Dashboard: Our Man on AI’s Bleeding Edge

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard brought to you by our sponsor the great game of business I'm Lauren Felman I'm here with genan marks welcome Jean hello Lauren how are you I'm doing great it's great to have you here uh Jean you wrote a piece for Forbes recently in which you took a look at uh the chat GPT App Store uh for business owners to see if there was anything in there that business owners should know about uh what did you find stay away that's what I found that's what I found soon too soon too soon you know first of all I want to make sure that this is not a completely negative conversation because you know the future is exciting and bright but that's the future you know let's talk now so first of all for those of you guys that are listening um are not I'm going to insult your intelligence you know we we hopefully by now know what chat GPT is it's the generative AI platform by open AI so in January they launched their chat GPT or their GPT store because remember chat GPT is just um it it it's it's an application that's built on a large language model basically a database a very large database so they licens out you can you can use that database to create your own you know gpts and your own applications on top of it can you give us an example of what what that would be why would someone do that yeah so first of all I'm glad you one of my issues in the article was that I was trying to figure out what business use this would have for me you know what I mean like you know why why would I even do this but but I I'll give you I'll give you an example so there are some um there are some applications on the uh GPT store that are um very very specific for example to um uh research so one is called like consensus and consensus is like a a a research app it's a GPT app thirdparty app and you theoretically like if you're an academic you can ask get very detailed questions it will give you very detailed answers with with citations and resources and sources um because it's got its own proprietary data that's what it that's the example of it do you know what I mean y so it's like a special specified application that's using its own data I'll give you another example um I I sell Zoho CRM so I'm like oh okay let me see if there's any Zoho GPT apps and there was so you could go on to this like a Zoho GPT app on the store and it's free by the way and ask it questions and it will give you detailed answers to the point where it'll give you like Scripts for Automation and workflows and all that kind of stuff but here's the thing about that though um I did that with Zoho and I even did it with consensus and like I'm not I'm not convinced I can't get the answers elsewhere like I was get I could get similar answers about Zoho from Zoho website you know um and even and even GPT itself chat GPT I mean it's pretty deep man so like you know like I don't know if you need like a thirdparty app I mean it seems like it has a lot lot of the answers is already there if you dig deep enough but maybe these apps themselves just make it easier for you to get the information I don't know but I can tell you this much it doesn't um the apps that I played with I mean um I'll give you another example I I picked this one app to do like a text video um and they they claim to be you know you know you just you given it some instructions so okay so my company sells CRM software so I'm like okay give me a two-minute video on uh what is CRM and why it's important and you know U make this video uh you know targeted towards small business owners um and and the app asked me some more questions and then finished and said great it's creating the video and it created the video and it was just a weird ass video you know it was just you know in what way the people in the video were weird looking like clearly AI generated you know what I mean the um they had like logos and graphics and things in it had you know trademarks on top of them do you know what I mean like that just showed up the voice over was like clearly like a computer generated voice I mean it wasn't how from you know the movie you know 2001 but it was you know what I mean like it was it was just a weird video and like I'm like I could never use this video you know on my site it's just bizarre so it would take a lot of post- production you know and then then I tried another app on the on the App Store to do or chart like it was a graphics like it makes all you know flowcharts and I'm like cool man let me have it you do like an or chart for a client of mine with a 100 employees and I started doing it then it hit a wall and basically just took me to its main site and said hey you want to you know you want to go any further with this by our service do you know what I mean like it was like you know like it was like a tease yeah it was like a tease to bring me in there so I tried out like a dozen different apps none of them were like really ready for Prime Time none them delivered 100% they got they they got you off to a good start they got you like 80% there you know like the or chart it didn't sound like 80% from the way you described it yeah I mean you know but I don't know and but it's clearly you have to get like a a human involved you have to sign up for another service where you have to get a human involved to finish it and take it over the goal line and it was just like um you know I don't know I guess you know maybe some business owners if you're like a freelancer or an independent person with some extra time on your hands and you really wanna monkey around with this stuff uh you can get something that's fairly decent but in the end it's just it's just not exactly there yet but you can see the future and where it's going so it's exciting in the piece you compared it to the uh to Apple's app iPhone app store back in 2007 or or whatever well I can't even remember what that was like back then um yeah what what was it like back I mean was it bad yeah yeah I mean like app you know they came out with the iPhone and then and then they they opened up the the App Store and for a couple years there was like a bunch of shitty apps on the App Store that didn't do much or were kind of a waste of time that's why I don't remember it yeah and then then Apple got it to act together and really start vetting the apps um and then by the way that's the other thing there's the security and privacy issues like you can add GPT apps to the custom St like just you can do it like there's like six steps to do it and it can be anybody so you know Vladimir Putin can be adding apps to the GPT store for all I know and you just don't know it and then you're like prompting it with proprietary information God knows where that's going people have to pay I assume to be in there or they they promise to pay a percentage of whatever Revenue they drive right they do they get yeah uh GPT or open AI is promising to pay the developers a percentage uh the apps that I Tred it were all free until they weren't you know so and then I'm using the GPT Pro version you know the the $20 a month version um I don't know like I'm like I'm not the the other thing that I found was the interface was clunky to me you know they they listed like popular apps in like a half a dozen categories like productivity and programming um but then after those dozen apps you're on your own and one of the problems I found with it is just it's kind of like Steve Jobs said back in the day like people don't know what they want until you give it to them you know and I didn't I don't really know what I want like what problem am I trying to solve you know why am I here like you know you got this blank screen like query for a GPT app and I'm like okay what app do I need actually I don't know um so I like open AI needs to do a better job you know you know addressing the fact that I'm an idiot and don't know what I want so it should be giving me more help actually you you do know what you want you're out there to explore you want to find what exists and what you don't know about but but think you should know about and I think you found the answer which is you know not much it's not it's not it's not there yet not much it just not ready yet it's not there yet um but again it's we're having this conversation you know it's the beginning of March so it's only been around for less than two months so you know give it time I get that but I am just saying like but I'm trying to provide a service to my readers to say listen you're running businesses you only have a minimum amount of time in the day uh so you want to you know so I wouldn't waste too much of your time on this right now um I would I would wait until it matures more uh and that could take six months to a year and then I think you can start digging into seeing if there's application some the cream will rise to the top just like in the App Store you know let me ask you this I know one of the things that people are anticipating is that they will be able to sort of create their own version of this with their own data so for example you know you're you're a CRM expert you teach you you have trainings you could create something that people who are interested in learning more about CRM would come to your version of an AI app it does this does the store offer the ability to do that no the store does not offer that I mean yeah somebody can create that and then people can use it I I don't want to see if the store doesn't offer that capability I guess it does um what's going to be better Lauren is like what Microsoft just announced two weeks ago so they're making now their one drive storage available for their their co-pilot app what that means is say you're a business and say you're a Microsoft shop and all of your files and documents and PDFs and you know everything you've got is in one drive for your company you know what I mean um and and ultimately it'll be your emails too Microsoft is basically saying you can now you know have an application um like a you know a co-pilot chat with your data in one drive so you can be like you know we're we're we're thinking we're doing it we we we're proposing on a job uh and it's similar to a job that we did two years ago what job was that what were the specs what was the price you can like ask it and it's like going into your whole one drive and finding you know what what matches and coming back to you in a conversational way do you know what I mean I see and that's that's huge and it'll also connect to your ultimately to your emails as well so you can ask question so it's ultimately where Microsoft and Google are going is that there if you're using Google for example you've got Gmail and sheets and docs and you know presents and you know your your meet meeting all that data will then create your own large language model for your company and then Google will give you is giving you this interface um with gemni or duet it's called where you can start asking questions and then you can make some of it public facing if you want as well so that customers on your website can ask questions and it's using all the data in your company for that large language model so I think that's going to be what most businesses will do rather than using chat GPT that's my guess correct me if I'm wrong I think you warned just a few month or two ago that co-pilot isn't quite ready for prime time either it is not ready for prime time either okay but like chat gbt it's gonna get better you know but no co-pilot definitely has a way to go as well it just there's so much hype about this stuff and I don't want to like throw cold water on it because it is really important I you are providing a service I think nobody needs to be convinced or I don't know nobody a few people need to be convinced anymore that this stuff is real and that it's have a huge impact but we're all trying to figure it out and I think we all appreciate you're going out there and exploring and figuring out what what's you know not ready and what might be ready yeah that's exactly what I'm trying to do like I'm using Forbes as my platform to do that and um and when I'm speaking you know I speak to all these different groups around the country and if I'm speaking to a room full of uh people in the distribution industry or manufacturers or construction um what I want to do is I want to be like hey guys you don't have to spend all the time figuring out what what applications are going to how AI is going to impact your business here's the applications you want to be focusing I did the work for you do you know what I mean um I think that is valuable I really do because there's a lot of noise out there trust me Jee we appreciate it next topic you also wrote uh recently about a very different topic uh business owners and divorce um you you wrote recently you talked about the issue and how how challenging it can be obviously for anybody but especially for business owners tell us why although I think many people can guess well first of all Lauren let me just say that yeah you're a business owner I know I've never I don't think I've ever met your wife but it seems like you guys have a very long I don't think you have no you have an excellent relationship and you better be damn grateful for it go and get that woman some flowers because she divorces you and it is hell and if you are I spoke to a couple of you know uh divorce attorneys and you know you know for people that run businesses and then they have to go through a divorce um it is a nightmare and let me give you some of the like some of the things you don't think about like for example you run a small business you run a business we can all admit we run we run stuff through our companies sometimes it's you know uh dubious uh if it should be speak for yourself Jean right right people take the expenses and they get a little aggressive and all that well you know if you do that and again you're not alone like most of my clients do that it's it's it's not uncommon but like and then you go through a divorce holy moly I mean like because your spouse will likely know about it and then an aggressive attorney will start digging in there and really making your you know your life miserable so one piece of advice is if you think you're going to get you know if things are rocky in your relationship and you there could be a divorce in the future you your books better be squeaky clean or else really going to be at a disadvantage do you know what I'm saying no I you you said I I think your point is well taken the one thing I was going to ask you is you you said that most of your clients are I don't know exactly how you would characterize it but might have concerns on this front is it really most oh no no no I I if I said that I misspoke not divorce but books where they're pushing it a little bit is what I mean yeah um oh I would say most of my clients run stuff through their businesses that um might be questionable or not and it's I'm not saying they're doing it uh with Criminal Intent or anything like that sometimes it's just sloppy accounting you know what I mean like they just they they have all their personal and business expenses kind of thrown together you're a CPA what do you say to them when you see this well I mean you have to like wag your finger and say you got to keep it separate and you shouldn't be doing this and whatever and you know they're like yeah yeah yeah you know I agree and you're right but you know I'll do I'll do better you know what I mean so it's not I don't know know and then you run through costs you know or you don't you don't you know you don't allocate costs that that are non-b business out of your business frequently enough um I mean you know we have like in my company because my wife is like just you know way more ethical than I'll ever be and she has our bookkeeper send her our my my my company's credit card she's prepared for that divorce too huh yeah she tells the bookkeeper no no no this this and this were personal expenses because I just have my car set up with all of our accounts and whatever so I'm not really tracking I'm just using the card you know what I mean so you know that kind of stuff goes on all the time and you know I I do it too and you know so yeah my wife knows definitely knows where the the the skeletons are are buried that would be a problem that'd be a problem so anyway so other things in that article I talked about like getting an arbitrator people really recommended the divorce attorneys U particularly an arbitrator that is um familiar with your industry you know because uh they they can help more with with valuation or uh you know figuring out uh answering questions a lot of times people give up because they don't uh judges don't know an industry well enough so that they rule sometimes to the detriment of the business owner because they don't understand our Concepts so that's another thing because it's you know you're valuing your business the other thing I think is is really important is um if you have Partners I mean you really need to have uh a partner agreement if you have external Partners or internal Partners excuse me or you know Buy sell agreement because that's a major headache and if you're a partner in a business you have to make sure that your your other partners you know there's a byell agreement because if another partner is going through a divorce it affects your whole business because then you've got like an attorney requesting data and information and documents and God forbid you know you know suddenly the spouse is involved in the you know the management of your business because of you know you guys didn't think ahead so have a buy sell agreement and then make sure that a buy sell agreement has stipulations what happens when a partner leaves the business you know they they die or get hit by lightning or want to be bought out or they get divorced you know like what it it takes into account all that stuff and it gives you a road map as to what to do in that situation so very very much recommend doing that one thing that occurred to me reading your piece is that it's it sounds like cck me if I'm wrong all of this is equally true if you're talking about uh a marriage where both uh spouses work in the business or if only one works in the business is that right yeah it's equally true um I mean in the end you're going to get a valuation of the business and then assets have to be divided up and um you know both spouse work in the business uh you know maybe there's a way to work it out and you keep the business in the personal different but oh my God what a nightmare well that's the one thing that uh I thought is different at least if they're not in the same business then you've got you've got one ongoing uh you know means of support there if they're both in the same business and the divorce hurts the business they're both going to get hurt by that they are I agree and by the way you talk about ongoing support which is also important to to recognize remember say you own your business and your business is worth $1,000 and uh your your spouse is entitled to 50% of your assets so you've got to like you know you've got to pay that spouse 500 bucks you know so you know a lot of times people don't have that cash lying around you know what I mean it's just you know there's a difference between the valuation of your business and how much cash you have in your business a big difference yeah and that gets back to the buy sell agreement because remember that that could be a big drain on the business operations and if you have Partners they'll be like oh my God so if you have a buy sell agreement they usually stipulate that you have insurance for stuff like this so the insurance payment can go out but if then if you get a bank loan and you have you and you have to you collateralize your assets your business to pay off your spouse now you're paying down the bank loan and that has a significant impact on your cash flow in your business so all these things have to be thought out in advance nobody likes to think about this kind of stuff but it just turns into a nightmare if you don't think about it in advance it's such a nightmare that it makes me think that there there must be couples out there who are staying together not for the kids but for the business yeah I don't know it's very possible that that's the case I you definitely know there are people out there that are staying together cuz their kids you know I mean we've we've seen lots of them but this is kind of you know this isn't as emotional as the kids but it's it's emotional and it's also you know how people live if uh if you're if you both work in the business and you're not sure the business will survive a divorce maybe you stay together I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing yeah sounds good yeah I agree I agree all right Gene marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times the Chicago Daily Herald Forbes and entrepreneur you can also hear him on ABC radio's eye on the world with John Bachelor Jean hosts two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation in the hardford this episode was brought to you by the great game of business which helps businesses use an open book management system to help build healthier companies you can learn more at Great game.com thanks Jean thank you Lauren have a great week everybody [Music]