S5:E4 - AI for Rural Communities with Scott Meyer

You are listening to the Growing Small Towns Show, a podcast dedicated to supporting you, the person who really cares about the future of your small town. We believe when people get better, everything gets better, and our episodes offer the ideas and actions that prioritize people and small communities. Thank you for listening. We're so glad you're here. Our guest on today's episode is Scott Meyer. Scott Meyer is one of the co-founders of chip.ai, which on this episode is one of the things we talk about, but he has taglined it as, um, AI for everyone. And so I invited Scott onto the show to discuss AI, the implications for small towns, uh, the implications for for us all, and also to truly dispel a few of the kind of overarching, maybe either myths about AI, the fears that surround all of this technology and the innovation in how this is going to impact us from a workforce perspective, a talent management perspective, education we touch on briefly. And truly, I was just excited to have Scott on the show because he approaches the topic with care. And he, in this product Chip, which we a lot of time talking about. And of course, it's, it's in the show notes so you can check it out. But the design, the intent of it was to make it accessible and easy to use. And I think if nothing else, it's just always really great to visit with somebody who's, who works directly in the sector that has such an opportunity to level the playing field for rural communities. And that's one of the things we spend a lot of time talking about. So without further ado, enjoy this episode with Scott Meyer. Well, hey Scott, welcome back.

Well, hey there.

So excited to be back.

I know it's so, it's so exciting to have you. You, sir, are working on, you're working in an area of rapid growth, an industry that's filled with rapid growth. And I think for small communities like mine and a lot of our listeners, a lot of unknown and a lot of fear and maybe a lot of uncertainty. So can you share just a bit, um, with our audience, kind of bring us up to speed, um, what you've developed since the last time you were with us on the show and, and then we'll just start there.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Well, great to be here, everybody. Scott Meyer, co-founder of Chip, C-H-I-P-P. It's the easiest way to build AI agents or AI tools for your business to help you kind of work smart and, um, live well. And I think AI, like you said, is moving very quickly, but at the core, it's the same thread the entire time, which is how can we better augment our own skills or bring in digital talents that we don't have, whether it's we don't have the skills, we don't have the member on our team, or we just want like a sounding board, a partner, a legal review, a copy editor, like all these things that if you had them, use them, but most of us don't have them most of the time. So that's where AI is really powerful. And, uh, what's fun about Chip is we just make it easy. We provide the interface for individuals and businesses to get started, and underneath it, as AI develops, we just kind of ride that wave of offering those things to our users.

Yeah. Okay, there's a couple things to unpack there. Let's start with the basic premise of how, how you're positioning AI, right? Like, I think, um, a lot of times in our communities, we actually are dealing with a lack of capacity.

Yeah.

And oftentimes they're human resources, right? There's a lack of capital related to skill sets. Um, you touched on a couple of them, right? Attorneys being potentially one of them. Um, so can you just run through again a couple of, like, share a couple of applications of where you really see, um, AI filling a, a core need, whether it's for small businesses or even just thinking in broader terms, right, for like a community on the whole?

Yeah, yeah. I, um, we kind of made a bet early on that I think is paying off, which is AI is actually horizontal, not vertical. Like, it's unusual in my mind that you would hire AI because you are a lawyer or because you are an accountant or because you're a city manager. AI is, to me, is much more horizontal across tasks, types of things you do. And most of our jobs are made up of tasks. And so AI is often going to replace specific tasks, but not entire jobs. You know, I often think about accountants, you know, 20 years ago did a lot of math. Today they don't do any math. They do a lot of strategy and they let QuickBooks do the math, right? So on Ship, people can build AI tools. And so we get to see how are people using it. And there's 5 buckets that we're seeing AI being leveraged in. First is in operations. So imagine you're on a Zoom call, it gets transcribed, AI helps you write an email to everyone who's on the meeting and remind them of what they promised to do, or sends a summary to people who weren't there, right? Uh, second would be sales. So, uh, AI is really good at capturing people on a website or finding information about someone so that you can call them and make a sale or get a lead. Third would be marketing. So just think content, right? Anytime you're going to repurpose something, AI is going to be really good. I think about AI as like the world's best cover band. Um, it works much better when you have a good original, right? And then it can make covers of that. So you as the business owner or marketer or leader can come up with concepts, probably with AI's help, but then AI will repurpose that into all the places that you don't have time to go post. Um, fourth, I think is the most interesting, which is company search is what I would call it. So every document you have in your city, in your company, in your legal code and whatever. How do you just find that quickly? And it might live in Google Drive and OneDrive, and some of it's on a website, and some of it's in a chat, and some of it's here. AI is so good at just giving you an easy interface to say, what's our vacation policy? Or who do I talk to about health insurance? Or how do we upload videos to YouTube? Whatever it is. Uh, so company search. Um, and then let's see which one I forgot. Oh, fifth would be customer support. So the ability for customers to ask questions without bothering a human. And a lot of interesting use cases here. Like we work with some schools and, you know, 60, 70% of the messages they get, the phone calls, the emails are when's registration? How do I get my kids signed up for this sporting event? Who do I talk to about absences? Like these are not questions that should distract the admin person from their job. It just destroys their day. And the ability for people to get those answered quickly without talking to a human is what they want anyway. Right. So customer support. So I think those 5. Are things that most of us do in our companies, in our cities, in our schools. It might not be the majority of what you do, and maybe you don't do a lot of customer support, you do more sales, but like one of those things is a really good use of AI.

Okay, there's a couple things I want to circle back to from that list. Thank you. The bucketing is really helpful. I think it gives people a way to think about— because I think, you know, there's such a broad range of adoption with AI, and I'm sure you realize that, right? Like there's people that maybe use ChatGPT every now and then to ask it some simple prompt. And then there's people that are really using it as a core, like to provide core functions. So my, my hope with this episode is just to, um, dispel maybe some of the, some of the myths, reduce some of the fears, and give people places to start, right? So listening to your 5 buckets, one of the things you said that I think is really important to come back to and highlight is a beautiful analogy, by the way, that AI is the best cover band of all time. Like, that's a really smart way to frame it out because I think people do worry about loss of origin, like original content and loss of heart, maybe. Right? So could you come back and just speak a little bit more about that? Because again, and then I would say that my second kind of thing I wanted to come back to, which I think they're tangential, they're they're connected, um, or adjacent maybe, that it's, um, the idea that we're gonna outsource these things that humans were doing or maybe are doing. And I think there is a general fear that we're gonna lose that humanness, whether from a perspective of creation, which was your first, that, you know, the first thing that caught my, my ear. And then the second was even just talking about customer service, sales, those, those kind of computer-generated prompts, and does it lose heart? Does it lose connection? So what, what are you seeing related to those two things?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, uh, I, one quote I read is that if you aren't worried about something, you're probably not trustworthy. Like, if you're just all like roses, like, you're not in it, right? So like, there is going to be a a major change. But I think what will become more valuable is those things that people connect with, we're still going to want human connection. And so whenever you're doing creation that is heartfelt and personal, and that people can actually kind of connect with, I think that's going to have increased value. And also, like, there might be increased value on knowing it's not, you know, AI, which is really fascinating. But I think so much of the content we create doesn't have to be that way, right? Like a lot of our day-to-day, what we're working on, like this press release or this email or this, you know, summary of your podcast on YouTube, like probably doesn't require your heartfelt, like emotion to be poured into it. And so my hope would be we can spend more time creating those unique pieces and less time doing like the routine sort of reproduction work. AI works best when it's trained on a voice. You know, if you just ask a question on ChatGPT, it'll be fairly robotic. Where we see it going at Chip is like every secretary should have a secretary, like every writer should have a writing assistant, you know, every executive should have an executive assistant. And so you should create a— I call it a protégé, you know, a digital twin, whatever the word might be., that talks like you, right? That learns how you write and think so that way you can augment your skills. And so when you want to write a LinkedIn post, it sounds like your voice. When you want to write a memo to the company, it sounds like how you would talk to them. Um, and then you can easily say, you know, write this for parents of 5th graders, write this for an executive, uh, create a post targeting millennials, whatever. And it can, it can think about who it's for better than we do. You know, I think when most of us write or think, we do it in the way we are accustomed to or comfortable with. AI is really good at just helping us change it for the audience so that it's better received. So I could think about AI as like, like that old, uh, hearing aid, you know, in the early 1900s where you'd have like the huge megaphone in your ear. Um, it can actually put a megaphone to our audience so that it goes in better but still maintains your voice. So A lot of directions there, but, you know, one of the things we love at Chip is making it easy for people to launch their first assistant. And ideally, that's an assistant prepared on your knowledge so that when you talk to it, it sounds like you or how you or your company, depending on how you're trying to use it. Yeah.

Yeah.

Great, great answer and perspective because I— that's the other thing I think, you know, I've, I've seen— I've known you now for a good number of years. We met a good handful of years ago at a conference in South Dakota. And I think I, so I, I don't just see you as like an AI peddler kind of guy, you know what I mean? Like you, you, cuz you, you have a creative and entrepreneurial spirit that's just a part of who you are. Mm-hmm. Um, and I think that that's really important because I, I do think, and I kind of hear this per, this perpetrated narrative and it's, it's this big, it's kind of fearmongering, right? About how AI is just gonna strip away all the humanity. Also of course replace all the jobs. Like actually replace all the jobs. And I think there's so much value in our audience knowing that you actually care, you care very deeply about the creative process. You care very deeply about furthering that entrepreneurial, even the mindset of a person to think creatively, to think collaboratively.

Yeah.

And it, and it, how, how has that, like your experience, 'cause you've worked with entrepreneurs for years, right?

Right.

How has that influenced the way you built Chip, the way you designed Chip, and kind of your entire process?

Yeah. Yeah, I think Chip came out of, you know, the design is that there's a huge gap between what's possible and what's done. And often that gap is greatest in areas of less technical skill. So, you know, I think, I think it was Steve Jobs who said, like, when you look back, you can more easily connect all the dots. Like, that's how it feels like with my life. Like, when I look back of the different professional opportunities I've pursued, they all have a connection to digital literacy, like basically taking skills and making it more accessible to people, especially in my community, right? Like in Brookings, where I'm from, or Fargo, where I live now, or, you know, generally across the world, people who have less access. And so what excites me is that if people can learn to use these tools now, they're first of all going to be able to learn and move their careers in the areas that will be more sustainable. And more leveraged, and they'll probably be able to increase their reach, you know, do more with less and, um, just be prepared. You know, I think the worst thing is to wake up in 2 years and all of a sudden, um, you know, nobody needs a copy editor and you've been spending 2 years learning to be a copy editor, right? So you need to think about what's coming, but, and be able to take advantage of it. But always, like every time there's been some kind of shift, what I always find is like, Actually doing the thing is the hard part, right? Like we can learn and know as much as we want, but you still have to be brave enough to like push the publish button or put a video out or tell people your idea. Um, and that's not gonna change. Like there still is an act of bravery using a tool and taking action. And so I feel like I've spent a lot of my life trying to encourage people to take action. Um, yeah, same right now. It's like, it's fascinating cuz So my favorite stat right now is that almost 50% of Americans use AI on a weekly basis, and around 5% of businesses say that they use AI, which is obviously false because those 50% of people work at those businesses.

Exactly.

And so it's like, you know, there is a gap where people aren't telling their boss, they're not sharing with their colleagues how they're using it. There's sort of this problem that people aren't sharing how they're using AI. And so I think it's right now it's an interesting moment of like businesses need to be brave enough to let their employees use AI and to come up with common sense policies and, and training. So I don't know, my, my vision of the future is that when you come to work, you get a new job, you're going to get an AI agent that's built by the company the way they want it to perform, just like you get a cell phone or a laptop or a phone, maybe even. Right now everyone's just bringing their own cell phone, doing whatever they want in whatever way they want. I think it'll get more streamline. And I think businesses who think about that now are going to be ahead because they can train their workforce how to use it and actually like get that kind of peer-to-peer learning to accelerate AI in their company.

So yeah, no, though, that I don't need much.

I'll go off on tangents for you all day, but hopefully that's all you want, Scott.

It's great. I, but listening to you, I, I try to, again, I, I, there's so much that I can do, so much more that I could do, that I could be turning to and utilizing AI to do. So some of this is actually my own question, not just my imagined perspective of our listeners, if you will. But listening to you talk about, well, it's interesting that what you're finding is this gap in honesty about it. Like, I would be curious to ask, like, what do you think is What's driving that? Why, why is there this hesitation to share or be honest about it? What do you think is driving that?

Hmm. Yeah, I think one is fear for sure. Both ends. Like, I think employees are afraid if my boss knows I'm using AI, they're not going to need me or not pay me as much or not want me here. Sure. I think bosses, you know, leaders are afraid that If they tell their employees to use AI, they're going to share information that shouldn't be shared, or maybe the quality will go down, or people won't think they have to work as hard. So there's just a lot of, like, fear. Um, so yeah, I think that's a big part of it. I think there's always resistance to technology, you know, so people don't want to use it. Maybe it's because they're afraid or they don't think they're good at it. The thing that fascinates me about AI is, um, a lot of research has shown the people who are best at using AI are actually older employees., because they have, uh, expertise in that field. So AI is really good at taking you from like 80% to 110%, right? So it'll raise the floor. I always think about AI is a really good floor raiser, making everybody's emails not have spelling mistakes, right? Or getting new employees onboarded quickly. Or if you're having sales calls, giving you like good scripts that are just like average, right? It brings everyone to a C. But if you know how to describe, uh, if you know who Picasso is and you ask AI to make a painting like Picasso, it'll be very similar to Picasso. But if you don't know who Picasso is, how do you explain to AI how to make that thing? And there's a lot of us who have the words and expertise for our thing that a regular person doesn't. So if I'm going to say, you know, design a building that is Georgian architecture, but I don't know what Georgian architecture is, it's really hard, right? Or if I Write it in the style of Steinbeck, or, you know, create a report that's creating a matrix on these competitive axes. Like, if I don't know what a matrix is, or I don't know what a competitive report is, like, I'm not going to be able to do it. So AI is really good for those who already have expertise.

Okay, so that's something I want to, I want to spend a couple more minutes on because I think there's a really important piece of that that maybe can alleviate some of the surface fears, like the, just the immediate kind of, let's just dismiss it because it's somehow making us less valuable as people. It, it's, it's actually doing the opposite and, and also directing our energy and our investment in our own development too. It, it, it can, it can, I think you, you'd said it earlier, like if as a, as a small business owner, um, you have to do everything like that. You're just basically every single thing, you know, function of your, of your business is your responsibility. So rather than me spending the next 2 years, um, learning the skill of copy editing because it's a function of my business, right? If I let, if I let AI step in and do some of these things, or at least support the function of some of these things, because I think people also forget, like, there is so such value in having something to edit versus create.

Oh my gosh.

Yeah.

That's kind of the, I call it the blank page problem, right? Where like, The blank page is so scary and so hard.

It is.

And if you can say, this sucks, here's how we should edit it, like, that's great. That works really well. And that's actually— I think AI is an idea machine, not an answer machine.

Yeah.

You know, and so it's really good at being like, give me 5 more ideas, give me 10 more acronyms, give me, you know, 2 drafts, you know, and then you can react to it. You've probably— maybe I talked about this in the first session, but I've talked about the AI sandwich. And this is how I think about people approaching AI, which is, you know, it's going to start with a human asking a question, then the AI going and doing something like creating potential answers or bringing back information. But then it's still going to be on the human to take that and, you know, either improve it or share it or kind of act on it. And we're moving towards agents. But what I see is these agents still require that human to say, okay, like, this is good or keep going, you know, so it's always coming back at the end towards that human. So, so yeah, I think that's, you know, one way to think about it. Um, I was just looking up, there was a, a, a phrase that somebody had. Yeah. What was this? Um, the way that, you know, that AI is, is allowing you to move from thought into action, like so much more quickly. And so when I have an idea, I can tell AI to go create that thing. And it's kind of like, you know, in the past, if you couldn't design, I would have an idea and I'd go talk to a designer and get them to build a prototype, or I'd go talk to a coder and have them build this website. Like, what's really exciting now is like, we can go from idea to demo or launch without that in-between skill. And so for those of us who don't have or haven't spent time developing that like extrapolation skill, like now AI lets us go from ideation to launch like immediately. So I think it really rewards honestly, like Renaissance people who have curiosity and wanna try stuff. And you know, maybe you haven't had time to build up like the, the launch piece, but you have the concepts. So there's a lot there too, but that's where I think it's headed. Yeah.

Well, and I think again, I think it's super exciting because it, it also, I mean it's, so it's what, while, while you just, said something that's gonna sound like a counter to the statement I'm gonna make. You literally just said like it supports or kind of rewards Renaissance people, right? People that are naturally very curious. But I also think in some respects it's very helpful to people that wanna niche down into a really specific, you know what I mean? Like I think, right? Because again, you, you get to actually direct your energy for your own development.

Yeah.

Towards, towards whatever the thing is. Like you, you, and I think we did, I didn't ever comment on this, but you're, your stat that older people in the workplace in particular are seeing more success is a really fascinating thing to look at. And again, it's, it comes back to time spent in the industry, time spent investing in that, that skill set or that, that area or kind of body of knowledge, maybe depending on what it is that we're talking about. But like that literally can apply to everything, Scott. And that's really cool to me to think about. Because like it can be a really noisy world and it can be really hard to figure out. I even think about this for young people maybe that haven't gotten into the workforce yet or, or even just at that point where they're trying to decide what to do next. It's, it's, it gives you maybe a way to direct some of that learning and growth and know that everything else can be augmented at least if not totally supported by AI.

I mean, I think, I mean, it goes back to that quote of like, if you're not a little worried, you're probably not paying attention. Like, just things are going to change. And when things change, you know, that's when people get worried. And I think one of the most eye-opening and I think like incredibly promising study that recently came out was in Nigeria. They did used AI as an AI tutor for students. And the students who are utilizing the AI every day after school, in 6 weeks, they completed the learning that was done over 2 years in the classroom. And it's because they were, they were able to be driven by themselves. So self-driven learning in the things they were curious about. And what was fascinating is like, unlike most educational kind of solutions or interventions, it got better over time. It's like as people started using the AI to learn, they actually learned faster and faster. Instead of most interventions, you know, there's like an improvement and then it kind of like levels off, right? Like, right. Got it. I, I eat better and I learn better because I now have better nutrition, but at some point that stops. Whereas there's no, at least from this study, there's like, there's not an end. Like it's accelerating over time. And so you just think about this is available to everyone in the world now for free, right? And how long will that, that take to change things? And what does that mean? I think as a parent, it's like both incredibly exciting to think, okay, my kids can go down any rabbit hole they want on their own and get one-on-one support in the way they learn. Uh, but then also like, what does that mean for learning from a mentor or teacher in the school? Um, and, and what do you tell 'em to learn? You know, like, I have, you know, I have 6, 7 years to go until my oldest goes to, you know, is of college age. But it's like, I actually don't know if 6 years from now it'll look much like it does now. And if so, like, I would push them right now. If I had to guess, it would be towards that Renaissance strategic, how do I know enough about a lot to then go learn or be able to pull ideas across industries? It's going to be fascinating.

Uh, that's, that's when you start talking about that, I think that touches on some just core fears within me. Yeah. The Growing Small Towns show is recorded locally at the Growing Small Towns podcast studio located in Oakes, North Dakota. It's produced by Pheasant Canteen Studio in Aberdeen, South Dakota, with marketing support from Cassidy Johnston in Canyon City, Colorado. Our intro music was created and produced exclusively for Growing Small Towns by James Bergman, singer and songwriter from Fargo, North Dakota. Local and small, it's what we support and it's who we love. Get your community a shout out on the podcast. Call 701-203-3337 and share your small town success that you just don't feel is being celebrated quite enough and let us shout you out. You can also share your biggest people challenge and we'll dedicate an episode to offering ideas to help. Hell, you can basically tell us anything and we'll do what we can to answer. We can't wait to hear from you. Our small town shout out is to the city of Wilmer, Minnesota, population 21,000. Don't get yourself twisted here, I know that's not a small, small town, but on the level, that's a, that's a small community. And their shout out is also one of those things that I normally wouldn't get super excited about, but there's a specific thing they've added here. So they shared with me that they just recently completed a comprehensive plan that hadn't been updated since 2009. That's not the cool part. Here's the cool part. It's the first time in the city's history that community engagement was actually in their plan as a priority. And the way that they found that or discovered that or got to that answer was truly intentionally including diverse groups of people in the development of that plan. And that is how you create more engagement, more interesting output, and more diverse and interesting voices at the table. You invite them and you include their perspectives. Way to go, Willmar, Minnesota. Again, just that because education— and I— okay, so again, our audience, right? We're talking to people in small communities. A public school is often a heartbeat of a small town. And the idea of public education— okay, so I should just say, because I'm much more grounded in hope than fear, I think we both probably share that. I think you even said that before we hit record. I'm a hopeful guy. Yeah, same. Say I'm hopeful also. So I don't mean to create this fear about this thing. But the idea that our public education system will adjust or adapt to some of this technology, that in itself doesn't scare me. And I hope that it comes. My bigger fear is that it doesn't adapt fast enough and then kind of crumbles and dismantles. And then what happens? So I don't know if you've, if you're reading about anything with that, if you have any perspective to offer on that, but it's definitely going to change, Scott. Like there's, it's already changing. If a student body in Nigeria can see that kind of, I mean, this is something you can't ignore, right?

It's like net positive, but the problem with net positive, it's not always positive for everybody, right? It's like, it's awesome that people around the world can now learn everything. That also means now I'm competing with more people across the world to do the thing that I do, right?

Absolutely.

But I think, you know, I think it does free teachers. Like the way we've seen people using Chip is schools don't get paid more per student, right? Like their budgets aren't going up. So they have to figure out how do we do more with less? And AI is a perfect solution. You know, so we have schools, like I mentioned, taking questions, requests from parents and students, using AI to basically filter those. So, you know, 40, 30, 40% of the questions still come to the person, but the others don't, and they can spend more time doing, working with people who need it. Same thing with teachers, you know, they can do personalized learning plans for every single student in a push of a button, and the students are going to have higher outcomes because it's like targeted to what they need to learn. Like, we have an integration with Canvas, so like in the learning management system, you can talk to AI and it's trained on your homework and your books, you know, and it's like everyone has a personal tutor. But again, going back to the first thing we talked about is like the student or person still has to want to ask the question, right? They still have to have some inner drive to learn or to challenge themselves. And that's where a teacher mentor is so important to be there being like, you can do this, like go harder, keep going. You know, I was at North Dakota State, helped start the Entrepreneurship Center. And one thing I know, because we worked with, you know, over 1,000 schools across the state with entrepreneurship is like most of these rural, rural schools don't have the teachers for specialized courses. And so they're taking Arizona State online courses, maybe NDSU courses, like whatever it might be. And that costs, you know, that costs money. It's not going to the state and they're not hiring a teacher because they can't find them or they can't have someone in that community. And so what if that great teacher in that school could not only teach English and social studies, but now they could, with a little bit of help, be an expert in economics or in entrepreneurship, which they might not offer otherwise. So I think that's my hope is like, it does allow more to be brought into the school system. It helps to remove some of the, uh, onerous tasks, you know, around admin, content creation, grading. Um, but there's going to be risks too, because now everybody has a world-class education. So what does it mean now to be a great school? Like, that's going to be An interesting question.

Yeah. And again, I think what we hope to do with this show, well, it's highlight great people like you doing meaningful work. And I'm going to have you maybe explain CHIP because you've referred to it several times. People might be like, what the hell is CHIP at this point? We probably should have done this sooner in the episode, so I apologize for that. But I think it's also to not be afraid of of opening up a meaningful and kind of rich conversation about things that might be tenuous for us. Whether just to think about or there is a polarized kind of thing. And I think AI is absolutely a bit of a polarized topic of conversation, right?

Totally. So yeah, I would, I would say we've been here before. It's just different because now what we're seeing is what AI is best at is complex thinking. And in the past, what's been most easily automated or replaced is manual labor. And so whether it's, you know, throughout the 1900s with farming or in the early 2000s with manufacturing, like we saw blue-collar work getting automated away by machinery and we saw, you know, massive job loss. Like there's not a lot of phone operators anymore, right? But those people went somewhere. What I think was unexpected is how good AI would be at copy editing, writing, legal research, you know, like class, like becoming a tutor, creating courses. You know, those are things that we've almost in our mind been promised. Like, I go to college, I get a degree in one of these, like, humanity areas, and I'm able to go out and get a good job and use my brain and create these things. So it's hard because those are actually the more easily automated jobs now. And so it's just like a mindset shift. And so again, what we have to figure out is like, how do you connect that into personality, strategy, thinking across disciplines? Because again, AI will be really good at like a single task, but it's going to be not as good at like switching across these tasks in an easy way. And I think it'll take— like we know from that stat with businesses using AI, it'll take a while probably longer than we think for it to be adopted. Uh, even though it could be adopted a lot of places quickly, I think it won't due to fear, due to technology, whatever. So, um, so I think it's worth thinking about, like, is what you're doing repetitive and the same? Like, are you a language translator for people at the courthouse? Like, that's probably going to go away, right? Are you taking stock photos? Like, that's going away., but are you taking, you know, interesting pictures of people doing some activity, you know, maybe that adds personality, or are you, you know, creating something with information that combines your passion of sports with, you know, an interest in your local community and, you know, kind of an interesting tone, like kind of a personal local newsletter, like that's going to be, you know, harder to automate because We can't be a cover band on something that's not already being covered, you know what I mean? So it's like, exactly, uh, in rural communities you almost have an advantage because what's the source material, you know? Like, I could take information from the New York Times, but they're not talking about, uh, you know, Lisbon or something like that, North Dakota. So it's like, yeah, could you be that voice? Um, ChatGPT launched a new tool this week, uh, called Deep Research, which is really mind-blowing. It's so good at going out and doing PhD-level research. So essentially it'll go out, find all the medical journals talking about XYZ, bring back the reports, tell me what I should know. The big limitation is a lot of that stuff is behind paywalls or is custom information. And so that becomes the differentiator. So what's your custom information? You know, it's like your business probably has processes that aren't available online. Other people can't copy. Maybe you have stuff in your mind like you definitely have. Your network of people you've talked to and you can connect the dots and ideas and like, that's not coverable, that's not searchable, right?

Yeah.

And so you have to create something that's not just out there that everyone else can access, because if it can be accessed by Google, it'll be accessed by AI, which means it can like do the job faster, better than us. So what is your unique kind of knowledge source I think is interesting to think about.

I think that, I think that's a super helpful thing to think about because I, I also think you know, from, from where I sit, we, you know, a lot of what we do, it's people development, right? Like, yeah, like leadership skills, you know, actually, actually being a better human in terms of how we, how we can, how we connect, how we collaborate. It's kind of, you know, like I've talked about this before, but it's almost like 21st century learning skills, right? The 4 Cs. Those things are still they're still really, really important. And even though you could get some tips and tricks and ideas from AI, like the way that you embody them, there's, there's not, there's not a way that AI can. And again, you can take me to task on this if I'm wrong, Scott. Okay. Like seriously. But I guess the way I think about it, it's like humans, every single human is actually unique. And so therefore their source material that is, that actually is precious to you and unique and specific to you. And I think that's something to really think about. What's your perspective where, like, if you create a Venn diagram of the thing that you're gonna create, right? Like, what unique experiences have you had that shapes the way you think about it? What's the body of knowledge that you have that shapes the way you think about this thing, right? Like, that's, there's so many ways to think about your unique an individual perspective that does live within you because you embody it. That's something that AI can help you articulate. AI can help you market it. AI can help you— I mean, there's a ton of stuff, but it can't, it can't replace it because you're you.

Yeah.

Does that true, or is that just—

Yeah, I think it's true. I think there's a fascinating question around like Yeah, what shapes us and how could we be shaped by other sources? So it's like, yeah, like obviously we're kind of like the product of our community and our families and the people around us. And can we fill in the gaps to become the people we want to be with AI, right? Like I would love to know more about being a handyman because I'm just not good at, you know, I have a sliding door that's been off the hinges for 2 weeks and I just like can't take myself to like figure it out. Even YouTube's not helping. So it's like, Could I better develop this part of me by asking questions and learning more? And so there's still a piece though of like, I need to want to develop. Like, I think, I think that inner drive, that grit is going to be so important in this age of abundance because to get, to get the abundance, you still have to go ask or still go get it.

So it all, I don't know, like something you're touching on, I think that's fascinating is just like resourcefulness.

Mm-hmm.

You know, like that, that's a skill. That's a skill that everyone can develop, but I think some people are kind of innately wired for it, right? Either resourcefulness or like that, that like just blind curiosity that you just wanna ask all the questions.

Yeah. Well, it's like there's an exercise we used to do in my entrepreneurship classes, which was, um, you just go to a coffee shop and you ask for a free coffee. And the point is you need to learn to hear no. And you need to learn to ask for things that seem ridiculous or think things that seem ridiculous because just doing normal isn't enough, right? And especially in this age of AI, like just creating a normal thing is not going to help you stand out or succeed. So it's like, what's the weird thing you lean into and how do you develop that skill of like being willing to try stuff that are going to fail? Because the thing about AI is like, yeah, you're going to get answers. Sometimes it might not be right or you're not able to understand it, you gotta ask again. You gotta ask again. You gotta ask again. So you gotta get used to like looking foolish and maybe that's easier with AI cuz you're not in front of a class or you're not in front of a, you know, an auditorium, you know, playing your solo. Like, I don't know, but I think people are gonna need to hone resourcefulness, grit, ability to like fail and get up. Right. And I think a lot of those are developed best in community in with mentors in a school, in a sporting club or whatever. So like, that's interesting. It's like, are there skills like that fundamental to using technology that need to be developed interpersonally? I would buy that argument, I think.

Yeah, thanks. I love, I love that because of course I really do think like, you know, how do we, how do we confront this issue honestly with our eyes wide open, but also truly through that lens of Hope over fear. It's just so, so important to me. So I think this is a good segue into Chip. Why don't you explain a bit more about Chip? Of course, we will have it linked in the show notes. But why did you build it? Who would you build it for? What are you seeing with it?

Yeah, I mean, our mission from day one has been AI for all. So initially that was how do we help people build apps and sell them? And what it's turned into is how do we help individuals and businesses build AI agents that are built, trained on their knowledge, right? So whatever you're best at, your company knowledge, your individual knowledge, YouTube videos you've made, notes you've taken. How do we create AI that could leverage that to help you work smarter and live better? So the way it looks is you log into Chip, you can create AI applications. So think ChatGPT, but it's pre-trained. And then you can share those applications with your colleagues or your friends or your customers. And so it's really great for people who have special knowledge, like a business, and they want everybody on their marketing team to write in a similar way, or they want their, you know, financial, um, advisors to pull data and be able to research it quickly, or a school that wants to answer parent questions that they can focus on these things. It's— you don't have to go into ChatGPT every time and ask new questions and start over. Essentially, you have pre-built apps or agents that, um, do exactly what you want. And yeah, it integrates everywhere, so you don't have to go to another site. It is branded like your company or your own personal brand, and you can even sell them. So it's a great way to, you know, work better, but also potentially build a business on AI.

Okay. It's, it's so great too. The interface is so amazing. I, I, I really, it's very, very cool.

Good. Thank you. Yeah.

I have not implemented it like I could or should. And that's like this every single time I even interact with you, like I'll get an email from you or whatever, cause I'm on your— I'll just be like, oh, like I really need to dedicate a little bit of time to just really thinking about how to best use this thing. But I'm wondering if right off the top of your head you can identify, like, what is it was when you, when you saw it or you were given this feedback from a customer or client, like, what's the coolest application? Like, what's the coolest thing you've seen your tool used?

Yeah.

I just mean coolest, maybe like most unique or like it hit your brain in a way that you were like, oh my gosh, that's so rad. I never thought of that.

Oh yeah. Well, I mean, the, the most common, or the way a lot of people start, is with a protégé like we talked about. So you create a version of you that you can talk to, but it can be used in limitless ways. You know, I think one person just used it this week to identify like what would be the impact on tariffs on very specific products. So you could actually go in there and ask questions about a product. You could take a picture of something and it would come back with if it would be affected by tariffs or not.

I kind of vomit at that one.

Yeah. Yeah.

So that's, you know, that scares me. Like, I'm not sure I really I want to know.

Totally wild, uh, use case. Um, let's see, you know, I think we have a really interesting one is a, a person who's, uh, built it to train Police Academy, uh, students. So people who want to become police officers in Maryland, they have to take a big exam and pass it to get into the, uh, police force. And so they built a chip, uh, we call them chip chats. So a chip chat to basically prepare those students, and they go through scenarios on chip that then they might face in the real in-person training. So not just like book knowledge, but also like scenarios that they'll be given, given in the test. And, you know, we've had different versions of that too. Some people are building like sales scripts. We have actually a car dealer using it to create sales training in the style of movie characters. So like you'll log in and like Forrest Gump walks into your dealership and they're asking questions and, you know, this new salesperson that they're helping train has to respond based on all these like kind of crazy questions that person asks as a way to prep them for actual sales conversations. So yeah, just I mean, there's so many wild ones and those are just the first ones that come out of my head.

Yeah.

Oh, I love, I love it. So one thing I'm wondering too is, is there, is there a— so there's a cost to using Chip or Chips?

No, you can start free.

Yeah.

So you can start free on Chip and basically the more training you need to give it. So if you need to upload more files or add more websites, you would pay for that. And then you can pay for privacy. So one thing unique about Chip is you can keep all of your files, your user information, your conversations even in your own cloud. So for, you know, for banks, for healthcare or schools, you know, we're HIPAA compliant, FERPA compliant, because that information doesn't go to OpenAI or to Anthropic. So That's kind of when you start paying, when you want to layer on those additional features like exporting other software, adding in privacy. So yeah, everyone should go try it for free. It's just chip.ai, free to use, free to create an account. And I think that's the key with AI is like, just try it, right? Like so many of these tools are free to start at least, and you can see where the edges are. There's things that doesn't do well, but man, it's really good at a lot of things.

And I think you do, you do have training? Do you?

Yeah, yeah, we do a ton of training. So we have a new academy that's launching, and this is not just on how to use Chip. This is AI generally. Um, the best way to kind of sign up for that and get started is on our Substack. So if you go to chip.substack.com, we post all of our new courses and lessons there. And then you can join, like for example, Tuesday we're doing a workshop. You know, this is probably, uh, this will be probably after this is posted, but You know, we do webinars all the time on LinkedIn and on our courses. So if you just want to learn about AI, especially integrating for business is like what we talk about a lot. That's going to be awesome, the Chip Academy. So yeah, just go to chip.substack.com and subscribe there. And then every time we have a new lesson or course, you'll get an email.

That's fantastic. And it's Chip with two Ps.

Yeah, C-H-I-P-P. Yeah, double P, double P. Yeah.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's really, and I think that's one of the reasons I was excited to have you back. Again, I had heard a presentation that you gave, like, it was specifically designed for rural audiences, which was really cool. And I just— there's such an accessible way that you approach this topic, Scott, not only in what you built, like the platform that you actually built. CHIP is super, super user-friendly, super accessible, but you continue to approach the entire topic with an openness, I think a generosity of spirit and more of a hope than a fear that resonates so much with me as a person, right? Like how I want to show up for rural communities because I think, I think AI can be almost the great equalizer in a lot of respects. Instead of feeling like we're just always being left behind, which can be kind of a drumbeat for rural places sometimes, it's and it's not an overly, it's not, it, it's not something that we wanna rally around. It's almost like a death toll, right? It just, it feels so, it feels so uninspiring. It feels so kind of demotivating. And I feel like recognizing that AI can, can serve in some of these ways. Obviously it doesn't totally even the playing field, but I think it can.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I, one thing that fascinates me is Some of the countries investing the most in AI are those with massive workforce shortages. So Singapore, Gulf states, you know, they see this as a competitive lever. Like, if we can get good at AI, we don't need to have millions of people in our country to be able to compete economically. And I think the same applies for rural communities, which is you probably can't find the person to do XYZ job, or you don't have that teacher to teach entrepreneurship, but That's okay, because now people could still come to your school and get that learning without having to remote in or without having to like go to a different place. So like, it really can unlock and solve some workforce challenges. And I think especially in a state like North Dakota, you know, man, there's really not a fear of workforce loss because we don't have enough workforce. Like, let's talk about that when all the jobs are filled and people are lining up applying. Right now it's like please give me someone who can create this high-level quality thing for me and is willing to work. Like, that's hard to do in a lot of communities.

Yep, for sure. And I think the other thing that North Dakota specifically has is just like, we can really— you, you know, you said that AI can be, could be utilized quickly in a small town and in a creative way too. So as you're saying, like, entrepreneurship as a, as an idea could easily be taught through AI, but then the application of it could get really cool in terms of what local community involvement might look like. And that is again where we can really differentiate ourselves. When you're smaller, there's just like less layers of kind of BS to roll through.

Yeah.

Less red tape, right? Um, North Dakota on the whole is a small state. I just, I, I think it's, that's what's so powerful to me about small places too, right? Is like there's, there is real benefit to being small. Because you can be nimble, you can be faster, and AI can actually accelerate that.

Oh, totally.

That even quicker.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I think you just have to be curious. So I think that's a great, great place to end it is, you know, there's— this is open for everybody. And if you can go, you can go try it, like, then you never know where it'll lead to.

Thank you so much for joining me today, Scott, and thank you for all you're doing to demystify and, you know, take the fear out of AI. It's really, really important work.

Yeah, no, it's great to be here. I love your work. Keep going.

We hope you loved this episode of the Growing Small Towns show. We encourage you to leave us messages at 701-203-3337 and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter at growingsmalltowns.org. In the meantime, keep doing what you can with what you have right where you are. Your community needs you.

Because we are Growing Small Towns. We are We are growing small towns. We're right here living our best lives, as crazy as it sounds. But we are growing small towns, growing small towns. We are growing small towns. We are growing small towns.