Thriving Business

The Exciting Evolution of AI: How to Use the Latest Innovations in Your Business

• Dr Kate De Jong & Sam Morris • Season 1 • Episode 54

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Welcome to another episode of Thriving Business podcast, real stories and innovative insights to help you grow a business that truly thrives.

Today, Kate and Sam share an open, thoughtful, and at times surprising conversation about the rapid evolution of AI — how they’re using it today, how it’s impacting their decision-making, and where it’s all heading next.

They also take a deep and personal dive into the field of Human Design and how it's helping them both rethink how they structure their work, energy, and business offerings.


Highlights:

  • Real AI in Practice: Kate shares an example of how AI helped cut hours of analysis down to seconds when choosing between job candidates using Harrison Assessments — another example of significant time savings and efficiency.

  • Gut Feelings vs Pattern Recognition: A fascinating and candid discussion on what our intuition actually is — and whether our “gut” is just our brains quietly recognising patterns we can’t consciously process, but which AI can recognise instantly.

  • Human Design in Business: Sam introduces Human Design and how it’s offering deeper insight than traditional personality tests. They explore how knowing your type can help you realign your business model to match how you actually like to work.

  • Finding Business Alignment: Kate reflects on how misalignment in her work left her uninspired, and how Human Design reminded her to structure her offers around deep work, spaciousness, and collaborative group settings.

  • Agentic AI Is Here: Sam explains the next wave of AI — agentic AI — and how it's fundamentally different from the AI tools we’re used to. These new AI agents can actually take action on your behalf (think booking flights, answering emails, or running parts of your business). Exciting? Definitely. A little terrifying? Also yes.

  • Ethics, Trust, and the Future of AI: The conversation gets real about what it means to give AI more responsibility in our lives — from inbox management to robotic surgeries. Where do we draw the line? And are we really ready for what’s coming?


Tools & Resources Mentioned:

  • Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini (generative AI tools)
  • Harrison Assessments
  • Free Human Design Chart - [hint, copy and past your results into ChatGPT or Claude.ai and ask it to interpret the results and what they mean for you and your business model]
  • Human Design types: Manifestors, Generators, Manifesting Generators, Projectors, Reflectors

This episode blends tech, intuition, and personal reflection in a way that feels fresh, relevant, and deeply human. Whether you’re AI-curious or totally overwhelmed by it, there’s something here for you.


Connect with the Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business

Website: https://katedejong.com/

Instagram: katedejong.inspiredbusiness

Email: kate@katedejong.com

Sam Morris | Digital Systers

Website: https://www.digitalsysters.com/

Instagram: sammorris.businesscoach


Thanks for listening!

If you enjoyed this conversation, please follow, rate, or share the podcast with someone who’d love to hear it. Until next time, keep growing, keep aligning, and keep thriving.

Kate:

Welcome to Thriving Business, real stories and innovative insights to help you grow a business that truly thrives. I'm Kate De Jong. And I'm Sam Morris. Let's dive in. Good afternoon, everybody. And here we are back with the Thriving Business podcast. And I'm very happy to be back just having a one-to-one conversation with Sam because that's not the norm lately. Hi, Sam. Hello, Kate.

Sam:

I know I'm excited for today. It's been too long.

Kate:

Yeah, yeah. We, you know, life has its way of, you know, throwing things at us. But here we are back together today. And yeah, we've got a lot of, well, you and I started getting on a roll of excitement as we were catching up and, you know, decided that we should probably hit the record button because there was so much good stuff coming out. Yes. And today's topic, which we know we've covered many times, but as Sam and I said, it's evolving constantly, which is the world of AI. and how we use it and harness it in our businesses to be more efficient and, you know, do more insightful, meaningful things. So... Yes,

Sam:

I know that my day-to-day is more and more involved with using AI tools. And I love it. I love it. But, you know, as quickly as AI hit the scene and has evolved... We are also looking at what this next generation of AI is going to do to our world, do to our businesses. And that's the world of agentic AI, which is, you know, the next level from generative AI. So let's start with the generative AI because we're using that every day.

Kate:

Yeah, and I'm glad you brought it up front because people stay tuned. This is pretty mind-blowing what we'll get to eventually. There have been so many developments across the board and what we wanted to do is give you an update just on some of the ways Sam and I are using AI in our business and how it's making our life so much easier and deeper and just so much better. And then, yes, as Sam mentioned, she's been exploring this agentic AI, you call it?

Sam:

Yes, yeah. they always have to have these really weird names. Yeah, it sounds cool. Because basically they're AI agents. And so it's called agentic AI. And that is the future that is on our doorstep right now. Like we can literally deploy agentic AI like today.

Kate:

Which is so exciting. Yeah. And, yeah, so we'll unpack what that is. But we first thought let's do a quick update on some of the generative AI things we use in our business. And I am just loving, I can't tell you how much I'm loving the AI's ability to quickly summarise and process huge amounts of data quickly so that we can, you know, it's taking the grunt work out of analysis so that we can then look at the interpretation of And what that means, so we've got more time for spacious thinking rather than being stuck in pulling out, you know, doing the analysis ourselves, which is really time consuming. So we've got some examples for you. And I suppose the one we could start with before we get to human design, which is another whole amazing topic. But before we hit the record button today, I was telling Sam about a client of mine that has two candidates that are applying for a job. in her firm, and she really wasn't sure which candidate would be the best one. So I suggested we run a Harrison assessment, which is, for those who aren't familiar with Harrison assessments, they're a very good recruitment tool because they give you a very in-depth personality profiling of someone, including their emotional intelligence, their areas for growth, how they collaborate in teams. It takes a person about 30 minutes to complete, and all the questions are around their work preferences and how they like to work. And it's got this amazing intelligence in the Because its focus is on strengths and it helps you, you know, pull out how you can develop this person, but it also pulls out where their blind spots are, which gives you those, you know, really clear overview of their development needs. But they generate these huge reports. And I was telling Sam that I spent an hour on a Zoom call today with my colleague, James Bryden, who is very, very experienced in Harrison assessments, and we were pulling it apart together and figuring out what this data means and how we can present that to the client so that it's meaningful and she knows which one she should, which candidate she should choose. So anyway, we spent an hour doing this analysis. And in the end, James said, I think, you know, well, he said to me, who do you think she should choose? And I said, well, I think she should choose this person for these reasons. And he said, yeah, I'm the same. This is the red flags for that one, the green flags. You know, we both gave our summary. And then I said to him, hey, how about we put these reports into claude.ai, or you could do it in Gemini or ChatGPT, and ask it to tell us which one would be the best candidate given that this is a small company and we want workplace culture to be the priority. And so we put the reports in and it came out with this person is clearly the best candidate for these reasons, like, you know, in a split second. And we both just sort of went, wow, that just took us an hour to figure out. And it has just basically told us exactly what, you know, what we thought, but in such a clear and concise way with such a good like a well-founded argument. Yes. And it had the stats and everything about why. Because, you know, I said to him, I remember saying to James several times, my gut feel is this because of that. Because we can't retain all the numbers in our head and stuff, you know, just after a while we sort of get a gut feel. Whereas this, you know, AI just went, this person's good because of this, this and these numbers reflect that. And it was just brilliant. Yeah. And apparently Harrison is developing an AI, like every other company at the moment, developing an AI integration so that it will do exactly that. Because all these tools are great, but it's the interpretation that is important.

Sam:

Yes. And Kate, I think you've hit on something here that I think is really important to highlight when you're using AI is that AI doesn't have that gut instinct about things. So it can analyse data sets brilliantly and give you really succinct explanations of what those data sets mean, but it doesn't have the gut instinct that only a human being has. So I kind of wish it had given you a different result. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? But, I mean... First of all, let's just say that obviously the fact that you all came up with the same conclusion means that you guys obviously know what you're doing with regards to interpreting that report.

Kate:

It was a nice validation, yeah. Yeah,

Sam:

yeah, but I would have been so curious to see how that would have played out if it had actually said no go with the other candidates.

Kate:

Yeah, yeah. And I would have been completely open to that because, you know, there's so much data that you've got to hold in your head and you overlook things. And that's why I was wondering, is it actually a so-called gut feel that we're getting? Or is it that our brain can only retain so much information, but we're vaguely remembering good, bad, good, bad as we go through? And at the end, the overall sense is it's more good in that person, less good. Do you know what I mean? I do know what you mean. Which we then translate to being a gut feeling or is it more just my brain has processed all that information and I don't know why, but I'm thinking this is the better outcome. Do you know what I mean?

Sam:

I do. And do you know what? This is so funny we're talking about this. Yesterday I was doing some research and the research that I was doing was giving me back the information that brains are just pattern recognition machines. Okay. So the fact that you're sitting here saying what is that gut feeling, now I'm going the brain has recognised the pattern, even though on a subconscious level because it's taken in the data, and then the brain's interpreting that pattern to a physiological response, which is the gut feeling. Yes.

Kate:

Yeah, so is it this sixth sense or is it purely that our brains have registered enough patterns that the overall sense is X or Y and that's the so-called gut feel that we get?

Sam:

Yes, because even if you think about when you're standing in front of somebody and you have a gut feeling about that or them, yeah, that could be that you're getting the additional data sets that you need from their body language and all of those things to give you that gut sense. This is very

Kate:

interesting. Yeah, which is all based on historical experiences that we've had with other people and we know that certain behaviours have resulted in certain experiences and therefore our brain recognises that pattern. Yes, yes. Yeah, so it does make you think, holy cow, at the end of the day we're just pattern recognition devices walking around in flesh.

Sam:

We are. So now I'm curious to know, I know we've gone off topic from AI for a minute, but this is a really interesting topic because, you know, we always talk about women's intuition and how it's a lot more powerful. Does that just mean that that part of the brain in a woman is better at this?

Kate:

Yeah. Possibly given that over a gazillion years of evolution, women have been in the nurturing role and therefore more sensitive to emotional nuances and things where if the men are focused on hunting, providing, and their sole focus is that, they haven't needed to develop that part of their brain as much because the sole focus is on bringing home the goods. Potentially. Yeah. So

Sam:

is our intuition not really a gut thing, but it's a gut response that's sent by the brain based on the data?

Kate:

Most could be. I mean, this exercise to me really did highlight, yeah, that what we are doing all the time is interpreting data. And, yeah, I... The fact that you can give that data to Claudia and it just comes out with this very clear summary, which we attribute to a gut feeling. Yeah, I mean, it is at the end of the day data pattern recognition and interpretation. Yes.

Sam:

Yeah. Because I know like whenever I've conducted training programs and training courses before, on how to use AI, it's always been my mission to encourage people to always push back on the output of an AI because we do have individual experiences and we have access to information that isn't necessarily, you know, like the old Google search information. And also, no AI is that easy. that it understands our nuances and our own human experience. So we have to push back on anything that an AI tells us, particularly when we're doing any kind of exploratory work like in the human design. We have to always make sure that we are questioning the output. I find that I have to give very specific instructions for AI to not be so agreeable all the time.

Kate:

Yeah, and sometimes when you do push back it says, oh, yes, thank you for pointing that out. Yes, in that case, blah, blah, and you're like, oh, but you could have. Are you trying to please me or are you?

Sam:

Yes, exactly. So I think one of my favourites at the moment is always adding on to my prompts, give me all the reasons why this isn't going to work. Because I want to. I don't just want an agreeable AI that's going to go, oh, this is the best in the world, you're so clever. I don't want that. So I'm like tell me why it's not going to work. What am I missing? What am I wrong? I tell you, that's practically ingrained in my keyboard. What am I missing?

Kate:

Interesting. Well, we've mentioned human design a couple of times and there might be listeners that don't actually know what that is. So I've just asked AI to give me a quick description. Oh, yes, yes. Okay. It's a field, a body of work created in 1987 by Robert Alan Krakowa, who now calls himself Ra Uruhu. But it could sound so-called woo-woo, but I know a lot of very mainstream people harnessing this approach. So there's obviously substance in it because people are using it. And I found it particularly insightful. So anyway, human design is a relatively modern system that combines elements from astrology, the I Ching, which is the Chinese Tao system, Kabbalah, the Jewish system, chakras and quantum physics to create what its proponents describe as a blueprint for understanding individual personalities, how we make decisions and our life purpose. It can help you understand your authentic nature, improve relationships, make better decisions and align your life more authentically. So last week I was complaining to Sam that I was feeling very stuck in my own business and feeling out of alignment and that everything I was offering just felt really lackluster. And I didn't actually say I was to win clients. I didn't actually want to deliver the work because yeah, I was just completely in a funk. And Sam suggested I run my human design report, which she very lovingly then generated for me and sent to me. And as I read it, it was just like, wow, okay. So firstly, how did you generate that report, Sam?

Sam:

Oh, gosh. Well, I'd like to say it was really a simple little prompt, but honestly, it's I've been doing this for a little while with people. So I've kind of, I don't have a formal system apart from I do upload it into AI and then I ask questions to draw out certain things from that human design report. because it depends on what output you want. Like for you it was like where are you going with your business and that kind of thing. So I just was asking a series of questions about, you know, this is, you know, I uploaded your website, I uploaded your social media accounts so that the AI could get a sense of what you're putting out in the world versus your human design to then see where the alignment was out.

Kate:

Yes. which was brilliant insight for me because it made me realize that my business model was completely out of alignment of how I naturally like to operate. Yeah. And it's interesting because the different types, there's five main types in the human design system. You've got manifestors. These are the people who initiate and can start independently. And yeah, they're, They're here to initiate and impact others. And that's only about 9% of the population apparently. And then you've got generators. That's about 30% of the population. These are the life force energy of the planet. They are designed to respond to what life brings to them rather than initiate. Yeah. And then you've got the manifesting generators, which is myself. Which one were you, Sam? I'm a generator. Yeah. So you respond to what life brings to you.

Sam:

Yeah, and that's why like you've come to me with this problem and that's why I'm really good at picking that up and then running with it. And

Kate:

responding. Yes. Yeah, but I know I've known you for a long time and you're not someone who loves putting yourself out there and, you know.

Sam:

No, I'm happy to just sit behind the scenes and do all the stuff there.

Kate:

Yeah, and respond to what comes your way. But then the challenge there is how do you bring the things to you to respond to, isn't it?

Sam:

Well, yes, yes, particularly, you know, we're supposed to be talking about yours, but my profile in particular is that I have, there are some, look, I won't dive too deeply into human design, but I am a role model and a hermit and I'm finding that I have very much rely on that hermit side of myself to re-energise.

Kate:

That's where you do your research and you're playing with the tools. That's how you stay ahead of the game. Yes, definitely. Yeah, interesting. Yeah,

Sam:

so back to your report.

Kate:

Yeah, so manifesting generators are 33% of the population. That's a hybrid type that combines qualities of manifestors, meaning initiators and generators. So they can initiate but must also respond, multi-passionate, fast-moving and efficient. They respond to opportunities as well rather than but they can do both. Yes. Respond and initiate. Then you've got projectors, which is about 20% of the population. These are the guides and advisors designed to see systems and people clearly. Their strategy is to wait for invitation before sharing their insights or taking on major roles, but they're here to guide others efficiently. So that's your coaches, consultants, therapists, wouldn't you say?

Sam:

Yes.

Kate:

Yeah. And then you've got reflectors, which is only 1% of the population, the rarest type designed to reflect the health of their community and environment, highly sensitive to their surroundings. Their strategy is to wait before making major decisions. They need to have really good clarity before they take action. Yeah, so I guess the... Interesting thing is, you know, figuring out which one of those you are. And there is credibility, you know, astrologers have been running birth charts for people for, you know, millennia. So there is, you know, not everyone believes in astrology, but yeah, there is. astrology in itself looks at the alignment of the planets and stars when you were born and what that means for your particular blueprint. And Sam, it's interesting because you're someone who's come from a military, you came from the Navy and very blueprint, very left-brained world. What is it that draws you to human design and that sort of astrological blueprint?

Sam:

Oh, I think... Well, you know, like some time ago during the bank profiling and I think because I sat, you know, on that line of, oh, you're just a nice little piece of everything and I've done personality tests and when I was working in the HR industry, a lot of that industry do rely on personality tests. But what I felt for me personally was that on any given day, My interpretation of what I thought a question meant on a personality test and how I would answer that might change so i felt like i don't know if these i mean you know like i would do the tests and they would give me great information but then i was like oh but next time i do the test i'm getting a different result so i wasn't 100 confident that a personality test was representative what i needed and then when i was shown human design i was like oh it's not open to interpretation for how i answer questions yeah it's just it is what it is

Kate:

yeah there's nothing you to input into. So for those that aren't, you know, you can get a free human design report generated online and there's lots of them and it literally just asks for your birth date, your name, where you were born, what time you were born. That's it. It's pure astrology really, isn't it? Yes, it is.

Sam:

Yes. So for me that was like that's what I need to look at because then it's not open to how I'm feeling that day.

Kate:

It's your boyfriend, so to say. Yes.

Sam:

Yes. Yeah. Yeah, because I feel like personality testing, you know, and there are certainly some that are much higher quality than others. Yeah. But through the question process, sometimes it's like, you know, oh, you're in a room full of people. What would you do? A, B, C, D. Well, on some days I would do this, but on others, you know, get me on another day and there's no way I'm doing that. I'm doing this thing over

Kate:

here. Yeah, it's not your core. It doesn't tell you what your core is and how that makes you show up in life. Yes,

Sam:

yes, because that's the other thing that I felt was that, yeah, who we are is very much influenced by all of the events and everything that have happened in our lives. So I was questioning who am I at my core? How far back do I have to go to find that core person before, you know, events happened that sort of shifted how I saw myself and influenced who I became now? So these are all very big, you know, universe questions, aren't they? But... I wanted something that would explain to me who I am without my influence.

Kate:

Yeah, and I think you know, you kind of can tell when something feels truthful or not. Yeah. And, yeah, when I read the report that you generated for me, it was like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. That feels true. Yes. Which was basically around the fact that I operate and, you know, getting onto how this can help you in your, you know, realign your business model. I operate better when I've got lots of space in my week and to create and do deep thought. And then when I'm working with someone, it's for a more intensive, higher priced thing because that allows me to do deeper work with that person and at a higher price point. But at the same time, my human design craves collaboration and groups. And yeah, and I have... you know, been running my mastermind over the last two and a half years. And actually, I think you might have pointed out, Sam, or in the report, so that I get recharged from group activities. And that's true. Every time I come off a mastermind, I'm buzzing. But when I come off a private one-to-one session, I'm usually really drained.

Sam:

Yes. And that tells you something. And I think too, Kate, that's how I was feeling as well during one-on-one coaching. And that's, That's why over the past couple of years I've withdrawn further and further from having that as something that I offer because, you know, when I'm in it I'm okay but it is afterwards that I'm like, oh, I've got nothing left now. And then I started to get to the point where I had to really psych myself up before a session. Mm-hmm. And I'd be like, I know I'm okay once I'm in it, but it feels tiring now before I've even started it. And it's high energy and it's a lot of focus and a lot of thought to deliver the session. And then it's full in a heap afterwards. That's not a sustainable business model.

Kate:

Yeah. Yeah. In fact, as we talk, I'm actually quite curious because it's recommended that I do these one-to-one day intensives. sorry, one-to-one coaching intensives, which is a whole day with someone. And now I'm starting to think, is that the right? It's recommended that I do these quarterly business alignment workshops, which is six to eight people in a room or online. And it's a whole day check, you know, business realignment thing, which I really like to do that. But I'm actually just going to ask it right now. If I thrive in groups, As opposed to private coaching, why have you recommended a threshold session, they've called it. I wouldn't call it that. No. One day private coaching intensive. Let's see what it says. That's an excellent question. Yes.

Sam:

Yes. But the VIP day came from me because you had communicated to me while we were talking how much you enjoyed your two-hour sessions. Yeah. And also you said you need time. to really work with someone for six months to get the results because, you know, the results take time. So that was my influence. And that's why I said to you after, you know, it was even earlier today when I was thinking about your report and I was like, I don't think that's the accurate output for you. Right. I think that was my influence in there.

Kate:

So did you and then what did you come up with after that?

Sam:

Well, I didn't get very far because I had to move on to something else. But it did suggest that it could be used as a pathway for people, which really is probably the two-hour sessions you're already doing. But it did recommend that you could offer an invitation to what it's called an inner circle, which is– five- to ten-person VIP event. So it's actually said to use that as a gateway into small group events. Yeah, yeah. Invitationals.

Kate:

Right. That was an inner circle, wasn't it? Interesting. Yeah. Yes, an inner circle invitation. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, so it has said that private sessions will still work because your triple split, which is a term they have in human design, needs people who energetically bridge your centers so your own flow can integrate. This can happen in one-on-one intensive work where you and your client create a complete energetic circuit. And I do feel that in a lot of cases. The depth and intimacy of a full-day private session allows for profound energetic connection. And then, yeah, it's, you know, it's got a few other things that my, I have the gift of piercing through illusion to guide others to clarity, which works powerfully in private sacred space where someone can be completely vulnerable. Group settings might dilute this. So I guess, yeah, the, you know, it's important to offer both, but in a way that feels, you know, I guess the key sign is, are you dreading it before you even start like what you are, or do you actually look forward to it? I

Sam:

kind of wish I actually hadn't. I kind of wish I had started yours without giving it any context and asked what would be the ideal business for you to be in rather than saying this is what Kate's doing right now. Yeah. I would have been curious to see what it would have suggested for you.

Kate:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to actually do that. I'm going to start a whole new thing and ask it. But in the meantime, could you give us an overview of this agentic AI? Oh,

Sam:

agentic AI. So the difference between, you know, jumping onto chat GPT and called degenerative AIs and what that means is that You give it a prompt, which is you telling it what output you want, and then it will give you the output based on the prompt. So it's not good at colouring too far outside those lines. It's going to give you pretty much what you ask for, whereas agentic AI is going to operate independently. So rather than giving it a prompt and saying, I want this particular outcome, as opposed to saying, okay, This is a goal I want to achieve. Now you have to go and achieve it whatever way you need to achieve it. And one of the examples that we were talking about before we jumped on here today was, for example, you would use an agentic AI to book and travel and plan and book a holiday for you. So the agentic AI is going to go and find your flights. It's going to go and find your hotel. It's going to make the booking and then travel. At the other end comes your itinerary and off you go.

Kate:

But it's actually to make an action in the real world to make that happen.

Sam:

Yes. So agentic AI can perform these tasks that generative AI can't really do.

Kate:

Which I was saying to Sam beforehand, that's quite... mind-blowing but also scary for people like travel agents and virtual assistants that do personal assistant tasks for people, if that can all be done now by an agentic AI. Yes, yes. You're actually then handing that agentic AI the response, well, the permission or what do you call it, authority to make payments on your behalf and things like that.

Sam:

Well, that's where we're heading. That's where we're heading. So if you think about in the context of, you know, business tasks, for example, an agentic AI could have access to your email account. It can scan and sort your emails and it can also respond to emails on your behalf. So you never have to open your inbox if you don't want to. So as exciting as that is, especially for people like me who avoid their inbox like a plague, I feel sorry for people that email me, but inbox overwhelm is a real, real thing. But it feels a little frightening at this point in time, just like every tech evolution always feels a bit frightening. This feels a bit frightening about how much power and control we are giving technology.

Kate:

Yeah.

Sam:

to manage our lives, to operate our businesses. And, you know, where does this end? This is what I'm curious about. Where does this end? And I know we've asked this question at every iteration of AI that we've had so far. But, you know, where are we going with this? You know, as everyone knows, like my son had surgery recently. My husband had surgery. They've both had surgery this year. Both of their surgeries are performed by robots, which, you know, we know that those robots are controlled by the surgeons. But how far away is this futuristic world in which the surgeon doesn't need to be there? The surgeon is going to give that robot a program and the robot is going to do a surgery completely independently of a surgeon.

Kate:

Okay. Well, yeah, how is that going to change the medical industry?

Sam:

It's really, I don't know. I've seen the movies. You know, you think of the movies where, you know, like the futuristic space movies where the person jumps in the capsule and the lasers do the surgery and then they're all fixed up and, you know, an hour later they pop out and their surgery's all done and they're all better.

Kate:

Yeah.

Sam:

That's one of the things that I've seen for quite some years, that it hasn't hit my brain that that's actually going to be something that could happen.

Kate:

Yeah. Yeah, and I don't know enough about that field, but it seems completely mind-blowing and high risk, but I'm sure it's, you know, like everything, evolving quickly. And Sam... Back to our businesses, you were mentioning– well, you and I were talking beforehand about some of the other big revolutions taking place like these AI– powered website builders, where basically you say to it, this is, you know, this is my business idea. I want to create a website. It generates all the copy, you know, it works with you to develop the content, then builds you a website, then hosts it for you for a measly $20 a month.

Sam:

Yes. Yes. How's that going to go? It amazes me. I, I shared with you earlier, Kate, that I've been working on developing GPTs of my own rather than every time I want to do something I have to, okay, here's the prompt to get this started. So I'm working on my own GPT so I can just call up the GPT and it knows what I want and it's got all the information, it can just go ahead and do it. But I've also seen demonstrations, and this excites me as somebody who is, you know, quite often feels overwhelmed by content creation, which I know is something that a lot of people listening will feel the pain of. So in real time, right now, without even agentic AI, you could set up an AI automation that will conduct the research, write the article, post it to your site, and then post promotional social media posts for that article. So we've gone from, oh, use AI to write a blog, to AI being capable right now, today, of managing that entire process. And pretty soon the agentic AIs are going to go, oh, it's 9 o'clock, I have to write a blog and post about it. And it's just going to start doing it every day. And then, but where do we stop?

Kate:

Where do we stop?

Sam:

Because then the algorithm is going to need a new blog post every hour. to try and get ahead of the game. And then it's going to be, oh, new blog posts every minute. Like where do we stop

Kate:

with

Sam:

the content?

Kate:

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's heading to an even bigger information overload out there. Yes. Yeah, but it's fascinating because I see these, you know, as soon as I– I was at a networking event last night and met a guy who is– and these 20-year-olds are so savvy, aren't they? He would have been mid-20s maybe, got this amazing idea. We actually want to get him on the show because he's one of these go-getters who's bootstrapped this not-for-profit, which seems to be thriving and doing really well. And I said to him– have you got a website yet? And he said, oh, I'm actually about to hit the go live button on that because we've so far just been boots on the ground working with local communities, but now we're getting a new website up. And I said, oh, I hope you haven't spent tens of thousands of dollars to make that happen because that's often what happens. I get startups coming to me that have wasted so much money on expensive websites. And he said, I haven't spent a cent yet, but I will be paying 20 bucks a month. And I said to him, what's this product? And he said, it's lovable, L-O-V-A-B-L-E, AI-powered website builder. And he gave it his company's mission, what they do. And it's developed this whole website, which once it goes live, we can share it with everyone when we get him on the show, hopefully. And I immediately thought, oh, my gosh, this that's going to put my web designer out of business, you know, who I refer so many clients to my amazing website developer who traditionally has been able to offer extremely affordable website design services, you know, a website for $1,500 or $2,000 that looks great, has all the functionality as opposed to $5,000 to $10,000 that an agency would charge. But if I can help my clients, because I usually work with them to develop the content anyway, if we can build a website with the AI-powered builder and get it live, then that's going to completely sidestep all those web developers and Yes. And graphic designers because you can like AI generate a logo and each one of those is unique. It's not like, you know, you used to use click art or not. No, I would never have recommended click art, but people did used to. People did used to, you know, make their own DIY logos, which were terrible. But now AI logo builders know graphic design and they know that it needs to be unique for trademarking, you know, for, you know, legal reasons and so on. So if that's going to take branding designers out of the equation and web developers and suddenly you can do this on your own for 20 bucks a month, it's mind boggling.

Sam:

It

Kate:

is.

Sam:

You know, the logo for Digital Sisters.

Kate:

Yeah.

Sam:

That was created by AI.

Kate:

Yeah, and it's quite clever. Yeah.

Sam:

And, I mean, mind you, I developed the concept. Yeah. So I knew what I wanted. I selected the colours and everything and then.

Kate:

There was quite a few iterations of that to get what I had in my mind's eye. Yeah, but you didn't have to spend $1,000, $2,000 on a graphic designer. And not that, you know, I feel terrible because I know several amazing branding designers who are worth their weight in gold. But you just wonder... I know that, you know, you and I, Sam, are often working with startups and people that need to get to market quickly at the cheapest price possible to test the market and, you know, and start building and growing. So these sort of opportunities make that path so much easier.

Sam:

Yes, they do. They do. And AI, it does an incredible job of some of this stuff. But, look, I'm going to go back to, where we're needed as people because unless you have a knowledge of what you're looking at and what you need to come out of it, you're not going to get good results from AI.

Kate:

That's right. Rubbish in equals rubbish out. There's like

Sam:

any

Kate:

model, yeah.

Sam:

Yeah, yeah. Yesterday I was working on creating some content and, you know, look, I'm not, a big SEO expert, but I do have an understanding of some basic SEO. So I know that one of the tricks that some of the bigger companies use is to rewrite the top performing content for any given keyword. So what I did, and this all started because I was looking, I was scrolling through a Facebook group and I saw a post and it already had 116 comments on. So I'm like, I don't feel the need to make a comment on this post. But this post was like that is a post from my ideal customer. Like this is exactly what I could help her with. So I screenshot the post and then I had AI tell me about some of the keywords that that person might use to Google. Then I went on to Google. And I punched in a couple of questions that the AI gave me and I pinched the top three articles based on that, put them into AI and said, write me an article. And I said, I need this to challenge these articles for top position on Google. But using my brand voice and coming at this topic from the angle at which I address it and it wrote me this massive big thing and I was like, Okay, now let's cut all the fat out and let's go deep rather than go long. So that's kind of the future of how I'm producing content now.

Kate:

Yeah,

Sam:

which

Kate:

you're just directing it. You're doing the strategy, telling it what to do, and it's doing all the work, which it takes days to write a single blog if you do the deep thought and research that's required to go into it.

Sam:

Yeah, yeah. And then I sat there at the end and I was reading it and I'm like, all I need to do now is go through and do some edits and just put a couple of things in there that I would say. And the job's done. But the SEO side is done by AI and the human side is done by me. Fascinating. And it's dramatically cutting down the amount of time that it takes to make content. Yeah. When I get time to sit down, I will create an automation that will actually take care of that whole process for me. So I won't step in until the end when it's all done.

Kate:

So this is the agentic AI that you're talking about where you can ask it to do that whole process or is this simply an automation? Well,

Sam:

I'll create an automation. I'm still researching some of these agentic AIs because it is early days for that stuff. Yeah. These are things that you have to pay to use. And I'm very discerning with my money. Yeah.

Kate:

Yeah. But watch this space. We'll be doing another episode, no doubt in six months when Sam has mastered agentic AI and is using content generation. I mean, it's quite amazing how far we've come in. Just if you think three, five years ago, the massive breakthrough was automatic schedulers, social media schedulers, where you put your content in and it automatically puts it out over time. But you were completely responsible for generating that content. And now that whole process, including content generation, can be done and then all you need to do is go in and approve or review. And, yeah, it's quite mind-boggling.

Sam:

Yes, and how long will it be before I don't need to tweak the end product?

Kate:

Or

Sam:

it knows me so well that it's going to go, Sam wouldn't say that, Sam would say this.

Kate:

And you've got consistent social media visibility going out of really good quality content and still not doing a thing. Yes.

Sam:

Yes. And do you know what? That scares me in itself because when you think about the fact that people like you and I are selling our experience and our thoughts but the content we're putting out there is not directly our experience and thoughts. It's by proxy.

Kate:

That's right. And you do wonder how much. You know, like now when I'm looking on LinkedIn, I can clearly see what's AI generated. Even imagery now, I just saw a colleague posted an image of himself in a sort of boardrooms type thing, but it was clearly AI generated. Yes.

Sam:

Yeah.

Kate:

And yeah, I sometimes wonder, is it because we're in the industry that we're particularly sensitive or notice that or? Yeah. Yeah. It's getting to the

Sam:

point. There's some words. I don't know why AI gets hooked on these certain words. And as soon as I see that word, I'm like, AI, come on. Edit your output first before you post it,

Kate:

please. Transform or, yeah.

Sam:

As soon as something says no fluff, I know it came from AI.

Kate:

What are some other things? I mean, it loves the word transform no matter how much.

Sam:

Yeah. I know that. All right. I'm battling with AI because I can't get my chat GPT to stop saying certain phrases. And I've specifically said do not ever use that in any output that you give me. But, yes, you know. It can't help itself. No, it can't. And I'm like let it go. I'm never publishing that with that phrase in it. I'm never going to use that phrase. Stop giving it to me.

Kate:

Okay. Well, we've come to the end of our episode, so we hope this has been helpful. But yeah, I mean, generative AI is both Sam and I finding that it's saving so much time and just in basic interpretation of stuff that frees up your time to focus on the application of that. And then, you know, the possibilities. it was just amazing today with my colleagues saying, well, let's see what AI does, you know, and I think that's what we just encourage you all to do, just keep experimenting and playing and see what can it do. Like sometimes I think, oh, I couldn't possibly do that, and then you try and you think, wow, you know.

Sam:

I'm going to slip one more in here, Kate, because I know that there are so many people that don't read their financial reports for their business. Oh, yeah. I upload P&Ls and balance sheets into ChatGPT and I get it to run analysis.

Kate:

Oh, wow.

Sam:

Give me profit margins. I get it to do all the calculations that I need. So anybody that thinks that they don't look at their financial reports because they don't understand the output, AI is going to explain it all to you. That's amazing. That's a little one for today.

Kate:

Fantastic because, you know, most of you would know that in Xero you just can download your P&L or your different financial reports. That's brilliant. Upload it into TBT and says what does this mean? What can I tweak to become more profitable? Yes. What would my pricing structure, what should it be, blah, blah, blah. That's amazing.

Sam:

I've been using it to analyse where we're at with putting on new stuff.

Kate:

Okay.

Sam:

So I'm like, what's the increase in revenue look like? What's the increase in profitability? Like if I put someone on for this amount for an annual salary, how is that going to impact me financially and what does the business need to grow to to be able to substantiate it? Which

Kate:

previously would have taken a whole day of spreadsheet work to. Yeah,

Sam:

yeah. So financial analysis, that's a fun little playground that anybody that isn't looking at their numbers because they don't understand how to analyse those reports.

Kate:

Now you have no excuse. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Oh, well, thank you, Sam. I always love chatting with you because I learn so much about the latest trends in AI and systems and automation and, yeah, happy hermit days. Yes,

Sam:

yes.

Kate:

And so those of you who, you know, who are curious in human design, check it out. It does give you quite insightful information and whether it feels, you know, true for you or not and you can take it or leave it. But I've found it, you know, particularly helpful in helping me reassess how I'm doing things. Yeah.

Sam:

Yeah, reach out to me if you want to dive into human design because it's very much what we're embedding into how we operate our business now. Yeah.

Kate:

Absolutely, yeah. Thank you, Sam, and lovely to be back with you. We will see you all again for another session in a couple of weeks. Bye for now.

Sam:

Bye-bye. Thanks for listening in. If you'd like to learn more about working with me, Sam, or Kate, you can find me at digitalsisters.com, and that's sisters spelt with a Y, or reach out to Kate at katedyong.com. Have a great day.

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DR. KATE DE JONG

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SAM MORRIS

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