07 - Fear Less, Do More: Embracing AI Without Losing the Magic

AI in the Kids' Sector: Embracing Innovation Without Losing the Human Touch

In this special roundtable episode of Playbook for Success, we’re diving headfirst into the world of AI – but with a twist. This isn’t a tech talk for Silicon Valley – it’s a practical conversation about what AI really means for the kids’ activity sector, alternative education, sport, play, and franchising.

We’re joined by Mark Mollenbeck, Managing Director of Booking Autopilot, and Nick Wild, creative technologist and content innovator, to explore how AI can help businesses become more productive, efficient, and faster - freeing up time and boosting profit.

We unpack how AI tools can support everything from video, audio and image creation to predictive and prescriptive analytics, which help you spot problems early and take smart action. But it’s not about replacing humans - in fact, the need for strong human input is more important than ever.

Whether you’re curious, cautious, or already experimenting, this episode is full of actionable insights and inspiration. Don’t be scared of change - this is your chance to get ahead of the curve.

Edited by Mike at Making Digital Real

Transcript

hey everybody and welcome back to Playbook for Success, the show where we explore big ideas, bold moves and practical lessons for anyone working in the world of play, leisure, sport, childcare, kids activities, alternative education, ed tech and of course franchise in. So, today's episode, a little bit different and I think this is going to be a great one. 

We are talking AI and it's not your usual conversation, we are directing it to our sector today and also what it means for our sector. So, before we hand over to the main man, Mark himself, we're going to introduce our two guests. We've got Nick Wild with us today and also Mark Mollenbeck. 

So, do you want to introduce yourself guys and we'll start with you, Nick, tell us all about you. Hi, my name is Nick Wild. I wear many hats really, but I suppose I've spent my career really at the kind of intersection of creativity, business and technology. 

I originally started off in the music industry and one thing that we always looked at doing then was rather than just, although we were pretty successful, looking really at alternative ways to monetize IP and one of the first ways we did that was looking at the children's market and so we were very early into developing special projects for children, special products, be those music products or we were early into enhanced CD-ROMs and even YouTube at the time, it was, although it might sound daft to say it now, it was the kind of the great wild west and we put content on YouTube and it became phenomenally successful and we had channels there that did 300-400 million views in the early days and set us off into looking at really different ways to make money and monetize IP, which obviously is very interesting in the current world of AI. To cut a long story short, I then moved into developing lots of other children's content. I worked with lots of big brands like Ragdoll and Wombles and now one of the things is I run a content creation house for educational publishers and we work a lot with US companies and we've just launched a software company that is really developing services and software for use in the children's sector and platforms and franchises and lots of other things. 

Oh brilliant, so you're one of the early adopters of all of this, so you're definitely the right person for the show today. Yeah, I always have been. I was bizarrely going to do a degree in computing when I was 18 and then I went into the music industry as a year off and then never went, but computers have always been and data reporting and have always been a great way to build and enhance businesses. 

So AI for me is just the latest facet of that and me and my team really have embraced it rather than fearing it. I think there are a lot of challenges, but I think we'll all get around that hopefully. Brilliant, well looking forward to catching up with you today Nick and how about you Mark? Thanks Mike, my name is Mark Mollenbeck. 

I'm Managing Director of Booking Autopilot. We're a booking, payments, communications and marketing platform for predominantly children's activity providers and typically we work with franchises and the larger scale franchises, but we do work with some smaller single centres as well. My background is predominantly in banking and corporate finance, so please don't hold that against me and you might detect the Aussie accent, so I've been in the UK for a few years now and had a good time so far managing this business and we're seeing Booking Autopilot grow and we think there's some good opportunity for a lot of the franchises to use new and better technologies to improve things for their franchisees and their end customers. 

So we're very interested in AI and we're always looking to push the boundaries of tech to create a better platform and I think in terms of AI, we're probably at the early stages where we're doing more research now than actual AI development because we want to make sure we get it right and actually deliver what franchisors and franchisees are looking for rather than just making an assumption. I'm sure we'll get into it a bit later, but I've spent a few months doing some research and as part of a university degree as well to understand attitudes of children's activity providers towards AI and to understand what the preferences, what the concerns are and hopefully that will inform our approach at Booking Autopilot as to what we develop and the order of development as well. Brilliant, so around in your world then we're looking at a lot of automation and things like that, so we're looking forward to having a chat with you today about that as well.

Yeah, absolutely. As our name suggests, it's automation and it's an interesting point because one of the things I want to make sure is that we don't hop on the AI bandwagon completely and just forget about everything else because there's certain aspects of technology that I think a lot of businesses can embrace that's non-AI. So whether that's automation or other aspects of marketing, I think it is really important to not assume that AI is the solution for everybody and I think it's just about prioritising that to make sure we know what our customers are looking for. 

Brilliant, brilliant. Well, I've got lots of questions lined up for you, so before we do that I'll head over to Mark, the main man, and yeah, good to see you again and let's kick off the episode, shall we? Yeah, looking forward to this one, Mike. So yeah, my first question, guys, is obviously you understand this stuff a lot better than me. 

I'm a bit of a novice in this, Mike's a bit more of an early adopter than myself, but where are you seeing AI coming into these sectors and how is it helping? You covered this a little bit, but just starting with you, Mark, you've been speaking to loads of kids activity providers and other sorts of businesses. How are they starting to use it and how is it helping them? From what I've seen, the adoption at the moment is fairly basic in terms of AI and the main use cases I see are where you have chatbots on maybe FAQ pages and whatnot, so if a franchisee or a customer is looking for some specific information about the platform, they can just enter that in the chatbot and the chatbot will retrieve that relevant information, so quite basic. The other ones, I think, are really related to marketing, so things you've probably seen in ChatGPT, you can get ChatGPT to do very quick marketing templates and messages at the drop of a hat and I'm seeing activity providers starting to use that more and more and more. 

Some don't. There's a bit of concern about that, whether that they, I think there's a bit of concern maybe that the creative aspect will be removed if we're relying on AI for marketing messages and maybe it won't hit home for their particular customer base, but I think those are the basic adoptions I've seen so far with some of our customers and some of our potential customers that we talk to. Yeah, I think that's right really regarding, I think often using ChatGPT and other such tools, I think when people expect it to be almost a panacea that they can put in something and get a great marketing spiel back, the key thing for me is tone of voice and I think often it delivers back a tone of voice that isn't necessarily aligned to the brand.

It's rather like you can go online and get AI to create some wonderful images and you can go onto Unsplash and all these libraries, but if they don't align, photo libraries, if they don't align with your brand and what you're trying to say, they can often be very dissonant and I think although undoubtedly AI will get better, I think working on tone of voice for marketing messages is, for me, is still a little bit away from where it needs to be from a marketing perspective to get it really nailed right so it feels like it's an organic outpouring of your brand really. We're starting to get some more interest in image creation and things like that, so whether it's creating a new logo or some images for marketing, so ChatGPT is now doing this and there's a couple of other providers. I think also it's early stages there as well. 

We've tried it ourselves, a bit of a plug for the business, but recently we've introduced two light versions of Booking Autopilot, really intended for when there's only a few sensors in the franchise or a single center. When we developed those, I thought let's see what ChatGPT can suggest for some logos or slightly different logos for Booking Autopilot Light, so I fed ChatGPT the information, gave it our existing logo and it took about 10 minutes and then said your image is ready, download. I downloaded the image and the image was supposed to be for Booking Autopilot Light.

All I saw was our Booking Autopilot logo and I had to zoom in, in, in, in about 10 times and I saw a little word, light, almost like a dot, a single pixel that you could hardly see. I asked ChatGPT after that, can you please have another go because it's too small. Let's see if you can do something else and it basically gave me the same thing and then the third time it said we're having trouble doing this. 

So I think it's early stages for imagery as well and there are some more sophisticated tools but I think that's where it will head as well for marketing, not just the messaging but also the imagery. Yeah and the other thing is with regards to, I mean Nick, you mentioned earlier about music creation and things like that. How far do you think we are going to go in terms of being able to produce more than just some fancy text and some images? Are we going to be in the realm of creating music and being able to even code music to the stage where we become independent creators without even thinking about it? Yeah, absolutely. 

I mean, one of the big challenges in the music industry now is Spotify being filled with AI-created music and not only AI-created music, which cynically some people say, although I'm not accusing them of that, Spotify are very keen to have in-house stuff and things they develop because it means they pay license fees to other people. But there's a whole thing now that often hedge fund backed companies will put lots of money into mass generating music which then gets people who are trying to get copyrighted. So I think there was a very famous Ed Sheeran case, a few Ed Sheeran cases, poor lad, where people said he had ripped off other people's songs.

But the song structure musically of playing the first chord in the scale and then chord five and then chord four, there are only a certain amount of songs that you can write and you can nuance them and have slightly different melodies. But ultimately, there are a certain amount of songs and all the Ed Sheeran cases were thrown out. But the avaricious hedge funds in the music industry are actually going on, recording music, copywriting it, and then putting copyright strikes out against people on YouTube and things saying, we own that piece of music, we've generated it, you owe us money. 

So that's recently been thrown out, I believe, as a situation on that. But yeah, it is becoming incredibly, incredibly sophisticated. And I wear multiple hats, as I said, one of which is as a creator, in music and film and TV, and I'm very mindful about that aspect of it. 

But on the other hand, much like Mark, I use AI, I have a business on the software side, and I'm using more and more AI now, not client facing, but more really helping processes of how we do things in the background. So yeah, interesting times, I think. And is this something that the activity providers and franchisees who are listening to this should be excited about, nervous about? Or do you think there's a fine line? It is a fine line. 

But I think it's like any disruptive technologies. I think there's a lot of incredibly exciting things out there. And I think people, you know, our listeners will be very scared about what it may mean. 

I think, ultimately, probably nine times out of 10, they're about delivering real world experiences to people. And so it's about how they can embrace that to help them up their game and be more profitable, and get their message across better. So I think, as a sector, possibly, they are well placed to not be scared of it and to embrace it. 

Because it can be useful to so many things in your life. Everything from marketing to asking more information about any subject matter, it's like a Google on steroids, I often find. And like all things, even online, you have to be very wary about what you get back. 

And the analogy I've heard, somebody once told me, which I think is really great, is from a business perspective, use it as you would do your... So you would say, can you go off and do this for me? And then when it brought it back, you wouldn't just publish it or use it. You would sanity check it. Is it right? Is it the right tone for what I'm trying to do? And I think that's a great analogy. 

And I think from the perspective of not necessarily children's activity providers, but from a children's perspective of getting anywhere close to that, I do think you have to be very careful. Because it comes across sometimes as very definitive and knowing all the right answers. But AI hallucinates. 

And I've often had instances where it's given me something so emphatically, so sure that this is right and it's patently wrong. And I think there've been some very famous cases of situations like that. And so, yeah, I think from a kid's point of view of interfacing with AI, I think there's a lot of safety guards we need to put in there really yet. 

Brilliant. So at the moment, you're only really seeing marketing and time-saving stuff. And you think we're still at the early adopter sort of stage? Or do you think most businesses in this sector are getting into it somehow? I would personally. 

It's like anything. If you're scared of it, and I think a lot of people will be, they will be very wary of it. But in the same way that nobody's wary of typing something into Google now and getting an answer back. 

You just have to embrace it and question it, I think. There's uses for it in every business, I think. Yeah, that was going to be my next question in terms of what do they have to be wary of? From my experience, hallucinations, I think there have been dreadful stories where I think it was Google Gemini recommended that some person should take the life, which is appalling and very insulting. 

That is obviously, hopefully, very few and far between. It's not those kind of issues and fears I think the media put about, although those do happen. But I think it's just like anything. 

Would you believe everything you read off the internet? No. Basically, it's a synthesis and distillation of lots of stuff on the internet delivered as an answer. But that doesn't always have to be right.

As I say, I've found it to hallucinate, particularly on more code-related issues and more technical issues rather than facts, although it still gets factual. What did your survey say, Mark? Can you elaborate a bit more on the details of the survey you did and the attitudes and insights it gave? My survey went out. It was anonymous. 

Respondents answered anonymously and it went out to franchisors, so whether there was a franchisor or head of franchise that managed at least 15 separate franchisees, and to the franchisees themselves. So, all up, I had a mix of around 100 respondents. Quite surprising results. 

My survey was trying to find out, as I say, attitudes on the whole to AI, the attitude to adopting AI, whether their concerns or whether people were unsure about it. On that respect, I think roughly 60% of franchisors and franchisees were in favor of it and approximately 30% unsure, and there was around 10% that were completely against it. That 10% was completely comprised of franchisees, so all the franchisors that answered my survey were either a little unsure or very much in favor of adopting AI. 

I think from there, the unsure aspect is quite telling to me. I think it's still early days and there's probably a little bit of a lack of understanding about, firstly, what's out there, and that's with me as well because things are developing and changing every day. Also, what does it really mean for my business, my franchise? Will it replace someone working in head office or will it bring more risks? Those were the kind of questions that came back to me. 

I thought that was the education piece, I think, is really important. They're asking for more insights and education. I think perhaps we can be part of the source of that, trying to stay on top. 

It's not really the AI they're scared of, it's the change. Yeah. I think the change in the unknown, the unknown about what it is, what it can actually be used for. 

I asked as well, I was trying to get a sense of, number one, how does the importance of AI sit in amongst other tools and had a bit of a tilt towards platforms and the tech that helps the company. I was trying to gauge where does AI sit in the importance or the importance scale compared to things like training videos or case studies or even phone support. And whilst it came out as the most important consideration, but only slightly above things like basic phone support was considered almost as important as AI as a potential support tool.

And this is what I mentioned earlier. I think we don't want to discount some of the fundamental tools that are already available in favor of AI and get swept up in this way. I think it's very important to stay on top of it, the trends, what's happening, what will be useful, but it doesn't mean switching off or forgetting about some of those other things.

I jumped in a bit further to understand from different AI tools, what the attitude would be or what the perceived importance of those AI tools would be to franchisors and franchisees. Those tools, for example, might be number one, admin or task-related AI, and that might be automatically sending invoices or updated invoices or data entry, those sort of very basic functions that are typically time-heavy tasks. Other things like automated marketing. 

So, where the marketing is not only automated, but targeted based on changes in customer behavior or demographics or things like that, where the machine learning is actually ticking around in the background to develop, learn, and update the marketing in real time. Other things such as predictive and prescriptive analytics came across as really important. Predictive analytics is essentially reviewing the data of the franchise and forecasting a trend or even suggesting that something might be a problem now or in the near future. 

One of those things might be, you've got a studio here in this location, we're seeing enrollments drop 20% for the last two terms. We're predicting that that will continue because of X, Y, Z factors. So, that's a predictive analytics AI. 

Prescriptive analytics is taking that a step further. It's basically taking that predictive outcome and saying, here's an issue or trend that we see that's a problem, but here's a suggested solution or set of solutions for it. So, I might say your enrollments are dropping, our suggested solution or the suggested result should be a marketing campaign to those customers that we see likely at risk of not re-enrolling for next term. 

So, these sort of things came across as really important to both franchisors and franchisees, but they did want more information about it because I think it's difficult to understand, especially and think about in a quick survey, how can this really hit home for my business? Where are the blind spots in terms of the data sales data, the operational data, and what can AI actually digest and come back to me with suggestions or at least problems? So, it was quite a high level survey, but drawing out some of these aspects was quite useful for us as a business to start thinking about, well, there's more to AI that we think that the children's activity sector can use above and beyond marketing or chatbots. And is it, Nick, just on the prescriptive and predictive analytics, presumably that's something that kind of, you know, piqued your interest given the stuff that you've been... Absolutely, yeah. Add to that because, you know, I personally find that really, really fascinating. 

Do you want to elaborate? Absolutely. I mean, one of the things we're doing from the software side for a variety of businesses, but obviously, we're, you know, we're very interested in this sector from my background and other things, is using a platform by Microsoft called Power BI, which is an incredibly powerful online data visualization platform that can pull data from a variety of sources. So, you could find correlation, for example, between your marketing and your signups on hooking that into Google Analytics to try and understand how your web works. 

So, looking at the whole thing as a whole ecosystem. And Microsoft, I think, now are starting to have the ability to plug that into external things. Obviously, Microsoft have their own co-pilot model, which is very useful, which, again, is starting to offer those kind of predictive scenarios in there. 

But one of the... Without delving too deep for your audience, because I don't think it's necessarily relevant, but there's a couple of developments in... And Mark, I'm sure, will know more than me. There's a couple of developments in the world of how AI talks to each other, the first of which is called MCP, which is kind of like a connection technology that enables all these different AIs to talk to each other. In the past, you can go in and ask a question to chat GTP, and you can plug it into your software and things into your backend.

But this enables you to write your own workflows that do things, which is very useful. And again, that can only add more power into writing workflows that really can help understand how your business works. And probably the big step forward really is this thing called agentic AI, which is where it's taking the predictive thing to the next level. 

So an MCP will allow you to go through a process and maybe bring the first certain amount of records back from a database and analyze them and put them into the whole process. Agentic AI has agency. So each of these bits are all plugged together, are all smart. 

So not only will it perform a process from A to Z, but it will decide which way to go. And so these things now are becoming incredible. It's the kind of next stage, I believe. 

Although we're starting to use MCPs on things, this is the kind of thing that possibly people have always feared, which is that the robots are taking over the world. And it's not the case, but each one of these is able to reason and function in a way that understands them, pass it on to the next thing. And so you are not only getting them to do a process, but use their own judgment based on experience as to what the end result is. 

So being predictive, really. Yeah, that kind of brings me on to my next question, really, that where do you see the next stage for this stuff and the practical applications for that? Yeah, I think, as Mark was saying, the whole thing about chatbots and stuff is historically, recently, been very much, if somebody says this, then do that. And I think anybody who's had the frustration of trying to connect with a bank online and just had ridiculous kind of chatbots that are useless, then to say that they're supposed to be AI will be pleased that those things are hopefully being phased out and more intelligence is involved. 

Because nine times out of 10, if I'm on with my bank, after two minutes, I'll just say, can I speak to a human? Because it's just, you never get anywhere. So I think being able to utilize those tools, I'm sure the tools that Mark's building to help his clients and the stuff that we're doing, by being able to tap into more power and more intelligence, a lot of the AI tools we're using in software development have mean that I no longer outsource stuff. I used to outsource a fair bit to India, but it just means now that you can be a lot more productive and 10X a lot of your performance with being smarter and being more efficient and faster. 

And I think those things will ultimately filter down to our listeners, businesses and audiences. But as Mark said earlier, it's nothing to be rushed into. I think you need to try and understand how it all plugs into the world and how it can be a tool for good and not a tool as people fear that are going to take people's jobs and the robots are running the world.

I agree with all of that. And I think for us, number one is understanding what the demand is and what will really help the businesses. But also then if we recognize that there's a gap or a solution that's in demand, how do you integrate it into the platform? Because customers don't want 50 different platforms or I'm sure they don't want to have to go off to chat GPT or another program. 

And particularly when you look at predictive or prescriptive analytics and data, you have to be really careful about data that we take out of our system with real customer data and plugging it or pasting it into other systems. You need to be very confident about security. So it's about making sure those environments are safe, that it's integrated easy for customers.

And our end goal is to have everything within the one platform to make that available and simple. So it's number one, what is the tool? What is the demand? But also then what's the experience for our customers using that? And I think from the predictive point of view, just like I said about hallucinations on chat GTP, you need to be sure that the predictions and stuff are coming on. Data's great, but really all data is and data visualization is giving you tools to take action.

And so yeah, you do with all these things, without advice from anybody or advice from what, digital advice or advice from people, you use what you need to use and don't use whatever else. And ultimately having strong data that with all systems put together that is smart is a really good way forward. So just kind of summing up, what would be a kind of advice to someone or a business in this early stage or with their AI? What would you say to them? Or give us one really great tool that you would recommend someone to use.

So then maybe a bra from chat GPT that someone listening to this might think, that sounds great. I'm going to give that a try and have a bit of fun with it. I think there are lots of, from my point of view, I think there are lots of, it's a kind of buzzword, isn't it? Every software company that's got a subscription, they're trying to sell you things or trying to keep members from Canva to whatever.

They're all plugging in their own versions of AI into everything. And yeah, I mean, my view is to a listener, if you haven't, and I know you said to exclude chat GPT, Mike, but I do think if you've never fiddled with it, just talk to it and just try to engage and see what is possible. But most tools I think, and any entrepreneurs or franchisors in this space will undoubtedly believe in many, many tools to deliver their businesses, all of which I'm sure will have AI in some way. 

And I think it's just trying to understand by engaging with those tools, just how it can help. You're going to be very boring, Mark, and also say chat GPT. There's lots of others to play with.

What I'm starting to like about chat GPT, it's beginning to offer different responses in two columns as it goes based on two different engines, and you can actually compare the results. So that's quite interesting to see. And there are significant variations in those responses.

I'm starting to enjoy those different responses and base my preferences there on certain ones. So I think play around with chat GPT more, even for imagery, they're constantly updating. So that's one I'm keeping my eye on. 

But if I had to sum it up, I'd say as I did earlier, I wouldn't get worried or get swept up because AI is all the talk, all the rage these days. It's important. It's coming. 

We can't hide from it. But I think what is really important is to think about some of the other fundamentals of running a business as well that might not also be available through AI. So for us, we look at the big corporates that have marketing life cycles and huge marketing ecosystems built into all of their products.

You know, as well as I do, being banking customers, the banks know your age, they know your life cycle, you'll get marketed to accordingly. And a lot of it works. But I think in our industry, we're a little behind in those types of technologies. 

So there's some fundamental things along marketing that we can focus on before AI even, and even looking at data to get really good predictive and prescriptive analytics out of AI, you need good data. So a question is, is that data there available for the business? And is it timely? Is it real time and available to make quick decisions? I think getting those ducks lined up is important before. It's only as good as how it's used. 

Is that what you're saying as well? Are you saying it's only really as good as how it's used? Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, theoretically, AI will be able to tell you if it needs more data and what it needs and give you some feedback on that as well. But I think, yeah, it's the quality of input, particularly with data, which will determine what AI can do with it and the results you get. 

And I think that's absolutely right. I mean, we've just been working with a on a Power BI project. And the problem has been that the data not only was the no API on the system, so we had to kind of put something together to get the data out of the system.

But just the data in it needed tweaking. It wasn't right. And so I think it's the old famous computer phrase, garbage in, garbage out, I think sometimes is very apt. 

And yeah, you can only build on what you know is canonical, strong data. Something else I remember that is a really fun AI project that you guys may have heard of, and your listeners may be aware of, or maybe not. And it's a product by Google called Notebook LM. 

And Notebook LM is fascinating in that, obviously, Google have a product called Gemini, which is very much like ChatGPT, where you go and ask a question, give your stuff back. Notebook LM is interesting in that you can upload documents to it. And you can put links to websites and put some context and stuff of the questions. 

And not only will it give you what they call a note back, a piece of information that synthesizes all those pieces of information into a piece of output, but quite apt, considering what we're doing at the moment. But it also produces a podcast style conversation, which is fascinating, because you can download it and listen to it in the car. And you can change the voices on it, you can do all other things. 

But yeah, it's very interesting. And the fascinating thing about it is the quality of the voices of the two people talking about your project. And you can even interject, and you can even say, when they're talking to you about your product, there was a YouTube video, some guy was doing about a holiday somewhere, and they synthesize all this information to the podcast. 

And then you can interrupt it and ask it a question, and then it will come back with an answer. So it's fascinating, kind of like what we're doing here, but with the AI bots taking over. But it's great, because you can then download that, listen to that in the car, and, you know, as you're driving somewhere. 

So fun piece of technology that's, you know, how useful it is, ultimately, more than ChatGPT, or Claude Anthropic, or any of those other ones, who knows, but it's a bit of fun. Yeah, and you've also touched on the fact that, you know, you've mentioned audio quite a bit there, Nick, and I think we are moving into an age now where a lot of people do have screen fatigue. So audio is becoming a massive new marketing trend, because people just want to throw in their earpods, go for a walk with the dog, and consume content that way. 

I agree, I'm sure, you know, I'm a massive consumer of podcasts, and it was great fun to be on this podcast today. But yeah, absolutely, I think it's a great way. And as I say, you know, even if you listen to a YouTube video, just to check it out, this quality of the voices, and the interactions, and the little kind of isms, and pauses, and stuff between the two, it's astonishing, in the same way that ChatGPT's latest image modeling is astounding.

It really is, you know, you would not believe your eyes. And that's the problem, and I think that's what a lot of people are afraid of, you know, fake pictures, fake everything else. And yes, there is always going to be that with technology, and you know, VHS was going to kill the film industry, TV was going to kill the film industry, you know, CDs were going to kill music, and you'd never play like, you know, all those, we've come through all those things with technology, and you know, and arguably are in a better place for using that technology to improve our lives, and improve our businesses. 

And I think, yeah, once it settles down, and people embrace it, I'm really excited, even as a creator who's scared about IP, I think, you know, I'm really excited about what it could bring to everybody listening. Yeah, I mean, you know, from my perspective, I'm seeing some clients who are really adopters of this stuff, they're doing some amazing, yeah, really impressive films, time saving, marketing, you know, systems, processes, workflows, you know, saving time, money, you know, getting more expertise, but I think Mark's point, you know, really resonated with me, still got to get the fundamentals. Absolutely, yeah. 

It's a tool like anything else, it's absolutely a tool like anything else. Unlike other tools, if you don't, you know, if you went from the days of running manual books to running, you know, Sage or Xero, that was a massive, that was a tool to use to help you be a lot better, and AI is in the same way. But like all technologies, as I say, you know, from from VHS to CDs, to whatever, to digital cameras, that there's always been fear around it. 

And, but yeah, there's no, I'm, ultimately, I'm a businessman first. And, you know, I've been in business of creativity all my career, but I'm a businessman. And so I, yeah, business principles first are absolutely, you know, important.

Anything else to sum up, guys? Or do you want me to hand over to Mike to sum up? No, I think I'm spoken in this nonsense. It's a huge area, isn't it? We could talk about it, couldn't we? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

And there could be updates in a week that give us a new topic to discuss. So lots of that. We'll get you back on.

Yeah, I mean, that is, it is astonishing, the speed that things move. And I'm sure. Yeah, I spoke to someone the other day, who's, yeah, sorry, sorry to interrupt. 

I spoke to someone the other day who's, you know, she's involved with administration at university, and said the problem they're having with the kind of the computer science course, is that by the time they put the syllabus together and they're teaching it, it's out of date. And the students are saying, look, this is old stuff we're being taught. Why are we learning this stuff when, you know, it's moving so fast that the lecturers and the universities can't keep up and they're charging students 10,000 pounds a year or more for stuff that's a year out of date or whatever. 

So it's hard to keep up with this stuff, isn't it? But I think the key thing I'm getting out from you two is just embrace it at your own, at your own speed, and learn it and get expertise. And, you know, it's coming into the sector. Either way, you know, you can either use it and embrace it or find it harder to compete with. 

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's one of those things, you know, if you leave it for two years, then you, you know, as we've just talked about, it's such a fast moving thing that, you know, you want it more to catch up. And I think, you know, yeah, embrace it, I think. 

Yeah, brilliant. I think, I think that's been a really great conversation. We've focused on the, the fun, the highs, the positives of what this is going to bring, especially for our sector. 

I believe that the opportunities are endless because we are dealing with creativity. We create, we've got music, we've got fun things happening, and AI is just going to help us along that journey. And I think we could have easily quite, you know, spoken about the negative stuff, the scary stuff, but, you know, let's leave that to the lawyers. 

I think that's something for another time. I think focusing on the good stuff and how it's going to help us is a really great topic. And, you know, Nick, Mark, I'm going to put all of your show notes, or sorry, all of your links into the show notes so people can get in touch with you. 

But I'll hand it back over to you two for any final words. Just give us a great little closing statement for our listeners, if you will. We'll start with you, Nick. 

Yeah, I think, yeah, grasp the nettle. Seize the day is not as bad as you think. And I think you, you can really, you know, do some fun things that will help you, you'll drive your business forward.

And how about you, Mark? I think don't, don't be afraid if, if, if AI's one of those things that you're, you're separated from a little bit, or it's still quite new to, I think the basics, just go to chat GPT, it's free, play around, see what it can do, whether it's for personal or business reasons, you know, play around with it, see what it can do. But don't be scared. And just the other point, I'd say, don't, don't let AI be the be all and end all. 

There's, there's other, other basics to, to get right in the business as well, that AI can certainly supplement you. And I think a lot of people marketing services and, you know, particularly software companies, the, the next widget to help you with your franchise business or, or, or whatever the, the big, the big American ones are always going to try and sell, sell that to you that it's very, you know, the bit you'd be missing. But I think as we talked about earlier, you know, you, you by all means experiment and try it, but, you know, yeah, it's, it's just trying to get it right for your business. 

Cool. Yeah. It's a cherry on the cake. 

It's not the cake. Yeah, absolutely. Right. 

Absolutely. Right. Great. 

I'll let you close it off then, Mark. Yeah. If I'd just like to thank Nick and Mark for participating and Mike for the hosting thing as ever, I think it's been a really interesting subject to discuss. 

We've barely scratched the surface, but I think the most important thing is people just, you know, I agree with pretty much everything you guys have said and just start to embrace it because, you know, most of the people that I'm seeing do some incredible things. They're not software engineers, they're not computer experts. They've, that's the great thing about this thing. 

It doesn't mean yet, it means you don't have to code anymore. They can create some amazing things that would really help, help them. And you've got to start, start somewhere and you can just keep testing and everything. 

So yeah, just start somewhere and keep going. Yeah. So thanks for your time guys. 

I really, really appreciate it. No problem. Welcome. 

Thank you.