Speed of Change, and Why AI Is the Future - Hero Group AI Labs Ep. 1

When I think about the world we live in now, the pace, the speed of life, it's incredible. I'm 51 years old and I've been alive during what historians will probably look back and call the high velocity tech era. Each wave of technology has completely reshaped my life and the lives of everyone living through it. From the first time I logged on the Internet in college to get to getting my first smartphone, to what we're building now with AI, every jump has changed how we live, work and think. Today I want to walk you through that journey. How technology has evolved, how quickly it's accelerated, and how it shaped the way I see the world. This is actually part of a talk that I've given a few times in the collision repair industry. But this time I'm sharing it here with you. So come join me here in the labs as we take a look at the speed of change. Today. I'm going to go through three game changing technologies that have occurred in my lifetime. And I'd like to start out by talking about Walt Disney here and its Carousel of Progress. Now personally, this is my favorite ride at Disney World. I make everybody ride it when they go with me to Disney World. And if you're not familiar with it, the Carousel of Progress was built by Walt Disney for one of the World's fairs and it still exists today in Disney World in Orlando, Florida. And it started out, it was a rotating stage. You rotated around the stage and you actually don't know it when you're watching it, but you're very slowly rotating around the stage and it's broken into three sections. And in the original version it walked you through three scenes starting with like around the late 1800s, early 1900s, as America started to get electricity. So you see all these wires kind of running all these early electronic devices in this household. And it's narrated by this guy here and his dog stays those, those two stay consistent in each stage. Then it moves through the, in the original version into this, the. So it's like kind of pre, pre electricity electricity and then this like today's modern which in, in the 1960s was this version here where it was very clean lifestyle and everything was push button and, and it was all remote controlled living. Today if you were to see it though, it's, you know, that scene has been modernized and modernized and modernized and even in my lifetime seeing it changed many times. But now you got mom on her laptop here, you've got the kids with the VR glasses playing video games and just everything is Internet based. And technology and all that stuff. And what's really cool about it is you can see how this, essentially this family through the generations has been profoundly impacted by electricity and technology in their lives. That's kind of how I view this, this aspect of my life and how technology has changed and shaped, you know, my life. So I started out when I was a kid and I wanted to watch cartoons. It was a two step process. Step one was I had to ask my parents for permission. That's me asking my parents for permission. Step two is I had to wait for TV to come on because, you know, of course we were kids, we woke up before TV turned on. So and you would actually turn the television on for those that are not young enough to understand this, and you would see basically this colored bar while you waited for the television stations to turn on and then cartoons would play. So that changed in 1980. June 1, 1980 was when we got 24 hour broadcasting. So TV ran 24 hours a day. In 2024, streaming services accounted for 40.3% of total TV usage in the United States. So we've gone from, in my lifetime waiting for TV to come on to 43, 40.3% of total TV usage is streamed, so it's not even watched live broadcast. 85% of U.S. households have at least one subscription to a video streaming service. And the freedom from network schedules has given us unlimited content ad free viewing options and we can stream exclusive original programming so we're not locked down to the three channels that we had. When I was a kid, the second biggest impact of my lifetime was the Internet. So the Internet came out April 30, 1993. At the time, I was a state student at Auburn University. And just like this image here that I recreated at my computer lab at Auburn, I walked by, I was in a marketing class. I walked by this computer lab for weeks. And it had this little paper sign on it that said now with Internet. And it was just a computer lab that anybody could go in and write term papers or do their homework on or whatever, but they had this now with Internet. And I walked by this thing day after day after day, week after week. So finally one day I had a little bit of time to kill and I said, you know what, I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna try this Internet. So I did. I sat down at a terminal, tried, you know, figured out what, how to work it. And I got a screen that looked something like this. So this was the early, early version of the Internet. And how you searched it, at least on college campuses, because it was all powered by Sun Microsystems and you use this thing called Mosaic. At least where I went to school, maybe it was different where you went to school. And so you logged in here and then there was some stuff and you could type in, you know, like basically our version of Google where you could type in a subject that you wanted to search more on. So I did, and the first word I searched for was hot rod. I don't know if you remember the first thing you ever searched for on the Internet, but for me it was hot rod. So that was 1993. Here we are, fast forward to December 5th, 2007 years later, ish 7ish years later, and we still have the news saying the Internet may be just a passing fad as millions give up on it. So in seven years, the Internet hadn't fully taken on or taken over the world, if you can ever imagine that. Today there's 5.56 billion Internet users in the world. The total number of Internet users around the world has grown by 136 million during the past 12 months. Which seems like a lot, right? Why the growth in the last 12 months? I think it comes down to two technologies. We have Elon Musk satellites bringing Internet into more remote parts of the world. And also we have cell phones that have Internet connectivity. So it's bringing Internet into areas probably more third world countries, and that's where we're growing. So what's the Internet given us? It's given us email, it's given us online banking, online shopping and e commerce, gaming, remote meetings and streaming. It's how we were able to survive a global pandemic where we're all stuck in our homes. And it's given us connected devices and appliances. I always like to talk about my washer and dryer can talk to each other over the Internet and they actually have AI embedded in them. So they can, they can actually see what's in the dryer. My dryer can see what's in it and set its own settings based on what you put in there. But it can also learn what's coming its way based on what's in the washing machine. The next big one for me was the smartphone. So Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone January 9, 2007. Also in 2007, you've got Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft has been quoted as saying there's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance. It's a $500 subsidized item. As of 2023, there's an estimated 1.46 billion active iPhone users worldwide. This represents a market share of 21.67% of the world's total smartphone using population. So what has the smartphone given us? It's given us apps, streaming video. So what was happening on TV screens is now in your hand or in your pocket. We've got gps, so now you can find your way out of anywhere in the world with gps. We have health monitoring, so there's devices like the Apple iWatch that can monitor your pulse and blood pressure and things like that. And then of course, we've got texting, which has completely shaped how people communicate with each other. But most importantly, we're now untethered from the landline, we're untethered from the cable box. You know, we can, we can get these, we have these things available to us wherever we go. And then lastly, we've got artificial intelligence, which to me, even though we're in its infancy, is the most important technology that has ever come across in my lifetime. And it's going to shape generations to come. Sam Altman releases Chat GPT to the public November 30, 2022. Chat GPT hits 100 million monthly active users by January 2023. One month, 30 days, it goes from 0 to 100 million monthly active users. It took Netflix 3.5 years to hit 1 million users, not 100 million users. Today, 55 to 60% of Americans regularly use AI. 83% of companies consider AI a top business priority. And 72% of organizations use AI. 89% of employees say AI would improve or at least half their workload. So how many of you use AI daily? Well, today it's really 99%. These common AI applications like primarily personal virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google, your navigation apps, your streaming services, your social media platforms, your online shopping websites, your weather forecasting apps, all powered by AI. Now, anytime you get something suggested based on something that you've watched or something that you've purchased, that's AI. So what's AI given us? Well, it's given us AI chatbots for instant responses. It's given us automation of complex tasks. And this part really, truly is at its, at its true infancy. AI generated images, videos and music. The video, AI generated video right now is almost unperceptible. It looks so real that you can't even tell it's AI anymore. Real time content, personalization, rapid data analysis and insights. Anytime you need to go through reams of data and try to get an understanding of what's in there. AI can do that for you. And it's given us some advanced predictive modeling, it's helping in health care, it's helping in all kinds of things. I'm sure it's happening in the automotive world with engineers. So what is AI exactly? Artificial intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, allowing them to perform tasks that typically require human cognitive functions. So human thinking, AI systems can analyze data, it can learn from it, and it can make decisions or perform actions based on that data. And that is the game changer right there, that it can act, replicate human thought and function based on input. Not magic. Right? It's pattern recognition, it's prediction, it's automation and it's also not perfect. It needs data, it needs training and it needs humans to guide it. You have to prompt it in a way so that it doesn't go off rails and hallucinate. One of these days, hallucinations will probably be a thing of the past. Thus old timers will talk about how AI used to hallucinate. But for right now it's still an issue. It's also not a replacement yet. It's a human force multiplier. Although there are companies right now, as of this filming like Amazon, that are laying off tens of thousands of people because of a move to AI. It's also not sentient yet. It's not self aware, so it can't sense things or have emotions or things that humans have. It is still a input based, prompt based system. But who knows, five years from now, who knows where AI will take us? So what about AI and collision repair today? What are the uses of AI and collision? Well, this is very personal to me because I'm actually bringing out a whole suite of AI tools for the collision industry. I've got one on the market now called Vault Onic, which has AI scheduling and a bunch of other things and AI intelligence in it. It's a management system for auto body shops. But we also have some other products coming out called Reclaimer, which will help you deal with insurance pushback and short pays. We've got one that we're going to work on for procedures, pulling OEM procedures and synthesizing the data for your technicians better. We've got a whole suite and that's the HERO group, which is what we've launched here with this brand channel. So take a look at that if you want to learn more about what we have up our sleeve. Also, our scheduling is Going to be a standalone unit. All these little tools that you'll be able to buy if you feel like you need them for your shop. There's also AI working against you, as body shops and the insurance companies have it. You know, they're running your estimates through their AI tools, which are built to, to deny line items. Your shop's number two limiting factor is your technology. Let's be honest, has the technology that you're using every single day to run in your shop. And I'm talking about things like a CCC or your management systems or Mutual or whatever. How much have they embraced technology? How much have they embraced you, the shop owner, and delivering things that are going to help you, help make you a better, more profitable, more efficient shop? Or is it just a system of record where you put in some numbers and digits and you know, you're able to write an estimate and get paid on that estimate, you're able to order parts, but is it truly helping you grow your business and be a better shop? I have my opinion about that. So I think that current management systems are missing the impact of AI. To me, the real winner in the collision repair AI race is an AI system that actually will give you back total control over your whole operation where your current systems can't. Real AI power comes when everything is connected, giving you back full control. So that's my vision. Just imagine this. Imagine an AI system that knows every job, every part, every tech, every customer in real time. What if it could predict issues and prevent delays? What if it could adjust schedules and shift work resources automatically, like production scheduling, and it can answer customer questions and update statuses. What if you had AI that was constantly searching through all the reams of data happening in your shop, Your, your utility bills, your rent bills, any, any, any expense that the business has and analyzing it based on the production in your shop, your customer outreach, your customers, your insurance outreach, how long things are taking, the delays, the time. So you've got the financials, you've got the people and the time, and then you've got the product that you're producing. What if AI can analyze all that all the time and be able to get ahead of it for you and alert you that these things are, these metrics are changing or these metrics are getting off of where you want them to be and here's how to fix it? That's my vision for where AI in the collision repair space eventually will be. And those are the tools that we're building at Hero Group to try to get you there. Again, this isn't really a sales pitch for them. I'm just telling you this is what my, my, this is why I sold my marketing agency was to build this kind of a future, but to build it and deliver it today. So over the course of 2026, we're going to start rolling out product after product we built. Voltanic is, like I said, it's its own AI management system. I know it's very difficult for shops to completely switch entire management systems. So we're, we're breaking off into chunks, some of the functionality that will get you this kind of a future today in your shop. So, you know, my hope is that you'll join me in this journey. This is the first video in this series. I wanted to kind of walk you through my, my technology background and how it's impacted my life and why I'm changing, what I'm doing moving forward. Especially anybody watching this that knows me from the collision industry, or maybe you're a past customer of mine. When I had my marketing agency, this is the vision that I see for the collision industry. This is the need that I see for the collision industry. And by collision industry, I mean you, the shop owner. And this is what my, the next phase of my life's work is going to be all about, is, is to be delivering these products. And all I need from you is just your assistance. We're going to have beta programs that you can sign up for. We want, we need real shops to test these things out. We need your help dialing them in, we need your help identifying where the next challenges are. So if you have a challenge in your shop that you think that technology or AI could really help you solve, you know, hit me with it. We'll put it on the roadmap. We've got a lot of products and, you know, a lot of product ideas. We can shift around what we work on next, you know, because we just like everybody else, we don't have the same amount of time and resources, but we can change what we focus on. As the industry deals with new challenges, we want to stay ahead of them. So please reach out to me, you know, my information here in this video, you can reach out to me in the HERO group and I hope you stick with us on this channel. And as I bring more and more AI free tools and tips and things like that to help you incorporate this amazing technology into your shop to make you more profitable, give you more control back into your shop. So that's it. That's all I got for today. This is Tom here at the Hero Group Labs. Thanks for joining.