Beyond the Firewall. Powered by HUB Tech
Beyond the Firewall is a podcast designed to help business and IT leaders understand how technology shapes performance, resilience, and long-term growth. Each episode delivers expert perspectives and actionable insights to help organizations stay ahead in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.
You’ll hear deep dives into today’s most pressing technology topics, including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, IT modernization, and cloud transformation. Conversations center on real-world challenges and practical strategies leaders can apply to strengthen their operations, safeguard their environments, and prepare for the future of IT.
Powered by HUB Tech, the podcast is hosted by Chris Daggett, Director of Managed Services and Security at HUB Tech, and Adam Shaffer, an IT and eCommerce leader. Together, they sit down with CIOs, CISOs, CTOs, IT practitioners, public-sector leaders, and other technology innovators who bring forward the ideas, lessons, and perspectives shaping the modern IT landscape.
For more information about HUB Tech IT Solutions and Services, please visit https://hubtech.com/
Beyond the Firewall. Powered by HUB Tech
CyberMind: Exploring AI, Threats & Innovation
What does safe and responsible AI adoption look like in a public sector environment that handles sensitive data and must protect trust at every step?
In this episode, we talk with Kerry Jordan, Chief of Staff for the City of Boston. He explains how his team approaches AI with clear guardrails, approved tools, and training that supports security and transparency. He gives a real example of financial data uploaded to an unapproved model and shows why controlled environments and policy alignment matter.
We cover how to evaluate AI by use case, select the right ecosystem such as Microsoft Copilot or Google Gemini, and set up monitoring and auditing. Kerry also outlines the factors that shape public sector decisions, including consent requirements and accountability to citizens.
The conversation then shifts to adoption. Teams gain confidence when they see AI remove repetitive tasks and reduce errors. We walk through a simple approach: survey your workforce, communicate the purpose, start with high-impact pilots, and measure results in time saved and quality gains. We also discuss governance to reduce bias and the value of human review as these tools evolve.
If you need clarity on AI tool selection, data protection, or how to support your teams without enabling shadow IT, this episode provides a clear playbook you can apply in your organization.
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The Beyond the Firewall podcast features discussions with technology leaders and practitioners who provide valuable insights into today’s IT and business challenges.
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To learn more about HUB Tech and the services that support IT modernization, visit the HUB Tech website at https://hubtech.com/.
What's really driving the future of IT? How are leaders stay secure, efficient, and ahead of change? Welcome to the Beyond the Firewall Podcast. Powered by HubTech, where we go past the headlines to talk with technology leaders, industry experts, and IT practitioners shaping how we work, live, and lead. Let's get into today's episode Hello everyone.
SPEAKER_03:I'm Adam Schaefer, host of the new HubTech Conversations on Artificial Intelligence podcast. AI is like a two-sided coin. On the one side, it could accelerate business operations, improve decision making, and unlock new opportunities. On the other, it raises serious questions around data protection, cybersecurity, and how employees can embrace AI tools without fear or misuse. To help unpack these topics, I'm joined today by two incredible guests to help us explore both sides of the coin. Today we have Chris Daggett, HubTech's Director of Managed Services and Security. Chris works with organizations every day to secure their infrastructure, protect the critical data, and build IT strategies that enable safe innovation. And we also have Kerry Jordan, Chief of Staff of the City of Boston. In his role, Kerry provides strategic leadership and coordination across city departments, helping align people, processes, and technology to deliver on the city's mission. With that, we're going to get started talking about our two coins, our two sides of the coin. We look at the organizational and security side of things, and we look at the human and cultural side of things. So let's kind of first meet our guests, Chris and Carrie. And you, I try to do my best at an introduction, but maybe you can expand a little bit on your roles and what you do and start with Chris.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Thank you, Adam. My name is Chris Daggett. I am the director of managed services and security here at Hub Tech. I've been in technology for well over 25 years now. I've held various roles mostly in the enterprise space around server engineering, technology risk management, solution architecture. These types of roles that I've held in the past help me become very well-rounded. And you know, I can pretty much speak to anything technology related that would impact any kind of company at this point in time.
SPEAKER_03:That's great. Thanks, Chris. And Kerry, you have a really cool job. Why don't you tell us about it?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, I serve as the chief of staff of the city of Boston. Um I work in the Innovation and Technology Cabinet, been here going on 18 years. Um, prior to serving the role that I'm in, I worked for the City Council TB programming operations and their tech team. Um so I'm really proud to be a member of the city. I was born and raised in the neighborhood of Dorchester, um, and I'm a proud parent. So um being in a place where I can learn you know the ropes of the city and give back to the community has been a fantastic journey in my does that also make you a PATS fan?
SPEAKER_03:Are you a few absolutely no questions about it? Okay, good. They're actually playing well this year. I'm very happy. Yeah, they are super. So with that, let's start our discussion and we're gonna break this into pieces. So, first, let's talk about business and security. And I'm gonna start just with Chris, and then you guys can maybe talk a bit about it. But but Chris, when a company is first looking at AI, what's the right way to evaluate tools before in before rolling them out?
SPEAKER_01:So it really comes down to understanding what the actual business needs are for these AI tools and establishing a baseline that's that's secure and that's gonna provide the um the most reduced risk that will come into the environment. Um, you know, getting a an approved AI tools list is very important. That will lay the you know the foundational pieces for you know what the end users can leverage um you know on this AI journey and you know understanding what business units may need these AI tools and where they can actually make the most impact. You know, you may have a you know, our our engineering department, for example, we we leverage AI tools quite often. And it's made our our roles and our jobs a lot simpler. You know, we've been able to augment a lot of the um wash, rinse, and repeat um you know, tasks that we all have, and it's given us a lot of cycles back in our day to focus on bigger and better things. So great.
SPEAKER_03:And Carrie, come on into this conversation a little bit and let's talk about it from the government's perspective. How does evaluation differ when you're accountable to the citizens and the public trust when it comes to AI tools?
SPEAKER_05:Absolutely. That's a great question, um, Adam. Like Chris said, is a lot of it is making sure that we offer training, we're bringing people along on the journey because we believe AI is here to stay. So we we want to make sure that as it's evolving, we're evolving our thinking and our tooling so that we can support the workforce of the city of Boston. In our particular department, we're in a um highly unionized environment. So a lot of the rules and and parameters set by collective bargaining um limits what we can and can't do for sure. Um, but we want to make sure that we're helping folks enable themselves to be the most efficient they can be by um using AI tools.
SPEAKER_03:That's that's great. But now I'll throw this both to to both of you guys. I don't know like if you want to fight about the answer, but security is always top of mind. What's the biggest risks you see for companies and government when they adopt AI?
SPEAKER_01:I'll start. Uh I it's it's all about data leakage. You know, it's having that that personal information uh that we all need to be securing on a regular basis. Um that can get leaked out into the wild very quickly. What folks need to understand is a lot of these free AI tools, you know, what you're putting into them is actually going to be out in the wild and in public. So we actually had an example where you know we had a finance director reach out to us and she was using the free chat GPT to make her job a little simpler. The bad thing about it is she uploaded all of her company's personal information up into the free tool, and she didn't realize that it was out in the wild now. So, long story short, she had to self-report, but there is a major risk to folks not understanding the power and the risk associated to these tools. We we are in a click-happy convenience type of society, and we we have a tendency to latch on to things that make our make our lives easier. You know, that's human nature, right? Um Well, I think you taught me that.
SPEAKER_03:Like I didn't realize that when I go to ChatGTP, I put um anything, any question I ask, and it's now there for anybody because I I'm I'm imagining the tool is learning from everything, right? And then keep on getting more information. And so I had no idea that if I go to Copilot or Chat GTP or any of this stuff, that it it retains it for me, but it's retaining it for itself and for to share with everybody. I had no idea until you told me that. So that freaked me out a little bit.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, it's scary, you know, and and it's important to, you know, going back to the approved AI list, you know, use the paid for tools. That's going to ensure that you know your data stays within your company's tenant, you know, and it's not gonna get out into the wild.
SPEAKER_03:But Carrie, how do you stop like you got all these people everywhere? Like, you know, you're you're the city of Boston, they got people in different places and different jobs and different PCs. How do you stop them from going to ask a question to ChatGTP on the web?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, we definitely try not to stop folks. We we encourage people to explore and make mistakes, but we try to make sure that if you're, you know, we we cover the rules. We make sure that if you're gonna use personal information, which we suggest you don't, use it within one of our certified tools. Make sure you're using the tools that we're putting forth for um folks to participate, um, or or to you know get the best results. The the only tool we we we blocked so far from this from the city's use was um one of those note-taking tools. And we realized that they were joining meetings unauthorized. Um, and we we were really concerned. Actually, some of our our our our um customers came to us and said, Hey, I'm really concerned. I didn't invite this this this tool into my meeting. What are they doing here taking notes?
SPEAKER_03:And oh so the A the AI note AI note-taking tool. The AI note-taking tool. And so you you blocked that. I didn't I didn't realize that either. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, there are a lot of free tools out there that wanted to confirm consent.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_05:Yep. We want the two-party consent. So we want to make sure that both both parties were were agreed to be recorded. Um, so that was one of the areas where we had to pivot. Um, and once we once the tools got better, we learned how other tools can take the notes you need and and record it in a way that gets that confirmation, or at least training folks to say, hey, if you're gonna record this, make sure you're you're sharing that in advance so that everyone can can agree or disagree. So that definitely like shifts our change of thinking.
SPEAKER_03:So sorry, because I don't understand exactly all the different areas of the city of Boston, but are you responsible for the schools also?
SPEAKER_05:So so schools are part of our our footprint. We're they have a separate IT team, but we work pretty close together to make sure that we're creating policies together that support and supplement one another.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, but so I I'd imagine I wouldn't want the kids like like sure, they use it for homework, but I I don't know. There's things you probably do want to block there that have nothing to do with AI, like TikTok and all this other junk, but um, that's got to be interesting. All right. Well, so let me let me ask you again, Carrie. I'll stay with you for a second. From your side, how do you balance innovation with the risks when you're working with the public sector? Like, like this is really cool, it would really add a lot of value, but I'm not really ready to deal with that yet. I don't know if I'm this is something we want to roll. How do you how do you evaluate this stuff?
SPEAKER_05:So so those are the two parts, but the the funny part is we're we're constantly trying to compete with the conferences and the different events that the city workforce gets to attend. They go out and learn about all these cool and exciting tools, and they come back and it's like, hey, I need this tool, and it and it costs a whole bunch of money. So we we're like, hey, slow down, let us evaluate the needs. Um, and so we we create a policy, we did it, we do a lot of training, but we also encourage folks to introduce those tools, let us evaluate it, let them let us put them through our security metrics to make sure that you know this this tool is gonna stand up and it's gonna protect our data. And um, you know, so it's so it's tough. Where we we try to be the innovators, but a lot of the folks in the city of Boston um are also, you know, the the latest and greatest comes out of this city. So it's it's sometimes challenging to be in front of it. Um, so we survey our workforce, we ask them, hey, what tools are you using? What tools would you like to use? Um, and we really, really um create those feedback loops to make sure we're iterating and and shifting things according to what the workforce is demanding.
SPEAKER_03:When you do your surveys to get a good response rate, or like do a lot of people just say, I don't want to deal with that.
SPEAKER_05:It keeps getting better. Because the other thing is like folks want to know, like, what is this AR thing? And and part of I think our our role is to demystify it, you know. So when they start to open the air and we're and we're lending them information that kind of resonates, I think they begin to trust us. So we're able to do a little bit more and they want to participate more.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that user that user adoption piece is super, super important. Um, you know, as Kerry had alluded to, you know, getting the information out in front of the end user space, um, you know, making sure that they're educated, they know the do's and don'ts, um, getting them excited about it. You know, I think those are all key factors in the success of any AI implementation. You know, it's it's you know, Kerry had mentioned earlier that AI is not going anywhere. And it's, you know, it's gonna stay for a long time. You know, it's not, I know there are a lot of there's a lot of speculation out there that AI is gonna be replacing jobs. Uh I I see it as an opportunity to re-skill and kind of tighten up how you do your role. You know, it's everybody's gonna use these AI tools um differently. And you know, in many cases, that it might might be disposable, you know.
SPEAKER_03:So that's a great, you know, kind of uh pivot to the next part, which is organizational change. Like, how do you guys, especially with the city, how do you get people to embrace AI, leverage AI, and not be afraid of it? Because exactly what you said, Chris. Like, am I gonna start doing this and now it's gonna know what I do and it's gonna replace me? Like, do you deal with that?
SPEAKER_05:We do, but we we try to remind folks that you know, someone has to prompt engineer, someone has to train the models and tell the models what to do. And in that human element is valuable. The other piece is making sure that we have that human element to review the data that we're receiving, the answers and responses to the prompts. Um, and we still need that human element to make sure we're confirming the facts and and that sort of thing. So I a lot of that that draws people, it's like, hey, we're it makes it a little bit easier, but we also have to make sure we're reviewing it and and you know the responsibility of information is ours.
SPEAKER_03:So but do you see people like are scared of it or they're like they're into it? Like what is it? Like a 50-50 thing.
SPEAKER_05:So I believe we surveyed our workforce, and over 60% said that they're using it, whether in a personal or professional capacity. So it's definitely on the rise. And in again, with your devices, your your cell phone, you can't avoid it. I I got a new device, and so much of it is it's in there. So it's like, hey, you lost your bank card. You want to update it here? I'm like, not not with not with your, you know, not with your AI tool in the mix. Right all the company, you know.
SPEAKER_03:What's funny is my kids use it for school now. I thought like I wasn't gonna tell them it existed, but they knew already, right? Like they knew everything. And the teachers now have um an AI detection tool that tells them like what percentage of this was written. And the teachers are great. They've been asking the kids, like, what does this word mean? And the kids like, I don't know. And then one kid asked, one teacher asked the kid, hey, you use chat GTP for this, didn't you? He goes, No, ma'am, no, I use Copilot. I thought that was a pretty good answer. So, anyway. Um, so so so Chris, let's go talk about the same with you know leadership and organizational change and and how does HubTech, and I don't want this to really be a promotion hub tech, but but but that's where you are. And and how does HubTech help its clients navigate not just the tech, but also the people side of this adoption? What what do you guys do for that?
SPEAKER_01:So it's you know, again, it's important to understand you know the do's and don'ts. Um the adoption piece is a it's a journey. Um, you know, it it's all about making sure there's a lot of open dialogue uh with the end users, understanding business cases, and you know, AI will touch every single, eventually touch every single business process that any given company has. Uh, whether folks want to believe that or not, that's the reality of what we're dealing with today. Um but you know, Carrie had brought up proof of concepts, you know, emerging technologies, things like that. It's tough to stay on top of things. There are always new tools coming out, but prioritizing what you want to approach first is very, very important. You know, there could be some, you know, having a you know a business analysis done where you can identify where we can leverage AI to get more efficiency. You know, can we use it for forms, you know, form creation or training or you know, whatever the case may be, call center. Um, you know, these are all specific use cases that could impact any business's bottom line. So the the business itself needs to understand how it operates and where they're gonna achieve the most bang for the buck.
SPEAKER_03:So you're gonna spend time with CEOs or and and Kerry's side with the the city, and you're gonna maybe help them try to figure out how to leverage AI. Is that what you're saying? What how they get to get how do you they're gonna get bang for their buck?
SPEAKER_01:Um we would we would go in, we would interview you know key stakeholders, and you know, we need to understand where the pain points are. So, you know, understanding where those pain points lie and how we can, you know, and this is aside from AI, this is a a conversation that I have with businesses all the time. You know, understanding pain points, aligning them with technology, you know, that's the name of the game. That's how you're gonna maximize, you know, your spend, your strategy, you know, everything across the board. And you know, you're gonna, you know, it comes down to having a strategy, having goals and milestones in place. And, you know, if you really stick to the plan and ensure that, you know, as Carrie had alluded to, you know, the training, the communication, you know, all those kind of soft skill pieces are crucial, very crucial.
SPEAKER_05:But I also think we're just at a we're at an interesting, oh sorry, I I was just gonna say we're at an interesting time where innovations are just happening so frequently. So you want to be ahead of the latest and greatest, you know. You you kind of want to know what the new trend is so that you can stay at least informed, you know, and right I think in in our bureaucracy it's challenging because you have people who've been doing things the same way for 40-50 years, you know what I mean? They're like, don't come interrupting my process, this thing works, you know. But if you can leverage you know AI to help them be a little bit more efficient or save a little bit of time, then I think we're we're checking that box.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. And I think that's where you know there's a challenge there, right? You know, you had mentioned the um, you know, some folks are kind of set in their ways, you know. You have uh C levels and business owners, they've been operating at a certain capacity for a long time and they've been successful doing it, you know. And you have somebody, you know, like Hub or another company coming in for an AI readiness kind of assessment, and they're like, We're fine, we don't really need anything, we're we're doing just fine. It's um quantifying the return on investment and you know what kind of efficiency gains they're gonna get, which will ultimately impact their bottom line. You know, you you kind of need to talk at their, you know, what speaks to them. You know, if you go into speeds and feeds and things like that, you're not going to get across to that level of person. So you kind of need to adjust, you know, know your audience, adjust your, you know, it's not your pitch, but your approach, because different types of uh roles will speak different types of languages. You know, if you speak technical to a C level, you're going to glaze them over very quickly. So you know being able to get through to them and you know speak their language, understand uh you know, where the challenges lie and how to bridge the gaps and leverage the technology and the AI to help them out is the name of the game.
SPEAKER_03:And do you guys like Carrie, do you have like guard guardrails or like does an alarm go off if somebody's doing something wrong with the tools? You know, maybe they're trying to find personal stuff or doing something that you know is a no-no like it do you have a way that you get alerted so I I I I personally don't I'm not certain our cyber security team is definitely on top of that.
SPEAKER_05:They definitely make sure we're using the right tools. We we have a list that we're developing and constantly revisiting to make sure that folks are getting access to tools that they need and want. I think one of the things that that Chris mentioned earlier that helps kind of make it a package deal is that cyber awareness. So um here in the city we we've really been pushing these like quarterly cyber awareness trainings um which in the beginning seems so excessive but when you when you're pushing a fishing campaign you're getting text messages like is this legit? Right, right you know you're getting across to them so when you supplement you know the AI tools in in the opportunities to to for efficiency um I think that that just kind of helps tell the story better.
SPEAKER_01:Helps make things better for all I also feel as though you know making that training fun is important. You know it's I I run a I run a program here and I run programs for a lot of different companies and I find the most success when I can make the training fun and easily digestible that way you can cast a wide net you know it's um it it's tough. So you like game of people don't want to do a lot of people don't want to do the training especially in a union in a unionized shop you know in particular you know they don't want to take time out of their day to to do it.
SPEAKER_05:So um and and and when you do these AI assessments Chris um are you you are you first checking all the cybersecurity stuff as is that part of it to make sure essentially you know we would we would need to understand you know the um the tools that they're leveraging in the environment uh what kind of monitoring and auditing they have in place and potentially you know provide recommendations for tweaking monitoring and auditing and alerting and you know that way you can kind of get a grip on okay you know if somebody does use a tool that isn't sanctioned you know it will create a ticket or an alert somebody would know they can get spoken to whatever um again this is all new to everybody and we're all just trying to figure it you know we're figuring this out together um it's not a matter of slapping somebody on the wrist you know for for the fun of it it's it's we all need to understand you know to your point Adam the the guardrails you know the space we can play in you know the the safe space and then another fun thing for us in this in the schools you know we a few of us have visited a few of the high schools and they're like oh AI no thank you you know but when you when you show them the you know the how to use it to check your coding and that sort of thing it they realize like oh there is additional value here that I didn't think about it's it's more than an LLM tool you know there's so many more things we can do if we were exposed to them if we knew about them. So I think that sometimes our team serves as a IT liaison to the rest of the the the departments here to help them kind of see what else is out there.
SPEAKER_01:And and it's funny because you know the the these AI tools depending on how creative you are and how how you dive into it um and figure out you know it it's really interesting like uh we we leverage Microsoft Copilot quite a bit in our environment and I can start a chat with with AI and it will provide me the actuan go deeper here do you do you want to you know evaluate this do you want to look at this and you know in many cases I'm I'm at you know at night I'm at at home just kind of you know banging away going to the note it's like two in the morning you know and I didn't even think that that time went by it just it took me on this journey that I didn't even think I could go on. You know it and it's it's really interesting. You know that it's it it all depends on the on the user and how creative they want to be but it's very powerful the use cases are endless and the power of this tool is is immense.
SPEAKER_05:So are there are there any concerns that your that your customers or clients have flagged for you that that kind of stand out as things that you start to trend towards or or redirect them about so in my strategic business reviews I I will ask flat out you know very transparently um hey you know what's your plan for introducing AI into your environment where are you on the journey and you know do you have any questions or pain points right now?
SPEAKER_03:Have you started you know your end user training and getting the word out have you been getting any uh feedback and how how have you been responding to it and those challenges around the feedback um you know it's keeping an open mind and keeping open dialogue is going to be essential to you know any successful implementation of AI so so um it who's who's ahead of you who in accepting AI and and trying to adopt AI is it public sector or commercial who's ahead of the curve so I think everybody's trying to adopt it and I think I would if I thought about it I would have to say private sector is probably ahead of public sector due to due to budgetary and due to um the desire to be bleeding edge.
SPEAKER_01:So you know the the public sector is gonna I feel will have a slower adoption rate however personally I feel as though slow and steady is what's going to win the race in you know in this instance you know diving in I I've read a lot about you know companies that are have gone in headfirst and now they're starting to to really revert back to how they did things before because they they went in too quick and they didn't you know really take time to understand the journey and they didn't have a well thought out strategy and they didn't cover the bases and and things like that. So it's it's an evolving technology and it will it does change from day to day um it's gonna get better uh more powerful and you know right now you know there's another technology that's right on the on the tail of AI and that's called quantum computing and that's gonna bring us to a whole nother place. So this AI is the tip of the iceberg.
SPEAKER_03:So that's another episode that's great Chris. So so Carrie with the city of Boston and the cities in general the bigger cities do they communicate with each other and share ideas? Like do you do you say in a competitive way and just a sharing knowledge way do you guys communicate and say who's doing what and maybe we should do it that way.
SPEAKER_05:That's a cool idea do you guys hang together absolutely absolutely so our CIO um Santiago Garcia has been one of the leaders one of the first policies um created was drafted um under his penmanship um and it got distributed and picked up almost I think internationally at this point so I think we were proud to be one of the first to kind of get something in writing but we we've been backing up by doing those surveys and evaluating the use cases and making sure that we're supporting our workforce and in their needs. But from there you know we're part of peer city review groups we're part of the um the Massachusetts the the EOS team in in the state along with the city had a uh a resource group under the the leadership of the governor and our chief was uh was a member of that organization so you know we were we're definitely early adopters and we continue to like push the needle um but we also are pacing it in a way because we're like got to keep a mind out for pricing and seeing how the prices can fluctuate very quickly so we're I think it makes us that much more intentional because we're using um taxpayer dollars to to do the work. Yeah and is there some kind of is there some kind of ranking though for like cities like who's the most technologically advanced like is there something like that that exists like um like the the the college polls or something so there's there's the um so we part we participate in gov tech has a digital city survey um for this okay for two years in a row we we we came in sixth place um of large cities of 500 000 above so and we we're ranking below like LA and San Diego and that sort of thing um but we're on the list we're on the map so yeah no that's good it's but LA LA was up there I could see San Diego but I would think like San Francisco or something would be up at the top it was maybe maybe it was the county maybe they they claim the county I I can't remember the breakdown I just I know that we're further down there in Lincoln than we'd like to find out where Miami date is because I think we're we're at the bottom uh but anyway Chris I might have stepped on you what were you no no worries yeah I mean Carrie I was when we spoke on the panel together um at the Mass Digital Government Summit I was so thrilled to hear how far along um all of you folks from the Commonwealth are on your AI journey and you know you're you're really doing a fantastic job and you're you're really leaps and bounds ahead of many. So great job we appreciate that yeah we I think it's just the partnerships you know it's it's folks opening their door their doors and their their GitHub sets and us returning the favor so we're able to do more with less um you know we're I feel like we're a scrappy bunch we're forced to be because there's there's only but so many of us to do a lot of things all at once. So we have to look at our friends and our neighbors and and figure out what tools we can enable to to do more.
SPEAKER_01:Life's all about relationships, right?
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely and and going back to the employees like so you got a bunch of employees that are on the computer every day and then you got kind of this more non-technical staff that you know so how how do you get them up to speed do you train them is it hard are they difficult to work with like they're just like now all of a sudden you want them to do something technological maybe I don't know I I mean I think at this point most folks are already on the path there you know whether they're in the field and they're using tablets or mobile devices um you know so making sure that when we're evaluating those tools they're able to be offered the the AI tools that can help their work.
SPEAKER_05:You know again if we can if we can look at 100% of someone's workload and tackle that like at least 20% of that and make it a little bit better for them, that's that's the goal. So and it's not always easy especially as folks are are kind of stuck in their ways or or may have challenging embracing embracing technology we're also making sure we're creating the systems that can support it and create redundancies and whatever else is necessary down the line.
SPEAKER_03:And and um and going back to the business side of things you know when we we're talking about like businesses versus public sector when AI started to become a thing I guess you saw these monster companies embracing it quickly and integrating it into everything whether it's their chatbots or it's Amazon is like everything is AI now in internally or for the tools that they give their partners to use and I was thinking like oh these guys with a lot of money are going to crush everybody else and become much more efficient and blah blah blah but I still think that small medium businesses could could compete. I mean and what's your thoughts because I I don't think they were fast at the bat but I definitely think they could compete. So what what's your thoughts Chris on that? Because I'd love them to be able to catch up to these beamuths.
SPEAKER_01:Well what's what's happening is you know AI is essentially leveling the playing field as far as you know in the past you'd have somebody like you know myself or Carrie that's been in the industry for quite quite some time right um folks that learn how to use these tools effectively and efficiently will be able to skill up very quick and be able to compete with folks that have been in the industry like us um you know at a very quick rapid rate. So you know it's everybody across the board is going to have to reskill at some point to you know take them to another place. It's it's really you know the folks that have you know these these all these acronyms after the name and you know the education and this that and the other you know you have somebody coming out of school and if they're creative with how they're leveraging AI I mean they could leave these people that have these big educations in the dust um it's it's really interesting and a lot of these small companies you know you're seeing a lot of these startups become very successful quickly and you know folks are you know these young kids are able to stand up a business in days you know that's so go to market is is very rapid.
SPEAKER_03:How do the SMBs decide what AI tool they and the and and the cities like how do you decide like for the big picture tools like chat GTP Copilot you got Gemini I guess is Google like like um I think Elon's got his own thing I don't even know what it is and and so how what how do you what do you pick? Because there's more coming up every day.
SPEAKER_01:Well I I think a good starting point is you need to understand what your core environment is running on. You know you have some shops that are Microsoft you have some that are Google um you know it all depends on the situation. You know it's putting the right tool that fits the best in your environment you know if you can stay within your ecosystem that's where you want to be that way you're not moving things from one platform to another it's going to stay nice and tight. You know it's at Hub we use uh you know we're a 365 shop and we use copilot so copilot should win though but I still thought more people use chat so chat gpt is huge um but again it's a it's a kind of a a newer player and chat GPT's collaboration suite I mean it's I don't even I don't know if it even holds a candle to you know what Google or Microsoft would even offer.
SPEAKER_03:It seems like everybody's a Microsoft shop. I mean Kerry do you guys use Google or are you more Microsoft Shop?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah we're we're we're a Google shop here so we use Gemini heavily okay and then but we also we're also like developing our own tools that can sometimes Jim and I might not give us the response we need so we might run it through Cloud or we might run it through you know Anthropic or something else. So it's really interesting to to know what's out there, explore what's out there. And another thing that I was thinking from your your question Adam is you know I went to a to a conference and one of the tools that was being developed for another city was um cyber security tools for small businesses. So you might not be able to afford a uh a security team and in in that sort of thing. So if you can leverage AI to monitor your your systems and support you in that way that's that's one of the things that we're starting to see trend.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah we I see that quite a bit at the conferences uh I see more and more uh startups popping up with these very innovative uh platforms that are end-to-end security um you know as opposed to all right we have these 12 solutions you know that that work well together any company is going to want to buy one solution it simplifies billing it just makes it easier to support so there it's not a stack of different things they're gonna get one right but Adam to to answer your question right uh so open ai chat GPT that stuff is typically it's integrated into a lot of these platforms already so you know Google leverages it Microsoft leverages it you know it's and you know there are a lot of other LLMs out there that are designed for specific things you know for image creation for content authoring for you know the it it just you know to carry's point some things do you know do that analysis better than others cool so really really good stuff um but we're gonna kind of start coming to the end here and wrapping it up but I definitely want to make sure we cover some ground with kind of advice so first let's let's talk about employees so Carrie and then Chris like if you could leave employees with one message about ai right now what what would it be?
SPEAKER_05:And then Chris you can hit it after that my message is typically especially for IT folks bring bring others on the journey with you you know um as you're learning you you might not realize how simple or how challenging it is for someone else so so so bring someone along with you help them understand what it is you're doing demystify it a little bit take um help help them understand what prompt engineering is let them understand what rag augmentation is there there's just so many things to to learn and it's it's fairly easy with someone to kind of help guide you along the way so don't be afraid to help someone out and bring someone on the journey with you.
SPEAKER_01:And Chris my bit my message would be embrace the opportunity you have presented in front of you today. I'd spoken about you know the kind of level setting the playing field um AI is going to allow a lot of folks to have open doors that they wouldn't have previously so they need to approach it with an open mind and you know get as get as educated as you can around it and you know it it's just a matter of starting off small and you know digging it you know it's not you can't you kind of need to like anything else you're not gonna be an expert right out of the gate but as you play with it and understand it more and get more creative with it the outcomes are going to be fantastic.
SPEAKER_03:Cool well thanks for that and then since I've been asking all the questions I'd love for you guys just to maybe riff a little bit on just you know what what would be your closing thoughts on AI, AI and security, employees, organization. You you pick it. Why don't you try to close out with something that um I I left out.
SPEAKER_01:I feel the you know we really didn't touch upon uh governance. I think that's a big uh human piece that will not go away. There is a lot of bias um that the LLMs build out and it's the human that will be responsible for keeping that bias in check and to ensure you know ensuring that you know you're adhering to certain regulatory you know requirements where necessary or you know is the data accurate um you know those types of things are going to be crucial uh moving forward you know these are you're saying you're saying AI is biased like it it has a left or a right or something yeah it'll start to build its own opinions on things based on all the information that it's provided so the more it's gonna it's the more static that's out there the more these things are going to get confused. It's have you ever seen the movie um iRobot I I've heard about it I'm not allowed to watch yeah essentially the you know these AI engines are gonna get very powerful very quickly uh given all the information that they're provided and they're gonna start to you know come to conclusions on their own um almost you know thinking like a human does but you know if they have certain biases and things like that that's gonna sway how they react and how they respond to certain prompts you know the the prompt engineering is you know essential to getting you know good clean um well to get if you can craft a good prompt then you should get what you're looking for fairly quickly you will however have to review the output because you know it's AI is just like Wikipedia you know it's like garbage in garbage out you know there's no governing body of all right this is the de facto these are all facts that are that are coming back at you from AI. Um you know I I leverage it for a lot of content authoring and you know I can probably get 70% of the way with AI but I need to put in that 30% to get it to the finish line. And I absolutely need to review the output of what AI has provided me.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah so that's a good point the governance um I haven't thought of that because I didn't even realize that um it might think a way you you you might not be thinking or right have a view on things that you don't actually agree it might sway your you know your how you're thinking about something crazy and and Carrie you're like what what did we miss that we should have covered okay yeah I I would agree I would agree with that for sure.
SPEAKER_05:I think that in the city you know we're trying to create guardrails like like um Adam mentioned making sure that the tools that we're exploring and we're using are kind of crafted to to be safe spaces but again do do your own research do your homework understand the things beyond what we're able to share and show you um you know in the beginning there was so much talk about the environmental impact of of AI tools but you know we we did some research and we see how it compares to you know regular searches or you know vehicles and other things like that. So you know I think the longer these tools are here and they're they're growing it's it's opportunities to for us to learn and adapt and you know creating that learner's mindset is always a healthy tool to carry in your tool belt because it just helps you be become conscious of the way you're approaching things um beyond just AI it's just you know the cyber awareness and and the consciousness of of just you know exploring tools for your for your own use cases but just making sure you're putting the right information and you're not putting in certain information to protect yourself and your your your information and your family.
SPEAKER_03:And um and don't take it as a gospel you're saying prove proof this stuff. Absolutely okay that that's great great great stuff so so with that we're gonna wrap it up. I mean we could talk about this all day but uh we should definitely do something on quantum in the future but um I really really appreciate you guys um joining us today we have two incredible experts with us and let's just keep the conversation going and keep AI growing.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for tuning in to the Beyond the Firewall podcast powered by HubTech. If you found this conversation useful follow or subscribe wherever you listen to stay updated on new episodes. For more information about HubTech's IT solutions and services please visit hubtech.com
