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The AI Lessons That Will Change How You Operate

77m 28s

The AI Lessons That Will Change How You Operate

The discussion centers on the transformative impact of artificial intelligence, emphasizing that its core value lies in amplification—enhancing how quickly we learn, communicate, and execute ideas—rather than mere automation. A key warning is that failing to adopt AI is now becoming a significant disadvantage for both careers and businesses, creating a divide between active users and passive observers. To leverage AI effectively, individuals must move beyond using it as a glorified search engine and instead treat it as a collaborative partner or "teammate." This involves forming habits of regular use, experimenting without fear, and providing extensive context and clear goals when interacting with AI systems, such as through dictation for more natural and detailed prompts. A major misconception is that AI is only for technical experts, but accessible tools enable non-technical professionals to achieve substantial productivity and strategic gains by adopting a mindset of curiosity and continuous learning.

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[MUSIC] So for the latest in our Career Girls Guide series, I'm bringing you the episode you need. And it's all about AI. Right now, we are living through one of those moments in history where something fundamental shifts. And most people don't fully realize it until it's already happened. Today, artificial intelligence is moving faster than almost any technology we've ever seen. It's changing how companies operate, how decisions get made, how creativity happens, and even how people build careers and businesses. But here's the interesting thing. The real divide isn't going to be between people who are technical and people who aren't. It's going to be between people who learn how to use these tools and people who simply watch the change happen around them. And if you talk to the people closest to this space, they'll tell you something surprising. AI isn't just about automation or productivity. It's actually about amplification. It amplifies how quickly you can learn, how effectively you can communicate, and how powerfully you can execute ideas. Then comes the real question, how do you make sure this technology works for you instead of feeling like something is happening to you? Today's guests have spent years at the center of that conversation. She's advised companies, governments, and leaders around the world on how to understand and apply AI in practical ways. And more importantly, she's one of the clearest voices explaining what this technology actually means for the rest of us. So today, we're talking about what AI really is, where it's headed, and how anyone listening can start using it to become better at what they do. The start with yourself to kick off on April 15th in New York City tickets are on sound now at emigree.com. Starting a business sounds exciting until you realise how many pieces you actually need to put in place. It's not just form in an LLC. 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Get more with [email protected]/aspirefree. Allie, I am so happy to have you here today. We're like, this conversation's been a really long time coming. And as someone who is completely obsessed with their productivity, I'm really excited about talking to you about what you know the best in the world. And I really want this episode to be almost like a master class for people that really want to use AI to amplify their life, their work, their business. And I know that there is just so much that you can give them. So if my listeners give us the next hour, can you just tear us out for what you think would be the most valuable thing that they can get out of this conversation? Yeah, and thank you for having me. I think productivity is absolutely going to be part of it. So much of what I'm seeing right now is AI to do things faster so we can get more time back. And I want people to reallocate that time toward amplification and toward figuring out how to grow their business and not just send emails faster. So I'm actually going to be hitting it from both sides. You've been doing this for 20 years and I feel like the large majority of acid probably caught on in the last two or three. Is that what I'm talking about? Wonderful, Dr. Chatschubiti coming out was kind of the grand opening for a lot of people. There are still people that haven't yet used these AI tools and there are some people who are building AI agents to help run their business. So it's been out for about three and a half years like the really accessible AI tools. But you've got millions of people who are at completely different zones of operation. If you are one of the people that decides not to adopt AI, like what's going to happen in the next two years for that person's career? So I started an AI almost 20 years ago. I've been in it every single day for the last decade. And I think if you didn't adopt it back then, I would say, okay, you're losing, you know, maybe 10% gains. It's okay. You're not going to fall horribly behind. We are now sort of in the last year at a stage where not adopting AI is actually putting you in a really detrimental position for not only your business if you are an entrepreneur, but for your own individual career. And I really would not have said that five years ago, but the last year and a half has changed. And what has changed exactly? So these systems when they were first kind of coming out, a lot of them were just finishing your sentences. It was the ability to respond back to you, right? That was the big chatubiti moment. Is that anyone not just engineers could access the tools? Ask a question, get an answer. And it was amazing. I don't want to undercut that moment. It was jaw dropping. I moved to New York because I was on a road trip. Chatubiti comes out and I was like, the whole world has changed. I need to move right now. And just I found an apartment in five days. That's how crazy that was. And you knew in that moment that the kind of like changing moment. I was one of the first users of Chatubiti. Within 48 hours, I spun down the company that I was working on. My co-founder and I said, "See ya, I'll check in with you later." We split and we went 100 miles an hour toward this stuff. So what could you say then that perhaps like so many of us didn't say? One of the big things was that these systems could just hold on to more information. So when I was really working on early conversational AI, AI that you can talk to, and then responds back to you. It used to be that when you were asking like your third question, it had complete amnesia. Couldn't remember a single thing that you said it in that first go. All of a sudden, it could hold on to a conversation topic. It started learning. And so the combination of just being able to go back and forth and hold that information, the fact that it was not some ugly, you know, terminal sort of looking thing, like it really wasn't for engineers. It was just a normal website. And the fact that it was like very performant and fast, all of that combined, you just tested and you're like, this is the moment that I've been counting down for. I want to kind of go back a little bit before we really delve into what is going to be like these big unlocks for everybody's need. But just for somebody who is sitting at home right now, can you just explain exactly what AI is? Like in a simple framework, like how should we be thinking about what AI is? The way that I define it and how it was initially launched in, you know, 1956, it's been around for a while, is that it's AI attempting to mimic what a human can do. And that might mean typing tweets. That might mean like your Rumba going around and cleaning your home. That might mean a self-driving car because again, it's mimicking the fact that a human can drive a car. So it's just some sort of computer system mimicking a thing that a human can do. And that thing might be really simple or really complex. So what do you think is the biggest misconception that's actually stopping people from benefiting from AI right now? Because I feel like so many people feel either like beyond excited by it, but yeah, legally intimidated and overwhelmed. Yeah, it's kind of weird, right? We like lost this middle ground of people. 100%. Like first two years, everyone is kind of floating along. Now it's you're either at 10 or you're at one. I think what a lot of people are still tripping up on is that they believe it is only for the most technical among us. There's something like a million data scientists and machine learning engineers in the world. There's something like 30 million developers. And even the most advanced tools that I am using that I am helping other non-technical business professionals use. Only a couple million people are using those tools. So I think that there's still a lot of education to be done or at least self-experimentation to say, wait a second, even though these things sound really technical. It's actually a myth. You can use these tools if you're a non-technical, non-coding business professional. And I know it because I see it every single day. I'm working with Fortune 500 CEOs who are secretly telling me, hey, I don't actually know what is happening in these systems. Can you show me? I work with business professionals. I've taught courses. I've taught millions of people. They realize in that moment those first five minutes they go, it's this easy. It's easy. Why didn't they say it? Tell me it's this easy. But it takes opening the computer and having that moment of humility and going, I'm okay feeling dumb in this moment. I'm okay having a little bit of fun and experimentation because I know in the next five minutes I'm going to learn something that I didn't know before. But I think that piece is absolutely critical. I mean, me, the single biggest unlock that I've had is this ability to experiment because it's so, like, you are so habitually trained to use whatever device you're using in the way you commonly use it. And the minute you go, okay, I'm not going to open that. I'm going to do this instead. I'm actually going to give myself some time to play an experiment. And I don't know who has time. But I have a literally- - Nobody gets you to it. - I mean, nobody. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know at the time. But for me, because I had, like, those moments where I was like, oh my god, this is a game changer, I decided that it made sense to me. every four to six weeks I would do a day. And the way that my brain works, I can't take an hour, it just doesn't work. I have to escape, I have to put myself in like a hotel room somewhere and go, okay, this is what I'm doing today. And I'm gonna play and I'm gonna learn. Not everybody can do that, obviously, but I do think it's really, really important, as you just say, to like play an experiment and be okay to be overwhelmed by it. Because what comes out of that time is something really amazing on the other end, right? So we were just talking about how no one has time. It's an important thing to just acknowledge. Like, you can come up with these excuses. You can say, I'm too busy, everyone's too busy. You can say, I'm not an engineer. You have to kind of come to terms with the fact that millions of people have figured out the most advanced tools. So they figured it out. Even if that means falling behind again in air quotes for two weeks just to be able to kind of get to this next pair of times. It's that level of curiosity that ability to be in learning mode and you just giving it the time. And I think if I could say anything, it's like, those things are an imperative. What I really want to do today is move what I think are most people's like that habit, which is using AI like a bit of a, you know, search engine. And kind of like shifting all of their behavior forward into like what is possible. And so if somebody is using AI like a glorified search engine, what comes next for them? Two things that I would want that person to do. The first is to kind of hold onto this idea that habits will open up new use cases for you. And so one of the most important things that you can do is just make it habit, make it something that you're going to even outside of, oh, I need to find the answer to like, where is a spy or film? To whatever outside of an actual search engine question. You got to start going to it with the weird stuff. So hey, walk me through the entire process of setting up my first Google AdWords campaign or taking a photo while you're on your walk and saying, what is this tree? Can I plant it in my house? And by the way, give me five ways to become a better botanist in my life. Like that is not as much of a glorified search engine that's taking action on your life. Having that be a habit, having that be something that you go to, I literally have a post it on my computer. I had this for the first like three years that just said AI, question mark, right? And just reminding myself, like just try the thing. The second which is way weirder to say and happy to go into it with examples is that AI is not a tool. So if I, I know, because if you think about it as a tool, you'll think of maybe something beyond glorified search engine and you'll go up one level. And I guarantee you, you will find amazing things that will make you 20 to 30% more productive. You will brag to all your friends that you cracked the case. You will feel really, really good about where you have figured out AI in your business or your life or your family or your friends. However, if you treated as this weird beast alien infrastructure, you're the operating system for your life and you treated as this weird thing, you start to realize that we can reinvent the way we do things. So it's not just using AI as a replacement for what our human task would have been. It's being able to take a step back and say, okay, the way I used to prep for podcast interviews was these 15 steps. What I'm suggesting is don't even start with today's process. Take a step back and say, my goals are to have a great interview where the person's laughing and having fun. My goals are to make sure that my guest feels comfortable. My goals are to be educated on what that person's background is. You have to take one big step back, go goals first, and then twist to be able to figure out how to use AI as this weird beast as part of that process. I so hope everybody is taking notes because that is just a fundamental shift in the way of thinking with this. Because people are literally searching for those 15 things. How do you help me through these 15 things? We are not taking a bird's eye view and going, help me get to the end result. Literally tell the AI system, Clod, Chat, UBT, Gemini, whatever. Tell this system what that goal is. Describe your life a bit. And then instead of saying, and now build me this three-step method to move to Nashville. I want you to instead say, hey AI, ask me questions and interview me, right? I'm a greed style, to figure out what you most need from me to get to that weird answer. So this is a really important part that you're talking about here because I feel like for so many of us, we've been trained in Google to limit the length of our sense. Because there's a six characters. It's right there. What you're talking about is probably not even, it's like changing the way you search. I talk everything in. Does that even make a difference? Because I feel like what happens is then I'm expressing myself, I'm having a much broader conversation. It's more like a brainstorm as opposed to a question. Is that input making any difference? I want to talk to you about prompts. Yeah. Even like the waiter prompt. Does that make a difference? So you're dictating into tragedy or clot or something right now? Oh, yeah. Oh, Gemini. And how many times a day do you find yourself? Yeah. And AI. A lot. Depends on the day on what I'm doing. But at least 10, 15 times. I'm just love it. I'm a big chatter. I don't type very much because I feel like it takes up too much time. So I dictate all my emails. And what do you know? It just comes from that behavior of not wanting to type. It's like I don't text. I don't type. So it's like I talk everything into my phone. Yes. So that's just like my habit. But I find that what happens is I give more background. I give more context to my prompts when I'm doing that. But again, I would never do it if I was typing it. Totally. And also, every single thing that you just said is golden. That is one of the biggest tips that I give to people. Dictation is four times faster than typing. I very rarely am typing these days. So I use dictation tools like auto AI or whisper flow. I use it on my phone. I use it on my desktop, depending on the length of thing that I'm dictating in. If it's a quick, you know, quick shot, maybe two minutes, there are times when I want to prep or walk through a big newsletter or a big web redesign where that recording is 45 minutes long. Wow. Like if I'm running a brand new keynote and I'm giving a talk to 30,000 people and I want to reshape my messaging, you better bet I'm going on a walk in New York. I'm talking to myself like an insane person and I'm walking down the street talking for 45 straight minutes and you're totally right. It's more natural than typing. It's easier to get more content out and it's easier to share your context. So a lot of the systems right now, goal, context and maybe some some details on like what resources you have or whatever. But that context sharing that is literally the core of these crazy agentic systems that are working for you while you sleep, but they need to know who you are. All right. So talk to me about supercharging our prompts because one of the things that I was reading about was this idea of metapromps, right? And this layering and follow up questions. But what you're talking about is much broader. If you're having like a 45 minute conversation. So tell me what are the like the best ways that we can learn to get and make our prompts like really work for us. So if you and I had been having this podcast a couple of years ago, then I would have said you have to come to it almost like you're a senior analyst where like you are laying out the steps, you are specifying the structure of every single thing you need it to do. So if you wanted it to, I don't know, find you the best basketball tickets to a game or something, you would say I need you to find me two seats in the 30th row of the back section and this caught you would give it really strict order of operations. And so your kind of functioning is like very spreadsheety senior analyst. What we saw in the last again year-ish is this movement into more of that COO CEO type prompting where you're really giving it an overall goal that you want to get done. And the context of what's going on, you might want to give it criteria, it's like success criteria. How do I know that I have found the right basketball tickets for you? How will I know that I have solved your business question that you have? You might give it resources. You might say I have three people, each with 20% bandwidth. I have an extra $2,000 that I can allocate to this. It has to get done in the next three months. So you might kind of give it a little bit of a box to work in. And then you might at the end say and here's some blockers that I have or some open questions. But you're way more prompting it. I'm using that in very loose air quotes. You're prompting it like it's a teammate. Like right now this year, it's AI as a teammate. And that means you're really talking to it and saying, if I were talking to a coworker with Amnesia and they just woke up today, what do they need to know about me? Because thankfully, if you're asking a business question, the answer for Emma Greed should and is different. From if I'm asking the exact same question, if people don't give context, I almost want to lean over and be like, do you not think you're special? Like do you not think you're unique and weird and funky? Do you not think you have different problems? Everyone else, you want to bring all those nuances into that context. So when I'm dictating for 45 minutes, maybe I'll have the task up front. And I'm going to say, hey, I want you to think through the keynote that I'm about to give. It has to be 45 minutes or less. Here are five examples of previous keynotes that I've given. Right? That's more context. And I'm going to ramble for the next 30 minutes about things that I want to talk about. The prompt was actually only that first like minute. Totally. The rest is context. Yes. Attachments, images, audio. I am like a context hunter. Like even just looking around your podcast setup, you're like, I'm like, yeah. Just to take any hold of the inputs. I would go to going to get whatever it is that you need now. And everything around us is context, right? The transcript of this podcast, that is context. The design, maybe I take a lot of photos and say, this is the aura of a spire. And this is what she kinda talks about. I take photos of the microphone, I say, how can I deliver the best speech into these types of microphones? I might take a photo of the chair and say, what are the best size heels? Like the height to be able to sit, I don't know, I kind of just-- You do any of this, by the way, now super curious. I know that the color is all the problems that you've put in. So as you're going through your business, just think to yourself, like, meeting transcripts, that's context, every freaking Google doc you've ever written, context, every email you've ever read, sent, social post, all of that is building up context, yes, but kind of like your second brain. And so a lot of these top AI users, they're building up and I'm going to simplify it, but it's a file system of your brain. [MUSIC PLAYING] Have you ever noticed how much better everything runs when your body actually feels supported? From your energy, recovery, and digestion, and everything in between, that is one of the reasons that I started adding armor colostrum into my routine. Armor colostrum is a bioactive whole food that's made from sustainably sourced biovine colostrum. It's packed with over 400 bioactive nutrients that work at a cellular level. Now for me, it's become one of those simple habits that supports a lot of ones. I've noticed smoother recovery after my workout. My gut actually feels more settled, and it helps support my immune health all without adding anything complicated to my routine. You just add the four daily scoops to water or coffee or a smoothie, and it fits so easily into your day. We've worked out a special offer for my audience. You can receive 30% off your first subscription order. Go to armor.grom/aspire or enter aspire to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's a-r-m-r-a.com/aspire. The start with yourself to kick off on April 15th in New York City. Tickets are on sound now at emigree.com. I try to speak to so many people that I work with about how they're using AI, and the number of people that are actually bringing other data points into their searches, actually way less than you think. I think that that's a really important thing, because you are talking about not just giving context in from yourself, in the way that you speak in. You're like, "Okay, then I'm going to bring in past evidence. I'm going to bring in data points. I'm going to bring in some Excel financial information." You're adding so that whatever you get out is going to give you back this really, truly rich information. Also, I'm exhausted. You want me to constantly remind the AI system who I am and what my background is? No, I have one document that says, these are Ali's 2026 goals. Now, I might consistently update that document, maybe once a recorder or something. But now, if I am developing a new productivity system, I have a morning briefing where every single morning, I get a download of my calendar. - Oh, I will. - Yeah. Okay, Ali, we are going to the festival. You just said two things that for everyone listening to a spire, they're just waiting a minute. Morning briefing and you talk about goals. We're coming back there. But before we move on, what I want people to understand is I think that there are just so many, and I'm not going to call them tools, systems, whatever they are right out there, from chat to Gemini, to Groct, to Peplexidae, like, "Oh, you know, it's Claude, on and on and on." People don't know what to use for what. And so when you are thinking about what tool or what platforms to use for each thing, like how are you contextualizing that? And should we all be using more than one thing because something that we all heard is the more you use it, the more I understand to you, the better and more nuanced the information you get out. So how are you thinking about that? - So the more that you use one, I'll just say like master tools. So that's kind of the chat to be taught Gemini. It's like these everything machines that have coding and images and conversation back and forth. And the ability to create spreadsheets and revenue models. All of those large tools, let's just say, large systems can help you and are building up memory on you. So for pretty much everyone, I'm gonna say, pick one master tool that you just like the style of response of. - Right. - And so some people are gonna pick Claude, some people are gonna pick JGBT, et cetera. But just pick one that you can anchor a lot of your experiences around. You're gonna connect it into a lot of other systems. So my Claude, my JGBT, all of those are connected into my Gmail, into my Google Calendar, into my notion. - So you're giving full visibility to those systems, to connect into everything else that you use every day. - So that you recommend that people actually do that. - Assuming that you don't work in extremely high risk. - You're working for MIFI if it's like, you're good. - Yeah, exactly. And if you are, talk to me, 'cause it sounds pretty cool, and I wanna learn more. - I think like, if it's very high risk, be smart about it. But for the most part, we have thousands of really top enterprises making those connections. And they're opting out of data sharing. - So what are the benefits if you attach your email to whatever system it is that you're using for AI the most? - So just like we talked about with context hunting, you want that context to be updated in real time. So the ability for me to say, "Hey, can you go ahead and look at my recent two weeks of email, can you come back with what you think my energy score is?" And based on that, can you figure out whether I should take a vacation next week or four weeks after, and you can look at my upcoming calendar to see how feasible that is? - That's sort of visibility into how your whole business or whole life is happening. That's definitely one. You know, I know a guy that set up an entire app that just gives him, he calls it Family OS. And it just gives him a readout for his, like, kids, his wife, it tells him like all the emails that he got from his school, it uses the shared calendar. And so, but it just puts it all in one place. - Yeah, I do it for the school emails, because I'm famous for not reading school emails. And I tend to sit there on a Sunday and scroll through and try to get the gist of it. So now it's like I bundle together the whole week school emails, and I'm like, tell me anything I need to know. And it's actually amazing, just summarizing that. And I'm like, maybe the school's done that for me. - Can I ask you, do you have like a modality or a cheat code that you use to kind of approach every interaction that you have with AI? - A very important thing that is, like, making me stay humble is that AI's a lot better at coming up with its own prompts and it coming up with its own reasoning steps than I am at telling it. So you asked about meta-prompting. I am very infrequently going to a system and say, do this exact thing because I have done it the last way for 20 years and you will copy me. Just assume that you're wrong. Assume that you're doing something inefficiently. Assume that it's not as good as it could be. And so you're gonna go to these systems and say, listen, here's the general thing I wanna do. Help me help you figure out how to get this done. So that interview mode, that is a very common first step. And I'm 99% of the time right now and maybe it'll change by the time it comes out. I'm using Claude code for 99% of my work. And so just the ability to talk back and forth and then for me to say, okay, go solve that. Show me what it would look like to go solve that. I can in the span of an hour start to get a prototype of whatever it is that solves my problem. Just ask it to be your co-pilot on these problems and really treat it as a first class employee. Like don't treat it as this little thing to hide in the corner. Imagine if it was a supportive mechanism for your entire team, your entire business and put too much responsibility on it. Put too much on us on it. And see what it comes back with. Like really truly try and break it. That is such an interesting way to even think about it. And I never thought about that before. This is the one thing in your life that you can totally overload without any sense of guilt, any worry. You're like, this is just a resource that is at your disposal and there's no limit essentially. Totally. And there are, you know, risk scenarios, right? It could, there's data privacy concerns. So obviously you want to be safe on that. You could run out of your tokens and it'll say, sorry, you know, come back in four hours when I have more brain power. It could give you maybe the wrong answer, not the best answer, but I am pushing back going, are you sure that's the right answer? I even, this is going to get really weird. But if I solved it with one AI and I get this perfect outcome and I go, oh, this is the plan. This is how I'm going to do my daily competitive research. Anyone would normally just launch that thing. Yeah, you're going to go over to the other one. I'm going to go to a second. I do the same thing. Hey, can you judge the hell out of this? Yeah. I want to say, can you check it for this? Can you check it for this? And I will have these AI systems battle to make sure that they've been tested to improve. 100%. I do exactly the same thing. I think especially when you are feeding information in like financial information or data to then look at like multiple systems and see what they give you back is really interesting, actually. And I, so I do a lot of revenue modeling. I do a lot of forecasting. You can say, I want you to, this is now going to be very advanced. But again, every single person can do this. You can say spin up for different agents. You're just literally in natural language. There's no coding. Hey, spin up for agents. I want you to build out this model. In one method, I want you to go and research and find best in class for McKinsey. In the second one, I want you to find best in class, Mr. Beast. Third, I want you to find best in class. I'm agreed. And fourth, I just want you to pretend like you're my mom and you're scared of, you know, high risk and do it from that ankle. Me, your mom, Mr. Basin McKenzie. I mean, it's a, it's a monthly crew. Let's go. And then you have these four answers. And again, you couldn't do that five years ago because we just didn't have the time. And now I can run any single, highly critical business task by like 10 different personalities. And in this span of 20 minutes, make it 2x, 5x more robust. So like I'm all for productivity. I think productivity is great. I think we didn't have productivity. No one would be using this thing, right? But creating higher quality work, work that's been seen by more second set of eyes. Like that is where AI really shines. I feel that we've all had that moment where we've seen something or we've read something or we hear something that we just know is AI generated and we immediately kind of get this feeling like it really bothers people. And I wonder what you think about that. That's a super intentional thought. I love that. I too feel icky when I read it. And I'll say I feel icky here in really human situations. So if I'm talking to a therapist, let's say, and they're very clearly reading off their screen, wow, comma, alley, comma. That sounds really difficult. The landscape of what you're dealing with. You're like, come on. I mean, it was one so disturbing circulating online the other day, the priest that was very clearly giving this sermon and then they read out the end of the problem. It's not just a sermon. It's a reinvention. Would you like another version? I was like, no, shoot it and say that. You know, that just is horrifying, right? People are using it for wedding vows. People are using it for things that I wouldn't. And so I think it's fine using it for things like, I don't know, Google ads or something that just feels lower risk. And by the way, there might be some businesses that say, I want to show authentically, no matter what. But people are using AI to, you know, transcribe their podcast to be able to turn it into helpful transcripts. They're turning their newsletters into audio overviews. There's a lot of accessibility gains from it. But if the actual core writing, if the first draft was written by AI, yeah, it's low quality. The best thing that people can do is take their own first pass and then have AI do some of the review, do some of the poking and prodding and review it from five different points of view and try and, you know, twist it and figure out what's going on. But we are best off if we are still the first draft. I couldn't agree with you more. I think that there is some stuff that you just can't AI your way to, right? Like having a taste level. Like there's so much within the world of podcasting that we use AI tools for. Yeah. Okay. It's like the guess of who I want to speak to, right? There has to be a taste level and there has to be an energy and there has to be a connection and a level of interest. And that stuff is all innately human. Like you can't fake that piece of it. And also you would have a way worse interview if you were hitting me with AI generated questions. Yes. People think about just the one-off moment of like, I wrote my email faster and I got it out. But they kind of forget about the domino effect. Like, maybe you'll lose trust with one of your customers. Maybe that person that was going to share your newsletter to 10 family members isn't going to. And so people are so caught up in that first short term gain that they're missing the long term play of like what it means to build a business in the AI age. And is that all just very personal like how are you drawing lines? How do you speak to both individuals and companies about where you draw that line? So everyone has their own point of view. And it's definitely spectrum for me writing your wedding vows with AI. I would say no, unless you're getting married to an AI then they probably love it. I think every single business has their own corporate values. And so if you are an entrepreneur like really take a step back without AI and start to ask yourself like what are the core values of my business and then think about how does that interact with or overlap with or not overlap with AI. The way that we thought about this in our businesses is that there is just it's almost like the other way around as opposed to thinking about what AI should do. We think about what should AI not do. What are the places and the spaces that we need to protect whether that's creative or it's specific to product design or it's elements of marketing but it's like these are places where human touch just can't be replicated and then everything else should be AI. That's a really fantastic approach. The extra layer that I want to add on and again I work with Fortune 500 companies, private financial institutions, startups, what I want to also advocate for is to review your rules. There might be a reason that you didn't use it. It might be because AI performed too poorly on that task and you come back six months later or a year later and suddenly AI would have been a massive help in that space. You have to maintain flexibility. You have to have people on your team that are willing to have that open mind. You know one thing that we don't use it for is like writing client thank yous. It still would feel very weird to have AI write that. I want to talk to you a bit about trust because for so many people the question is not necessarily about the appetite for usage is the information I'm getting correct. Can I trust this information? So how do you think about that right now? A couple things. One we talked about having multiple AIs weigh in on things. And I know that sounds like you're multiplying the errors but actually you are reducing it as long as they're not in the same room. Right. Because you're looking for the similarities. Exactly. The difference is and you're actually saying okay what is my experience telling you what is your. So I worked at IBM. I worked at Amazon. When I was at IBM and we had to have people label images to say you know what's in this image, what's in this image. What we learned was that to make it go a lot faster instead of checking every single image. You could just give that same image to five different people. And if four out of the five agreed, right just like boom those were going on. Those were the captures like where's the bicycle? Yes. People agree you should feel pretty confident that that is you know, directly accurate. Start using it with things that you know very, very well. To get a sense of that bullshit. And anchor it to grounded data. Like give it access to the internet, give it context documents. That's always going to improve it. The majority of errors that people show me where they go see Ali. I knew it. AI doesn't know anything. I opened it up and I go it didn't browse the internet. You're asking me a question about like the Mario movie and it's giving you you know answers based on data from 2024. Of course, it's just making stuff up. That is one. And then the last tip is going back to it and saying no, I found an error. Even if you didn't find anything and just saying no, a lot of this is wrong. Go and read through it again. And just kind of poking and pruning and not settling for a first go is also going to be super helpful. But you're right. The hallucination rate is still you know, it's very low. It's under 1%. But it's enough that on very high risk things, I am poking and pruning to you have to. What do you think is the most common way that you say really smart people misuse AI? Misuse AI? Yeah. Who almost like the biggest mistakes that you see people make when they're trying to use AI really productively. Definitely using it for the first draft of things tends to lead to over reliance. I think that is great advice by the way. Having the first draft be you and something that you came up with and then getting AI to critique and go back and make it better. That's just to me a no brainer. It should be the starting point of everything. The number of executives who are making so much money, they come to me and they ask about their kids and they're worried about their high school kid just using chat, you see your call to whatever to change just cheating right their essay. There was a study out of the MIT done that basically if you had AI write your essay, even if you then wrote your own essay, the originality, the creativity, the brain activity that second time around. Even though you are only using your own brain and fingers was worse. If those two were switched, if you worked on your own, you're in your own world and saying, "Oh, this is the perfect essay." And then you wrote with AI. It was completely flopped. Brain activity went up, creativity went up, and it was even better than not using AI at all. Wow. I mean, that's just all you need to hear. Yeah. Over reliance is one of the biggest fears. If I'm talking to anyone under 30, right? People who maybe haven't yet developed their really deep expertise in a field like someone who has worked for 10, 20, 30 years in a field. Over reliance might lead to being less valuable in the workforce. So you kind of. People just need to rewind that and listen again because that is such an important starting point because none of us want to lose what it is that makes us great conversationist or what inspires our learning. We don't want to dumb ourselves down. We want to use this tool to lift ourselves up. And so that starting point is really, really, really important. So for people that run businesses, whether it's like a company is a side household creative practice, whatever it is, I want to ask you, like, what's the sort of highest impact starting point? If you're starting something you're like, you know, in the early throws of a business, what should people be thinking about? The first thing that I'm going to say to do, which does not have immediate value, but is a lot of like measure twice cut 800 times is you have to write up a context doc on your business. Maybe you have AI interview you, whatever, but I want an entire document. Mine is about 500 lines. All right, talk to me. What is a context doc? What are we doing? Just like a description. So for you, you might have one on skims. You might have one on a spire. You might have one on Good American. It's coming in the concept doc. It literally is like, here's what we do. This is what we sell. This is where we sell it. This is what we price it at. These are our customers. What are you? AI? That is literally what it is. It's like, here's how business and here's how it works. Things that are not written down, things that are not. not codified anywhere. So maybe you're pricing, maybe what you sell all over your SKUs, those are on your website. Give me the behind the scenes what I don't know. Like tell me your struggles, hey, we've tried to hire five different growth marketing people. Here's why it didn't work. Here's why my team is 100 people instead of 20. Whatever the thing is, you want to give things that are not written down. Or else I would just say go on to the SKIM's website and pull stuff down. So things like, here's what I've struggled with. Or I've tried three times to run a conference. And here's why it didn't go well. Or I've always wanted to expand into Asia. But here's the three things that are holding me back. Things that you've never written down, things that if you were talking to an executive coach, and they pulled out, they unearthed these questions of like the deep, seeded feelings. What would that say? That's how these docs get to be pretty long. So again, 500 lines. You can have 500 lines. Yeah. But AI wrote the vast majority. I was on my tread desk, talking, and just like, lullaby. I'm talking. Having enough of 45 minute conversation with AI. I feel like there's that through line in your life. You're doing a lot of long conversations. Yeah. That is what people are not maybe doing. Do you think like we're giving like really pisses or us prompts. And you are thinking they're giving the full kit and the bootle background, everything that's in your head, everything that happened, why it happened, full context. What is creating a document? You're feeding that to AI and then you're using that background to solve all the problems. There are times where I don't do that, right? If it's like write me a baseline NDA and between me, Johnny Smith. But if it is make me a PowerPoint that is going to impress every VC that I walk in front of, and I give it three sentences that says I'm one of the best AI advisors in the world go, are you joking me? What do you think it's going to do? There was a research paper done that basically said, the people who are really good at their job without AI are not necessarily the same ones who are good at their job with AI. Oh, and they studied these two groups of people and they figured out that one thing separates the two. AI theory of mind. So can you picture yourself in the AI's shoes? Can you picture yourself in there and go, what would the AI agent need if it were trying to make the VC deck? If it were trying to make an entire financial statement, make an entire hiring and growth plan for the next year. How amazing is that to think about? So you could be sitting there right now in a job where you're struggling, where you're not the number one golden employee of the company, and you could have this complete turnaround because you figure out how to utilize AI properly. The playbook is being rewritten. If you are someone that has been overlooked, if you are someone who for the last three promotions, someone's like, you're good, but sometimes you pay too much attention to all the other departments around you. You don't go deep enough. Oh my God. A generalist with AI on that, like, there's so much that can be done. So, so, so much. God, I feel like that must just be so satisfying for people to hear because I think the prevailing wisdom that's out there right now is that AI is scary and AI is coming to get you. And if you don't know it, you're never going to know it and you're saying the absolute opposite. This is a tool that can supercharge even if you are not somebody who's like really thriving in your professional life right now. I want to both say the scary things and say, yes, it can amplify you and the playbook. This is how this is how I'm wired. Whether you're an optimist or a pessimist or whatever, the fact that you're afraid is not the same thing as feeling stuck, right? Taking one small step in the direction, like that is still movement. And so I, I meet a lot of people who are afraid and I go, that doesn't mean you can't do something about it. Learning how to use these tools, again, figuring out a cloud code codex sort of thing, scheduling one thing to run automatically. Like, I'm happy to walk you through just like a little bit of an AI first work week. That's to give me an AI first work week. So in all of these tools, including, by the way, and just normal chat, or cloud, code work, you can schedule things to happen. So let's say that every single Monday, you're on a hunt or your team is on a hunt trying to figure out what new podcast guests should we have. And so maybe the first step is looking at things that are trending and then within that, experts that are in those fields. So if you knew that AI was trending, you would look up experts, you would find whoever. Yeah, maybe. Perfect. That sort of thing, why do you have to kick that off? Why are you the first domino? You know it's going to happen every single Monday morning. That should run without you. So I have my morning briefing scheduled for me every single morning at 7am. And again, going back to these context docs, I don't just say summarize my emails because who cares? Like I could have a human do that for me. The reason I want AI involved in this, because I want to take in a million things of context that a human just wouldn't have time for. So I'm not just summarizing my emails. I'm summarizing my emails and maybe pre drafting some replies. I'm pulling in my calendar and it's giving me a sentence description of everyone I'm about to meet with or it's pre making some of the decks that I have to present. Or because I feel like I have no social life in New York, it's finding me things to do in New York that night that I can book last minute tickets for that are aligned with the types of things that I want to do. And then even after that, it is going through all these things that are working on my list. And it has the 2026 goals of what I want to get done. And every single day, it's giving me two things to say, you got to hit your weekly goal of this and this. And it's like a double check of alignment. The theme for my year is alignment. I want to make sure that the actions that I'm taking are aligned to the type of impact that I want to make on this world. I want to teach a billion people how to use AI. If I am stuck, responding to emails about support tickets, am I doing the thing that I need to do? And so this AI is calling me out. But it can only do that because it's connected to these systems. It has that goal document. And I could have done this on my own, but I am reallocating my deep intelligence and expertise and trust authenticity into client conversations, into one-on-one conversations instead of summarizing my own calendar. This episode is sponsored by Macy's. Now, one of the easiest ways to refresh your wardrobe is by starting with a great pair of jeans because when the denim fits well, the rest of the outfit will always come together completely effortlessly. And that's why Good American is a great option when you're thinking about a seasonal upgrade. From day one, we focused on creating jeans that actually cater to women's bodies, prioritized fit, comfort and styles that you're wearing over and over. You can shop Good American at Macy's. 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I constantly talk to people about going after your goals and writing them down and then saying no to everything that isn't getting you closer to your goals, but then there is the struggle of prioritisation. Everything else that's happening in your life, a bad hair day like, am I green? Like whatever it might be. What you're talking about here is so incredible because what you're doing is taking all of the thinking piece out of it. I have to do this. Okay, the prioritisation, you're actually delegating so much of the decision making so that you're freeing your brain and you're freeing your energy to actually focus in on the things that are going to move the needle, the things that are going to get you closer to your goals. It's also, I'm a people pleaser. I'm sure you should have an entire episode just dedicated to your review and your organisations, me and my lack of people pleasing me to take over the world. I think at my core I want to help everyone. It's a lovely trait, by the way. It's better to be a nice person. It's a good place. But I think what AI gives me the second look into is really calling into question whether helping everyone means helping people in the right way. Yeah, and you getting to this of reaching a billion people, because if every time you please somebody, you could actually see what it subtracts from what you're trying to do. - Exactly. - You would think about it differently, but you don't have that. And so the AI is actually helping you be so much better at getting to what it is that you wanted it. - What's this like maintenance system? And I find myself staying more on track, because I'm not delegating large thinking. I'm delegating these many moments so that my brain can be reallocated to the best work that I can do. - And almost like, and I hate to kind of be the spiritual person that is in the room, but it's like, those menial small tasks are not the highest and best use of your task. So you are actually elevating your entire self by being able to put your goals right at the top of your list and then actually get to them. - And I also wanna call it a lot of people, and I've met them, are really proud of the work that they're able to complete on what I would think of as, you know, task that AI can help with. Their work identity is based on these tasks. They go, "I'm the best person at reviewing our blog posts or whatever the thing is. I'm the best person there is." And it's really hard to come to terms with the fact that AI might be better at that task now. And so like, yes, I agree with every single thing we've said for the last hour and a half whatever, but I still wanna acknowledge that there are gonna be people where it takes them several months to walk away from some of those tasks, 'cause you're gonna be very good at that task. You've probably done that task for years. Everyone praises you for being great at that task, and I'm still telling you to walk away from that task. - Every time I've left something that AI has been really good at, I've kind of opened up new pathways and new things for me and grown and stretched myself and become more confident and more resilient because as humans, like human nature is that we have to progress, right? And so if you stay in that place of comfort for too long, you end up getting stuck. And I think that I speak to so many people who are frankly really good at their jobs, but they're bored, they're not challenged. And so I would try to reframe that and think about how you can supercharge the job that you're in and almost like shift what it is that you're gonna into in a new direction, right? There's so many different ways that you can think about this. And as an optimist, I would be like, let's go 10, like let's go in and see what you can shift and see what you can change because that's gonna be really life altering. And I think in the best ways. - Yeah. - Because like the professional part of this, if you think about growth as a human, there's some really good stuff here. - Yes, some really good stuff here. - I talked to like one of the best exec coaches in the world, best seller, whatever. And I said, what is the number one thing that you keep coming back to in all these conversations? And they basically said that for all of these execs that they advise and help with, that the vast majority of them leave their roles or pivot out of their roles too late. That when they feel like they are finally ready, they look back on it two years later, they go, "Well, I do it six months later." - Yeah, I wasted it. - Yeah, I wasted the rest of it. - And that when you leave at the right time, it feels like you left too early. And only in hindsight, do you go, oh my God, I needed that discomfort. - Yeah. - I would do the same thing with AI. If you feel like right now is a little too early to pivot your role, a little too early, to walk away from that task, again, not 80% early, but 30% early, that means it's the right time. - It's the right time. - Let's talk about something important because I feel like there's such a growing concern and a conversation about women being left behind when it comes to the conversation in AI. I'd really like to understand what are you seeing and what does that gap look like? - We talked about this a little earlier, which is around gatekeeping. And gatekeeping is a powerful drug and a lot of people are using it in AI. And you realize that when you use some of these platforms and systems and you build out a chief of staff that's working on your behalf and flagging things to you, you realize that you are gaining 10x on that task. Why would you tell anyone about that if you are gaining all of that value? - So what I'm seeing a lot, especially right now, is uneven leverage because these early adopters are largely men because a lot of them are engineers, a lot of them come out of the-- - They are not open enough. - They are not open enough. - Right, sorry, I just said. Like, women have higher-- These are scientific studies. In 75 countries studied, women outperformed men on verbal ability in all 75. Women go to therapy more than men, journal more than men, which helps with that goal-oriented stuff that we were talking about. Higher empathy than men. Again, might help with some of that how to work back and forth with AI. Women have the skillsets in spades, especially because of how we work with AI agents today. But these systems are being adopted by largely technical young men. - How do they? - And because of the power of leverage and gatekeeping as a result, you might just not see these stories being told because they're getting done in private group texts. And so you kind of have to acknowledge that there are going to be people who are gonna keep all of their cards close to their chest and that they're disincentivized to share this information with you and that you have to work twice as hard to grab and find that information. It's one of the reasons that I post online all the time. - No, and I see that from you. I was all the time and this isn't-- - But you tell me, this isn't just a reserve of AI, right? That's a bigger broader business conversation and you could take the whole of tech. You could take politics at large and really apply the same type of thoughts to it. But I want to talk about women specifically and take of AI. Like what's at stake if women don't change the behavior and become more comfortable with using AI? So stats wise, there's eight billion people in the world, something like one billion-ish have adopted AI at all. Out of that, maybe a smaller percent are actually paying for it. And a tiny, tiny percent, less than one-one thousandth of the world are using some of these agentic tools like Cloud Code or Codex. So it's somewhere between like two and 10 million people. Out of a base of eight billion. - Wow. - A lot of people look at that number and they go, "Oh, I have so much time. It's only 0.1%, fine. I'm good." What I want to share with the world, having seen the inside of companies that are leveraging this, the inside of solar-prinar shops that are leveraging this, is that the power that you get out of using that type of tool is the highest amount of leverage I've ever seen in my entire life compared to any other tech release ever. So you can look at these numbers and go, "Oh, I've plenty of time." Or you can look at and say, "Oh my God, these 10 million are going to lap us before we even realize what's happening." - The businesses of tomorrow that are being made by one person, five people, that needs to be started today. And they're being started with these tools that again, only a couple million people are even using. - Another being started by women as equally as they're being started by them. - No, absolutely not. - Now women adopt AI 25% less than men. - Indy 25%? - Yeah. - You think that that could have been bigger? - I think it's bigger. I think, listen, I only have like a tiny data pool right over there. A few hundred people that work here and I am my team will tell you. - Pretty consistent in asking who's using what? Oh, they're using, but let's be honest, it's like when I get the list from the girls, it's shorter than the list of things that are coming from the boys. - Do you also think the quality is different or is it just by number? - No, I think it's just about adoption rate. It's just about a level of in-listen. And I think a lot of this is happening socially. - Definitely. - If you're a guy in your group chats, in your text chains, in your DMs, you're getting sent stuff, your bros are sharing it and it's just a different level of socialization. And for women, perhaps that's not happening so much. And so they're like another one of the million reasons that I wanted you on today. Because I think there is so much stuff here that women are going to be able to grasp onto. So long as we have the conversation, we share the information, not gatekeeping any information. And you do that so beautifully because I read your news that comes on LinkedIn. And honestly, largely that's where I'm getting like, "You know, I'm gonna try this." I know that was happening. It will prompt me to read something else that you've linked out to. It's just that encouragement to be on it. And I guess beyond systemic change, my question is, if you're a woman right now, and you're thinking about like, how do I close the gaps for myself? What's your suggestion? Like, what should we do today? First, you're reminding me that in my inbox, I am getting DMs. And it's like a very common template, right? Where people are going, "My name is XYZ. I am so and so years old. Usually it's like older than 30." Somewhere between like 35 and 35. I've been using AI every single day. And everyone around me thinks that I am crazy. I agree with you on the socialization, but I have a theory that a lot of people listening to this are using AI a lot, but they're surrounded by people who have no idea what's happening. You might be better off instead of finding the people that you went to high school with or college with. You might be better off going to like an AI meetup and finding people who are in this space where they go, "Oh, I understand. We're an act two. I understand. We're an act three. I understand what is needed from business professionals in this moment and are willing to dive in." So just thinking about your circle, you should always surround yourself with people that you want to be more like. What is that beautiful quote that I love? You become the average of the people you surround yourself with. So it's like, "Check out us around you." By the way, let's go a little weird at that. You are the average of the five people around you. Maybe two of those people are AI. Like maybe you decide. - Oh, one second. You just check it out one thing. - I said it. - Wait a minute, you like just switch a bitch out. I'm burning in an agent. Okay, really? - But maybe you're, like I'm mostly against AI companions and whatever, but like they're amazing. - We didn't even get sparring partners. [BLANK_AUDIO] sparring partner as like when we get down to this like you're really thinking about like this from a time point of You right it's like if you're gonna surround yourself with people then you need to surround yourself and do it now I think like AI is making me feel weird about time and then I think like time is a construct and no longer exists But anyways, I think that urgency exists particularly as it means learning. Yeah, you kind of just touched on it I feel like there are so many people that use AI for therapy or for companionship. What do you actually make of that? I really want everyone to be able to get the help that they need and I'm disappointed in our healthcare system That not everyone has access to that so on the one hand I'm like very pro people getting help that they need you also have states like New York who are working to ban People asking questions about health into these systems I think we're at a stage where people are still learning what is right what is wrong? My bigger worry is with children I am sure very loudly against you know AI toys Without any sort of parent supervision We're in just like the muddy muck of it. I personally really get concerned about AI as a therapist But AI as a coach. Yeah, I think is a totally different thing So I think it's a really fine line. What about when you know because you just mentioned kids when we think about AI being so like Not you know accepted in schools like my kids are at school where AI is absolutely not allowed They're young obviously they're not of kind of test taking age But what are your thoughts on that not being an accessible A moment for learning in schools for the most part. I think it's a very helpful tool To bring into the classroom when it makes sense high school age Yeah, definitely at my school. I see people cheating on all of their tests and essays with AI So my biggest thing that I haven't yet seen from teachers at large is Changing the way that they test students because AI is there So maybe you have you know essays being written by AI and then you have Your actual students edit and talk about how it's bad or how it sounds like AI Maybe you do more oral exams. Maybe you do more group projects But there are a lot of ways to test our children and make sure that they're progressing and growing That make more sense in the AI age That's one of the biggest changes that I want to have happen and then again Just having that constant thread of am I teaching over reliance or am I allowing over reliance or have I given people AI access as a system of support Education in general is always a bit behind enterprise. So they're still catching up a bit parents Unfortunately have a lot of burden right now. I would have healthy conversations with your children I would not advocate for AI as a companion. I would make sure that they are putting down their phone and talking to friends Human friends, but parents are gonna have a tough two to five years How do you think about that in terms of your own AI consumption? Like because you do this for a living you've been in it for years You arguably have an unbelievable understanding of where it's all going where it's headed How do you balance that and make sure that you're being healthy that you're doing other things that is that even a concern of yours? It is definitely a concern there are some nights like this is now with doesn't this is a therapy session There are nights where I am using cloud code and I get so into the thing that I'm building and Just the magic of me actually solving my problems. I will all of a sudden look at the clock and it's 5.30 in the morning We're in the unhealthy stage of Ali using Thanks to being honest about that because you go to an in a rabbit hole with these things. Oh, yeah And and I go to AI meetups and I'm not alone. It's not like I'm a weirdo all these people are suffering from sleep issues And I think it's a variety of things just AI is not helping so one is You might find yourself Addicted to what you are capable of doing and that can be a really Self reinforcing thing that you just want to keep going going I think one of the best things that you can do because again There's always more that you can do always more that you can build Always hours that you can take out of your sleep one of the best things you can do is just carve out time to be non-tech So I have a group of friends in AI. There's about seven of us like I guess 11 with partners and We're renting out a home in a city that none of us live in and it is a tech-free weekend And we have like an arts and crafts thing and like a performance hour I advocate for people proactively blocking this time out to learn AI Yeah, but also proactively blocking out time and breaks some of my most creative AI solutions or thoughts or business ideas come from the off times and you have to give your brain sort of some of these Waves or else you're gonna just completely burn out It's 2026 and if you're still paying rent without bill It might be time to rethink that rent is one of the biggest expenses most people have every month and Additionally, it just clears your account and that's it Built is the loyalty program for renters that rewards you for your biggest monthly expense rent with bill Every rent payment earns you points that can be redeemed towards flights hotels lift rides Amazon dot Con purchases and more and here's what's new Built members can now earn points on mortgage payments as well So whether you rent or own you can get rewarded wherever you live and unlock benefits with more than 45,000 restaurants Fitness studios pharmacies and neighborhood partners if it were me I'd redeem my points towards travel through the built travel portal or even everyday things like lift rides It's practical and it adds up over time. 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Paying rent is better with built and now only in a home can be better with built too And rewards and get something back wherever you live join the loyalty program for renters at join built dot com slash Emma That's J-O-I-N-B-I-L-T dot com slash Emma make sure to use our URL so they know we sent you This episode is in partnership with Airbnb with the FIFA World Cup coming to Los Angeles And it's amazing to think about how many people will be traveling from around the world to experience it in person Moments like that are when cities really come alive and it also means a lot of visitors are looking for places to stay while they're in town For people who live in a host city it might be a great time to consider hosting your home on Airbnb while you're away It's a way to welcome travelers into your city And it could also mean a little extra income while they're there enjoying everything the moment has to offer If you've ever thought about hosting this summer is a great time as we welcome FIFA World Cup fans Your home might be worth more than you think find out how much at Airbnb dot com slash host So before we wrap a quick reminder that start with yourself is available for pre-order and tickets for the live shows are available now Starting April 15th we're coming to New York Los Angeles San Francisco Chicago DC Boston Atlanta and London Visit emigree dot com for tickets and fall tour details. I can not wait I love that you have this like giant mission of you know like reaching a billion people and turning this idea of like Anxiety into agency will you talk a little bit more about that and just tell me what that type of progress actually looks like so a lot of people have anxiety related to AI And a lot of people have anxiety really do all other parts of their life What I have found is that one of the best solves for anxiety related to AI is actually testing the tool like when I really dig into it with people that have anxiety on it It's because they haven't yet tested at the level. It's it's like a fear of unknown more than anything and that once they actually test these systems They go, oh my god, I can't do this part of my job at all like what was I worried about and so I want people to Start to reduce anxiety by having at least exposure to it and at least deciding that you hate the tool or you don't want to use the tool After that test. That's a big one second is definitely having that kind of group Effort toward it and not feeling like you are alone That is another big common source of anxiety and then I think the third one is this like identity Work that people are having to go through. I've spoken with tons of people educated millions those are the three core sources of anxiety. I owe chime very very true Yeah, that's what you hear from people. Yeah, which is like I'm a seller Now AI is making calls or I'm a marketer, but now AI is managing a an 80 country campaign at scale And a lot of people are having to look inside and go like what is my role in this future and the Complex answer is that that answer is still being figured out But the bigger answer and why I talk about agency is because the answer is being figured out and it's being decided by people who are involved Beautiful. Yeah, it's like you have to be in it to win it It's like don't ignore it because that's not going to be helpful Yes, when you think about just your biggest challenges and your biggest concerns right now. What are they as it relates to like my individual work Or just as I'm looking at a little bit of both really. Oh, there are so many challenges I think like education is still a massive challenge Especially as these new types of systems come out all of this has kind of happened in the last couple months So like how do you manage a Multi agent file system with self-learning capability that is just a hard thing to bring into the world Also cost right now is starting to become an issue and the way that I think about money and the way that I think about time has Literally changed since end of 2022 So I used to think of what is my hourly rate or ah this is how I should calculate the cost of software and and the cost of my time. And we had ways of measuring these things over the course of decades, right? What is the worth of your hour, like your lawyer? Or what is the worth of this tool? And I think one of the biggest challenges and this relates to education relates to all these other smaller pieces is what is the value of time in the AI age? Because if you're, oh, a floyer. How do you charge for it? Exactly. Oh yeah. No one listening should be charging by the hour anymore. Like that, that should be obvious. That should be dead. I mean, that's not good. Yeah. Yeah, that's just like, charge by outcome, charge by retainer, charge by outcome. Yeah. Charge by project, actually. Like, I hope my lawyer's not listening. (laughing) The shift that's happening, so that's on the time side. And on the money side, people are not looking at these tools going, oh, but it's $20 a month. And I don't know, or $200 a month, or $10,000 a month. They're looking at it compared to the outcome and the value that these things can generate. That's why I'm talking about that productivity is kind of a trap. Like it's obviously important, but the idea that you can have AI help you create a brand new business line. Like, I'll give you this as an enterprise example. They say, but IKEA, they released an AI chatbot that was able to answer 47% of their questions and they did not need the humans that they had before. They didn't need all of those humans. So 8,500 customer support agents were no longer needed in the customer support role. But they had 8,500 people that were crazy smart on the IKEA catalog, which is insane, as you know. And they had always wanted to create an interior design business line. So they re-skilled them into interior designers that were AI supported. And so AI is coaching them in the process, AI is helping generate these new interior designs and hey, put this tool over here and this table over here. This new business line generated $1.4 billion in the first year. - That's crazy. - If you hadn't thought about time and money in the new age way, in the outcome and growth and top line type way, you would have never started that business line. Time and money, the way that your parents taught you about it, the way that your accountant's probably thinking about it, it is completely different than it was five years ago. - Wow, that's, yeah, I mean, that's insane. - Yeah, Einstein was right. - Yeah, literally, literally. When you think about your legacy, you personally, and what you're put here to uniquely do, what does that mean to you and what does that look like right now? - It's something I'm always kind of thinking about, always tweaking a little. The North Star is definitely bringing up non-technical, non-coders business professionals into this age because I think the best work of humanity is done when everyone's involved, not just amazing PhDs in science or incredible software engineers. Like, we need everyone. And so I wanna get this into the hands of, a billion business professionals. I just, I see the future of humanity as net better if I can do that. I have had two near death experiences and just like every time that I have come out of that, I'm like, this is the time to double down. Like, I am dedicating my life to this, even if it means losing a little bit of sleep, even if it means sweating in a podcast room. Like, even if it means all these things, I have to do it because that is why I'm still alive. - I mean, how have we got to all of this time that you just meant to, what happened to you? Like, what were we talking about there? What happened to you? - I was in a, this sounds so weird to be casual about it, but it's like my way of, you know, dealing with it. I was in one terrorist attack. I was in the Boston Marathon bombing and then I was in a hotel shooting about a year ago. - Oh my goodness. - But look at me now. - All right, we're gonna move to rapid fire. - Okay. - Really quickly. - What is the one AI tool that you personally can't live without? - Whisper Flow because I'm dictating non-stop. Typing makes me feel like I am a cave woman. - What's the last thing you asked AI to do or answer? - I was on a walk this morning and I did ask it to like tell me what tree it was in front of me, but then I asked weird questions and I was like, how many people do you think in all of eternity have climbed trees? And just like getting to talk to the, - She is a curious happy, I think. - My head is like that. - The view of the numbers, lots of circulating around someone. - I can literally see it now. - So it's just an outlet for my way of seeing it now. - If AI didn't exist, what career would you have pursued? - Game show host. (laughs) - Is that weird? - I'm obsessed with game show networks. - No, no, no, no. - See it actually, like you would have bit down a great show. - I love trivia, I love the crosswords. My dad was in the crossword championships, like we are a game show. - I feel like it would be a really complicated game show though. Like do you know what I mean? - What is a book that changed your perspective? - Crucial conversations, thinking fast and slow. - It's a good one. - Atomic habits. - It's probably my top three. - You're wonderful. - This was absolutely amazing and I just am so grateful for the work that you're doing actually. I think it's really, really important. And I think that, yeah, I just, I find you so, I feel like everyone that listens to this podcast needs to follow you, needs to read your newsletter, needs to keep up with what you're saying and what you're teaching. You really are a wonderful teacher. Like really, really first class. - Thank you. - Thank you, thank you darling. - Thank you for that human compliment. - There you go. (laughs) - Thanks for joining me on the Aspire podcast for more strategies on how to build the life of your dreams. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. (upbeat music) If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend who will be so grateful. Aspire with Emigried is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host Emigried. Executive producer, Ashley McShen, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey, Leore Stennis, Asha Saluja, Lauren Lagraso, producer, KK Sublime. Steven Key is our senior producer, sound design and engineering by Bill Schultz. Angela Paluso is our booker, Original Music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, and Carlos Delgado, social media by Olivia Homan, Catherine Baill. Special thanks to Britney Smith, Sydney Ford, my team's at the lead company and WME. Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hillary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchinson Rose, Tim Meekall, Sean Cherry, and Lauren Vieira. If you have questions for me, you can DM me at Aspire with Emigried. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E. That's Aspire ASP-I-R-E with Emigried. Or you can submit a question to me on my website, emigried.me. So before we wrap, a quick reminder that start with yourself is available for pre-order and tickets for the live shows are available now. Starting April 15th, we're coming to New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, DC, Boston, Atlanta, and London. Visit emigried.com for tickets and full tour details. I cannot wait.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. AI represents a fundamental shift, not just in automation but in amplifying human capabilities like learning, communication, and execution.
  2. The critical divide will be between those who learn to use AI tools and those who do not, with non-adoption now becoming detrimental to careers and businesses.
  3. Effective AI use requires shifting from treating it as a search engine or simple tool to viewing it as a collaborative "teammate" for reinventing processes.
  4. Success with AI involves habit formation, experimentation, and providing rich context and goals in interactions, often through dictation for more natural, detailed prompts.
  5. A major barrier is the misconception that AI is only for technical experts, whereas in reality, accessible tools allow non-technical professionals to gain significant advantages.

Summary:

The discussion centers on the transformative impact of artificial intelligence, emphasizing that its core value lies in amplification—enhancing how quickly we learn, communicate, and execute ideas—rather than mere automation. A key warning is that failing to adopt AI is now becoming a significant disadvantage for both careers and businesses, creating a divide between active users and passive observers. " This involves forming habits of regular use, experimenting without fear, and providing extensive context and clear goals when interacting with AI systems, such as through dictation for more natural and detailed prompts.

A major misconception is that AI is only for technical experts, but accessible tools enable non-technical professionals to achieve substantial productivity and strategic gains by adopting a mindset of curiosity and continuous learning.

FAQs

AI is a computer system designed to mimic tasks that humans can do, ranging from simple actions like cleaning with a robot vacuum to complex ones like driving a car or generating text.

Not adopting AI can put you at a disadvantage in your career or business, as it's rapidly becoming essential for productivity and innovation. The gap is widening between those who use AI and those who don't.

Many believe AI is only for technical experts, but it's accessible to non-technical professionals. Tools are designed to be user-friendly, and experimentation can quickly reveal their ease of use.

Treat AI as a teammate by sharing your goals and context, not just asking isolated questions. This shift allows AI to help reinvent processes and achieve outcomes more effectively.

Use dictation for faster, more natural input, provide detailed context about yourself and your goals, and frame prompts as if you're talking to a coworker. This helps AI understand your unique needs.

Schedule dedicated time, even if it's just occasional blocks, to play with AI tools. Embrace curiosity and a willingness to learn, as this investment can lead to significant personal and professional gains.

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