Join us as we get deep into our strategic insights and practical tips. Leveraging AI for business success. Let's get started. Welcome to Using AI for 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. Awesome. Hey, today we've got Sarah Davison and Sarah, thank you so much for being here. And I mean that seriously. I know that you're um an extremely busy entrepreneur who is uh being inundated with opportunities in the AI space. And for you to take a moment out to share with the using II using AI at work audience is a fantastic thing. So if you don't mind, just let everybody know a little bit about yourself and what you're up to.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Chris. Thank you for having me. I'm always, always happy to jam with anyone and geek out and all the stuff AI stuff. So any opportunity that I get, I'm almost like, yeah, let's do it.
SPEAKER_02Nice.
SPEAKER_01Um my name is Sarah Davison. Um Chris and I actually connected via an AI community. So that's how we know each other. Um so yeah, I connected with quite a few people that I currently work with from there. And I am the owner and founder of an AI agency called Mavenly. And
what it is is that we focus on an accelerator as a path for companies to be able to adopt AI. So we've essentially figured out over the last year and a half of you know, serving clients, of building automations, of, you know, doing all of these workflows and things like that, is that it really needs to be that cohesive component that you sort of um approach AI adoption versus a fragmented approach. And so that's where we sort of focus our efforts in the whole AI adoption game.
SPEAKER_00There's a huge demand for that. You know, and for the business owners and the leaders and the decision makers who were listening to this, um, I would imagine that a lot of them have started their investigation into what's out there as far as help, support, training, empowerment for their teams. Um and before we recorded this, we kind of made a joke about, you know, the 22-year-old kid that's like, I'm an AI expert, right? That's that's not what most businesses need, in my opinion. So if you don't mind sharing with the audience, what do you think a business should be looking for when they're sourcing that AI expertise externally to come in and support them?
SPEAKER_01I sort of feel that AI is this journey that everybody has to go on to a certain extent. So a lot of us started the same way where we, you know, heard about AI and then heard more about AI and heard even more about AI. And that piqued our interest, and we started understanding how important and critical it is for our businesses and our work and the way that we understand the world to adapt to what is coming. Um, but there is just so much hype around that um you can you can end up getting really confused. And I feel like a lot of us start in the same way where we get plugged in and we subscribe to all the AI newsletters, we start saving all of the ChatGPT template prompts and the mega prompts that you find on LinkedIn or whatever. You um, you know, you start like playing with a million AI tools and subscribing to them all, and then you just find yourself spinning your wheels because you're trying to do little parts of everything without really taking a step back and assessing where where is my business needing to go and what do we need to do to get there. So I think it's really important uh to answer your question is that when business leaders are looking into someone who can support them with that, is to engage someone who actually won't be tactical so much in their approach. I think it's totally fine to start with like pilot programs and automations and get your your kind of hands dirty, because I think that's an essential part of the learning process, but not someone who will kind of just stop there because that's not really going to make the give you the leverage that you need to actually uh benefit from the technology.
SPEAKER_00So that's uh very much in line with our thesis as well. Do you mind taking a second to explain
to um the listeners so that they can easily identify the difference between strategic approach to it and tactical approach to it?
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Um so a tra tactical approach could be that you engage someone to uh or you end up buying, you know, a prompt like a prompt library with a thousand prompts. Once you start engaging in that, and once you start using those, you realize that that is not you know, accustomed to your actual needs as a business. Um and just looking at it from like the point of view of like these these really um generic kind of solutions, it's not a one-size-fit-all. Uh, so you need to be able to take platforms, whether you're using Chat GPT for Teams, whether you're approaching it in different ways. What you need is to be able to tailor that or someone who will be able to tailor what um usage or power that that platform has and put it behind your business, not the other way around. So I think it's really understanding how um, you know, speaking to someone who will sit down and understand strategically what you need to achieve in your business, but also can bridge the gap between understanding that and knowing in with with quite depth the elements of AI that will help get you there. Um and a thousand chatty pity prompts won't.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, agreed. Now that was well said. So for those of you listening, the tool is not the fix. The tool is an accelerant. The the real fix has nothing to do with AI, it has to do with you getting clear on what you want out of your business and then working backwards from there on the plan, exactly like what Sarah was talking about. So if if you're out there on the tool hunt and you think that there's gonna be the silver bullet that's gonna be that one tool stack that's gonna change your business, if you don't know where to apply those tools, you're gonna have minimal impact. So, Sarah, with the the individuals that are reaching out to you that are concerned, are you seeing any type of patterns or or trends and uh like first off, the education level of the people that are reaching out for you? I don't mean education like they graduate college, but their AI literacy levels. What are you finding from the individuals who are reaching out?
SPEAKER_01It's funny. I am like currently working with people who are across the spectrum where like we have one particular business who is, you know, he might have just tried Chat GPT one or two times and got gone holy cow. Like I know that this is the future. I can see that this is where the puck is going. And so therefore I need to align my business to that. And so I don't even think he's got a ChatGPT pro account or anything. He doesn't even want to know, really. He just wants someone to like actually come in and um help him solve a problem using AI and take his business on that journey. Um, and then you have other people, you know, typically like larger organizations that um that have to consider the the enablement component where you know they they have to drive the the team or they have to like pull the team over towards a new way of doing things. So the training and the you know sessions with the teams becomes really important because you're bringing everybody along the journey and having you know having to get buy-in at different levels. So it really depends on the organization.
SPEAKER_00So are you uh we were talking about this um how our LinkedIn feeds are nothing but AI. So we're just assuming that everybody is as immersed in this subject as us.
Are you encountering uh prospects that are reaching out that have that level of immersion, or are people just got FOMO and want to figure it out?
SPEAKER_01Both. I think both. I think um there's this element where some people will, you know, have gotten their hands dirty or some teams or whatever, and they're just, you know, they can see, they can see how it works, but they're not at that stage where they need to break through to the next level, which is well, how do we actually make this meaningful for our work and our business? Like we get we get the whole, you know, building custom GPTs or whatever, but it but they they kind of sense that there's more to it. There's like this next level, and they're just not really sure how to break through that barrier. Um, so there are people who are in that field, and then people who are just caught in the hype and say, I get this is a there's a sea change happening here and I feel anxious about it, and I'm not exactly sure where to start. Because I think that that's a big component is when you're locked into the hype and the newsletters and you know you're trying to keep up, it's impossible. It's impossible to run a business, operate a business, and keep your finger on the pulse 100% of the time. So I think having um someone whose job it is to actually keep their finger in the pulse for you, to be able to um who has, you know, done the the trial and error, who has tried the platforms, tried the tools, understands how to best to maneuver things to kind of massage them and make them work for different uh use cases. It's it's such a uh valuable, valuable skill that uh if you're serious about adopting AI, that you should consider.
SPEAKER_00So you brought up a good point. I did the same thing, I subscribed to all the newsletters and now they're all unsubscribed, right? Because I realize that they're all regurgitating the same stories. And at some point, here's the secret generative AI isn't that hard, right? So at some point you realize I think I've figured this out enough. It's what's more important is the domain expertise about your own business or your industry or your department or whatever. So for those of you who are out there thinking that you got to subscribe to all these newsletters, maybe do it initially if you're a fact finder, um, just to see what's out there. But I would suggest that that is not the path to mastery um at all. So for let's say you were on a plane and the business owner sitting next to you says, Oh, what do you do? And you said, Oh, this is what I do. You said, Hey, where should I get started? What would you tell them to do?
SPEAKER_01It feels to me that there is this almost roadmap, you know, where you it's it's kind of like you have to start in the hype to actually go, okay, well, this is this is not working in a way. Um, don't spend too long there though. You know, get excited, play with the tools, do whatever you want, but but then understand that that's not gonna really move the puck for you. Um I think you know, for me, what I had to do if I explain my personal journey, because I started there, I started with subscribing to everything, I started with um saving all those Chat GPT prompts, um, I started, you know, with the subscribing to all those tools and things. And I got to a point where I was like, there's just too much. It's just I just need to clear, clear the, you know, my screens, clear whatever, and actually just really double down. What are the two or three things, the two or three platforms or tools that are that is really going to be meaningful for my business? So as an example, like I'm on the business side of AI. So things like mid-journey and things like that, like they're, you know, they're fun to begin with, but they don't really, they're not really part of what I would offer or anything like that. So, you know, don't spend time there. Um I think it's important for to go deep, you know, to kind of like stage one is like play, and then stage two is like go deep, and then stage three might be kind of like, uh, okay, well, I understand these tools, I understand what prompts are, I've seen the difference between a good prompt and a bad prompt. Um, I, you know, understand the difference between workflows and automations, I've seen them at work. And then I think then then the kind of next stage could be in terms of AI applied, is going, well, what is a problem that I'm looking to solve or a challenge or an opportunity in my business? And how do I align what I've learned and my process and my knowledge and my expertise and all the things that I, you know, that skills that I've built, and use that to help inform support and push forward this thing that I want to achieve in my business. And like, you know, being super focused on having an objective, a container, so to speak, that um that aligns, you know, building the capability, the upscale, the talent, the infrastructure that you need in order for you to be able to essentially bring AI into that process or that uh business function and completely AI fy it to the next level.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. So, folks, if you're listening, she did not say do everything all at once.
SPEAKER_02No.
SPEAKER_00She said get started somewhere that you can manage. So I think that's fantastic advice. And what's going to ultimately happen is you're gonna either it's gonna be a success or it's gonna be a failure. If it's a success, move on to the next one. If it's a failure, figure out what you did wrong, because I can tell you the level of AI that Sarah and I work with regularly, it's not the geeky data science side of things. It is the extremely applicable, um, low learning curve, generative AI tools that we're working with and that you can work with as well to get those solutions. What are some of the things, what's some advice that you might give somebody that we've obviously talked about that they don't need to try and keep up with everything, but I would imagine that if I was a business owner and I hadn't started my due diligence on the topic of AI, um, there would probably be some concern, some anxiety, some FOMO, some whatever that um, because I've heard somebody tell me that it was uh past guest Jeff McPherson from X agency. He said, When I talk to clients and I show them this stuff, the first time they see it, they have a reaction. And that reaction is oh. And he said it's either oh, like, wait a minute, you mean our competition is doing this? Like a bad O, like uh-oh, or it's an O, like, right? Like if their minds get blown, that that aha moment for AI. So if for the business owners who are out there, if they're listening to this, that's a great first step. But what would be some of maybe the other sources? Like, like you mentioned that um you and I connected through the AI Exchange, a Slack channel. I think it's like, I don't know, 15, 20 bucks a month, credible resource, tons of uh collaboration and sharing going on. Do you have any of those types of resources that you think would be helpful for somebody who is AI curious to kind of get them up to speed and get them exposed to different positions and views on it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I definitely ex like recommend the AI exchange. Yep. For this is where Chris and I met. Um, and a lot of the people that have come through and are, you know, really leading the space in terms of thought leadership and things like that. I feel like the people who come through that network are really people who are in, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, but sort of want want to take AI to companies or either work for AI and need to like they're the AI person for for that company. Um so I feel like that's the the flavor of that community, but it really is a um a great place, like it was a real pivot point for me in terms of um professionally being able to move from that
kind of hype cycle to well, there are people actually who are doing this really smartly and in a really meaningful way. So um but there's that community. Um I I'm seeing more and more um different industry things come up where you know I've seen like one for I think one for you know the legal sector, one for whoever, and they have different speakers that come through. So I think, you know, even just an introductory session in your particular industry is a great place to start because that is someone who's going to potentially focus you in on the basics of foundations without all of the noise. Um and yeah, and I think um there's events that happen on LinkedIn. I'm also hosting one on May 21st, which is an AI for business growth. So it's specifically around um companies who want who've heard all the things about AI and they're like, well, how do I actually use it to grow my business? So that's the question we're asking.
SPEAKER_00You're doing this on LinkedIn on May 21st?
SPEAKER_01May 21st, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, cool. How can people find out about that?
SPEAKER_01I can provide the link. I just like literally threw it up on Friday. I mean like Sunday.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, awesome. Yeah, well, we'll put the link in the show notes, folks. But Sarah's on here because she knows her stuff. So if she's doing something, I would encourage you to sit in on it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I appreciate that comment. Did I answer your question, Chris?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, one one of the things, me personally, I'm curious, how how are other people staying? Um like for me, uh, the AI Exchange was a a great resource for me. It's very busy over there. So if you're if you're new to this, and again, I it's very affordable for the amount of of just like peer education that is occurring in there on all these different topics. Um, but I'm always looking like, is there a podcast I don't know about? Like, for instance, one podcast that every guest seems to listen to is uh the Marketing AI Institute's
podcast, right? On Tuesday or whenever it comes out, I'm always listening to it as well. So I was just looking for maybe some resources that that you found helpful that um because if I was a business owner and I'm I'm Googling this stuff, or if a smart business owner would be using perplexity, um, they are they're inundated, right? And I think you and I would agree that not all of the commentary on the subject, particularly about AI and business, it's not all equal. There are individuals out there who are strictly a cash grab, that they got in early, they knew how to um aggregate an audience, and now they're selling, you know, semi-decent prompts or whatever. And I'm I'm always looking to make sure that the business owners, because what I would hate is for somebody to go down that path and go, I tried it. It sucks. AI doesn't really, you know, it and that's not the case. You have to find the right people. So um I was just curious if you maybe you had some resources that I did not know about. Um I try try to stay abreath of all that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I honestly I don't listen to that many podcasts. I know that um, you know, the marketing institute one is good. Um another good marketing focused one is the marketing against the grain, which is the CMO, the two CMOs of Zapier and HepSpot. Um they're they uh their focus is like really evolved around um you know, around AI for the podcast, and they talk, you know, thing about things like you know, what is the impact on SEO and things like that. Um yeah, their podcast is good, but I find myself it's probably because I um kind of immersed in the AI space on the practical side of things. So I spend my time actually, you know, working with the systems, building things,
um, pulling things together. I spend my time doing that. So I like to actually so I'm in immersed in AI. So when I listen to business things, it's more around I mean, for business things, I I listen to like more just purely business, like how to actually build a good agency and operate and things like that.
SPEAKER_00With your clients, one of the, you know, obviously using AI at work, and as I shared with you, the intention is to expose listeners to um how other people are doing it in clever ways so that the listener can go, hey, wait a minute, we can try that out, right? Um what are some of your uh maybe the low hanging fruit that you've kind of identified that when you go into a company or you're advising a client, that there's usually a couple of areas where you know that they can get a quick win, they can see the results of it, and they go, hey, this stuff works, let's do more. Are there any particular areas you you have noticed that? Are the easy wins for companies?
SPEAKER_01I really love to work with Cassidy.ai. Um that is a incredible platform that I essentially live in, honestly. Where you can access various different models at the same time. So as you get more into AI, you'll find that the different models produce different results, and then you'll start preferring different models for different things. But you go you're also able to build, it's essentially an AI that's trained on your business. Um, so if you start to experience ChatGPT and you go, this is great, but what I really want is a Chat GPT for my business. It's essentially that experience, um, where the AIs are like the AIs that you end up using are trained on your own company data. Um, and you can build workflows, things like that within it, you know, more on the automation side as well. So um that's always like a baseline that I feel uh I would love to recommend because it gives it's that level up from you know from Chat GPT, but not too far down the path where it's like too inaccessible for people.
SPEAKER_00Are there any other tools like you mentioned that you have kind of slimmed down your tool stack? Are there any besides Cassidy, are there some faves that you find particularly useful? And not just for you, but maybe across all of your clients that you know that, hey, if you're interested in AI and you want a business, this is going to be helpful.
SPEAKER_01Mm-hmm. Um, I really love uh respel for more the AI automation side.
SPEAKER_02So Respel?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, respel.ai.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um it's a really powerful, really incredible um platform that they've built that enables you to create workflows, automations, and things like that that are all AI first. So um it's a very like this is something that I don't necessarily expect my clients to to want to learn to use, but we use at the back end to support the architecture of what we're building for them. Um so really like my kind of go-tos are Cassidy, respel.ai. I always I love Fathom as an AI note taker. That is a really quick, easy win. Um they produce, I mean, I've tried quite a few note takers, if not all of them, and I've had the best experience with Fathom. The notes that you at the end of it is incredible, but also like that's a this is a really good hack. But as an example, one way of how we use Fathom and Cassidy is that once we have, say, as an example, I have uh like a discovery call with a client and I need to produce a proposal. So I take that transcript, add it to my Google Drive or My Notion, which is connected to Cassidy. So then the AI is trained,
like can access that information. So when I go to create a proposal or an assistant for it, so I've got like a proposal assistant in Cassidy, it will go and pull from that information and help me create like a really compelling proposal that is tailor-fit for solving that client's pain point, you know, and really speaking their language. So um it's not just about recording and then no-taking side, it's about how you use that data in a really powerful way to help you with your business. Um so yeah, those are my top three ideas.
SPEAKER_00And it's free.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's free.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Folks, uh I've had some very smart friends hear me say, you know, oh, well, the models, the models, the models. And they're like, what the hell are you talking about? When we say model, it's just a short environment version of LLM or large language model. And a model would be Chat GPT or Gemini or whatever the case might be. Do you have a kind of a fave or do you are you using Claude for the writing and GPT for the data analysis? What's kind of your blend on that?
SPEAKER_01I've always been a Claude fan. And the new Opus models are is incredible, incredible. So um I find myself leaning into Claude more and more. I find it um, I find it like a shame that OpenAI and TAF2PT from a features and shipping point of view are just blowing everybody else out of the water. Um, but I just think about imagine if Claude had some of that gumption behind it, you know, in terms of the um There's real competition.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um I I just think that the ex I just resonate much more with the output that I get from um Claude, and especially with Opus now, than ChatGPT. I mean, ChatGPT is great.
SPEAKER_00Sure. So for those of you who are out there, maybe the only model you've ever been exposed to is ChatGPT. There's several out there, and what I would encourage you to do is, you know, spend 30 minutes, just 30 minutes in one of these models and using it not, and don't use it like a search engine, use it for uh a solution-based endeavor. And I think that you'll you'll notice the nuance that Sarah's mentioning here and that that I'm aware of as well, is that some are better at certain things, and that Claude tends to be the go-to for uh people who who are doing a lot more creative work, a lot more writing and things. They they tend to say Claude has better output. I um I just did it the hard way. I I've built some custom GPTs and trained it on my writing style.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00Um that's kind of how I get around that. So uh I notice one of the one of the places where I keep up with what you're doing is in LinkedIn. Is that your primary channel for sharing thought leadership?
SPEAKER_01Mainly LinkedIn and T and TikTok. Two completely different vibes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um what's the TikTok audience?
SPEAKER_01Um interesting, you know, interesting audience. Uh is it young people across the board? Um, but but just a different, it's a different vibe, you know, like you've got the LinkedIn vibe where you have to be a little bit more buttoned up. And then, you know, you can let it all go on TikTok.
SPEAKER_00So yeah. So what are you doing there? Are you doing videos? Are you doing interviews? What are you doing on TikTok?
SPEAKER_01Um, I've got, yeah, videos. Videos mainly. Um, yeah, mainly a lot of videos. But I think I've got like just over 4,000 uh followers on that. Um, so not I'm not an influencer or anything like that. But um but yeah, it's interesting and it also helps keep your finger on the pulse of like where people are at. My best performing posts on TikTok are always something along the lines of there's more to AI than ChatGPT. Whenever I post something like that with say a client result and you know, a backdrop of an automation or something like that, nice, it it completely goes
off. Um and I think that that's like to your point, that's a um a real kind of it makes it an aha moment, you know, for for a lot of people because a lot of people just think that AI is Chat GPT.
unknownSure.
SPEAKER_01And when there's a whole wide world out there, you know, um, you start with I think Chat GPT is a great gateway. And then, you know, I I kind of see it in different layers where you have, you know, the Chat GPT experience and the gateway to then AI, which you know, start with you know, your skills around prompting, because you really need to dial that in to be able to um to extract the the exact thing that you want from these systems, and then you go, okay, well, I am I have dialed in my prompting techniques, then you can scale that with something like automations. So when you are able to create a really dialed-in prompt, you don't want to do an automation without that, because all you're doing is if you've got a garbage prompt and you put it into um into an automation, you're just gonna push out garbage faster. So that's why even people who say like prompting is dead, I don't know. I think that maybe a lot of people get get by with just putting words in Chat GPT, but if you want to start essentially designing systems around this, you do need it, you do need to know how to prompt. And so after automations, you start to build workflows, after workflows, you start to build um, you know, things that I'm struggling to kind of connect the dots on this, but essentially like architectures or ecosystems where it goes back to like what isn't the business problem that I need to solve and uh what are the things, the tools, the platforms, the the components that act together and talk to each other in synergy to be enable me to um to achieve my objective with AI.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So this is interesting. Uh so I I I teach this concept of thinking in AI, right? Like I can go and watch people do tricks and and do cool, clever stuff, and that that will uh interest me and oh, I didn't know AI could do that kind of stuff. But being the person who can walk into a business and doesn't need to go to their library of tricks, and they can say, okay, what's the issue? And they can go, hmm, okay, well, we can do this, we can do that. That's the real skill of like being an AI expert. It's not it's not the person who can create the sensational uh videos and stuff, although they do get a lot of engagement for sure. I hell, I watch them, right? Um and I get FOMO when I say, oh my gosh, that person's so smart. We should be doing that stuff all the time. But I can tell you that what you're sharing here is advanced stuff for the listener. And so, so folks, when she's talking about this this um this uh evolution of your efforts that starts with playing with the models and then actually understanding how to get good output because your prompts are better, and then understanding, hey, I've got a prompt that's getting me consistent output. Now, that prompt could replace this node in a process that we do internally, and how then introducing the automations and things like that. And for those of you who are listening, a lot of times people will just say, Oh, we're we're we're using AI in our business. And the reality is that they're probably using some automation, some AI. There's probably still a monkey back there, you know, grinding things up or whatever. So it's not like it's turned into this um Skynet situation where it's all being run by general intelligence. You know, it's it's it's uh it's a it's a series of of evolution for each of you. And the best place to start would
be um, in Sarah's case, use Claude or GPT or whatever it was that you were doing and get good there before you it's that whole how do you eat an elephant, you know, one bite at a time, right? Yeah. Introducing AI into your business can be an elephant. So don't try to eat it all at once.
SPEAKER_01And I I do feel that in a way, I don't expect my clients to know how to do what we do, but in a way, I expect them to want to know what we're doing because there are certain concepts that when you get to this stage of AI applied that you need to be aware of. Um like when you're starting to integrate AI into your business, you need to be aware of certain things, like you know, that uh there's a concept called human in the loop that ensures that there's oversight on on even when you're doing an automation, what the the output is, there's concepts around like prompt drift. So you know that if someone builds in automation and AI automation or anything like that, that these the prompts can also, the quality of the output can change over time. So even though I don't expect my clients to build the automations, I want them to know what those things are so they're aware of them because um just in the same way that I don't necessarily want to know how to code or anything like that, yeah. But you know, I don't need to know that to make use of a website or whatever. But I need to know things around like data security and you know, all those things that actually make the the website secure and work for my business the way that I want to work that want it to work for my business.
SPEAKER_00So for those who are listening, how how do they know if they're ready to start using AI in their business?
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um you're ready now, um, because I think it comes back to that to that conversation that you just had before about how when people hear about AI, they have two reactions. If you've had any of the two reactions, so you're excited about it and you immediately see the opportunity, or you see or you have that moment where you think, oh my god, everything's gonna change and it's more like a exist existential threat, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you're having any of those two reactions, good because you get it. You get it, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If you're not having a reaction, then I would be, yeah, you're not ready yet, you know, if you're like not there yet. But I think that um biased to say, but the world is not going to look the same way in a year, six months, whatever. We're on a trajectory and uh those of us who are in it are feeling it deeply and we are seeing that that's the way that things are going. And so if you're if it if you think back to, you know, I don't know when was the internet created. But um the nineties, maybe Yeah, but when you know, if you think back and if you thought to your you know, if you said, no, I'm not gonna actually, this is just hype and I'm not going to consider putting my business online. Like that's where that is the the difference. Like in the way that the world changed after the internet, we're we're in that moment now where everything is going to change. It's going to open up opportunities, it's going to disrupt completely disrupt industries. And the worst place I think to be is to be um in that fear and anxiety, but not doing anything about it. If you even take little steps, but you know, if you get to I think the worst thing is like having fear without understanding something, the more you understand something, the
less you fear it. So if you're in that space where you're fearing it, my advice is to make friends with it and see how you can actually work with it and make it work for you versus the other way around.
SPEAKER_00That's great advice. So for those of you listening, if you've had that O moment, that aha moment, good or bad, it's time. For those of you who are like, is this AI thing gonna stick around? Um based on what both Sarah and I see happening in our own businesses and client businesses and stuff like that, there's no way that it's not going to, right? Like this is uh an accelerant in productivity, an accelerant in revenue generation, an accelerant in like uh enjoyment of the profession, right? This is so uh and here's one thing about the comparison of the internet and AI, as far as I see it. The internet took a minute. AI, like generative AI became popularly available 14 months ago, 15 months ago, right? And it's already, if you don't see it, there's transformations afoot. Doesn't mean that they're not happening just because you don't see it. So um let's talk about that. I that's one thing that that I'm always curious about. What is your forecast or timeline before? Because I think that like last year we were early, right? And it was great because you and I had a chance to to really get a lot more repetitions with the tools and do the investigation. But now we see like it's it's only getting bigger, faster, stronger. What do you what do you think the timeline is before businesses are gonna there's gonna be this like pivotal moment to where it's too late?
SPEAKER_01It's a good question. Are we close? I think so. I mean I've certainly seen Are we 2024 close? Oh, I think this is the year of AI applied. This is the year of like, I think last year was more of the hype where it was the 1,000 tools launching daily.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01The like ongoing news, you know, even in this news cycle now, you don't see as much around it. It's kind of more integrated. Like my husband watches a lot of golf, and so, you know, in the ads or whatever, it's always, you know, they mention something about AI-powered golfing something or the other. So it's kind of more, more less like news headline and more like this is the way we do things now. Um so I feel like we're getting to that place where people are accepting that okay, right, but like but but what does this mean for me or my business and what do I need to like practically do about it? So I think I felt that is that the kind of roller coaster and the AI tools, you know, the million of them that we're launching on a monthly basis, people got fed up about that. People got really tired and they're just going, cut the noise, tell me how to actually make this work for my business and for me right now. And I feel like that's starting to happen. And especially because people are seeing other, you know, their competitors or people in their industry um actually start making you know moves in it that it's becoming more kind of top of mind. But you know, even the people who are starting today are we we can talk from our personal experience, Chris, about like the difference of how we work in terms of our productivity and our daily work. We could talk about that, but also seeing clients who are now implementing these um solutions just able to get so much more done, so much faster and so
much cheaper. You know, why wouldn't you? You know, like we have one client where we built an AI uh automation for them, and it's like one single automation saved them about forty thousand dollars, you know. Uh that's like nothing.
SPEAKER_02Love it.
SPEAKER_01That's one process, one process that we AI fied for them. So if you think about stacking up those things one on top of the other, and it was a process that was so manual and time consuming, everybody hated doing it and complained about it all the time. And it it essentially created a bottleneck in their company where you know their people weren't able to go and grow the company because they were stuck doing this one process. And so, yes, you think about the forty thousand dollars saved, but what does that actually mean for the opportunity gained as well now that that bottleneck is up within the business?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Not only just the money, yeah. Yeah, the time, the now you've got employees who are happier because they're not having to do that that crap work that throw it to the robot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Wonderful. Yeah. Hey, so we're we're coming to the end of the interview here, but I want people to, I've I've gotten a lot out of um your positions on AI and business. Uh I I'm not on TikTok, but I do follow you on LinkedIn. So for those of you listening, if you are looking for um sane commentary on application of AI in business, uh, there's a lot of hype out there. I don't see Sarah generating the hype. She's sharing stuff that's happening uh real time in the real world. And it's obvious that she is somebody who spends a lot of time thinking about this stuff and like creating new thought around the topic as compared to regurgitating what's being you know fed on podcasts or uh, you know, uh comment from the business inside or whatever. So I would encourage you to do that. But if somebody was interested in engaging with your services, what does that look like? Um like the process or yeah, they they reach out and then what what should they expect to happen?
SPEAKER_01I mean, you feel free to reach out via LinkedIn, and we usually kind of get a sense of what you're looking to achieve, like where you are in your journey, what you're looking to achieve. We jump on a call, we talk about exactly where it's at, you know, where you're at, where your teams are at, what you're looking to achieve, and we, you know, work a way to help get you there essentially.
SPEAKER_00So collaborative dialogue on uh solution discovery. Sounds great. Is the website a place for them to find you, or you're better at uh the LinkedIn would probably be the easiest way for them to get you?
SPEAKER_01I I love LinkedIn because it's that immediate exchange where you can see in the the DMs and things like that, and uh it's not so kind of static. Um but also you know, you can check me out on on um my LinkedIn, or you can go to www.m-a-iv-e-n-l-y, mavenly.com. Uh that's the website, and it's all about building the business mavens off tomorrow. So that's why I called it that.
SPEAKER_00And don't forget TikTok, folks.
SPEAKER_01Right, go find Sarah on TikTok. For a different slide of me, you can go to TikTok.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Awesome. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for taking the time. I know that um that it's a precious commodity and that you've got high demand for uh the things that you shared today. And I I can guarantee that the listeners have uh a better understanding of the approach that they need to be taking and how they need to be thinking about using AI at work. So thank you. And thanks everybody for joining uh on this episode, and we'll see you on the next time. Anything that was discussed in here will be included in the show notes. So make sure you check those out. Thanks, everybody. 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 free AI readiness assessment and AI traffic AI. Help you get started using AI at work. www.chiefaiofficer.com. Thanks to our producer for making this episode. On Twitter, using AI at work. Visit www.usingai at work.com for free resources to help you harness AI in your role.