Beyond Data Management Podcast
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Beyond Data Management Podcast
A First Look at Wiley: AFDO's New AI - Ep38 Jason Brill
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In our June 1st episode AFDO Executive Director Steve Mandernach gave us a teaser that a new AI for food safety and health regulators was going to be debuted at the upcoming AFDO conference in Columbus Ohio.
The unveiling has happened, and Wiley is smart. Jason Brill from AFDO joins us to give us an exclusive deep dive into this powerful new tool.
You can ask Wiley yourself at https://afdo.org/askwiley and you can reach Jason at jbrill@afdo.org
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This is the Beyond Data Management Podcast powered by HS GovTech.
SPEAKER_00Now here's your host, Cameron Garrison. Welcome back, EH Regulatory Nation. Welcome back to another episode here. We, you know, we just recently got done with the AFTO conference. And I actually I my life has come to this. I will tell you all at the front at the top. Like the the we really appreciate the number of people that are watching the content on the channel, but can't help but notice that as that viewership grows, a lot of y'all aren't subscribed. So I'm gonna nag you about it. Subscribe, it helps us also help you all get more content. Uh and there's a lot of exciting stuff coming up in the back half of the year. Cannot believe the year's halfway over. But it was a really great AFTO conference this year. And one of the things that Afto did that's really smart and is gonna, I think, be very exciting into the future as it grows, is to integrate their own AI into their platform. And Steve, uh on his much-watched episode uh a few weeks ago, teased it as wily. And so now that it's been unveiled and we can actually talk about it and look at it, we have Jason Brill, the communications director from AFTO here with us. Uh Jason, thank you first of all for taking some time. And it was a phenomenal conference. Have you gotten your uh gotten caught up and gotten your sleep caught up yet?
SPEAKER_04Uh well, thanks for having me, Cameron. Uh no. Um I I have not. Uh I'm still actually feeling a little bit of the adrenaline from the conference. So I feel like I'm I'm still going on that. Uh there, you know, you know what it's like after conference. There's a lot to catch up on. And while it's all fresh in your mind, you want to make sure that you are getting down all your notes and and doing everything and and making sure that you take care of some of the interesting conversations that you had. So I feel like I'm still like in that mode. This weekend I plan on just barely existing.
SPEAKER_00Me too. It's funny. I have this, I think, mortal fear or nightmare of missing something in the follow-up because you end up starting so many great conversations and you promise each other we'll get back to that later in the week. Though it never happens. And I never want to be in the scenario where I forgot to then follow up and I see them next year at the conference, and it dawns on me, oh man, we never kind of closed the loop on that other thing. And it happened a couple of times, which is why I have that fear of it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I hear you. So it happened to me too.
SPEAKER_00It was uh I you know it's funny. We were talking about before we were rolling that um it was the best conference ever. And actually, that those were the words I used to describe it in some readouts afterwards. And but you pointed out that you all have that conundrum and or say that quite frequently, and I have too. I said it last year about the conference, and so I guess it means they just keep getting better and better.
SPEAKER_04Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, and we just keep finding every year we find little ways or big ways or medium ways to just kind of continue to make the experience better for everyone else, for us to get better at doing it. Uh, and so it's really fine to look at those ways to see how we can do this better.
SPEAKER_00And you guys do get also, I told Steve this when he was on recently. I also really appreciate that you get really nice hotels. You know, cost is obviously always a consideration, but there's one thing you can count on every year is afto is gonna be at a pretty decent hotel. And uh I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, yeah. We don't get to spend much time in the rooms, right? Because there's just so much great stuff going on. But uh it's nice to know that when you get back up there, it's a it's a nice, comfortable room. And in the meeting spaces, they're always really great. This year, you know, I'm sure you'll agree, they felt really spacious. It felt like you could move around, um, but you still didn't miss a lot of that sort of interpersonal.
SPEAKER_00No, that convention center was huge, but it it was uh easy to interact with, and you're right, it didn't separate people. It was really, really, really well done. Columbus was a great host city. Uh Columbus is one of those sleeper cities. Every time I go there, I'm like, Oh, yeah, I always forget about Columbus, but it's it's a it's a great Midwest city there. So you all like the AI workshop was great, but you all aren't just uh doing the enablement of workshops and conversation. You actually have been on the battlefield doing and have released the Wiley, which is named after the actually known as father of the FDA, and it got announced. So Steve didn't want to step on your announcements at AFDO, so he teased it. Um but I was there for the announcement while the announcement was in progress. I downloaded it and played with it. Um it's really, really cool. So thought it'd be great to have you back to tell the audience about Wiley because one of the things about AI is that it's really important for people to engage with it and use it. It doesn't cost anything. And because that's what keeps training it and making it sharper and better, right? So I thought maybe we could talk about it and hopefully get some people to give it a try if they haven't already and uh and see what it can do for them.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I would love that. Uh you know, just some some quick background. Um, a year and a half or two years ago, the uh uh at a recent board meeting, our board decided to make one of our priorities to uh embrace AI and find ways to make it easier for regulatory programs to use it, to improve the work that they do and improve public health. And and this covers many different ways to use AI. And this is just one that we're doing, one of you know, one of several that we're looking into, but this is one that we wanted to implement on our website. You know, website search, searching within a website, not Google search, sometimes could be kind of hit or miss. Um and we wanted, there's so many really great resources on afto.org that we wanted to make sure that people were finding the things that they needed to as quickly and easy as possible. If you're a regulator or an inspector in the field, you're working on an iPad, you're working on your phone, and you don't really have time to fumble around, and it's not super easy on some of those small screens to fumble around looking for some of the guidances and resources that we have on our site. And so this was kind of our way to make that a little bit easier.
SPEAKER_00It's really smart. So as it is released now, and I'm sure you have a roadmap probably for where you see it going as well. How would you describe what you would tell the average person, let's say in regulatory, um, that hey, don't think Google, think wily. Kind of what's the the prime use case at initial launch?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so the prime use case right now is that it is trained on all of our YouTube content. So any webinars that we've done, any conference sessions, for example, that we've posted on YouTube when we get permission to do that, it's trained on all of that. So if there's been you know new inspector, you know, inspector training, it's got that information. So if you ask a question related to that, it's gonna give you the answer based on that. It's also uh trained on our A to Z resources page, which has hundreds, maybe thousands of resources, hand washing guidance, uh uh aseptic canning packaging guidance, um, all of that stuff. It's trained on our training. Uh so if you're looking for upcoming training, depending on whatever topic you're looking for, uh, you could ask it for train upcoming training in that field. And if we don't have anything, it might suggest on-demand training that we have, so webinars that we have. It's also trained on several of our directories. So one of the really cool things that we have on the AFTO site is our Connect with Experts tab. And so that's got a directory of state and local officials, it's got a retail program manager directory, it's got a subject matter expert directory, and a processing authority directory. Uh Wiley is trained on all of those. So as I'll show you, uh we'll do a quick demo, but you can say, hey, I need an aseptic canning uh subject matter expert or processing authority, and it will spit their contact information at you. And then you can, with like with any other LLM, you can say, okay, help me craft an email to one of these folks uh asking for you know SOPs on on that topic.
SPEAKER_00That is that's actually really practical for even someone in the field, right? Like for certain instances, they can go right to their smartphone, ask Wiley.
SPEAKER_04Yes, right, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Where do you see it going over time? Is there is there and if you can't if it's not publicly announceable, I get it, but are there some other things you guys have in the in the hopper that you think kind of extends naturally in the future from it?
SPEAKER_04You know, I think uh I think it'll just get smarter. We've got other areas of the website that we can train it on. Uh we have a whole publications section of the website that we would you know ideally train it on. As we start rolling out more training opportunities, those will be included so it can help people uh find the training that they're looking for. You know, next year with the launch so close to conference, uh we didn't have the chance to really deeply integrate Wiley in the conference. And so I would hope that you know next year, and I think we should plan on next year making that integration a little bit closer so you can ask Wiley direct questions about the conference and get help.
SPEAKER_00That's a great idea.
SPEAKER_04Maybe I'm you know, I'm a retail program manager, I'm a retail food safety inspector, and uh help me pick out the best sessions uh at AEC to take. And and so I think I think that's not you know too out there or extreme for it to do. Beyond that, I don't know, we'll have to see like how much smarter or how much wiser Wiley gets.
SPEAKER_00Well, I think you came prepared and really appreciate it to actually give us a a peek at it. Um so um yeah, let's let's show everybody uh how however you want to play with it here because uh and I really encourage everybody who's watching or listening, we will put a link to it in the description, download it, play with it, use it. It's a great resource. They're not asking for you to pay money to use it, and just keep in mind that it's the uh usage and the more interactions it gets, the smarter it gets. So you actually are helping train it to a degree.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you know, one of the important things with Wiley uh was that you don't have to be a member to use it. You know, you could join afto, and we love it when people do because it makes it so that we can do more things. But if you're not a member or you are a member, you get the same Wiley experience. And you know, we think that that's uh really important. So uh so here we are, we're just on the Afto homepage right now. There's a few different ways that you can get to Wiley. One of them is you can see him down here in the corner, uh, is a little ask Wiley the owl. Uh we went with an owl because you know, owls are wise and knowledgeable and help you find the things that you're looking for. Uh so it just seems like a pretty great fit. So if I click Wiley down here, I get to his landing page. Um so here is the uh chat window you can start with. Uh we've also got some sections down here uh to browse by topics. So if you click any of these, it will just pop that question into Wiley and you could start your conversation. And then if we scroll a little bit further down, we have some more information about Wiley and some tips for uh the best results. He's in a couple other places. So if you go to our search page, he's there now. Uh he is also on our contact us page. And if you go to our A to Z resources page that I was talking about earlier, there is a search resources function that's always kind of been there. Now, if you search for hand washing guidance, everyone's gonna see how terrible I am at spelling things probably, and you hit search, uh, that opens a Wiley chat as well. Uh so there's a couple different ways to get to him. Another easy one is just afto.org slash askwily, and that gets you right to his landing page. Uh so I typed in hand washing guidance, and here's everything he gave me. So you could kind of go through all of these. Uh it'll, like I said, it'll link to some of our webinars. Uh it'll be trained on the FDA food code that we have available either through webinars or uh linked on our site. You know, he's he's a closed loop. So at uh Wiley is a closed loop. He's only trained on our content. So if we have a PDF that we're linking out to from a state agency or from the FDA, he's gonna send you to that link. He cannot be trained on that link since it's not an afto.org link. Uh, but if there's any other information that we have on that page, he'll be trained on that and then kick you to the actual guidance.
SPEAKER_00Very cool. That's actually really important, right? Because um you're not just laying something on top of like Chat GPT or or one of the other frameworks. This is purpose-built, and it only knows what you've allowed it to know, which is verifiable data from within the AFTO ecosystem.
SPEAKER_04Right, exactly. And like any other chatbot, though, you know, you know, you need to check, you know, follow up on stuff. It's not like you know, the you know, the rule of law or the word of God or anything. So you still have to check some things, but based on AFTO, on AFTO info and afto resources, this is you know, this is the best information that you've got. So you can also go up here to start a new conversation. Uh so I thought we could start with um let's start with uh aseptic canning.
SPEAKER_03So let's ask it if I need an aseptic canning subject matter. And so that little flashing uh bar is tells us that Wiley is thinking.
SPEAKER_04And so here are some food some food processing authorities uh for aseptic processing, packaging, and canned foods. Uh it's got email addresses, phone numbers, and then it'll take you directly to their link in our directory. Uh it can also narrow down to uh low acid canned foods, acidified canned foods, beverage aseptic processing, and more. US that is really cool. In this recommended resources section, which is at the bottom of every answer, you can find out where it's pulling this information from.
SPEAKER_00So we could, you know, let's let's ask about US versus Canada based versus That is really powerful to be able to get a list, because yeah, if you were trying to Google for those, it would take you forever.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so now it's broken out into US versus um versus Canada. So you can ask it, okay, so maybe I want to reach out to Wilfredo, so help me craft an email to Wilfredo about and this is where we're gonna uh bump into my lack of knowledge on a lot of food safety items, so bear with me. Um but help me craft an email to Wilfredo about crafting SOPs for let's say aseptic packaging.
SPEAKER_03And while he is thinking for us.
SPEAKER_04So just like any kind of other LLM that you will use, like it could craft an email for you, you could fill in the blanks, um, and then you could just you know hit the copy down here, and then you've got an email that you can paste in your email and make your own tweaks and personalize it in the ways that you want to. But like that's a pretty cool aspect. It's it can answer these questions for you, but then also help you with the outreach, which I think is really cool. And honestly, something that people expect from an LLM.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think so many people now, well, in fact, with like Google products and Microsoft too, it's embedded, right? It'll like give you the underline to tell you that you could have said that better. I think people are really becoming very reliant on well, help me convey the message.
SPEAKER_04Right. Right, right. So we can okay, so here's another cool one. Uh how about uh this is one of the features that I really think is cool.
SPEAKER_03So I need hand washing guidance in Spanish.
SPEAKER_04So one of the cool features that we have in A-Z resources is we have a big language translation section. I think there's more than 50 plus languages, uh, different food safety documents, posters, signs, stuff like that, all in these different languages.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's really cool.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so here we have uh all of these now posters, signs, fact sheets, and guidance. So we can go ahead and click on that, and that'll take us to a Spanish language document about hand washing that you can then you know share with uh share with restaurants, share with retail locations, stuff like that, just to help them.
SPEAKER_00I'm a retail inspector, I'm out in the field and I am like these people need some some information. I could literally go to it there and then email them, it looks like that attachment with the hand washing criteria in a language that that they will understand it in.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, right, exactly. You could download it, send it to them, you could send them the link. Um, and uh, I'm not going to try to type in Spanish, but you can also talk to Wiley in dozens of languages, and it will understand them, reply in that language if you need it to, and help you find everything, you know, help you find stuff that you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00So I know we're off the road here, and neither of us, it sounds like are uh confident speaking Spanish, but what happens if you like say Oa to it?
SPEAKER_03Will it speak back in Spanish? I know. Wow, it does.
SPEAKER_00That's really cool. Because what I like about that is it's not pressed one for English, two for Spanish. You just sit down and start talking to it in whatever language you speak, as long as it's one of the several dozen it sounds like that that it can interact in.
SPEAKER_04Right, right.
SPEAKER_00Very cool.
SPEAKER_04Uh it's it's yeah, it's really neat. So one other one that I like that's kind of cool, uh, that c can highlight some of Apto's training resources. Okay, say I'm a I'm a new inspector, I'm a new food safety inspector, and I, you know, I've gotten great training, you know, sort of onboarding training from uh my program manager, people in my agency, but I need to I want to find out what else is out there.
SPEAKER_03So let's say I'm I'm a new inspector. What resources should I start with? That's a good one.
SPEAKER_04Right, like I think that that's a I think that's gonna be, you know, a common thing. People wanna make sure that they get great at their job and they're going to be looking for some resources. It is the number one thing. Let's see what Wiley tells us.
SPEAKER_00It is one of the number one things that we get in emails to the show. People saying, I don't feel like I was trained well, uh or I'm relatively new to this. We get that question a lot from the audience. So now they actually can they can do something about it and and actually get some some resources as Wiley thinks about it here.
SPEAKER_04I think Wiley's thinking a little too long though. Usually it doesn't take this long to think. I might have stumped him by switching from Spanish to English.
SPEAKER_00So I wonder if he's like, wait a minute, what's pick? Did you pick Elaine? Um if you're not um if it's not publicly disclosable, I understand. But what what model or models did you use underneath it? Uh obviously they're all hived off, only trained on your stuff. But um, was there a particular model that you're able to disclose you're using?
SPEAKER_04So I don't, I actually don't know what the model is. I can tell you the company that we worked with uh is called Betty AI, uh, and they work with a lot of nonprofits and associations for these closed loop LLMs. Working with them was great. They sort of took in uh everything that that we explained that we needed and how we wanted it to work, and and they were they were really terrific to work with. We did this, we started these conversations earlier this year. Uh so to kind of get to the product that we're at now is really cool. It's a testament to the work that that they did that they were able to help us with. But I yeah I don't know what model it's uh it's running on.
SPEAKER_00Fair fair enough. And they change so frequently too.
SPEAKER_04So let's let's start a new conversation and ask the same question. Because I really think it's a cool answer.
SPEAKER_00And they for just for the audience to clarify I I I find myself always falling into this where I'll use acronyms like LLM or large language model is is what LLM is. So just uh don't leave anybody out there hanging by using an acronym which we're good at in the government regulatory side but let's see I'm a new food safety inspector.
SPEAKER_04Oh yeah you're re you uh I see there we go they came back with a lot yeah so it takes you to our uh inspector boot camp which is super popular we have thousands of people take that every year uh it takes you to our basic inspections investigation course uh so it comes back with a lot you could ask it to then create a checklist for you uh I'm a new food safety inspector create a checklist for me on things that I need to make sure that I'm learning uh you know it's it's really cool it kind of you know it's it's it's a chatbot that really helps you kind of get to what you're looking for.
SPEAKER_00And there's been so many conversations about this with many people on this episode here. That's more just right there with the in the amount of time it took it to do that which was not much that's more than a lot of folks we talk about the new inspector scenario and we hear about it. That's more detail and links to stuff than a lot of them get when they get onboarded initially so that's actually really meaningful and in some cases more than they have gotten even from where they were hired.
SPEAKER_04Yeah yeah so it's it's it's really powerful and it's fun to I'm excited to see how uh people are going to use it you know we can see uh on our end sort of the things that people are searching for we can find out if they're not getting the info that they need you know one thing that I want to point out that's really important as people start start using it is to use these feedback buttons at the bottom. If it gives you an answer that you like give it a thumbs up if it gives you an answer that isn't exactly what you were looking for please give it negative feedback. You can type in what you were looking for and that's you know hard in the pun, but it's going to help Wiley get wiser uh and that's uh it's only going to make it more powerful. So we really want people to provide that kind of feedback.
SPEAKER_00Yeah because again this is not feedback that's only like you have to wait for a human to get it. I think so often people are in the old almost Yelp world of the internet where they're like well if I send this through is anybody ever going to read it but that's not even the primary purpose here right Wiley reads it and it helps help him get better next time.
SPEAKER_04So the the feedback literally every piece of feedback gets accounted for yeah definitely uh let's see what's another I can we can do one more uh one more sort of demo that I think is pretty neat so let's say uh write a hand washing SOP for a retail no that is that is that's powerful and a lot more reliable than going to chat GPT for it I can promise you that even though we haven't seen the answer yet so it gives you I mean it's it's really robust it gives you a lot of information and again like we like we mentioned it's got all these recommended resources down at the bottom so you can compare those things against the answer and make sure that you got accurate information.
SPEAKER_00But yeah it gives you a starting point it's it's pretty cool yeah so I um is the citations for this uh is that all pulled from afto's repository or like because this is a lot of this a lot here and it looks really really accurate and like English food safety hand washing materials did that is that afto generated material or is that uh links out to multiple places at times so it links out to multiple places so this is part of our A to Z resources that a bunch of uh members of our team have worked on to find these documents to verify them you mostly they're coming from other agencies so other state agencies local agencies who have put these together and you know then they're linked on their website so this is our English food safety document section which is what it took us to so we can go to where is hand washing well we can go let's go to like food handler and then we can see so Boulder County Public Health Southern Nevada Health District Massachusetts partner for food safety education so these are all vetted by our staffers and then shared and then it takes you to Franklin County yeah I bet you hers is because uh she's uh she keeps up with her stuff uh there in uh Franklin County I'll have to remove that other link that is uh no there's a lot of them there so David I think you had a question too like because once you pull that up and if you're in let's say Sioux City, Iowa right yeah like if if you're in a particular area and you want that particular set of rules or food safety stuff for that establishment in that area will Wiley give us that information dependent upon the geographic location you give it?
SPEAKER_04Yeah so let's Okay so what are the hand washing? Should we do hand washing again?
SPEAKER_01Yeah we keep yeah that's like hand washing in Charlotte North Carolina Okay so it gives you uh program details for North Carolina North Carolina food code manual there it is yeah and they've got hand washing guidance that wow it is so so this is so this is for Minnesota so it gives you some general guidance no that's really cool though because it's got the director's contact right and the having the food code manual there all the hand washing stuff is definitely in there well that last line for the most direct local interpretation contact the Mecklenburg County public health that's that's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00That is that it says you guys like so you know sometimes people will throw out things and call them AI these days and then in reality you're like it's really early this is really complete this is this is like it's it's doing uh a lot well that a lot of AIs for various purposes that have been released have not passed that test.
SPEAKER_04Yeah and you know we wanted to make sure that that this acted like people are used to AI acting now. So when they use ChatGPT when they use claude when they use copilot you we did not want something that was just kind of like a decision tree sort of chat out that you no shade but that you run into like on your cell phone provider right like where it's just like that very predictable sort of responses. We wanted something that was natural language that that was something similar to what people are used to using.
SPEAKER_00Yeah no it's really cool and I actually just think the function of being able to say here's who you should call for direct local interpretation there's a lot of times where people would have the need to you know go want to need to speak to somebody potentially another jurisdiction um this makes it so simple. Like it literally doesn't like give you a directory of numbers it tells you here's who you call if you've got a question about the code.
SPEAKER_04And like what's really cool too is like when in the earlier example when we're looking at the processing authorities uh it tells you what some of their specialties are. So even if we're looking for aseptic canning or aseptic packaging uh it could tell you some of their other specialties as well and so I think that's really pretty powerful. And obviously if you're looking for that in it with Wiley it it will deliver those answers. This has got to be hard for you guys to budget for right because of like you know tokens and the AI processing time as this gets popular that's um it's a pretty significant endeavor that afto's committed to yeah definitely yeah it is uh you know big time commitment obviously over the last three or four months uh and going forward right to make sure that we're we're keeping an eye on on how people are using it uh if they're finding the things that they need you know one of the other really nice things is as we can go back and look at some of the insights uh uh some of the analytics that we have access to we can find out hey a lot of people are asking this one question and not getting a great answer from us that means that that content is probably missing on our website and then we can go back look at ways to create that content and get it into Wiley. So that's pretty powerful too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah this this is very very well done literally this is something that there's something here for everybody whether you're an inspector in any state USA or in leadership there's stuff here for you and it it is it's a lot faster and I think most people have figured out by now don't trust chat GPT or the other ones full stop because they don't I I said this at the AI workshop during the panel a question somebody asked they're trained on Reddit I rest my case like right and so you're just not going to get curated information.
SPEAKER_01David you say you had something else yeah I had just another general question how how do you see the public using this or is this more for professionals inside the EH realm so I think I think this is probably more for professionals.
SPEAKER_04I think that this is going to be used a lot by regulators I'm hoping it gets used a lot by industry. I think industry can use it to find their state and local officials I think that they can use it to find some of the processing authorities and some of our training we have a lot of training that's open to industry. So I really hope that they can find a way to use it. You know I think if the general public finds their way to it might ask for uh inspection reports on restaurants in their location uh that's something that I think that we can eventually train it to do obviously like the inspection reports don't live on AFTO um but like okay let's let's try it um uh show me restaurant inspection reports or let's not pick on Charlotte where else should we go?
SPEAKER_03Well we were just in Columbus yeah great minds think alike and look at that it's uh health space address so we can scroll down Oh you've got 'em all there yeah uh and we can go to the Department of Health nope let's see they move their pay I think they move their URL and so it just probably hasn't updated itself yet.
SPEAKER_04Yeah so we need to we need to fix that.
SPEAKER_00I'll just pick another story but but by the way folks this is how you know this is really well built and ready for prime time we did not discuss any scenarios in advance before we started talking on camera today.
SPEAKER_04We just rolled with it and notice that he's put in every prompt we're like hey what about this that's how you know so yeah so we have the food establishment scores here for Alaska and so you can go to the inspection reports and then you're at this point right you're on you know you're on Alaska's um oh no sorry Alabama not Alaska um but now you're you know you're in their world so yeah whatever they choose to post don't blame Wiley it's it can only reveal what they post right yeah no this is this is a fun but this is really phenomenal honestly it's it was more robust in v1 than I would have probably even guessed um how long did y'all work on this yeah I mean we we probably started having conversations with the Betty AI team in just conversations in like February I think um so we spent most of the second half of March and April doing just a lot of testing uh we would have a lot of members of our team uh sort of test this out and I think that's where we really got to some of these cool features and making sure that all of that directory information was available. So like three three and a half four months.
SPEAKER_00That's really fast. Of course that's that's a hallmark of AI. And imagine where it'll be in a year as you get additional feedback you look at the analytics and you see oh wow people are really hitting this hard like and it'll make AFTO's resource library and website better as at the same time right because it also helps you all continue to round out the wealth of information you have in your knowledge bases.
SPEAKER_04Right. Like we'll be able to find out what we're missing and fill in those gaps. So it's going to help us create a more robust experience too.
SPEAKER_00Really really appreciate you giving us this demo so um I quick question for you as the director of comms you probably would know uh you guys had at the um the unveiling at the general session he had his own little jingle and animation like um who wrote that AI AI right that's good answer it actually really fit and it worked for the for what you were unveiling there. And if and I don't want to get ahead of of of private conversations and plans but I know that Steve and you all at AFTO have a lot of other conversations going on some other AI initiatives that probably at some point will all enhance one another and I do think yeah we talked about this at the AI workshop in Columbus. I do think over the next couple of years that gap between all that regulatory inspection data and the big brands who would like to have it timely and be able to then use it in their QA think that gap's going to get closed and AI's the difference maker there right because you could never normalize that many different flavors of the food code down to a brand standard AI turned that on its head.
SPEAKER_04Right. Yeah like I I just think like this is great. Love Wiley but some of the things that I think are coming down uh the pike are very cool and could have really significant positive outcomes for public health.
SPEAKER_00I I agree and I I wouldn't claim to know all of them but I know on a couple of them I'm I'm aware of some of those details and I just I do I think it's going to shake up everything but in a really really good way that actually just again it's in the interest of public health. So it's going to be exciting and it's just exciting to see the organization afto actually take the lead on it. It's a lot easier to do some of these moonshots especially around data if you've got a you know a unifying force sort of helping stick to the path because everybody if it's industry they have their own interests uh regulatory has their interests somebody's got to kind of be the weight in the middle and it seems that after's really stepping into that role and the innovation's gonna roll yeah I I mean and you saw it at at the conference you know going back to that like we had the AI workshop but there were four or five maybe even six other sessions that I was in to get in people's way and take photos and make them mad at me uh that talked about AI uh really openly too uh about people's concerns about its capability you know we really there was a lot of really great innovation talk at the conference there was and I that actually I did really that jumped out to me because I was like there's been a lot of hesitancy in the la over the last two three years as AI was coming on board people are like well we we can't afford to lose any more staff and and I think people are starting to realize AI for regulatory especially is not going to replace the inspectors you've got but it will like every department has you know FTEs on paper or maybe in next year's budget but it's not actually a live human doing work for you. AI will be good at helping you bridge those gaps but I I think people have finally gotten their mind around that because you're right AI was actually a ubiquitous topic all throughout the halls of the conference in Columbus. Yeah so well I know we've kept you longer then but congratulations like this is really fine work. Being involved in a couple of AI projects this is really you guys really did a great job and and your partners on that really did. So uh the best way for people to find it and we'll put a link to it in the description is it uh just for ease is it afto.org slash ask wily or or how would you recommend it?
SPEAKER_04I would I yeah afto.org slash askwily w I l e y uh and that'll take you right to them.
SPEAKER_00And whatever platform you're watching this on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, etc, if you look down in the description of the episode, we will have a link to it. I really I encourage everybody if you're watching it click it. Ask it a question just like he did. So I I think you actually illustrated the perfect thing is you don't have to be afraid of it. Just ask it. The worst thing that could happen is it says I don't know or you know or it you need to clarify be bold with it right and and it helps it grow.
SPEAKER_04Yeah absolutely like there's also there's nothing wrong with saying hey here's my job title here's what I do here's my biggest concern right now how can you help me? It's okay to not even know it's okay to just ask it.
SPEAKER_00Yes and uh but don't ask it for a dinner recommendation or to give you a recipe for something that's not Wiley's job. No I did actually it handles it gracefully I did ask it for a recipe when I was sitting there the night you unveiled it because I was just curious how will it tell me bug off. It was it did good. It did really really well with it. So hey if you don't mind please keep us posted as on how it's going and and because we'd love to you know have you back or if you make any additional leaps with it please let us know and we'd love to like help pump that information out there. But I I wish more people had done things like this sooner but congrats to AFTO for actually acting on it and having it in the world.
SPEAKER_04Yeah thank you thank you it's it's it was a blast to work on for all of us. So we're we're just excited that it's out there now.
SPEAKER_00We are too we're that everybody go click that link play with it download it'll really make your life better and thank you uh Carrie Jennifer Steve yourself and I know I'm missing a lot of other people that worked hard behind the scenes but thank you all for the work. It's not easy putting on a conference like that and it's well done every year but thank you very much for a great conference and for a great experience for the attendees. Yeah sure thing all right we will definitely have you back talk to you all soon. All right that's Wiley afto.org slash ask wily W I L E Y please go play with it. As you saw in that great demo Jason just said there's a lot of cool resources especially if you're a regulator or in industry. For all of us here at the Beyond Data Management Podcast powered by HSGov Tech I'm Cameron Garrison. We will see you back here next week same time same channel. Have a great one everybody