Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Chris Ryan: I think AI magnifies expertise. Think of an octopus with multiple tentacles out there, so you have multiple arms, able to help you out to operate your business much more effectively.
[00:00:09] Elizabeth Gearhart: You're putting garbage in there. You know, it's like garbage in garbage, and then it's gotta sort through all this gunk.
[00:00:14] Craig Smith: A question that I would ask my friends and colleagues 10, 15 years ago, just to spark conversation, would always be like, hey, what are you watching these days? I've shifted that question now to, what are you using AI for?
[00:00:26] Jeff Sibel: Without AI, I wouldn't have the ideas as much to tie it into two things. So I love it.
[00:00:31] Richard Gearhart: I'm using a AI to figure out if people are using AI. We've been hiring some people lately, and they're submitting work product, and it kind of looks like it could be AI work product. And we're trying to figure out, well, did you do this or did AI do this?
[00:00:46] AI: This is real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable, with hosts Elizabeth Gearhart, podcast consultant, marketing expert and PhD researcher using AI every day. And Richard Gearhart, entrepreneur, seasoned business owner and intellectual property attorney specializing in innov.
Here's how real companies are using AI right now.
[00:01:06] Elizabeth Gearhart: Now it is time for real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable. This is where I get to ask each one of you for one way you're using AI, and then we do a discussion about it. So either your favorite way the way you've used it. Most recently, a year ago, when we were asking these questions, some people had an answer, some didn't. Now everybody's using it all the time. Not everybody, but many people. So I'm gonna start with you, Craig. Craig Smith at craigsmithspeaks.
[00:01:33] Craig Smith: Yes.
[00:01:34] Elizabeth Gearhart: What is your favorite way or one way you're using AI right now?
[00:01:38] Craig Smith: Two ways, really. And you'll ask for only one. But I'm taking over the mic and saying two anyway, whether you like it
[00:01:43] Richard Gearhart: or not, it's gonna be the show. Yeah.
[00:01:45] Craig Smith: First of all, it's an amazing research tool. I use it all the time. I use it for writing constantly. I read a great book recently, Stephen King, on writing. So it wasn't a horror book or anything like that, just him talking about how he writes. And he writes every day, which I think is great. But so often when I get stuck with something, I write and then I say, help me sizzle this a little bit. Help me trim this a little bit. And it has saved me years on my life. I use it as an editor when I write, and that's my favorite thing. To do with it. I know that's just the tip of the iceberg, but for me, that's my everyday use.
[00:02:18] Elizabeth Gearhart: We'll keep the discussion going, so we'll come back to you. So now I want to ask Chris Ryan with ChrisRyan Fitness.com what is one way you're using AI right now?
[00:02:28] Chris Ryan: Just like Craig said to piggyback on that, I think AI magnifies expertise. Think of an octopus with multiple tentacles out there. You say you have multiple arms, able to help you out to operate your business much more effectively. So everything from content ID generation to writing and using your outlines and putting it back in there and having it come back at you with challenging questions, AI will challenge you back and go from it from that point because it'll really sharpen your tools overall.
[00:02:54] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, that's a great way to. And then Jeff Seibel with WealthAgent.com I
[00:02:59] Jeff Sibel: want to repeat that.
[00:03:02] Craig Smith: Right, Chris, keep dropping the plugs in there.
[00:03:04] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah.
[00:03:04] Jeff Sibel: What I'm doing now each week, Real is the company that I work for, the real brokerage. And they just bought ReMax. So now I have to have content each week on a Wednesday to be able to talk to now a big group of people. So when I'm looking at that, I have to tie it into financial planning and to real estate. So I use Claude, I use ChatGPT, and I go back and forth and then I have to make it engaging. And then I went illustrations because Realtors, it's like squirrel, you know what I mean? So you have to be in a situation where you make it entertaining. So without AI, I wouldn't have the ideas as much to tie it into two things. So I love it.
[00:03:38] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah, great. Richard Gearhart with Gearhart Law.
[00:03:41] Richard Gearhart: Well, I'm using AI to figure out if people are using AI. We've been hiring some people lately and they're submitting work product and it kind of looks like it could be AI work product. And we're trying to figure out, well, did you do this or did AI do this?
[00:03:55] Richard Gearhart: And so we run the work product through AI and we find out that, yeah, it looks like it's mostly AI, which is fine. But then we go back and we ask them, so did you use AI to do this or is this something you did yourself? So we're using AI to find out if people are using AI.
[00:04:12] Craig Smith: Do you get the look from them like the kid with his hand in the cookie jar?
[00:04:17] Jeff Sibel: And if they respond by, yeah, I kind of did that. What do you say?
[00:04:20] Richard Gearhart: I say, why don't you go back and give us something that you did?
And then that way we can evaluate if you really have the understand that we're hoping for. I mean, we do encourage people to use AI. I think it's a good idea.
[00:04:33] Elizabeth Gearhart: Use it every day, all the time.
[00:04:35] Richard Gearhart: There's nothing wrong with that. But you have to also understand the basics of what you're doing. And so that's what we're looking for.
[00:04:42] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah. So for me, Elizabeth Gearhart with Gear Media Studios, I'm using it a lot for presentations now. So I'm doing research with it and I'm giving presentations on AI visibility. ChatGPT's got really doing the slides and putting figures on them, like little embellishments. And so my stuff is marketing. So it's not like a scientific paper where people just want to see data. They want to see something eye catching on. So ChatGPT does these amazing slides. The only thing I say that I have to criticize it for, it just does way too much. It'll have a slide with like 50 different things on it. Right. And then I have to say, no, make this slide so somebody in the audience can actually read it. But what's really cool now with ChatGPT, when the image comes up, if you look on the bottom left, there's a little edit box on the image itself.
[00:05:28] Jeff Sibel: Interesting.
[00:05:29] Elizabeth Gearhart: If you click that edit box, you can make super fine edits on it now, which you could not do, you know, a few months ago. And it's, it's pretty good. It's amazing. I did one for a podcast cover and it was for this particular podcast. And we're talking about how we're kind of like a little bit afraid of chatgpt or afraid of AI. We like it, but we're a little afraid. So I had it make a little robot and then I said, okay, now take the little robot and put on red devil horns and a tail. And it did. And that's all it did. It didn't change anything else.
[00:06:00] Craig Smith: It keeps getting better and better.
[00:06:02] Richard Gearhart: Keeps getting better and better.
[00:06:03] Craig Smith: I love how you added in about the slides you create because as somebody who's a professional speaker, I, first of all, I try to avoid as many slides as I can because you're setting yourself up for a lot more distraction. And especially if you have that slide that has a ton of information on there.
If that slide stays up there for a long time with a lot of data. You're talking about the Line 3, and there's people in the audience that are still reading line one and thinking about line one and they're distracted. So I love the fact that you're taking that busy slide and trying to make it something that it's just, boom, let's punch and make a point and then let's move on.
[00:06:37] Richard Gearhart: So when you're doing this, though, if you're using it to create slides, would instructing beforehand to keep the slides to maybe four or five bullet points max. Would that. You think that would help with the process?
[00:06:50] Elizabeth Gearhart: Sometimes I've tried that and it still adds extra stuff and I have to go and say, okay, take off all the stuff you put on the bottom. So I was taught, like you said, like three points on your slide. Very clean. Maybe you have a couple little pictures because people like to look at little pictures, but you don't load it up with so much information that people can't process it.
[00:07:11] Jeff Sibel: Yeah. Because once you lose them in the beginning, you're in trouble. You have too much information and they'll click off, you know, when you're doing these webinars. So.
[00:07:18] Craig Smith: Oh, yeah.
[00:07:19] Jeff Sibel: They get distracted tell and you get the analytics on it and like, oh, man.
[00:07:23] Elizabeth Gearhart: But that is a big problem with AI.
It's so wordy. So you cannot just take what it says and just put it anywhere because it's sloppy. Right.
[00:07:34] Craig Smith: That term is spot on the slop.
[00:07:36] Richard Gearhart: Yeah.
[00:07:36] Jeff Sibel: Yeah.
[00:07:36] Craig Smith: I referenced this earlier. You see somebody that posts something and you know it's AI, you just sort of go, yeah, and you get that AI slop. You lose an authentic connection if you know that person's not being real.
[00:07:47] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah.
[00:07:47] Chris Ryan: I think we have a new idea called Brevity instead of cloud or open AI Chad.
[00:07:52] Craig Smith: GPT.
[00:07:52] Richard Gearhart: Right.
[00:07:53] Chris Ryan: Brevity taking investors now.
[00:07:56] Richard Gearhart: Yeah, I agree.
[00:07:57] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, I didn't have a chance to do this before the show, but I wanted to ask ChatGPT what color is an orange cat? And see if it came back with a paragraph.
[00:08:04] Craig Smith: Probably three pages.
[00:08:06] Elizabeth Gearhart: Three pages, Right.
[00:08:07] Richard Gearhart: It's true, though, sometimes when you're just looking for an answer and you get this long list, especially if you're on your phone and it answers and it's like, okay, you keep scrolling and scrolling slow. Just give me the answer. Okay. I don't need all of this explanation stuff. So they ought to have a mode where you can cut back on the context and really just get to the point. And that's all I need. Yeah, Brevity, Brevity. There you go.
[00:08:32] Elizabeth Gearhart: Well, and I was talking to my son, but if you're trying to build your own internal database. And you're trying to use things that you got from prompts from some of the AI. It's too much. You're putting garbage in there. You know, it's like garbage in, garbage out. And then you ask the AI to search for something in your own personal database that's got to sort through all this gunk. Right. So you really want to trim down whatever answer you get. And also you want to try to make your prompt so specific that it gives you almost the right answer the first time. Right. I talked to this guy. He used all his Claude credits in, like, three months for the year. So you have to pay for this. You have to get credits or tokens, and the more you use it, the more you use those up. So if you could do your prompt right the first time and maybe even have it do the prompt for you, then that can save you money in the long run.
[00:09:21] Chris Ryan: But don't you find it getting smarter? It starts to know what I want. It trims the fat initially, knows my personality, what I'm looking for.
[00:09:28] Craig Smith: I noticed that, without a doubt, it's constantly training the puppy.
[00:09:31] Chris Ryan: Yeah.
[00:09:32] Craig Smith: That's really what you're doing with it.
[00:09:33] Elizabeth Gearhart: Is it training us or are we training?
[00:09:35] Craig Smith: Probably. But by the way, that training the puppy is not a. We're not going to IP that. For me, by the way, that's not trademarkable.
First of all, it's not original, but somebody made that analogy with me. With your AI tools, whatever you're using is you're constantly training. Like Chris made the great point of it learns you, but you got to keep teaching and teaching it.
[00:09:55] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah.
[00:09:56] Jeff Sibel: The tough part is it's like, is it your personality? You want it in your personality, or do you want it opened up? And it's kind of interesting when it tests you a little bit. Okay, loosen up. Try it a little bit different.
[00:10:07] Elizabeth Gearhart: I agree. And if you're really trying to find out information, you almost have to have somebody else ask it because it knows you so well. Even if you say, act as though you are an entrepreneur who has never heard of Gearhart Law and tell me what you think, it still has that bias in there, I think.
[00:10:23] Richard Gearhart: Oh, yeah. ChatGPT just totally sucks up to me. And it's like you stated that like a pro.
Yeah, right. It is so true. That's a great, experienced travel assistant, you know?
[00:10:37] Elizabeth Gearhart: Yeah. Well, I do one thing also. I do a blog post, and I take the blog post about ways I'm using AI every day. I put it through ChatGPT and I say, optimize this for LLM search, add FAQs, add the stuff at the beginning. And it was doing it, but it was taking my voice out. If I said anything snarky about it, oh, that was gone. So now I have to tell it, keep my voice. And if it doesn't, then I take it and put it in a Word document and then I go put my voice back in. Then I upload it to Manis, which is an AI agent. So I have my website on Manis, which is pretty cool, but it's got some security issues. But anyway, Manus will change it again. So then I have to go into Manus and edit it back to be exactly what I want it to be. So it's kind of frustrating, right?
[00:11:25] Craig Smith: I sense that you want to smack these AI agents. I kind of sense that.
[00:11:28] Elizabeth Gearhart: I wish I could.
[00:11:29] Craig Smith: You want to give them the wemby
[00:11:30] Chris Ryan: is what you do.
[00:11:32] Richard Gearhart: I guess we've coined a new way to abuse things.
[00:11:35] Chris Ryan: And meanwhile he looks so genteel sketching in Gramercy Park.
[00:11:38] Elizabeth Gearhart: Any other ways you're using it that you don't think other people have tried yet?
Anything else?
[00:11:44] Chris Ryan: I think from a personal standpoint too, I think family, like planning, travel, like beyond the business aspect of just quick questions, gifts for my wife.
[00:11:54] Richard Gearhart: Do you ask it for parenting advice?
[00:11:55] Chris Ryan: Not so much parenting advice, but more of like lining up summer activities for the kids and ideas and. And more of like a high end Google research tool of like looking for a camp like xyz. Is that available in mid July?
Those types of detailed questions. And it kind of gives you that where to look first, that diamond in the rough first.
[00:12:14] Richard Gearhart: And well, sometimes if I have relationship issues with a colleague.
[00:12:20] Craig Smith: That was subtle as a fart in church right there, man tell you.
[00:12:23] Richard Gearhart: But if I have, if I have business relationship issues not. I never talked to ChatGPT about Elizabeth. That would come back to haunt me in some way, I'm sure. But I'll ask you for advice and somebody's doing this and somebody's doing that and you know, they're showing up late to work or whatever it is. And it's another opinion that I'll take into consideration. And then sometimes the advice is not too bad.
[00:12:48] Craig Smith: By the way, Elizabeth, I'm glad you asked this question because I feel like a question that I would ask my friends and colleagues 10, 15 years ago just to spark conversation would always be like, hey, what are you watching these days? I've shifted that question now to what are you using AI for? And just Chris just brought up a second ago, like, what gift should I get my wife? Well, my wife is currently in the
[00:13:08] Richard Gearhart: studio with us, Chris, so you would never.
[00:13:10] Craig Smith: I already know.
Nudge, nudge. But.
But there's always another thing that you could be doing with the technology that you don't think of until you hear somebody. Oh, yeah, And Richard, you made this on one of your podcasts not that long ago. You talked about dumping your health and fitness information with your Apple Watch into AI right here. And just like, oh, yeah, duh, I should be doing that kind of stuff too. So there's always another layer that you can unpeel on this onion.
[00:13:35] Elizabeth Gearhart: That's how this segment and podcast started a couple years ago. People weren't really talking about, I think Kevin Sarrace was the first one we had on that was talking about AI and then gradually noticed everybody was talking about it. So we said, well, let's just put it in a segment. And then the segments were so good because these are all ways that different people are using it that other people may not know about.
And we really want people to figure out how they can use it and succeed.
[00:14:00] Craig Smith: I couldn't agree more.
[00:14:03] Elizabeth Gearhart: Okay, well, thank you. That has been Real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable. Thank you, everybody.
[00:14:09] AI: You have been listening to Real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable. We hope you found this valuable. Join us again for more stories. Because the future of business is driven by AI. This podcast was recorded at the iHeart Studios in Manhattan as part of the Passage to Profit radio show.
