Rise Of The Potential Era

The room buzzed with possibility at the Great Lakes AI Conference, held on the beautiful campus of Bowling Green State University and that energy sparked a message leaders need right now: the fastest way to harness AI is to slow down, listen, and design it around your people. We, at AI23, call this shift the Potential Era—a move from rigid processes to adaptive systems where humans and AI partner to amplify judgment, creativity, and speed.

I share the story of AI23 that chose research and learning over rushing products, and why that discipline builds better instincts for real-world impact. We map a pragmatic path for executives and operators: clarify outcomes, observe how great work actually happens, co-design pilots with domain experts, and scale what sticks. Instead of jamming shiny tools into fragile processes, we focus on culture, shared literacy, and human-in-the-loop guardrails that protect quality and trust.

You’ll hear how leaders can signal courage and curiosity, how to avoid the trap of complexity theater, and where to start with narrow, high-friction workflows that benefit most from augmentation. We get practical about metrics—cycle time, error rates, employee sentiment, and customer value—and about building cross-functional squads that bring legal, data, and frontline operators together from day one. The result is a workplace where people do more of what only humans can do, while AI carries the repetitive load that kept their best ideas stuck.

If you’re a CEO, team lead, or builder wondering how to bring AI in without breaking what already works, this conversation offers a clear blueprint and a cultural north star. Subscribe, share with a colleague who’s wrestling with AI adoption, and leave a review with the one change you’ll make this quarter. What’s your first step into the Potential Era?

Chapters

• 1:25 Conference Reflections At BGSU
• 2:09 Startup Roots And R&D Choice
• 3:24 Defining The Potential Era
• 5:18 Culture Change And Leadership Courage
• 7:37 Avoid Shiny Tools, Start With People
• 9:10 Learn, Question, And Collaborate

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:43

Hey everyone, it's Craig. I hope you're having a great day. Today is Friday, November the 7th. I wanted to take some time and just share with you what I believe to be an extremely important message, one that was reinforced for me personally these last couple days. I had the chance to participate in an incredible event on the campus of Bowling Green State University. It was the Great Lakes AI Conference. I'll go ahead and put in the show notes all the details of who made all that happen. I mean, incredible people, Summer, Zach, you know, people that really helped spearhead this, you know, several people that helped bring this to Bowling Green. Amazing. Over 1,200 people over the last couple of days came through the campus and had a chance to interact with one another, listen to incredible speakers, truly incredible speakers, that talked about AI, that had been studying it, that have products that they wanted to share. Just really, really amazing. Amazing to see the energy on campus. And, you know, special thanks to all the volunteers, obviously, that made that happen. It was a it really was a beautiful sight to see. So I had a chance, you know, towards the end of the conference to get up and speak a little bit about my company, AI23, and what we did, what we do as kind of a startup. That was the that was what the session was. And so I wanted to share, you know, really my message with you because I think it's important. If you pay attention, please, the next few minutes, I think you'll understand why I decided to share this message. Typically, I do not promote, you know, my company or our company and and what products we do. That's not what this podcast is really for. However, what we covered and what I was able to cover resonated with a lot of people that were in the audience, resonated with me again as I'm just verbalizing it. So we're gonna go ahead and talk about it. So, you know, I stood up. The first thing I said is, you know, AI-23 has been around two years, over two years. So really not long after generative AI, you know, became what it is. So, you know, the the co-founders, Erica Ashida, Mike Rojas, and Ryan Nairo, you know, had this idea, right? This company came together in October of 2023 and became a business. And what what I started is I said, really, the unique thing about the company is that they did not commercialize a product. It would have been very easy to look out into the business landscape and say, oh my gosh, we have dozens and hundreds and thousands of challenges and opportunities to build a product that we could then commercialize and sell, and it would be great for whoever purchased it. But the position was one of research and development. That's the position that the company took. Research, study, listen to what's going on in the marketplace, watch what's happening. I mean, truly, truly, I believe was probably the biggest, the biggest impact for our young business was just not doing what everybody else is trying to do, is make money and just kind of watch and learn. And so that was you know fascinating. So I started the conversation, you know, with that in mind, just so that I could ground the audience a little bit. But I truly believe the the overall message is that we are entering a new era. I mean, you could feel it, you could see it on campus, it, it's it's everywhere. Everybody knows what's going on with AI, that it's just so, so incredible, so much power, so much opportunity, along with so much confusion as well. But we are entering an era that we're we're calling the potential era. And so we talked about the you know, the industrial era, era, the digital era, you know, the agricultural era, and led up to where we are now, which is the potential era. And really what this is, simply put, it's the opportunity for humans to partner with AI in creating and amplifying this adaptive intelligence, this ability to work together to create something that is truly, truly magical, that allows the humans, us, all of us in our jobs, to do to perform more in our zone, more in the gifts that we have to give this world and not come into work and you know, like robots and perform certain tasks that with the support of AI and the domain expert, which would be the employees, could potentially solve together and which would allow then our employees to rise up, to come into work, to be creative. You know, what is the potential that they could bring to business? You know, really the possibilities to me are endless. If a company is willing to take that approach, it is a major shift. And I totally understand it's going to be difficult for some companies to really embrace this and act on it, especially these large companies that have been built over decades and decades and have a structure in place that just does not feed into what we believe needs to happen for this to be successful. But for those CEOs and those leaders out there that are willing to look at this differently, that are willing to bring in AI as a partner of their people, that is where the magic is. And those companies, I'm telling you, with I believe it with my whole heart, are the ones that are going to be incredibly successful, that are going to lead us into the future, and that are going to be able to build cultures, cultures of just greatness and cultures that employees want to be around, they want to be together, they want to share, they want to deliver, they want to give their best. I mean, this is what it's all about. And we have that opportunity for the first time ever, ever, ever. This is it. So I challenge everyone not to be afraid, but to embrace this. And, you know, depending on who's listening to this podcast right now, today, challenge the leadership team. If you're a leader, think about this, sit with this for a little bit. How can you bring AI into the business to collaborate with you, your people, your employees, up and down the org chart? How can you do that? Because I'm telling you, if you if you figure it out and you take the time and not just go out and buy a bunch of cool products and shove those into your business, into a business that's already probably overly complex, that has systems and processes in place that aren't working great, by adding something else into your business without first grounding yourself, understanding what could happen and really taking a step back and looking at your business as it is today, you will do more damage. I promise you. It's just going to happen. You need to take care of your people, bring them along the journey, provide them that education, have them be a part of what is next and be a part of this creation. And then, yes, you'll have new products, you'll have systems that are built on AI. All of that will work out spectacularly. But if you, if you only if you bring your people along with you for the journey. Anyway, I hope this was helpful. Special thanks again to Bowling Green State University for an incredible couple days. Excited for when this comes back next year. And uh everybody else out there that that is still trying to really grasp AI and what to do for their business. Just there's so much information out there. Dig into it, challenge yourself, read it, but don't believe everything that you that you read, right? It's like anything else in today's world. There's a lot of information. Some of it's good, some of it's bad, but take your time. Take your time and just take it in and ask questions and collaborate with your with other peers in your in your market, okay? Have a great day, everybody.