Unknown: Tim Fulton,
Tim Fulton: welcome to the confluence cast presented by
Columbus underground. We are a weekly Columbus centric podcast
focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment and
people of our city. I'm your host. Tim Fulton, this week,
when we talk about artificial intelligence, the focus is often
on big tech or headline grabbing breakthroughs, but for Kaz
Maxwell, co founder and CEO of AI owl, the story is much closer
to home. His company is helping Ohio's workforce schools and
businesses go from Ai curiosity to practical integration backed
by state funding and partnerships with Intel and Khan
Academy. In this conversation, Cass and I talk about how AI can
be a tool for empowerment, rather than replacement. What it
looks like to train employees and students in hands on ways
and why the future of AI readiness in Ohio may hinge on
meeting people where they are. You can get more information on
what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at
the confluencecast.com enjoy the interview. Sitting down here
with Cass Maxwell, the co founder and CEO of AI owl. Cass,
how are you good? How are you today? I'm good. Tell us about
ai ai owl. Ai owl,
Cas Maxwell: well, we are a little bit of a complex
organization, but at the end of the day, we do workforce
upskilling with AI. So that's that's our foundational thing
that we do is we go into organizations teach their team
how to basically go from demystification to integration
with AI,
Tim Fulton: okay, talk to me so. And when you say organizations
that could be businesses, that could be schools, could that
even be like nonprofits?
Cas Maxwell: Yeah, it can be any basically, if you have w2
employees, okay, you qualify for what we're doing,
Tim Fulton: okay? And it's, it's funded by the state, so these
folks can sort of basically apply for it. You do you do the
approval process? Or do you, is it basically an automatic
approval? How does that work? To
Cas Maxwell: to the, yeah, the state does the actual approval
of it. So we'll help guide the organization through that
application. Very simple, takes, like 15 minutes, guide them for
the application. They submit it. You know, the state will award
that grant agreement. And then from there, we can get to
training and get to upskilling, and then the state will take
care of it, okay, which is amazing. Talk to
Tim Fulton: me about what the program looks like, how long it
is, and then what the outcome is.
Cas Maxwell: So the you're talking to tech credit, like our
training program, your training program? Yeah, yeah. So what it
looks like is, we sit down with the organization to start with,
figure out kind of, you know, what are they trying to achieve
with AI number one, where are they on their AI journey? And
then we have kind of modular based classes. So whether you
want to do data analytics, whether communication marketing,
grant writing, you know, whatever that is, you want to
accomplish. We then bring in trainers for about eight to 10
hours over four weeks. Okay? They're actually in person, so
you're opening up computers, getting on the desktop, whatever
you have, and we're actually in person with you, doing a
workshop based training. Okay? And then what is tech cred? So
tech cred is the state of Ohio grant, okay?
Tim Fulton: It was credential, like an actual thing, okay, it
Cas Maxwell: is. And then, specifically, we're teamed up
with Intel as well. So everybody that goes through ours receives
an additional Intel digital readiness certificate that they
can put on their resume, you know, put on their wall,
whatever they want, and that just shows that they've went
through that course and that, you know, they're AI literate,
pretty much,
Tim Fulton: okay, it looks like, and what, just nitty gritty,
like, Do you have a preferred platform that you guys use? Are
you trying like, let's say it's a medium sized business and they
have some security concerns about putting their data into
it. Are you, basically, I'm asking, Are you platform
agnostic? Are you making recommendations for which
platforms to use, whether that be anthropic or open? Ai, what
do
Cas Maxwell: you use? We use about 40 different tools. Okay,
so it's going to depend on your goal. So if you're, if you're
looking at it can be as chatgpt that everybody knows, and how do
we dive deep into that? Or it can be way more advanced
features, building a computer vision system or working with
specific data analytics tools, anything like that. So there's
not one right answer in AI. It's very user base and very subject
based as well, yeah,
Tim Fulton: and I assume that you sort of have a philosophy
that AI is a complement to because this is a workforce
grant, right, yeah, okay, so AI, philosophically for you, is a
job enhancer, not a job replacer. You. Talk to me about
your philosophy there.
Cas Maxwell: Yeah, we it's a tool, okay? It's a tool. That's
what we always say. It's a tool, you know. It's another tool in
your tool belt to help you be better at your job, to excel, to
push the limit, you know, go to the next horizon. You know, it's
your thought partner, you know. Now, instead of going to you
know the guy that's been with the company for 35 years,
instead of going to his office and asking him these questions,
now you have that same thought partner at your fingertips that
you can diagnose, that you can work through, like you said, to
accomplish those problems and to be a master Problem Solver
within your organization.
Tim Fulton: Who do you find are the most skeptical of that
philosophy. Is it the, basically, the leaders that are
looking at it as a security risk, or the employees that may
feel I am basically just empowering AI to take over my
job by telling it how I do my job?
Cas Maxwell: Right? That? Yeah, that's the those are definitely
the two arguments, I think, the most skeptical. I mean, I
definitely feel like it's, it's at the top, bringing it into the
organization, okay, which may be counterintuitive to think about,
but, you know, it's a, it's a scary thing to bring into your
organization. Yeah, and yes, there's all these, you know,
promises. Oh, it's gonna, you know, do this or do that. But a
lot of people aren't buying in as fast as you would think,
yeah. And I think that just comes down to truly
understanding, you know, what can it do? How? What does it
mean to be aI ready? You know, that's we're in that chicken or
the egg moment where an employer doesn't really realize what it
means to hire a employee that is already AI ready. You know, what
that person is gonna bring in the organization, the value and
what value your company is going to bring, being AI ready. So you
know it's going to come in a wave. You know, if you look what
was it 15 years ago, 20 years ago, if you had Excel on your
resume, you're like, what does that mean? What does that what
does that mean to know Excel, and now, you know we're past
that frontier. People go, oh, you know excels everything when
you know how to use that. So I think we're in that same weird
moment with AI right now where people don't fully recognize the
power of having that on your resume. Okay, yeah,
Tim Fulton: talk about the the work that you're doing in
schools. I think Caldwell high is the one that you guys have
highlighted as like, look at what we did for these kids. So
Cas Maxwell: you're probably referring to tip city over
maybe. Okay, we have worked with Coldwell, though we've worked
with over 70 different districts throughout Ohio. Tip city in
particularly, that was where we rolled out the country's first
AI course. So okay, a nine through 12 course, a full
semester, and we started with credit recovery students. Okay?
So these were students that brilliant, students like
brilliant, but they just weren't engaged with the traditional
learning environment, okay? And, you know, no fault of their own.
That's just, you know, and I don't know what credit recovery
is, sorry, you know. So basically, not graduate, okay,
yeah, for whatever reasons. But the main thing was just the
traditional school wasn't, you know, they weren't vibing with
that. And so we created this course. Decided to pilot it
there, because we knew, hey, if we could work with these
students and we could make this successful, then we can work
with any student. Okay? And in it, we spent all semester doing
it. These students are now very good friends of the
organization. They've they're actually speaking in front of
hundreds of people. You know, we're just a semester ago, they
were not even want to come to school. So, okay, they've had an
amazing transformation, been assigned credits with this
course. And so that's one thing, and then, you know, other things
are, we're doing PD training for teachers. We're doing
facilitator training. Khan Academy is one of our partners,
so we're bringing, you know, con migo, their one on one tutor to
schools at no cost. Okay, so we have so many different things,
and it's all you know through state funded programs as well.
So we know budgets are tight with schools. Yeah, it's no it's
no secret. And so trying to find a way to alleviate the budget
headache as well. That's that's a big part of our mission.
Tim Fulton: And you are a for profit organization. You are,
you are a business, Yes, correct. Talk to me about sort
of the founding story and how you guys got started.
Cas Maxwell: Yeah. So I was originally restaurant tour.
Still am. Okay, stay. Shout out, Paul and Steve. You know,
business partners there. We have a good time. We're almost 10
years in now and then, about two and a half years ago, two years
ago, when chat GPT dropped, yep, November 22 myself and my
business partner, trace, we had a late and great friend. He
passed away in the fall, but he came to us and was like, Hey
guys, I've seen calculators, I've seen desktop computers.
I've seen internet I've seen all of this stuff. This is bigger
than all that, right? And how do you guys grapple with this? How
can you build a company around it? And so that was really our
spark to Okay, let's get together, let's figure this
stuff out, and let's build a company around it. And so that
was really the founding spark to where we are today. Okay, okay.
Tim Fulton: So you, you've talked about your sort of, it's
not a direct partnership with the state, but it is the state
funded programs. You have your partnership with Khan Academy.
These are big entities. Can you talk about sort of, first of
all, navigating that? Is that your first time navigating that
sort of thing, you're a kind of young guy. And then also, how do
you choose what is a good partner to work with?
Cas Maxwell: That was my first time, okay, navigating that,
anything on the scale of becoming partners with, you
know, an Intel or Khan Academy. I mean, these are, as you know,
they're huge organization, yeah, so that really, you know, I got
to give kudos to trace. I mean, he really navigated that
landscape well with Intel, which, you know, Intel was also
partnered up with Khan Academy, so that's so that's kind of what
opened the door there, okay. And then just working with those
organizations, I think as we got to know each other more and
more, we saw that value of, okay, we're really boots on the
ground training these people, you know. How can we use this
intel content that has been created for two decades now that
they're refining How can we synthesize this and bring it
down to the everyday person?
Tim Fulton: Okay? So that the value add, would you say, sorry,
I'm skipping. Okay. Is that what your company basically does is
it's synthesizing this, the set of modules, probably, into
something that's digestible. And you're essentially an education
company, absolutely,
Cas Maxwell: okay, yeah, it's trying to I'm sure you've sat
through some AI conferences. I'm sure everybody that's listening
to this has sat through some sort of AI thing, and it's
always so 30,000 foot view, yeah, and people walk out going,
Tim Fulton: you know, I don't know what I'm supposed to do
with
Cas Maxwell: that. How you build an algorithm isn't going to help
me, you know? I mean, and so we understand that. And so we're
trying to come into the person that's working whatever they own
a roofing company, or they're the Big Brothers, Big sister
organization or or whatever they are. You know, we're gonna meet
them where they are and show them how to integrate these
tools on a very person to person level.
Tim Fulton: Talk to me about what makes you and trace
basically qualified. Like, why are you the best people to I
don't know what traces background is, but sort of like,
it seems like an interesting entrepreneurial leap to go from
restaurant tour to, oh, I own and run an educational AI
company that services organizations with state grant
money.
Cas Maxwell: Yep. What's the pizza guy doing in Yeah, right
to kind of answer the first question. So trace, he comes
from manufacturing, also inventing. So he's an inventor
by nature, an engineer. Yes, okay, yep, got it. So that's his
background. And I think what qualifies us, I think the
beautiful thing about this space, you know, when we're
looking not, not AI as a whole, because it's been around for,
you know, since, like, the 1950s but the actual LLM side of
things, the natural language, where you and I are, we're
talking it, you know, like you're talking right here is
that it's new, yeah, it's, it's just a couple years old. So, so
what does qualify an expert in that, other than people working
at open? AI that crack that code, you know? So we were at
that starting wave. So I think just getting ahead of the
general population, working with experts, surrounding ourselves
with amazing people.
Tim Fulton: You don't mean, does it kind of feel like I'm asking,
like, what qualifies the guy who invested in Apple in 1980 to
have invested in apple? It's like, it doesn't matter. I got
there first.
Cas Maxwell: Yeah, and I hope that doesn't sound pretentious,
but it's just like it didn't exist before a couple years ago.
So, so, right, you know, and that's like anything, you dump
yourself into your work, you you know, you find that passion and
find how it solves a problem. You know, that's always the root
of everything. You know, what problem is it solving? So, so,
yeah, I mean, it's, it's, how do you become an expert?
Tim Fulton: Well, and as I have thought about it these past
couple of years, the question is always like, Okay, well, what's
it going to be able to do next? And how do you get because
there's going to be a couple of big winners, right? There's
going to end up being an IBM, a Microsoft and an apple. But how
are, how can you specialize and become the, you know, the
Hewlett Packard, the company that sort of is, like,
supplanting and adding additional benefit, or, like,
how are you going to, and I don't know, I don't have a
philosophy about whether this is ethical. How are you going to
create the AI therapist? How are you going to create, God forbid,
but it's gonna fucking happen, the AI dating
Cas Maxwell: app. And I've thought about that already.
Yeah,
Tim Fulton: it's so I guess my question is, is, why for you?
Was it education and empowerment? Was it simply like,
well, there's grant dollars here for work? Of workforce readiness
and, like, Why? Why education specifically,
Cas Maxwell: a couple things. Yes, grant dollars, great. You
know, no one hates that. Yeah, providing value at a no, no cost
type thing is, and I want
Tim Fulton: to give you a little bit of credit here and say that
is good, right? You are doing a quote, unquote, you are doing
good, like Superman does good. Yes, sure, but what? Yeah. Back
to the question, why are you doing that? I
Cas Maxwell: think the cool thing about the way this is
structured is that we can be very flexible on what happens in
the market. So when you look at an open AI, when you're talking
about those big dogs that are going to eat up the, you know,
the small guys, and all of a sudden you're going to have
these conglomerates, that is going to happen for us. It
doesn't necessarily matter who does that, right? Because at the
end of the day, you know, what we're doing is we're taking
these tools, whoever is the leader in the market, whoever
has been vetted, whoever is proving themselves, and we're
bringing that in a training platform. So to us, it doesn't
matter who's juggled at the top, because at the end of the day,
we're going to work with that person who's leading the charge,
who's giving the not just the biggest, but who's giving the
best value, and who's who's solving the most problems. And
we're going to use that for our training. So is that, does that
kind of question?
Tim Fulton: It leads me to, what, how often are you guys
having to update your materials? Basically, and be like, because
there's always going to be some guy in the back of the room
that's like, actually, that's not the best model to be using
for that. Like, how often are you updating? Like, hey, we're
going to be talking about chat GPT 4.0 versus Oh, three today.
How often do you have to, like, update those models, or, sorry,
those like modules,
Cas Maxwell: right? I mean, we're updating it on a weekly
basis, okay? But there's a caveat there. You know, we don't
want to just throw the next best thing on the thing, okay, on the
module, because what will happen is, you know, some of these
companies have paid versions, as we all know, there's, I'm going
to keep going back to chat GPT, because that's everybody knows
that. Yeah, you know, you have the free version of the paid
version, right? Okay, we know the paid version is worth it.
You know, we've used it for several years now. It's, it's
amazing. It's totally worth it. But, you know, you get these
smaller AI companies that are startups, you know, they're
coming in the market. Maybe they have a great product, but maybe
they're not gonna be around in six months. And so the worst
thing we can do is show is show a especially a school. Let's
take that as an example. Show them a brand new, shiny tool
that just came out. Yeah, and they sign a contract and spend
$10,000 onboarding this AI, and it goes away in six months, or
they go bankrupt. That's an excellent I mean, you know. So
they're vetted as well, and their companies that we've
identified are going to be around well,
Tim Fulton: and so you, I mean, is it fair to say, in a small
way, you are sort of feeding into that conglomeration, right?
That you are empowering, you know, the Microsofts, the
apples, the IBMs, by basically recommending that platform or
that model. That's more of an observation than a question,
yeah, what? In order to educate folks a little bit, what would
you recommend for just a very generalist business, maybe like
a consultancy, or, let's be more specific, like a PR firm. What
would you recommend for them to do in order to choose which
model or company to sort of like, okay, I'm gonna start
subscribing to this service. How would you invite them to
investigate it?
Cas Maxwell: Well, make a choice outside of bringing us in, all
right, okay, right, no. I mean, I think a great website, Product
Hunt, okay, it's a really great website. They're, you know,
keeping up on what's coming out every day, along with, with the
steady tools that have been around for, you know, not just
AI tools, with any tools, right? They have a ranking system. They
have reviews. They have, you know, individual people, like,
almost like a Reddit thread, that are going in and talking
about it as well. That's a great website. I feel like to pull
some knowledge from, obviously, YouTube, university, you know,
going to YouTube, watching the videos, and pushing that free
version. They have to the max before paying. I mean, it's,
we've already been seeing companies like I said that they
came out were great, but now they're folding up, and people
were left, you know, holding the bag. And that's the last thing
we'd ever want when suggesting things so
Tim Fulton: well. And I think the interesting thing that is
sort of happening is that it, when you say holding the bag,
somebody may be listening. They'll be like, well, you just
subscribe to a new service, and it's the issue is, is like, when
you tell it something, it remembers it about you. And so
if you're feeding it a data, feeding it data, or feeding it
your sort of decision making ethos. You are. You're investing
some time in sort of like getting it up to speed with what
you need it to do. So, yeah, it's
Cas Maxwell: an excellent point. I mean, that's the, what you
just said there, that's the, that's the worst of it. It's not
necessarily the money. Yeah. I mean, don't wrong, if you sign a
huge contract, it's something, but if you're spending 20 bucks
a month, yeah, it's not about the money. What it's about is,
you just showed your entire organization. You did training
on it. You're, you've built systems around it. I mean, I
mean, you know, what do they say when you when someone gets let
go and you gotta hire somebody else? I forget, how many
onboarding, yeah, how much money it takes to bring on a new
employee. That's pretty much what you just did. You just, you
know, spent all that time and resources. Now you gotta redo
it. And so nobody wants to have to do that.
Tim Fulton: Talk to me about what you think is next for you
guys.
Cas Maxwell: What is next for us? Well, I think definitely on
the school side of things. I mean, we want to continue down
that path. We enjoy helping not only the teachers and
administration, but the students of tomorrow. Mean, you know, a
school is built around making sure that students prepared for
the world outside of school. And so we are diving deeper into
that. You know, we're working with some, you know, four year
institutes, two year institutes as well after school to help,
help guide them. So I think, you know, education is a huge part
of ours, and then also hopefully expanding our reach a little bit
as well, and outside of Ohio, or I think so, yeah, okay, I think
we would like to, I mean, Ohio is our home and where we want to
put all of our focus. But, you know, I think as the company
grows, being able to have a wider impact is something that
we would love as well.
Tim Fulton: Can I give you an idea do it? Heck, I love that.
If you pursue it, I have it documented here that I sorry,
yeah, May I share an idea with you? Yes? So I want, if you do
it, I want to get royalties. Well, yeah, it doesn't have to
be. I just want to help. Okay, you know, so when I was in
middle school, there was this program, and it's kind of a
nascent it does still exist. I just looked it up a couple of
weeks ago, and it was called future problem solvers, and it
was a competition similar to a spelling bee, or there's other
various programs like it, but essentially a region of middle
schoolers. You have a team and a couple of alternates that like,
go from your school and everybody goes to a big
gymnasium or conference center or something, and at the
beginning of the morning they give them basically a two page
brief on, hey, how would you solve this problem and that
maybe, how Do you get more trees sufficiently built in a
community that has very limited green space. And here are the
constraints of this problem, and here's the parameters that you
need to stick in between. Like, this can only be a five year
solution or a 10 year solution, and then they you basically gave
give the kids four hours to figure it out. So it's a team of
like, five kids. They're like, Well, what about this? What do
we do with this? And then those alternates are also competing
individually on similar problems. And then the judges,
everybody goes to lunch, the judges read all the responses,
and they award what they think is the best solution, and
that's, that's the winner. Basically. What if we could do
that with middle schoolers and AI and sort of present a here's
the problem. How would you solve it with AI and what like and and
here are the constraints under which you're going to do it and
just sick the kid on a computer to sort of figure it out and
make recommendations for, like, maybe business plan around it,
or because I do believe that you're right, that like, this
is, I think Obama famously said it like he went into a room of
pretty smart people and he said, Okay, how should I think about
this? What is this? Is this the internet? Is this manufacturing?
And they said, This is electricity. This is how much of
a change this is going to be to our society, and kind of
quickly. Wouldn't it be great to one come up with some cool ideas
with these kids and also empower them, and you know, then you're
looking at a kid who's gonna be able to put that on his college
resume and not just a credential. You know what? I
mean, yeah, so that's the idea. So,
Cas Maxwell: well, I'm ahead of you already. So, yeah, I don't
want to let the cat too much other bag, okay, but we're
working on some festivals next year, okay, around the state
that are going to do pretty much exactly that. Okay? What we're
going it's not gonna be middle school. It's gonna be nine
through 12. We're working our way back through grades, though.
We're finding some solutions for that middle school, that grade
school, to get them in earlier, but the how? Uh, kind of what
the vision for next year is to be putting these students
through that semester long course. Okay, talking about and
during that, it's all project based learning, right? So what
engages the student on their day to day level, you know? Whether
it's, you know, building a, I don't know, let's just say a
chat bot for the website, whether it's building a vision
system, maybe it's a, you know, we had one student build a Red
Dead Redemption guide, you know, really in depth guide, you know,
that went through the game, you know, whatever they want to do.
And then basically creating these festivals for these
students to prop these up, basically an AI science fair,
exactly. And then having those demos there, having that judging
there, having the collaboration, the problem solving at these
festivals, and then really what we're doing as well is we're
hiring a bunch of high school tech interns throughout Ohio,
okay, and we're giving them a job within our company. We're
doing the same thing with college tech interns, bringing
them into the company. They're actually then working with these
businesses that we're talking about, okay, finding these
problems that businesses are having, then helping, and
they're creating these solutions, almost like a little
incubator, yeah, and then, you know, if the solutions are
great, it gets spun out into a company. Those interns get to
own part of that company, and they get to help drive that
forward, keeping it in Ohio, growing the Ohio economy. So
we're really looking at that because, you know, it all ends
with the student. I mean, yeah, it's so many people want to talk
about, when you do this for the districts and the
superintendent, what it's the end dates, about the student,
you know what? Right? What is their outcomes? How are they
being prepared? And how do we show that off, instead of
keeping them behind that, that closed door, that desk? So
that's a huge Yeah, thank you for bringing that up, because
that, yeah, that is a big thing that we want to, we want to do.
And so I'm glad you're no, they're aligned on that, yeah,
definitely, that's great. Real quick. Were you in that middle
school? Were you, what was your What was your project?
Tim Fulton: I do not remember. I know that I got first place as
an alternate, okay, all right, which means, yeah, I was not
chosen to be on the team, okay, but I was the best, well, but I
was the my team didn't place at all, okay, but I was the best,
oh, I got you all the, all of the, I was the best of the last
kid that got chosen for kickball. Gotcha among everybody
in the state, yeah. So I have that to put my, you know, I can
hang my hat on that.
Cas Maxwell: I think my only I'm trying to think, like, science
stuff. I think I won. I had the fastest mouse trap car. Okay, I
don't know why that came to my that's good. I was like that,
yeah, well, I
Tim Fulton: mean, they're, they're, they're the guys who
talk about what it was like quarterbacking for the big game,
and there's the guys that talk about their Eagle Scout project,
Cas Maxwell: yes, and we have these. That's absolutely,
absolutely,
Tim Fulton: I end every interview with the same two
questions, what do you think Columbus is doing well. And what
do you think Columbus is not doing so well?
Cas Maxwell: That's a tough one. I wish I had time to prepare
that one. Well, if you would listen to the podcast before
True, true. I did. I did listen to the one you put on a month
ago. What is Columbus doing? Well,
Tim Fulton: this could even be a here's what I like about
Columbus. Yeah.
Cas Maxwell: I mean, I love Columbus's energy. I do not just
energy in people. But, you know, I I'm not from here. You know, I
grew up coming to Columbus once every year, maybe once every
year and a half, okay, occasional Eastern trip or
whatever. Yeah. And, you know, pulling in, seeing this guy
here, you know, as a kid, is like, Oh, my God, we're in the
city, yeah. And so now that I live here, I don't take for
granted every day that I do live here, and I and I see the
cranes, and I see the people and the people moving and, you know,
we were talking about venture and stuff like that, and
learning about all these new businesses and and I just think
there's just so much energy. And I don't know that's what I love
about it. I just love the energy. Yeah, and we're in the
Midwest, so people are nice and welcoming. And, yeah,
Tim Fulton: and what do you not like so much about it? What am I
not like about it?
Cas Maxwell: I don't like the traffic going out of Columbus at
5pm going there, going back east, all right, that's what I
don't like. That's fair. Yes, Cass, thanks for your time.
Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
Unknown: You thank
Tim Fulton: you for listening to Confluence cast presented by
Columbus underground again. You get more information on what we
discussed today in the show notes for this episode at the
confluencecast.com Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of
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Philip Cogley. I'm your host. Tim Fulton. Have a great week.
You.
Unknown: You.