Episode 115
Navigating Market Volatility & AI Opportunities: Insights from Global Business Leaders
In this Biz Bites episode, we gather a diverse panel of experts to dissect the current market, summarized by words like "volatile" and "opportunity." We delve into AI's disruptive yet innovative potential, exploring its impact across various sectors from small business to technology. The conversation highlights the necessity of agility and resilience in navigating a volatile economic and political environment, as technological advancements and global shifts reshape the future of business.
Don't miss this informative episode of Biz Bites! Listen to the full episode now and access exclusive bonus content. Subscribe to our channel for more valuable insights and business tips.
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Connect with these amazing experts on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eshellshear/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinerasmuson/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/warren-strybosch-3a363527/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/benpaulbdm/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamwscottnz/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahjanerunge/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/murrayfulton/
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Transcript
Navigating market volatility and AI opportunities, insights
Speaker:from global business leaders.
Speaker:We are bringing together a very special episode of Biz Bites with a panel.
Speaker:Yes, a panel of experts of thought leaders from across the globe,
Speaker:sharing their unique perspectives on the current state of the market.
Speaker:The impact of AI and the opportunities that lie ahead.
Speaker:You don't want to miss this episode because there is lots of valuable
Speaker:insights about things like ai, the way businesses can adapt to the challenges
Speaker:and opportunities that lie ahead.
Speaker:From a myriad of different perspectives.
Speaker:If you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, then you don't want
Speaker:to miss this episode of Biz Bites.
Speaker:Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Biz Bites Proudly brought to
Speaker:you by CommTogether, the People Behind podcasts done for you, because we are all
Speaker:about exposing other people's brilliance.
Speaker:Don't forget to subscribe to Biz Bites and Check Out Podcast done
Speaker:for you as well in the show notes.
Speaker:Now let's get into it.
Speaker:Hello everyone and welcome to a very special episode of Biz Bites.
Speaker:I have an extraordinary group of people joining me today, and I
Speaker:think the best thing we can do to kick things off is to go around and
Speaker:let everyone introduce themselves.
Speaker:And I have asked everyone to come up with one word that is going to sum up
Speaker:what, how they view the state of the market at the moment, wherever they're
Speaker:at, in whatever industry they're in.
Speaker:So we're gonna kick things off and go around the room.
Speaker:We're gonna start off.
Speaker:Really from the top of the screen for me, and we are going
Speaker:to kick things off with Murray.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Hello.
Speaker:Hello there.
Speaker:Anthony.
Speaker:Murray Fulton.
Speaker:I'm a business advisory partner with Advantage Business
Speaker:working out of New Zealand.
Speaker:My one word summary of 2025 and possibly beyond, but certainly
Speaker:this year is volatility.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Very nice.
Speaker:Evan.
Speaker:Hey Anthony.
Speaker:Thanks for having me on.
Speaker:I'm Evan Shellshear, managing director of ER one.
Speaker:Work for the market for me is Surprises.
Speaker:Surprises.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I like it.
Speaker:Graham, what about you?
Speaker:Oh Graham Scott, also New Zealand, based in Cambridge
Speaker:consultant, reformed accountant.
Speaker:My word for the market is flat.
Speaker:Flat.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Ben, what about you?
Speaker:Ben Paul, CEO of the bd data, business development and marketing
Speaker:consultancy based here in Auckland.
Speaker:Work across New Zealand and Australia.
Speaker:Obviously originally from London.
Speaker:My one word summary will be recovering.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Sarah, what about you?
Speaker:What's your.
Speaker:Hi, Anthony.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:I'm Sarah Runger.
Speaker:I'm the CEO and co-founder of a Kiwi SaaS company O Connect that delivers prebuilt
Speaker:data-driven enterprise architecture SaaS to mid-size organizations.
Speaker:My one, one word for the market at the moment is sluggish.
Speaker:Sluggish.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Very interesting.
Speaker:Alright, Warren, what about you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Good morning, Anthony.
Speaker:I'm Warren Str.
Speaker:I'm a accountant, a financial planner, so I run my own practices and also
Speaker:lead up the non-for-profit called the Find Foundation here in Australia.
Speaker:My one word for the markets at the moment would be Cautious.
Speaker:Cautious.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Martin, what about you?
Speaker:Hi everyone.
Speaker:I'm Martin Rasmussen, founder of Consulting Company, stratum Limited.
Speaker:Consider myself information entrepreneur.
Speaker:I think the one word, if I can join them together is deep uncertainty.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:We'll give you that two words, but one Igor, what about you?
Speaker:Hi, I'm Igor Portugal.
Speaker:I'm a al chief of growth working across a number of businesses in cybersecurity.
Speaker:Artificial intelligence and cloud private cloud and hybrid cloud provi provider.
Speaker:My one word for the market is opportunity.
Speaker:We live in unprecedented technological change times, and I can see opportunities
Speaker:everywhere and that's my specialties to find an opportunity whether you are
Speaker:a business implementing technology.
Speaker:Or whether you are a a business trying to build technology solutions for the market.
Speaker:Okay, we're gonna come back to that.
Speaker:Amanda, what about you?
Speaker:I'm in the US at the moment here as well.
Speaker:Other things, but I'm usually based in Australia and in the creative arts
Speaker:and health industries, and I've been working in those industries for a number
Speaker:of years and provide some services.
Speaker:To a lot of people.
Speaker:Alright I think it's really interesting to, to get those little introductory
Speaker:snapshot of where you see the market because we've gone from everything
Speaker:from volatile and sluggish right through to opportunity and dynamic.
Speaker:And I, what I wanted to start the discussion was is really around.
Speaker:What might be causing that and really throw in a little bit for
Speaker:some people, because I did a similar forum last year, which we didn't
Speaker:broadcast on Biz Bites, but the.
Speaker:The word that came back was almost consistently was overwhelm.
Speaker:And a lot of it was driven by the the very steep incline as far as AI is
Speaker:concerned with people feeling like they needed to jump on the bandwagon,
Speaker:but really not sure where to start and what difference it was making.
Speaker:So I'm intrigued that, where people are at.
Speaker:I know we've got a collection of people, some that are in the technology
Speaker:space and others that are not.
Speaker:So I'm intrigued as to what has driven you in terms of the way you see the
Speaker:market and whether you feel that AI is having any impact at all on that.
Speaker:And tying us back a little bit to what happening at the moment.
Speaker:So let's just go back around and Murray, if I can kick off with you.
Speaker:Where do you see I think you talked about it being sluggish
Speaker:and things at the moment, so where do you see the big impacts?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:My, my word Anthony was vol volatility.
Speaker:But in terms of ai, I feel that first of all AI is an un.
Speaker:Element it is probably has been written about consistently and
Speaker:fairly deeply, a little bit like another another industrial age.
Speaker:Whilst it cannot be ignored and there's quite a, quite an electric
Speaker:group of people here today.
Speaker:Just speaking in terms of possibly some of the work that I do and the
Speaker:businesses that I see there's a little bit of com competition between
Speaker:hr, human intelligence and ai.
Speaker:And some people in possibly the the it world feel we are
Speaker:heading towards the singularity.
Speaker:We would be a biological boot for robots, but I don't to that thing.
Speaker:AI is growing fast.
Speaker:Anyone who says they're an expert in it is possibly lying, but it's moving so fast.
Speaker:And it's moving through the markets in terms of automation, the higher functions
Speaker:of humans around judgment, ai, et cetera.
Speaker:And authenticity of voice are still relevant and hopefully will be.
Speaker:So that's my attempt at summarizing a massive seismic shift.
Speaker:Over to over through everybody else,
Speaker:hence perhaps some of the volatility that we are seeing.
Speaker:Evan what about you?
Speaker:Is AI having an impact?
Speaker:I. We hope you're enjoying listening to the Biz Buys Podcast.
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Speaker:business where your brilliance is exposed to the rest of the world?
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Speaker:From the strategy right through to publishing and of
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Speaker:So come talk to us podcast done for you.com au details
Speaker:in the show notes below.
Speaker:Now back to Biz Bites, hence perhaps some of the volatility that we're seeing.
Speaker:Evan w what about you?
Speaker:Is AI having an impact?
Speaker:Yeah, look, I think the thing about AI is it's had an impact for quite a
Speaker:long time and I think it's having an impact on people's minds share, but not
Speaker:having an impact on the business yet.
Speaker:So at the end of last year, me and the director of data science at Walmart,
Speaker:USA, wrote a book called Why Data Science Project Fails, and the purpose of this
Speaker:book was really to temper the hype.
Speaker:I think the hype is doing AI a disservice and making it feel
Speaker:like it can do more than it can.
Speaker:As impressive as tools like Chet PT are, we're yet to see
Speaker:the impact on the bottom line.
Speaker:And Satel and Nadel, the CEO of Microsoft came out this week to
Speaker:say effectively the same thing.
Speaker:So I think there's some more incremental improvements we'll see across businesses,
Speaker:I don't think will fundamentally reshape necessarily how large businesses work.
Speaker:It will have an impact, but perhaps not as big as people think.
Speaker:I definitely want to come back to some of those topics because
Speaker:I think that there are certainly some impacts that are happening on
Speaker:business in terms of energy costs.
Speaker:Because we know that ai the cost of running AI from an energy point of
Speaker:view is between seven and tenfold of.
Speaker:Of what current usage is.
Speaker:So that's gonna have an impact on business as well.
Speaker:But also I've seen, I'm interested in other people's opinions along the way that
Speaker:people, in some businesses, they're repla able to replace team members with ai.
Speaker:However, they're now created new roles to manage the ai.
Speaker:So it's almost balanced itself out.
Speaker:There's different jobs being created at the, while new ones as some
Speaker:of the old ones are disappearing.
Speaker:Just coming across to you.
Speaker:What's driving your word?
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:The people I'm talking to clients, just people in the street are
Speaker:saying that, yeah, the world's fairly flat at the moment.
Speaker:We are having interest rates coming down in this country, which is usually
Speaker:when the economy takes off again.
Speaker:But then it also feels like there's a lot of people hanging on and
Speaker:waiting for them to go even lower.
Speaker:So there's uncertainty.
Speaker:And so that's what's driving it.
Speaker:As far as AI goes, I think there's a lot of people out there, including
Speaker:myself to a certain extent, who can see it's gonna have a big impact, but
Speaker:just don't know where it's heading, what difference it's going to make.
Speaker:I see people doing some really amazing things with it and think, oh, that's cool,
Speaker:but I. Using it myself, where to apply it.
Speaker:At the moment, I've been using it as a very keen intern to go and do research,
Speaker:but there's gotta be a whole lot more that it should be doing for me.
Speaker:I. All right.
Speaker:Very interesting.
Speaker:Ben, over to you.
Speaker:What's what's your as the assumption of things at the moment?
Speaker:So my word was recovering and I think that's what I'm
Speaker:seeing in the market right now.
Speaker:Obviously globally, we went through quite a big recession.
Speaker:What's really interesting about that, having worked in the, in London during
Speaker:the GFC and then come over here to New Zealand, this part of the world is
Speaker:actually, that didn't really hit here.
Speaker:As hard as it hit globally.
Speaker:So for this part of the world, Australia and New Zealand, it's probably the
Speaker:first time we've had a global recession.
Speaker:It's hit us and hurt us hard, and hurt most of our industries.
Speaker:So there's an element where people were.
Speaker:Trying to cut costs, do the stuff that your accountant would tell you to do.
Speaker:All those really smart stuff.
Speaker:But at the expense of, the field I work in, business development and
Speaker:marketing, they, they're but we all know from the GFC, if you do best
Speaker:practice, if you actually invest in your outward reach there, you're
Speaker:gonna grow much better on the upside.
Speaker:We panic and we have to look at the bottom line and businesses do what businesses
Speaker:do, and that's very understandable.
Speaker:So it's starting to recover.
Speaker:I'm seeing more people being interested in what I'm doing.
Speaker:I'm seeing more people going out in the market and look, AI
Speaker:expediate that it's the best junior copywriter you'll ever have.
Speaker:It gives you data you want.
Speaker:It's very easy to play within the BD and marketing space.
Speaker:But ours was touched upon earlier by the first person who spoke, it's unauthentic.
Speaker:And actually machines don't like machine produced content.
Speaker:So how you use an adapt tool.
Speaker:In any walk of life, whether it's BD and marketing, the field that I sit in
Speaker:or any other thing will make it really authentic and make that business grow.
Speaker:So it's how you use the tool, how you implement it, and what
Speaker:people behind it use the smarts.
Speaker:I totally agree with you.
Speaker:It's one of the reasons why I love podcasting so much, because there's
Speaker:no doubting the authenticity of that.
Speaker:And being able to trade stories with one another and share your own
Speaker:personal experiences is something that AI can't do because they're not you.
Speaker:Sarah, what about you?
Speaker:Okay, there, sorry.
Speaker:So what I'm seeing at the moment is.
Speaker:There's with AI coming into the market, there's not, it's not
Speaker:creating more opportunities for where we are going with our product.
Speaker:It's probably creating more disruption and I'm finding that
Speaker:particularly in New Zealand.
Speaker:And we are here at the moment that people are just leaders and CXOs are really.
Speaker:Bogged down with trying to get transformation projects, getting ai,
Speaker:they're trying to get everything done and there is no time for them to bring
Speaker:their head up to take a breath to plan.
Speaker:To plan better for digital transformation.
Speaker:I just see that AI has brought in another complexity and another boardroom
Speaker:discussion about we need to be AI driven.
Speaker:We need AI and sales, we need AI and marketing.
Speaker:We need AI and whatever.
Speaker:And that's all fine, but it's not opening the doors for us
Speaker:to bring in the automation efficiencies and costs realization.
Speaker:So I don't feel it's doing us any favors.
Speaker:However, I am in favor of it.
Speaker:Yeah I hear you and I think one of the big frustrations that I have as far as
Speaker:IA is concerned is when a lot of people post on LinkedIn supposedly as thought
Speaker:leaders in the way that they're doing it, and they're just taking the content
Speaker:from an AI tool and posting that sort of seems self-defeating to yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And at the moment.
Speaker:When you can't use AI content for a lot of, you can't use
Speaker:it for putting on a resume.
Speaker:You can't put it into a research thesis.
Speaker:You can't use it for a lot of things.
Speaker:So businesses trying to use it, but again, it's still hallucinating.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:We're up to you, Warren.
Speaker:So Warren, if you wanna pick up that discussion on on your word in ai.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:My word around caution is because I deal with a lot of retirees and people in
Speaker:aged care, and I manage a lot of people's portfolios to do with investments.
Speaker:So from that perspective, I'm cautious because of what's
Speaker:happening over in America and, around the world in that regard.
Speaker:And so we've had a. As one of the other speakers said with, in Australia, we
Speaker:haven't been as affected so much in the past, but it's gonna get interesting
Speaker:to see what happens now given all the legislation changes and things
Speaker:that have occurred in Australia.
Speaker:So we are, or I am a bit more cautious in regards to where things are gonna be
Speaker:going from an investment perspective.
Speaker:With AI though I'm a, like an SE small business, running an accounting
Speaker:firm and a financial planning firm.
Speaker:It's really interesting because there's a, obviously been a lot of discussion
Speaker:around AI, even in our industries, but the take up of it, what I would say
Speaker:would be quite small and people are, some people are really trying to use it a lot.
Speaker:But in, in regards to how we deal, like with people we're
Speaker:client facing all the time.
Speaker:And so to try and bring AI in is limited, I would say, because people want to
Speaker:have that empathy and that interaction and that discussion with a real person.
Speaker:And whilst AI is fantastic and it looks like it will be a game changer and it has
Speaker:been in certain industries it's probably a slower take up in our industries
Speaker:when you're dealing with client facing people all the time in that regard.
Speaker:And we're so busy here in Australia, we've lost in the financial planning
Speaker:industry, half the financial planners in the last five years
Speaker:and, accounting work, tax returns.
Speaker:You that never stops.
Speaker:And so you just don't have the time.
Speaker:And I have a lot of staff and so for me, I wouldn't even have
Speaker:the time to be looking at ai.
Speaker:I'd have to hire someone else as they were talking about who would actually have to
Speaker:do the AI and try and say, how can we add value to our clients and our businesses?
Speaker:But it wouldn't be me doing it 'cause I, I wouldn't have the time to do it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think there's there's a lot of, there's a lot of that at the moment.
Speaker:I think there's a lot of people who are dabbling and are not really utilizing it.
Speaker:And it's gonna be interesting to see how that progresses.
Speaker:And of course, as I think someone alluded to earlier on, AI has got a
Speaker:major uptick in the past 12 months.
Speaker:But it has been around for a while.
Speaker:I know there are certain, for the legal profession I know I was dealing
Speaker:with a number of years ago, have had an AI based tool for a long time
Speaker:helping particularly people who are outside of the major city areas to help
Speaker:those lawyers provide information on specific areas of expertise that they
Speaker:don't have so they can then help in referring people who may not be able to.
Speaker:Drop down the road and see a specialist.
Speaker:And I think those kinds of things are definitely very worthwhile,
Speaker:but they're not completely new.
Speaker:But it just seems to be that we've got this huge hype because
Speaker:of chat, GBT in particular.
Speaker:Igor, let's come to you 'cause I know you've got a EU unique spective.
Speaker:I should tell everyone that as well that I've actually recorded a podcast
Speaker:with Igor about his upcoming book, which is going to be very interesting.
Speaker:But Igor, you talked about opportunity.
Speaker:So tell me a little bit more about why you're seeing opportunity.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I, I like to start and come back to this whole topic of AI and a little
Speaker:bit of a a different perspective on it.
Speaker:I personally believe that the the AI in ai, the intelligence
Speaker:is a very misleading, wor word.
Speaker:I don't believe there's anything intelligent about ai.
Speaker:It's just a better way of organizing data and a much smarter
Speaker:technology to, to use and implement.
Speaker:And in that way I have lived through a number of technological acceleration.
Speaker:I. Points in, in, in our in IT industry.
Speaker:And I've lived through a number of of the low points where the industry went
Speaker:down either through economic turbulence or the the industry turbulence.
Speaker:For example, I. Through the a lot of it feels like a bit of a.com era where lots
Speaker:of companies were popping up building online interfaces and then they flopped.
Speaker:Then the whole industry collapsed and everybody was running for the
Speaker:hills saying this is all, vaporware and it doesn't help anyone.
Speaker:And look at us now, 20 years later pretty much every business is
Speaker:interfacing with their customers via some form of an on online or an app.
Speaker:There was a very similar hype cycle through the mobile
Speaker:technology with where it came in.
Speaker:And to me, AI feels very similar.
Speaker:There's a lot of things AI can do.
Speaker:What we need to do now as an as an industry is find the actual practical
Speaker:uses for businesses now I agree with with a statement that potentially
Speaker:it's not gonna change a lot of.
Speaker:The ways the large corporates operate.
Speaker:That's probably true, but what it will bring is a lot of new disruption and
Speaker:new disruptive businesses and business models that are going to come in and
Speaker:disrupt the way our industry operates.
Speaker:And so for me, I can see a lot of opportunity for both the technologists.
Speaker:And the business entrepreneurs is to find these disruptive business models
Speaker:that will enable new revenue generation.
Speaker:I absolutely don't believe that AI is going to be eating our jobs and
Speaker:leaving sway of unemployed people.
Speaker:In fact, I authored a thesis that shows that AI will eventually
Speaker:lead us to full employment.
Speaker:And can talk about that, that at length.
Speaker:I do.
Speaker:That looking at the technological trends and what AI enables, it's going
Speaker:to enable everyone to be a productive contributor to our global economy.
Speaker:But we are living through recessionary times and these recessionary times
Speaker:have nothing to do with technology and everything to do with the
Speaker:global political environment.
Speaker:And unfortunately what that does, and it always does, it
Speaker:was the same of through GFC.
Speaker:Is it actually slows down the adoption of new technologies.
Speaker:And that is just a matter of life.
Speaker:That's just a fact of life.
Speaker:But despite that, I see a lot of opportunity that this new
Speaker:technology brings for us to disrupt the market, create new business
Speaker:models, find new ways to make money.
Speaker:And I think that's what, I can see a lot of people on the SPOT podcast.
Speaker:I firmly believe you guys are going to be in that vein.
Speaker:Fantastic.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:I, Igor I really love that perspective as well and I'm fascinated by that idea
Speaker:that it'll bring full employment but it will take a bit of time to get there.
Speaker:Amanda, I just wanted to come back to you.
Speaker:I love the fact that you've got fairly unique perspective here because you're
Speaker:dealing with small business, but you're also in the creative space.
Speaker:You, you're normally in Australia, you're in the us so you're giving
Speaker:a bit of a global perspective here.
Speaker:So give us your insights.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:We've recently just, I've been working on a production here in the US and we've been
Speaker:using ai, particularly in the art space.
Speaker:Have worked with an artist and he's been using AI and we've certainly discovered
Speaker:its limitations as well as its abilities and, yeah, there as a writer and an
Speaker:author as well, I find the scripts you won't be able to write scripts from ai.
Speaker:It has no soul because as been previous mentioned it's still learning.
Speaker:It can only provide what we put in.
Speaker:It always comes back to that human input and that human.
Speaker:Soul and the storytelling, as you mentioned, Anthony, is so important to us.
Speaker:And to take that and try and replace the creative space and the creative arts and
Speaker:film, TV or whatever we're doing when we're telling stories with just an AI
Speaker:perspective is us short as as, and also selling each other short in the sense
Speaker:of what gifts and talents and vibrance.
Speaker:See, we bring as people to the spades.
Speaker:I think it's a great tool for research, organizing data, helping you sort
Speaker:things out and those sorts of things.
Speaker:AI is brilliant for that.
Speaker:And also writing, if you're a budding author or something, generate
Speaker:some writing prompts with ai.
Speaker:But write your own story and in there's many opportunities, but yeah.
Speaker:Can't replace you.
Speaker:Humans.
Speaker:No I and I'm gonna bring you in Evan here as well just coming back to some of your
Speaker:points, but I think personally I look at it and I say actually, I think there's
Speaker:an opportunity for creative, the creative space to absolutely thrive because that's
Speaker:the area that AI won't be able to do.
Speaker:At least not to the.
Speaker:Same extent that a human can.
Speaker:But Evan, I know you've been, as you were saying, you were talking
Speaker:particularly to some of the bigger chains in the US and you've written
Speaker:a book around this kind of space.
Speaker:So tell us a little bit more about what you are looking to, what you are likely
Speaker:to, what we're likely to see, I should say, in the coming months and years.
Speaker:Look, I think we're just gonna be surprised.
Speaker:It's one of those things where Douglas Hofstadter wrote the book Girdle Cher Buck
Speaker:in the, in, I think the seventies or the eighties where he said, ai, I'll never
Speaker:be able to beat people in chess because chess is effectively a creative activity.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:Lo and behold, at the end of the nineties, IBM had a system that
Speaker:beat the world champion at chess.
Speaker:Similarly, in the art space, although we think AI may not be able to do
Speaker:it, we saw last year that at the Colorado State Fair, Jason Allen
Speaker:entered an AI generated artwork called Theta de Opera Space and won.
Speaker:So it was incredible work of art, but to think that it was just
Speaker:purely AI generated is a mistake.
Speaker:What happened there was Jason spent a lot of time prompting working on
Speaker:this, adding a lot of human input, and the AI was the support, which
Speaker:is largely no different to a lot of things that have happened in the past.
Speaker:I'm not sure how much people know about when photography came in, but
Speaker:effectively painters said, this is wrong.
Speaker:This is not art.
Speaker:Photography is, has got no.
Speaker:No element of the human within it, so it can never be considered
Speaker:an art form, and yet nowadays, national Geographic and many others.
Speaker:Considered a significant art form.
Speaker:So I think we're just gonna continue to be surprised.
Speaker:It's hard to predict what AI can do and I'm talking generally not just
Speaker:natural language processing, but also image generative ai as well as business
Speaker:users of AI with machine learning statistics and optimization that I think
Speaker:we're just gonna keep being surprised.
Speaker:And the reason why we're gonna be surprised is because of human ingenuity
Speaker:behind the scenes exactly to the previous point that'll keep coming up
Speaker:with new things that, that just will take us by surprise and do things
Speaker:that we didn't think were possible.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that's exactly it.
Speaker:Ben, I wanted to bring you in as well here because, you are in the
Speaker:business development space as part of it, and it's like, where do,
Speaker:where are people looking to go?
Speaker:How are they, how is this being utilized?
Speaker:Is it as, as being suggested, as a support?
Speaker:Is it being feared?
Speaker:What's the, what's the perception that you are getting.
Speaker:If you think on the sales side, who has received or seen an upturn in
Speaker:the amount of sales and cold emails they've received in the last six
Speaker:months, and the answer is huge.
Speaker:Who has seen a downturn in the quality of those emails?
Speaker:It's everyone again.
Speaker:So just because the machine can produce a good sales script or a good sales
Speaker:email, doesn't mean you should send it.
Speaker:But what it can do is speed up and expediate the process
Speaker:and provide a crutches.
Speaker:We just said, so if you are struggling, if you haven't had your caffeine,
Speaker:if you don't know what you want to say, you can use it that way.
Speaker:It's now been inbuilt into some leading CRM platforms to help
Speaker:say, Hey, you haven't spoken to this client for two months.
Speaker:Here's what we suggest you should send, but note, suggest what you should
Speaker:send and that's how you should use ai.
Speaker:Use it to give you the structure, give you the formula, and then put in your
Speaker:own personal touch, the own human touch.
Speaker:People still buy from people.
Speaker:All buying decisions are made on an emotional level, not a factual level.
Speaker:At some point, yes, there's facts underpin it, but we buy on emotion.
Speaker:You have to understand that, use that and play to it.
Speaker:But if you're not using ai, small business, large business in some way to
Speaker:speed up the process and help you drive forward, then you're missing a trick.
Speaker:'cause it can really speed you up.
Speaker:And sales is certainly an interesting space.
Speaker:I had a guest on the Biz Buds podcast earlier this year.
Speaker:John Dwyer, who is a direct marketing specialist, and he's generating lots
Speaker:of interest for clients as direct marketers do, and now he's putting
Speaker:an AO on the back of it to help.
Speaker:With follow up calls and closing some sales.
Speaker:So it's interesting what they can do in terms of particularly
Speaker:the audio based sales.
Speaker:But I think it's about closing things where a lot of the work
Speaker:has already been done before that.
Speaker:So we'll be interesting to see how that progresses.
Speaker:I didn't want to just get stuck on ai.
Speaker:I wanted to move.
Speaker:Around a little bit.
Speaker:And Murray, I might come back to you as well in terms of things that, other
Speaker:things outside of AI that you're seeing in the market and and where, where
Speaker:perhaps there might be some opportunities if we can bring it back to that.
Speaker:Because I know that the feeling might be that it's a little bit
Speaker:volatile and flat at the moment in, in some cases, but is that presenting
Speaker:opportunities in other areas?
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:The word volatility, if we come back to, to a Chinese saying, which is there
Speaker:are two components to change because ultimately volatility has changed.
Speaker:One is danger, the other is opportunity.
Speaker:So a lot of this is a mindset.
Speaker:It's impossible for me to say to, to sum up any particular market but my, my
Speaker:view in terms of the work that I do and my colleagues and network offshore, the.
Speaker:The political seismic shifts we've got at the moment are pretty much the
Speaker:largest since World War ii, to put it in a nutshell, and then that is
Speaker:going to mean anyone, for example, in business, I'll only talk about
Speaker:business for a moment, which is which is really just for succinct nature.
Speaker:All businesses need to be extremely agile.
Speaker:And then you get into obviously quality of leadership and management, et cetera,
Speaker:but to keep it at a high level, there is danger and there is opportunity.
Speaker:Ai I certainly agree with some of the comments that have made, been
Speaker:made around the human element.
Speaker:One thing I would say there is that's probably what the Neanderthals
Speaker:thought many hundreds of thousands of years ago before they were
Speaker:taken over by homo sapiens.
Speaker:So we might all on this call be a little bit smug.
Speaker:We may not the future will tell, but right now, day to day,
Speaker:week to week, month to month.
Speaker:The businesses that I work with and through my network, they are ensuring
Speaker:that their ability to respond is there.
Speaker:And sometimes the seas are quite calm.
Speaker:With a moderate swell and all of a sudden a storm will come up.
Speaker:And there is a gentleman in the US who is certainly shaking
Speaker:things up at quite a pace.
Speaker:And he is part of a very large economy and a very powerful economy.
Speaker:And we are in a connected world.
Speaker:And agility is probably after volatility.
Speaker:I I can definitely empathize with that.
Speaker:Graham, what about you?
Speaker:Is that something that you are seeing as well?
Speaker:Probably not seeing enough of it.
Speaker:The people I'm working with, absolutely there's opportunity and
Speaker:the people who haven't cut their marketing and advertising spending,
Speaker:the people who have invested in learning these new technologies.
Speaker:They're gonna hit the ground running.
Speaker:I've got a farm consultant that I do some work with.
Speaker:He has a saying that the difference between a good farmer
Speaker:and a bad farmer is two weeks.
Speaker:And it's just that reacting a little bit earlier, putting your fertilizer
Speaker:on, drying the cows off, doing whatever it is, makes all the difference.
Speaker:And I think that analogy applies to business as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I think it does.
Speaker:And it's interesting that coming back to that kind of volatility
Speaker:is is an interesting interesting conundrum for businesses that I
Speaker:think are perhaps not used to that.
Speaker:Warren, is that something that you are seeing as well?
Speaker:I know you're, particularly you're in the not-for-profit sector as well.
Speaker:Is this going across?
Speaker:I look, I actually think, even though I've been cautious in the sense of what we do
Speaker:from an investment perspective, but I also agree there's a lot of opportunity and I
Speaker:think it's how you see the world, as an individual as to how you're gonna perceive
Speaker:what opportunities are available to you.
Speaker:I have an office in the Philippines not Manila, but there's a lot of opportunity
Speaker:over there in developing countries.
Speaker:Opportunity here in Australia.
Speaker:We, there's just so many, so much change that's occurring and I think if
Speaker:you're looking at an industry and going.
Speaker:Okay, there's a change there and you have that perspective
Speaker:of what can I add value to that?
Speaker:Or what's a need that might be occurring or might be coming along?
Speaker:There is an opportunity that is available to you.
Speaker:Even for myself, where ironically, even though I already.
Speaker:Accounting, planning and run the non-for-profit.
Speaker:We're about to launch two other businesses and one is in the healthcare space.
Speaker:And another is to do with the fundraising.
Speaker:And and that's only because of opportunities that's presented
Speaker:themselves that, we're gonna take that opportunity and see what happens with it.
Speaker:And it could be really good or might not be, but it's taking that
Speaker:chance and doing something with it.
Speaker:So I think there's a agree.
Speaker:I think there's a lot of opportunity in regards to.
Speaker:What's happening at the moment, even though a lot of people
Speaker:might be a bit more pessimistic.
Speaker:So yes.
Speaker:Martin, what about you?
Speaker:Hey Anthony.
Speaker:Too Pence for me.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It might only be a Hany, who knows?
Speaker:Might be too Pence worth, but you're really interesting.
Speaker:I, I'm finding I'm a bit with Igor actually in that.
Speaker:I think it's going, this is, sorry.
Speaker:Talking back to ai, almost certainly it's gonna have an impact, but all it
Speaker:is now, I think for leaders and business people thinking about investment.
Speaker:It's just another addition to an already deeply uncertain future.
Speaker:And, Warren mentioned about, the geopolitics situation, global
Speaker:geopolitics and uncertainty, particularly coming outta the us.
Speaker:We've had covid, we had the supply chain issues around that.
Speaker:And I hear a lot of organizations say, oh, we we're just
Speaker:wanting to get back to normal.
Speaker:And you go, what?
Speaker:From an information architect.
Speaker:So I think about it from that information supply chain perspective and the
Speaker:thinking, oh we've come from a rational decision making environment, where
Speaker:everything's strong, cause and effect relationships, so you can make decisions.
Speaker:But I wrote a blog an article about this called ICT, information,
Speaker:communication Technology and Organizational Schizophrenia.
Speaker:So basically schizophrenia sufferers have a sensory gating deficit.
Speaker:So basically everything from their senses arrives on their plate all at once.
Speaker:So they, you, they just get overwhelmed.
Speaker:And I think it turns out that most organizations 'cause their information
Speaker:infrastructure is so poor, they don't have those gating mechanisms to sort
Speaker:out what can we ignore and what do we actually need to pay our attention to?
Speaker:And as it turns out, having, it sounded like initially I wrote
Speaker:off artificial intelligence.
Speaker:I think that's an area where it has tremendous potential, as in whether
Speaker:it's internally or externally.
Speaker:Here's a bunch of factors that might.
Speaker:Potentially affect our business and cut everything else out
Speaker:and just land those on you.
Speaker:Five bullet points you can count on.
Speaker:And that, that might help.
Speaker:Yeah, I think that absolutely.
Speaker:I think that's the thing, isn't it?
Speaker:It's using it in the right way as we talked about and I think
Speaker:it's interesting that everyone's talking about opportunities.
Speaker:And I might just bring you back, Sarah in here because you've been
Speaker:in the technology space anyway.
Speaker:How is it?
Speaker:In terms of opportunities that are presenting itself to the market,
Speaker:are they growing the use of it?
Speaker:Is, are you seeing existing customers just increasing their use or is
Speaker:it about new people coming in?
Speaker:What are you seeing that's happening as, as far as, and is there
Speaker:opportunities that are being created?
Speaker:So what I'm seeing at the moment is there's with AI coming into
Speaker:the market, there's not, it's not creating more opportunities.
Speaker:For where we are going with our product is probably creating more disruption
Speaker:and I'm finding that particularly in New Zealand and we are here at
Speaker:the moment that people are just.
Speaker:Leaders and CXOs are really bogged down with trying to get transformation
Speaker:projects, getting ai, they're trying to get everything done and there
Speaker:is no time for them to bring their head up to take a breath to plan.
Speaker:To plan better for digital transformation.
Speaker:I just see that AI has brought in another complexity and another boardroom
Speaker:discussion about we need to be AI driven.
Speaker:We need AI and sales, we need AI and marketing.
Speaker:We need AI and whatever.
Speaker:And that's all fine, but it's not opening the doors for us to bring in.
Speaker:The automation, efficiencies and cost realization, so I don't
Speaker:feel it's doing us any favors.
Speaker:However, I am in favor of it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Look, I know we're coming up to finishing up the episode, but I just wanted to
Speaker:finish up with you Evan, and just I'm fascinated as well by this difference
Speaker:between whether small business or medium business, in fact versus larger business
Speaker:in terms of capitalizing of opportunities that we're seeing, and whether that
Speaker:is AI and uptake on that, or whether it's other opportunities in the market.
Speaker:Who's leading the way at the moment?
Speaker:Because traditionally it has been big business, but I get the sense
Speaker:that may not be the case anymore.
Speaker:In terms of the development of the tools it's clearly those that have got the
Speaker:funds and the resources like your open AI and anthropic and people like that.
Speaker:But in terms of the use cases, I love it.
Speaker:It's small businesses all the way, and that's because small businesses aren't
Speaker:burdened down by policies and procedures that stop them from experimenting.
Speaker:I think we see some of the best use cases where people are just blending into all
Speaker:parts of their workflow to understand where can it work best and small
Speaker:businesses have that capability in fact.
Speaker:Some of the businesses where I see the biggest impact is on small
Speaker:businesses that are helping them.
Speaker:Routinize, maybe the creation of templates and policies and things that
Speaker:get that first draft out the door, do that research they need to do where
Speaker:you don't have a big team to help you.
Speaker:So I really see small businesses as the winner o of this first or this new
Speaker:generation of large language models.
Speaker:I. Fantastic.
Speaker:I think that's a great way to finish up this particular episode of the podcast.
Speaker:I wanna thank all of you so much for being a part of the program.
Speaker:It's wonderful to have so many thought leaders in so many different
Speaker:spaces from all over the place.
Speaker:We've covered Australia, New Zealand, and the us and I think it's wonderful to have
Speaker:all of those various different insights.
Speaker:And thank you so much for being a part of the Biz Bites forum.
Speaker:Hey, thanks for listening to Biz Bites.
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