Jeremy (00:01)
I asked my employees where they see the business in five years. They said, hopefully still open.

Jim (00:09)
I have no idea why that's even in this episode. What is the point?

Jeremy (00:15)
It's not funny, it's not on topic, it's nothing. And what's weird is all, I went like five rounds with. ⁓

Jim (00:23)
next lab.

So we switched around some things last minute.

Jeremy (00:34)
to

apologize about that terrible cold open joke. AI is not getting better.

Jim (00:40)
released of of chat GBT. ⁓ Okay, so we switched around some stuff last minute because ⁓ our pod bot that kind of helps us generate everything and kind of runs our podcast. There was one article I was like, that's kind of lame. And then I found out that it was not the bots fault. He had already overridden it.

Jeremy (01:03)
I think your words to me were, God, nobody's gonna get this. It's completely robotic. It was completely handwritten by yours.

Jim (01:08)
is crafted

by one part robot.

Jeremy (01:13)
Okay, so this is exciting to me Comet perplexities browser Well, you called it you're I am off the border so Comet is going free so perplexity is released a

Jim (01:25)
I know nothing about browser

perplexity perplexities like chat GPT but for people that are really

Jeremy (01:32)
And when we think about

the lanes where these different LLMs seem to work best, I think, and they probably wouldn't like me saying this, but I think Perplexity's lane is Google killer for search.

Jim (01:45)
I know, but more recently, well, maybe we'll cover this, but basically they're going to now perplexity is now since they scrape the internet, basically, they're they're not getting dinged because even the things that are coded to not allow them to scrape it, guess what? They're. Exactly. But anyway, go ahead. So they may kill themselves. Maybe.

Jeremy (01:58)
Yeah, they're ignoring the robots

What's cool about this is not that they released a browser, who cares, there's million browsers, but the fact that it has superpowers. So they have created and simplified, what we keep talking about, agentic AI, the ability to create tasks that the browser can do. So for example,

in your search results within Perplexity, if you want it to go and conduct more research on what it synthesizes is the exact answer. You don't have to open up a new tab. It will go and find additional clarification for you right in context. That's cool by itself. But how is this better for business owners? You can create shortcuts. Shortcuts are cool because

You can tell it the things that, I mean we talk about this all the time, the routine crap that you don't wanna do every day. You can create little automations that all you have to do is just slash and whatever you named it. So slash, actually I made a whole bunch of notes here. I brainstormed five things I think it can do right out of the gate. That would help me. Yeah, stay on mic, no roll.

Jim (03:08)
I'm like, that's the repetitive. I have to constantly remind you. Yes.

Jeremy (03:12)
Meeting

prep, right? We have meetings, we talk with clients. I could just say slash meeting prep and it will grab today's calendar.

Jim (03:19)
not meeting crap. Okay. ⁓

Jeremy (03:21)
Meeting crap.

So it will pull together calendar events, attach background notes. It will look across all of your apps that you have connected and it will pull all that together into a single note that you can then use to prepare for your.

Jim (03:36)
You

lost anyone that could possibly be listening and I'm going to tell you why. my god. it's so many steps ahead of where everyone is right now and that doesn't sound Okay, how about this?

Jeremy (03:44)
How about this real simple simple agent for you? All you have to do is type competitor today or make it whatever you want to write Yeah, and it will go and pull together all of the all of the things that your competitors have done in the last day week month whatever social web Anything that that has been talked about or put

Jim (04:00)
on socials. ⁓

Jeremy (04:07)
And you can say, me five, give me 10 volts, whatever you want to program as your standard dossier on your competitors, you don't have to go and do that research.

Jim (04:14)
I'd like

that. right. Yeah, we had we had an early potential client that that wanted something like that did that manually that now they could do

Jeremy (04:22)
I

mean, I am on Flipboard every day just looking at news, right? But imagine instead of browsing the news, I'm looking at, you know, how am I, how well am I positioned versus what my next nearest competitors are doing? Thank you.

Jim (04:34)
Don't

read the news. First of all, is no news anymore. news. ⁓

Jeremy (04:40)
So why

don't you hit me with your piece? Five things. Because everyone loves a listicle.

Jim (04:44)
So five that quickly like another Hit

me exactly ⁓ and your and we'll have it in the show notes But your piece was in digital trends, which we all read so aggressively ⁓ I have a piece from Forbes which again Do any of these things actually print anymore I don't know that there anything's printed anymore, right? Everything's just digital now. Is that correct? I've never been to last time I've been to a newsstand, you know, like a no is that they still exist

Jeremy (04:59)
He doesn't mean it. Do they?

New stands? No, they were replaced by hot dog stands on the corner. Halal meats anytime you want.

Jim (05:14)
thing, right?

Okay,

there's Forbes article that's just five things you should never ⁓ outsource to AI. And I thought this was kind of topical just because there's so much talk about what's

Jeremy (05:32)
As you go, want you to say how many of these things have you outsourced?

Jim (05:35)
I absolutely

have outsourced a lot. As I read through I'm like, now I've done that. The first one is your voice, just who you are, your brand, your personality. We've done that, but a little bit. We're trying to be authentic.

Jeremy (05:39)
and

And we both done that. Little bit.

We have done that repeatedly.

I think that's the real difference. We aren't just blindly doing this. Actually, Sora 2, they're encouraging people to make AI clones of themselves. That's one of the first things. And I know we're gonna talk about this more next week, but that I think is actually not adding value. But what you've done is an attempt to add real value. You've infused your AI clones.

Jim (06:16)
personality

with

Jeremy (06:17)
Real

knowledge your real experiences so that way when you are offering it to the world you're offering it with some special sauce

Jim (06:24)
Correct. And the special sauce is the key. You have to still be yourself. So I have a lot of big, like, digital, internal digital footprint, and we do, we both do, and so, and others. And so we can fold that into that. ⁓ Pretty big. Decisions. So like strategic decisions. So now I'm going to actually push back on this one and say, I don't really agree. We're not going to get too deep into any of them because that's not our main thing we're covering. And that's basically that, guess what?

Jeremy (06:37)
How is it?

Jim (06:53)
decision making by a lot of people sucks, especially small business owners. make uninformed decisions that aren't data based or analytic. They do it by gut and feel. And a lot of times they're just wrong.

Jeremy (07:04)
Here's where I want the listener to go back pause go back three episodes or four whatever it was and listen to our episode on critical thinking because I actually don't think that it's about decisions I think it's about making decisions with the degree of critical analysis So if you're if you're if you're just saying, you know, you know, should I have babies? I'm gonna like

Jim (07:22)
five locations

with no plan and no SOPs. No, don't do that. First questions you should ask yourself critically are, what's the infrastructure that's in place for this? And are we even managing our current three or four operations and locations properly?

Jeremy (07:28)
Okay.

There's a ton of really great and available research that with data, with real facts that says you are arguably better with AI when you bring your critical thinking.

Jim (07:50)
Next one is connections. ⁓ Now I disagree. fact, want to know core beliefs for sure you don't want to write you don't want to outsource that that's just understood. But yes, that's a good one to cover connections. I thought this one was interesting because this one I agree that value should not be outsourced to AI to tell you what your values are. However, gut checking yourself on

Jeremy (07:54)
You about values.

And thumb it all.

I appreciate

that.

Jim (08:18)
has actual benefit because it's kind of like, well, it's going to shade it because it's more based on you and your history, but we won't get into that.

Connections I disagree. think keeping connections for someone who tends to drift to other things or other people unintentionally like I do this has helped me now I don't I think I have tools in place and systems in place now that helped me stay on top of it to keep those connections going so I actually think that this one's not necessarily right but yeah, I mean you can't especially worse the connection itself deep and meaningful and no you relationships

Jeremy (08:48)
No.

But if you have a

CRM that's AI powered, that's really gonna be quite helpful.

Jim (08:55)
it's for

business or personal because I've tended to now re shift my mind to realize that like all my stuff's intertwined, whether I like it or not. So and then the last one is ⁓ is creative risks. So bold, crazy thoughts that come into my head every minute of every day and you you and others have to usually figure that out. Well, okay, well, what wait, is that what we're doing now? Those shouldn't probably be outsourced because that could be really scary, just as scary as me just throwing shit at the wall and hoping that stuff sticks, right?

you

Jeremy (09:25)
Yeah,

I think that maybe. No, I think that I think OK, this is this has been my thought since I skimmed this this article. All of these things are actually really great with AI. Don't outsource these things entirely. Well, that's that's what argument all along.

Jim (09:28)
you think he's outsourcing that might be better?

And I think really that's what leads us right into actually our primary thing that we're going to talk about today, which is Walmart CEO of the other day that just came out and said Doug Macmillan. ⁓ Walmart, course, like ever present. Right. Everybody knows Walmart.

much in major cities, but in most of the most of the country, everybody knows them and they are an old school company. They're slow to adapt to ⁓ adapt to change as far as technology goes and and slow to to adopt. But basically what he said was one more say, AI will change every job. That was the headline. Now he didn't just that just didn't fall out of his mouth.

And then he went deeper into what he meant by it. But this is an AP news, but it was all over. we'll share the link. But just that it's not just going to reshape the roles and responsibilities and the workflows within their massive company. And I don't know if they're the number one or number two biggest employer in the country, I think. mean, it's like, this is not like some random guy talking about some discount retailer. This is one of the most massive companies of all time.

Jeremy (10:58)
Who

is also a discount retailer.

Jim (11:00)
who happens to also be a discount retailer selling us low, prices. ⁓ So, and a dream, a dream of more consumer goods at low, prices.

Jeremy (11:10)
Delivered

by drones, which by the way, I can personally attest to because I have been in the neighborhood of their headquarters. Exactly. Me and all my robot buddies. No, no, I was near the headquarters down south and I saw their drone towers and this was this is actually over a year over a year ago. I'm saying this because I do think that they are slow to adopt some things, but this is all about business bottom line.

Jim (11:16)
Bye.

Walmart or Amazon? ⁓

Okay, but again, they're slow to adapt. mean, that's

You can't

go into a fucking Walmart and use Apple Pay. It's 2025. That's insane. I I mean, I do. like to shop.

Jeremy (11:44)
No, I don't go to a mall

town. like to shop local.

Jim (11:49)
I do too. So now let's relate it back. mean, basically what he said was it's going to impact every job, not just repetitive tasks. I agree with that. You agree with that. We're past the, it's just going to be helpful for repetitive tasks. That ship sailed. The next levels of what's coming out is not going to just replace repetitive tasks or writing or even video editing and so on and creation. So, ⁓

You know, Walmart is one of the least likely companies to come out and say something like this. This is not normal for them. We can agree to that. So he basically says this shifts inevitable. And this is, again, a major CEO of one of the biggest companies in the country and really one of the biggest companies in the world. One of the wealthiest, arguably the wealthiest family still, I think, with the amount of money that they've made over the years, the owners of the Walton family. So this is the CEO of the company. And basically, just like, say,

adaptation you need to know how to adapt which we've been preaching right and was don't resist because resisting right now you know resistance is futile it's like what the work what was it was you're not a Star Trek guy or surprising that you're not really on a lot of levels so but the idea of resistance

Jeremy (12:56)
No.

I

mean, think I was, but I kind of stopped, yeah.

Jim (13:03)
Too many versions of it. that, you know, for Walmart, they're testing it in logistics and customer service and things of that nature. But he went on to say that there is, that there's fear of the staff being replaced and that it's not warranted or justified. But the simple reality is, it probably is.

Jeremy (13:25)
See, okay, so I want to disagree and I want to stick to, and this is my optimistic side, right? There's glass and there's water, it's neither half nor, you know, whatever. I do think, and there was a Yale research study released that says that- And you can't- Okay, listen, Walmart- Listen, so here's the summary, the-

Jim (13:41)
trust you. I'll trust.

in your fancy Ivy League.

Jeremy (13:48)
So

recent study from researchers at Yale on the Brookings Institution, you hate Brookings too, right? I do. Found no evidence of widespread job disruption in the US workforce. I, yeah. In the last three years since the debut of generative AI. So what I do think is, I think that the crux of what the head of Walmart and you are saying is true.

Jim (14:02)
doesn't count.

Jeremy (14:12)
that you plus, ⁓ let me distill it down simply. You plus AI equals better. Agreed.

Jim (14:19)
Right until you, you would so much better replaces you.

Jeremy (14:22)
No,

you without AI makes you expendable. AI by itself is actually frankly not very valuable because it doesn't do the five things that you were talking about in that first article. Number one of which and the overarching thing, the sixth thing or the zero in the index, the first index of the array, the zero instance of this is critical thinking. It doesn't do that. ⁓

It can do it agentically if you give it an assignment and it will vet whatever its tasks are against your overall objective. But you still set the objective. And by the way, all this is sort of ⁓ an interesting academic discussion that has no bearing for small business. The bottom of this, I'm saying the. No, I'm talking about my BS rant.

Jim (15:05)
does a huge corporation like Walmart lost me on

yeah but the point is if a huge corporation like Walmart

is going to make headlines like this. There's no real upside for them doing that. Like it's not like they're tech company or an AI company saying AI is going to be the next biggest thing and this is it and get on now and it's going to solve all your problems and all your dreams. Right. This is Wal-Mart. The guy's saying it because every indicator they have shows that it is absolutely going to impact their business and their customers. And maybe that's the key. Their customer no offense to their target demographic but is assuming

Yeah, I'm a plumber or I'm a carpenter or I'm hands-on and this isn't gonna affect me and this was almost like the canary in the coal mine with this CEO of a major corporation saying no it's gonna affect everyone so get on board get retrained get aware don't resist it don't run away from it and For small businesses. I think that's the big takeaway

Why is he bringing it up? Why is he publicly bringing this up of all the things he could do? This is not an accident or ⁓ a misstep. This was a very calculated thing to say and do right now for his team and his giant massive amount of employees, but also for his vendors, right? And his customers, they control so much of the economy because we're a consumer based economy. And if small business owners don't see that this is coming, I mean, even Walmart's figured it out, which is really kind of disturbing on some level.

Because if they figured it out and small business owners haven't even really woken up to it yet There's there's gonna be some problems just like when Walmart swept into all these small towns and wiped out all the little retailers, right? Generations ago. That's how it went down and they didn't see Walmart coming either because they thought We've been in business for a hundred years in our general store in Iowa, right? And our little downtown and then wiped went out on the highway Walmart rolled in

Jeremy (17:03)
Yeah,

was so one of the things that I really liked in this in this piece was the fact that early adoption gets rewards. Absolutely. So but

Jim (17:13)
It's

a race and you're ahead.

Jeremy (17:14)
But I think translating

that into a very specific psychology for small business owners and managers is important, which is this. Encourage early adoption and be okay with stumbling. It's okay if you don't get it 100 % right the first time. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. just try to identify a couple of things that you can use. And actually the tool tip for the day speaks exactly to this.

Jim (17:43)
Let's hit that.

Jeremy (17:49)
So

in order to get those early wins, to be proactive, to encourage your team to be an early adopter, right? start off with this little list of three-minute audit, List your top five roles, job roles, that is. So what is it that you do kind of every day? And I think you should definitely focus on the routine things, where there's a process that you do every day that's predictable. ⁓

Jim (18:01)
Exercise.

Jeremy (18:17)
and then write down the three core tasks for each role. And then ask yourself, which of these tasks could AI assist in? Doesn't have to automate all of it, but those incremental gains I think are key. If it takes you 10 minutes to do one of those little steps in the task, can you use AI to get it down to three? Seven minutes every day back on your life is huge, right? And then score ease of adoption, right? One through five, five being hardest, one is super easy, and then start to pilot on those low difficulty tasks.

Jim (18:44)
Right

and piloting is important like test test shit out because if you don't you're never gonna figure out what works and doesn't work But don't implement and like change your entire system with everything and just like think I'm just gonna automate get rid of all my staff and dump in these AI tools or chase every new one that you see in a headline or that a consultant rolls in and tells you about that's

Jeremy (19:05)
Now nearly every small business that I think has staying power that I've consulted with ⁓ does weekly standups right little you know 30 minutes all staff meetings if you have 15 if you if you have 10 people in your business Monday morning Friday at end the whatever it is you get together and you share things this is a great opportunity to celebrate your staff for trying things have them share what they tried to automate and then those ideas might cross

Jim (19:32)
That also brings us to a little bit of you know the next step in the journey which would be quick 15 to 30 minute little exercise little like tutorials right but not heady stuff like basic stuff right that also gauge where your teams are you know in their own individual journeys and also collectively so things like basic things like chat GPT Gemini co-pilot but then also start to layer in depending on what these teams and these employees work on some other things right some other tools that maybe they might not be familiar with over

time or even just aspects of some existing tools they use but they didn't even realize the 8,000 other things they could be doing with them. Yeah. Give them little baby steps in 15 to 30 minutes.

Jeremy (20:12)
You and I do this organically and I really appreciate the fact that you come to me and sometimes it's on our discord and sometimes it's in person but you say hey have you tried this tool yet? It's just a simple thing. I just just tried this I couldn't figure it out. Which for me sometimes I post things and I'm like

Jim (20:27)
Or I couldn't I didn't get

Jeremy (20:32)
I'm sure that there's real value here and I just don't have the vision for why am I not getting this, you know, and I need somebody to help me unlock it. And I think with with other teams too, that's an additional piece of value. Somebody could think of a new way to apply something that you've already prototyped or just dabbled in and they might unlock something.

Jim (20:50)
Exactly and

as we wrap up, you know the the last big takeaway for things next steps that people could do in this exercise would be just Like assess and that's something that a lot of small business owners don't do right They don't assess along the way and then adapt and then go back to the beginning again and repeat or rinse and repeat and that is in this case You have to adjust right? You're gonna have none of this stuff's gonna be perfect

Jeremy (20:59)
Yeah.

Jim (21:16)
and your teams aren't gonna all adopt at the same time. So, and then there's always new stuff coming out, which means you constantly have to assess, especially now in these next couple years, assess, reassess, reassess, and adjust along the way.

Jeremy (21:29)
I was thinking about

two alternative metrics on assessment other than the obvious ones, right, which is contributing to the top or the bottom line. And the two that I was thinking of here, the first is that example I gave, if you have a three-step task and the second step takes you 10 minutes and you got it down to three, add up those seven minutes that week and say, did I really save seven times five, 35 minutes this week, which is not a small amount of time. But the second one, maybe less obvious, is like a happiness quotient.

Jim (21:54)
Great, absolutely.

Jeremy (21:59)
If you're automating something that frustrates the hell out of you, measure your anger level. Like, I don't know if you just literally write down how are you feeling today.

Jim (22:08)
It comes often with monotonous and repetitive things. I know we're talking about more than just monotonous and repetitive things, but for a lot of people that, well some people love that, right? Like accountants, things they love that like programmatic. A plus B equals. Crazy. ⁓ and then if it doesn't add up, it's like why is this not working in the normal process that it does? So.

Jeremy (22:12)
That's why I'm literally mentioning it.

You're looking right at me while you're saying this.

But if happiness leads to productivity and all that, happiness is important part of this.

Jim (22:37)
It is it is ease versus right time. So there's time there's money and then there's know, happiness or ease and they all are interconnected So yeah I'd say in your assessment factor that in because if something's taking the same amount of time or just a little less You're like was this really worth all this but it's like yeah, it's just like a relief. I feel better ⁓

Jeremy (22:58)
Yeah,

even if that 10 minute test still takes 10 minutes, but you're able to do it.

Jim (23:02)
Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, that's the big takeaway for the day.