Hatched Episode 4- Rye Smith Claude: Why Business Owners Can't Afford to Wait

AI is changing business faster than any technology we've seen before—but are most businesses actually ready?

In Episode 4 of Hatched: Idea to Impact, Dustin and Jenna sit down with AI strategist, entrepreneur and Claude Ambassador Rye Smith to cut through the hype and explore what artificial intelligence really means for Australian businesses.

From building websites at just 12 years old to becoming one of Australia's Claude Ambassadors, Rye shares his entrepreneurial journey, the lessons learned from navigating COVID, and why AI isn't about replacing people—it's about giving them their time back.
Together, they unpack the biggest misconceptions surrounding AI, how small businesses can compete with larger organisations, why Australia is still in the early stages of adoption, and the practical steps every business owner should be taking today.

In this episode:

• How Rye landed one of only three Claude Ambassador roles in Australia
• Why AI is about empowering people—not replacing them
• The biggest opportunities business owners are missing
• Lessons from building, selling and rebuilding businesses
• Recovering from COVID and starting again
• How AI is giving businesses their most valuable asset back—time
• Where AI is heading over the next few years

Whether you're excited by AI or still sceptical, this conversation will challenge the way you think about technology and give you practical insights you can apply to your business today.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Hatch Idea to Impact. I'm Jenna Devoncourt.

SPEAKER_03 0:06

And I'm Dr. McMahon. This is a podcast where we sit down with people behind successful businesses to unpack their journey.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

The lessons, the setbacks, the mindset, and what to take them along the way. Real conversations about what it actually takes. Let's get into it.

SPEAKER_03 0:25

Okay, today we're here for the fourth instalment of Hatch the Podcast with uh Roy Smith. Uh the Claude Ambassador loves a bit of uh social media, can uh hassle people a bit, and also loves a Vietnamese role. Welcome Roy. Thanks for having me on, guys. Good to be here.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Nice to have you. So, Ray, tell us about you and your business.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

So I run a business called Spruk. We're a digital and AI enablement business, uh helping a bunch of businesses right across a range of different industries try and get more business essentially through really clever uses of technology. So whether that's uh upgrades to websites or using this new wave of AI, which we'll tuck into, I'm sure. Um, you know, we're really sort of positioned to help businesses with the experience I've had. So from a business perspective, that's that's what I do. And yeah, been really, I guess, doing that since since a kid. So I started coding when I was 11, um, had my first client at 12, and then just really fell in love with it since then.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

So let's start on early days. Coding is probably not what it is today, but what what got you into it? What's uh where'd you come from? What where do you grow up and that sort of stuff?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

So mum put off buying a computer um right from the very start. So I reckon it was in year four, and the teacher said, Oh, by the time you finish his high school, you won't need a computer, and that was 2005. So we know how much that sort of changed. Well, is that from 97 to 2005? And anyway, finally talked mum into getting a computer and really just sort of fell in love with it. So did the whole GeoCities website. So there was a website called Neo Pets where you could customize your profile and all that. Um, well before MySpace was was even a thing. And I think it was that instant gratification in oh hang on, I've made a change and oh hang on, I've been able to make a button a different colour, or you know, having that sort of engagement in terms of oh, people are using my website, or people are getting involved. And I think there's you know, mixing that tech with a bit of creativity has always been there from the start. So that's where it, yeah, that's where it kicked off in the late 90s. I was a massive cricket tragic. So we had an awesome uh driveway at home, used to play cricket, and I'd record every single game I played with my mates. So I don't know if they call that being on the spectrum these days. But I've got records of every single backyard cricket game I played, and so you know, mucking around with XL, oh hang on, I can I don't have to write this down anymore, I can chart this, I can put little run rate graphs up and all that sort of thing, too. So yeah, then what were you recording it with?

SPEAKER_03 3:07

I remember our family we had this video recorder that was about this size that used to get wheeled wheeled around at the Christmas parties. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

No, it was just it was all written down, so I had a folder and uh not video recording.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

I thought you had pigeon you having this little chair with a box recording. I did too.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

The odd VHS tape tape in there. No, I did um would you used to be able to hire them from like video easy's or blockbusters for like I said on those special occasions. So I think recorded a few games over the years, but uh yeah, real real nerd, uh sporty, nerdy type. And yeah, I mean that was just sort of one use of tech all the way all the way back then. But um yeah, just I guess being able to, you know, bring to life a lot of that sort of stuff at an early age was was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

So cricket tragedy? Batter, bowler, or just umpire taking all the stats, writing it down.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

I was gonna say, absolute nerve. I was a bowler, but unfortunately, if I had a if I could talk to my younger self, it'd be don't don't play it, because I I reckon that's where all the back problems come from. Just bear Daryl Hair, you reckon? More of a um more of a bucknoor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just just give anything, just give anything out. So no, so played, yeah, played a bit of sport, and then through that tech side, I was 12, did a website for a company my dad was doing. He was working for a for a factory setup, and then um they paid me $600 to do their website. So as a 12-year-old all the way back then, the cricket bat I bought was was pretty specky, and then yeah, it was again absolute love affair with it ever since.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah. And then, so that was at 12. What did high school look like as a nerd? Yep. And did you think about anything else outside of tech, or it's always been there?

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Really good question, because I think um, and again, you could probably talk about this for for hours in terms of the the school system and and education and how far it's sort of come. I always thought in order to be a business person you had to be study business. So everything I was doing was geared towards a commerce degree. So economics, accounting, business maths, business studies, and then English, that was my year 12. And then it all sort of worked in really, really nicely. So did really well out of school. I I found it pretty, pretty easy, but the way that IT was taught back then was um, you know, all the diagrams and if-then statements and very much sort of you know assembly language, and it wasn't it wasn't cool. This was two years before the iPhone came out as well, and so just never really resonated. I never really thought, oh hang on, and if I'm good at building websites, I can, you know, build a business around that. That wasn't the that wasn't the thinking. So yeah, it was very much study business to be in business, and ended up yeah, heading off to uni to start a commerce degree.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

Interesting that sort of, I guess without knowing you've been playing the long game, now let's go to like jump to now. What's going on now? You're an ambassador with Claude in Australia, isn't it? Or yeah. Yep. Tell us about that and what where I guess you've gone on a curve that it would have been like this, that's just taken off over the last two years.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah, it's it's absolutely huge, absolutely massive. And I think I think this is really cool in terms of the parallels back in late 90s, you know, working in tech and the dot-com boom and seeing all that come through. And I personally I think there's exactly the same parallels to now. So uh I was in a corporate gig up until May last year, took some time off, played something like 20 rounds of golf in 30 days just to sort of clear the clear the head. I actually haven't picked up a golf club for about three or four months now, so that's how busy it's been.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

Gotta gotta hold them one and then just put them away.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Masked it, finished it, move on.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

Or two.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Or two.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Yeah, so look like the last four months has been massive, just not just for my career, but in AI in general. So finished the corporate gig and I finished that because they weren't giving me the space to use these tools. I mean, I I've been touching stuff with ChatGPT since 2021 when they first came out with their sandbox. Uh, it's always been there, but in order to really kind of dive into it, I had to make the decision to leave. So I probably spent now close to 3,000, if not more, hours in Claude itself. And when you average that out, that's a proper day's worth of work every single day since then. And there have been days where I've probably spent 16, 17 hours working late on projects in Claude. And so the opportunity came up late last year. I'd do a fair bit in the online community with with Claude. They launched their ambassador program and was very lucky to be one of three selected for Australia, which was which was awesome. Uh, and so that just means I sort of get to run events with with Anthropics, the parents company's backing, and yeah, get to meet some amazing people. We're talking like CTOs, CEOs, your startup founders, um amazing people working in tech. A lot, a lot smarter people than than me, uh, but my job is to really connect those people with each other and then businesses, you know, with the I guess creators and and users of this tech too. So um, you know, it's a I guess a bit of a bit of a role, bit of a, as you can see with the with the badges, uh wear it with a bit of a bit of pride, top gun. That's the five-star general side sort of setup. So it's just been awesome uh in terms of enabling that connection with Anthropic. And then I won't say from a reputation perspective, but you know, having been around tech since a kid and then seeing where it's going and also having that business, I guess, now I come in from a bit of a unique perspective. It's not just all tech, it's also well, how can businesses use this? And yeah, I guess in that sort of ambassadorial role, um, it's a pretty cool position to be in to be able to help a lot of people out through that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

So, where do you see it going?

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Great question. Uh, I think I think if anyone tell or was to tell you that they know everything about it or that they can forecast it and foresee it, I'd say they're full of BS. I think we're all learning as we're going, and truly the only people that know where this is going deep down are, you know, your operators like Anthropic or OpenAI. With that said though, with that said, uh there was a study that was just rolled out the other day from the Governance Institute of Australia that says that uh 93% of all Australian businesses still can't measure ROI on their AI spend. So we are so far from this being widely adopted. There was another stat out there that said three there's uh 3.5% penetration rate globally in terms of people using AI. So I think it's very easy a lot of the time to get caught up in like FOMO and you know, especially when you're in your echo chambers going, oh, someone's doing something or another business is doing this. Very easy to get caught up in that too. So I think in terms of where it's going, I think that is such a broad question. I mean, it's 12 months has been a long time in AI. We don't know what's sort of on the cards for the next couple of months, but I do know this for certain is that there is going to be a lot of work done within businesses in terms of who's our internal AI person, um, who do we go to for that AI advice? Who do we engage and how do we actually upskill our workers? So even in the education space, 76% of businesses from the same report said that they haven't conducted any kind of formal training with AI. So we we are so early. You could put this out, you could put this podcast out in three months' time, and I'd still say the same thing. We are so early. The adoption piece is the thing that's missing. What I will say though is if you look at it over a longer period of time, I'm not willing to go on record in in terms of how long that'll be, but this stuff is here to stay. And I think things like we were talking about education before, in terms of things catching up, schools aren't equipped right now, unis aren't equipped right now, they're not teaching things like that. There's there's a huge ethics and governance piece for bigger businesses as well. So this is all yeah, this will all become a lot more solidified and clearer, I think, in the sh in the short to middle term. But long term, this stuff's here to stay, and it's you know, I'd say to anybody kind of working in it or where it's going is get your head around this stuff now because you'll become pretty invaluable to businesses and it'll help you in your day-to-day as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

That's exactly what we did before this, right? So I will hand on heart go, yeah, it's great, there's things that can be done, but uh there's just so much of it, and it actually blows your mind to look at it and then break it down. So I think you know, being able to break down a process and implement a plan as to how it can actually work effectively, um, there's so many self-taught, like you actually ask AI to teach you how to use AI. So I think it's a fantastic space that you're in because it's going to become bigger and better.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

It can be overwhelming though, can't it? Oh, absolutely. It's just it's it there's a lot of stuff out there. And to your point about teaching yourself, um, over December, I live in Melbourne, lucky enough to have Amazon uh nearby. Ordered some parts, some electronic parts, and I said to Claude, I want you to teach me how to rig up this little QR code scanning project that I found online. And through Claude, it actually looked like an IED, it was actually when I stepped back behind, and so I went always in that photo room too too much to people. But I taught myself how to build something that interfaced with my like just by listening to Claude. I've got no idea what I'm doing, but I followed step by step what Claude told me to do, and you walk away and say, Oh, hang on, I've got something physical now. So I think there's so much power in if you're high agency, if you're naturally one of these people who want to go and look for the right answer, if you're a Googler, if that's you know, someone says, Oh, someone was born in 1958, and your natural instinct is oh hang on, I'm gonna fact check that or check it out, or who are you talking about? Then AI is it an amazing enabler and I think just an incredible tool. Um, but I also think that there's a lot of misinformation out there too, and I think, you know, again, we can probably get into this over the course of the chat, but you know, some of that messaging, I I see the benefits because I work in tech and around it and process automation and all that sort of nerdy, geeky stuff. I can see the benefits, but you know, you've got things where people getting superimposed into images and all those other little ethical questions. Absolutely. There's I think there's a lot of guardrails and a lot of regulation that I think has to come in in that space. But again, we we're just right at the start of this, and there's a long way to go.

SPEAKER_03 13:48

That's what I was gonna ask before that you mentioned the word ethics. Like are we behind the eight ball on that, do you think? Like in the way of like where I feel like there's so much can be done with it, so much misinformation. Is there any ethics to it? I think like where you talk about this low adoption rate, so many people don't believe it, like believe it's safe or ethical, or what's your thoughts around that?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Look, I think I think I think Australia we we can be a bit risk averse. Our adoption rate is one of the lowest in the world, believe it or not, because I'm sure anyone listening to this would go, oh, I can't stop raving about it, or oh I'm I'm talking. But you've got to also imagine there's there's millions of other people out there who are fearing for their jobs and worrying for the future as well. And so that's another thing to look at too. But on the ethical side, look, it's I think it's a question of do you let do you let it roam free and see what sort of comes of it, or do you actually put guardrails on? And I think um, you know, not trying to go down the political route, but you know, the government I think made a call on this about 12 months ago in terms of their AI policy, and they've chosen largely not to touch it or play in that space and leave it to, I guess, the the tech companies and you know, to deal with.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

So it's such moral people though.

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Of course, but all of our best interests at heart, of course. Uh, so I think that's going to be interesting too, and you know, you've already seen it in terms of you know the the the impacts at school, for example, and the and the horrible uses of tech. I come in from obviously all the enablement pieces, it enables me to do so much more, it's great for my day-to-day, but not everybody's uh you know working in an office or or around tech and that. So I think half the struggle is people trying to find a reason to use it. And you know, if you don't have a use, that's totally fine. But I think in terms of like the skills gap, it's it's a great idea to get yourself familiar with this stuff because it's yeah, not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

I think it's like the point around the fear of losing jobs. And I think you know, us in our office, it's something we've been really clear and direct with our people around it's actually not about replacing a job, it's it's about putting us back in front of people more, which is what we do well. Um and and the more we can refine process and remove you know admin parts, it's the better we can serve people. And and I so I think it's a mindset shift around what it's gonna do. Um, and when people can start to understand that power, it's an incredible tool to use.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, I look, I think there's um again that all comes from empowerment and capability too. And I think, you know, again, back to that training statistic, 70 or so percent of businesses haven't given formal training. It's of course people are feeling a bit worried. They're they're seeing change and they're they're they're seeing everything move around them, but they're still a little bit in the dark as well. And again, every I would say every let's say nine out of ten people I speak to have said exactly the same as you, Jenna, in terms of it's about bringing the customer back in, like so human interaction. Let's let's stop getting bogged down with paperwork and actually let's bring you know a bit of banter back, you know, rather than feeling like you you've got 60 emails to look at in a short space of time. It's hang on, can I maybe build a bit of rapport with my customer? Can I spend that quality time or within the business actually focus on some of those high value tasks instead of paper pushing? So, and I think that's where, to your point, Dustin, in the long term, it will start with the lowest hanging fruit. And I think that's the best way to attack it is to work out what is the pain point or what takes a really long time in your business, repetitive tasks that take the biggest chunk of time and bite it off like that. And that that's a really good vehicle to get everybody involved in the business and go, hang on, this is what it can do, here's the benefits. Um, because as you know, we've played sport over the years, people don't like change. People will move when there's a new coach or or or a or a you know new player coming in or whatnot. So change is this whole AI adoption, I think, is as much about change management as it is the actual tech and what gets used.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

There's pieces in our work that like we've we've spoken about before, like some of the onboarding processes, like it's quite difficult for clients. If we can make that easier for clients, our staff don't want to be doing it either, it's quite painful for them to do it. So if it's something that can be easier for everyone, I think there's great benefit. I did I jump forward to the Claude bit when we were talking before, but I'd I also know that you've had other little businesses and stuff like that. I'd I touched on the Vietnamese roles that was that wasn't just a um wasn't just uh you like eating them, it's probably more about uh a previous business that you've had. Take us through some of your past businesses you've had and tell us a bit about them.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

I I I hate the word entrepreneur, but it's a serial entrepreneur. Like I'll I'll give anything a go once. And um, to my point before, in terms of the love affair with tech, is I love creating stuff that people use, and you know, maybe to my detriment over the years, I haven't charged for things or um you know asked for payment or whatnot. But to your point about the the Barn Me Locator, so 2014. Hopefully we can splice in some video to this and get the get the news story up there. But uh yeah, Barn Me Locator, this is when apps were the the real deal, was it 2013, 2014, there was this big you know movement, and I started playing around with yeah, apps and ban me just happened that I was in a was it the Vietnamese um uh Barn or Barn Me Appreciation Society on Facebook. Yeah, you have to, you have to, it's a must. And people were going, oh, where do I find the best one? Or what's you know, where do I where do I find it? People putting like text links or map like things out to to Google. So look, I thought I'll combine it all in and you know, ended up having 20,000 downloads within a short amount of time, and you you get comments from people going, oh you know, you must be make you must be raking it in and whatnot. So I'll tell anyone who's listening to this who goes, Oh, I've got a great app idea and I'm gonna make millions of dollars with all of those page views and downloads. I think there was maybe $80 worth of ad revenue in involved, so all that work for look didn't do it for the money, but that was that was just a really interesting kind of thing to I guess get on the map. And that then led into um running my first proper agency in in 2015. It was I called it uh App Celerate, so that all um sort of springboarded from there, so we do app development websites and whatnot, and ended up selling that locally, which was which was great. Worked then for another business for a short amount of time, then launched the first iteration of Spruk in 2018. And then, as we know, COVID happened, which was a bit um for me anyway, it was a bit was a bit of a hard sort of period. Uh I had five people working for me, I'd just signed a massive commercial lease, and that was February 2020. And then I'd say within the space of two weeks it was, you know, borders borders shut, everyone's marketing budgets were being cut. Uh, we we did a lot of work in the hospitality scene, so all the hot especially hotels, and hotels then got given all the government contracts, so they didn't necessarily need marketing services anymore. So um did that and then went to sort of work in corporate for a while. But yeah, as you said, over the years I've I've sort of had a few little you know brain brain waves, a few little things I'll put out there, app ideas or websites, and I'd say to anybody listening, you know, if you are in tech or even in AI, um just experiment, put something out there, build it and ship it and get people using it and get validation. I've I've done a lot of mentoring with startups over the years, and you know, that's the biggest thing. You know, build your MVP, build your proof of concept. It's never been easier to build something, and I think that's kind of the basis of you know these little brainwaves over the years is it's just put something out into the ether and you just never know what will happen as well. So, yeah, that's always been a little sort of side thing on top of the you know the consulting work day to day it's always been nice to have a little project to to sink my teeth into yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

So something like COVID can't control it. Running a business how do you react? How do you respond? Talk us through that part.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah no it's great. This is probably the first time we've actually been able to talk about this uh sort of openly and and candidly and you know we we talk I think people talk a lot about resilience and you know being able to get through that period of time and um it it was it wasn't fun at all it was you know you guys run you know your own business and a lot of your identity actually gets caught up in that you know you run a podcast you put content out there it's you know we're from the finance nest or hey I'm right from from spruk and to have that almost disappear before your eyes outside of your control I think is is is hard to come to terms with uh I I kept all of my staff on for another another two months and so 80 to 90% of our revenue just disappeared overnight because it was sorry bang and so you know that that was dipping into super I've got I've got one rule in business you you you just pay people pay people properly and on on time and that was my biggest thing is even though I could see things you know starting to fall it was and we we didn't we didn't know what was going to happen you know everything could have turned around in a month's time so I was very keen to not upset the apple cart but yeah kept people on for as long as I could and there's obviously you know the financial implications of that signing a five year lease that then I was trying to sort of get out of with a pretty um tough landlord negotiator that was that was fun so there was sort of break fees and payouts and and whatnot involved in that so look not a not a not a fun time and I think when it's outside of your control it's it hurts more because it's nothing you've done. You know I think when you when you make a decision or when you own a decision and you go okay well that didn't work out you can walk away with sort of lessons learnt but when it's outside of your control it's actually quite hard to to stomach and come to to come to grips with so I took I took a fair bit of time off work to be fair just to sort of process it all. I think I'm a big believer in that adage be be kind to yourself. So I did the same thing last year when I went and played a ton of golf in in the month after just clear the brain and and sort of reset and start fresh but um look I mean that was a great lesson in you know people management great lesson in contract management and negotiation and and all that sort of fun stuff so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:26

Yeah interesting Tom that like none of us thought thought it was coming and I mean yeah I guess where do you where'd you go with like did you think of doing other things or was it always once again you're still this is you and it was going to work somehow or what's oh it's just really tough.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

I mean I I I took refuge in sort of I would say other people's businesses but I thought look let's just go back to um you know back to working working for the man I suppose when again when you've run your own show it is quite it is it is quite hard to go back and work for someone else and you know I've I've done that a couple of times over the years and you know it's a bit of a bit of a pill to swallow because again you know you have I have I failed is this you know all of those wonderful thoughts that run through your head um but at the end of the day you know everyone's got to sort of put dinner on the table at the end of the day. So you know getting that and and I don't regret that part at all. So that's essentially what the last before last year anyway the last sort of three four years looked like in terms of working in that corporate environment for a few different businesses and you know that was very valuable just a different perspective I'm glad I did it because I think we've we're having this massive reset now in business across the board in in how business is done again fundamentals don't change but I think you know the lessons learnt in terms of corporate structure and how things are set up and processes and whatnot absolutely valuable but um you know as soon as I saw a bit of an opportunity to get out and do my own thing it was break out of the cage and and do that and I think I'll always yeah definitely I'll always have that.

SPEAKER_03 25:58

Yeah I think each is a learning lesson isn't it I just the resilience you've shown I think just remembered there was a wine bus in there at one stage as well I mean you can I keep cracking my brain I've still got I've still I've still got the bus.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

So if there's anyone looking for a Renault bus out there please let me know. I'll put the details up I won't go through car sales but that was that was a good little thing you know you get to meet new people on the weekend and um that was that was good it spun up a website you got the digital marketing side of things to to rank a website which again from the SEO perspective was cool and then doing the work but you know that that doesn't scale that was a fun fun hobby job uh on on the side and yeah so experience in lots of different businesses corporate world now you're with your passion piece AI and you're getting to implement that into other people's businesses what's the biggest thing you're seeing that it's changing for business owners that it doesn't actually matter what field you're in how does it apply to all of us I think people are getting their time back and there's one thing that money doesn't buy and it's time well I work in consulting so yes so that's uh that's probably that's probably uh a fallacy there. I'll remember that when your invoice comes in damn let the letter um people are getting time back people are getting time back especially on activities that don't necessarily relate back to a you know revenue generating activity so it's freeing up the admin or the office staff on menial repetitive tasks to then potentially have some input into process and procedure or some of those higher value tasks internally. So there is immediate ROI that you can actually measure with this sort of stuff. So again with the stats from that report I mentioned before 93% of businesses in Australia can't prove ROI on AI which I think you can but I think businesses are trying to bite off too much and they should really start sort of hyper focusing on those tasks where you can get that time back. So that's one I think seeing people's minds blown with the tech as well so I know we sat down before and we're going into some uh into some tech stuff and it might you know seem a little bit uh a little bit full on but you know seeing people uh tradies are a great example I think they've got the brain you know how everything fits together and pieces together from from what I'm saying they're some of the best adopters of this tech. They're like great I don't have to spend that time invoicing or hey I can actually spend time on jobs or you know a lead will come in I can instantly quote with Claude or whatever tool they're using and just to see the adoption piece for me is just really cool because you're actually talking tech with with trade so we had a guy come in I had some window stuff worked out at home and he's like oh do you know much about AI and I was maybe maybe maybe maybe a little bit and you know he went on and proceeded to tell me all about how Claude is now set up in his business. I'm not here to sell Claude but that's what he was using and to see the changes that it's making for a sole trader he's got a couple of subbies that do some work for him and to see the impact that it's making he's not having to sit down and invoice on a Sunday night he's not having to do those tasks I think is just so rewarding and when in my role I can help others do that you know being as passionate about tech as I am it's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

Yeah now he can't pay his wife to do it with the new budget it's uh we'd probably need to be a little bit we weren't gonna do political they get they get quality time together now mate but I think it's you know we talk in business that you've got to have a plan and you know from what we've spoken about you know in our meetings and through today it's around having a plan for your rollout right and that that makes it achievable.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I I think walking away from any sort of AI engagement it's about what what have I walked away with not everything is going to work as smoothly as you'd like it to but do I have some results do I have some outputs do I have some artifacts that I can take from this AI venture or whatever we're putting in. And I think a lot of projects don't work really well because it's just all fluffy. It's business owners know they need it but they don't understand the tech and you try a few different bits and pieces and you've got nothing to show for it at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

I have a love hate with it like especially that other platform that we're not talking about that I'll I'll be working on a project it's just about like it's 95% there. I ask it to change one thing and it's gone a fuck a mile off like what what do you what how how do you control that and I feel like once it's gone that way I just can't bring it back.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

So that that's got a lot to do with uh context windows and you'll probably find that happens on step four or step five you've cool yep we've done one two three about step four or step five things start getting a little bit flakier so I it all comes down to what package you've got so on for me I've got you know the max plans I've got pretty smart clawed working away a lot of the free plans or the starter plans you do get those limitations in context windows but there's a few things you can do you can um in your memory files you can tell whatever AI system you've got to remember certain things or do things a certain way you've got the ability to set up skills so if you are doing a repetitive task quite often you can educate your AI into again formatting your spreadsheet and your branding or your colours or whatnot so you're getting that consistent repeatable output. But yeah that that is the that's a memory and a context issue that that comes into play.

SPEAKER_03 31:54

On the flip side do you just reset it and start again because I'd I say to everyone I think I've got the I've got the dumb AI. Is it just it's it's say they lay enough to make too much and and can't understand me or modemised version of that. Can it get to a point where it's learnt stuff that you just don't want it to know and you like reboot.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

It's all all on all on memory so ALAN's getting so much better at learning your your preferences again like I said the there's memory files there's things you can set up to you know make your AI smarter. A lot of the models these days though it all depends on the model you're using again I from what I use it's pretty pretty good for for my use case but there's little features that have rolled out in the last couple weeks you can type in goal and you can literally tell your AI do not stop until you have reached these particular points. So if I'm working on a new feature for a website I can almost one-shot things in terms of don't stop until this website meets these follow following criteria and it'll go through and it'll check its own work and spin up little mini agents to then check and verify and talk to itself oh hang on no we haven't completed the brief yet rather than you constantly having to kind of go back and type stuff in. So this is just the start of it and I think that's the most exciting part. So you know those little teething issues you've you've run into you know websites didn't do what we wanted them to do 25 years ago it's it's I think we're so so so so far at the start that we'll we'll see improvements for sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

When we talk about jobs and there's industries that are going to grow some will retract what would you say would be the most susceptible industry and the industry that's going to thrive with the AI tools?

SPEAKER_00 33:42

No that's right I'll get my crystal ball set up as there's a lot of there's a lot of futures rock in the corner I I'm I'm uh I'm a massive optimist and I think I've seen the benefit that this stuff brings I think it it's a changing it's a changing in the way people think as well so like I said the the time savings and whatnot so you know there are industries or job functions that you know might not necessarily exist because AI has been able to automate it but the stuff that I do now wasn't a job 20 years ago either. And so it's you know if we talk about the sort of future of work yes now's the time to learn it and get ahead of the curve. We already know where this is going so it's almost like you've you've been not warned but you know we've we've had heads up. I think that's why training is so important. I'm massive on education and and learning but I think the nature of work I mean there's jobs that don't exist right now so people internally I was having a chat to to Denham here in the office and I think he'll become the architect uh the archetype in terms of what a business will need in the future in terms of somebody managing the memory files or the skill files to make sure your business runs and operates effectively through the use of AI and that's not even a job function that I've seen listed. Out in the world there's something called a forward deployed engineer and some of the biggest businesses in the world are hiring really good ex-software engineers or people in the AI space to get ahead of the curve. So they're deployed forward they look at opportunities and then try and implement that for the wider business and make sure the adoption piece is in place. That job function I don't think was even around the advertised three to six months ago. So it's changing as we speak. I mean things like you know if you talk about industries like the medical sort of industries or there's a lot of machine learning and AI being applied to imagery you know coming back and identifying broken bones or genomes or cells and all that sort of cool stuff. So for every I guess impact I think there's a ton of benefit but you know it's I think for a lot of people out there and what you know you read the comment section on social media and you know it's it's Facebook's changed a lot in the last few years. It's almost insufferable going on there and reading but you know people are going oh I I hate AI and whatnot they're they're not the sort of folks that would go off their own bat and try and educate themselves or learn about this unfortunately and again that's just what I sort of look at. I mean legal for example legal tech um I think any industry that has a predefined set of rules so again this is the law there's not really too much else if if there's other changes or case law that comes in then obviously the tech will adapt but legal tech for example they're talking big job losses in terms of you know people who do conveyancing work for example or other other sort of basic sort of roles in that but you know could they then be deployed to customer facing roles could they be you know in your business okay cool we're not spending as much time on admin could we talk about up sale opportunities or hey we've actually done a review of your you know of of what you're what you're looking at even in my role hey I've identified a potential issue or another area of your business that we could improve. So you know I I don't think it's losses per se. I think it's just uh if if people do decide to spend that time it's it's just a changing of job that functions evolution.

SPEAKER_03 37:09

Evolution in the tech space interesting one talking about different sorts of people and obviously social media has their type of people that want to get on their voice box and get attention. What about leaders or inspiration?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Who who have you drawn inspiration from uh look I'm pretty avid avid reader um big fan online there's a guy called Andre Kapapi who's actually just signed for Anthropic so a lot of his stuff that he's put out there has been great. And when I say I do a lot of reading it's you know very much sort of blogs and um you know resources and stuff online these days. In terms of who I look up to it it's an in it's an interesting one. I've actually never been caught up with celebrity too much. So I met Mark War once actually and they say don't meet you don't meet your heroes met him at a at a function and it didn't really give me much time so that was a bit of a childhood dream.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

It did my childhood too when I was Adelaide Overlord tried to get a signature off him and he just pushed past when I was about 10 so I've always had the same opinion of him and Tim Mae.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Well Slesinger Slesinger cricket sales went down from from my end uh on that one but so look I I I guess that it's a really good question because I think you know I learn by doing and I try and you know obviously have a look at sort of what's what's out there. It is a good question that because yeah again I I don't try and I don't I'm not on I'm not on X or Twitter as as they call it because I think the loudest voices get all the all the attention. LinkedIn's very much the same I think you know through this map it back to this community role with at that with the Claude Ambassador stuff is I I think I have more impact at that grassroots level and you know seeing people get instant gratification and success and fun and friendship and connection through those roles and so rather than for me looking at oh this person's done whatever and they're the loudest voice in the room and quite often they're not on the tools working. That's the other thing too is I think you get to people graduate to a point of you know fame or success or whatnot and they are so far removed from the technology that it's all they're doing is regurgitating speaking points. So I get a lot more value from the people who are actually actively working in the space and so you know I get a lot of that value that that a lot of people might look at or listen to or go, oh hey this is this this person said X about AI. I get that through my wonderful network of of connections and people that again very fortunate to sort of have this role that I get to sort of meet and so I've almost got my own I guess mini celebrities within within that group as well who I look at look up to and and look at and listen to.

SPEAKER_03 40:02

Without sharing data any feel good stories of like something you've really gone wow I I like it that made me feel good what I've achieved for them there.

SPEAKER_00 40:10

I I love seeing underdogs do well. So people who and again like I do map it back to this sort of AI conversation but you know you've got small businesses being able to take on the big guys now through just because they're so much more nimble and able to get things going. There was yeah can't really share too much data wise. There was a business that sort of was taking in in the Google ads space there's there's a lot of stuff in there they essentially attach their AI to you know Google ads and and found a ton of opportunities that these big guys weren't looking at and essentially started winning back a bunch of market share over a period of time. Got to talk quite broadly about it. But essentially on on a shoestring budget they're actually able to use AI effectively to compete with some of the bigger end of town and that and that's a story that gets told quite often and I think it's that I see that repeated across multiple different places too. So you know mum and dad businesses, the tradies that I spoke about before I mean it's just I don't know I I I the people who lean into it and embrace it and and really take it on board and find a use case for it, find that utility are the ones winning. And I think you know from my side I've done a lot of stuff with SMEs over the years and you know to see people getting a fair go through this is pretty cool. Happy for everyone I mean to be fair this is probably the first time I've had to sit down and just reflect on thoughts for the for the last sort of eight nine weeks we've been running running events across Australia off to the uh cord conference in a couple weeks' time and yeah there's just so much um just so much information coming through. Claude Conference you were just saying before Tokyo yes and how many people you speak here in front of I think it's from all the counts close to a thousand so it's uh in the Asia Pacific region uh it's the Anthropic Cord Code with Claude event which is cool so in the next couple of weeks so I'll be up on stage talking about uh something that I built as a teenager I won't give too much away just yet but uh built something called Manager 11 it's a football management simulator and yeah all the way back in the late 90s I had this fell in love that's how my love for Manchester United evolved they were the top team you know as a kid you want to always win so that was the that was the love affair from from back then and always wanted to build my own football manager game. So tinkered around with a lot of tech over the years and I've always revisited it sort of once every year or two oh can I do this can I do that and just my coding knowledge as you know as okay as it is just haven't been able to be at that tech level in the last 12 months Claude's come along and actually built me a full working game with proper simulation and dream.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

That's that's exactly right the teenage dream yeah now now yeah now built with Claude yeah well right it's been fantastic hearing about your dream and living the dream certainly not my dream but I'm very grateful very grateful for people like you in the world that can make our worlds easier doing what you're passionate about. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Thank you thanks by good