AI, Automation and the Future of Work

Speaker A: Foreign.

Speaker B: So welcome, uh, Tony Martin, to this episode, um, where we're going to be talking about AI, automation and the future of work. Tony, uh, apart from having a fantastic surname, uh, I know that we've worked together, you've done some fantastic work for us on our website and creating funnels and are a bit of a tech guru, but do you want to explain a little bit more about your business and your background? Really?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for having me. Firstly, and obviously, yes, kudos to the surname. Um, I run a tech implementation agency, uh, it's called Ascends and we support online businesses with building funnels, um, everything from emails, integrations and now as we are evolving into this space of AI and automation and we're delving into that as well. So I have been working online, um, for the past eight years and over time, you know, I've kind of just ebbed and flowed with what the marketplace is doing and what people are needing support with. And so here I am and we have worked together previously, which has been brilliant. And yeah, so I am a bit of a, I wouldn't say a guru, but definitely a bit of a geek. Love solving problems, love using, you know, tech to help me do that.

Speaker B: So, yeah, awesome. When we came about this, uh, topic, I thought you'd be the ideal person to talk to. And for those that are interested more about you and your business, we'll put the links into the, uh, post episode scripts, et cetera, so they can connect with you directly. But yeah, this topic, like, say, um, it seems every time I turn on the media or kind of look at social media channels that the word AI is ever present these days and it's such a topical issue for people. But I'm also conscious that talking to some of our clients, some of friends, etc. That there's still a lack of awareness around what it is, what it can do. Potentially a lot of fear still for some people. Um, and I think that's really what I wanted to explore. Again, tapping into your experience around how do we get past that fear? How do we get people fully utilizing, uh, the capacity that AI has? I remember talking to some of my clients must have been about three years ago, uh, saying AI is going to be a game changer, um, and it really is, um, and as you know, I'm a huge fan and integrate ChatGPT is just one of the kind of AI tools out there. But yeah, just kind of interested in your thoughts and kind of, um, ultimately your ideas, tips and hints around how managers, leaders can implement AI for themselves and improve their working lives. Really?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think. Well, it's a huge topic, isn't it? And it's interesting that you mention fear. There is definitely a lot of fear and I think that's going to, you know, stay the, the case. Um, and in all honesty, um, I also share a lot of the same fears. Um, so you know, with my business hat on, I look at AI and I'm like, it's amazing. It can do so much for us, it can help us save time, it can help us generate more money and you know, these are all the things that as a business owner we, we want. But with my, I'm a mom. So with my mom hat on and you know, looking at my 9 year old son and listening to what his hopes and aspirations are for the future and you know, the kinds of jobs that he's oh, I'd love to be this and I'd love to do that and you're just kind of uh, like hm, will that even exist in the next 10, 15 years?

Speaker B: That's a really good point. Yeah. I remember reading, I think it was um, Tim Ferriss's books. I'm not sure if you come across those, but Tim Ferriss wrote the uh, the four working week back in 2000, um, seven I think it was, and then followed that with the Tools of Titans, uh, I think 2017. Um, but in both of those he was talking about hacks and kind of uh, outsourcing and time saving for individuals. But I think AI has brought so much of what he was talking about back then into a reality for people. So. Absolutely right. In terms of um, our jobs still going to be available for people are jobs, the work that people do, is it actually going to be the same as what it was 10, 15 years ago?

Speaker A: Yeah, and it's not going to be the same. I think we can conclusively say that things are changing and changing rapidly. However, I do think um, as business owners, particularly small business owners, burying our heads in the sand is not the way to go with this. And um, we have to be prepared to embrace AI. Um, and you know, from a, from a workforce perspective, I know a lot of your audience, uh, leaders, HR professionals that ah, kind of thing, we need to be um, really looking at how we can train people to leverage AI. So it's not that it's all about you know, let's, let's put in an AI assistant and cancel out five jobs or you know, that kind of thing which obviously with the work that AI can do, it does have the potential to replace jobs. But I'm more of the school of thought that we should be empowering people to leverage tools that are available to them so that actually frees up their time to do the things that AI can't do. So human connection, obviously it can't do that, it doesn't think like a human yet. You know, these are the kinds of things that, where we have people in our workforce who maybe don't have time to develop those relationships because they've got a long list of other things to be doing. We can use AI to facilitate with that and make um, their time more free so they can focus on the other kinds of jobs that, you know, maybe they don't get around to doing but would love to be able to. So yeah, I think you're right.

Speaker B: I think again I've been for a long, long time since we've been in business, I've been a huge advocate of the concept of uh, working smarter, not necessarily harder. And I again, AI enables you to do that. And kind of mentioning there about the personal human interactions, I think you're spot on there. Some of the more mundane tasks you can get AI to do, etc. But you're still going to need that human connection until interestingly you mentioned there until AI can do that. And that's a very interesting subject in itself because it is evolving at a huge pace. I remember when we first started using um, AI and like I say chat GPT, um, I think it was just chatgpt. It's now on chat GPT 4.5 I think is the latest one that we're using. So there's constant, evolving, constant new additions, um, almost like your Apple phone's being updated every year, um, there's new progress being made. So again I get that a lot of people can get confused, can get scared about where this is actually going. But if we were to strip that back, if we were to start thinking about if I've never used AI before, if I've never thought about its potentials, what would your advice be as a starting point, uh, for manager, leader, business owner.

Speaker A: Yeah, so again for me I've got, got quite strong opinions on this because ultimately we are living in here in the uk we do have a digital skills gap. So I do encourage leaders. Yes, we want to be thinking about AI and how fantastic it is and you know, the things that we can be doing with that, but also just actually making sure that our workforce have the, the basic skills before we, we try and you know, layer on the AI, I think, is really important. So I'd be remiss not to say that. However, in answer to your question, you know, we, we can start with just looking at processes in business and thinking about, okay, how do we take. And, uh, it has to be a single process. It does. I think what we have, what happens is like, I ran a challenge recently and I was asking people, okay, you know, if there was one thing that you could do in your business, what would it be? And it was kind of like the Mount Everest kind of response. Well, I would want to do this, this, this, this, and this and this and this. And I'm like, let's, let's just play it back a little bit. Let's, let's start with one thing that we can, like, make a, uh, difference with and then build from there. So I'd say look at your processes. Look at the mundane tasks, the tasks that are taking, you know, way longer than you would want them to. The tasks that no one really enjoys. And so it kind of sits on the to do list and gathers dust until you abso. Absolutely have to get around to doing it. And those are the places where I'd say it's best to start there and see, well, how can we get AI to automate this for us? Um, and from an automation perspective, you know, AI assistance buzzword, everyone's talking about it. You know, get an assistant to do this, get an assistant that can do that.

Speaker B: Um, so just to stop you on that. So just for the uninitiated, what is an AI assistant?

Speaker A: Well, so it's literally a, let's call it a tool. Um, and basically, let's say someone comes along to your website, for instance, and you can't be there 24, 7, to answer somebody's questions. And so for a lot of business owners, particularly small businesses, that presents a challenge. Because what tends to happen is someone comes along to the website, they can't get the answer that they're looking for, um, quickly. And so then they bounce on, um, to your competitor and probably find the answer over there. And so they end up working there, and you've lost that lead. With an AI assistant, you can train it on your business to understand your system, your processes, and it can be there in its most rudimentary form, it can be there on your website. Someone can interact with that assistant, and off the back of that, you could generate a lead and push that data into your CRM. CRM. You can have it, um, schedule appointments and, you know, literally, instead of having a backwards and Forwards about, well, when are you free? It can just add that appointment straight to your calendar. Um, and then obviously it can do customer support issue refunds, answer questions, that kind of thing. So that's what an AI assistant effectively is. It's a little helper that has been created, um, and trained specifically on your, on your business. Um, and so, you know, it's a buzzword. It's everywhere you go on YouTube. Or maybe I'm in an echo chamber actually. So maybe it isn't everywhere, but it feels like it's everywhere you go on YouTube. There's a million and one people talking about how you can set up these AI assistants. And um, it all feels very exciting and potentially is very exciting. It can be a game changer for businesses. Um, we had a client just emailed us yesterday, she runs a salon. Uh, we set up an AI assistant for her which is linked to her Instagram and a Facebook. And so the problem that she had, and this is the thing you have to identify the problem, problem she had was people were messaging, you know, 9, 10pm at night when there's no one there to answer the question. And of course in her industry she runs a salon, so they're kind of a dime a dozen. She's losing leads and losing sales. So we set uh, up this assistant for her and she messaged yesterday just saying, you know, it's really fantastic that uh, the AI is having these conversations and helping us make book before I'm even aware that the conversations happened. Wow. So it has huge potential.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. I think again it's interesting that you talk there about how AI can be honed into your own business. And again, uh, I think that ability, and I heard someone mention a while ago about the importance of um, input engineering, telling uh, the AI specifically what you want it to do to get the best results from it. And again, if you're too vague, if it's too kind of generic, you're not going to utilize that, the full capacity. Um, so that's almost a skill in itself itself to learn how to kind of tell it exactly what you want it to do. Any tips and advice on that?

Speaker A: Yeah, so, um, input engineering or prompt engineering is sometimes referred to, um, when you are, ah, interacting with ChatGPT and you're trying to, or it could be Claude or you know, any other model, but let's say chatgpt, because I think that's what most people are probably familiar with. Um, you're having a conversation with it, you ask it to do something, it delivers something to you, it's not quite right. You have to go back, say can you do this? And you know there might be 20 of that back and forth kind of exchange before you get it to uh, where you want it to be. If you learn the skill of prompt engineering you can do that in one go, maybe two push. And all it is is the input directly affects the output. So the better the input, the better the output. Obviously the worse the input, the worse the output. So it's really thinking about how to um, instruct the AI or the large language model to give you the result that you want. And over time the more you do it, but thinking about it intentionally, instead of just whipping open ChatGPT and having a chat with it, if you're being more intentional with it, um, you can then start to create templates that you can use again and again. So for instance, if you are using chat GPT weekly to help you write a newsletter, you can really hone in on a. This is a very clear prompt, this is what I want you to do. And it will deliver the results in a very structured way and you can guide it, you know, with the, what the structure should look like. So output it with a title, give it a subheading, then I want three bullet points, then you know, so you can be very, very structured with it. And that's all that prompt engineering is. So I do think that uh, um, people have a tendency to make it sound way more complicated than it actually is. And you know, indeed people are charging thousands and thousands of pounds for this. But for small businesses it isn't some massive complicated thing. It's just about being intentional with the instruction that you're giving to the large language model. So whether that's chatgpt, whether it's Claude, whether it's whoever, Grok, there's so many of them now. But it's being intentional with what you're, what you're putting in so that you can get a better result out without having to sit there for an hour or two having a back and forwards conversation.

Speaker B: Yeah, and that's really important to understand, isn't it? I think again to maximize the opportunity that you're actually using there. But it's interesting you mentioned about small businesses there because again from our experience, um, it's not just the SMEs, uh, that are getting to grips with um, um, AI. Certainly some of the larger organizations that I know that we work, work with, um, have integrated their own systems or are using um, things like Copilot. And again for some employees it's kind of recognizing that the kind of capacities that even Copilot can do. I was speaking to, um, some delegates at a recent course that we ran for a blue chip organization where they were using Copilot to draft the emails, to use it, also to record the minutes of meetings that they were having. So there was no need for a minute m taker anymore and it was sending out actions, etc. Um, and again, it's just kind of recognizing that it has all these capabilities now. Unfortunately, they weren't made aware when Copilot was introduced to them of all the things it could do. So again, they've got this almost. The analogy that I use is they've almost got this Ferrari, but it's sat in the garage, they're not really utilizing it. Um, so again, have you kind of seen that, that people have the tool but they don't fully utilize it?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think we see that even with like ChatGPT and it's, you know, basic form. Um, absolutely. I think, I think we've got maybe not necessarily the problem, but there are so many tools, so many different options, it fast becomes very overwhelming to know which ones to use. And then when you do choose a tool, it's exploring all of the capabilities that come along with it. And often we only scratch the surface. And that is universal across the board. I see that all the time. Um, and sometimes because AI is generative, it's a case of we probably don't know what it can actually do until we start exploring. So even with the developers of these platforms, I am sure that they aren't across every single use case. But when someone comes along and says, oh, I wonder if it could actually do X, Y and Z, I don't know, let's try it. And it can. That's when you kind of realize, well, actually it can do so much more than we anticipated or than, you know, um, maybe than what we planned for. So I think we're on a path of exploration. I think all of us are. And we will continue seeing that there are tools that can be utilized that most people probably aren't utilizing to their full effect. And even when you think you are using it to its full effect, you'll probably discover one day that actually can do something else that I didn't even think of or realise it could do. Um, so, yeah, I think that's definitely. That's a trend that will continue.

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Speaker A: There's a few. This is the other thing. So I actually created a resource recently talking about the different AI models. So these LLMs and what they are each capable of because the more you play around with these tools, the more you realize that some of them are better suited to certain tasks. So for instance, if I was um, writing copy for a funnel, I would actually go to Anthropic and use Claude because their output is far more tailored to that. It's not full of emojis like you, you may get with ChatGPT and things like that. Their copy is much better. Whereas if I was writing a paper I would go to Perplexity because it's that that model works much better for research. So I think, um, you know, there's, there's lots of different tools that we're using. Um, obviously chatgpt, we're using Claude, Perplexity, um, we use Fathom. So you mentioned before about meeting recordings. The day I discovered Fathom was like the heavens had opened and I was so filled because I didn't have to sit in client meetings trying to take notes. Notes at the same time as engaging with the client. And then, you know, you have to type the notes up and send them the summary. It's all handled for me, which is just amazing. Um, but yeah, so there's, there's lots of different tools, um, out there for different use cases. And so we're still exploring. So as an agency, clients will come and say, oh, can we do this or could, you know, is there a way of doing that? And often we go on a path of okay, well let's see what's out there. Let's see, um, what we can leverage. We are definitely more no code or low code, um, platforms. You know, we're not here sitting, developing these platforms and coding in Python and all of that kind of stuff. We're leveraging what's already been created because that makes more sense. Like why wouldn't we? Um, so yeah, we're often automation is a big one. So Zapier, where we're connecting platforms together that wouldn't normally talk to each other, uh, we've got Zapier, we've got make, we've got N8, N M. So yeah, there's, there's lots of them.

Speaker B: So again, just kind of for the uninitiated, the automization, um, uh, what does that actually mean for the uninitiated?

Speaker A: So automation is always, well, I say always over the last decade or more it's been a thing where if a platform can't talk to another platform, but you want to bridge that gap. There are automation tools like Zapier. I use Zapier because that's probably um, one of the oldest kind of well known and established ones in the marketplace. Um, where what these tools do is via Web hooks or APIs, they're sending data. So um, actually I saw somebody describe it in this way and I thought it was, it made sense and it's quite cool. So if you were in a restaurant and a waiter comes to take your order, the waiter then takes that order to the kitchen. Imagine this is your API. So waiter takes the order to the kitchen and then the kitchen prepares the order, sends it back with the waiter to your table. That's exactly what an API is. It's just the passing of data backwards and forwards, um, between platforms. So these automation tools obviously over time have become more advanced and more platforms have opened up their APIs so that um, you know, they can be part of these bridging tools like Zapier. So if you go on to Zapier, I think they have integrations with something like 2000 platforms now. So I could say when um, somebody pays me for a service, I want to kick off an onboarding workflow. So they might pay me in stripe. But maybe I'm doing my onboarding from um, my project management tool. Let's say it was ClickUp. So I don't want to have to sit there waiting to see when that order comes in and then, you know, sending out the emails or the onboarding forms or whatever it is I need to do. I can just use a tool like Zapier or make and say, okay, listen for that indication from Stripe that that payment has been made. And when that trigger happens, I want you to do the following actions. And that might be, um, you know, set up uh, a file or folder in um, ClickUp, um, add in my project statuses, send out the welcome email, um, and that might not be from ClickUp, but that could be from Gmail or that could be from an email platform like May the Light or activecampaign. Um, and then do whatever else is part of my onboarding process. And that just all happens and I just sit there looking at the magic taking place. So that's what automation is. And you know, it's developing and evolving over time. And more and more platforms are uh, making it easy for us to be able to say it doesn't all have to be manual work, just program it once we're not quite at the stage of set it and forget it because sometimes servers go down or things may happen. And so in that very moment that uh, a payment has come through, server isn't working, so it's missed it. And you know, you might have to manually go in and redo that trigger so that the workflow happens. So we can't quite say it's completely hands off, but it's significantly more hands off than what it was like 10 years ago when we didn't have these options and we were having to say, okay, someone's paid me, let me go in now and do these 20 different tasks that I need to give them a good onboarding experience so that they want to work with me and they don't have buyer's remorse.

Speaker B: And I think that's interesting that you mentioned that because I think, I guess the challenge now for, for people is to actually think about what's actually involved in each of those steps, to plan that out, to then tell the AI to do that automatically for them. Um, and I think you're right. I think so many more different platforms that I'm aware of, um, are starting to integrate AI. Um, I know a couple of years ago you introduced me to the concept of Loom as uh, a fantastic screen recording and um, also Canva as well. And both of those I know have now got fully upgraded AI integrations, um, which make them even easier to actually utilize. But seeing for example Chachi GPT, um, instructing it to do something and then seeing it say, do you want me to prepare a Canva template, uh, for you to utilize straight away? The integration, uh, amongst the machines and machine learning there is progressing so quickly. And I guess that's where a Lot of the fear may come from, for people that if they don't keep abreast of this, they're going to get lost in the ways of utilizing this, the language, um, and how they actually kind of, um, get comfortable with this technology in their everyday life. Really?

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, I think people in my experience are kind of in one of three camps. They're either, yes, AI Love it, want to make my whole life as automated as possible, Please. I'm all for it. Then you've got people who are probably more like me, where it's like, okay, I have some trepidation with AI and where it's going. And, you know, all of the. The potential is quite scary because at the end of the day, we still live on Planet Earth, and humans aren't always operating with the best of intention. So I'm kind of like in the. A bit skeptical camp, but I very much see the benefits of it. And then you've got the people who are just anti AI feel like it's, you know, the devil spawn. And, you know, they're kind of very much like, I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to see anything about it. I'm, uh, sick of AI Already. And I do often worry for the people in that last camp because the reality is AI is not going anywhere. And part of me would love to see the government, and, uh, I won't go off too much on a tangent about this, but I would love to see governments around the world saying, hang on a second. This is developing very, very quickly. And, uh, maybe we need to press the brakes a little bit and just kind of slow it down. But I fear that will never happen because everyone's kind of in a race and they want to be the first for everything. So it's here to stay. We have to learn to live with it. At the very least, embrace it if we can. Um, and definitely with our business hats on, it makes sense to leverage AI and that's just a fact.

Speaker B: Yeah, I totally agree with that. And I think, um, I've always been a supporter of adaptability. So we've been around for 22 years now. And, um, the reason we've been around for that long is that we have adapted, we've evolved with what's going on around us and, uh, situations. And I think AI is the next iteration of that, really. And you're absolutely right. Those organizations, those individuals that don't embrace change, and we all know that change is uncomfortable for a lot of people. Um, they'll like the dinosaur analogy. They'll get left behind. Um, and unfortunately, if they're not doing in this context AI, then their competitors will be. And the competitors will be more efficient, more cost effective to the customers, and that will ultimately lose them business. So I think you're right. I think, uh, it's. How do you get people to start embracing, um, and stepping outside of their fear zones and start kind of, um, uh, getting comfortable with uh, the world ahead of us? Um, I think, think if we were. And um, we sometimes do this, we do radar reviews. If you were kind of to look ahead. I'm asking you to look into your crystal ball now. Um, if you had to look ahead for like the next 12 months, uh, or even uh, after that, the next five years, where do you see kind of AI evolving for leaders, managers, businesses?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a really fascinating question. And I also feel like it's one that, you know, because I've heard, I've heard the extremes of, you know, um, someone was. Was it yesterday or the day before, actually someone was saying that they'd seen a statistic about um. You know, I think like over 50 or 60% of people would be in a relationship with AI in by 2040 or some. Something along those lines. Obviously, don't quote me M. Because I don't know the exact, um, exact statistic. But I feel like, you know, we've all kind of got a sense of, of where it may go. For me, over the next 12 months, I definitely think we see more, um, more smaller businesses accepting that they need to embrace AI and, And you know, seeing how they can adopt it into what they're doing in terms of systems and processes. My piece of advice for them would be start with the things that people hate the most. And that's how you get the buy in. When someone says, oh, you know, that uh, doing the accounts or something, I can't stand doing it. Oh, now there's AI that can help me with that. Well, this is amazing, you know, so start with the things that people hate the most. I think that's how you get the best buy in. I think for, you know, the bigger companies who are ultimately, um, driving AI forward for us, I think the pace continues, it will speed up. Um, we will see even more AI technology available to us. Everything from, um, you know, the glasses that people have been talking about, put the glasses on, you can control everything. You can talk to the glasses and say, book me a restaurant tonight and it will do all of that for you. I think maybe not in 12 months, but we will be seeing that within the next few years that there will be technology like that that um, is fully functional. I mean we've already seen like driverless cars and things like that. Sometimes these things do malfunction. So I think a lot of it is about really smoothing out how this technology works as well. But um, next five years, if we're thinking bigger picture, I would say to all businesses, small or large, you need to be planning, planning for what is, is what is coming. Because as you quite rightly said a few minutes ago, if you don't, you will be left behind. And I think that is a fact. I do think we're going to see a big shift in terms of businesses that are still standing in the next five years. And I think a lot of those businesses are going to be the businesses that are uh, either in the technology space, so they're driving things forward, or they've embraced technology the best that they can and they're upskilling their workforce to make sure that they're in a position to help drive their companies forward. Uh, so yeah, I think that's a

Speaker B: great insight and particularly picking up on the five year aspects. I guess what concerns me a little bit about some of the organizations that we engage with and work with is the lack of AI integration into their strategies, their five year plans as it were. And for me it goes back to your point earlier on about the digital skills of their workforce. M. I think there is an acceptance from, or an anticipation from some organizations that um, education will cover that digital ability. And certainly with Gen Zs and kind of next generation coming through, maybe they are more au fait than existing workforce. And I know certainly my generation, Gen X, okay, it's been a steep learning curve for some of the things that we have to deal with now. But I think organizations, SMEs, medium sized businesses, large organizations, have almost a responsibility to the work workforce to educate them, to help them understand what the workplace is going to look like in five years time, what that means for them in terms of the new skills that they're going to need to have and implement to get the maximum out of the tech that is going to be available to them. If they don't start planning for that now, then as we both mentioned, that they run the risk of actually being left behind. I think a lot of organizations are still thinking short term profitability and kind of meeting customer demands right now, but they have to surely have it on their radar pretty soon if not being already Too late if they haven't got it in place already.

Speaker A: I 100% agree and I'm very passionate about this because, you know, we, as I mentioned earlier, have a digital skills gap here in the UK and it's something like 21 million working adults do not have the digital skills. So the essential digital skills that have been, um, identified by Lloyd's Banking Group and um, fully supported by the government, these, these 20 skills that they have come up with. When you think about that and then you think about AI and automation and new technologies coming through, we already have a workforce that isn't equipped with just what we have today. And so you add that extra layer on of how fast things are moving and the new things that people will have to learn. Um, yes, as much as, you know, we've got the younger generation coming through who are, you know, they're well versed in technology because they were born with iPhones in their hands kind of thing. Um, we can't solely rely on that because they are also, uh, a generation who are very open to moving on very quickly and they want to explore lots of different things and do, you know, lots of different things. And I'm not saying, saying that's, that's uh, an issue, but that is just how that generation is. And so if I'm a small business owner thinking, oh, uh, it's okay, like, maybe I'm looking at my workforce now and they already struggle with digital skills, but I'm not going to worry about it because we'll just hire in, you know, these young guys who are going to come and revolutionize everything and then, you know, you do that and they're gone within a year. It's a big problem, you know, so what do you do? And so you are absolutely correct. And as I say, I'm very passionate about this, that we have to be training people, um, to be fully functioning members of the workforce with the digital skills that they need. And even though like the curriculum is starting to change and computer science is now a thing that is the next generations have to do, um, we are still in a space where the curriculum is very much theoretical and not. But this is the practical application. And so them teaching kids how to code in platforms like Scratch, which is what. My son's 9, so he's still quite young, but that's what he's been learning how to do. Well, that's all well and good, that's lovely, but, but how do we apply this when we get into the workforce? How does that translate into what companies actually need. And I think there's just a bit too much of a divide there. So, uh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: And as we've already talked about, it's a huge kind of problem, huge topic, um, and some fantastic nuggets and kind of insights there. But if I was to put you on the spot to just conclude this episode, if there was one thing, if there's one thing that you would, uh, Recommend Managers, leaders, SMEs, businesses of all sizes to do with regard to AI that they weren't currently doing, what, what would that be? There's a question for you.

Speaker A: There is a question for it. Um, I would say don't get caught up in the hype. So we are seeing tools being created and, you know, people are selling you all sorts of weird and wonderful things and AI can obviously do so much. However, again, with our business hats on what we. The first question we should be asking ourselves is, is how does this generate money? How does it save on costs? Or how does it, um, give me back time? So if that was the only piece of advice I could give anyone, it would be really think about it with intention. Um, and that will stand you in good stead.

Speaker B: That's fantastic. Great insight there, Tony. Thank you very much for your time today. It's been really, really interesting. As you probably guess. This is a subject that I'm so passionate about my, myself, and it's great to find a fellow consultant that enjoys the topic as much as me. If people want to find out more, like I say, they can, uh, contact you directly. We'll put your business links into the episode and, um, uh, hopefully they'll. They'll take lots, uh, of information this particular episode, but for the time being. Tony, thank you very much. Hope to see you on future episodes, but thank you very much for your time.

Speaker A: Thank you for having me. It's been very enjoyable. Thank you.