The Iferia Techcast
00:18:00 · Anne Cantera
[00:18:00] S1: Well, I think, originally, when we would build agents, it started as a chatbot or a voice agent, right? You would call and you would get a voice agent, you know, an IVR kind of scenario. And then what it evolved into was specialized agents, right? It was like the marketing team has an agent, the sales team has an agent, this team has an agent, and they all kind of work back and forth with each other. And then it turned into, alright, there's gonna be like a queen bee or an orchestrator agent, and she's gonna have a whole swarm of agents, and they're all gonna do different jobs. And the thing with that is the narrower the job of the agent, the less likely it is to hallucinate and go off the rails. So now we have we have hives full of agents doing little tasks and little jobs, and it's evolved into loop engineering and and self self improving. And why should people care about that? Well, twofold. They can work for you or they can work against you. So it's good for everybody to learn my favorite word, foundational AI and how it works. So you can protect yourself, be part of the conversation, and know what to pay attention to. So one of the things that keeps coming up is like, in my mind, this is gonna become a deeply dividing issue economically because he will... Who with the... He with the most money will have the best AI and be able to have the power and control, whereas you and I might have little agents we can spin up or build ourselves. But can we compete with the Googles of the world? I don't think so. But, also, it's gonna be huge AI against huge AI. Right? Like, China's AI versus The US AI, and that's the part that really I... I'm deeply concerned about security because whoever has the the best agents will win. The best AI will win. So the the the the takeaway in general, I think, is is you can use AI to teach you about AI. The best use to me about ChatGPT or Claude or any... You can learn anything. You can teach yourself anything for very little cost, or at least... Maybe not very little cost, but very little money. And that's... Everybody needs foundational knowledge about this stuff. Just like using a computer. Right? Like, when when home computers first came out, you had to build foundational knowledge about how it works. This is the same thing. You need to you need to learn foundational knowledge about AI, period.
00:20:53 · Ezekiel Iferia, Anne Cantera
[00:20:53] S0: Alright. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, Anne, I'd like you to, you know, tell us about Elementyl Intelligence. You know, why exactly did you found it? You know, what problem is it solving, and who should go learn more about it? [00:21:11] S1: Oh, thank you for asking about that. It's very interesting. Like I said before, I don't wanna build things for big companies to have an excuse to lay people off. I don't want any part of that. But I do want to make people's lives better, and underserved businesses deserve a shot, and they deserve everything that a big business can get their hands on. So what my company does is, first of all, we give everybody their first half hour diagnostic for free. So I'll talk to the owner. He gets a half hour, and I try to unpack the basics of what their company does, and I try and see if they're even a fit, Right? There are certain problems that are not for AI to solve, and I'm very honest about that, and I think that sort of sets us apart too. Like, don't... This is what your problem is. You don't need AI for this. You just need an app, or you just need, you know, a person that does this job. You don't need a... Know, so that's first first we do the mini diagnostic. And then we go into either trainings or an assessment or a combination of the two. You'd be surprised how few people have ever even heard of Claude. I do a lot of in person networking events. 85% of people on the planet have... Are... Have not used AI yet. [00:22:42] S0: Right?
00:22:42 · Ezekiel Iferia, Anne Cantera
[00:22:42] S0: Right? [00:22:42] S1: So we're in a bubble. We're in a tech bubble for sure. But when I do go out and I speak to people, it's really about me saying, first you need some foundational knowledge, and then I need to assess your business to see how many hours of your life I can give you back and how many hours I could give your employees back. That's the that's the end goal is to give people time back. But also without losing their business' voice, without pissing off their customers, while still being, you know, a good company. That's not something I recommend people just trying to figure out on your own. Something... That kind of strategy is somebody you need somebody like me for, and that's what I love doing. And I really love learning about all these different businesses. So the only kind of... People say, well, you need to niche down. My niche is the underserved and smaller businesses. Right? Mhmm. So I could work with somebody who works in legal, works in financial, works in health care, works in retail, works in restaurants, works in construction. They're all my people. And there's different solutions for all of them, but they all need foundational knowledge first. Then we go into assessment and solutions. [00:24:02] S0: Alright. So... And you are, you know, you are a leading voice in women in AI. So I'd to know, do you think women are still being left out, you know, of the AI conversation? And, also, you know, why exactly does that really matter, you know, beyond just fairness?
00:24:02 · Ezekiel Iferia, Anne Cantera
[00:24:02] S0: Alright. So... And you are, you know, you are a leading voice in women in AI. So I'd to know, do you think women are still being left out, you know, of the AI conversation? And, also, you know, why exactly does that really matter, you know, beyond just fairness? [00:24:21] S1: I think they're trying to leave us out of the conversation. I think they're also trying to portray us as weak in in the media. I see all kinds of trash articles about, you know, if a man uses AI, he's brilliant. If a woman uses it, she's weak. Like, that's some BS. That's not that's not the reality I'm living in. If it's somebody else's, I apologize. But, I think it's the move thoughtfully and build things versus move fast and break things that, is the real difference between us and them and part of the reason why we're trying... They're trying to keep us out of the conversation. But believe me, I am rounding up as many women as I can. We have a woman in AI conference that we're trying to put together. I'm... I am personally reaching out to as many women who lead women in AI groups, which there are hundreds, and trying to unite them and create one super group so we have a million women in one place instead of 10,000 here, 500 here, 50 there. That's one of my things that I've been working on. And I just think it's important that something this dangerous is in the hands of people who are gonna be thoughtful. [00:25:38] S0: So, you know, what's one thing you think the tech industry can do to more... To start fixing these that, you know, wouldn't actually be hard?
00:25:38 · Ezekiel Iferia, Anne Cantera
[00:25:38] S0: So, you know, what's one thing you think the tech industry can do to more... To start fixing these that, you know, wouldn't actually be hard? [00:25:50] S1: It's interesting because you can't leave the self... The the tech industry to self regulate. I think the more important thing is that the tech industry and the government get a divorce, that the tech industry cannot pay the government a ton of money, and then the government just gives them what they want. That's the most important thing that I think needs to happen. I'm sure they'll find a workaround, but I think the biggest danger is the tech companies are free to do whatever they want because we've seen Zuckerberg in Congress, right, slap on the wrist every single time. Hopefully, not with what's happening this week, maybe not. But how many years of hurting children he's gotten away with is because the government has allowed it. Right? And the government doesn't do anything about it. So I I think that's the biggest threat is the the most important thing we could do is cut that tech money off from the government. [00:26:53] S0: Alright. Alright. That makes a lot of sense. That makes sense. So, you know... And you are you are also an expert in AI, you know, in in voice technology and conversational AI. So I'd like to know know how is voice changing the way people interact with businesses. What's the experience gap, you know, between a good voice and a bad one, between a good voice interface and a bad one?
00:27:17 · Anne Cantera
[00:27:17] S1: Unlock leadership once again. Right? Because designers wanna build the most beautiful, perfect, amazing tools for people. Right? We want we want the best. We wanna build you the best possible. And what happens? The budget's too small. The timeline is, oh, we need it tomorrow. We need it tomorrow. We need it tomorrow. And they force companies to push out half baked products. We see it everywhere. And then they don't worry. They're like, oh, it's out. We don't need to worry about it. AI doesn't work like that. There's this thing called emotional debt, which is... This is the example. Have a prescription with... I have a prescription with my pharmacy every single month. It's automated. I get a text message. I say yes, send it, and they send it. For years, everything goes smooth. One time, it breaks. And I'm like, ended up getting my medication a week late, which is unacceptable, and it was all because of their technology. But in in the end, that period of time where everything was great disappeared because of one bad transaction. Right? So that's emotional debt. Like, I trusted you. I trusted you. I trusted you. Oh, you did me wrong. I don't trust you. After all those years of everything going great, that trust that trust is broken. So when you push out half baked products, you're creating an emotional debt because it doesn't work. And they're like... They just... People are gonna... They're gonna move on. And the other thing is after it's live, you have to watch it. You have to watch what it's doing. You have to look for drift. You have to make sure everything is working the way it's designed, and that costs money too because now you paid for for this to see... This team to build it. You paid for the platform. The platform is live. You pay when it... For the calls, and you still have to continue to pay to monitor it. And it's not this big, huge money saving thing if you don't... You know, they they wanna save every penny. So a lot of it, it it boils back down to leadership and the decisions that are being made before the project even starts. The platform, the team, the people on the team, timelines. So, you know, I do think that this period of time will go down in history as one of the biggest epic failures of tech leadership that we've ever seen.