Episode 13 - The Human Side of AI with Wendy Reeves

Listen up, people! We're about to drop some serious knowledge bombs on AI that'll blow your mind. Mike and Rico are bringing the heat with Wendy Reeves, one of the founders behind The Human Side of AI and BDC Angels.

This isn't your average tech talk. We're diving into the trenches of AI in the automotive world and beyond. It's raw, it's real, and it's gonna change how you think about business.

Here's what you're gonna get:

* The truth about AI in customer service (no BS)
* How to crush it with AI without losing your human edge
* Data secrets that'll give you an unfair advantage
* Building a killer community around AI (and why it matters)

We're not here to waste your time. Every second of this episode is packed with actionable insights that'll help you dominate in the AI era.

🔍 Chapter Markers:
00:00 - Introduction and Guest Welcome
05:23 - The Birth of The Human Side of AI
10:45 - AI in Business Development Centers (BDCs)
15:32 - Challenges with AI Implementation
20:17 - The Importance of Human Oversight
25:40 - Key Players in The Human Side of AI
31:58 - Data Management and AI Readiness
37:12 - Future Plans for The Human Side of AI
41:35 - Closing Thoughts and AI Bytes Newsletter

🔑 Key Topics:
* Balancing AI and human touch in customer interactions
* Overcoming challenges in AI adoption
* The role of data in AI implementation
* Building a community around responsible AI use

📝 Show Notes:
* Join The Human Side of AI Clubhouse: Wednesdays, 11 AM ET (Be there or be square)
* Grab "AI Accelerator" by Mike Koenigs: [Amazon link] (It's a game-changer)
* Subscribe to AI Bytes Newsletter: https://artificialantics.beehiiv.com/ (Your weekly dose of AI wisdom)

🔗 Connect with us as well as the Human Side of AI founders:

Wendy Reeves (BDC Angels | https://bdcangels.com/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-reeves/
Tim Hayden (Brain Trust | https://braintrust.partners/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/saddleup/
April Simmons:  (Horne Auto Group | https://www.hornecars.com/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/april-simmons/
Jennifer Sanford: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifersanford/
Martha Alvarado: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martha-alvarado-72436116/
Hunter Swift (BizzyCar | https://www.bizzycar.com/): https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterswift/
Gray Scott (F

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Connect with Us:
🌍 Artificial Antics Podcast Website: https://antics.tv/
📰 AI Bytes Newsletter: https://artificialantics.beehiiv.com/
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Transcript

Natasha: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Artificial Antics, where Rico and Mike will talk about the implications and opportunities around artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning. In this episode titled The Human Side of AI with Wendy Reeves, we explore the intersection of technology and human touch in the automotive world and beyond, underscoring the necessity of keeping humans in the mix.

Mike: Hey everybody. This is Mike from artificial antics tonight.

Mike: We've got a great show for you. Uh, we're going to be talking to Wendy from the human side of AI. This is a friend of the show. Uh, Rico, I'll go ahead and pass it over to you. Uh, you want to say how hello to the folks this, this, uh, evening.

Rico: Hey everybody. I got to tell you, when we found out that we were going to be doing an episode with Wendy from BTC angels and humans that AI, we're very excited. As Mike said, she's a friend of the show. Uh, great conversations. She runs with a great group of people doing some fun things with AI. So Wendy, without further ado, if you want to introduce yourself,

Wendy: Thank you guys. My name is [00:01:00] Wendy Reeves and I am the founder of the human side of AI, which is a community or a group, a house we started in Clubhouse back in And I'm the founder and CEO of BDC Angels, where we do a number of things, um, basically an automotive consulting business, um, with, uh, training and coaching and consulting and agents and all kinds of good stuff.

Wendy: So I was really excited. When you guys asked me to do this show too, because, so let me tell your listeners first about the human side of AI and how all that got started and how you guys trickled in and the synergy or the alignment between you guys and your artificial antics and what we're doing with the human side of AI is just so it's like we've been on parallel roads and then we just finally came to a point where the roads intersected.

Wendy: So let me just say one more thing about me. So I've been in BDCs since probably 2007 [00:02:00] when we built our first one and I was under the rooftop at a local dealer back home on and off through most of my adult life.

Wendy: I started the day after I got out of college. And I took some years off, a couple of years to move overseas and start a family and came back and, and then I was out back and forth for a few years and came back in 06 and started selling cars and as internet sales and internet marketing manager for a dealer back in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Wendy: And one day we had a consultant in talking about BDCs and the next day my. GM walked me into a double office where he had just kicked out the VP and said, here, make me a call center. So it's been a

Rico: no pressure.

Wendy: but yeah, no pressure at all. So that's my background. That's who I am.

Rico: Wow. 

Rico: So for uh, those that may not know, can you tell us what BDC stands for? Mm-Hmm.

Wendy: Business development center. Um, so basically we drive traffic to [00:03:00] showrooms and service departments or service lanes and automotive, but we also work across a number of other, uh, verticals as well. Like we do appointment setting basically.

Mike: That's excellent. Yeah. I will say one thing that I've realized with getting into the dealership space, even in telecom, right. Is like BDC and DMS and F and I, and all these like different acronyms that I know I'm now, but. I absolutely had no idea what a BDC was, uh, you know, day one of starting to, uh, talk to the dealerships about integrations and whatnot. So no, that that's exciting. And you, you have a lot of experience, I think, uh, in the space, Wendy, you and I have talked about how. The strategies have clearly changed over the years for that and building out these call centers and really ensuring, uh, maximum engagement and the experience and, you know, the empathy and emotional intelligence you have to have right to, uh, to truly drive, uh, leads [00:04:00] to, you know, the dealerships or wherever you're setting leads for.

Mike: So it's, it's absolutely fascinating. We've had those conversations and, uh, you know, And yeah, so, uh, now here's a question as far as the human side of AI, uh, why don't you give us an idea of kind of how that got started and like, really, you can go back to the very beginning. Right. Yeah.

Wendy: teams, it was just get them in, get them in, get them in. And you didn't have to worry about empathy.

Wendy: You didn't have to worry about any of that stuff. You just simply responded to their inquiries, whether they were phone or internet. You Call them and boom. Hey, we got the vehicle you're interested in. Can you come in now or later today? Boom. And it was super easy, right? Well then the whole world fell apart and with COVID and a couple [00:05:00] of interesting things happened in my little circle of the world.

Wendy: Anyway, we had been doing virtual, um, appointment setting for COVID happened. Because back in 2018, one of my clients in Illinois, Said, hey, I heard we can get people to work remotely and we can cut down on our operating costs. So, um, so we looked into that in 2018, and we got all the tools, all the, to monitor performance, to do everything you need to do, um, to be compliant for this, that, and the other, many of the same things we have to be mindful of, with the emergence of AI products now as well, compliance and data, um, Governance and all that kind of stuff.

Wendy: Um, but we got all those kinks worked out. So we were ready. So in 2020, when COVID hit, all these brick and mortar call centers were calling me and, Hey, we can't work our, our dealers leads. And that's before they kind of shut down and started doing things by [00:06:00] appointment VIP phone systems. They, I mean, they had VOIP phone systems.

Wendy: They didn't have soft phones. They were all tied to a desk phone at the offices. Mm hmm. They didn't have the right headsets. You know, you know, if you know, you know,

Mike: yes.

Wendy: exactly, you need to, you didn't need to have all the things that you have to have nowadays. So when you say plug and play, it's really plug and plug and plug and 

Mike: right. That's 

Wendy: let this in and let that out and cha cha cha.

Wendy: So, um, we had that all down, so we started doing that. And then COVID happened and the whole landscape of automotive changed. So we went from that to, okay, we're only going to do this by appointment only, blah, blah, blah. Now we're at a stage where, Inventories is stabilized and what we need to do today is with we need to First of all post covid we added in we used to say I used to say [00:07:00] g a g go Greet the customer acknowledge what brought them to you and go for the appointment Now we say gauge the call with an e on the end because you have to start with empathy You have to do a meet and greet you have to establish rapport You have to provide value so that you can earn the right You To ask for an appointment, right?

Wendy: Cause ultimately it's all about the shows and it's all about the service lane or showroom traffic. So that's even more of a struggle now that people are using AI. So what happened was we were needing to really refine our skills within the BDCs, right? And a fellow BDC practitioner, um, who decided who, um, departed from our, our, our founding group and is no longer with us, but had been using chat GPT a lot for the texts that the agents were sending out.

Wendy: And I thought, Hmm, let me look into this. And I was given somewhere where I could learn how to use it. And this was so new. That was like the [00:08:00] end of the year.

Rico: year.

Wendy: Let's see, we were in August of 23. I think it was early 22, 23 already. Yeah. Um, so we started kicking it around and I'm like, you know what? We had this BDC room where I used to, I had about 300 members, no, four or 500 members in clubhouse.

Wendy: Cause in 2020, all the movers and shakers that now run all the SAS, uh, companies and all the rest of that used to come in for Wendy for Wednesday tips and tricks in our BDC room. So we just rebranded the room as the human side of AI and that's where we decided to house it in clubhouse because we already had eyes on that house.

Wendy: So I'm like, Hey, let's start, let's just start a room. And we did. And I don't know how it was in conversation that we came up with the human side of AI. Um, we were back and forth with all kinds of stuff. Someone didn't like the human side of AI. Anyway, we [00:09:00] decided on a name. We got, uh, some people trickling in.

Wendy: We have 14 people now, and this one did a little bit of this. Jen Sanford of Sanford Marketing Group, which now she's with a different company. She actually did a really cool interactive document that we share for learning and for, um, let's say memorializing a lot of the contents. the content before we started with replays and all that.

Wendy: So, um, we all just kind of did it and bootstrapped it from there. What we wanted, the whole concept is to provide an environment where anybody and everybody is welcome. Where it's a place where you don't have to be embarrassed. Of your AI knowledge or comprehension at that time, or lack thereof,

Rico: Right.

Wendy: it's a vast open frontier that's forever changing.

Wendy: So we have such a diverse group now, and we just kind of, we've been bootstrapping [00:10:00] it since then. We're still at an hourly call every Wednesday, but, um, it's just been great. That's how it started and it's evolved since then.

Rico: Yeah. I was going to say it is a very diverse group. I mean, the, the few that I've been able to attend so far, um, you know, you have people that come from all different industries and all different corners of the globe, um, we, you know, which we've had, uh, Jack McMahon on, which he's, uh, you know, he had been there and spoke, uh, during one of the meetings we were at and, uh, it's, it's great to see.

Rico: Again, that it's, everyone is welcome, but what they bring to the table and there's a wealth of knowledge there and a wealth of opportunity if people take the time to actually, you know, join the group, get in there, hear what folks have to say. I know every time I, you know, uh, our minds are blown. Uh, you know, there's so many times that Mike and I will come out of one of those calls and just go, Oh man, can you believe that this is going on?

Rico: They're doing this and this is where they started. And so it's, it's very great. I would, uh, I would say to any of the listeners, if you have an opportunity on Wednesdays, you're interested in this type of thing, [00:11:00] definitely jump into that group on clubhouse. Uh, we'll make sure we post the link, uh, when we post the video.

Rico: Right.

Mike: expect when we first jumped in and I wasn't sure if I was going to be very much like, you know, Maybe a bureaucratic, uh, you know, type of group or whatever. I figured it wasn't because it was Wendy and I knew Wendy and, you know, it's like, there's no way Wendy's probably a part of something like that. But what I, what I found really, when I jumped into that first one, I think the first one I joined, you were talking about having an AI checklist for your business and the importance of it, right? So building these things into your processes, your handbook, you know, um, really aligning your. Your full business and your people and your processes, uh, with AI and sort of like the things that could be pitfalls and the things that you should always check and the things that you should never do.

Mike: And the things that you should always do. And I was like, this is great because these are some of the same types [00:12:00] of things that I did for clarity last, last, probably like may ish, you know, may, July. And I think I started in May and I rolled it, everything out to the full company in July. And it made a big difference, right?

Mike: Understanding and having a full understanding, um, across the whole company of, you know, Hey, we're not just going to hand you a chainsaw. We're going to, we're going to give you the safety manual. The operating manual is extremely important because. So, you know, we hear about, uh, AI, 10 X or a hundred X saying, well, if you don't know how to use something, you're going to, you're going to do a hundred times more damage.

Mike: Right. And, uh, so, uh, Gary, the CEO at Clarity likens it to, you know, somebody who's been chopping the trees down manually for years, handing him a chainsaw, the difference that makes, and then let's say maybe that's the 10 X, the hundred X is you're, you're in one of those, uh, machines that you're just driving.

Mike: And they're like, Chop of the whole forest out. Right. And AI could do things, you know, I mean, there are things that used to take me 10 hours, I [00:13:00] could do it two minutes now. Uh, that's a heck of a gain, but if you don't use it wisely and you don't have the guidance and everybody's not aligned with how you're using it. Uh, then you can run into all kinds of problems. People could be, um, you know, identify, you know, personally identifying information could get out there, your company's business secrets could get out there. And so there, there's a lot of care that needs to be taken and ensuring that, um, that, you know, you have a process and you have these things in place and that you, everybody in the company understands that. And then, you know, there were a lot of, there were other subjects that were. It's always interesting. Right?

Mike: So as Rico said, we talked to Jack McMahon, um, with CMT scanner and all they're doing there. What a, what a heck of a journey. And we found out during that episode that Jack is not some crazy tech guy.

Mike: He's a business person who had a problem that, you know, needed to be solved. And so I guess one thing, um, that I I'd like to ask you, [00:14:00] Wendy, is like, What types of problems have you found in your business that you've sort of like improve the process with AI or AI has helped you to solve, uh, in a more efficient way?

Wendy: Um, I'll tell you, um, you know, it started very simply with the usage of read. ai in my meetings, and I marveled about it yet today, now that I have the paid version.

Mike: Yeah.

Wendy: think of time management skills.

Rico: Oh, yes.

Wendy: Think of, you know, what have we done prior? Like, I Zoom record my meetings, or if I'm on Google Meet, because we all want to beta test everything, is Read better than, what's the other one that I 

Mike: Otter.

Mike: otter. Yeah.

Wendy: we let both of them in and we let them do get out

Rico: compare it

Wendy: out with a better report. Right?

Rico: and then, and then refine the data with chat GPT. [00:15:00] Right,

Wendy: And so what I've used it for is because, like, when I have team meetings, the cool thing is that it can go to a meeting when I'm not there. So if any of my people, my managers forget to record meetings, guess what? Wendy wasn't here, but her read AI bot was. So I was just marveling right before our recording here, how detailed the transcript was, the recap, the, the bullet points, the to do items, the everything, everything that we do, many of us, I don't have my legal pads right here, I got a bazillion of them, but everything we normally do on there, and then we got to transfer it.

Wendy: And I know everybody, all successful businessmen, they all use pads. But you know what, maybe not so much going forward once we know that we can trust it. So I've done that,

Mike: Mm hmm.

Wendy: but another thing that I've been able to do is through the usage of tools like telephony products, 

Mike: Mm hmm. 

Wendy: where I [00:16:00] can use AI by looking at what AI has produced and helping me with my coaching of my own agents. To look for certain keywords and to refine their skills that way, which I'm sure dealers have that too. But, um, the other thing I, I would suggest probably the biggest thing that I'm doing right now is, Testing all these different tools. Cause I have to find out what's the most effective and what makes the most sense because my dealers ask me like, and because of the conventions I go to and the deep dives we take into AI products, they're like, what'd you think of this one, what'd you think of that one?

Wendy: So we have to be educated. And that's also why we started our human side of AI. Journey, I'm also working on things to help more things to be blasted at a future date because they're going to be game changers

Mike: Right, right.

Wendy: that are going to help move the needle for the dealers like [00:17:00] to, to tell you exactly what to do like now.

Rico: right,

Wendy: yeah, it's been exciting, Mike, it's been really exciting, actionable 

Mike: Actionable insights. So when I, when I was starting to put together a plan for clarity, the first thing I did, like you do, is I did a survey. I created a, an AI survey, right? And I said, You

Mike: know, Hey, what are your three main challenges? And if you have extras, you could put 'em in there too, et cetera, et cetera.

Mike: One of the biggest thing across all the department heads and supervisors was the lack of the ability to make a quick and accurate decision on any given thing, right? Just like you said, Wendy, what is the next action I should be taking right now? And Giving people those real time insights, or even let's say post call insights, like saying, okay, this is what could have been done better.

Mike: And then you start to refine that and really allow, [00:18:00] uh, you know, allow for, I guess, uh, of like knowledge, learning and directives and guidance. Uh, and again, a lot of it ties back into empathy. A lot of it ties back into emotional intelligence, how people are engaging and interacting. And, uh, so I think a lot of this stuff may be that you do manually now, or you've done in the past manually, Wendy, as these tools start to progress. You know, you'll be able to do less and less of that manually and let AI take the first, what I'm going to call the first pass, right? AI is a first draft writer. AI is a first

Mike: pass taker. But, but again, going back to the human side of AI, it's extremely important that we're keeping the humans in the mix, right?

Wendy: For sure.

Mike: Yeah, 

Wendy: we're also doing, um, uh, which I've been doing since we started the human side of AI actually is, uh, is, uh, bots on our website. [00:19:00] Like we've got a service BDZ bot where if the agents have a question, um, about, You know, setting appointments or maintenance on a vehicle or whatever. We've used those.

Wendy: And another thing I I'm using it for is I don't like it to write my processes or anything, but with dealers where I have different call guides and or manuals or this or that, I can use AI if I put the entire script or the. outline or the contents of a training manual, for example, and want to change out different things, then I can just plug it into ChatGPT and it can do it for me.

Wendy: And I'm also building some custom ChatGPTs that actually Mike, you helped me with, and to learn about the, about a bunch of different things. You can create them. I encourage you ladies and gents to try it out. Because you're going to be, I'm telling you, it's an exciting time to be in our industry and [00:20:00] with AI because there's so much to explore.

Wendy: Okay.

Rico: different industries. We talk about that time and time again, but we're going to get into that.

Rico: One thing I don't think, um, all business owners have taken a look at is, uh, we've had conversations where you've talked about, um, the upcoming generations that are taking some of these jobs and the lack of experience they have in dealing with, you know, a customer facing job. Um, and some of the challenges around that, especially as it pertains to, uh, booking appointments, uh, overcoming objections with, with customers, um, and just getting to the sentiment.

Rico: And, uh, again, you're, you've talked about, or some of the things we, we, we know, um, is that culture has changed and people talk more about feelings now versus the business, right? So now emotional IQ comes into it and how they're [00:21:00] handling customers. Um, so can, do you want to talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you're seeing with the workforce as it progresses and some of the ways that you're using AI to fix those problems?

Rico: Mm-Hmm.

Wendy: so I will also mention problems with the AI and how it's been evolving. So we all know that that chat GPT makes a lot of mistakes. And any of these bots that you can get, they all make mistakes, right? And it's garbage in garbage out if you don't program it the right way, or if you don't pay attention, do, uh, and that's the human side, it's whoever programmed this stuff, right?

Wendy: Or whoever's content you're using. Um, but. So, oh my goodness, how do I even, so we never really use call scripts. We use call guides because if I have a certain thing, if I have an introduction and I have, you know, where they're presenting the value and acknowledging the, the inquiry, whatever, um, let's call it the discovery phase of a conversation, [00:22:00] right, where you're finding out, you're asking some questions.

Wendy: Is the car for you or someone else? You know, are you looking to. Are you looking to trade in your current vehicle or just add a vehicle or whatever? They're all, all that kind of stuff. Well, um, there are certain things we do throughout a conversation that are more phone, phone skills than they are adherence to a call guide.

Wendy: And this is where the human side comes in. AI will do sentiment analysis. AI will do everything based on, even in the telephony system, to my knowledge. Okay. In my opinion, you know, disclaimer, I'm not an expert on anything. I'm really quite blossom at any one of a number of things. So. Um, you have to, so we, you have to be careful because now people, you know, you get inbound calls and me, if it's less than a five, more than a five second delay, I'll know it's AI and I'll hang up on them.

Wendy: I'll [00:23:00] go. Hello. Hello. 

Mike: I do the same

Rico: Yeah. 

Wendy: when I 

Mike: I do that. Yeah. Even, and you can hear the click when it actually clicks

Rico: When it kicks off.

Mike: I

Mike: don't care. I'm hanging up on that. Yes, exactly.

Wendy: So besides that kind of challenge, the other challenge you have is if you have an AI analyzing it. Even if it's sentiment analysis and the call guide adherence or the script adherence and the keywords that cause alarms and red flags That's fine. But the challenge is that you have to have a human policing all of this You have to make sure that you got it, right?

Wendy: I imagine with telephony, it's all, they've already tested it and it's, it's absolutely fine and they got it worked out with all the tens of thousands and millions of, of client of customer recordings they have, but something like work and internet leads for a dealership, you still have to be super, super responsive.

Wendy: What we found out when we first started human side of AI is like, especially a couple of our dealer people [00:24:00] like April Simmons and Martha Alvarado and I, but we also had AI gurus like, like. Um, Jared Kilway or Hunter Swift or, or, um, Gray Scott or, or Tim Hayden with his knowledge of data governance and stuff like that, or Jennifer with her knowledge of marketing or Sean, also with his John Armour, with his knowledge of BDC, we have to all like do our part to all look at these products.

Wendy: Um, to see exactly what they're, what they do and which pain point they all solve. Um, and we have to man the responses once we do integrate. Um, and the challenges come in that people were already dealers were already so Deep into what's the right cdp. We need all of our pieces to tie together We need a dashboard where we can do all things with one login, etc, etc Well now they had these ai products come in and [00:25:00] all the legit ones But let's be honest a lot of people dare.

Wendy: I take dare. I be wendy dare. I be wendy.

Rico: You dare. You definitely dare. Yeah.

Wendy: in automotive, I don't know why, but I love the phrase, put lipstick on a pig, and I don't even know what it means. Yeah, she's going there. 

Mike: that's all right. That's all right. 

Wendy: have a 25 year old product that you haven't even touched on, but you took a piece of paper with the word AI and blew it at your product, 

Mike: That's right. 

Wendy: now you're an AI expert.

Rico: Right?

Wendy: know, you gotta be careful and you gotta do your due diligence

Rico: Sure. Right.

Wendy: back in august And now mind you we were gonna take second looks and we want to invite everybody to our show to pitch their product because everything Is evolved in 10 months? But the problem is is that What we determined is you have to figure out what your problem is.

Wendy: What are your pain points? Even if you're doing it manually, what are you trying to do? You're trying to up engagement in a BDC, going back to BDC. You [00:26:00] have to engage, then you convert the engagement to an appointment. Then you have to make sure the appointment shows up and then you have to call them after the fact.

Wendy: If they, especially if they didn't buy, how was the visit? Make sure that you, uh, the customer experience was right. And then in the service department. It's the same thing, right? It's before and after the appointment and the visit that you want to keep up. So, but they weren't, they were just, the providers were just the bigger ones were pitching the products and they're like, Oh yeah, a lot of dealers were like, Oh yeah, Oh look, a shiny AI product.

Mike: Yeah.

Mike: It's got AI in it. It must be good. It's going to save. Yeah. Hey, Hey, I'm not that bad.

Wendy: But then, but then, which is why we found out several months later that now they're slowing down a bit with AI product adoption is because they found out when they finally identified that they had the wrong tool to fix their pain point, for example, then, um, so they put it on pause, [00:27:00] whatever, but the bottom, Underlying problem is that we need to get our house in order.

Wendy: We need to get our departments, our companies, our dealerships in order, make sure our people and our process and our accountability are all, all the things we teach about that we want to do manually as humans. You have to adhere to those processes and be even more consistent with AI because without process and without consistency, you're, you're screwed.

Rico: Right.

Mike: It's kind of like my dad. I remember him having me do a bunch of overhead screw it like screwing stuff in with a fricking screwdriver overhead, screwing things in over your head is really tough.

Rico: Oh, yeah.

Mike: So I was like, why can't I just use the drill? He's like, you need to gain an appreciation for this as in you need to know how to do the basic thing.

Mike: Well, so he didn't let me just do it once. I did a bunch of times. Right. And he said, you need to know how to do the basic thing. Well, so that when I give you the tool to expedite [00:28:00] that, you, you appreciate that you understand that, you know, you know, you know what you're doing, right. And it's kind of like the chainsaw thing that we mentioned earlier.

Mike: To your point, Wendy. Systems are only systems and technical systems are only going to take it so far. There's two other key ingredients, which are the processes and the people. All three have to be in lockstep really to be running a successful and efficient business. So, uh, there was a time in my life where I thought technology could solve everything. Then I figured out that wasn't the case. And I was like, Oh, Oh, okay. So technology. And then if you have really good processes, the two of those, that'll be great. Everything's going to be perfect. And then I realized, especially going into leadership, Oh, there's this third thing. There's a variable here.

Mike: People are a complete variable and you really have to get all three of those things aligned to, uh, to, to really dial in focus and, uh, and, and keep things running efficiently.[00:29:00] 

Wendy: Agreed.

Mike: So Wendy, uh, you mentioned that there's some, you know, they're obviously, you're not the only founder there. I think you mentioned maybe 14 or a few, few founders. And, uh, do you want to give us the background on some of the people that are in the group? Uh, maybe not everybody, but some of the members, uh, just to kind of give people an understanding of, you know, who's, who's in these groups from week to week.

Wendy: You bet. Um, well, um, so I'm looking at an old list. I'll hit you with some of the older members that have been here for quite a while. So we've got dealer reps. We've got April Simmons, who is the marketing and internet director for all the horn stores in the state of Arizona. We've got Jennifer Sanford, who, um, gosh, she was, she, her history was she was CMO at Stella and then she was with.

Wendy: And she has a Sanford marketing group, and then she was with Total CX for, um, a term, um, until they, [00:30:00] uh, were acquired, and then, and now she's with a new company where she's CMO, forgive me, Jen, I, I can't remember who it is. And then we've got Kaylee Filio, who is the parts girl. She's in, she does parts training.

Wendy: They have a parts edge is her company. We've got Martha Alvarado, who is the BDC director for sales and service BDCs at Wondery's Toyota in California. She's got a wealth of knowledge of BDC and appointment setting. And she uses a number of products, AI products at her store. We've got Tim Hayden, Who is the, uh, with, um, brain trust.

Wendy: He's the CEO at brain, brain trust, and they do a lot. I can't do it justice. So you can probably jump in.

Mike: Yeah, we've, we've talked to Tim.

Mike: Tim is, is brilliant, honestly.

Mike: Um, so what, what Tim and I, Tim Rico and I had a conversation and Tim, Tim's focal point is definitely AI, but it's specifically, um, [00:31:00] Customers or people are sitting on gold mines of data that they're just simply not using. And this is in dealerships and probably every other business. You've got a bunch of, uh, you know, dealers chasing these like top of funnel methods of bringing people in like Facebook and Instagram and whatever these different things are that are kind of bringing brand new people that have never been exposed to the dealership ever. And what Tim is saying is like, Hey, Y'all have 12 years of data, people that have bought from you,

Rico: whole families,

Mike: service, whole families.

Mike: Maybe they're not customers right now. Why? Reach back out to them. You know, it's like, if I've been to a place and I brought my vehicle in there, if they call me, I'm much more apt to like, Oh yeah, that's right. Holzer, you know what I mean? Like that's the big one here, the Ford dealer. So, um, so that's kind of what I, the gist that I get from Tim is, you know, master data management, uh, customer data platforms and whatnot, but really [00:32:00] bringing it all together and getting value from your data, right.

Mike: And also keeping it safe. Safe and private. Let's just say, cause you mentioned the compliance earlier, whereas we can't just send, we shouldn't not, we can't, we shouldn't just send all that customer data out to open AI and chat GPT, or even OpenAI's APIs. Um, Tim is, you know, working on building. Some homegrown in house, like, okay, we'll train a model. We'll build a model directly on your data. That's private to you. And again, I might be not doing, I might not be doing Tim justice either, but that's kind of the gist of what our discussion had revolved around a bit. And, uh, I, I think that that is a heck of a great strategy these days, because really, Wendy, I taught you how to build custom GPTs, I've taught, you know, People in clarity to build custom GPTs.

Mike: I did a fricking seminar on it, had a hundred people, you know what I mean? So many people know how to build custom GPTs and guess what? It ain't rocket [00:33:00] science, right?

Mike: You know, what is not replicable? The data, the telephony data, every call, every message. You cannot just easily produce that. So the moats, the moats are really in the data and how

Mike: you're exposing that data with still keeping that data private.

Wendy: And that's what Tim says, his short version of what he does, he'll get your, your data ready for AI. So, 

Mike: there's cleaning. There's 

Wendy: solving. Exactly. And worrying about compliance and worrying about all that stuff. And he'll worry about that. So you don't have to, and he'll help you secure your own first party data

Mike: Yes.

Mike: Fert. 

Wendy: the right way and make sure.

Wendy: Yeah. Um, but he's

Rico: That's right. He does have those terms. Yep.

Wendy: Yeah, and definitely, um, you know, and then we've got BDC people, we've got Sean Armour, um, we've got, um, [00:34:00] another well known people that are, that know about AI, really well about AI is, um, both Hunter Swift, Grace Scott, Jared Kilway, that they've all been in positions directly with AI providers.

Wendy: And now they're in, uh, Hunters with Busy Car and Jared's with the Casa Auto Group, VP of Marketing, and Gray's in a number of, of different things. And these guys are all really well known for AI. And then we've got somebody like Zach Golemski. You know, formerly of APS global, uh, fame, and he now works for Pneuma.

Wendy: So he's getting in, getting an inside look now on what we all dove deep into back in August, September, October, when the products first came out. So for them to get on board with these companies, you know, they're legit. And you know because none of us wants to back and that's another thing we do is we evaluate we vet these different companies What we're doing and I hope it's okay if I segue to this for [00:35:00] a minute um, we're building a website and we want this to be we're going to have like a like a membership platform where you'll just You'll sign in and you'll have access to all of our content, all of our, like the document you mentioned, Mike, on how for dealers and vendors to, to shop for AI products and our, our, our playbacks from our, our replays from clubhouse and the document, the other documents that they've all created.

Wendy: So we want it to be a place where people can go and educate and be educated online as well, and we're going to build a website. Um, and we're not looking, we don't have sponsors. We don't have, there's no politics. There's no nothing. It's just a free space where everybody can come and feel like nothing is tainted by a certain person who's paying or another one that's not, it's all nonprofit.

Rico: great 

Mike: that that is amazing.

Mike: I didn't exactly know that yet. Like you, you mentioned you're going to build a website or you having a website built. I had no idea about [00:36:00] all of that. That is incredibly helpful as, as it really a guide to the community. And like you said, you don't have that bias. Cause you're it's like, Oh yeah, it's pushed by AI product because I'm giving you whatever percentage.

Mike: Right. So that is huge. Wendy, they're very exciting. I'm excited to see that down the line. What else do you have coming down the line for the human side of AI? What other developments do you have coming up?

Wendy: well, right now we're kind of doing a meet the founders where we're on, we're featuring two of them. We did two, we did Tim Hayden and Nate Sessile. Who's also a great guy to go to for, um, and you're going to, I think you're going to have him on to check our replay. You'll hear all the products that he represents.

Wendy: And Nate is a great way to vet different products for everything from telephony to to all kinds of products. Anyway, he's picking up new things all the time. Um, so we're doing that. We're also working on, um, [00:37:00] some zoom featured episodes where we can invite those same product providers, service providers to, um, a zoom call where we can actually have a 30 minute televised kind of webinar kind of thing where they can really learn about the products.

Wendy: And do an in depth a deep dive into those products and then offer that up for consumption on our website as well So that it can help people with the vetting process so Other than that, we're working on a newsletter. That's going to be really really fun. That's going to be fun I got it started but Be easy on me.

Wendy: And, um, and yeah, we're just all looking. We're just soaking in. Oh my gosh. I mean the books, the AI accelerator, you need to talk about that book because oh my God, I'm looking at see how it's probably on my bed because I kind of carry it with me from room to room when I got a break. But oh my God, you 

Mike: It's like your blankie. It's like your blankie. You got to carry the book with

Rico: Mine's in my [00:38:00] backpack. Yep.

Wendy: There's a lot coming and it's going to come fast and furious. So stay tuned

Mike: is.

Mike: Yeah. And, and so that book is, it's called AI accelerator by Mike Koenig. So this is a book that, uh, was suggested by Gary Gerke, who's the CEO of Clarity to Me. And he said, man, you know, um, we, he, he knows Mike in person. I met Mike in person, this guy. I mean, he's like, he's

Mike: like. Really on it. And he's doing some fantastic.

Mike: And like, I'll say like, you know, reading the book, I I'm

Mike: not that it gets like, he's not doing anything like super cutting edge, but what he's doing is he is right. Like he's building custom GPTs and tools out for businesses to allow them to do things just at a much more rapid pace. So consider, you know, building a year's worth of

Mike: content.

Mike: In, um, you know, a couple hours or a day, right? Because you built a GPT to talk in your voice. and I really mean, he's dialed it in to [00:39:00] like, the, any of the writing will sound like him. He still has editors and verifying, he wants to verify himself. But, um, one of the things he introduced, uh, me to, and, and I posted this on the artificial antics website, uh, is the 10 80 10 rule, which is the first 10%. uh, when you're working with AI, uh,

Mike: the first 10 percent is you, you're all you, you're setting the

Mike: vision, you're telling it what you want, you're looking for outcomes, right? And these different things. Then the middle 80 percent is like, let AI do all that work. You really don't want to do the last 10%. You are.

Mike: Human side of AI full of fact, you are back in the mix. You have to ensure that you scrutinize that 80 percent that it did. Does it match your vision? Does it match your voice? Does it match whatever your outcome was? And you know, is it just plain out wrong? Because it can be. Right? So the book introduced me to that.

Mike: It introduced me to a couple other concepts one is [00:40:00] mentor, assistant critic. Um, another one is the director model, where I'll just mention a quick thing about this, where, you know, when you're working with AI. You, you're the director, the AI is the actor, and you could call cut as many times as you want and make that AI move over two feet to the left to make your shot.

Mike: Perfect. Right? Humans in the mix, incredibly important, and it lends it all back to the human side of AI, which again, Wendy. This is spot on alignment between our groups, right? We're, we're, uh, we're really aligned around that same message. I love how you're looking to build a content and, and just even with the clubhouse, right, educating the community, anyone can join.

Mike: It's not a closed group folks. So stop by this clubhouse. It's the human side of AI. It's 11 AM Eastern time. I'm in there as much as I can be. Rico's in there as much as he can be. And, uh, and I mean, it is the [00:41:00] insights you'll get. It doesn't matter who you are. That's, that's one thing you could be super nerdy. And you'll get something out of this. You could be super not nerdy and just, you're a business person or a regular old person. You will get something out of this.

Mike: I have never gotten into one of those clubhouses and not seen value all across the spectrum for, for. Right. That who might join that, which is why I posted all the time. Uh, so, so yeah, no, this is, this has been fantastic learning about the human side of AI, Wendy, how it got started. Um, are there any closing thoughts that you want to kind of wrap up with here?

Wendy: yeah, I kind of would like to plug the AI bites newsletter, frankly. Um,

Mike: Well,

Rico: Oh, who, who authors that? Is that, is that something we can find 

Mike: you? You do that one?

Wendy: It seemed I thought these two guys from artificial antics. No,

Rico: Yes.

Mike: yeah. All

Rico: what it

Wendy: You [00:42:00] guys I swear to god. It's like the automotive state of ai So 

Mike: thank, thank 

Wendy: ladies and gents if you haven't already and that's it Just stay tuned because it's a fun wild bumpy ride And we'll slow it down so you can jump on but then we're going to keep going.

Wendy: So join us

Mike: Absolutely. And I will mention too, we're already starting to talk about having some more of the founders on from the human side of AI. We'll probably do some panels like round tables, uh, and bringing complimentary people that could kind of speak on specific subjects, maybe it's marketing with AI, maybe it's, so, uh, service drive with AI, maybe it's whatever, you know, uh, these different subjects.

Mike: And, uh, we're super pumped about that. We are planning on having Tim on the show. You Hayden for brain trust. So I think that episode is going to be really focused on that data, right. Data as a, as a, your, your. Value in your data, uh, because there's just a huge value there. And it's [00:43:00] something that your competitors cannot replicate.

Mike: They really can't replicate your data and your communications.

Wendy: Can I make one? Um, my co founders will kill me. I miss three people. I miss Peter Smith of the Lion Partnership. 

Mike: Okay. 

Wendy: uh, Woozie Rogers. And I missed, um, Peter Smith, Woozie Rogers. And, and, and, and, I forgot, Russell B. Hill of Fixed Ops Marketing. Don't, uh, Fixed Ops. What the Fixed Ops? 

Mike: What the fix stops. I love it. 

Wendy: So, Russell Hill. 

Mike: Russell Hill. Okay, cool.

Rico: also, we'll also plug their websites and Stu and stuff as well in the show notes folks. So look in the show notes and that way you can kind of familiarize yourself with the human side of AI and what those folks have coming on. Going on. Sorry.

Mike: Yeah, there are, there are a lot of really interesting, you know, uh, providers and dealers and whatnot. Um, so yeah, we'll, we'll throw that in the show notes for folks so they can [00:44:00] take a look at what people are doing. Right. Jack has the CMT scanner, you know, like you said, hot, uh, Hunter, uh, you know, Swift, uh, which is a busy car.

Mike: Right. I was taking a quick look at that. They're, they're doing some really impressive stuff there. So, uh, yeah. So, yeah, so, the group has a variety of folks with variety of different knowledge. And again, like I said, all across the spectrum, you will get value out of that.

Mike: If you're at all interested in. What AI can do for you and maybe what, you know, AI can't do for you, which is just as important as we all know in this, in this, uh, meeting. Right. Uh, so awesome. Well, Wendy, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been an absolute pleasure. And, uh, we're looking forward to see what's next with the human side of

Wendy: thank you guys.

Rico: Absolutely. Thanks again, Wendy. 

Rico: All right, folks. Well, there you have it. Uh, we spent some time with a BDC, Wendy, as she is known from BDC angels, as well as the human side of AI. She's one of the [00:45:00] founding members. I was absolute pleasure to have Wendy on. Uh, we're looking forward to connecting with some of the other folks from human side of AI coming up, uh, and getting into their industries, their particular businesses and their interests and how they're applying AI.

Rico: So Mike, you have any final thoughts before we end the show?

Mike: Yeah, I'm just going to reiterate, uh, two things. One, that was an amazing episode. I think when you get the right people in the same room, uh, magic happens. And I think this was a, an amazing episode, lots of energy in this one. The second thing I'm going to say is I'm just going to reiterate. Um, one more time that, uh, the human side of AI is a clubhouse group.

Mike: We'll post this in the show notes. This happens every week on Wednesday at 11 AM. It's Eastern time. Uh, and then I have one final thing, which is folks, if you like what we're doing here, uh, we'd really appreciate a subscribe, a like on YouTube, especially a subscribe, right? Uh, we want to, we want to continue to build our, uh, Uh, reach and, uh, [00:46:00] and, and, you know, you're also going to get access to, uh, our videos, you know, right when they come out, we're going to be producing more and more, uh, let's say short form content.

Mike: We're already starting to do this a bit more. Again, I took a little bit of a break from it, but I just posted something for instance, today. Where I was talking back and forth to chat GBT and sort of getting, um, really what I'm going to call like a live demo of that voice feature of chat GBT. So by the time this comes out, this will be a couple of weeks in the past, but again, we're, we're building more of that short form content.

Mike: There's another one I did where I was actually building a database with chat GBT with, with users in it and with tables and everything, and all linking together. That's a developer's dream, right? Like being able to just quickly spin these things up and, uh, yeah, we'll see you back in the lab soon, folks.

Rico: See ya. 

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