85: Using AI at Work to Reduce Tool Overload and Drive Real Productivity with Tim Cakir

**Tim Cakir** (0:00)
Don't compete with AI, you'll lose. Collaborate with it, become best friends, become partners, and then you'll have a great time.

**Chris Daigle** (0:06)
AI expert isn't their role. What would you tell them to make sure that they're getting the most leverage out of their efforts to chase the tools, let's say?

**Tim Cakir** (0:13)
Well, first of all, I say don't try. Just do it or don't do it. Don't try, right? You will feel very left out or delayed, delayed into the game, because a lot of things happen all the time. You look at my channel and I do some crazy stuff, and you're like, oh my God, I'm not there at all. Am I missing out? Don't feel like that because this is what we do day in, day out when you're doing these trainings.

**Chris Daigle** (0:31)
What happens in 12 weeks? Like how do you get started?

**Tim Cakir** (0:34)
We focus on behavioral change, redesigning how we work, redesigning how we show up, redesigning how we talk, because we're speaking to the machines now. We're talking to the machines.

**Chris Daigle** (0:44)
Interesting. Tim Cakir went from DJing and sound engineering to helping global companies unlock AI's full potential. As founder of AI Operator, he's on a mission to make everyone more creative, curious, and future ready. 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'll 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 the next episode of Using AI at Work. My name is Chris Daigle. I'm the host of the show. And today, I'm very excited about our guest, Tim Cakir, who is the founder of AI Operator with a very profound mission that we'll discuss today with his efforts in AI. I first discovered him way before we ever got on this podcast. Because of the content that he was producing on YouTube, as an executive who's focused on the AI space and what that means for business growth, Tim's content was one of those resources that helped me really stay up to date. Trying to chase the tools and the developments that are occurring in the marketplace isn't an easy thing to do, even for somebody who focuses on this 100% of their time, and much less for somebody who tries to squeeze in a podcast here and there to stay up to date. So today, I want to make sure that you guys walk away with understanding how Tim is doing this because he's doing a fantastic job at it. So Tim, thank you for being here and welcome to the show.

**Tim Cakir** (2:49)
Well, thank you very much for having me and thank you for the kind words. And I'm glad that my content gives value to some, especially if it's to you. I'm even more excited now. Thank you.

**Chris Daigle** (2:58)
No, it's so, Tim, you've had as we just talked before we started on the mic here. You have had a pretty global and broad career. If you don't mind, maybe just kind of run us through what that looked like and kind of what the what you're historically you've been doing for companies and with companies and how you ended up as an AI thought leader who is basically in the laboratory all day long, pushing the buttons, doing what's working, what's not.

**Tim Cakir** (3:28)
Yeah, I think the funny thing is that finally I found what I love to do and then it excites me every day and every evening. Even if I sleep less than usual, it's just like it's so exciting. So I'm so happy that finally it took a few years to get here. I'm actually a sound engineer and a music producer. So I'm a sound engineer, but I study by trade. I love electronic music, you know, techno. I was always into some type of technological thing, but I didn't know what it was. I remember my parents got me a guitar. They said, no, you have to have a music, like an instrument. And I didn't like the lessons, but I had to do it because they never understood that producing music or things like that was, could be a job. So one of my first jobs was selling carpets in California, actually, in Los Angeles. I was selling carpets door to door throughout the whole US and stuff. So I discovered marketing. I was like, oh, okay, you could show things to people all around the globe. You know, this was early days of Facebook, you know, when it just came out, invite only and things like that. I said, oh, okay, you can find people around the globe that could want your products. I was like, oh, this is marketing. That was super exciting. So I really got into marketing. And that's when I was then I moved to London, London, UK.