Building Smarter Systems: How To Integrate AI Into Your Business Workflow

Transcription – Building Smarter Systems: How To Integrate AI Into Your Business Workflow

(0:00 – 0:14) 

Welcome to the Proof Point Podcast, where we decode digital success one click at a time. We share key takeaways fueled by data and insights that your team can implement today to drive growth. Now, let’s get started.

(0:21 – 0:38)

This is Stacie Porter Bilger, your host for the Proof Point Podcast, where I feature B2B and D2C businesses and thought leaders. Sharing marketing data tactics, sales strategies, and leadership insights that kickstart your growth in a rapidly changing digital space. And today, we’re going to change it up a little bit.

(0:40 – 1:10) 

We’re going to have a roundtable kind of discussion around AI. And I have a good friend on today, Chad Franzen, and we both work a lot in the AI space. And we wanted to bring some insights to companies, small to medium-sized companies, especially about how to go about thinking about 2026, as well as planning in the Q4 about what things they need to do to start implementing AI and some things we’re seeing.

(1:16 – 1:24) 

Chad, why don’t you tell a little bit about it yourself? Sure. Yeah. Hey, great to be here, Stacie. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah. I’ve been working for Rise25. It’s kind of a podcast production agency. We help with B2B podcasts. We help with this podcast.

(1:31 – 1:53) 

We help with the production, try and give you ideas, people to reach out to, things like that. My main responsibilities are interviewing guests. We have some clients who want a podcast, but don’t want to have to host it themselves. So they kind of hand it over to us and my responsibilities are often to host the podcast for them. Yeah. And then before that, I worked in radio.

(1:56 – 2:21) 

I did news and sports on radio. I’ve done recreation management, professional sports, ticket sales, things like that. But with Rise25, I knew nothing about AI going into it. In fact, even my first two years, first one year, I’d heard that AI was a thing. I was like, I kind of rolled my eyes at it. And then one of the founders, John Corcoran, he kind of showed me ways to utilize AI for one specific thing.

(2:23 – 2:48) 

And then from there, I can’t imagine my life without it at this point. I can’t imagine Rise25 going without it at this point. That’s right. And I’ve been using it to chat for years. And the acceleration of its abilities and its quality of results have drastically improved, especially the last six months. Sure.

(2:49 – 3:30) 

It is getting better and better. And I think, and when I’m working with companies and clients, and we have actually a whole AI audit, which we do for clients to implement, and basically, where should they start adopting? How can they accelerate their AI implementation? And there’s always some blockers. And so what are some things that you’re seeing or what are some ways businesses can start thinking about building this into their systems? I mean, right now, if you haven’t started utilizing it, there’s so much talk about it.

(3:30 – 3:51) 

You probably don’t even know where to start. Right. I’ve missed my window. I’m just not even going to worry about it. We’re going to keep doing things the way they do it, just because there’s so many possibilities you could use it. I would just say, just start. It’s pretty easy to even talk to, and you shouldn’t be intimidated by that. Like say you just have chat GPT, and you need some ideas for something. You can just say, just get the conversation, go, hey, give me some ideas for this.

(3:55 – 4:13) 

And you’ll be amazed with what it can come up with. Right. I’m going to be doing this interview with Stacie Porter Bilger, and I needed some things to talk about. She runs this company called Proof Digital. And then it’ll give you some amazing things that you could talk about. Right there, you may not use every little single thing that it comes up with, but you’ve got the ball rolling, and you’re already using AI.

(4:16 – 4:29) 

Right. And I call that kind of AI curious. I mean, there’s kind of like a pyramid of how you kind of grow into the use of AI. And that’s kind of a next level. I mean, you’re actually being curious with it. You’re testing it.

(4:30 – 4:51) 

You’re seeing its capabilities. You see its flaws. But then you also see the just amount of time that you could save on some simple tasks, all the way from email, research, competitive intelligence, writing a proposal, all those things that can be sped up.

(4:54 – 5:30)

But the next level, from my perspective, is taking and looking at all your systems in which you as a company are, because you can’t, don’t jump in everything, just pick a couple areas where you can actually improve. And then once you’ve got all those tasks and understand where you might be wasting time, then that might be a good place to test and start seeing if a system can be built around doing prompt engineering and where you can have multiple team members start implementing across the team the same way. So what does that look like? The audit? Yeah.

(5:31 – 6:02) 

What would that look like where you’re like, okay, we’re going to start building systems with AI or just completely transforming the way we do business using AI rather than what I was suggesting? Like, okay, don’t be intimidated by it. Well, first you have to start there, though, John. You have to, and also help you think through once you’re ready to the next level to take it into a more systems and to a more of a company adoption of AI, what does that look like? I mean, whether you use AI for it or not, it’s still an important process.

(6:07 – 7:11) 

What tasks by department are you doing? What’s HR doing? What’s operations doing that are really repeatable tasks that our company does all the time? And kind of look at it from a department or service, obviously, from our standpoint, we look at it from operations, we look at it from project management, we look at it from a standpoint of ad production, content production, all those pieces that you kind of do. And so what you basically have a whole system of where you kind of lay out what are the services and areas of business, what are those repeatable tasks, charge your team members across your organization to start just putting through, you know, putting those pieces. How long are you taking to do it? Are there roadblocks? And what tools are you using? Because what can be done is building agents and building systems around AI with integrations of if you’re a Slack user, which is a communication tool, you can build an AI automation tool that integrates with your QuickBooks.

(7:13 – 7:58) 

I mean, there’s things that you can do with AI and building systems around that. So the first step is, what are you spending time on? Where are you potentially duplicating efforts to? What can be some? And I think you should think about it also, not from an only efficiency standpoint, but more of a way to elevate your team and let them focus on their gifts and talents and get those some of those those things that can bring some efficiency to their day to day. So they’re doing some of those more, you know, personal touch items for your clients.

(7:59 – 8:22) 

So let’s say let’s say one of your team members is a gifted writer and they can do something. In an hour that I can do in two minutes. How should how should that writer react to that? Well, here’s the thing that won’t. I can’t still. It’s not a creative writer. It is not always right when it comes to telling a story.

(8:29 – 8:52) 

So where you use content from a standpoint as first as a company and organization, you need to make sure that you understand your voice as a company, what’s your brand and your values, and you can you can have those pieces into an agent. And so when it does write something, it’s more in line with where you want to go. That’s a step one in the process.

(8:54 – 9:12)

So as far as prompt engineering, have a really clear system in which how how each team member, even that creative writer to to put forth that. But a couple of pieces, though, even this year, Google, you know, penalized sites that had a little bit too much A.I. content. So you can’t fool search engines totally either on this.

(9:17 – 9:45) 

And it’s in producing mass amount of content is less important today as it actually making sure that you’re creating pieces of content that tell a story that create value. So I can speed up that process. And that’s that’s how you do it to make sure that when you’re asking it to create a piece (9:36) of content, you put you already have those things in place that it actually make sure that it has a voice to it and it’s engineered to come up with something a little bit better in the end.

(9:52 – 10:14)

But then you got to take it and you have to massage it to make sure that it is. So now it may be used to take four to five hours to write a really quality blog. Maybe it takes you an hour instead. And so you still have a beautiful blog, a blog that tells a story. You just cut the research in half as well as some of the layout, the you know, of what you all the points that you want to put in the blog. Does that make sense? Yeah.

(10:15 – 10:56) 

Yeah, definitely. So if you use. So what I kind of initially laid out was kind of was was what you defined as a curious. Let’s say you’ve got you’ve gotten past that point and now you are dependent on it, not necessarily to completely systematize your organization, but you dependent on it for tasks like it can complete tasks for you. You may have to do a little editing and make sure that you don’t sound completely, you know, robotic or whatever, but you can completely you can use it to complete tasks. Where do you consider that along the curious to fully, fully AI usage timeline? Well, the what we just talked about, like you said, it was a little bit more, it was just past curious because you actually had a prompt.

(11:01 – 11:25) 

So you started there. That’s the next step. And then you have other team members across the organization. So it’s basically, you know, just like we use as far as SOPs, you know, systems operations that you actually have. You take all your SOPs and then you you build out where AI is the partner in each of those SOPs. And sometimes they won’t be.

(11:26 – 11:54) 

But you basically once you do that audit, you understand the priorities of your organization where where can you leverage it? Where does it make sense? Where does it not make sense to because sometimes it doesn’t make sense. So you basically have a long term game plan about where your organization is and you have those systems in place from a standpoint. It is you’re basically updating those those AI systems as just like you do when Microsoft has a new update, when AI has a new update, you update those systems.

(11:59 – 12:15) 

So it’s it’s really that’s when you’re you’re running on all engines, when all those things that you put on that audit are actually running in your team is using their skills to the best. But that’s a pretty long term strategy, I think, to get going. I think you start with a few and test and see how it goes.

(12:19 – 12:43) 

So when you say prompt engineering, you know, engineering is kind of an intimidating intimidating. What where can people can people just start by like trying? Yes. So I think, yes, we were using that and it’s a really good point because we were already trying to make sure ourselves that smells still sound smarter when we when we use engineering.

(12:46 – 13:05)

And I was always thought I wanted to be an engineer. It didn’t happen. I had other I was more other side of the brain. But, yeah, it’s basically, yeah, asking it questions in a thoughtful way to get an answer that you want. So if you travel, I mean, it’s the same thing. You just don’t say that I want to go to Indianapolis for the weekend.

(13:09 – 13:24) 

And what are the 10 best things to do or the three best things to do? You want to say, you know, I’m going to Indianapolis. I love kind of hidden gems in and I like coffee shops. I mean, and, you know, and I’m going to be there from a Thursday to a Saturday.

(13:29 – 13:41) 

And from that standpoint, the more information you give it, the better answer you’re going to get. And so that’s prompt engineering, I guess, engineering that I view it is actually it’s just when it actually is a system. I mean, that’s where actually that same prompt in an organization is used across.

(13:48 – 14:04)

So if we want to do competitive analysis for a company, there’s pieces that we have to pull and use our brain to understand what that analysis means. But there might be some things we want it to help us start developing. So we have a whole prompt in which we’ve built around that.

(14:07 – 14:15) 

And every team member uses that prompt. That’s when it’s kind of more like a system. Versus just just a. I have some questions for you.

(14:17 – 14:39) 

Help me clarify what I’m trying to get from you. But it’s amazing once you do that. I mean, there are certain tricks around it, too. You’ll see when content that are AI developed that uses certain words a lot  and certain kind of phrases. So communicating to AI that don’t use that. We don’t, you know, so so you don’t look so AI like when developing content.

(14:46 – 15:03) 

I think curious is a good place from a standpoint of just testing it to help speed up. Those simple tasks that kind of not want you every day. Is there you know, I use chat GPT almost primarily, but there are so many different kinds of AI that specialize in things like a rise 25.

(15:07 – 15:19) 

We often we just finished producing a audio book for a client who’s who’s not based in the US. So he didn’t you know, English wasn’t his primary language, but he wanted to want to produce in in English. And we had a nice British sounding voice from an AI program called Speechify.

(15:24 – 15:31)

And we produced a whole book for him. And honestly, if you have to tell Audible or whoever the distributor is that it’s an AI voice. But if you didn’t read that, you probably wouldn’t know that it was an AI voice.

(15:36 – 16:04) 

Yeah, that’s amazing. Is there some AI program that you would recommend starting with like his chat GPT the one or can there be more specific ones based on what you do? Well, I think each of them in there and they evolve depends on the week. I do think chat GPT has more robust pulling in different resources and analysis than others today.

(16:05 – 16:29) 

But if you were a writer, I think Claude does a pretty good job. It just better. It just seems to be more human like, you know, it’ll it’ll come through just more like, like I said, more human like, I guess, and less stoic or other words that you can think about writing.

(16:31 – 17:02) 

So I think Claude does a better job from a content standpoint. Chat GPT still seems to be the leader, but you also have Gemini. I also like to use Gemini on predictive analytics and certain things like that more. But, you know, they’re all getting in the you know, they’re getting those those big guys are getting in the game.So it’s it’s it’s something to keep an eye on. What’s your perspective, Chad? Yeah, that’s I think, you know, I’ve been using this one.

(17:06 – 17:28) 

Well, I usually use chat GPT. I have definitely used Claude to help me. Like I said, I sometimes host interviews for clients. I’ve used Claude to help me basically write the guest intro and check out their LinkedIn page and come up with 20 questions for the guests. Not that I read through those 20 questions verbatim, but it’s stuff there. It’s like talking points that I can go over with the guest and I didn’t have to think about it at all.

(17:29 – 17:42) 

I can do it within like, you know, three minutes rather than spending an hour, which is what I used to do to prepare for these interviews. So that’s always good. I’ve been using this one called Galaxy.ai. Have you heard of that? Yeah, I’ve heard of it.

(17:42 – 17:54) 

I have not really used that one. That basically gives you everything. In fact, there’s one little thing on here that says humanize your prompts or humanize your content so you basically can have chat GPT give you something and chat GPT like in their content.

(17:55 – 18:10) 

They always say like the words highlights. This highlights the tendency of so-and-so that, you know, you can put it in there and then it’ll rewrite it for you. So it sounds like a human wrote it. And then sometimes you have to be like, okay, this is too human. I need to make it sound fancier. No, it’s right.

(18:11 – 18:44) 

I mean, it is. Yeah. I mean, and there’s a lot of things, you know, popping up. Um, just, uh, even, you know, um, that are related to even like, you know, Google or outside of Gemini, um, uh, there’s, I don’t know if you’ve heard lovable and I mean, just a lot, a lot of tools out there that are just doing amazing things pretty quickly. Have you tried lovable? I have. That is incredible.

(18:45 – 18:54) 

Yeah. Yeah. Have you used it? What have you, what have you done on, on lovable? Well, I’ve been working on these, these, uh, Shopify stores and I wanted to bring like a, have like a, a tent, like a tent page, you know, like, okay.

(18:59 – 19:23) 

And then it can refer you to some different Shopify stores. Yeah. And I just put in like, Hey, I’ve got these, uh, four websites. There’s their Shopify stores. And I won. And I told chat GPT to write me like a thing for lovable that I can use to help me develop kind of like a homepage for all four sites.

(19:18 – 19:30) 

It came up with like a page worth of stuff that I didn’t understand, including some code. Yeah. Pasted it into lovable and I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. Like what it came up with. It is, it is, um, from a development company.

(19:35 – 19:57) 

Um, you know, you can, um, build apps, you can build websites. Um, now here’s the thing, all these things will help speed up the process. Right. But again, the, the creative side, it needs a little bit of it. That’s still going to be going forward. Those, you know, I don’t want to make all those designers, um, nervous because you have to listen to the client to understand what their message is.

(19:59 – 20:24) 

But lovable is, um, pretty cool. Yeah. What do you think is the right attitude for a business to have? Like, let’s say, let’s say, you know, that AI is out there. You’d probably benefit from it. What kind of attitude should a business owner or a leader leader have toward the use of AI? Like a healthy attitude. Well, I think a healthy attitude is that, um, it is here to stay.

(20:34 – 21:02) 

Um, and it can give you a, um, an edge, especially with large, from larger organizations who might have harder time to adopt. Um, so if you want to be in business for the next five or 10 years, you, you, you need to adopt. Now, you also have to come up with the thought process. It’s amplification, not replacement. Um, you know, it, you need to capture expertise. Still, you need to ensure consistency as a business.

(21:09 – 21:26) 

You know, that’s, that’s still part of it. You need to evaluate performance of AI. Um, you need to make sure that everybody’s still focused on the right thing. So the business itself does not change. So, um, you need to have those systems in place. It is a tool that could increase margins.

(21:32 – 21:59) 

It could help you grow faster, but you also need to do it and execute and then, you know, in a way that’s going to enhance your teams, your current teams, um, and really, um, put a plan in place and baby steps for fine, um, to, to start building it into your systems. So some people are maybe afraid of it. Some people I’ve seen on LinkedIn, I’ve never really, I’ve talked to maybe a few people.

(22:02 – 22:16)

They’re opposed to it. Like this is, you know, this is, it’s going to be fraudulent. Uh, there’s too many traps, too many traps involved. I’m guessing you would say that that’s not a healthy attitude. It’s good to have skepticism, but maybe not. Look, I mean, AI is not perfect.

(22:20 – 22:53) 

There are some bad sides to AI, but small, small, medium sized companies, specifically who I serve in nonprofits, um, it is here to stay. Um, just look at the stock market and where investment is taking place. Um, so if you are in most businesses, I can’t say all, all businesses, but most businesses need systems and AI should be part of building, um, you know, consistency and efficiencies within those systems.

(22:55 – 23:05) 

I was telling you about, uh, galaxy.ai and some of the things they do. I’m just looking at my screen now. Uh, the things you can, you can, you just click on and you can use AI YouTube thumbnail generator, AI background changer, AI clothes changer.

(23:10 – 23:25) 

You put your picture in there and it’ll change your clothes for you. AI face swap, AI voice cloner, AI voice changer, AI music generator, video effects generator, transcription, pretty much everything. Generate videos using VEO 3.1. I don’t even know what that means.

(23:26 – 23:48) 

Apparently you can generate videos. Yeah, you can. So it can save you a lot of time doing a lot of things. It can. Um, and some of that’s scary. Um, some of that is scary. Um, and I get that. Um, I just know, I mean, like in, from a historical standpoint, there have been things in history that have changed the way we do business. And this is one of them.

(23:50 – 24:13) 

Um, and, and I, as an organization is that, you know, we want to be in a, we, we are and continue to be an authority on how companies can, um, implement it effectively, um, to help them grow. But if you think you can like put your head in the sand, I’m not sure that’s the best strategy. Um, it’s not the best strategy.

(24:14 – 24:41) 

I also don’t think it’s the best strategy to start implementing it all across the board and everything. When you’re not even looking at your current systems, you need to start with, you know, what’s the problem within what’s the property problem or opportunity within your current structure that, that could help your team, you know, continue to use their talents better. Um, so, so let’s say I’m a, I’m a small business owner and I’ve been listening to this and I, I was somewhere between opposed to AI and scared.

(24:46 – 25:08) 

And, uh, I know that I need to start, maybe I’ll have a few chats with chat GPT. At what point would I be ready to start working with like proof digital? And have a proof digital help me that, that you made the decision as a company that, you know, AI needs to be part of your company’s future, you know, two feet in that, that’s what you want to do. And that you’re ready for a couple of things to put in place.

(25:11 – 25:45) 

One is you probably need to start with an AI policy. I mean, start, start there with how, how your company is going to go forward and then start with that audit piece that I mentioned to start thinking about how, what are the best roads or paths for your organization to start, you know, bringing it into your systems. I really think that’s the best part, but you have to make a decision as a company to say, yep, we, we better, we better get on with this, this new age, um, and not miss this, um, you know, shift in the way we do business.

(25:49 – 26:08) 

And it is, you know, it’s, it’s, I mean, we talk about time and I can remember when I came out of school and the internet was barely, not really a thing, you know, email was only internal. There was no external, you know, there definitely weren’t websites and those types of things out there. I would do mass faxes when I communicated, when I came out of college, um, which is not the best ways to communicate.

(26:12 – 26:26) 

But now we have changed and it is, it is, it is revolutionizing. And also, I mean, it’s changing certain things too. I mean, you know, we get data centers and lots of things that the money is following AI, um, and that means it’s here.

(26:31 – 26:53) 

So as you kind of interact with, um, maybe clients or other potential clients, small business owners, medium sized business owners, um, you know, on a day to day, week to week basis, whatever, how, uh, what would you say is kind of like the median attitude towards AI is it full adoption? Is it, I avoided it all costs somewhere in between. I don’t think full adoption. I haven’t full adoption is not there quite yet.

(26:56 – 27:18) 

And I think really that’s one of the biggest challenges for AI is adoption of it. Um, I think there’s a, that’s a piece of it. Um, I think most people use it like we talked about earlier. Maybe they’re a little curious or barely not even curious. Maybe they just kind of test it out here or there and have put a question in there. And like, I was like, wow, that’s a pretty, you know, it pulls a lot there.

(27:22 – 27:42) 

Um, and it’d been, been shocked by some of the, the, how, how quickly and how quality sometimes they get an answer. Um, but I don’t think, I think the adoption or accelerating the adoption is still a challenge for companies to where to begin. How about you? Uh, I would say the same.

(27:44 – 27:59) 

I would say, uh, people are just still trying to figure out best ways for them specifically to use it as it pertains to what they do. Like even, even us figuring out like which voice, you know, using voice cloning software, like which, which one do we do? Like still figuring out ways to, we use it. I don’t know.

(28:00 – 28:08) 

I can’t speak for our founders. I don’t know how much we use AI to, to come up with more big picture type things like, like you’re talking about. Um, I know I just use it for tasks rather than, you know, big picture type things.

(28:13 – 28:28) 

But, uh, I know they’re always researching, researching, uh, ideas. Um, I know I speak to lawyers and they say they use it all the time and they say the lawyers that don’t, um, are going to be left behind. Well, I think there are definitely certain industries that are going to have more disruption in law is one of them.

(28:30 – 29:07) 

Um, there’s, there’s definitely a few marketing is one of them. Um, there’s lots of, there’s lots of disruption, um, in certain markets more than others. There’s no question. Um, I think there is going to be, I mean, there’s, there is, um, it, there’s a strong market for AI, but it’s uneven. Um, so how that plays out will be, um, you know, time will tell. Um, but I know it is an unbelievable tool for fine, you know, operational efficiency, just, just in that piece, um, um, you know, cost control.

(29:11 – 29:20) 

And those are things that companies look at all the time. And it’s, you know, kind of depending on the market, what industry you’re in right now, some are having harder times than others. And they have to think through how they get through the, you know, those ups and downs.

(29:25 – 29:50) 

And if you think ahead and be prepared and understand that this is a tool, but also it’s a tool, it’s a tool. And so it goes back to the same, you have to have systems and processes in place to determine, you know, how effectively to use AI. That’s, that’s, that’s my opinion.

(29:52 – 30:06) 

And go after the low hanging fruit in adoption, just go after. And what I mean by that is, what is, again, back to the thing, what are some of those operational tasks that AI could easily be automated? That’s a really good place to start. And sometimes you might need somebody to help you identify what that is.

(30:09 – 30:22) 

And we’re, you know, we’re working with companies and helping them do that. Um, but it’s an example of one of those. Of, of, of, I mean, it really, it is, it’s starting with that, like talked about is, is just, um, uh, one doing the audit piece.

(30:27 – 30:45)

And then, um, one would actually be, you know, um, project management and, you know, of, of creating, um, tasks from, from, um, from meetings. I mean, and just making sure of implementations within project management systems. That’s one that’s totally can be automated.

(30:48 – 31:18) 

Um, there are some, um, uh, examples even on, um, you know, just even on invoicing and, um, follow up and a lot of other things and communication that’s, that we’ve, we’ve done a few of those too. I know, uh, I, uh, I’m going to have to start putting out a bunch of social media ads for these Shopify sites and I just subscribed to one where it basically publishes to every social media site for you. You just have to put in, you know, when and where, right.

(31:23 – 31:31) 

Uh, you don’t have to worry about it after that. Right. Right. That’s kind of a, that’s kind of a brain dead thing that it’s nice to get off your plate, I guess. Yeah. That’s a, that’s a really good example.

(31:33 – 32:02) 

Um, we were, we’re looking at, um, I mean, like in sales processes, um, where, you know, automations there and simplicities of what systems with AI there. Um, I don’t know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot, but again, the first, first place is to start is okay. What, what, what tools to, are you using? So we’re seeing automations easy with certain tools, obviously Google, obviously I mean Slack, but there’s others.

(32:04 – 32:18) 

If you integrate with chat GPT and other, other tools that you feel comfortable doing, not everybody feels comfortable doing. I think too, one of the first things I mentioned earlier, people do need to have a policy. They need to understand what they should put in as a company and not put in it.

(32:23 – 32:54) 

So that’s one of the first steps to, um, start with. I mean, you just don’t want to start putting things in there. Especially if you’re in the healthcare industry, let’s just not, let’s not do that. Um, you know, be careful with what you put in it. What do you mean by put it like, what’s the, what do you mean by put it in? What’s the danger of that? I mean, let’s not put social security numbers and people’s addresses and phone numbers. And I mean, you need to have policy in place of what, how your team needs to use it and how to be, you know, what not to do and what to do.

(32:58 – 33:08) 

So if you, um, what, what, what’s, you know, let’s say you’re ignorant. You’re just like, I don’t know, I’m just going to put it in there. What are the potential dangers of that? Well, it could get out there.

(33:11 – 33:33) 

Um, it’s already out there. So I remember, but I mean, yeah, it just increases your risks of, of security risks of, for, for your own data or your client’s data. Um, so I, I think, I think there are ways around that by the way that, I mean, companies are building their own LLMs, um, you know, learning, learning language models that are secure and private.

(33:34 – 34:05) 

But again, I think depending on your company, I think, you know, having a policy, understand what you can and can’t, you know, what area of business are we using AI, what area of business we’re not. Um, those are, those are things to think through. Okay. I mean, what about you? Do you, do you all talk about an AI policy or are you just kind of all in? We have not talked about an all AI policy. We wouldn’t be in a position, at least I wouldn’t be in a position to put any kind of data in. Yeah.

(34:05 – 34:22) 

But put that kind of information in there. I mean, the biggest, the stuff that I would use is like already on somebody’s LinkedIn page. Um, so it’s already out there, not gathering anything terribly personal. Right. And I think another way to look at it to a policy is, I mean, how you document your process and systems. I mean, I mean, from a policy standpoint, okay.

(34:24 – 34:37) 

If you use it, if you’ve done it the certain way, so many times, maybe that’s a way to look at it from a standpoint of, maybe we need to put that into a SOP, you know, those kinds of things to be part of the policy, but. Yeah. Sounds good.

(34:39 – 35:38) 

I mean, there’s a, we can talk forever on this, but I know, um, um, you know, there’s, there’s an opportunity. And I think, um, in, in thinking through, you know, this going in, you know, as we’re in Q4, what are, what kind of investments do companies want and time investments, um, in, in AI for their team? Um, how, what are some core business infrastructure pieces that maybe it would be cool to shift and test in AI, you know? Um, and then also what, how, how can they measure, measure, you know, the ROI of using AI too? So, uh, let’s, let’s have you, the, the expert, maybe make a prediction in terms of how things will look different regarding AI a year from now compared to now. I mean, right now it feels like, like you’re learning to surf and you’re about to get run over by a wave.

(35:39 – 35:55) 

What, uh, what, uh, what’s your prediction in terms of how the world might look regarding AI a year from now heading into Q4 of 2026? That’s a good question. Boy, I wish I had a crystal ball on that one. Um, so I guess, uh, AI will be better.

(36:02 – 36:36) 

I mean, like a lot better, I mean, a hundred times better than it currently is and generating results. And if you, if your curiosity is at all, um, using it, then you’re shocked by the fact that it could, about that possibility. I do think there’ll be some hiccups and challenges though, um, with more adoption brings, you know, other, um, pieces on accessibility to it and use of, of the products that are in the market.

(36:37 – 37:05) 

Um, I think that businesses who are at the forefront will have AI systems in place and working seamlessly within their business. Yeah. I wonder how, like, for example, like, uh, I mean, right now you hear those commercials, like somebody calls and they, they start talking to an AI phone answer and they have to repeat their answer.

(37:06 – 37:17) 

Clearly. I wonder maybe a year from now. (37:08) I didn’t even realize I was talking to an AI on a AI bot. I thought I was talking to a real person. I wonder if we’ll get to that point or something like that. No.

(37:17 – 37:39) 

And we, I mean, I say, I mean, there’s lots of companies who are doing that and have been doing that actually, you know, more than you think they have. I do think though the companies that, and this is me, this is my personal view that don’t use it more as a tool versus a dominating front person for their company will do better. What I mean by that is personal connection will be a differentiator.

(37:45 – 38:11) 

You know, I’m still, still in this world. What I mean by that is people still need, you know, you still need your talent and your expertise. You still need creativity. I don’t think that’s going to be replaced anytime soon. I haven’t seen anything close that comes through that. But I do think that companies that are going to be prepared for the next decade or five years have to get a jumpstart in 2026 or they’re going to be, they’re going to miss the window.

(38:18 – 38:36) 

I mean, that’s my view. I think you can be—I don’t know if that’s too hard. Is that too hard? What do you think? No, I think that’s right. I think you could even be AI curious and have it help your creativity. You don’t have to lose your creativity to surrender it to AI, but it can be a great brainstorming partner. It is a great brainstorming partner.

(38:38 – 39:03) 

You know, ways to tell the story about blah, blah, blah, and throw a few bullet points out there at you. Yeah, I have. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve done this. Do you have GPTs created? Yeah, yeah, yeah, a few. I mean, which means, which that means is for those who don’t speak AI all the time, is that, I mean, I have one that is a brand partner. I have one that is a business strategy piece.

(39:06 – 39:20) 

I have one that does competitive intelligence. I mean, I have different ones that I’ve created that, you know, help. I’ve already had the inputs in that when I have a question, it’s generating better results for me.

(39:22 – 39:34) 

Do you do the same? Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, definitely. And I think that that is just beyond to be truthful. That’s not even, that’s not implemented in company wide. That’s just me being a little bit more curious. Sure.

(39:35 – 39:54) 

That’s a great place to, that’s a great place to start right there. Yeah. So, but I do think, what are some of your predictions? What do you think? I think people will, I think the better it gets at copywriting, not necessarily creative writing or whatever.

(39:55 – 40:12) 

I think people will use, I think, especially small, small businesses. I think a lot of that, you know, maybe catalog copy and product descriptions and things like that will probably be used by, or probably be generated by AI. I mean, why not? Right.

(40:12 – 40:33) 

You just have to make sure it’s factual. But, you know, in terms of like trying to sound all creative, you don’t have to, you just. No. Yeah, I think that’s right. And I think that balancing what we’re going to see in the search world, how they deal with that kind of copy development. I don’t know how they can fight it.

(40:36 – 40:51) 

However, they tried to this year in some of their updates, because they wanted high quality content. But I think you’re right on some of those product descriptions, catalogs, or simple, you know, get it, get it content going. That’s the, you should start there to be truthful almost every time.

(40:55 – 41:06) 

And I’m curious as to how, how many AI generated podcasts there will be. I mean, we use podcasts, you use this podcast and Rise 25, their whole thing is building relationships on podcasts. It can be a content marketing tool, but the primary goal is to build relationships.

(41:10 – 41:32) 

A lot of podcasts though, by business are kind of have like opinion based. I’ve seen some, some companies that we just have two guys. We have opinions about, it’s like this podcast. You know, we have opinions about AI. Some of them are more debate oriented rather than kind of a round table. And we’re just kind of debating the benefits of AI regarding, you know, in content production or something like that.

(41:33 – 41:49) 

I’m wondering if you, like you just say, Hey, produce a podcast for me, or one guy is arguing on this side and one guy is arguing on this side. And then that like, that’s their brand. Those are brand characters that aren’t even real. And it’s a podcast that you can find on people’s webpages. You probably could. Now I will tell you, I don’t know.

(41:51 – 42:05) 

I kind of like talking to you, Chad. I kind of like, I know, I know, but no, there, there is no, there’s no question. Um, and, and the, and the challenge that I think I was having breakfast was the, a good partner of mine this morning.

(42:07 – 42:28) 

Um, and we were talking about this particular topic and, um, the big thing is that we still need to work our muscles of one of our brain and curiosity and, you know, get our brain to try to problem solve. And if you let AI only do that, then you’re not working that part of the brain. Um, and so I think there’s some dilemmas in companies too, because I want problem solvers.

(42:33 – 43:07) 

I want people who are, you know, forward thinking and, and, but I also don’t want them spending hours on an agenda when they can create it in 30 or 15 or whatever. So, um, I think that’s going to be part of the challenge is making sure that we are challenging our, our intellect and problem solving and this of having human to human talking and hanging out and, and using our time efficiently by solving problems. Um, and it being a tool in the toolbox to do that.

(43:10 – 43:38) 

Sure. Sure. That’s definitely something to keep, keep in perspective rather than it’s so easy to just completely surrender yourself or just completely avoid it. Like use it as a, as a tool in the toolbox to the best of your capabilities. It is. And I know there’s a lot of debate out there about it, um, regarding, you know, what about trust? What about ethics? What about governance? How do you protect kids? Those are all great discussions and should be having, and everybody should be having those.

(43:43 – 44:10)

Um, my role in becoming a lifelong learner and, and, you know, like I said, when I started my career, the internet wasn’t a thing. And now I run a digital marketing firm and I’m doing masterclasses on AI, uh, who knew? Um, but, um, you, you, it’s here. And so I’m going to, companies need to use it to help them grow so they can keep on growing the company so they can employ people to do those really fun, creative things.

(44:15 – 44:45) 

I do not believe it’s going to replace people. I think it’s going to enhance your workforce. Now there’s going to be some exceptions. Those lawyers you talked about before, some of those, those, those lawyers who don’t use it and some of the, you know, um, folks who do all the research, but they’ll find something else. I definitely think that, um, in companies, it can be used more of an enhancement and for people not to be scared of it. Yeah, sure.

(44:46 – 45:01) 

That’s definitely good to keep in mind. Did you, you know, as we kind of wrap things up here, you, you mentioned the, the internet wasn’t a thing when you started and now, now you’re doing this. Is this all real world education that you’ve attained or did you, uh, did you have to go back to school for anything? Great question.

(45:02 – 45:25) 

No, I didn’t go back to school. Um, yeah, I mean, you back even to AI that, that I work with companies all my career in different ways and some in public policy, by the way, but I work with startup companies and work with people. Everything’s, I mean, still, it’s still about people and understanding problems and how and what problems you’re going to solve, um, how to communicate with people was always part of the education.

(45:27 – 45:48) 

Um, as far as the technical piece, um, it moves so fast. You, you just have to be addicted to it. Uh, Chad, I’m addicted to learning and, um, I listen to podcasts. I probably, I listen to tons of podcasts a day. Um, my favorite programming is not Netflix. It’s masterclass.

(45:49 – 46:21) 

Um, and it, so it’s about building systems and helping companies find wins and using the tools that we have today as a tool to do it. Um, so I just have been curious. And so I think everybody should be back to our AI curious discussion.

(46:08 – 46:21) 

Um, it’s about being curious and jumping in. Is there like a go-to podcast that you found particularly enlightening and valuable that you just trust and go to all the time? Uh, how to think about that. I’ll see if I can put something in the show notes on this one.

(46:24 – 47:00) 

Um, I use a lot of them in different perspectives. I listen to a lot of tech type of ones. Um, do you, how about you, any, any AI ones that you use? I’m trying to think. That podcast. I mean, some of the podcasts are, um, you know, just about perspective on what these companies are doing. I keep an eye on that specifically, you know, because, um, and then where the investments are and, um, and there’s a lot of investment going on in this space and we’re either going to, you know, launch something huge or we’re going to, or we’re going to have a bubble.

(47:04 – 47:24) 

I’m going to, I’m going to go on the, on the huge standpoint, but I’ll, I’ll think about it and see if I can’t add some things to the, to the notes on that. But, but there’s, um, I go to, I went to, I go to conferences too. I was just at a conference a couple of weeks ago and we were all tech people spending, you know, 24 hours together, understanding how people are using it.

(47:28 – 47:38) 

How can, you know, what’s, what’s the latest and those type of things. So I do that too. Okay. Well, this has been very interesting, Stacie. Uh, it’s been a pleasure talking to you about this. Yes.

(47:38 – 47:54) 

Thank you. Well, we, uh, we’re talking to Chad Franzen. Um, you’ve been on the Proof Digital podcast. You can check us out at proofdigital.com. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to the Proof Point podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.