Putting the Human Back in AI with Bryant Oberg and the Tech Diva Audrey Wiggins

OPENING PAUL WRIGHT Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Link Thru Social Podcast. My name is Paul Wright. We have two really good guests for us today. But before we get to that, once again, we'd like to thank everyone that has been liking, sharing, and subscribing our podcast, either the video or audio version. We received so many downloads this week and views on our YouTube channel for Link Thru Social. Thank you so much. And please continue to do that. We're building this community together. Now, for today's show, episode 16, we have two guests. First of all, Audrey Wiggins, who's widely recognized as the Tech Diva and also the chief brand strategist of All Together Marketing, which is a transformative figure in the marketing communication landscape. With an impressive career spanning over three decades, Audrey has devoted her life to helping others achieve success. Her website is alltogether.biz, and we will get to her just in a little bit. But first, we have Brian Oberg, and he's the founder of Human Copilot. And he helps business owners put the human back in AI. And his website is Human-CoPilot.com. And we will get to Brian right after this brief message. SPONSOR MESSAGE - SMART POST APP SPONSOR MESSAGE Tired of stressing over what to post on social media? In just a few taps, you can generate engaging posts, stay consistent, and keep your audience coming back for more. No more guessing, no more burnout, just smarter content faster. Whether you're a business owner, creator, or an entrepreneur, Smart Post App helps you show up like a pro. Start posting smarter today at SmartPostApp.com. Smart Post App because your content should work for you. INTERVIEW 1 - BRIAN OBERG / HUMAN COPILOT PAUL WRIGHT & BRIAN OBERG And welcome back to the Link Thru Social Podcast. we're very in for a very big treat today, as we have Brian Oberg, and his website is Human-CoPilot.com. And Bryant is the founder of Human Copilot, where he helps business owners put the human back in AI. How many times have we talked about that on the show? He works with entrepreneurs, executives, and business professionals who feel overwhelmed by AI to help them actually utilize this technology. Brian, welcome to the Link Thru Social Podcast. Hi, Paul. Thank you so much for having me. Really appreciate being here. Our pleasure. Brian, before we get started, maybe you can just give us a little bit of your background professionally and how we got here today. Sure. it's very surprising to be here today because I spent 15 years in finance, went up the corporate route, corporate banking to investment fund, hedge fund partner. And then about a year and a half ago, well, two and a half years ago, I left the hedge fund world in the investment world and did some consulting and wasn't exactly sure where I would land. And about a year and a half a year and a half ago, I started playing with this thing called ChatGPT. And then I went from playing with it to utilizing it, and I went from utilizing it to trying to master it. And I'm still trying to master it. I'm sure we all feel that there it's a steep curve to try to climb. But I've noticed many other people are trying to climb it too, and I try to assist people with that. That's perfect, yes. we all are trying to master ChatGPT and the and the other platforms that are out there. And when you begin with showing people how to use ChatGPT, you are offering an amazing deal of $40 for 30 minutes just to get the ball rolling. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, look, the world's changed so much, Paul, in the last year. It's hard to fathom that a year ago I had to beg people to open up ChatGPT. And that's what it was. And I went to family and friends. I said, hey, listen, what I'm doing with this program is incredible. You have to see it to believe it. In fact, why don't you schedule a call with me and I'll show you? And like most family and friends, bless them. They said, okay, sure, I will, I'll get to it. And then you they never followed up. And despite my persistence, it was hard to lock them down. I realized that sometimes you have to make people put their money where their mouth is. And I came to this idea that 40 bucks was just the right sweet spot where people weren't willing to throw it down the drain, but yet they were willing to kind of try it out with me as a family-friend sort of, you know, discount. Why not give it a shot? Right. So I started doing that. And thankfully, it was very successful. I had actually my first referrals came from those. And that's when I started charging real money, which is my you know, my initial price started at $250, and now it's up from there as well. for it's more than 30 minutes. It's normally a 60 to 90 minute both tutorial and educational one-on-one seminar to teach people how to use the large language models that are available today. Amazing. No, that's really incredible. Now, Brian, why don't you tell me what makes AI so special compared to previous technology shifts? Right. So, well, this is a tough question because one of the very first things I do in my sessions is go over what makes AI so special, but I'm happy to share. It's look, besides my obvious inclination towards it, right? Which I think that the fact that I have a passion to for it, it was it makes me excited, and therefore I'm able to dive into it. there are two there are a number of things that, but I try to highlight two things that make AI so special. One, and I'll get a little technical, even though as everyone now knows, I'm not, I don't come from a technical background, but AI is something that's called non-deterministic. Up until AI, and yes, we've had machine learning models for a long time, but we're talking about the ability for billions of parameters to be cross-referenced within seconds, is that it's the answer that it's going to give you is not determined. As opposed to all other computer programs that we've dealt with in the I'd say the history of computer programming or even manufacturing, is that when we put a motion in process, we the whole entire goal is to have a determined outcome from that process. We think about Excel. You put a one and a two, and you add those up, and you get three, right? And you want three every single time. And it's funny, one of the biggest knocks on AI is the hallucination, which is a technical term again. Sorry for throwing all these things at you, but the hallucination basically means that AI makes up the answer or gives you an answer that is not necessarily grounded in truth. However, what I was fascinated by was even though people view that as the weakness, I began to view that as one of its greatest strengths. Now, not that it hallucinates, but why it hallucinates, and that's because it's non-deterministic. Meaning its answer, what it's it's not answer, its output that it's going to give you is not determined until the user actually has provided it with the inputs. And each time it's going to give you something different. And I realize that the greatest ability of AI is not in its ability to be a tool, but for its ability to be a thought extender. Or as I like to define the two worlds, there's AI tooling and then there's AI thinking. And as a business professional, there's lots of cool computer tools out there, but I had never been able to engage with really anything in the level of thought provocation as well as thought extension, as what AI and my initial exploratory sessions with ChatGPT gave me. Right. Yeah, no, it's AI, it's just it's just moving at such a rapid pace. And you mentioned in your bio that you want to put the human back in AI. Why don't you explain that a little to us? Sure. So I this is also fascinating about AI, which is kind of leaning back into the idea of non-deterministic behavior and it not always giving you the answer that it should, or an answer that is predetermined, is we're so used to having a computer program or many tools or machines that we use that if they don't work 100%, we throw them out or discard them, right? Everyone knows the phrase throw the don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. But if you think about that's very much what we do with computer programs, right? If it makes a mistake, if your computer, if your Excel makes a mathematical mistake, there's no way you're gonna be touching Excel again. That's what Microsoft bank you know built an entire corporation off of. Right. it's their ability to provide something that was a very, very regimented and clear product. With AI, I think that we lose we sometimes lose the fact that it's not supposed to be like that, at least not yet. And if it ever does get like that, it might be a really scary world, which we'll see where this goes. But when you interact with AI, I think it's very much the 80-20 rule that AI can do 80% of the work, and that 80% of the work is very valuable and gonna save you a ton of time. But the true value add is that 20% augmentation and further development with the AI. And so a lot of what I try to tell people is get out of the mindset that it's gonna do everything for you and figure out where it can do 80% of the things for you. And that's where I say put the human back into AI because we look at AI as let's do 100% for me. So I'm gonna put 20%, which is the human part, back into it, but that 20% is really worth 80%. And people that know realize I'm talking about Pareto's law, but I find it to be so applicable here. Absolutely, it really is. And you know, putting the human back in, you need that personal touch. you don't want to come off robotic. And I think one of the biggest problems right now, as we said, it's it's moving so quickly. But the question people look at when they're when they're seeing something on social media, oh, was that AI? Did AI do that? And you're you're we're we're now becoming strained to ask that question all the time. So it's very important to have that human in your marketing, in your day-to-day, in the interaction with your potential clients or current customers. So I'm glad you I'm definitely glad you mentioned that. Now, there are many different platforms right now, ChatGPT and Claude. Right now, as we speak, what which one would you advise to use and what do you prefer current moment? Because everything is changing. Yeah, so I'll I'm gonna share two important things, right? One is that if you're not doing what I'm doing, which is just fully immersed in AI all day long, pick your horse and run with it. I once made a meme and it basically described that running shoes and it compared running shoes to AI. Now it's a it's a bit of a crude analogy, but some people are gonna like Adidas, some people are gonna like Nike, some people are gonna like Hokas. And you're gonna find kind of what you gravitate towards. So I would say you can try them all out, but when you find the one that is doing or is working for you, stick with it. Most of the, I mean, look, there's really four, if you count perplexity, five main platforms today, probably three by the time we get to 2020, the end of 2027, which is gonna be Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and OpenAI's ChatGPT. There's a bunch of Chinese models you can go out and play with. But again, if you're not doing this full time, pick one model and stick with it. I find that look, I'm doing this all the time. For I use professionally Claude daily for a ton of things that I do, from writing out business plans and case studies to doing some design work, etc. I use ChatGPT immensely in my personal life. That's where I started, that's where my heart is attached to in a healthy way. And it's I find ChatGPT to be extremely solid in a number of arenas. Again, we're talking purely on the chat aspect of AI. There's a whole coding aspect of AI or even co-work, which is agentic AI, which is a whole different conversation I won't address here. And I even use Gemini for a few things. I find that Gemini, look, you know, it's not Google. It's a it I try to push people away from under thinking that AI is Google, but I do use Gemini for a number of things that I would have previously used Google for, and as well as a number of other use cases. So I pay for all three of them. I even pay for Grok and Perplexity too, but I feel like that's part of my job is to be paying for it is to be trying all of them out constantly. Oh, yeah, keep it up, yes. And keeping up. And at the end of the day, I would I would tell people don't worry so much about keeping up, become proficient at one, find your lead horse, and stick with it until it doesn't work for you anymore, right? It's like every lead horse, you're gonna stick with that lead horse until it starts getting it's until it's in last place every single time, and then you gotta move on. That's right. You have to move on now. some small business owners out there, and I work with a lot of small business owners myself as well. And it doesn't matter how much you try to train them and use AI, some still feel so overwhelmed. And is there some tips you can maybe provide to the small business owners out there? A lot of our viewers and listeners are small business owners, they're feeling overwhelmed. They've been coached or they've gone through a program and they're still feeling overwhelmed. What are some tips or some advice that you can maybe provide to them? So I'm gonna go back to my set, my adoption sessions. That's what I call them. I call it adoption sessions because that's really where it starts. It doesn't start with the implementation or integration. Adoption means you want to actually use the program, you want to adopt it in your work or in your life. Yes. And the people I find most successful with AI are those that want to do it. So you're describing people that don't necessarily want to do it. So I would say the first step for those people is figure out a place. It doesn't have to be in your work, it doesn't have to be in your personal life, it could be in something that you just are you don't know AI could help you, and you start gravitating towards it with AI, and all of a sudden, boom, that aha moment happens. So try to find a use case of AI that excites you. That's one. If you're not able to do that, then my real simple advice is to throw out most of what you've been taught about prompt engineering and efficiency and AI tooling and just begin to talk to it. And when I say talk to it, I say it very, very potently. Yeah, but you talk to it like it's an entity, not like it's a person, because AI is not is not human, but it does have a certain level of cognitive ability where you can talk to it just like you and I are having this conversation now. Sure. And for instance, I would open up ChatGPT and I would say ChatGPT, I'm lost on where to start with you. What should I do? Good point. And begin and see where it takes you. And it's it's crucial that it knows a little bit about you because then it's going to be able to personalize its answers. But once you get to that level of asking it questions, kind of it the technical term is really more meta-prompting, where you're asking kind of these above the level questions to it to help you figure out how to interact with it. And it takes you to hopefully a different level of proficiency with AI. Perfect. Okay, well, Brian, your website is Human-CoPilot.com. And when you go on your website, I just have it up on my screen here, you have an AI intake quiz or start your upgrade. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your services briefly? And we'll obviously provide all the links to our viewers and listeners. Sure. So my most basic one is an AI adoption session. I, you know, you led with $40, but thankfully for me, and maybe not as much to the consumer, but now I charge $400 for one of those adoption sessions. It's between 60 to 90 minutes, and we basically try to take you from zero to one with AI, where after you leave the session, you shouldn't need another one because you can teach yourself most of the rest, and you feel empowered to actually want to use the program, whichever one we choose, Claude, Gemini or ChatGPT. I then offer a monthly retainer where I meet with business professionals on a set schedule, either two or four times a month. And then if they wish, depending on the program that we put together, we interact via email to help with further questions and troubleshooting and other just AI ideas. And then the bigger projects I take on is I actually build AI custom products for people and we put together full solutions. I come in and I act there's a new term out there called a chief AI officer, a CAIO. And I serve as a CAIO on a few different companies and or what's called a fractional CAIO. And I work with them kind of helping them implement things if they don't necessarily want to take a such a hands-on approach and they want someone from the outside and a consultant to come in. I'll add one quick cute thing about my website that I have on there. you talked about putting the human backing back into AI, is I have a WhatsApp link in there that you can reach me on WhatsApp, and you actually reach me. There's no bot attached to it, there's no cute gimmick where some you're gonna get an automated response that says, you know, thank you for reaching human co-pilot. It's actually me. And if you want to have a quick conversation, love to talk and see if I can be of any help. Well, Brian Oberg, thank you so much. once again, the website is Human-CoPilot.com. And we'll provide the links. Brian, thank you for taking some time to join us here on the Link Thru Social podcast. And love to have you on again in the coming months or maybe year, because as we said, things are constantly changing in the world of AI. Sure, Paul, I would love it. Great questions. really enjoy the conversation and would welcome to come back on and share kind of some of the updates and maybe dive a little bit more into sort of the macro picture, the micro picture of what AI adoption and implementation looks like. That would be great. Well, Brian, thanks again. And the Link Thru Social podcast will be back right after this brief message. Thanks so much. LINK THRU SOCIAL - EVENT PARTNER MESSAGE PROMOTIONAL MESSAGE Have Link Thru Social become your social media partner. MMA, expos, festivals, pro wrestling, boxing, sporting events, music events, conventions. Link Thru Social can become your social media partner. Go to Link Thru Social.com. That's T H R U to find out more. Link Thru Social. We will be your social media partner. INTERVIEW 2 - AUDREY WIGGINS / THE TECH DIVA PAUL WRIGHT & AUDREY WIGGINS And welcome back to the Link Thru Social podcast. We have a special guest with us today, Audrey. Wiggins, known as the Tech Diva. Audrey is a seasoned brand strategist, entrepreneur, and the host of the Tech Diva Biz Talks podcast. With over 30 years of experience in marketing and digital communications, she helps entrepreneurs, especially wise women, and organizations elevate their brands, become more visible, build trust, and boost sales through smart tech forward strategies. Audrey's energy, insights, and stories inspire audiences to embrace innovation while staying true to their brand. Audrey, welcome to the Link Thru Social Podcast. Thank you so much, Paul. I'm excited to be here and talk with you and your audience today. Thank you very much. Just before we get started, I'll let the viewers and listeners know that your website is AudreyWiggins. That's W-I-G-G-I-N S dot com. And Audrey, before we get into the interview, why don't you just tell me a little bit about your background and how you got here today? Wow. I've I've always had this gift of gab, if you will. So I was always promoting and doing something, even when we were kids in church, and one young lady used to give fashion shows when we were young, and so I was always the one putting together the program and flyers, and this you know, predates computers where everything was done with a typewriter with lettering, and I just continued on from I know that too. Okay, okay, good. I have a friend here with the lay down, you know, making postals with you know the stick on letters and all that stuff. But you know, fast forward of a job, different jobs that I've had. I've always, you know, even the secretary, but I was always interested in, you know, promotions and development, fundraising, those types of things. And so I could so my journey just went from there. And one day I had did a flyer for this gospel music workshop. And you know, I wanted to do something good for them. So they were having something coming up, and I, you know, said, Well, I'll design your flyer. And pretty much that the story goes from there. This the lady said, You should be doing this as a business, and I'm you know, pulling down a light switch here. And it was I never looked back, and whatever. So I'll check that's amazing. Now you call yourself the tech diva. You know, what does that title mean and how does it shape your work? Yeah, so I stay current on you know what the latest technology that I use that I need to do my work and support others to do the same thing. So I look like to look at myself as an early adopter. So I'll I'll try the new tools, I'll take workshops or you know, certificate programs and just to stay current. So that was something that even that I'm again that I've always done. My family, we always put together TV carts and microwave carts and shelving and those, you know, manual so mechanical thing. But even with that, my father, he, you know, like all dads and uncles, right? They take pictures and you stand there, you know, forever they're telling you different things. And so he even with him, me watching him with you know, the original cameras or your Polaroids, and then it became fashionable to have the big giant TV-like cameras on your shoulders, and he graduated to camcorders and DSLR and those things, and I pretty much did the same thing and used my smartphone a lot for recording and stuff as well. And this and even you know, the different software, that's that's kind of that's where the Tech Diva came in. And so people always ask me, you know, can you figure it out? What's this? What's that? And it's the one that's that's that's great. The tech diva. So Audrey, it's such a crowded space out there, a digital marketplace for small businesses. How can a small business stand out in this crowded digital marketplace? Yeah, they have to be themselves, and aside from that, because you always hear the statement of be authentic and be yourself, but to really know who you're talking to, not that the individual, it's you know, so if not to Paul or Audrey, but what is that market that they represent and you know, niche? And I learned that the hard way as well, because I always felt like because this the products and services that I offer, you know, it's pretty much global, right? Anybody can use the services. So I would always say with my market, my market to small businesses. Well, we both know that can be anywhere from a ten thousand dollar a year operation to a ten million operations. So there, there's a lot of wiggle room in there. Right, right. So, you know, I so I really think that in those early years, my other than my you know, my inner circle, my inner market, you know, my local market, I was pretty much throwing spaghetti out the wall as far as that goes. But yeah, so really just honing in and who you're who you're actually talking to and their messaging. Now I'm anxious to know, in your view, why is podcasting such a powerful branding and marketing tool today? It gives you the opportunity or gives, yeah, gives you the opportunity to have to have an audience or people look at you or listen to you depending on you know how they retrieve their podcasting, and that they feel like they really get to know you, they can hear you talk or you know, listen to, you know, where's this person really coming from? So it's it's a powerful marketing tool, I believe, because it's it's intimate in a way. Definitely, definitely. No, what inspired you to launch All Together Marketing that you know you mentioned that you've always been up on the latest tech and everything. did you have any mentors or anybody that you were trying to mimic or follow suit with their same type of core values? In the beginning, really, no. It was it really goes back to me just doing things without thinking, you know, because oh yeah, I can do that, and you just do it. And you know, it goes back to that example that I gave in the in the intro with the flight. And it just really, okay, that's that spark. And it's not that I didn't ask anybody anything or didn't go to workshops because that's not true. I'm a lifelong learner, so I'm always sitting at someone's feet, even to this day. And you know, so just really just kind of following that and you know, taking classes, one of my graphic design classes that's looking like years later. the lady was brilliant, and I really I really liked what she did and you know how she handled the business side as well as the design side. Nice. Now, how are you utilizing AI into your into your business? Yeah. So first I started with using it, AI with in my podcasting, actually, because as a creative, you know, I come up with all the titles, the descriptions, you know, the transcripts, all of that. I've created all of that from you know on my own from scratch. And now when you look at that, AI can help you do that so much faster. You don't get rid of the human factor because you have to tell it what you want, right? It's like giving an assignment to your coworker, you know, to your you know, to your employee, and you know, create this, this is what I need, blah, blah, blah. So you're still using your skill set to retrieve or you know, to have that the AI journey generate what you want. So pretty much use it, use it there and to brainstorm and bounce. We're the committee of two. And so to you know, bounce ideas, you know, yeah, proofread or refine things that I write. I think it's it's fantastic. Even images, I love it. Now, the tech Diva, she's, you know, you're you're you're staying up with all the latest innovations and the new technology that's coming out. I'm sure, because I run into this all the time, especially with small business owners that maybe are it's a small family business or just a business with themselves and maybe a few people that are they feel overwhelmed and by trends in tech. And you know, what advice can you give to these small business owners that you know are afraid of these types of innovations? And how can you help in their business plan try to get them past these fears and feelings of over being overwhelmed? Yeah, I would say start small. Pick one thing that you can delegate off to artificial intelligence and have a have a friend that kind of help you coach you through that or mentor you mentor you through that to really understand, okay, how is it, how is it really gonna help me, and you know, how can I you know grow, you know, what would be that next step, but really just to find someone to hold your hand because it can be overwhelming. And it's it's like sometimes because we think about it, it's like this big thing that's out there. Yes, and but you have control. Always remember you have control over that, right? Right. Start small, start with one or two tools. Now, in the intro, I mentioned you know, you help all sorts of entrepreneurs out, especially wise women. And I like to hear that. Yeah, you know, women are sometimes women in business need help like everybody else, but I find sometimes they don't get the same respect, possibly, as gentlemen. And so what do you focus on when you are dealing with a woman entrepreneur to make her feel confident and empowered, and also to relay that out to their potential customers or clients? You took one of my words, confident. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because and I think this is true for you know for most people too, but you know, like you said for women, and then being an older woman as well, so that in this universe where at one time we were the you know the highlight. We were in our 20s and 30s and coming up, but you know, to really try to speak to like you said, they're their inner their inner being, they're to build up their confidence and encourage them that they can do this and they have what they have is valuable because we do have to believe in what it is, the product or service that we're offering, and you know, can it does it, you know, what problem does it actually solve? And you've done this, so you already have the proof, right? Proof of concept that you're helping. So yeah, so that's that's the foundation. And then we dig into the actual, you know, is it digital marketing, whatever, you know, the actual tool that we're you know, they'll use to implement. Okay. So what's next for you and All Together Marketing? Any exciting projects that you have on the horizon in 2026 or beyond? Yes. Oh my gosh. I do I do pre I can't even talk to you, right? I do professional development. You're really excited about that. No, yes, it's all coming out at once. And so I'm I'm excited to be able to start offering courses in artificial intelligence. So I'm an authorized training partner with one of the course providers. And so very excited about that. I'm launching in July with the first the first course, Generative AI, and we'll do some agentic and your regular or you know, your foundational artificial intelligence. So really thrilled to be able to do that. Yeah, you know. Oh, I'm really I'm really pleased to hear that. That's that's a great direction to take your company, because we mention it on the show every week. And I say I mention it on the show every week. AI is moving so quickly, minute by minute, not day by day, not week by week or year by year, minute by minute, second by second. So the sooner we can train people and train entrepreneurs, train small business owners and their staff to take advantage of AI. Don't feel intimidated by AI or AI, or you're gonna be replaced by AI. Make yourself relevant and make your business relevant by using these tools because they're really tools. Exactly. Exactly. I think that's I think that's so important. so I'm I'm pleased to hear that you're doing that. Now it's once again, it's audreywiggins.com, W-I-G-G-I-N-S. And how can people get a hold of you? Obviously, through the website. are you active on social media as well? maybe you can just briefly summise some of your services that you offer on the website and how we can reach you. Yes, yes. So LinkedIn is a big one for me there. So there, Instagram and you know, and Facebook, as well as I'm I'm a TikToker, so I'm out there. That's good. So it's a little quick clips there. Yeah, so with that, so and you know, it's an umbrella as far as products and services offered, you know, digital marketing. And so that may include your social media content, creation and you know, posting, those types of things, as well as you know, developing, you know, written content as well as the graphic content and consulting, you know, with clients on how to put together, you know, to start with your marketing plan and start to look at all those segments and steps there to be able to implement them. Awesome. Okay, so for everyone listening and watching out there, it's audreywiggins.com, the Tech Diva. Audrey, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. And would look forward to having you again in the future. Yes, absolutely. Thank you, Paul. This has been an exciting day, and thank you, you know, for allowing me to come into the Link Thru Social. Thank you so much. Okay, well, the Link Thru Social Podcast will be back after this short message. CLOSING PAUL WRIGHT Well, that does it for this edition of the Link Thru Social podcast. Thank you once again for building this community. We're all in this together. And you can follow us on our socials at Link Thru Social. That's T H R U. And of course, visit our website, Link Thru Social dot com. Until next week, my name is Paul Wright, and that's it. Another edition of the Link Thru Social podcast.