Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Hi, I'm Andy, and this is the AI breakdown, the podcast that turns artificial intelligence into real talk.
We cut through the complexity to show you how AI actually works and what it means for your job, your business, and your future.
Whether you are a manager looking to level up your team's productivity.
An entrepreneur wondering if you are missing the boat or you're simply curious about the possibilities.
(00:28):
This podcast skips the jargon and gives you practical insights you can actually use.
Today.
In our first episode, we're diving straight into the essentials, what this technology really is and isn't how it's already woven into your daily life and why those robots apocalypse headlines miss them all completely.
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But before we start, here's a brief intro on me.
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I'm a techie with nearly 30 years in the software world.
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And I've worn many hats.
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I've been a developer, product leader, and CEO, and now I'm CTO and co-founder of Notify Technology, a thriving sauce business here in the uk.
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What drives me is honestly curiosity, as sad as it sounds, I love getting my hands dirty with New Tech, especially with everything happening in AI right now.
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At Notify Technology, I'm leading our r and d initiatives to weave AI capabilities into our products.
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I'm also helping our team navigate AI so they can benefit from its full potential.
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Outside work, you'll find me with my family in the beautiful Northumberland countryside.
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I recharge with regular runs, keep competitive playing basketball, and when I'm feeling particularly brave, tackle the frigid North Sea waves.
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Yes, the wetsuit is absolutely non-negotiable Up here.
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Anyway, that's enough about me.
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Let's crack on.
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So what actually is ai? Artificial intelligence simply means teaching computers to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence.
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This includes analyzing data, learning from experience, recognizing patterns, making predictions, or even creating new content.
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AI can see, hear and speak, read and write, and even make judgment calls like determining which ad matches your interests or assessing loan eligibility.
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It's not some unified, super intelligent brain or a sentient entity plotting away.
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It's more like thousands of little mini experts each brilliant at one thing and absolutely hopeless at everything else.
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AI is everywhere today.
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Sometimes it's obvious and in your face, often it's quietly working in the background, shaping your day without even realizing it's there on your phone, suggesting photo edits, drafting smart replies and q and l playlists you didn't know you needed.
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It's in your car.
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Powering lane keeping emergency braking and guessing your destination before you've hit go.
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It's also the brains behind self-driving tech.
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AI is changing how we explore, learn, and make decisions.
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More and more we're starting with chat, GPT or perplexity instead of Googling or tracking down someone who might know the answer, it's even changing how we create from weirdly brilliant bedtime stories.
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Building a prototype app just by chatting to a bot to launch an entire businesses with ai.
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As your co-founder, AI is woven into the fabric of everyday life.
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It's useful, invisible, and evolving faster than anything we've seen before.
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So don't think robot overload, think super smart toolbox, quietly ticking along behind the scenes, helping life and business run just that bit smoother.
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Now, let's break down the terminology First up.
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Artificial intelligence, the big umbrella term, it's any technology that mimics human intelligence.
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When a computer does something that typically requires brain power, spotting patterns, making decisions, recognizing speech, having conversations, or even seeing, that's ai.
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Now inside this AI umbrella, you've got machine learning or ml.
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Think of it like an eager apprentice, unlike old school programming where you'd have to spell out every rule step by step with ml, you feed the computer mountains of examples and just let it figure it out.
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It's like teaching a child to sort marbles by color.
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Show enough examples and soon they'll get the hang of it.
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Machine learning is why your playlist knows your mood before you do.
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Why fraud systems usually know when your card's been nicked and more.
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Then there's generative ai, the creative prodigy on the team that exploded with chat, GPT.
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These are systems that don't just analyze, they create, give them a prompt, and they'll whip up an essay, invent an image, or write a catchy jingle all out of thin air.
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It's like a chef who's tasted every recipe on earth, then invents their own.
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I find it helpful to visualize a Venn diagram.
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Generative AI sits within machine learning, and both are nestled under the big, sometimes chaotic umbrella called ai.
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That's how the pieces fit together.
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Here's where it gets interesting.
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Let's explore where AI is actually working hard behind the scenes, making a real difference in unexpected places.
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Let's start with a quirky one.
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It turns out happy cows make better milk.
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Who knew bovine emotions mattered? On modern dairy farms, AI facial recognition actually scans cow expressions to detect if they're feeling content or stressed.
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So when Bessie looks particularly grumpy, the farmer gets a notification suggesting it might be time for some mood boosting cow disco lights or a gourmet feed adjustment.
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It's farm tech with feelings and it's already happening.
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Or check out your local smart gym where AI fitness systems are helping personal trainers elevate their game.
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These digital assistants can analyze your form, track your progress, and suggest adjustments to your routine while human trainers bring irreplaceable motivation and expertise.
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These AI tools work alongside them offering consistent tracking and personalized recommendations.
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Some modern treadmills can even adapt to your fitness level and goals, adjusting difficulty based on your performance data, or recognizing that you've had a heavy weekend and need to take it easy.
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Modern building sites use AI powered cameras to automatically check if workers are wearing their helmets and other required equipment.
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Like a tireless safety inspector, miss your helmet.
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You'll get a ping not from your boss, but from an algorithm that never takes a break.
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Fast food's gone.
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Digitali at Wendy's that perfectly polite, always on voice at the drive-through.
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May well be ai never tired.
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Never in a mood just firing off your order to the kitchen.
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And behind Amazon's lightning fast deliveries are robotic fulfillment centers, vast grid-like warehouses, where AI powered robots swarm the floor, dodging each other with millimeter precision.
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They calculate optimal paths in real time, slashing idle time, and boosting speed.
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It's how your latest impulse buy shows up the next morning, like magic.
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The real story.
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AI isn't plotting a takeover.
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It's just quietly making daily life run a little smoother.
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Whether you notice it or not.
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The next time someone says, I don't trust ai, ask them if they trust their email spam filter, appreciate their next day Amazon deliveries, or rely on adaptive cruise control.
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Odds are they've already invited AI into their life just without noticing its arrival.
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So why is everyone obsessed with generative AI now after decades of AI quietly doing its thing behind the scenes? And what lit the rocket fuse on this technology? Two big things happened almost simultaneously.
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First, the science went absolutely bonkers.
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AI models balloon from cute little algorithms to data guzzling Goliaths models like chat.
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GPT basically binged on the entire internet, like a teenager with Netflix, absorbing everything from Shakespeare to snarky redder threads.
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The result, AI with an eerily human writing style, contextual smarts, and mind blowing creative power.
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Second.
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This was the real magic trick.
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Suddenly these powerful tools arrived in ridiculously simple packages.
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No PhD required just a clean little chat box that anyone could figure out.
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Chat GPT hit 100 million users faster than you can see A disruption leaving even tiktoks explosive growth in the dust.
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The investment world collectively lost its mind.
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$56 billion flooded into generative AI last year alone, creating a frenzied cycle of innovation, feeding, investment, feeding, more innovation.
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The result tasks that were once exclusively human territory.
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Writing your meeting notes, drafting that awkward email, conjuring images for your presentation, accelerating lifesaving drug discovery, or translating your global team call in real time, are now just a prompter way or embedded in everyday tools.
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It's not wizardry, though it feels like it's sometimes it's just extraordinary.
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Engineering democratized for the masses.
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The digital equivalent of going from only NASA can go to space to book your weekend Lunar getaway online.
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That said, the hype surrounding AI often causes unnecessary fear, and we humans do tend to overreact to new technologies.
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In fact, throughout history, we've been incredibly bad at predicting technology's impact.
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Think about it.
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Electricity was gonna fry all factory workers.
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It powered the modern world.
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Instead, spreadsheets, accountants panicked about extinction.
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Now they couldn't live without excel.
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And remember when the internet was dismissed as justified? All I'm seeing is EI is following this familiar pattern, undeniably powerful, occasionally chaotic, but ultimately destined to become as ordinary as your smartphone.
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The journey from terrifying new tech to can't remember life without.
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It is practically a human tradition at this point.
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The media and Hollywood have shaped how we view AI often and accurately.
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Let's tackle the two most common misconceptions.
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Myth one, the robots are coming for our jobs.
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Look, AI will absolutely automate the mind-numbing parts of your work, those soul crushing spreadsheets and endless report writing, but that's the boring stuff you hear anyway.
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What remains are the human elements that machines can't touch? Creativity, judgment, empathy, and strategic thinking.
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The World Economic Forum actually predicts AI will create more jobs than it displaces the real truth.
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AI won't replace you, but someone who knows how to use AI effectively probably will your best move.
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Start upskilling now.
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Myth two.
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Skynet is inevitable and the machines will rise.
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Great for selling movie tickets.
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Absolutely rubbish.
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As a realistic concern, today's AI isn't secretly plotting humanity's downfall.
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As AI pioneer Andrew Ung brilliantly puts it worrying about killer AI is like worrying about overpopulation on Mars.
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Having said that, AI isn't all unicorns and rainbows.
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There are genuine concerns that keep even optimists awake at night.
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Algorithms inheriting human biases systems and fairly advantage in certain groups.
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And the unsettling reality that your personal data is being collected on mass.
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But these aren't AI problems.
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They're human problems wearing digital disguises.
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AI is just a tool like a hammer, brilliantly useful for building your garden decking, completely harmless until someone decides to wave it around at a barbecue.
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And here's the absolute best part.
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If you can order takeout online or send a moderately coherent text message, you've already got what it takes to start with the eye.
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So why not jump in with both feet? Make spectacular messes, try ridiculous prompts, and watch as possibilities bloom, like wild flowers.
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The real magic happens when you stop treating AI like it's rocket science and start treating it like you're slightly weird, but incredibly helpful.
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New colleague.
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Trust me.
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Your best AI discoveries will come from the digital equivalent of, I wonder what happens if I press this button Ready for some practical advice.
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Let's get your AI journey rolling.
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One.
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Start with your most soul crushing task.
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You know the one that mind numbing work that makes you question your career choices.
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Writing up, meeting minutes, tedious research, updating customer user guides.
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Throw out a chat, GPT, Claude, or Perplexity and watch magic happen.
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Set a 30 minute timer and play two.
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Create an AI playground culture.
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Give each team member a 50 pound monthly AI experimentation budget.
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Celebrate the gloriously weird prototypes and half baked experiments.
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And remember in the AI Gold Rush, the Curious Explorers beat the cautious followers every time.
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Three.
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Celebrate Learning through failure.
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Create a dedicated AI learnings channel where team members share both successes.
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And fails when someone's prompt generates hilariously unexpected results.
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Celebrate it as a learning opportunity.
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The best innovations often come from experiments gone wonderfully wrong.
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So there you have it.
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AI isn't magic or a digital dictator.
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It's out there already, quietly helping behind the scenes ready for you to harness.
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If you can use Google, you can use ai.
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No one's too late or too far behind.
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It's all about getting started wherever you are.
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I've got a burning AI question keeping you up at night.
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Drop me a line at hello@theaibreakdown.com
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with AI confusion in the subject line.
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I promise to read every email.
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Yes, really.
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It might even feature your question in an upcoming episode.
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There's bonus points for questions that make me laugh or scratch my head.
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Hit subscribe, tell a friend, and I'll catch you in the next breakdown where we'll dive deep into the rapidly evolving world of gen AI assistance.