Jeremy (00:00)
We are on a path called Choose Your Own Adventure today. Today in a very special AI joke, Jim gets to choose. Does Jim want a joke about Walmart or a joke about AI CFOs? Walmart's new shopping chatbot tried to upsell me on philosophy books. Guess I figured it can replace my job, it might as well help me find meaning in life too.
Jim (00:12)
Walmart.
is
I didn't even hear all of it. was too long. don't know. was enough. That's it. Wasn't funny.
Jeremy (00:26)
one more time.
And it's not going to get funnier.
Jim (00:39)
I didn't hear it. wasn't paying attention. I was in the zone. How is it we're two in a row with touching on Walmart? How did that happen? We're supposed to be talking about small businesses.
Jeremy (00:41)
That's because you were, yeah.
room. Podbot is obsessed.
Jim (00:54)
I
so. I might be obsessed with that. think Walmart's like infusing their well in chat GPT and other tools they're infusing themselves. So that's kind of else we're not mainly talking about that but there was an article CBS had a piece about and was covered widely actually that Walmart's rolling out. ⁓
Jeremy (01:01)
about the deal.
Jim (01:10)
chat GPT. So why is that relevant? It's relevant. It's just by fluidly now and there. But that comes back to something we talked about a bit ago and that was how small businesses can now position themselves there too. They just need to kind of like get themselves ready. So again, when we see Walmart saying the CEO a couple of weeks ago saying every job is going to be transformed and ⁓
you know, by AI ⁓ and completely reshaped not just in their companies, but beyond. And now we see Walmart, same slow to move company now, it's slow to move on tech, now infusing themselves in OpenAI and JTPT. Like if they're doing it, as slow as they are to move, they don't want to get stuck again like they did the last time with the internet and online shopping and how Amazon kicked their tails.
You own a small business, especially if you're in econ, but in anything, you don't get yourself positioned well here. You're thinking that your business model worked before. It didn't, probably didn't, but now it's not gonna work at all.
Jeremy (02:12)
I think that the... I tend to get...
analytical, sort of self-critical, look at my own patterns, yes, look at my own patterns of behavior as sort of like a first tell, which is, know, it's never good to be like the end of one in a survey or litmus Yeah, I'm not, but I do think that we all do this, it's a starting point. I look at my own behavior on chat CPT, right? I mean, you showed me early on, like, you can talk to this thing, but since then, I've been using it sort of multimodal and, you
One of the things that's emerged recently for me is I'm cognizant of how much I use it for comparative analysis. And the fact that I'm asking it to not just price shop, but feature shop. Because anybody who like I geek out on tech, you know this about me, I like the tech toys. But the tech toys perhaps are more nuanced than almost any other type of, maybe cars are more nuanced. But there are certain things where like.
Features matter, not just the volume of features, but how they fit with your lifestyle and what you want to do. So it's natural, if I'm shopping and I'm asking for comparative analysis and I find the right thing, what's next? Click buy. So the fact that you can now do this and as patterns of behavior get more...
complicated but also more integrated with AI, it is really important for small businesses to think about revealing those characteristics, revealing the ways in which your product and service are going to connect with customers through comparative analysis.
Jim (03:43)
There's
ways to do that and that's the long and short of it and you want to make sure we want to make sure that you know that as a business owner again if Walmart's doing it and the big companies are doing it and you're not getting yourself listed and not just listed and and ⁓ high up with chat tp2 responses, but also now available for actual
Jeremy (04:02)
We're not going to cover it in today's podcast, but it's important just to know that you can submit your products and services and make sure that you get covered.
Jim (04:05)
We can get deeper into that.
There's
another piece here with business insider, one of our favorites by the way, businesses. ⁓ Yeah, we're not going to get too deep in this, but there's basically a financial tech company that fintech company that is called affinity that is ⁓ creating and got in a round of funding or to create AI CFO agents. And this is
Jeremy (04:18)
I'm more on the futurism one next but
I'm
surprised you didn't want that joke wanted now.
Jim (04:37)
And I want an affinity for, no? Is there something there? And a CFO. Fair enough.
And a and a I CFO but the key here is that it's for small medium sized businesses, which is brilliant Yeah, I will say I love the concept. I know that this is gonna stick or whatever. It's worth it don't know enough about the company But what I can tell you is this a chief financial officer for a small business owner is priceless because most don't know how to do cash flow or projections ⁓ And financial statements and so for small medium sized businesses, it's brilliant I love it because they can't afford a real CFO or even a fractional chief financial officer
At most they're doing
Jeremy (05:14)
Hold on a second. What is a fractional? Just for those.
Jim (05:16)
Okay, yeah, right. So it would
be so it basically be where you can get a piece. Holy crap. I get new attack. That was good. No. So what a fractional CFO would be like where you go to an outside contractor or company or person and you say, Hey, I want to pay you for some of your time when I have issues or concerns or ideas to bounce it off you not like what a CPA you know,
Jeremy (05:20)
Wait a second.
like an on-demand
financial advisor for your company.
Jim (05:39)
Yeah,
kind of. like someone who has insights that can help you strategically and to kind of go through programmatically and say, okay, here are some things you could do to implement yourself. So yes,
Jeremy (05:48)
So the AICFO
will basically be that.
Jim (05:51)
and on call 24 seven and know your data, right? Which is really important and all these other things. So that was cool. I kind of liked that because I liked that space.
Jeremy (05:59)
of the CFOs now the AI is coming for you.
Jim (06:02)
And
they are and they are this is what I keep saying up to all that what people call the C-suite like the top level people in big corporations They are coming for them. The best of the best are gonna survive. Okay, the big one that we're getting into today that we're gonna spend the meat of the podcast on is opening I claiming That chat GPT can already know obviously these claims are made but the chat GPT can already replace many work tasks Yeah now I tend to agree that it can many is fair. I think many is okay, right?
to that point. I can buy into that. And I think at the highest level and best use with the most knowledgeable people, that's probably true. It can. Is it going to be perfect? No. And many is not all or 90%. Many is probably more than half. Right? Do I think that a lot of business tasks, not maybe some of the stuff we do, but a lot of what most people do day to day and kind of their traditional white collar jobs? Yeah, I do. I think a lot of that can be and even some some lower end ⁓ jobs like
call centers and so on, but even just those day-to-day tasks. Yes, and beyond that, with agentic AI built in now to jet you into, they're not wrong that many, I think it went from...
Some to many, it's not at most yet, and I believe that these tasks though are accelerating, but most people in business and most workers, employees aren't getting to many yet. They're at some right now, right? Would we agree to that, that some tasks not many by most business owners and by most employees can be replaced right now?
Jeremy (07:36)
So you're saying this is I think
Jim (07:38)
Futurism
Art.
Jeremy (07:39)
Well, this is
a really important point of distinction. So it said jobs and and others, you all of these leadership folks in AI are saying jobs. Well, you're saying you're saying you're saying tasks. And I think that's an important distinction. So I've been thinking a lot about week over week. You and I get together, we have this podcast, we talk about what's what's happening. We talk about how the days of your traditional jobs that we've known in the workforce for the last 50, 100 years.
Jim (07:53)
big difference.
Jeremy (08:09)
whatever, those days are marked. And I've been really thinking about is it that AI is going to replace you or is it that AI is going to augment you? And this is really the crux of the whole thing. I think that it depends upon how you frame your job. Hear me out. I know where you want to go with this. Old, old, stay on target.
Jim (08:23)
Some people will replace in their jobs.
going unleash, but I'm going pause.
Jeremy (08:37)
What I believe is at least for the short term and we can't know where things are going to net out in even the year. But for right now, I think the opportunity, right? That's me. think the opportunity here is to look at the augmentation of what you do, not by trying to hold on to the tasks you've done, but like Sam and all the other leaders in AI are talking about, if you're going for a degree right now, make sure you're building in critical thought. If you are a small business owner and you think your job is to
push paper clips, it's not. It's to think critically about those tasks around pushing. Be the organizing principle behind your work.
Jim (09:16)
What do think the percentage of humanity is in this country in particular people that think critically imagine the imagine the percentages right now today based on years?
Jeremy (09:28)
I'm not taking that bait, but I will say not 100%. But I'm not going to take that bait.
Jim (09:32)
It's a low percentage. I don't know what it is either. But like there's a lot of people that could ask a I and that's not to be insulting to people's intellect. It's that it's our academic structure in this country and our job training. Come on parenting. Right. And technology have taken our brains and turned them into.
Jeremy (09:40)
The essential skill.
I'm insulted. I'm a fine parent, sir.
Listen, just to stay on point here, I think that the critical analysis, critical thought, what we're talking about, really the core of it, is what is essential in your job, in your business. So yes, we can agree that tasks
are gonna be consumed by AI. You don't need to worry about that anymore. If you're a graphic designer, are you gonna be designing anymore or is it more important for you to get a background in art history and what good design is so that way you can shepherd the AI in doing design better? And I think that's where, as an example.
Jim (10:30)
could
be trained on on the on images which they are and on all the art history books ever created in the world and all the articles and all the discussions that have ever been had you're not going to be better than they are at that now the finessing of it the final touches yes
Jeremy (10:33)
I'm talking about where we are today.
No,
think even the prompting and the tee up, that's where you're. I disagree. Oh my God, I'm telling you. OK, it's OK. If I'm so wrong, then why is literally everybody talking about AI slop? No, no, that's it. Oh, come on now.
Jim (10:58)
You're allowed to be wrong. It's alright.
Well, hang on.
Because most of that and actually I saw a recent piece that we didn't cover to we're not covering today and that is where they went back and the memory banks they looked at all of the ⁓ blogs basically writings, you know, and whatever posts from the last three years or four years. And then trend and they found that the the AI generated stuff peaked out around in 2024. It actually in 25 plateaued and kind of is like holding its own. Why?
because people realize that that either that because every.
Every moron with a phone that had free chat GPT downloaded was like, Oh, I'm to be great. This is, I'm going to generate a million pieces of content and then quickly realized that it was going nowhere because that is where a dangerous weapon or an incredible tool can be used. Not well. So you're not wrong on that. I agree with that. That's back to critical thinking again. Do we think that people are going to wake up today and become critical thinkers though? But I'm sorry, I don't agree. I, they're going to, so unfortunately they're going to be doomed and they're going to get out of jobs basically.
Jeremy (12:14)
I love it how you just said you're not wrong instead of saying you're right.
We're talking about A.I. Slop, thank you very much.
Jim (12:27)
Okay, let's talk it let's let's just clip through real fast and because I know you want to get to your tool tip
Jeremy (12:33)
I think that the key takeaways with this piece are, for me anyway, that again, and this is the broken record part for this podcast, but I think it's important to just reiterate, look for those things that you can automate, right? That AI can do the tasks that you want, especially as you mentioned with agentic ⁓ componentry, the ability to create autonomous.
chat agents that can perform these routine tasks for you on their own multi-step routine tasks on their own and the fact that that's now not hard to do it's baked into the interface you know but
Jim (13:06)
A
lot of people aren't using it yet.
Jeremy (13:07)
but you should be. And that's where you're gonna get the power and early adopters are gonna see the cost savings. I don't think if you go into, as a small business owner, if you go into it going, my god, I'm gonna save 80 % of the way. That's not the right attitude. The right attitude is go in and start playing. What can I do, forget about the ROI for a second, and just say what can I do that's going to give me a competitive advantage? What can I do that's gonna save me 10 minutes a day because I can just automate it?
Jim (13:34)
This is where it gets tricky, right? And this is where having some knowledge is helpful and being open-minded and that's the lack of infrastructure that a lot of these small business owners just they don't have it. They don't have infrastructure. They don't have anyone to turn to. They don't even know where to start. They're paralyzed and snapping out of that is hard because as you know inflation and costs keep going up and the world at large gets more confusing and hard to understand while this is all going on. That's where unfortunately, I think a lot of
businesses are going to just.
Jeremy (14:05)
So aha moment this is where you can channel both your inner Jim and your inner Jeremy you You have said before to me can't small business owners. Just ask chachi PT or ask Claude or ask Gemini How would I go about doing this and then your inner Jeremy is be playful with it? If you don't know it's it's okay not to know ask it and then just see where it goes play with the technology
Jim (14:10)
innovation.
What
if you ask it really poorly and then you get AI slop back? That's the problem.
Jeremy (14:36)
Are you
just proving my point now? How dare you? That's my point.
Jim (14:39)
My
name is Fred. I have a business help me save my business using AI. No, like that's not don't don't do that. That's and yeah, you're gonna get garbage back and you and I'm not gonna say you deserve it. Was I about to say you deserve it? that's not gonna be on the mood. I might be in a dark mood today, but like you deserve it. You do because if you're gonna ask a stupid question, you're get a stupid answer and yeah on some
Jeremy (14:53)
Ow. Do you need a hug? You need a hug.
Well, this is where business is gonna close. We talk about AI not having, AI does not have empathy and even when it mimics empathy, it's not empathy. This is where a real human being is gonna give you a hug. I would gladly hug you, I'm a
Jim (15:16)
Not me. wouldn't write.
Jeremy (15:26)
tool tip today. Speaking of competition and knowing.
Jim (15:25)
All right, what's the tool?
Jeremy (15:34)
how you're doing in the world. ⁓ Tooltip today is about an instant competitor snapshot. And I love this idea. First of all, in five minutes, you can ask ⁓ your AI companion whatever flavor of AI, LLM you want to subscribe to. You can get a real answer about what your competitors are doing. ⁓ also you can do this iteratively. And that's really where the magic comes in.
Jim (15:58)
Real people don't talk like that. So robot reprogram yourself and spin it. What is iteratively? No one who uses words like that. Me. I know. Okay. Well, we get your critical thinker robot. Critical think. Right. But like, what does that mean? Like, what does that mean to a regular person who has no idea?
Jeremy (16:03)
That's insulting. Don't take that.
need more than a hug
today, sir. And I don't think I'm the one to help you.
Jim (16:21)
I'll take another amino acid, my banana, get my blood sugar in order, and then I'll get out of this tomb that we're in, which by the way, a little warm today. A little warm in here.
Jeremy (16:30)
but they turn the sound off. so ⁓ iteratively means we're gonna focus on creating a competitive report, right? How are your competitors doing versus you? How are their products stacking up against yours? What are they doing marketing-wise to try and beat you so that way you can respond accordingly? Now, that's cool, but if you do this iteratively, right, once a week, once a month, at intervals.
Jim (16:56)
That's
Jeremy (16:57)
You stop. ⁓ What that will do is it will tell you how things are trending. You'll know what they're doing over time. You'll know what you're doing over time. And you'll see comparatively who's winning so that way you can adjust. you're not, just because you're doing something week over week, then applying effort doesn't mean that you're making improvements over time. looking at metrics is critical.
Jim (17:20)
the gym every
week and I feel like I'm going backwards right now.
Jeremy (17:23)
I think you're
doing fantastically well. I see. Congratulations.
Jim (17:28)
There's
a dark cloud over me. Maybe that's What's the take?
Jeremy (17:30)
Need two hugs. so first,
so ⁓ the the briefs, the steps in brief, which will put the details later. So you're going to pick your target, right? Choose a competitor, you're going to ask a prompt, I'm not going to go into that right now, because I'll just paste it into the episode notes and people can can copy.
Jim (17:49)
start doing little exercises
like this like separately too.
Jeremy (17:51)
That's
the plan, yeah. So I will definitely go in a deeper dive. But ⁓ what's really important is you want to extract key points. So product focus, pricing model, whatever marketing angle your competitors are doing. And do this for yourself too. Make the prompt about your business so that way it really is comparing apples to apples, or bananas to bananas. ⁓ And strengths and weaknesses. So just looking at, even if all you did was these five pillars,
As comparison, that's going to reveal a ton of insights. Save these and then week over week or month over month, interval, whatever pacing you want to do in these reports, you can look back and say, I see how we got here because I saw the trend happening a month or two ago. So you start doing these and then you can share them with your team and it becomes fantastic intel for making projective business decisions. Yeah.