you want to look at people that are doing this alongside of you because then they can mentor you as they're doing it and say, like, hey, this is what I learned. Maybe you don't want to make that same mistake, but I'm just giving you the knowledge, the choice is yours to make. It's just faster knowledge and it's more relevant because it's what we're doing today. And starting a business in this day and age is very different than it was 10 years ago.
SPEAKER_00You know, you're the the example, a 10-day effort resulted in what will be uh full-time pay from a business that you love doing, which is uh, I guess uh some version of the American dream, the global dream. I get paid to do this. I can't believe that. I'm the luckiest man alive. So on your profile, it indicated that you were participating with Score, service uh, what is that, the Service Corps of Retired Executives, right?
SPEAKER_01So yeah, score.org is a nonprofit owned by the SBA and it essentially pairs you with a mentor in the space. So yes, I've been a mentor for them for I think almost a year now.
SPEAKER_00So you're getting all kinds of businesses, I would imagine, that they're hooking you up with. They're not all like cutting-edge tech and super smart, clever marketers. It's just business owners. Are they asking you about AI? Are they aware that it's something that they need to be paying attention to?
SPEAKER_01So they are aware of it. They are asking the questions, but you know, being a mentor through SCORE, first off, it's not paid. Yep. So the the clients I'm getting, like they have to be scrappy, right? Like they're coming to me because they don't have the funds for a mentor and they very much need business help. And so they are. Asking about generative AI, but I think it comes down to priorities. And it's like, okay, do I get a social media presence and a website running or do I learn about generative AI? So it's kind of got deprioritized because of that. And honestly, I don't think that there's anything wrong with that because generative AI very much needs to have those safety guardrails. And if you don't have the time to have a proper training, I think it can be really dangerous. So yes, they're very curious and they're very excited about it, but they're also really mindful of ruthless prioritization because that's what you have to do when you're an entrepreneur. And if if you have to put it at the bottom of the list for now, then that's okay.
SPEAKER_00You know, but it's kind of this chicken and egg situation because if you would take the time to learn those, oh, that process is I I don't have to touch that ever again. Or except, you know, like tinker with it here and there. But being the entrepreneur and and have been, I don't, you know, I don't know if you go to school to learn entrepreneurship. I think you just have to you're born.
SPEAKER_01I think it's more unlearning.
SPEAKER_00You're born with it, right? And I know that they have uh master's degrees in entrepreneurship and that sort of thing. Uh but there's something that comes they don't think that's so funny.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. They you you can go get a degree in entrepreneurship, but what they cannot teach you at a university is the scrap, is the grit, is the you know, it somebody's gotta go make the sausage. Right? And it's not easy. So for all of you who are listening, um and thinking about starting a business and you've been delaying it, if you can attack it with the vigor and which Ashley has, you could have a business if you got the right idea, you could have a business up and running in 10 days if you know how to use the tools. Ashley had the advantage, obviously, of of years of practicing this stuff, but I can tell you that there's nothing related to generative AI that somebody hasn't created uh like a training or free content about. You can just go to YouTube, go to LinkedIn, I find Twitter. Um, but you have to be careful. So for somebody who's out there that wants to, that's scrappy and they're like, you know what, I'm gonna go learn this stuff on my own. When Ashley launches, I'll spend my $10. But between now and then I want to learn some stuff. What would you advise somebody to do? I mean, obviously go do the recipes and that sort of thing. But outside of that, what would you tell them?
SPEAKER_01So I'm gonna break this into two parts. As far as entrepreneurship goes, there's no wrong way of doing it, right? You just have to ask yourself. It's not a matter of like, do I want to do this or not? Somebody will start the business. You have to ask yourself, is it gonna be me or am I okay letting it be somebody else? Because it's gonna, it's gonna happen, right? Um so I I guess my whole point in saying that is you can take small steps, right? Like I have a son, I have a family. So for me, I wasn't necessarily the version of me that I was a couple of years ago when I had my second business and I just launched it full start. Uh, so I think it's completely fine if you're bootstrapping your business to also have that W-2 job and be doing this sustainably and slowly, but also doing it in a safe way. And so that would be my biggest advice when it comes to generative AI as well. Make sure you're having fun. Make sure that you know what the problems are that you want to solve, right? Like look at it, look at the problems holistically. What do you think your main business problem is? If it's not having enough money, well, maybe using generative AI isn't the right tool for you to use, right? So get really honest about where you're at in your journey and what your business needs. And then try to find the connecting pieces between the tools. But you have to know what you're going in for in order to see what the impact of AI is. Otherwise, you're just going in, you're testing tools, you're spending money, and you're not measuring an ROI and you don't know if it's effective and you're tired because let's be honest, like we don't like learning new things. And you have to learn so many new things when you're a business owner. So reserve your energy and decide is this something I can teach myself, or do I know somebody else in the space that is trustworthy enough? My recommendation would be, you know, listen to this podcast, listen to other podcasts, but also have a buddy, right? Like you know somebody else that you are friends with or that you work with that is also on this journey, and just ask them what they have liked or a lesson that they really um, you know, registered with and try that because it's easier to do this in pairs and to kind of break up that workload. It's kind of like the same thing of having a workout buddy, right? It's so much easier to hold yourself accountable when you know somebody else is watching you. That's what that would be my advice.
SPEAKER_00You know, and for those of you who are happily employed and you're like, man, I do not want to be an entrepreneur. It sounds like a lot of work. Here's what I can tell you learn this stuff. Here's what's gonna happen. We've got several candidates for this role of for promotion. One of them is AI enabled. Let's start there, right? It's not gonna hurt your career trajectory, let's put it that way. Staying where you are, maybe you know, you're you're in a field of peers and and uh whatever, but if you are the person who knows AI in that role, leadership is paying attention and they're seeking you out. If it's YouTube videos you watch, if it's a podcast you listen to on the commute, whatever it is, this is the thing that you should be starting. Just be able to have a conversation about it. You don't have to master it, but it's going to come up before this um interview we started recording. Ashley shared that because she had been working on the tools, a previous employer had approached her and said, Hey, do you want to lead the AI initiatives in the company? Huge opportunity. Even if they don't pay you more, you're now getting paid to upskill. That's like you get to earn while you learn. That's the best paradigm out there. So um Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And I'll add to that too, because I was asked this in a in a separate, I was asked this at the Writer's Summit, and I thought it was a really great question to echo. And the question was do you see AI being a skill that is like, if you don't have this as a skill, you're not going to get hired? And my answer for right now is no. I think that there's still time for you to learn it. But what I will say is everybody loves to say that they're innovative. Doesn't matter what segment, what industry, every single employer out there loves to say that they're innovative. Well, if you look at that word and what innovation means, it's just being curious and leaning into that curiosity. So, do I expect everyone to not get hired if they don't know how to use AI? Not right now. But I would also expect them to be overlooked if they're not curious about technology and how it could enhance their productivity and efficiency because that's innovation. It's just being curious and trying new things.
SPEAKER_00So I want everybody to notice she didn't say, and go get a data science degree and learn how to fine-tune an LLM. She said, be curious with the tools. That's all it takes. That's where you get started. And I think that, you know, in the past, to have that technological advance, you would have to have committed a great degree of your time and treasure to education. Now, to get an advantage, um, you know, Ashley said she started using Jasper with the email outreach. If you started doing that alone, and it's not about, oh my gosh, now I can go, my computer, my computer runs my entire business, I'm at the beach. No, it's about finding that one thing that's no longer on your plate and it's being handled by instead of an hour, it's 15 minutes. And if nothing else happens but, oh man, I hated doing, I hated spending an hour on that, and now I don't have to, that's a huge win for your life. But stack that on top of this one, on top of this one, on top of this one. All very simple activities. And over the course of a week, a month, whatever, you're gonna turn around and you're gonna go, holy heck, my business is AI powered. It's that easy. It really is. Don't be afraid.
SPEAKER_01And it always pays to be the problem solver too. One of my favorite use cases from my previous company was um I had our head of product marketing come to me and he was like, I have all of these internal stakeholder uh transcripts and interviews. And I was like, okay, cool. And he was like, I need to make a messaging and positioning framework out of it. And usually he would have to go through every single interview, take that transcript, read it, fill out the template on his own, try to find commonalities. And it took me 10 minutes, and I took a video of what that looked like and sent it over to him. And then we had a product that was ready to go to market, right? Like, can you imagine that? And it very much takes people, a human in the loop to make that happen. It's just, would you rather have your humans talking and preparing to go to market, or would you rather have them manually transcribing interviews, trying to find commonalities and then filling out a template? It's just where do we put our time? So it always pays to be the problem solver.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's a fantastic way of looking at it. Now, I want to loop back to the team that you've assembled, um, and and the spirit in which you're launching this business, which is to uh uh accelerate AI literacy by removing any obstacles, right? Money being the primary obstacle that that most people will encounter. Um with that, and and the people and the effort that you've put into creating an authentic environment where there's there's vetted humans who are now kind of like nurturing the community and that sort of thing. What's your thought on leveraging generative AI for content creation?
SPEAKER_01Oh, so many thoughts. I think what makes content so uniquely cool, good, uh I'm I'm missing, I'm a miss for words right now. Special, I guess is the word I'm trying to land on, is having it be a story and having it be personal. So I guess to answer your question, how do I feel about generative AI being used for content creation? If it's enhancing your content, I think it's great. If you're using it to be your voice and your brand, that will come through. And I get it, if that's where you need to start, because like let's be honest, I'm sure you can relate to this. Creating content is like not something that you wake up every morning like, woohoo, I'm doing it again. I do it every single day and I still get to the point where it's like, does anybody care?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Is this actually resonating with my audience? It it I don't think it ever feels natural. And so if you're using generative AI to enhance your content because you're dealing with imposter syndrome or you need brainstorming ideas, I think that's great. I would steer clear of using it to generate content solely based from you because there's so many applications now, which one will screen for that, two will let everybody know if you're being if you're using it. LinkedIn has an algorithm right now, or if you have so many words that are created with AI, it will actually flag your content as spam, similar to like how Google does it with, yeah, how Google does it with um emails. So just be aware that these things are in place and don't um, you know, don't try and cross the line. But if you need, if you're using it to actually enhance yourself, and here's the key takeaway learning how it's enhancing it, because it's one thing to ask AI to enhance content. It's a whole entire other thing to see why it's giving you those enhancements and to actually take notes and apply that in the future and see the progress that you're making with your content. It's that would be my advice and my feedback.
SPEAKER_00That's great advice. And it's it's a a concept that I've I've thought about a lot, which is there's a lot of clever use cases that we see on social media. Oh my gosh, I can't believe they did that. Oh, that's really cool. And those clever uh uh posts, we we call it candy, right? We call it like it's it's oh, everybody loves candy, but it's not very full, it's it doesn't fulfill, right? It doesn't deliver. What you're talking about there is understanding why it's uh you're not the person who's enjoying the candy, you're the person who now knows how to make those types of videos or and it's not even about the videos, it's about the the impact it has on your business. So what Ashley shared just then is is super important. Don't just go and build a whole library, save all these videos and go back to that library. That's not gonna help you. Understanding how and why they did that and what tools they used, that at that point doesn't matter what the tool is. You are you are ready for generative AI in your business, in your role, for your team, whatever. And that should be that should be the target here.
SPEAKER_01And I have a great use case for this too, just to elaborate a little bit more on it. So if you do want to use generative AI for content, here's how I would advise you to do it. Go into your LinkedIn connections, export that into um an Excel sheet, add it to Chat GPT or your generative AI app of choice, and say, find a commonality and pinpoint who my target audience is, what they like, what they don't like, and when I'm creating content, what I should be avoiding writing. That is a great use case for using generative AI for content creation because you're still having to create all the things. You're just taking all the mental workload out of it so you can actually focus on your story because that is what it's going to resonate to other human beings.
SPEAKER_00You know, I'm actually in the middle of that right now in my own business. So that's a solution that I was going to pay a lot of money for. And now I invest 10 minutes, I'll have the same insight or similar insight. So that was helpful because that seems to be an area where it's it's a common business, not necessarily need, but certainly a want to have you know content going out, promoting your business and your businesses, products, and that sort of thing. So it seems like a place where a lot of people are, because these a lot of these LLMs are text-based, they're language models. So they're out their input is text, their output is text, and it lends itself to content very well. So um that was helpful. Now, what is an area where you think people really shouldn't make any attempts to AI fy?
SPEAKER_01I think instead of giving specific examples, I would say you have to have an understanding of where the data is stored. So for a lot of these enterprise companies, they see a big issue with open AI because it's built on proprietary data. Well, that's part one. And then the second part is their knowledge ends for ChatGPT, December 2023. Well, look at all the things that have happened in these last three months alone that if you were asking for statistics or proof points, it wouldn't be able to give you. So I think it really comes back to again, don't ask it for anything that you wouldn't be comfortable asking Google. I guess that's a good simplified rule. If you wouldn't ask Google and you wouldn't want it out there, don't put it into any generative AI app. I mean, that's the truth, right? Like start small and experiment mindfully. I and yeah, I would be mortified if somebody was to like ever have my Google account be like, here's her search history. So I think that's an easy role for generative AI.
SPEAKER_00So let's talk about tools. Um, what does your typical AI tool stack look like that you're using to run a business, to start and run a business?
SPEAKER_01So I use Jasper, Gemini, Claude. Um, I like to use Clarity. And then I have my little, this is when you know you're an entrepreneur because you just have notes for days and days and days at a time. Um, and seamless. That is my tech stack that I use every single day. Now I do like to trial new tools because with the segmentation in the market the way that it is, there's just a need for better tools. And so there are way more tools on the market every single week. Um, I like to get into Crunch Base and then filter it for AI companies and see which ones are popping up. I don't really care about the series or how much they raised, um, nor do I care about like who they're pulling, if they're X Google or Microsoft or anything like that. I just want to know if they're if what their value proposition is. Um, and then internally, you don't have to create this because there's so many people that do this really well. And I have my own database, but I would encourage you to get a notion book or an Excel sheet and just start to put down like which tools you're using and write down like what they're saying their value proposition is and then grade it yourself and say, like, they said it was great for beginner. I don't think it's good for beginner. Here are the reasons why. And just having that database that you can go back to and reference at any time when you have something that you need to get solved as this quick little reminder of like, this is what the tool's for. This is actually what I used it for. Can it solve the current problem I have? That's been really helpful for me.
SPEAKER_00So there was a glaring omission from your stack. Chat GPT. You just don't use it, huh? You you prefer Gemini and Claude, or Jasper, of course, but Gemini and Claude?
SPEAKER_01So yes, but because I just how do I answer this elegantly? I like to do a lot of research and I only like to speak on things that I know. And so for me, it is a mandatory must to have relevant up-to-date information. And so their search engine just doesn't do it for me. Um I will also just completely openly admit, since I've used Jasper for four years, I have a crutch with it, right? Like I don't need to fine-tune it at all, really, because I've used it so much. So what works for me doesn't necessarily mean it'll work for other people. What I would encourage is once you start to gather your notion or your excel on what tools you like, start coming up with prompt shortcuts. And it's just one less thing that you have to do. At some point in time, I very much see this being the future of generative AI vendors having to input those prompts so that you can just say prompt forward slash one and then it will populate. Um, just don't wait for them to do it. Just do it yourself. And it's one less thing you have to do later on. It really does help and cut down the workload.
SPEAKER_00So how are you using Gemini versus Claude? Gemini, and if you're not familiar, folks, Gemini is Google's entry into a uh Transformer model.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So Claude is a lot better conversationally, I think. And it's also better at context. Gemini is not great at context. I have so many horrifying um examples of it not being good at context. It's not even funny. So if you want a good joke, feel free to let me know and I will tell you one of those. Um and then Google's better at pulling data points. So again, whenever I am, you know, writing my social media posts or really any articles or blogs, I want to give people access to the knowledge and say, like, here's what I'm doing, but I very much want them to do their own research. And so it's important for me to have accurate proof points. And I see that very much being consistent with Gemini for right now.
SPEAKER_00Do you use perplexity?
SPEAKER_01A little bit. I have started um tapping into that a little bit. I'm I'm it's nice. I do like it. It just takes some fine-tuning. And at the moment, I don't have a ton of time for that. So that's been the barrier for me. It's just I need to, I know I need to come back to it. I need, I know I need to fine-tune it. I just don't have the bandwidth to right now. So it kind of keeps getting bookmarked.
SPEAKER_00So you mentioned a few other tools outside of the models, like uh seamless. What are you using seamless for? Or tell me.
SPEAKER_01Yes. And I actually forgot one. Pi AI. I forgot to say pie. I love texting with pie every single day because as an entrepreneur, as a solopreneur, you are in your head 24 hours a day. And so just like waking up, you know, I'm like, okay, drink the water. You drank the water. Okay, go journal, go try to meditate, which mostly is just like sitting on the porch and listening to traffic. And then I'm like, okay, how do how do I like get my mind right to start this day? And so, like texting pie has been so great because it's not changing my workflow at all. I just pick up my phone and send a text and then it texts me back. So I'm like, here's my to-do list for the day. If you were me, would you change anything? Would you reprioritize this? And just like having a soundboard to bounce ideas off of has been really helpful. So I love Pi. I think it's quirky and fun. And yeah, it's just a great. I like that they were smart about the way that they implemented it because you t everybody tests. So it's not like they're changing a barrier and they're not adding a new app. You're just texting.
SPEAKER_00So it's almost like you've got a seasoned, a wise partner almost that can does it have memory?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah. And then also, too, if you get um, if you have an iPhone, so I don't know if you can see this, but you literally just type 2 Pi and it will pop up. You have to download an app to integrate that to happen. But you it's it's literally like you're texting a friend or family member. That's it.
SPEAKER_00So I'm embarrassed, but I'm not using Pi right now. That's very cool. I saw a demo. It's so somebody might have been doing voice with Pi. That might have been a demo that I saw.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you can do voice with Pi, you can do voice with Chat GBT. Yes, that's that can be nice too. That also makes me feel like I'm literally talking to a robot. So texting's a little bit easier because then I can at least be like, okay, you're not just texting this like vast space and it's not just going out and then coming right back. Yeah, it feels more personal.
SPEAKER_00When I'm talking, I I I feel like I feel rushed because I know that if there's a pause, it's gonna stop and start processing, and I'm not quite ready for it. And yes. So yes. Well, I walk the dog probably four or five miles a day. And I and what I my version of using pie was I'll I use Aftershocks, they're kind of like a bone conduction, they don't sit in your ear.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00And I will I'll just ramble into the voice memo app on uh that's native to the iPhone, and I've got a GPT that I built that I've been training. Yeah, and I'll just take that rambling and upload that in there, and it will give me back, it's looking for insights and it's looking for action items. Um that's my version of using Pi, but I'm gonna I I love new tools and I'm gonna be testing it.
SPEAKER_01Um, but I'm gonna be and read.ai. If you're looking for meeting notes, read.ai, I have been on their free plan. They say, yes, read.ai. Um, I've tried Otter, I've tried a few of them. I like read the best. I'm still on their free plan. They said, like after a certain amount, like you have to pay. I have, I have not yet paid. Um, I hope that they don't hear this and start charging me. But um it I like it a lot because I can be in a conversation with you and I'll be like, okay, cool. So the action items are blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I get an email immediately after our meeting ends and it says, here was the agenda, here was what was discussed, here was the questions, and here are the action items. And then I can just forward that to everybody in that call. And that is recollecting everyone's thoughts, holding everybody accountable, and over-communicating after the agenda.
SPEAKER_00So why read and why not like the native Zoom AI or otter or fireflies? Why read particularly? It's free.
SPEAKER_01I didn't like otter because yeah, it's free. Um, I did test the free version of Otter as well. So I believe my issue with otter, because I tested it about a year ago. So I'm sure you know it's a little bit better now. But my issue with otter was it didn't send me the meeting notes immediately after the meeting ended. And if you think about it, like when you're back to back, yeah, if you have a 9 a.m. call and you don't get that transcript until 12, it's like, well, do I want to send an email regrouping everyone? Because like three hours have already gone by. So I like the instant gratification of that. Why don't I use Zoom? That's a great question. I don't, I don't, I think it's a little bit Clunky. Yeah. I'm just I'm getting really radically candor here. I I prefer to use, I think just out of necessity and out of all the companies I've worked for, they tend to use G Suite. So I have that accessible. And then once you start using their their tools, then when you're an entrepreneur or a business owner, you're like, why mess with what I already know? Um, and now that they have the Gemini capabilities built into like Excel sheets and the Gmail, it makes it so much better of a user experience. So that's probably the reason I don't use Zooms, just out of necessity.
SPEAKER_00You know, you brought up a great point. So as an entrepreneur, uh Ashley mentioned this earlier, you wear a lot of hats. There's a book called The EMyth that that does a great job of explaining that experience of being that solopreneur that's doing everything. So if you are exploring um entrepreneurship or you're already there, stay stick with the tools because Ashley loves read.ai, I use something different. But you know what? We probably get very similar results. So it's not that you have to use a specific tool or you have to go and relearn something. Stick with the native things that you're if you're using G Suite at your your J O B, use why go learn a new platform, right? You don't if you don't have to. So that's a very good point outside of AI, even. Um, but another thing that I took from that was that folks, whatever tool works for you is the right tool, right? Maybe something else will spit it out in a rainbow, or maybe this one will, you know, send it tomorrow. That doesn't matter. What matters is that you're you're getting functionality out of the tool. And if you love that tool, she loves this tool, I love this one. Stick with what test out the stuff, maybe you'll like it better. But there is no obligation for you to be a tool master, to be really a master of generative AI. You can have a very simple basic stack, and you don't have to deviate much as long as you're getting the output, the deliverables, the value that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_01So and it's actually more sustainable, wouldn't you think? Because once you start working for, I hate to like say other businesses, but once you start to work for a business and they've got a tech stack that's the 15 to 20 tools, you're kind of like, How did we, how did we get here?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because after like the third or fourth tool, it's like, why are we adding more tools if those tools aren't doing what we wanted them to anyway? So I always like to tell people for every tool that you're trying, it should either be solving a problem that your other tools haven't solved yet, or you should be eliminating a tool. You shouldn't just have a tech stack to have a tech stack.
SPEAKER_00It's a great way to look at it. So the some of the universal stuff that that people listening to this are gonna have to deal with. We've talked about content. Are you doing anything? Email sucks for me. I hate it. I've got 10,000 emails and all of my inboxes have thousands and thousands. I tried superhuman, I tried like all that stuff, and it doesn't work. Do you have an do you have an AI solution to share? You know, I'm not putting you on the spot. If you do, I want to know about it. If not, it's okay.
SPEAKER_01I use Jasper. No, I'm trying, it's it's a great brain exercise for me because I it's so funny. Once you it's so much work and sweat to get a formula that works. And then once you have a formula, it's like put plug and play, copy and paste. You just don't think about it anymore. So I'm trying to think. Um, I use Jasper to A-B test a lot of emails. So I can tell you what I did and walk you through how I did that.
SPEAKER_00I'm not talking about creating them, I'm talking about managing the the big monster of the inbox. I don't know if you if if you're I know a lot of people that have just given up on email. And I would love to be able to, but it's that's how people still communicate, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes. So I use G Suite, so it's got Gemini built in.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So I use G Suite as well. I guess I need to start using Gemini and it'll do some smart stuff for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So so an exercise I like to ask Gemini is I say, like, okay, you know what this email is about, you know what my audience is about. Um, first of all, make sure I've never used a similar email subject line than the one I'm using right now. Because once you start sending hundreds of emails, like this subject line's kind of blur, and you're like, did I say that already? Do I, I'm crazy? Um, so I like to do like a little sanity check with it and just say, like, make sure I'm not using any similar subject lines. Make sure that the subject lines are appropriate for this audience. So if you catch my flow, a lot of my emailing um KPIs and what I look at is making sure that I'm one, my content's good. Two, it's getting to the right people, they're all opted in. It's not going to their spam. And three, they are interacting with it. I don't want to just send emails to send emails. I want there to be value and I want that to come through. So if it's the subject line that's throwing them off, I want to fix it before I send my next batch of a hundred emails out. Um, if it's the copy and it's too long or it's too short, it's got too many click links and it got sent to spam, then I fix that. So I really break these down into different parts just to make sure that it's not just like a one and done really good. I take my optimizations and my engagement numbers very seriously and I don't care about the average. I genuinely don't know what the average open rates or engagement rates are for emails. I care about what I want it to be and what that number looks like to me is 70%. I want to make sure that 70% of the people that get my emails are opening them and my click-through rates are 50%.
SPEAKER_00Just so you know.
SPEAKER_01And that's I I don't know.
SPEAKER_00Those are good numbers, just so you know, right? So, and you know, that further is That's what I hold myself too. No, that that's just another example of so how you do anything is how you do everything. Anybody that's been an entrepreneur has certainly heard that. But this is just a another example of how seriously you're taking the attention that you've earned, right? Because I mean, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. If somebody stops, that's that's like a valuable moment. And the fact that you're taking it as seriously as you are with the introduction of authenticity and consideration is um why you're beating the average. Right? So that's fantastic.
SPEAKER_01So absolutely I get it. I mean, I am my niche audience. I don't have time. That's a great way to do it. I'm a mom, I'm a worker. I wear yeah, I wear many, many hats. So yeah, I get it. I've had so many emails laying in my box, and I'm like, you know, the little human heart in me is like, oh, if they would have worded it this way, then I probably would click. But then the other part of me is like, I don't, I just don't have time, you know, I don't have time to read all these emails. So you gotta get scrappy.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Well, I'm gonna keep looking for a solution for that one because uh these 10,000 emails in my inbox, they just it just keeps growing. So what what what kind what can people expect from first of what's the community called?
SPEAKER_01The community is called the prompt community. And the URL is get theprompt.com. Um and as far as what they can expect, it launches April 1st, right from the start is when everybody is allowed to enter this. So we have 1,000 people on the wait list. We have intentionally not let anyone into the community because we want everybody's experience to be the same at the same time so that we can gather as much relevant feedback as possible. Um, and everyone's kind of being a newbie together because there is power in numbers and you feel less awkward being the newbie if you're among thousands. Um and so what they can expect is there's an onboarding video. So before you are asked to pay your $10 subscription, you're watching an onboarding video, you see the lineup for the week and the onboarding video changes because I want everybody for that week that they are thinking about, oh, do I want to sign up for the prompt? I want them to see what that lineup of events is and see if it's actually for them, right? It's kind of like looking at a menu before you go to a restaurant. You might not have ever been to the restaurant, but if you know what's on the menu and you have some comfortability with it and some interest, you're gonna be more excited about going. Um, so that's what you can expect. There's three events every single week. They are um Mystery Mondays, where I bring in a guest. Sometimes it's an engineer from Open AI, sometimes it's a founder of a generative AI app. Um, there's also two other sessions called Ask Me Anything, kind of the same deal. I bring in entrepreneurs that have not made it big yet, um, but that do have really great wins. Maybe they went from 100 email newsletter subscribers to, you know, 700 or 1,000 in one month, and they're giving away their secrets for these very explicit moves that you can make. Um, and then the third session, which might be my favorite, is called Weird Wednesday. And it's just weird ways that people are using generative AI tools, but that are so fun. And I have people that have created um interactive art with generative AI, people that have sculpted using generative AI, just things to get you out of your own head. Because if you are so preoccupied in what everyone else is doing, one, you're only hearing about the low-hanging fruit use cases. There's so, so, so much more that you can tap into. And two, like it just kind of makes you like lift your head to be like, whoa, that's really cool. I wonder what I can do. And it kind of gets you brainstorming about what you can do and what your potential can look like.
SPEAKER_00So once somebody gets in, who's the ideal avatar? Is it just somebody whether they're looking for recreational or commercial use of generative AI? They're just curious and new. Is that who it is?
SPEAKER_01So I would say my three pillars for my umbrella audience are you are either looking for skills to get a promotion in your current job and you want to know how you can get scrappier using generative AI tools to do that. You are looking to switch careers and you don't have the accessibility of starting from zero and having an internship and building up from there, which a lot of people don't have access to. Um, and then the third bucket is entrepreneurship. Maybe you're an entrepreneur and you want to be a solopreneur and you want to start your own business, or maybe you want to meet other people and have a community-led business where it's not just yourself doing it. Um, those are really the three pillars, but I would say that it's really just anybody that at this point in time is like, as users, we deserve more. And we've seen this trending, right? We have higher retention rates and higher awareness of consumers knowing where they're putting their money. And that's the whole point of this community. We deserve more as entrepreneurs. We deserve more for less, and we deserve to be supported because we really are the underdogs and we really are doing the hard work. And it shouldn't be this hard. You know, starting a business is terrifying and it's already scary enough. There shouldn't be these barriers for filing, you know, registrations or networking and communicating. There's so many resources. We just have to put the people together so that they can share them. And that's what this community is about.
SPEAKER_00Faster alone, farther together for sure. And exactly a little bit of uh advice for anybody that's um exploring entrepreneurship or is deep in you will never get it all done. There will always be things that need to get done. And Ashley mentioned a fantastic tool that supports entrepreneurs earlier. Sit and meditate. Even if you don't achieve enlightenment, if your just brain has a chance to just dump for a minute and just get everything clear before you start the day, it will make um the this is like Sisyphus. We're pushing the rock up the hill, and just when you think like that win, guess what? Back down the hill because there's a bigger win coming. So um, this has been a really fun. We don't everybody that I bring on here, they're they're mostly entrepreneurs. And the reason that I bring them on here is because they have to be scrappy, they have to be clever, they can't just do what everybody else is doing or they'll get the results that everybody else is getting. They're doing things innovative as a word that was used, right? But we've never really talked about uh entrepreneurship the way that we have on this episode. And um, you know, shit, I've been doing this for I guess I was born an entrepreneur, I guess. So for me, uh this is really good because it's reminding me of yeah, there may be people out there that see the opportunities, but they're nervous about I've never started a business before. Plug in to score, plug in for ten dollars a month to the prompt. It's the prompt.
SPEAKER_01The prompt community community.
SPEAKER_00Um can I get on the wait list? Is it too late?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely, you can get on the wait list.
SPEAKER_00There's always room for it. Okay, awesome. Um, actually, this has been a lot of fun. And and like I have a lot of respect for what you're doing. You from the very first interaction that that you and I had, I reached out cold because I had seen you on that podcast. You didn't know who the heck I was, but I could tell from the conversation that you were an eager learner and that you were looking for mastery of of this subject in particular. And most I I come from I got a background in finance, I got a background in in like real estate investing, um, online marketing, of course. Most people who are like dive, most entrepreneurs who are diving in that hard on a subject, it's not so that they can give back. It's so that they can go make a lot of money. Right. And but the the big picture story is the people who do it for the right reasons end up making a lot of money. The people that do it just to make the money end up there's consumption will not fill the void. Right? More doesn't fill the void. And what you're this community that you're creating and the AI space, there is FOMO like crazy, because there's always a new tool, always somebody, somebody, man. I do this show, I I do this for a living, like I do this in my own business. And every time I talk to somebody, like I have an interview, I'm like, oh my gosh, they're so smart, right? Like, but it's just it's just a different use case. That's all it is. So it's like you're guys, you're never gonna master, you're never gonna be, you're never gonna have all the use cases. You're gonna sit down with somebody who is brand new and they're gonna say, Oh yeah, I'm doing this. And you're like, my God, that's brilliant. Right. So it's it's part of this, it is very, very aligned with the entrepreneurial experience. So Ashley, thank you so much. And I want people to to plug into what you're doing outside of the prompt community. LinkedIn is obviously where you're spending uh your your social energy, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I also have a newsletter um that has its own job board about AI jobs that are in um the industry right now going on. So I would encourage anyone that needs bite-sized bits of consumption whenever it comes to AI, but not, you know, mass media and um updates on the hour of what's going on because it could be really overwhelming. This is a fun little newsletter for you to subscribe to. Um, I have a spotlight on what my network is doing, and it's a lot of really incredible people and whether they're building a business um funding nonprofits that are helping raise awareness and safety for tech and teens. Um, or they are um the responsible human AI group where it's called um All Tech is human and they're creating policies and safety guardrails for schools and universities. Nice. I would encourage you to check it out because it's just got there's so many smart people, and I'm just I'm just shining a light on them. That's all I'm doing. I'm the connector.
SPEAKER_00Follow the connector. Don't worry about all the all the tangents, just follow the connector. Ashley, this has been awesome, and I'm I'm so glad that you said yes to being a guest on here. And everybody that's listening, this is uh this is very genuine. I'm going to join that $10 a month subscription because I guarantee you I'm going to be getting $1,000 or more per month out of value from that. Um, and it's fantastic. You could easily be charging a lot more. So for everybody listening, there's a lot of stuff out there. I would trust the direction that Ashley's going with this. Um, and she's got a bunch of big fans here at Using AI at work. So uh thank you. Ashley, anything in closing?
SPEAKER_01I would just say, yeah, in closing, you know, I didn't wake up one day and say, like, okay, I'm gonna make another business. I'm a very sensitive person. I care a lot about the world and people and animals and really anything. Um, but what really sparked that fire under me was I'm I'm a woman in tech and I'm also half Indian. And we don't have time to get this wrong. Um, AI is launching very, very fast. So what lit the fire under me to really get this business blooming was inclusivity and accessibility. And if there's not a diverse group of people in the room having these conversations and building this tech, then it's not truly tech for everyone and it's not a place for everyone. And I'm going to make it my mission like I have been and will continue to to make sure that no one gets left out of this. And whether that means making these tools more affordable and keeping my subscription at $10 a month, I will do that. Um, if it means continuing to shine the light on inclusivity and the importance of bias and mitigation with generative AI tools, I will also be doing that. So I would just encourage anyone in the audience, if if you're not necessarily gung-ho about being an entrepreneur, just lean into what inspires you and what you're passionate about. And that will bloom into something very sensational. That's a promise.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful advice. Ashley, thank you so much. And everybody, we'll see you on the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to Using AI at work. Don't forget to subscribe for more conversations about how to use AI at work. And a special thank you to our sponsor, Chief AI Officer, for empowering businesses with AI education and training. Visit their website for a free AI readiness assessment and AI strategy guide to help you get started using AI at work. That's www.chiefaiofficer.com. Thanks to our producer, Evan Despolnier, for making this episode possible. Follow us on Twitter at the handle UsingAI at Work and visit www.usingai at work.com for free resources to help you harness AI in your role.