Field Transcript
Ring! Ring!
Me: GreyFalcon MSP. This is Daniel. How can I help you, today?
Caller: Hey, Dan! It’s Terry. I’m looking to replace one, maybe two of my staff with an AI agent. Which one should I use?
Me: Uhm … hold on a moment. Can you be a bit more SPECIFIC on what you expect AI to DO for you?
Terry: Dan! Have you not seen? There are companies offering AI Agents to answer phones and they can even do sales!
Me: Oh. OK. Now I understand. Don’t do it. That is NOT the way you want to go.
Terry: $20 a month. I can use this agent and save THOUSANDS! Why would I NOT want to replace Cindy with an AI agent?
Me: Well, first off … Cindy is a human being. She is more flexible and can actually THINK. Like: ‘Terry is swamped this morning, let me just get this sales guy to schedule a meeting via e-mail?’ or ‘It’s his ex-wife calling, again. And he’s in a budget meeting. I better run interference.’ Your AI can’t do that. Does not know your situations, and never will. You tell Cindy you don’t want to be disturbed, but your ex calls with an emergency for one of your kids being in the hospital, she is going to get the details and then FIND YOU, if she must. These $20 AI agents cannot make that differentiation.
BUT … what you CAN use these AI’s for is like that IVR you used to have. Remember ‘Press 1 for sales, 2 for accounting …’? Now, instead of pressing a number the caller can tell the AI, ‘I need to speak with Terry’, or ‘I’m interested in buying 32 gross of your widgets’ and then route the caller to the sales department. The difference in this scenario is ‘natural language’.
And what makes you think that an AI agent can sell your widgets BETTER than Fred? Fred who owns all the relationships with your volume clients?
AI is a great TOOL, but is a terrible replacement for HUMANs, at this time.
Terry: OK. Ok. Look, I read this morning that AI, now is like the internet was in ’96. The wild west. And I want to get on it, fast.
Me: Terry, the wild west was not all that wild. AND in ’96 there were far, FAR more businesses that TRIED to get on that wave than actually succeeded. In my opinion, with what you do, AI is not the great money saving, labor diminishing catch-all you want it to be.
BUT … it DOES have a place in your business. As an example, Fred can use it to help with his sales communications. Cindy can use it for the research you have her doing on competitors and vendors. It has great functionality and opportunity. But in reality, at this time, AI does not EXECUTE tasks for you. And those few it might be able to do, they are not autonomous. They are triggered automations. ‘If this trigger, then do this’ and most of the time, you will STILL want to review the results before they go out in front of your clients.
Now, for the good news …If you want to start using AI to save time, save labor, increase productivity … then start with getting your staff some training. Start with Claude or ChatGPT. Then get a reasonably priced training website subscript for training. And give your staff an hour a day to learn it. ON THE CLOCK. They will appreciate it. They should see it as you investing in them. And if they start implementing AI in their job, and start getting more ‘free time’ then let them hit more training. And once you have them trained, give them a raise. They will have earned it. They learned how to use a new tool to be more productive.
AND … once you decide to do this, let me know. We will need to get you onto managed services. I will need to put in some additional security. Both tool configuration changes AND policies. Like what information can and cannot be entered into the AI chat window. I still need your cyber security policy to ensure we have the security in place your are contractually obligated to be using, if you expect any coverage due to a breach or other event.
Terry: Damn, Dan! Are you going to let me get a word in, edgewise?
Me: Sure. The floor is yours.
Terry: I’m just kidding man. Thanks for the crash course. Can AI monitor my injection molding machines?
Me: Maybe. I don’t know. I would have to check for control API’s then configure some kind of interface, if even possible. You would be better of, probably, using something like Microsoft’s PowerAutomate to monitor and execute when something happens with your machines. That is assuming such does not already exist. Why recreate the wheel when one can be purchased and comes with support?
Terry: alright, Dan. Can you come by, next week and talk with my team about AI? And the dangers of it? How they can use it, and all that?
Me: Sure. I can do that. How does Tuesday work? You buy lunch, and I will give them an AI security training?
Terry: Yeah. I like that. See you about 11?
Daniel Curry added a new photo.