Ep 6 AlexKotran Podcast
===
Brett Roer: [00:00:00] Alright, well welcome everyone to the AmpED to 11 podcast. We have an amazing guest today, Alex Kotran, the CEO and co-founder of the AI Education Project, also known as A-I-E-D-U. Personally, I’m just honored that Alex is joining us. Alex is truly who introduced me to the world of ai. Was fortunate to be on Zoom with him back in 20 21, 20 22, and really honored to attend, uh, a summit in Washington, DC in early 2023.
Brett Roer: And I truly think that was the genesis for my passion, uh, in AI. So Alex, thank you so much for joining us today.
Alex Kotran: Oh, yeah. Such a pleasure. Been cool to watch you sort of like delve deeper and deeper into the space as well.
Brett Roer: I appreciate it. For those that don’t know, Alex, I think one of your superpowers is really building a coalition, um, bringing together the right people to push and advance AI literacy [00:01:00] and AI initiatives.
Brett Roer: But could you just Briefly share a little bit of your background, kind of, how did you get where you are today as the CEO of A. I. E. D. U.?
Alex Kotran: So my background’s in, in, uh, in political organizing, not in tech, which is, I think is actually really important for our genesis. So, started my career in politics, worked on President Obama’s re election campaign, then went to D.
Alex Kotran: C. I was doing political stuff for the first part of my career, and left D. C. after the first, after the administration, second administration. Came to San Francisco and found myself working for an A. I. company called H5. Most people have not heard of H5. Unless you work for like one of the big law firms, it was a company that basically pioneered the use of language models, uh, in the legal sector.
Alex Kotran: And, and I was hired to basically, you know, stand up a corporate social responsibility strategy for this AI company. It was about 250 people. So sort of like midsize. So we were doing things like AI governance, AI ethics, specifically around the use of AI in the law. And as part of that, we were doing judicial training.
Alex Kotran: So basically training judges to better understand what is ai, how is it sort of [00:02:00] manifesting in courtrooms? And so I, I have no background in education, but my parents are educators. And in sort of the process of doing all this crazy stuff, we were, you know, traveling the world, you know, hosting these, these training sessions and seminars all over places like NYU and Stanford.
Alex Kotran: I, I was just on the phone with my mom at one point. And I was telling her about this, you know, we just trained a bunch of judges and you should have seen how, you know, their minds were blown, you know, some of the stuff that we were sharing with them. And my mom sort of offhand mentioned like, Oh, well, you should come to my school and talk to my kids about AI.
Alex Kotran: And it was sort of a true, like what, like really, uh, one of the true light bulb moments in my career, because I just had this sort of visceral reaction. It was like, well, what do you mean you’re not talking to your kids about AI? And I, and I actually was like first incredulous. I was like, well, So you must be sort of talking about the future of work.
Alex Kotran: Maybe you’re not saying AI specifically. And she’s like, no, we, you know, our English teacher is the person who does all of our career exploration. She’s like, I don’t think we, I don’t know what AI is. I’m sure my students don’t know what AI is. Our teachers don’t know what AI is. [00:03:00] And that was this moment of realization, this light bulb where it.
Alex Kotran: As it turns out, even though the, the technocrats and the, the technologists, um, were certain that AI is this wave of the future and the way that we were talking about artificial intelligence, even, and this is by the way, back in 2018, even back in 2018, this was a conversation about the future of work, the fourth industrial revolution.
Alex Kotran: This was going to be the wave of the future. And there was like a certainty with which people were talking about this technology. the future workers were not having the same conversation. And so the first part of this journey was figuring out, well, maybe my mom’s school act in public schools, which is sort of an outlier.
Alex Kotran: So I tried to see if there were other schools that I could point her to, to see if, you know, maybe there’s curriculum that she could, she could reference. And the more I looked, the more I realized that this was not unique to Akron, Ohio. This was actually a national problem. Uh, there was no sort of broadly accessible curriculum out there.
Alex Kotran: And that became sort [00:04:00] of an obsession of mine. It was this idea that, you know, if this technology is such a big deal, you know, this can’t just be something that the CEOs of tech companies and, you know, the nerds, um, are privy to, like, we actually need to be having this conversation with. because clearly the impacts are going to touch everybody, not just techies.
Alex Kotran: And so, um, our work is really all about how do you bring that conversation to this really broad, you know, sort of set of, this is really broad set of audiences. And, um, how do we talk about AI and communicate and sort of teach people about artificial intelligence in a way that’s, that’s relevant and actionable.
Alex Kotran: And, and so this was all before chat GPT and what chat GPT did for us. As you can imagine, it took what was previously a relatively esoteric conversation, you know, sort of looking relatively far into the future, you know, like this eventually AI is going to be a big deal. And there were a small number of people who bought into it.
Alex Kotran: Most people would just sort of roll their eyes. Chad GPT comes out and, you know, suddenly this [00:05:00] became very much something that people could touch and feel, and it really just expanded the. the scope of, you know, folks who felt like this was actually worthy of their time. And, um, we’ve been riding the wave ever since.
Alex Kotran: And I, I guess I should say the work that we do is all about, you know, how do you actually get kids to have, how do you build AI readiness and AI literacy with teachers and students? And, you know, our solution was and is all about. You need to get this in front of every single student in front of captive audiences of students that they’re not being forced to opt in.
Alex Kotran: And so this has to get into core subjects and so we basically build curriculum that plugs into English, science, math, social studies. We do teacher training, a lot of professional development programs, but not just for teachers, but for systems. So, you know, administrators, you know, superintendents, everybody within the sort of, uh, within a system that has, you know, some, some way of like getting this knowledge and these skills, uh, in front of kids.
Rebecca Bultsma: Now, you may not know it, Alex, but you’re actually the reason that this podcast [00:06:00] exists. So Brett and I actually met when I was a keynote speaker at the Ohio Summit last year, which I believe you were a main driver behind getting those Ohio AI Teacher Summits organized. And that’s where Brett and I actually met and struck up a friendship and found our shared passion.
Rebecca Bultsma: So thank you for that. We’re, we’re all here sitting around this virtual table because of you, and we’re thrilled to have you join us.
Alex Kotran: Yeah, I think that’s the, um, well, first of all, that’s amazing. Um, and I think that’s the, the secret to our success has been about, it’s AI is a technology and, and, and it’s a, and it’s creating opportunities, but also lots of challenges.
Alex Kotran: But there, I think, you know, there there’s this assumption that the only way to solve a tech, a challenge that technology creates is with technology. And actually what we believe is that. This is very much a human driven solution. And the only way for us to actually solve this problem of how do you like sort of expand access is to make [00:07:00] provide a platform for more people to be a part of it.
Alex Kotran: And I think not only is it okay that technologists aren’t the only ones having these conversations. I think it’s actually critical that the, that folks who are. Driving this work are not technologists because there’s just so much to education that technologists don’t understand and won’t understand.
Alex Kotran: And they need folks who have been living and breathing the work of education to also help us figure out how do we, how do we address the. The very specific needs that, that educators in schools have
Brett Roer: Alex, we’re about to kick off our amp to 11 questions. And you want self described yourself. I saw you speak at the ASU GSV summit, and you said, I’m like that nerdy cousin at the Thanksgiving table.
Brett Roer: He just wants to keep showing you cool things. Uh, and let’s what’s the state of AI. And I think that is like exactly what we hope our listeners, uh, hear today from you is. These questions are geared to kind of have you share what are the things right now that make you excited or fearful of AI and what are some of the tools or people [00:08:00] that our listeners should know about because not everyone does have the opportunity to get to connect with you or hear you in person.
Brett Roer: So that’s really what we hope today is about. First one, we’re going to, we’re going to get pop culture. We’re going to start and end with pop culture first. The Netflix hit Stranger Things, right? There’s a character named Eleven, has these supernatural powers, they leave everyone in awe the first time they see or experience her.
Brett Roer: So, Alex, what’s your most jaw dropping AI moment? The first thing that you encountered that really made you see something unexpected or out of this world.
Alex Kotran: Yeah, I think there’s like two specific moments. I mean, the first is just chat GPT. I know that’s like a boring answer, um, but I think it really is profound.
Alex Kotran: The idea that You know, I, I started my career as a, as a writer and working in communications. So all I did was write stuff. And even though this was a GPT 3. 5, sort of the prior, the older version of chat GPT before GPT four that most people have experienced with now seeing this technology, just write like a really competent, not amazing, but fully competent stuff, [00:09:00] um, with relatively basic prompts was, you know, I think incredibly, it was mind blowing.
Alex Kotran: And it was also this. this key moment, almost like an inflection point where this was clear, this was now going from a theoretical of like, oh, this is a technology that eventually is going to be able to do stuff that’s going to really change the way we live and work to this is now going, this is now changing, uh, the way we work.
Alex Kotran: And a lot of the I suspect a lot of my responses are really going to anchor on, on chat GPT, just because it is such a multifaceted tool and, you know, chat GPT, you can insert Gemini insert, you know, Claude, like any, any one of the language models, um, they’re all relatively good. Um, and that is sort of similar level of competency.
Alex Kotran: I would say the other one is, is AI art, you know, generative AI is not the same thing as language models, but, you know, functionally they, they really kind of like had their maturation point at the same time. And, um, you know, likewise being able to just type in a phrase and have these sort of incredible.
Alex Kotran: You know, illustrations and, and, you know, art that just sort of created in front of your [00:10:00] eyes and, you know, going down the rabbit hole and just like playing around with that and seeing what, what you can make, it was, it’s addicting. And, and once again, it’s just this, this, you know, as someone, I used to be a professional photographer and it was very cool to see, you know, imagery that, you know, previously, you know, I could imagine myself taking weeks to try to get to an end product that I was now able to create with a single sentence.
Alex Kotran: And there’s obviously concerns that come from that, but certainly that was a, a mind blowing. Um, uh, moment in in sort of like early on in the journey, and I think, you know, you know, ever since then, it’s been On the margins, you know, there’ve been changes to, to the models and new tools coming out, but I think all of them ultimately are sort of iterating on sort of like that core experience of, you know, you have this idea, you have this task, you have this thing that you need help with, and you can just sort of like.
Alex Kotran: Ask for it and get an output that, you know, let’s say six times out of 10 is actually good enough. Um, and maybe one time out of 10 is amazing. [00:11:00] Uh, and maybe three times out of 10 is really bad, but. Just that sort of like creative experience of like making, uh, with technology, it, it sort of bridged, you know, previously technology sort of lived in the, uh, the echelons of, of, of nerds and techies.
Alex Kotran: Right. And so to really, you know, people who are doing, you know, experts in computer science, you know, they were able to have that experience, you know, just by writing code and seeing their video games or programs come to life. But. It’s an experience that I had never had that most people sort of only hear about or like sort of learn about sort of like from the outside and sort of what language models have done and what generative AI has done is it’s given a much, much wider gamut of people that experience of sort of like using technology to make and create.
Alex Kotran: And I think we’re still sort of reckoning with like even the early days of what that’s going to mean for, for everybody, for education, but also just for the way that folks like us do our work day to day.
Brett Roer: And I know that, uh, as you said, right, chat GPT, everyone has to prep us now with like, I know that’s boring or that’s outdated, but as you said, you got [00:12:00] to sometimes pay respect to what really put AI into the zeitgeist and the pop culture.
Brett Roer: Our next question. Let’s see if there’s a different tool that’s in your toolbox around AI, but we got the name for AMP to 11 from Spinal Tap, right? That iconic scene, right? The AMP cranks up to 11. It’s going to push you past the limits of the ordinary when you really need that, that extra umph. So what are some tools you’re using right now or our listeners should know about when you really need to like get things done, or you really need to think outside the box or do something different?
Brett Roer: How are you getting to your absolute limits when you’re using an AI tool, for example?
Alex Kotran: Thinking outside the box. You know, I think, I still think Chat GPT is where I would start and end. I mean, there’s, you know, what I would caution people about is there’s lots of, there’s lots of rappers out there. So Magic School is an example of this.
Alex Kotran: There’s lots of rappers and tools that. will allow you to do stuff, but really all those tools are doing in general is they’re sort of templatizing the process of prompt engineering. And so ultimately, if you’re trying to figure out how can I [00:13:00] use AI to the fullest, I mean, just mastering chat, GPT or Gemini or, or Claude, um, it’s probably the best, uh, the best sort of single thing for you to focus on.
Alex Kotran: That being said, there’s a tool that I’ve been using increasingly, and I actually have a sub stack that I’m going to be posting about this later today called granola AI. And this is actually, I think. And what I’m writing about in my sub stack is, you know, it’s sort of one of the first times that I’ve really had this sort of like insight into like what it’s going to look like for AI to, to augment and amplify sort of human work.
Alex Kotran: Granola is a note taking app, and so you’re like, well, I’ve, there’s actually lots of note taking AI tools. There’s Firefly, there’s, I think, I think Zoom has sort of built in note taking. And in most note taking apps, you know, it records a session, sort of like summarizes based on the transcript, and you get sort of the summary of notes.
Alex Kotran: And, you know, that’s often fine. Usually it misses stuff. I find that most people, if they’re being really honest, they’re not actually even using the notes that much. Part of the challenge with some of these like automated note taking apps is the process of note taking is not, it’s [00:14:00] as much about the process as the end point, you know, like the process of like actually writing the notes during the meeting.
Alex Kotran: It’s a way of, you know, uh, helping you to remember things and also like anchoring sort of like what’s important. So what Granola does is it basically looks just like Apple Notes. You know, regular text editor. And so you go into a meeting and you sit down and you take notes the way you normally take notes and it records a transcript, it transcribes, it doesn’t record the audio, it just transcribes the meeting.
Alex Kotran: And then what it does is it fills in the gaps. So you take a meeting, you write, let’s say like eight to 10 lines of text, capturing sort of like what the key pieces are, but you’re not necessarily like transcribing every single piece of the meeting. Um, and so it basically uses the notes that you take as like a structure and then fills in all the details.
Alex Kotran: So you basically get the notes that you would take with all this sort of like, like augmented with all this other, you know, context and details that you might miss if you’re not literally like sitting down and just like feverishly writing notes. And so what it means is I can, I can spend more time.
Alex Kotran: Actually focusing on the meeting as opposed [00:15:00] to worrying about like, did I capture this important? tidbit or, you know, uh, you know, bullet point. Um, and it’s also, you know, help me understand like we have people on my team who, you know, in many cases they’re joining meetings just to take notes. And one of the challenges that we have is, you know, for junior members of the team, you know, we want them to have more opportunities to participate in meetings and contribute, but they’re also expected to take, you know, really high quality notes.
Alex Kotran: And it’s very hard to take notes and also then have like the mental space to then like, you know, think of a clever sort of thing to weigh in on. And Uh, you’re worried that you might miss capturing the notes if you do that and so it hasn’t replaced the human note taker because we still need somebody to actually be sort of like driving the car as it were, um, taking the notes, but it sort of like lowers the amount of time that they have to spend, like literally taking notes.
Alex Kotran: And so it, um, and it also gets lots of stuff wrong. And so you have to have somebody doing it, you know, if it’s really bad at like numbers, for example. And so I was actually using granola to prepare for a board meeting where we’re going through our budget and you’re in a lot, a lot of the, [00:16:00] the budget numbers, uh, it just got wrong because I think the transcripts.
Alex Kotran: And so the other insight there is, you know, with these tools, there’s still an important role for people in the equation. Attempting to like fully replace somebody with granola, I think is like a failed endeavor. Um, and so I think for me that the takeaway is like, okay, this is a, this is now helping me understand what it, what we mean by like AI augmenting, as opposed to replacing people is it’s a tool that is best implemented in the hands of a capable, uh, human.
Alex Kotran: That human has to understand the limitations because they have to play this role of like providing that oversight, but the outcome is that they’re now able to spend more time doing the, uh, more creative strategic work that we need people to be doing. And, you know, in the case of meetings, like being able to actually participate in, let’s say, build a relationship with somebody.
Alex Kotran: So. It’s my, definitely my new favorite tool, at least for now.
Brett Roer: I appreciate it. And that’s the kind of [00:17:00] things where I hope if anyone, if, if Rebecca says she doesn’t know a tool, that means you’re, you’re really on the right track here, and this is an amazing opportunity to learn for you, but I love the fact that you gave an example of a use case where.
Brett Roer: You know, you as a CEO or as someone who leads a team, this great happy medium of giving more access to your team to be more present, but also having a backup plan, but also making sure they understand how to utilize it. So thank you. That’s an exact example of a great use case here. Because you have not only so much experience with AI and tools that are out there, but also because of, as you mentioned your role previously in politics and building coalitions, especially with like mission aligned orgs.
Brett Roer: I’m going to let you, when I give these examples of questions, feel free to replace an AI tool with like an AI or mission aligned org to what you’re doing. We are always used to rating something as 10 out of 10, but sometimes there’s something that’s just so good. It’s off the charts. We’re calling it an 11 out of 10.
Brett Roer: So what’s either An AI tool that you feel is an 10 and [00:18:00] why, or what is an org that’s doing something really amazing that deserves an 11 out of 10?
Alex Kotran: I honestly don’t think there’s any tool that’s an 11 out of 10. I guess it depends on sort of like the, the, the rating system, right? So I think Grinnell would be an example of a tool that, you know, has been, you know, maybe an 11 and 10 in terms of just the, the wow factor and sort of like the way that I’ve.
Alex Kotran: It’s sort of like changed my day to day and like, it’s actually lived up to, you know, there’s a lot of height. There’s a lot of conversation about, Oh, these AI is going to transform the way we work. My actual experience with chat GPT is sometimes yes, but sometimes it just hallucinates and sometimes it’s just getting stuff wrong or it’s just average or even maybe slightly below average.
Alex Kotran: I think Granola is amazing because it has a very specific purpose and it has specific sort of a user interface and sort of a UX that’s designed to [00:19:00] best employ, uh, the human, the role of the human. But as I said, it gets a lot of stuff wrong and you know, I’m even not a hundred percent sure that, you know, I, the big question for me whenever I’m using a tool is, is this something that I would want everybody on my team using.
Alex Kotran: And even with granola, I think the answer is probably yes. But because of the limitations, because it, for example, gets things, you know, numbers wrong, there will have to be a lot of training that we will have to roll out if we’re going to be instructing people to rely on it. And I think there’s really no tool out there that doesn’t have some kind of a limitation like that.
Alex Kotran: You know, other, another, you know, potential 10 with similar caveats is, um, notebook LM bread. I’m sure you’ve heard of notebook LM. This is basically a tool from Google that, uh, helps you do research and it can, you know, do a really clever job compiling different, um, sources. And you can, I think you’d even turn different, [00:20:00] like you can upload a research paper and it’ll sort of turn it into a, a podcast.
Alex Kotran: I haven’t necessarily seen it used in a way that’s. That’s truly useful. I mean, I think the challenge that a lot of these AI tools have is most of the times that I see them used, they’re used almost like as demonstration cases for what AI could eventually do. But I haven’t really seen somebody, you know, like run a PD, for example, using notebook LM as a replacement for like a human instructor.
Alex Kotran: And I think that’s just because a human instructor is still way better than AI. And I think in general, like humans are always, are still maybe always, but certainly right now are still way better than the AI. So the tools that really are interesting to me are ones that are helping people do that work more effectively and more efficiently, perhaps AI arts really cool to, uh, I have a lot of qualms with it, but I mean, it’s, I, I no longer have to use boring stock photography for, for stuff.
Alex Kotran: And I can kind of like have like literally [00:21:00] whatever the thing is that I want for a slide, I can like dream it up and, and just have that exact thing that was maybe not the exact thing. It wasn’t like really sort of like aligned to what I was imagining.
Rebecca Bultsma: What’s your image generation platform of choice right now?
Alex Kotran: I’m using Midjourney mostly because I just haven’t had the time to learn. I also haven’t gotten access, I haven’t even played around with Sora yet. That’s probably another mind blowing, I guess I should actually go back and say, you know, one of the other truly mind blowing moments, uh, was text to video.
Alex Kotran: Um, and seeing the stuff coming out of, of soar. And then there’s other tools I think out there that’s like runway ML does something similar. You know, they’re not, they’re not perfect at all. Like they’re a lot of this, a lot of the videos that we see in sort of the demos. Um, it’s hard to get to that level of quality and, you know, I guess your mileage may vary as sort of a user.
Alex Kotran: The idea that we may be heading towards a world where. You know, video content could just be whatever is in your [00:22:00] imagination, just translated, you know, at the tip of your finger is without having to hire, you know, you know, VFX artists and, and actors is interesting. I don’t know if it’s cool. That could be really bad, actually.
Alex Kotran: And I, and I worry about a world where, um, we sort of like, you know, displace artists with this, like common denominator of like quite good, but ultimately kind of averaged out. Visuals, but that the fact that we can do it, which is a string of text is freaking amazing.
Brett Roer: And funnily enough, you bring up notebook LM, uh, we were fortunate to reconnect recently at Google headquarters in, in the Bay area.
Brett Roer: And you bring up notebook LM for. PD that is, uh, stay tuned, Alex, cause that is something that we’re excited about that, uh, we’ll be talking about how you can bring notebook LM and have that really turbocharge, uh, a PD or an AI summit, like the ones we referenced in Ohio this year.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I’ve actually, I’ve actually run some PDs specifically on [00:23:00] notebook LM, and I’m doing student work right now.
Rebecca Bultsma: And I use it a lot as a student and it’s probably my biggest game changer tool in my box right now. That’s for sure. So.
Brett Roer: Another tool that I was not a big. User of until recently. Um, and I know Rebecca has been for a while, but here at AmpED to 11, we’re big fans of 11 labs, so that’s just a coincidence, but it’s an amazing tool.
Brett Roer: And it’s known for obviously creating. Uh, AI voices that are truly amazing and replicate some of, you know, the most famous people in the world. So Alex, you could have anyone’s voice, historical fiction, living, dead, uh, reading your daily emails or being your AI voice. Who would it be? And why?
Alex Kotran: Probably, uh, Michael Fassbender.
Alex Kotran: I, I’m a, an Anglophile. I just think British people sound cool. My husband’s British, so I’m obviously biased in that way. I think Michael Fassbender has just like a very calming. I mean, his performance, um, in the Steve Jobs movie was [00:24:00] amazing. I will say I, I’ve, I’ve big, I’ve developed an ear for the AI voice.
Alex Kotran: It’s actually kind of hard sometimes to really catch it. You know, if you go on YouTube or Instagram or Tik Tok, um, I found that now maybe 50 percent of the reels of the shorts or the Tik Toks are narrated by a, an AI voice. And it kind of drives me crazy because I. I just worry about a world where, um, you know, because it’s so good and because it’s actually kind of hard and sometimes I’m not totally sure.
Alex Kotran: Yeah, I, I, I do worry about a world where, you know, it’s, it becomes harder and harder to actually know if you’re communicating or interacting with, you know, real or generated content. And so I think for that reason, we actually don’t use 11 labs as much just because it’s, you know, it just, it feels like the jury is still out on like what the norms.
Alex Kotran: Should be. And obviously with, you know, using celebrity [00:25:00] voices, I think, I don’t even think 11 labs will let you, I think you label we’ll catch it. Um, and prevent you, but, and yet there are actually some celebrities who are like openly saying, Oh, we, I want people to use my, my voice and, you know, use it to create and sort of iterate and there are others that are like, you know, vehemently against it, so it’s.
Alex Kotran: You know, kind of like in the zeitgeist right now. And I guess we’re going to have to figure this out together as a society as to like what’s appropriate and what’s not. Um, but yeah, Michael Fassbender.
Brett Roer: Yeah, that’s, that’s a new one. That’s well played. Uh, I said Adele. I also love a good, a good British or English accent that is different than the typical American one.
Brett Roer: Okay. Here’s something that I’ve heard you actually, I’ve always been impressed. Cause again, you’re usually on the cutting edge and you’ve experienced a lot with AI. You’ve often said something like. You know, this is the worst version of AI we’re ever going to experience. So as we keep climbing closer to like really peaking and hitting an 11 on the innovation scale with AI, what’s like a gap right now in AI that you can’t, like, you find yourself saying like, well, how come we don’t know how to do this yet?
Brett Roer: Like what’s a skill or something that you assumed [00:26:00] AI would be able to generate at this point that you still find like, they’re just not doing a very good job of.
Rebecca Bultsma: While you’re thinking about it, I thought of one today. I’m wondering why we can’t predict the weather very well yet. Like how is there not an AI tool?
Rebecca Bultsma: Again, I was in Europe as you were, Alex, and the weather was wrong every day. I feel like there should be a better, now that we have AI, we should be better at that. But I’m curious as to what yours is.
Alex Kotran: So I think summarization is an example of, it’s one of the, it’s one of the use cases that I often will hear about chatGBT is like, Oh, Chat GPT, one of the great ways to use Chat GPT, you know, upload a research paper and it’ll summarize it for you.
Alex Kotran: And for people who are trying to digest. who have jobs that aren’t just digesting research, you know, it’s a way of sort of staying current. So there’s two, there’s two challenges to this. Uh, the first is that it just gets it wrong or hallucinates or truncates. So like the hallucination part is like, it’ll obviously just like [00:27:00] make up stuff.
Alex Kotran: And the only way to know if it hallucinated, is to have read the research or to have read whatever it is that you’re asking it to summarize. So the fact that there’s a, not just a non zero, but a relatively large percentage of the time that it’s hallucinating basically means that in order to use it effectively, you have to read the research paper anyways.
Alex Kotran: And so then the question is, are you really saving that much time if you’re still being forced to read the research paper? And if you’re not reading the research paper, is it. I mean, maybe that’s just like a thing that you say is like, well, I don’t really care if it’s wrong 20 percent of the time, I’d rather like, no, 80 percent of the research.
Alex Kotran: Um, but I think that most, I think most people would, would sort of react to that and say, well, there’s something sort of problematic if people are sort of, you know, peddling summaries of, of research that. You know, it may or may not actually be true, but then the bigger, the bigger [00:28:00] challenge, and I think this comes back to even my like observation about granola and like note taking is, you know, it’s one of my board members, uh, is a former, uh, partner at a really big law firm.
Alex Kotran: She has her own company now, and she did a lot of, you know, presentations. These are like very niche. like arcane subject matter, right? So she goes and presents it like the financial services association. And she’s talking about sort of like AI ethics implementation, uh, and like regulatory policy, uh, around use of AI and financial services.
Alex Kotran: And, and she was telling me about how she’s, Oh, I’ve got to cram and get like a presentation ready for, you know, this, this keynote that I’m doing. And I said, Oh, well, why don’t you use, and there’s like some, there was something really sort of long. Uh, a white paper that she had to read in order to prep and I told her, well, why don’t you use chat GPT to kind of like help you create some of the bullet points and she said, well, part of my process for going and delivering a presentation and being an authority on a topic is, you know, the process of reading [00:29:00] and actually writing out my notes and writing out my talk track, that’s actually how I get ready and I think that was like a really, it was a big insight for me because, you know, at the end of the day, yeah.
Alex Kotran: You know, if someone’s going to go and present what we, what we don’t want is someone who’s just memorizing bullet points that chat GPT provided, you know, the, I think the most engaging presentations are ones where someone has actually internalized the knowledge and is, uh, and sure, maybe there’s a, it doesn’t say that chat GPT can’t be useful.
Alex Kotran: You know, like maybe you’ve read that research paper and. You know, Hey, I need help with a interesting anecdote to open up my presentation with. I said, I think there are ways, you know, Brett, to your question about like, how could you use this to sort of like enhance your creativity? And I think there are ways that you could use it, but you know, I think people are, will often be disappointed with, uh, you know, the limits to how much it can actually.
Alex Kotran: Time, which time it can actually save, like this isn’t about taking something that used to [00:30:00] take five hours and letting you get it done in like five minutes. You know, maybe what used to take you five hours will take you three hours. And by the way, that’s still great. And we should still be very excited about that.
Alex Kotran: But I think it’s a much less sexy and much less flashy thing to share. And so I’m, I’m often like a little bit, uh, circumspect about any, any application of AI that’s, that almost seems too good to be true. Now that said, I think with coding, I think that there are certain applications where it can literally just replace time, like, uh, like wholesale and writing code is a good example of that.
Alex Kotran: And writing press releases, another example of that, like instances where you’re not actually looking for creative writing, you know, press releases often like a regurgitation of. You know, uh, can language that, you know, almost like the purpose of a press release is not to make up new ideas or new language, but just to sort of stick to talking points and messaging that have already been established.
Alex Kotran: And I think for something like that, AI is actually quite good at. But still you have to read it. You have [00:31:00] to, you know, make it your own. People are, I think, increasingly going to start to recognize when something has been written or generated by AI. And, um, I think organizations that lean too much on it are just going to come across as kind of like, Lame.
Rebecca Bultsma: I think that’s why notebook LM has been such a game changer for me, like as a researcher and, you know, And as like a student, uh, because it has this capability where it will summarize a document for you, create, create a briefing doc, and then give you exact citations to which of your 50 documents it pulled the information from and take it, take you right there, which has really kind of helped me check for hallucinations a lot faster than I couldn’t chat GPT.
Rebecca Bultsma: You know, I didn’t necessarily trust that reg. Uh, process and chat GPT, but because notebook LM can immediately tell you, show you the sentence and which document it pulled you from in exact time and make you a briefing doc with all the references, I think that’s been a huge game changer for the exact reasons that you’ve mentioned, Alex.
Rebecca Bultsma: So thanks for bringing that up.
Brett Roer: And something else you mentioned that is really [00:32:00] important, I think, for our listeners and also resonated with me was this idea that if something should take you five hours, maybe it does save you an hour or two. And that’s, you know, obviously the, uh, that’s a great, great process, but something I’ve noticed, let’s say there’s things in the past that as an educator, there’s certain things that would get me hung up.
Brett Roer: Like you said, searching for stock photos in a PowerPoint or even like formatting the bullets of a PowerPoint. Sometimes those would be like the, that would be like the wall or the bridge too far for me the night before I’m teaching. And so what I’ve noticed is while it might not save me time, it’s really had me think about what are the things I enjoy doing and what things I have to do.
Brett Roer: And if it can help you get through the have to do is to get to the part that like you love and you’re passionate about in your field, that’s where I’ve noticed, like, I don’t even care anymore. If it saves me time, it makes it better. The experience for me. And hopefully, obviously the output is equally as good, if not better.
Brett Roer: But that’s where I’m like. When it lets me get through the part of the journey, I don’t really want to experience anymore, but you have to go through it first to even know which ones you like and don’t like. So I hope that’s also resonant with, uh, [00:33:00] people out there, especially in the field of education.
Alex Kotran: But this is okay. So this is interesting because I’m, I’m going through, we’re doing like sort of our annual reviews, um, for our team. And one of the things that I’ve, I have this sort of an internal struggle with You know, a really good use case for chat GPT would be to upload all of the, you have to go through all the peer feedback and like the manager, uh, you know, skip a little feedback and then like read through it, process it, and then sort of like synthesize that into my own, um, my own feedback and review.
Alex Kotran: And, you know, nobody likes writing reviews. It’s sort of like, it’s just. You know, it’s, it’s a lot of work and yet I, I do, you know, I, even though I could use chat, GBT to write my reviews for me, I think if I was somebody who, if I’m somebody who’s receiving a review from a manager, I don’t know how I would feel about them just using chat, GPT.
Alex Kotran: And. And I, and I think for education, this goes the same way. I think there are things that teachers could use chat GPT for grading [00:34:00] as a great example of this. But I do wonder about whether even if something is boring or annoying, you know, it’s not that every time something is boring, it’s, it’s critical.
Alex Kotran: I think there are some things where, you know, so I think, I think my, my reflection with the reviews is. You know, maybe, uh, you know, I’ve, I’ve used chat to help me sort of like think about structurally how to, how to structure the feedback and like what specific examples, let’s say to reference, but, you know, I’ve made a point of making it my own, but Brett, the example that you gave, and this was actually in a PD that we delivered to a bunch of super, a bunch of administrators in New York.
Alex Kotran: Um, and I remember one of your, your recommendations was, you know, for an observation where so much of the time is spent just sort of like. You know, taking notes from an observation, like sitting down and like writing that out into sort of like this, like, you know, and it’s a, it’s a process where, you know, the principal is not actually getting that one on one time with the teacher.
Alex Kotran: They’re just sort of sitting and writing. So can we, can you use AI to actually, you know, if, if you’re spending, let’s say three hours on an observation with a [00:35:00] teacher, um, if AI means that you can now, instead of spending two and a half hours writing in 30 minutes. Coaching that teacher one on one. If you flip it and spend 30 minutes sort of like synthesizing, using chat, GPT, maybe another 30 minutes, sort of like reading and internalizing it, and then two hours for one on one time, I think that would be like a good outcome.
Alex Kotran: So I think it’s, you know, the honest is on educators on whoever you are to think about. You know, where do I have almost like a duty to, you know, deploy my human skills and, and the sort of like the, the special sauce of what makes humans so important to the equation and, and then, yeah, what are the pieces that legitimately are, you know, better off where everybody’s better off from this being sort of automated.
Brett Roer: Yeah, that’s an excellent use case. And wow, whoever said that sounds brilliant. Wow. That’s amazing. Something I’ve been fortunate, you know, I’ve seen you present at AI summits and get to interview, um, you know, current students, both in from elementary school, all the way through college. So I’ve, I’ve had the opportunity to watch you interact with people [00:36:00] of all ages and talk about AI, but right now for those 11 year olds out there, right.
Brett Roer: They’re going to live in a world. They’re going to grow up never knowing what, uh, the world’s like without. AI at their fingertips. So for those students and those people out there today, what’s a message you’d give them about the future, about their future in AI driven world, things to be cautious about or things they should be hopeful and optimistic about.
Alex Kotran: I suppose there’s a lot to be cautious about. I don’t know that there’s, I don’t know how much we gain from, from scaring kids who are 11, just because we don’t have answers and we don’t really know how, you know, what the, what, what the world will actually look like. I think the first thing is. You know, be intentional about making space for the human lived experience.
Alex Kotran: And just because you can have a best friend that’s an AI companion, just because you can sit down and use mid journey to create art, you know, there’s far [00:37:00] greater rewards from spending time building human connections with people from spending time learning how to draw or learning how to write and. You know, it’s weird because we never, that’s something we didn’t really have to tell kids.
Alex Kotran: You know, it was, it’s kind of a strange thing to say, like, you know, make time for the human experience or for being human. But I think that’s actually going to be something that, you know, if we’re not intentional about it, you could easily sort of fall into the trap of every part of your day, sort of like being, uh, you know, consisting of these, you know, artificial interactions, artificial experiences that might still be really engaging and interesting.
Alex Kotran: But it might be sort of hollow and, you know, I think social media is a version of this, right? Like just, you can spend two hours on TikTok and it’s entertaining. It like, it’s really entertaining, almost maybe too entertaining. And you finish that two hour session and it’s unclear, like what you even saw.[00:38:00]
Alex Kotran: Like you can’t even put your finger on any one TikTok or Reel. It’s sort of just this amalgamation of just like stuff that kind of flowed over you. It was almost like a river of, of content. And I think. You know, that’s just going to be amplified more and more as the quality of the, the generative AI gets better.
Alex Kotran: And, um, and as sort of like in terms of the social norms around, or just the acceptability of like, you know, I think, I think, uh, Instagram is going to start rolling out like AI accounts, like fully AI accounts with their own followers. And, um, so I, you know, we’re, kids are just going to have to kind of like be more intentional about it.
Alex Kotran: They may, you know, they may have to be more intentional even without parental guidance, because their parents might not even realize that they need to give them that advice. What I find is kids are way ahead of the teachers and, and us adults in terms of like, they’ve seen all this stuff.
Brett Roer: You know, something, obviously, again, you were the, you were the creator of this.
Brett Roer: We were fortunate in 2024 in San Diego, having [00:39:00] students kind of take the lead at the, uh, GSV air show, AI show. They got to create things, um, and they had. You know, they had a room full of educators and when we asked them who in this room has ever created something in a line with an AI acceptable use policy, only those students on stage were the only ones who had ever done that before.
Brett Roer: So, you know, when we give these tools to students, they’re much quicker to say, let me dive in, let me learn about this. So that’s great that they’re, you know, they’re more forward thinking and willing to dive in sometimes, but. I appreciate those, uh, that like caution to, to balance AI with, with reality, I guess would be the way to put it.
Brett Roer: For you. You know, I know that when you get to speak about these things, you know, the mission of AI to you, if you want to briefly touch on that, but we, we know the term 1111 means we’re going to make a wish, right? We’re going to, we’re going to hope that something comes true. So it’s 11:11 right now. What’s what’s one wish you kind of have about how AI could shape the future of education and society.
Brett Roer: Um, what would that look like to you?
Alex Kotran: Maybe it should be that, uh, the. Excitement and flashiness of [00:40:00] AI prompts us not to reorganize education around everybody using AI more and rather to use it as a moment to double down on those like critical pieces of education that, you know, have fallen by the wayside with, you know, the obsessive focus on standards.
Alex Kotran: Um, and by that I mean, you know, just being resilient and being a critical thinker and being creative. And learning how to communicate and learning how to build relationships and find mentors and be flexible, you know, I think this is something that we’ve talked about for so long, you know, this is, and in some ways, you know, I think this is very much back to the future, you know, like in the age of AI, what’s so important.
Alex Kotran: It’s like, well, it’s actually. You know, at AIEDU, when we talk about AI readiness, we, we are talking less about knowing how to prompt engineer chat, GPT, and rather we’re talking more about, you know, the 21st century skills, many of which I already named that have been something that [00:41:00] we’ve discussed for years.
Alex Kotran: I mean, this is like decades long conversations, right? About 21st century skills. And you know, the good news is that, you know, we believe the skills are not new. So it’s not that we have to totally. You know, it’s not, we don’t, we don’t need a revolution in education per se. Um, but the bad news is that we’ve been talking about these skills for.
Alex Kotran: For decades, and we haven’t necessarily made meaningful progress because the incentives are not aligned. Teachers are not measured on are you building, on whether they’re building critical thinking with their students. And so it’s not teacher’s fault, you know, like you go to a teacher and say, well, you need to do more critical thinking in the classroom.
Alex Kotran: And I’ll say, Well, that’s great, but I don’t have time, you know, like I don’t, I’m not given the time or support to do that, you know, what I’m being asked is to, you know, focus on a specific set of, you know, content standards. And so yeah, so my wish is that, you know, this is a this is a moment for education to become more engaged.
Alex Kotran: And I think ultimately, Education needs to be more engaging. Kids are, kids are less and less bought in to education. I think in part, because it doesn’t feel relevant and [00:42:00] because content knowledge is less and less important in a world where you can just ask for anything and get it. And I think the project of actually.
Alex Kotran: adjusting education to focus more on the sort of intangibles of, you know, the human advantage that makes for more engaging classrooms. And I think it makes for more well rounded and better equipped students, uh, for the future. And so the question is whether we take this as a moment to do that or whether this is just a moment to buy more tools.
Alex Kotran: And right now it feels a little bit more like the tools are winning the day. Yeah.
Rebecca Bultsma: What advice would you have, Alex, for teachers and principals who are trying to figure out how to, uh, govern this or introduce guidelines and frameworks and, and rules for teachers and students? What advice would you have for those schools and districts?
Alex Kotran: I guess there’s two things. So the first is that there are some sort of immediate guidelines and policies that you probably need to have in place, for example, academic integrity and let’s say just general, [00:43:00] guidelines around, um, you know, student privacy and safety and, um, You know, A. I. E. D. U. Has published some guidelines that we created for the state of Ohio, which you’ve actually helped us to disseminate across the state.
Alex Kotran: Um, those are available on our website, and those guidelines were actually built on the shoulders of a number of other, uh, recommendations and guidelines from organizations like like T. J. I. And I. S. T. Among many, many others, uh, that we we’ve cited in our work. Um, so I would say start by, you know, there is a lot of.
Alex Kotran: There’s a lot of help already available, and so, um, and in most cases, it’s variations of the same thing. You know, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything that’s, like, wildly wrong. I think there’s maybe, like, better and worse sort of ways of framing certain things. But then the bigger, the bigger challenge is, you know, you can have all those guidelines in place, but the real question, which is, like, how do I make sure that my teachers and my students are set up for success?
Alex Kotran: Sure, having an academic integrity [00:44:00] policy is, like, it’s going to help you deal with some of, like, the The complicated stuff that’s going to happen when kids are using chat dbt to write homework assignments. But that’s not really going to address this bigger question of like, how do I make sure my kids aren’t left behind in this world where AI is changing the way not just we teach, uh, and, and operate in schools with the way we like live and work outside of school.
Alex Kotran: And, you know, that comes from AI readiness and really. Uh, and so the beauty of this is that we, you know, I don’t know what tools to recommend to schools. Like, I don’t know that there is a tool that I would say every school should be deploying district wide yet. But what I do know is every single teacher at every single school should be going through some amount of AI readiness, professional development.
Alex Kotran: And that goes, and that’s everybody from. A gym teacher to an art teacher, to a math, you know, social studies, science teacher, to PD instructional leads, to building principals, to district superintendents. Um, and, and so there’s sort of, uh, it’s the one unambiguous [00:45:00] thing that schools can like double down on.
Alex Kotran: And it’s also the thing that requires the least amount of political capital because, you know, schools may not have a budget line item for AI, but they have, you know, line items for professional development and digital. Readiness and, uh, you know, it, and so, you know, using that as an opportunity to sort of like lay that sort of like foundational primer.
Alex Kotran: And once you have AI readiness and sort of like that literacy, uh, across the board, you’re going to be the best equipped to a implement and navigate the policies that you’d also need to have in place because policies are useless if people don’t understand the why behind them, um, but you’re also going to be in the best position to start deploying tools as they sort of reach more technological maturity.
Brett Roer: I think one of the things you’re leading at AIDU that I’ve seen over the past few years, especially is you have this top down, bottoms up approach. So like you said, district leaders need that cover. They need to make sure what they’re doing is ethically and legally correct because you know, they have to make, that’s their job and not just AI, but in general.
Brett Roer: But I’ve also [00:46:00] seen, you’re really trying to build and democratize like AI literacy and access to it because By having things like these AI summits in Ohio, where it’s free for all educators in the state to attend, you’re making sure that people that might otherwise not have access or might not see innovation as quickly as other areas in the state or in the country, they have access to it.
Brett Roer: So again, I just want to say that’s a really great approach and it aligns with what you’re saying, getting everyone just to a baseline. We’ll really serve the needs of those students that, uh, they’re in those communities. So thank you for leading that work and bringing so many stakeholders with you along that journey.
Brett Roer: And we are going to close with our final question. And so again, you know, the work you lead, right, we’re going to end with pop culture, right? And the film series ocean’s 11, the crew is able to pull off the impossible heist with this ultimate dream team. So, you know, you don’t need to name 11 folks necessarily, but if you could think about the kind of people organizations that are.
Brett Roer: Working together to tackle some of the biggest challenges in education, uh, along, along [00:47:00] with AI, who are some of those people you’re bringing along with you, those experts, specialists, or innovators that, uh, that, that you find are doing the greatest work in the space right now, or you just want to recognize for others.
Alex Kotran: There’s more, I mean, there’s, there’s a lot more than 11. Um, so I’ll just sort of battle off in no particular order, you know, I think. There’s a lot of organizations that have been doing the work of helping to prepare and advance education for the future, um, with a, you know, with a deep focus on, uh, on teachers, uh, and building teacher readiness.
Alex Kotran: And so, you know, Digital Promise, Leading Now, ISTE, uh, All4Ed, and it’s a much longer list, CS4ALL, CSTA, you know, these, um, I think, I think what’s, what’s so powerful about this moment is, you know, unlike with computer science, I mean, the computer science movement, you know, was, you know, kind [00:48:00] of birthed, you know, out of thin air and it took, it was, it was a lot of work and we’re still not even close to done in that effort.
Alex Kotran: And by the way, I think we, we need to make sure that we don’t allow ourselves to get distracted by AI as sort of like a, a, a new shiny object that, you know, Cause we still need to double down on computer science education, but with AI, we actually have now this ecosystem that we can, we can tap and leverage.
Alex Kotran: And so, so the first is just like that, you know, uh, you know, data science for all, you know, that ecosystem organizations is critical. I think, I think also just the, the teachers, the administrators, folks that know very little, maybe even nothing about AI are definitely part of my team because, you know, at the end of the day, prompt engineering is not that hard.
Alex Kotran: It’s like, how do you ask good questions? How do you just experiment? And in most cases, learning how to prompt engineer is just having a license to experiment, um, and understanding sort of like what to look for. AI [00:49:00] literacy is not actually that hard, right? It’s like the, the, the basics of what everybody needs to know about AI is it’s relatively high level.
Alex Kotran: I mean, we’re not talking about, you know, being able to explain in detail, you know, how a language model is actually constructed. The really hard thing about AI readiness is. How do you actually implement this within a system? And so the people who don’t know very much about AI are also people who really understand the challenge of how do you, uh, affect change within systems that are by the way, dealing with incredibly complex challenges, you know, because AI was sort of dropped into everybody’s lap and a moment where we had, we were just in the process of digging ourselves out of all the learning loss from COVID.
Alex Kotran: And we’re dealing with, you know, record levels of. absenteeism in schools and, you know, really significant challenges when it comes to math and English literacy. And [00:50:00] so, you know, and those challenges are still there. And I don’t know, I don’t think that AI is just going to solve them. I think that’s a fallacy that we’re just going to like, we can just sort of like move on from those challenges and just focus on AI.
Alex Kotran: So, and nobody in Silicon Valley get understands those challenges, right? So like the, what I hope is an inspiring call to action for, you know, the educators and the administrators who are listening to this is. You know, nobody can do what you do. Nobody knows, you know, you are the deep expert when it comes to your district, your students, your teachers, um, your classrooms.
Alex Kotran: And, uh, we need you at the table. We need you not just at the table, but. You know, uh, active participants and sort of driving things forward. And, you know, the one thing that you need to do to help advance that is, you know, start, get yourself on that learning journey. And so, you know, just like as an ocean’s 11, you know, so much of that.
Alex Kotran: Movies spent them just learning about. The casino, right. And learning about all the sort of like nooks and crannies of the security system. I mean, I [00:51:00] think that’s, that’s what this, uh, coalition needs to be doing is, you know, like getting smart on what is it that we need to know to actually accomplish this goal.
Alex Kotran: But yeah, that’s one of my favorite movies. So appreciate the, uh, the best pop culture reference yet.
Brett Roer: Well, I should have prepped that was spoiler alert, everyone. If you haven’t seen this movie from the early two thousands. Uh, they rob a casino, but Alex, before I let you up on the hot seat, um, you know, you said something really important that I do want to, I do want to maybe ask you to, to give some flowers out there.
Brett Roer: You’re right. There are some educators who may not be experts in AI, but who are embracing the challenge and trying to move the work forward. So, you know, in your work with AI, do you maybe, can you highlight some of maybe whether it’s people or districts or regions or states that you feel are really, you know, working in collaboration with you or others?
Brett Roer: to push the work forward and to get more people at the table, especially in education.
Alex Kotran: Yeah, I mean, look, we’ve talked about the state of Ohio, and I think for good reason. Ohio is, um, you know, one of the leading states right now nationally. They have, you know, the lieutenant governor published a statewide strategy for [00:52:00] AI education, and they’ve put their money where their mouth is in terms of, like, doubling down on now what is, uh, the second year of a really significant grant.
Alex Kotran: With a you, but really in partnership with the entire ecosystem of educational service centers across the state, um, to provide professional development and sort of ongoing learning and there are other states that are doing the same, you know, colorado also comes to mind. There has been a sort of an AI working group led by the colorado education initiative that we’ve been supporting and then there’s also districts, you know, like new york city public schools.
Alex Kotran: You know, there’s been a lot of change within that district, and yet they are still, you know, on the leading edge of experimentation and really, you know, centering the way that they think about a I readiness in terms of how it aligns to the Uh, the existing, um, learning goals that they have, and they have an amazing team of folks at New York City that have, you know, they have been on this learning journey for a long time and have a really, you know, well informed perspective on what this looks like, you know, [00:53:00] LAUSD as well, the list goes on.
Alex Kotran: I mean, I, I, Brett, you’re, you’re sort of more clued into this than me, but, um. Oh, and then Gwinnett County public schools in, uh, in Georgia, they were actually like the OG. I mean, Gwinnett County is the, the school district that, you know, way before ChatGPT, they, they sort of rolled out the swim scuba, swim snorkel scuba model for, for AI literacy, which is basically like, everybody needs to learn how to swim.
Alex Kotran: Some people will snorkel and a select few will scuba dive. And sort of this idea of like, you know, AI literacy doesn’t have to be super deep and technical and out of reach. It’s like, You can sort of build this continuum and, uh, you know, Sally Holloway and the team there is, uh, doing amazing things, but yeah, I, uh, if anybody listening is curious and wants to get in touch with any of those folks, we’d be, you know, but I’m sure you are, and I would be happy to, uh, to make some connections and, and facilitate, you know, more sort of cross learning between, between districts.
Brett Roer: Absolutely. And that’s kind of one of the reasons I always kind of brought our, uh, [00:54:00] our, our guests because. You, you, you’re right. And you’re an authority in this space that I really want to make sure people here. These are the vetted trusted partners who have been in this work for, you know, longer than others, or really taking those next steps and trying to systematize and democratize, you know, access.
Brett Roer: So we always will include, um, where you can find these. These amazing organizations and leaders that, uh, that Alex just mentioned. So again, Alex, I want to thank you. And I’m going to turn it over to Rebecca to take us home.
Rebecca Bultsma: Yeah, I don’t have a whole lot to add. I learned a ton. I’m taking notes as we talk at things I want to look up for myself.
Rebecca Bultsma: You brought up so much good information, so many good organizations to check out. So thank you for being here with us. Thank you for being the driving force that brought this whole thing together. And we know how busy you are. So we really appreciate you taking the time to spend with us today.
Alex Kotran: Thank you.
Alex Kotran: so
Alex Kotran: much for having me. It’s been great. Welcome to
Rebecca Bultsma: your
Rebecca Bultsma: AI tip of the week. And I’ve got one that’s kind of [00:55:00] fun for you today. A new AI powered tool from Apple, which is called Apple Invites. You may or may not have heard of this. I hadn’t heard of it, which is why I’m sharing it, but it’s a new app for invitations. So it allows iPhone users to create and share custom event invitations.
Rebecca Bultsma: You can create an invite, manage all the RSVPs, share event details via a link. And then at the event, all of the attendees can share photos and videos to a shared album and collaborate on the Apple Music playlist for the event. And they use AI powered tools like Image Playground and writing to help make your event planning really, really streamlined.
Rebecca Bultsma: It’s available on iPhone, uh, but the people you’re inviting don’t necessarily need to have an iPhone. It just has to be managed on an iPhone. So it’s free. It’s available now, and it’s definitely one of those little AI tips and tricks that will make your event planning, hopefully a little bit easier.
Rebecca Bultsma: [00:56:00] Enjoy.
