Your Employees Are Using AI (You Just Don’t Know It)!

4, 3, 2, 1. Welcome to the AI Profit Leaders Podcast. We have Jerem Morris with us here today. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to HQ.

Thank you. Thank you. It's a really nice area. It really is.

I like it. I don't know. The area is a little—

well, the office I was referring to. I do like the getup. It's nice.

Yeah, no, it's good. We actually spent about 3 hours here on Saturday straightening up and just making things nice and it needed a woman's touch.

So what you're saying is it's normally a pigsty.

Well, you know, Chris has— I tell him that he has like these little projects everywhere. You know, it's like, oh, there's this project and I'm working on that and I'm breaking that computer down. He's still a tech guy at heart. So we just had to come in and move some things around.

I understand.

So I'm so excited to have you here, Jeremy. We have, you know, obviously done some work together this year. I've watched you and your technology business really take off. You guys have just doubled down on so much service with your clients and just really changing the way that you do business. So I'm so excited to have this conversation today.

So am I. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. So tell us a little bit about your company, where you guys are based, your background. Yeah. Take us there.

So we are located in the East Valley of Arizona. So we're really east of Phoenix. We service the entire valley. We have about 50 clients in the valley. We actually have some clients here in Texas. I'm actually going to meet one right after this.

Okay.

And we've been in business for 10 years. We started as kind of a breakoff of another IT company that I had joined, and I didn't really like the business model. They were more of a break-fix, and I was like, this isn't going to work. So I left and started Data Tech, and here we are.

Wow. And when did you start that?

It was 10 years ago.

10 years ago?

Yeah.

What year are we in? 2015?

It was 2015.

Yeah. Okay. You're young.

Yeah, I'm 35.

Yeah. We're young. You're established though. You know, it's so good to see someone like mid-30s and you have like, you kind of have it together.

Thank you.

Yeah. And you guys are really growing and really bringing like AI to the forefront and yeah. Okay, cool. So tell me, so whenever you came into your technology business, you went straight into managed service provider business. Like you didn't even go down the break fix route because you knew that's what you did not want.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah. And I knew that because I was raised in a home of business owners. Both my parents own their own businesses, and I saw the ups and the downs of their business. I saw, I mean, we had years of no Christmas, we had years of plenty. And growing up in that environment, I saw the kind of stress that is put on the business owners and the fluctuations. And I knew in my gut that Brake Fix was that. Brake Fix was not a good, steady stream of income, nor was it the best way to serve your clients. People need more than that to have a stable business. So because I had that in my gut, you know, a decade ago now, I knew, okay, I want to be different. I want to be better. I didn't, I didn't know what an MSP was at that point. I just knew that, hey, I like solving problems and I like helping people. So I'm going to start this business because it's what I know and I'm good at it. And. And then I started DataTech and slowly built out this model and then kind of looked up a few years later and I was like, oh wait, there's other companies like me and they're called MSPs. It's like, okay, cool.

I found my people.

Yeah, I found my people.

Yeah, that's cool. Okay, so tell us, we are, we are in a transition right now. You know, like AI. I remember the first time I like really played with AI, there was this app that was, I don't even remember the name of it now. It was like 2022. There was like this content creation app that you could go in and you could say, write me this piece of content, or like, create me a post about this. And I don't even really know if it was actually AI. It was AI-esque.

Yeah, it's probably a If This Then That or something.

Yeah. And then ChatGPT came out in like 2022, 2023. I was like, oh my gosh, this changes everything. So tell us a little bit about like your journey in the technology space into the AI world, uh, what that looked like for you personally to begin with. Maybe if you started kind of dabbling here or you guys in the business, and then how you guys are, you know, weaving that into what you do with your clients.

So AI started for me a few years ago. It was really when ChatGPT came online. There were some rumblings before that, some small things here and there, but once that large language model came online and people started seeing what it could potentially be capable of doing, because this is the early days I started messing with it myself and I got into self-hosting these free open source large language models. And I still host today. I do a lot of my own hosting on my own hardware for privacy concerns because that is a big thing in AI. There seems to always be some type of issue. In fact, I know that ChatGPT was just recently compromised. It was a connector to a third party. It wasn't them directly, but these are valid concerns. So I started with self-hosting, and I really started just because I'm a tinkerer. I like to try new things, and that's just, that's the entrepreneurial spirit, is, well, how do you grow? How do you progress? How do you learn? I just do it, and I figure it out, and I'm willing to make the mistake and get bloody and look like an idiot doing it. But the reward on the other side is, is so wonderful. And for me, the reward has been with AI that I'm now in a position where I can tell clients, hey, I've been using this for years. I know how it thinks. I understand how it processes information because I've been literally like building it and hosting it myself. It's not just some tool you put in. I can actually coach them on how to communicate with it. It's like communicating with another with another person. I mean, all these models have their own personalities, in essence, and you kind of have to know how to talk to them. And you wouldn't know that if you weren't down in the trenches and, and just, and really just playing with it, just tinkering with it. So it, it, it started that way. It's just transformed into this. I'm now, I'm now coaching people, I'm now coaching business owners, and I'm seeing their businesses transform where they're identifying areas that they're not replacing people, but they're augmenting workflows. They're augmenting their thought. So we'll sit down in a board meeting and they'll be talking about something. I'm like, guys, let's get AI's opinion on this and let's throw it in and let's poke holes at what you're thinking. Because as you probably know, it tends to just agree with you.

Yes, you're so brilliant, Lindsay.

So instead, it's like, I want you to be my devil's advocate. I want you to intentionally disagree with me to get me to think outside the box. That's your specific role. And it's been really powerful for, for my business. We're right in the middle of taking that leverage we have, that relationship, the professional relationship with our clients, to the automation part. So that's one of my big goals for next year is to now put like rubber to the road and automate some of their stuff for them. So that, that's the business side of it. Uh, for, for me personally, it really has provided me an opportunity to, to be the professional business consultant, not just the IT guy.

Mhm. I love what you said, that you are coaching people and that you are in the boardrooms. Mhm. Has that always been the case for you in your business?

Um, with some clients, yes, because I've had those relationships. So the majority of the clients, no. So, so again, just, just rewinding, I come from a household of 9 kids and 2 parents, and my both my parents, they run their own businesses. All my brothers, they own their own businesses, and it's just what I know. So I've never really been just a tech guy. I've always seen myself as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. So I already naturally have these conversations about business structure with these people. And I'm just their IT guy because they already trust me. So it's been easy to transition into, well, hey, I'm your IT guy, but I'm also going to help you understand business because that's what I know. I actually know that better than IT in a lot of cases. Yeah. So it hasn't always been like the natural thing for like new clients, but I'm finding that it is way more powerful for them to see me and my team of not just IT guys. That, that, that was hard to find within myself to, to degree because I do it naturally. But to verbalize it and to convince clients of that was difficult. I had to get myself out of the tech and I had to hire people that were better than me so I could then trust them to do it. Not assign tasks, but assign outcomes. That, that's what I was going for. And once I kind of like, once I finally realized that and how I was hamstringing myself, it just opened the gates. And now I'm here in Austin. I'm not thinking about work. I'm like, guys, don't call me. Don't text me. Don't call me. Nothing. No, no telepathy. Just leave me alone. Don't even think about me. Just figure it out because I trust you to.

Yeah, that's good. I tell my team, I'm like, just ping me if you need me. Try not to need me though. Like, try not to actually need me.

Yeah. Ransomware, just take care of it.

Just take care of it.

Like we've got our processes figured out, just go for it.

That's true freedom though, as a business. And I'm sure growing up with your parents as entrepreneurs, I don't think that that generation was in tune with scale like we are in this generation. Like we're always thinking about scale. We're thinking about, okay, if I had 100 clients come in, could— what would break today? You know, what in the process would break? I don't think that that was for the vast majority of business owners. In that era.

That's—

they were just like, it was okay, we had to make ends meet, you know. We're going to show up, we're going to provide this service, we're going to provide this product, and we're going to make ends meet. And so it wasn't— there weren't these huge conversations around scale or longevity or even profit margins for a lot of, you know, for most business owners. Like, it's still a lot of that. Yeah, that, you know, I'm just trying to survive and make ends meet. I think that this is where AI has the potential to revolutionize these small business.

Oh, oh yeah, totally. Because you have these, these business owners, and a lot of them are still baby boomers. Yeah. And they don't— they didn't grow up with technology like I did and the generations, you know, after me. Um, well, because they're baby boomers and they're, they're in there, hey, I've been doing it for 20, 30 years this way. Yeah. Well, once they get AI, AI can now tell them the things that they are unwilling to read about, unwilling to have conversations about. It can poke holes at how they view business. So you're going into someone who's been in business for 30 years. I just did this and tell them like, hey, you need to know what your revenue is per person. You need to know what your revenue is per hour. You don't even know, like, your costs. Like, you don't even know what you're projected to make this year. You don't— like, how are you even in business? Well, I just provide a service and I just do my thing and I'm happy. Okay, great. But how, how is that, how is that stable? Like how, how I couldn't sleep like that. So, so they, they, they're stuck in this mindset, but then when they, when they have AI, then they can be like, hey, I'm a business owner and this is what I do. And, you know, I've got this problem. What should I do? Well, it can then be like, well, you need these metrics and you need these goals. And it's like, oh, I've never thought about, for example, what are my What are my standards of care? What's my motto? What, what's my why? Yeah, because you just get lost in the day-to-day grind.

Yeah. Whenever you started rolling this out to your clients, because you came to your technology clients first, right? Like your MSP clients, and you started having this conversation with them. What was like the general consensus?

People are not ready for AI. Oh, they're really not. I have a lot of clients that are doubters of like, oh, AI is just a fad. It'll go away. So you have to, you have to educate them, not convince, but educate. Let them feel like it's their idea that they realized on their own that AI is not just a fad, that it's here to stay. So we have that camp of doubters, and then we have those that are so hyped up about it that they're, they're skipping over the education part. So I had a lunch with a client. This was 2 weeks ago now. And again, he asked me the same question. He's asked me this question so many times. Hey, what AI tool should I use to do this, this, and that? I was like, stop. It's not about the tool. You're not going to just drop an AI tool and it's going to solve your problems. First, you need to understand how AI works, and then you can start to then use it yourself. And then we can find where you can actually implement into your workflows. Because if you're just looking for a tool, it's not an app to download on your phone. Like the tool is actually going to cause more problems because you have really bad internal processes or maybe your communication sucks as a business. Like you got to work on that first. So it's, it's actually highlighted these underlying issues for people because it'll exasperate that. AI will just make them worse. Yep. So it's like, okay, it's like, slow down. I know you're excited. We can't skip these steps though. Yeah. So those are kind of the big two camps I've seen.

Wow, that is like spot on. Even like the internal stuff with AI, you know, you go to your ChatGPT and it'll tell you all the things that you want to hear. And so if you are— gosh, have you ever tried to argue with someone or have like a healthy debate, we'll say, with someone that's using ChatGPT for all their responses? And how do you even have a conversation with that? Because it's like the hills are in the sand and they're just so stuck, and then they have all the right words saying, it's like, I just can't even. Yeah, this is, this is pointless. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so what about bringing this to your team? So it's one thing to take it to your clients, you've kind of got these two separate camps, but what about taking it to your team? You know, because the team is the backbone of the business, and they may be thinking, well, what if my job is taken? Or like, what if, what if it's smarter than I am? Or, or for them, it's, I gotta learn something else now. Like, what has been your experience with that?

So the end of January of this year, we had a, a team meeting. We have team meetings every month. And in that team meeting, I said, we are an AI company now. You can either learn to use AI or you're out. Yeah, I'm not hiring anybody anymore that doesn't know how to use AI. And instead of just putting the responsibility on them, because that's not fair to do, instead I set up, like, I'll call them metrics for me to help them learn AI. So we immediately bought a license for the business version of ChatGPT for everybody. And then we talked, we talked about it, we trained them how to use it. And then every morning we have what's called a huddle at 9 a.m. and we talk about it every morning. Every morning I have the question, okay guys, what have we done with AI in the last 24 hours? What did you use it for yesterday? And every single day for this entire year we've talked about AI, whether it's, hey, let's talk about this news article, let's talk about this recent breach with with whatever company it is, or let's talk about what you did with AI yesterday. Let's talk about that issue with the client and how you used AI to find the solution for whatever it is. We have also built some, some of the custom agents for our specific toolsets. So like I hired somebody new about 4 months ago and I said, hey, if you have questions on how to use this specific piece of hardware, here's an agent and it's been trained on those white pages. So you don't have to rely on a team member to be available. You can ask the AI. However, again, I want you to go to your team member. I want you guys to cross-train, stuff like that. So I've been trying to put it into our culture. A lot of businesses try to just create like some, some measurable way to get their employees to do it, or they offer incentives. But culture is where it starts. Yeah. And you get people excited about it and they'll do the heavy lifting for you. I don't have to drag them anymore.

Yeah. And even just having that open conversation, I have, or typically I've had a rule that's like 3 before me. It's a 1-3-1 rule. It's like if you come to me, you know, if my team comes to me, come to me with one problem. But before you ask my opinion on it, you better have asked 3 people before me. So it's 3 before me. And then I want you to give me your best solution. Well, now there's a layer that's added into that. How did you use AI to help you with this? Have you taken this to AI first? So it's just drastically changing the way that we even lead. And I think a lot of teams, that's the ones that are not having this conversation, are doing it in the shadows. Yeah, right. And they're like, oh, I don't want to tell my boss I use ChatGPT, or I don't want to tell them I'm using— I have a friend who actually works in the insurance, she's medical insurance, so she reviews like medical claims that come through insurance for insurance claims. Um, and she's using ChatGPT to help her write up her articles and her responses and It's like all done in secrecy. Yeah. You know, and it's like, well, number one, that's a security concern.

Huge security concern because she's using a free version and who knows what she's giving out.

And who knows what's going in there. And then number two, it's like, why can't we just open up a culture where we can have those kind of conversations? How did you use AI today? Oh, teach me something new. Inspire your colleague over here so they can go use it in a different way. And then we're all going to grow that way.

Yeah. It's so there's a phrase that I I say to business owners all the time, utilize AI to augment your team, not replace people. And extension. Yeah, because there is a fear, which I totally understand, of I'm going to be replaced by this. Why would I build something that's then going to just take my job? Now, I'm not in an industry where I can just give everything to AI, nor do I want to. We, we are a people-first company. We're actually not an IT-first company. That's right. We are people first, then we're IT. And we do it, but we do it once. We don't do it 5 times in a row for the same problem. So there, there is that baked-in fear. But the power that comes from just open and honest communication and saying, hey, we are an AI company and we will be using it and I want to keep you guys here, so you need to learn how to do it. That, that, that I think provided my guys with enough trust in me that they're like, okay, I'm not going anywhere as long as I do this now. And it really has been good for us. I mean, the, the efficiencies and the accuracy and the professionalism. So we, we actually had a team meeting. This was, uh, was this 2 weeks ago? Yeah, it was also 2 weeks ago. We had a team meeting and we're, we're rehashing our, our culture. We're rehashing our standards of care. And instead of just assigning this as a business owner, hey guys, these are our standards of care. Here's our motto. I got the team's input. Hey guys, what do you think our standard of care should be? So a month ago I gave them an assignment. They came back to our team meeting now 2 weeks ago and they said, oh well, I think this should be our top 3. Oh well, I think these should be our top 3. We wrote them on the board, we talked about each one, and we, we, we now have 3 new ones. They are communication, professionalism, and security that we're going to focus on for the next year as a team. So that, that again is the culture, like providing them an opportunity to have a buy-in and to have a say instead of just my boss wants me to do this now. Like, no guys, like we're all nerds here. Let's just talk about it.

Yeah. Or it's like going to the annual company meeting and they're all of a sudden like, these are our core values. Yeah.

And you're like, no, they're not. I don't know what those mean. I have no idea what those mean. And one of my guys actually said, Well, I like communication, but documentation is so important for us that that should be one as well. And then my— and then one of my other guys said, well, documentation is communication. It's like, I love that. That is awesome because it really is. When somebody is out, the only way to communicate is through the documentation.

That's right. Was it documented?

Yeah. And coming back to it, just wrapping this all back into AI, all my guys used AI to help them figure out what their standards of care should be. They all had conversations with it. They all came prepared. It's phenomenal. And if they didn't have AI to help them work through that, they probably would not have been able to articulate it as well, to communicate it to the team.

That internal monologue that they can now have with like this extension of themselves.

Exactly.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. That's so good. Okay. So if a business owner is like, all right, Jerem, you've convinced me. I need to number one, be a people-first organization. Number two, I've got to start tying AI into this conversation to grow, um, to ensure that we are increasing profits. That's what all this is about. It's not about the tool, right? It's not about just plugging in a tool. It's really about creating profits internally, externally, financially, scale, all that scale, like all those things. Like, where would you suggest for them to start, number one? And number two, how can they connect with you if they want to talk with you specifically, if they want to get to know you, or they want to know— they want to learn your unique mechanism of implementation?

So there is a book called Co-Intelligence that is phenomenal. I've read a bunch of books on AI. It's one of the best ones out there. So I would read the book Co-Intelligence. And then if you want to connect with me, I mean, I'm located in Arizona, but I'm accessible worldwide, obviously. So you can find me on LinkedIn at Jerem Morris. That's the end of the URL. That's the handle.

Handle.

LinkedIn handle? They don't call them handles on LinkedIn, do they?

I don't really know. You are link—

Jer Morris. I don't really use X. Yeah, anyways, and then you can just reach out to me, I mean, via LinkedIn. You can email me jeremy@datatechaz.com. I mean, I, I try to be an open book where I'm, I'm willing to give as much free advice as I can without giving away the farm. So there is a point where it turns into a service and just not just a 5-minute phone call.

Can I pick your brain on this? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we have about 5 minutes and then— yeah, exactly, then you're gonna get an invoice.

Yes, time is valuable.

I love that. That's great. Thank you so much, Jeremy. This was such a powerful conversation. I think of— there's people and there's AI, and you don't have to choose between one or the other. You can have both, and in fact, you have to have both to do this the correct way. And I think it also provide some guardrails and just conversation starters with your team members. So if someone's listening to this, they can say, you know what, I'm going to go ask my team how they used AI today. And it's not a trick question.

I genuinely want to know. Yeah, it's to encourage them.

Yeah. And imagine how different your business could be if you talked about AI in a morning huddle 5 minutes a day, every workday, Monday through Friday for a year. How could your business transform?

Yeah, it's— I call it indoctrination, but it's good indoctrination.

Good brainwashing. Yes. Yes. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here, Jarom. Thank you. For just coming out to Austin and, and hanging out with us. And we look forward to watching you grow and just, and seeing how you're going to really change the world. So do I. Yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you.