Michael Hartmann

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of Opcast, brought to you by MarketingOps.com, powered by all the MoPros out there. Today I'm your well, first I'm your host, Michael Hartman, joined today by my partners in crime, Naomi Lu, Mike Rizzo. How's it going?

Mike Rizzo

Hello, hello.

Naomi

Good.

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

It's going. It's going. It's been a while.

Michael Hartmann

^^

Michael Hartmann

It has been a while.

Naomi

Last time we chatted, I think, was the three amigos. Last time I chatted, anyways. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Could have been.

Mike Rizzo

I wanna

Mike Rizzo

say that is also true for me. Poor poor Hartman just running solo. We're actually just gonna shoot a whole entire new intro for the show, cause it's really just like instead of the three of us, it should just be Hartman. We'll just cut our two voices out, Naomi.

Michael Hartmann

It's all good.

Naomi

Yeah, yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Nah.

Michael Hartmann

It's all good. It's all good. I, you ^^ guys know, like I just stopped like trying to work around your schedules 'cause it's just too too hard. Right? Like no no no shade. Like it's all good.

Mike Rizzo

I keep saying yes. The worst part is I say yes, and then I'm like, dang it, I can't make that one either. It's the worst.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

yeah. So I think we when we started we we talked about getting on to ^^ 'cause I always really enjoyed these. It's like it's kind of its now, let's see, last last was it kind of in the last week or so of June twenty twenty six. ^^ It's weird that I have to say the year these days. Like that's ^^ ^^ but ^^ it's kind of a mid year thing and just kind of see where things are, like almost like a mini state of the mo pro. ^^

Mike Rizzo

I know. ^^

Michael Hartmann

And see where like I know we've talked a little bit before we start hit record about a couple of things, but • where do you want to start? Should we start with like • is the world just gone AI crazy? Like • so •

The Impact of AI on Marketing Operations01:30

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. ^^

Naomi

Yeah, I mean

Naomi

^^ z • do you think that AI has made marketing ops, • revenue ops, ^^ everything ops? Has it made it better, • worse, or the same? •• Neutral? I don't think it's neutral, but I guess depends on who you ask, I guess. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. • I think it is dependent upon who you ask. ^^ So I have • ^^ a slight I don't have all the data compiled and the written report done, but we did this • AI assessment benchmark • sort of study. •• and it's it's coming together now. ^^ no surprise • we had a whole bunch of bots fill out the form, so we had to go ^^ we had to go like • yeah, right.

Michael Hartmann

Mm.

Naomi

^^ no.

Michael Hartmann

^^ It's

Michael Hartmann

so crazy.

Mike Rizzo

We had to go scrape out the data ^^ to make sure we were just looking at what we believe is like truly valid inputs. ^^ and there was there was a question in there around like hiring and headcount and support for the role. And • I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but I can tell you that the • first glance it was pretty clear that • for those that at least participated in that study, ^^.

AI has not made things, ^^ you know, ^^ much easier necessarily in terms of like • allocating for headcount or anything like that. ^^ they they certainly are • leveraging it to do ^^ what what we heard for many, many years, which is like do more with less. ^^ but I think just just to lend • lend my perspective on it ^^ and ^^ my response to your question is I think it's ^^ •

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo

I think it's harder. • I think it's a lot harder. •• ^^ I

Michael Hartmann

Do you think that's because

Michael Hartmann

it's actually like a bunch of new stuff ^^ or the expectations are that it's gonna make things so much better so quickly or? ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, fair fair question. I think it's harder because it feels ^^,

I think it's it's a mix of two things. ^^ if we go back in time and we look at like the Martech landscape and the explosion of marketing automation, right? And we kind of remember that now, • at least for those of us that have been around long enough to have seen most of it. ^^ there was there was a level of excitement about the opportunity in front of you back then. •

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo

But it was an unknown sort of territory, right? And so that • excitement carried you into this. I'm gonna try these new tools and learn new things and adopt new things. And • I think there's elements of that that are present today ^^ in this this current environment with AI. But the difference now, ^^ the second part of why it's harder, • is that people are generally more educated on what is possible • around • technology. •

And so because you're more educated on the possibilities of technology, it it simultaneously feels like even more is possible. Right. Like it's just that much easier. Well, • it's already been done that way before. And so • if it's already been done that way, I know that that can do that. So can it do this? Could it be doing this instead? And it just sort of like opened up this. •

the land of opportunity where it feels like all of it's tangible and accessible. But the reality is is that • it's actually quite hard and it's ^^ and it takes a lot of orchestration and a lot of work and a lot of like really sitting down to try to figure out how to make the thing work. • But everybody's like, well it should be easy. Like hey, I can just do it for you. ^^

Michael Hartmann

It's kinda like the paradox

Michael Hartmann

of marketing automation is that it's not truly automated • right? It still requires human like • Yeah, I th I think my my answer is more like I think about actually it was funny, I was just when you asked the question, I was thinking about our the question we had, was it probably a year ago about is marketing • is marketing ops actually marketing? And • I think that was the r I can't remember if it got the phrasing right, but

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, right.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. ^^ yeah. I

Mike Rizzo

I posted I was like, is marketing ops isn't marketing thoughts. That was the whole post on LinkedIn.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

And and and I and ^^ I think I think the I think it's too early it's still a little too early to tell, but I think it I think I'm with you, Mike, is I think • it feels like • there was a lot of like • hope and hype and ^^ a lot of action. It seems like people are now coming back to this like, ^^ it didn't do what we thought it would do, right? Totally. ^^ and things are are shifting. •

And so I still think there's like the op I still feel like I have an open question. Like I'm not sure if I know an answer. Right. Right now it does I'm like you might. I think it feels like it's generally been a net negative • in two ways. One, I think there's • whether it's been real or not, right? The layoffs that have been coming around and hiring marketing in general and marketing ops • to some degree • are being ^^ blamed on AI. Like we do actually believe that's true in all the cases? No. Like •

maybe not even half of • but like there's some but I do think that like the people who are making those decisions probably do believe to some degree like AIs can replace some of this stuff. But I think • where I'm starting to land is that • all these AI tool are tools are tools, • right? • And

how we use them is like we're still figuring out • which one is the right hammer for the right thing and which one is the right wrench for the right thing. Like I don't think that we've figured that out. •• And because of that, right, • the

There's this pressure to do this • do AI, • but • like it's really unclear like what what things could happen. And when I think about like how how are the what are the use cases? We get started out with, • we can develop content and we can take content and you like create pieces we can use across different channels. •• That pretty quickly was • pretty standard. •

But then you've got things like, okay, what can it do to automate things? What can it do to clean our data? What can I do to excel like lead scoring or like •

And then like •• and there's orchestration stuff. •• What I think is • gonna happen, like the whole Martech landscape, I think is gonna get blown up. •• Then I really don't know what's gonna happen. ••

Generational Perspectives on AI and Future Implications07:56

Naomi

I think like that's interesting because, you know, I'll talk to ^^ new grads a lot or people who are going into who are going into university trying to figure out what they and • interested in marketing ops and whatnot. ^^

And, you know, I think those of us who have been in industry for a while, like we try to • be mentors, right? And mentor like the next wave and the next generation. And a lot of us who have been in •  

And, you know, I think those of us who have been in industry for a while, like we try to • be mentors, right? And mentor like the next wave and the next generation. And a lot of us who have been in •

Mike Rizzo

But ^^

Naomi

the industry from like the very beginning, a lot of us are at the age where we are parents now to young kids. And ^^ I think • and I'm not speaking for everyone. I'm this is just myself. Like I feel like this ^^ strange mix ^^ of • like excitement and also like unease about AI because ^^.

I think • for the majority of the last few generations, right? Like you could • like our parents could reasonably and our grandparents could too, right? They could reasonably ^^ assume ^^ that, you know, my kids and grandkids will grow up in a very similar world to the one that I grew up in, right? Regardless of like cell phones, ^^ space travel, like • it's gonna be ^^ pretty ^^ similar, right? ••.

But I think about just how fast things are changing. And I'm like, okay, my daughter, • she's five this year. ^^ When she's 18 or when she's 28, like, what is the world gonna look like? Right. It could be entirely possible that, • you know, by the time she hits university, even high school, ^^ AI tutors are better equipped than actual teachers, right? Or ^^

Michael Hartmann

AI teachers are better equipment than actual teachers. so like it will it will university

Michael Hartmann

even be a thing? Like

Naomi

Yeah,

Naomi

like most ^^ the idea of like you don't need to learn facts anymore when you can just look it up. It's more gonna be about like • your judgment, your interpersonal skills, your like, • you know ••

Are people gonna have interpersonal skills when all they're doing is talking to each other on ^^ on, you know, social media or on their phones or in whatever like, ^^ you know, •^ chip that's been implanted in their brain so they can like brainwave their text to each other? I have no idea, right? You know? ^^ You know, and it's like unsettling because like, you know, as ^^ a parent, you want to ^^ best prepare your child for • their future. But how do you prepare them for their future? Well, you don't know what that future is gonna look like. •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Naomi

Right. ^^ This is a whole other kind of of forms of this like. So for everyone listening, we had no idea what we're gonna talk about on this podcast. So we're just kind of winging it. Like ^^

Mike Rizzo

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

No. Yeah. ^^

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, but but I think

Mike Rizzo

you know, I think that's the I think that's the value of ^^ of • opportunities like this ^^ and this show in general is like • if you're listening or watching, I guess, ^^ you've you know, you may have some of these thoughts and and ^^ and you know, we're talking about it today. So ^^ come talk to us if you ever want to talk about it. • Come to the community.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^^ Well, it's funny,

Naomi

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

so I have I have kids who are older than either of you and in college a college right now. And like we have this conversation on a regular basis about like • what it's like for them and their friends who are gr just graduated and things like that. And • the job it's tough, right? And part of that's just general economy, I think, and some of it is • yeah, uncertainty and all that. ^^

It was interesting, my oldest he's a big history buff. He he and I were talking, he's like he's • sort of describing • the world that I think it was Rockefeller, like one of the • whatever you call him, the tycoons from the like • late 1800s, ^^ who lived ^^ long enough to go see • like essentially like • Civil War, • the US Civil War, • ^^ steam engines, trains scumming, automobiles, • airplanes ^^ that within a few years were used in a war. •

Right, to rock like • the amount of stuff and then he was like, And dad, you • ^^ I grew up • imagine where • like we didn't have like cell phone the first cell phone I saw was in • my one summer home after college my

freshman year in college. And it was like the military style, right? Where it's carried the box and the headset was yeah, yeah. ^^ and we had car phones install like • I've gone through like record players to tapes to CDs to •

Naomi

briefcase and the it was tied yeah.

Michael Hartmann

MP3s to • like all this like and I've I've never really thought about it until he's like • my lifetime has gone through like this massive change and this is just another one. • And there's a part of me that goes like, is it • truly different than like •• what happened in the turn of the last century • time frame, like early nineteen to late 1800s, early 1900s? • Or is it something real like is it the similar different? Like like is the disruption, like it's I don't know. ••

So that's part of like I'm I hesitate to go like ••

The Evolution of Technology and Its Effects on Society12:35

Michael Hartmann

I'm trying to be optimistic, but like I don't know what like I really don't it's hard to predict what's gonna happen 'cause it doesn't like the what feels different here is the pace at which things are changing. 'Cause it feels like every time I feel like I start ing to understand, I could do this with AI, • something changes. ••

Naomi

But I • I think the biggest difference, Michael, is like • most of the changes that you're talking about were •• things or like tools that changed how we like did things, right? Instead of like picking up a rotary phone ^^ and doing the turns, like now all of a sudden we're like just telling Siri to call somebody, right? Versus • I think a lot of the changes in the technology that's happening • is •

Michael Hartmann

Right.

Naomi

changing like who does the things • right I think that's the big difference too and like we also went through a period where • a lot of things were analog and we saw the difference between • like if we look at something we can critically say I mean it's getting harder now right like is this AI is this not AI is this real is this not real we lived in a world and grew up in a world where we had to bike to our friend's house or like pick up a phone and • say what are you doing or like • look at a TV guide and say like here

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Naomi

Here's

when our show's on, right? • ^^ • that's not the case now. Like if you grow up now and you see something online, do you just take it as like fact because ^^ you don't know any different? I don't know. • Right. •

Mike Rizzo

Mhm. Yeah, the the • the difference of technology before was like ^^ always making something for humans ^^ in in a lot of ways, it was it was often geared toward geared towards • humans still do the thing, they just do it easier. ^^ Or it's just like a little bit better than it was before. Or in some cases a lot of bit better, right? Like • arguably moving from car from

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. • No, it's it's

Michael Hartmann

Right.

Mike Rizzo

from horse and buggy to car is like a significant • shift. ^^ • but but ^^ you know the innovation of of industrial revolution and technology there was about sort of • momentum and energy and machinery, all making things like, you know, going from place A to place B or do you know doing XX to Y faster and • reducing labor. And then there were labor markets that were shifted and as as ^^

Michael Hartmann

And there were labor markets that were shifted and as as

Mike Rizzo

A

lot of you know, I'm not a • economist, ^^ you know, student. I don't I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs of the history of how technology's impacted the job market before. But I, you know, yeah, technology's always impacted the job market in some way. And • from from the little nuggets that I've pulled out from some of the people talking out there, ^^ you know, it it also • creates new opportunities in new new ways too. And so •

Michael Hartmann

So

Mike Rizzo

You know, to echo a bit of what you were saying, Hartman. Like II I think we don't know exactly ^^ what's gonna come of all this. And and Naomi, I've thought a lot. I mean, you know, I've got two kids. For those of you who don't know, I've I've got an eight year old and near six year old and ^^ and ^^ yeah, I genuinely have no idea what to expect for their for their horizon in front of them. And • if you if you ever spent I don't know if we talked about this the last time that three of us were on or not, but •

If for those of you watching or listening, if you ever spend a moment and you're • that you got that curiosity bug, ^^ and you kind of look at what is called like the post scarcity economy, like the concept of this, ^^ it's it's a fascinating ^^ exploration of of a of a topic. And and the idea, of course, is that ^^ if you if you ever studied like ^^ economics, like ^^ you know the •

Michael Hartmann

^^ it's it's always fascinating. And the idea of course is that ^^ if you if you've ever studied like economics, yeah.

Mike Rizzo

supply and demand type of stuff, right? ^^ • if there's • high demand, you know, price gets up and all these kinds of things, right? The the the the supply chain and unit economics concepts. Well ^^ when you look at the post scarcity economy concepts, it takes this idea of like if the unit cost of production effectively moves to zero, • because you're able to just rudimentary example like • ca you know, a head of cabbage is grown at the farm. •

Well, if it if that head of cabbage can effectively be grown at the farm in mostly autonomous ways, in fact, picked, • curated, and shipped on a truck that is self-driving, on a robot that never sleeps, that eventually puts it in • the grocery store ^^ or • just delivers it straight to your house, ^^ the the production cost of that thing no longer has human capital behind it. And you don't have to pay the robot. ^^ You have to pay the company that makes the thing that does the thing, right? •

Michael Hartmann

^^ Right, pay the mobile. ^^

Mike Rizzo

And so it's like where right or maintains a robot, but in theory, it should be a lower unit cost overall because • they don't have to take a break. • They don't ha ve • health benefits that they need, right? Like there's just like all like as you start to unpack and unravel the the things that go into just getting something like a head of cabbage to your grocery store and to your kit to your kitchen fridge, you start to go, whoa.

Naomi

Or maintains the robot, the person that maintains it, yeah, yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Right. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^^

Mike Rizzo

What happens to that pile of money that eventually in that supply chain was distributed along the mix, right, to all of those places? Where does that money go now? •• And what happened just generally, what happens to the, you know, multiply that by hundreds of thousands of different types of products out there. And there's now just genuine genuinely a pile of money that has nowhere to go • in theory. That I can because I can't rationalize it in

my head. I'm too small minded for it. But in theory, like if there's no human. •

Michael Hartmann

^^ Where does that

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. ^^

Mike Rizzo

to give that to. So where does it go and what happens next? And and so this whole exploration of like we don't know what's gonna happen, • you know, ^^ it's just fascinating.

Naomi

But do you think that in that situation that there would

Naomi

be nobody though? It? It's just like if you think about back when, • you know, we were like • people would get milk delivered to their house or like newspapers were printed at like proper letter prep like the typesetting and whatnot. Those jobs don't exist anymore, really, right? But there's still people. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. I I I I delivered newspapers

Michael Hartmann

when I was yeah, a teenager.

Naomi

Yeah. Like

Naomi

no exactly. But there's still ^^ there it ^^ it just those things changed, right? And that kind of ^^ goes back to what I was saying about like • the changes were •• how we did things versus who yeah. ^^ Exactly. ^^ Versus who's doing the things, right? Because like •

Michael Hartmann

It's more like biomechanical replacement as opposed to cognitive. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Mm-hmm.

The Cognitive Shift: Who Does the Work?19:10

Naomi

You know, before Photoshop ^^ would change how we used to edit images, right? But like, you know, AI is now • changing who creates the image in the first place, • you know? Like who's creating it? Who can change who can edit it? Does it even exist? You're just making an image out of thin air, you know? • So • I don't know. I just have I have lots of thoughts on this. •

Michael Hartmann

^^ No, I mean that could easily go down this whole rabbit hole of like ^^ ••

whatever preceded the abacus and you did the abacus. And eventually you had some sort of calculator ^^ and then you had spreadsheets. And like it's like ^^ • so there are things that I think there I think there are other • things like that that are probably maybe a better analogy to the cognitive • impacts. Like I mean that's my fear. Like you you point out Amy is that ^^ • like peop I think a lot of people and I know we were kind of ••

Naomi

Yeah, yeah. ^^ Yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

dissing on LinkedIn earlier too, a little bit about how much AI slap there is. ^^ But I think a lot of people have of have ^^ outsourced their their thinking •• because of AI, like completely. And I think that I think • that's dangerous because if what is going to make a difference from a human standpoint in the future is our ability to • be discerning and understand and and • make be able to make connections again. And like • I don't know that we've got pe I don't know that we've got •

a generation or two of people who've got those skills. •

Naomi

Yeah. I mean, do you remember going to the library and doing your own

research and having to like cite sources and ^^ look at, you know, a hundred percent. Yeah. Some people listening are Googling like, what is microfiche? ^^ Yeah, yeah. They're like, and they used to do what? Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

^^ yes. Yeah. Card catalogue, microfish and yeah. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yep.

Mike Rizzo

Yep.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. It's if you wonder how it's spelled, it's ^^

Nostalgia for Mixtapes and TV Shows20:54

Mike Rizzo

^^ You'll have to wait till the end of the episode. ^^

Michael Hartmann

M I C R O F I C H E.

Michael Hartmann

No,

Michael Hartmann

I mean I was telling my k my kids were sort of like wide eyed the other day. I was I like I don't I guess we've never talked about it 'cause I'm like I love all kinds of music. • I explained to them what it was like to do a mixtape where you had where you're trying to record something off the radio. Cause you hit you didn't know what was gonna come, but you were like, I wanna get this song. I know it's gonna be in the rotation. So you have your boom box ready, tape player with the two fluke buttons you could flip right ^^ and • for one song.

Naomi

What is the Dewey Decimal system?

Mike Rizzo

Mm-hmm.

Naomi

Hmm. Yep. And then you make

Naomi

another copy where you'd like cut out all of the, you know, extraneous stuff that you didn't want. ^^ •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, exact yeah. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

^^ So good. None of that exists. Like no one will ever know.

Michael Hartmann

Like like I mean like that's like • we all and you bring you like T V like

Michael Hartmann

TV guide, like I I • you don't need it now 'cause like back then, like we used I still remember we had a another couple friend before we had kids who like • our thing was every Sunday we'd get together at one of our houses, we'd cook dinner, hang out, • because we s and it was all around a TV show that was only broadcast • at a certain time one Sunday or whatever, right? You don't have to do that now. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yep. Yep.

Mike Rizzo

Yep. It's all instant gratification these days. My kids actually really enjoy commercials because they've never see • When we're on like some sort of terrestrial TV like ^^ pla channel and they're like, commercial came on dad. Don't skip it. I wanna see it.^^ Like, no, because now you're gonna wanna buy the thing. ^^ Commercials are I arguably more • impactful today. ^^

Naomi

Shh. ^^ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, they're they're it can be entertaining. Right.

Mike Rizzo

to the consumer market, I think, than they've ever been because they're just like never seen anymore. It's almost like, something new. Yeah. It's • so like weird to say that. ^^

Michael Hartmann

^^ • so funny. Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. • Well, I will tell you, I think ^^ I wish I'd seen it earlier, but if you for you two and anybody else who has kids who are • even in at the teenage age, • the book • The Anxious Generation. It's this whole idea like how people • that and I there was a study, I can't remember if we talked about this. I know I've talked to some people about it, that I heard about where • the average number of words that we speak.

Mike Rizzo

Mm.

Michael Hartmann

have spoken has dropped over ten years like by thirty percent, • like daily. • Yeah. • And it's like it was like across a bunch of different studies that weren't necessarily intended to be looking for that. So it was a like and I

haven't •• full transparency, I've not gone back and looked at the full study or the ones that it references. • But •• like it feels ^^ like that like that doesn't feel far off. ^^

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. • As a person of very few words I wholeheartedly agree. ^^ My daughter, on the other hand, has a word quota to hit every single night before bed. Just just putting that out there. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Ha ha ha. ^^

Naomi

Yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

So not steps, right? It's ^^ word count.

The Impact of AI on Communication23:39

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, yeah.

She's got a word count. She's six, so almost six. ^^ I I wanted to go back † for a second on this topic of ^^ again on AI, you know, we haven't really gone off of it, but I wanted to go back to ^^ this idea of like ^^ what it's done currently, you know, in in our market. I think a lot of us have felt • or seen ^^ at least, seen the impacts of it. You know, there's layoffs and all this other kind of stuff.

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Michael Hartmann

^^

Mike Rizzo

LinkedIn feeds

Mike Rizzo

galore around around people who are looking for new work and • all that stuff. If you don't follow me, by the way, I'm not asking you to follow me on LinkedIn, but if you happen to pay attention to some of the things that I comment on, most of the time I'm commenting, it's because someone's hiring for a job. • So if you're looking for a job, • I'm usually dropping a comment that says, Hey, like • someone who follows the community, like the here's a new job. ^^ I I try I literally almost • three, four, five times a day I'm doing that. So for what it's worth, •

Lots of opportunities out there despite the market landscape. • And and speaking of all of this, • this article's dated now. •• dated in the world of AI, that's. ^^ back to whoomina May 25th. • so just about a month ago from this

recording date. ^^ yeah, super, super dated. ^^ it's it's a it ^^ it's not relevant anymore, obviously. ^^ but the the the article I'm referencing ^^ is NVIDIA. •

Job Market Dynamics in the Age of AI24:37

Michael Hartmann

Wow.

Naomi

^^ No, ^^ it's not relevant anymore. No.

Mike Rizzo

^^ it's it's it's ^^ it's actually Jensen, ^^ the CEO of NVIDIA who ^^ who says that CEOs who are blaming AI for layoffs are giving a quote lazy end quote excuse. ^^ and so he he really • hammered home this point • where if I if I could quote it here, it says, I think • the narrative that connects AI to job loss, for many of the CEOs that are doing it, • it is just too lazy. •

end quote. ^^ and then he goes on to say AI has just arrived. How is it possible they're already ^^ how • is it possible they're already losing jobs? ^^ And ^^ and • as you kind of unpack the rest of the statements and stuff like that, really it if I was to TLDR it for you, • it's like • obviously those two sentences say a lot, but he's he's arguing that we're at the infancy ^^ of •

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm.

Mike Rizzo

what AI is possible of. And yet everybody's jumping to the conclusion that it's at its maturity. If you think of that like a hype cycle type of thing. ^^ and and it's in ^^ I think, you know, I think you kind of touched on this either during the recording or pre recording, Hartman, I can't remember which, ^^ but ^^ we it ^^ it's all blurring together. But really it scratches at this idea that like ^^ we • we've • sort of ^^

Michael Hartmann

^^ It all comes to it like blends together.

Mike Rizzo

What is it called? Like jumped the shark ^^ on this a little bit. • And people are realizing ^^ that • hey, II might have ^^ made or you know, companies in theory are realizing we might have made a mistake here and • we've kind of jumped too far ahead. •• If I could if I could illustrate it with a practical example ^^ of ^^ even touching back on this AI assessment study, I mentioned that we had bots that filled out the form, right?

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Sure. ••

Mike Rizzo

anybody wanna take a gander or a guess at ^^ • how I came to figure out that there were bots that filled out the form? • • •

Michael Hartmann

Did you capture email address? ••

Mike Rizzo

We did. Yeah. For those that left the email address, yes. •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, so it that to

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, • okay, so it was an optional thing. Yeah, so that would have been that to me that was probably the first clue, but other than that, I'm I'm •• waiting to hear. • Naomi, do you have a guess? ••

Mike Rizzo

Yep. Yep. • It was optional.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Let's put it th I'll ask differently. Do you think the AI figured it out?

Naomi

Well the bots that the bots that we had,

Naomi

well, the bots that we have on our form like it just seems too complete, if that makes sense. Like the I don't know. •

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. Does the do do you think ^^ so here's the question I guess s ^^ differently. Do you think the AI figured it out or do you think the humans figured it out? ••

Michael Hartmann

Was it dashes?

Naomi

^^ Yeah.

Naomi

Humans. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Humans. Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Humans. I'm

Mike Rizzo

not tooting my horn. It was me, but it was humans. ^^ and and the reason I was able to figure it out at the end of the day is and and if you if you didn't listen to hardly any of the rest of this episode, maybe just take this

clip and send it to your boss. ^^ The reason • that we were able to figure out that • the analysis we were performing was incorrect and that there were bots in there is because I know my data. • It's because I know what to expect from the database. •

And so when we s went out a survey and we got a bunch of results, ^^ and I started to unpack the current analysis and I was like, now show me the N number of how many surv respondents there were and break it down by the demographics and all that stuff. There's this huge swath of like CEO C level titles that came in. And I was like, that's not our database. That's not us. • I would love to have it be us and have more people at the C level role in our community. Sure. But you know, I love all of our members, but it's generally not us. •

Michael Hartmann

^^ Yeah. ^^

Michael Hartmann

That's funny.

Mike Rizzo

And so I started to look at it and I was like, lo and behold, they all came in at right around the exact time, just a couple minutes apart from each other. They all had CEO titles. ^^ All of those CEO titles, • most of them, • 99% of them, • were • Gmail addresses. • It's like, yeah, you're right. The CEO came in and just like was like, Yeah, I'm gonna use my personal email  

address. ^^ Like, you know. Yeah, yeah. Maybe, maybe. But

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Naomi

Maybe they're just autofilling their form. You never know, Michael. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, they're using their home computer. Well, it's it's it's so it's

Michael Hartmann

it's it's funny 'cause I it I assumed it was human caught because so I'm • we'll be probably be talking about this, but I'm a big fan of ^^ a YouTube channel, a YouTube • produ guy who is guys named Rick Beato. He is a music guy ^^ and he talks all the time. He has kids who are teenagers and there's so like a lot of AI generated music now that is becoming like going out on Spotify and whatever. • And like his kids ^^ can tell instantly. •

what it what's AI generated, at least right now, right? • And so I think there's • there's something about • what gets produced by these ^^ AI bots that just something about it and I don't know that I'm sure somebody's analyzed what it is, but • it just doesn't feel right. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. • Yeah, I know. There's there's ^^ you know, I don't know if it's that • you know, when I think about it like a drummer, right, and the rhythm that they put into a drum, even though like the percussion of the movement between instrumentation and syllables that they're using across that drum section be pretty symbolic in the sense that it's on a pattern. •

The Human Touch in AI Interactions30:00

Mike Rizzo

There's still enough of a flaw that I think maybe the human ear, as subtle as it might be, we can tell the difference between that and like the machine doing the like perfect rhythmic, you know, •• movement between these things. And so perhaps it's that. And • yeah, I would imagine at some point AI could probably mimic it, right? And it'll be even harder to tell. Just like • in the sa ve very da ta, I was able to uncover it. ^^ the AI had no idea. I •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Arguably I could have told it like here's our TAM, here's our current audience, here's our database, here's who we expect to see. I could have prepped it • for all of that stuff, but frankly, that would have taken me longer. Right. So why spend all that work doing all that when I could have just like looked at the data myself? It took me three seconds to figure out that that was not the right data set to be looking at. • Right. And so • I don't know. ^^ Cause I I I try to make the argument that like humans still need to be involved in all this stuff. •

And you need to be intimately familiar with the the the things you're interacting with, because the AI won't know that it's wrong unless you go out of your way to really teach it all your stuff. And even then, • it it begs the • the argument that a person needs to take the time • to go teach the things and learn, you know, a human has to do that, right? And so • anyway, • it's ^^ I don't know. I think I think it is all started with is it making it harder? I think it's making it a lot harder. It feels like •

There's a lot more opportunity in front of you. • I actually have probably • five multi-threads of, • you know, things that I'm doing all at once throughout a day now because I've got one agent doing one thing, one agent doing another. And I'll come back and I'll rework those things as I go do other. ^^ You know, right now on this pod, I have a whole like work stream happening for • Claude working through some stuff with me as a thought partner. Right. I'm not taking a break to talk to it, but •

I started it and I know it was processing and I'll come back to it after I'm done. ^^ I feel super human. ^^

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, I've got Yeah, no,

Michael Hartmann

I've got something that's going through a whole bunch of stuff ^^ and ^^ I've been working through it of a really broad thing I'm trying to accomplish. •

And it's been going on for for weeks. •• Simply because I don't have time again, it's not automated, so it's really more interactive and • like one step at a time. • And it's you know, I'm having to like it is like a thought partner, so like and it's • it's good, • but it's not it's not re

Like it's not something that's not • chewing up some of my my time and resources. •• So I think that's • like it's • and I think that's part of like the like what everyone feels is little bit like, ^^ like I should be able to be I think there's a lot of, you know, FOMO out there that I think is unwarranted. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I think so too. • I think ^^ •• we you know, we'll I I don't wanna dismiss this idea of mental health. We had a session today for those of you ^^ who weren't able to join. It is not recorded. It was a town hall session dedicated to mental health. And so I don't wanna completely dismiss this because we only have a couple of minutes left and we're gonna wrap the show today. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I think all of this does create a level of, you know, we talked about the book that you're referencing, right? This anxious culture that we anxious generation. ^^ and it's creating new ^^ new levels of anxiety. ^^ because it does feel like you you you should be doing more, plugged in more, always on, or, you know, you have more access to more information and •

Michael Hartmann

Youngster generation. Yep. Yep.

Mike Rizzo

I I I asked the community ^^ a couple of weeks back. I was like, is anybody getting to like to me, I've gotten to a point now where it actually feels like more work to have to go use the AI to like take the next step. You know, like I wouldn't have otherwise taken the step to do the next thing as quickly as I did, but now I feel almost obligated to go do it because it's there. ^^ I'm like, • I know the output's gonna be great, but I feel like I have to do it now. And so it's like rather than this like new weird tension. Naomi, you're muted.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Naomi

Sorry, do you feel less unsure? Like almost like you need something to sanity check you? ••

Michael Hartmann

^^ it

Mike Rizzo

I've ought to be fair, if you look at my disc profile, I've always wanted sanity checks. ^^ I'm not a decisive person. ^^

Naomi

Yeah. But even more so now, do you almost feel

Naomi

like even more so now you need like • because you know it's there, do you feel like you need •• something to almost • validate • or do a secondary validation, • you know? •

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I I I'll sometimes cross check it. ^^ •• yeah, I think I do that on a on a fairly regular basis. And part of it's that • I've created an a system for myself to allow me to do that and it brings me a level of comfort. I don't know that everybody would do that, right? ^^ • but my personality is that like • if I've setup this environment to help cross check myself, then • it benefits me ^^ to feel like I'm not. ••

Michael Hartmann

Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

speaking on a on a on a subject or in a direction that doesn't ^^ match ^^ where I want us to go as an organization. Right. Like, •• you know, why why you know, why talk about that if it doesn't actually bring any value to ^^ my my members of my community, right? Like don't create noise just for the sake of creating noise. •• Maybe I'm using it the • the right way or the wrong way. I don't know. But II think there's a lot of people that just use it to create noise. •

Michael Hartmann

There's of people that this is great about these.

Michael Hartmann

^^ Like like it was it feels like it wasn't that long ago where like all of my LinkedIn feed post • feed was filled with people telling us all the great ways to prompt. •• You know, Chat GPT or Claude or whatever and those have like disappeared. •• They quietly just gone away.

Mike Rizzo

They have •

Mike Rizzo

they have I've seen make their way into my feed on Instagram, ^^ with like here's the like • set of instructions that you should use or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. I took one of

Michael Hartmann

The stack.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. • Yeah, II mean I think I saw more on Instagram,

Michael Hartmann

but •• like there were so many. But they've like there's very few now. ••

Mike Rizzo

Yeah. • Yeah.

Mike Rizzo

Yeah, I agree. I I will say that I actually I grabbed one of them recently and it was like • I particularly love it. •• maybe I'll drop it in the show notes and just like share with y'all which which settings I ended up putting in. But I basically gave my • instructions for Claude. •• ^^

Reevaluating AI Relationships36:29

Mike Rizzo

Like, I don't know, these five or six or seven rules that I found. And I was like, I like those rules a lot. Like I it it has to rate its confidence before any claim. It has to tag it as certain, likely, or guessing. It has to kill certain phrases. It has to disagree with me first. It has to tell me when I'm wrong, ^^ even when it's like gonna make me uncomfortable. •• Like • I tell it never start with an agreement. Like it's I actually it's completely changed my

Michael Hartmann

Mm-hmm. It has to range its confidence before getting

Michael Hartmann

^^ It has to kill certain phrases, it has to disagree with me first, it has to tell me when I'm wrong and when it's like gonna make me.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, I mean I started doing I started doing some of those things ^^ within ex like • chats or whatever you know, • directly as opposed to like an overarching set of directions. • Because I was start I was like I was sensing like, it's agreeing with me, • tell me what I want to hear, • you know, sometimes making stuff up ^^ and • like •• basically I've told it like • like be really direct and ^^ critical. ••

Mike Rizzo

Some of it's good.

Michael Hartmann

So yeah. •

Mike Rizzo

Yep.

Mike Rizzo

Yep. I love it. • I know we're at time. Naomi's gotta jump. I gotta jump too. •

Michael Hartmann

All right. Well, as always it's

Mike Rizzo

For those of you

Mike Rizzo

^^ that listen, thanks. ^^ •

Michael Hartmann

Yeah. •• Always fun. Naomi, thanks for letting us hear the birds chirp in the background. I can't have my windows open here in Texas at this time of year. It's steamy.

Naomi

^^ Anytime.

Mike Rizzo

I had I had my

Mike Rizzo

birds chirping too, but now the trash truck's driving up inside I'm like muting constantly. ^^

Naomi

Mm-hmm.

Michael Hartmann

Yeah, not exactly the same ^^ relaxing sound. Anyway, hey, it's always a pleasure. I know you guys gotta go, you know, so I'll just wrap up here. So everyone, yeah, as always, if you ^^ wanna •• wanna jump in on the conversation or • go on a tangent with us and ^^ or you have an idea for somebody who would be a good guest, you know, reach out to one of us and we'd be happy to get the ball rolling. • Till next time. Bye everybody.

Naomi

^^ Bye. ^^

Mike Rizzo

Bye. ^^