This podcast episode is sponsored by ChiefAIOfficer.com, offering training and certification through the International Association of Chief AI Officers. Interested in a new career or leveling up your value in the marketplace? ChiefaiOfficer.com can help. The following is an interview with Jonathan Mast, generative AI expert and owner of a thriving Facebook community with over 287,000 members, all focused on using AI to save time, amplify skills, and create new opportunities. We discuss why AI is a game changer, especially for seasoned professionals, and Jonathan shares his insights on how prompting frameworks and iterative collaboration with AI can unlock incredible productivity. Welcome to Using AI at Work. I'm your host, Chris Daigle. 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. Okay, everybody, welcome to this episode. Jonathan and I had a chance to briefly speak before we got started, and um we're in for quite a treat, especially for those of you who are looking for practical, actionable, how do I do this today? Not necessarily like where's the future of AI or anything like that. So Jonathan, I'm not gonna steal the thunder. I want you to share what you're doing over there on Facebook. But if you don't mind, uh maybe just kind of let everybody know where we're at today and kind of how you arrived into being the recognized AI expert.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to have a conversation. Uh so I love to tell people I'm a 55-year-old old guy with ADD who discovered AI and it blew my mind in a very positive way because uh especially for being that quintessential ADD entrepreneur, uh, I spent many years in the digital marketing world, ran an agency. But when when ChatGPT really came out with that interface that made it accessible, all of a sudden I started realizing that this was, and a phrase I use that I know is attributed to AI now, but this is really a game changer.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I, after 15 years in the digital marketing world, said, hey, um, that entrepreneur bug kicked in. I want to do something different. I really want to help people understand how transformative, and I say that in the best positive way that AI can be in their lives, and um was fortunate enough to be in a situation where I could do that. And we just we kind of started off uh as you and I were talking, we started a Facebook group to basically teach people how to leverage AI, how to save time, how to make a few bucks extra, how to do more for their clients, and it's grown and grown and grown. And as I said, I just checked a minute ago when we got on. We're at you know, 286,000 people in that group at the moment.
SPEAKER_01So when did you start this group and what has that growth of that group been like?
SPEAKER_00Like everything else, it it's it's a snowball. It you know, it I know you're in Texas, so it's that's you probably can't relate to a snowball, but yeah, you know, it's it's it starts small and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows. Uh we started it, I believe it was in May of 2023, um, and literally I was uh sitting out at uh in the middle of nowhere uh camping, thought I have nothing to do today, let's start a Facebook group. Let's let's have fun. And um it really is fun. I enjoy it tremendously. I love sharing with people. I love I'm I'm a big prompting guy, so I love trying to help people figure out how to ask AI questions and get the results that they want. And it started to grow slowly. You know, by August we might have been at a couple thousand people, and I was really happy with that. Sure. Um by January of this year, uh I remember I was speaking actually in Dallas of all places, and we hit 40,000 in January. And I'm like, yes, this is amazing. Yeah. Uh and you know, we just passed 275,000 last week.
SPEAKER_01So that's quite an accomplishment. And for those of you who are listening to the audio, I encourage you to jump on YouTube to see this big, beautiful beard that Jonathan has. Uh that's it's an amazing beard. Um, so what you've obviously had the opportunity since May of launching this group to see the growth path for a lot of people, right, that have come into your group. Yeah like what is AI to the point now. I imagine that a lot of them have uh stuck around to contribute their learnings and and that sort of thing to help others. What has like what's been some of the uh surprising, I don't know, um, insights that you've gotten from watching so many people from their first exposure to generative AI all the way to where they are now?
SPEAKER_00Surprising and rewarding. I don't know if I'll answer it the right way, Chris, but uh to me, the most rewarding part has been seeing people come in that are skeptical, that are not sure. And and and there's still a lot of people like that, and that's okay. I mean, we're definitely not too late for AI, but seeing it literally transform their lives and their families' lives in positive ways because it can help us get more time. And let's face it, I I don't know many people, don't run into many people that have more time than they do things to do. And when we can when we can figure out, okay, if I could find I was talking about, you know, let's let's shoot for 30 minutes a day. What would an extra 30 minutes you had nothing scheduled today? Maybe it just means you put your feet up, maybe it means you take an extra cup of coffee, or maybe you get to hang out with your kids, or in my case, my grandkids. Whatever case it is, it makes for a better life. And that's been just amazing to watch. And it's been fun in the community to watch people grow because it isn't just me anymore. It is literally hundreds of other people that have joined in and done that and are now adding value on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell It's incredible. I can't even imagine what that must be be like to go from, hey, I got this idea to, oh my gosh, what'd you say? We just passed 287,000 right before this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just before getting on the call.
SPEAKER_01It's incredible. So obviously, folks, if you're not uh familiar with this group, it's called AI Prompts for Entrepreneurs. It's on Facebook. Um I think by the end of this uh episode, you're gonna know that you want more of what Jonathan's offering. You know, I just personal curiosity, what um what are some of the successes that you've seen from people having in your group, like some that stand out for you?
SPEAKER_00Overall, I think one of the biggest is you know, there are a lot of us in the entrepreneurial world that have have either have been diagnosed or believe we have, or at least act like we have ADD. Yeah. Um, and that ability to really hyperfocus, but not for a long period of time, and to inevitably get sidetracked very easily. It seems to be every mastermind I'm in full of entrepreneurs and business owners, regardless of whether they're small solopreneurs or running multi-million dollar companies, the person, there's always that visionary entrepreneur in there. And those people in particular, I've seen just such some amazing results with because, again, it allows things to happen faster. I'm a big fan, Chris, of speed to implementation. Always believed that long before AI, you know, money and success love speed, and not always perfection, but speed. And AI just allows us to amplify that and do that better. Now, that means sometimes I fail faster, and that's okay because if I fail faster, then I can move on to something else. And what I've noticed and what so many people that I run in circles with have noticed is that we used to have this long list of ideas of things we were gonna get to, as we're, you know, maybe we're gonna get to it over Christmas break or Thanksgiving break or summer break or whenever. And that list came kind of over the years kept growing and growing, and we we got a few things checked off it, but for the most part, if we didn't do it, it didn't get done. And AI is really, I've seen it so dramatically impact people's lives because I can have an idea now and I can execute on it in the next 10 to 20 minutes, and then I can decide what to do with it from there, versus, oh, I'd like to do something, but I don't have three hours or three days to do that. So I'll put it on my list, and then of course, if you're like most of us, that list gets way too long and you never get to anything on the list.
SPEAKER_01You know, this is a perfect application of a quote that I heard recently. Um the guy was saying, I tell my kids, if I ask them to do something, do it right away. Because if you do it right away, there's a 0% chance you'll forget. If you wait, there's a greater than 0% chance, right? And this now gives, with all the ideas that the visionary entrepreneur has, the ADD entrepreneur has, for them, there's no excuse for waiting. I mean, they can get I do it regularly, they can get the bulk of what they need to fulfill that idea in immediately, instantly.
SPEAKER_00Yes, exactly. Yeah. I mean, whether it's, oh, I should write an article about this or I need to talk about this, or it's an idea that I have, I can at least get started on that and get it to the point of determining is it worth continuing? And so often that's that hard part. And so yeah, I that's been without a doubt the biggest transformation that I've seen.
SPEAKER_01I I'm experiencing it myself perfectly. That's fantastic. So listen, man, I know a lot of entrepreneurs. I don't know 287,000 of them. Uh has the has the avatar of that group stayed consistent to entrepreneurs, or what are you noticing?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Yes, but it's not exclusively that. We we run into, you know, I've got a lot of what I would call entrepreneurs as well. I've got a a lot of team leads that are joining in, um, managerial folk. And candidly, the probably the parts that surprise me the most is the number of retired business people that are in the group. I mean, it that has been something I never anticipated and has grown. And it's really cool. I believe in my core that AI amplifies skill and experience. And so probably for the first time in history, we have a brand new technology that actually benefits us when we're older. So old guys like me, I'm in my 50s, this is great because I've got skill and experience I can amplify. And my 20-year-old and 30-year-old kids, they're into AI, but not nearly like I am. But part of it I'm convinced is because they don't have the skill and experience. They're they're still learning, they're gaining that experience. Nothing taken away from them. But technology always has always been for the young generation.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00AI, I feel for the first time is empowering, like I said, even retirees. I just got off a group call that we did. We had four people on that call that were over 75 years old. Wow. And they're they're excited and they're learning and they're they're they're incredibly wise and experienced, and they're using AI to now reach out and help other people in the midst of their retirement. And that's been really cool to see.
SPEAKER_01So I I I've got some um ideas to share on that as well. But why do you think that somebody with more experience is getting more value from the models?
SPEAKER_00You know, it's it's it kind of goes back to the simplicity of garbage in, garbage out. And AI models are not sentient, as you and I both know. So they're, you know, it's a great tool. And that means we have to pick it up and we can use it. And it's it's like a hammer in the hands of a carpenter. If I pick up a hammer, I'm likely going to break something with it because I'm not a really good craftsman.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But if you put that hammer in the hands of a carpenter and a craftsman who knows what they're doing, they can make some amazing things with it. And I really see AI being very similar. And you know, if I don't, I'm not a heart surgeon or cardiologist, and if I wanted to learn about it, AI could teach me a lot. But if you were ever dumb enough to allow me to cut into your chest to do open heart surgery, you know, one of us has really got a big problem, and it's probably both of us at that point. Yeah. Because I don't have skill and experience there. But when I have that, then it can amplify that because it allows me to do things faster. My background's in digital marketing, which happens to be a great fit for AI. So when I need to go create an email campaign, what used to take me half a day to sit down, to brainstorm, the, to, to sketch out, and then I'd have to send it to somebody to make it look good because my writing was never quite as good as I wanted it to be. I now literally in 30 minutes can probably complete an entire email campaign. And because I know how to prompt it, because I I'm not just going, well, write me an email campaign. Right. I know what variables to give it, because I have experience in that area. I know what things I need to tell it about. And as a result, when it gives me responses, I also can respond and carry on that conversation. You and I talked a little bit about that pre-call today. A big thing for me is convincing people that it's not about one prompt and, oh, that wasn't really good. It's that conversation that you have with AI. So it's an initial prompt and then it's back and forth. It's like you and I, Chris, having a conversation. If we're working on a project and I walk up to your desk and I go, hey, here's what I want you to do. And I turn around and walk away, and you go, Jonathan, Jonathan, I got a question for you. And I'm like, no, never mind, Chris, you got it. You're not going to be able to do as good a job because I didn't communicate with you. And AI is really the exact same thing. If we just plop something on its on in front of it and go, fix this, we're going to likely come back and go, Yeah, that didn't work so well.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You know, I've I've I don't hear it as much, but I used to talk to people and they would say, Oh, I've tried Chat GPT, it didn't work. And I was like, what? What do you mean by that? So a couple things to unpack from that. One, I think it's very encouraging for what you just shared for people who are older that may think, because here's my experience, man. When I first heard about Chat GPT 3.5 when it came out, um, I thought, this is gonna be a huge opportunity for someone else. I'm not technical. I didn't understand that you don't need to be technical. It's actually kind of better if you're not, because you're able it's a natural language environment, so you're able to use natural language and you're not gonna over-engineer stuff. Um, so it opens up the door for anybody who's uh hesitant or they think, boy, there's a huge learning curve. What I tell people is that the hard part, you already did it. Your career, the things that you learned over your career gives you the ability to know ah, this is what I really want to ask for. So those prompts end up being uh better. Second thing you said, so our company chief AI officer, we we talk about this prompting framework, which is com it stands C A I O command, assess, is this what I wanted, right? The I is for iterate, right? And you brought it up. You said that if I just give it one instruction and hope that that output's gonna be perfect, that's not what that's not how this experience is intended. It's intended for be an iterative back of oh add this. What I should have said was this. So thank you for sharing that. Um you you mentioned pre-call about that you you put a lot of energy into the the subject of prompting. And obviously that's the ticket. Ideal input will result in ideal output from the models. So in your case, if somebody was like, hey, I'm new to this, what would be some of the the principles that you would share with them for getting that ideal output?
SPEAKER_00The first thing I'm gonna share with them, and I hope I don't ruffle any feathers of anybody listening, but is don't buy don't buy these massive lists of prompts because while there may be a good one in there, um, all of them that I've bought didn't seem to have any, but that's all right. Um the reality is if if I need to do a prompt and I'll have, let's say, 300 or 400, and I see I saw a list of about 1,500 in some prompts earlier. I can never really effectively filter through that. So putting that aside and going, okay, that's not my way to prompt. How do I do it? Then I believe is a framework like you were just talking about is what really matters there, Chris. And what what we teach is a very simple four-step framework. It's tell the AI what type of expert it's supposed to be. So, you know, I always say, imagine you're walking into the world's largest library that's as big as the state you're in. So you're in Texas, that's one on time library we're walking into. If you don't have some way to guide you to the right section of the library, you'll sooner or later find what you're looking for, but it's going to take longer. Yeah. And AI is no different. It's got so much information. Now it's a computer, so it's really fast, but it also can get confused on occasion. So if I start by saying this is the type of expert I need you to be, I can narrow it into the right section of the library really quickly. Then the part that we find a lot of people miss is context. We need to tell it about what we're doing. So I gave an example of an email campaign. I then need to explain what is it I'm trying to promote, what is the who is the audience, what are their pain points. Now, AI is going to know some of that, but I have to provide it with as much as I can. And then the third part's the simple part. That's your question. What's my question? And I think probably the most transformative is what we recommend as the fourth part. And it's really good for ADD guys like me who can't remember what to do. And that's just we end the prompt with saying, ask me any questions you have. Because AI has been programmed to make assumptions, and we all know what happens when we make assumptions. We can talk about the south end of a northbound mule or something like that. That's it's it's a problem. And AI will do that, and when it does it, it gives us generally it's not very on target with what we want. But if you tell it, ask me clarifying questions, it then will go. Well, you know, Jonathan, it'd be really helpful if you told me more about your audience, or if you explained how many times you how many emails you want in this campaign, and then it does so much better job at giving us a relevant and accurate response.
SPEAKER_01You know, this is interesting because I think that there's a lot of people that probably would think their understanding of using ChatGPT or Claude or whatever their model of choice is is that they go in, they ask it a question, they get the answer. And what you're suggesting here is if you want ideal output, you go in, you ask the question, and it asks you questions. So there is a more of a process than there is an event.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Let's talk, let's go back to instructions makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about context. How rich are you suggesting that the context needs to be to kind of outline the challenge or the issue that you're dealing with?
SPEAKER_00It can be relatively simple and still get a very good result. I think it's the old 80-20 rule. We get 80% of the way there very quickly. And that last 20% takes a lot more work. But the reality that I found is, you know, especially again for me with my marketing background, if I'm trying to do marketing or brainstorming or things like that, if I can go from an 80% to an 87%, that means I'm probably significantly beyond everybody else that stopped at 80%. And so it's worth that in my mind to do that. But that's really where the step four comes in, because if you miss something, AI is is intelligent enough, I say that in air quotes, to go, I really needed these four variables and you only gave me two of them. And then it will ask you for the other variables. And that giving it that context, which is really what it's all about, I think is what refines our our responses to be more accurate and more relevant to what we wanted.
SPEAKER_01You know, this is interesting because I I spend probably on an average day three to four hours interacting with the models, prompting directly. And I hate to say I'm lazy, but I don't and because I know if I ask it to ask me questions, it's gonna ask me questions.
SPEAKER_00However, that's a downside, yes.
SPEAKER_01Here's but here's here's what I'm exchanging. If I ask it to do that, I'm spending less time in the iteration process.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and now I find myself having to go back and correct, well, what I should have done in this prompt and that sort of thing uh is this. And if I would have just said ask me the questions, I would have probably gotten more closer to ideal output a lot faster. So thank you. That's what I found.
SPEAKER_00And again, being a very impatient ADD guy, yes, you're right. It takes me a couple minutes longer to do that prompt, but I have to do very little on the back end then because I've already gotten narrowed in so fast. You know, it's kind of like if I was going to go on a road trip, I'm in Alabama, you're in Texas. And if we just said, all right, drive to Texas. Texas is a big state. I can get to Texas, but once I get to the border, it's like, okay, Chris, where in Texas am I supposed to go? And you can say, well, I'm on the west side. Okay. I can drive to Dallas, Fort Worth, and go, okay, I'm in the middle. Where do I but yet if we start off with, okay, Chris, I got a couple questions. What part of Texas am I going? Now I can drive right to where I need to go and I'm going to get there faster, or at least get in the vicinity of where I want to go faster.
SPEAKER_01Okay, let's let's go into that because I'm I'm game. I'll start doing that. I'll try it. Now, when I'm in a um like for instance, right now we're doing a lot of strategy work, right? Uh we've I've we had a five-hour strategy session with our advisors. I took that transcript in, I fed that as context for it to, you know, in that thread and that sort of thing. Are you is is that ask me the questions you need. Is that something that's done once, or are you doing that throughout as you're approaching new subjects within the thread?
SPEAKER_00I j I I always want to do it at the beginning, but then it's really up to how much I think is relevant at that point. So for example, if it asks me a bunch of questions, I don't answer them and then say, ask me any more questions. I just I trust that was good. But if I start changing or iterating as I go through the process, especially when I'm doing brainstorming or things like that, um, what I've pretty much gotten to the point is anytime, let's say you and I were brainstorming together, Chris. Anytime we're brainstorming that I would expect you to have questions for me, I'm gonna ask the AI model to ask me those questions. And sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. More often than not, it does because I probably forgot stuff. But that is super helpful. The other thing that's part of that that I've found works helpful, let's say it gives you five questions it wants answered, and you only know the answers to three. Even by answering those three, you're gonna dramatically improve the response, even if you go, I don't know on the other two. A lot of times when it comes to questions, especially as I'm doing stuff, it'll say, you know, tell me about what are the what are the three major pain points this audience has. And if I'm in a hurry, which is typically, it's like you tell me. Yes, I do that. It will then use its knowledge base to pull. And in an area like that that's relatively predictable, I'm comfortable with using its knowledge base to do that. Not a big deal.
SPEAKER_01This is understanding prompting is something that is a linchpin skill set for anybody that wants to uh benefit from AI. I mean, even if you're saying, well, I don't use Chat GPT, I'm just using uh, you know, HeyGen or what any any of the Gen AI tools, there's still some element of instruction that needs to be given to the models in order to get, again, that ideal output. Um one of the areas that uh a lot of our listeners are is they're interested in they're that avatar you described. They are mature business people, they've had a career in a certain industry or a certain role, and they see AI as an opportunity for them to say retire early, but perhaps not be as much in the rat race, leverage their warm network from all the, you know, uh the 25 years, 30 years in a career. They got people who know them, like them, trust them. They want to come outside of their standard nine to five, learn AI, but then go back and be that resource for their warm network. Um are you seeing, is that uh a theme or a dialogue that happens in your Facebook group?
SPEAKER_00All the time. Yeah, we're seeing a lot of that happening. Uh again, really in my mind, I'm oversimplifying, but that's how my ADD brain thinks. It's it's amplifying that skill and experience they have. But what's cool is it's allowing them to focus on the parts of it that they love. Yeah. So they're able to step away in many cases, at least largely, from the aspects they go, yeah, well, that's part of the job, but I don't like that part. In many cases, they're able to step away from that and now focus on the things that really they're passionate about, that they're excited about. And the beauty in that is that when we use AI to amplify us in that way, we're really, in my mind, expanding and and and expanding that influence that we have in a very positive way. So it's actually being done at even more value because I don't need to spend time, I don't have to vacuum my house anymore because I've got this amazing little robot vacuum that goes around and vacuums my house. Now, my wife says it's not quite good enough, but from my perspective as a guy, man, I don't ever need to touch a vacuum again. That not that I couldn't vacuum, but I didn't enjoy it. And the time it took took me away from doing something else, even if that was taking a nap. And now that's where I see AI coming in in that same type of way. It's giving us the ability, it's giving us uh some stretch in our schedules, it's some some flexibility. We're no longer in the, okay, I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go, because there's always more to do that day. And it gives us that ability. And I think that gives us the ability, as that expert, that subject matter expert, to now do a better job of sharing that knowledge with others and adding value into their lives because I'm not trying to do it in 25 minutes, because I know if it takes me 32, ah, it's okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, I like this a lot. So, what advice do you give the people that come into your community that are like, hey, I want to learn this stuff and I actually want to monetize the skill set in my market?
SPEAKER_00It's a great question, and I get it all the time. And it comes from different perspectives. But I always tell people take a step back at being a business guy for many years, take a step back and forget about AI for just a moment. Before we focus on how do I make money with AI, how do we find a problem that we can fix or you can fix that somebody that has money is willing to pay you to fix for them. And in my world, that generally means trying to find a business because businesses tend to have more disposable income to spend. So find a problem, something they're struggling with. Find a way that you can solve it, that they'll pay you for. Now that you have that figured out, you've identified a need that is really a need, because if they're willing to pay you money, it's a need. Now, how do we use AI? Only after we've figured that out, do we use AI to make that process more efficient, to make it faster so that we can deliver more value. And I think too many people are looking at it the other way around. They're looking, how do I use AI as my magic wand when when AI isn't the magic wand? AI is the AI is the rocket engine we put on the car to go faster. It's not the car concept itself.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think that this plays into that concept of the more experienced business people, like they have a good idea of what the problems are already rather than, you know, and I tell this to businesses all the time, you know, like you bring in that the hotshot from YouTube or whatever, they're gonna say, Hey, what do you want me to do? Right. They sure they can use the tools, but they don't know anything about your business. But if you have that experience, you can go, I wonder if AI could help with like you already have kind of like at least the the start of a thread that you can pull as far as problems to solve. So again, for those of you who are you know uh seasoned business people, you possess a valuable contribution to AI results that you may not realize, and that is you understand your domain, you understand your your craft and that gives you the the the the the genesis of hey, I wish this didn't have to happen. Can AI help me cut ev even if it's not AI, can AI help me come up with a solution for it, right? Because it's not just about AI doing the work for you, it's about AI. My my buddy uh Jeff wrote a book called AI Driven Leader. I don't know if you've seen it, but AI there, yeah. So so in in his case, he says it's not a book about AI, it's a book about strategy that happens to use AI. So I want people to have that same, I mean Jonathan shared that with us as well, but if you think about it that way, like I'm trying to solve a problem, AI is a tool, not AI is the thing that I'm trying to force into uh everywhere I think it can fit.
SPEAKER_00Um Right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that again, it's just it's looking at it through that lens that makes all the difference. And the people I see being successful with AI, other than you know, ChatGPT and Anthropic and the major companies that are, but most of us aren't going to be creating new AI models. That's not what we're gonna do. So outside of that, the people that I see being successful is again, they're finding a need, they're filling it, and they're then leveraging AI to fill that better.
SPEAKER_01If you're enjoying this episode and want to learn more about how to start using AI at work, we've made it easy for you. For just one dollar, you can have full access to the Chief AI Officer community, which will give you additional training, custom software, daily training calls on AI tools, using AI automations, getting more from your Chat GBT sessions, and the business of being an AI consultant. Simply go to chiefaiofficer.com forward slash insiders to accelerate your AI journey. Now, back to the episode. So that's a point of distinction I want everybody listening to to really like let that land with you. Because if you look at it that way, it's not like you don't have to make some big pivot. Oh man, I spent my career doing this. Now I have to learn AI. No, you just need to learn how to leverage it as that assistant in you doing what you're already doing or already know how to do. So great, great distinction there. Um for those business people who are out there and they're they want to be the the either the entrepreneur or the intrapreneur, how do you uh I mean there's there's gonna be some skepticism, I would imagine, if if you you're an entrepreneur, you've probably brought some ideas to your wife and she's been like, what the hell are you talking about, right?
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01How do they how would you suggest that they introduce this, because they're not an expert yet, but they see an opportunity, but that they introduce this into the narrative that they're gonna bring to the boss or bring to the the business partner or the spouse and say, hey, see that how do you suggest they open that dialogue for this perceived pivot in their career?
SPEAKER_00Well, I think it's like anything in business. We need to focus on as one of, I don't know if it was Zig Ziglar and somebody else I listened to years ago. I'm an old old guy, so it's uh it was a long time ago. But he talked about the radio station when we actually had those called WIIFM, what's in it for me? And that doesn't mean what's in it for me personally, but if I'm talking to my wife, what's in it for my wife? If I'm talking to my boss, what's in it for my boss? Great. We need to present those ideas in a manner of the value that that decision is going to bring to them. So if I'm really excited about leveraging AI in my career, chances are if I talk to my boss or my wife and I go all geeked out about how excited I am about AI, their eyes are gonna glaze over, they're gonna go, yeah, whatever, and they're not gonna pay attention.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00But if I could come to my boss and I could say, hey, I believe I've found a way with some training that I could add an extra five workable hours to my week, would you allow me to pursue it and find out if I'm right? Because if I am, that means I've got more time to do what I'm already falling short on and maybe get caught up or spend more time on it. Most bosses, in my opinion, at that point are going to go, sure, that sounds great. Then they might go, what is it? But don't sell them on the AI. Some bosses may love it, some may not. Sell them on the value to them.
SPEAKER_01That's important advice for sure. Um so in in your uh, I guess your AI deliverables, do you do services for companies? Do you primarily focus on helping individuals upskill? What is uh what is a a week in the life of Jonathan as far as AI business look like?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, I'm uh let me start by saying I'm incredibly blessed to get to do things that I love to do. And for me, that means I spend most of my time working with business leaders, and I'll say because sometimes it's a a solopreneur, other times it's you know uh somebody that's in middle management, but business leaders in helping them figure out how to bring AI into their organization. We don't do a lot of delivery stuff. So in other words, we're not delivering services, AI services, but we're helping them do that. A good example would be a client I worked with earlier today. They need, they're an accounting firm and they're trying to create some custom trained models that they can use to help them go through and analyze client stuff. Now, because it's financial data, we immediately talked about probably not the best use for a cloud-based solution because you've got financial data. Maybe we need to bring something in-house. So we're we're helping coach and consult them and strategize on that process. What's the model to bring in? How should they do it? How do they need to set it up? But instead of our team going in and building it all out and delivering it and then them having to pay us forever for that, we're basically focused on let us teach your team how to do it. Let us be the guide in, you know, it's it's it's probably like, you know, let's say I'm going to come down and do a hog hunt down in Texas. I need a guide to tell me where to go. He's not going to shoot the pig for me, but he's going to know where to go, how to do it, what I need. That's really our role. We're really that guide in the process to help make sure that your team gets to where they need to go.
SPEAKER_01So let's get geeky here for a second. Did were you guys able to come up with uh a path forward on the solution for that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we were. Yep. So we're using a a fairly major model, but that we can run locally. We worked with their IT department to make sure that everything is appropriately walled off. Um they they invested in some pretty honky service or servers to be able to run everything quickly. And now their IT department is comfortable because they're the security experts. I'm not. Their IT department is comfortable that nothing used there is ever going to get out to the cloud. And so when needed, the IT department can update the large language model that's running on the local servers. But they can now, without fear of data breaches, they can be using client data, analyzing tax returns, analyzing expense reports, analyzing all kinds of stuff that they wanted to do for the premise of we've trained it or are training, they're training it on all the laws so that it can identify two things. One, opportunities that are not being taken, and overly risky opportunities that shouldn't be taken that maybe are, and how do we balance those so that the client ends up paying the taxes that are due, but not paying more taxes that are due? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So this is interesting. Then did you guys obviously you you baselined, I guess, like this is how much how many human hours are required to execute task A. Here's the forecast when it's AI-enabled process. What were some of the, I guess, ballpark forecasts as far as savings of resource or time or money or whatever?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell In this case for the accounting firm, they're estimating that they're going to probably on the tasks that it's doing, so that analysis and stuff like that, we're going to be able to do it. The goal that we set was half time half the time. If we can do it, if we can justify it in half the time, it's worth it. Based on just some initial tests that we've done and very initial because they're building it out right now. It looks like we're going to hit closer to 80% time savings, not 50.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible. And those stories are over and over again. When when we're doing delivery, we we manage expectations. If you go in and say, listen, I can impact something by 80%, it sounds hyperbolic, right?
SPEAKER_00Like even 50% does candidly. I mean, a lot of times we start off with if I could show you a 10% or 20% improvement, what would that mean? And that's enough to get most business owners really excited. Yep. And then once we get into it, they're like, we're gonna, we're gonna like blow that out of the water, aren't we? And we're like, yeah, we are. But had I started with that, you wouldn't have listened to me. Aaron Powell You wouldn't have gotten the contract.
SPEAKER_01So uh do you have a like a technical background or are the internal IT teams really your liaison for that tech stuff?
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell For the tech stuff, yeah. I I mean I I'm a sales and marketing guy. That's been um I I was in IT for about a decade. Then I got into digital marketing for the last 20 years, and that put me into my 50s. Um so that's my background, but it's really in sales and marketing. Because even in IT, I sold it. I didn't develop it, I wasn't an engineer. Um I was the guy that drove the engineers nuts because I'm like, sure we can do that. And they're like, what do you mean we can do that? So yeah, I don't have that technical background. I can talk enough of the language, but I think what's helpful there is I understand some of the engineering side of it, not to the detail, but to go, I know why you're asking the questions you're asking. And it doesn't, it doesn't make me think like you want to kill the project. You're simply going, your job as the CIO is to make sure that this data is secure. And that means we need to have a few conversations that the sales guy, Jonathan, would rather just go, oh, it'll figure itself out. Right. But not that big. That's why I'm not an IT and I'm not the CIO.
SPEAKER_01So in my experience, pre-AI and post-AI, um no slight to any of the IT people on here. They they haven't been accelerants to projects, they've been friction.
unknownRight?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Um how do you and the one of the top questions? Look, an entrepreneur, they don't care, like they're not risk, security. What are you talking about? Let's go. Exactly. Yes, yeah. But for those who are in the company who are supposed to be the adults in the room, those are some of the first questions that they ask. What about these stories that I've heard? Now, I I haven't had those experiences, but it's valid questions. How do you like how do you address that when it comes up?
SPEAKER_00I guess governance would be the term. So I really put on my customer service out there. So I learned years ago when it, because of my sales background, when it came to customer service, if you sell something, sooner or later somebody's not going to be happy, even if you did everything right. There's always somebody somewhere along the way. And I learned that the best way to resolve that was to simply listen. So instead of doing what I tended to do in my 30s, which was go, well, let's fight about this because you're wrong, which I've been known to do, not physically, but you know, that was the argument over the boardroom table. I've now learned that it's a lot more effective to sit back in my chair and go, I'm really glad you brought that up. Can you tell me more about what your concerns are?
SPEAKER_01Let me write that.
SPEAKER_00And what typically happens is when they talk through them, the conversation gets them to a point where they go, you know, you and I are actually not that far away. But we start off at diametrically opposed positions. And I found if we just let them talk a little bit and share what their concerns are, over the course of sometimes a few minutes, sometimes a few hours, we get to that point where we come together and we go, Oh, you know what? Our goals are really the same thing here. It's great advice. We have a slightly different perspective, but it's no different than when I ask my wife where we want to go to dinner. She says anywhere. And I go, Great. How about let's go out for the buffet? Because that's my love. And she goes, No, no, no, not the buffet. Well, how about Mexican? No, no, not Mexican. Well, how about Chinese? No, not Chinese. And I'm like, well, you said anywhere. Well, yeah, but I don't like those. So but if we just talk about it, I go, well, I'm glad you're open to anything, honey, but what are you in the mood for? She'll go, you know, sushi sounds good, or a burger sounds good, or I'd really like barbecue. Now guess what? Jonathan, who just wants to eat, I can go where I want to go. And it's kind of what I do with the IT guys. It's and we're gales, and I don't mean to be be uh sexist there, but I I want to understand where their concerns and sometimes we just have to say, this is a problem, this is a roadblock. What are we going to do? Because the CEO wants to do this. Yeah. You want to do this. Your job is to help the CEO achieve their objectives within reasonable constraints. How can we do that? And generally, when we push it back in that capacity, the answer that solves it most of the time is, well, if we brought it internal, that would probably fix the problem, like with the accounting firm. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Makes sense. So in that situation, if IT still feels like they've got their arms around it, they tend to let up on any resistance to uh For the most part, I do find that IT departments tend to be surprisingly less interested in AI than I would think for being technically.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You know, I mean we look at our IT guys and go, man, they love computers, they love all that stuff, and they do. But when it comes to AI, they they tend to be much more cautious and then a little bit less trusting of it. Uh and I get it. I understand that. So um it's it's a process. But yeah, when I think like anything in life in business, if I've got to get my team to do something that I know they probably aren't gonna love to do, but I can help them come to the decision they need to do it by walking through a process and me not just dictating and going, guys, we're doing this. Because then everybody's like, I don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Same with IT. If I can help them work through it that they can be part of the solution, then that level of resistance we get drops significantly.
SPEAKER_01You know, I'm gonna lean on uh personal experience here. Um in the past, bringing being a change agent for companies who they would bring in, um there'd be resistance from I guess change management is the appropriate term, but I I consistently would expect some pushback from IT. Now that's my story. It's not necessarily everybody's story here. And I've thought about this a lot because I obviously I don't want to repeat the mistakes. There's huge opportunities for us to be that bringer of AI into businesses, which is one of the things that we do. Um but I've thought about that a lot. It's not really it's not an IT, the the security side, and and that's of course, but but generative AI is not really like the AI department's purview. This is it's almost it's a different paradigm. It's technology, yes, but it's not uh it's not server configuration, it's not like deeply technical uh know-how for a user to be able to get as much benefit as as you know an IT professional would.
SPEAKER_00Very much so.
SPEAKER_01How do you see AI's ownership within a company? If somebody said, who owns this? Does you know, is this ops, is this CIO, is this IT?
SPEAKER_00Generally, we see it fall underneath the executive leadership team, somewhere on that team. Yeah. And it's generally not just one person. There's typically an advocate that wants to kind of take it. Almost always, especially in a large organization, the CIO and the IT department are part of that. They have oversight, but they don't have control. And you know, I was just talking with uh a gentleman in one of my courses I was just doing, and and he works for a large multinational uh drug company. And he was just sharing with me, he goes, you know, the thing that frustrates me so much is I've been there for 20 years, I know how to do things, I know it, but he says, he's a data analyst. And he goes, we can't use AI to do it because they're afraid to let us do it. And he goes, the funny thing is he goes, I can literally take things and move them to my cell phone and get answers in minutes, and I can't do them because it's against company policy. And he goes, I get it, but these are not necessarily security issues. These are not, you know, these are for example, uh the example he gave is a generic drug that they make that they need to do a huge data analysis. They've got just reams and reams and reams of data to go through. And he goes, There is nothing that's not publicly available in there. So it's not like it's going to get into somebody's hands, but we still can't use AI to do that, even if we understand that you need to validate the results. We could get to those results, or at least within that uh I grew up out in the country, so we used to talk about bushel baskets. You can get within a bushel basket of it really easily. Um that's just not an option that exists. And I think, you know, ironically, that's what I think Chris brings an opportunity to smaller and mid sized businesses. And I've spent a lot of my time there because they're able to be more nimble and to go, okay. This is not an unreasonable risk that we're taking. There may be a risk, but it's very, very manageable. And as a result, we're going to go there. And I think we're going to see that as with so much technology, the large corporate conglomerates are going to be probably the last to really fully implement them because the executives are still doing it because they're going to be pulling out their phones. They don't care. They're going to do what they want, nothing against them. But I remember being a C-level exec in a previous life, and I did what I wanted to do. I mean, it was I had a job to do and I wanted to get it done, and it was easier to apologize than it was to ask for permission. But you're that's not where you get your biggest productivity gains. Your biggest productivity gains come by rolling these solutions out to the team. And when the team can do that, you know, the example I always use is let's say you've got a you're you are a small business, you've only got a team of five people. But if you could save every person on your team a half hour a day, that every month is adding another entire person week to your team. Now imagine that if you've got thousands of employees, what that could look like. So that's really where the the amplification really comes through. But again, though that large multinational corporation, they're probably not going to go there anytime soon. Um and that's just the reality. They'll get there, but it's going to be a long time down the road.
SPEAKER_01You know, one of the referencing the difference between working with SMBs and working with larger companies is look, man, we we use the heck out of Fathom is our preferred, like you know, great tool, right? Um, Fathom's everywhere. We talk about it when we go to to present to companies about tools because productivity is is like that's a universal, like I understand what that means. I get more done with less effort. Exactly. So we start there, and we have people push back and they're like, man, legal won't let us use Fathom because of things like discovery. Yeah. Like, you know, I I don't have that concern, so I hadn't really thought about that. But it's it's going to be things like that that uh are erring on the side of caution that are going to allow these smaller companies with five employees to punch way above their weight when it comes to competing with much larger industries that have, you know, uh longevity behind them, they have talent behind them, they have financial resources. But now you can get somebody, if they know how to use the models, I I don't know about you, but I would I I do the work of many more people than just Chris for sure. Oh because I don't use the tools. Yeah. So what are some of the areas when when in an SMB environment, there's a couple questions I've got. When that security issue comes up, how do you address it in that environment? Where it's not necessarily like an IT thing, but they have this idea that, oh, if I put a spreadsheet in there, anybody can look up that spreadsheet. Now, my understanding is it's possible it could be used for training data, but your spreadsheet's got a thousand rows on it. This has got 34 billion parameters in there. Like it's going to be diluted. So I don't see it as much of a risk, but how how do you what's your thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00So a couple thoughts. One, um, we have to decide can we trust the companies or not trust the companies? Yes. And that's a tough one because you know, I I can't promise you Google knows far more about Jonathan Mass than I want Google to probably know about me. Yeah. But I do a lot of it for convenience because it's convenient to do that. There's, as we know, billions and billions of dollars being spent by some very heavyweight players, because let's face it, normal guys like you and I don't have those billions to put into this. Just to train it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00They're they're looking very seriously at what's happening with that data. And while the companies want that data, absolutely, and they want to use it for training purposes, and they may be doing that. I the risk isn't that they're going to be training it on my income tax return that I'm not going to upload. But if I did, that they're not-I'm not worried about being trained on that data because guess what? That's any government agency that wants it can get that anyway. It's not a big deal. The issue in my mind is accepting that it may look at some aspects of that and train on it. You're not going to be able to go in and go, hmm, I wonder if Jonathan uploaded his 2024 tax return. Can I find that? You'll never be able to get that piece of data. When I upload my sales numbers every month, which I do and go through data analysis with, no one's ever going to be able to do that outside of those companies. I'm not worried about that. I mean, never is probably the wrong word. I mean, the Department of Defense can be hacked. So in theory, but let's face it, if they do that, they're not looking for my stuff. You know, that's that's just the reality. So the I think that's the first step. The second step is to say if that's the case, it's a risk-reward ratio. Yeah. There is a risk by me using AI and uploading the data, but the reward is incredible. And like everything else in business, there's a risk and a reward. I mean, uh if I pull out to go to the grocery store tonight, there's a risk and a reward. The reward is I'm going to have food in the pantry. The risk is I get hit on the way and die. Yeah. That doesn't stop me from going to the grocery store because the risk can be mitigated. And I think the same thing holds true with AI. The problem is it's so new right now, and there's enough people that love the fearmonger drums that are beating them hard that it's going to be a little bit longer. You know, it's, it's, it's the, it's the middle of the winter and it's snowy outside, and I've got I still have rice, so I'm not going to go to the grocery store. I can go to the grocery store, even if I'm afraid of slipping and falling, because that risk is pretty minor in the big picture if I'm careful. And I think that same thing applies with AI usage.
SPEAKER_01So I, you know, I I usually withhold uh forecasts beyond I don't know, what I know is happening with certain tools that we're using or things that I'm hearing. And there's a lot of noise out there, not as much signal. But one of the terms that man, I I guess earlier in the year, our chief AI officer was talking about agents. And my understanding of agents at the time was autonomous agents. Hey, I can give it something and it figures out all the next steps.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So we're not there, but agency is a it's like people are using that term very liberally across a lot of applications. The promise of agents that it it does a discrete task without a whole lot of input once it's been configured, programmed, set up to do that task, that's promising. Um what do you what's your thoughts on that for 2025 in particular?
SPEAKER_00I think I'm gonna take a little step back from the word agents and I'm gonna talk about, if it's okay, automation. I think what we're going to see a lot of in 2025 is tying together tools like Make and Zapier and things like that with AI applications so that I can have AI do something for me. I can then take that result and I can move it to another app or another process or even another AI engine or process that then does something and I can move it back and forth. So that's that's how I personally view that. And what I think we're gonna see some major changes on. I'm already seeing just lots and lots of people asking about, okay, I can now do this and I can do this and do this. How do I how do I automate that? How do I make that less time consuming? We even see it with some of the just the simple digital marketing agencies that we work with based on my background. The ability when we're creating content to create a core piece of content such as a blog post.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_00And then no, we need to create social media posts off of that, and we need to create a video script off of that, to have that blog post taken as it's created and automatically sending it to ChatGPT or to whatever model to write the social media posts and to write the video script. And the neat thing is with automation, that's entirely possible. In fact, we've got clients doing that right now. I think in 2025, that's gonna be the big difference. I know a lot of people talk about those autonomous agents. I just saw an article that a peer of mine posted about an autonomous agents files an LLC with no interaction. Well, I'm gonna call BS on that because somebody had to tell it what to do to start. If you didn't start it, it couldn't get there. Somebody had to program it with the steps in order to do it. So, yes, it may have been an automation that when I said, I need you to go find file an LLC in the state of X for the following information, did it carry all those steps out? Sure. That's very to me, that's totally plausible. But that's also entirely different than an AI woke up this morning proverbially and said, I want to fall, I want to form an LLC. Yeah. And it came up with a name and came up with all the information and decided to file out with the state without anybody prompting it or programming it. Because that didn't happen. Yeah. But the headlines made it sound like in the I've been at people calling me and go, Did you hear that? An AI formed a corporation. No, no, no. Not really. And so that's where I still see a lot of disconnect, I guess is the right word, when it comes to agents. Agreed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that that that's a good distinction for everybody who's listening to this. You're gonna hear that word come up a lot next year. You're already hearing it if you're paying attention to the AI space. Just replace agent with automation, and I think that you'll have a better understanding of this paradigm of what agents are now. Will there be general intelligence that can manage, you know, certainly autonomously? Yes, perhaps, most likely. But that's not what we're dealing with in 2025. So um man, I you're speaking my language, but I could talk about this stuff like that. As could I, I love this. Yeah. And and y the way that you're operating is like tracking with our thesis on things and the avatars we're addressing and the issues we're dealing with. So this has been a great conversation, Jonathan. But I want people to yeah, of course, you'll get a lot of value from the free Facebook group, but like what else are you doing to for those people who are like, look, Facebook group's great, but I'm ready to dig in. How how do they plug in with what you're doing?
SPEAKER_00Best thing is just reach out to me at jonathanmass.com/slash linktree. So it's just Jonathan J-O-N-A-T-H-A-N-M-A-S T.com slash link tree. It's got all my contact information there and everything else. And we don't we do other things beyond that, but my my real goal as you and I talked to up front, Chris, is I want to add value to people. And if if they see enough and they go, this makes sense, they can reach out and we'll have a conversation. If it doesn't, that's fine too. That's we love doing stuff in the free group. I spend a lot of time there every day.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, for sure. Um, so um Jonathan and I we've never met before, but I can tell you that based on this conversation, I would certainly endorse you uh listeners to go and check out his stuff. The perspectives that he shared, again, they're they're tracking with the way that we see things as far as um you know not trying to be too uh grandiose about promises related to AI, being uh considerate about the approach when it comes to other people's fears and concerns. Because look, man, those are legit people that don't understand things, uh don't understand the nature of or capabilities or limitations of the technology can certainly uh this can seem a little um scary. So yeah. I think that uh, and man, look, you join a group of 287,000 other people who are on the journey. I think that you're gonna find people that are at your level for sure, and you will it uh it sounds like a a great place to participate in the conversation. So I'm glad you've done that and congrats on damn, dude. That's a lot of people. Thank you. So thank you. A great platform to have. Um, so again, thank you so much, Jonathan. And uh everybody, we'll be back with another episode next week. Hopefully, it's as good as this one. Take care. 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. Well, thanks to our producer, Evan Desalnier, 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.