Artificial Antics
Artificial Antics is a podcast about Artificial Intelligence that caters to the skeptic and uninitiated. Join this unlikely trio Mike (the techy), Rico (the skeptic) and A.I. as they dive headfirst into the world of artificial intelligence. From debating the social implications and ethical concerns around AI to figuring out how to break into the lucrative AI market, no topic is off-limits.
And with A.I. on board, you never know what kind of shenanigans are in store. Will A.I. turn out to be the brains of the operation, or will it be the source of all their problems? Tune in to Artificial Antics to find out!
Artificial Antics
Episode 17 - Shining a Light on HELIOS: Dave George’s Take on Engagement as a Service
Join us back in the lab for another insightful and energetic conversation with a friend of the show, Dave George. In this episode, Dave introduces HELIOS, his groundbreaking omnichannel engagement platform designed to empower SMBs (small and medium businesses) with AI-driven solutions. Learn how AI processes have transformed workflows, enhanced product features, and enabled rapid development cycles, all while keeping customer engagement at the forefront. Packed with real-world insights and a sneak peek at what's next for P2P Labs, this is a must-listen episode for AI enthusiasts and business innovators alike!
Chapter Markers:
00:00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview
00:01:04 Dave George’s Background
00:02:31 What is HELIOS ?
00:04:24 AI in HELIOS : Co-Pilot, Assist, and Agent
00:12:33 Uplifting AI Success Story
00:13:50 Customizing AI for SMBs
00:18:02 HELIOS Integration Made Easy
00:26:00 New Features Coming to HELIOS
00:36:00 Teaser for COSMOS
00:39:00 Where to Learn More
Guest Details:
Dave George, co-founder and CEO of P2P Tech/P2P Labs and GreenStar Marketing. Outside of his professional endeavors, Dave is a Master Instructor for Lehigh Fukasa Kai Martial Arts and enjoys sailing, scuba diving, and traveling with his family.
Connect with Dave:
➡️ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daveshihan/
➡️ P2P Tech: https://engagep2p.com/
The innovation hub behind Helios and other AI-driven solutions.
➡️ P2P LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/engagep2p
➡️ Greenstar Marketing: https://gstarmarketing.com/
Dave's marketing company.
Products Mentioned:
➡️ HELIOS: https://engagehelios.ai/
An omnichannel engagement platform for SMBs with integrated AI features.
➡️ Netsapiens Communication Platform: https://www.netsapiens.com/
➡️ OctoAI: https://octo.ai/
➡️ Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/
➡️ Google Gemini: https://gemini.google.com/
➡️ OpenAI's ChatGPT: https://openai.com/
➡️ Twilio Site: https:/
Special Thanks:
Episode mastered by: Nomad Studios (https://nomadstudios.pro)
Description: The team behind mastering the Artificial Antics podcast audio. Big shout out to Nick and the team! 🎉
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Natasha: [00:00:00] Welcome back to Artificial Antics, where Rico and Mike will talk about the implications and opportunities around
Natasha: artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning.
For this episode,
Natasha: Shining a light on Helios, Dave George's take on engagement as a service, the guys welcome back Dave George to discuss his latest Omnichannel product, which is transforming customer engagement with cutting edge AI driven solutions.
Mike: Hey everybody. Welcome back to artificial antics today. We're actually joined by Dave George. Who's been on the show. He's a friend of the show. And, uh, we're going to be talking to him today about, uh, Helios, which is a new product that him and his team have released, um, Rico, you want to say hi to the folks today
Rico: Sure. Hey, what's up everybody. We're glad to have Dave George back on the show. Dave, I want to congratulate you on the new company, the new product. And, uh, without further ado, why don't you tell us what you have going on?
Dave George: Sure, sure. So, uh, for those that don't know who I am, uh, or perhaps missed episode 10, uh, the show [00:01:00] that I was on back on, I think in March. Uh, so six months ago already, if not more. Um, Dave George, I am probably a rarity in that I am a true fourth generation telco, uh, person where, uh, you know, my great grandfather started an ILEC in Pennsylvania in 1909.
Dave George: And that company is still going strong and is, uh, continuing to provide next generation services. So, uh, well, I'm not affiliated with that organization anymore. Um, it's still in the family. I'm still going strong. Uh, and that's sort of where I first got my, my, the DNA, if you will, of telecommunications. Um, uh, and then as I.
Dave George: You know, moved on and, uh, for, for about a good six and a half years, I was the SVP and GM of NetSapiens, uh, now a Crescendo company, uh, some of your audience that, uh, is, uh, offering UC, uh, services certainly knows the NetSapiens platform, um, and then, uh, several years ago, I started a company called P2P. And P2P was basically [00:02:00] forked into two organizations.
Dave George: One was what I'll call a tech support concept where we were helping organizations that had a platform where we could provide that tier three, tier four level software development, um, project management, um, services to those organizations, um, to help them differentiate their product set to make them be, you know, successful in the marketplace.
Dave George: Uh, and then. Uh, initially was just small software packages, just little things to sort of help the ecosystem. Uh, and then about gosh, uh, about a year ago, um, we started developing in partnership with a company, uh, in the Far East, um, in Asia pack. We. product called Helios. Um, and that is, um, a very robust omni channel, uh, solution.
Dave George: Um, so for the audience omni channel, every single type of digital channel you can think of for communication. So not just voice, not just text messaging, [00:03:00] but also instant messaging, web chat. Email, um, telegram. I mean, whatever, you know, whatsapp, all those types of solutions, um, are considered a digital channel.
Dave George: And so, um, we, we designed this product and then we looked at it and said, what audience is being underserved. And we realized that a lot of, um, the competition for us was focused on enterprise, right? They wanted to do a full contact center, very rich, very big, very heavy. And, you know, we looked at the audience and said, well, they're not talking to the SMB space who doesn't want to run their operation like a giant call center.
Dave George: They don't want to have their employees plugged in and stuck at a desk. Um, they don't want to follow scripts. They want to differentiate. Most small and medium businesses do a great job of support. So it wasn't about a contact center for support. It was about in customer engagement and empowerment.
Dave George: Because the SMB wants [00:04:00] to be forward thinking, they want to be aggressive, they don't just want to keep up, they don't just want to survive, they want to thrive, and the way to do that would be have these tools. So, we really got laser focused on what we decided to build with Helios, um, and that's why I think we're having this, uh, this call today, is, uh, we've definitely listened to the audience.
Dave George: Um, and, uh, we've added some different layers of A. I. which I think we'll get to in a few minutes. Um, got a whole new bunch of features and functions that are now available and a few that are going to be coming in the next few weeks. So, you know, I'm very excited about, um, where Helios has gone just since we launched it, um, end of April.
Mike: That's awesome. Well, I was just thinking. Dave, so I, um, let's take people back to kind of one of the subjects we were talking about on that last episode was, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly, some of the things that, you know, CEOs are thinking about that you're talking about, because I'm telling you, man, I, I feel like there's so many [00:05:00] conversations being had in the industry right now about AI, um, and, and how people can use it and, you know, maybe some of the stuff that.
Mike: Um, some of the fears around it too, right. Or, you know, uh, you know, just that really it's, it's a lot of it. It's just, uh, a lack of awareness. What are some of the, what's some of the feedback first, and then, um, from, from what you're hearing in the industry.
Mike: And then also like what type of opportunities do you think, uh, lie out there?
Dave George: Depending on what part of, um, the, the unified communications, um, you know, segment we're talking about, there'll be some different things that I see people doing, whether it's IOT, whether it's managing, you know, SIM cards through an AI agent, you know, Um, for an MVNO. So, you know, everyone's using AI a little differently.
Dave George: And I've, you know, I personally have been really enjoying attending a lot of these different seminars and webinars and so forth to really get a good understanding of the marketplace. We decided to, again, look at the SMB. And we decided to look at it through [00:06:00] the service providers eyes. So we don't sell our product directly to an end customer.
Dave George: We sell through service providers. And when I say service provider for your audience, I'm talking about your managed service provider. That's your, your it shop if you will. Right? I'm talking about communication service providers. That's more of your traditional phone company. Um, I guess you could even bundle into that, like an ILEC, ITSP, um, um, And then, of course, you have other service providers, like MSOs or cable companies, if you will, um, when you look at the gamut of service providers, there's quite a few of them that, um, they needed a product that kind of aligned with their current. customer base. So the problem was we looked at the contact center offerings that were out there and they were all designed with this idea of getting as large of a contact center as possible and I get it, right? Everyone wants to hear about that large whale, you know, [00:07:00] but the problem with that is a lot of these organizations, a lot of these smaller service providers, I mean, the average MSP, um, it may have, you know, less than 20 employees.
Dave George: So they're not geared up to go after a full contact center necessarily. And so. They were trying so you're trying to sell a product that was designed to be this tractor trailer, but you've been selling cars all along. And we said, instead of trying to sell tractor trailers, when you've been selling cars all along, why not sell a supercharger or a turbocharger on that car?
Dave George: You've been selling all along and basically enhancing that car and making it a race car or making it higher performance. Does that make sense? Like, as an
Mike: hmm. It makes, it makes total sense. Yes.
Dave George: And what's funny about this is it really kind of fits with our DNA because when people say to me, how do you describe your company as simply as possible?
Dave George: I say, well, I'm going to borrow someone else who's really famous. We are the Carroll Shelby to Ford, or if you prefer [00:08:00] German cars, we we'd like to be AMG. To Mercedes.
Mike: Gotcha.
Dave George: want to be that specialty. We want to be that company that finds the, the diamond in the rough, the niche, if you will. And so, um, and so that again, I want to and the reason I keep pointing out to that, that focuses when you really understand who you're trying to help.
Dave George: You understand the pain points that they're experiencing and then you deliver the product to them that they're looking for and you use their feedback. So all of our early adopters, whether they were service providers or the customers of that service provider. We now have that feedback. So then to answer your question, Mike, about AI specific to Helios, and then we'll come back to some of the other stuff that you're asking.
Dave George: We have three levels or layers of AI. Okay. To kind of provide that comfort level that a lot of your smaller and medium businesses might be afraid of, right? Cause they don't understand it yet. They've heard of it. They might even want to invest in it. [00:09:00] Um, but they don't necessarily understand all the, the gotchas.
Dave George: So we've provided a product where they don't have to worry about the gotchas. So our product has three levels. It has, um, AI co pilot, uh, AI assist and AI agent. And so let me just give you just sort of a high level of each. So AI co pilot is your. AI that's sitting next to your agent, if you will, your customer service rep, your call center agent, if it is a call center, but again, it could be anyone.
Dave George: It can be a sales associate. It could be your business manager. It could be anyone. I want to be very clear. This is not geared for contact center. It is geared for customer engagement, regardless of what you're doing. Billing, ordering doesn't matter. Co pilot can do things like summarize, Your conversation, it can do expand text.
Dave George: It can rephrase text. It can, um, enhance the tone so it can actually make it sound like the tone that you're talking. So it sounds like it's you, [00:10:00] um, it can translate. So if you have someone on the phone that would prefer to speak in a different language, it can do that for you in real time. Um, it can do grammatical.
Dave George: Uh, and spelling errors and fix them on the fly in real time. Um, and so it kind of is, it's sort of like it's holding your hand. So you're the employee and it's there holding your hand, just helping you. So I would call that an AI tool, right? And it's a nice tools, like having a bag with a hammer, a saw, a circular saw, a drill, et cetera, all they're helping you, but you're in control.
Dave George: Meaning the, the, the, the, the employee still is engaging with it. They're still controlling that experience. Then the next level we have, I'll call it tier two is A. I. Assist. Now A. I. Assist can automatically respond to the customer or the prospects query, um, and completely generate and write the response.
Dave George: Um, in real time, [00:11:00] and all the live agent has to do is either use it or edit and use it
Mike: Mm hmm. Mm
Dave George: on the fly. So that's what I call my tier 2, right? And then tier 3 is my AI agent, or you could say full autonomous virtual rep, right? It's it's a VR. And this 1 here is using custom loaded data sets. custom loaded prompts.
Dave George: Um, you can tune it to whatever preferences you want. Um, it's definitely multilingual. Um, and, and what, what's nice about this one is I don't have to have a human being there at all. So now I have that whole idea of self help at any time of the day. And a lot of small businesses aren't man 24 seven. So now you have a sense of having your shingle still out with someone at least communicating with prospects any time of the day.
Dave George: whatever, wherever they want to communicate, which we'll get to in a second. So that's just the A. I. Part, right? So the A. I. Has these three [00:12:00] flavors and all three of those flavors. You can even toggle on and off the ability for those different, those three different layers to learn or self improve driven by the A.
Dave George: I. And you can toggle it on and off. Also, the customer or the service provider, depending on how it's how you're setting this up, actually can control whether you're going to use, um, a web page for data, internal account information, uh, sales information. So you're controlling the data sets. So you don't have to be worried about giving away more than you want to.
Dave George: So what's nice about this is someone can just dip their toe. It's going to help the employee. They're going to feel more empowered. They're going to be able to talk with people who maybe are speaking a different language, or maybe they're not the best at speaking, or maybe they're not the best at typing.
Dave George: So I was just talking to my dentist, who [00:13:00] also loves AI, by the way, and he came to this country when he was 27 years old from Syria. So, English was not his native language, though. smart man, fantastic dentist, oral surgeon, the whole nine. He's got his own patents and stuff. Only until AI was given to him about a year and a half ago, did he publish any of his papers.
Dave George: But now that he has AI, he's empowered. I never saw a man, probably in his late 50s, early 60s, glowing because AI empowered him, right? So, right. So, so, so even, so when you think about like a, uh, a customer service rep and the fact that this AI tool can just make their life a little easier.
Mike: Mm
Dave George: It can frame things in a response intelligently without the stress of that.
Dave George: So then, so then they can help process and have more empathy for the customer or the prospect. You're just building better communication channels there. Um, and [00:14:00] this isn't something that should be scary. This should be something that could be very well welcomed. Um, and, and so we think we've listened to our customers.
Dave George: They didn't want a one size fit all fits all. And they wanted to make sure they knew where the data sets were coming from. They wanted a lot of control with the prompts. We gave them that. So, so Mike and Rico, part of that came from my conversation with you on the show back in March was, you know, who do you listen to?
Dave George: And as I think on that show, I said, I suggested, Talk to your employees, right? If you want buy in and you want to start getting things rolling with AI, talk to your employees first and see what would help them because if it starts benefiting them, they'll start talking about it to customers. But when we talk to the, and, but so that's certainly valid, but talking to the, to the customers as well, really just gave us back the feedback and said, What do you want when it comes to AI and we delivered, and this is also chat GPT three, five, uh, four turbo for, oh, you know, and then we have other LLMs as well, Mike, but most of our customers seem to [00:15:00] be going with chat GPT.
Dave George: So
Mike: Yeah. I think, I think if you're going for public, uh, LLMs, it's definitely a safe bet. I'm just going to interject, make one quick note about that too. Since I said it with public LLMs, one thing that I really like about Helios, cause I've had some hands on experience with it is you're not tied. To public LLMs, right?
Mike: Verify, but I believe I'm right on this, right? You can pretty much hook up to any, um, you know, web hook, using web hooks, right? You can hook up to any AI model, right? So if you want to host your own internal data in house and build your own models, you can absolutely do that and still use Helios.
Dave George: So we designed it and developed it with the idea of using four LLMs as the go to market, right? So we had OctoAI, we had Anthropic, and we had Gemini from Google, as well as ChatGPT, of course. Um, but there's, there's nothing that prevents you with our Dragon, DragonDrop [00:16:00] zero code workflows using webhooks and other technologies that are already in Helios.
Dave George: So you can be an office manager who has no experience with code. And you can drag and drop and literally have this product pulled information from where you want in databases that you create on the fly. It's very easy. Once you do it, you can even copy and paste and replicate. So it really is a very powerful tool.
Dave George: Um, and again, we wanted to be sensitive to the fact that we know that there are, you know, there's at least a certain amount of customers or service providers and or SMBs that they service that still have some questions about AI, you know, the good, the bad, the ugly, if you
Mike: right,
Dave George: I think we answered them with the way we developed our AI, the way we segmented it, and then the way we allow them to control it.
Mike: right. Yeah, no, absolutely. Now, um, one quick thing I would love to dig into too, um, is, so we're talking [00:17:00] about all these different channels, right? Omni channel. And one of those channels is voice, right? Um, if, if, if. Uh, an agent is using, you know, Hey, they're picking up their phone. They're doing their, um, you know, their call with the customer.
Mike: Um, what types of functionality is there in Helios that to sort of help them with that live call? I think that's more kind of the co pilot we were talking a little with a bit, a little bit
Dave George: So, so, so Yeah. So, so from an AI perspective, co pilot would certainly help them, but, but before we even get to there, just from a simple communication, uh, integration, Helios is designed to layer on top of your existing unified communications platform. So what does that mean in layman's terms? You can have.
Dave George: XYZ platform. I can throw a few names out here, you know, whether it's a net sapiens, whether it's a portal one, whether it's an Alianza, whether it's a, an asterix and we can, there's a bunch of companies that use asterix as sort of an underlying, [00:18:00] um, it layers and integrates with those. So that's already fundamentally done.
Dave George: So call control is, is already built into Helios. For those phone systems. So if you already own a phone system like that, you don't have to buy a whole new phone system. You can simply purchase Helios and layer it on top, which is great. Now, if you want to go deeper, we have a mobility product that we tie into your SIP trunking and your API, which now gives you the mobility as well as a deeper integration and richer integration.
Dave George: For beyond call control. Now you can get even more information, Mike, like CDR data. So who's doing what, uh, you know, in your platform. So again, a lot of the big tech guys, right? A lot of the bigger, um, Omni channel and contact center companies, they want you to do a heavy lift. They, there's, they're basically saying, I'm sorry, you gotta, you gotta start all over, you know?
Dave George: And, and while [00:19:00] we have our own plan and at the end of this episode, maybe we'll have time to talk about what's coming. So.
Mike: Yeah.
Dave George: But there's a reality that there's so much already out there that why would I do that when I can just integrate this product in? Um, you know, there's a factor that this is more affordable than doing a heavy lift.
Dave George: The amount of training required for Helios is for most CSRs and agents. Once it's deployed by the I. T. manager in their company or or whatnot, or the office manager. Yeah. It's a few hours because it's not a heavy lift. They're still using the same phone that's on their desk. They're still using the same auto attendant.
Dave George: We haven't changed any of
Mike: Yeah. There's not a lot of retraining. If any, there's
Dave George: a lot of retreat.
Mike: no retraining. It's more of like. Layered on top, as you said.
Dave George: So, so what ends up happening is, is you have a faster go to market, lower cost. Um, it's, it's more palatable for the small business owner. Um, [00:20:00] they don't get heartburn when you tell them what it's going to cost. Um, and they actually enjoy.
Dave George: Having this product because again, now everything's on one screen, one pane of glass, everything, your voice, your email, your text messaging, uh, including campaigns. Um, so everything, your WhatsApp, your telegram, your Facebook messenger, all on one screen. This is really empowering. And not only is that information coming on your screen, but then it's archived with your CRM.
Dave George: And it has, it stays there. So when you come back to that same person a month later or three months later, you can pick up right where you left off. So it's very empowering, but again, it doesn't have that heaviness of a contact center. Although it does quite a bit of what a contact center does. We just didn't feel that SMBs needed to necessarily have that heavy cost and heavy load.
Dave George: Um, and again, who wants to forklift everything all the time?
Mike: Yeah, the, the [00:21:00] SMBs that I've talked to really, like when, when they hear of, I won't say names of those other like big contact centers, but you're right. It's, it's like the, um, the, it's like a box truck at least, right. Or a Mac truck versus the, versus the car. Um, they. They really don't need it at all. They need, they need a certain percentage of it, pieces of it.
Mike: It's, it's what I'll call foundational things. And you know, what's interesting is sure. They had the, you know, those, those products have a lot of features, but they're almost like blow over bloated with features, whereas I feel like with Helios, it was kind of a fresh, fresh look because it's like, okay, this, this has the foundational elements that somebody would need for a small business or an MSP And it also has like newer tech and innovative stuff too.
Mike: Like that workflow builder you're talking about. Right. So
Dave George: Yeah. I mean,
Mike: it's like win win you're getting newer tech, lower costs, you know, less of a lift in all ways. [00:22:00] Right. Training, you know, everything else. Right. So there's, there's just a huge benefit for the, for your target market. You're not targeting everybody.
Mike: You're targeting a specific market. I think it's the right market.
Dave George: Again, we like to stay in our lane. Uh, you know, do I think this product could scale up? I do. Um, but again, we know where our lane is. We know what we do really well. We've got the feedback now. So we now understand that our mission is to help the SMB. And again, when I say, when I say SMB, you know, a medium sized business for Helios can be certainly 500 to a thousand.
Dave George: Seats. I want to be very clear. I'm not talking about only up to like 40 or 50 here, but, but that's a lot of seats for a lot of businesses in main street America that are being forgotten. Right. So that's the audience that we talk to now, ironically, that's, that's 90 plus percent of all businesses in America.
Dave George: I
Mike: It's a, it's a very high percent. And it's funny about, you know, like these smaller businesses, they're making [00:23:00] money, they're doing well, but I've talked to some of these owners and like, even think about gong, right? Gong is an amazing enterprise product. It's really, it's really, really good. But I talked to him and they're like, It was just too much.
Mike: We couldn't, we couldn't do gong, you know what I mean? And, and so there's, there's such a market for products that can do like 70 percent of what gong, gong isn't all that hard. Right. But there are products, you could build a product that did 70 percent of that really well. And had some innovative stuff that, uh, gong, you know, folks there at whatever company, I don't know if it actually is gong that, that, uh, produces that.
Mike: That's awesome. But they, they wouldn't be able to move fast enough to keep up with those particular things or nor, nor might they even want to do that. Right? A lot of times these big Goliaths or behemoths, they actually don't want to do that particular thing or service that particular market. So a lot of times this stuff will be like wide open.
Mike: It just like your, your customer as in your target customer won't be their target customer in a lot of these cases. Right.[00:24:00]
Dave George: would, I would suggest that. A lot of our customers that have 25, maybe 45 seat opportunities where they're going to put our product on top of it. For example, um, that's just too small for some of these larger contact centers. The economics of it when you add in what it costs to train what it costs to get it on boarded.
Dave George: I'm not saying they won't do it, but it's just extremely heavy and probably disinteresting to that vendor. Whereas for us, that's our sweet spot. Give us that all day long. And the other thing that I think people have to remember is contact centers, if we're going to talk about them, um, have high churn. It's real high. Like, I think it's 35 percent every, like, so many days at 35 percent go through, which means there's a cost to train that new agent on a heavy contact center to the tune of probably 10 grand.
Mike: right,
Dave George: Okay. Because you figure it takes months to get them up to speed.
Mike: Oh yeah,
Dave George: call it. [00:25:00] Okay. Well, if Helios can be taught in a few hours.
Dave George: You can see where just the economics of that churn and replay, even that just makes business sense. And it, but again, in the small business model, I don't think people want to be treated like a call center agent. They want to be empowered to help customers. They want to do engagement as a service. Um, and, and so that's really our core focus, Helios. So, yeah, that's what, that's what makes it exciting. Now, Mike, um, uh, you know, obviously you've seen the product. There's some new things coming that I want to talk about, uh, as well, which is, um, audio video is now, uh, native it's
Mike: Oh, wonderful.
Dave George: on the fly from chat, person wants to see the agent and talk, and they want to communicate audio and or video on the fly that's built in, that's
Mike: Wow. That's cool.
Dave George: on our next iteration, that will also allow, it's not today, but our next version, you'll be able to do the screen [00:26:00] control, uh, you know, via, so the desktop, a device appliance control through that as well. Um, we, a lot of our customers said, hey, we love your CRM control, but can you make it more robust? We have now full blown CRM contact management, Mike.
Mike: Oh, that's great.
Dave George: Yeah. So again, we listen to our customers, we get it implemented. And by the way, these cycles were weeks, not months and years. I mean, weeks. Um, so we are, you know, we have a very strong development team that just focuses on Helios all day long. Um, what was another one? Oh, activity tracking. Um, um, for your sales and marketing departments.
Dave George: So you can actually have activity tracked in that. Um, if you want to do marketing, uh, campaigns, we now have segmented lists. So now you can, you can send out a different campaigns, emails, SMS group. By the way, we support group SMS. Um, and since I'm talking about SMS, we added, uh, so we used to have Twilio.
Dave George: Obviously, but now we've added bandwidth and Telmex. Um, to our roster [00:27:00] and there's more comp, there'll be more
Mike: Yeah, of course, of course. Yep.
Dave George: Um, so yeah, so, um, and of course we have our, our soft phone that I mentioned earlier, um, which is extremely rich, um, iOS, Android, and web RTC, uh, you know, for, uh, for application purposes.
Dave George: So, you know, really, um, just in the last few months, we've really taken this product to where we felt the customers were looking for it to be. Um, We're not getting as much asks for features anymore. Now it's like, we, this is
Rico: Starting to get there.
Dave George: yeah, like, it's like, this is it guys. You really hit the, you know, you, you kind of hit, we hit a triple maybe when we first launched it back in April, but over the last six months, we've been able to really grab that customer sentiment that the, the, the, the surveying, listening to our service providers.
Dave George: And, and now we have a product that's really, um, kind of come into its own. Um, and it's pretty exciting. You know, you start to see the uptick, you know, like, you know, [00:28:00] it's, um, I'm kind of, I'm proud of my team. They've really done a fantastic job. Our partner, um, who's helped us with the development has done a fantastic job as well.
Dave George: So I can't speak, uh, better of my team. We've, you know, just, just, you know, those guys are the rock stars. They're doing a great job.
Rico: I was going to say, is it safe to say, Dave, that, uh, the adoption of AI by the employees and the team has, has allowed you guys to get all of this accomplished in such a short amount of time? Do
Dave George: So there's no question that we definitely embraced AI over the last six months more than probably the previous year. We still do some stuff. Obviously, I'll call it traditionally, right? Some of the code development is still being done traditionally, but we've used AI to ratchet up testing. Um, we've been using AI even just internally.
Dave George: Um, for things like some of the code development and so forth, um, my guys still like to sort of, I'll call it review.
Mike: You have you have
Dave George: they're not just plugging it in.
Mike: have
Dave George: [00:29:00] Correct. Correct. Yes. Yes. But, but where we're taking the, the product. Um, we're embracing AI where it makes sense for us. Um, and we're just having fun.
Dave George: So I think you can tell like there's,
Rico: Oh yeah.
Dave George: we're, um, we're embracing it. Where it makes sense. We're also, we're also drinking our own champagne here. Like we're using Helios internally to do things internally and play around. Um, but also use it for testing evaluation, certainly, but we use it for our own tools.
Dave George: Um, And I think you guys both know that I am also the co founder of a communications marketing company. Um, and, uh, they started using it for web chat to help all of their website development or website bill. So they're starting to use it to help empower their customers, um, who had not embraced, uh, you know, web chat.
Dave George: And of course, once you do web chat, it's going to be logical that you're going to say, well, what else can I do with this? And we say, well, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, [00:30:00] Telegram, Instagram. I mean, you know, you can start to see where this goes. And so it kind of snowballs into all these other opportunities of how you can do campaigning to a certain audience.
Dave George: And then have them communicate in that ecosystem. I think, I think that's what that, that what's, what's very empowering is if someone's in Facebook, don't ask them to Hank that to, to leave Facebook and have to call you, let them just communicate right there in their messenger. It's right there on the phone.
Dave George: Just press the button. They can start communicating and you can start sending them information as well, which means now you can entice them with a promotion, a discount code, or if they need help. An actual human beings phone number. If you want to engage from a live perspective, that's all you're in power to do all of that, and then you can use workflow managements to even address that after hours on what you want to have happen as well.
Dave George: So it starts to really, um, allow the SMB to step up their game.
Mike: Yeah.[00:31:00]
Dave George: I mean, quite a bit, actually, it's, it's actually pretty exciting when you think about it. Like. You know, especially because considering where this was, you know, you know, a year ago and where it is today. So, yeah, it's, it's exciting.
Rico: That's outstanding.
Mike: Yeah. That's, that's, that's very exciting. Um, one thing that, uh, that I will say is that, you know, as one of the consumers of that product, right? Um, I noticed how fast your, your, um, cycle is for actually, you know, producing features and things that are tangible. It's pretty impressive. Right. So, um, you know, I think that they're, I think they're doing it.
Mike: I think your partner is doing like a fantastic job of, cause you know, it doesn't matter how big your team is. And it's really about the quality of like the managing that life cycle and everything. I think you guys are doing a great job at that. So, um, that's just some of my feedback. Right. Yeah,
Dave George: with them as we're going around. So, so you have some developers and you have some project management on our side of the pond, [00:32:00] and then you have developers on their side of the pond. But the feedback loop that we have is it's it's daily. Um, just to be clear, like, it is constant.
Dave George: It's reviewing we're testing. We're evaluating. We're providing feedback. Um, and so. Our road map now has is mapped much more granular than it was a year ago. So again, you know, we know what's coming in December. We know what's coming in January. So, so, um, so it's very exciting because it, it. It provides that direction.
Dave George: So when we have a service provider, like you do, you know, like you, like you, Mike, or an SMB that needs to have some information, we're able to provide that. Um, but I mean, this product, the way it's designed, it could be as light as the SMB wants or as heavy as they want it to be. Right? They don't have to integrate to a CRM.
Dave George: They can integrate to a CRM. They could lightly integrate [00:33:00] to a CRM with just a few data points. Or a web hook, but they could also might just not that they don't want to. They don't have to like, they can just use it for someone to communicate during the day on a website, right? They can just offer that as a communication channel, or they want to bring email and just more traditional like SMS texting or RCS into that same screen just so they can see everything easy. That's available for them to, um, Oh, yeah, no. So we don't have a demo. What we really, what we should probably do next time is do a demo of it on, on, on, on a
Mike: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. So, so, you know, that's a great idea and it's funny because that kind of leads into like what my next question was going to be, Dave, which is, and we don't have to show it, but. Can you, can you tell the audience, like, you know, with this workflow system, folks, it's extremely flexible.
Mike: As Dave said, um, have, have you seen any of your consumers of, you know, customers of the product of Helios do [00:34:00] something, what's, what's one of the coolest things you can actually share with us that they did like, Hey, when it does this, it does this, you know, like, uh, any, any cool stories that, that you would have that, uh, we could share.
Dave George: Yeah, probably my, um, my, my director of the product would probably be the guy that could
Mike: Yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll do that next time. Maybe the next time with
Dave George: I mean, I've definitely seen some things triggered meaning. Through the flow, something gets triggered that creates a template or an application that gets delivered. So the customer can then complete that information and then it can be acted upon in real time.
Dave George: Um, but I'm sure that my team could provide you with some really cool stuff that's been done by some of the, some of the service providers or some of the, um, the, the end users of the product that, that I don't know. Um,
Mike: Yeah. I, I, this was a, that was a crap shoot, honestly, if you would, if you would know one of those. Um, but, but yeah, you know, I think that's, that's a great next step, right? Well, we'll have you guys back [00:35:00] on, um, and, uh, and, and show off this product a little bit. Uh, and with that, Dave, is there anything else that you want to, want to share with the group before we kind of round down here
Dave George: not necessarily specific to A. I. Um, but, um, um, early announcement is that another product will be coming from P2P labs called cosmos. And so just stay tuned for cosmos. And, uh,
Mike: Cap all caps right in the, and the O has to be highlighted, right? Yeah. Okay. All right.
Dave George: same model as Helios, right? So, yes, yes, yes. So, uh, that that's another product that will be launched probably within the next few months. two to four weeks, uh, with a soft launch and then January two hard launch. Um, and you'll be seeing us at trade shows and so forth with Helios and Cosmos.
Dave George: So yeah, so stay tuned for, for that as well. Yeah.
Mike: Always exciting to, to hear, you know, what you have coming down the pipe, Dave. And, um, you know, love [00:36:00] chatting with you as always. Um, and anything else that, you know, before we kind of round down the episode or
Dave George: No, I, I think if anyone's interested in learning more about Helios, they can go to, uh, engagehelios. ai. Um, certainly I'm on your show. If they want, they can find me on LinkedIn. Um, Dave George. Um, and of course, uh, you know, you guys can share my LinkedIn,
Mike: we will, we always do. Yup. Yup. Absolutely.
Dave George: yes, I'm always available to take calls.
Dave George: Any questions? Um, and I can certainly point people to the right people if they have a specific technical question. Um, but just excited to be on the show. It's good to see you guys again. I always appreciate your newsletters. I would tell anyone that's watching this, Definitely sign up for your newsletter.
Dave George: I read those things religiously. Um, there's usually some pearls of wisdom that just help me kind of, you know, understand what's going on. Um, Rico, keep, keep that good, bad, ugly [00:37:00] kind of thing. Uh, uh, keep, keep, keep that tone in the, in the newsletter. I, I enjoy, Uh, the negative ones just because I think it's sometimes I think it's humorous, um, to leave, to leave, to leave.
Dave George: It was something I thought was funny was I was talking to someone who told me that, um, I was told that it, um, it could not try to do capture. Um, you know, I'm not a robot, but it was smart enough to hire a human being via banking
Mike: heard this.
Rico: Yeah, I did too.
Dave George: and, and, and evidently the people then did the CAPTCHA so AI figured a workaround that did not break the rules technically because it didn't do CAPTCHA.
Dave George: It paid someone who was human to do CAPTCHA. I thought that was interesting. Um, so
Rico: who is the tool at that point? Right.
Dave George: Yes. Yes. So, you know, um, Again, that's just a problem with understanding, you know, the limits that you have to create for the prompting and so forth. But I just thought that was [00:38:00] a cute story. So keep the good, keep those good, the good information and stories coming.
Dave George: And again, if anyone has any questions on Helios would love to To, uh, schedule a demo, um, get one in your hands, so to speak. Um, and, uh, I think that's, uh, you know, I think that's it. I think Helios, uh, I think, you know, I think there's a lot of businesses that could benefit from this product.
Mike: Yeah. And, and like we said, we'll be, we'll be having you back on. Uh, I'd, I'd love to do that demo. Right. We can kind of show people cause, cause a lot of people are visual, right? They, they want to understand like, how does this actually work in practice? So we'll definitely do that. And again, you know, Dave's on Dave George with us, uh, greenstar marketing, also P2P, uh, and, and that's engaged P2P, which is your, your technical, uh, engaged P2P.
Mike: com, right. Which is your. More tactical support and, you know, um, you know, great company. And then you have Peter, is it engaged P2P labs or what? What's the other, what's the other URL?
Dave George: [00:39:00] Yeah. So, so, so we have a, we have several URLs, right? So we have engaged P2P. com is our technical company. Um, we also have P2P labs. ai for P2P labs. Um, but for Helios, just go to engage Helios. ai or more importantly, just reach out to myself. I will gladly, um, take your call, take your email. Um, it's dave.
Dave George: george at engagep2p. com. I will absolutely, um, take the first call. I will get the right people depending on what you're looking for to get involved, to help you. Um, and, uh, you know, uh, if you're a service provider, you know, we're here for you. That's what we do. We support service providers, um, whether you're an MSP, a CSP, ITSP, a LEC, it doesn't matter.
Dave George: We want to help you.
Mike: Excellent. Well, Dave, thanks for joining us. Rico, you want to take us out?
Rico: Yeah, sure. I just want to thank you, Dave, again, for your time. And of course, everybody listening, please take time and, uh, take a look at what Dave has going on there in Helios and, [00:40:00] uh, we'll see you next time.
Mike: All right. See everybody. Thanks. We'll see you back in the lab soon. Yep. Bye.
Dave George: Bye. Bye.
Natasha: That's it for episode 17. Thanks for joining us. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and let us know your thoughts in the comments. Stay connected with us on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn for all the latest updates, and check out antics. tv or our YouTube channel at Artificial Antics. We'll see you back in the lab soon.
Natasha: We want to give a huge shout out to Nick and the team at Nomad Studios for mastering the Artificial Antics Podcasts. Want to level up your audio visual game? www. nomadstudios. pro
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