Dr. Tricia and Jaci Russo, CEO and Co-Founder of Brand Russo, a strategic marketing agency, discuss Jaci’s integration of AI into her business. 

1. Jaci’s intentional framework around employee culture and personality differences that translates to AI adoption.

2. Continuous experimentation and testing of limits with AI tools.

3. Existential threat and fear of individuals and industries cause them to avoid or minimize the impact of artificial intelligence.

4. The inherent tension if co-founders are at different ends of the adoption curve.

5. Specific tools, their uses, and impact on creating new business, serving customers/clients, increasing efficiency, and optimizing efforts.

6. Authenticity, values, and culture that drive decision-making about both customers and business pivots during turbulent times.

Why I Care

–From Dr. Tricia

I was in the living room of a friend’s house a few years ago. I mentioned the impending disruption of AI, assuming that he would be excited about it, since he’d built a successful computer company. His response surprised me: “You can’t trust it. You don’t know that the information is real.”

I flashed back to when I was in high school and I heard chatter about the internet. I forget the conversations, but I remember the emotion and its associated phrases. The adults around me said the same thing: ‘You can’t trust it. Don’t believe what you find.”

I sat in my chair 13 years ago, listening to a business owner describe his marketing system. He sold a commodity, easily compared on the internet, and one for which his door-to-door relationship approach could not sustain its edge. The sales were down, and I was trying to convince him to pivot. My heart sank because I knew that he couldn’t hear me. He wanted to do more of what had worked before.

A few years after that, I listened to another person. Their online competitive edge had been lost. Rather than pivoting their strategy, they worked harder. The owner was tired, anxious, and burnt out.

I sat in an advanced training course for continuing education credits. The speaker was an accomplished specialist. He suggested that video conferencing was too cutting edge and that people should minimize potential harm by only doing in-person meeting or phone calls. When COVID happened, I was grateful that I hadn’t taken his advice.

My brain works in patterns. The words are different, but the theme is the same. I believe that AI adoption and integration is not a choice; rather, the power we have is in our decision to walk up to it and lead others through it…..even as we ourselves encounter uncertainty about the precise ways it impacts our futures. For that reason, I’m passionate about helping leaders navigate the human factors of AI change, both for themselves and for their organization.