Executive Conversations by The Paypers with AtData | Episode 6: What Your Email Address Reveals

In this episode of Executive Conversations by The Paypers, our host Dwayne Gefferie sits down with Diarmuid Thoma, Head of Fraud & Data, AtData an Experian company, to explore one of the more surprising ideas in payments and identity today: that the ordinary email address has quietly become one of the most reliable ways to tell whether someone online is real. 

AtData has spent more than two decades building a business around that signal. Diarmuid explains why a long-standing email address reveals so much about a person, how it helps online lenders separate genuine customers from fraudulent applications, and what it is about a real email history that even sophisticated fraudsters find hard to fake. 

The conversation then turns to what AI changes and Diarmuid makes the case for what a fraudster still cannot easily replicate, and how long that advantage is likely to last. 

About Executive Conversations by The Paypers 

Executive Conversations by The Paypers is a podcast series that brings together senior industry executives and leading voices in global payments and fintech for high-level discussions on the trends, tensions, and opportunities shaping the industry today. 

Each episode is a genuine on-the-record exchange on relevant conversations with the people driving change in payments, fintech, and more. Hosted by Dwayne Gefferie, the series gives listeners direct access to the thinking of the executives and experts who are defining where the industry is headed next. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Executive Conversations by the Papers. I'm Dwayne Jeffrey. In this episode, I'm joined by Darmuk Thoma, Head of Fraud and Data Strategy at Ad Data. We're exploring how email and data intelligence is used to detect fraud earlier and the role data strategy plays in staying ahead of it. For someone meeting Ad Data for the first time, what does your company actually do?

SPEAKER_01 0:23

We're heavily focused, in fact, almost entirely focused on email, right? So what I primarily look after is the fraud prevention side of it. A lot of people don't even know the brand very well. And it's but it's actually quite a mature, it's a 26-year-old company. It's the largest email network in the world. Um so what that kind of translates to is we process just about two billion email interactions a month globally in about 190 countries. Um and that gives us insight into you know kind of what the email activity is happening, and that allows us to do things like fraud prevention, say how old the email, how good it is, what it's doing, um, and allows us to do a lot of stuff in terms of fraud prevention. So that's that's kind of it. We try intentionally try and keep very simple, keep it, you know, easy to use, easy to understand, and uh easy to deploy, of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Absolutely. And then when you're talking about financial companies, fintech companies, payments companies, what are they utilizing uh ad data for?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Well, it's primarily kind of type KYC type things, right? So uh in in finance, there's a lot of different checks that have to happen. You know, there's credit checks, KYC checks, uh AML checks, and so on. Quite a lot of them are quite expensive, right? So we're not, you know, we're quite easy to deploy, quite cost efficient. So a lot of the stuff is used very early in the funnel uh for fintechs and and finance companies. So we're you know, literally on the point of, you know, as soon as they're creating an account with the with the company, we're able to tell them, yeah, that in the the the name associated with the email that you got, that's that's correct. The email is you know 20 years old and it's quite active, it's operating lots of different locations, and uh the IP is quite close to the address that you're so we have a lot of insight very early in the funnel, and that gives them confidence of the customer. Um, so you'd be surprised, like I've seen like certain like 20% of what the fintech could get could be just rubbish, just you know, nuisance, either intentionally fraud or just just really um, you know, it could be bought uh created accounts and stuff like that. So they're able to get rid of a lot of that very early in the funnel for relatively minimal cost.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Absolutely. So there's of course a lot of different signals out there, but most of us treat our email address as you know, just something more mundane. We even barely even think about it. But your company tends to treat it as it's one of the most revealing signals of somebody who's really online. So, what does an email address actually tell you?

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Well, I I mean why data is important is effectively why is because email is so important, right? Because uh I've had I've had lots of different emails, but my primary email I've had since I was about 16 and I've kept it with me. But I've moved I've changed devices, of course, every couple of years, moved addresses, I've you know, uh uh people even change names, but they'll get their email. Yeah, right. So in a digital world, it it really is the crux of your your digital identity. In fact, most of it's you're surprised a lot of our uh clients refer to it as the email ID, not the email address. And that's a bit telling, I think, you know, because there's like it's it's so important. A lot of the time we'll see on account opening, you'll see uh email. Yeah. Nothing else, not your name, not your just enter your email and whatever you know, other data point they need. But that's it, just to keep the it it to a minimum and then they can follow up from there. So it's so important and it's so you know, has a such a long tenure uh within that that evolution of a profile and that it it makes it valuable from a you know customer point of view, and well, evaluation standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Absolutely. Okay. So let's bring that into sort of like the real world, right? Like I want to imagine that. So imagine I'm an online lender, I'm approving loans, um, and a real share of that application, of course, comes from real people. Um, but without getting too technical, how do you know something about an email address that helps me tell who real customers are from the rest of them?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

So I suppose there's two scenarios, like the the good, the good path, right? The happy path, which is we hope most of your your client base, 80% hopefully, is is is good and or plus. Uh and what what when they come in and we get the email, it's all real time. Like so our environment, it's like uh it's almost like the Visa Credit Guard network. It's emails constantly interacting with us. We'll see, you know, we see billions obviously coming back, but we see all the interactions. So when a when a client queries us, we're querying it in right that second, right? What's happening with that email right now? So we give that context back. So it's all really fresh, really high high context data. But the what we're gonna say in um in the good flow is yeah, Dwayne. He we saw him first time for uh 16 years ago. He's uh the address that's the one we normally see, the name, that's the one we normally see with this email. And you know, IP looks good, he's not uh on a tour proxy or anything like that. Uh and the distance between his address that he gave and that IP is five miles or whatever, you know. So happy bath. Everything looks good. And then there's probably other checks that the the bank or finance company is going to do, and they hopefully align with that, right? Now, on the fraud side or you know, malicious side, it's a very different look, right? It's like the email, quite often actually for lending email is created that day. Yeah, right. So the email is new. And if you think about it just practically, if you're applying for a loan as a genuine person, you're not going to create a new email and then immediately go apply for a loan. It's a it's a period of a telling point, right? But it doesn't end there because you know, some of our B2B lenders, for example, we'd see the um them replicating, we've seen replications of Citibank, uh, McDonald's, uh, all these other you know, companies that they make, they make a domain, they use disposable domains, but they make a new domain to look like the company and then they apply for commercial loans based and pretending to be that company. Uh and that's just the start of it, and then they try and do, but we can catch it so early. So we look at that, how the domain is constructed, when it was constructed, how active is that domain. We even have the ability because we have such visibility to all that activity, we start to look at if a domain comes in, because there is new domain, so it's not just because it's new and doesn't mean it's bad. Uh it might be new business. So we say, All right, what are the usernames uh that have we seen? Let's say we've 10,000 in the last uh month. How what was construction pattern in that username? So was it Dwayne 101, Dane Two? We see that a lot, you know. So the sequential side of it, and we can detect that too. And we start looking back and pattern analysis and stuff like that. So from a very one single point or you know, a couple of single points, we can determine quite a lot about what's happening and what's you know what's going to happen with that with that client. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Well, so when when let's just imagine when one of those fraudsters then sets out to pass as a real customer, um what about that long-standing email address is really genuine and is probably the hardest to fake?

SPEAKER_01 7:22

Yeah, I mean, it's it's actually really rare nowadays because you have different solutions. We're not necessarily the only company that you know offers email data, but we are the only company to do it the way we do it and and how we and you know, with the tenure we have. So what you know from a from a fraudsters, you know, they've of course they'll try and replicate it. They might maybe create an email uh six months ago and then leave it kind of you know settle or even use it a little bit to make it look look genuine. But it's very hard. Like we we s we have such high traffic volumes that we have uh uh you know, you break break the email out from um a single data point to a timeline. So it because it is that's what all effectively profiles are, right? They're a big long timeline and they they should evolve gradually, some changes, maybe an address, maybe a location, an IP, that kind of thing. They shouldn't change suddenly and they shouldn't just appear out of nowhere and then start transacting. So there's a few few telling points like that, and that's what's so hard to replicate. You know, people look at like we get asked frequently, oh, do we use you know social data? And we don't, because social data, I myself I used to work in the very early days on Facebook, and I can tell you that um there is a lot of fake accounts, right? And it's especially in this world, you know, with AI uh and and script and you know things like that, it's not that hard to create those social profiles. So just because they have a social profile with an email, it's not always now more and more, maybe it gets a bit better because I was you know, uh, but we have a effectively a walled garden in terms of our our environment in turn in terms of our data, and we're very protective over that to make sure that it has that keeps that integrity, you know, because it can't be replicated. They can't insert, and that's effective what you're doing with social. You're inserting a new data point into a database to make it look legit, but they can't insert it into ours like that. Um, so it does, it m maintains its integrity, and we have ability to kind of filter out anything else.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Absolutely. So I think especially now, you know, when you hear data points, when you hear email addresses, when you social data, um, everybody, of course, thinks of AI and sort of like the impact of what AI will have. Um, we're already seeing AI being able to spin up a convincing fake person, right? From the deep fake, fake documents, fake background stories, um, and just being able to create that and actually do damage by causing a lot of fraud with that, of course. So, what is the one thing that frauds that can still not really easily fake? History.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

History is the hardest, right? So you can backdate documents, so you can fake those, right? But then if you exist, it's it's it's hard if you're a new company to do that. But if you're in this withstanding company, you know, who's been there, we know they weren't around. This particular profile or this particular email in our case wasn't there two years ago, three years ago, whatever. So even though now, yes, all of this has appeared as a perfect looking profile with all the verifications, it's possible they they moved and you know, they now move to a country like we see that with you know immigration. We'll see like a whole new profile coming in. But again, we treat them initially as correctly, in my view, you know, as suspicious initially until they prove, you know, tenure. Um so we're still kind of insulated from that. Uh and and and in fact, maybe even become more important uh in that because uh the verification steps required in that in that become, you know, yeah, like the quality, as you say, is is amazing, uh some of the stuff. But we managed to kind of again keep that, keep our integrity, I guess, again.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

So I think, yeah, history sort of like this two-dimension thing where you you have probably static data, you have an email address, you have a name, you have other data points that you're collecting, but then history makes it another dimension of correct. Correct. Yeah. Do you think that's an advantage that will actually last, or is it just a matter of time before we'll have AI learning about that and creating history for those profiles, or just using AI for those?

SPEAKER_01 11:18

It's an interesting one. I mean, uh it everything there's a lot, like uh I've described it before as the this is the industrial revolution for the internet, right? AI, the agentic side of it, and it's going to fundamentally change quite a lot of things, but not everything, right? There's some fundamentals that just can't be changed, right? Which is one, for example, when you're going on to buy some sneakers, well, yeah, now your AI agent that's gonna do it, but the difference is you're still getting those shipped to your house. Okay, so now your shipping address is still important, and you're probably going to have like uh, you know, want to get the receipt for your purchase, even though the AI agent, and that's probably gonna go to your email. And you know, so there's a lot of that, you know, um, I was just talking Visa earlier, and they and talk about the agentic flow, and then our email was there and all this. I said, Well, does that go back to the merchant? Oh, it does, yeah, of course. So a lot of this, those core fundamentals will will kind of transcend through post AI and still will be there. So it's what it's changing is, you know, and I've tried to explain to people is that the difference with agentic commerce is not you know, you're not directly dealing with the merchant anymore. There's an in there's a there's a go-between bit and that wasn't there before. And that's fundamentally, you know, if you try and simplify it, that's the difference. Yeah, you have a you know a butler that's doing it for you now, you know. And so, and the likes of um, you know, what Experian are doing into that is is just verifying that connection, you know, and and stuff like that. So that's that's primarily, but I do, you know, I do to answer your question. I think we're gonna, you know, be as important or even more so going into the future. Um, because we're still expanding. We've more, we've more and more customers every year. And we've been going 26 years and we're processing billions, but it's getting bigger every year. So at the moment, there's no indication it's gonna change.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah. And of course, you know, you have plenty of companies who are already in that fraud space, like even though you're in the email space, but then applicing applying that to payments companies for fraud prevention, of course, and identity verification. Um, and we see, of course, a lot of acquisitions also in that space. You have MasterCard and LexisNexis acquiring different companies for that. So to really set you apart, like what does add data do that others don't or can't?

SPEAKER_01 13:37

Uh well, I what one of the things in fraud, like we're not a fraud platformer, right? We didn't we and and I intentionally didn't want to add like device capabilities and all the other, you know, stuff that does work is just that I wanted this product, it's it's very effective. And I actually used to be a customer because I used to when I was in fraud product for transunion, I used to use the data and I knew how valuable it was. So it was one of the big reasons why I wanted to come here. But uh it was very easy to use, it was very understandable, it was very easy to deploy. And it's like that's it's that's its strength, one of its strengths. The other thing as well is, you know, when we when we look at, you know, who do we compete with? Well, not many. I mean, there's others that have the data, but there's nobody that has our tenure, that has our, you know, um our quality, and um, again, just the easy deployment. So it's it's an in, you know, again, it's changing so much right now, and there's a lot of companies out there. Um, but we don't, you know, we we plan on expanding our our our reach um in in terms of our different countries and the data. We've been we have we've generally launched about two new features to the product every year since we've developed it. Um so we just plan on kind of enhancing it, make it more, let's say, AI suitable. And we've really already released three that have that direct uh connection uh features within the product. So and that's it, really, is just to make it more you know, more available.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

More available to others. Yeah, absolutely. So Experian uh is a name that most people probably associate with credit scores. Um but they acquired At Data, a 26-year-old email data company. Um what do they get out of the deal? Like how does that expand their reach or the other way around? How does that work for At Data and how can you leverage Experience um assets and what I mean you provide?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

We work we were quite excited about this deal for multiple reasons, right? Because one, they were actually a customer of ours for 18 years. So we we knew them so well already, and they knew the you know the value. And they knew what we had was unique because in the fraud industry, what you'll find when you talk to different companies is most of them are buying from each other. Right. And what they they their uniqueness is they their combination, whatever combination they end up with. But we were buying from no one. We owned entirely owned at the end of the entire data set, and that was one of the things that made us unique. And of course, from an experience point of view, because they are effectively one of the largest identity companies in the world, um, but they didn't have that.

unknown 16:11

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Right. So they didn't have the email, they didn't have the history that we have, they didn't have the the kind of deployment ability we have. So for them it was it was a pretty, you know, yeah, pretty obvious fit. Uh for us, what do we get out of it? Um you know, simply their reach, right? They have, you know, I've I'm I'm still only kind of getting to grips. It's four months in, and now every finance, anything to do with finance, oh yeah, we're an experienced customer. Every single one of them, or you know, without fail. So now we go, well, do you want to use it? And they go, Yeah, well, we have a contract already, so it's easy. You know, so the the market just opened up to some of the biggest companies in the world, uh, to us, you know, so it is definitely mutually beneficial. And and what they like as well is that it's not a regional product, it's not something just for North America, it's not Southern Europe. It's we can deploy anywhere, like I said, and we have 190 countries running now. So um that's also a bit unique for them.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, absolutely. It also looks to me like they have different data sets. Like I think you already mentioned, like because you have that Vault data set actually that you've been building with a lot of that historical data that's unique, that's your moat. And then you have all these other things. You have uh credit scores, you have insights into businesses information, all of these other things as well. Like, what are what is like a use case that you can share that that that a company has been benefiting from ad data, but also the experience data sets that actually allows them to do more than just the standalone service.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Well, I suppose one of the examples, what we're going to do is like we're gonna be taking some of the experience, like their one of the things I love about them is that the data quality they have is exceptional, right? Like their procurement of their data, so their identity data, I mean, from my perspective, is what I'm looking at. So is so we're gonna take some of that and enrich the fraud product that we have, right? Some of the some of their global data sets. So from an identity perspective, we're going from good to amazing, is the goal, right? Um, so what that means um is we'll be able to tie, you know, like with stuff like credit header data, we'd tie that to the email, tie that to so it becomes incredibly accurate because all that data is really is high quality, but not only high quality, it's it's refreshed very regularly, updated, and quite accurate because it's the credit reporting system in the US, it's incredibly important. Most most countries it is. So we get the access and benefit of that, and that just makes um because our accuracy is generally pretty high, but now we're moving into a different league with um different data, you know, data points. And we are now moving into there, because um you may have seen in the press um Experiende launching a suite of uh agenc products. Yeah. So now the email now is being is will be integrated as part of those agenc products as well. So there's a lot of different things happening right now. Um come back to you in a year to say, you know what exactly how it's all worked out, but um, but there's a lot of opportunity in you know different regions and different, you know, for different companies. Um and we we have new opportunities like so um, you know, companies like Booking.com, which wouldn't traditionally be um an experienced customer. Yeah, you know, that's not that's out of side. So they're excited about that, right? Because we get to go in and have a big impact very fast and you know, and all that. Like, and we've like great companies like that, like DLocal and a few others that that we work with uh that would be traditionally outside of their wheelhouse, but we we've made a big impact with them uh in terms of their KYC and fraud prevention stuff in in you know, again, many different markets. So yeah, I think that's it's it it very much is mutual. I mean, we we're now we were a company 55 and they're a company of nearly 22,000 people. So we're not gonna change their world now necessarily, but we'll we'll probably punch above our weight in terms of what we can do for them, all right?

SPEAKER_00 19:55

Absolutely. So um I think more and more people, of course, are expecting AI assistants to do their shopping or their booking for them as well. Um, and when it's a bob placing that exact order, how does a business know if that's real or trusted person behind that? Is that does that link back to the email addresses again or is there a different way?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Yeah, well, like that. I mean, on the experience side, that's why they've launched the agent trust stuff. Basically, that is um it it is I wish I was more part of it. I'm I'm getting into it now, but uh so that is where they are um bringing in uh the link between the uh agent to the basically the person who's ordering, right? And that means that they can uh assign an ID and that ID gets passed through um as you know, when through the flow, and then basically from the you know on the on the on the user customer side they can see that it has a an approved uh experience ID, right? So it's a trusted customer. So it's a really cool system, very efficient, very low touch. Um and but that happens because we're like we were saying earlier, is that there's there's a go between you know that wasn't there before and how do you link all three, because there's three parties, right? You link them all, how do you link them all together and trust that? The issue I do see at the moment there's very little traffic, to be honest, because most of the the um You mean agentic traffic. Yeah, exactly, true agentic traffic because most of it's been blocked by the website's malware and stuff like that. Like because traditionally speaking, bots are bad. Yeah, you know, stop, period, nothing, you know. So we didn't want any bot activity, but these are all bot activity. So customers they have to, or companies will have to change their view of that because it'll nearly 90% will be good after in a short while. And the challenge will be who's good and who's bad, you know. Um and it's that that is going to be an issue, you know, with some of the the new AI models that are being launched now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

So I think you already touched upon it, but how much of that, how much of that traffic, right? How much of the transactions is already actively happening? Are we still looking at very small single Single digit or a couple of thousand transactions per day or per month. So it's is it growing?

SPEAKER_01 22:07

It is growing, uh, but like most of it's still being blocked because of the that that, but like so there's a difference between agentic commerce and then AI being used. And so AI being used is very different, right? It's prolific. We see, like I said, we've launched features because of this. So we've launched um uh gibberish detection, sequential email detection, and tumbling. And those three features are basically a direct result of uh massive script creation of emails, right? So we see, like I said, Dwayne 101, Dwayne 106, 106, and they goes up like thousands of them gets created, and then they get spread across different websites. So the AI side of it and the AI malicious use of it is not new. Now, this is this is commerce, so it's different. There's an agent and it's it's designed to the purchase of it. Uh yeah, we we haven't seen it, but like it, I would say it's months uh before that's gonna massively shift and shift quickly. So most merchants have to create a start start working now, basically, to be prepared, make sure that they have the right solutions in place, make sure that they have solutions that have the durability to withstand, you know, because a lot of them you take, let's say, device ID. Well, it has no relevance in an in in AI because the device ID wasn't that device, it wasn't your device, it was it was the with the exception of things like the comet browser. I don't know if you're from Perplexity, that that actually uses your computer to do it. So maybe that becomes popular, I'm not sure. We'll have to see how that evolves. But um so yeah, but I I think all of that infrastructure is being created right now, uh, in both both from the agentico side and actually the provider side, you're starting to see like no then you know conferences and stuff that's all these uh you know agentic-based kind of solutions are starting to merge. They weren't there last year. So that all that's kind of starting to come together, and as soon as they all come together, that's when you'll see an explosion in terms of the traffic because it is quite ready, I think, um, and people are ready for it. So just have to see how it evolves.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

See how that evolves. Um, I think another thing that I continue to see, but I think probably a lot of people are also noticing, is that you have some of the bigger tech companies who are providing a lot of email services, like an Apple with their iCloud services, Gmail, of course. Um, more and more are letting people giving people the option to hide their email addresses, you know, and privacy rules, of course, due to regulations, GDPR and other things that keep tightening, right? Much more uh is being done on that way. As more people are trying to amass their email, does that actually hurt your business?

SPEAKER_01 24:36

I mean, the so there's only one major one, really, and it's Apple who've done it. Gmail allow change, but actually it's quite a cumbersome thing in that they they only allow one change a year, and it's uh it means you'd have to change all your accounts, right? Your access accounts, and people aren't inclined to do that. Uh but Apple have done it differently where they they have um Hide My Email service, right? So predominantly more on apps than it is on the website, but uh for us it represents about 2% of our total traffic, so it's still relatively low, and growth rate is limited. Um so with that one, it's interesting because we actually see because it's it goes back to a website and it keeps using the same email. So we actually do have we see returning, even though they've highten it. We actually see the return rate. So instead of one email, a person has 40 because they're going to 40 different websites. So we see all of those 40 and potentially could merge them back, you know. But um, so no, um, you know, for now it hasn't had any impact from a compliance perspective. GDPR largely from a you know, GDPR has provisions for fraud prevention, you know, so it allows a lot more, you know, and rightly so, you know, to to for companies to do to have more access to data to perform fraud prevention checks. So we haven't had um like we do our GDPR compliance and doing one at the moment with Experian as well. So uh yeah, it hasn't been a big issue on that front either. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

So as more shopping is being done by those AI agents and more people are hiding those details, does email still stay at the center of proving who somebody is, or does it become just another signals among many? Uh so what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 26:19

I suppose it's uh it's always a signal among many, I guess. Uh it's a case of um in data science, like we have like a ranking, right? So so all your signals, what how how does it rank? And it is it is top, like it's starting top three, and it very, very rarely deviates from that. Um so do I see it having that into the future? Almost certainly. Um there is no, like I said earlier, there's no indication right now that it's going away tomorrow because it does there's nothing that replaces it necessarily. The shift with email actually has been that it's not used so much for communication anymore. Yeah. You know, that's been the shift. So it's it's it's use, but that doesn't necessarily matter to us. But the use of it as a as a literally a back and forth communication tool, and I mean I'm private, still used to certain degree in work. Um, but IMs and WhatsApp and stuff is is more predominant now, you know, where we would have sent an email and I used to pay someone and someone like that. But but it's use in terms of you know checkout and as a kind of the your address. Uh because again, it is that it is it is an ID slash address because if you're buying digital goods, your physical address doesn't matter anymore. So but you still need an address and it's something for those confirmations to go to, and that's email. And I now I don't see where that it would go other than that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Absolutely. So I tend to be a very positive future-focused person. Um, but however, sometimes when you're building something, you're building a new company, there's always roadblocks uh ahead of it. Uh, what is something that you believe that needs to drastically change, right? It could be regulations, it could be technology itself, it could be just the way that companies are operating or maybe utilizing emails that you believe like if we can change that, we can actually get a lot more innovation, we can, you know, grow substantially, not just as a company, but overall as businesses.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

Yeah, yeah. Um I mean, like the rate, the rate of progress is phenomenal. And it's, you know, and right now my my issue has been is actually around with AI, is that it's that transparency. There's a lot of fear-mongering with it, uh, you know, it's particularly that. And a lot of people they're they're afraid of what they don't know. So it's AI, AI, AI, and it's gonna either, depending on your viewpoint, it's gonna destroy everything or create everything, you know, it depends on what you look at. So that transparency and that insight is is a big issue right now for for consumers, businesses, everything, because they're they're petrified, most of them, uh, as to what happens. So I don't have an answer for it, unfortunately, but like the uh is that transparency into like you know, if we were able to do it nicely and have a nice clean okay, over the next five years, this is what's going to happen. Everybody can kind of settle down and and and work towards that. Um, but the other issue I think is the confusion. For I like I'm on the I you know, okay, I build these products and stuff like that, but I do sympathize with the buyers, the the companies out there, because you go to conferences and there's thousands of companies, hundreds and thousands or whatever of companies, and for the most part, they all look the same. Yeah. And you're like, how if I was a how do I pick one of these? And how do I know I got the best one? How do I it's a massive challenge for for for companies to find a correct vendor for them. Um, and a lot of the time I think they're just sick of people, you know, pounding their door and stuff like that. Um so I think they're the two for me, if you could, if they were those two issues, you know, it would make things a life a lot easier. Um, you know, the transparency and and it I suppose they're they're both effectively about transparency. Um so yeah, um being able to filter out some of the vendors that are suitable for your industry and that noise, and then you know, transparency into the AI. Now, hopefully the transparency into AI is kind of self-fulfilling, right? That over time we'll start to get used to it, like we did with the internet. I mean, you could argue it was the same going back about 30 years now with the internet. We're like, oh my god, what now, you know, all the bricks and mortars, this the high street will never change. And yeah, it has, it has changed dramatically. So we're probably seeing it. I just hope that it doesn't happen too fast that people, you know, catch them unaware that they have time to prepare and and and and kind of get ready for it.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

Absolutely. Well, thank you very much for joining Executive Conversity Race. It was uh great having you on as again, and uh till next time. Yeah, thank you. If you like this episode, hit like, follow, and subscribe for more.