Jason Tan: Charting Ethical Paths in an AI-Enhanced Sales Landscape

In this fast-paced realm of sales, your software should be seamless and your CRM should be a single source of truth for tracking your pipeline, managing leads, collaborating easily, and automating all of those annoying little tasks that trip up your workflow. HubSpot Sales Hub brings you that power in an easy-to-use platform. With 360-degree deal management and real-time reporting, you get accurate windows into every inch of your business. And with AI-powered tools like ChatSpot, you'll have a dedicated assistant that knows your business inside and out. So trade cold calls for warm leads and get on track for your best Q1 yet. Check out HubSpot Sales Hub at HubSpot.com slash sales. Hey everyone, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays, where we talk about sales, business, entrepreneurship, personal growth, mental health, and everything in between with guests who I truly respect and I think make a positive impact on the world around us.

Now today's conversation is with Jason Tan, the founder of Engage AI, the second brain to technical small business owners and founders in the B2B industry. He's probably one of the most knowledgeable people I've had on the podcast so far about AI, so I had a lot of questions for him. Even going far as to get his opinion on is AI going to replace us all eventually and how we need to self-regulate now so it doesn't get out of control. Quite frankly, I think we're past that point, but we have a good debate on it and he's pretty much an optimist. So it made me feel a little bit better. But anyways, I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did. Let's make it happen. Hey everybody, welcome back to Make It Happen Mondays.

We have a very special guest here, which I'm really interested in having this conversation with, Jason Tan. How are you, my friend? Welcome to the podcast. I am good, John. Thank you so much for having me. Super excited to be chatting with you. How are you? I'm good, man. I'm a little tired, not gonna lie. I took a vacation last week and I'm paying for it now. So I really enjoyed the vacation. But when I take a vacation, since I'm a solopreneur, everything piles up and now I'm literally back to back every day. But hey, I'd rather be busy than bored, so I'm not gonna complain. Good idea. So Jason, just for the audience here, we're gonna, you know, this is actually gonna be a really, I think, cool conversation about AI.

And not theoretically like real, because I got some real questions for you with where I am in my business. So I'd love some of your advice there. But I'm also really interested in what you're working on because it hits on one of my biggest pain points as far as my memory is concerned. But before we get into all that for the audience, let's go back and talk about your origin story, man. Where are you coming from? And like I always say, like, you know, where'd you grow up? And outside of work, like works great. I want to know that journey too. But let's start with you as a kid, where are you coming from? Because I always like to know where people are coming from. Yeah. Well, I am a Chinese Malaysian.

So growing up in Malaysia, went to the school in Malaysia College. And I came to Australia in a place called Brisbane. I believe that is where your wife did her college for a couple of years and about 20 years ago. And I met my partner here. I stayed for a job opportunity. And I actually have been staying here for the last 20 years in Brisbane. I did move to the mixed world, like Sydney, for a good six-night run. But I only realized that I love Brisbane much better. It's a great place to be. So, yeah, that's where I am. I mean, in terms of where I came from, calling Australia home now for 20 years already. That's fantastic. So did your parents, like, do you still, with your parents, like, are they still alive?

And do they still live in Malaysia? Or, like, where? And just out of curiosity, what do they do? Well, my father was a welder, and he ran his business. And my mom, as a housewife, but amazingly, she run a travel business. So she take people to go travel around in Malaysia, and she absolutely loved it. Every time I see her photo upload on Facebook, it's so much joy on her face. They are still in Malaysia. So I am, like, the first-generation immigrant in Australia. So it has been a really interesting journey. I probably would say that it's something that is also part of, building part of me and also doing what I am doing. And before we go into the detail about some of those that we'll be talking about, I thought that we share that.

Because I came when I was, like, that already, when I was 20, 21. So you could imagine that I sort of, like, already built up a lot of my, I have that very strong, the Asian culture rooted in me already. So as I was coming over to Australia, in the early days, I think probably even the first five or 10 years, it was actually very challenging, not as a first-generation immigrant, that I have to settle in and then learn a new culture and how to integrate. So I have to pick up, you know, the different kind of sport that people enjoy. I can't say that I really understand cricket. I used to play softball. But also, I think, even, like, little things like jokes, because we have different ways of jokes, right?

So as an adult, being a first-generation immigrant, it was a little bit difficult for me in the first five or 10 years to pick up jokes, to understand jokes, because it's different. It's different for me. And I think that experience shaped the way that I think, or perhaps allowed me to have more empathy on a lot of the first-generation immigrants. When I look at the people who migrated here as a first-generation, like, maybe 10, sorry, not 10, even 50 or 60 years ago, I can only imagine their courages, and I have a lot of respect. And in America, everyone is wanting to go to America for all the great opportunity. Really have a lot of respect for them. Yeah, I have insane respect for immigrants who come, you know, and the American dream, whatever people think of it these days, whether it's perception or reality, is a different topic.

But the ones who came and worked their ass off through all the adversity, you know, don't know the language, usually come over with very little income or anything like that, and then work their ways up. Like, I got nothing but insane respect for that, because I can't even imagine. I mean, I've traveled all over this world, and without, you know, knowing the languages, I mean, thankfully, English, you know, is one of those languages that's relatively universal. But man, when you don't know the language or the nuances or the... I'll give you a quick example, you know, because I might be going back to India recently in the next few months. Well, the first time I went to India, right, I was really taken back by this.

You know how they... Like, when they nod... Like, here in America, we nod our head. Like, when I'm agreeing with you, I nod up and down. They go side to side. And I thought, and to us, that's kind of like, I don't really understand what you're saying. You know what I mean? Like, I'm... And so, every time I was with somebody, I was saying something that I thought was very clear and very direct, and they'd be, you know, shaking their head like this. And I'm like, do you not understand what I'm saying? And it was like, it was just one of those things where I was like, what the... And then somebody told me, like, John, that they nod their head that way. I was like, holy shit. It wasn't even something I thought of, right?

So, my point is, like, there's all these little nuances of culture that... And there's a respect component to it as well. I talk a lot about this in my training where you got to know the language of executives, for instance. Like, if you want to talk to an executive, you have to know how to speak the language of an executive, because you always get pushed to who you talk like. But even in other cultures, if you show some respect for the culture... Yep. People give you a ton of runway, and they want to help you. But if you're just like, hey, what's up? Where's all the... You know, if you're like a jackass American that's like, hey, you know, where's the Eiffel Tower? Like, Eiffel Tower shit, right?

But if you at least respect the culture in some way and are like, excuse me, I'm probably a little English. Like, I don't know French, but I know, excuse me, how do you speak English? Yeah. I find that when you show just that little level of respect, the doors are open up for you. That reminded me the story that I was doing my study action in France. And I tried to learn French, but it was really difficult for me. But I think one thing that I tried to do is obviously greet them in French. And before I spoke any word of English in asking whatever that I need, I simply tried to ask them, do they speak any English by saying, how do you speak English? Uh-huh. Yeah, do you speak English? And I think often that even if they don't, they would try to help rather than being ignorant, just speak, uh, whatever language that I was familiar with, uh, and I expect them to understand.

Yeah. Hey, I want to take a quick minute to share with you what I'm working on these days with my new JB sales membership. It includes live monthly training delivered by me on my two signature courses, filling the funnel and driving to close. It also includes monthly workshops that I'll be running on specific skills and different tech like ChatGPT and how to leverage it in the sales process. And it gives you access to my entire online catalog with every course and every tip I've ever done. You get all of this for $420 a year as an individual or $5,000 for teams. And as an exclusive offer to my podcast listeners, if you go to www.jbarrows.com and click on the individual or team membership and use code podcast, you'll get 20% off.

Let's make this happen together. And I think, and that's what gives me, what's going to lead us to this, this conversation about what you're doing right now, because I, you know, in looking at, you know, as I was preparing, I saw some of the other interviews and some of your posts, um, the, the product that you have, so we'll, we'll, we'll back into it, but the, the solution that you have addresses a very real challenge that I have, um, which is my memory. You know, we talked about this on the prep when we were, we were having a conversation. I, if you ask me, John, what is your biggest weakness? Without question, a hundred percent is my memory. I have a, I, I, I, I can't remember names for the life of me.

Um, I, I'm okay with faces. And, and once I get into a conversation, I'll remember some of the previous conversations, but I won't be able to pull those up right up the gate. And I've been, I've embarrassed myself because of it. I know I've lost opportunities because of it, because I, I mean, let's see, here's a quick example. I've trained over 10,000 sales reps at salesforce.com. I know the executives there. I've met with most of the executives. When I go to dream force, it's literally like my worst nightmare because everybody's like, John, what's up, John, John, John, John, John. And I'm like, I have no idea who you are. So, so talk about this, this high co-pilot product effectively that you have.

I love the Devil Wears Prada example that you use, but could you explain, first of all, just explain what you're doing right now. What is the product and where did it come from? And then I want to learn a little bit more about how AI is helping facilitate this. Sure. Now I'm going to say, let's call it as a second brain, because if we go, if we start the terminology co-pilot, people are going to confuse it, the Microsoft co-pilot, but what we have got working, and that is actually what we get to the, the whole idea of the concept of the second brain. And we'll talk about that in a second. But when I first started late last year, I remember, you know, we got this chat GPT hype and we were, we, we, we got some product out there and we were just thinking about, all right, well, this, this is really amazing, but what can we do about it?

And one thing that became very, very clear to me when we decided to do that is we want to be a product to help people to comment for better for their attempt for getting attention. So what exactly my bad is when, when their prospect, when their client post, one of the proven strategy that a lot of the salespeople, a lot of the SMB owner have been using for decades is comment on it for attention. When they post on LinkedIn, you go and write some comment when you do it again and again and again, especially on LinkedIn where engagement is really low. When you do it again and again, again for seven, eight online time, people will be automatically curious of who is this Jason 10? And he always comment and engage on my post and, uh, I have to check it out.

Uh, let's see if we say, so that is the whole idea that commenting for attention proven strategy. It was a strategy that I was using for years in my consulting business. And equally, I know millions of SMB owners were doing that or the enterprise BDM. So that was what we do. And we shared to the market. Uh, and we have got 50,000 users around the world now is generating revenue. And along the way, we start talking more to our users and ask, what can we do more about it? How can we serve you better? And that came up the concept of the second brain, uh, which is the, what I called the, the analogy that I use is that the Anna Hathaway as the reliable PA for viral shift, where she whispered to her to say, the name of the gentleman who was coming out, the lady next to him, and, uh, what, what is the thing that they can talk about?

So that is, in a nutshell, AI commenting for LinkedIn along the way, we learned that how we can continue to improve to, uh, to, to, to, to, to solve the problem for our user. And that is exactly solving the issue that you were saying that we can't remember the name. It is exactly the same challenge that I share. I am not good with the surname. I'm good with the first name, but I'm not good with the surname. I don't remember first day. Sometimes I re I remember the detail, but then we can't remember all the detail. So that, that is what we have been doing. And that is, we are continuing to work and innovate towards the, to, to achieve our great vision. Cool. So let me, let me start with this.

Cause I had a, had a bit of an issue recently with LinkedIn. So let's start with the LinkedIn commenting piece. Um, and, and, and I think, you know, in some of the notes that you put down, you know, how do you, how do you stay authentic in this world of AI and automation? Right. And this is where I want to put you, because I'm very concerned with AI automating versus augmenting. And I think a lot of people are using automation. And what, what really struck me, uh, this is about a month, not even a month ago, I did a post on LinkedIn, you know, just sharing a piece of content that I thought was interesting. And within five minutes, I had five posts, four, four posts that all weren't exactly the same, but had the exact same format with a slightly different analogy for each one.

It was blatantly obvious that it was AI, right? So I took that, I snapshot that, I cleaned out the names, so I didn't want to call anybody out. But, and I pushed it on, I put it on LinkedIn and I said, please stop. If you are using AI to auto comment on posts, please stop. Because look, InMail, InMail has been ruined for a long time. Nobody gives a shit about InMail. But the, the, the comment that, at least my, my perspective on LinkedIn is that it, it's you, right? So if you're commenting on my post, that should be thought leadership, that should be engagement, that should be building your brand and your credibility, right? But as soon as I don't trust that it's you, as soon as I think it's an auto AI thing, it actually has the exact opposite effect.

Now I don't trust anything that Jason is, even the phone call that you make, you know what I mean? I think might even be something fake. So what's the line for you and how do you use like, you know, what you're doing in a way that maintains authenticity, but doesn't automate it so that it's like, oh, I'm just posting on everybody and, you know, and, and it's great because I'm getting engagement. Absolutely. So I'm glad you, you bring that question up. So one thing that the, the very principle that we, we uphold that we champion is we want human to be in the loop. And that's very, very important because we, we want human in the loop to be, to be staying authentic. We see ourselves as a tool, as a software is like a Photoshop, where being a software, we help you to become a better designer.

A graphic designer, a graphic designer, we are the software to help you to become a better video producer, but then we are not going to create necessarily auto-generate the entire video for you. And to a point about that commenting is, is exactly the same way that we see it. And it's similar like all the AI copywriting tool as well. I think it is very, very obvious when people are using and, and rely on it 100%, you can tell and, or you, at least you smell it. Right. And same thing for the comment. That is why, despite that we actually have got hundreds and hundreds of requests, I actually have got enterprise customer coming to me two days ago and say, can you do a comment? Can we have a meeting?

If you can do auto-comment, we're ready to sign up for a hundred account. And I say, I'm sorry, we, we, we, we won't do that. And we will not do that. Um, so human in the loop simply for a number of reasons, because we want to give them a chance for them to add their own personal touch. We want to give them a chance to eat, to add their personal thought. I mean, that is always five, two and a half, 5% of the people will probably ruin it. Uh, but at least from the stat that we are seeing, 95% of the people, a lot of time use it as a drafting tool. And then there's, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a word that we actually we use as well. We don't call it generate. We call it drop.

We are simply there to give you idea, especially sometime you have writer's block or when you're tired or you're not familiar with the topic. But equally, you don't want just to say things like, thank you for sharing great insight, great posts. I mean, if you were going to say those things, you might as well don't say any of those at all, because it's not going to change anything. Yeah. So we, that's why we use the word like drafting, because it's so important that we draft it, we suggest it, and they have the final say to be authentic, to stay authentic to themselves. That's, and that's, you know, and that's how it should be. You know what I mean? It's like that, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk and people who've listened to the podcast, they've heard me say this before.

When I went to, to Gary back in 2017 and had a conversation with him, I had seen an AI email that was better than I could have written. And I was, I was quite frankly freaking out. And I was like, Gary, where does this leave us as humans? If a robot can write an email better than I could, where does this leave us? And he goes, don't worry about it. He goes, you're not going to beat the tech. He goes, just be the last mile, be the last mile. Let the tech do all the heavy lifting. Let it even, let it do the research. Let it even write the post and draft the post. But right before you hit send, right before you comment, make sure you humanize it. Because to your point, you had said something earlier where you could just tell, I don't know how I can tell, but I can absolutely tell.

And the way I explain it to people is when I get an email from an AI, quite frankly, a lot of times it's much better than what the typical sales rep sends me, right? Because the sales reps are, we've taught them how to be robots and they're doing these cadences and whatever else. So these, these AI bots are actually personalized, relevant, but I can't put my finger on it, but they just don't have a soul. Like I can just tell that it's just like, it's good, but I can tell it's not a human. And so there's that weird soul factor here that I think is, is that I'm curious for you based on what you know of this field and how fast it's moving. You and I can tell because we're in the space, we're, we're sniffing it out.

I think most people who are outside of tech probably won't be able to tell, are we going to get to a singularity point effectively where you're not going to really be able to tell the difference between a human and an AI when it comes to commenting or emails? And, and I'll, and I'll put a pin on that. And Mike, the way I explain it to people is let's use email for an example. The reason we hate you, the reason we hate spam is because it's irrelevant. Okay. So, but why do I like Instagram? Well, the reason I like Instagram is because I've trained that algorithm, well, that algorithms trained me, right. And I've stayed on certain things and I've liked things and whatever. So now every ad that I get placed on Instagram, it, I like it's personalized.

It's relevant. I'm like, I didn't even know I wanted it. Right. And I buy, I, my belief is my, I don't know if I'm worried about it or quite frankly, happy about it, that in a couple of years, our inbox is going to be filled with hyper-personalized, hyper-relevant emails. And I don't really care whether it's coming from a human or not. Do I want to talk to a human? Yes. But do I care if that digital thing is, is a, came from a human? So where are we with that singularity conversation that, that like, it's going to replace us totally, you know, with SDRs and BDRs? Where, where are you on that? I, I think we are probably still quite, uh, quite far away. And the reason why I'm saying that is because that whole hyper-personalization, it doesn't come down to the model.

It doesn't come out to the AI model, but rather the input of the data. Window, rubbish in, rubbish out. And all the very fact that, uh, GPT, chat GPT hallucinate from time to time is because when you don't give them enough data, when you don't give them enough prompt to grow them to be able to tell. So, but equally, or I, if I were to put it in another way is one, let's say fast forward 10 years, we have GPT-10. No matter how smart GPT-10 become, it probably trained on the, get trained on the entire internet. GPT-10 would never know that I remember that your wife came to Brisbane before. GPT-10 because it simply doesn't have that data right inside. So the personalization that we will see in the email, I think I certainly think and I agree and I believe it would increase, but not to the point where those intimate details that I share between the two persons.

And that is what I think make how we communicate that is make how we be relationship with people. And maybe that is how we will continue to feel or smell whether the email is written completely by AI without the additional touch by the human. Like for example, I do use the AI to help me to write some email because writing is not my strength. So a lot of times I write the point and I say, hey, can you make it a little bit more sophisticated for me? And then once I, when I got a copy, then I will also remove whatever. And then I also add some of the important thing that is important that matters to my recipient. And that is because I remember, that's because I have got it in my note. Or sometimes because I don't remember that, that I have to go back to all my digital channel, all my email to be able to search and find that information in order to put that in.

So that's your tool though, right? So now let's go from the LinkedIn comments to the other part, like the second brain, right? That memory that Meryl Streep and right. How does that work? Because what I, you know, my brief understanding as I was looking into it is, you know, it's Slack, it's Salesforce, it's, you know, you're looking at all these interactions and then you're pulling out the pieces that matter, right? Like the, or that, that may matter. So how does, talk to me through tech, like literally, how does it work and what does it extract? And then what's the output? Is it, in what format does it come? Does it come in an email? Hey, John, you're about to meet with Jason. Here's a bunch of stuff that you should remember about him.

Walk me through that. So I just understand a little bit better. Absolutely. Now, the first thing first is we are still working on it. So that, that is not available in the market yet, but that's the grand vision. But the key thing, I think if we take a step back, the whole idea of the second brain is it helped me, or it helped us to remember all the information that we previously extracted, all the private information. So when I talk about the data, I talk about the public data and the private data. So public data, it basically means if I go online, if I search for John Barrow, it's going to give me the link in, going to give me your website, your. YouTube, and then other interviews. Those are public data.

And that is where I could learn about you. But that is not the focus for me right now. The focus for us right now is the private data, being the email that we have already exchanged. For example, how I reached out to you, what we talked about earlier. And all of this data is already available in the channel, i.e. being email, WhatsApp, SMS, LinkedIn, other social media accounts, and even like Microsoft Teams, Slack, and many, many other channels. So one of the biggest problems that we actually have today is sometimes just to remember where that conversation happened in one of those channels. So the idea of the second brain is that if I could synthesize, if I could collect all of those exchanges that you and I have got across all of those channels, then before I meet you, I could ask my personal AI, I could ask my second brainer and say, hey, I am meeting with John Barrow.

Tell me when was the last time we meet. Tell me what we discussed last time. And also, please remind me, his wife me. That is the whole idea that it prepared me for a meeting. And before I wrap that up, I just want to highlight that it is actually a 21st century problem. It is a new problem that we have today. Because if you think about it, that time, 30 years ago, we only have three ways of talking to people. You call them up, talk to them face to face, or you write to them in letter. I don't remember I ever wrote to somebody in letter, so I don't have a bunch of letters to go through. But that was the only three ways that we talk to people. The world that we live in today, we got mobile, we got email, we got multiple email accounts, we got multiple social media accounts, we got multiple chat applications.

We have multiple chat applications and private chat applications. The fact that to remember where I share that details with you is already a challenge, let alone remembering what exactly did I share with you. But one last point that I just wanted to point out that, as you pointed out about the hyper-personalization, I think we, especially the newer generation, we are going to be trained to be expecting more and more and more personalization. For the reason, we are all saying Netflix. Netflix, know exactly what I like to watch. Instagram, Facebook, know what sort of thing that I like to read. Google, know exactly what I plan to shop. But yeah, our bank doesn't know any of those. So we are being trained to be expecting more and more personalization.

And that, especially to get attention from people, I think hyper-personalization is going to be more important. And that is where I see those are the two challenges that we have in the world that we live in today that we're making it certainly and bravely important. But all in all, as a human, we all want to be appreciated. We all want the attention. We all want to be remembered. It makes no sense to me that if I come up to you and say, hey, sorry, I don't remember your name. I don't remember how we met. Do you mind to remind me who you are? If I were to say that to you, I would never be able to make any business deal with you. So I think fundamentally, it is a human nature of us to expect a lot of those things.

What I'm muting is a software. It's a tool to help people to get better at it. Quick break here to highlight another one of the podcasts on the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Now, this one is Success Story, hosted by Scott Clary. Success Story features Q&A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. And I just got introduced to this podcast recently. And one of the ones that really caught my attention was the one with Ryan Blair. Ryan's the founder of Aftercall, a platform that offers science-based healing modalities such as meditation and breathwork to awaken humanity to the next level of consciousness.

He also created the Blair Foundation, a nonprofit that supports entrepreneurship education for single mothers and at-risk youth. Now, you all know I've been on this journey to learn a lot more about myself and spirituality and all the different things that are more important than the day-to-day lives. And this is really getting into it. And you also know that I'm a huge proponent of helping at-risk youth and single mothers and women in sales and everything else. So this really struck home. So listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts and let's make it happen. And I think that's so, so I'm going to, I want to clarify something though, because you said that my wife, you knowing, like in our conversation right here, you knowing that my wife went to Brisbane, right?

That's a memory. But yet this, what you're working on is listening to this call and is going to remind you that my wife went to Brisbane. So why isn't it then the next logical step that that AI that has that super personalized stuff then doesn't reach out to me and use that as a way to engage? And is that like the, I mean, obviously that's not the way it should be used, but my fear, I guess, is fear. I mean, look, there's so much information about all of us out there with all these recordings to your point. Like we have all these different channels. I mean, you unleash AI on some of this stuff and it can get really personal and actually in a frightening way. So how do we, how do we, and I guess this is a bigger question for you, can we control AI or are we already past the point of controlling it and we just got to ride this wave?

Because I, obviously there's a lot of people who are scared shitless right now, right? I mean, what happened with Microsoft and OpenAI, the reason they fired him is because, you know, what is it, what is it called a general AI where basically they were working on a project that had basically woke up and it said, okay, humans, we don't need you anymore. And he was trying to hide that from, from the board. And, and there's a lot of people out there like, okay, like my wife, she is anti AI in every way. Cause she's like, we're feeding the machine. We're just, we're just feeding it everything. And eventually it's going to take over. So where are you, I guess, on the fear factor of all this awesome, cool stuff and how it can help facilitate really cool conversations right now.

But in a year, is this shit going to wake up and be like, sorry, Jason, don't need you. Sorry, John, don't need you. Like, where are you on that realm? I am not sure we would come to that point yet, but I'll break it out into three different parts. The first thing is, I think to some extent we are past that point in terms of the data. Yeah. The data that we share with people, pretty much everything that we do, we say is recorded one way or another. The very fact that you are in the state, I am in the state, I am in the state, I'm done with you. This thing's, this iPhone, for people to listen, this iPhone is listening to every word I say. You know what I mean? Like, absolutely everything. If the government wanted to, they could turn on my microphone right now and listen to this without even trying.

Like, I get it. Like, this brings me back to like, remember Edward Snowden, right? Remember here in the States, he, you know, all of a sudden we're like, oh my God, you know, the government's listening and everybody got all up in arms. And I was just like, please, are you serious? I'm like, you really think? And so my first question always to somebody who was really pissed off about, oh, I told you the government was listening. I'm like, okay, you're all up in arms about this, right? Have you changed your passwords yet? Well, no. Well, then shut up. We will trade convenience for our, for our stuff all day long. I mean, think about Amazon. Amazon knows everything about me and I love it because I want what it's suggesting to me.

So I will trade convenience in a heartbeat over my personal information and people just need to be like, so it's out there whether we like it or not. Right. So I'm sorry to interrupt, but that was just a perfect example. No, I agree. I agree. And also because of the way that we communicate this day, um, is, we, we, we, we, we don't do face-to-face meeting. I mean, we still do, but it's, it's part of that, part of the channel. But the very fact that we do the communication, uh, digitally in multiple channels, it basically means that a lot of our data is already recorded. And to your point that we are trading for convenience for the loss of the privacy is already happening. So that itself for whatever things that we are doing already, it basically means that we are already passing that point where all our data is available.

I think that brings me to the second point is, will AI reach out to you and automatically email you and say that, Hey, uh, John, uh, your, is, is, are you and your wife planning to visit Brisbane again? I think we'll be, I think we'll bring back some memory of her. I, I mean, I, I suspect that maybe someone will view it. Um, it's possible. I know that I wouldn't want to automate that whole thing. That is our principle. That is what we, we, we think. I, I don't think we should automate the entire thing. I mean, what is this joy of life? If you just get everything automated, but I think that brings up the, the key is that what is the principle, what is this ethical that we want? And I think that is obviously not, not every single person will uphold that value, uh, the ethical and the responsible AI, but judging on what we are seeing around the world or all, all the main researcher that is doing is that, and even in the enterprise, you've already talked about, uh, deploying or, or, or adopting AI.

A lot of times they talk about, okay, what is the responsible AI framework we are going to talk about? What, what is that ethical AI that we need to consider before we do all those things? So I think there is a lot of the positivity in there, um, that I am seeing, and no doubt there will be always, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, that will be always few people, uh, destroying the party. And I'll use internet as a, as a classic example. I mean, the very fact that we invented the internet that has been, that brought so much positive to the humankind, to, to, to, to every single person around the world. At the same time, we can't deny that the, the dark web, where it is trading all those illegal goods, illegal products, cowpon, all the crazy stuff.

And I think that is the way that we should look at the technology. Some of the great technology will bring harm to the human kind, but equally we have to examine all the benefits that it brings. It is up to us to manage it. It's up to us to control it. It's up to us how to deal with it. We can't stop it completely, but we can, we, we, as a society, we, as human, we can, we can manage it. I hope you're right, man. I really do. I, I, I, cause I, I have, you know, one of the things that's scaring me, and I don't know if you've read this, but, uh, I, I came across this book. Um, have you ever read the mother of the matrix? Ah, no, I have never read it. So this woman, um, she, well, this is the book about the woman, but this woman apparently wrote a book before terminator and matrix were movies.

And it was the terminator and the matrix, but the terminator was the prequel to the matrix. And then the story was about how Hollywood stole it from her and all this other stuff. But I look at this, you know, as I read this book, and if you think of the terminator and the matrix, it, it almost feels like a biography of what's happening to humankind. Because if you think of terminator, right, the first time, I think it was the second terminator where they projected into the future and they said, well, when the machines woke up and started to come after us, well, we, we had to kill their power source, right? So we killed the sun with the nuclear winter and then they had, they didn't have any power.

So they looked to humans, they put us into pods and they clicked us, right? So like, if you look at this, it's almost like Skynet is Chachi BT, right? So I think there's this, you know, there is the sky. Oh my God, we're all freaking out. But I'm more on the positive side than I'm on the negative side at the end of the day. And I, and I just hope the good actors outweigh the bad actors. And as it relates to what we're doing in sales, I think it's the same thing. It's the good actors and the bad actors. It's like these cadence tools. When used right, the cadence tools are good. When used as spam engines, they're terrible. When AI is used to augment, whereas that second brain, it's great. When it's used to automate, it's a nightmare.

So are there, do we need to have almost a code of conduct or something that, that talks about that ethical usage of AI and, and where is that going to come from? Because I think there's ethical people, obviously there's ethical people that are going to try to do their best, but laws, at least here in the States, you know, how government works, it's a nightmare, right? They can't catch up. They're going to slow everything down and it's a disaster. So how can we as a population control this and, and self-regulate? That is a very, very tough question. And I'm not sure if I have the perfect answer for that, but I always believe that it's probably going to be, come down to the combination and the effort coming from the both sides, the self-regulation and also the government regulation.

I absolutely agree that the government regulation is, is low, it's concrete, and by the time they pick it up and we are well, we are probably on the judgmental right now, but the sort of extent, I think the government regulation would still be important because we, as a human, sometimes we just need to look up to something in order to be able to follow, to, to, to, uh, to follow some of the regulations. And so I think the government regulation is equally important. I can only hope that there are more and more data and more, more AI people, but equally the government understand that the challenges that they have and the bureaucracy that they have, they need to speed up. They, the world that we live in is moving so fast that they can't, and they can no longer operate like they did 50 years ago where it took them a week just to debate a topic, right?

So they have to speed up. So I hope they recognize that and they will speed up that. Equally, the self-regulation, I think it explained a lot in need from us that where exactly what type of the future that we want to live for our kids, our next generation. And I think he is always going to be that. And I remember, I think that, that reminded me is that, uh, the, the founding, uh, prime minister or the founding father of the Singapore, Li Guan Yu, he said that, uh, the young people are supposed to be rebellious. Young people are supposed to be voicing out their frustration because if they don't, what sort of future, uh, what sort of the, the, the leader do we want the next generation for? Right.

So the point that I'm trying to use that as an analogy is that self-regulation is equally important that we want the AI researcher, we want the people who work in this field, wanting to be self-regulated, wanting to do a right thing so that, so they can share that voice to the wider community. So for a classic example is I know money is tempting. I know subscription is tempting that I just got this enterprise client who want to sign up a hundred account. If I could automate that for him, but I have to say no to him, no matter how attractive it is. I just have to say no, because that is not the product that I want to build for people. That is not the product. That is not the way that, uh, the future that I want to live for my kids where they are doing nothing.

And then they just got their AI talking to other AI and then have everything done for them. I think the, the, the manual labor is, that is always appreciation of that manual labor. So I think it's a combination of that, those two. Yeah. And I, man, I hope there's more people like you out there, Jason. I mean, because I, you know, I, I really do. Thank you. Um, because I, I'm, I'm aligned with you. Uh, you know, I really am. I, I think it, there's, there's so much good that can come from this technology. Um, but there's bad actors and you know, and I know it, you know what I mean? That, that are going to go off the rails. So I just hope there's more good actors than bad actors. Uh, Jason, I'm going to finish up with this, which is for you and your product.

Like this seems something cool, like that is going to help out a lot and, and make that human connection. I think probably faster, right? So, you know, maybe I'm going to forget, but it's, it's going to expedite night. And I, and I do believe right now, because we're in a digital world, we do need to find ways of kind of skipping the line a little bit in, in, in trying to figure out how to connect with people more authentically. Um, and I think that what you're doing is, is, is, is aligned with that. What are you most excited about for the next six months for you? Like whether it's the product, whether it's the industry, whether it's what's happening, like what's something that you're just like, when you wake up, you're like, I am fired up for this.

I think it's about getting the product to more of the hands of the technical SMB owner or the technical founder, uh, that excites me. Uh, when I hear, uh, when I interviewed the user and they tell me how it has been helpful for them. And then as I continue to ask them questions, to understand the challenges that they have, I share their challenges. I, I share the challenges of the technical SMB owner where they would not, they would not bond that as a natural salesman, as a salesperson. But yeah, and yet they are, they are, they are out there trying to build their businesses. They are trying to build a career and they have to learn so much. They have to go, they have to go through all the things that I have, that I went through to learn the importance of remember the names of the people.

What they do, all the little detail, uh, just to become a better salesperson. And I'm excited to help those people because it's not easy for them. I've been through that journey and I can see how second brain can help them with skip a few obstacle and the skill or the wrong path that they, they would have taken. And help them to, to, to become a better salesperson in order to build their vision as technical founder, as a technical SMB owner. I think that is what I'm excited about. Love it. Well, I look, I'll be a customer. Uh, so if I, if I can say, cause like, again, this, this hits one of my biggest pain points. I do have a roadmap request for you. If, if, if you're taking road requests, uh, connected to Google glasses so that when I walk up with facial recognition, right?

So if I could be in a room and have all of a sudden, Oh, John, that's Jason. And it's right here in my eyes. And that comes and it says, Hey, this is the last time you talk to him and that type of thing. That would be the like euphoric state. Right? So if you can make that happen, man, I will, I'll be an investor for crying out more. It is, it is part of the roadmap and the grand vision because when we do all of those things digitally, it only makes sense to come to the Google class. Yeah. And that if we are crazy enough that we could probably put that into the chip that we are going to put in our brain as well. Yeah. Right. That's a, that's Elon. That's Elon embedding chips. That's Elon. Yeah.

Elon, if you are listening to this, I'm building the second brain, uh, for your chip to be inserted into the grid. And, uh, we are ready to put it up. Oh, well, you know, what's funny about that. That the last point there is, you know, Elon talks about, you know, like people like embedding chips in their brain. Everybody's like all cyborgs and that type of thing. And he made a point the other day that was very valid. He's like, you're already a cyborg. He's like, just because the chip's not in your head. This is the chip. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like we all walk around with this phone tied to our, like for everything we do. Yeah. So the fact that in our hand versus in our head, what's the difference?

Yeah. So everybody who's freaking about the cyborg scenario, it's you're already a cyborg to a certain degree. So it's just the next evolution of it. That is a good point. I never thought, I never thought about that, but yeah, that is a good point. Good point. So yes. Awesome. Google Glass and chip as well. Yes. Yeah. Bring it on. All right, Jason. Let's tie this thing up. Where can people find out more information about what you're working on? About you? Where do you want to send people? Check out our website, engage AI, engage-ai.co. Or find me on LinkedIn, Jason Tan. I post a lot about how people can get better in sales with AI tools. And again, how AI can augment the skill set for the technical founder, engage AI.

Love it. Awesome. Thank you for coming on. This has been a fun conversation. And like I said, I hope there's more people out there like you who are doing the ethical side of AI that we can use this for good and limit the evil, if you will. So I really appreciate you coming on here, Jason. Thank you so much. Can I throw a gift for your listener? Yeah. For whoever. Yeah, absolutely. Please do, yeah. Try it out. So if you are listening to this podcast or you're watching this on YouTube, and if you believe engage AI is aligned with what you do and you want to use AI to help you to augment your prospecting and selling, use a coupon code of BF23. B for BOI, F for Pharah, two and three, get $23 discount and try $7 for the first month.

And help us to continue and give me feedback. I love all feedback as we are continuing to build up the second brain for all the technical SMB owner. Well, fantastic. Well, hopefully everybody takes you up on that offer. So I appreciate you giving that to the audience here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It has been great fun. I'm glad that you asked all the tough questions. It's a further helping me to validate in terms of what is the right thing to do, what is not the right thing to do, and where exactly where we want to be heading. But equally, why it could be useful. Yeah. And how it could be useful. Yeah. And I think that's, we got to keep asking those tough questions, right?

So I think all of us need to keep asking those tough questions to make sure that we stay on track. So awesome, man. Thank you. Look, everybody. Yeah, thank you, Jason. And look, everybody, thank you for joining us. Hopefully you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did and got something out of it, got you to think a little bit differently. And like I always say at the end of all these podcasts, go out there and make somebody smile today. Because no matter how bad your day goes or how bad you think it went, if you make somebody smile, you know you had a good day. And the world needs a lot more of that right now. Thank you all very much and I will see you on the other side. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.

With your support and our incredible guests, we're one of the top sales podcasts out there right now and I can't thank you enough. Now, to keep the momentum going, it would mean the world to me if you could go and leave a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform and share some of your favorite episodes with your network. Also, check out my new website, jbarrows.com, where you'll find even more ways to engage. There's a ton of free content and you can also get trained from me directly as an individual or for your team. Look, I'm out there selling every day just like you are. And I'm doing my best to stay on top of all the latest trends in sales and technology. So if you're looking to level up and you give a shit about this profession of sales, let's connect and make it happen together.

Let's connect and make it happen together. you