104: Using AI Coworkers to Build Smarter Business Operations with Karl Simon

**Karl Simon** (0:00)
You may be late to the game and you'll never catch up.

**Chris Daigle** (0:03)
And let me ask you, in your opinion, at that level, what are most companies getting wrong when they're starting to use AI at Work?

**Karl Simon** (0:09)
Well, I think singular tasks, singular activity, and that's missing the big impact.

**Chris Daigle** (0:14)
We work with a lot of clients, we go in, they're excited about using AI, maybe some of them have, you know, started experimenting on their own, but there's usually not some orchestration occurring, right? How do they shift their thinking from that task level integration to workflow level orchestration?

**Karl Simon** (0:31)
Yeah, usually it starts with calculating ROI. What's the difference in having people automate a singular task versus the orchestration of data to fulfill a business process that typically crosses not just systems, but the groups that own those systems?

**Chris Daigle** (0:46)
What is the approach to starting with systemizing, streamlizing, whatever the orchestration is of these fragmented systems?

**Karl Simon** (0:54)
The first thing to do is to stop buying another system to add to your frag stack, because ultimately those tools, those fragmented systems are likely to start disappearing one by one.

**Chris Daigle** (1:05)
Karl Simon is the co-founder of Subatomic, helping companies move beyond task-based AI into unified end-to-end workflows. He shows leaders how clean data, AI coworkers and secure orchestration can eliminate business friction and unlock faster, smarter growth. Welcome to Using AI at Work. I'm your host, Chris Daigle. Each week, we'll be learning how today's business owners, entrepreneurs and ambitious professionals are getting more done with smart use of tomorrow's tech. Let's get started. Right now, every business leader is asking the same question. What are we going to do about AI? If this is you, chiefaiofficer.com has the answer. We give you a simple path forward where we provide executive and team training so your people know exactly how to safely use Generative AI in their day-to-day.
We also manage the deployment and implementation to make sure tools actually get adopted and deliver results.
We'll also guide company-wide transformation so AI becomes part of your operating system, not just another shiny object. The companies that act now will increase productivity, cut costs, and grow faster than their competitors. Those that wait will get left behind. If you want to make AI work in your business, visit chiefaiofficer.com and see how we're helping companies of all sizes finally get results from AI. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Using AI at Work. This is my favorite podcast and I hope it's becoming yours as well. Today, our guest is Karl Simon and guess what we're going to be talking about? AI.
And one of the things that I'm excited to dig in with Karl is how they are looking at AI holistically rather than task-based or activity-based. They're really looking at ways to introduce AI into the entire workflow. Now, some of the challenges with that are going to be pretty universal. And that's the data environment. So anyway, Karl Simon is the co-founder at Subatomic and that is what they do. Karl's belief is that AI should optimize end-to-end workflows across fragmented systems, not just improve those isolated tasks that probably a lot of us are working on. So Karl, before we get started, anything you want to let the audience know about what you're up to at Subatomic?

**Karl Simon** (3:18)
Yeah, no, I think you captured it perfectly, Chris. I mean, ultimately, we're trying to help companies actually utilize the foundation that they have, which is data, but get it into a unified state, cleaned, standardized, so it becomes useful. When you introduce AI on top of poor data, you get poor results. You want good knowledge, because those agents bring their intellect, and we at Subatomic bring those AI coworkers up to speed on your processes, your cognitive reasoning.
All of it goes together. You have a, unless you have strengths across the way from knowledge to intellect to your way that differentiates you, you're not going to be positioned for success.

**Chris Daigle** (4:01)
So Karl, when you and I first did this pre-interview, I had a good idea of where this conversation was going. However, some recent developments have occurred that might change the direction of this episode. So I'm going to ask you something. And for those of you who are listening, if you've heard me talk about this before, please indulge me. I think this is a very important topic.
Karl, are you familiar with what Jack Dorsey did at Block about a month and a half ago?

**Karl Simon** (4:30)
You might need to summarize that for me.