Latest / Small Biz Florida / Ep 423 | Think Bigger, Act Bolder: AI and Small Business Innovation with Shawn Kanungo

Transcript

Ep 423 | Think Bigger, Act Bolder: AI and Small Business Innovation with Shawn Kanungo · Small Biz Florida

• 0:00
  Welcome to Small Biz Florida, your go-to podcast for all things small business in the Sunshine State.
• 0:08
  This podcast is sponsored by Florida First Capital, your trusted partner for financing and support.
• 0:13
  Here, you'll discover the latest news, trends, and invaluable resources to help you grow and succeed.
• 0:19
  From startup strategies to scaling your business, we've got you covered.
• 0:23
  Join us as we explore the vibrant Florida small business ecosystem
• 0:27
  and connect you with the experts who can make a real difference.
• 0:31
  And now, please welcome your host, Tom Kindred,
• 0:34
  Regional Director of the Small Business Development Center at Indian River State College.
• 0:39
  This is Small Biz Florida, the podcast and broadcast that's all things business across the state of Florida.
• 0:46
  And if you've been tuning in lately, you know Small Biz Florida is back on the road again.
• 0:50
  We are at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit,
• 0:55
  all taking place here in beautiful Charlotte Harbor at Sunseeker Resort.
• 1:00
  And it's all brought to you by the Florida SBDC Network.
• 1:04
  Incredible three days training, workshops, breakouts, seminars, incredible keynote speakers.
• 1:15
  The conversation has been all about small business and entrepreneurship and all the support programs and assistance programs available across the state of Florida
• 1:26
  to help those entrepreneurs, small business owners.
• 1:28
  We are very fortunate, honored to have with us right now,
• 1:34
  one of the keynote speakers from the Small Business Success Summit.
• 1:39
  It is Sean Canugo, who is an author and AI expert.
• 1:47
  And he wowed the crowd this morning with his presentation about AI.
• 1:54
  Sean, welcome to Small Biz Florida.
• 1:58
  Well, listen, Tommy, I've been waiting my entire life to come on Small Biz Florida.
• 2:02
  It is one of my favorite podcasts.
• 2:04
  And by the way, if you got this far, rate, review, subscribe, whatever you do, because Tommy's putting in the work.
• 2:07
  You can tell by his voice that he is experienced at this.
• 2:10
  And no, it's an honor, like 400 episodes in.
• 2:13
  The fact that you guys have been doing this, it is really incredible.
• 2:17
  And too, we're honored to be part of this conference and this podcast.
• 2:21
  Thank you, Sean.
• 2:22
  I appreciate that intro.
• 2:24
  And, you know, Sean, I got to tell you, I paid attention to every word this morning in the presentation.
• 2:31
  And I got to tell you that this whole little podcast platform came from a concept that you talked about early on.
• 2:40
  Don't get caught up in conventional thinking.
• 2:43
  And I was a small business owner and operator for 25 years.
• 2:47
  I never knew about these resources like the SBDC.
• 2:51
  And I made it my mission.
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  I said, I'm going to find a way to make sure that everyone knows about these resources and assistance programs.
• 3:00
  Whether they use them or not, they're going to know about.
• 3:02
  So I want to say that your strategy helped me create this whole little platform.
• 3:09
  Oh, that's amazing.
• 3:10
  Well, can't wait to hear more about that.
• 3:12
  That's incredible.
• 3:14
  Let's start as we always do, Sean.
• 3:15
  Just a little bit of your background, pathway to your current role as an author and an AI expert and as an innovation strategy.
• 3:23
  Yeah.
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  You know, I really started my career at a company called Deloitte.
• 3:27
  I was there for 12 years leading their innovation group.
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  And that's where I got immersed in this idea of digital innovation, helping organizations set up a culture of innovation or setting up new technologies within their firms.
• 3:41
  And so I got enamored by this idea of innovation.
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  And they wanted me to continue to help them grow.
• 3:50
  And then over time, I built this expertise around innovation.
• 3:53
  And then about eight, nine years ago, I embarked on my own, helping organizations advise on this idea of innovation.
• 4:00
  And then just wrote a book, continue to create content around this.
• 4:05
  And, you know, my experience when it comes to AI is implementing this 10 years ago when they called it robotic process automation, which was basically dumb bots.
• 4:14
  And now we have smart bots.
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  So my decade, just the decade being in the space is kind of what gives me the platform to really dive deep and help organizations with it.
• 4:23
  Right.
• 4:24
  So let's start with that.
• 4:26
  I think it was your opening slide, your opening comment.
• 4:29
  You said, you know, don't get caught up in that conventional thinking.
• 4:34
  Kind of take us down that path.
• 4:36
  What does that mean?
• 4:37
  Yeah.
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  You know, one of the stories that I mentioned was that in 2014, you know, I was at Deloitte for 12 years and Richard Branson came to this like partner meeting.
• 4:46
  And he was in the middle of this room and he said, if I asked any of you guys if I should start Virgin Airlines, every single one of you in this room, like the brightest, the smartest people would have said no.
• 4:58
  And it's because, you know, traditionally we're risk averse.
• 5:02
  And if you think about, you know, consultants traditionally, you know, we're trying to give them the most optimized, the most efficient ways of thinking.
• 5:09
  And to me, you know, this era is really about thinking bigger and bolder.
• 5:14
  And the reality is that AI is the greatest source of conventional wisdom.
• 5:18
  It is just conventional.
• 5:18
  If you go to, it's just conventional wisdom.
• 5:21
  So that's a subscription service.
• 5:23
  We don't need any more conventional wisdom.
• 5:24
  We need just people to be bigger and bolder and to push the narrative forward.
• 5:29
  So talk about you.
• 5:31
  You mentioned something.
• 5:33
  You talked about the future of technology and you said it was a genic.
• 5:38
  Yes.
• 5:39
  Agenic.
• 5:39
  Yep.
• 5:40
  Agenic.
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  Explain that.
• 5:41
  Talk a little bit about.
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  There's this idea of a genic AI, which basically means having these this technology go off and do stuff for you.
• 5:51
  You know, traditionally, software was about storing information, retrieving it, maintaining it.
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  But now the software can actually do things like having a digital employee.
• 6:01
  And that's what really an agent means is that you have a digital employee.
• 6:07
  And so the future of technology is really just you delegating, supervising this technology so that it actually goes off and gives you outputs and deliverables at the end of the day and move your organization forward.
• 6:20
  So it's no longer of just sitting on a shelf and maintaining and storing this data.
• 6:24
  It's actually getting things done.
• 6:28
  And I loved when you talked about the concept of, you know, we've got this incredible tool, which you you've already kind of mentioned this incredible new technology.
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  And we're kind of using it for, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said we're kind of using it for dumb questions.
• 6:44
  Yeah.
• 6:44
  Talk about what are the smart questions?
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  How do we leverage and use this new technology?
• 6:50
  Yeah, I think the smartest question that you can ask this technology to do is do something that how can you do something that humans have never done before?
• 6:58
  And I think that's the that's the unlock for AI, because it's not just thinking about our own productivity and efficiency is asking the question, what more can you do for me?
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  What can you do that 24 seven that's, you know, always on?
• 7:13
  And I think.
• 7:15
  That's the power of AI today.
• 7:18
  I think the way that we look about the way that we look at AI today is very similar to, you know, when newspapers went on the Internet, you know, when newspapers went on the Internet, what they did is they just copied and pasted the newspaper on the Internet.
• 7:30
  Or when movies started, what they did was they they just filmed plays because that was the that's what people thought you could do.
• 7:37
  And I think that we're kind of in a phase now, right, where most people use AI right now for content, like refine this email, create this poem, build this rap song.
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  Get me a recipe when actually the unlock right now is these these models are incredibly good and they can actually run your business.
• 7:54
  And I think that's the unlock that we haven't seen.
• 7:56
  All right.
• 7:58
  So that's a good segue there, because when we say I can run our business, that always turns into fear.
• 8:06
  Yeah.
• 8:06
  Right.
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  And you talked about that, that that folks are fearful of AI.
• 8:11
  Is this going to take my job?
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  That that's the greatest, you know, discussion that I hear all the time.
• 8:16
  Talk about that.
• 8:17
  AI.
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  You know, throughout history, we have been always fearful of new technology.
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  At some point, we were afraid of the bicycle.
• 8:26
  We thought that bicycles would allow unmarried women to go to one village to another village without even asking.
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  At some point, we were afraid of radio waves.
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  Radio waves would kill humans.
• 8:37
  We thought, you know, radio, you know, so every single technology we were afraid of.
• 8:43
  And the thing with AI is that there is this because it can do so much that it will take jobs.
• 8:49
  The reality is, is that it's already smarter than any single person on the planet right now.
• 8:53
  It's more capable than.
• 8:55
  But when you see, Tom, when everyone has a superpower, is it still a superpower?
• 9:00
  And the reality is, is that we as human beings always find ways to create value for ourselves and our businesses.
• 9:08
  And the data is coming out now that the organizations that double down and leverage AI actually hire more people.
• 9:15
  Because when you find new ways of doing things, you need to hire more people to extract more value out of those things.
• 9:22
  And so, you know, I think the fear is just that it's uncertain.
• 9:26
  It's a new technology.
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  We've always been fearful.
• 9:27
  And that's just the story of human history.
• 9:31
  And again, just to stay on that subject just for a minute, you did talk about when you leverage this technology,
• 9:39
  when you start to really use it to create the efficiencies for your business, that actually can create more jobs.
• 9:49
  I mean, do you really see using AI in this small business?
• 9:55
  We could generate additional revenue streams.
• 9:58
  We could identify new target markets.
• 10:02
  I mean, do you see it that way to use it like that?
• 10:05
  Now I'm scaling my business and I can create more jobs.
• 10:09
  Is that a fair assessment?
• 10:11
  Yeah, 100%.
• 10:12
  I think the biggest constraint for small businesses is that they don't have the talent, the resources, or the money to grow.
• 10:20
  Well, today, technology is becoming so commoditized that AI is not only providing you the talent, because now you can have digital employees,
• 10:28
  but now it's giving you access to...
• 10:30
  And not only is it commoditized where you can get some of these models for incredibly cheap.
• 10:36
  It's like having this...
• 10:38
  Every small business and founder that I know that has really adopted this technology has always said,
• 10:43
  Oh my God, it's like I have 10 people on my team now that can do more.
• 10:48
  And it's not that they've reduced their staff.
• 10:50
  It's just that now we can do more.
• 10:51
  We can create more revenue.
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  We can streamline our costs.
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  Something that used to take us 10 hours, now it takes us 10 minutes.
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  Something that allowed us to get 10 clients, allows us to get 100 clients.
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  So, to me, it's like this 10x that for those firms that actually adopt, they implement, are seeing the value.
• 11:10
  And I think those that are skeptical actually aren't adopting this in the right way.
• 11:15
  So, I guess...
• 11:17
  And I don't want to put you on the spot.
• 11:20
  Please do.
• 11:20
  Well, I don't want you to have to come up with the five top things or something like that.
• 11:24
  But we're telling these small businesses this can help you exponentially.
• 11:30
  It's like having more employees.
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  Superpowers.
• 11:32
  Superpowers.
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  If you had to pick the top three things that come to your mind immediately, how does a small business start the process?
• 11:43
  Yeah.
• 11:43
  How do they start?
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  How do I leverage this technology?
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  Where does that start?
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  Well, number one actually doesn't start with AI.
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  It actually starts...
• 11:52
  That's at the last.
• 11:53
  That's the fifth step.
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  The first step is understanding where you're going as an organization, having a clear mission and strategy of where you want to go.
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  Number two is actually documenting your processes.
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  Because in order to understand how AI can help, you have to document your processes.
• 12:07
  Number three is actually cleaning up your data infrastructure and making sure that the right data is available for these AI's tools to use.
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  And number four ultimately is getting your team excited about the opportunity.
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  It's about building a muscle around it.
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  And I would say also number five is really around documenting all your challenges.
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  What are your challenges within your business today?
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  Write them down.
• 12:36
  Put them together.
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  Once you have those things together, what you're going to ultimately do is point the AI to these things and say, go off and help me.
• 12:45
  What I've seen time and time again is the best AI operators are just the best operators.
• 12:49
  What does that mean?
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  When you point these models in the right direction, they understand the context.
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  They understand their roles.
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  They're pointed to the right data.
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  Pointed to the right data.
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  It can do some incredible things.
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  It's like having a horse.
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  And a horse is incredible, but it's nowhere to go.
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  But if you surround the horse with the right harness, it can do incredible, incredible things.
• 13:15
  And so it's getting that scaffolding right so that the model can, the AI models can achieve incredible progress within your firm.
• 13:25
  And of course, I love the fact that you've highlighted good textbook, basic business tasks.
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  Understand who you are.
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  What is our five-year plan?
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  Do we have a business plan?
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  You've got to have that infrastructure in place.
• 13:44
  Then you can really leverage the technology.
• 13:47
  Is that fair?
• 13:48
  Yeah, because AI works best when you have context.
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  When you have context around the business, the better it can actually perform.
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  The better that it understands its role and its responsibilities, the better it can perform.
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  There are incredible tools out there.
• 14:05
  And I'm tool agnostic.
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  I'm not here to push any sort of tool.
• 14:09
  But Anthropic has a tool called Claude.
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  It's probably one of the best models right now.
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  SpaceX has this thing called GrokBot.
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  One of the most efficient AI agents.
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  One of the easiest ways of deploying this within a small business.
• 14:22
  Obviously, OpenAI has chat.
• 14:23
  I mean, there's so many different models and they're all really good.
• 14:27
  But unless you're pointing these models in the right direction, they're not going to be able to help you.
• 14:32
  How does a business, once they've got all of those textbook elements of the business in place,
• 14:40
  understand them, what do you see as maybe the commitment here?
• 14:47
  A couple hours a day, 10 hours a week.
• 14:52
  What do you think, what should a business owner at this point be telling themselves,
• 14:56
  how much time do I dedicate to trying to understand, leverage, and learn this new technology?
• 15:02
  Just like we teach business owners, you're going to spend 10 to 15 hours a week on social media management.
• 15:09
  Is there some guideline?
• 15:11
  Is there some objective that a business owner should say?
• 15:14
  I've got to stop and spend some time to understand this?
• 15:18
  Well, one of the beautiful things about small business is that they're always about growth.
• 15:22
  And to me, this is the greatest technology that we've ever seen in human history for small businesses.
• 15:29
  And my belief is that this is a muscle that everyone in the organization has to build,
• 15:36
  not just the leader, not just the partners or the founders.
• 15:40
  It's everybody in the organization continuously flexing the muscles, asking the question,
• 15:45
  how do we continue to improve?
• 15:47
  What's come out?
• 15:48
  It's why it's constantly, continuously building this into our existing processes.
• 15:54
  And it should be infused across everything that we do.
• 15:57
  So, and there's no limit to how much time that you can spend on this.
• 16:03
  But getting everyone in the team to help build a muscle will help you, help everyone build the muscle.
• 16:11
  And so, that's why I always recommend is that don't make it top down, make it bottom up, make it exciting for folks.
• 16:16
  Show them how to use the technology and how it's going to help their lives.
• 16:20
  And so that they can work on more exciting things.
• 16:22
  And that's how you actually grow in this new era.
• 16:25
  I love it.
• 16:26
  Great advice.
• 16:29
  So, of course, we've always, I grew up with a simple, you know, understanding, you know, knowledge is power.
• 16:37
  You sort of disrupted that today.
• 16:40
  You said knowledge is no longer power.
• 16:43
  Innovation is power.
• 16:45
  Boldness is power.
• 16:47
  Explain that.
• 16:48
  Well, AI already has all the knowledge that we've ever created throughout human history.
• 16:55
  That's what it's done.
• 16:57
  It's stolen all the information that we've ever created.
• 17:00
  Never heard it put that way.
• 17:01
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  It has.
• 17:03
  It's stolen all the information that we've collected throughout human history.
• 17:06
  It's created patterns around that data.
• 17:08
  And it's there.
• 17:09
  There is no person on your contact list that you can call that's smarter than Claude or ChatGPT.
• 17:18
  Now, deep, specific domain knowledge that's not written down or documented.
• 17:23
  Like, if you're a plumber and you want to understand, like, you know, if you have a very deep question that you can't find on the internet, yeah, absolutely.
• 17:29
  That still exists.
• 17:30
  There's still, you know, deep domain knowledge.
• 17:32
  I believe in this idea of tacit knowledge.
• 17:35
  Like, this idea of, like, you know, when you're, you know, understanding how to be great, whether you're, you know, if you're in radio, like, you just know how to put on a really great radio show.
• 17:45
  You can't, it's almost something you can't explain, right?
• 17:47
  And so I still believe in that tacit knowledge.
• 17:49
  But what's more important today is not that conventional wisdom.
• 17:52
  It's pushing things forward.
• 17:54
  It's being bolder.
• 17:56
  The thing with AI is that you could, anybody in this world today can ask the question, hey, AI, based on everything that you know.
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  And I recommend that you do this, Tom.
• 18:06
  Ask the prompt.
• 18:08
  Based on everything that you know about me, because it collects your history.
• 18:11
  It maybe understands your files, your emails, et cetera.
• 18:13
  Based on everything that you know, what should I do next?
• 18:16
  And the problem is, is that it always comes up with a really bad answer.
• 18:21
  It can, even though it's incredibly smart.
• 18:23
  It may say, Tom, start a podcast.
• 18:25
  Yeah.
• 18:25
  Yeah.
• 18:26
  Yeah.
• 18:26
  It will never give you an answer of what you should start next because what it's really good at is telling you about the past.
• 18:32
  But it's not really, it's not, it can't create the future.
• 18:36
  And so you can ask it all sorts of questions like, tell me how to make $10 million in the next couple of months.
• 18:41
  It's going to give you, it's not going to give you a great answer.
• 18:44
  That requires human beings to understand taste and culture and really put, you know, put the patterns together.
• 18:51
  And AI will never be able to do that.
• 18:53
  So even though they're capable and they're really smart, there's limitations to it.
• 18:58
  And it's about us thinking bigger and bolder and more innovatively and pushing the status quo.
• 19:03
  And I think that gets me sort of my last point is that I think, you know, again, I think you're touching on what I think those of us that have been on the fringes of this AI thing is, you're right.
• 19:18
  It is, it's brilliant.
• 19:19
  It's smart, but you still have to have a little bit of the human element.
• 19:23
  Is that fair?
• 19:24
  And then you said today, you kind of closed with, we can have all this innovation and we can leverage all this, but it still boils down to the greatest strategy is really caring deeply about our customers, our clients, our people around us.
• 19:41
  Yeah.
• 19:42
  Well, I mean, at the end of the day, I think this idea of trust relationships, holding someone's hand is actually disproportionately more important in a digital world.
• 19:51
  And, you know, human beings, we are, at the end of the day, we, you can have all the information.
• 20:00
  We have all the information in front of us, but are we going to act on it?
• 20:03
  And that's why I love this network because, you know, there's so many people that are helping these small businesses move forward.
• 20:10
  And despite the fact that we have all the information at our fingertips, you need someone to hold someone's hand.
• 20:15
  You need someone embedded in the business that really understands the problems.
• 20:18
  That requires what I call friction.
• 20:20
  And friction is about doubling down on humanity.
• 20:22
  It's about looking people face to face.
• 20:25
  It's about making things that are meaningful.
• 20:27
  And I think there's nothing in the world that moves people more than that connection at the end of the day.
• 20:33
  Very nice.
• 20:34
  Listen, Sean, incredible presentation today.
• 20:39
  You know, I wish every one of our clients and small business owners and entrepreneurs had been here today to hear all this.
• 20:49
  We'll try to share it.
• 20:50
  Yes.
• 20:50
  How does one find Sean Canugo, the author and the IR expert?
• 20:58
  Yeah, well, first of all, don't follow me.
• 21:00
  Follow this podcast, rate, review, subscribe, whatever you got to do, wherever you are.
• 21:03
  I listen to this on Spotify.
• 21:04
  So please do that.
• 21:05
  And if you have time after you do that, you can follow me anywhere.
• 21:09
  I'm on every single social media at Sean Canugo.
• 21:11
  I would say the best place to spot me is probably on YouTube because I'm trying to create some long form content that will help people.
• 21:21
  And the more that I can help people, the better I'm helping the world is.
• 21:25
  What is the title of the book?
• 21:27
  The title of my book is called The Bold Ones.
• 21:30
  And I'm actually coming up with a new book in 2027 called The Most Dangerous Person in the Room.
• 21:38
  I like it.
• 21:38
  I like it.
• 21:39
  I'll be looking forward to that one.
• 21:41
  Thank you so much.
• 21:41
  It is Sean Canugo, author and AI expert.
• 21:46
  He is an innovation strategist.
• 21:50
  And he was a standout presenter today here at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit.
• 21:59
  Sean, thank you for your time here on Small Biz Florida.
• 22:02
  Thank you for your support of the summit.
• 22:06
  Thank you for sharing all of your expertise with Florida's small business community.
• 22:12
  Well, thank you so much.
• 22:13
  Honor and a privilege.
• 22:13
  And this was the highlight.
• 22:16
  Small biz.
• 22:17
  Yeah, I like it.
• 22:18
  I appreciate it.
• 22:19
  Thank you so much.
• 22:19
  This is Small Biz Florida.
• 22:22
  I am Tom Kindred, your host.
• 22:23
  It is all about small business and entrepreneurship here at the 2026 Small Business Success Summit.
• 22:29
  Stay tuned.
• 22:32
  More to come.
• 22:32
  This is Small Biz Florida.
• 22:34
  That's all for this episode of Small Biz Florida.
• 22:38
  We hope you found valuable insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey.
• 22:42
  Don't forget to subscribe to Small Biz Florida on your favorite podcast platform to never miss an episode.
• 22:48
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• 22:51
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• 22:53
  So follow us for exclusive content and connect with fellow Florida small business owners.
• 22:59
  And for even more resources and support, visit our website at floridasbdc.org forward slash podcast.
• 23:05
  That's floridasbdc.org forward slash podcast.
• 23:10
  Until then, keep innovating and keep growing.
• 23:12
  Thanks for listening.
• 23:14
  Thanks for listening.
• 23:14
  We'll see you next time.
• 23:14
  Bye.
• 23:14
  Bye.
• 23:14
  Bye.
• 23:15
  Bye.
• 23:15
  Bye.
• 23:15
  Bye.
• 23:16
  Bye.
• 23:16
  Bye.
• 23:16
  Bye.
• 23:16
  you
• 23:18
  you