AI: What Is It?

Welcome to the HVAC Mentors Podcast. I'm Mike. I'm so excited to share a new series that I am preparing to launch right now. Guys, I don't know if you've noticed, but technology is here. It is in the trade. It is in every trade, from computers and mobile applications, measurement tools, Bluetooth-linked devices. It is everywhere. And the one emerging technology that's most exciting And I think has the most fear attached to it from my fellow tradesmen and women is AI, artificial intelligence. So like it, love it, fear it, believe in it, whatever your opinion, I've got a series of episodes that are coming down the pipeline that are sure to ignite some really good conversation and maybe, maybe provide some good food for thought. You might even change your mind, but Of course, the decision is ultimately yours how you use your tools and what tools you want to use. So this obviously is the first episode, A Technician's Guide to Artificial Intelligence, brought to you by the HVAC Mentors Podcast. So I want to share with you a story, not a story that's happened, but maybe one that may. So imagine you're standing on the roof of a restaurant. You're looking down at a condensing unit. Your gauges are already connected. Head pressure climbing past 240. You glance at your phone and it vibrates in your pocket. A notification pops up. Low suction pressure combined with high superheat may indicate low refrigerant charge or restricted metering device. You haven't written anything down. You haven't started a service report, but the system already knows. It knows the equipment model, the service history, and the pressures you're reading. And before you even climb down from the roof, your service note is already written. Parts availability is being checked, and the office already knows the status of the repair. Now, that might sound like something from 50 or 100 years in the future, guys, but here's the cool thing. Most of that technology already exists. And to be perfectly honest, the tool that makes it all possible has been with us for quite some time lately. That tool is called artificial intelligence. You know, technicians sometimes joke about How nice it would be to have a helper. Not necessarily a full-on apprentice, but maybe somebody to follow us around, carry our tools, haul materials up and down the roof, maybe clean up our truck, run to the supply house, maybe go to the gas station and microwave our lunch for us. Would that be so much to ask? Every technician has definitely had that thought at some point. Man, if I just had a helper today, this job would go so much faster. But let me tell you something. What if the best helper you ever had is already here? What if the helper could organize your service notes, track your diagnostic steps, look up part numbers, check supplier inventory, help analyze system performance while you're still standing in front of the equipment? And what if that helper didn't slow you down? They didn't need training, and they're ready to go to work as soon as you are. Let me paint you a picture of the service call with AI. You're a refrigeration technician responding to a service call for a walk-in cooler that's down. You pull up to the business and park your service truck. Before you even step out, you open your work order on your tablet. The system is connected to your company's CRM, and it has an AI assistant running quietly in the background. You walk into the business and meet the manager. They start explaining the issue. Yeah, the cooler has been struggling the last few days. It runs for a while, shuts off, then the temperature creeps up again. You start asking some questions. Has the system been cleaned recently? Any recent power outages? Has anyone adjusted the thermostat? When was the last preventative maintenance done? While you're having that conversation, something interesting is happening behind the scenes. The system is logging the conversation. It's recording the symptoms the manager describes. It's organizing the information into your service report automatically, not because it's spying on you or recording you, but because it's taking notes for you. Because the system is helping you document the service call while you're actually performing it. You head up to the roof to check the condensing unit. You connect your wireless gauges. Immediately, your suction pressures, head pressures, Liquid line temperature and superheat readings start streaming into your tablet. You pull out your wireless Bluetooth multimeter. You verify voltage across the contactor, check the control circuit. Maybe you test the capacitor, but every measurement that you take is automatically logged. Meanwhile, your AI assistant is quietly analyzing the data you've collected so far. Maybe you're using some kind of smart glasses and it's actually taking video. As you look over the condensing unit or the evaporator unit, it's snapping a picture of the data tag and recording the information— make, model, serial number, running voltage, refrigerant type— and adding that to your work order so you have that information at your fingertips already. It's not diagnosing the system— it's not diagnosing the system for you. That's your job. It's simply helping you organize the possibilities and helping guide the troubleshooting process. You continue your inspection, you identify the issues, and you make the repairs and get the cooler back up and running. When you walk back to your service truck, you open your tablet and your service notes are already written. Your diagnostic steps are documented, and the parts you identified during the repair are already listed. Those part numbers are automatically sent to the office. An email goes out to the company owner explaining the status of the machine and the repair. And meanwhile, the system contacts your parts supplier electronically to check inventory. Within seconds, you get a notification telling you where you can pick that part up to possibly do a same-day repair. The entire service call took about 30 minutes, and after you leave, you have a complete digital record of that system's performance. So on the next visit, the next technician will know what work's been done on this machine. Now, that might sound a little futuristic, like something that's from a sci-fi story— again, 50, 100 years in the future— but the truth is that most of the technology I just described is already here. Like this stuff exists. You can go to the, you can go to the electronics store and buy smart glasses. You can buy a tablet. You can subscribe to an AI application. You can of course use your wireless gauges and wireless probes. The rest, as far as AI integrating and being able to in real time track your steps, take notes from your speech, take pictures of data tags and components and track your system measurements. In 5 years, you're gonna be amazed at what AI can do for us to make us stronger and much more efficient. The technology making that possible has actually been right here. It's called artificial intelligence. Now, before you close the app, before you sign off and unsubscribe from my podcast, let me just ask you something. Is artificial intelligence really that new? Artificial intelligence is because it's really not new. Have you ever used GPS? Have you ever used voice-to-text? Or Google Search, you've used artificial intelligence. AI has been around for quite some time. What's changed recently is that it's becoming much more accessible and much more diverse in its applications and how we can use it. It's starting to show up in places we never expected to see it before, including in the skilled trades. Let me challenge you to try something. Next time you're out on a service call, take a picture of the data tag. You may not be able to do this while you're on the job. Maybe you can, but at some point, attach that picture to ChatGPT or another chat buddy. Ask it to tell you everything it can about this. Don't even tell it it's a machine. Don't tell it it's a condensing unit or a commercial gas oven. Don't tell it what it is or what you were doing or how you came about this photo. Just ask it. Tell me everything you can about this, and you'll be surprised what it does. But before we talk— start talking about whether artificial intelligence will help technicians and what it can do for you and what it'll be able to do for you in the future, before we can talk about whether it's going to replace us or make us somehow weaker as technicians or worse at our jobs, we need to answer a much simpler question. What actually is AI? Well, how do you define artificial intelligence? What makes something smart technology or software? And what makes something intelligent? And that's exactly what we're going to explore in our next episode, where we talk about what artificial intelligence is. Thank you very much for joining us. I'm Mike, and this has been the HVAC Mentors Podcast. Thank you.