Why AI Adoption Fails Even When You Have the Right Tools with Rob Collie

Chris Daigle (0:00)

Hey, before we start the show, I got to tell you, most executives I read into, they're using AI, but they're writing emails and summarizing documents. But I only see a smaller group doing what I call thinking in AI.

They see a decision in the business, and they already know where AI fits. So if you're using AI most days and you suspect you're getting 5% out of what's possible from the models, that's the exact gap that my private practice handles.

In my private practice, you and I will work together one-on-one throughout the month, using AI to handle real decisions in your business, build custom agents that you can start delegating to, and save you from making six-figure mistakes when it comes to budget decisions for AI software services. Now, my private practice is limited to 10 executives only. If you're interested, go to chrisdagel.com and find out more. You and I can jump on the phone, we can see if it's a fit, and I can give you a clear idea of the impact it would have on your business. Now, let's meet our guest.

Rob Collie (0:51)

You can't rely on the LLM to keep secrets.

I helped build the first version of Power BI at Microsoft. Backgrounder also needs to be certified and also secured. Some backgrounders in particular could be very, very, very sensitive. Like our strategic plan for competing with our chief competitor for the next six months can be a backgrounder, could be one of the most sensitive pieces of information at your company. Because once you give it to the LLM, you can't trust that it won't spill the beans.

Chris Daigle (1:19)

Yeah, sadly. Concept, awesome. For one task, great. For 1,000 tasks, what's the hierarchy? What's the canonical structure? That's where it gets tricky.

Rob Collie (1:31)

There needs to be certification, but it's mostly a human thing.

Chris Daigle (1:34)

How do I do it?

Rob Collie (1:36)

There's two things. First of all.

Chris Daigle (1:39)

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Using AI at Work. My name is Chris Daigle and we're going to have another exciting conversation about AI.

One of the things that I encounter a lot when talking to executives with our services side is that a lot of leaders believe that buying AI subscriptions gets their company into AI, right? That they're ready to go. We've got ChatGPT licenses, we've got Claude licenses, we've got co-pilot licenses, right? But actually, what we hear a lot, and I heard this on a conversation, a telephone call with a friend who's a capable marketer and that sort of thing just 20 minutes ago, you might hear your employees saying this, I can't trust AI, I have to rewrite everything that it gives me or it'd be good, but it just doesn't know enough about our company or about our business. And today we're going to talk about how we make sure that the tools that you're using have the necessary information about the company and the context and what everybody does and those sorts of things so that people stop saying, nah, output's okay, I'd just rather do it myself to, oh my gosh, I can't believe I just did that. And today our guest who's going to be sharing insights on that based on his new book is Rob Collie. Rob's background is with Microsoft and then he built about 13 years ago his own agency called P3, kind of primarily focused on Power BI and Microsoft Analytics and the Microsoft ecosystem.

But like any savvy entrepreneur and technician, he could see on the horizon that there's going to be some big changes coming with AI. And when it began to threaten his business, he set aside time for kind of his own AI vision quest, to understand what AI meant for the future of his company, his clients, the services that they were offering. And he shared with me on our pre-interview that what he learned during that process moved him from scared to excited, led to a book that we're going to talk about, new AI services for his firm and a pretty robust internal adoption at P3. So, Rob, before we get started, anything you think the audience needs to know about you and what you've been up to?

Rob Collie (3:42)

I think you did a great job. I mean, I helped build the first version of Power BI at Microsoft. And so that's where I grew up, essentially, was at Microsoft. And yes, I saw what Power BI was going to do to the BI industry. And I wanted to be part of that. And so, you know, P3 Adaptive, we originally were called Power Pivot Pro at the time because Power BI was called Power Pivot at the time. We were the first consultancy dedicated to Power BI.