AI Just Leveled Up… But What’s That Mean for Us?

Welcome back to tech with that tech pastor. I'm Justin Lester and I'm so grateful for all of you for being on our podcast once again. As you guys already know, this podcast is dedicated to just engaging with technology from my perspective as a pastor and as a leader. And I'm so grateful for all of you who listen in, whether it's on YouTube or those of you who listen in on Spotify and on itunes. Please do us a favor, share this with somebody like, and share the videos like and share it out if you will, just to share the world with the work we're doing on that tech pastor. Today is is May 23rd and I wanted to take a look back on the week. There's been a lot and I had an episode I pre recorded, but I wanted to do another one because this week, well, Microsoft and Google had their massive conferences a OpenAI hired somebody who worked at Apple and well, swear five. Sorry, one day in AI is like five years. This week felt like a whole generation went by. Let's talk about it. You're tuned into tech with itechpastor. Thank you for being here today. So, you know, I want to break down what's happening at this intersection. And, and to me, I would think if I were going to title this, it'd be AI tools, trends and the response. I want to look at what's happened and then I want to project some stuff, right? Because I'm sure it's one thing for us to talk about all the tools, all the stuff that happened, but then like, what does this mean for our people? What does it mean for our churches? What's mean for our community? So let's talk about the headlines. Look at the headlines first. So first of all, here's five big headlines happen. Number one, Google IO 2025 Shameless plug. We one of my videos was at Google's IO. Anyway, Google came out, they, they came out swinging. And one of the major things I think that's gonna be important to us on a mass scale is their AI mode, right? So they dropped AI mode right inside of search. So instead of having to go to Perplexity, instead of you having to go to ChatGPT, they got AI mode right inside of search now. And it's like having an AI assistant in your Google results. Crazy, right? So we kind of knew this was coming. I did some beta testing on it, but now that it's actually out, monumental. Then simultaneously, they also dropped Gemini Live. So Gemini Live, you can actually turn on Gemini on your phone and it can have conversation, watch your world and react to you in real time. Very similar to what we see in the meta glasses. And to me, the wildest thing that Google dropped was Project Astra. It was a universal assistant that feels like we're living in sci fi times. They updated Google vaio, which their Google VEO video production is phenomenal. They are, and talked about enhancements to Google Gemini Flash. There's so much that Google came out, but really the AI mode, Gemini Live and Project Astra were the major things to me that I think we need to be not just mindful of, but to experiment to know. I think that might affect a lot of us at mass scale then Microsoft. So Microsoft had Microsoft build 2025 and if it was like literally telling Google, hey, hold my mule, because we're going to do something too. And Microsoft leaned heavy into agents. Everything from Microsoft agents they built upon their worktion index where they talked about moving jobs from work to frontier firms. And so what they're showing us is the AI that does tasks for us, not with us. You guys have heard me talk about this before. But for them, AI agents are gonna be tasked doing things for us. So Copilot got a ridiculous overhaul. GitHub's copilot is basically writing code for you while you sip coffee. And they're integrating Grok, which is interesting, Elon's AI into Azure. It's a game changer. And it's curious to see how GROK and all their lack of restrictions are going to balance out with OpenAI's restrictions and to see the race for AGI. Now Google and IO said they're gonna be first, curious to see what's going to happen. So that's the news in Google and Microsoft. Then you have geopolitics and AI chips. So that's just there, political news when it comes to AI. The US just lifted restrictions so Nvidia can sell AI chips to Saudi Arabia and the uae. In translation, the AI arms race is now global and everyone's trying to stack chips, literally and figuratively. I think it plays into what happened with Trump two weeks ago when he was in Saudi Arabia and all the money that was invested in AI. Then in the midst of all of this, Microsoft, he's talking about this frontier firm, right? There's a lot of layoffs. So Microsoft laid off so many people and they're investing billions in AI. They laid off thousands. Now they knew this was coming. The people that got laid off said they knew it was coming. But I think the church can't ignore it. Because I think what is challenging us is that we need to hone in our skills. Hope and pray and upskill. Because the same skills I worked yesterday are not gonna work today. And matter of fact, the same skills I worked this morning are not gonna work tonight. And then lastly, I think we gotta look at ethics behind this. It's my fifth little thing. Media outlets are mad at Google because AI is summarizing their content with no credit, no profit and no consent. And I think we got to pay attention because if they can do it to journalists, they're going to do it to preachers, artists and creatives as well. They're summarizing data. Now, we were doing this already, but now because it's integrated now, it's at scale and mass, it's going to be interesting. So Google had their big IO, Microsoft had their big build politics with AI, big layoffs and ethics in the fire. So why does that matter to us? Let's talk about it. Black pastor. And you're looking for a GPT that is catered to you to help you craft sermons and do pastoral care and do work. Well, I got made one for you. It's called Pastor GPT and it's made for black pastors and black church leaders by a black pastor. And here you have formative space, formative ways to engage with your preaching, your teaching, your pastoral care, all for black congregations, black people and black pastors. Now, anybody can use it, but it's crafted especially for black people to have a space to do their own thing and to engage holistically as black individuals. So please go to pastorgpt Co and take a look at it. There's subscription models. There's a free model where you get five conversations a month. There's a first tier where you get 50 conversations a month and a second tier where you get up to 150 conversations a month. Month. Take a look. Try it out. The goal of it is to give black pastors and church leaders a space to believe. Black pastors and church leaders. I look forward to engaging with you in what Pastor GPT can do for you, for your future, for our churches and for all that God's calling you. So why are these five trends matter to us? I want to give you five reasons why I think this matters to ministry and to churches. Because now this is the part like most people probably skip. Because like what is like, let's go try these tools. Before you go try the tools. We got a trend spot. I'm a futurist. We got a trend spot. I Think there's. There's five things that I think we got to realize. Number one, agentic AI is here. Like, I want you to think about digital assistants who handle entire workflows. AI that can follow up with people, organize your notes, prep, sermon, outlines. It's a gift and it's a challenge. Because who's accountable if AI is wrong? Because now it's no longer humans in the loop. You're just writing a prompt and it's doing all the work for you. AgentIC AI is not going away. This is the year of AI agents, and everyone is doubling or tripling down on it. We gotta be mindful of agentic work. So that looks at our websites, looks at our copilots, look at how we engage in our staffing, looks how we engage with people, because everything is agentic. Agents are going to be the assistants that we didn't even know we needed. Number two, AI is becoming really invisible. It's in your emails, it's in your YouTube suggestions. It's reshaping how we live, reshaping how we lead. AI is everywhere, and it's the same thing. Kind of like if you look at spiritual transformation, when someone says yes to Jesus, and over time, it changes. The question now is, are we going to shape AI or is AI going to shape us? Because if we're not careful, I think we're going to be shaped by AI instead of us shaping AI. Number three, there's a global power shift. The South. The global South. I want you to hear me. We're talking Africa, we're talking Asia, we're talking middle parts of, we're talking the Middle East. They're all not just consuming AI, they're now all developing AI. So my question for us to think about is, like, what is our church's global strategy? What partnerships are we building, not just in America, but across the water? Because I told you guys this for years now, South Africa is the future. Now they're building it. So for a while, they were just consuming. Now we're building before ethics, right? If we're preaching justice, but we're not talking about AI liberation ethics, we're missing the moment. Data privacy, content ownership, and digital dignity. We have to lead this, not follow behind it. And lastly, jobs are changing fast. One of the things that's happening is not that AI is stealing jobs, it's remaking jobs. It's making it remaking them, and they're making it cheaper. So I think that's why ministries have to be reskilling and upskilling people. Not just spiritually, but practically reskill, cross, skill, upskill. This is going to be the game changer I think all of us didn't even know we needed. That's what's coming down the line. That's what happened. That's what I'm predicting. Agents are going to be it. AI is going to be invisible. There's a global power shift. Ethics are front and center and jobs are changing fast. So what? Well, I like to call this my tool prompting challenge. Those of you who followed me along in my emails, you guys have gotten this before. But I'm going to give you a tool to try based upon this week. I'm going to give you a prompt to put in. I'm going to give you a challenge. You can play around with it. So let's give you my tpc. So what's the tool? There's a new tool out called Google Stitch. And what Google Stitch does is it gives you UI design. It won't make the app, but it'll give you a whole design that you can take between app builder and you can prototype digital ministries very, very fast. So go to Google Stitch. It's stitch.with google.com stitch.with google.com and instead of putting something in like build a food pantry app, here's a prompt I want you to try. Design a mobile app for community food pantry. It should let users check inventory, book pickups and get alerts. See what you build. Run that in Google Stitch and see the vision. Now there's other apps you can do, but run that in Google Stitch and see what it looks like for you and see what the interface looks like. Play around with it. There's some cool stuff you can see already in there to play around with, but play around with that. Here's my challenge. Create a digital bulletin with add tools like Canva OR GAMMA or ChatGPT and tell it to make it bold, visual, interactive and drop it out. You can comment in the comment section on YouTube or whatever, give a link to it, but I want to see what it's like for us to change some things out. That's my challenge. Create a digital bulletin. Don't put it in person. Make it digital. Here's my takeaway for you. Here's what I all want to share with you. AI is not just coming anymore. It's here. It's invisible. It's in your pulpit, it's in your paycheck, it's in your inbox. So how we steward this moment is going to be very vital. We can be scared. Or we can be strategic. We can sit back or we can sit up. And I want to challenge you to sit up. That if we're going to be the generation that leads the church for the future, we can do it with integrity and clarity. So if you want to dive deeper on this, I put a blog up on this called AI Just Leveled Up. What does that mean for us? My website, jrlesser.com it's written in plain, clear English. It gives you more links to the articles as well. Find them on my website, jrlester.com because I'm going to tell you this AI right now is not about you being perfect. It's about you being present. We don't have time to sit back and figure everything out. We got to jump in two feet out and go forward. So thanks for staying with me. Don't forget, go out, have some fun. Follow me on TikTok that techpastor. Follow me on Instagram thattechpastor. Don't forget to like and subscribe to the podcast. Like and subscribe if you're on YouTube no matter where you are. The lie to me honors the light in you. Stay prayed up. Code up peace.