The Human Side of Innovation and AI with Mike Courtney

In this episode of Curiously Stuck, Chelsea Stuck sits down with futurist and researcher Mike Courtney to explore why curiosity may be the most important skill leaders can develop in the age of AI.

This conversation is not just about technology. It is about human behavior, adaptation, innovation, and how businesses can navigate rapid change without freezing in fear.

Mike shares insights from decades of work in marketing research, emerging technology, autonomous vehicles, and strategic foresight, including stories from Nokia’s early camera phone research and real-world lessons from AI adoption happening today.

Chelsea and Mike dive into:
 • Why AI feels overwhelming for so many people
 • The psychology behind resisting technological change
 • What autonomous vehicles reveal about human expectations
 • Why businesses need strategy, not panic, when approaching AI
 • How curiosity creates competitive advantage
 • The future of foodservice, operations, and innovation
 • Why organizations need “arks, not umbrellas” during disruption

One of the strongest themes throughout the episode is this:
 The future will not belong to the people who know every AI platform. It will belong to the people willing to experiment, evolve, and stay curious.

Technology may continue to accelerate, but humans still decide how it gets used.

🎧 Tune in for a thoughtful, practical, and surprisingly optimistic conversation about the future of AI and human innovation.

🔗 Connect with Chelsea and Craeve & Co: https://craeve.com/

#CuriouslyStuck #AI #Leadership #FutureOfWork #Innovation

Welcome to Curiously Stuck

Every founder, executive, and creative leader has been there—that pivotal moment where you don’t know the next move, but you know something has to change. Curiously Stuck is a podcast for those moments. Hosted by Chelsea Rae Stuck, brand strategist and founder of Craeve & Co., this series dives into the honest, often messy stories behind leadership pivots, unexpected challenges, and the curiosity that drives reinvention.

Transcript

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That's part of the fun of seeing technology unfold is what we expect. And then we're like, okay, we want to follow the rules, but not really. Can we dial that a different way? I mean, come on, 55 on the highway. Can we like at least 65? I know he's going to give us a ticket for that. Right. Where's the line, then? You know, like, are we going to be able to customize these things? Like, no, no, I want my Waymo to be able to go five miles per hour over. I mean, because there's legalities and there's safety. Who decides this? Welcome to Curiously stuck the show. We unpack the stuck moments, curious leaps and behind the scene pivots of becoming a business leader. I'm your host, Chelsea Stuck, former sales manager, now Turner Brand strategist. If you're starting to explore how AI is reshaping food service, this one is for you. Today's guest operates at the intersection of innovation and human behavior. Mike Courtney, founder of Aperio Insights, brings over 25 years of experience in marketing research and strategic foresight, from AI and robotics to autonomous vehicles, blockchain and even psychedelic medicine. Mike studies what drives behavior and more importantly, what it takes to change it. He's also deeply invested in building solutions that improve daily life for people with disabilities and their caregivers. This conversation goes beyond trends. We're digging into how emerging technologies actually land with real people, and what that means for the future of your business. So let's get curious. Mike, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited. I'm so excited to. So this has been a not a long, long time coming, but it feels like a long time coming because for my guests, I Mike I met Mike at dinner at South by Southwest this year, which if you've never been only on my second time. So I'm still a baby to South by Southwest. But I am hooked and I'm already going back next year. But anyway, we had dinner, and we just had such a great conversation that I asked him to be on Curiously Stuck. And then we had a really fun adventure that I'll talk about in a minute. And here we are. So, Mike, where where are you based at? Where are you coming from today? Dallas, Texas. So I was born and raised upstate New York in a little teeny town that was sort of like the the poor cousin to Corning. People know Corning because it's got a glass company, and we do, you know, and, you know, I lived about 20 minutes away in Elmira, New York, which has a college and a prison. So. Okay, sort of similar, but not, you know. Yeah, that'd be a whole other episode, I think, with maybe some trauma bonding. But that being said, so fun fact, Mike is who I shared my very first Waymo ride with. And Mike, I don't know if you want to just sort of like get a star in the story, but I remember I looked at him and he's like, yeah, I've been riding Waymo all week South By and they were everywhere. I was like, they were everywhere. And I'm like, how do I secret handshake and do this? And Mike helped me do it. Yeah, it was fun. So so in the work I do, I'm so a marketing researcher and futurist, which means I focus on what people do today and what they might do tomorrow or in the future. And along the way, we've done all sorts of things without Tainos vehicles, so I've ruined you name it, prototype stuff. The things we're like, wait, that's not really. Oh, you know, so all those issues. I'm not doing that. Thank you for thank you for testing for all of us. Because I was I was no joke. A little bit nervous to do it alone because I just, you know, it's something new and we're all going to face this. And I mean, this is the new reality. And so fun fact, the funny story with Mike and I is I'm like, I really want to ride this Waymo. And so he helps me. Were you called one right. You called one to to go to your hotel or wherever you were going. And so I get in and so I'm comfortable because Mike's there with me. And then I realized, oh, wait a minute, I need to get home from where we're going. And so when we got there, we were like, well, surely, of course we'll just hit the Waymo thing and it's going to like realize that we're, you know, we're in the same place that this vehicle is in because this technology is so smart. And it didn't work out that way. And it was really funny because like, we ended up having to stand around. And that's how we kind of even got further talking is because there was like 15 minutes till another Waymo randomly came and picked me up to take me home. But I think that says a lot about how technology works, that like, we assumed that it was going to be able to figure it out. And also there wasn't a human, there wasn't the Uber driver for me to say like, hey, can you can I change the destination or can I change the ending, add something, extend it? You know, we also didn't get to talk sports or weather with the car. I mean, it didn't ask us how our trip to been so far. None of that. That's true. Yeah, but it did have like, this fun little onboarding thing, like a little video, like we were on the airplane. That was kind of interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And had it known it was your first time, it really could had fun with it and it could have like, you know, made a sound like vault doors closing and, you know, let's see if you can get out of here. You know, I mean, it could have made it like, you know, escape room experience and really freak you out. And then just not just kidding will get you there. But someday, maybe autonomous vehicles will have personalities. Like, then you're like, great, I got the Joker. But so in your experience. And you said that, you know, you've been in maybe the ones that weren't quite as figured out. So what? I mean, what did you learn from that? Or is that AI driven? Like, how does this all work? Explain this to me. I don't I know nothing, you know, some of the things we've done along the way really were interesting because if you think of it, people are like, okay, well, if the car is going to drive itself, will I feel safe? Will I feel like it's doing the right thing? And along the way we've done research, for example, on, you know, where you want the vehicle to be in the lane, like if there's a big truck next to you, could you think, wow, you know, autonomous vehicle should follow the rules, stay in its lane unless there's a big truck next to me, and I don't want it in the middle of the way. And I sort of want an inch over a little bit, because that's what I would do naturally. Although I don't really say that. I don't say, oh, yeah, when a truck comes along, I, you know, I hug this curve or I hug this side. So we've done those kind of research studies along the way to say, hey, they want the vehicle to be safe, but they also want it to drive like they would. Which means if somebody else is, you know, coming and they're still a block away or two blocks away, you just go, you're like, I got plenty of time. Autonomous vehicles, very safe. They're like 72 blocks away. They might be here about two minutes. I should wait. And so they're going to follow the rules to the point where we're like, come on guys. Can't you just, you know, you know, step on it. Do something. That's part of the fun of seeing technology unfold is what we expect. And then we're like, okay, we want to follow the rules, but not really. I mean, come on, 55 on the highway. Can't we like at least 65? I mean, he's going to give us a ticket for that, right? So it is interesting that Steve, between what humans say they want and then in reality you're like, yeah, I know I said I wanted that, but can we dial that a different way? So do you think that I mean, where is the line then? You know, like, are we going to be able to customize these things like, no, no, I want my Waymo to be able to go five miles per hour over. I mean, because there's legalities and there's safety and there's got to be like, I don't want to say zero tolerance, but like what? Where where is the tolerance? Who decides that? Yes. You know, it's one of those things that we were watching the sausage being made while we're, you know, at the dinner table in a sense. So some of this are things that we're going to have to see how it evolves and say, hey, I really want this to happen versus that. And some of us just practical, they'll have to figure out a way to say, okay, follow the rules. Except, I mean, let's say you're up north and there's been snow and, you know, one lane in each direction except the plow only plowed one lane total. So you're like, okay, so for anybody to go, they're going to have to sort of be in the middle. So you're going to have to teach the car, hey, just snow plow came through. There's only one lane. Suck it up. And just everybody else is dealing with it. Nobody's going to get upset because they're doing it too. And if you find somebody who's just going to have to both either agree somehow, who goes first, who goes second, you know, can you scooch around each other? So and how far off do you think I mean, okay, Mr. Futurist, like how far off are we to that being the level of decision making that's happening in the bot or in how it's programed or it's already happening? And that's the thing is that there's so many things that I think in today's world, Chelsea, that are happening with technology that we're really not aware of until something big happens or something goes wrong and it makes the news and you're like, see, I told you. But at the end of the day, we, we've, we've sort of gotten away from the idea that technology or new things, you know, come out in January and it's an annual refresh and hey, it's the X, y, Z model. It's like, no, it's the model from 14 hours ago, which replaced the model from four hours ago or eight hours ago or three hours ago. So we're in a continuous evolvement it continuously improving situation, which is sort of unusual. We're going to have to get used to it. But that's the world we live in. Things get better because we say, no, I don't like that. Fix it. And before you know it, they did. We have to figure out what the unintended consequences are of that fixed. But we're in a continuously evolving world, moment by moment, minute by minute. So how do we handle that? I mean, how do we think about that? How do we like I mean, I think I was I was speaking to you earlier and I said, you know, one of the things that I, I feel now, maybe this is a Chelsea's duck thing. So like, I don't want to speak for everybody, but I feel in some ways less anxious about the speed of change right now because I have very much accepted, like, okay, you know what? Screw it. I'm not going to freaking know. Like, you know, like it's just constantly changing. It is what it is. I'm just going to do my best. And, you know, that's honestly, that's part of why I've aligned myself with a lot of smart people like yourself to learn from. Because I'm not a futurist. I don't have time to study all of this, but I can learn from people like you going to these events and get pictures into the future. So. So I'm less anxious in that way, but at the same time, there's no way to be anxious with the level of change. So what do we do about that? How do how do we think about that? You know, I think it's the judo move. We sort of leverage it because I would argue that in today's world, with a pace of change and how quickly things are evolving, if you're not just a little bit, you know, not not quite worried, but aware and cautious or at least just, you know, acknowledging that some crazy things can happen, that I think that's almost irresponsible. We have to know that, hey, this great thing might turn into great stuff with a little bit of stuff that you're like, that wasn't so good. So I think it's I think it's okay to be a little anxious, but but not be sort of frozen by it, not be sort of deer in the headlights like, oh my God, change is happening or AI is happening, and I'm just going to see her shell shocked and wait for things to happen to me. And that's, I think, one of the narratives that I'm sort of getting a little tired of is people. Oh, well, you know, technology's going to do this to us. AI is going to do this to us. You know, technology is going to take this from us. And I'm like, okay, you know, I stand that those are concerns. But at a certain point, we have to say technologies are tools. Tools are just the application of science and knowledge for the benefit of humans, whether that's a wheel or eyeglasses or something. We have to say, okay, we're in control. We need to basically make AI and other technologies are bitch and get them to do the things that benefit humans. Excuse me for swearing, I swear. So it's cool. I'm curiously stuck. We swear. So it's all good. There, I did it. I went for all of it. Well, so it's interesting though because you in your previous work and this is sort of how we got talking that night at dinner. You were part of Nokia's story, I believe whenever putting the the I'm going to butcher this, but putting the camera in the phone. Right. Or the process or what. Please explain this, because that was a huge moment for all of us, that we didn't even know how big it was until we couldn't live without it. So in drawing some comparison, can you can you share that story? Sure. So years ago, I used to work for a little Finnish company called Nokia, and they were sort of having a moment because everybody was discovering, hey, phones were a good thing to have. And, you know, carrying something the size of a shoebox and eventually smaller was the hip, cool thing to do. And it was useful. But R&D came to us one day and the research group said, hey, you know, we could we could put a little chip in the phone and it would take a photo. Okay. Like, does anybody want that? Like good question. And so it eventually kicked off. Multi-country study, qualitative research quantitative all sorts of stuff like 1011 countries. And it has the results country by country came in. They were very consistent. Wow. This one that one to everybody basically saying bad idea stupid dumb sort of. And we're like okay. Because we were like sounded like a sort of cool idea to us. But to most consumers, they were still stuck in the present. And we were thinking about the future. They were stuck in the mindset of, this thing's got 20 minutes talk time on a good day, if I'm standing on a hill and it's still sort of big and, you know, I got a camera, I'll show it to you. It's in the kitchen, in a drawer. We all know where it's kept. Once a year we take it out and develop the film whether it needs it or not. And they didn't think this idea made sense because of these constraints. And we said, well, what are they missing? Well, they're missing the fact, though. Hey, by the way, we've seen the new prototypes for the next generation and stuff. Battery is going to be great. Devices are going to get smaller. The networks, we talked to the network guys because they were part of the organization too. And they're like, oh yeah, we're going to go from voice network to a voice and data net. We're going to be able to send files like, oh, like like a photo. Yeah, sure. So they didn't see the things that we as people in that industry, you know, futurists in a sense saw. Yeah. So they gave a very predictable response of you're stupid. This doesn't make sense. But we reevaluate it. And eventually we did other research that says, well, when do they take photos? What do they take photos of? Because, believe it or not, back in that day, you didn't take photos of your food very often and you didn't take pictures of your parking spot or other things like that. You took pictures of events and moments that were emotional, that were memorable. A wedding of occasion, you know, a birthday party, you know, kid hitting his first ball or first steps. And so what we were really inventing at the time wasn't just put a chip in a phone, it was the ability to capture emotion and transfer emotion when it still mattered. Because if you and I went to a party and our best friends couldn't be there, we would take a photo and share it and say, hey, hey, look at what you're missing out. And they'd sort of feel that emotion. They'd feel that sense. And so that's what we did to say. It's the time value of emotion. If I can take an image and share it right away with somebody who's not there but wishes they were, we're sort of sharing a piece of her life. So that's what futurists in a nutshell do, is we imagine what could make that idea true. And, you know, what are we really what we're really trying to solve, we're really trying to solve, you know, make it easier to not have to go to the kitchen and remember to pull out that, that camera that's in the drawer and bring it along to the kids, you know, you know, little league game. Are we just trying to live a life and make sure we have the tools available in the right moment to do the things that are meaningful for us? So I love the story. And, you know, when you apply Futurism to what are we trying to solve with AI, how how would you answer that question? What are we trying to solve? I mean, I think we've lost sight of that at times. And I think that it's really, really big at times or it's just blurry. So talk to me a little bit. What do you think we're trying to solve? I think we're so early that a lot of what we might be able to solve is sort of unknown. I think we talked to South By about the show that's really popular right now. Landman with Billy Bob Thornton. I love it, I love that show. And for some of your listeners, it's a great show. It's about the industry. Billy Bob Thornton. This role is just made for him. Like, it's just it's so amusing, but yet so much common, like commentary on life. But yes, it's a great show. So there's a scene. I think it's an episode or a season one where Billy Bob and the lawyer, or in a truck going out in the middle of nowhere and there's all these windmills, and she's talking about, oh, you use clean energy to pump dirty oil. He's like, no, no alternative. There's nothing clean about it. And he goes into this whole thing about what was used for and what's it in. And it's in tires and heart valves and antihistamines, lipstick. It's dam everything. And we don't do it because we like it. We do it because we have to, because 120 years ago, our ancestors, you know, basically built a world on. And that made me think, well, how did that come to be? Because 120 years ago, you'd say, well, how did we get to the point where we started drilling and extracting a process and turning in all sorts of things? We had no idea what we create, but what got it started? What got us started was the ability to create a tool or tools. One tool that says, hey, how could we, you know, dig down into the earth farther than Chelsea Mike could with a couple of good shovels? Yeah, we invented a drill. Okay, great. What else? We invented this whole way to process it and turn it into things that could do useful stuff for us. Now, granted, at the time, somebody probably. And I didn't check history, but somebody probably said, oh, wait, you're able to, like, light a lamp in your house with it. Yeah. You're going to put all those whale fishermen out of business. They're going to have no jobs. You're you're killing the whale industry. And we won't. I mean, oh my gosh, you know, Uncle Joe and was whale fishing operations debt. And so there was some some angst there. But most of the things we were using it for, you know, light a lamp, you know, maybe, you know, you know, fuel and engine, etc. they were the basic things, but nobody said, oh, and someday we'll be able to make a heart valve or in antihistamine or something that's really, truly important. You know, desalination plant, you know, whatever it is. That became one of the things. And I think that's where we are with AI today. We're looking at saying, hey, wait, you're going to put, you know, the people that, you know, transcribe, you know, you know, audio files out of business. You're going to make the people that summarize long documents, you're going to put them out of business. Well, we're not thinking about all the things that's going to create. And I think that's where we need to really start focusing on this. Great. Yeah, it's going to disrupt some things. Some of the whale fishermen are going to not be needed. Okay. You know, let's take a moment okay. I'm sad. Great. I'm over it. Now let's figure out what we can do with it, because we're going to be able to do so many things. And I think the answer to what it can do is what do you want to do? I mean, there is no real, you know, barrier there. Just what do you want to do? I mean, sky's the limit. Yeah. No, I think that's a really good point. And I think, you know, and just talking to a lot of business owners, especially over the last couple of months as I've been traveling, at least in, you know, specifically in the food service industry, that what do I want to do with it? Some people seem still really overwhelmed with just that question. And my point is, you know, and I you know, I totally sympathize and empathize with that because, I mean, there's been times where, I mean, we've been at the forefront of AI rolling out and marketing and all of these tools and texts, and they're constantly changing and they're constantly getting better. And, oh my gosh. Did you, you know, promptings completely different than it was. And this and now, you know, story gets canceled. And like it's just been the Wild West. But I think maybe that's where some of my not angst of like, screw it, I'll figure it out, you know, has come from but I've been very adamant of like, you just need to start using it and playing with it and paying attention and asking yourself those questions. And yeah, it might sometimes it might feel like more work or it's another thing, but so does social media. When it first came out. Right. Like we were all like, I don't want to put my life on social media now. There's people that you're like, okay, you're putting too much of your life on social media or people making livings off of putting their lives on social media. I mean, it's changing, and that's what I mean, ten, 15 years. Gosh, I don't even know how many years it's been out now. But I think about 15 because I was in my master's when it was coming out. But, but anyway, so I think the Land man is a really interesting analogy because isn't everything around us. So is AI going to be more slightly is already. Yeah. And everything around us? Yeah, I think it already is to the large extent in many things around us, even when we don't know it. And give an example of that, what is what does that feel like to like me? Because because I probably there's things that you're going to say that I might not even think about it being in. I mean, I think the things that we're aware of the most are where it's either had a really big, positive impact or is starting to mess things up or screw people over. I mean, we've probably read in the past year things like if you go to the website to book a flight or to get a rental car and it knows you're in this CIP code versus that zip code, you get a different price because like, oh, that's a pretty bougie neighborhood. We're going to say the 500 bucks versus if it says you're in a zip code that's less affluent, maybe it's 400 bucks. Okay, you didn't even know it. And then, you know, somebody doesn't exposed, hey, you know, this dynamic pricing, you might be getting screwed over okay. So we see those things, but AI is being used by so many companies to run their operation. And right now it is largely, you know, making our process of going down the cow path faster. But eventually it's going to say, you know, why do we have to go this route faster? We can do it. But, you know, we can also just cut across the field and go there and people are going to be like, damn, that's right. And so we're going to reinvent things. You know, even in the restaurant business, you know, you and I have probably most watched, you know, a whole slew of shows where, you know, diners, Drive-Ins, dives, you know, all those things where somebody says, and this is how we make grandma's recipe and this, this, this, or why do you put this minute? Well, that's the way grandma did it, you know. And why do you make a batch of this size? That's the way grandpa did it, you know? And we just follow that and it works, and that's great. And it's nice to preserve some of those things. But eventually AI is going to say, you know, we can still come up with the same product that grandma was really famous for won't taste any different, but we're going to change the process just a little bit, which makes it more efficient. Oh, but it's going to taste the same, right? Same basic ingredients. Yeah. And so it's going to be able to find things that in today's world we say, you know, it's a real pain in the butt, but this is the way we've got to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And we're already seeing that happen. I mean, there are some major issues that are always forefront to those non-food service people. Like think of the amount of food waste. Think of ordering the the carbon footprint of even all of this food, the logistics, labor issues, you know, and equipment going down, service issues. Like there's there's a lot that I want to say we take for granted. But I mean, yeah, I think when you step outside of food service, you do not realize the enormous amount of commerce and industry and operations that go into you being able to order that same hamburger at McDonald's at every single location, across 14,000 or however many locations across the US. And it's insane. I always actually, that's my random gripe. Starbucks, if you're listening, they don't have fresh lemon and they have iced tea. And we know. Okay, I'm totally going to go off on a tangent here. We know that if you drink a lot iced tea, which I do, that you can get kidney stones if you like. One of the ways you you don't from it is adding lemon. Now someone can comment and tell me that I'm totally wrong and that's fine. I'm not a medical doctor. That's just what I read. Once I took it as Bible, I put lemon in my iced tea, so I'm always like frustrated them. Like McDonald's has fresh lemons. How can Starbucks not have fresh lemons? But I am positive that there is a whole reason whether it's how they order their food, whether it's how they store things, you know, like processes, who knows as to why they can't do that or why they choose not to do it, I should say. Right. So, you know, but I only make the gripe because I'm in food service and I'm like, okay, how possibly hard could this be? But we don't think about that stuff. Yeah, yeah. So if you lemons, make sure you have enough of them left over for tea, you know. Yes. For iced tea. Absolutely not. Sweet tea. Sorry. I'm not a southerner like you. I don't do the sweet tea. That's different. Different? But, you know, I want good lemon thing. You know, one of the things that we've seen even in the past decade, in fact, one of the companies that were involved with as an investors is freight farms, where actually grow different things in containers, in an environment that uses basically AI to make sure that the growing environment within that container is exactly dialed into whatever you want, you can say, hey, I want to grow these tomatoes, and I want that climate to mimic this specific zip code in Italy for this specific variety of tomatoes. And the tomatoes that are growing are going to grow up thinking that they're in that exact zip code of that other country, because everything the humidity, the light, everything's dialed in. So maybe in the future every Starbucks will have this little, you know, a couple of lemon trees on the roof and they go and grab a couple lemons, and it's grown right there in a little biome that is just like the perfect environment for lemon trees. And it's on the top of every Starbucks. I like this idea. We need to Starbucks higher. Mike. Think this through and get me lemons, please. So I want to take a little bit of a pivot here. I, I don't know a lot about this, so I'm very curious that you're working with disabled people and their caregivers and applying technology. Please, please share this with me because I think that first off, I'm just very personally interested in knowing more about that. And I know my car, I just spent time with my car. So I have this. I'm curious if it's somehow connected. But also I think it's probably a great example of like, these are things that I haven't even thought about where AI and where technology can be applied. So please tell tell me more about that. So that the concept is what we call daily living labs. Daily living labs. And it's the idea of building a community of caregivers and individuals with disabilities that can go to this website, this community, and find things that solve a problem they have, including things of that, hey, I've always had this problem, but I don't think there's a solution. But I've got this problem. We might be able to say, hey, guess what, there's a Lucian. It just wasn't very well known because some solutions can't afford a Super Bowl ad. Some solutions aren't on billboards and magazines, but they exist. So we're going to help you find things. And then when you say, hey, you know, we looked for it, we helped you look for it. With AI and all these tools, community couldn't find what you need. So let's build the damn thing. Let's invent it. Because why not? Over my career, I've done a lot of work on different research studies that dealt with various disabilities, mobility, people in wheelchairs, blind and low vision, hearing loss, you name it, cerebral palsy. You know, and every time I did those research studies, even though I was supposed to be an impartial researcher, observing and just sort of collecting data, I often couldn't help myself at the end of an interview saying, hey, notice you struggle with that thing over there, and are you sure there's nothing that would fix that? And like, no, I'm like, well, I've got an idea, and if I have an idea, I wonder what other ideas other people would have. So I came up with this concept of data living labs to help create a community that solves the problems of the community. Because let's say you have a family member that has an issue and it's just an issue, and you've never been able to solve it. I might say, well, my family member doesn't have that issue, but I've got an idea that might help yours. But I can't do anything because it's just an idea. Somebody else might overhear us and say, I don't have the issue. I didn't come up with the idea, but I can mock something up. I'm sort of a designer, but I don't have a 3D printer right now. Somebody else to say I got that 3D printer and so on. So the community really can solve the problems that the community has if we all connect the dots. And I think that concept of itself to help people with disabilities is great, but I think it also transfers over to any other industry. If I'm a restaurateur saying, hey, I have an issue with this part of my process or this part of my business, maybe it's, you know, you know, fries get cold too quickly. Okay. How do we deal with that? Maybe somebody else to say, I've got an idea, but I can't make the equipment do it. Some equipment guy might say, we've never tried that, but we could modify one of our things and try it. And so the community can help the community, and AI helps do the matching and explore things and and just keep everybody connected. So if that's one thing that AI could do is to help people connect to each other, say, hey, I have this issue. Oh, there's a solution over here, or have this issue. Well, there's no solution. Let's put our heads together and let's make something. Let's invent it. Because why the hell not? Wow. So I didn't realize that it was a community. Where does the community live? Is on discord. Is it on I mean, where where is this community? Good question. So we're building it right now. We've done work with a number of universities, professors and their students that are research and design to sort of make sure we're building the right foundation and get this flywheel going. So building in, you know, AI to help you find things, AI to help connect people that have a common interest in solving an issue, even if they don't themselves have the issue. Find and have discord type forums and community where somebody can say, hey, what about this or this work? But I can't get it due to this other thing because I don't have, you know, something and maybe somebody else has, you know, in terms of ability and how their body works or doesn't work. So it'll be its own platform then is what its own platform. And it'll be an adjunct to the organizations that already exist. We're not trying to replace the autism society. We're not trying to replace, you know, AARP or these other organizations. We're trying to basically be the innovation arm that says we're going to find things, build things, and integrate them. Because even even in my world, I mean, I don't have a disability, although my wife might disagree on some days when I forget stuff. But but when I go into my kitchen and I ask, the devices sitting there that way sometimes uses recipe timers and that kind of thing. Hey, you know, do I have any packages or play notifications? It's like you have a package from Amazon. I'm like, yeah, I know for other cameras. Saw me take it off the porch two hours ago, and then two cameras in my office saw me unbox the thing. So who didn't tell you? So integrate things to just make it a better experience, because the more devices we have in our life. They're out beeping or blinking or wanting to play a message and, you know, having to get through all those messages going, nope. Already knew it. Nope. Already knew it. That wasn't relevant. That was relevant. No, I don't want to reorder that to shut up. So the integration of it all. Interesting. Yeah. Because, I mean, I think that one of the things that came out of the uprising last week was about control your inputs, and it was about the idea that, you know, we're just there's so much coming at us at any given time. And to your point, in this case, it's that, you know, the information you're getting back is old news. I mean, it's like like there's a way to solve this. It should know these things. And so you're wasting my time now going through the laundry list of things I already know, which means I'm not going to come back and ask you or I'm not going to have the value out of this, you know, human machine relationship. Yeah, yeah. The other thing that I think bolts onto it, though, is at the organization level. I mean, if AI and robotics and all these technologies are it's like a train, you're not going to stop. It's like this wave, the storm is coming in. Hey, you know the AI storm is coming. You know it's going to be really powerful. It's going to change everything. Great. Well, most organizations are taking the approach of, well, every man for themselves and man and woman, you know, guys and marketing. They got some umbrellas with logos on them. I think they're good finances, some inner tubes, they should float along just fine, etc., etc. the organization is just letting everybody do what they want. These people want to use it. Great. Let them use it. These people. Little hesitant. That's fine. It's not a requirement. You do you. But instead of we as an inner tubes, we need arcs. Arcs instead of umbrellas. We need to build a structure, a strategy for the whole organization so we don't leave the people in the organization behind. It maybe didn't get to AI in time to really figure it out, but they're still important to the organization. So we need to sort of build an arc that that that lifts up everybody. And maybe the industry needs to build an arc to say, let's all work together and think through what might be coming down the pike and what might happen, so we can put our collective heads together and figure out how we're going to use this technology to benefit our industry and make sure our industry doesn't get, you know, washed away by it. Well, it's interesting. So also at the uprising last week, they were talking about someone was sharing I might butcher the stat, but hopefully I get it right that it was something like overwhelmingly and I feel like it was in the 75%, or like it was some high percentage that Gen Xers were the ones that overwhelmingly were actively trying to sabotage their companies AI usage. Like over any other generations, like like they were 75% more likely or or, you know, something like that. And I thought that was really interesting because one of the themes and, and I know I think we, we talked about this too at South By was, you know, they were talking about like these mass layoffs and these things are going to keep happening because people aren't going to adopt and they're not going, you know, they're not willing to embrace it. But I like the way that you're coming at it of helping them, building that Ark building, you know, accepting that not everybody. First off, this isn't everybody's thing. And some people I mean, you know, I know we always say like, well, it saves you time. Well, I'm sorry, but if you play around and work in AI enough, you know, there's times where you get real frustrated real fast when it you could have just done the thing yourself because the either your prompt was bad or, you know, whatever reason like it and it just got you down a rabbit hole and you tried to fix it and whatnot. And that's frustrating because it was supposed to save me time. So what do you think about that, though? The, the the idea that, you know, there was a little bit of doom and gloom of, like, people not adopting and layoffs and futurist Mike, what are you seeing in the crystal ball, please. And just and just to be clear, futurists don't predict we're not Carnac. We just look at the possibilities. But again, look, in the past, for example, at some point in the past, you know, everybody was doing the farming and everybody had, you know, you know, or some draft horses where everything is fine and then some asshole when it bought a tractor and it was like, what did Jeb get? And it does what? Come on. You know, and and and Jeb was able to go out there and, and farm a lot more acres. And everybody that just had the, the, the ox and the mule and the horse. But there were days when Jeb couldn't do a damn thing because his tractor was broken. And they're like, oh, I thought the tractor was supposed to help you, Jeb. It looks like it's not doing anything. And my horse is still just fine, you know, and and Jeb had to go and get a new part that wasn't really common because nobody really else said tractors in his county. He had to order it through Sears and Roebuck or something. His tractors. I have permission for a month. Okay. But then eventually they got those things worked out. Ten, 20, 30 years later, all the rest of the people in that valley said, okay, we finally decided to get one of those stupid tractors like that asshole Jeb, because he's farming 500 acres. We're still stuck on 40 and well, okay, fine, we'll try. And it worked out. And by the way, some of those bugs had worked out. You know, they didn't break down as much more reliable and you could do more with them. I think young people today might try to sabotage it because they're like, well, if it can do the basic things that an entry level person can do. Well, I'm the entry level person. Oh, you know, this is you know, this is challenging me. This is you know, this is this is an issue for me because I don't have experience. I don't have that. So maybe I will try to say, oh, this is not good. I want the entry level job, but what can you do? Well, yeah, my my Gen Alpha nephew, I asked him about AI and I was like, oh, who's your favorite creator? Because I was trying to suss out if his creator was a real creator or if it was AI because we were having the discussion about do people care? Does the next generation care, I should say, if it's human or not. And he was like, AI, I hate AI, and I mean, he's there. Is he? I think he's 15. Yeah, he's 15. And I remember being like, well, why? And he couldn't give me a reason. And so I was, you know, I tried to poke and prod a little bit more. I didn't get much out of him. But it was interesting because, you know, I mean, I know people that still are like, no, I'm not doing it. No, this is terrible. And listen, I'm not here to say that there aren't crazy environmental impacts and all kinds of things that are going to come from it. I'm not I'm not denying that. But the tea leaves that I'm seeing and just even my own experiences and what it's allowed my business to do and my clients to do has been enough. The genie's out of the bottle. So I'm riding the wave. Yeah. And I'm going to hope that legislation and everything follows. Yeah. And we know that legislation is always behind. We know that government and it is what it is. But just like when we go back to the land manual analogy, we have no idea what amazing things are going to come out of this and was will just, you know, all sunshine and light. Nope. You know, do we have pollution and spills and things are like, oh, that's bad. Microplastics, all sorts of stuff that were like that. That wasn't a good look. So with AI moving so quickly, this is where I think we need to get involved. We need to get engaged and understand what it can do, what it can't do, and what becomes possible or what's soon to be possible. So we can advocate, say, hey, put up a fence, you know, make a rule or regulation that says it can't do this, can't do that, because we do want to mitigate the downside and maximize the opportunity and the positive potential. I mean, if we could go back 100, 120 years, we'd probably tell the oil industry, hey, this is going to be great. But however, let's make sure we do these other things that, you know, going to reduce the issues down the road. And so we have that ability now to engage and again advocate for what we really think makes sense. But to properly advocate we have to know what it can do. If you just show up and say this AI thing that I don't understand, and I've never taken the time to really try to use or figure out, I think we need to be careful. Careful about what? Well, I don't know because I've never really used it. Okay, well, you don't really have a lot of standing, so get in, get your hands dirty, figure out what it's good at, not good at, and then talk to other people. Say, hey, we need to make sure this or we need to amplify that. I think you're really I mean, I think you're spot on. And, you know, I think that the sooner you start, the better. And, you know, I know our team. I mean, we're using several tools simultaneously now just so we can test, like, hey, we know we built this way, but this thing's changed. And I mean, just seeing the differences and outputs side by side has been amazing and caused greater discussion in caused, you know, helped us discover other things. And we just didn't think about like, oh my God, Claude said this, but ChatGPT was saying this and and oh, but over in perplexity, you know, and it's scary because the, the tech stack gets really high and really, you know, quick. And I have a lot of clients that are stuck with just copilot. That's all they've got access to because the it rub now. And so I think there's a lot there's a lot there that still needs to be worked out. But I guess in kind of wrapping things up, like is there anything that you want to leave us with of like, you know, where to start our journey, how to think about this? I know that you're also a professor, so how do you what do you tell your students when it comes to the future and AI and how to think about all this? You know, one of the number one things I tell people, clients and students is that when you encounter a frustration or challenge or difficulty, the first thing you have to do is imagine that there's already a solution. You just haven't seen it. You haven't found it. If you go and search and go, well, there's probably not a solution for this Holy Nike as there is now. It might suck. Okay. Or I might do an okay job, but the next iteration will do better. And by the way, again, we don't have to wait for an annual release to do better because if somebody's made, you know, somebody happy with what they've already built, somebody else is going to say they made money. Great. Let's sort of do our version. And next thing you know, there's ten, ten versions out there and wondering is going to be better than the next. So assume that there's a solution to the thing that that messes up your day, that frustrates you, that causes you, you know, you know, some sort of difficulty, assume there's a solution and then be aware of things that maybe don't exist. But you could get others together and say, why don't we build this? We'd all benefit if we just build this. If you think about a typical restaurant today, think about 100 years ago. What did that restaurant have in terms of equipment? Maybe it had a fire in like a crock, you know, like a, you know, a solid fuel. We call it solid fuel. Yeah, solid fuel and a Dutch oven or something. Maybe that's all they had. Right. And then eventually and then eventually and then. Oh my gosh. Wait. Now we've got this fryer without a fryer. You know, I mean you know, I mean they added all this equipment and then somebody like hey if we pa cooked this and we have a steamer, then we can put under the boiler. They did all sorts of things. And now that's just the way things work. Well, who's to say five years from now, we're not going to have all sorts of other things that we say, wow, that makes it a better product faster. You know, less waste, you know, less hassle. Let's clean up. It made our business operation better. Oh, wow. Who the fuck. So, first of all, know the things that are working and not working and be willing to change and break both of them. Because even if you're like, yeah, it works fine. Work this way. For 40 years since grandma started this place. Okay, but can we still deliver what grandma loves and what all the customers of grandma's recipes love? But can we change our process in the way that reduces the effort and puts us in less of a bind when things do go wrong or could go wrong? So I think net net is a futurist. I'm pretty positive about the world's going to get better because most people are good people. Will people be able to use technology for bad things? Yeah, they always have been able to. But there's more good people than bad people. And if we really try to harness it, yoke it and make it work for us, technology, that's what his purpose is. And we've got to really bright future, be able to say, hey, we don't have to do all of these things the same way. We don't have to spend our energy during this versus doing that. We can do the things that really matter and really add value for ourselves, for our customers or clients and our loved ones. And I think the world is going to be an amazing place. Will the whale fishermen still lose their jobs? Yeah. But that that whole shift from those old ways of doing things to what Will brought us in that analogy again, have been mind boggling. If you're going to back under 20 years, hey, someday you're going to be able to have a heart replacement, and that heart valve is going to be made from this stuff that we extracted out of the ground. And we're like, you're nuts, but we're not nuts. We're just futurists. What a perfect way to end this. And I appreciate that, you know, sharing with us the net net looks good because I think that that's an important way to keep that positive outlook and also stay curious about what the future holds. Thank you so much for joining me, Mike. This was great. I really appreciate it and I look forward to having you back maybe in a couple months or year, whatever, and see what's changed and what's developed. Would love to come back. Thanks for having me on. This was really fun. And and if anybody that listens to this ever has a question for a futurist, let them know they're welcome to contact me. And if they can stump a futurist, they'll get a special prize. So if they can ask me a question that makes me go, I have no idea, then then we'll have a conversation with them and we'll bring them on the podcast and I'll say, okay, they stop me, let's talk about it. Okay. Challenge accepted. Friends, see if you can stump the future as Mike. What's your contact information or where do we go to get Ahold of you? My main email, my company is a periodic sites appear AP I o insights appear as a Latin word that means to reveal, uncover and make clear. So we reveal, uncover and make clear insights. So Mike at insights and I'm Mike Courtney some pretty easy to find online. I have a hard time hiding from people so you'll find me. Well thank you Mike and folks out there challenge him. I want I want to have you on this podcast to see see what comes comes of it. Thanks so much, Mike. Thank you.