Most companies are "sprinkling AI" onto old processes when the real wins come from throwing the process in the garbage and rebuilding it. 

In this episode of Content Amplified, Paul Schmidt, VP of AI and Innovation at SmartBug Media, an elite HubSpot agency partner, maps the AI adoption bell curve he sees across the thousand-plus companies SmartBug has worked with: early adopters who figured it out on their own, a chunky middle leaning on embedded features like auto-written subject lines, and laggards in litigious industries like finance and healthcare. Paul shares the practical playbook for moving up the curve: 30-minute audits with department leaders to surface bottlenecks and mundane processes, process mapping as the prerequisite for real AI maturity ("you're going to need a process for mapping processes"), and building agents early just to learn what they can and cannot do. He also explains how his roughly 200-person org went from nobody sharing AI use cases, out of fear of getting in trouble, to about five shared in Slack every day. If you want a clear picture of where your team sits on the AI curve and the next step to take, this episode is your map.

About Paul

Paul Schmidt is the VP of AI and Innovation at SmartBug Media, one of the few elite HubSpot agency partners in the world. In his role he oversees AI fluency and adoption for the SmartBug team, builds internal agents and tools that streamline the agency's processes, and develops new AI service offerings for clients. He has spent more than a decade in consulting, working directly with clients on CRM onboarding, growing their marketing teams, and building pipeline through marketing campaigns. If it touches the HubSpot ecosystem, Paul is your go-to guy.

Show Notes

• Connect with Paul on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drumming/
• Paul's website: paulschmidt.com

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