2862: From Data to Decisions: The Impact of AI on SMB Operations

[00:00:00] In a world where small and medium-sized businesses often find themselves navigating the challenges

[00:00:07] of growth and efficiency with limited resources, how can the power of artificial intelligence

[00:00:14] be harness not just to level the playing field but maybe even transform their operations?

[00:00:21] Well in today's episode I'm going to be speaking with the director of product management

[00:00:26] for AI at a company called Vecita and they're at the forefront of bringing AI-driven solutions

[00:00:33] to SMBs and today's guests and his team have embarked on a pioneering journey with the creation

[00:00:39] of BizAI which is the first AI-driven SMB business advisor.

[00:00:45] But with the landscape of AI continuously evolving and skepticism among some small

[00:00:50] business owners, especially when it comes to the application of AI now operations,

[00:00:55] I want to learn more about how exactly Vecita plans to break down these barriers and how

[00:01:01] are they going to unlock the potential for AI for SMBs and help them see the value that

[00:01:07] it can deliver.

[00:01:08] But before we get today's guests on, I need to pay the bills.

[00:01:11] We've got a huge podcast hosting fee to pay for when we're releasing 30 episodes a month

[00:01:16] and this month I've partnered with a company called Kiteworks.

[00:01:21] Now legacy MFT tools are dated and lack the security that today's remote workforce demands

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[00:02:03] started today.

[00:02:04] So buckle up and hold on tight as I beam your ears all the way to Tel Aviv where we're

[00:02:10] going to discuss the unique challenges SMBs face and how Vecita are working to demystify

[00:02:16] ALI making it a powerful ally for businesses everywhere in the world.

[00:02:22] So a massive welcome to the show, can you tell everyone listening a little about who

[00:02:26] you are and what you do?

[00:02:28] Hi I'm Rahman Mogue, I'm a Group Product Manager from Vecita, what we do is business

[00:02:35] management software for SMBs, we're selling both direct to the SMBs and through partners.

[00:02:42] Vecita is our SMB facing brand while Intandem is our brand for the official partner

[00:02:49] platform.

[00:02:50] So we're selling on both channels, in my group we call it internally showbiz and what

[00:02:55] we are doing is we're in charge of partner enablement data and AI.

[00:03:00] A little bit about myself before I came to Vecita I had my own product design

[00:03:08] agency for 16 years along with my two partners and a small team.

[00:03:13] We are helping companies like Vecita to do better products so the life of an SMB is something

[00:03:19] that is very close to my heart, this is where I come from.

[00:03:23] And a few years ago I sold my NGNC and now I'm here at Vecita having fun.

[00:03:29] Fantastic, I want you to unpack there so I'd love to find out more about the origin

[00:03:34] story.

[00:03:35] I mean what inspired Vecita to venture into AI and specifically to develop Biz AI as this

[00:03:40] solution that is tailored for small to medium sized businesses around the world but what's

[00:03:46] the story behind it?

[00:03:47] There's got to be one, right?

[00:03:48] Well yeah well so the break of generative AI in the past year has been an overwhelming

[00:03:55] so everybody is aware of it, they've made a lot of things we would imagine that

[00:04:01] we just imagine can be possible just became possible and they're quick away.

[00:04:06] And very early on leadership here we figure out that the mobile revolution like the

[00:04:15] mobile revolution this is something that will have tremendous impact on how people

[00:04:20] use software.

[00:04:21] So we don't look at it as just hey there's a new AI feature we can implement, we

[00:04:28] are looking at the coming years of significant change if we think mobile everything is different

[00:04:35] now you can't imagine a software without a mobile component into it right?

[00:04:40] So we believe this the same thing will happen to AI and there are going to be significant

[00:04:46] changes to how user expect the machine to behave they we expect the machine to understand

[00:04:55] us they should understand the context we're acting they are we expect that all of busy

[00:05:02] work will just be done by itself right?

[00:05:04] That something that these are trends already happened but now with AI they are like very

[00:05:11] very present and present and that thing ignites the way we think about what we're

[00:05:17] going to do with AI that's our inspiration and then people will interact differently

[00:05:22] so we expect intensive automation everything will be expected or parts of the user expected

[00:05:29] and expect experience will be automated and we are constantly going to get on tech space

[00:05:37] suggestions like refills or default whatever we do we're going to expect and this is

[00:05:42] something that already happened is really exciting the conversational interface where

[00:05:48] we've been used to really limited experience where we just talk to that agent and we wait

[00:05:55] till we can say well I want to talk to a human right?

[00:05:59] Yeah.

[00:06:00] That was our experience and that's going to change one of my friends said Chattie

[00:06:05] Bete is now my best friend he's more intelligent more educated know so much I have time good

[00:06:14] time talking to it it's really it's a very different experience and what we learn about

[00:06:21] it that very very different from what we use with software where you click and things are

[00:06:27] done and they're finite with AI refinement is the key so it's like working with people

[00:06:35] you say something and they give you feedback and you understand they kind of understood

[00:06:40] what you said but you need to give more feedback so refining is something that is also part

[00:06:47] of our vision and all of these like all of these goes into different experience we need

[00:06:55] to weave into what we now have which is a CRM where people are used to form based

[00:07:01] kind of experience that takes you through efficiently takes you through processes now it's people

[00:07:09] will expect it to be a conversation well say I want to get new leads and it needs to yeah

[00:07:15] you can send a campaign and then there's the generative content itself which is going to

[00:07:22] change how people generate content because both small businesses they hire somebody or

[00:07:28] and then they're really frustrated because it's really hard to do marketing and now

[00:07:34] they can actually have really decent step in getting from the machine and that's

[00:07:40] that's that's going to revolutionize how people are generating content but with all

[00:07:47] that like exciting stuff we also know that most of these revolutions kind of overlook

[00:07:54] SMBs because the markets like you would think like telco companies they have endless

[00:08:02] resources and it's worthwhile for an AI company to invest time in learning their behavior

[00:08:09] they have a lot of data and what we are that would inspired us coming into AI is our

[00:08:16] opportunity to actually make this technology accessible and understand the really unique

[00:08:24] problems SMB has with this technology and instead of making it a challenge making it an

[00:08:32] opportunity so that's that's how we in we're inspired to go into that as a huge

[00:08:39] opportunity to make a difference and make you know SMBs are the essence of democracy

[00:08:46] like I really look at that we have to preserve that it's it's kind of our mission

[00:08:52] to enable that kind of model and it's world is going through consolidation in really huge

[00:08:58] companies but you want to go to your local barber and get a service that's that's an

[00:09:05] experience that is important to our well-being and we need to enable them to

[00:09:08] compete to keep their unique identity and we want that them not to be left behind

[00:09:17] well I was just going to say there's so much hype around AI at the moment I've

[00:09:21] lived to maybe put AI to one side just for a moment to talk about the the challenges

[00:09:27] the problems SMBs are facing at the moment and fully understand that especially

[00:09:31] around leveraging their data for growth etc so before we talk about AI can you

[00:09:36] just tell me a little bit about the problems that you see small to medium

[00:09:39] sized businesses facing at the moment and and how you're helping them

[00:09:43] address some of these specific hurdles too.

[00:09:46] Sure so

[00:09:49] whenever there's a new technology SMBs are facing both challenge and an

[00:09:53] opportunity right mobile is a challenge but also an opportunity so on one hand

[00:09:59] it's very difficult for an SMB to spend resources and time to learn that new

[00:10:03] technology and how to help them and in many cases the technology is built

[00:10:08] for higher tiers so let's say like I was talking about Delta like let's

[00:10:13] talk about IVRs answering machines so that the technology available is very

[00:10:20] advanced for these but for small Indian businesses it's very it's not a business

[00:10:27] opportunity so it's overlooked.

[00:10:30] Now specifically with data SMBs are really challenged on both their data

[00:10:36] sample and the quality of how they collect it you don't have so much data

[00:10:42] entry points in a small business and also they are not investing enough or

[00:10:50] it's really difficult for them to invest in collecting their data in

[00:10:54] structure manner so I may control my customers and I'm fine with it but

[00:11:00] I'm not necessarily documenting everything counting everything making it

[00:11:06] making all that data available and we don't have for AI a lot of

[00:11:11] data to learn from and in many cases it's not optimized or structured but

[00:11:18] on the other the flip side the advantage of SMB they're not bound to heavy

[00:11:22] infrastructure so they can do changes pretty rapidly so once they adopt

[00:11:28] they can be ahead of the curve they can be they can have a very steep

[00:11:33] learning curve they can adopt that and just use it they don't need to

[00:11:38] train a lot of teams they don't need to get rid of legacy software so there's

[00:11:43] the challenge which always come with an opportunity so I'd like to take you

[00:11:49] through first through some strategic decisions we made with AI and then

[00:11:58] talk about how we address the challenges because those decision came from

[00:12:06] that understanding that adoption is a challenge for them and data is a

[00:12:13] challenge for them and what we're looking at is how to cut short the

[00:12:18] adoption explain the value and then make everything accessible so really

[00:12:23] really on the get go we made four like major decisions what we we

[00:12:30] understand and goes back to your previous question AI is not a feature

[00:12:35] it's a definition of experience and we set a strategic goal that

[00:12:39] inquires all of our major models will include AI as a substantial

[00:12:45] component of the experience and that's when you take a product team and

[00:12:51] you you set them a metric that ensures that they will be focused on

[00:12:58] that and my team focuses that other teams will implement AI into their system

[00:13:06] so we need to build our technology in a manner that will make it easier for

[00:13:11] other teams in the company to implement and make it part of the

[00:13:15] essential user experience but that's why we formed my team of that is

[00:13:22] Fango was data and AI and then another strategic decision was to realize that

[00:13:30] we don't know anything yet because until you bring some something to your

[00:13:36] customers and see them work with that you actually you assume you just

[00:13:40] don't know so what we created is busy AI which is an it's like an

[00:13:49] advisor a consultant something I'm very familiar with because I was a

[00:13:53] consultant so many years and it's a smart engine it's based on open AI and

[00:13:58] it's also and we put it up really really quickly it's basically open AI

[00:14:06] and we put it in front of our clients as part of our system and this is

[00:14:10] our playground so when I'm talking about challenges and when we started

[00:14:17] we didn't know we actually didn't know the challenges we know the high level

[00:14:22] adoption right data now for us data is an opportunity because we have

[00:14:29] the data we are CRM we know everything about the business but for our

[00:14:34] but for creating the product we had to assume we don't know all the

[00:14:39] challenges so one strategic decision was to move fast and learn as

[00:14:44] we go and understand the challenges and we found out a lot of things we

[00:14:48] didn't actually know there are problems we a lot of times you think of the

[00:14:55] user you make the mistake that you are the user right we're not the users

[00:15:00] and we put that in front of them they didn't understand the value at

[00:15:03] all we put Chet Chippity in front of us I hey take it for free and

[00:15:08] they were like okay that's nice they just didn't understand how this

[00:15:13] thing is relevant to my business and then we understood that they don't

[00:15:19] like as a first step challenge they don't understand what kind of value this

[00:15:24] is and how they're being used and when we did user interviews we said hey

[00:15:28] here's the sample prompt we had like sample prompt and they use them and

[00:15:32] they just gave them a generic answer and say well I can't use that

[00:15:36] and then said well you know you can talk to that and ask for a

[00:15:39] better result and they said oh we didn't know that

[00:15:44] we didn't know you can actually ask it refine your answer and then they say

[00:15:48] oh this is amazing so we are unfolding and I think we're in the really

[00:15:56] early stages of this although they're like an amazing adoption

[00:16:01] core cross and there are millions of people using it small

[00:16:05] big medium business owners are very very busy surviving and you need to

[00:16:10] bring it to them very very close so that was that was challenge the other

[00:16:20] challenge and I think it's a challenge for them but also the

[00:16:23] challenge for us to invest that time and know everything so the other

[00:16:29] stretching the last thing we decided is that we're not going to

[00:16:34] work alone on this and we everything we develop is now a platform

[00:16:40] so all of our partners and third party developers are also coming into

[00:16:45] that this answers the challenge of we can't know everything we can't

[00:16:50] know all the challenges the biggest challenge you have is that

[00:16:53] you don't know the challenges you unfold them their privacy

[00:16:56] challenges their their differentiation challenges they are

[00:17:03] what is my unique voice how do I pronounce how do I do that all

[00:17:07] of these are regular challenges of business how do I get leads where

[00:17:12] all of the internet is now filled with generated content

[00:17:15] everything looks the same how do I stand out all of these are

[00:17:19] challenges that emerge as we go because the revolution is still

[00:17:24] unfolding and as you mentioned there there's a lot of people

[00:17:30] that didn't see the value that genitive are genitive I could

[00:17:34] bring to their business or how relevant it was to their business

[00:17:38] and there is a certain amount of skepticism around AI particularly

[00:17:42] among SMB owners so how are you at Visee how's your how do you

[00:17:48] approach these concerns and demonstrate that tangible value

[00:17:51] of AI within their operations you gave a few examples I

[00:17:54] just wondered if you could expand on that for me to help

[00:17:57] them understand the value that he can bring to their business

[00:18:01] sure it's I think I think the bottom line when when you look

[00:18:09] in those skepticism and it's a lot about fear yeah it's a lot

[00:18:14] about fear it's a lot about not understanding the underlying

[00:18:19] value and how can this thing be good for me usually when you

[00:18:24] have your reality which is not easy always but you think every

[00:18:33] change is going to be for the worse because you know the you

[00:18:36] know the present yeah so this is something that you need to

[00:18:42] address when you design you need to understand that although

[00:18:47] there's you're on the other side of a chasm and you're

[00:18:52] like shouting hey it's great out here but the guys on the other

[00:18:57] side they they don't believe you they see the chasm they don't

[00:19:01] see that and you need to not tell them how wonderful it is

[00:19:05] you need to show them the way that you went through and one

[00:19:12] thing I mentioned is the way we do it is by experimenting

[00:19:16] talking to our users that's the first thing and when we we do

[00:19:22] that we always listen to these opportunities coming in a form

[00:19:29] of a question saying I wish this would be done by I wish I

[00:19:34] want I don't want to all these sentences that mark the product

[00:19:39] opportunity when you talk to the users you train yourself

[00:19:44] to listen to that if you listen to that you know what they

[00:19:49] what's the end goal they don't care that this is AI they just

[00:19:54] want to run their business they want to do why did they open

[00:19:58] this business because they love doing what they're doing

[00:20:01] this is I love product design this is why I had my own

[00:20:04] business a product I just love that but I don't like doing

[00:20:10] a yearly review of tax review right I hate that I wish

[00:20:14] somebody would take that away from me so the first thing is

[00:20:17] I listen I listen to that these challenges when I talk to them

[00:20:23] and I assume they don't care about the technology also one

[00:20:32] thing that is really important for an SMB to understand in

[00:20:36] the mind of an SMB they always think they're unique and they

[00:20:43] are unique okay so we are looking at okay so there are home

[00:20:50] work home provost right these are a bunch but when you meet

[00:20:54] them each one of them they fix different houses in different

[00:20:58] neighborhood's they have their own employees or no employees

[00:21:02] each one of them is a unique case and they don't believe

[00:21:07] and just fully that there is a one solution so you can't give them

[00:21:12] business advice without understanding them

[00:21:17] so so what we are what we're doing and this is this is

[00:21:23] one idea we had from the from the conversation

[00:21:27] is we trained our bots to ask questions I remembered when I was a consultant

[00:21:34] in sales calls I used to ask a lot of questions

[00:21:38] a good measurement for a sales call is if you

[00:21:42] you speak 5% of the time and the clients speaks 95% of the time

[00:21:47] yeah it's they come out of the of of the conversation thinking we want more

[00:21:54] of that and the 5% is asking them questions

[00:21:58] that they didn't think about asking what's your target audience

[00:22:02] what do you want to achieve what's your goal so we trained

[00:22:07] the bot not to answer but to ask questions before it answers

[00:22:13] and that gives a good feeling for the SMB owner that this is

[00:22:21] this technology actually listens to me it's not about

[00:22:25] only output yeah I can output a business plan but

[00:22:31] but if I didn't answer I didn't spend time and while answering the questions of

[00:22:36] the AI they already have value so I was used to I was used to

[00:22:41] selling like that I know how well it works

[00:22:44] you're I have something in my back of the mind I want to sell but there's a

[00:22:48] lot of skepticism I wish I was running design sprints

[00:22:51] it's a seven-day process where you fix they're all

[00:22:55] all the big problems okay just oversimplifying it but people are coming

[00:23:01] into the conversation they don't believe that you're going to solve their

[00:23:05] problem but when you ask them the questions

[00:23:08] they realize how much they they didn't think about the problem

[00:23:12] enough so this is one thing that we overcome skepticism

[00:23:16] by asking questions that's that's like the key thing and the second brick

[00:23:22] is having the AI part of the user experience

[00:23:27] so if having an agent is our playground we send users to that just to learn

[00:23:34] about what they actually want and how they use use the system

[00:23:38] we record these sessions when we look at them

[00:23:41] and when we understand for how from from user interviews and how they

[00:23:45] using it what's the actual in bottom line

[00:23:48] problem they want us to solve but the actual implementation

[00:23:51] is part of the user experience give you an example

[00:23:55] you create a new service you want a description for that service

[00:24:00] fine then you want a smart text field that can just generate that

[00:24:07] and and you don't want to open an agent

[00:24:10] ask answer a few questions and get and get that you want that

[00:24:13] as part of your intent and this is how they understand the value

[00:24:18] oh this is something i used to do manually i didn't want to do it i'm not a

[00:24:23] content writer but i know i have to oh there's a button

[00:24:27] and that's a magic he just took my title and added this and also

[00:24:32] it understands my business because it knows all my data

[00:24:35] it knows my pricing it knows what i'm doing what's my service other

[00:24:39] services and it can be coherent so the third brick

[00:24:43] around it is not only that it's in flow but it's also in

[00:24:49] context and i think this is the biggest thing in our

[00:24:53] in our in our technology and the way we implemented

[00:24:58] is that we incorporate their own context we know what they do and we use it

[00:25:04] with the generative AI it's all where always always operating in their

[00:25:09] context this is very different from a chat gpt where they need to keep

[00:25:15] telling the the the bots about themselves they don't

[00:25:19] need to do it in biz AI they already we already know

[00:25:25] and then we make it intelligent and and if

[00:25:28] the user asks about products we just fetch the products from the database

[00:25:33] and now the conversation is in context like an advisor

[00:25:38] if it if a good advisor doesn't know anything you just ask them

[00:25:41] and gets that data so chat gpt can do that uh can't do that but we can

[00:25:47] that's what we did uh and just a tip they don't need to do it's an AI

[00:25:54] in AI they just don't need to it's sometimes i'm we're not selling it

[00:25:58] this is the magic of AI no it's just yeah you

[00:26:02] you want to create a meaning sure tell us to create a meaning

[00:26:06] here is your meaning you don't need to say this is an AI meeting

[00:26:11] yeah so just to bring to life what we're talking about

[00:26:15] here with biz AI you promise actionable business advice that is derived from

[00:26:20] unique business data and indeed market insights but to bring that to life

[00:26:25] are there any success stories or use cases that you can share that will

[00:26:29] just help people listening wherever they are in the world

[00:26:31] how biz AI can significantly impact an SMB strategy operation or operations

[00:26:37] because it's great to hear you talk about it but i'd love to bring it to life with

[00:26:40] some some real world use cases here or or success stories if you're able to share them

[00:26:45] sure so really one of our early experiments uh we released this and then

[00:26:51] we we did some user interviews and one of the features we had is give me some

[00:26:57] consulting about my pricing like do a research bench one

[00:27:01] benchmark research on the market and just tell me how how am i doing in terms of

[00:27:05] pricing and just when that interview a user told us

[00:27:11] that she she used that and the bot said well you're charging

[00:27:16] uh $100 for query services the benchmark is 100 to 250

[00:27:24] and so it gave a range it didn't say and you're a pretty experience and the bot

[00:27:30] said you're pretty experienced so i think you can go up and she said well

[00:27:35] i increased the prices to 150 and nothing happened

[00:27:39] just everybody said okay so we just increased her earnings 50 percent

[00:27:46] and and if you go back denying that story

[00:27:50] she didn't need the actual data the actual really really

[00:27:56] thorough analysis she just needed the confidence somebody who say well it's

[00:28:01] okay a lot of people are charging more and you can go up

[00:28:06] and the biggest barrier for a small business

[00:28:10] is to raise prices is their fear it's gonna hurt their business

[00:28:16] and they're gonna hurt their clients the conversation are like oh i'm sorry

[00:28:19] we had to raise them but just having someone

[00:28:23] say hey it's okay try it it's a big thing one thing about generative AI which

[00:28:30] you need to to understand is it's very good at giving you

[00:28:34] non-accurate question answers when it goes into really really accurate

[00:28:40] answers it's not that good it's it's not yet

[00:28:44] that good so you when you integrate it you want to think of

[00:28:48] is that a critical thing i want to impose on a generative AI or is this

[00:28:55] something we want to solve really really thoroughly because it's

[00:29:00] a magic but also has its risks so you need to understand that

[00:29:04] another story is about uh uh users said hey

[00:29:09] she did a campaign we thought asked her how was it

[00:29:13] how was the campaign she said well actually i was

[00:29:17] i i i didn't like to do it myself i was firing people i was telling them what to

[00:29:22] do and eventually i was doing it myself so it cut short the time of

[00:29:27] hiring somebody firing them and do it myself i just

[00:29:31] asked it to do it i fixed it all and there it is so it

[00:29:35] it kind of saved her like a huge cost huge frustration and this is what i have

[00:29:42] to say it was our early experiments now we're seeing

[00:29:46] really high level of adoption of just all the flows like

[00:29:51] pricing flows and service we see it all over people are using it

[00:29:56] they're really happy because it's part of their flow and they just oh we can

[00:30:00] we can just get a lot of stuff we used to do

[00:30:03] and content generation now is such a crucial aspect of the digital presence

[00:30:08] of any business in any industry so as anything you can share around how

[00:30:12] it bizarre biz ai you tell the content generation capabilities to

[00:30:17] reflect the unique identity and voice of an smb because again

[00:30:21] as you mentioned chat gpt does have a fair few problems we've talked about

[00:30:26] the hallucinations and that one size fits all so i'd love to find out more

[00:30:30] about you with biz ai you focus more on the

[00:30:33] unique identity and voice of an smb that feels

[00:30:37] quite a standout feature yeah that's that's a challenge that's an ongoing

[00:30:42] challenge yeah and

[00:30:47] there's now and there's where we plan to be

[00:30:50] yeah but already like the first thing i already spoke about is

[00:30:56] training the models to ask intelligent questions before it answers

[00:31:00] so it generates its own context

[00:31:04] what we're working on is actually saving the answers

[00:31:07] and not having them to answer again questions they already asked

[00:31:13] but just having the bot ask intelligent questions

[00:31:17] already um and you can ask chat gpt to do that but you need to know

[00:31:23] to ask it as you can say ask me a few questions

[00:31:27] you can ask it but most people are not prompt engineers

[00:31:31] so everything well everything we did was uh we are like

[00:31:38] we are giving a title like right created an email campaign

[00:31:45] and then behind these scenes we have an elaborate

[00:31:50] prompt engineered section that makes the bot behave in a manner that

[00:31:56] makes sense to the business especially answering intelligent questions

[00:32:01] but also bringing answers from the data we already know

[00:32:06] that those are combined and we also know what we can do for the user so we bring

[00:32:11] the data about the user they're booking data their payment data we bring that

[00:32:19] when it's relevant and that's that's a unique thing

[00:32:22] and that makes it unique we look at things that they already wrote

[00:32:27] and try to mimic the style but we also know what we can do for them

[00:32:34] so we can say well they can ask please create a campaign we say hey this is

[00:32:40] the campaign this is the text click here to start

[00:32:43] and we just make it happen so some of these things i'm talking about are

[00:32:48] in the works some of them are already implemented

[00:32:51] but this is the way this is the direction we're taking this

[00:32:55] um there i was talking about there that are like a range of

[00:32:59] challenges that we are solving on the way like this

[00:33:03] that you were talking about hallucinations that that comes from

[00:33:08] giving too much context yeah and then the bot

[00:33:11] just forgets so we are optimizing we're saying well we can say this in

[00:33:17] less and then we hand over less information but more relevant

[00:33:24] so all of this is a tango you just and i think last year there was a lot of

[00:33:28] excitement about jen ai and how it was beating

[00:33:31] lawyers passing their bar exams and this year

[00:33:35] there's an increasing excitement about text to video where you could just

[00:33:38] type anything and it will create a video about whatever you ask it to

[00:33:42] and this technology is rapidly evolving so i've got to ask

[00:33:46] how at vc do you ensure that biz ai remains at that cutting edge and offering

[00:33:51] smb is the most current and effective tools because

[00:33:54] it's moving so fast right now isn't it yeah it's it's unbelievably fast

[00:34:00] and uh sometimes when i see new technology

[00:34:05] i'm kind of sorry like oh no we have to deal with that

[00:34:12] you know and also it's like it seems like reality is something

[00:34:16] sometimes evolving faster than the guardrails and

[00:34:20] it kind of makes you worry uh so we try to keep in focus on

[00:34:24] what's value for customers what real value is

[00:34:28] but we we put in place a few constructs uh that will help us understand

[00:34:35] what's valuable take the the things that are

[00:34:40] mature enough and predicting enough and put them into

[00:34:44] uh into the process so one thing we did is look at ai as a core

[00:34:50] platform resource uh the cd is through our intangible platform

[00:34:57] is not working in a alone on the value all partners are also development

[00:35:03] partners and we also work with third party

[00:35:06] developers with our application marketplace one thing

[00:35:11] you have to have this humility of you can't be on the edge of

[00:35:18] everything all of the time but you can partners partner with

[00:35:22] with other that can be on the edge of of things that make

[00:35:26] value to your customer we already have three or i think three

[00:35:33] partners ai partners working with our ai platform to give services to our

[00:35:41] our businesses so it's not only on us and whatever we solve a problem like

[00:35:46] handling context or making the bottom more intelligent

[00:35:50] we open that to our partners we we don't expect to win alone we

[00:35:56] understand that this is a vast world of opportunity

[00:36:01] well is important is that our client won't miss the opportunity

[00:36:06] and and this is why we open this into a platform

[00:36:11] what we focus on is context is giving more context this is the thing that we

[00:36:18] are expert in because we know what is going on

[00:36:22] we know how to digest the context and hand it over to the ai

[00:36:28] and if we have a partner that has additional context we say hey you're

[00:36:34] welcome come in we will hand over your context as

[00:36:38] well if you have actions things you can do for the user

[00:36:43] let's tell the ai about it and promote your services

[00:36:47] so this is this is the second contract

[00:36:51] the second construct we have is focus on

[00:36:55] on the data side on solving the problems because these problems are

[00:37:01] what is relevant how do we serve it how do we make sure it's private

[00:37:06] how we keep that how we make sure it's legal

[00:37:09] how we solve really really big problems but we don't have to solve everything

[00:37:15] the third thing is just to move fast and experiment

[00:37:20] and be engaged with our audience listen to what they need

[00:37:23] look at things that takes them a lot that look things that

[00:37:28] make it difficult for them to compete and just answer these needs

[00:37:32] with our software or our partner software just fix that

[00:37:37] that's it lovely collaboration between ai and human intuition is often

[00:37:43] highlighted and promoted as the best path forward and I always

[00:37:47] personally believe that ai when it complements rather than

[00:37:50] competes or replaces human efforts that's where the

[00:37:54] the magic happens but how do you at visita envision

[00:37:58] SMBs balancing that relationship to harness the full potential of ai

[00:38:03] in their business practices and using it to complement the

[00:38:07] the skills of their employees too so I go back to the metaphor of a

[00:38:11] consultant yeah i think ai is that's that's the position

[00:38:17] it's a consultant co-pilot and all all words apply all metaphors apply but

[00:38:23] it's a sidekick to the business we need to keep it that way

[00:38:28] um we never speak about replacing and like it's really really surprising

[00:38:34] how well the language structure come out and everything they solved amazing

[00:38:39] problems like really big problems uh but

[00:38:45] I don't believe this is a human replaceable uh technology I I can

[00:38:52] I can see how jobs will shift and people will need you to adjust I can see that

[00:38:58] uh but there will be always be a balance between um

[00:39:04] somebody giving you a good service which is not only the actual service

[00:39:12] there's a lot speaking about how important the connection between a

[00:39:16] doctor and patient it's it's not only about the medicine you give

[00:39:21] family doctor listen to you and understand sometimes you don't know

[00:39:26] there is a problem but somebody is looking at your eyes and say

[00:39:30] there's a problem and I don't I think like

[00:39:34] small business owners will not be replaced by ai I don't think people

[00:39:38] are going around their town wanting to meet ai's

[00:39:44] I think it's fun to interact so I don't think that's a problem and I don't

[00:39:48] I don't I will never position my software as a human

[00:39:51] replacer it's an efficiency tool it's an enhancement

[00:39:55] tool it's an opportunity to enable business owners to do what they

[00:40:01] like best which is why they open their business if their

[00:40:05] business is still relevant and they like to do what they do

[00:40:08] I think ai can enhance that and help them focus

[00:40:13] and do it better and reach more people and if we dare to look into the future

[00:40:19] I know it's impossible with how quickly things are moving at the moment but

[00:40:23] from everything that you're seeing how do you see ai further

[00:40:26] transforming that SMB landscape and what what what role do you think you

[00:40:31] guys will play in that evolution too I talked about it a little about the

[00:40:35] fact that there's always a risk that technology will do more harm than good

[00:40:39] wow SMBs are more volumble than big corporation but again they're

[00:40:45] also more agile and easier to adjust I think they're important to the

[00:40:50] society they're the essence of democracy in the free

[00:40:53] market this is how you build ideas I think they're like an

[00:40:58] engine of capitalism of creating new ideas bringing them

[00:41:03] big corporations find it difficult to innovate and

[00:41:08] I think there's a really important role for SMBs in the world

[00:41:13] I think our role in this is to give SMB an agency

[00:41:18] and give them agency over the opportunities and the fantastic

[00:41:21] technology so I think that's the key word agency

[00:41:27] we're here to help them understand what it can do for them

[00:41:30] remove the friction and the tedious work of and help them grow their business

[00:41:35] and focus on things they love things they

[00:41:39] make that made them open their business first in the first place

[00:41:43] I think that's a perfect moment to end on but before I let you go I always

[00:41:47] ask my guests to leave everyone listening with one final

[00:41:50] insight and that is a song that might mean something to you that we can

[00:41:54] add to our Spotify playlist or a book that we can add to an

[00:41:58] Amazon wish list to that other people can check out but all I'll ask is what

[00:42:03] would you like to leave everyone listening with and why

[00:42:05] okay so I have two books is that okay yeah absolutely go for it

[00:42:11] okay the first book is The Power of Moments

[00:42:14] it's by the Heath brothers they have a series of

[00:42:19] excellent books but this I think is the top one it talks about

[00:42:25] it talks about the experience of a product that's customer experience and

[00:42:30] how important it is to design highlights into the experience you know when you go

[00:42:37] to Disney you eventually you don't remember

[00:42:41] the lines you you stood in you remember the rides right the

[00:42:46] highlight of the experience you forget we don't remember the average

[00:42:50] experiences we had we remember the highs and the low

[00:42:54] so this book really fantastically outlines how to design and what to look

[00:43:01] for in an experience I think leaders and product managers and

[00:43:06] people that create products or experiences well

[00:43:10] will love this and find it really really useful I did

[00:43:14] really change a lot of the views on how to make products

[00:43:18] and another book I really recommend called continuous discovery

[00:43:23] discovery habits by Teresa Torres this was recommended to me by Marty Kagan

[00:43:29] if you know him is a product guru so he recommended this to me

[00:43:34] she writes about the need to constantly get

[00:43:39] feedback and listen to customers and how to do it

[00:43:43] and she's very smart and it's an easy read but

[00:43:47] it can shift shift the way you think about how you generate those insights from

[00:43:53] from listening and how do you make it a habit to actually listen to your

[00:43:58] customers deeply and understand their underlying

[00:44:00] challenges and how to prioritize between what you're solving for them I

[00:44:05] think both both are talking about customer experiences

[00:44:09] from different angles that's something I'm really passionate about

[00:44:13] love that absolutely brilliant I'll get both of those added to our amazon wish list

[00:44:17] and for anyone listening just wanting to find out more about anything that we

[00:44:21] talked about today whether it be Vesita or Biz AI or

[00:44:25] anything in between or contact you or your team where would you like to point

[00:44:29] everyone listening okay so vcita.com

[00:44:33] vcita.com okay that's that's where you find information

[00:44:38] about the CRM Vesita and you can sign up for CRM our direct channel but also

[00:44:44] information about our intent and platform and how to become

[00:44:48] a partner with Vesita and learn a lot of what we do

[00:44:56] most of the information there if you want to learn about me you can

[00:45:00] go search for EnerGest Quartet on YouTube where my band is playing

[00:45:06] oh you got a band oh man I'm gonna be jacking that out yeah so

[00:45:10] that's about me but yeah love that and so much I loved about our

[00:45:16] conversation today because yes SMBs are often buried deep in that

[00:45:20] day-to-day operation and sometimes maybe lack the ability to just take that

[00:45:25] step back see the bigger picture so for me

[00:45:27] just love talking with you about the importance of AI for SMBs and while

[00:45:31] some business owners might be hesitant to use AI in their

[00:45:35] operations it does offer uniquely beneficial

[00:45:39] so many different angles there that we talked about and just a big thank you

[00:45:43] for sharing that and your story and I'm going to go now and

[00:45:46] check out your band but thanks for sharing everything with me today

[00:45:50] thank you it was a fun I think it is clear to me that the

[00:45:53] intersection of AI and SMB operations is not just a possibility it's a

[00:45:58] burgeoning reality that holds so much promise

[00:46:02] and with initiatives like biz AI I think Veseta is not only

[00:46:06] addressing those immediate needs of SMBs but also helping them to reimagine

[00:46:12] the future of business management all through that lens of AI

[00:46:16] and the journey of integrating AI into the fabric of SMB operations comes

[00:46:20] with a set of challenges I don't want to make it sound too easy I mean

[00:46:23] there is that overcoming of skepticism to ensure the tech is

[00:46:26] both accessible and actionable and also shine a light on the potential

[00:46:31] benefits including time and cost savings and how

[00:46:35] personalised business advice enhanced decision making capabilities

[00:46:39] these all signal a bright future for SMBs that are willing to

[00:46:43] embrace this digital transformation but yes I am also left pondering the

[00:46:49] broader implications of it all how can sectors learn from

[00:46:53] advances in AI for SMBs what does this mean for the

[00:46:56] future of work and business efficiency and obviously I don't have the answers

[00:47:01] to these questions and that's why I always invite you to join the

[00:47:04] conversation share your thoughts on how AI might reshape the

[00:47:07] landscape of businesses whether they be large or small

[00:47:12] so please email me now tech blog writer outlook.com twitter

[00:47:16] linkedin instagram just at neil c hues let me know your thoughts

[00:47:21] other than that we've got another guest line up tomorrow a completely

[00:47:24] different topic and I invite you to join me on that

[00:47:27] discussion too but thank you for listening as always

[00:47:30] and until next time don't be a stranger