Jim (00:00)
Welcome to the show everybody.

Jeremy (00:02)
Jim. Jeremy opened my toolbox this morning very, very early and asked the screwdriver why it looks so upset. It said I screwed up. But the hammer chimed in, cutting the screwdriver off, saying, yeah, well, I'm beat. At which point, the tape measure stretched out. Guys, let's just keep this short. OK, you're the tape measure. You are the tape measure.

Jim (00:03)
Yes.

Speaking of it

short, we've had a very strict guideline here. Can't you prompt the robot to just like tighten up these jokes? Because like they're very long. They're very complex jokes. My memory, my ADHD does not allow me to. Always.

Jeremy (00:41)
All you have to remember is you are the tape measure.

Jim (00:51)
Alright, so here we are. Enjoying life again here in this glorious city. What? I mean? Yeah, so ⁓ I'm gonna actually jump into something a lot of order here because I like to be out of order. And that's this AI sandbox bill. Yeah, right. So I won't get into Ted Cruz because no, not doing that today.

Jeremy (00:59)
There's so much to...

But it's

it's there are really important things to play here that will affect small business and you and I talk all the time about how this is an arms race and you know,

Jim (01:26)
No, it's a fucking arms race is what it is. It's between the US and China primarily and the escalation that's coming from this bill in general. What was just done with that big beautiful bill ⁓ was one thing, but this is an even further escalation. I mean, there are so many laws that are basically being

postponed or put on hiatus all kinds of things that won't allow for any very little to no regulation in this space over the next two years which sounds insane because it's already unregulated and now they're saying we want to deregulate it even further and that's just mainly because the US is so incredibly petrified of what China is doing and rightfully so let's be honest but

Jeremy (02:08)
Still, just wanna, I know that this isn't even the big article of the day. But I do wanna just say, we have been ⁓ talking about this since day one, in here is the opportunity, right? And it's not just my inner stoic talking that the obstacle is the way, this is the way. with small business embracing the opportunities that come with AI, look, there are gonna be so many people using AI for all kinds of different reasons and all kinds of ways.

have this great opportunity as a small business to do good in the world and to help you get ahead.

Jim (02:44)
don't think that the bill is intended to do good in the world. I think it's intended to deregulate, open up the floodgates and allow people and businesses, especially big corporations to do ⁓ crazy things that absolutely can have incredible opportunity but also will be used for evil without question.

Jeremy (02:49)
I think is new to

That actually

is a good segue to the first ⁓ order of the day, was ⁓ the California and at least the United States in Europe, we have GDPR in America, California.

Jim (03:09)
I'm out of order.

GDPR

is I know related to safety and security and privacy.

Jeremy (03:21)
It is, is. But that's

in Europe. Correct. So in America, California typically leads the way.

Jim (03:29)
followed

by New York sometimes.

Jeremy (03:31)
It's important, it's not just that California is a leader, it's that because a lot of the tech companies are in California, what happens with regulation in California around technology, that's why the rest of the country feels those regulations. So the fact that California is talking about a new law that will regulate AI disclosures, there is a real opportunity here ⁓ for you to understand how that's going to impact you as a small

Jim (03:53)
Trump's

that the Republicans decide that they're not going to allow any states then now we're in a states rights fight and quite frankly interesting to see how the Supreme Court will come down on some of these things when these states like more progressive states like California, New York, New Jersey, etc. start to really clamp down a little bit maybe not even aggressively but just put in some basic safety measures to make sure people and businesses are protected and the problem is there's gonna be a giant battle now with the federal government who's just gonna tell them no.

Jeremy (04:21)
End of the episode,

we will share a tool and approach. I'm not sure what it is, but we'll share a framework for how you can, regardless of what the regulation is, how you can really document for yourself, for your customers, you know, for your own businesses.

Jim (04:36)
health and that's the big takeaway for these two little little items and that's that look things are changing legally and from a security and privacy perspective the federal and state government are impacting other countries are impacting and you have to be prepared because much like 20 30 years 30 years ago when the internet was coming out there were it was like the wild west for a while but the difference now is the government at the federal level is basically saying we want it to be the wild west for at least a couple more years and probably longer I mean in some cases 10 years right that's a hell of a run

So that means this isn't a fad everybody gang if you're thinking it's a fad. It's not this is real This is serious get focused in and get ready for it

Jeremy (05:15)
We're New Yorkers, so we'll call it the Wild East.

Jim (05:19)
New Jersey. I'm a New Jersey. Yes, New Jersey and proud New Jersey. And I mean, I'm from southern New Jersey. So I don't really count that but that's fine.

Jeremy (05:27)
There's a tee up to the

third article, I think is ⁓ frankly, it's just a regurgitation of everything we've been talking about on this podcast since episode one.

Jim (05:37)
The

headlines on advertising. That's the right. We don't.

Jeremy (05:39)
But I think

the underpinnings of that is that the real opportunity here is for small businesses to embrace AI tools in order to get ahead.

Jim (05:50)
Yeah, but they used it with the pitch of you know, and the hook of 87 % and this is this is you know a an Amazon focus type thing but if they use it with a pitch related to Related to advertising being the hook and it

Jeremy (06:05)
Amazon

ads specifically, right? The headline, small SMB, small businesses predict growth from AI advertising tools. Right?

Jim (06:13)
I mean, that's

shocking. Well, we say it's shocking, but what's interesting is a year ago, I'd say they wouldn't have even correlated it or connected it. Today they are. So that is a big difference. ⁓ I'm going to say even my most creative, ⁓ tech savvy friends in business didn't necessarily see it year, year and a half ago, where today, no offense.

Jeremy (06:34)
What you trying to say,

Jim (06:36)
But today, no, you saw it, you saw it. I mean, I had to shine the light a little bit, but you saw it. Then you went and you woke up, you got your head up. You're like, wait, yeah, this is the thing. No, but for advertising in particular. ⁓

The best and brightest saw it a year ago, but that was a very narrow group. And now, you know, to see 87 % even of just regular business owners starting to understand, yeah. And what they mean with AI, they mean right now, most of that 87 % means, yeah, I can just tell Chachi, Chachi PT to make me a flyer or a graphic. That's where they mean. And so it's a little deceiving because that poll, that study, not valid.

Jeremy (07:09)
I

do think that there are a lot of bullets in here that, at least my takeaway is from the article, where it talks about how there's a lot of different tools out there. So when they're saying 87%, they're saying that you can use the inline AI headline generator within the advertising tool, or you can use the AI artwork generator inside Canva, or all these little mic.

Jim (07:36)
or

opus ⁓

Jeremy (07:37)
It's really important

to recognize those are all AI. And if you're not used to using those in your workflow, it can be overwhelming. one of the things, right, or you don't know what's, you know, what is accurate to your business or not. If you're using these tools sort of blindly and you're not checking the work, sometimes they can create false representations or other problems.

Jim (07:47)
don't even know about them.

Fruit

is what a lot of people are already doing but the problem is it's spitting out AI slop and and the issue with that is ⁓ the algorithm algorithms the algorithms those two those as well will will throttle that back ⁓ with that with that kind of AI slop so whether it's in search or

Jeremy (08:06)
Yes.

Jim (08:23)
search in some of these, you know, and some of these, even these tools like chat, CPT or perplexity or traditional search, like with Google, when you look at that, ⁓ it's gonna, it's gonna kick it out. Right. And so there's a big, big move afoot about thinking through what will this do if we keep generating more, we have AI generating more AI slop and everyone is now a content creator and everyone pumps out all this AI slop in books and other things. And now an advertising and so on. And they're amplifying it and doing it in hyper speed video.

audio written word, whatever. And now all of a sudden it's it's being the AI tools are being trained on this slop that's on the internet mostly. And so we're training AI on it. It's slop that it created. That's right. It's like it's like if right. It's like if you write something that's like ⁓ in the middle of the night you wake up and you scribble out like what your thoughts were and they're completely disjointed the next morning. That's basically what AI slop is.

Jeremy (09:07)
self reflexive slop.

So I do think that there are there are risks and it would be great for you to take us through some of those risks and considerations. But I also just want to say in general that when you look at these tools critically it is important to you know to bring your your own filters know what you want to achieve so part of filtering through the slop is to say yeah it can help me but it doesn't have to replace me right common theme that we have here so AI is really about augmenting whatever your special

skills are not replacing those skills so that way you can kind of blindly move forward. That's not helpful.

Jim (09:55)
There's a sense of

overwhelm that comes over people, right? There's a sense of... To Right, exactly, right? That's my joke. And it could be, yeah. it could be... Come on. Please. And it wasn't funny when you led in with it and I say you, It's still funny now. ⁓ The overload is real. Yeah. The overwhelm is real. The confusion is certainly real. We deal with that every day with people. And...

Jeremy (09:59)
Tool overload.

Jim (10:24)
Again, the best steps are to take little steps, incremental, great advice, bite sized pieces. But the risk is that you get overwhelmed because you try to do it all and automate every part of your life. And I may or may not have tried to do that early on. And the thing is, and occasionally I still try to do it where I think like, we have the magic wand, Jeremy, isn't this, this will do everything. We tested out a tool the other day. ⁓

Jeremy (10:47)
I feel

like we do this at least like once or twice a week.

Jim (10:50)
where it's like, okay,

yeah, let's look into this, let's get into that. And then it's like, these two sucked and they were way overhyped. That's the other concern is, right? Quality, right? Versus.

Jeremy (10:59)
which the reality.

Which we're gonna touch on. AI is starting to run this risk of every new app is a parity promise. It's saying it's gonna be transformative. This is the big one. And so avoid hypey things like that. And we'll talk more about that in second. We did just talk about ⁓ two and three of our four big risks of concern, quality versus brand voice. So make sure that you're double checking what the AI is putting out for you so you don't get slopped.

ethical use, you know, we're talking about the California laws and regulation, but you have a chance to also be your own filter to make sure that you're not misleading the public that, know, that really it's an opportunity if positioned correctly ⁓ to do good and to help your brand ⁓ and data privacy, right? This one we haven't really talked about, we don't need to go deep because we have whole episodes on this, but ensuring that your customer data, if you're feeding it into AI, make sure that you're doing it in a way which, you know, manages customer data.

or better yet, excludes customer data, because you don't want to put sensitive information out there.

Jim (12:03)
Yeah, I tend to

you want to touch on any any last little bits? That's what it means. Hit it with the tools. That's more your lane. Not really a me thing unless it's something I really use and let's geek. Yeah, let's not geek out too much though as we wrap.

Jeremy (12:13)
Let's touch on the tooltip.

Let's go tech.

AI safety checklist, right?

The way in which we started talking about checklists, particularly around safety and governance is ⁓ for customer facing transparency. But I actually think the real opportunity here, you mentioned the Wild West before the wild, you know, insert business name here. You don't want all of your employees or even yourself. You don't want to spin up all these technologies. Forget that you have them out there. Forget about the subscription costs for a second, which do pile up if you're trying them. But ⁓

just simply the data access. Typically when you're using AI tools, you're connecting them with an API, an application programming interface, right? And that's...

Jim (13:07)
It's a connector. a way to connect to things you already use or do other software.

Jeremy (13:11)
to disparate

software as being able to talk to another, that use an API for that. Now you've given this rando software access to other parts of your infrastructure. If you don't remember that.

Jim (13:22)
With

agentic AI you don't even have to create those connectors you just kind of click the soon and it'll be easier and easier because people are realizing that's that's what

Jeremy (13:26)
Sometimes, sometimes you do, but ⁓

So building a central repository where you can document and that should be Google Doc. It doesn't have to be like anything fancy. Spin up a quick spreadsheet, make a list of a column. So what's the software? What's the URL? How are you using it? Why are you using it? Right? So that way you're not creating duplicative software is but also if you choose to move to something else, you can sunset the first one. It'll help you manage subscription costs. It'll make sure that you're on top of your data and it'll also give you a real opportunity to present to regulators.

should that ever become an issue one day.

Jim (14:03)
So

this tool that you know, it isn't really a tool. It's basically just a basic spreadsheet. This is as simple as we can make it for you instead of a handwritten note. had a conversation with somebody about that yesterday. He's a little older but entrepreneur their whole life in every industry. And they said, yeah, realized that like, I don't have to be duplicative now. I don't need to type a separate notes or write up something separate and then retype it. can just talk it. I can just transcribe it. I could dump it into a drive. And I'm like, exactly. I'm like, just cut out all those extra steps.

Corral this information whatever it is whether it's ⁓ data or you know numbers or like you said links whatever it might be or just information get it corralled into one two three spots so it's easy to Digest by these these AI tools so that it starts to streamline your operation It's like a first basic step It really is something that we're gonna be rolling out that ties into soon that kind of piggybacks off of something we're about to roll out very quickly and and that is the

the step-by-step guide of what to do next.

Jeremy (15:05)
And I was very deliberate when I said a Google Doc, like a Google Sheet. It doesn't have to be that, but the reason why I said that versus like an Evernote Doc or something, or a Notepad, is because it needs to be collaborative. If you are not the only person in your company, others need to contribute what they're doing in AI as well, so that way you have a repository that...

Jim (15:28)
to a drive

that has multiple docs for multiple people who and what they're using and how they're using it. So it starts to create some clarity for you and your organization, even if it's a smaller organization, if it's a husband and wife operation or,

Jeremy (15:41)
I would say especially

if it's a husband and wife offering.

Jim (15:44)
Everyone uses things differently right even within the apps or technology or software programs you're using You're gonna use them differently for different purposes within your organization and you need to remember that and that's where Just throw in AI tools at things and saying AI is gonna transform my life The answer is no the first step is organizing yourself a little bit each day and get a digital presence and a digital brain for yourself a digital second brain for yourself to build that out so that you know what you're doing and how you're

and then how other people in your organization are. It's the first basic. Every single person or business that we've interacted with, whether they became clients or not. ⁓

Jeremy (16:16)
those incremental steps you were just talking about.

Jim (16:25)
has had the same steps, whether they're a big company or a small company, whether they're just getting started out. You have to start to get like, it's called, I call it digital housekeeping. You have to get your house in order a little bit first before you have company come over. And AI is the company. AI is the company that's coming over. It's actually right at the door. It's ringing the doorbell. really, it might even be sitting in the living room at this point. So you need to scurry and clean up the rest of the house and get the kids involved and the family involved and everybody in the company involved to get ready for the company that's coming over. Because AI is here.

ain't leaving for

Jeremy (16:57)
and it brings guests and customers.