Ben Straley

Love this - AI is the Oppenheimer moment for marketing. It fundamentally collapses the time and cost of production. A $2.5 million campaign that used to take four months can now be delivered for $500,000 in four weeks. Legacy firms that charge based on hours with the 'time-driven' model are existentially threatened by this.

23

Was thrilled to host a recent OhioX webinar on Agentic AI in Production with leaders from Foundry for AI by Rackspace (FAIR™). here is a link to the webinar - https://lnkd.in/gcVGxwsF . My 3 biggest takeaways from our discussion: 1. The Infrastructure Reality Check Our panelists made it clear: agentic AI requires fundamentally different plumbing. We're moving from point-to-point APIs to protocols like Model Context Protocol (MCP) that let agents communicate across systems seamlessly. As one panelist noted, it's like giving an employee access to all the tools they need—but we must carefully orchestrate that access. 2. The "Policy as Code" Imperative What fascinated me most was hearing about organizations writing separate rollback agents for every production agent they deploy. The message was clear: policies that exist in documents must become executable code with built-in guardrails. We can't scale agentic systems without this foundation. 3. The Human Factor Surprise Perhaps the most eye-opening moment: our internal CTO revealed that human resistance was a bigger challenge than any technical hurdle. People hold onto familiar manual processes. Success requires intentional change management—not just technical deployment. One statistic that stopped me: 77% of AI leaders already have agentic AI in production vs. much lower adoption elsewhere. The leaders are pulling away fast. Thanks to Simon Bennett, Nirmal Ranganathan, and Brian Lichtle for sharing their authentic experiences. And to everyone who joined from across the globe (we had 4 continents represented)—your questions made this conversation richer. Thanks to Chris Berry for your partnership The future isn't about automating what we do—it's about reimagining what's possible.

21

TrueTrends from Sila's consumer insights unit is a semantic consumer intelligence platform that allows market researchers and marketers to detect trends before they happen. Keyword search is a thing of the past - with multi-category AI, computer vision (image+video - audio coming soon) and semantic understanding powered by LARA, you get an unparalleled vision of what consumers actually want, desire, who they are and their motivations. More importantly, it actively solves challenges and directs R&D. It understands your intent as much as theirs. I think we've all been burned by social listening tools driven by keywords and having to construct boolean operators, and as a result just making outcomes full of biases and frankly untrustworthy with the amount of junk. That's why we've re-written the script on what different data sources, including social, can bring to market research in any language (not just 22 dialects of Arabic). The difference? 118% better content discovery because we understand meaning, not just mentions. More than a marketing tool, this is a way to replace costly trend agencies, test concepts with real behavioral data (not panels of 20 people), and predict outcomes that researchers and marketers can actually trust. Real-time intelligence instead of quarterly reports. A groundbreaking piece of kit the Sila | صلة market research and tech team has worked on tirelessly to cut through the noise, and I've got to say as a completely biased observer, an amazing tool that's already replacing traditional research methods at enterprise level across MENA. More details: https://lnkd.in/d8RFGdfp Reach out if you'd like a demo - I'll show you true trend semantic intelligence vs keyword bingo.

44

4 Comments

A useful discussion of the differences between co-pilots, agents and AI workflows. From Jack Mu at Paragon. Clarity leads to better design, and to better pricing. https://lnkd.in/g_Xkf5AT? #AI #agents #copilots #workflows

1

Chris Hendricks Joining AI Advance Consulting I’m excited to share that Chris Hendricks has joined AI Advance Consulting as a Board Advisor. Chris and I go back more than 20 years—as friends, collaborators, and partners through the Local Media Consortium—so I’m especially excited to be working together again. Chris brings deep operating experience from senior leadership roles at McClatchy, where he led large-scale initiatives across data platforms, advertising technology, digital products, and workflow automation in complex media organizations. Today, as Founder & Publisher of Holly Springs Update and President & Co-Founder of the Local Media Consortium, Chris continues to work at the intersection of media, technology, and operational transformation. At AI Advance Consulting, Chris will advise on how organizations can successfully deploy AI copilots, knowledge systems, and workflow automation into real operational environments—particularly in B2B SaaS, media, and professional services organizations where support, RevOps, and internal knowledge workflows directly impact revenue. Chris brings an operator’s perspective to AI adoption—helping companies move beyond experimentation and into production-grade systems that improve speed, reliability, and measurable business outcomes. We’re thrilled to have his experience and strategic perspective helping guide our next phase of growth.

5

GPT-5 dropped yesterday and it has a focus on healthcare. In a recent interview, Sam Altman mentioned healthcare is a major part of usage on ChatGPT by consumers. I'm sure many of us have asked GPT health related questions. In fact, 17% of U.S. adults do that at least once a month and 58% of the population does at least once a year according to a 2024 report from KFF. This trend isn’t slowing down. It’s becoming inevitable. People want to be competent and empowered when it comes to their health. They don’t just want to ask better questions, they want to make better decisions. And that builds trust, improves outcomes, and fosters a stronger and more collaborative provider-patient relationship. We launched KELLS Dental Advisor earlier this year, the first of its kind AI chatbot for personalized oral health guidance. We believe tools like this will be a standard component for any healthcare experience from now on. As foundational models advance, there are more we can do: 1. Go beyond generic answers by fine-tuning AI with dental expertise and patient context 2. Make oral health education accessible, personalized, and engaging 3. Not just answer questions, but complete tasks to remove frictions like finding a provider, scheduling appointments 4. Support real-time, two-way communication between patients and providers The future is promising but only if we build it with empathy, responsibility, and real human needs in mind. We’re excited to be part of that journey and transform how people care for their mouth and overall health. https://lnkd.in/eiY7SG2e

16

1 Comment

The future of AI will be defined not by who has the most data, but by who has the right data. Today, I'm proud to announce that Veritone is leading that future with the launch of the Veritone Data Marketplace: https://lnkd.in/gmdrHxA3 We're building a new, trusted data ecosystem to connect rightsholders and AI developers. This announcement is to help establish the new supply chain for an AI economy built on integrity and shared value. Listen to our own Sean King discuss the opportunity in the video. For our partners and customers, VDM unlocks new revenue from media archives. For AI innovators, it provides access to the ethically-sourced, high-quality data needed to build the next generation of models. With VDM, we are moving the industry beyond scraped data and creating a future where data is sourced ethically, governed transparently, and delivered at the scale modern AI demands. This is the next evolution of Veritone's commitment to powering the future of AI with practical, responsible solutions. Learn more about how we're shaping the future of AI data. Full release: https://lnkd.in/gKjjjFYs #veritone #veri #ai #genai #dataeconomy

138

7 Comments