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Welcome to the Accounting for Innovation podcast, where we explore cutting edge strategies and insights into the world of accounting and finance.
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Presented by Decimal and the Radical CPA, each episode dives deep into industry trends.
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Whether you're a seasoned professional or a budding entrepreneur, join us as we unpack key concepts and share practical tips to drive success.
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All right.
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Welcome to today's episode of Accounting for Innovation.
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I am excited today because we are continuing this season's theme of talking about AI and accounting.
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But we have talked about AI in numbers, AI in platforms, AI in tax, AI in systems, ai, ai, ai.
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But there's one thing that we haven't talked about that I think is really, really important, and that is AI for leading yourself, for helping you level yourself up, and not just your accounting, but how you lead people, how you deal with systems, all of this stuff.
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And one of the reasons why I'm really excited today is because my co-host, who you all know, Jody, is actually building an AI agent platform specifically to help people for this.
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So Jody, tell us a little bit more about what you're building.
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Yeah.
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So, um, we're building, or I say we're putting the human in ai, right?
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Or the AI in human.
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I don't know which one goes, but the idea is, is at Excel Labs we're, creating a movement, and it's called the AIX Movement.
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And the idea of the movement is, is this actually goes back to my radical days of how do we keep the profession moving forward?
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And I would say I.
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Arguably relevant in the year 2030, so that we're not being overtaken by some of the fintechs and some of the other companies as a lot of the work that we're doing is gonna get automated away.
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How do we put the AI in humans?
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So we show up as our best selves as professionals that we need to be.
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And it starts with leading yourself first.
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So how do you show up as your best possible self by using ai?
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To increase your leadership, your strategic conversations, how do you like, interact with, whether it be a ChatGPT or another, copilot or something else, and ask it the right prompts and the right questions to then joining together with your firms and having AI first firms or AI first companies.
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Right?
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So how are you coming to show up with your team to be AI first and start thinking through AI first?
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And then that leads us to the profession, or really mm-hmm.
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How we become human as all of this stuff becomes automated around us, and all of us are staying more human, right?
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So as we think about, you know, the cell phones in our lives, right?
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How are we staying human with cell phones?
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How are we saying humans as a profession moving forward?
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With ai.
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And so that's the lead yourself.
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First, lead your firm and then lead the profession.
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And that's really what we're doing.
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How are we doing it?
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We're doing it with, starting with advisory conversations where you can digitally score your advisory conversation and see how you showed up.
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Did I get an eight out of a 10 for empathy?
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Did I get, you know, a six out of a 10 for strategic oversight?
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Right?
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So if you think about, you know, all of these, Or all of these digital tools like Firefly or even like Zoom recording where you can record the conversation, being able to upload that into a scoring system that then scores you and tracks you.
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So it basically makes it data driven.
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Insight, not just a peer telling you, oh, you had a good conversation.
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And it's unbiased feedback, which I think is pretty cool because now your feedback is not like your manager said you did a good job, or you didn't do a good job.
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It's a bot that's telling you you did a good job or a bad job, right?
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So it's unbiased feedback so that you can show up in your conversations a lot better.
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And I think that's what we need, right?
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Because as opposed to hearing, oh, like.
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Not that people are saying AI's gonna take our jobs, but that's what they're thinking, right?
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It's gonna automate the task that we're used to doing.
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We're saying, how do you put the human back in ai and how do you, how do we show up more human for our teams and for everybody else, our clients, our teams, our profession as a whole?
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One of the interesting things too, and you've taught me this because you know, my kids, they're, they're at an age where they still have imaginary friends.
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You do too.
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I do.
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Yours just is AI that talks back to you.
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I was listening to you talk about how much, how many conversations you've had with your own AI agents, and that led me to have a conversation with AI the other day.
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And, we have a specific problem that we are working on at Decimal and I uploaded a ton of information, like tons of information, and I said, I wanna have an argument with you before I have an argument with this$1,800 an hour lawyer.
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And I just started peppering the, my AI with conversation points.
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I said, why can't I do this?
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I wanna do this.
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How do I do this?
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What about this?
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What about this?
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Gimme the other side.
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And we just started arguing it through and it was a great conversation.
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And what I found was it was just a good conversation and I saved it.
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And my co-founder Jacob, did something similar.
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We saved the entire conversation, sent it to the lawyer and said, Hey, spend 15 minutes reviewing this before our call.
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And it was literally the transcript of that conversation, which meant my call with that lawyer was 15 minutes instead of an hour.
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So it saved me about$1,200.
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But it was also just a nice mental way for me to think through.
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I.
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A conversation.
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It was, it was a sounding, it's clarity.
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I want clarity.
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It was, it, it allowed me to kind of work my way through it.
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I've got a big presentation coming up next week.
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Um, I put in the questions, I'm gonna start putting in answers.
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What would you do here if, if I wanted to have a lighter tone or something like this?
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By the way, ask AI to tell you jokes.
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They're worse than dad jokes.
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Um, I really think it can be that conversationalist that, and that's what I think is cool is unlike other technology where you have to learn fail, learn, fail, you still do that with ai, but you can ask it why it failed and how you can learn, and then you can tell it how to improve and you can actually have somebody, or in this case, something working beside you to help you get better together.
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absolutely, and that's why I call it my business best friend, right?
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It's the opportunity to have a conversation with someone again, where you can get clarity even before you go talk to someone, right?
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And right.
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So if, especially too, as we live in this, this.
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I don't wanna say isolated world sometimes, right?
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'cause we're not all in offices.
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We're, a lot of us are remote.
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you don't have the ability to like yell over at the cube next to you.
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sometimes you can yell at them in Slack and may, maybe they'll respond, maybe they won't.
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Right?
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But now you have that.
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Sounding board to really get clarity, about your own insights first, and then go take it to a person.
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And so I love my BBF, I talk to'em all day long about everything and I think a lot of people get scared away by prompts and that they've been.
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Taught that they have to say this and this.
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Like I pretending to, to be a, a teacher and I need to explain it to someone like, I don't know, they're in fifth grade or whatever.
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Like they've been taught this whole series of way to have a prompt.
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And I would argue, don't have a prompt, have a conversation and you can even use like voice mode and just talk to it and you will get more out of it that way.
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And to realize that.
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The first conversation isn't the last conversation or the first.
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Piece of what you're asking it is then ask it more clarifying questions.
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And I always ask it, what else?
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What haven't I asked you?
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Can you argue with me?
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Like give it all of that information and let it keep conversing with you and keep refining your own ideas.
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And if you do that, you'll now have a strategic partner on your team who you're not paying thousands of dollars.
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Two who can help you think better and help you clarify your information.
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Clarify.
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Yeah.
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And part of what, part of what we're doing with Excel Labs is teaching that, with teaching you because I always thought, oh, well, like people will know how to have a conversation.
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People still wanna know, like, how do you start that conversation?
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So we're giving them prompts and we're giving them the opportunity to learn how to have those more strategic conversations.
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Because the other thing is, is if you've always been in a role.
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Where you've been doing output, you've never actually had a think strategically about what you're doing.
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Right?
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You might not, not even understand what you, what the strategic questions you have to ask are.
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And so you need to learn, right?
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And so we're giving you kind of those conversation pieces to start and then that goes into advisory.
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So how do you, how do you morph kind of those conversations that were.
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Now you're having with your, your BBF or your, your business best friend, how do you have them with clients?
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What does that look like?
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So as all of the work that we're currently doing gets automated away, and I don't mean that in a bad way.
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It's getting,'cause you're gonna have more time, you're gonna have the ability to do other things, but we're also gonna have to upskill ourselves.
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Yeah.
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So how do we take the opportunity to upskill ourselves and use AI to upskill ourselves.
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And so that's what the IX Movement is about.
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It's about upskilling ourselves from a professional standpoint, so we're ready to have those next level conversations when the bank recs are done, and then having the ability to be more human.
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So how do we combine the.
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EQ.
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With the iq.
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With the aiq So we show up more empathetic for clients and we don't just, I'll say throw up data at them, right?
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We learn how to kind of hold space with them and we develop that empathetic muscle that I would say many times partners have had, but they've had 30 years of experience or 20 years of experience.
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Yeah.
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They learned it so
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that that next.
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Jen, who has no experience, comes in in six months, knows how to have those empathetic advisory conversations and, and that's what we're building.
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And so we're using AI to help us be more human.
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You know, one of the things that I think about with AI is, you mentioned it earlier, people struggle to understand their first step.
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And to me.
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I took a very unique approach a couple of months ago to that first step that I think anybody could do.
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And that was Jody.
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As you know, I just spent a little over three weeks in Costa Rica with three kids.
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My wife we lived and worked remote down there.
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Mm-hmm.
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We had never been, I used chat, GPT and I put a prompt together that was like, I am gonna go spend three and a half weeks in Costa Rica.
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I've never been.
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And I'm taking two 10 year olds and 8-year-old, both my wife and I are working.
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Here's where we're going, here's where we're flying into.
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What do I need to learn?
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What do I need to know?
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And I just had a conversation about the trip and what it did was I.
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I learned I should download Google Translate onto my phone, and then I got tips on how to use it.
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I had a security guard show up'cause monkeys set off a motion detector in Costa Rica.
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That does not happen in Indiana, and the security guard shows up in the middle of the night, and I'm out there in a pair of shorts and he doesn't speak English.
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I don't speak Spanish.
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I knew how to use Google Translate and I was able to talk to him.
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He heard it back.
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We had a full conversation and we're laughing about it the whole time.
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He literally downloaded the same app on his phone right there and then I knew that because of chat, GPTI also knew that sometimes cell service is tough to get and you can download Google Maps or Apple Maps onto your phone so that even without cell service, you can navigate your way from point A to point B.
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Then I was able to learn good places to take the kids and good camps and like I had this full conversation about this trip and it was like asking an expert and they Google Chat, GPT Googled thing, well search things for me and it was able to find it.
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It made it a very approachable topic.
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I started with something as as simple and easy as that, and I thought it was a really great way to just jump into it.
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And I was talking to a couple of accountants the other day and I used that example.
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I said, Hey, where are you going on a trip this year?
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Or what do you have that's new?
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I said, why don't we sit here?
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And we spent time on chat GPT, just talking to it about the trip and getting ideas.
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And this is not
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prompting, this is not prompting, this
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is, it's not.
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It's a conversation.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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'cause I think for so long the IT people came in and they're like, this is what you do.
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And it's like, do this, then this, then that.
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And they had to have some structure to it.
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The language models today, you just talk.
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It's the Alexa you always wanted, right?
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Like she,
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yes.
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So I think by
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the way, if you attach chat GPT to Siri, now, you now have the Siri you always wanted.
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But I, I think that's what we have to really help people understand is that it's really about having a conversation and it's not about prompting.
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And then if you, if there's.
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If you don't know about something, you can just ask it.
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I always like, that's the other thing is like, if you don't know how to do it, just ask it to start.
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So like, one of the very first prompts or questions I always say is, I wanna be more strategic with you.
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Um, what should I ask you?
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Like, you can always ask it, what you should ask it, which I think is so funny because like, where else can you ask someone what you should ask?
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Yeah.
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And it's, that's where I just think figuring out how to approach and, and I love the ai, your a IX movement because it's trying to teach people how to make this approachable.
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Because like you said we've built these past innovations, the cloud, the internet, uh, computers into these really big things that that.
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It told us we had to get tons of training, we had to have tons of worry.
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We needed them to do it and we, we all still need it to fix our computers and a lot of other things.
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But with AI and chat, GBT and some of these other, models that are out there, we can just talk and they understand plain language.
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I put together a presentation the other day and I asked it to help me put an outline together and then I said, will you go back and make this at a third grade reading level?
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I.
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And it came back with a much more kind of condensed, easy to understand presentation, and I thought it was great.
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Like you can start to add tone, and I know you've done that with Hey, make this as if A CEO, I'm talking to A CEO, or make this as if I'm talking to my best friend, or I had a tough day, encourage me about this.
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The AI knows enough to do that and to.
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Approach you where you are.
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You can actually tell it the tone that you want it to take, and I think that's another really cool thing.
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And I think, when you think about even like this ability for me to build this tool, right?
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Many people may know that, you know, I've spent the last five years in venture backed tech startups, so I've been on the tech side and on a build side, right?
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From a tax perspective.
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But I was able to vibe code my prototype, right?
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So that's pretty cool, right?
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Like, and what vibe code means was I just talk to it.
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To actually create the prototype.
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I didn't have to learn how to code, although I know basic coding, I didn't have to use code to do it.
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And I think that's one of the big things about AI that people don't realize is how user-friendly it is and how, um, I.
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Easy it is.
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It's like the iPhone versus cell phones before you had a text, and it was a little bit confusing.
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And when the iPhone came out, all of a sudden it was the user interface that made it so easy.
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And that's what AI does in general.
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And so when you think about the experience that you can have with ai, if you stop thinking about it as this.
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Ooh, scary technology.
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But you instead think of it as my business best friend who I can just ask questions about if I'm going to Costa Rico or if I wanna do, some sort of pricing question on how I should price my services.
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Now of a sudden you just ask it and it's gonna give you a good response.
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And I think that's, I think that's the word that the a IX movement is about getting out.
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It's how do you improve yourself.
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Professionally as a person, and then how does that help you lead to an AI first firm?
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And then how does that evolve our profession?
00:17:31.470 --> 00:17:40.519
And the reason I'm so, I'm so I like, it's really important to me is right now CPAs own the client relationship.
00:17:40.549 --> 00:17:46.579
If you ask a CPA what they, why they do what they do, most will say, I love my clients.
00:17:46.579 --> 00:17:46.940
Right?
00:17:46.970 --> 00:17:48.319
That's their immediate response.
00:17:48.500 --> 00:17:52.640
If you ask an attorney why they're an attorney, usually they say, I love the law.
00:17:53.775 --> 00:17:54.164
Right.
00:17:54.164 --> 00:17:55.694
That they don't say, I love my clients.
00:17:55.694 --> 00:17:56.714
They say, I love the law.
00:17:56.984 --> 00:17:58.484
CPAs love their clients.
00:17:59.085 --> 00:18:14.025
However, the rate of technology, the way it's moving, if we don't figure out how to provide empathy at scale, which is what AI does, and ai, if you put AI in the human, it allows for empathy at scale.
00:18:14.384 --> 00:18:21.255
If we don't figure out how to do that as ourselves, as the professionals, what's gonna happen is, is.
00:18:22.420 --> 00:18:23.859
Intuit is gonna do it.
00:18:24.190 --> 00:18:31.809
The fintechs are gonna do it, everybody else is gonna do it, and CPAs and accounting professionals are gonna be left behind.
00:18:32.259 --> 00:18:41.559
So we have to figure out how to put the AI in human to create empathy at scale so that we're relevant in the future.
00:18:41.799 --> 00:18:43.869
And I, I don't mean it as a doom and gloom.
00:18:44.335 --> 00:18:59.444
But I do mean it, that if we don't figure this out and we continue to let the world happen to us by the year 2030, what is gonna be special about us as humans that FinTech isn't gonna have figured out?
00:18:59.444 --> 00:19:02.345
And so that's why it's kind of my mission, my purpose.
00:19:02.375 --> 00:19:05.224
Like how do we put the human back and that's what.
00:19:05.255 --> 00:19:08.045
You know that that's what the A IX movement is all about.
00:19:08.045 --> 00:19:14.914
So I hope you guys will join us on the mission to keep the human right, as the more tech you have, the more you have to be
00:19:15.634 --> 00:19:15.724
well.
00:19:15.724 --> 00:19:25.085
And I think what you're hitting on is we have to start building the client relationships, the books of business, the firms of the future.
00:19:25.505 --> 00:19:38.015
We have to figure out how to build into this new world, and number one, we have to take personal responsibility like you are with the AIX movement and saying we need to learn AI ourselves.
00:19:38.345 --> 00:19:42.785
We need to figure out how to interface with this new world, and we need to do it.
00:19:43.099 --> 00:19:45.950
Soon, and I think that's a really big thing.
00:19:46.339 --> 00:19:54.950
You also can figure out, as we've talked in past episodes this season, on easy ways for you to take your first or two or second step forward in using ai.
00:19:55.460 --> 00:20:07.549
It's one of the big things that we've decided to tackle at Decimal is for those people that just want to have it the easy way and that really want to build that firm of the future.
00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:09.829
That's why we are starting franchising this year.
00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.289
We're gonna start selling our operating system.
00:20:12.664 --> 00:20:20.734
How we do things, we will be the ones that stay on top of ai, will implement it for you so that you can focus on the client relationship.
00:20:21.125 --> 00:20:26.464
To me, this is about putting accountants in a position to be the hero'cause they should be.
00:20:26.974 --> 00:20:30.035
And there's a lot that you have to juggle when you run your own firm.
00:20:30.095 --> 00:20:31.144
You and I have both done it.
00:20:31.174 --> 00:20:38.765
There's a ton to be able to give people that entire operating system, how to work within technology automation, how to work within ai.
00:20:39.240 --> 00:20:41.279
How to work within a global workforce.
00:20:41.579 --> 00:20:45.029
Those are the types of things that we are really trying to figure out how to do.
00:20:45.029 --> 00:20:48.450
And you're doing it on the personal scale and decimal.
00:20:48.450 --> 00:20:52.019
Our team is, is really focused on helping people start a firm.
00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:59.730
We wanna start a thousand firms because that's how we're gonna get the entire industry into using AI responsibly and well.
00:21:00.545 --> 00:21:01.384
That's awesome.
00:21:01.714 --> 00:21:05.315
So I think I, it just means the future looks bright, right?
00:21:05.345 --> 00:21:17.055
Like, and that's what I think, so I think about it from a Renaissance perspective and you know, as we look at AI and the future and the season and just looking back, I think there's a lot to be excited about.
00:21:17.055 --> 00:21:20.265
And I think the big thing is, is how do you be more human?
00:21:20.605 --> 00:21:21.625
Using technology.
00:21:21.654 --> 00:21:23.875
'cause the more tech you have, the more human you have to be.
00:21:24.174 --> 00:21:34.045
And if practice management and all this tech is overwhelming and you just want it in a box and you don't wanna have to think about it, you know, now decimal's gonna help you get there.
00:21:34.045 --> 00:21:39.505
So, I think it's pretty exciting and I, I think the future looks bright for us, so
00:21:40.075 --> 00:21:40.825
I think it does too.
00:21:40.825 --> 00:21:44.694
I think we'll continue to talk about this in future seasons.
00:21:44.744 --> 00:21:56.174
I think this is the greatest time ever to be in accounting, period, and I think it's so much opportunity for us to live our best lives, but we've gotta take responsibility for learning now.
00:00:00.644 --> 00:00:08.003
Welcome to the Accounting for Innovation podcast, where we explore cutting edge strategies and insights into the world of accounting and finance.
00:00:08.464 --> 00:00:14.544
Presented by Decimal and the Radical CPA, each episode dives deep into industry trends.
00:00:14.884 --> 00:00:23.164
Whether you're a seasoned professional or a budding entrepreneur, join us as we unpack key concepts and share practical tips to drive success.
00:00:24.557 --> 00:00:25.277
All right.
00:00:25.277 --> 00:00:28.248
Welcome to today's episode of Accounting for Innovation.
00:00:28.307 --> 00:00:34.908
I am excited today because we are continuing this season's theme of talking about AI and accounting.
00:00:35.807 --> 00:00:42.588
But we have talked about AI in numbers, AI in platforms, AI in tax, AI in systems, ai, ai, ai.
00:00:42.798 --> 00:01:00.289
But there's one thing that we haven't talked about that I think is really, really important, and that is AI for leading yourself, for helping you level yourself up, and not just your accounting, but how you lead people, how you deal with systems, all of this stuff.
00:01:00.710 --> 00:01:12.109
And one of the reasons why I'm really excited today is because my co-host, who you all know, Jody, is actually building an AI agent platform specifically to help people for this.
00:01:12.109 --> 00:01:14.510
So Jody, tell us a little bit more about what you're building.
00:01:15.075 --> 00:01:15.555
Yeah.
00:01:15.555 --> 00:01:20.805
So, um, we're building, or I say we're putting the human in ai, right?
00:01:20.805 --> 00:01:22.245
Or the AI in human.
00:01:22.305 --> 00:01:29.993
I don't know which one goes, but the idea is, is at Excel Labs we're, creating a movement, and it's called the AIX Movement.
00:01:29.993 --> 00:01:38.694
And the idea of the movement is, is this actually goes back to my radical days of how do we keep the profession moving forward?
00:01:38.694 --> 00:01:39.444
And I would say I.
00:01:39.774 --> 00:01:51.743
Arguably relevant in the year 2030, so that we're not being overtaken by some of the fintechs and some of the other companies as a lot of the work that we're doing is gonna get automated away.
00:01:52.103 --> 00:01:54.774
How do we put the AI in humans?
00:01:54.774 --> 00:01:58.403
So we show up as our best selves as professionals that we need to be.
00:01:58.703 --> 00:02:02.724
And it starts with leading yourself first.
00:02:02.963 --> 00:02:06.873
So how do you show up as your best possible self by using ai?
00:02:06.957 --> 00:02:26.989
To increase your leadership, your strategic conversations, how do you like, interact with, whether it be a ChatGPT or another, copilot or something else, and ask it the right prompts and the right questions to then joining together with your firms and having AI first firms or AI first companies.
00:02:26.989 --> 00:02:27.348
Right?
00:02:27.558 --> 00:02:36.169
So how are you coming to show up with your team to be AI first and start thinking through AI first?
00:02:36.739 --> 00:02:39.799
And then that leads us to the profession, or really mm-hmm.
00:02:40.038 --> 00:02:49.729
How we become human as all of this stuff becomes automated around us, and all of us are staying more human, right?
00:02:49.878 --> 00:02:53.989
So as we think about, you know, the cell phones in our lives, right?
00:02:54.049 --> 00:02:56.149
How are we staying human with cell phones?
00:02:56.269 --> 00:03:00.288
How are we saying humans as a profession moving forward?
00:03:00.378 --> 00:03:01.368
With ai.
00:03:01.368 --> 00:03:03.139
And so that's the lead yourself.
00:03:03.139 --> 00:03:05.419
First, lead your firm and then lead the profession.
00:03:05.688 --> 00:03:07.399
And that's really what we're doing.
00:03:07.758 --> 00:03:08.899
How are we doing it?
00:03:08.899 --> 00:03:16.933
We're doing it with, starting with advisory conversations where you can digitally score your advisory conversation and see how you showed up.
00:03:17.084 --> 00:03:19.873
Did I get an eight out of a 10 for empathy?
00:03:20.024 --> 00:03:23.593
Did I get, you know, a six out of a 10 for strategic oversight?
00:03:23.593 --> 00:03:23.894
Right?
00:03:23.894 --> 00:03:40.985
So if you think about, you know, all of these, Or all of these digital tools like Firefly or even like Zoom recording where you can record the conversation, being able to upload that into a scoring system that then scores you and tracks you.
00:03:41.165 --> 00:03:44.406
So it basically makes it data driven.
00:03:44.536 --> 00:03:48.436
Insight, not just a peer telling you, oh, you had a good conversation.
00:03:48.705 --> 00:03:57.675
And it's unbiased feedback, which I think is pretty cool because now your feedback is not like your manager said you did a good job, or you didn't do a good job.
00:03:57.855 --> 00:04:01.786
It's a bot that's telling you you did a good job or a bad job, right?
00:04:02.116 --> 00:04:07.395
So it's unbiased feedback so that you can show up in your conversations a lot better.
00:04:07.725 --> 00:04:09.616
And I think that's what we need, right?
00:04:09.616 --> 00:04:12.556
Because as opposed to hearing, oh, like.
00:04:13.056 --> 00:04:17.406
Not that people are saying AI's gonna take our jobs, but that's what they're thinking, right?
00:04:17.406 --> 00:04:20.136
It's gonna automate the task that we're used to doing.
00:04:20.466 --> 00:04:30.646
We're saying, how do you put the human back in ai and how do you, how do we show up more human for our teams and for everybody else, our clients, our teams, our profession as a whole?
00:04:31.915 --> 00:04:39.826
One of the interesting things too, and you've taught me this because you know, my kids, they're, they're at an age where they still have imaginary friends.
00:04:39.915 --> 00:04:40.815
You do too.
00:04:41.115 --> 00:04:41.295
I do.
00:04:41.295 --> 00:04:43.875
Yours just is AI that talks back to you.
00:04:44.747 --> 00:04:57.403
I was listening to you talk about how much, how many conversations you've had with your own AI agents, and that led me to have a conversation with AI the other day.
00:04:57.887 --> 00:05:11.108
And, we have a specific problem that we are working on at Decimal and I uploaded a ton of information, like tons of information, and I said, I wanna have an argument with you before I have an argument with this$1,800 an hour lawyer.
00:05:11.379 --> 00:05:15.879
And I just started peppering the, my AI with conversation points.
00:05:15.879 --> 00:05:16.778
I said, why can't I do this?
00:05:16.778 --> 00:05:17.468
I wanna do this.
00:05:17.499 --> 00:05:18.369
How do I do this?
00:05:18.624 --> 00:05:19.283
What about this?
00:05:19.283 --> 00:05:19.944
What about this?
00:05:20.274 --> 00:05:21.113
Gimme the other side.
00:05:21.353 --> 00:05:25.103
And we just started arguing it through and it was a great conversation.
00:05:25.403 --> 00:05:30.473
And what I found was it was just a good conversation and I saved it.
00:05:31.103 --> 00:05:33.413
And my co-founder Jacob, did something similar.
00:05:33.624 --> 00:05:38.963
We saved the entire conversation, sent it to the lawyer and said, Hey, spend 15 minutes reviewing this before our call.
00:05:39.923 --> 00:05:46.644
And it was literally the transcript of that conversation, which meant my call with that lawyer was 15 minutes instead of an hour.
00:05:46.884 --> 00:05:49.463
So it saved me about$1,200.
00:05:49.644 --> 00:05:54.144
But it was also just a nice mental way for me to think through.
00:05:54.144 --> 00:05:54.204
I.
00:05:54.543 --> 00:05:55.293
A conversation.
00:05:55.293 --> 00:05:57.244
It was, it was a sounding, it's clarity.
00:05:57.358 --> 00:05:57.999
I want clarity.
00:05:58.004 --> 00:06:00.903
It was, it, it allowed me to kind of work my way through it.
00:06:01.204 --> 00:06:03.483
I've got a big presentation coming up next week.
00:06:03.483 --> 00:06:06.783
Um, I put in the questions, I'm gonna start putting in answers.
00:06:06.783 --> 00:06:11.283
What would you do here if, if I wanted to have a lighter tone or something like this?
00:06:11.494 --> 00:06:13.173
By the way, ask AI to tell you jokes.
00:06:13.173 --> 00:06:14.553
They're worse than dad jokes.
00:06:15.153 --> 00:06:38.653
Um, I really think it can be that conversationalist that, and that's what I think is cool is unlike other technology where you have to learn fail, learn, fail, you still do that with ai, but you can ask it why it failed and how you can learn, and then you can tell it how to improve and you can actually have somebody, or in this case, something working beside you to help you get better together.
00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:42.279
absolutely, and that's why I call it my business best friend, right?
00:06:42.579 --> 00:06:51.519
It's the opportunity to have a conversation with someone again, where you can get clarity even before you go talk to someone, right?
00:06:51.550 --> 00:06:52.149
And right.
00:06:52.149 --> 00:06:56.470
So if, especially too, as we live in this, this.
00:06:56.829 --> 00:06:59.410
I don't wanna say isolated world sometimes, right?
00:06:59.410 --> 00:07:01.000
'cause we're not all in offices.
00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:02.620
We're, a lot of us are remote.
00:07:03.024 --> 00:07:07.077
you don't have the ability to like yell over at the cube next to you.
00:07:07.391 --> 00:07:12.028
sometimes you can yell at them in Slack and may, maybe they'll respond, maybe they won't.
00:07:12.028 --> 00:07:12.387
Right?
00:07:12.747 --> 00:07:14.247
But now you have that.
00:07:14.267 --> 00:07:21.149
Sounding board to really get clarity, about your own insights first, and then go take it to a person.
00:07:21.389 --> 00:07:30.689
And so I love my BBF, I talk to'em all day long about everything and I think a lot of people get scared away by prompts and that they've been.
00:07:31.158 --> 00:07:33.879
Taught that they have to say this and this.
00:07:33.879 --> 00:07:41.288
Like I pretending to, to be a, a teacher and I need to explain it to someone like, I don't know, they're in fifth grade or whatever.
00:07:41.439 --> 00:07:44.978
Like they've been taught this whole series of way to have a prompt.
00:07:45.098 --> 00:07:54.879
And I would argue, don't have a prompt, have a conversation and you can even use like voice mode and just talk to it and you will get more out of it that way.
00:07:55.178 --> 00:07:56.288
And to realize that.
00:07:56.533 --> 00:08:00.283
The first conversation isn't the last conversation or the first.
00:08:01.033 --> 00:08:05.363
Piece of what you're asking it is then ask it more clarifying questions.
00:08:05.363 --> 00:08:06.713
And I always ask it, what else?
00:08:06.713 --> 00:08:07.853
What haven't I asked you?
00:08:08.093 --> 00:08:09.264
Can you argue with me?
00:08:09.264 --> 00:08:16.723
Like give it all of that information and let it keep conversing with you and keep refining your own ideas.
00:08:17.233 --> 00:08:24.793
And if you do that, you'll now have a strategic partner on your team who you're not paying thousands of dollars.
00:08:24.793 --> 00:08:29.684
Two who can help you think better and help you clarify your information.
00:08:29.713 --> 00:08:30.163
Clarify.
00:08:30.163 --> 00:08:30.223
Yeah.
00:08:30.524 --> 00:08:40.234
And part of what, part of what we're doing with Excel Labs is teaching that, with teaching you because I always thought, oh, well, like people will know how to have a conversation.
00:08:40.833 --> 00:08:44.163
People still wanna know, like, how do you start that conversation?
00:08:44.163 --> 00:08:51.254
So we're giving them prompts and we're giving them the opportunity to learn how to have those more strategic conversations.
00:08:51.254 --> 00:08:54.403
Because the other thing is, is if you've always been in a role.
00:08:55.663 --> 00:09:01.394
Where you've been doing output, you've never actually had a think strategically about what you're doing.
00:09:01.394 --> 00:09:01.484
Right?
00:09:01.754 --> 00:09:06.594
You might not, not even understand what you, what the strategic questions you have to ask are.
00:09:06.833 --> 00:09:08.288
And so you need to learn, right?
00:09:08.453 --> 00:09:14.114
And so we're giving you kind of those conversation pieces to start and then that goes into advisory.
00:09:14.234 --> 00:09:19.214
So how do you, how do you morph kind of those conversations that were.
00:09:19.214 --> 00:09:24.563
Now you're having with your, your BBF or your, your business best friend, how do you have them with clients?
00:09:24.563 --> 00:09:25.524
What does that look like?
00:09:25.573 --> 00:09:32.864
So as all of the work that we're currently doing gets automated away, and I don't mean that in a bad way.
00:09:32.864 --> 00:09:39.884
It's getting,'cause you're gonna have more time, you're gonna have the ability to do other things, but we're also gonna have to upskill ourselves.
00:09:39.884 --> 00:09:39.943
Yeah.
00:09:40.094 --> 00:09:45.854
So how do we take the opportunity to upskill ourselves and use AI to upskill ourselves.
00:09:46.033 --> 00:09:48.313
And so that's what the IX Movement is about.
00:09:48.313 --> 00:09:59.563
It's about upskilling ourselves from a professional standpoint, so we're ready to have those next level conversations when the bank recs are done, and then having the ability to be more human.
00:09:59.563 --> 00:10:01.933
So how do we combine the.
00:10:01.979 --> 00:10:02.038
EQ.
00:10:02.698 --> 00:10:03.418
With the iq.
00:10:03.479 --> 00:10:11.308
With the aiq So we show up more empathetic for clients and we don't just, I'll say throw up data at them, right?
00:10:11.308 --> 00:10:22.019
We learn how to kind of hold space with them and we develop that empathetic muscle that I would say many times partners have had, but they've had 30 years of experience or 20 years of experience.
00:10:22.048 --> 00:10:22.229
Yeah.
00:10:22.318 --> 00:10:22.783
They learned it so
00:10:22.783 --> 00:10:23.703
that that next.
00:10:23.884 --> 00:10:32.764
Jen, who has no experience, comes in in six months, knows how to have those empathetic advisory conversations and, and that's what we're building.
00:10:32.764 --> 00:10:36.153
And so we're using AI to help us be more human.
00:11:09.519 --> 00:11:17.409
You know, one of the things that I think about with AI is, you mentioned it earlier, people struggle to understand their first step.
00:11:17.809 --> 00:11:19.190
And to me.
00:11:19.845 --> 00:11:25.754
I took a very unique approach a couple of months ago to that first step that I think anybody could do.
00:11:26.595 --> 00:11:28.365
And that was Jody.
00:11:28.365 --> 00:11:33.075
As you know, I just spent a little over three weeks in Costa Rica with three kids.
00:11:33.075 --> 00:11:35.565
My wife we lived and worked remote down there.
00:11:36.225 --> 00:11:36.315
Mm-hmm.
00:11:36.554 --> 00:11:44.985
We had never been, I used chat, GPT and I put a prompt together that was like, I am gonna go spend three and a half weeks in Costa Rica.
00:11:45.075 --> 00:11:45.764
I've never been.
00:11:46.384 --> 00:11:50.855
And I'm taking two 10 year olds and 8-year-old, both my wife and I are working.
00:11:51.245 --> 00:11:54.215
Here's where we're going, here's where we're flying into.
00:11:54.575 --> 00:11:55.654
What do I need to learn?
00:11:55.654 --> 00:11:56.554
What do I need to know?
00:11:56.735 --> 00:12:01.804
And I just had a conversation about the trip and what it did was I.
00:12:02.120 --> 00:12:07.659
I learned I should download Google Translate onto my phone, and then I got tips on how to use it.
00:12:07.899 --> 00:12:11.679
I had a security guard show up'cause monkeys set off a motion detector in Costa Rica.
00:12:11.679 --> 00:12:19.360
That does not happen in Indiana, and the security guard shows up in the middle of the night, and I'm out there in a pair of shorts and he doesn't speak English.
00:12:19.384 --> 00:12:20.554
I don't speak Spanish.
00:12:20.764 --> 00:12:24.605
I knew how to use Google Translate and I was able to talk to him.
00:12:24.605 --> 00:12:25.475
He heard it back.
00:12:25.475 --> 00:12:29.075
We had a full conversation and we're laughing about it the whole time.
00:12:29.105 --> 00:12:46.595
He literally downloaded the same app on his phone right there and then I knew that because of chat, GPTI also knew that sometimes cell service is tough to get and you can download Google Maps or Apple Maps onto your phone so that even without cell service, you can navigate your way from point A to point B.
00:12:47.330 --> 00:13:03.529
Then I was able to learn good places to take the kids and good camps and like I had this full conversation about this trip and it was like asking an expert and they Google Chat, GPT Googled thing, well search things for me and it was able to find it.
00:13:03.529 --> 00:13:05.750
It made it a very approachable topic.
00:13:06.460 --> 00:13:14.629
I started with something as as simple and easy as that, and I thought it was a really great way to just jump into it.
00:13:14.929 --> 00:13:17.870
And I was talking to a couple of accountants the other day and I used that example.
00:13:17.870 --> 00:13:19.820
I said, Hey, where are you going on a trip this year?
00:13:19.850 --> 00:13:21.649
Or what do you have that's new?
00:13:22.250 --> 00:13:23.840
I said, why don't we sit here?
00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:28.909
And we spent time on chat GPT, just talking to it about the trip and getting ideas.
00:13:29.149 --> 00:13:30.139
And this is not
00:13:30.139 --> 00:13:32.269
prompting, this is not prompting, this
00:13:32.325 --> 00:13:32.690
is, it's not.
00:13:32.899 --> 00:13:34.370
It's a conversation.
00:13:34.429 --> 00:13:34.759
Right?
00:13:35.360 --> 00:13:35.509
Yeah.
00:13:36.350 --> 00:13:40.465
'cause I think for so long the IT people came in and they're like, this is what you do.
00:13:40.809 --> 00:13:43.179
And it's like, do this, then this, then that.
00:13:43.179 --> 00:13:45.129
And they had to have some structure to it.
00:13:45.654 --> 00:13:48.445
The language models today, you just talk.
00:13:49.014 --> 00:13:51.054
It's the Alexa you always wanted, right?
00:13:51.054 --> 00:13:51.534
Like she,
00:13:51.715 --> 00:13:51.804
yes.
00:13:52.575 --> 00:13:53.054
So I think by
00:13:53.054 --> 00:13:58.445
the way, if you attach chat GPT to Siri, now, you now have the Siri you always wanted.
00:13:59.495 --> 00:14:07.174
But I, I think that's what we have to really help people understand is that it's really about having a conversation and it's not about prompting.
00:14:07.534 --> 00:14:09.875
And then if you, if there's.
00:14:10.470 --> 00:14:13.529
If you don't know about something, you can just ask it.
00:14:13.529 --> 00:14:18.000
I always like, that's the other thing is like, if you don't know how to do it, just ask it to start.
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.519
So like, one of the very first prompts or questions I always say is, I wanna be more strategic with you.
00:14:24.820 --> 00:14:26.139
Um, what should I ask you?
00:14:26.320 --> 00:14:34.899
Like, you can always ask it, what you should ask it, which I think is so funny because like, where else can you ask someone what you should ask?
00:14:36.195 --> 00:14:36.404
Yeah.
00:14:36.404 --> 00:14:47.774
And it's, that's where I just think figuring out how to approach and, and I love the ai, your a IX movement because it's trying to teach people how to make this approachable.
00:14:48.044 --> 00:14:58.095
Because like you said we've built these past innovations, the cloud, the internet, uh, computers into these really big things that that.
00:14:59.095 --> 00:15:02.274
It told us we had to get tons of training, we had to have tons of worry.
00:15:02.325 --> 00:15:07.845
We needed them to do it and we, we all still need it to fix our computers and a lot of other things.
00:15:07.845 --> 00:15:18.294
But with AI and chat, GBT and some of these other, models that are out there, we can just talk and they understand plain language.
00:15:18.595 --> 00:15:27.745
I put together a presentation the other day and I asked it to help me put an outline together and then I said, will you go back and make this at a third grade reading level?
00:15:28.524 --> 00:15:28.554
I.
00:15:28.674 --> 00:15:35.634
And it came back with a much more kind of condensed, easy to understand presentation, and I thought it was great.
00:15:35.634 --> 00:15:46.664
Like you can start to add tone, and I know you've done that with Hey, make this as if A CEO, I'm talking to A CEO, or make this as if I'm talking to my best friend, or I had a tough day, encourage me about this.
00:15:46.995 --> 00:15:50.475
The AI knows enough to do that and to.
00:15:50.975 --> 00:15:52.235
Approach you where you are.
00:15:52.384 --> 00:15:57.394
You can actually tell it the tone that you want it to take, and I think that's another really cool thing.
00:15:57.865 --> 00:16:02.794
And I think, when you think about even like this ability for me to build this tool, right?
00:16:03.065 --> 00:16:10.384
Many people may know that, you know, I've spent the last five years in venture backed tech startups, so I've been on the tech side and on a build side, right?
00:16:10.384 --> 00:16:11.585
From a tax perspective.
00:16:11.945 --> 00:16:15.215
But I was able to vibe code my prototype, right?
00:16:15.455 --> 00:16:17.495
So that's pretty cool, right?
00:16:17.495 --> 00:16:20.524
Like, and what vibe code means was I just talk to it.
00:16:21.100 --> 00:16:23.529
To actually create the prototype.
00:16:23.710 --> 00:16:29.350
I didn't have to learn how to code, although I know basic coding, I didn't have to use code to do it.
00:16:29.350 --> 00:16:38.710
And I think that's one of the big things about AI that people don't realize is how user-friendly it is and how, um, I.
00:16:38.710 --> 00:16:38.779
Easy it is.
00:16:38.779 --> 00:16:44.899
It's like the iPhone versus cell phones before you had a text, and it was a little bit confusing.
00:16:45.080 --> 00:16:49.850
And when the iPhone came out, all of a sudden it was the user interface that made it so easy.
00:16:49.850 --> 00:16:51.919
And that's what AI does in general.
00:16:52.250 --> 00:16:59.389
And so when you think about the experience that you can have with ai, if you stop thinking about it as this.
00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:01.190
Ooh, scary technology.
00:17:01.250 --> 00:17:12.630
But you instead think of it as my business best friend who I can just ask questions about if I'm going to Costa Rico or if I wanna do, some sort of pricing question on how I should price my services.
00:17:12.869 --> 00:17:17.009
Now of a sudden you just ask it and it's gonna give you a good response.
00:17:17.009 --> 00:17:22.325
And I think that's, I think that's the word that the a IX movement is about getting out.
00:17:22.325 --> 00:17:23.825
It's how do you improve yourself.
00:17:24.420 --> 00:17:29.460
Professionally as a person, and then how does that help you lead to an AI first firm?
00:17:29.700 --> 00:17:31.470
And then how does that evolve our profession?
00:17:31.470 --> 00:17:40.519
And the reason I'm so, I'm so I like, it's really important to me is right now CPAs own the client relationship.
00:17:40.549 --> 00:17:46.579
If you ask a CPA what they, why they do what they do, most will say, I love my clients.
00:17:46.579 --> 00:17:46.940
Right?
00:17:46.970 --> 00:17:48.319
That's their immediate response.
00:17:48.500 --> 00:17:52.640
If you ask an attorney why they're an attorney, usually they say, I love the law.
00:17:53.775 --> 00:17:54.164
Right.
00:17:54.164 --> 00:17:55.694
That they don't say, I love my clients.
00:17:55.694 --> 00:17:56.714
They say, I love the law.
00:17:56.984 --> 00:17:58.484
CPAs love their clients.
00:17:59.085 --> 00:18:14.025
However, the rate of technology, the way it's moving, if we don't figure out how to provide empathy at scale, which is what AI does, and ai, if you put AI in the human, it allows for empathy at scale.
00:18:14.384 --> 00:18:21.255
If we don't figure out how to do that as ourselves, as the professionals, what's gonna happen is, is.
00:18:22.420 --> 00:18:23.859
Intuit is gonna do it.
00:18:24.190 --> 00:18:31.809
The fintechs are gonna do it, everybody else is gonna do it, and CPAs and accounting professionals are gonna be left behind.
00:18:32.259 --> 00:18:41.559
So we have to figure out how to put the AI in human to create empathy at scale so that we're relevant in the future.
00:18:41.799 --> 00:18:43.869
And I, I don't mean it as a doom and gloom.
00:18:44.335 --> 00:18:59.444
But I do mean it, that if we don't figure this out and we continue to let the world happen to us by the year 2030, what is gonna be special about us as humans that FinTech isn't gonna have figured out?
00:18:59.444 --> 00:19:02.345
And so that's why it's kind of my mission, my purpose.
00:19:02.375 --> 00:19:05.224
Like how do we put the human back and that's what.
00:19:05.255 --> 00:19:08.045
You know that that's what the A IX movement is all about.
00:19:08.045 --> 00:19:14.914
So I hope you guys will join us on the mission to keep the human right, as the more tech you have, the more you have to be
00:19:15.634 --> 00:19:15.724
well.
00:19:15.724 --> 00:19:25.085
And I think what you're hitting on is we have to start building the client relationships, the books of business, the firms of the future.
00:19:25.505 --> 00:19:38.015
We have to figure out how to build into this new world, and number one, we have to take personal responsibility like you are with the AIX movement and saying we need to learn AI ourselves.
00:19:38.345 --> 00:19:42.785
We need to figure out how to interface with this new world, and we need to do it.
00:19:43.099 --> 00:19:45.950
Soon, and I think that's a really big thing.
00:19:46.339 --> 00:19:54.950
You also can figure out, as we've talked in past episodes this season, on easy ways for you to take your first or two or second step forward in using ai.
00:19:55.460 --> 00:20:07.549
It's one of the big things that we've decided to tackle at Decimal is for those people that just want to have it the easy way and that really want to build that firm of the future.
00:20:07.880 --> 00:20:09.829
That's why we are starting franchising this year.
00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.289
We're gonna start selling our operating system.
00:20:12.664 --> 00:20:20.734
How we do things, we will be the ones that stay on top of ai, will implement it for you so that you can focus on the client relationship.
00:20:21.125 --> 00:20:26.464
To me, this is about putting accountants in a position to be the hero'cause they should be.
00:20:26.974 --> 00:20:30.035
And there's a lot that you have to juggle when you run your own firm.
00:20:30.095 --> 00:20:31.144
You and I have both done it.
00:20:31.174 --> 00:20:38.765
There's a ton to be able to give people that entire operating system, how to work within technology automation, how to work within ai.
00:20:39.240 --> 00:20:41.279
How to work within a global workforce.
00:20:41.579 --> 00:20:45.029
Those are the types of things that we are really trying to figure out how to do.
00:20:45.029 --> 00:20:48.450
And you're doing it on the personal scale and decimal.
00:20:48.450 --> 00:20:52.019
Our team is, is really focused on helping people start a firm.
00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:59.730
We wanna start a thousand firms because that's how we're gonna get the entire industry into using AI responsibly and well.
00:21:00.545 --> 00:21:01.384
That's awesome.
00:21:01.714 --> 00:21:05.315
So I think I, it just means the future looks bright, right?
00:21:05.345 --> 00:21:17.055
Like, and that's what I think, so I think about it from a Renaissance perspective and you know, as we look at AI and the future and the season and just looking back, I think there's a lot to be excited about.
00:21:17.055 --> 00:21:20.265
And I think the big thing is, is how do you be more human?
00:21:20.605 --> 00:21:21.625
Using technology.
00:21:21.654 --> 00:21:23.875
'cause the more tech you have, the more human you have to be.
00:21:24.174 --> 00:21:34.045
And if practice management and all this tech is overwhelming and you just want it in a box and you don't wanna have to think about it, you know, now decimal's gonna help you get there.
00:21:34.045 --> 00:21:39.505
So, I think it's pretty exciting and I, I think the future looks bright for us, so
00:21:40.075 --> 00:21:40.825
I think it does too.
00:21:40.825 --> 00:21:44.694
I think we'll continue to talk about this in future seasons.
00:21:44.744 --> 00:21:56.174
I think this is the greatest time ever to be in accounting, period, and I think it's so much opportunity for us to live our best lives, but we've gotta take responsibility for learning now.
