No Brainer - An AI Podcast for Marketers Geoff Livingston and Greg Verdino

On today's episode, Greg is joined by Jennifer Ives -- a seasoned leader working at the intersection of business and technology, an in-demand AI advisor to C-suite executives, and all-around big thinker.  
Together, Jennifer and Greg set out to bust some AI myths. Is your organization really falling behind? Is everyone else already using AI? And isn't "everything" AI these days, anyway? Does AI literacy matter for line-of-business leaders? Are ethics important? And a whole lot more.
Tune in as they discuss the current state of AI adoption in organizations. They highlight that only a small percentage of organizations are leveraging true artificial intelligence. They emphasize the importance of AI literacy at the executive level and the need for organizations to start small, test and learn, and build out their AI strategies. They also discuss the challenges organizations face, such as data cleanliness and the development of ethical AI frameworks. They conclude that, no, you're (probably) not behind -- but warn that the early movers now are developing a big advantage. So, if you haven't started yet, the time is now.

Chapters

00:00 The True State of AI Adoption in Organizations
10:53 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Adoption
 36:08 Igniting Ideas and Driving AI Adoption
 41:28 Challenging Assumptions and Breaking Through Barriers
 42:28 The Urgency of Embracing AI
 43:59 Critical Areas of Focus for AI Adoption

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In today’s episode, AI Marketers Guild (AIMG) founder and fractional CMO David Berkowitz joins Greg Verdino and Geoff Livingston for a wide-ranging discussion about the state of AI in marketing.
The show kicks off with David’s summary of key findings from AIMG’s recent Q1 2024 marketing AI trends report. From there, they dive into the use cases for AI in various marketing functions and touch on the challenges and opportunities of implementing AI in marketing. The conversation ranges from personalization and creative optimization to the ways AI can level the playing field for small businesses and why agencies need new business models.
The trio ponders the future of the CMO role, the coming AI-native workforce, and why senior marketers need to explore and experiment with AI to remain relevant in the face of fast-moving change.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Small Talk
03:27 AIMG Study on AI in Marketing
07:16 The Impact of AI on Agencies and Pricing
12:05 AI's Role in Finding Patterns and Insights
21:21 The Future of the CMO Role and the AI-Native Workforce
24:06 Advertising with AI
28:21 AI Tools for Small Businesses
32:30 Adapting to the Changing Marketing Landscape
36:24 The Power of Personalization with AI
39:09 Advice for Senior Marketers: Embrace AI and Experiment
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Knownwell CMO Courtney Baker joins Greg and Geoff to discuss the role of AI in marketing and professional services.
 The three discuss the importance of leveraging AI to enhance professional services companies' capabilities and relationships. Courtney emphasizes the value of relationship data in professional services and how AI can help organizations gain actionable intelligence to proactively engage with clients and prevent churn.
 The discussion also touches on the evolving business models of agencies in the age of AI, with Courtney, Geoff, and Greg agreeing that the traditional hourly billing model is outdated and that agencies must focus on delivering (and getting paid for) value to remain competitive.
 Courtney, Greg, and Geoff explore the potential impact of AI on creativity, emphasizing the importance of human judgment and strategic decision-making in determining when and how to effectively use AI tools.
 Ultimately, the episode highlights the significance of embracing AI as a thought partner and collaborative tool to enhance work and spark ideas, while still recognizing the unique value of human creativity and relationships in marketing and professional services.
 
Segments Include:

00:00 Start
03:50 The importance of humanity: What makes the human marketer valuable in the age of AI?
15:03 Data is gold, yet it is scarce. Why data is so important to all types of professional services firms, even their communications with clients.
18:55 How to change relational data into meaningful insights to reduce churn and strengthen operations.
22:33 Deciphering deep data to democratize analytics for all businesses.
26:02 Creative Agencies have to change to meet AI, but how does their business model and client relationships evolve?
36:31 Why Sam Altman is wrong about AI replacing agencies.
43:09 How AI helps us to level up creativity and our humanity.
 

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Special guest Eyelevel.ai CEO Neil Katz joins Geoff and Greg to discuss generative AI's hallucination problem. Large language models' (LLMs') propensity to hallucinate in their answers represents one of the biggest barriers to enterprise adoption. Eyelevel boasts a 95% accuracy on private instance responses by using its APIs and tools to prepare proprietary data for LLM consumption.
The trio dives into the LLM marketplace, including discussions about why brands choose to implement a private instance, how the LLM market has evolved, and what causes the hallucination problem. Then, they discuss the enterprise data problem and how retrieval augmented generation (RAG) techniques still need additional help to strengthen LLM responses.
Chapters include:
0:00 Start
4:40 Private instance versus licensing enterprise editions of LLMs
7:32 Eyelevel’s Air France implementation achieving 95% success rates
12:29: The need for enterprise data preparation
18:14 The hallucination problem with LLMs and RAG approaches
28:23 How governance can or cannot help enterprises
32:32 Why some use open source versus proprietary LLMs
39:12 The future of AI and an incredible vision

Learn more about Eyelevel at https://www.eyelevel.ai/ or contact Neil Katz via LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkatz/
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On today’s episode of No Brainer, Geoff Livingston and Greg Verdino chat with Steven Freidkin, Founder and CEO of Ntiva. Ntiva offers a full range of IT managed services to growing businesses. It’s no surprise that they’re implementing AI internally and fielding plenty of calls from clients about everything from Microsoft Copilot to more sophisticated AI business use cases driven by proprietary data.
In today’s conversation, we cover everything from why even 15 minutes of AI per day will put individual performers ahead of the pack to whether it’s worth paying attention to the hype around artificial general intelligence (AGI.) And we discuss it all through the lens of a tech pro who has rolled up his sleeves and done the work.
Chapters
00:00 Start
02:50 Introducing Steven Freidkin, CEO, Ntiva
04:10 How Ntiva uses AI internally and with clients
10:10 AI hype vs real world action
13:20 Is AI-driven productivity a double-edged sword?
15:45 Why Steven challenges everyone on his team to use ChatGPT 15 minutes every day
17:00 What about businesses that aren’t adopting AI yet?
19:25 Dispelling the myth that AI is “easy” and “cheap”
23:00 Is Microsoft Copilot an AI gateway drug?
27:00 Is AI the product or just a feature?
33:00 The importance of AI guardrails
37:00 What does the AI sector need to do better to drive real business adoption?
43:45 Is AGI real, hype, or somewhere in between?
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In this episode, Greg and Geoff answer listener questions from Lisa Nirell, Phil Gerbyshak, last week's guest Paul Chaney, and TikTok commenters in an open-mic mailbag format. They discuss the challenges of educating organizations on AI integration, emphasizing the importance of alignment, change management, and training. They explore why people prefer fake AI-generated images of themselves and the potential impact on corporate recruiting. And they delve into the topic of AI marketing ethics and the need for marketers to prioritize ethical considerations in their work.
The conversation covers the importance of making small improvements, the need for responsible AI, the bare minimum approach in marketing, connecting ethics with day-to-day work, the divide between marketers who get it and those who don't, the power of authenticity, the divide between brands who get social and those who don't, and the importance of providing value to customers.

00:00 Start
00:31 Introduction and Open Mic Mailbag
03:40 Educating Organizations on AI Integration
17:48 Fake Imagery with AI and Social Media
28:34 AI Marketing Ethics (Again!)
36:06 – Divide Between Marketers Who Get It and Those Who Don’t
53:58 -.Appreciation for the Audience and Final Word

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