Elizabeth Gearhart, Ph.D.: Welcome to Real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable. I’m Elizabeth Gearhart, podcast consultant, marketing expert, and Ph.D. researcher using AI every day.

Richard Gearhart: And I’m Richard Gearhart, entrepreneur, seasoned business owner, and intellectual property attorney specializing in innovation. Here’s how real companies are using AI right now.

Elizabeth: I’m going to ask each of our guests for one way they’re using AI, then we’ll open it up into a real discussion — authenticity card included. Ralph, let’s start with you: what’s one way you’re using AI at GaS Digital?

Ralph Sutton – AI for Quick Production: We mostly use it for production — short segment intros, a quick funny clip or song to open a bit. We used to have our video and art teams put a jingle together, which could take three days and around a thousand dollars. Now I can ask for a ten-second intro and have it ready in about two minutes.

Elizabeth: Joe and Moses, what about MasonMade — how are you using AI tools?

Joe Scaretta – Reducing Touches and Building SOPs: We use it a couple different ways — leveraging it to elevate our team and reduce the number of touches throughout the customer journey and work order lifecycle on maintenance calls. We’re also using it to build standard operating procedures. Documenting everything that used to just live in someone’s head used to take a long time; now we’re building SOPs across all of our business lines much faster.

Moses Carrasco – Consolidating Job Descriptions: For a startup, minimizing time is a huge component. A simple example: job descriptions. I’ve seen ones running well over a hundred line items. AI helps consolidate that into something clean, which you can then adjust up or down in detail — that alone is a real help for a growing business.

Elizabeth: GG, what’s one way you’re using AI at Desolas Mezcal?

GG Mirvis – A Creative Sounding Board: I use it a lot as a creative sounding board — feed it a bunch of ideas and see what comes back. I don’t usually use its exact suggestions, but when you give it very specific brand context, what it comes up with can genuinely surprise you. You still have to think through whether it actually fits, but it’s a great launchpad.

Richard – Testing Microsoft Copilot: I recently got a Microsoft Copilot subscription, since we already use Office 365. I was hoping it would be a big step forward — we use ChatGPT, but we can’t put client-confidential information into it, since it stops being confidential once it’s in there. Copilot segregates your data into a private tenant instead. So far it hasn’t done as much as I’d hoped — it keeps offering to summarize documents or respond to emails, and honestly, as a lawyer, I have to read every line myself anyway. I’m still working through it.

Elizabeth – Marketing Projections with Perplexity: I use AI for revenue projections for the firm’s marketing side — mapping new-client revenue across quarters to hit our growth targets. That’s a complicated calculation, so I don’t use ChatGPT for it — I use Perplexity, which feels more serious and pulls real-time information.

Group Discussion – Where AI Gets It Wrong: The conversation turns candid fast. GG calls AI a great launchpad for ideas, not a replacement for anything. Several guests share stories of AI confidently fabricating information — a fake article with a link to a website that didn’t exist, invented sources when asked directly to “show your sources.” Richard notes lawyers have gotten in real trouble in court for AI-invented case citations. One guest describes AI stringing them along for hours promising a video export that never actually worked, then admitting: “I’m sorry I lied to you. I can’t actually make the video.”

Group Discussion – AI, Kids, and Emotional Intelligence: The group shifts to AI’s effect on younger generations, referencing the book The Anxious Generation and its argument that kids’ brains aren’t ready for constant AI and social media exposure. Several guests worry that AI is quietly removing the discomfort — rejection, risk, uncertainty — that used to build resilience and risk tolerance, especially as more of life (including dating) moves online. The consensus: emotional intelligence, not AI fluency, will be the most important skill going forward, since it’s something these tools simply can’t teach.

Group Discussion – Bias and the “Echo Chamber” Effect: One guest raises a quirky but telling bug: for a while, AI image tools could only draw watches showing “ten past ten,” because that’s the time shown in nearly every watch ad they were trained on — a small but clear example of inherited bias. The group also discusses how ChatGPT in particular tends to validate almost anything you say, functioning like a social-media echo chamber, and how learning to prompt these tools well can subtly reshape the way people think through a problem.

Closing – Elizabeth: Great discussion, everyone. AI is here to stay, but nothing beats getting out, meeting people, and doing this kind of conversation in person — recording in the studio together is still better than a screen. You’ve been listening to Real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable.