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So what it sounds like to me is we should make
sure that the audience knows that if you're
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gonna be using some of these free tools, the
free chat TTP, free perplexity, or free
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whatever, don't go plugging in sensitive
business or employee information in there
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because you're basically giving it away to the
world.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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And put that in policy, Chris.
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Right?
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I'm Chris Engler with Engler IT.
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You're listening to the Cyber Brisket podcast.
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I specialize in IT and cybersecurity with over
twenty five years of experience in a team at
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the forefront of innovation.
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Our guests let us know what's hot in IT and how
to keep your business from getting cooked.
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Alright.
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Today, we got Chris Gross.
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He's a senior AI product director at Breach
Secure Now where he leads the the strategy for
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AI products With a strong background in product
cybersecurity and partner enablement, Chris
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focuses on building innovative AI tools that
drive measurable value for MSPs and their
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clients.
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He also plays a key role in supporting Breach
Secure Now's AI education and awareness
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initiatives to help partners and clients stay
informed and empowered in an evolving AI
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landscape.
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Chris, thanks for joining me today.
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Thank you, Chris.
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Yeah.
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Really excited to be on today.
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So I've got I've got a few questions here for
you just to get us started, and then we'll see
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where the conversation goes.
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Awesome.
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Let's do
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it.
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With with, AI evolving so rapidly, how do you
help small businesses and MSPs distinguish
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between hype and practical value when adopting
new tools?
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This is a really great question, Chris.
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This is where I think a lot of people have
fallen down in the past six to twelve months.
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We have seen a lot of hype around AI, and a lot
of people jump immediately.
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Let's go implement something.
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Let's go put in the technology.
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There's like five new tools I get an email
about every day or like I see them in my feed
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somewhere and it's like you you it would be a
full time job just implementing all the tools
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that are coming out as they're coming out.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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And it's implement, implement, implement.
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But most of the time, those new tools are not
gonna be successful unless you have the base
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there first.
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So BreachSecure now, we have ten years of
employee education under our belts.
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Our whole philosophy of this, what we've seen
be the most successful approach to adopting any
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new technology is get the people on board
first.
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Make sure the people understand the technology,
the process before you go and implement.
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You need that solid base before you're gonna be
successful with any type of tool adoption.
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Chris, let me actually share a stat with you.
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I don't know if you've seen this.
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There's a recent MIT study of AI
implementations over the past twelve months.
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Ninety five percent of those implementations
have failed to produce real ROI.
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And the 5% that are successful are the ones
that started with people that started building
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processes internally first without technology,
no technology at all, start building out solid
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processes, solid SOPs first, and then use AI to
enhance those processes.
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They Okay.
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Train the people on the AI, and they actually
went and then help the people see their own
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benefit at it.
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So now the people in the organization aren't
actively, you know, revolting against this new
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technology.
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They actually are seeing how this can help
them.
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Right?
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They're seeing the actual
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benefits themselves.
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Yeah.
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So it it's it's not a silver bullet.
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It's it's not gonna turn your it's not gonna
turn your enterprise into a mature operation
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overnight.
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It's it's almost like you you you have to go
through the work to get to get your act
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together, you know, develop those SOPs, get
your process down, and then AI is like throwing
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gas on the fire.
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Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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And once you can do that, once you have that
solid process built out and you can train
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people to actually understand how this
technology can benefit them, then there can be
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huge benefits to it.
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But it's really a people issue.
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A lot of people think it's technology issue.
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How am I gonna use this technology?
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It's really how am I going to empower people in
my organization with this technology.
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Right.
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And so, yeah, well, how are they gonna get
empowered unless you've created the structure
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for them to be successful in?
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Otherwise, you got everybody going in every
direction doing who knows what.
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Right.
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And educate them what it is and what it is not.
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A lot of times people will look at a new
technology and be afraid of it, especially with
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AI.
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You hear a buzzword word of AI in almost
everything today and trying to explain that to
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a non tech tech person, right, trying to
explain what that is and how it can help them
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can be difficult unless you're showing them
real use cases for how they can be successful
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with it.
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That's really the place to start is helping
people use the technology rather than, you
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know, just going and implementing the
technology and hoping the people understand.
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Yeah.
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So I I I've even had yeah.
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So that's I I've had those conversations with
with clients and prospects where I will
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actually lay out our thought process, Angular
IT's thought process, what we think about when
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we're approaching a situation.
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And we always think about the the business
process first.
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But oftentimes, the the the clients, the pros
prospects, really, those businesses that we run
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into, they don't think about the process first.
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They they will just think about how they want
to have a company or they they have to have a
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business, and and they they they know that that
they wanna start a business, but and and then
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it's like, well, if I wanna have a business,
have to buy some computers and I have to have
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email.
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But they don't really and they just kinda,
like, instinctively gather those things because
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they see other businesses have those things.
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Right.
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It's like, well, this is what an office looks
like.
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There's a there's a computer on the desk and
use it to do things, but not necessarily
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understanding the underlying process for, like,
why that thing is there.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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And it starts off really is look at what are
you doing today.
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Actually, before that, even what are you doing
today and how AI can help you.
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You gotta really have people understand what
this technology can do for them just on, a
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chatbot level.
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Really, what we recommend is start off with a
Copilot or ChatGPT to your one of these
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chatbots and have your nontechnical people
utilize these tools, and they can then
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understand what are the capabilities of these
tools, what can they do, what they can't do.
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We know that there's gaps in AI today.
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Right?
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AI hallucinates sometimes.
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You're not going to always get a perfect
result.
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You need to have people in the loop.
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And once they understand what it can and cannot
do, they can see the improve improvements to
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their own productivity, then you can go into
the real technology of what's the next step
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step and how can this help help them.
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So and that, just like your example, Chris,
that's gotta be done first before you go and
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set say, let's go buy the technology and start
this massive implementation.
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You gotta start with first educate policy.
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You know, risk is a huge piece of this too.
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Just make sure that people understand what the
risk is in their business.
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So that's a a big piece of this as well.
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So you you guys have been really good at
helping us over here understand how to help
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people with AI.
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And what you're talking about now, all these
these these almost prerequisites that one might
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need to engage in in order to even understand
how to apply it.
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And it's making me think about this assessment
that you guys have, the the ARIA assessment.
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Would would you mind sharing a little bit about
what that is?
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Yeah.
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So ARIA stands for AI Readiness Innovation
Assessment.
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It's one of the first steps that we recommend
to start a conversation in the client's
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business on how AI can actually help them.
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This goes really away from looking at what the
technology is and how it works to how can this
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technology actually help me.
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Some of the stuff that we were talking about
before, Chris.
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What it'll do is it'll assess different pieces
of your business.
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It's a really short questionnaire.
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It takes ten minutes for you to fill out.
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But it's looking at different areas of your
organization, sales, marketing, operations.
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It's looking at those areas and seeing what
your existing processes are, how mature and how
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automated are those processes.
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And based on those answers, we actually provide
a score on how much AI can help in those
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different areas.
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One of the things that we found with AI, humans
need to be in the loop.
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You gotta have people in the loop because of
the fact that AI will hallucinate sometimes,
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and you wanna make sure that you're empowering
people rather than only providing a tool that
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gives subpar answers sometimes.
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People really are the biggest resource in your
organization.
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So what this ARIA assessment will do is assess
that maturity in your organization, and then
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it's gonna provide you with a score on how much
AI can help immediately in your organization.
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If you have less automated processes and more
processes where there's people in the loop
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right now, we found that AI can actually have
more immediate impacts in your organization.
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If you have a lot of automation, AI can still
have great impact in your organization.
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It's just gonna be a little bit tougher to
find.
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So we do that, and we provide some actionable
ways that you can actually go and do that in
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your organization as well.
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Things like, examples for sales and marketing,
content creation, or pre call sales research,
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we provide examples on how AI can actually help
the people in your business to do better,
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whether that is going to do something faster,
have better impact, have more actionable
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information in the output they're providing.
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Those are the types of examples that we provide
in there based on your answers there.
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Great.
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So, I actually in your in your intro here,
there was some information that I didn't read,
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And it says that you've been with
BreachSecureNow since 2018.
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And so you so how so since 2018, how long have
you been working on the AI side of things?
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Yeah.
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So BreachSecure now started our AI journey two
and a half, three years ago, and I was involved
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initially with that.
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And what that was was really simple.
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It was a top down approach.
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Our CEO, few members of our product team
started utilizing ChatGPT at the time,
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utilizing this tool.
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We saw the immediate benefits this tool could
provide, and we started an internal initiative
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to start using this, start bringing it wherever
you go.
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There's a great book called Cointelligence by
Ethan Malik.
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He's a great resource for AI information, but
he has a quote in the book that says bring AI
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everywhere.
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Test what it's good at and what it's not so
good at.
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And that's what we did for about two years is
just testing, having everybody in the
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organization use this technology, try to use it
in almost everything that you did, and you find
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out a lot when you do that.
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You find out a lot of things that it can't do,
a lot of things that can really help you out
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with with.
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It's a great way if you're just trying to break
into these tools to start using it.
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But through trial and error, we found a process
then that worked best to help people in our
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organization adopt this AI.
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We started developing things like biweekly use
case sharing sessions where we actually shared,
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new use cases in a different area of our
company on a biweekly basis.
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We created incentives to help employees,
nontechnical employees in our organization find
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new use cases.
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That was about a two year journey of building
that.
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And then, where my role steps in is I actually
help develop training externally in a platform
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such as the ARIA assessment externally.
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Our team built out some of these tools to help
SMBs start to adopt the same exact processes
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themselves and start to train their own
employees to go down that adoption path.
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Yeah.
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The the just picking it up and playing with it,
I I that really rings true to me.
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Because if if I start just playing around with
it, then I my my my mind starts to to develop
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an understanding of what it's capable of.
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And and then and then my mind starts to jump to
things, places where I can start to apply that
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in my day to day or in my life.
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It's like, by gosh, if it does this, then it
can do that.
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And if they and if they can do that, well, then
I can make it do, you know, x y z after that.
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And, it it just kinda starts to snowball from
there.
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Yep.
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So with with so so back to the the the ARIA
assessment, that's it sounds really powerful.
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Actually, I know that's powerful because I went
through it with with ourselves internally.
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It gave me some really good ideas.
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What are some surprising insights or trends
you've seen emerge from partner responses?
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Yeah.
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So we talked a little bit about the impact of,
that MIT study a little bit earlier.
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You know, if you just go and implement this
technology, people aren't going to use it.
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I think one thing that I've seen with a lot of
our partners that we've worked with is there's
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a lot of clients that start to request Copilot
licenses and ChatGPT licenses.
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And they start to see that this is the new
theme.
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Right?
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Let's go get AI in the hands of my clients.
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They go buy the licenses and then they don't
use them.
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Yeah.
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This is and these licenses aren't necessarily
cheap.
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Right?
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You're spending good money on these licenses.
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What we've seen is that you really need to help
people get to that moment.
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And this is what you were just talking about,
Chris, is when you start using this yourself
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and bring it with you, you you get to see that
moment of, yes, this can actually help me.
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I can't believe that I can do this.
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If you just put the tool in their hand and you
don't give them any education and help them
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discover how they can actually use it, this
there's a lot of people that aren't gonna do
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that testing that you were just talking about,
and they're not gonna use that license.
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So we're seeing a lot of partners that just are
putting that license in their hands, and
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they're not getting the ROI.
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Their client's not getting the ROI back.
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But with proper training, we're seeing that
people actually understand how this can help
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them on a one on one basis, and they are seeing
that there there's a great method for them in
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their own role to use this technology.
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Yeah.
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One of the cool things that I've been seeing
lately is I I've been having some of my clients
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reach out to me.
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And and and not just the clients, some of the
some of the users, are are are talking about
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things that they ideas that they have about how
they can use AI.
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And we'll we'll go go get them a Copilot
license because they'll typically gonna be a
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Microsoft shop.
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So we'll get them the Copilot license, and and
then they'll just start dreaming up things.
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And I I just have been finding so much fun in,
like, okay.
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Well, let's get an engineer.
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Let's help him bring this idea that you have to
fruition.
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And the next thing you know, you've got you
you've shaved off a a task that a person no
265
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longer has to do on a daily basis that it's and
and it's gonna be, like, a repetitive task
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that's probably not even worth their time.
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And suddenly, they're freed up to do some of
the more important things, and next thing you
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know, you you end up with, like, this
multiplier this multiplier where when one
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person was being hired to do this job, they
were capable of x amount of output.
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And now there there's some kind of multiple of
that because they're they've implemented AI.
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They they've freed up, like, some, they freed
themselves up from these repetitive monotonous
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tasks.
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Yes.
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And and now they're they're thinking at a
higher level, like, strategic.
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Like and and oftentimes, the thinking is
because I I I'll be there from time to time.
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What what else can I use AI for so that I don't
have to do this boring stuff that I don't like
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doing anymore?
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Yeah.
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That's another and, Chris, did you you just
made me think of another really good insight
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that we've gotten in talking to partners and
SMBs that are using this, not only are you
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helping the business by getting them more
output out of their employees.
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Right?
283
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The individuals who are using the AI actually
are reporting greater job satisfaction.
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They actually like what they're doing more
because of the fact they can automate those
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00:17:29,589 --> 00:17:34,549
repetitive tasks or do those quicker and then
focus on more of the strategic work that they
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couldn't do before.
287
00:17:35,589 --> 00:17:35,829
Right?
288
00:17:35,829 --> 00:17:40,985
There just wasn't enough hours in the day to do
that strategic activity sometimes because they
289
00:17:40,985 --> 00:17:42,424
were doing repetitive stuff.
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00:17:42,585 --> 00:17:46,744
Now they have the ability to upskill their set
sales and really get to the next level.
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00:17:46,744 --> 00:17:51,065
So not only is it helping businesses bottom
line, it's going to actually help the
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00:17:51,065 --> 00:17:55,809
individuals have greater job satisfaction, and
that leads to retention for the business.
293
00:17:55,809 --> 00:17:57,329
That leads to a lot of good things.
294
00:17:57,329 --> 00:18:01,729
And, again, it's about empowering people, by
having the technology.
295
00:18:02,609 --> 00:18:03,250
Alright.
296
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I think that rolls right into our next
question, which is what what role do you see AI
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playing in strengthening cybersecurity
awareness and behavior among small business
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00:18:17,424 --> 00:18:17,984
employees?
299
00:18:18,890 --> 00:18:19,210
Yeah.
300
00:18:19,210 --> 00:18:25,450
I think that this is super important as a place
that you need to start when it comes to AI is
301
00:18:25,450 --> 00:18:27,529
really understanding what the risks are.
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00:18:28,009 --> 00:18:32,970
We see that in policies and training as this
is, again, the base that you need to start off
303
00:18:32,970 --> 00:18:37,615
with with is showing them what the risk is of
AI, which there's risks out there.
304
00:18:37,615 --> 00:18:41,615
People using free tool tools, people not
understanding the output.
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00:18:41,775 --> 00:18:46,494
We wanna make sure that they're understanding
that that is a risk to the business, that
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00:18:46,494 --> 00:18:52,529
there's proper policy put in place so they can
see what the do's and don'ts of utilizing these
307
00:18:52,529 --> 00:18:57,809
tools are, but then at the same time, enabling
them to be extremely successful with a secure
308
00:18:57,809 --> 00:19:03,384
solution such as a Copilot, check GPT license,
one of these tools that are not going to train
309
00:19:03,384 --> 00:19:04,904
on their own personal data.
310
00:19:04,904 --> 00:19:10,825
The free version of these tools, if you use the
free version of ChatGPT or Perplexity or
311
00:19:10,825 --> 00:19:14,505
Gemini, any business information you put in
there is training the model.
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00:19:14,670 --> 00:19:17,630
So we wanna make sure that people are aware of
that.
313
00:19:17,630 --> 00:19:18,829
Not a lot of people are.
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00:19:18,910 --> 00:19:23,869
If you can get them that training first, but
then not only give them what the risk is, but a
315
00:19:23,869 --> 00:19:30,109
clear path to how they can use a secure
solution to help benefit themselves greatly.
316
00:19:30,109 --> 00:19:30,350
Right?
317
00:19:30,724 --> 00:19:36,085
All things that we've been talking about about
just people using this technology, that is
318
00:19:36,085 --> 00:19:42,484
really going to help them take not only steps
to protect their organization, but steps to
319
00:19:42,484 --> 00:19:48,230
really improve their productivity and all the
impact that you can get by using these tools.
320
00:19:48,710 --> 00:19:49,190
Alright.
321
00:19:49,190 --> 00:19:53,429
I I wanna take a second and just clarify
something here, or I I want your help
322
00:19:53,429 --> 00:19:54,710
clarifying something.
323
00:19:54,869 --> 00:19:55,269
Sure.
324
00:19:55,269 --> 00:20:01,984
When we're talking about the free tools, like
free chat GTP and free perplexity, and we're
325
00:20:01,984 --> 00:20:06,624
talking about putting business information into
there, and you said that it trains the model.
326
00:20:06,944 --> 00:20:07,585
Yeah.
327
00:20:08,464 --> 00:20:11,505
What does that mean that it trains the that it
trains the model?
328
00:20:11,779 --> 00:20:17,460
Because what what I think it means and what
I've been told by other people is that when
329
00:20:17,460 --> 00:20:25,139
you're plugging information into these free
applications or the free versions of them, it's
330
00:20:25,474 --> 00:20:27,474
pretty much becoming public information.
331
00:20:27,795 --> 00:20:28,355
Yeah.
332
00:20:28,355 --> 00:20:30,835
It's possible that it can become public
information.
333
00:20:30,835 --> 00:20:31,394
Right?
334
00:20:31,555 --> 00:20:34,755
Is if you're plugging in you got it exactly
right, Chris.
335
00:20:34,755 --> 00:20:40,115
If you're plugging in, you know, your client
information, your company IP into one of these
336
00:20:40,115 --> 00:20:45,289
tools, that model now is getting trained on
that data, and somebody else in the future
337
00:20:45,289 --> 00:20:51,690
could query that model and actually get that
information, which compliance wise, data
338
00:20:51,690 --> 00:20:54,650
protection wise is a huge issue.
339
00:20:55,654 --> 00:21:00,054
At the same time, the employees that are doing
this, they're not all the time doing this
340
00:21:00,054 --> 00:21:00,694
maliciously.
341
00:21:00,694 --> 00:21:02,375
They're probably not doing it maliciously.
342
00:21:02,375 --> 00:21:05,094
They know that these tools can help them do
their job better.
343
00:21:05,494 --> 00:21:07,494
They just don't know that there's risk to it.
344
00:21:07,730 --> 00:21:12,450
And that's one of the things that that we need
to we need to educate the employee on, but also
345
00:21:12,450 --> 00:21:17,409
provide them with a way to still utilize this
technology just in a secure fashion.
346
00:21:18,609 --> 00:21:22,875
So what it sounds like to me is we should make
sure that the audience knows that if you're
347
00:21:22,875 --> 00:21:27,994
gonna be using some of these free tools, the
free chat TTP, free perplexity, or free
348
00:21:27,994 --> 00:21:34,554
whatever, don't go plugging in sensitive
business or employee information in there
349
00:21:34,555 --> 00:21:36,795
because you're basically giving it away to the
world.
350
00:21:37,859 --> 00:21:38,659
Exactly.
351
00:21:38,660 --> 00:21:39,140
Yeah.
352
00:21:39,140 --> 00:21:39,700
Exactly.
353
00:21:40,500 --> 00:21:41,859
And put that in policy, Chris.
354
00:21:41,859 --> 00:21:42,099
Right?
355
00:21:42,099 --> 00:21:48,660
Like, you don't have it written down down,
that's one of the, that's it's very hard to
356
00:21:48,660 --> 00:21:50,500
enforce something you don't have written down.
357
00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:55,164
So put that in the policy, but at the same
time, go and implement the secure solution.
358
00:21:55,164 --> 00:21:59,085
It's really hard to tell somebody that's
getting massive benefits from a solution, you
359
00:21:59,085 --> 00:22:00,524
can't use this anymore.
360
00:22:00,524 --> 00:22:00,924
Right?
361
00:22:00,924 --> 00:22:06,284
They wanna put something in their hands that
they can still, be successful but secure at the
362
00:22:06,284 --> 00:22:06,605
same time.
363
00:22:07,630 --> 00:22:08,190
Alright.
364
00:22:08,190 --> 00:22:10,989
I got one last question here.
365
00:22:12,269 --> 00:22:20,829
As someone deeply involved in partner feedback
loops, what's one piece of advice you'd give to
366
00:22:20,829 --> 00:22:25,454
small and medium businesses that are just
beginning their AI journey?
367
00:22:28,095 --> 00:22:32,734
I think we talked about this a lot already,
Chris, on the advice that I'd give.
368
00:22:32,734 --> 00:22:38,359
If you're gonna start your AI journey today,
start with educating people and empowering
369
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:39,960
people in your organization.
370
00:22:40,279 --> 00:22:45,240
And you can do that, one, through policy of
describing what the do's and don'ts are so you
371
00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:50,680
can help protect your organization, but also
helping people understand that this is a tool
372
00:22:50,734 --> 00:22:54,174
to help empower them, not replace them.
373
00:22:54,174 --> 00:22:54,575
Right?
374
00:22:54,575 --> 00:22:59,615
This is one of the key pieces with that AI is
there's a lot of fear around this technology
375
00:22:59,615 --> 00:23:01,615
right now whether we like it or not.
376
00:23:01,615 --> 00:23:06,500
The fact is is that the best way that you can
adopt it in your business is by empowering the
377
00:23:06,500 --> 00:23:11,859
people that are in your business, by allowing
them to see how this can help me on a day to
378
00:23:11,859 --> 00:23:12,659
day basis.
379
00:23:13,619 --> 00:23:18,819
This is the best way that we found to adopt it
in our own organization throughout our own
380
00:23:18,819 --> 00:23:23,785
three years of experience with this technology,
but also in the many, many MSPs and SMBs that
381
00:23:23,785 --> 00:23:24,744
we're helping out.
382
00:23:24,904 --> 00:23:30,265
Start with people first, build that base, and
then follow that up with the technology, the
383
00:23:30,265 --> 00:23:32,504
automation, and everything that follows after
that.
384
00:23:32,744 --> 00:23:38,950
That base of people, process, and policy is
really the best place to get started then.
385
00:23:40,789 --> 00:23:41,269
Yep.
386
00:23:41,269 --> 00:23:42,470
Makes a lot of sense.
387
00:23:42,950 --> 00:23:45,190
Really appreciate all your time today, Chris.
388
00:23:45,349 --> 00:23:46,070
Yeah, Chris.
389
00:23:46,070 --> 00:23:47,269
It was really good being on.
390
00:23:47,269 --> 00:23:47,990
Thank you.
391
00:23:48,309 --> 00:23:48,869
Take care.
392
00:23:54,984 --> 00:24:00,424
You're listening to the cyber brisket podcast,
what's hot in IT and how to keep your business
393
00:24:00,424 --> 00:24:01,305
from getting cooked.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,240
So what it sounds like to me is we should make
sure that the audience knows that if you're
2
00:00:04,240 --> 00:00:09,359
gonna be using some of these free tools, the
free chat TTP, free perplexity, or free
3
00:00:09,359 --> 00:00:16,559
whatever, don't go plugging in sensitive
business or employee information in there
4
00:00:15,974 --> 00:00:18,454
because you're basically giving it away to the
world.
5
00:00:19,175 --> 00:00:19,975
Exactly.
6
00:00:20,135 --> 00:00:20,454
Yeah.
7
00:00:20,454 --> 00:00:21,094
Exactly.
8
00:00:21,815 --> 00:00:23,255
And put that in policy, Chris.
9
00:00:23,255 --> 00:00:23,574
Right?
10
00:00:23,574 --> 00:00:28,054
I'm Chris Engler with Engler IT.
11
00:00:28,054 --> 00:00:30,599
You're listening to the Cyber Brisket podcast.
12
00:00:30,599 --> 00:00:37,079
I specialize in IT and cybersecurity with over
twenty five years of experience in a team at
13
00:00:37,079 --> 00:00:38,439
the forefront of innovation.
14
00:00:38,519 --> 00:00:44,119
Our guests let us know what's hot in IT and how
to keep your business from getting cooked.
15
00:00:46,314 --> 00:00:47,274
Alright.
16
00:00:47,435 --> 00:00:49,354
Today, we got Chris Gross.
17
00:00:49,674 --> 00:00:57,434
He's a senior AI product director at Breach
Secure Now where he leads the the strategy for
18
00:00:57,434 --> 00:01:03,890
AI products With a strong background in product
cybersecurity and partner enablement, Chris
19
00:01:03,890 --> 00:01:13,435
focuses on building innovative AI tools that
drive measurable value for MSPs and their
20
00:01:13,435 --> 00:01:14,155
clients.
21
00:01:14,394 --> 00:01:20,795
He also plays a key role in supporting Breach
Secure Now's AI education and awareness
22
00:01:20,795 --> 00:01:28,840
initiatives to help partners and clients stay
informed and empowered in an evolving AI
23
00:01:28,840 --> 00:01:29,799
landscape.
24
00:01:29,799 --> 00:01:32,359
Chris, thanks for joining me today.
25
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:33,400
Thank you, Chris.
26
00:01:33,400 --> 00:01:33,719
Yeah.
27
00:01:33,719 --> 00:01:35,239
Really excited to be on today.
28
00:01:35,880 --> 00:01:41,000
So I've got I've got a few questions here for
you just to get us started, and then we'll see
29
00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:42,280
where the conversation goes.
30
00:01:42,974 --> 00:01:43,855
Awesome.
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00:01:44,334 --> 00:01:44,814
Let's do
32
00:01:44,814 --> 00:01:45,135
it.
33
00:01:45,135 --> 00:01:52,734
With with, AI evolving so rapidly, how do you
help small businesses and MSPs distinguish
34
00:01:52,734 --> 00:01:57,135
between hype and practical value when adopting
new tools?
35
00:01:58,099 --> 00:01:59,939
This is a really great question, Chris.
36
00:01:59,939 --> 00:02:05,299
This is where I think a lot of people have
fallen down in the past six to twelve months.
37
00:02:05,700 --> 00:02:10,900
We have seen a lot of hype around AI, and a lot
of people jump immediately.
38
00:02:10,900 --> 00:02:12,739
Let's go implement something.
39
00:02:12,739 --> 00:02:14,485
Let's go put in the technology.
40
00:02:14,485 --> 00:02:19,364
There's like five new tools I get an email
about every day or like I see them in my feed
41
00:02:19,364 --> 00:02:24,724
somewhere and it's like you you it would be a
full time job just implementing all the tools
42
00:02:24,724 --> 00:02:26,245
that are coming out as they're coming out.
43
00:02:26,639 --> 00:02:27,120
Yeah.
44
00:02:27,120 --> 00:02:27,759
Exactly.
45
00:02:27,759 --> 00:02:29,599
And it's implement, implement, implement.
46
00:02:29,599 --> 00:02:35,759
But most of the time, those new tools are not
gonna be successful unless you have the base
47
00:02:35,759 --> 00:02:36,719
there first.
48
00:02:37,280 --> 00:02:42,344
So BreachSecure now, we have ten years of
employee education under our belts.
49
00:02:42,344 --> 00:02:46,824
Our whole philosophy of this, what we've seen
be the most successful approach to adopting any
50
00:02:46,824 --> 00:02:49,865
new technology is get the people on board
first.
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00:02:49,865 --> 00:02:54,425
Make sure the people understand the technology,
the process before you go and implement.
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00:02:54,740 --> 00:03:00,659
You need that solid base before you're gonna be
successful with any type of tool adoption.
53
00:03:01,460 --> 00:03:03,060
Chris, let me actually share a stat with you.
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00:03:03,060 --> 00:03:04,099
I don't know if you've seen this.
55
00:03:04,099 --> 00:03:08,900
There's a recent MIT study of AI
implementations over the past twelve months.
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00:03:09,425 --> 00:03:13,985
Ninety five percent of those implementations
have failed to produce real ROI.
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00:03:14,384 --> 00:03:19,665
And the 5% that are successful are the ones
that started with people that started building
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00:03:19,665 --> 00:03:25,770
processes internally first without technology,
no technology at all, start building out solid
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00:03:25,770 --> 00:03:31,050
processes, solid SOPs first, and then use AI to
enhance those processes.
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They Okay.
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00:03:32,169 --> 00:03:37,689
Train the people on the AI, and they actually
went and then help the people see their own
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00:03:37,689 --> 00:03:38,409
benefit at it.
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So now the people in the organization aren't
actively, you know, revolting against this new
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technology.
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They actually are seeing how this can help
them.
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Right?
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They're seeing the actual
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benefits themselves.
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Yeah.
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So it it's it's not a silver bullet.
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It's it's not gonna turn your it's not gonna
turn your enterprise into a mature operation
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overnight.
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It's it's almost like you you you have to go
through the work to get to get your act
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together, you know, develop those SOPs, get
your process down, and then AI is like throwing
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gas on the fire.
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Yeah.
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Absolutely.
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And once you can do that, once you have that
solid process built out and you can train
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people to actually understand how this
technology can benefit them, then there can be
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huge benefits to it.
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But it's really a people issue.
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A lot of people think it's technology issue.
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How am I gonna use this technology?
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It's really how am I going to empower people in
my organization with this technology.
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Right.
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And so, yeah, well, how are they gonna get
empowered unless you've created the structure
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for them to be successful in?
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Otherwise, you got everybody going in every
direction doing who knows what.
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Right.
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And educate them what it is and what it is not.
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A lot of times people will look at a new
technology and be afraid of it, especially with
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AI.
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You hear a buzzword word of AI in almost
everything today and trying to explain that to
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a non tech tech person, right, trying to
explain what that is and how it can help them
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can be difficult unless you're showing them
real use cases for how they can be successful
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with it.
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That's really the place to start is helping
people use the technology rather than, you
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know, just going and implementing the
technology and hoping the people understand.
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Yeah.
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So I I I've even had yeah.
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So that's I I've had those conversations with
with clients and prospects where I will
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actually lay out our thought process, Angular
IT's thought process, what we think about when
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we're approaching a situation.
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And we always think about the the business
process first.
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But oftentimes, the the the clients, the pros
prospects, really, those businesses that we run
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into, they don't think about the process first.
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They they will just think about how they want
to have a company or they they have to have a
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business, and and they they they know that that
they wanna start a business, but and and then
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it's like, well, if I wanna have a business,
have to buy some computers and I have to have
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email.
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But they don't really and they just kinda,
like, instinctively gather those things because
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they see other businesses have those things.
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Right.
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It's like, well, this is what an office looks
like.
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There's a there's a computer on the desk and
use it to do things, but not necessarily
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understanding the underlying process for, like,
why that thing is there.
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Yeah.
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Exactly.
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And it starts off really is look at what are
you doing today.
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Actually, before that, even what are you doing
today and how AI can help you.
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You gotta really have people understand what
this technology can do for them just on, a
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chatbot level.
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Really, what we recommend is start off with a
Copilot or ChatGPT to your one of these
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chatbots and have your nontechnical people
utilize these tools, and they can then
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understand what are the capabilities of these
tools, what can they do, what they can't do.
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We know that there's gaps in AI today.
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Right?
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AI hallucinates sometimes.
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You're not going to always get a perfect
result.
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You need to have people in the loop.
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And once they understand what it can and cannot
do, they can see the improve improvements to
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their own productivity, then you can go into
the real technology of what's the next step
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step and how can this help help them.
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So and that, just like your example, Chris,
that's gotta be done first before you go and
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set say, let's go buy the technology and start
this massive implementation.
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You gotta start with first educate policy.
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You know, risk is a huge piece of this too.
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Just make sure that people understand what the
risk is in their business.
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So that's a a big piece of this as well.
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So you you guys have been really good at
helping us over here understand how to help
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people with AI.
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And what you're talking about now, all these
these these almost prerequisites that one might
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need to engage in in order to even understand
how to apply it.
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And it's making me think about this assessment
that you guys have, the the ARIA assessment.
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Would would you mind sharing a little bit about
what that is?
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Yeah.
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So ARIA stands for AI Readiness Innovation
Assessment.
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It's one of the first steps that we recommend
to start a conversation in the client's
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business on how AI can actually help them.
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This goes really away from looking at what the
technology is and how it works to how can this
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technology actually help me.
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Some of the stuff that we were talking about
before, Chris.
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What it'll do is it'll assess different pieces
of your business.
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It's a really short questionnaire.
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It takes ten minutes for you to fill out.
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But it's looking at different areas of your
organization, sales, marketing, operations.
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It's looking at those areas and seeing what
your existing processes are, how mature and how
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automated are those processes.
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And based on those answers, we actually provide
a score on how much AI can help in those
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different areas.
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One of the things that we found with AI, humans
need to be in the loop.
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You gotta have people in the loop because of
the fact that AI will hallucinate sometimes,
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and you wanna make sure that you're empowering
people rather than only providing a tool that
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gives subpar answers sometimes.
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People really are the biggest resource in your
organization.
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So what this ARIA assessment will do is assess
that maturity in your organization, and then
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it's gonna provide you with a score on how much
AI can help immediately in your organization.
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If you have less automated processes and more
processes where there's people in the loop
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right now, we found that AI can actually have
more immediate impacts in your organization.
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If you have a lot of automation, AI can still
have great impact in your organization.
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It's just gonna be a little bit tougher to
find.
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So we do that, and we provide some actionable
ways that you can actually go and do that in
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your organization as well.
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Things like, examples for sales and marketing,
content creation, or pre call sales research,
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we provide examples on how AI can actually help
the people in your business to do better,
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whether that is going to do something faster,
have better impact, have more actionable
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information in the output they're providing.
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Those are the types of examples that we provide
in there based on your answers there.
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Great.
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So, I actually in your in your intro here,
there was some information that I didn't read,
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And it says that you've been with
BreachSecureNow since 2018.
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And so you so how so since 2018, how long have
you been working on the AI side of things?
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Yeah.
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So BreachSecure now started our AI journey two
and a half, three years ago, and I was involved
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initially with that.
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And what that was was really simple.
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It was a top down approach.
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Our CEO, few members of our product team
started utilizing ChatGPT at the time,
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utilizing this tool.
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We saw the immediate benefits this tool could
provide, and we started an internal initiative
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to start using this, start bringing it wherever
you go.
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There's a great book called Cointelligence by
Ethan Malik.
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He's a great resource for AI information, but
he has a quote in the book that says bring AI
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everywhere.
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Test what it's good at and what it's not so
good at.
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And that's what we did for about two years is
just testing, having everybody in the
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organization use this technology, try to use it
in almost everything that you did, and you find
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out a lot when you do that.
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You find out a lot of things that it can't do,
a lot of things that can really help you out
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with with.
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It's a great way if you're just trying to break
into these tools to start using it.
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But through trial and error, we found a process
then that worked best to help people in our
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organization adopt this AI.
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We started developing things like biweekly use
case sharing sessions where we actually shared,
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new use cases in a different area of our
company on a biweekly basis.
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We created incentives to help employees,
nontechnical employees in our organization find
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new use cases.
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That was about a two year journey of building
that.
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And then, where my role steps in is I actually
help develop training externally in a platform
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such as the ARIA assessment externally.
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Our team built out some of these tools to help
SMBs start to adopt the same exact processes
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themselves and start to train their own
employees to go down that adoption path.
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Yeah.
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The the just picking it up and playing with it,
I I that really rings true to me.
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Because if if I start just playing around with
it, then I my my my mind starts to to develop
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an understanding of what it's capable of.
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And and then and then my mind starts to jump to
things, places where I can start to apply that
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in my day to day or in my life.
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It's like, by gosh, if it does this, then it
can do that.
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And if they and if they can do that, well, then
I can make it do, you know, x y z after that.
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And, it it just kinda starts to snowball from
there.
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Yep.
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So with with so so back to the the the ARIA
assessment, that's it sounds really powerful.
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Actually, I know that's powerful because I went
through it with with ourselves internally.
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It gave me some really good ideas.
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What are some surprising insights or trends
you've seen emerge from partner responses?
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Yeah.
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So we talked a little bit about the impact of,
that MIT study a little bit earlier.
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You know, if you just go and implement this
technology, people aren't going to use it.
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I think one thing that I've seen with a lot of
our partners that we've worked with is there's
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a lot of clients that start to request Copilot
licenses and ChatGPT licenses.
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And they start to see that this is the new
theme.
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Right?
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Let's go get AI in the hands of my clients.
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They go buy the licenses and then they don't
use them.
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Yeah.
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This is and these licenses aren't necessarily
cheap.
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Right?
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You're spending good money on these licenses.
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What we've seen is that you really need to help
people get to that moment.
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And this is what you were just talking about,
Chris, is when you start using this yourself
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and bring it with you, you you get to see that
moment of, yes, this can actually help me.
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I can't believe that I can do this.
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If you just put the tool in their hand and you
don't give them any education and help them
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discover how they can actually use it, this
there's a lot of people that aren't gonna do
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that testing that you were just talking about,
and they're not gonna use that license.
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So we're seeing a lot of partners that just are
putting that license in their hands, and
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they're not getting the ROI.
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Their client's not getting the ROI back.
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But with proper training, we're seeing that
people actually understand how this can help
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them on a one on one basis, and they are seeing
that there there's a great method for them in
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their own role to use this technology.
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Yeah.
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One of the cool things that I've been seeing
lately is I I've been having some of my clients
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reach out to me.
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And and and not just the clients, some of the
some of the users, are are are talking about
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things that they ideas that they have about how
they can use AI.
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And we'll we'll go go get them a Copilot
license because they'll typically gonna be a
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Microsoft shop.
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So we'll get them the Copilot license, and and
then they'll just start dreaming up things.
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And I I just have been finding so much fun in,
like, okay.
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Well, let's get an engineer.
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Let's help him bring this idea that you have to
fruition.
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And the next thing you know, you've got you
you've shaved off a a task that a person no
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longer has to do on a daily basis that it's and
and it's gonna be, like, a repetitive task
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that's probably not even worth their time.
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And suddenly, they're freed up to do some of
the more important things, and next thing you
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know, you you end up with, like, this
multiplier this multiplier where when one
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person was being hired to do this job, they
were capable of x amount of output.
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And now there there's some kind of multiple of
that because they're they've implemented AI.
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They they've freed up, like, some, they freed
themselves up from these repetitive monotonous
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tasks.
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Yes.
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And and now they're they're thinking at a
higher level, like, strategic.
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Like and and oftentimes, the thinking is
because I I I'll be there from time to time.
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What what else can I use AI for so that I don't
have to do this boring stuff that I don't like
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doing anymore?
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Yeah.
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That's another and, Chris, did you you just
made me think of another really good insight
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that we've gotten in talking to partners and
SMBs that are using this, not only are you
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helping the business by getting them more
output out of their employees.
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Right?
283
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The individuals who are using the AI actually
are reporting greater job satisfaction.
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They actually like what they're doing more
because of the fact they can automate those
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repetitive tasks or do those quicker and then
focus on more of the strategic work that they
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couldn't do before.
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Right?
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There just wasn't enough hours in the day to do
that strategic activity sometimes because they
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were doing repetitive stuff.
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Now they have the ability to upskill their set
sales and really get to the next level.
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So not only is it helping businesses bottom
line, it's going to actually help the
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individuals have greater job satisfaction, and
that leads to retention for the business.
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That leads to a lot of good things.
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And, again, it's about empowering people, by
having the technology.
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Alright.
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I think that rolls right into our next
question, which is what what role do you see AI
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playing in strengthening cybersecurity
awareness and behavior among small business
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employees?
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Yeah.
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I think that this is super important as a place
that you need to start when it comes to AI is
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really understanding what the risks are.
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We see that in policies and training as this
is, again, the base that you need to start off
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with with is showing them what the risk is of
AI, which there's risks out there.
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People using free tool tools, people not
understanding the output.
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We wanna make sure that they're understanding
that that is a risk to the business, that
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there's proper policy put in place so they can
see what the do's and don'ts of utilizing these
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tools are, but then at the same time, enabling
them to be extremely successful with a secure
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solution such as a Copilot, check GPT license,
one of these tools that are not going to train
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on their own personal data.
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The free version of these tools, if you use the
free version of ChatGPT or Perplexity or
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Gemini, any business information you put in
there is training the model.
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So we wanna make sure that people are aware of
that.
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Not a lot of people are.
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If you can get them that training first, but
then not only give them what the risk is, but a
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clear path to how they can use a secure
solution to help benefit themselves greatly.
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Right?
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All things that we've been talking about about
just people using this technology, that is
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really going to help them take not only steps
to protect their organization, but steps to
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really improve their productivity and all the
impact that you can get by using these tools.
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Alright.
321
00:19:49,190 --> 00:19:53,429
I I wanna take a second and just clarify
something here, or I I want your help
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clarifying something.
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Sure.
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00:19:55,269 --> 00:20:01,984
When we're talking about the free tools, like
free chat GTP and free perplexity, and we're
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talking about putting business information into
there, and you said that it trains the model.
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Yeah.
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What does that mean that it trains the that it
trains the model?
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Because what what I think it means and what
I've been told by other people is that when
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you're plugging information into these free
applications or the free versions of them, it's
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pretty much becoming public information.
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Yeah.
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It's possible that it can become public
information.
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00:20:30,835 --> 00:20:31,394
Right?
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00:20:31,555 --> 00:20:34,755
Is if you're plugging in you got it exactly
right, Chris.
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If you're plugging in, you know, your client
information, your company IP into one of these
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tools, that model now is getting trained on
that data, and somebody else in the future
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could query that model and actually get that
information, which compliance wise, data
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protection wise is a huge issue.
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At the same time, the employees that are doing
this, they're not all the time doing this
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maliciously.
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00:21:00,694 --> 00:21:02,375
They're probably not doing it maliciously.
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They know that these tools can help them do
their job better.
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They just don't know that there's risk to it.
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And that's one of the things that that we need
to we need to educate the employee on, but also
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provide them with a way to still utilize this
technology just in a secure fashion.
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So what it sounds like to me is we should make
sure that the audience knows that if you're
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gonna be using some of these free tools, the
free chat TTP, free perplexity, or free
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00:21:27,994 --> 00:21:34,554
whatever, don't go plugging in sensitive
business or employee information in there
349
00:21:34,555 --> 00:21:36,795
because you're basically giving it away to the
world.
350
00:21:37,859 --> 00:21:38,659
Exactly.
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00:21:38,660 --> 00:21:39,140
Yeah.
352
00:21:39,140 --> 00:21:39,700
Exactly.
353
00:21:40,500 --> 00:21:41,859
And put that in policy, Chris.
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00:21:41,859 --> 00:21:42,099
Right?
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00:21:42,099 --> 00:21:48,660
Like, you don't have it written down down,
that's one of the, that's it's very hard to
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00:21:48,660 --> 00:21:50,500
enforce something you don't have written down.
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00:21:50,500 --> 00:21:55,164
So put that in the policy, but at the same
time, go and implement the secure solution.
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00:21:55,164 --> 00:21:59,085
It's really hard to tell somebody that's
getting massive benefits from a solution, you
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00:21:59,085 --> 00:22:00,524
can't use this anymore.
360
00:22:00,524 --> 00:22:00,924
Right?
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00:22:00,924 --> 00:22:06,284
They wanna put something in their hands that
they can still, be successful but secure at the
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00:22:06,284 --> 00:22:06,605
same time.
363
00:22:07,630 --> 00:22:08,190
Alright.
364
00:22:08,190 --> 00:22:10,989
I got one last question here.
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00:22:12,269 --> 00:22:20,829
As someone deeply involved in partner feedback
loops, what's one piece of advice you'd give to
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00:22:20,829 --> 00:22:25,454
small and medium businesses that are just
beginning their AI journey?
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00:22:28,095 --> 00:22:32,734
I think we talked about this a lot already,
Chris, on the advice that I'd give.
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00:22:32,734 --> 00:22:38,359
If you're gonna start your AI journey today,
start with educating people and empowering
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people in your organization.
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00:22:40,279 --> 00:22:45,240
And you can do that, one, through policy of
describing what the do's and don'ts are so you
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00:22:45,240 --> 00:22:50,680
can help protect your organization, but also
helping people understand that this is a tool
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00:22:50,734 --> 00:22:54,174
to help empower them, not replace them.
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00:22:54,174 --> 00:22:54,575
Right?
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00:22:54,575 --> 00:22:59,615
This is one of the key pieces with that AI is
there's a lot of fear around this technology
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right now whether we like it or not.
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00:23:01,615 --> 00:23:06,500
The fact is is that the best way that you can
adopt it in your business is by empowering the
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people that are in your business, by allowing
them to see how this can help me on a day to
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day basis.
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00:23:13,619 --> 00:23:18,819
This is the best way that we found to adopt it
in our own organization throughout our own
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00:23:18,819 --> 00:23:23,785
three years of experience with this technology,
but also in the many, many MSPs and SMBs that
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we're helping out.
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00:23:24,904 --> 00:23:30,265
Start with people first, build that base, and
then follow that up with the technology, the
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00:23:30,265 --> 00:23:32,504
automation, and everything that follows after
that.
384
00:23:32,744 --> 00:23:38,950
That base of people, process, and policy is
really the best place to get started then.
385
00:23:40,789 --> 00:23:41,269
Yep.
386
00:23:41,269 --> 00:23:42,470
Makes a lot of sense.
387
00:23:42,950 --> 00:23:45,190
Really appreciate all your time today, Chris.
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00:23:45,349 --> 00:23:46,070
Yeah, Chris.
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It was really good being on.
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Thank you.
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Take care.
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You're listening to the cyber brisket podcast,
what's hot in IT and how to keep your business
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00:24:00,424 --> 00:24:01,305
from getting cooked.
