Latest / Auto Collabs / How To Be Your Own CDP with Nick Askew
Transcript
- 0:00I think I might be the only- Stop... I think I might be the- Stop. [laughs] [upbeat music] This is Auto Collabs. [laughs] Stop. [laughs] Ah.
- 0:16I think I might be only, the only one in this upcoming interview w- that isn't in my own house.
- 0:23'Cause Nick's got a stupid cool office studio, and every time we see it I get jealous, and you guys are in your house and you have all your guitars, and- Yeah, but you have an office coffee maker that makes coffee like, you know, you need a college education to make.
- 0:35No, you don't. So, you know. And you have wall art that's very motivational, and I have no wall art that motivates me. No wall- the wall o- opposite of me never gets seen, so I- nobody ever need to put anything up there.
- 0:46That's true. Actually- It's more all the, like, extra- Fun fact, fun fact, little people know this, but there is a couch bed on the opposite side of Kyle's office desk right now, and I've slept on that couch bed before.
- 0:56[laughs] There is. Is there really? [laughs] I was, uh, that's not where my brain was going, 'cause like if it's anything like my home office, it is where the Costco overstock gets dropped.
- 1:07[laughs] It is like, so I'm picturing just boxes of diaper wipes- He said diaper wipes... in Kyle's office right now. [gasps] Literally that was gonna be the item that I mentioned. [laughs] He said diaper wipes.
- 1:19Diaper wipes. Well, we hope- Hey, let's stick to the diaper wipes... we're probably not gonna talk about diaper wipes. We're gonna hopefully sound a little smarter than we have to start this one, uh, in this podcast.
- 1:28But it's always a thrill and a great hang with Nis- Nick Askew. We hope you enjoy this conversation today. [upbeat music] Nick, we're excited to be hanging out with you again, man.
- 1:41Uh, the real question is when does the album drop? [laughs] That's what we're, we're all here to find out. I, I, I- When's the album drop?... I show up for the live performance personally.
- 1:51[laughs] [upbeat music] I mean, so if you search, uh, maybe YouTube or even Spotify you can find some, uh, older things. Uh, but, um, I will drop an album when I stop working on software. How's that? Ah. Ah, well.
- 2:08Well, that's fair. That's fair. Yeah. We just watched the beginning and the end of that music career. [laughs] That's great.
- 2:16I do, I wanna ask you, because we've had a lot of conversations around AI, you've been pressing the boundaries when it comes to AI, and then you've been on stage talking about it as well.
- 2:26I wanna know, like personally, what's the most fun you've had creating or working with AI recently, like with some of the new tools or things that are coming out? 'Cause I'm, I'm sure you're out there tinkering.
- 2:38What are you tinkering with right now? Oh, oh, God, I'm not sure if I can say, um... [laughs] Oh, no. No, not safe for... No, I'm just kidding.
- 2:52Um, no, so I have, uh, actually created, um, a full company that was just an experiment, and it's a company that creates other companies. Um, and,
- 3:09and within- [laughs]... inside this it has agents that are product managers. Um, and the reason that I can't say this is because, like I'm charging for software development through it, so it's like- [laughs]...
- 3:23um, the agentic software project managers, agentic QA managers, agentic engineers, um, uh, project management and communication.
- 3:34Um, but also the most fun that I've had with that is I've got a, uh, uh, also a agentic salesperson support that can have a video chat like you and me, and learn from- What are you even talking about?... our entire...
- 3:49I'll send you a link to it. I'll send you a link. It's actually live right now. Um, you can throw your app ideas, and it will walk you through how to actually build the software and, um, in real time.
- 4:03So it's like a first pass at, uh, building a- Agentic vibe coding... yeah... not just vibe coding. Agentic vibe coding. Agentic vibe coding, but with a real person you can talk to.
- 4:17And, uh, she has, uh, uh, named Amena after my golden retriever because it was like the only name that I could use and my wife not get mad and be like, "Ooh, who's Olivia?" Um. [laughs] Right, right.
- 4:29[laughs] Uh, it's named after my golden retriever. Um, but what's really cool is she's got vision as well, so you can s- you can ask her, like, "How many fingers am I holding up?"
- 4:40Like, "What's the vibe in the room right now?" Like, she can analyze all of those things and analyze your body language, not, it's not just LLM text to speech. What the... Um, so- Yeah...
- 4:54you don't know this, Nick, but he's texting his wife saying that July 4th is canceled tomorrow. [laughs] I'm just thinking of what I would ask Amena.
- 5:03I would be like, "What song is Nick most likely to play based on what you can see about him right now?" Oh, g- so no, no- He's like mentioning that... the craziest thing. Okay, so I've also got this web hook.
- 5:17Um, if someone mentions my name in it, it sends me a ping. So at 10:30 last night, my content director was on it using it- [laughs]... and he said, "Well, what's the best way to get ahold of Nick?"
- 5:28And I joined the call with the AI. Oh my God. [laughs] That's unbelievable. I was like, "What was that?" He probably just dropped right out. He was asking, like, "How quickly could I get Nick on the phone?"
- 5:38I was like, "How's right now?" Uh, so... [laughs] That's, that's... Uh, my mind is blown. I don't think we can continue on this episode. See, look, this, this is why we can't have nice things, Nick. Yeah.
- 5:48This is why people can't have nice things- [laughs]... because people out there like you just on your side gig making software that makes software and knows what's going on in your room.Yeah, no.
- 6:02[laughs] But you know what? I think that's, uh, I, I like, I, I wanna be a mad- Mm-hmm... that's my childhood dream is to be a mad scientist, right? So, you know. Yeah. Wow.
- 6:10I guess that it's, it's when you can build things without the expectation of it being revenue generating, and you're just doing it for the love of doing it- Yeah...
- 6:22like, that's when the best ideas- Well, I've been doing the same. Okay, see, this is why I'm, this is why I'm making that sly smile, and Michael knows, is because this has been my new favorite thing.
- 6:29Like, really under- like, not just- I'm just gonna see myself out. [laughs] I, you know, I'm c- I'm curious to the point right now that everything that I do doesn't need to have a business result.
- 6:43It's, it's f- you, you have to be so filled with curiosity because in order to understand what vibe coding does or, or how far it can go or, or, you know, like, what things you can integrate and, and take over and, and, and understand about the world and the way that data really interacts,
- 7:06that's what I'm so curious about. Like, how far can we go with the data connectivity so that, like, data is just a baseline to our experience over it? And that, like, all of that starts to make it- make itself so...
- 7:22Quick, Paul was telling me ear- earlier today they, that these people put together, like, 50 agentic- Oh, yeah... top doctorate researchers- Yep...
- 7:32that all knew specific fields and were able to solve, like, to an 80% efficiency- 2,000 of-... diagnosis...
- 7:40yeah, 2,000 of the hardest, most rare diagnoses that human doctors were only able to, to find, solve 20% of them. Yeah.
- 7:50And that was the same, that was the same basically level that the first AI was able to accomplish until they broke them all out and made a bunch of agent specialists that could confer with one another and hypothesize different ideas based on their specialties, and then they solved 80% of them.
- 8:06And there's no cure for cancer. Wasn't that the Microsoft one? Right. Uh-oh. There's a Microso- I think- Hey, tinfoil... saw Microsoft do that.
- 8:13Um, it did four times the rate that a, the US standard of, uh, diagnosis was. Yeah. That's wild. That's it. That's it. Four times. Well, I mean, look at, like, uh, Microsoft just laid off another 9,000 people.
- 8:29That brings them up to 15,000 this year. Uh, citing that AI is the, the big disruptor there. Um, I mean, what, what's your take on that? It, it sounds like we're starting to see that.
- 8:40If software can make software and coach someone, uh, what do you think... What, what's happening? What... Are, are... Is this the beginning of the Matrix? Is this the beginning of Skynet? Is this...
- 8:52Where, where, where does the world end up in the next 18 months? Well, it's a white collar revolution, right? And it's- Mm. That's, that's what has happened.
- 9:05We've seen it time and time again where industries get turned on their heads. This is the first time that computing has been able to make logical decisions, uh, based on unstructured data. So, yeah.
- 9:23Is it going to affect and is it gonna change things? Yes. You... But you still need these industry experts to understand. You go take... Kyle's talking about vibe coding, right? Mm.
- 9:37It's like finding the limits of vibe coding. Someone that doesn't understand how infrastructure and software works can only get so far by saying, "Build me an app that does this." Right. Right? Um,
- 9:51what you find now and what... You know, it's an unfortunate truth, is, like, there's certain parts of software engineering that aren't really needed anymore. Like, let's take- Mm... lower-end front end developers.
- 10:07Front end development, for sure. Just- It's all gonna be ETL... just done. It's all gonna be database syncing, data management. Yeah.
- 10:14Like e- like front end, it's, like, as long as you have a library, plug it in and done, right? Yep, plug it in and done.
- 10:20So, so these particular jobs where you actually needed people to go and write code are gonna be the first to go. The, the jobs that you can automate and create,
- 10:35you know, you're, you're just having people do kinda menial jobs and, um, and it's unfortunate, but it just means the landscape's changing. There's always gets replaced by something else. Right. Right? Always has.
- 10:48You know, what, what ends up happening with evolution of, of, of business is, like, when we automated production lines in the 70s- Mm... what did that do for the car business?
- 11:00It was like, well, we weren't having people hand press doors anymore. Like, now it's done on an automated production line with a swinging arm. And- Mm-hmm...
- 11:08mechanics for those things, and you need engineers for tho- you know, to, to make them better, and you need, you know, all these types of- Well, I kind of-... those jobs...
- 11:16I think it's, I think that's not just the only limitation of it because that argument, like people were saying with AI and things like that, like the... Yeah, but it's never replaced thinking, right? It's never...
- 11:27Like, the stamping of the doors replaced a manual thing, right? But coding replaces, like, someone have to critically think about something, right? It's not like I'm just pulling a lever, right?
- 11:36With the robotics replaced the pulling the lever. I think that every time, though, something has been replaced, and you can go the pen and paper, you can go typewriters, right?
- 11:45You can go computers, typewriters, and then you can go autocorrect and all these things. Every time, I believe that humans are incredibly adaptable- Okay... and it allows us to figure out the next thing to do, right?
- 11:58I don't think it's as clear because, like, if you go at your door stamping and mechanics to fix and process and all that stuff, there's not nearly as many people needed to maintain the s- the stuff as there was to actually do the task.Right?
- 12:10If, if that was the case, it wouldn't- we wouldn't have gained any efficiency. And I think that these tools, these AI tools, are allowing us to think in a totally different way, which is an upending in- Yeah...
- 12:21in more ways than just a task. Because it's like, I don't know, I've sh- I've heard a zillion things. It's called the post whatever economy, the po- like you called it the white collar... What'd you call it?
- 12:30The white collar... Revolution. Revolution. White collar revolution. Great band name, by the way. White Collar Revolution. [laughs] That is such a great band name. Golly, that's amazing band name. Write that one down.
- 12:39Thank you. Yeah. [laughs] No, but I, but I think- Yeah...
- 12:42I think it's allowing us to think in a different way, which is why I think entrepreneurial minds and teaching kids the entrepreneurial skill and us being able to flex entrepreneurially is really the only survival mechanism for anyone that's got a job that will soon be replaced by AI.
- 12:59You're so right. You're s- y- you're absolutely right. And that it... Yes, those jobs might not be individually replaced one for one, but it allows us to be more productive. Mm-hmm.
- 13:12It allows us to create things that, w- w- it allows us to create le- uh, to more with less resources, which- Yes... overall increases productivity around. We can re- we create more things, right?
- 13:22How many companies did you just create? [laughs] I don't, I don't know. It's, it's, it's up in the air right now. Yeah. Um- It's creating companies as we speak is what- As we speak... he's trying to tell you.
- 13:30[laughs] But what that ends up doing is freeing up space for us to, for those people to go and adapt. And I love what you said about humans just being, you know, a- adaptive. We wanna survive.
- 13:43We, we wanna learn and grow and survive, and I- we're so resilient.
- 13:49And as things change and as jobs change, it's our duty, not just as entrepreneurs, but as, you know, as leaders with people in our companies, to help them get there as well, to not just go- Yeah...
- 14:02"All right, we're gonna replace them." Yeah, there are gonna be some casualties in major organizations like that. Um, but if you can leverage that inside a company and go, "All right,
- 14:16how do we empower everybody, even on a, you know, a, a- an entry level jobs or mid-level jobs to be not just like content writers, but all right, now you...
- 14:26I'm gonna teach you and up-skill you to learn Zapier and understand how to make mini agents and do things like that."
- 14:32I mean, that's, that's just our responsibility as leaders to help uplift the people around us, rather than just get going, "Hey, cool, now I can replace you. You don't have to pay a salary."
- 14:42It's like we can do more with less. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.
- 14:45I mean, if you think about it from a rudimentary level, like anybody that wants to grow in an organization should be in the process of firing themselves from the thing they're doing today. Yeah.
- 14:55It, it's like if you're not growing, then you're, you're dying i- in my opinion. I, uh- Hmm... y- you know what I'm really not ready for, guys?
- 15:03I'm not ready for the number of people that are gonna be adding the term AI consultant to their professional profiles, 'cause you know- [laughs] Ah, ready or not, it's already there, bro.
- 15:12[laughs] I can just imagine Clubhouse right now. [laughs] Oh, back in the day. Millionaire, the millionaire AI consultant. Yes. Hey, hold on. Yeah.
- 15:21So like for the everyone else that's listening to this, Kyle, what the heck is ETL? Uh, basic- Paul, let me guess, let me guess. Um, elephants, tigers, and lions? [laughs] You're exactly right, Paul. I knew it.
- 15:36That's great. I mean, 'cause it came out of both of you so naturally, and I'm like, hold on, if I wrote ETL down, someone else is gonna make that.
- 15:42Well, if you didn't say that, Michael, if you didn't say that, I would've just assumed you knew, too. Yeah. So it's- [laughs]... it's basically a data process. It stands for extract, transform, load, right?
- 15:52I like mine better. Yeah. So the da- the, the idea is we get this data from here, and we l- and we land it here, right? Got it. Okay. But in the middle, there's a transformation layer, right? Okay. So this is...
- 16:02The, I'm glad I asked, because this kind of ties into something you were saying, Nick, I want you to kind of expound on, which is it's not as s- like we talk about this because I, I would say we're probably all early adopters i- in some way, shape, or form, some more advanced than others, but, uh, and by that, I mean Kyle and Nick more advanced than [laughs]
- 16:20K- Paul and Michael. But- I'll bring up the rear. I'm fine... the, the barrier to entry- I'm the caboose on this train.
- 16:26[laughs] Like anybody can go to chat.openai.whatever, and we can type around, and we can feel smart, and we can feel special, but to talk about what you're saying, the, this transformation, this revolution, there is a barrier to entry.
- 16:41There is a level of understanding, and, and Kyle brought this up in a conversation the other day. It's like, it's not just gonna make us stupid.
- 16:47It actually requires a l- a deep level of critical thinking in order to architect what we even want it to do and how all of the infrastructure fits together. So tell me about that.
- 16:59I mean, you, y- you said, "Oh, I just built a, I'm building a AI that's building companies, and it's all agentic, and it's this and that." I mean, there's more to it than that.
- 17:10There's somebody out there right now thinking they can just build this. Oh, yeah. I, I don't think... I assume it's not that easy. No, it's, it's not, because you've got a
- 17:19l- layering of agents in the right, uh, architecture to begin with, right? You can't just... Y- you... What AI does, it's logic and reason that mimics human thought, all right? Mm-hmm.
- 17:32And you still have to follow certain paths. It gets stuff wrong like humans do, right? Mm. Some of my best engineers write code wrong sometimes. Yeah.
- 17:45And we have failed builds, and then we have QA people that go, "Oh, you should have built that a different way." Um, y- you have to architect things.
- 17:55And you talk about, you know, the ETL, extract, transform, load, um, into, like a data warehouse. It's like you can't...
- 18:03You know, your, your average person, yeah, you can go to the ChatGPT and this and ask, um, you know, a couple of questions, but if I'm-Trying to build an app that does something and does something valuable, like I've gotta think about authentication, I've gotta think about security, I've gotta think about transactions, I've gotta think about communication, I've gotta think...
- 18:23Like, there's all of these things that you actually have to have a valid knowledge of as an engineer to be able to actually achieve those things. Yeah.
- 18:32Otherwise, it's just a pipe dream and you're, you're gonna- Mm-hmm... hit a barrier. You might be able to create some fun front end stuff, but it's not gonna work. And, and then when things go wrong, you don't have the,
- 18:50the knowhow or the resources to be able to fix it. Yeah.
- 18:55So, you run up against a brick wall and you're like- Or write the tests or the end-to-end logic, or the all of that stuff to validate that it's not failing when you're sleeping. All of those things, right? Ugh.
- 19:06Yeah, like- Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, it's, it's, it's cool, but it, it, it does require you to be an expert in software engineering- Yes. Yeah... in order to do something valuable with it.
- 19:19But- Well, I think it's broadening the gap between experts and novice, right? Actually, that's what's gonna happen. It is. Um, and, and so the focus on being an expert is gonna be all, all that more critical.
- 19:31It's like, what does it take to run, to, to work in, to work in, um, you know, that same plant that stamps those doors, right? Before it was like swing the thing over, line it up, drop the stamp. Right?
- 19:45That's, that was an, that was a job there. Now, I mean, my buddy runs, uh, some, um, some welding tech at, uh, at these, at, um, sup- a supplier for Nissan and Stellantis, and he's like
- 20:02so super technical and he's working on AI and how it looks at weld spots and can determine whether or not they're meeting a certain coefficient of perfection to make sure that they...
- 20:15Like, that's his level of techn- you know, so you just widen the gap between novice and expert. Yeah. But he has- Yeah... he has that genius level knowledge- Yeah... of what it takes to achieve that perfect weld, right?
- 20:28Yep. Exactly. And then utilize the tools to create it, an even better process. So it is, it is widen the gap. All right. I will say- So, so, well, bring it around.
- 20:38I want you to bring it around because obviously we all, we all work within auto. You're building tech in auto that's, that's allowing people to leverage their brain space in different ways.
- 20:48How are you, like, injecting all of this external personality, this ex- experimental, like tinker on the side type thing that you're doing into the tech that you're building and imagining how people around that tech are, are operating in the same new way?
- 21:04Yeah. I think it's a, it's a, it's something that you have to bridge the gap for because there's two things that you have to think about. It's, one, what the dealers are used to in their current workflows today,
- 21:17and also consumer adoption. Um, so I firmly believe, uh, in creating
- 21:25any good agentic or AI system, um, you have to have all the data in one place to be able to make solid decisions. Uh, and the, the reason why
- 21:37I think that is, you know, we, a couple of years ago when, you know, ChatGPT was a, you know, just booming everywhere on the news, everyone was like the, wanted to be the first person to come up with an, a, you know, an AI chatbot powered by ChatGPT.
- 21:52So they threw it- Was that a couple of year- On a website... was that a couple of years ago? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I think it was November 2023. Um, and- Yep... when they did, what did it have access to?
- 22:09Oh, your website data and your inventory. So it could ask questions about that and, and take care of that. So, then I started thinking about
- 22:20my, and my, and Kyle, we've, we've, we've had discussions about this before, is my whole
- 22:27purpose of trying to unify Automotive is that the website, your digital retail, your CRM, how you communicate with a customer, the conversations that you have, recorded phone calls, summaries, all of these things
- 22:43should live in one centralized data warehouse. Mm. Because if you're on my website and an AI's taken over, but then you call me and you're like, "Actually, scratch that, I really like the Corvette now,"
- 22:55and then your AI's taking over and it's like, "Oh, so I see you are interested in the, the, the Tahoe." It's missing a very solid data point. Mm.
- 23:05So what I'm trying to do is bridge the gap between the UI that, and the user experience that the dealer interfaces with and the customer interfaces with, collect all that data together so we can build AI tools that are helpful because they have the knowledge of every single data point throughout the customer and dealer journey.
- 23:29Mm. Yep. Yeah, I think that if you've used any, any sort of LLM, doesn't matter, Claude, Gemini, GPT, anything,
- 23:40you, you start to realize when you use it more and more that the collection of context- Yeah... speeds the efficiency of the result, right? So you can ask it, "Write me a marketing plan for my dealership,"
- 23:58and the results are wildly different if you add a brand guide, recent messaging,
- 24:06context about your org chart, you know, all of these things, and then ask it that one question, versus just going in to a blank profile and saying-Write me a marketing plan about my dealership, right? Mm-hmm.
- 24:18So the added context of all of these data inputs and having a home base for that, I think is so key.
- 24:24I think that's why people are kind of obsessed over the, the term CDP or having a single stop- shop for all of my data in a repository, in a warehouse.
- 24:34I love how you, you say, like, connecting the consumer and the dealer at a data level- Mm-hmm... um, being, being super important. So I hear you. You're building it. It's great. Well- It's amazing. Guys.
- 24:47What do we want to do from now? Nick, say what you're gonna say, and then I gotta shut this down because my brain's starting to ooze out of my ear. [laughs] Onto his new meta Ray-Bans. He doesn't want to ruin them.
- 24:58[laughs] Yeah. Oh, yeah. You- you've got all the context, uh, from this conversation anyway to replay back. I've telepathically asked... I've got John Cena in my ear. That's the voice of the meta AI. Ah.
- 25:10And I've telepathically been asking him questions the whole time, and he's... [laughs] I'm just kidding. Yeah. This got weird.
- 25:18[laughs] But John Cena's voice chose to whisper seductively, I'm assuming seductively, in your ear. [laughs] I'm try- I wanted to play a prank yesterday on Paul and Kyle. And, and so I told it that when I ask who Paul J.
- 25:35Daly is, that it would reply with, "Isn't that the guy who likes stickers?" Uh- [laughs] That would've been amazing, and it totally failed. That would've been so good. I wish you would've done that. I know.
- 25:45I did it like three times. And then when I actually asked it, it was like, "Paul J. Daly is a serial entrepreneur who-" Yeah. [laughs] And I was like, "Get out. Get out of here." Oh, yeah. Get. There it is.
- 25:54Nick, man, you are- Paul's like, "Let, no, let them speak. Let..." [laughs] Yeah, sure. They're very smart. They're smart. They know everything. Yeah. I was just gonna say, so I just g- I just got back from NIADA.
- 26:07I was, I was asked to speak there, which is a, it was a great time. Um, and it was a, it was a good honor just because, you know,
- 26:16me being younger in the industry and being asked to speak in, in Vegas in, in a very large crowd was, is, is cool.
- 26:24And I, and I decided to do something that I don't usually do because I'm an engineer, and I have this really hard problem that I'm trying to solve m- myself, is that I try
- 26:36and speak like an engineer even when I'm speaking to dealers. And then they, they spend the entire conversation going, "Oh, what the hell, the hell am I supposed to do with AI now?" Like, cool.
- 26:46[laughs] You've just talked about all the things that it's, that it can do. Like, what am I supposed to do? So my session was about, uh,
- 26:54just taking, like, if you've never been in ChatGPT before, like, what can you do as a GM? Mm.
- 27:01And I think, and just in the essence of that, what it really made me feel and understand was there are so many people still in this industry that rely on vendors. And I'm one of them, right?
- 27:13That rely on vendors to tell them what the AI can do.
- 27:17And if you actually go and get yourself a $20 a month account, so you can have your private data in there, remove some of your PII, put your CRM data, your inventory data, your org chart, your financials, whatever you want in there, and start asking questions about how to strategize and layer all that context on, on itself.
- 27:40You can have the power for 20 bucks a month, rather than waiting for some vendor to come and s- solve the problem for you. Come on now. Yeah. I am telling you that y- you as a GM are your own CDP. Mm.
- 27:57You just have to go and use that data without purchasing it. My man landed the plane. Come on. [laughs] Dude, that's amazing. You are, you are an innovator, and we love talking to you.
- 28:12Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us and making me all sorts of curious. I got pages of notes. Um, dude, it's been a pleasure. Thanks for joining us on Auto Clubs.
- 28:21[upbeat music] So that is the face I make when I realize I'm way further behind than I realized. [laughs] You were... Huh. Yeah. I mean, this is what, I, I think that this is important.
- 28:35I'm gonna start a pressure washing business. Right?
- 28:37Th- this is super important to anyone looking at tech, thinking about tech, thinking about developing tech, thinking about using tech, is that the level of scrutiny that you're gonna have to have
- 28:50moving forward is gonna be so much higher. And here's why. Because anybody can go to one of probably 15 tools right now and vibe code "an app," right? Mm.
- 29:02And they can probably set up some neat things, and they can maybe, like, make it look like everything is working as intended. But his point about this, this... And, and my thing with, like, excellence versus novice,
- 29:17you can't do some of these things, especially when it comes to personal private information, data security, authentication layers- Right... and all of that type of stuff, without having significant knowledge of
- 29:32the issues if you don't set that stuff up well, especially when AIs are out there being created to crawl and get into some of this stuff. Yeah.
- 29:41And so I think that the scrutiny level on what tech you use, who you're using, what their data security pr- uh, you know, how they've built their tech, is gonna have to be at an all-time high.
- 29:51So that way, that means if you're not trying to use it on your own and understanding how it works, then you're definitely gonna get left in the dust. You know what stood out to me?
- 30:00And I got pages of notes, guys, like pages. What stood out to me is that there's OEM 20 groups still talking about bounce rate. Oh. [laughs] Like, people are still coming away from knowledge sessions.
- 30:16And what I love about this- Mm... is I took so many notes, 'cause I, I think it's... For me, it's kind of a, like, an honor, a privilege to sit here and get to be the first student.You know? Mm-hmm. I like that.
- 30:27And, and I think that's actually the title we should be striving for in this industry, because there are things in here, even a guy that owns a tech company, I'm not an engineer. I'm, you know, I'm a sales guy.
- 30:37I'm a- But to sit here humbly and listen and take notes, that's, that's okay. We need to be doing more of that- For sure. Yeah. Yeah... because it's, I think Nick made the point, you made the point too, Kyle.
- 30:50It's like, you need to be exposed to this. It needs to cascade over you. You need to know where things are headed.
- 30:57And to his point, even if where you start is a $20 ChatGPT account to just start playing around- That's right...
- 31:04that's better than being, you remember back in the day when advertising largely went from print and traditional to digital, and there were people that hung on for so long with their fluorescent yellow- Yeah...
- 31:17poster board saying, "We've got a sale," and the balloons, and the wacky, wavy, inflatable, flailing arm tube guy. And it was like, just start. I know.
- 31:25Well, the problem is, is that when that happened, and eventually when they were boxed into a corner where they had to- Yeah... they were so far behind. And it was painful. Right?
- 31:33Like, they had to start at ground zero, when if they were even just curious or reading a little bit or understanding, even if they still had the fluorescent sign and the wacky guy- Yeah...
- 31:43they could start to understand the language, the vernacular, the platforms, the strategies. And that's, that's why I read, like, I don't know, like, seven AI emails every day. By the way, we have one, autoindustry.ai.
- 31:54There you go. But that's why I read seven a day, because I, uh, even though I can't apply most of it, it actually just keeps it in my head. That's right. All right. Well, I think we've done enough damage for today.
- 32:05We did. Uh, my brain hurts. On behalf of Com+ Here, [laughs] Michael Cirillo, and myself, thank you for joining us on Auto Collapse.
- 32:12Sign up for our free and fun-to-read daily email for a free shot of relevant news in automotive, retail, media, and pop culture. You can get it now at asotu.com. That's A-S-O-T-U.com.
- 32:25If you love this podcast, please leave us a review and share it with a friend. Thanks again for listening. We'll see you next time.
- 32:34[upbeat music] Welcome to Auto Collapse. Welcome to Auto Collapse. [laughs] Why are we recording? Are we rolling yet? Not yet.