Inside Marketing with MarketSurge

Welcome to Inside Marketing
With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed: Hello and welcome back to
Inside Marketing with Market Surge.

today we're joined by a true
go-to market enablement master.

That's Billy Collins.

Billy is the US commercial lead at adra.

He's built award-winning, uh,
training programs and go-to-market

strategies that turn first time
buyers into lifelong evangelists.

He is a certified project management
professional and a scrum master and.

He has been hailed as quote, a
smart, diligent, and thoughtful

leader whose tireless work ethic and
active intellect have supercharged

revenue and retention across every
role he's touched at LinkedIn.

we're diving into his blueprint for
scaling customer success, aligning

sales and marketing technologies
like never before, and turning your

onboarding into a growth engine.

Let's get into it.

Billy, welcome to the show.

Billy Collins - Eidra: Great to be here.

Great to see you too.

Reed: Yeah.

Well, and uh, just as a, um, bit of
background, Billy and I worked together,

uh, at Punch Kick and, uh, Billy is still
at Punch Kick and, um, ADRA Punch Kick.

And, um, I learned a ton from
Billy when I worked with him.

Uh, you know, Billy's
got a great mind for.

Marketing for strategy and um, you
know, it was a great, I'd say both a

great explainer and a great strategist.

So I've, uh, was really excited I could
get Billy on the podcast, so thanks.

Billy Collins - Eidra: Thanks Reid, and
I've told you many times before, I learned

a lot from you at Punch Kick too in my
role as a commercial director now that's

much more sales focused than I really
have ever been in my career and coming.

From a product management background
and building innovation strategies for

companies and then transitioning that
into a more sales and marketing focused

role has been really interesting.

And so there's a lot of what you and I
had the chance to work on at Punch Kick.

That still lives on with me too.

Reed: Yeah, no thanks Bill.

Yeah, and it was fun to, I,
I do have some fond memories.

We teamed up on a lot of, uh,
a lot of client deals and,

uh, you know, had some really.

Really great experiences.

Um, so, so Billy, just diving in, I, um,
aggregated a few news items from the tech

and marketing world and, um, you know,
I always like to hear your thoughts.

I wanna start with an article
I got from CNBC, their website.

Um, they're reporting that many
firms are trimming headcount

in areas like content creation,
operations, customer service, and hr.

And these are precisely functions
where generative AI and other agentic

tools are making a lot of inroads.

So these leaders though, they often
kind of cloak these moves in like

euphemism, restructuring efficiency
even when they're very profitable.

And so, um, you know, some
have have commented that this

is a little bit or shady.

Um, and, uh, others, others say
that, that this may be inevitable.

Can we talk a little bit about,
you know, this is a big, big topic.

You know, as, as we talk about ai, a lot
of people are worried about their jobs.

Do you, at a high level, what do you, what
do you think about this incursion of AI

into people's, uh, people's job roles?

Billy Collins - Eidra: So, and
this is a lot of rich discussion

that we could have here.

I think about this world at a
high level first by, you know,

one of the things we say at age
all the time is that nice works.

And I think that's very
much like a foundation of us

being a Scandinavian company.

Most of our folks and where
we're founded was over in Sweden,

so we have very Nordic roots.

So NICE works is kind of like the
way that we approach the world,

our employees and our clients.

And so when I think of People calling
out large firms for quote unquote

restructuring without being super
transparent as to the reason, even

though it's maybe in some cases kind
of clear, you know, that's for me

not really a reflection of how I
might wanna lead a business, which

should be nice to employees, nice
to the people that we work around.

Nice to the market.

Through transparent communication.

So I would ideally like to see maybe
more folks, and I think IBM was one of

the companies that you had mentioned in
the article, was pretty open about why

they were cutting, you know, several
folks in their HR team, I think it was.

and saying that they were, you know,
functionally being replaced by, chatbot.

Um.

And so, you know, I think transparency
is a really big thing to start with

in terms of, you know, what's going
on in the market and where are we

seeing, uh, roles being replaced.

I do kind of think it's inevitable.

Another good podcast that I like to
listen to a lot, and I think a lot of

your listeners are get a lot out of is
the one, uh, by, um, Mike Caput and the

team over at Marketing AI Institute, where
they spend a lot of time thinking about.

Strategies for companies and how to
leverage AI and how you need to change.

And one of the things that, um, Paul
Rader one of their founders had said

was basically like, there's never been
a better time to start a business than

right now because of all the tools that
individuals have at their disposal.

On the flip side of that, you know,
you're gonna see a lot of companies

start to shed staff in core areas because
it's never been easier to do some of

those jobs with artificial intelligence.

One of the areas that I get concerned
about, especially when you think

about replacing 200 HR staff members
with a chat bot, oftentimes HR plays,

several, um, soft functions within
companies that really can't get replaced

today by the chat tools that exist.

So oftentimes HR might be a set
of employees only advocate in the

organization if they're not getting what
they need or want out of the organization.

If they feel like they can't go to their
direct manager or their supervisor,

HR is the team that they can go to for
things like compliance, things like

getting feedback on certain things.

And if those functions get
replaced by a chatbot, they don't

have a human they can go to.

And that can feel like a very lonely
place to do your work and, and you

can start to feel very unsupported.

So I do worry about some of the longer
term effects of this unemployment.

I think the last area that
I've been really interested

in, because most of what I've.

Read about is related to, uh, you
know, folks starting college here

in the fall, or folks just who just
graduated from college in the spring.

Um, being worried about not being
able to find entry level jobs.

Um, for me, as someone who's been
doing my job now for almost 20 years,

um, I've learned that I'm really bad
at delegating and leading others and.

If we continue to move in a direction
where folks like me and my peers have

fewer, um, entry level or early stage
employees to work with and learn how to

mentor, we're gonna start to see a pretty
big, I think, leadership gap in the

middle management and upper management
areas because people are just not gonna

learn that skill in the way that maybe.

Uh, the folks who are more
senior than us, uh, have had the

opportunity to learn those skills.

And so I, I get a little bit concerned
about that gap starting to appear.

Um, and, and, and middle and upper
management, really understanding

how to empathize with others and,
and really lead through experience

and, and even making mistakes.

Reed: Yeah, you're okay.

So that's really interesting.

And now I, um, does make
me think of a hot take.

So I've repeated this to a
few other people and, uh.

in undergrad, my undergrad years, I
was an Italian major and, uh, you,

I believe were a journalism major.

Am I remembering that correctly?

Okay.

Billy Collins - Eidra: I was journalism,
pr, and sports marketing all fell

under one roof at one point somehow.

Reed: Awesome.

Well, sounds, like a fun program,
but now I, so if we go in the camp

of this as kind of an inevitability,

Billy Collins - Eidra: So.

Reed: it's not, it's not that.

It is moral or ethical or, or not.

It's that just going, this
is just going to happen.

It's, it's the, the, um, tide is so
powerful that, um, it, it's unavoidable.

So my hot take has been that the
value to be had still for the

human, uh, operator of these.

AI technologies is critical thinking.

and I do think that being a humanities
major, as you know, in, in some field

where you are thinking critically,
uh, questioning, current structures,

that gives you an advantage over
those that may be focused on

technical skills or technology.

Um, for this specific.

I go back to inevitability.

Um, so I've just thrown
that out there as a theory.

I don't know that there's proof of
that, but, um, and it makes me feel

good and helps me sleep at night.

But I don't know if you have any thoughts
on that, do, we regress back into like,

let's make ourselves better thinkers,
better, understanding, art and philosophy

and, and that helps us better understand
the power that's in front of us.

I don't know.

what would you think about that?

Take.

Billy Collins - Eidra: I actually
agree almost a hundred percent.

So Paul Reitz over at Marketing AI
Institute says the same thing a lot,

where his prediction is that human.

Entities degrees are gonna become
even more important in this

sort of inevitable AI future.

And then one of the things I talk a
lot, about with our AI team at ADRA

is that we kind of have this diagram
where there's a little bitty circle in

the middle, and that's like the work.

The work is the thing that
right now is getting replaced by

artificial intelligence tools.

The inputs to that work and the outputs
of that work are currently the areas where

human beings with critical thinking minds
have an opportunity to really level up.

Which is to say that the work
that gets done by an ai, I'm sure

everybody listening to this podcast
has been, uh, woefully underwhelmed

by maybe some of the outputs that
they received from a tool like Chat,

GBT or Gemini or something like that.

Especially if they were just
trying it for the first time.

And, and a lot of that can be
because the inputs you entered into

the system weren't terribly great.

And so the only thing it could do
was be very generic in its output.

And so I agree with you in that
we need to think critically.

Uh, and critically hard about what we put
into the systems, both from a safety and

a privacy perspective, but also we need to
sort of think about what are the outputs

that we wanna design at the end of this.

And we need to make sure that we feed
the system with the right information

and context to be able to get out the
other end, what we're looking for.

And even in the cases of great inputs,
we're still gonna get outputs that we

as humans need to do something with.

In an ag agentic future where
we are chaining multiple, say,

requests or tools together where
outputs are feeding inputs, feeding

outputs, feeding inputs, and so on.

Um, that's one way to think
about the future with AI and the

inevitability, but there's still.

Right now a need for humans to take an
output and then do something with it.

Um, an example is I was, you know,
thinking through, um, cold outreach

strategies a couple of weeks ago, and the
tool could go and do deep research and

think about the best ways to attract this
type of an audience versus this type of an

audience through marketing communications
and content plans and the like.

But ultimately.

It can't give me a 100% guaranteed
way of taking the outputs and then

doing something with them as a human.

I still have to use my best judgment to
figure out how to put all these puzzle

pieces together and then make something
beautiful at the end of the day based

on the work that was done in the middle.

So I think that critical thinking is
gonna become even more important for us

to determine what is the right way to
take the outputs and work with them, or

what is the right thing to input into
the system so that the work that is.

Done by AI inevitably is the right
thing in the right way, and that it's

not ultimately wasting our time or
doing something bad for our fellow man.

Reed: Well, you know, I think we
could spend a whole podcast just on

this, I mean more, you know, like a
whole series just on the questions.

Uh, you know, around our
displacement by AI in whatever role.

But, um, I did have a couple other
things I wanted to get to, and so

Billy Collins - Eidra: Yeah.

Reed: maybe we'll put a pin on that.

But you did, uh, we have been talking
about critical thinking and um.

I think that AI and other
technologies do actually present,

you know, in kind of contradiction
though critical skills are needed.

Um, they can actually somewhat hamper
our critical, thinking abilities if, uh,

if they're overused or used incorrectly.

Um, another article I shared with
you before from Wired Magazine, was

about, you know, the short report
about a digital detox teen camp.

And it was interesting.

I didn't know that such a thing
existed, but as I was reading about

it, I could see the reason for it.

in the article they mentioned that
nearly half of us teens are online almost

constantly, and high end summer camps
now offer cold Turkey digital detox

at roughly $2,000 per week, and they
have therapists and other traditional

camp activities minus the devices.

Now arrivals are.

They show up, they're stunted.

They have poor eye contact,
mumbled speech, gaming or

social media addicted behaviors.

And the campers, they
often try to run away.

They lash out.

They, have bizarre behavior.

but these programs really are trying
to help the kids develop health

in healthy ways and help the kids
learn how these tech companies

and apps monetize their attention.

I can't help but think what
the implications for us.

but now Bill, you're a father and,
you know, and you're also a tech user.

what, when you read about this,
what, kind of reaction do you have?

and, uh, you know, do you
think this is overblown?

Do you think this is, uh, a crisis?

Or how do you feel about it?

Billy Collins - Eidra: Well, it's hard.

I'm certainly in an interesting
part of my parenting journey,

My oldest is only eight.

my middle is five, and then
I've got a 3-year-old son.

And then we actually have another
one on the way due in September.

so I'll be in the thick of it.

certainly not where you're
at with your kids' ages.

at eight, I'm already seeing signs
of, I don't know that I would call

it addiction, but what I've realized
is once you've opened the door to

technology, even if that's just.

my kids my iPhone so they could
look at the pictures I took of

them during the summer camp.

We just got home from.

you've opened that door and there's
no closing it at that point just about

every application or thing that a kid
could learn how to use on their own, has

some elements of, incentive based design
or gamification that's really meant

to kind of addict them to the thing.

it's difficult.

I'm still at a point where I can
take devices away from my kids and

they don't run kicking and screaming
and punch a hole in the wall or

something like that, where I feel
like I need to send them to a detox.

Actually, we just dropped my oldest off
at camp up in the North Woods, yesterday.

She spent a lot of our
drive on her device.

you know, reading, watching tv, listening
to music, looking out the window.

but she wasn't angry when we took it away.

She was excited to be in the North
Woods at camp with her friends.

Right.

So we're not there yet, which is good.

But the dichotomy to me is so stark.

You know, you and I work in the
digital space and we're on our devices

the majority of our waking hours.

Right.

And our kids are kind of
expected to do that too.

So when my daughter, who's gonna
be third grade, went into first

grade, they gave her a Chromebook.

And the idea was, you gotta
take it home, you gotta charge

it, you gotta be responsible
for it, you gotta not break it.

And we'll do a little
bit of learning on it.

but when I started to track
what she was doing on it, the

school gave us access to that.

there was a lot of YouTube
going on in the classroom.

There was a lot of what I
would consider maybe not direct

learning tooling happening.

And so.

Kids are being exposed to and expected
to use these devices while at the

same time we as parents are trying
to limit the amount of sort of,

unfettered freedom and entertainment
that they're doing on them all the time.

And my daughter has
friends who she says are.

on switch all the time when they're
home or playing Fortnite or Roblox,

you know, pretty much as their
entertainment when they're home.

Um, and that makes me a little bit sad.

I think at the end of the day, I
don't really have like good advice

for how to be a parent in this age.

Um, but I do have a pretty solid
vision of like what I want my

relationship with my kids to look like.

And so that's kind of
the thing I go after.

Um, I don't mind if they are on a screen.

I don't really mind if
they're doing things.

Um, but I am cognizant that

Addiction is a real thing.

And the older you get with these devices,
the easier it is to keep them secret,

like that article was talking about.

And it can become a thing that,
is not sort of advancing your

vision of parenthood and what it
means to be a parent to your kids.

Reed: Yeah.

Well, you know, and, and as you mentioned,
my kids are a little bit older than

yours and, I think we first started
really thinking this, was a concern when.

the, shutdowns during and, not only
had they been issued, Chromebooks, but

they were all doing all remote learning
for a really extended period of time.

And, I did really notice, especially
my younger daughter, her verbal

skills were somewhat stunted
and Some social interaction,

some social skills were awkward.

She could just be an awkward kid.

I don't know.

But I love my daughters.

They're great.

one thing we did at that
point is we offered our

daughters, each a sum of money.

I think it was $2,500 if they, abstain
from social media until they were 18.

And, the one daughter made it to
about 15 and a half and then my

younger daughter made it to about 15.

fortunately we can stock that
money away for our own retirement.

But, it is troubling, like,
just the way that they speak.

Um, sometimes I'm like, what?

You know, you don't like speaking
in full sentences nearly enough.

you don't write very well.

You don't, um, do a lot of things that.

I see as part of being a
professional someday or, really

being successful in college.

they have a lot of great skills, of
course, but I do feel like there is

somewhat of an oppositional force
to really growing up, even though

it is, almost a requirement to kind
of survive in their peer groups.

So, you know, I don't know quite what to.

I'm not one to ban things,
but we are pushing back where

we can to encourage more.

face to face time.

we've tried to introduce more board
games or more family walks rather than,

more movie time or streaming time.

but it's hard.

it's a constant battle, you know,
every time you away, iPad pops

out and, it's some dumb, micro
transaction game or something,

Billy Collins - Eidra: Yeah,

Reed: Yeah, it's been challenging, so.

Billy Collins - Eidra: we found
summer has been a good opportunity

for us to kind of help our kids
reset their expectations of devices.

So my wife put together a very easy
to follow checklist for our kids.

that's the key to unlock just the
ability to do any device, whether

it's tv, a tablet, you know.

I guess that's really it
in our house right now.

Um, but every day during the summer,
if they haven't completed the checklist

and it's some chores, it's some basic,
get yourself ready during the day.

It's some being helpful
and it's some learning.

So, you know, the rising kindergartner
has certain things and the rising

third grader has certain things.

Um, so we're gonna try to stick with
that through the school year as well.

Obviously there's.

Less time for them at home to accomplish
the tasks, but we've got the checklist.

It's, it's working reasonably well.

Um, and I got this one from Neli
Patel over at The Verge, but he's

got a daughter who's about, the age
of my middle daughter and he started

introducing her to chat GPT they would.

So every so often sit together,
I guess, with his phone, and they

and the daughter would prompt it.

it's just amazing to see what your
kids wanna talk to an endlessly

knowledgeable omniscient machine about.

I did something similar with my
daughter I kind of put together system

instructions and a set of prompts that
would have it act a certain way, when

she was engaging with a specific chat.

and I kind of monitor her playing
with this and seeing what she does

with It, it reveals a lot about the
personality of her that I already knew.

She's a very fantasy driven kid.

She's very creative.

And so when she has access to a tool like
this, she wants to create stuff and, you

know, kind of create a little world for
herself and create stories and images.

And she's doing all the things that
her brain would be doing if she were

manually drawing or writing or reading.

but in the same area.

So it's, you know, I think.

That gets back to this idea of, I'm not
really one to like straight up ban things

and my wife and I haven't really talked
about ages of mobile phones at this point.

but I do wanna, as someone in technology,
sort of instill a sense of this

stuff exists and it's pretty cool.

Let me teach you how to use it in
a controlled setting while you're

young enough to still like me.

I am very afraid of when they
turn, 12 and 13 and what that

change is gonna bring, but.

Hopefully if I can continue down
the path we're on now, maybe that

won't be such a tough transition.

Reed: Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, there, there are
great aspects of the screens.

You know, I, um, you know, when
my oldest was a kindergartner, um.

She didn't have a phone and she,
first day on the, on the school bus,

she got off at the wrong stop and
was like, you know, uh, a mile away

from home and had no idea what to do.

And, you know, that was
like a, a horrifying moment.

And there were some good
adults around her that helped.

Helped, um.

Get her, get her home.

And, uh, but she came
home in a police car.

And, uh, but from then on we were like,
okay, this could be good to give them

phones in case that ever happened again.

And, um, so we're, know, you, you just
have to ride that fine line and, and,

you know, and hope, hopefully we can.

can get through this together.

So, um, on the pervasiveness of screens
and technology, um, maybe on a, a lighter

note here, uh, slightly lighter, um.

Uh, you know, I, I, I don't think
anybody could possibly avoid the, the

events of July 16th at a cold play
concert where, uh, CEO of astronomer,

Andy Byron, was caught on the stadium's
kiss cam embracing the, uh, Kristen.

Cabot, who is the head
of HR for astronomer.

you know, they, they were
caught on camera embracing.

They immediately flinched, ducked,
you know, like did everything to make

it super obvious that they had been
caught doing something they shouldn't

and, um, turned into a viral meme.

And, uh, you know, a few days
later they are both on leave or

no, I think they actually resigned.

Billy Collins - Eidra: He is he.

Reed: No, he resigned.

I don't know what happened to her,
but I can't imagine that would, be a

great environment for her to return to.

it does pose a question about
public, private, crossover and,

can we ever really be, private?

Can we have that expectation?

are they being overly punished?

these are all interesting questions.

They we're both married
to different people.

I think most in our society
kind of agree that's not okay.

Even though we're divided on many topics.

I think that, cheating is
still generally frowned on.

there's been some hilarious memes.

I feel bad there's some victims here.

There's like these families, what do you
think, are they being punished too hard?

Billy Collins - Eidra: Gosh, I don't
know if I'm the right person to weigh

in on whether or not, uh, people are
being punished too hard for, you know,

being unfaithful in their relationships.

Um, I, well.

what is interesting for me is, um.

Looking at this article and then
thinking about how the New York

Times was reflecting on it from
the standpoint of are we, like,

how private can we really be?

Um, the first thing that popped into my
head was it feels like every other YouTube

video I watch is sponsored by Incog,
which is a service that will go out there

and scrape all the data brokers for your
information requests that it be deleted.

Um.

Which is like, it's either
that or it's some VPN solution

that tries to keep you private.

Um, I feel like I'm inundated with
advertisements for software that

is designed to keep me more private
than I otherwise would be if I

weren't watching out for myself.

Reed: Mm-hmm.

Billy Collins - Eidra: Um, I
don't know that we can ever.

Believe right now that we are
truly private at this point.

Um, you know, even to the extent of
if you watch some of those, like VPN

ads, you know, what they remind you
is that even if you turn on private

browsing on Safari, on your iPhone, for
instance, your router company or your.

ISP, still has access to the
traffic that you're putting

over its pipes, essentially.

and so even in your own home,
it can be really difficult

to have, true, true privacy.

which is a bit scary.

but at the same time, I think we
also kind of have to pair that

with, well, what are we getting
by giving up so much of our data?

I think the scariest part is, And this
gets back to the news article about

the CEO is that I think because privacy
is such a nebulous, kind of blurry

topic that nobody truly sees, it can be
really easy to fall into this perception

that something privacy related, like
an identity theft or a bank account

takeover or being seen on kiss cam.

when I'm doing something I shouldn't
be doing, you know, those aren't

things that would ever happen to me.

Right?

There's billions of people in this world.

Why would anybody target me?

and so it's like this will never
happen to me, and then it does,

and I can't believe it actually
happened to me kind of situation.

And so I think.

Consumers do need to think a little
bit more about privacy, where

they're giving their data and where
they're showing up in public spaces.

Um, anybody can get caught, you know,
in, in somebody's selfie background.

I'm, I'm sure I photo bombed minute
you talking about studying Italian.

I mean, I was in Italy with my wife in
some of the more popular places last fall,

and I'm pretty sure we photo bombed at
least 300 people when we were in Florence.

We could have been doing any number of
things in the background, who knows?

But you, you do have to be very careful.

You need to know where
you're showing up publicly.

You need to know how you're showing up
on your devices, and you need to kind

of assume that there's the possibility
that somebody could gain access to

your person in one way or another.

And I know that seems a little bit.

Uh, maybe conspiratorial, but it's
more and more common to have this

kind of stuff happen regardless of
who you are, what your stature is in

society, um, and, and who you're nearby.

So I think we do need to, we
do need to be very careful when

we're out and about in public.

Um, and it's, it's okay to not sign up
for certain services if you're worried

about how they're gonna take your data.

Um.

It's okay to not engage
socially in certain situations.

If you're worried about privacy
concerns, that's, that's okay.

And I think we're gonna see more
and more people opting out of

certain things because of those
privacy concerns going forward.

You know, versus more and more people
gravitating towards things they

might think are, are more unsafe.

Reed: Yeah.

You know, I wonder how, so, you
know, years ago you thought maybe.

You could send emails and it wouldn't
be tracked back to you or, your browsing

history as long as you cleared your
browser or, certain passwords, would never

be accessible or you couldn't possibly
be hacked this way, it does seem like

each of those barriers seems, to fall.

often famous people are caught
up and exposed for, wrongdoing or

embarrassing things guilty or innocent.

wonder if we'll get to the point where we
will be a post privacy, type of society

around our expectations of wrongdoing.

is it basically like between.

device tracking and, our search tracking
and, all these things that are around

us, like say you have to drive to meet
your mistress, or you make certain

payments to, cover up wrongdoing.

it'll just be so easy to access that,
you're gonna have to make a conscious

decision, like, I'm gonna get caught for
this, or I'm willing to be the villain.

Because I just can't hide anymore.

And, you know, as more and more
barriers fall, I wonder if that's

even potentially a good thing that,
our, bad secrets are exposed and we

just have less incentive to act badly.

I don't know.

Who knows?

That's

Billy Collins - Eidra: I mean, I think
theoretically, right, this is, and

again, I'm not a Web3 or blockchain
expert, but I think theoretically this

mission or vision of transparency, so
total transparency from start to finish.

Is sort of what has, started
to describe some of what, you

know, more advanced, innovative
software teams are trying to do.

You know, if we can see chain of custody
of assets because it exists on this.

You know, public resource,
again, not an expert here.

Um, then I think there's a good
percentage of the population that

would say, even if that transparency
brings with it a lot of secrets that

folks might not want to get out.

Maybe the vision of transparency
is probably the better thing here.

Um, I don't a hundred percent know where I
stand, that I haven't really interrogated

the arguments on either side of this.

But like I was saying kind of at
the start of our conversation,

I'm a big fan of transparency,
but I'm also a big fan of privacy.

Um, and so how do we have a culture
in a society where technology

respects both, where it advocates
for transparency and liberty, but

it also advocates for privacy, um,
and keeping my private life private.

I think those are two really difficult
challenges to try to square together.

Reed: Yeah.

Uh, well, you know, and some of it is
what we can predict and a lot of it,

we're just living right now in the moment.

speaking of privacy and transparency
of information you brought to my

attention, an interesting topic that I
would love if you could kind of explain

how this is, going to come to be.

This is Apple's, an upcoming software
release where you will see that

they will implement a learning model
that is device specific and that

will have some implications for.

data monitoring, financial monitoring
potentially affect other industries.

But as most of us have this very powerful
device in our hands or in our pockets

at all times, this potential for, a
model that's even more on ourselves,

could change the game significantly.

Tell us a little bit about that.

Billy Collins - Eidra: Yeah.

Reed: your description, so you
tell us what we should know.

Billy Collins - Eidra: Yeah.

So I mean the, the history, the context
here is apple's taken a lot of flack over

the last year for really being late to
the game in terms of what it's doing on

its devices with artificial intelligence.

You know, last year at WWC,
they rolled out what they were

calling Apple intelligence.

I think most, consumers of Apple hardware
and software were really hoping that

Siri would just get a lot smarter.

Um, you know, Siri was truly
one of the first consumer grade,

digital assistance or chat bots I
suppose, on a piece of hardware.

And I think, um.

Apple could have done a lot more
to advance those capabilities.

But in terms of privacy, apple has always
tried to maintain this air of being the

company that is most focused on securing
the devices that it sells to people.

Um, and I think because of that
has, purposefully, hamstring

itself in what it's been able to
do to advance the Siri technology.

Well, they didn't.

Launch a lot of things that help
people feel like Siri was gonna

be better at this year's WWDC.

But what they did talk about
that didn't get as much coverage

was on device intelligence.

And I think that's a really important
thing for people who are either

thinking about developing a mobile app,
especially in highly regulated spaces

like healthcare and financial services.

Or folks who already have
mobile applications running on

iOS devices in those spaces.

So a lot of companies like banks and
credit unions and wealth managers

as well as healthcare organizations
are, understandably hesitant.

To invest heavily in artificial
intelligence due to privacy

concerns for good reason.

Um, but the thing about on-device
intelligence is that in theory, um,

if Apple does it right and does it
well, that the way that consumers like

you and me engage with an AI tool.

On our device means that we're
only sending data to the device.

It's being processed and handled on the
device, and the outputs we see from the AI

are coming from the language model or the
models that exist on the device itself.

So it's not going up to some cloud.

There's less of a chance it's
gonna get intercepted as it moves.

Across the internet pipes.

Uh, and so in theory, it's gonna
create a much more private way of

engaging with artificial intelligence.

So a healthcare company could release
a mobile application that interacts

with apples on device intelligence
so that if I am having some symptoms,

I could go talk to my iPhone.

Through the model that is released into
the device from this healthcare company.

And I can get information privately
about my symptoms and conditions and no

one else would have to know about that.

It's secure lockdown on device.

The same could be true in
financial services situations.

Um, and that brings with it an
opportunity for these companies

to innovate more and faster.

maybe they've felt compelled to
innovate in the past because there's

now this new secure way that they
can explore and experiment with

doing artificial intelligence.

So I'm excited to see what
companies, especially those in

highly regulated industries, come
up with over the next year when

it comes to doing on-device stuff.

Um, and I'm hoping to help a few
companies do that this year as well.

Reed: Very cool.

That's really interesting.

And it seems to align with Apple,
you know, like they, they've been,

like you said, very privacy and
security conscious versus, many of

the others that have been trying to
democratize to the infinity percentage.

possible at the risk of privacy.

So that will be interesting to see.

And, it would be definitely
very unique among the other.

LLM.

So that's really cool.

well, Billy, you've got some great
wisdom and I really enjoyed hearing your

thoughts on a lot of kind of ethical
and philosophical topics in tech.

if people would be interested in working
with you or would love to hear your

thoughts, where can they find you?

Billy Collins - Eidra: Yeah, the easiest
place to engage with me is on LinkedIn.

I post pretty actively there
and respond to messages pretty

quickly if I receive them.

Um, I try to connect with
as many people as I can.

And then my personal email is
also just billy@billycollins.me.

That's probably the easiest
one to spell and remember.

Um, but I would say those two places,
email and then LinkedIn are great.

Reed: Awesome.

well Billy, it's a pleasure
as always and uh, I hope we

can have you back on sometime.

Billy Collins - Eidra:
I look forward to it.

Thanks, Reid.

This was fun.

Reed: thanks Billy.

Want to stay ahead of what's actually
working in marketing right now.

Head over to Market surge.io

and see how we're helping businesses
grow smarter, faster, and louder.

That's market surge.io

because your next breakthrough
shouldn't be a guess.