Curiosity, AI, and the Future of Change in AEC Firms

In this episode of Activating Curiosity™ | Leading Change in the Construction Industry, Ryan Ware sits down with Kristin Kautz of JAM Idea Agency to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping the AEC industry—and why most firms are approaching it the wrong way.

This conversation challenges a common assumption: that AI is a tool to implement. Instead, Kristin reframes it as something closer to “air”—an embedded capability that enhances how teams already work, rather than something separate to adopt. 

Together, they unpack why change management in construction often fails when it comes to technology, and how storytelling, curiosity, and leadership clarity are critical to overcoming resistance and driving meaningful adoption.

From recruiting challenges and workflow inefficiencies to pricing models and competitive pressure, this episode explores how AI is impacting every layer of the construction industry—and what leaders must do to stay ahead.

This isn’t just about AI in construction—it’s about how leaders build a better relationship with change in an industry being reshaped in real time.

What you’ll learn:

•  Why AI should be viewed as a capability, not a standalone tool 
•  How storytelling helps overcome resistance to new technology 
•  Why curiosity—not age or role—drives successful AI adoption 
•  Practical ways to identify where AI fits into your current workflows 
•  How AI is reshaping recruiting, pricing, and competitive advantage in AEC 

Who this is for:
Construction leaders, architects, engineers, and AEC professionals exploring AI, digital transformation, and change management in construction.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to AI in AEC Industry
06:00 The Ageless Nature of AI and Its Adoption
11:58 Overcoming Resistance to AI Adoption
20:53 AI's Role in Solving Industry Challenges
46:10 Investing in People and Training
01:12:26 Taking the First Steps with AI

Guest

Kristin Kautz is an AI strategist for the AEC industry, helping firms move from hype to practical implementation.

A Fellow of SMPS (FSMPS) and CPSM, she helps leaders integrate AI into real workflows and operations.

https://www.jamideaagency.com/ai-iq-home

Connective Consulting Group
Helping construction leaders simplify change, strengthen trust, and move forward with clarity.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Kristin 0:00

I was talking to principals and leaders, and I I said all of a sudden, okay, everyone is thinking about AI as this thing, you know, like external to them, which is why I try to rephrase it as air. But here's how I want leaders to think about it within their firm. I don't want you to think of it as external. I want you to look at all the things you're currently already doing, and then just think of AI as a slant or lens, right? Whatever you're currently doing, you need to have the curiosity and the baseline knowledge to say, we're already doing this or we're trying to solve this thing. How does AI fit in?

Ryan 1:10

And today's conversation is one that we've all been hearing about. It is in every feed, every article that we probably come across, and that is artificial intelligence. And it's been something that's been in the works for quite some time, but the last couple years, it we we just can't get enough of it, or we've had enough of it. So today I wanted to have a real human conversation as it relates to artificial intelligence within the AEC industry. So today I have with me Kristen Kauts, and she is with J A M Idea Agency, and I find her today, she's actually in Connecticut, um, and like me, buried in snow. So, hey Kristen, how are you doing?

Kristin 1:58

I'm great. How are you?

Ryan 2:00

I am doing it.

Kristin 2:01

Besides cold and buried in snow, but it's all good. It's beautiful though.

Ryan 2:05

Yeah, it just won't stop in Cleveland. So, well, I'm glad you're willing to be a guest with me and kind of talk through this. I know what little bit I've got to see from your experience and getting to read about you that this is a passion project. So before we dive in, um, why don't you tell a little bit about yourself and then we'll kind of dive into some more conversation.

Kristin 2:28

The dreaded one-word sentence, I guess. Um I I've been in our industry for about three decades. I know that dates me, but that's fine. We're gonna own it. We're gonna own it, right? It's wisdom. I've been in our industry for about three decades. I have usually been in leadership and marketing, um, CMO, you know, marketing director level. And I've always been interested in technology, if you will, our industry. Um, I'll be the first to say it. We're a little bit slow, we're a little bit, you know, a little bit behind. Sometimes they say we're two decades behind, our clients are three decades behind. It's not a dig, it's just a fact. But I've always been interested in technology, trying to do something different. Um, and uh that's where this has led me. Um, almost four years ago, we started our own company and really started it to just do interesting marketing in this space. But uh, when I was putting together a presentation about um, and I'll say digital guerrilla marketing hacks, right? So I'd been collecting Chrome extensions, programs, platforms, like anything interesting that our industry did not necessarily do, but should be thinking about, geofencing included. And when I was putting that presentation together, trying to, you know, whittle down about 300 of these tools to about 20 I could present, um, OpenAI handed us Chat GPT on the proverbial platter. And what I say about that too is um it was just better marketing. AI's been around since the 1950s, we all know this, but all of a sudden, in October of 2020, October of 2022, November of 2022, um, it gave us AI in a platform that we're all familiar with, in a dashboard on a website. And they were like, wow, where did this come from? And so I included it in my presentation and just realized very quickly that having sat at these leadership tables for the past several decades, um, that my purpose, passion, if you will, was that our industry is not ready for this type of um I I don't call it technology anymore, Ryan. I call it air. It's we're it's just air. It's gonna be in our lives, our professional lives, our personal lives. It's gonna be so ingrained that we're not even gonna know we're we're using it or need it or have it. And so I um did the turn. I was telling my business partner, I'm like, all I want to do is make sure that our industry is ready for AI. And so that's what I did. Three parts of this conversation are at my age. Okay, so this is also AI has does not have an age. Like everyone thinks it's always a young person's, it's not. It's it's it's oh we can talk about that later. But I finally found something that I love to do, the industry desperately needs to understand, and I might get paid for. So that's the trifecta, right? Finally, and I I didn't create AI, I was just ready for it. And I think also my marketing background sets us up as we are the best storytellers in this industry. And my entire existence, I have been taking complicated technical things and turning them into interesting stories. And here we are.

Ryan 5:39

Well, and I mean that's that's exciting to hear. Well, I've been in the industry about the same amount of time as you. Yeah. Uh so that kind of puts us in about the same bracket. But I love what you said about it's air. I mean, we can get into that. But what you were describing is this it's it's ageless. And while it's not new, advancements into I mean, just through my life, like watching, you know, chip sizes uh shrink and everything that's been going on to um lower cost of technology, but also just this acceleration because of the computing speed and the things that we can get into without geeking out on it.

Kristin 6:20

Yeah.

Ryan 6:21

Um, but AI propelling itself really quickly over the last 10 years to now where we were in the last five. It it is ageless that we don't need to to be in our twenties or thirties to utilize it. But at the same time, being human can have the same resistance or fears towards that new thing that we've not touched.

Kristin 6:49

Yeah.

Ryan 6:50

So talk talk a little bit about you know how you got into that the area for AI within AEC, because you you brought this up storytelling and doing it effectively to to be able to get past those initial hurdles or barriers or resistance that we often see, like you mentioned before with the slow adoption in this industry. So talk a little bit about that.

Kristin 7:18

Oh my god, you just you have so many topics there, right? Okay, so I'm I'm gonna back up just really quickly. So for anyone on the audience, what I really mean, and I think probably what you mean by the fact that AI is ageless or doesn't have this attachment to it, current and old technology, we have to think about AI as just technology we've never seen. It's it's like, and you people have to understand that, and it's really difficult. So when we think about technology, most people in our age bracket and above, they're like, oh, that's a young person's game. But what I have seen with AI, and this is um, I've seen it with my own eyes, is that people who are older are embracing it. And I've had people tell me that they have to use it at home and bring the results to work because their firms were behind. Maybe not so we're moving out of that, but very clearly in the past three years for sure. Um and then I've had um older people who have said I've pushed them into early retirement. So I'm like, okay, I get it, right? Then I have had young people who are like begging for it at work, and then I have young people who stand in front of me in an audience and I can watch the blood drain from their face and they say, I'm not touching this, it's going to bring about human annihilation. So it is, it's not like anything we've, it's truly not like anything we've ever seen. And I love the fact that your uh podcast is about curiosity because I have had people say, well, then if it's if it's not an age, it's not attached to an age, what is it attached to? What is what makes people successful, team successful, firm successful? It is the curiosity of leadership. And I mean that that they cannot stand in the way of their firm and they have to be curious about what is going to make their people better. So um we have mentioned you and I before this conversation, we mentioned the fact that um AI first came out, and uh again, it's been what is it? Help me with the math. It's three and a half years now. I I I cannot even believe I'm saying it.

Ryan 9:19

Three and a half, four, yeah.

Kristin 9:21

Right. I can't believe I'm saying it. It's just it's crazy. Um, but there is still so much noise out there. Maybe, maybe we're just all saturated now, but it was coming, you know, fast and furious, just about people who are fear-mongering. And, you know, if you're not using AI to be more efficient, you know, what are you doing? And if you're not being using AI to be more productive. And in my DNA, um, I am very specific. I am not vague. I hate when people uh say things like that, but they don't define efficient and they don't define the use case and they don't define the tool. And so the, I guess the internal storyteller in me, if you will, is able to lay out a path that people can understand. So I also think that AI currently is not linear. I describe it in so many analogies, you know, like it could be a tornado, it could be a roller coaster, it can be a marathon, uh, a tidal wave, a tsunami. But um you have our brains have to be able to take in the next logical step. And so we as marketers have to put things that are very complex and very complicated into something that our brains can understand. I mean, building a building, designing a building, you know, uh engineering a building, uh, construction, it's oh my God, have you ever seen the spreadsheets for schedules and things? I mean, it's like it's insane. And so how do we take, how do we take AI, something that's so complicated and is not just a singular piece of technology, but touches everyone and every part of a business and lay it out for someone so that they know, oh my God, I finally just know where to start. Where do you start? And so I I think it's uh it's a it's a skill set. Marketers have this skill set. And so also when AI first came out and even continuing to now, you know, it came out with text-to-text and text-to-image generation and text-to-video generation. Everyone's like, oh my God, marketing jobs, you know. And it was it was just the first iteration of what AI could do. It does it so much better now, obviously, and so much more. But marketers are are the kind of the first, they've probably been the first people to use AI. I've seen that in firms, but we're also the best ones to lay out how to logically move a firm forward.

Ryan 11:50

Yeah.

Kristin 11:51

Yeah.

Ryan 11:52

I mean, that's impactful to think about that, you know, one, we're as humans, like Yeah. That's just how that is how we function. As our brains don't recognize something right off the bat, and it takes so many times to see it. And marketers are taught this, right? Seven plus times before we even recognize something. Seven touches.

Kristin 12:15

Seven touches.

Ryan 12:16

So this area of, you know, it sounds like the problem that you're aiming to solve is how do we tell this story without oversimplifying what seems very complicated or overcomplicating it so much that it's actually more simple than that. And that's a balancing act with AI. Like, like I think about all the things that you're mentioning before that are thrown at us. Um in the fear levels, range. Oh, yeah. So each human inside that firm or business, like we all have our own relationship with how we're going to react to it. And I think something else that you you said is that that clarity piece in this marketers being able to help individuals see that first to next step without okay, you may not see all the way across this because it's ever changing, but getting getting that initial um buy-in from here is what it is, and this is how you can use it, and here's the first couple steps to take it. So is the is the real problem, I guess, then that you see AI, a lot of it, everything's thrown at everyone, and it's almost overcomplicated it to where it's left the human agency piece behind. Or how else would you describe this thing that you're like, I this is what we're aiming to solve and how we want to help people?

Kristin 13:50

I'm gonna go back to the really quick visual of um the where we are with AI. So just you know, bear with me, because if we're you know visual storytellers, I'm a visual thinker too. Everybody knows this. Okay, so anyway, so when I first started this, um, and when I say first started this, you know, like when when I first started talking about like what what is that step for you? Um here was here, I'm using my hands. I know how people can see me, but it in if you're all just on the podcast, you know, there was a logical progression of steps. So think of stairs, right? It's like here is where we are, and here's where AI is, and I'm just trying to get you to the next step. And then the AI is gonna advance and create the next step, and we're gonna follow that to the next step. And um, what is happening now, and that as a storyteller, is that the consultant or the AI whisperer, the whatever person you want to call me that that moves you forward with that, um, it was really it was easier because it was like, again, here's where you are, and the AI is right in front of you. Let's just go meet it where it is. Um, what has happened in the past three and a half years, which you're like, what makes it difficult? I'm gonna, this is so selfish. I'm gonna say what makes it difficult for me is that the analogy I use is that we're all cavemen, you know, playing with, you know, sticks and fire, and the starship enterprise is taking off into outer space. And your brain and my brain cannot take in actually where AI is anymore. And so how do I, how do I get cavemen to the Starship Enterprise, you know? And you said we're on the same bracket, you know, again, all technology before, from the phone that had a cord in the wall to the, you know, to the mobile, not mobile, what is it that we could just walk around with the antenna in your house, and then you had a pager, and then you had, you know, your mobile phone, the flip phone, and then you had an iPhone. We could all take that in. Those are steps. Those are just easily logical steps for us. But truly, what is happening right now with AI and its capabilities are so far ahead of where anybody in the normal scale is, even myself. Like, I sometimes I wake up and I'm like, oh my gosh. So I, as like the hard part is for me, is telling people even what the next step is, and just making sure that they just don't go, I give up. We're so far behind and giving them one step. And then I think the really the hardest part for, and we'll talk about AEC people, teams, and firms, which is nothing new. It is fear and inertia. And um, I don't mean you have to say, oh, I'm scared. Who wants to admit that they're scared, right? But there is, there's real fear out there of AI on lots of, you know, on a global scale to a personal, it will take my job scale. Um, and then there's just inertia. There's a really funny uh slide that I have, and it's like, you know, who wants change? And everybody raises their hand, and it's like, who's going to change? Like, no one. You know, so getting people to actually change is um really difficult. So I didn't realize that when I started this journey trying to help firms, I really didn't. I was like, I thought I'd be out of a job by now, Ryan. I thought everyone, I we would show them the magic, they would take the magic, they would do and be the magic. Um, and I had no idea, again, I knew our industry was behind, but I had no idea of how prevalent just how slow we are to change, or that firms are slow to let their people change. So uh I find myself being a little bit of a psychologist sometimes, and um not just technology, it's not just the tech, it's really a people issue.

Ryan 17:34

Well, and I think that's important to to kind of reiterate is that human, what what I always kind of term as connecting the human to the change. And this industry has, like most industries, change fatigue, um the exhaustion, like you said, the inertia and a shrinking workforce and all just you know, you stack it along without stressing out everyone who's listening. But we're all living it every day. So, like you mentioned, that psychological side. Yeah, you don't have to say I'm afraid of it to that extent, but you you should name it for yourself. Um name the emotion, how am I feeling? Because the more we we recognize it, of like, well, I'm this is forced on me versus I'm willing to do this, like it has a different impact on you as an individual as well as others. So you know, with AI, as you described, it's it is coming on so much quicker, even though it's been around. We are used to, especially as Gen Xers, like Best Generation ever. Yeah, exactly, the forgotten generation. Um, we we have seen slower progression, but it's also accelerated. So uh records to all the way up through feet three uh players, things like that. But through that period, like we there was moments in between. And I used to hear this all the time. The technology is so much more advanced than what we see out for sale or what we can utilize, right? Because one, we wouldn't be ready for it. And I I think back towards I always use this analogy in Europeer, so maybe this will land. But the iPhone, when it first came out, there were nine original advertisements that were were put out before it dropped. And I always told everybody, is like, watch it all the way through and tell me what happens at the end of each of those commercials, which was a phone call. Yeah, I always said it was there to tell us like you didn't know you needed all these other things inside one device, but it's it's still a phone so that our minds would register quicker to that, right? And make it something we recognized. And I think you mentioned this, which was so critical, was that um each each person's gonna go through their own relationship with this, but the firm has to provide curiosity, psychological safety, and figure out time of how do we implement some of these things um that will bring us more value to potentially release us from some of this time portness that the industry has of being able to have more curiosity within our offices. So when you're when you're thinking about this and this problem you're aiming to solve, and this that it has been slower, and I I think a lot of industries have been slower with AI than some of the other technology that's happened. Um you know, what makes this really important for the industry to to start to have that curiosity, to start with some of these things and implementing it in into their offices?

Kristin 21:04

Yeah. So um okay, there's a twofold twofold answer to this. One, uh we have we have a recruiting problem. I mean, we can't, you said we we're able to work for it. We can't find people. And so when it first hit, you know, three and a half years ago, I remember talking to a principal and he said, Oh my god, this is gonna solve our recruiting problem. He went straight for that. And not getting rid of people, but just being able to, you know, X up our current staff to to do better, be more productive, be happier. There's lots of metrics here. Um be able to do things that they couldn't do necessarily without getting more people on board. So there's that. Then the the other part is um we are sometimes seen as a commodity because we charge by the hour. This has been a problem. Uh I didn't make this problem up. You know, I've heard it for decades. Now and I truly believe, like when I first started talking about AI, I had, and I said, we're gonna move from hourly based to you know uh value-based. Like we're gonna have to figure out our pricing differently. And then somebody in the audience said, Well, but if I can do it in 15 minutes instead of an hour, I'm just gonna get paid for 15 minutes. And so again, this is a rethinking of who we are as people, teams, and firms and an industry where our clients want us to have higher quality, you know, safer drawings and safer buildings. And we also want them built faster. So if you can actually provide all that, then you're gonna get paid for that value. It has nothing to do with time anymore. So I would say, you know, things that are faster, um, we can't build fast enough, we can't find enough people, and our quality needs to improve. And I believe AI can help with that. Um, the other part I would like to just go back really quickly is um we talked about the noise before. So anybody out there who's just thinking again, how do I filter this noise? Like, where do we start? I mean, I have the structure in my presentation, but I will tell you, I was uh uh consulting a couple weeks ago and I had an epiphany, which is awesome, which is why I love to talk about AI so much, because even my own thinking changes about it. Right. And most people are like, you know, again, it's the I need AI, you know, uh, you know, why do you need it? I have no idea. When do you need it? Right now. So we always start with the why. We start with the the what problems are you trying to solve? What are the challenges you have? And let's figure out that AI. You don't just say, oh, we need AI. AI in itself is not a strategy, it is to help you be better at whatever you're doing. So I was talking to principals and and leaders, and I I said all of a sudden, okay, everyone is thinking about AI as this thing, you know, like external to them, which is why I try to rephrase it as air. But here's how I want leaders to think about it within their firm. I don't need you to uh set it aside and you know, throw energy. We all have the same, you know, things to throw at problems, you know, time, money, or knowledge. I don't want you to think of it as external. I want you to look at all the things you're currently already doing and then just think of AI as a slant or a you know, a bent to it. I want you to, or lens, you know, whatever word you want to use. Whatever you're currently doing, you need to have the curiosity and the the baseline knowledge to say, all right, we're already doing this or we're trying to solve this thing. How does AI fit in? It's not AI fitting into your workflows, right? It is how um it's not out there. It's like you're just think of because leadership is busy and um people are busy. And you said this is what sparked it is they're like, you know, top down, you're gonna use AI, we're gonna force you to use it. And you know, that's just already aggressive, you know, aggressive. So even people, people just need to think about what they're already doing. Don't get too distracted by the shiny things, although it's awesome, but just think about what you're already doing, and let's find the AI that currently fits into that workflow. The second part of that equation is once you get comfortable enough with it in your current workflow and putting AI into your process or your tasks or whatever you're doing, then I promise you, and I don't know when the penny drops, if it's three months or six months or a year after, but you're gonna start to then think about your workflows completely different. You're gonna start with how do I just do this thing better? Instead of like, I mean, really better. You could wad up the process and start over from scratch. So that's it's it's everything everywhere all at once.

Ryan 25:50

Yeah. Well, and I, you know, you're talking about sort of that that change management piece.

Kristin 25:55

For sure. It's hard. It's really difficult.

Ryan 25:58

And it is. It's like, how do you change the tires on a bus while it's still moving? Um and in this case, the I the way you stated it, I think just makes it so clear is we if we back up and say AI is not a thing.

Kristin 26:13

Yeah.

Ryan 26:13

And this this happens in our industry a lot. Like there's we're inundated with so much stuff and technology, and and I'll and I'll say that you know, we've done a poor job with the marketing of technology of the silver bullet or magic, you know, magic button, whatever you want to call it, that it was this thing that you're going to insert, opposed to, as you described, how do we collect the information? How do we do look for identifying factors at the beginning?

Kristin 26:43

Yeah.

Ryan 26:44

And and working through to identify here is that problem as you stated. And we do that. That's why we start businesses. It's like, well, does more than one person have this problem more than one time? Yeah, yeah. Um, and and I think AI maybe was coming at us so much quicker that it suddenly forced itself into this thing, as you're saying, and if we can just, and I love that you stated it because just reframe like, take a different lens and take a different look at it and understand how you're currently working. Um, and all software sort of embedding it, but like, what are the things that are draining you as a business? What are the things that are repetitive? What are the things that aren't bringing, you know, you real value or ROI that as an architect or an engineer that that you're doing? Um because I don't, I don't, you know, all the things that you probably have seen and I'm from a consulting side, but like all the technologies and different AIs that are out there, like I think there's tremendous value in predictive, um be able to predict things, to I think about earned value management within ERPs and especially with architects. Like when a budget is getting off, you should be able to see it faster, not only as an individual on a team, but as a business owner. What adjustments are you gonna make? And the one, you have to understand what all of that means, but two, how to advance the technology and utilize it so that you're you're getting the data aggregation to a point and a dashboard that is information that's usable, but it can't be just take the technology and plug it in, it's automatic. You as the humans, and this is I, you know, what you're really talking about is getting the humans involved in that piece and taking the agency back to it is my job, it is my role, this is what I'm doing, this would be helpful if I had it. So um is that is is that am I hearing you correctly in that piece of like it is it is really multiple areas of change management. Some people might be at the beginning of it, some people might find themselves in the middle that are a little stuck, and some people just want to create a culture of change potentially.

Kristin 29:08

For sure. Okay, so not change for change sake.

Ryan 29:11

Yep.

Kristin 29:12

Change for for whatever your you know metrics are for growth, for being better, for, you know, and almost every single one of this is a marketing thing, uh almost every single one of our firms and our industry is like, you know, we are committed to the environments and the communities we live in. We want to make spaces that are better for people, right? So like it's like it's all of that. One of the things that you that you mentioned, okay, so if uh most people out there, this is so basic, most people hate receipts and timesheets. You know what I mean? Let's get that off our plate. So there's that's just a that's minutia. That is like in the weeds, a real problem that most people have. And if we could take that off their plate, they could go do something bigger or better with their time. And then what you're talking about is leadership really um, and people, you know, when you talk about data, they're like, you know, what is that, what does that even mean? What does data mean? And I'm like, it's all the spreadsheets and information that you have and being able to have a conversation with it and it's aggregated in such a way that you can actually understand what it means for your business instead of looking at a spreadsheet or fields in your in your you know system where you're just looking for particular things to say, oh yeah, we're doing okay. Right. So as a as a marketer, I'll tell you one of my previous firms, believe it or not, uh, I was responsible for uh getting the strategic plans annually from the 15 different market sectors, okay? And I it's not because I was in I was in charge of strategy, it was because um I was probably really good at nagging people to get information. And then when I got it back, I could format it. Okay, let's just be honest about it. But what I'm saying is part of those strategic plans from these individual market sectors, um, you know, had numbers attached, like what are you gonna do this year? Uh what do you think you're gonna do next year? How many people do you need? Are you gonna whatever? And I'm just gonna say it most of the time, um, uh these this leadership, they would put in a number that they wanted, then they would have to put in the number of people that could get them to where they wanted, but their strategy sometimes did not back up those numbers or the marketplace, we know markets ebb and flow did not really match. And so no one wants to say, oh, we're gonna need less people, we're gonna make less money this year. But that's the truth of business. And so if those, if those leaders had, you know, industry information, market information, um, I'm talking, you know, global fluctuations about, you know, product delivery and steel and wood and all of this stuff, and it was in a place that they could just say, here's what we do, here's what we did, you know, what is it gonna look like? And they would have actual information that would back up a prediction or a strategy. And if they were going to make less money, because that's just what was gonna happen, and they needed less people, what's the strategy for that? You know, and so I just better information. So you go from something like I just want, I just don't want to do my timesheet anymore to what does the company really look like it's doing and if people could 100% predict growth or, you know, what's the opposite of growth?

Ryan 32:25

Uh losing my words, you know, that's yeah, pullback, shrinking, yeah.

Kristin 32:30

Yeah. So anyway, it it's all over the place, which is again why I think it's just like we all need to take a breath when you get this kind of wrapped around. You just take a breath and you think about what am I trying to solve? Like, what am I trying to solve right now? Anyway, but you like you said, like like what's the benefit for everybody? The benefit is it's it's unnameable at the moment until I I get to know what your firm looks like and what you really need. And then the opportunities truly are are limitless.

Ryan 33:03

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's fair. I think when you go in, like when I think about coaching and consulting or change management, like I'm looking at where they are now, right? So it's like a GPS and trying to get them to their action items and heading towards the ultimate goal that they want to get to, knowing that, hey, the goal can shift and situations will change. Like if we're if we're too reluctant to understand that a situation we're in today differed from 10 years ago to what today we have in a situation versus 10 years from now, like we're not, we can't use the buzzword agility, right? Like that's we're just end up stuck. So I think as you described it, I see, yeah, there is, you know, especially in our industry, like whether it's timesheets to some of the simplicity, but we're breaking things down now into there's AI within our business and how we can use it to increase our net profitability. Our, you know, we all talk in generic terms of efficiency, but we don't know what we can't see. Right.

Kristin 34:17

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Ryan 34:19

Yeah, and I think a lot of ERPs or some of the things that are used, especially in architecture or engineering, construction, I'll put that to the side because I think there's other software there. But the ability for design teams to be able to track in the again, why are you doing the timesheet or how are you budgeting the project? There are still costs that are hitting every month as you're tracking against the earned revenue, and you're trying to understand like, are we going to lose margin? So as a business owner making those plans, it is, is you know, are we making the the gross margin that we thought? Is the net profitability? Because they're looking at other expenses they want to invest in.

unknown 35:01

Yeah.

Ryan 35:02

Technology, new, new location, whatever it is, like that's just one piece of it. Then you get into the predictive side with design. And, you know, I've seen in the past it's like healthcare planning to um take off tools for architects to try to help if you're doing some estimates to contractors, like each of these things. Well, the data has to be put in and learn from it or in order to get to predictive. And all you can go all the way to the field of like open space and some of those technologies where they are for safety, security, like you said, geofencing, or being able to. This is one thing that I think is huge, is like when to bring material in, where should the material be placed based off the flow or typical flow, so that you're not going up a bunch of ladders or moving material a thousand times that is a bunch of waste in a field that could bring ultimately cost down. Like those two ends of the spectrum there of how I see the predictive side of AI that requires the data for us to begin to utilize these softwares and get that input. But I think what you said is so important for all of us to think about, which is the fatigue reason. The reason we have change fatigue or anything else is that the word strategy around technology is that it's not, again, it is not a thing. It is you're looking for those things that you want or would like to see lessened by you doing it or someone else, or it's repeatable and build it around the capability that it could be different, like you said, in a few years.

Kristin 36:53

Well, we've all been clobbered by it. Our industry has been clobbered by technology. Okay. So I'm not going to name names or anything like that because it's just it's across the board. There is not a single firm out there who hasn't spent tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement a large software, hardware program with a vendor who was promised the moon, um, gave their people a little bit of just like the bare minimum of training and expected great things. And then um, I mean, I've watched it, I mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars. And one year later, the company is like, we need to change systems again. And I'm just like, I mean, just like pulling my hair out. And this was before AI. So I tell people, again, we all barter in knowledge, money, and time are when when people think again, this is why it's massive, that they just have to sit with it for a while and say, okay, I need to believe her till I see it for myself that AI is just different. So before previous technology, some current technology, big resources, big time, big knowledge, big money for a little bit of return. I'm using my hands, a little bit of return. AI is different. AI is you do a little bit of time, knowledge, and money, and your your return will be and is massive. And um, I tell them, so I've talked to it like about air. It's also just a language. You're learning the language of AI. I'm not gonna say technology, just of AI. So maybe like you, I tell people this all the time. I research AI several hours a day. This is, you know, when I'm going through my social media feed, it's not to see what, you know, cats are doing, you know, or which monkey has fallen in love with the giraffe or, you know, whatever. It is like it's solid AI. And so I'm looking at this stuff all the time. And for me, if I see an AI tool and I'm like, oh, this is interesting, I'll take a screenshot of it, but it's really interesting, I'll go right into it on my phone and I'll log in, I'll give them, I'll try the free trial right away on my phone. There is no learning curve for me. It is a language, it all functions the same. It just kind of depends on what you're asking it for and what what it's specifically trying to do, how it was built. But when people get this language, um, then it's just again, I just keep saying that the possibilities are really the opportunity is open. But going back to it's just not like it's not like anything we've ever seen before. It's not it's not clunk. New territory. It's not clunky, it's not, you know, it's not um hard to use. The interfaces aren't, you know, manipulative. And so, yeah.

Ryan 39:29

Yeah. I mean, I think it's probably because it doesn't, you're not getting it out of out of a box, an old CD that's data source a little more, or you're downloading it, right? Exactly. So now it's like, okay, so I've got to go into this this app or this software, and it's supposedly going to help me in whatever way possible.

Kristin 39:53

Yeah.

Ryan 39:54

And what you're talking about is your own curiosity of like, I'm just exploring to see what people are thinking. And and I think there's a lot of slop, you know, AI slop that we all see through our feeds. And the real power in this is our own imagination or a challenge of our own kind of lack of imagination or failure of imagination where we're just not sure because we can't as humans, like again, we like to see all the way across that goal, like every step we're gonna take. And it's like it's not the case with this. It is different, it's it can sound very complicated.

Kristin 40:40

Yeah.

Ryan 40:40

And and the reality is, is like you could put it into certain buckets of a problem that you want to try to solve, and then explore that problem. It is how to increase safety on the job site. That's what we want to do. Here's the things that we're seeing as constant, and then you begin to explore the possibilities of maybe technology that's already out there or something that you would like to have internal.

Kristin 41:08

Yeah.

Ryan 41:09

So I think again, it's it is it's a very human experience. And I, you know, I tell people is like, you gotta maintain your own agency in it. And I think with a lot of our yeah, a lot of our other technology that we've come across, like, we've lost that. We've lost that connection to one another. We're releasing our own choice and decisions and handing it, handing it off. And an AI is is an opportunity to help, I think, accelerate. I use it a lot to just help accelerate my own decision making, getting things in front of me, helping you know, brainstorm whatever it is, knowing that, hey, it's gonna, just like a human, going to make mistakes. So I am a um, while it's maybe aggregating and pulling and putting information in front of me, I'm still the validator. I'm still the check system.

Kristin 42:07

For sure. I'm gonna give you, I'm gonna give you a really quick example. Something you just said, um, I'm gonna make this concrete. Uh so you said AI slop, which is like I get it. And when people tell me about that, there's lots of ways to to fix that problem. Okay. Uh we don't have to get into that today because it's like it's just more on the technical, like, you know, active side. However, what I will say is this if you're not a good writer, you know you're not a good writer, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna use AI, I'm using AI, and there's no, you haven't given the instructions, you haven't given, you haven't trained it on a knowledge base for you. And whatever comes out of AI, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm a great writer. Let me tell you something. You're not a great writer. Okay. You never have been, and with AI, you're still not a great writer. You just think you're a better writer than you were before, but you still are not a great writer. Instead of taking that output from AI and you're it's the human problem, we're like, oh, that's great. What I would say is, and this goes back to the curiosity, constant learning, trying to be better as a human, you absolutely can use AI to become a better writer yourself. Then you, when you use AI again, you will know if your writing is better or not. So, in that regard, AI, sorry, I get loud when I get excited, might not be the tool that is delivering a product that you take credit for that you think is great. AI is now turned into the teaching tool for you to be better at what you are not good at.

Ryan 43:39

Yeah.

Kristin 43:40

So it's like, you know, I mean, I'm a painter, right? And so I'll I'll never be a Picasso. Uh and but if you if you give some, I give just because you give me a paintbrush doesn't make me Picasso. Um and AI is that instead of again, I'm just gonna repeat it one more time uh for the people in the back, you using AI as And the output of AI for you as a human, first of all, you can't copyright it, you can't trademark it, you don't own it. So, but taking credit for something that really isn't great because you don't know any better, you need to use the AI to teach you to be better.

Ryan 44:14

Yeah.

Kristin 44:14

So that's the human part. And people have asked me about education. God, that's a whole nother topic, Ryan. Um, education and what and teaching the younger generation that what comes, how do they know what comes out of AI if it's good or bad or if it's, you know, awful. Well, this is the part. They're not, I don't want if you're in that, if you're in the learning mode of your career, then you're not going to use AI to create a quality product. You're going to use the AI so that you are better to understand if AI is creating the quality product. And so again, I would like to say uh just it is investment. Yes, the technology, AI of any kind is going to cost money. But the real investment, which we seem to know is important, we talk about it all the time. Training, training, training. But firms are like, we don't want to do training. You know, we just where does the investment go? It goes into your people.

Ryan 45:14

Yeah. I mean, that's people talk about training being a cost. Training costs. It's like, that's an investment, as you can see.

Kristin 45:22

Investment, correct.

Ryan 45:23

Right? And it's, I think you said it so so clearly.

Kristin 45:27

Done well, Ryan. Done well. I'm not talking about generic, you know, you know, generic stuff. It's like, again, figuring out your problems, and the solution to those problems could be technology, it could be AI, or it could be people, you know, mentorship, training. So specificity in investment is also where I'm at.

Ryan 45:52

Yeah. Well, and it's, I mean, there's truth in all of that in the sense that it's like, hey, don't the agency part of it is that it is there to just give you something, something to help with a decision or working through a problem. And it's still on you to know that you're in the world, you are present, you still know you're here, because other people have to absorb what you're going to maybe put out. And you described being an artist, and that's I was talking about earned value management. Well, you have to start with understanding what earned value management means first, because the data will lie to you because you're still the ones plugging it in.

Kristin 46:35

Yes.

Ryan 46:36

So it is it is just there to help elevate us, um, especially with a lot of the stuff that we're talking about within within businesses, within AEC. And we're not even getting into robotics, material science, and all the ways that that can happen, but like our day-to-day activities, yeah, ways to implement it into our process based on problems that we have clearly identified as repeatable and finding ways to input it.

Kristin 47:07

I okay, because your your, you know, this podcast is called Curiosity Too. Um I always we we've been talking about like business versus the design side of stuff. And I'm like, yeah, we're I don't know if like again, nobody went to school to do timesheets. And our our industry is not run by businessmen, you know, they're run by, and I there's no, and I, you know, whatever that means, but like it, they're run by architects and engineers who want to build things and solve solutions for their clients. And I was just having a conversation uh as a consultant myself in a small business. I hate the business side. It's awful. It ruins my day, you know. Like I want to be doing this and helping people with AI. And so I would just say, too, um, you know, again, AI is probably there to help take, you know, help with the business side, just, you know, make it a little bit easier on us. Okay, but okay, that's that's one thing. I'm gonna go back to the curiosity part. Um, so a lot of people, and again, because AI has been exploding the past three and a half years, a lot of people are also, I'm gonna use the word curious about what other firms are doing and what their competitors are doing. Not so much the clients. I think clients are are behind us, um, but uh what their competitor, people come to my my seminars all the time just to see what other people are doing. And so I would actually take this. Uh my advice would be if I can give it, is I that's fine, and you can look at it what other people are doing, but looking exterior, looking to the exterior to help your own firm is gonna do nothing for you. Your curiosity has to be focused on your own people. So again, um visual, like you know, the horse with the blinders on, running on the, you know, running on the racetrack, like it's great, but you need to focus on yourself and your own people. And that's how you're gonna get so much farther ahead rather than thinking somebody out there is building their own AI and la, because there are those stories out there too. But focus on curiosity externally is gonna just make you sad, upset, think you're behind, like focus on your own people, and you're gonna get ahead so much faster.

Ryan 49:24

Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the grass isn't always greener, is one statement. The other side of it is it's like, hey, they may not have the same issues or problems that you have. You may have, there may be some that are similar, but you have humans inside this firm, inside of this business. They have their own relationship with all of this stuff that you have to figure out, understand, yeah, uh, work through, coach through. And, you know, you mentioned I do I just do think that there's the business piece of it to to yes, that design piece. And there are so many ways to look at that investment that you're going to make is to improve daily lives to all the way through to the net profitability of the business. And we, you know, this is a AEC is a very low net profitability industry. And it we talked about it, recruitment, there aren't enough humans, there are a lot of tasks. The the gentleman who said, like, I see this as a huge opportunity because I may not need to hire, because suddenly we're doing things that we all went to school to do or came in to do these things. But that piece of somebody pushing it down on top from the top down without really understanding what it all means to everybody, and then and then, oh, it doesn't work. So we we took that software out, or you blame the software. And it's it's like, well, you gotta slow down.

Kristin 51:04

Yeah.

Ryan 51:04

And it seems hard to say I'm gonna slow down when every other pace is picking up, but it will you will struggle. It will probably fail.

Kristin 51:13

Um it's slow down to speed up. It's slow down to speed up. So um, and I think that you just mentioned like the leadership again, that's that's pushing AI. And believe me, they're out there like we need we need it, we need it, we need it. Um, it's because they're looking externally and they're thinking, well, everybody else is using it, and so we need it again, without understanding the foundation of how it's truly going to help their business. And so um, yeah, it's the this conversation of said it when we talk about AI, people have asked me, you know, like Kristen, what's your what's your favorite AI tool? And I'm like, we don't start there. I don't know what your problem is, like what your budget is, what you need. But you know, this conversation, we could go on forever. When you talk about AI, you it extrapolates into a million different things. So, and uh, may I say for the record, we've never had these types of discussions over Microsoft Word. So that is the definition of how this is different. And when you implement Microsoft Word, you never talked about differentiators, fee structure, contracts, insurance, change management. You know, it was just this tool that would help people, you know, type better. AI is completely different, so it's like all of this stuff. So, you know, again, I know that this is when we're spinning this too, but like everyone who's listening, just take the deep breath again. We're gonna start from why you need it. If you're a person out there listening, why do you need it? If you're a team, why do you need it? And if you're a firm, you know, why do you need it? So again, yes.

Ryan 52:51

Yeah.

Kristin 52:52

There's a bunny out there spinning out, you know, it's like, oh my God, now I it's like so big. Still, we're just let's center.

Ryan 52:58

Yeah, bring it back. I mean, that's that's how we start any any change, you know, management side. When you're looking at it, it is identify the problem. I mean, the first step is you got to look for those commonalities. And that's where the slow down part has to come in. For sure. Because you're not you're not sure why you need it and what you want to introduce it for. And I think, like you said, uh, we we see the shiny thing because everybody's pushing it down our throat that this tool, this software, this, this, this, and you're like, yeah, but you don't know. Like, you don't know if you have that problem. So, you know, when I think about it, it's like there is a cost to not doing it, just as much as there is a cost to doing it and doing it in correctly. So, you know, if you were when you're talking with clients then who who maybe aren't looking at it or thinking about it, knowing that it's not a thing. Um, and I'm sure you're seeing this because you're trying to educate how how to think about it. Like, what do you most commonly see as a cost, not not fine it doesn't have to just be financially, but as an industry as a whole by not slowing down, by not looking at our problems and seeing this as a real opportunity, like what do you feel that and think that it is costing us um by not doing that?

Kristin 54:23

Going back to the people and the recruiting and retention. So uh one, you won't you won't be able to recruit people without it. The younger generation wants mentorship, they want real onboarding, they want to understand, they want to use the technology. Um and if you okay, okay, this is gonna be, I don't know if this is gonna be controversial or not, but I'm gonna say it anyway. So I've said we're we're two decades behind, our clients are three three decades behind. And what I have seen is clients who are starting to enforce things around AI that will be extremely detrimental to our industry. And because firms and people don't understand enough about AI to push back or educate their clients about why this requirement is you know not gonna go, then we have a, we just have an education problem there. So I will say, I'm gonna say it for the record. If our industry, the built environment, is led by clients who don't understand AI, we are in for a real world of hurt.

Ryan 55:31

Yeah.

Kristin 55:33

So I have two examples. One, um, well, one example with the client, like they are now starting to dictate in their RFQs and RFPs that no AI can be used on submittals. Well, that's it's a ridiculous requirement. I mean, Grammarly is an AI tool for God's sake. So it's a ridiculous requirement. And so that's crazy to me. I mean, there's no our industry, not just again, people, teams, firms, our industry in and of itself, the cost of not understanding what this is to be driven by people who also don't understand what it is, to stop your business from growing or being better is massive. And then because that happens, and if we're gonna slow down even more, um, then our industry is ripe for the things that they are most afraid of, which is a two-person firm coming in that's gonna deliver drawings for uh one fifth of the price at, you know, 10 times the speed. So those are okay. Let's end on that note, Ryan. We are like, you know, I mean, let's bring everybody down.

Ryan 56:44

Let the fear rise.

Kristin 56:45

Um, okay, but let me tell so let's go back to that. Because again, I'm a techno-optimist. I believe you probably are too in in that regard. Also, so I want to the fear, so that's the fear, the challenge is real. Like this is going to happen, right? And so, are you gonna just put your head in the sand or are we gonna get our act together to, you know, to truly lead? And so again, it goes back to leading people and your firms and this industry forward with knowledge and you know, uh information. So uh, you know, going from just like we can't find enough people and oh, you know, et cetera, to like this bigger of we better get our act together to understand how we want to use it, why we want to use it, uh, where it's okay to use it. Um, because as we're grappling with those, you know, we're over here just bickering with ourselves. Every, every aspect of our industry is ripe for disruption, every single part of it, including construction.

Ryan 57:48

Included construction. And I think, you know, the word disruptive has such a for most, and we all say it, it's like we feel it. It disruptive things mean it's costing me something. Pain, time, you know, name it.

Kristin 58:03

Yeah.

Ryan 58:03

And when we think about this, like you said, it's coming whether we want it or not. It's happening to us, which is part of a challenge with change, is when we look at it like it is happening to us.

Kristin 58:17

Yeah.

Ryan 58:18

Opposed to what you're describing is how can I get it to happen with me?

Kristin 58:24

Correct.

Ryan 58:25

Um, how can I play a part in this around the things that like would be most impactful for me as an individual on this team to a business as a whole. And I think that, you know, you mentioned before the recruiting side and what this industry is is going to need and look like, and and I talk about this a lot, is like we are responsible to build the entire infrastructure of the entire country in which we live, right? Because this is not just about North America or the US with listeners all over. Like those of us in this industry, like that is what we're what we want to be a part of it and what we're kind of responsible for delivering on.

Kristin 59:10

Better civilization across the world.

Ryan 59:12

Yeah, and yeah. And if we want to attract, we want to recruit, we want to bring in the net that next generation who is hygen, and you know, they've all been this is all they've known. Like, not just AI, but like technology is around them their whole lives. So I, you know, you mentioned it before. I think it's what it's costing us is that we can't build enough fast enough with the current way we're doing it. So if we're taking it situationally, like we all know that we want to improve our efficiency. Name whatever that is for yourself, productivity. And I had, you know, Brian Turmail from the AGC, and we talked about how productivity on project sites is really hard to tell. Like it is increasing in the last couple decades, but because a team changes every single project, it's hard to figure that out. And which comes back to the human piece, which is why the curiosity for this is really a human thing, you as an individual, to you as a team, to you as a business, to figure out how to implement it around those problems.

Kristin 1:00:27

Yeah.

Ryan 1:00:27

And and build uh and build your mindset towards we don't know what the and you know, goal may be. It's those initial steps of hey, we don't want to do timesheets. Hey, we want to improve on our visibility of this data, or we want to be able to run more predictions or predictive things based off of the way it's we've kind of been doing it up to this point. So there is a there's a human cost to it, and there's not just within our industry, but for others that we're that we're impacting because we can't um with the current workforce we have get enough housing out. We can't build fast enough or our entire infrastructure, right, needs needs overhauled here in the state. So the opportunity is actually larger than the potential loss. So all right. My next question revolves around kind of you, you personally, um, stepping back and saying, like, um, what does success look like for a firm who is potentially doing this? And what does success potentially look like for the whole AC industry?

Kristin 1:01:47

Oh my gosh. Um I ask that question of every firm I work with. So usually when I start with my consulting, um, getting to know a firm, I ask them, you know, I interview their people about not just about AI, but what do they like to do during their day, what do they not like to do during their day. And if firing all cylinders, you know, using whatever AI, like what does success look like? And I will tell you, Ryan, it's the answers I get are across the board. I mean, I've had I've had leaders say 25% more utilization, and I'm like, whoa, buddy, you know, that's awesome. But like, let's bring it down because 5% more would like change your entire, you know, dynamics of your firm completely. And then I have other people who are just like, I want to know that I'm using it, I want to be safe when I'm using it. So again, when we talk about AI, it goes from everything in the weeds to like, you know, huge, like we want it all kind of thing. Um, oh gosh, for me, I think like success. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go back to just the grounding part. I would say success for a firm early on would just be everyone understands what it is and that they have the opportunity to use it. Now, okay, I'm gonna clarify with that because um I know a lot of firms, like it's just okay, again, this discussion, small firms think the big firms have all the resources they're gonna get ahead. But I know big firms who have um turned on Microsoft Copilot for the tens of thousands of people in their firm, which is a massive expense. Okay. And yet I talk to those people and they're like, we don't know what it does. I haven't touched it. I have no idea what it does. So my point is I I'm gonna like really simplify again. What is it? What is the possible like, what are the opportunities, the possibilities? And I'm I'm using it to solve some problems. I mean, that is the most absolute basic of a three or six month success for sure. And that involves really serious training. It involves giving your people the time to be trained and to experiment because we don't, you know, we all want to be billable all the time. And then um, and giving those people money for a tool that's, you know, safe and all the guardrails and stuff around it. Um, if you're gonna turn on the co-pilot, you better be training those people to understand what it is and what it can do, and more importantly, unfortunately at the moment, what it cannot do, because um it can't do a lot. So uh anyway, my three-month success, six-month success is just having your people understand what it is um and using it somehow in their in their daily workflow. And I will tell you, there was a, I think it was a Gallup poll that came out last year who said 8% of American workers, 8% use AI every day. And Ryan, they did not clarify what that AI is. So again, it could be grammarly. So using it every day, you're you're competing with only 8% of other American workers. I know that's not the AEC industry, but still success is understanding what it is and being able to look at the problems that you have and see if AI is a possible solution for it. Um, on a on a larger scale, because again, people are curious, what's everybody else doing? I don't know a single firm that's killing it. That is uh that there's no judgment on this face, it is just a fact. Um, and that's why I say look internally to figure out how you can move your own people forward and you will win this race. So, yeah.

Ryan 1:05:32

No, I mean you you spell it out as uh slow down, have empathy.

Kristin 1:05:37

Yeah.

Ryan 1:05:37

Identify again. We keep coming back to it, which is part of that change management, but you got to identify what it is.

Kristin 1:05:44

Throwing money at this is not is not a solution. There's no solution here. You uh again, throwing the money at this type of technology is not the solution. You throw that same money at training, it is going again, uh money over here. To teach your people the language of AI, it will benefit you for the rest of their career and your firm. So yeah.

Ryan 1:06:10

Well, and that's that's the biggest part. And that's why I think you know, 70% of all change initiatives tend to fail, which is what a lot of the groups that do a lot of the studies, it's it's not the thing. It's not as you described. It is us as humans not slowing down, providing the empathy, psychological safety, whatever, whatever it is that we're going through to even know.

Kristin 1:06:37

How about just proof? I mean, proof and the words you were talking before, and the word just like justification came to mind. I think you were asking, you were talking about how AI is happening to us. We are not a participant in that, you know, relationship. And I was thinking to myself, okay, do I think AI is happening to me? Um, and I mentioned earlier, it came, it came along. I did not create the AI, but I was at a place where I was like, oh my gosh, this is this is this is totally for me. Do I think it's happening to me? No, I I think it's I am a part of this because I can justify what it is and why I use it, which goes back to if a client were to tell me you can't use AI, I have enough information and knowledge and you know, hands-on in it to say um, this is what I'm using it for, this is why I'm using it, which is why I'm you know consulting, because I can tell people this. But it's the it's the proof and justification part of it as well that makes you, I don't know, just gives you gives it here.

Ryan 1:07:47

You're just more credibility, yeah.

Kristin 1:07:48

Credibility. Correct.

Ryan 1:07:50

Yeah. And I think, you know, that's it. I think we're all like, hey, we need data, we need data, we need data. And it's like, well, the data, you know, it comes after we all put input into it. But at the same time, it's like your journey is not going to be the same as everyone else through this because you're in your own. It's not. You you have your own agency, you have your own personality, you have your own uh life experiences that have gotten you here to know how this is going to impact you. So yeah, that I I think the way you kind of shaped it into this this piece of how you've gone through it on your own journey and thought through it and how you went through kind of figuring that out. Yeah. It it it it is maybe it's air. It becomes this thing that we're so used to that we just don't even know we're taking it in anymore. Or you know, it's this thing that is happening alongside with us and it's growing with us and part of our new life experience, and that we we can actually shape it for ourselves, for our firms, for our industry, to to not fear it as much, but look at it as like, how does this become like co-pilot, companion, name it whatever you want? That it's it's helping you become who you want to be, yeah. Not replacing you, not creating you to become irrelevant and not doing, you know, you don't magically become that that that painter because of it, or that writer because of it, but it is help helping raise raise your level of awareness of things and who you are. So correct.

Kristin 1:09:28

I mean, I I say this, uh this is not new to people who've seen my presentation of drinking out of a Wonder Woman mug at the moment, but um like you know, it's AI plus you weak or super you. We're not like it's not, it just is it's it's going to make you better. I know in several places, um I don't know, I'm gonna say this out loud too. I'm not sure I could go back. I don't know if I if I don't know if I could do what I do without it. Um it just it makes me so much better. And I walk through conferences and I think I just called it magic before. When I I live for, again, I told you I'm visual, I live for visual feedback as well. And so when I'm presenting this to audiences and I see people's faces and they're like, what did she just say? Or oh my God, or I have no idea. Like I live for that. I feel like I've given my superpower to somebody, and that is just makes my day that they know something now that they didn't know before that's going to really make them better.

Ryan 1:10:25

Yeah. Yeah.

Kristin 1:10:26

Yep.

Ryan 1:10:27

Those aha moments, you gotta, you know, we look for them as coaches, but you look for them like when you're speaking, that interaction piece. So so with that, then it's it's, you know, we've gone through, you know, some of the barriers, some of the challenges that we typically see, how to interact as a human. Um some things that maybe I haven't answered or I haven't asked of me uh of you that you would like to talk about. But like really what, you know, somebody's thinking about exploring this, getting their curiosity level up. Um, what would you say the next steps are that they they should do? And I'll also drop all of your information into the show notes. But like, what would you what would you like to leave them with and what steps do you think would be helpful?

Kristin 1:11:07

Yeah, so if you we start with the why. I mean, we always start with that, okay? Like the problems, you look at what you do during the day, what you like to do during the day, what you don't like to do during the day, write that stuff down. I don't think a lot of people actually or write it, you know, we can use a pencil and paper if you want, go analog, but you can also put it on your phone or dictate into your phone. Then look at the things that you do just all day long. And then if any of those tasks can be um, you know, augmented or, you know, delegated to AI or by AI, then we'll look at that. And there's also you can start to look at a process. Um, and what I mean by that is if there's tasks that go together, then that means there's an agent or an assistant or an automation out there, probably. And this is getting too technical, but you really just start with what you do all day long. And what do you want to let let's just say even what do you want to get off your plate? What do you want to get off your plate? Um and then, like, we can let's just start with that. So, um, and if you're asking how to engage me, I'll talk about AI all day long. And so um, Ryan will put all my information in there and you can get on my calendar and we'll we'll see what that is. But curiosity, I'm gonna go back to the the name of your of your show. You'd be curious. Um curiosity with uh a little bit of trepidation. I don't want you to click on the stuff. We're all aware of fishing scams, you know, like we're not clicking on everything, we're not downloading stuff on our computer or our phone. So the safe ones out there, obviously to start with on the free version, I mean safe as far as like they're big companies. Um, you know, don't put your weird personal information into it. But um, you know, there's um openai, chat GPT, there is anthropic with Claude, there is perplexity. I haven't Googled for almost two and a half years now. I've used Perplexity um completely. There's Google Gemini that's out there. I mean, those are the the four just big ones you can try for free, um, just you know, to to experiment with, and then we can go from there. Um, I don't recommend Grok. I'm just gonna say that anyway.

Ryan 1:13:06

Yeah.

Kristin 1:13:07

Um or anything Chinese at the moment, that's just me. Um, I might change my mind tomorrow, but just currently Gemini, Anthropic, Perplexity or OpenAI, Chat GPT, great places to start. You cannot break this stuff. So a lot of people are also like, Kristen, could it, you know, wonder if it could do this? If you wonder, then try it. Ask it. You know, it's like, don't don't ask me, go try it yourself. Like the action part of it too. Usually when I present, we can talk about AI all day long. And um, once I show them AI, truly show them, then they're like, What did you just show me? And I'm like, that's AI. So you have to go try it.

Ryan 1:13:51

Yeah. I think that's that's a great way to kind of end it is starting. Where do you start? You start with the why. Think about the things that you have in your day where you're like, hey, this is dreaming me. I don't want to do this. I don't want to do this anymore.

Kristin 1:14:06

I need help with this. I need help. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Ryan 1:14:08

And explore, you know, go back and you know, we're the AEC industry, is it we're we're problem solvers. So we're always kind of looking at what is that problem we're trying to solve. And I think if we slow down, step back, look at those problems we have as individuals and as teams, um, then we can start to to think about how AI becomes that that that companion along for your life journey um growing together. So well, I appreciate you being willing to be on here, Kristen. Um, I know we we could have gone really deep, but I wanted to keep it at this level of like, how do you start on this journey with uh everybody talking about it? And I think I think this will be very helpful for people in those first steps. So I'm grateful for you being willing to see this problem and say, like, hey, I'm a storyteller. I need to figure out how to get people connected to this and get them engaged and drive that curiosity. So I appreciate it, Kristen. And and thanks for being on Activating Curiosity.

Kristin 1:15:09

No, thank you for having me. And you had me at Activating Curiosity. So there you go, Ryan. There you go.

Ryan 1:15:16

All right, thank you. So that is the episode with Kristen Koutz, and she is with Jam Idea Agency and bring bringing a lot of energy to talk about AI and a topic that we're all hearing about, as I mentioned before, almost every single day. It's such a huge part of our economy. So it's a huge part of the news. We're seeing it from every technology company trying to implement it into their current software, and and we're looking at it from an AEC industry of what do we do with this and and how do we use it? And I think the most powerful thing that I heard Kristen say was if we take a step back and stop looking at AI as a thing, and she mentioned the word error, or just if we think about it as this thing we're going to experience when we start with the problems that we're aiming to solve and why, and why it is important to us to solve those and those things that we don't want to do, those things that would be more impactful if they were off of our plate. So I think we hear the word disruptive, we hear, you know, a lot of people trying to market to us about what AI can do and all of these other technologies. It's it's overwhelming. And I think when we first started some of the early podcasts, that was the thing is how to not become overwhelmed by all of the shiny things that everybody was telling us would just make life so much easier. And when you're thinking about anything around change and change management, we're we really want to help get all of us to this point of being a willing participant by understanding how we're feeling, by naming those things, like what is it that we fear? And I think in a lot of times it really just boils down to what is it we're trying to solve and why. And that was probably one of the most critical parts of our conversation. And we didn't want to go too deep with a bunch of softwares and ways to use the tool, but more so into how we should be thinking about it for ourselves and for our business. So until next time, I hope that you are able to stay focused on all of those things that you feel are important and that you want to begin to find solutions to address and solve. And I hope that you are able to continue to activate your curiosity within yourself and activating curiosity within others. The activating curiosity podcast is brought to you by Connective Consulting Girls. If you enjoyed today's episode, go ahead. Until next time, keep leading with curiosity.