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In this episode of "Full Tech Ahead," Amanda Razani interviews Ryan Johnson, CPO of CallRail, about how Artificial Intelligence can benefit small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Johnson explains CallRail's evolution into a conversation intelligence platform and advises business owners to use AI to solve long-standing "legacy problems"—such as managing after-hours calls or handling peak call volumes—rather than inventing new problems to solve. 

He emphasizes the importance of starting small, setting realistic expectations, and securing leadership buy-in to avoid the high failure rate of AI projects. Finally, the discussion touches on the future of AI, including the rise of agentic AI and its potential impact on search engines and SEO.

Key Quotes
"Where can AI solve the gaps that you've probably had for many, many years?"
"The most important thing about AI is it's not this like light switch that this happens. You actually have to invest time into it from a lot of different angles."
"Start small, start somewhere, don't be afraid of it and, and just learn."
Takeaways

Target Legacy Problems: AI is highly effective at filling gaps in daily operations, such as handling peak-hour calls, answering queries after traditional business hours, and conducting initial lead qualification.
Start Small and Be Realistic: Avoid overwhelming implementations. Begin with a narrow, focused use case to get comfortable. Set realistic expectations, as AI is not magic and often requires fine-tuning to achieve high accuracy.

Leadership Buy-in is Crucial: To avoid the common pitfall of AI project failures, businesses must define clear, measurable goals and ensure full support from the executive team and business owners before implementation.

The Future is Agentic AI: The next major evolution will involve AI agents communicating with one another to execute complex tasks, which will likely redefine consumer search experiences and the future of SEO.

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