Artificial Intelligence + Human Intelligence: Outdo the Impossible

WEBVTT - Artificial Intelligence + Human Intelligence: Outdo the Impossible Ruby. The views, information, and opinions expressed during this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent those of Into It QuickBooks or any of its cornerstone brands or employees. This podcast does not constitute financial, legal, or other professional advice or services. No assurance is given that the information is comprehensive, accurate, or free of errors, and the information presented is for information purposes only.

Into It QuickBooks does not have any responsibility for updating or revising any information presented. Listeners should verify statements before relying on them. Hey everyone, we are back for a fourth season. First off, thank you to everybody who's been listening since day one.

R ogs okay, we love you. Shout out to the ones that we've picked up along the way, and a big welcome to first time listeners who are joining us right here, right now. This is Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories, a podcast brought to you by Into It QuickBooks and Ruby Studio from Heart Media and I'm Jinnis Torres, the creator and host of the award winning personal finance podcast Jocquiero Dinetro and author of financially Lit, The Modern Latinos Guide to level up your dinetro and become financially budeo sound that never gets old.

I love it when you just stayed all of that. What's up everyone, Austin Hankwit's here, Yes, back for season four. It's hard to believe we're already on season four. As you guys know, I'm the host of another podcast called rich Habits, and I'm also the co founder of witz Ventures.

But you may know me from my TikTok videos about personal finance and investing. It is so great to be here with you again. Austin, you as well. I feel like we've had some incredibly wild time since just season one, and it's wild to reflect upon how much AI and just technology in general has advanced the last time we were on the road together between Nashville and Tampa for season three.

Yeah, it's amazing how far it's come. And also like, where are we going, so who's using it? And what it looks like out there for small business owners regarding AI. According to a twenty twenty five Quick Book survey, more than two thirds of business owners say they now use AI regularly at work and they saw real benefits.

The business owners using AI regularly at work reported higher revenue, shorter workdays, and lower costs. How about that? That makes a lot of sense to me, Denis, And I'm definitely part of that two thirds of business owners I use AI at the time, and everyone's either using AI in some capacity or they're trying to figure out how. And I think that's what's gonna be so fun about this episode.

You can do so much with artificial intelligence. Yeah, absolutely, especially for the solopreneurs out there. I think a lot of the blocks in previous times has been around just like your own capacity. And with AI, I mean, you can have like a head of marketing, ahead of sales, ahead of you know, strategic planning, and they all live inside of your laptop.

Isn't that weird? Though? It's just wild to think because you know, I kind of reflect upon, you know, back when I was working my nine to five job, and I'm sure you kind of had the same sort of realization. We had one job, we did one thing, we were specially we're hired to do that thing.

But now we've got like the personalities of nine different types of titles right with the help of AI. I'm over here copywriting. I'm also doing a little bit of marketing. I'm doing a little bit of financial this.

It is unbelievable tech, absolutely, and it's something that is not going anywhere. Right. We think about like the advent of the Internet and the impact that that had on small business and entrepreneurship in general, and just I mean, I think AI is the next kind of frontier. Can not agree more.

I think this AI stuff is here to stay. I mean, just think about the predictive tools, the automations, these AI agents. So this is going to be a very fun decade ahead of us. But speaking of AI, our first entrepreneur is so interesting because they don't just use AI in their business, but their product is AI as well.

So let's meet small business owner and app creator Pabel Martinez. Pabel is using new technology to solve age old problems. He created an app that he's described as the Duo Lingo for mental health. Users can have their journal, entries and thoughts analyzed to pinpoint negative emotions that might be holding them back both personally and professionally.

Fabel created this app with the mental health of fellow people of color in mind. The app ditches the academic, and in some cases, inaccessible verbiage that have become commonplace in many therapy strategies in favor of using more familiar language that mirrors that of the user. There have been some big advances in voice technology over the last year or so, and AI voices are getting much more sophisticated. So instead of cookie cutter vocals that we've heard in the past, you can now have conversations with AI voices that sound much more like you.

AI voices can be personalized to sound like someone who uses the same slang, shares your accent, even someone who sounds like you're Aguola or other trusted family member. I'm here for it. The app is called Plural. It may sound like fortune telling or trying to predict the future, but really pabelogist harness technology to help you figure yourself out, and he's especially focused on supporting communities that have historically been alienated by clinical academics using formal and rigid language.

Pabel Martinez, Welcome to the show. Chuck Chuck Testing Testing. So, Pabel, you have a background in tech, so I'm curious what has it been like watching AI evolve in this space. It's been a lot of fun.

I mean, the big thing about working at tech is that it's ever evolving, ever changing. So you walk into these like really big tech companies and you're a rookie, you know nothing about what's going on, and in a matter of like a month, everyone's a rookie. That's how fast the industry is changing. So what I'm really excited about is to be part of that change.

And also I've heard plenty of stories of even you know, folks having romantic feelings towards AI chatbots. So I'm like, this world is evolving quicker. I think then we can keep up. I'm curious what aspects of AI inspired you to use it specifically to build your business.

Well, when you look at the data, only nine percent of US adults in the US go to therapy or counseling in any given year, and people often point to things like access when it comes to cost or scheduling an appointment or finding the right person. I think a big barrier is stigmam right, So you know, yeah, we joke about, you know, people falling in love with AI, but I think it's because people feel so comfortable with it for whatever reason, right, So match that comfortableness with like a clinical rigor of therapists that are working on the team to create certain like conversational protocols.

I think we can close the gap when it comes to access. So let's dive more into when you figured out that you could potentially use AI for personal growth and that you could use it to build plural I. Was working at TikTok and I quit my job, and for the first two years I was just doing paid speaking engagements. So like, I was talking about authenticity in the workplace and how we need to redefine professionalism.

And I remember going on stage and asking people like, why are you scared to be yourself? And what they would do was create these like fictional narratives in their head around what would happen. Right, So folks would be like, Oh, I really want to where this blazer, but I feel so powerful and stays I really want to do it, but I'm scared of them going to get fired. And I was like, how do you know you're going to get fired?

And they're like, well, it's obvious, right, Like they're gonna think I'm unprofessional, blah blah blah. I was like, can you predict a future? No, So like, how do you know it's going to go that way? Right?

But what people were pointing out were essentially they're limiting beliefs and negative thoughts that they had in their head. And at the end of every session, people would be like, Pabel, you inspired me to reimagine what authenticity is. What's next? What should I do?

And I was like, you should probably go to therapy so like learn about these negative thoughts that you have in your head. And they were like, oh, I wish I could put you in my pocket instead, and I was like, oh, that was the AHA moment for me to realize, like technology and the phones that we put in our pockets and use every day has an opportunity to help people. That is the classic entrepreneurship story of identifying a problem and figuring out what the solution is. So congratulations, that's very cool, Denise.

I appreciate the call out around entrepreneurship because I think of being an entrepreneur is coming up with the idea, but the other half is actually executing upon that idea. So let's talk about how you use AI in your business today. What tasks you freed up, what tasks you haven't that still need that human touch. Yeah.

So when I first launched Again, I was just creating content around redefining professionalism, and my posts were going viral all over social media, and in thinking about that, I thought to myself, well, I can do more speaking engagements, but those aren't necessarily scalable. I can only be in so many rooms at the same time. And also I'm on stage for an hour, right if you have a panic attack too in the morning, like, please don't text me like I'm not going to be there for you.

But you know what is going to be there for you are some of these AI first solutions that we can build. So that's what we went out and build. It's kind of like we're seeing success on stage, but that's not scalable. How do we create a scalable technology that can reach people whether you're in the room or not.

So outside of just this sort of AI companion, do you find yourself using artificial intelligence to help with your marketing of the company. Yeah, I need to be a lot more sophisticated and how I use AI outside of the company itself, But for now, emails is probably the number one and changing the tone between email and just like my AI note taker whenever I'm on like video calls. Those have been life saving. Okay, so let's double click on that.

So by having some of these tools that you lean on as an entrepreneur, you know, I'm assuming that frees up some time, some mental capacity. How do you find yourself now benefiting from that? How do you now find this new time in your schedule? Where are you deploying that new time?

Yeah, so I'm deploying more of that time mostly for marketing. Marketing is another area where I want to start using AI. But just based on the performance that I've seen, I think it always does better when I'm in front of the camera. But maybe it's also just because I haven't figured out necessarily how to use some of these tools to my advantage.

But marketing is definitely a new area that I want to go into. But right now, it's a lot of like brains or mean script writing, ideating around, like the types of videos that I want to start making for TikTok or LinkedIn. I like that breakdown, and I'm right there with you, right I would argue there's a couple of things that AI is really good at. The tech space stuff, the breakdowns, the ideas ideating on you a LinkedIn post or a tweet or like something of that nature and email.

But we've seen the Sora videos. It's like, ah, that's not a real person, right. I think those are sort of the things that should be better off at least now with the technology we have today. You and I get in front of the camera and just you know, talking and sharing.

So I really agree with you on that aspect of it. So with your experience in utilizing AI capabilities on the Intuit platform, like what has been your experience for that? I mean, working in quick books just makes it easier to run the business. Right.

There's so much that you need to do when it comes to running a business, building products, setting up marketing campaigns. But I think people often forget that it is a business at the end of the day, and to run a business you have to make sure that your finances are in order. So it sort of removes my anxiety from one side of it so that I can focus on everything else. I love that.

All right, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about how corporate culture affects employees, especially people of color, in our mental health, and how that inspired you to both make your own business and also use that business to help other people. So was there a moment that you remember about your own experiences with corporate culture that drove you to make plural. A lot of us try to be the version of ourselves that we think people want us to be instead of being the version of ourselves that we.

Want to be. And it goes beyond just like wearing a T shirt or you know, wearing sneakers to work, Like some of us go into work and become full on actors and it's unsustainable, like you're gonna get burnt out. I mean, if you have one hundred percent of your time dedicating fifty percent of it to be an actor, like you're bound to not do your best work, feel unfulfilled, want to quit your job, and eventually hit a mental health breakdown. And that's what happened to me.

Yeah, so you're talking about something that many people of color in the corporate world are familiar with, which is code switching, right where you feel like you have to be this specific version of yourself to be perceived as professional or qualified for the work. And I think a lot of that stems from maybe lack of representation of seeing ourselves in these environments. But I think the fact that you used your real life experience to identify a very common narrative that many folks have had to navigate.

Is incredible and I think it highlights how even a more like nebulous idea like mental health can be the thing that you help people with. Right, doesn't necessarily have to be like a product that sits on the shelf. There's a lot of different ways for you to add value. Yeah, I mean in these conversations that I will have people around, like why are you faking it?

Like that's not you. People would again, they would jump to conclusions about what would happen if they were themselves, but it would always be these negative scenarios. It would never be like jumping to conclusions in a positive way. So we're programmed to be scared for our safety, but we can reprogram our minds also think positively, and that's what I'm trying to help people do.

Let's talk more about that reprogramming. So are there things that you never want to replicate from a culture perspective at your own company? Yeah, I would love to be transparent as hell around things like pay structures comp Like, right before I quit my job, I had to post on LinkedIn that went viral where I posted my whole compensation package. And it was at the time where like in New York, you know the laws of change, where like now companies are forced to put their salary ranges, but at the time they did it, so it wasn't illegal, but it was looked down and it was on Latina Equal Payday.

So I made a post. I've received a lot of pushback where I was working. They were like, your job's going to be more difficulty. You shouldn't have done that.

You should have handled things internally, And that's not this type of culture that I want to build, Like, why would you put me down for raising awareness for a problem that is happening. I was the highest paid person on my team with less experience than my female counterparts. I don't want that to happen. Yeah, somebody's got to be the one to start making some noise.

So I'm glad that you're a part of that coalition. I know how much leadership has impacted my own career, and I often say people don't quit jobs, they quit management, They quit the structure in place. And so I'm going to go out on a limon say people are working at Plural also because of you, Puvel. Oh, thank you, Thank you.

I would imagine that Plural would fit in pretty nicely into some of these like toolkits that people are building for their self care strategy. So talk a little bit about that in your perspective on how I'm sure you've seen Plural now kind of plug in to how people are trying to take care of themselves, both physically and mentally. Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest thing with plurals that we're trying to meet people where they are, and actually a big part of our user base are traditional pen and paper journalers.

That's how I started. I started in pen and paper and getting my thoughts out. I moved on to an iPad, and eventually now I just use Plural every day. But one of the things that we started thinking about was like, all right, do we convince people to leave their pen and paper for Plural or do we just enhance their experience with the pen and paper.

I don't want to replace what you're doing. I think so many people have so many amazing rituals that they incorporate and say their daily, weekly routine, and I don't want to disrupt that. If there's a way for us to complement and enhance that through technology. I'd love to do that.

I want you to double click on that. Right, we all know what plural is a for, but you haven't yet defined what plural's not trying to do, right, So, like, what is plural not doing? What are the things that you guys aren't trying to You just mentioned the pen and paper rate, So what is plural not trying to replace? We are not trying to diagnose you.

We are not therapists, despite the potential adjacency to therapy and mental health. We are a self discovery platform. We want to help you get to know yourself. We are not a replacement for therapy at all.

We're not here to provide you financial advice. We're not even here to tell you what to do. We're just here to ask you the right questions that help you uncover the answer that you already have within yourself. You're just scared to admit it.

That was beautiful. I like that a lot, Thanks man. Thanks all right, So, Pabel, you talked about how people do their best work when they can finally just stop faking it right so they can stop trying to fit into the whitewash corporate stereotype. So I want to talk about a couple of reasons why people stop faking it.

So, for example, when they actually see positive examples of others being their real selves right, and then also when they are freaking tired of faking it right, you're just like, I can't keep on this charada anymore, Like how can we help people make that switch? Yeah? And by the way, I think everybody fakes it at work, Like, I don't think it's just black people. I don't think it's just Latinos.

Like I've done speaking engagements where the audience was ninety five percent white and I didn't change any of the content and people. Came up to me, was like, oh my god. Yeah, Like I do that all the time. Too, Like because it's it's less cultural, it's more this idea of like again, professionalism.

Yeah, and I think a lot of what the reasons as to why we fake it and why we don't feel comfortable being ourselves. It doesn't start when we start working. It starts at home. Like our families again want to protect us from people's negative perceptions, so they teach us survival tactics that help them survive, but it doesn't necessarily help us thrive where we are today, right, So I would say, question things right.

But you don't have to question it alone. And I think that's the problem oftentimes, is that these negative thoughts that I was speaking about, right, eighty percent of them, well ninety five percent of them are also repetitive. So you're asking yourself these questions on repeat on a daily basis, and eventually the only way to sort of break out of that is maybe to have a conversation with someone else or plural. But I think the more conversations you have with other people or even yourself in blocking that around, like huh, I really want to wear I don't know, I'm making this up just like red blazer for a presentation?

Is it unprofessional? Oh? Maybe? Wait?

Why why is it unprofessional? Oh? Well, And the more you dig into it and ask yourself why, you start realizing like you're the one that made that up in your head. It's kind of like did someone tell me that this is a rule?

Or am I putting this rule on myself? Right? So it's kind of like this constant search for data to validate whether you are creating a store in your head or if this is in fact reality, Like is it perception or is it reality? All right?

So let's talk about your own experience in self care and how that journey has influenced your path as an entrepreneur. So Plural has been described as journaling in twenty twenty five, and I'm curious how the history of self help strategies have played into your vision for creating what is the future of it? Right? Because when I think about self help from the traditional standpoint, it was like, maybe you can find a book and hope that that content resonates with you.

But now with this app that literally talks to you in your language and can identify the specific things that you need support with, that is a huge, huge giant leap for self care and the evolution of that. So how do you see this playing out going forward with just this super hyper customized self help tool that now exists. Just because the tools exist doesn't mean that people will use them. And I think a big blocker from people seeking any self help is you seeing someone else doing it.

So one of the things I used to do on our podcast called Plural is I used to have two episodes a week. One week where I would share someone's story and then the other way, I would just do a video, audio journal entry, and some of them would get I mean all of them would get really personal, but some of them would be like, I can't believe I'm talking about this. But at the end of it, you know, I just click to analyze with plural button and it'll give me an update and insight into how I'm feeling.

But it was a really vulnerable couple months, and I'm planning on bringing that back because at the end of the day, the way that I see self help is you need to transfer what's going on in your head somewhere, whether it is to a piece of paper, to an app to a friend, to a therapist, to a punching bag, you got to transfer that energy. I forgot who said it right. It was like energy is like never lost, is merely transferred from one being to the next. Like I believe in that, But I think the way that someone else starts that transfer of energy is seeing someone else that looks like them has been through something similar and being like, oh, well, if they're doing it in whatever way that they're doing it, like maybe it's okay for me to explore a way to do it as well.

But at the end of the day, like there's so many options for you to transfer that energy. It's just a matter of finding the one where you feel most comfortable doing it. But I want to be that representation for folks to show you that like it's okay to let it out. Yeah.

I mean I think you're also a powerful representative of a person of color in tech, which is still an area where you know, we don't see ourselves represented. So I just want to quick shout out to what you're doing and just being a leader in this space. It's incredible. Thank you, I appreciate it absolutely.

Let's talk about the personalized AI tools inside of Plural, like its insight feature, and how that can help people grow and build confidence. Woof. I mean the first step and you growing is understanding how you're feeling. And there are so many people that lack in emotional vocabulary beyond like happy, sad, mad, where some people have told me like, oh, I never knew like anxious is how I've been feeling this whole time.

There have been folks that didn't know that they had a substance abuse problems until they started using the app. Wow. So a lot of what we're doing is helping people put language to how they're feeling, because as soon as you can name it, you can then go tame it. So let's talk about the ups and downs of running your business as an entrepreneur, right just talking about them right here out loud, of course, is like I would argue that some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my life over the last five years has happened by you know, being an entrepreneur, seeing those incredible accomplishments and then going weeks or months and this is just what feels like a valley.

So I'm curious, what systems do you have in place, if it's maybe support systems, if it's plural itself, like, what have you used to help you sort of balance out this highs and lows? This is the most non technical answer that you're going to hear. But I have a weekly check in with my friend where we force ourselves to pull out three wins for the week, and sometimes the win is like I'm still here, and other times the win is like, you know, a big accomplishment. But I think the big thing about entrepreneurship is that these wins are slowly built over time.

So celebrating those wins on a weekly with my friend and having that support system on a human level I think is really important. I think something else to kind of expand upon that is balancing being an employee of the business while also being the owner of the business, right so working in the business versus working on the business. We've talked about a lot that here on the show. How do you balance that?

It's really difficult and I wish I had a good answer. I think the way to balance it is to use technology as much as you can to streamline some of those processes. I mean something as simple as like being in the weeds and having to collect invoices, do a status check on how the business is going from like a revenue standpoint, expenses, Am I losing money this month? Am I making money?

I think a lot of those things can be automated, just like some of your marketing tasks, etc. But I think the more leading into technology to help alleviate some of that pressure of being in the weeds helps me take a step back and dedicate time just to think. I'm a very creative person, and for creatives, I think we need time just blocked off on the calendar, just letting our minds wander. And the only way to be able to make that time is to streamline things to read technology.

Couldn't agree more. I think quick Books does a wonderful job right of helping us unload our workloads onto their AI agents, their team, everything that is just built incredible with their software, payments, manage your books, get those leads payroll you mentioned invoicing, right, So I couldn't agree more, and I really appreciate you walking us through that exactly. All right, let's get to the heart of this interview, Pabel. Why plural?

How did that name and the spelling come about? Oh? All right. So when I was in therapy, my therapist made me realize that I do a lot of either or thinking.

Right, So I'm like, well, I could do this or I could do that. Therapist would be like, why can't you do both? And I was like mind blown. I was like I.

Never knew that I could use the word and like, I do all the things. So plural for me was about, like, it's not about these singular things like you can do at all. Right, you could be very excited but also very nervous, right, Like these two things that often seem very conflicting can actually live together. So I mean the w in there, we often say, is silent, but you don't have to be.

Oh that's powerful love that chills. Okay, amazing. Now let's talk about the favorite success story or the moment that you realized, wow, this is having real impact. Can you share one of those stories, something that sticks out for you.

Oh. I was on TikTok Live to raise awareness for the app, and I had a green screen background that said you good question mark save space events, and people would go in there in the comments and you know, say various things like I'm really nervous about this presentation I have. I just broke up with my girlfriend, not sure how I feel. But eventually you'd get people in there that would just be like, I'm going to end it, and I was taken aback.

I was like, oh, this is not what I expected. So I would just say what I was trained to say, Hey, use nine eight eight, use the appropriate hot lines, like this is not a crisis hotline. I'm just giving people space to events. And they said, well, I've used nine eight eight, but they haven't been really helpful.

In fact, they've hung up on me multiple times. And I was like, what they hung up on you? Why? Oh?

Well, they're not staff for like to have conversations past like fifteen twenty minutes. I was like, oh, well, like do I step in? Do I help? I did the appropriate homework with my advisory team to put in the protocols if people are in crisis.

So I was like, use our app. They used our app. They came back and they said, well, it's just telling me to use the same nine y day hotlines and I was at first I wiped my forehead. I was like, ooh, all right, it works.

But then I was like, go back and use the app and instead of going like straight into crisis mode, just talk about like what's going on in general in your life. And they're like, all right, be or our back. So they left and I was like, is this the last time I'm gonna se this person. They came back like ten minutes later and they were like, Yo, this app actually helped me realize that my situation is more manageable than I thought.

Wow, that's the powerful part of it. Like when I was working at tech and advertising, we often had this phrase that we were like, yo, it's not necessarious, Like it's not like we're saving lives. Go be with your family, Go be with your friends, like enjoy your life, work, life balance. I'm actually saving lives now.

Wow oo. I think that gets to the heart of why all of us do what we do in some form or fashion. You know, it's a really powerful thing when you get to meet someone there out there in the world, whether it's virtual or in person, that says, you know, thank you for being you, thank you for showing up, thank you for creating this thing. That's that's what makes the hard days worth it, you know.

Yeah, yeah, I mean to your point, when the money's not. There, when the winds aren't there, you have to like scratch your way to finding a win, like remember to people that you're building things for. Yeah, I love that. I always try to remind myself what would happen if I didn't show up, you know, And in your case, I mean that that was a life or death situation potentially, so incredible.

Thank you so much for sharing that. So as we wrap up this interview, I got two questions for you. First, one, of course, is what's next with the company. What are you most excited about as we enter this new year.

But the second one is is someone who's so deep in AI if you could give someone listening right now homework for the first time of like how do they begin to integrate AI into their own lives? Of course with plural but like, what are some of those action items that they could say? I don't know. I'm a little intimidated.

I don't know what's going on with this artificial intelligence. I can't even spell AI, let alone know how to use it in my day to day. That was a joke, So what advice do you have for them? Yo, Austin Loki got the joke in the back pocket.

So next. So right now, we're actually in the middle of fundraising to close our preseed round. We are backed by tech Stars, which is great, but now we're raising a million dollars to expedite our growth, really to successfully bring on the team in house and make sure that our pilot programs that we're launching are successful. We're seeing a lot of demand actually from colleges and universities because some of them don't even have counseling centers on campus, and even if they do, they can never keep up with demand when it comes to students.

So we're able to provide them some scalable support when it comes to that service. And then when it comes to AI, I would say, like, you don't have to be like a PhD in artificial intelligence or computer science. I am a solo non technical founder building in the AI space. Okay, solo non technical founder.

My entire career work in attech. I was in sales. I was never coding. So a few things you don't have to do it alone.

If you have an idea, you can be the visionary, the marketer, the go to market person. There are so many skills even outside of AI that you can then go find a partner to then go build it for you. And then the next thing is just kind of like find out what you're interested in. You can use AI for workflow, you can use it for productivity, you can use it for self discovery, you can use it just to be a creative.

I spend hours in mid journey just creating images that are in my head that I just want to see into the world, literally just for fun. Instead of painting, I just spend hours in mid journey playing around. So I would say, dream a little bit about some of the possibilities, and you'd be surprised the things that you can do in there. I really appreciate the time, pop Bell, Thank you so much, amazing, thank you all right, there you have it.

Plural has got to be one of the most interesting AI innovations I have heard of in quite some time. The future is just so dang cool, Janie's it really is. I mean, the technology is so cool, you know, And I think the best thing is that you don't need to be a rocket scientist to use AI, right, and QuickBooks itself is a super accessible way to incorporate some AI tools with a human touch that can free up so much time in your business. Now, you're one hundred percent right, And I think what's so cool too about that interview is knowing that there are so many tools and resources you mentioned QuickBooks, right, There's tons and tons like Plural and all these other different AIS and applications and things that can say cool, I can work in the business or I can work on the business.

And everyone's goals of course to work on the business. So by deploying these QuickBooks, AI agents and these different types of things that can help you take that workload move it off your plate, that to me is the key, because that's the only way we're going to be able to really scale these businesses absolutely awesome. I think this is a really opportune time for entrepreneurs. So as we wrap up here, maybe we should give our listeners a little bit of homework.

Love the idea of a challenge. Here's mine. I want people to familiarize themselves with the voice AI. I think that's where all this is going.

If you're not yet talking to AI, that's your homework. Go say something to it. Talk about what you had for dinner last night, or your next big business idea. I think that's a really really cool next step.

I think, first and foremost, if you haven't used AI, now is a perfect time to start. So go ahead and give it a try. And if you are familiar with AI, begin to explore a new use case that you've never tried before. Start to expand those horizons.

Don't be scared. Make a list of the areas in your business and maybe even your personal life where AI could be super useful and maybe not so much. And see what you can use AI for to make work better if possible. And finally, analyze the use of AI to HI right human intelligence in your day to day work.

Find what ratio is the most efficient, and see if applying that in other aspects of your business can work the same way. All right, Well, that is it for today's episode. You can find me on social media at jochierro Dineto podcast and you can. Find me at Austin Hankwitz.

You can follow Into It QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks. To get the tools you need to start, run, and grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com today. Don't forget to follow this show wherever you listen to podcasts so you can stay up to date on future episodes. We also want to hear from you.

You've done a great job over the last couple of seasons leaving those ratings and reviews, so be sure to keep that up. See you next time. This podcast is a production of iHeartMedia's Ruby Studio and Into It QuickBooks. Our executive producers are James Foster and Ryan Martz.

Our supervising producer is Meredith Barnes Our writer is Eric Leja, and our mixing engineer is Eric Zeiler.