Amir Habib: Why Trust, Not Technology, Decides If AI Works

Amir Habib is a digital transformation and AI strategy executive with 25+ years of experience leading service delivery for some of the world's largest enterprise clients. In this conversation with host Dani Raschel Chou, Amir traces the entrepreneurial instincts that shaped his path: from a childhood dream of owning a chain of Buc-ee's, to selling phone cards and financial services, to a hard pivot into IT and, eventually, AI leadership.

Amir and Dani get into why trust, not raw capability, is the real bottleneck for AI adoption: the truth-vs-trust gap in AI-assisted medical diagnosis, what actually happened when the U.S. government suspended access to Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 model, why AI implementations stall without leadership buy-in, and what AI means for executive assistants and other roles built on repeatable work. Amir also shares how he responds to AI phishing scams himself, and what it takes to stay grounded — in faith, family, and mentorship — while everything moves faster than ever.

This is the With Hat and Cattle promise: stories from people who walk the walk, and leave you better off for listening.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 — Cold open: Meet Amir Habib

1:00 — Faith, family, and the entrepreneurial mindset

2:00 — From a Buc-ee's dream to falling in love with IT

4:00 — Family as your "why," and trusting your own pivots

7:00 — How to ask for mentorship (and handle rejection)

11:00 — Selling phone cards to selling yourself

16:00 — How Amir got intentional about learning AI

21:00 — What data centers actually do

25:00 — The truth vs. trust gap in AI

29:00 — Inside the Claude Fable 5 security story

31:00 — Protecting yourself from AI scams and phishing

34:00 — From "just an accountant" to trusted leader

35:00 — Why morning self-talk builds self-trust

36:00 — People over strategy: why AI needs buy-in to work

38:00 — AI, executive assistants, and the future of work

41:00 — Why critical thinking matters more, not less

42:00 — AI slop, LinkedIn, and trusting human creators

44:00 — Bad data in, bad AI out: building a successful AI journey

45:00 — Staying true to your true north

CONNECT WITH AMIR HABIB

LinkedIn: Amir Habib | LinkedIn

Amir's appearance on Blackbelts and Boardrooms: S2.EP46 - Takes a Village of Leaders to Make a Leader w/ Amir Habib, Global Strategist at Stefanini

ABOUT WITH HAT AND CATTLE

With Hat and Cattle is a podcast built on one belief: the best lessons come from people who've actually lived them. Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou, this show features honest conversations with leaders, builders, and people who've learned through experience, not shortcuts.

Stories from people who walk the walk, and leave you better off for listening.

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Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That's one thing about me. I'm a perpetual learner, and just at heart, I just want to know things and I like to test that knowledge. So I want to make sure I understand it. But so from that aspect, start learning, start tinkering. I like to tinker a lot with technology.

SPEAKER_02 0:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

And get my hands dirty just so I could understand and be able to talk about it. And from there, I had to make a decision and said, okay, it's time to pivot.

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

This is the future.

SPEAKER_03 0:32

Welcome back to with Hatton Cattle, where we bring you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Your host, Danny Rochelle Chow. And again, in an effort to help increase AI literacy and bring AI conversations to the figurative kitchen table, we have industry expert Amir Habib in studio today.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Hello.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Hello. So full transparency, I used Claude to help me prep for this episode and quickly found that Claude pulled from the wrong Amir Habib.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

That's all right.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

So we, your episode, your prep had me work a little bit and grateful for the experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Well, thank you for your time and having me here. So I'm looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_03 1:17

Yeah. So you are an executive leader in AI, digital transformation, and global strategist that has you have more than 25 years of experience helping drive growth and innovation. So throughout your career, you did embrace an entrepreneurial mindset. And I loved that Claude said it's instilled by your family from an early age. So let's let's start there. Oh, okay. Yeah, we're gonna get into it pretty fast. All right. Curious, why would AI tell us that your family installed installed, oh my gosh, instilled these values?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

I guess there's uh couple of podcasts I talked about it. So I don't know if we pulled from that. It's interesting that I would get that. It's a little bit uh scary in some aspects that wouldn't know me like that. But family has played a big part. Um, I'm very fortunate to be uh born and raised by and surrounded by families that are leaders, and and it's just and of course my faith is very important, so it helps you know ground me, and it's one of the things that is important, and especially in this fast-moving world, we need grounding.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Definitely. When you began looking into a career, was tech your first choice?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

It was not, it was my dad was in the uh gas and oil business, he owned convenience stores and gas station, and that's what I thought I would go into, probably military to as well, but he did not want that for me. My dream was to have a bucky, a bunch of buckies.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Really?

SPEAKER_00 2:58

Yes, absolutely. I was, you know, had it planned out. I was pitching him the idea and trying to work with him and everything else. He's like, no, I want something better for you with my studies and everything else. He wanted me to be accountant, but that didn't excite me. So I chose finance, which is I think it's the sexy part of money, and got into finance and international business. And then after that, I was like, oh, okay, I like that. And so I was gonna pursue a law degree in international business law. And just after that, I just I to pay for law school, I got into IT.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

So uh and I got married, and you know, we decided, my wife and I, Amanda, uh, we decided to focus on our family, and that's I fell in love with the field, and that's how I got into IT.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Oh, fell in love with IT. I think that's the first time I've ever heard someone say that.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

You gotta love what you do, right? That's what everybody tells you.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

A thousand percent. Austin and I were just talking before you came into the studio about finding that, you know, whatever role you pursue or whatever it is that you're doing, right? That that why pulls you through those years that are, you know, Jim Rohn called it the desert. And it sounds like, and correct me if I'm wrong, your family became the why for you.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

It is, absolutely. You know, we got married, uh, man and I got married at a very young age. I was 22 and she was 21, and we didn't have much time together, being, you know, just newly wed, and my first son and my second and my uh third was back to back. So that was the why, the family. And I had to, I was fresh green in IT during that period, and I had to do a lot of studying and reading and books like literally like this big, and just that is the why. Why is your driver when it gets dark?

SPEAKER_03 5:05

You know, you had to, it sounds like get caught up really fast because you were pivoting. You went from yeah, you went you went from gas, oil, convenience stores, this was the dream, to something like law school that's gonna be in the future, and then you pivoted to IT, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

And I was in finance, so I had my um series six, uh 2663 and insurance license and all that stuff, and it just, you know, I enjoyed it, but it didn't excite me.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

When you were making these pivots, that's a lot of trust to have in yourself because you, you know, you're making the pivot, like, yes, this is the next step. And I was like, oh no, this is the next step.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Right.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

Oh, wait, it's this step. Can you speak a little to that trust that you had in yourself as you were making those pivots? Where did that come from?

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Um, first I had support. That's the most important part. You know, like the old adage, every you know, successful man or every uh good man, there's a good woman behind him. So a lot of thanks to my wife for her support and patience and understanding. I do pivot. And even in my personal life, I do pivot, you know, from budgets to other stuff, which is important. But the trust in myself is is a belief that my wife and my family had in me. So that strengthened me and trust in the Lord. I know, you know, in today's world, you know, these kind of things are not that mainstream or popular, but again, it goes back to my roots, which grounded me.

SPEAKER_03 6:47

I mean, I feel it it resonates with people who have strong foundations or strong belief systems, you know, for you. It is religious in nature, it's it's God and your family. Yes, but the core behind that is have have a strong foundation and that strong community.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

Yeah, and that seems to be the theme of the day. The theme of today seems to be community and not being afraid to reach for the support and to be intentional about building that strong community.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Exactly. You have to be intentional, and I forgot to mention also, I was very blessed with strong leaders that believed in me and gave me opportunities. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

That speaks to your character, and it sounds like it was developed at a very early age for someone who's listening, and maybe, and maybe I'm inserting myself a little bit into the narrative, but you know, in the 20s, it was, you know, hot mess. 20s were hot mess, and life's getting back on track in their 30s.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

Right.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

What would you tell that person if they're they're now ready to be intentional about beginning? And then, because that's that's the first part, right? You gotta be intentional to help build trust. Have people then start recommending you because not everyone has that, right? Yeah, so what what would be the first step you'd advise them to take?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

Be quiet. I love this, and the reason I say that, get to know yourself, really truly get to know yourself, meditate, ask yourself what do you truly believe in? You have to find that why, and you have to, and that all comes together, and you form and you understand your true north, right? True north is very, very important, and people will see that in you, and that will attract the right people, right? And also ask for mentorship, and that's that's okay. Some people say, you know what, I have too much to do, and that's great, but don't give up. If it's a person that you admire and respect, and if there's you know, if they said, Hey, they're too busy, guess what? Knock on the door again and again, again, persistence. So that is to to do that, to get that opportunity. So there's many times where I when I had a mentor and I went, pursued him several times, and they finally like, okay, fine. And he you know, at the end of it, we were very glad, right? You know, I got a lot out of it, I learned a lot, and he did too as well. So he didn't realize he is capable or not capable, but just the amount he enjoyed given back.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

You've brought you yourself brought value to the relationship too. It wasn't just one-sided, and I feel that's that's important. What would you have lost out on if that mentor had told you no?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

I would have lost um hmm my growth. It would have slowed me down. I would not have lost, I would slow me down, I wouldn't have accelerated my growth. I mean, I don't look at anything as lost, I look at it as there might be some road bumps and you know, things I have to overcome. So uh, you know, I hate losing. So that is part of my personality. I learned that at an early age too, playing sport.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

What sports did you play?

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Uh I played for SMU rugby. I was the front row captain. So that was that was in college and high school it was football. And when I was younger, I played, you know, soccer and let's see what else, uh, basketball, and uh I did took a couple of lessons in tennis. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:44

You know, as we're talking, the different facets of who you are makes it apparent about why you are in the world, and the ah, the words are hard. That's all right. Why you are in the role that you're in today, the leadership that comes from serving and playing in an organized sport, right? Having again the importance of the strong community, of finding the right mentor, right coaches, yeah. Mm-hmm. All of that, you are now in a position where you work for a huge company, right?

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Privately held. That is correct. Consulting company.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

Um, and I, you know, I wanted to uh speak to that because you are not an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

No, right, but I have the spirit.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

No, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

But when I was younger, I started a couple of businesses.

SPEAKER_03 11:28

Did you? When did you start?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

I started basically um this is gonna you know age me, but I invested in phone cards. Do you remember that? Well, that's probably the colour.

SPEAKER_03 11:40

No, that is a throwback. My parents would send me to camp with a phone card.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Oh my gosh, you look up to memory.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

You I don't know if you want to tell your your listeners about what phone cards are, but you probably can do it more than that.

SPEAKER_03 11:53

Sure, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

So basically, um, the carriers like ATT back then when you wanted to call long distance, right? You either had to call collect or put a bunch of quarters or you know, they charge you per minute if you're using a a landline, like a business or a home, and you'd buy these cheap cards like for 10 bucks, and they give you better rates for long distance. So I got into that, sold them, and this is what before they were everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

I was gonna ask, was this like a door-to-door enterprise, or were you going to do it?

SPEAKER_00 12:29

No, I leveraged my dad's uh business.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

So I got the mats and everything else, and he said, Okay, go for it, but you're spending your own money. And I was like, Great. So I made some money off that. Uh, I did went to do when I was younger again, door-to-door, you know, learned about that and financial services as well. Um, basically, it's it's 100% commission. So that was uh challenge there. So, but I had to create my own company, but I had relationships with financial institutions and and had to sell their products and grow that.

SPEAKER_03 13:07

So those are all skills, again, that you just picked up along the way. And while you were learning to sell, you know, the phone cards and the financial services, you were also kind of selling yourself. This is who I am. Again, you were learning. I'm I mean, I'm trying to phrase this right to where when I get with people like you with the other Amir, I get like, oh my gosh, I lose my words.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

I love the other amir.

unknown 13:32

He's so great.

SPEAKER_03 13:33

He is as you're selling the phone cards and the financial services, you are also learning what it takes to, in a way, kind of sell yourself.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

Yes. Is that that is correct because people are not buying products, they're buying you. Is that correct? That is right, yes. And it is, it is, it is they they fall in love with you or like you, and they want to help out. They want to be, and if you have a great product, that's great. But there's a lot of companies that don't have great products but have high sales, and it's because of these people. And on top of that, I believe everybody is a salesperson. We started at a young age, selling your parents on something. You know, you're selling yourself, you know, you're selling your spouse on ideas or whatever. And it might not be called sales, but it's again, it's it's you know, that relationship, right? And one of the things that I was fortunate, I didn't realize I had this, but it one of my mentors in financial services he said, I am I have a relationship with relational sales approach where it's a relationship, it's not transactional. Where it's sell you something, thank you very much, and you won't see me. It's it has to be relational.

SPEAKER_03 14:50

Yes. And we're seeing that I'm studying marketing, studying strategic communication specifically. And so, of course, the algorithm now gives me all the things marketing related. And I'm getting content and information that speaks to people who are so just tired of the influencer that's the one off. Oh, look, I tried the supplement. This is my code, you know, it's not authentic. Are they really using it? We are now in a world where you really have to work to build that trust.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

Because of that.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

If you're selling a product, invite the consumer into your world. How exactly are you using it? So, in a way, you're creating a relationship with your community that even more so that becomes important. And it relates back to the sale if it's an influencer, because at the end of the day, they do want to sell a product. The work now is building that trust even more. We're touching a bit on technology, and as you and I are talking, I'm I'm trying to insert different ways in which the large language model, and in this one I chose Claude, yes, helped me prep this interview to also speak to the flaws that it had. Correct. Because we sat down before this episode, and again, you pointed out all the all the discrepancies, and that some of some of that's on me because I did feed it your LinkedIn. I fed it the episode of Black Belt and Boardrooms, which I'm gonna link in the show notes because that is another appearance you you made, and that's where I'd actually met you before. Yes, and then heard the episode and it resonated so much. I really like Amir just needs to be on the podcast. It just tied in with your AI background and knowledge, which I'm so excited in a second to get into because that was another pivot. Yeah, I'm for the world at large, but you know, again for you, because now it is a career path. Absolutely. Amir, let's talk now about AI. I remember first hearing about AI, I believe, in 2022. Open AI, Chat GPT, and it was a way of you know, that was gonna make life better, like more efficient. You could automate things, right? And now the conversation has changed to it's it's become uh just another divisive topic. And when you started with AI, what when well, first off, let me backtrack. Sure. Because AI has been around for a while now, we know that.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

That is correct.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

When did you first learn about AI?

SPEAKER_00 17:28

I learned it through my middle son Alex in high school. And um he wrote his junior or senior paper in 20, I want to say 2018. It was some form of open AI. Um, and he wrote his paper with it. And it it was very clunky.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

And he did his, I forgot what they call it, it's almost like a senior paper dissertation. He wrote it and his professors allowed it, but it was very clunky. But he was showing the power of it, right? Which was very impressive just to see that. And uh after that, you know, I put it in the back of my mind, didn't think much of it. And it started creeping up in around uh COVID time when I start paying a little bit closer attention. And of course, every year after that, I I was like, okay, what's going on with AI and how is this gonna impact the future of IT and everything else? And it scared me. And the reason is it's because I was thinking how quickly it is accelerating from the perspective of seeing it in 2017 to like say 2020 when I started paying more attention to it and so forth year over year.

unknown 18:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

And it's power, what it could be capable of doing, and the thought leaders back then of what they envisioned it's gonna do.

SPEAKER_03 19:04

And before we continue, I want to just interject. And so when we speak of AI, in general, we're talking generative AI, right? So like the large language models like ChatGPT, Cloud, Gemini, co-pilot.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Correct, right? So because so when I refer to AI, that's what I'm referring to. Yes, and I feel it's important to make that distinction because in my head You got machine learning, you got physical AI, you got all that when people say AI. Yeah, AI is just a big umbrella. Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

So at some point you decided to become intentional and and learn more about it. What was the first thing that and we had Paul Byrne on the show not too long ago, and he joked, like, you know, everyone at one time was talking prompt engineering, right? And now we're not really hearing that anymore. Now, you know, it's changed to agentic AI and eventually it's it's gonna move on to something else.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Right.

SPEAKER_03 19:56

But when you decided to become intentional, what was that first step for you?

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Read, read about it, yes, talked to people about it. I had to test my knowledge. So I was one of the first people AWS has which is uh Amazon Web Services, had uh a new certification for that, and they asked me to take it. So be one of the first people to take it. So I took it and passed it. I didn't think I was gonna pass.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

Really?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Really, but you know, now it's a standard test over there because it was pretty difficult. That's one thing about me. I'm a perpetual learner and just at heart, I just want to know things, and I like to test that knowledge, so I I want to make sure I understand it. But so from that aspect, start learning, start tinkering. I like to tinker a lot with technology and get my hands dirty just so I could understand and be able to talk about it. And from there, I I had to make a decision and said, okay, it's time to pivot. Yes, this is the future.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

It one of the best pieces of advice someone gave me was subscribe to a newsletter about AI. And that was early on, and that has been so invaluable. Uh one that I tell people they're like, well, I don't know, because now we live in a world where information, there's so much access to information, it can feel overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:24

Shelly Palmer, who is a trusted, yes, known voice. That's actually how we first met, was going to uh Shelly Palmer talk. He has a great newsletter, and he has some free courses on his side as well. Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

So again, he's a professor too, if I recall, right?

SPEAKER_03 21:40

He is at Syracuse. That's a takeaway, right? Subscribe to a newsletter and get your hands on keyboard and start learning it. And all right, we're gonna go here. And you can tell me, Amir, like Danny, I don't want to touch that with a 10-foot pole, and you don't have to. There's so much information on. online right now about data centers and AI and how they're just we have to build all these these data centers to advance AI. And again, when people hear that, they're thinking, oh, well, it's the people who are using ChatGPT and Claude and all these tokens and burning through all our resources. But that's not what the data centers are just being used for. It's the the autofocus on your camera. It's all the the photos on your camera, all the information, all the videos that are being uploaded into YouTube and Facebook and Instagram. Those are all using data centers as well. Am I wrong?

SPEAKER_00 22:41

No, you're absolutely correct. And that's my cousin and I kind of it's it's if you see her online she talks about stuff like that, right? About data center hyperscaling and and it's important you you're always going to need data centers period. That's not going to go any time away. Now what you'll see is efficiency going to happen over time from power consumption, water consumption, um per rack, how much power it could sustain, right? That way the efficiency are going to be in place. But everything uses data centers these days so from going to the grocery store that's hosted somewhere at a data center and and some people may not understand why data centers versus a company would host it inside on-prem it's because of the basically the scalability. You got power you don't have to expand if your infrastructure grows so when I say infrastructure meaning like if a company has servers in-house on prem on premises right and they have so much power they could use and all of a sudden now there's uh you know Black Friday sale and they're like needing to add more servers or what have you, right? They need more power and more cooling and you know bigger internet bandwidth. And so instead of doing that you have it at a data center where it has redundancy, scalability, you know, and it's just uh it's it just makes sense from that perspective.

SPEAKER_03 24:19

Thank you for being willing to speak to that because we're only being told part of the story. As someone who's studying strategic communication I'm starting to really see how the media does control narratives and stories and can what we call create agendas. It's so important to hear both sides. And again not just being AI literate which is why we're sitting with you today but the media literacy especially now in a world where AI has people questioning is this is this a real person in this ad pause and just do do Google search or something.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:58

Has become so important today. It is now let's go ahead and jump to because we we kind of jumped into the AI conversation and that's on me as a host but right now you are in a field that's very AI forward.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

Right absolutely and in the company that I work for it's their motto is AI first.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

But I like what you did with the bracelet here where it says human first.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Which it makes sense and it should be a you know human first then AI.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

No human in the loop just in an effort there and I the reason I bring up these examples is these are ways that the community can find to just learn a little bit more about AI. Yes there is a a podcast local host he uh the AI space and he hosts monthly meetups and so I went last night and the talk was about how to scale and streamline ops with AI. And one of the the audience members asked the question how do we build how do we bridge the gap between truth and trust and again this is I this is important because Claude told me not to talk to you about trust because that first off that's what you have on your LinkedIn profile, right? That you are a trusted leader. So one it's important that that you be known as a trusted leader. Correct but that you have been asked about trust so many times Claude told me not to ask you about it. But you can't help but ask in an AI conversation like this this trust come up but going back to the question he brought up the example that AI now can do medical diagnoses that are 93% accurate a human doctor that percentage and I'm gonna get it wrong but it's like the low 80s okay but a person still wants a diagnosis from a human doctor compared to an AI machine. So his question was how do we bridge that gap when I mean the truth is AI is actually better but the trust is is lagging behind that. And that's where again that human first the experts on the panel spoke to AI can pick out the signal from the noise. I mean AI is good at that at looking at the patterns. Absolutely and then one of the panelists said no we the question actually needs to be how can we as AI and as the human make up that 7% to get to the 100% accuracy.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

Right.

SPEAKER_03 27:30

And I thought that was so good. It is so in in your experience and your background can you speak a bit to how you're bridging the gap between the truth and trust yes absolutely um it is an ongoing effort are we ever going to get there?

SPEAKER_00 27:49

I think it's it's we're dealing with people mindsets so and beliefs and trust is when it comes to things like this is very hard to um to give if that makes sense from perspective of even when I leverage you know let's say Claude or ChatGPT or Gemini or Grok, I still have to check is it ever going to get to a hundred percent probably close but I don't think we'll ever get a hundred percent because information changes so much. But to build the trust with the human and everything else that's where let's see what's the word I'm looking for uh discernment has to come into play to fill in that gap. AI again like you were saying has to do with it's able to pick up patterns it could digest a huge amount of data.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

Oh my gosh this huge person that I heard give us a a talk they cover policy in journalism and they have a a GPT or some type of agent that is crawling trolling and if a certain politician has speaking to certain topics several times right that's a that's a clue oh this might be upcoming policy that they're going to be introducing right whereas to take the transcript from all the different events they're going to and manually review it to pick up that pattern can take days maybe weeks right and with AI it took hours.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Right absolutely now think who else could be using that financial institutions traders. Yep yep they want to see what the pattern is ahead of time so they could plan ahead of time and to leverage for either they need to sell or they need to buy things like that.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

We are seeing in the news that Anthropic has released they released is it Fable 5 correct and then the US government said absolutely not yes you know put a stop on this and we just learned over the past couple of days why they tested it and it it showed flaws in security it found the flaws correct within hours. Yes and why was that important?

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Because you got companies that cannot move fast enough because they're so big and to make a change in the environment to you know it takes time to get approvals and you know from change management to leaders approving it then they have to test it just to make sure it doesn't break something else is the fix and but also it could be overwhelming it's going to be an ocean of security identify security holes right and imagine now you know 80% of your system multiple different systems you know all these comes out these CVEs come out which is basically bulletin saying hey you know you're Microsoft you have this hole you have this hole in your infrastructure your network you know you have this on your switches you have this in your router you have this in your database right it just it's it's it's good to have if you're the company manufacturer of the software or the the hardware it's good to have on your side that way you could release your securities and patch them ahead of time and when you're developing them you could run it against that.

SPEAKER_03 31:22

So and yes for the most part the bad guys will are going to target these companies right that was that was the bad actors will yes yes that was the fear that we release this and it falls into the wrong hands and vulnerabilities are exposed and correct world chaos this it feels like for the the everyday person this is something else to be scared about right like first it was AI's here and it's gonna take your job and then that narrative has kind of it hasn't fully gone away but we are we're learning that you still need the human and the loser and critical thinking you cannot have AI do critical thinking. So what it's gonna end up doing is just upleveling humanity in general we're gonna become better critical thinkers and and such and now this is another layer oh my gosh am I gonna lose my life savings you know because this this AI system has found its way into the wrong hands.

SPEAKER_00 32:20

Is there anything that we can do to protect ourselves leveraging your critical thinking or using your critical thinking right and be just kind of look at things closer. Even the phishing emails are so good. They're so good absolutely you know you know you used to be able to figure it out by looking at misspelled words English could appear to be somebody's second language that wrote it or it was so formal yes good yes so you do your best practices of checking the domain name you know where it comes from if it says hey sign in to your Microsoft account and if it comes from a Gmail account then you realize that that's gonna happen. On my phone, you know, I get scammed not scammed but you know I get the things like hey this is your boss I need cards and everything else. So normally do not do this I respond back.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Yeah we are told not to do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

I respond back and I tell the person first of all I know this is a scam you're capable of doing much more for humanity than doing this.

SPEAKER_03 33:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

If you need help then ask for help. Don't scam people out of their hard earned money. And I'm paraphrasing what I said it's it's pretty long text uh and some respond back and they kind of share who they are and a little bit of themselves and I was like wow okay wow but I'm not don't ever do that don't engage I just got tired of it and I figured okay maybe I could help convert some of these people into into the light.

SPEAKER_03 33:53

Now we're curious like what what are they telling you back?

SPEAKER_00 33:57

Just that they're a student and that they're on hard times they're they're they're in hard times absolutely and it's over you know and it's a thorough country and this is the way that that's how they're able to feed their family and everything else. So I mean it's it's it's sad to see that but you're dealing with human right yeah and if you could get to the root of the problem and try to figure out solutions for it maybe it would help deter some of these people that get into this kind of unethical in activities.

SPEAKER_03 34:33

I speechless I'll show you the text later yes please do I want to lean a little into the the trust aspect if you don't mind so again your LinkedIn handle says that you're a trusted leader and correct as we have sat and talked with you it's apparent that's not just a job title it's not just following company model.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

This is a deliberate identity pick this is an intentional claim was there a specific moment when someone made you feel like you were just the accountant how did that become your fuel rather than a ceiling people are going to put limitations on you and that's where the mentorship comes in that's where you know having a good foundation and good support system your community and could break that right um I have been put limitation oh you're just this or whatever and you gotta have the intrinsic motivation to break that and surpass that that that ceiling right nobody could define you. You are a free individual with with thinking ability to think for yourself and ability to be the captain of your your ship in this life.

SPEAKER_03 35:51

So good and I feel like I'm listening to Jim Roan right now and if you've been following me on LinkedIn you know I'm I've just finished listening to as particular I was intentional about the YouTube video that I chose to listen to 10 things you need to tell yourself every morning and every morning just this put it on listen to it and reminded me of of certain things we need to be doing in life and one of them was what you tell yourself first thing in the morning sets the tone for the rest of the day. Absolutely that narrative that self-talk keeping promises to yourself right again it you know it's how you build trust that's how you built self-trust exactly throughout your career you've led service delivery for some of the world's largest clients correct working within highly process driven organizations and tech consultancies known for delivering at super enterprise scale yes what did those customers teach you about building systems so we're we're moving a bit past the the internal circle and looking at what your outer circle your outer connections have taught you what did those customers teach you about building systems that are not only innovative but reliable people are the key that's what they taught me how so we could build the greatest strategy we could implement the best architecture but if we want to have the right people in place and we don't have the buy-in from leadership then it doesn't matter at this point.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

You spoke to so the buy-in is so important that's it's not being implemented it's it's not being implemented the buy-in is not there but it goes back to what we discussed earlier trust trust trust trust people are understandably are apprehensive about AI and scared to lose their job yes people will end up losing jobs and we're we're seeing it right that's that's exactly it's it's gonna happen unfortunately but it's gonna also create a lot more jobs and also it's gonna help people to upskill it's gonna force people to upskill and that's what you want.

SPEAKER_03 38:01

You know being fully transparent and I have said this before on the show as an executive assistant you know that was one of the the early discussions is AI is replacing admin jobs it's now you can have an agent that responds in your behalf in your voice via email. So what does that look like now for the field of being an executive assistant? Well we're we're now seeing that I mean executives still need follow-up they still need help with that you know still need help yeah an AI assistant can take your notes but then what do you do with that? Where is it stored? There are still mistakes made in in calendaring it's not if the automation will be oh this there's an appointment here so this other person can't get the slot. Correct well if the other person is someone that your executive has been trying to get a meeting with for months a human knows that oh I need to reschedule this because this other meeting has been in the works a bit longer. But that being said, as an executive assistant I still need to make sure I'm upskilling and understanding how to use these tools not just to make my executive more efficient but add value to my role and and to help just make the organization efficient. Right I was curious if you felt there was still going to be a need for roles that still are in the manufacturing or industrial type and curious to get your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yes there will be absolutely of course industrial you know building cars and everything else it's just you know where it used to be somebody with weld and everything else now they got robotics that do that.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

Oh my gosh I saw I forgot which oil company and you know the default I want to say Exxon because they're just so big but how so many people were needed to tighten the the nuts and the bolts right and it was actually a dangerous job if you didn't do it correctly and now they have robots doing it and it makes it safer. Correct we get that automation so we know it's being done to a certain standard.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

So let me ask you this if we talk about job loss and everything else and it just kind of came to me when I was talking about the welder you know the person that working in manufacturing right and his job was replaced with a robot how many jobs did it create we lost one job or let's say we lost five jobs or 10 jobs how many jobs did it also create down the line or up yeah yes somebody has to create the robot somebody has to program it somebody has to build it you know and so forth right so that's when I always say yes but it'll also create other jobs and you will have to upskill right for EAs efficiency is instead of handling one executive you can handle now three if you have like you're saying your agent is helping out and everything else right agents will be reporting to humans AI agents so it's like little helpers.

SPEAKER_03 40:56

This is why I enjoy having these industry experts in the studio and getting to sit down and talk with you because we're seeing things online and we're hearing certain narratives and it's like oh my gosh it can feel a bit like chicken little you know the world is falling right but when we have people who are actually in it and are taking the time to have conversations we get we see a bit more a little bit behind the curtain actually hear what's going on and understand a little bit more like yes and and in the past there have been roles that have been made redundant like even as a city planner we laugh about some of the uses that are outdated in some city codes and like the and a use chart. You know there was at one point a a use curtain and upholstery like just specific curtain upholstery manufacturing like that was a specific use and now it's just manufacturing overall at one time everything was so specialized it had its own use and so it is it's things do naturally evolve and with AI it's just evolving so much faster and I feel that that's the truth.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Right. So how do you get ahead of this you have skill and there's one thing that the next generation will have that I'm really kind of envious of they're gonna learn to be better critical thinker and they're gonna be so much smarter and so much better than us.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

And I thank you for speaking to that because again we are being told that critical thinking skills are going out the door with the use of generative AI.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Interesting. Yeah that I would disagree with that to have a successful AI agent, you know you got to leverage critical thinking in everything with AI you got to have critical thinking in place. I am just struggling with that.

SPEAKER_03 42:43

Well because if you take it what's being shown online is the bad slot is AI slot. Exactly which is a result of bad processes which again I just learned last night thanks to or I got the language to speak about because of this meetup I went to last night. I was told by a a Gen Z person they didn't like LinkedIn because it's full of AI slop. And I couldn't argue that because I do see a lot of AI slop on LinkedIn. That being said LinkedIn has been so pivotal for me in making connections and building relationships in advancing in my role because it is centered or geared towards businesses and business relationships. But I couldn't argue that I actually just hired a graphic designer from Fiverr to help me with some graphic design and some things that I have that I want to build with my brand because I didn't want AI slop. I didn't want it to look like everyone else's content.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

How do you know the graphic designer is not going to be using AI?

SPEAKER_03 43:47

I am trusting because they have to turn over to me a document that if I want it copyrighted, I own the intellectual rights. I own the rights to it.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:56

Whereas you know if if you build art or if you generate Logo with AI, you can't copyright it.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:02

So I'm trusting that because they're turning over that document to me, that that I mean the onus is on them, that they did make it by themselves. You know, it's creative property, and they've now transferred the right to me to own it. And I can copyright should I choose to do so. There's the trust.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

There it goes back to trust.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

It all goes back to trust.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

And so far, you know, their reviews have been stellar. So good. Again, just another layer of building trust. Right. It all comes down to trust. Yes. I want to go back to the processes really quick. We were talking about from that meetup last night. I got the language of bad processes build AI slot.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Exactly. Absolutely. Garbage in, garbage out. And I'm I'm sure we all heard about that.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

I learned it. I learned that in Sunday school.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Yes, absolutely. And it's it's important to have a successful AI journey, it's your data and your people.

unknown 45:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

You got to have good data that's been scrubbed. And you need humans for that. And then you could leverage that into your process, introduce it to your processes, and you know, then after that, uh automate, leverage AI, and then you'll have a successful AI journey. Does it mean it's going to be perfect? No. Is it going to need people to tweak for people to tweak it? Yes. Absolutely. And that goes back to critical thinking, right? Somebody has to look at this data.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

That's a perfect way to introduce the next guest who's going to be speaking to AI, Alex Siskos, who actually is his background and his work is, I don't know if his background, but his current work is in physical AI. Nice. And he has said, we need to be the best set of humans to use AI.

SPEAKER_00 45:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 45:48

And that comes down to, I feel, maintaining your trust and doing what you can do to stay AI literate.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yes, that is correct.

SPEAKER_03 45:57

So before we let you go, Amir, you are well known for speaking to your true north. In a world where AI has us, should have us questioning everything that we see online. How do you stay true to your true north?

SPEAKER_00 46:13

I see it goes back to my foundation that I spoke about earlier. And you gotta have a critical eye. And there's gonna be a lot of things out there that's gonna tempt you to go away from your true north, which I have and learned to go back. And over time you learn that you know what, this might be easier or simpler, or might help you try to get your task, but you miss on the journey. So one of the things that helps me with the true north is I gotta I'm I'm in it for the journey at the end of the day, right? That's how I grow. I getting to know yourself. I need that. I have to have that process inside to grow.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Thank you so much for sitting down with us and sharing a bit of your background, navigating the AI discussion and having fun with me a bit about how Claude did get it a little wrong as we prepped for the interview.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

Hey, again, I mean, you know, it's it's yeah, it just it happens, right? And that's why it's important not to take everything, you know, at face value.

SPEAKER_03 47:19

Exactly. And you know, it led to us actually getting to to sit down after.