I attended the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Conference (MAICON) in Cleveland in late July 2023. (Here are my notes from day 1 and day 2). I walked away with my head full of ideas, eyes wide open to business possibilities, and hopeful.

Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is more than a buzzword, but something way less than Arnold Schwarzenegger as a synthetic human in the classic Terminator movies. The hype and the concern for human extinction needs to be removed from your mind. The next period of AI development is a massive opportunity for your (all) businesses.

Remember in the late 1990s or early 2000s (if you were alive then!) when people were cautious about which websites to input their debit/credit cards into? I'm not talking about being careful, as you should be even today, but genuine unwillingness to do it because it was "risky" and new. Security protocols and user understanding of the e-commerce tech were anemic but now have caught up and may be more secure than offline card use.

AI is in a similar phase now. But not unlike online payments, AI is a massive change in how we as humans will be doing things in the future. It probably will be more akin to the dawning of the printing press, TV, or the internet itself vs. simply a better way to buy things with credit cards. Even if I (and countless other futurists) are even half right, shouldn't you be excited & hopeful about how you can use AI within your work?

So, I want to hear from you — hit reply and tell me:

• What do you think about AI, specifically its usage in your business?
• Have you started to tinker with any AI tools?
• What success with AI have you already seen?
• If you have not begun to work with AI in some way, why not?
• Do you not know yet understand how you might use AI in your work?
• Are you scared of AI? How so?

Until next time...

--Joshua