S1|Ep97 AI for Business Growth: How Leadership and the Next Wave of Intelligent Systems Will Reshape the DNA of High-Impact Companies

Hello and welcome to Digital Transformation NAI for humans with your host Amy. In this podcast, we'll delve into how technology intersects with leadership, innovation, and most importantly, the human spirit. Each episode features visionary leaders who understand that at the heart of success is the human touch, nurturing a winning mindset, fostering emotional intelligence, and building resilient teams. Today's conversation is one I'm truly excited about.

We are diving into the secrets of artificial intelligence for business growth to explore how leadership and the next wave of intelligent systems will shape the DNA of high-impact companies. My guest, David Asarno from Georgia in the United States, was one of Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes' top business speakers, inspired thousands of leaders worldwide, and built multiple successful companies. As CEO and founder of Business Nitrogen, he focuses on conversational AI innovation and AI-powered marketing solutions, helping clients scale impact and revenue with precision.

David is scaling eight-figure businesses while standing at the very frontier of innovation. David is also a transformational business leader, speaker, and mentor with decades of entrepreneurial success. He has served as a breakthrough trainer and master coach for Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes, empowering leaders to achieve extraordinary results. Recognized as an award-winning CEO and founder, he has scaled companies into multi-million dollar success stories and continues to guide leaders to unlock new levels of performance.

I'm honored to have David as a part of the Diamond Executive Council of the AI Game Changers Club, an elite tribe of visionary leaders redefining the rules and shaping the future of human AI Synergy. Welcome, David. I'm happy to have you here in the studio. Thank you.

I mean, it's a it's an honor to be here. Let's start the conversation and transform not just our technologies, but our ways of thinking and leading. If you are interested in connecting or collaborating, you can find more information in the description. And don't forget to subscribe for more powerful episodes.

And if you are a leader, business owner, or investor ready to adapt, thrive, and lead with clarity, purpose, and wisdom in the era of artificial intelligence, I would love to invite you to learn more about AI Game Changers Club, a global elite tribe for visionary trailblazers, and change makers shaping the future. You can apply at AIGamechangers.club. David, I've been looking forward to our conversation for a very long time, and I would love to start with learning more about yourself, your journey, your story.

Could you please share a little bit about yourself and your exciting path to success? Sure. Well, we've been waiting a while because I'd left to go on a three-week journey and hike and trek in Nepal with my son. So, you know, if you want to know a little bit about me, I love the outdoors.

I love nature. If I want to go recharge, you know, I'd go up to the mountains, go out into the woods. So that's a little bit about me. And it's funny, I realized that even when I was a kid, that's what I did.

If I wanted to needed to clear my head, I'd go out into the woods. So, how does that pertain to where we are today? You know, anytime we want to create change, we need to create clarity. And one of the things that became clear to me about three and a half years ago was artificial intelligence was going to change things.

And the first time that I saw it, the first time that I experienced, now we know we've heard artificial intelligence been around for a while, but the first time that I saw it in a way that was going to transform was when I heard an AL voice conversation. And although it was recording it, I know it could have been manipulated. I said, one day this is going to be so real, it's going to change things. And I believed that it was going to get advanced at a faster rate than people could believe.

So I started digging in and learning how to use it. And that's really what happened. Yeah, when I speak, when I train, when I coach on artificial intelligence, I tell people listen, some of you are engineers in the room. You know more about coding and programming than I ever will.

What I've realized that you can do differently with artificial intelligence is you can integrate an empathy, you can integrate a human aspect to it by using emotion, human psychology, because it's only as good as you train it to be. And you can train it at a really high level. When you think of artificial intelligence having an IQ of 140 plus, and we're looking at the older versions, they haven't measured what it is today that they updated. You have a very intelligent tool that you can use when you learn to harness the power of it.

And I often tell people the companies that learn to leverage it are going to have an opportunity. Not that they'll thrive, they'll have an opportunity to thrive. And those who choose to ignore it are going to be left behind or not exist in the future. I absolutely love it, and I couldn't agree more.

That's so valuable that you just summed up everything what really matters in such a nice and powerful way. Truly appreciated. David, you work with clients at and above the seven-figure level where pace and pressure shape a completely different business reality. When you work with a high-performing company, what is the first invisible pattern that tells you whether the founder is capable of becoming a successful leader in this AI-driven era or will stay anchored in the old paradigm?

It's a good question. You know, today things are a little bit different. When you look at entrepreneurs, especially in the seven-figure range, they're they're stuck in a lot of system designs and processes that got them to where they are. And we often say any time of growth, anytime you want to grow your business, if you double your business, you're probably going to break all your systems that you had before.

And in artificial intelligence, it's no different. Today we have to look at are they willing to release control without abandoning responsibility? And because most people look, especially when you're doing something new, they want to make sure that they, if they don't do it, so many times they're like, well, if I don't do it, it's not done right. But at the same time, you can't just hand off artificial intelligence to an engineer and expect that it's going to be done right because it's the human psychology, it's the connection.

And you've got to be able to train and have the right people. It's a it's a combination of strategy, thought processes, cloning yourself as much as you can, and then letting other people run with it. So I'd say today, AI is a multiplier, it's not a threat, but the the founder needs to shift from the from doing to designing, and that's how they're going to succeed. We're going to get closer to the discussion of threats a little bit later in this interview.

That's a great point. And I would like to get a little bit deeper into it. Intelligent systems not only automate but also influence culture, emotional climate, and decision making. What do you believe are the defining traits of the AI-aligned company?

And how will these traits separate the companies that expand from the ones that quietly decline and die? AI gives you infinite options. You got speed, but you've also got a lot of noise. So you've got to have discernment.

You have to know what matters and what doesn't matter, because you've got to have that clarity, and the clarity creates speed. And speed in artificial intelligence is going to be able to give you that advantage. So you can use artificial intelligence for advanced decision making, not to replace decision making on your own, but to use it as a partner in collaboration. And also ways that you can have your team leverage your thought process so they can make decisions faster on their own.

And that creates leverage and that clarity shapes the emotional climate of the entire organization. Many leaders, executives, and business owners treat AI adoption as a technical upgrade. And as you mentioned, some prefer to just push it on the table of their engineers and the tech IT teams. But at the same time, it is important to get into the depth of all the details which are defining business and its value.

So many leaders, executives, and business owners are misaligned in this sense. And I would like to hear your opinion. What internal misalignment do you consistently see inside high-impact companies that keeps them stuck in pilot mode despite resources, readiness, and ambition? Well, as you mentioned, as I said earlier, you know, it's a little bit of an alignment.

AI is not a tool, it's a capability. And as I mentioned, most people delegate AI to the most technical person, not the most strategic person. And so instead of treating AI like a project, you've got to have an owner. And the owner's got to be able to think strategically on how it's going to not only impact your organization, how it impacts your clients.

And when leadership owns that outcome, instead of just outsourcing the thinking to a technical person, the company's going to stay stuck. So you've got to think of it strategically and have the right people that can think about all the ways that it can impact the organization and then create that alignment on the direction and continually hammer that forward every single week. What can you say about the biggest problem for leaders when they can't really get that clarity? Because I have many conversations with different leaders who are struggling more or less with the same challenge that they need to implement artificial intelligence, but they are not sure how to do it in the best possible way because competitors are doing it.

Sure. I think one of the things that leaders need to do first is take a step back and understand what's possible and how you implement what's possible. I'll give you an example. And they booked a session with me.

And they one of the sessions I had as a follow-up to my talk was how to create a custom GPT. And they built a custom GPT and it was it wasn't leveraging the knowledge the way you wanted. And so I asked them some questions and we identified the challenge. And he his goal, he said, Well, I'm going to sign up for 40 seats at Chat GPT for my team so they can leverage this.

And I said, That's one way you can do it. But you can also create a custom bot that has this, that has all the knowledge, the information. You can turn it into a collaborative effort where people can leverage each other's information or not. And you can document and see how much people are using it, what are the questions they're asking, what are the outcomes that they're getting.

And you can create a custom agent that gives you all this information. He just looked at me like, wow, I didn't know I could do that. That's great. So so many times people come in with one paradigm of what they're going to do instead of realizing what's possible.

So how do you do it? Get a coach, get a mentor, go through a training that's not just going to teach you about tools that you can use because the tools are constantly changing. What you want to do is understand artificial intelligence and how you can best leverage the LLMs to accomplish what you want, how you can create autonomous agents. How so many times people say it's artificial intelligence, but when I talk to people, it's a combination of artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, tying it all together in order to create what you want.

So you've got to first know what's possible and then get someone that can help connect the dots for you. You don't have to do this alone. You really don't. If you go it alone, most people are going to stay down in nursery school or kindergarten level or first grade.

So true. Knowledge is power. And it's great that you are supporting leaders on their journey and you are working so much around that AI literacy, which is actually crucial for tomorrow's success and their survival. David, you have coached leaders across different environments from Tony Robbins stages to boardrooms.

What leadership reflex or thought pattern must be required for AI to actually create transformation instead of becoming another technology that never reaches its potential or turns into disaster for humanity? Most people believe that uh complex problems require complex solutions, and artificial intelligence rewards simplicity, speed, testing, experimenting. The leaders are going to be willing to shift from we need a six-month plan, we need a year plan, uh, to hey, let's do a one-hour experiment.

You can test what normally would have in the past taken a month, two months, three months. You can get answers and feedback in an hour or hours. So small experiments, fast iterations, that is going to help teams unlock the power of artificial intelligence. That's brilliant.

But let's go deeper into the real life stories. Could you share one or two concrete examples of a seven to nine figure client you supported and created a breakthrough in their business? You already mentioned one, but I would love to hear about a few more. What was the exact AI-related bottleneck they faced?

What strategic intervention did you introduce and what exactly needed to shift? Good question. Well, they didn't know that they had an AI challenge problem, they were growing. They grew from when I started working with them 15 years ago, from a six-figure company to a seven-figure company to an eight-figure company.

And the biggest challenge is you have one person who's the thought leader and it's a coaching organization, and they had hundreds of coaches underneath them. The coaches are working with their clients. And yet, when you have so many people, you could do a training every single day, and no one's going to answer everything the same way as the thought leader. I mean, think about this.

Tony Robbins listens to this. This is exactly what he I think he created something like this, maybe for him, but not to the level that I'm going to share. So what happened is taking every single recorded conversation, every single writing from this person, every single video was transcribed and encoded down to the minute, and then synthesized into all the questions and the topics. Now, when any of their coaches have a question, they can get for based upon a client situation, they can put it in to the agent.

The agent will not only give the answer and how to present it, it will cite the source of what video, what recording, what message. And if the coach wants to watch that video or read that message to be able to understand it better before they translate it to the client, they can do that as well. So, what did this do? It enabled this company to go up to nine figures.

That's pretty big. And of course, it creates such an incredible difference because then it allows everybody to follow the main direction and keep that North Star in front of their eyes, but also have the highest possible level of alignment with the person behind the brand and just develop that business in the right direction in a very sustainable way. Truly interesting. Did you want another one, or is that good?

Yes, I'd love to have another one, of course, as well. This one was perfect, but if you have another one, then so I I I have a client that I'm working with, and I've known them for years. And they're an international company. So the question is, how do you help them by helping the people who are using their product?

And and the product is more like a service. One of the things that we did is we took the best of the psychology of marketing funnels and automations and we turned it into an AI system. And the whole idea here is when people raise their hand and say that they're interested, you know, the fact of the matter is, in most service and that kind of business, if you don't answer the phone live or return a message within three to five minutes, you're 80% less likely to book an appointment.

So knowing that, how do you get someone to show proof of life? And by proof of life, I mean they raise their hand, they engage with the text message, they respond to the email, they book an appointment, they take an action from when they raise their hand from the ad, from the ad to the click to the appointment. And so what we've done is we've built an AI engine that goes from uh ad to lead to engagement, conversational engagement. So instead of just sending automation text messages saying, hey, you you ask for information or request an appointment, tell me what's going on.

Open-ended outreach creates conversation, creates the alignment, and creates a significantly about 40% higher booking for the end user client. We've rolling that out across the United States. But now we actually, after this, we have a meeting about rolling it out internationally and how we can harness, because what I've heard is in Europe, they're not, they're just getting started with artificial intelligence, at least at the level. They're not yet at the level, especially in appointment booking, the way we are in the United States.

So we're we're rolling it out across Europe right now. To start with, an uplift of 40% is a truly a game changer for the business. Well, I you know why most people don't follow up. Most people are bad at following up on leads.

Unfortunately. But that's truly a differentiator, and that's exciting. Great that you are creating this not only for the US, but also globally, so that more clients can have that level of experience, and then it is a two-way street because, as you mentioned, probably America is still leading this race. But at the same time, when you spread your services globally and users are getting used to that level of conversation and interaction with the brand, then they require the same from other companies and other brands they are loyal to, which also leads.

To the pressure in a way which those companies need to meet and find their ways of creating a better customer experience. So I absolutely love this, and um I feel that we need to record another conversation around lead generation and share more of your experience and wisdom on that. But this example is just so interesting and so impactful. Thank you for sharing.

My pleasure. David, we're entering the era of hybrid teams where humans and autonomous AI agents collaborate. How do you think accountability, clarity, and leadership structure will need to evolve when silicon agents become active participants in execution and decision making? I think that leaders are going to stop managing people and learn how to manage systems.

Humans are going to handle the meaning, the nuance, the empathy, the creative judgment, while the AI agents are going to handle repetition, the compliance, and speed. And so when you think about that, how do you do this? How do you accomplish this? I was speaking at a conference.

It was about five, six hundred entrepreneurs there. And I asked people, how many of you have an onboarding process or a training program when you bring on an employee? And how many of you have them learn from someone who's been in the job before? How do you train them?

And then when you guys all of a sudden you're sitting there in ChatGPT, you're telling it to write a marketing plan. Uh, let me ask you a question. How many of you are experts in marketing? How do you know that what it's putting out there is good?

The fact of the matter is, when you create artificial intelligence, when you create agents, you need to train it. You need to train it like you would an employee. You need to tell it what you expect of it. You need to tell it how to think, how to act.

And now all of a sudden, you get to evolve to start managing systems and teaching your people how to manage systems. So, as I just mentioned, humans handle the meeting, the nuance, the empathy, the creative judgment, and then letting the artificial intelligence handle the repetition, the compliance, and be able to create leverage, which is the ultimate differentiating factor, be able to create more leverage and speed. That's really valuable. And I'm grateful that you are sharing this part because it is important to keep in mind when we are talking about that stage of development and co-creation with artificial intelligence, where it is truly about redefining the roles and uh understanding what the future holds so that we can also prepare ourselves from the leadership perspective, from the human perspective, and also keep holding so heavily onto something what is meant to be changed in order to progress into the future.

So that is really a great point to highlight. How do you see the risks of AI evolving over the coming years? We already see AI-generated music top in the charts and silicon-based intelligence outperforming humans in many domains. Do you believe AI could eventually develop forms of self-preference and presence or emergent agency that lead it to override human interests?

Well, that's called the AGI, and they're predicting that AGI will be here in the next five years or less, which is scary. AI already thinks at a higher level than most humans do. It can process information faster than humans do. And so are there risks?

Yes, I think I may have mentioned in the beginning, those who learn to harness the power of artificial intelligence are going to have an opportunity. Those who don't may not have jobs. We're already seeing and hearing about downsizings across the United States. I'm sure you may be hearing it around the world.

Unfortunately, when we're here, we pretty much only hear our news. And there's a lot of downsizings. I've heard rumblings from conferences that I've been at where people are pulling me aside, leaders, and saying, you know, you think it's bad, just wait. You're going to hear major companies letting go of executive teams and leaders because they have not harnessed the power of artificial intelligence.

The challenge is so many people are saying, I need you to learn AI, but they're not giving in direction. So people are sitting there learning, you know, Gemini, Google Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, et cetera. They're not learning how they can create leverage in their jobs and their roles. And those who learn how to create leverage in their jobs and roles are going to have opportunities in the future.

Those who just sit by the wayside are going to be struggling and are going to have to learn something new or do something differently. So are the risks? Yeah, absolutely. The risks.

And there's some great opportunities too. So it really depends upon how you look. There's two sides to the same coin. And you have to look at are we going to look at the opportunities and the positivities?

Because it's not going away. It's not going to change. AGI is eventually going to be here. The question is, how do we create leverage and understanding so that way we become the co-collaborator, the co-conspirator with our artificial intelligence to create the future that we want?

Is it going to think differently? Is it going to have its own judgment? It already does. Each of the artificial intelligence, each of the LLMs have their own distinct biases based upon the information it was trained with.

My son was just, I was just traveling with him. I mentioned earlier. After we were together, he was in China. And so he traveled to China and backpacked throughout China.

And he said, Dad, you got to check out this, their artificial intelligence, their LLM, their version of Chat GPT. He said, started asking questions about the Ming dynasty. He started asking questions about communism. And the response was, we don't have any information about that.

So there's already biases. We have to know that there's inherent biases. That's one of the reasons why when you create, if you're creating custom GPT for yourself, and this is basics, well, I know most people aren't doing it, but as far as leveraging artificial intelligence, it's fairly simple. And you can have it search the web, which means you're giving it opportunity to go out there and search for answers based upon what it's been trained on or other people have trained it on.

Or you can say, don't search the web and just use the information I give it. In that case, it's going to have less opportunity to give misinformation. But at the same time, it's also going to be very narrow versus going broad and including a very rich database and knowledge base into the answers. So it's as always catch 22.

But I totally agree that there are risks and opportunities, and I firmly believe that we need to highlight both. Yes. We started with your comment that what I described is actually AJI, and that's true. But I also feel lately that when you are mentioning AJI or ASI or Singularity or something like that, technically, it feels very far away, like if that might come or never happen.

And it is living in a completely different reality, and we are still following our roadmaps and using AI in such a nice and powerful and positive way. So that's why I feel that we also need to start unpacking what stands behind those abbreviations and those definitions so that everybody feels it, understands it, and gets into their personal thoughts and the critical approach to what does it mean for me, for my world, for the humanity, and for the reality of the future. The fact of the matter is we can only control what we can control.

And if we focus in on the unknown that's around the corner, it can create a lot of stress. It is going to change things when a singularity happens. How? I don't know.

There's people who are projecting that you know it could turn on humanity. Well, just remember, in the year 2000, they said that every computer in the world was going to shut down and the world was going to end. So there's always people who are going to look at the worst that's going to happen. And then we have, you know, the best that's going to happen.

The fact of the matter is something in between will happen, but we get to shape and create our own reality based upon our thoughts and the actions that we take. That's true. But it's up to us also to take those informed decisions. And the more we learn, the better we understand what the probabilities of turning into the one or another direction, the better leaders we become as well, and the safer the world might be after our active involvement into those processes.

Exactly. David, what is the one thing leaders, executives, and business owners must unlearn to lead effectively in the next era of AI-driven business? That it's hard work to create value in the artificial intelligence era. It's leverage that's going to create value.

And our job as leaders is not to outwork the competition, it's how do we out-leverage them? How do we do more with less or use the tools to make our team quicker, faster, better, stronger? And that's really powerful. And the last but not least question if you could give one distilled actionable piece of advice for growth in 2026 and beyond, what would it be?

One move that gives a powerful advantage in the AI-powered era. What I would do is I would look for one area of your business that drains time that you really don't have to do, that you could teach someone else to do that is monotonous, that's repetitive. And there's ways, I pretty much can guarantee that there's ways that you can automate that through artificial intelligence in the next 30 days or less. And action beats mastery.

You've got speed, speed creates money, momentum beats mastery. And when founders see what's possible with that one intelligent system being able to create leverage to get them time back, I believe that they'll never go back. That's brilliant. And that's really something what I so appreciate with you because you put everything into such a distilled, powerful shape and share it with clarity, impact, and it creates a lot of opportunities for those who are listening to us today.

So I'm so grateful for our conversation. Thank you so much for being with us today and sharing your wisdom, your knowledge, and those beautiful practical examples, which are truly going above and beyond US and those clients you are working with, but today we're sharing those examples with everybody who is with us listening to this conversation. So it is creating a ripple effect. I really appreciate that we've got a chance to share your wisdom with so many more today.

Thank you so much for being here with us and sharing it. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us on Digital Transformation and AI for Humans.

I am Amy, and it was enriching to share this time with you. Remember, the core of any transformation lies in our human nature, how we think, feel, and connect with others. It is about enhancing our emotional intelligence, embracing a winning mindset, and leading with empathy and insight. Subscribe and stay tuned for more episodes where we uncover the latest trends in digital business and explore the human side of technology and leadership.

If this conversation resonated with you and you are a visionary leader, business owner, or investor ready to shape what's next, consider joining the AI Game Changers Club. You will find more information in the description. Until next time, keep nurturing your mind, fostering your connections, and leading with heart.