Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A podcast that explores how AI is transforming careers, businesses, and industries. Hosts Greg Boone and Erica Rooney deliver real-world use cases and actionable AI strategies to help professionals stay ahead of the curve.
Learn more about your hosts:
Erica Rooney, author of The AI Gap: Women, AI, and the Next Great Leap Forward
Greg Boone, author of AI at the Speed of Trust (available for pre-order)
Caren Cioffi: If all that time can
go back to us, what more can we do?
So I'm just, I'm really, really
excited, um, for what we're building
and what the world is building.
And it's just like, it's the
honor of a lifetime to be able to
create a company right now to help
people have more time for joy.
Greg Boone: AI isn't the future,
it's now, and whether you're in hr,
sales, operations, or leadership, the
choices you make today will determine
whether you thrive or get left behind.
Caren Cioffi: Welcome to the
AI Voice or Victim podcast y'all.
We are live at MIT, at the AI Powered
Women Conference, and I am so.
Excited because we have
Karen Chaffey here.
Y'all and y'all.
This is the Karen with a
C, the Karen the Cares.
She is the Cee o and founder
of Agenda Hero, which is an
AI software, AI platform.
You gotta tell me what is it.
Thank you, Erica, and thank
you so much for having us.
Agenda Hero is an AI platform that
eliminates manual calendar work.
So we take unstructured information
schedules that you get in PDFs and
images or emails, and we extract
the information and make calendar.
Events for you instantly.
So you're saying the 57 emails I get from
my kids' school can immediately be put
in my calendar and I won't mess it up?
Yes.
That's why we built it.
Okay.
I'm gonna need that because I,
I have gotten my daughter fully
glammed and dressed in her cheer
squad for cheer photos on a weekend
that was not cheer for the weekend.
I have shown up at the
dentist on the wrong Saturday.
I have missed the
orthodontist appointment.
So I'm gonna look this up, but I
wanna take it a little bit back.
How did you get involved and
like what led up to you becoming
a founder of Agenda Hero?
Thank you.
Uh, for all the reasons
that you just shared.
She's like, I was living
that life, so I was spending.
My weekends, mostly my Sundays,
just trying to stay on top of
the kids' schedules, right?
Two kids, spouse who works I work, and
we just couldn't keep on top of it.
So despite all that manual effort, going
through the school newsletters, going
through the emails, going through the
theater call times, putting it all into a
document that I would print on the fridge.
And then still failing.
I thought there has to be a better way.
I can't be the only one who
is struggling with this.
Ah, you're definitely not.
You are definitely not.
And so I decided to go and
figure out a way to fix it.
Oh my gosh.
So is your background in tech?
Is it in ai?
What?
Well, tell me more.
Yeah, so I've spent decades in technology.
The company that I was at, right.
Before Agenda Hero I joined,
it's called Brightcove.
It was actually founded here in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and I joined
when it was just 10 people big, so,
or 10 people small I should say.
Um, there was no product released
and there was no customers and
no revenue, and I was fortunate.
To grow with the company.
And so I was there for over 10 years and
it grew to be a global public company
and I was lucky enough to sort of be
the entrepreneur inside the company.
Anytime there was ambiguity, they
put Karen on it and uh, I loved it.
But I finally decided to leap.
It was only the second thing
I ever quit in my life.
Wow.
The first was my high
school job as a bus girl.
Thank you.
I'm glad you did that.
Um, and, and, and I leapt
to start agenda here.
Oh my gosh.
That's an incredible story.
Okay.
We are talking about the generations that
don't use ai and I'm fascinated by where
we're gonna take this topic because as
soon as you said it, I was like, duh.
My parents.
And you were like, actually no,
Erica, it's the younger generations
that are not adopting ai.
So that alone really kind of surprised me.
Tell me about what's going on with this.
It's very surprising.
Um, our kids hate ai.
I don't get it.
Tell me why.
It's, it's a big problem.
Okay.
Um, so.
Young, gen Z and sort of the oldest, uh,
gen Alpha, so our kids in high school and
then also our college students right now.
Mm-hmm.
They are not using AI
and there's two reasons.
One is that they're being threatened
in using it, and so the education
system hasn't caught up with
this massive pace of innovation.
And so for the most part, not all,
but for the most part, teachers are
saying You are not allowed to use ai.
And so they're not only being told, don't
use it, they're being threatened and
they're being punished if they use it.
'cause if they do, then they'll
have a disciplinary action or
they'll get an F on a paper.
Yeah.
I, I have two teens and I'm in
these mom groups and day after day
there's another mom saying, oh my
goodness, my kid is, is sort of.
Being told that they used AI on a paper,
but they didn't actually use AI because
the AI tools are not perfect, and now
they have to defend themselves and
they might get expelled from college.
And so it's, it's, it's the first time in
history that our youth are not the early
adopters, and it's really problematic
because they're the generation whose
jobs are being most threatened by ai.
See, this is so interesting to me
because my kids are younger, so
they're not at that stage yet where
they even have personal devices.
They're 10 and seven, you know?
Good.
Keep it that way.
Absolutely.
But you know, my kids hear me talk
to chat all the time, and they see
me interact with it all the time.
So it's almost like this one
little generation bubble is
what you're talking about.
That is really.
Kind of being almost forced out
where they are because if they
use it, they'll get in trouble.
What I find interesting about this too
is there's tools that will help you
identify if AI is being used, right?
But AI is a pattern recognition machine.
It's learned from how we've all
written, and I tell people all
the time, I love the M dash.
I was the creator of the M dash.
And what does that mean?
It means I'm an average person
with an average writing.
You know, I'm okay with that.
But it's not a foolproof way.
So these kids are getting in trouble.
So what do we do about that with the
educational system so that we can, or
with kids, like how do we get this moving?
It's something that I care a lot about.
Um, and I don't yet know the solution.
Yeah.
But I do know something has to change.
So I recently talked with my
daughter's high school and I
said like, this is a problem.
Like we need to fix this.
And so I think what needs
to happen is all of us.
Need to understand what AI is and what
AI isn't and what AI can do, and then we
can teach our kids to use it responsibly.
That is our responsibility,
is to help our kids learn.
And by shutting out the most powerful
learning tool that we have in our
lifetime, it's not helping them learn.
And so what.
I wanna do, at least on my part,
is sort of go into the school
and help the kids learn about ai.
And fortunately, my daughter's school
we're in Silicon Valley, so I, I just
wanna note that even in Silicon Valley,
the tech, this like bubble of the world,
yes, this is a problem and so, but
there's more openness to figuring it out.
So I think we need to help.
Wow.
Teachers, administrators,
and students learn.
Um, the other part is that, you
know, kids are very conscientious
and they're hearing about the
worry about climate change on ai.
And so I think that's real, and I think
we should have a conversation with them.
They're very, they're very
empathetic generation.
Um, but I think.
What?
What we need to do is we need
to show them what's possible.
We need to help them see these tools and
see how they can make a better world,
which is what they're motivated to do.
Well, it needs to be the
mindset shift, right?
Yeah.
'cause AI is here.
It's not coming, it's here.
It's only going to get bigger, and if you
don't use it, that's why we call this show
The Voice or Victim Show, like you will
become the victim to aac, especially if
we're not teaching them how to use it.
We've gotta get into these schools and
teach them how do we use it responsibly?
How do we use it in a way
that's not plagiarizing?
How do we fact check these things?
And it seems to me that the educational
system in that, in, you know, high
school, college age maybe have not
really caught up with how do we,
how do we work with this new tool?
Yes, yes.
And the thing is, is that
this generation, they are.
Our, they, they're incredibly hardworking.
Like I, uh, at Agenda Hero, we
have a summer internship program.
These interns are doing work that
you would expect people multiple
years in their career doing.
And I have both college interns and
high school interns just finishing
their freshman year in high school.
Wow.
They are so.
Capable and they are so curious.
And so I think what's important
is that we let them be curious.
With ai, we let you know people are
worried like, oh, it might write a paper.
They might cheat.
Like that's not what
we're motivated to do.
We're not motivated to cheat,
we're motivated to learn.
And so what happens with
AI is you can, you can.
You know, start here and then you
can go deeper and deeper and deeper.
And what these kids can
learn is just unlimited.
Yeah.
But they're being blocked.
Yeah.
To me it's like we have to
completely rewire how we learn
because we now have this tool.
It's very different.
So I wanna talk about.
AI's rapid development.
I mean, it went from like zero
to 16,000, a hundred million 85.
That's what my 7-year-old would say.
And, and I've heard you say that you
think this is creating some skills
gap for the younger generation.
So what are the most significant risks
if we fail to address this skills gap?
Yeah, so it's, I think it's a
little bit less about the skills.
And more about the curiosity.
Hmm.
If we are not letting them use this tool.
They are not going to dive deeper while
the rest of the world around them is.
And so we are all adopting
it at a rapid pace.
And so by the time they get into the
workforce, they are going to be behind
on both the tools, but they're also gonna
miss that curiosity that is igniting
all of us here at this conference.
All of us who are learning more and more.
And so our next generation of anything.
Doctors, um, business people, right?
That curiosity in what's possible and
what we can solve is far greater than
any of us can imagine, and we need to
be letting, uh, that curiosity build.
Here's also where my brain is kind of
going, because I'm thinking of these
kids in this age bracket who are not
really adopting ai, and then I think
about all of the fear of, and the jobs
that AI has, the power to replace.
And I like to say this, I don't
like to say replacing jobs.
I like to say changing jobs.
I agree.
Because I really go back
to the horse and carriage.
Right?
You live in California.
I'm on the East coast.
If I wanna come see you back in the day,
I'd have to get my little horse and buggy.
And I'll tell you, I'll be
there in about two months.
Right now I can fly and
be there in the same day.
I'm still getting to you.
It's just, it's different.
And so I think about these kids who
are not going to have, you know.
The traditional way of, of doing things
like we did, but we haven't developed
that first step of careers yet.
Those entry level careers where everybody
does start, where everybody does learn
and get curious like you were talking
about, and I mean, I don't expect you
to have an answer to this question.
I don't expect anyone to have an
answer for this question, but I think
it's important that we talk about it
because these kids are in school now.
Yeah.
Paying really good money
to get a degree for.
What?
Yeah, we're not a hundred percent sure.
Right.
And so I love that we're talking about
this, Karen and I love that we're kinda
looking back and I, I'm sorry, this
really goes with the Karen the cares thing
because we are looking back at these kids.
How do you envision, and maybe
you have an idea for one sector or
one industry, like how those roles
may change for the entry level.
College students, so we don't
know how they're going to change.
Yeah.
But we do know that they will change.
I, oh, here we go.
Am a hundred percent with you
that we will figure it out.
Yeah.
I mean, think about the
jobs that exist today.
They, many of them didn't exist
30 years ago, so I'm not, I'm, I'm
optimistic about the job creation
and I do think there's this panic and
fear amongst parents who are spending.
So much money on college and worry
that their kids are gonna have jobs.
And so I am seeing, like in these forums
that I'm in, I'm seeing parents saying,
I don't want my kid to study engineering
because engineering's going to go away.
Engineering is not going to go away.
I encourage people to
follow their passions.
What is going to exist five years ago?
We can't even imagine.
But if you love math.
Do engineering, like there's going
to be so much opportunity for you.
And so one of the things that, um, one
of the things that I think is going to
happen is the tedious is going to go away.
Yes.
And when all the paperwork girl agenda
hero is already doing it for me.
Right.
Agenda here is taking my 16 mom texts
and PDFs and documents and putting
it all into my calendar for me.
But yeah, all of those tedious things.
Tell, tell me more.
Tell me more.
Yeah, so I mean the idea just, just on a
agenda here for a second, is the idea is
that if you can eliminate all that manual
work, you have more time for what matters.
More time for joy, more time
for family, more time for work.
And I also think about all the professions
out there, like doctors, for example.
Our doctors are amongst the
best and brightest among us, and
they're spending right now half of
their capacity on patient notes.
Right.
I'm so glad you said that.
I've got a really good
friend who's a therapist.
She says, I have been using AI to help
me with all of my notes, and now I'm
able to see three more patients a day.
Wow.
That is awesome.
I love that.
And that's just one person.
And that's one person.
And imagine so the best
and brightest among us.
Imagine if they had double
the capacity, they could spend
more time with the patient.
Yes.
They could find more cures.
Actually my dermatologist,
who is also a neighbor and our
daughters did, uh, music together.
We were waiting in, um, in the music
studio and she was telling me that
Stanford had this, this is a few
years ago at this point, but she was
telling me that Stanford had done this
study and they, um, had mole samples
that they put through AI and they
compared it against the human results.
And AI actually did better.
And so the, the conversation we
had, um, you know, in the dance
studio was, what is this being,
what does this mean for doctors?
And we concluded that.
It's okay because the best and brightest
amongst us, if they're not having to
look at these slides, they can actually
prevent the cancer to begin with.
Ooh.
So I think that like I'm so
optimistic about what we as humans
can do with the help of these tools
when we eliminate the tedious.
To work on the important.
Yeah.
So you were like, they can cure cancer.
My brain wasn't even there.
My brain was already like, okay,
they're going to be able to sit with
these patients and talk to them.
And my mom's actually a cancer
nurse, so she has spent a lot of
time doing bedside and all of that.
And you know, she talks about how the
doctors aren't in the room for a ton
because they are trying to get as many
patients in and out that they can see.
And so there's not as much as that
patient care that they would like.
Yeah.
So that's where my brain went.
But you're like, oh hell no, girl.
We're curing it.
Yeah.
And so that's a completely like, yes.
It frees up the time to focus
on the things that matter.
Yeah.
But you know what's really interesting
about what you said, which I think
is just I, I think people worry that
the technology is going to take over.
What, what you've just said is
actually what's going to happen
is the technology is going to free
us to have more time with humans.
Well, and when I'm thinking about this
conversation right here, if I am a
patient sitting with a doctor for me
that the most important moment isn't
when the doctor found the cancer.
'cause I wasn't there.
Right.
It's when they sit down and they hold my
hand and they tell me that that is when
I'm gonna need that connection that.
Moment with them.
And you know, in today's world
there's just no time, you know?
But in Tamara's world where we have
ai, you know, that really takes over
the tedious, the mundane, all of
those things, then we can sit down and
have that human connection, which to
me, it seems like so many people are
scared that's what's going to go away.
Yeah, yeah.
When in reality it doesn't have to.
That's right.
That's what's that we're gonna have
more time for each other and so.
Going back to our youngest generation.
Yes.
Right.
They're so capable.
They're so smart, they're so empathetic.
We just need to let them participate in
this transformation that is happening.
Yes, yes.
I love this.
I'm so glad we talked about it because
we also had someone else earlier
on the podcast who was a professor
and they had been talking about how
they teach their students to cite.
When they've used ai.
Awesome.
And I thought that's fricking brilliant.
You know, because right now, like
in my world, in my educational
experience today, I would use ai,
then I would go find the source, and
then I would only cite that source.
Yep.
But my brain is also going in so many
directions because just the other day
I had, uh, one of our team members at
Walk West give me a really beautiful
onboarding document for a new hire.
Awesome.
And I said, I love this.
This is great.
Thank you so much for putting
the time and effort into this.
And she was like, oh,
I used AI to do that.
And I said, girl, I'm so mad
at you that you didn't tell me.
Earlier that it was ai, because I thought
you just sat there for five hours.
I said, now I'm even more impressed.
That is awesome.
Right?
Hi, five girl.
That's what I'm talking about.
Get that tedious out of the way because
now she has this beautiful document.
The new hire starts next week
and it's gonna be a great day
for her, all because of that.
But I think we need people like
that to start talking and showing
about how they're using ai.
Because we're not all assuming
that everybody's using it.
Yeah.
And so then we just don't
think it's possible.
But again, the more we talk about
it, the more we share these use
cases, the more people can start
to pull them into their own worlds.
Yeah, absolutely.
Oh my gosh.
Well, what are you most excited
about with Agenda Hero coming up?
Ah, so we just had a big launch.
Um, and so we have people
all over the planet using it.
We have people on six
of the seven continents.
Oh my gosh.
Using Agenda Hero Girl,
you all over the globe.
It's like, it is, it is the most
loved product I have ever worked on.
And what's, uh, so I'll share what
I'm most excited about, but just
kind of like what I'm most maybe.
Amazed by is it wasn't
possible a few years ago.
So a very, very quick story is that
when I was on my coach, when I was
saying like, this is a big problem,
I initially thought like, well, it's
not solved because we don't have as
many women founders as we should have.
And like, I'm gonna be a woman
founder who's gonna solve
problems that women are facing.
And, and so I started and
then, um, people came to me.
So many people came to me and
said, Karen, I hope you solve this.
I tried and I couldn't figure it out.
And Erica, I was like, well what?
What have I gotten myself into?
Like, these smart people tried this,
they can't do it now, they want me to.
And yeah.
And I was like, okay.
So it's a technically
complex problem to solve.
And so we built our foundation
right before AI showed up.
And as soon as AI came,
we just absorbed it.
And what we've embraced it, what
we've been able to do has been what
founders before us couldn't do.
And so what I'm excited about, I
guess, is just what's possible.
We're like, we're a centimeter
high and we're worldwide.
You know, we, it's a ubiquitous pain.
I was building initially for parents.
It turns out.
Nobody likes manual calendar entry
every time you make a calendar.
That is why we hire VAs.
I know.
And personal assistance.
And they don't like it either.
No, they don't.
So like, because it's a form, you
have to put your title, your date,
your start time, your end time,
your location, your description,
and then that's just for one event.
If you're doing a school
calendar, it's 30 of them.
And so we have lawyers getting
their trial dates in email.
They're using us.
We have interpreters, we have retirees
who are putting their golf events in.
Oh, they definitely need it.
Yes.
Like, and that's, that's
when I first like.
You know, like a I is you saw,
you saw that it was such a
bigger, it's, it's just everyone.
It's, it is billions of people
don't like manual, manual work.
And so, um, what I'm excited about
is just, yeah, and, and moms and
so like, if, if all that time can
go back to us, what more can we do?
So I'm just, I'm really, really
excited, um, for what we're building
and what the world is building.
And it's just like, it's
the honor of a lifetime.
To be able to create a company right now
to help people have more time for joy.
Oh my God, I love it.
What a time to be alive.
Karen, thank you so much for
being on the show, y'all.
We are live here at MIT, the
AI Powered Women Conference.
Thank you for listening.
This is the AI Voicer Victim Podcast.
We'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining us
on AI, voice or Victim.
If you want to stay competitive
in the AI age, start now.
Take one insight from today's episode and
put it into practice in the next 24 hours.
Make sure to follow us, share
your thoughts, and subscribe
for more actionable AI insights.
See you next time.