#TDSU Episode 212:

⏱️ Timestamps:

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:57 - Ryan’s journey to launching DIVACS

00:02:03 - AI in CS: hype or helpful?

00:03:21 - What are we really calling AI today?

00:06:01 - Why Ryan avoids the AI label

00:08:10 - The bubble nobody’s talking about

00:08:40 - Thanksgiving dinner and AI dreams

00:10:03 - Rise of the robo-overlords?

00:10:38 - A 7-year-old and AI's moral dilemma

00:11:56 - Robots, reality, and what’s next

📺 Lifetime Value: Your Destination for GTM content

Website: https://www.lifetimevaluemedia.com

🤝 Connect with the hosts:

Dillon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dillonryoung

JP's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanpierrefrost/

Rob's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-zambito/

👋 Connect with Ryan Schultz:

Ryan's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanmschultz/

[Ryan] (0:00 - 0:18)

Who's using all these AI products that are out there? Because, you know, JP brought it up. I see people using co-pilots to develop and I see people using it in the sales methodologies and sales recordings and call recordings, but like you can count on two hands, the number of companies that I know that I've seen people out there actually using this stuff.

[Dillon] (0:27 - 0:38)

What's up lifers and welcome to the daily standup with lifetime value, where we're giving you fresh new customer success ideas every single day. I got my man JP with us. JP, do you want to say hi?

[JP] (0:38 - 0:39)

Hey, what's going on y'all?

[Dillon] (0:40 - 0:43)

And we've got Rob with us. Rob, can you please say hi?

[Rob] (0:44 - 0:45)

What's up people?

[Dillon] (0:45 - 0:49)

And we have Ryan with us. Ryan, can you say hi?

[Ryan] (0:49 - 0:50)

What's going on everybody?

[Dillon] (0:50 - 0:56)

What's going on? And I am your host. My name is Dillon Young.

Ryan, thank you so much for being here. Can you please introduce yourself?

[Ryan] (0:57 - 1:31)

Absolutely. Ryan Schultz based out of the Philadelphia region. I recently started a business called DIVACS stands for digital value and customer success.

It is a culmination of the history of my career. I would say first 10 years in building products, next couple of years, consulting in community and collaboration products, and the remaining 10 to 15 years was all focused on customer success, renewals, and account management. So I built a product company to help jam those things together, and I'm looking forward to talking about it.

[Dillon] (1:31 - 1:37)

Ryan, you look like you're 33, but my math says you've got about 25 years of experience.

[Ryan] (1:37 - 1:48)

Like, did you start in middle school? I got three kids. I got a lot of gray in this beard and a lot of gray in the hair.

I just keep it short so you can't see it all.

[Dillon] (1:49 - 2:03)

Amen. Take your word for it. The math's not mathing for me, right?

That's okay. So you know what we do here? We ask every single guest one simple question, and that is what is on your mind when it comes to customer success?

So can you please tell us what that is for you?

[Ryan] (2:03 - 2:07)

Absolutely. It's going to be AI. Hype or reality?

[Dillon] (2:07 - 2:13)

Both. And I think you knew that, but go ahead, Ryan. Keep going.

[Ryan] (2:13 - 2:58)

Yeah. You know, I've been building a business in a timeframe that has been different than any other, in which case there's been a lot of opportunity to have access to tons of data that we've never had access to before, have conversations with something, but there's AI popping up everywhere. There's people doing the same thing.

There's overlap. There's people adding it to existing things and somewhere along the lines, every company saying they're an AI company and they have millions and trillions and billions of dollars in revenue in AI, and I'm sorry, but you know, there's only so much money to go around, so I'm trying to figure out how much of that's real, how much people are kind of fudging the stuff to say, come buy my AI and what your perspectives are on that.

[Dillon] (2:58 - 3:21)

I'm waiting for the day I walk into my grocery store and they try to tell me it's powered by AI in some capacity. Anyway, JP, I love coming to you first with AI. I don't know why when I think of AI, I think of our very first conversation.

I want to seed my time to you and any questions you might have about this topic and the way Ryan is presenting it specifically.

[JP] (3:21 - 3:38)

Wow. I appreciate that seeding, sir. I will say, ironically, the first thing I think about when I think about AI is Alan Iverson, Philly represent, I guess.

I'm not from Philly, I'm from Boston. I love that he's saying that with a Miami Heat hat on too.

[Ryan] (3:38 - 3:39)

Exactly. You know what I mean?

[JP] (3:39 - 5:59)

I'm a mercenary, I go wherever the fashion's good. So yeah, I think, you know, you raised this interesting point about sort of like, you know, fudging the numbers, right? Like everyone comes out, everyone's saying, you know, Hey, we got billions and billions of trillions of dollars, and we got this new AI thing, and it's coming in there and saying, Oh, we got an AI co-pilot, AI co-pilot, AI co-pilot.

You know, it's just like, we're seeing this sort of thing that happens, I think with a lot of things that hit the market, right? Like everyone sort of jumps on this bandwagon. You eventually get people who are so enthusiastic.

They're like, I finally figured it out. And so like, I figured out how to monetize this thing. And then we also have people who are maybe like more detractors and they're sort of like, Oh, you know, we do AI, but we're trying to have a more nuanced.

Right. So the thing that I like to get into whenever AI comes up is what exactly do you mean, because AI is such a broad topic. It is like, you know, are we talking about large language models?

Like, like what are we talking about exactly? We're talking about generative AI, you know? So I think that I've seen a lot of things in terms of some interesting, like large language models, things, especially maybe being at my company, I've seen things where it's helpful for, for people to code, for example it's pretty miraculous to see someone go into something that maybe uses R or Python and with very little, I mean, anything they just simply prompt and this thing can build, you know, like a very simple app, like right in front of your eyes. So I think that there's some really great capabilities there.

I think the other thing that I'll just mention in general, that I also comes to my mind with AI is the limits, the limits around it and sort of like, there's some ethical boundaries, there's sort of intellectual property boundaries, right? We have people using sort of like these free versions and then these enterprise versions, and so thinking about like, you know, where, where does all that data go? And so I think, you know, with a topic like this, that is, that is so big, I've sort of given up the idea of sort of balking at it when I first hear about it.

And instead, maybe saying like, what exactly are we referring to exactly?

[Dillon] (6:01 - 6:33)

Ryan, before we go to Rob, I want to hear, I have to imagine that the reason you bring it up is because DIVACS has some portion of AI to it, but you don't, I think there's this interesting cohort of people too, that are like, yeah, well, we have AI, but everybody does. So we don't even really talk about it. Like it's not the, it is not the primary component or allure of our system.

So I'd love to hear a little bit more about how you think about it and how you position your piece of AI.

[Ryan] (6:33 - 8:09)

Yeah. I've actually been purposeful in not branding my business as an AI company. You know, I, I was going out, I was looking for your traditional dot coms actually, when I went and bought the domains now that was before probably the past couple of years.

And before chat GPT, I bought the domains in December of 2020 before really dedicating myself to this thing. But yes, I, I have AI capabilities built in, but you have to think of AI as like utility or thought partner. Right.

And there are utilities in which I've incorporated into my product that I think are very valuable and provide value to customers and, and their customers for using my product. But how many people are, are paying for all of these AI products that are out there? And I mean, they've gotten tremendous valuations, you know, part of my commentary and why this is a big topic isn't about how I've used AI in my product.

A lot, a big portion of it is like, who's, who's using all these AI products that are out there because, you know, JP brought it up. I see people using co-pilots to develop and I see people using it in the sales methodologies and sales recordings and call recordings, but like you can count on two hands, the number of companies that I know that I've seen people out there actually using this stuff, you know, and there can't be, I mean, you see thousands of these AI companies out there with multi, you know, in some cases, billion dollar valuations, in some cases, hundreds of million dollars in valuations. And that's where I'm really trying to get to is like, who's actually using this stuff and, and like how much of this is hype and is it going to come crashing down sometime soon?

[Dillon] (8:10 - 8:38)

I think much of it is, these valuations are, they've got to be hype, right? Like, but, well, I guess they don't have to be, but Rob, I have a feeling, I know you're going to tell your anecdote about how in your position, you get dozens of people a week telling you about their CS co-pilot. So let's just skip that part and tell us, tell us a new story.

[Rob] (8:40 - 8:51)

Well, it's not about Allen Iverson, but, you know, on the Thanksgiving dinner table, I remember talking about AI, my uncle's like, AI? Hey, I don't know what this kid's talking about, but pass the heater.

[JP] (8:54 - 8:55)

Pass the what?

[Rob] (9:02 - 10:03)

I don't know what you're hearing. Look, my answer to the short form as possible is both. It is both hype and reality, and I think both can be true.

There is almost certainly a bubble that's emerging and it might be many little bubbles, you know, in certain areas where you're either putting lipstick on a pig with a product that was like, you know, previously not, like it was previously just based on, you know, rules-based logic and now it's being rebranded as AI, I've seen that. Or it might be big bubbles, right? With like companies that are getting wild valuations, like, like Dillon mentioned.

But I think it would be a folly to not acknowledge the fact that like, look, I don't want to scare everybody here, but I have a friend who has studied AI for two friends, they've studied AI for the last 15 or so years, and they've started a nonprofit now that's built on this worrisome forecast that in the next 10 or 15 years, humans will just be like guerrilla subservience to our AI masters. And they're trying to prevent that future outcome. And I know that sounds wild, and I know it sounds off the wall.

[JP] (10:03 - 10:06)

I've seen that movie before, Rob, it's called The Terminator.

[Dillon] (10:06 - 10:16)

Yeah. Guerrilla subservience. I didn't know if you were going the WALL-E direction, but guerrilla subservience.

What is the guerrilla part? I'm not sure I understand that.

[Rob] (10:16 - 10:21)

That we're just basically relative to our AI overlords, that we're just like guerrilla.

[Dillon] (10:21 - 10:22)

Oh, just like idiots.

[Rob] (10:22 - 10:37)

Yeah. We're just total, yeah, total, total morons, which is possible. I don't know.

We don't know what's reality until we see it transpired necessarily. But I don't want to sound crazy with that idea, but my point is time's going to have to tell.

[Ryan] (10:38 - 11:43)

I think, Rob, there's a good exercise that I did actually with AI at one point. My son, if you ask him what he wants to do, he wants to own a robot company when he grows up and gets older, and my son's seven years old, so mind you, he's been saying the same thing for multiple years at this point, and he's only seven. But I did an exercise with ChatGPT and I asked it, could it help me build a robot that is self-learning and self-improving, like from a hardware perspective?

It gave me schematics and details of exactly what it needs to do, and I said, how do you protect from this not obeying human law, human nature, and that type of stuff, morality, and it said, well, you could put all these things in place to protect that. The thing I asked it then was, I said, okay, if you put all those things in place, could it not self-learn to get around them and build around them as well? And it just said, yes.

And that was like the end of it. I mean, so it knows you can build schematics, but you're talking Terminator there. I mean, that is, that's essentially what you're saying and it knows it could do that.

[JP] (11:43 - 11:45)

Oh, right.

[Dillon] (11:47 - 11:51)

Oh, right. So I'm going to need a stiff drink after this. Thank you both.

[JP] (11:53 - 11:55)

You need to have a smoothie, man. You need to have a limp drink.

[Dillon] (11:56 - 12:12)

Yeah, okay. Ryan, that is our time. I love it.

I think it's, it's cool. I think next time, let's talk about DIVACS more and what you're trying to accomplish. And, and we can talk about the, the, the little piece of AI that's in there that's helping you.

But for now, we do have to say goodbye.

[VO] (12:13 - 12:49)

You've been listening to The Daily Standup by Lifetime Value. Please note that the views expressed in these conversations are attributed only to those individuals on this recording and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of their respective employers. For all inquiries, please reach out via email to Dillon at LifetimeValueMedia.com.

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