Episode Transcript
Kyle James (00:01.098)
Hey, welcome to the AI Chronicles podcast. I'm your host, Kyle James. And today we'll be discussing how a management consultancy company called Rising Tide Cooperative is using AI inside of their own business. And we'll share the exact steps that you can take in order to implement AI for yourself. Now, before we dive into that, listen closely. Are you looking to implement AI inside of your own company? Or maybe just struggling to get your AI to stop hallucinating? Speak to GPT Trainer.
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Schedule a consultation today. Once again, that's gpt-trainer.com. Today having me on the show, Christie Broom, who is the co-founder of Rising Tide Cooperative. Christie specializes in aligning people, skills, and strategy to drive meaningful change. With over two decades of experience, Christie has partnered with organizations to design and implement scalable strategies that support business growth and transformation.
Look excited how we're on the show today. Hey, welcome in, Kristy.
Kristi Broom (01:30.478)
Thanks, Kyle. Glad to meet you. Glad to be here.
Kyle James (01:34.08)
Yeah, for sure. So give us a little background. Tell us a little bit about rising tag property. Like how did you find the company and like what exactly are you right now within some of your client base?
Kristi Broom (01:42.828)
Yeah, yeah, so my co-founder and I have similar experiences. So we've been in corporate America for two decades plus. And through that have seen many transformations, you know, from analog to digital, from, you know, desktop to mobile, from,
you know, the rise of social networking inside of organizations. And now here we are with AI. And so, you know, we bring a background in leading organizations through successful transformations, but we also come at it from a human angle. And so while AI is so powerful and will do so much to optimize workflows and work processes within organizations, most organizations will still need people. And so we operate at the intersection of AI and humans through understanding
the skills of people and the capabilities of AI and helping organizations navigate the best strategy that marries both together.
Kyle James (02:40.48)
Yeah, for sure. And so I love the title of like the rising tide cooperative. Tell me a little like, because I mean, think I know what it means, like first of all, for the listeners, like what does that mean, rising, like rising tide? yeah, just let me start there because I want to pick your brain on this.
Kristi Broom (02:52.503)
Yeah.
Kristi Broom (02:56.322)
Yeah, so inspired by the adage, a rising tide lifts all boats, right? There's a lot going on in the world of AI and companies like yours built up to help organizations navigate this journey, right? Navigate these unchartered waters. And so we believe that it is all of us working together in a cooperative, in a collaborative fashion that are going to allow organizations to succeed. So very much inspired by a rising tide lifts all boats.
We are here to be part of the community so that organizations can succeed through this transformation.
Kyle James (03:35.2)
Yeah, for sure. So OK, now you're using AI because you talked a little about the AI and the human interactions and kind of like mixing the two. Like how like why did you decide to start implementing AI in the first place? And like what types of challenges were you trying to solve by using the AI?
Kristi Broom (03:49.952)
Yeah, yeah. So I think like everyone, you know, when we heard about AI three years ago, right, when chat GPT became.
a thing we all were learning about and now of course it's beyond a household name. My co-founder and I started experimenting. I actually had the honor of helping my organization at the time introduce an AI-based chatbot. So, learned quickly about AI, large language models, capabilities, but it was a chatbot, right? It was simple kind of question and answer from a selection of options. And of course the world has evolved since then.
Kyle James (04:06.026)
Mm-hmm.
Kristi Broom (04:29.104)
And so we, like you and your audience, are looking at all of the ways that AI can streamline work in our daily lives, in our own company. And so we've created GPTs too. We use AI to help us because starting a business can be hard. There's a lot to do. So we use it to do things like we were just creating a logo this week.
And AI very much supported our ideation process there, our creation process there. We use it for lot of messaging, for branding, for really understanding our customers and their problems. And so it's fair to say that we are using AI in almost every aspect of our business. But again, as humans, the things that expertise that we bring to the table is decision making, is...
judgment is understanding kind of how we cut through and the ways that we can use AI in our own business to drive forward, but also having those experiences of where AI is really, really good, but also where the human needs to interact with it in a way to drive it to be more successful.
Kyle James (05:45.598)
Yeah, for sure. So like one of the things like when you started off like kind of testing out building the multiple agents or chat bots right for yourself, like was it was there like a specific direction of like, hey, start here and you know, start in the accounting space or like start in the marketing or the messaging or is it just like, hey, you're you seem to know more than we do. So just take it, run with it. And like what did it like, I guess, what did it end up being like as you started to kind of test out the different ones like you mentioned, the logo creation, the messaging, the branding, like what was kind of like the main one that said
Hey, this is like, this is actually working and providing the best value for our team. Like, what would you say that would be?
Kristi Broom (06:21.614)
Definitely marketing and messaging. So one of my personal goals as we co-founded Rising Tide was to be more present and visible on LinkedIn. And so I post every day. is my rhythm. And while I consider myself a good writer and while I have lots of ideas and opinions and can come up with content on a pretty regular cadence, it's not every day. But yet I want to meet my goal. And so having a bot that can speak like me, right? Or at least get
Kyle James (06:24.64)
haha
Kristi Broom (06:51.588)
me started. you know, like, I do use AI to help write my posts, and I'm not ashamed of that, and I won't be ashamed for it because I unapologetically use the tools, right? But I do it in a way because I've trained AI to, you know, to write like me.
I'm fairly confident and there is always an editing process or review process that happens at the end, but what is interesting and I think a takeaway as you work with us.
your audience and your custom GPTs that do not hallucinate, right? That is so important. And that is really the game changer. And that's what we found because we're using it for messaging and messaging on brand on point in my voice was so critical that training process and making sure that, that it really was speaking and then the human in the loop. I always review those posts and I always edit something. that is a critical component of the, of the process as well. So a key lesson for us.
Kyle James (07:49.376)
Yeah. So talk to me a little bit. So right now, like when you go and like you're consulting and providing strategy sessions with a lot of your clients, like how does the, how does the impact between like the AI side, both like with, you know, all the agents that you've built out to going back to, how do I add value to a lot of your clients to rise that tide? Like, how do you connect those, those dots and where, where have you seen the biggest impact so far in that?
Kristi Broom (08:14.094)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it really is in the realization that it's it is the the marriage of AI and humans, right? And so look, like, we know, jobs will change. And we know that inside organizations, that means that jobs will be eliminated.
That is the reality and actually from a business standpoint that is a smart reality, right? Businesses should always be looking at ways to optimize great efficiency because businesses are in business to do good in the world and part of that is staying in business making profits, right? And so with that reality in mind
Kyle James (08:41.993)
Mm.
Kristi Broom (08:56.47)
I think our main strategy is looking at where AI can be incredibly useful and incredibly helpful, but then also looking at the humans inside of the organization and where they can be redeployed. So as an example, if 50 % of my job, 50 % of my day can be automated or can be done by an AI agent, by an AI bot, just by optimizing the way that I work.
How do we take the 50 % capacity that I have?
and use my unique skills and capabilities to continue to drive the organization forward, right? So if my job title was exclusively product management in the past, and I've found 50 % capacity, maybe I could take those skills that make me a great product manager and work on strategic initiatives or work on market research or work on some adjacent...
former job title where I still as a human can drive value in the organization while AI is integrated to drive value as well.
Kyle James (10:07.52)
Yeah, for sure. I love that approach too, because I think there's, and I would imagine you probably agree with this. like, there's so many companies that maybe have not gotten into AI and they're a little nervous. Even employees are like, Hey, I don't want this thing to take my job. But like what you're saying is, Hey, like think about, especially like some of these lean teams, right? Under 10, 50 under a hundred, like they're trying to, if, if you can take the AI and free up your time to where you do have 30%, 40%, 50 % more time of your day, like
where can you allocate that time to that's going to, know, cause just AI is just automation in this case. You can automate it. Then you give yourself more time to do things that maybe you matter more to you and maybe things that you enjoy more versus plugging in numbers or, know, creating LinkedIn posts. Don't get me wrong. I like making LinkedIn posts, but it is a little time consuming. it's a, it's, imagine like you're seeing a lot of that, like when they make that transition, it's how can you free up your time?
Kristi Broom (10:58.583)
It is.
Kyle James (11:06.078)
so you can be more lean and do more with the team that you have.
Kristi Broom (11:10.562)
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's why, you so we talk about transformation and again, the experience we have in transforming. And I think the human change management that comes with effective AI deployment cannot be underestimated, right? Because when you have humans who see this as a positive and can see that path forward to, I get to do more enjoyable work or...
I'm going to have time to really think through because I don't have 27,000 things on my plate anymore. I've got 13,000 things on my plate, right? I have fewer things to think about, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever that math is. Who knows? So, but it's that framing, right? Because you said it, we're gonna...
Kyle James (11:45.164)
Mm-hmm. Half, of it, yeah.
Kyle James (11:50.575)
yeah.
Kristi Broom (11:56.802)
People in organizations, people in some organizations are nervous because they see this as a subtraction, right? They're taking away my job versus an addition of I have more time to do the things that are enjoyable to me and I can map out a path that allows me to be more fulfilled in my job because all the tedium is taken away. AI has taken that over.
Kyle James (12:09.693)
Mmm.
Kyle James (12:24.416)
I like the, the, I think that's like a worthy quote there is like, it's, it's a mindset of subtraction versus the addition, like completely two different sides of this, of, of the, of the field here, but like really is, it just depends on how you, the way you look at it. But so many people are kind like that fear steps in, Hey, this is a subtraction. It's going to take my job. It's going to do this. It's going do that. It's like, no, no, no, it's just to make you faster. It's going to, you know, maybe, maybe addition, maybe even a multiplication if you target it the right way. So now.
Kristi Broom (12:29.71)
Hmm.
Kristi Broom (12:48.226)
Mm-hmm.
Kyle James (12:54.62)
Rising Tide, obviously your team is growing and AI is changing. Where do you see the upcoming AI initiatives within Rising Tide? And then where do you see it playing maybe the biggest role in your team's operations next?
Kristi Broom (13:09.708)
Yeah, yeah, so we are a small team now. are lean and mean. And we started with messaging, but I think our next foray is in automation. It's in the backend operation. of the two of us, I have more of an operational mindset.
But I'm still learning too. And there's so much to do when you're first starting a business or growing a business, scaling a business. And so all of the capabilities to automate, again, my own tedium in my job, that's where we're going next.
And then as we bring on new people, you know, I think there's a great opportunity to bring their voices in and have their voices be part of our brand voice. So training the agents again to bring in their voice, but also from their own onboarding, right? Our AI becomes a mechanism by which those new hires can also learn how...
we speak and talk about our own company, how we operate, because without them having to spend hours and days doing research, they can watch the bots for a while and see how we operate. So I anticipate as we bring on people that that will be a great efficiency for us as well.
Kyle James (14:22.08)
you
Kyle James (14:30.846)
Yeah, for sure. And start wrapping up the conversation. Chris, it's been great having you on. Where can people go to learn a little bit more about you and then maybe a little bit more about Rising Thai Cooperative that you recommend them check out?
Kristi Broom (14:42.028)
Yeah, absolutely. So risingtidecooperative.com is our website. I would love for people to visit there. And then connect with me on LinkedIn. So for those of you listening, my name is spelled K-R-I-S-T-I-B-R-O-O-M. And that is where you can find me on LinkedIn. I post every day, almost always about Rising Tide. So would love for people to follow along, comment, and engage with me there as well.
Kyle James (15:07.936)
Awesome, love it. Thank you so much, Christy. It's great having you on the show. I appreciate your perspective today. I think a lot of people are going to benefit and value from it. So it's great having you on. Yeah, and thanks again, everybody, for listening. Remember, if you're looking to implement AI into your business today, please don't try and do it yourself. The time and stress that the AI could cause, it may not be worth it. So schedule a call with GPT Trainer and let them build out and manage your AI for you. Once again, that's gpt-trainer.com.
Kristi Broom (15:16.066)
Thanks for having me, Kyle.
Kyle James (15:34.964)
Signing off for now, have a great rest of your day. Looking forward to seeing everyone on the next episode of AI Chronicles.
