Smart Start Radio: Training Tomorrow’s Planners: The Role of AI and Emerging Tech Trends

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Evolving technology, Super Agents and AI-produced podcasts- oh my! What does it all mean for meeting planners? 

In this latest discussion of Smart Start Radio, Smart Meetings editors Sara Robertson and Eming Piansay chat with Dr. Richie Karaburun, clinical associate professor and director of HI Hub Incubator at NYU School of Professional Studies, to get an update on the latest skillsets emerging professional planners are learning and upcoming trends that will likely impact the meetings industry and beyond.

Editor’s note: This episode of Smart Start Radio was transcribed by Otter.ai and edited lightly.

Further Resources

Why AI Might Mean Salvation for the Meeting Industry

How AI is Revolutionizing Travel and Events

Eming Piansay Happy, happy, happy, New Year, Smart Start Radio community. How are you all doing once again? In case you forgot our name, because I know you probably haven’t, because we’re so memorable. We’re so memorable. I am your co-host, Eming Piansay.

Sara Robertson And I am your co-host, Sara Robertson. Welcome back to Smart Start, everybody. I hope you are enjoying a fabulous start to the new year, getting excited about everything that’s coming and everything that you’ve done the past year. This is a super exciting time for us at Smart Meetings, because it’s the time when we are kind of prepping and planning all of the awesome content that we’re going to bring you in the upcoming year. But just as a means to pat ourselves to the back for the past year, we actually want to share with you a white paper that has been the product of tons of hard work on part of the Smart Meetings team throughout the past year. So, this white paper is called “Real Event AI: A White Paper on The State of Generative AI in the Meetings and Events Industry.” It was published digitally in October, and as I’m sure you’ve seen in our January issue, because you’re on our website right now, right? Looking at our January issue?

EP Obviously, obviously.

SR How could you not? New issue, yay!

EP You have to be.

SR The beginning of every month is always the best time.

EP It’s like Christmas every month. A new Smart Meetings magazine.

SR Yeah, exactly. So, this white paper is in our January magazine. If you haven’t taken a look at it, you really should, because it is fantastic. Worked so hard on this story, this white paper, it is full of the latest research, statistics, expert insights and some of the best AI in meetings and events content that you are going to get right now. So, if you haven’t checked it out, this is your call to check it out.

EP Please do. Please do. Because we work really hard on all our content all year long, and we only want to create content that benefits our community and the planners who utilize our content to create events that are special, unique and inviting and engaging, and all those wonderful, wonderful things. So please do check it out. But in the meantime, for our first, the start of our second season, by the way, which is awesome.

SR Season two!

EP We wanted to kind of circle back to a topic that we talked about last year, but get a little more different, you know, perspective and thoughts on it and how it’s evolving. So once again, as we all know, AI has been the thing, for the past.

SR Like ChatGPT took the world by storm back in what was it, the end of 2022 I think, was when it got really big, and everyone started using it somewhere around that time. So, it’s 2025 now, oh my god, we’re still talking about it, and everyone’s getting better and better day by day and using AI.

EP So I wanted to circle back to someone who we’ve interviewed for our magazine a couple times, Dr. Richie Karaburun, but Dr. K for short, he’s a really awesome person. He works at NYU. He is a clinical assistant professor and director of the HI Hub Incubator. So essentially, what he does is, he works, he helps work with young developing hospitality people who are trying to create, like their businesses based around hospitality and events.

SR We could even say emerging professionals.

EP Yeah, sure, yeah, exactly, yeah. And it’s, it’s really interesting. Like, if you have time, please go check that out. HI Hub, H-I-H-U-B-N-Y-U. They’re great. They really help students like think out their ideas and really work through it to create, you know, the future of hospitality, for what’s to come and for what people and businesses can expect. It’s really interesting. And if you know someone who’s interested in going back to school or is going to school for hospitality, please check them out, because they’re a great resource, and they really help you figure out, like, How can my business thrive in this industry? It’s really great.

SR With the tech that I have at my disposal? So Dr. K was so interesting to talk to. Absolutely just has insights into things that, I think when Eming and I sat down to record this episode, we were not prepared for the things he would tell us about.

EP Not at all, not at all.

SR So in the next hour or so, you’re gonna hear slash see us sitting there like, jaw drop, what. And he’s honestly, he has so many amazing insights and intel into the evolution of tech as it pertains to our industry, and also as someone who was like, pretty recently in college, oh gosh, I feel like I missed out not having him as a teacher. He was so awesome.

EP Yeah, no, he’s great. He is so insightful and so thoughtful, because he really thinks about how all the different aspects of AI will interact with, with, you know, your education. And he made a really interesting point, which you’ll hear about. Like, you know, it’s easy to tell when you use AI sometimes, because if you don’t edit, like the whole, the whole idea of using AI in a way that’s responsible is, like, you know, having it help you, but also going back to make sure, like, this works for me. And I’m not just utilizing AI, I’m actually inputting myself into the export as well. And I think we sometimes forget about that part, because it’s really easy to, you know, use it as a crutch. Yeah, I think, anyways, and then you and then that’s the whole fear of like, because, again, he makes one comment which is terrifying for us, is that, you know, podcasts will be, you know, hosted by AI.

SR Yeah, AI-generated, yeah.

EP How can you duplicate a Sara Robertson, like, for real? How can you, how can you like Charlotte the cat in the background yelling?

SR Yea, I was just gonna say. Charlotte the cat in the background yelling at me because I’m not holding her, and you will see or hear her make a guest appearance a little later in this episode, and, like, absolutely jump scare me. So stay tuned for that. But yeah, the thing about AI is that it’s a tool, right? We use it to take these processes that used to take a lot of time, like, for example, crunching numbers, going through an attendee list and figuring out all of the dietary restrictions that you have and how many meals you need to serve for what dietary restrictions. And maybe somebody is vegan and gluten free, or maybe somebody is vegan and they have peanut allergy, and maybe you have 10 people who have peanut allergies, and maybe you have two people who are gluten free. And it’s so complicated, it takes so much time, plug your list into AI, and it’ll organize it for you and tell you how many meals you need exactly of what.

EP On that point. We were at a lunch the other day, and someone almost got served something that they were allergic to, and I was like, how did they miss that? Because, you know, you get lists, so I’m like, that would have been a great chance for AI to come and be like, Hey, here’s a thing, here’s a note. Don’t, don’t serve this. So, things like that. But we really hope this conversation is helpful and inspiring in its own way, for people who are curious about the future value, because some stuff is a little scary. I’m not gonna lie, it kind of freaked me out.

SR Same.

EP But at the end of the day, it’s a tool.

SR Yeah.

EP And we need to be better at how we’re using said tool, and I’m still learning how to be better at using said tool.

SR Oh yeah, same. That’s something that I think when I travel, especially, and I have conversations with people, and AI comes up, a lot of them are like, so do you use it? And it’s like, well, yeah.

EP Yeah. You can’t not use it.

SR And like, the process of figuring out how we use it best for our needs.

EP Exactly.

SR Like, Eming and I are journalists, we’re writers, right? So we’re gonna use AI differently than an event planner uses AI, but we all can figure out the ways that it’s gonna help. And honestly, if you wanna learn more about the basics of using AI, you should check out our episode from last year with Sindhu Srivastava and Jeanette Roush. They were fantastic, and it’s honestly a really good overview to AI. But consider this season two, episode level two, of AI and just event tech, using the technology tools, developing tools, and running with it, because there’s so many interesting insights that Dr K brought in.

EP So in the meantime, listen to our AI part two, 2.0 episode starting now.

SR Season two, woohoo!

[radio tuning sound]

EP Hey. Dr K, how are you doing today?

Richie Karaburun Good. Good, Eming, hi. Hi, Sara. How are you guys doing?

SR Hi, Dr. K, it’s great to have you.

RK Thank you.

EP So for our Smart Start people who don’t know Dr. K, I’ve spoken to Dr. K multiple times in the past two years, at least once a year, about AI and its impact on the meeting industry. And we thought because, you know, it’s been heating up that topic of conversation in the meeting space and beyond. I really wanted to talk to you, because you have given us so much information and, and you’ve really set the tone about how we should look at how folks are being trained in AI, in the classroom and beyond. And so just to kind of kick things off for folks who don’t know about you and what you do, can you kind of give us a little a little a little um, a little

RK Intro?

EP Intro, thank you.

SR Your elevator pitch.

RK Hello, hello, hello. For those of you don’t know me, my name is Dr. Richie Karaburun. I’m originally from Turkey. I have to say this, someone is like, what kind of accident is this? So originally from Turkey, and I’ve been here for 30 years, I was in the hospitality events industry for over 25 years, so last 10 years I’ve been teaching. I’m a full time faculty at NYU Tisch Center of Hospitality.

I teach predominantly hospitality technology classes as well as business development and brand management classes, and I’m also a Director of Innovation Hub Incubator program for NYU, and I am very active in the industry as well as in the academia, because my main goal is to really close that gap between the industry, what I call it, real world, and academia. So hence, I ironically, just came back last night from Arizona from a big AI conference. So that conference called Focus Right Annual Conference. So Focus Right is a major hospitality technology research company. So they do that. It was about 1500 people there, and and people like CEO of Expedia, CEO of Priceline, Saber, there’s major CEOs, and then we had a lot of round tables. And I was actually speaking on the round table as well, on the impact of AI on our industry.

EP So the HI Hub that we, we’ve discussed in previous, can you kind of go to that more? I know it’s, it’s, there’s a lot of moving parts to it. I understand that.

RK Yeah, it’s actually we, this is going to be our fourth year, since we opened that. It’s HI Hub, is Innovation Hub that consists of two system, one’s the, experiential learning, where we actually get to, like, see events and any other companies, and then we get their system, their certification, incorporate into our syllabi. The other one that I run is incubators, where the students, NYU students and alumni, if they have any ideas and they don’t know what to do with it, if they want to actually create a company, they can actually join our incubator, we match them with mentors and investors. That’s a six month program. After that we do like a shark tank events, and then the winner gets $20,000 cash, and then we basically help them, their entrepreneurial dream come true. So this is going to be our fourth cohort, the pitch day, hopefully you guys can join as well, either in zoom or in person. It’ll be end of April this time.

EP Oh, wow, that’s super cool.

SR That’s exciting, that’s super exciting.

EP So in our previous discussions that we’ve talked about, we’ve talked about, like, how you guys are utilizing AI to kind of give planners, or people who want to be planners essentially, when they graduate, the ability to understand these tools better. And, we’ve talked, we’ve been talking about this a lot, and so, as we’ve said previously in our talks, is that people need to know how to use the, use AI. So how do you guys really drive that home in terms of like, use it, but use it in a way where you’re, you know, be responsible with it, be honest with it. And, you know, use it in a way that benefits you and doesn’t like cause, you know, harm essentially, because AI is very like, it’s very here nor there at this point. So, if you can kind of speak on that.

SR Yeah, we’ve had a lot

RK Sure, right. Sorry, Sara, do you, do you have anything?

SR Yeah, that’s okay. I was just gonna say we’ve had a lot of discussions about AI ethics, and I think that that’s something that people are really interested in learning about more. So yeah, when it comes to using AI ethically.

RK Look, it’s exciting times indeed. AI, every conference I go regardless of the industry, right? So, either higher education, hospitality, meeting, planning and healthcare, wherever you are, I call AI’s 800 pound gorilla. Everyone talks about AI, right? And AI is just, I mean, it was introduced November 2022, right? If you think about it, it’s only two years old, and it reminds me of early 90s. You might be too young, or some of your audience might be too young.

In 1992 when someone was, even Katie Couric and Brian Gamble, when they were talking about Today Show, hey, what is this w-w-w dot internet? There’s a clip, if you look at it, is the Today Show clip. Katie Couric is really asking everybody talks about this, w-w-w, how does that work? What does that URL mean? That’s we, that reminds me of this, right? So, like, how we talk about internet in 90s, now we talk about AI.

AI is one of the best technologies that you know, just like every technology, this basically the whole thing is machines can do a better job than human, and people talking about artificial general, generated intelligence as well as super intelligence, right? So all machines can actually be better than human. And we’re getting there, right? So in the conference I was, they were just talking about super agents, and I just the read, in fact, just a couple of minutes ago, MIT lab just came up with the latest research, they’re now, in Stanford, they’re also generating your agent. So you’re gonna have your agents, your persona, and they can actually generate mini you’s, with different personas your, yeah, I can actually send you that article that after they can interview you for two weeks straight, and then they can actually generate an agent. So then your agent can actually act on your behalf.

SR Do you think people are concerned about that, like, when, it comes to like, stealing data?

RK Well yea, in fact, there is one that they just generated a podcast. So AI is going to be generating podcasts with your voice.

EP There goes our job.

SR Oh no! You know what, in an AI generated podcast, Sara’s cat could not jump up and disrupt it. But I think that that’s fun.

RK Exactly, right? But that’s humanizing effect. We’re gonna talk about that as well, right? So, so it’s just like every new technology, we need to use it, and, but not abuse it, right? So the, I always say fire is a new tech, was a new technology, and then you can actually use fire to cook and everything, or you can burn the entire forest, right? So same thing as well. Or a gun, you can actually use this, you know, be safe, or you can actually use it for harm others.

So same thing, AI, so, I mean, there’s a new technology, use it to the best of your ability. And in fact, I tell this generation, my students now, the cohorts, every four years in the university, they are the first one, in fact, within NYU, we came up for a couple of months ago. How would you cite AI? It’s okay. So, there are two types of professors right now. One, definitely do not use AI, that’s plagiarism. That’s okay. The other professors like, you know what? We should use this technology. We should use it responsibly, but we should definitely cite, cite it. So, in fact, we were giving that lead way. We were actually giving a couple of statements by the NYU Central Administration that you know, how would you actually encourage to your students, and then, what are the rules of engagements?

SR Right.

RK So I am the person that, you have to use AI. AI is going to make us a lot more creative and a lot more productive, and, but you definitely have to actually use it responsibly, and you have to cite it. In fact, we created how to do AI citation in APA or MLA.

SR Right.

RK That’s really important.

SR Sorry to interrupt. Could you explain a little bit more about what is the difference in using AI responsibly in this way where you cite it and you use it to the best of your ability to get what you need done, versus using AI as plagiarism. Like, what do the, what do, like, what does each of those uses look like?

RK It’s exciting. In fact, a lot of education ethicists, they are now looking for the redefinition of plagiarism. How do you define plagiarism at the age of AI? So it’s this, we really, we’re, we’re doing it right now. They, there are ethicists, educational, higher education ethicists, is this, how could you define plagiarism, right? Is using AI plagiarism or not? Or how much of this? The key here and again, this is, we’re all learning. That’s why it’s exciting. No one knows if someone says, I know it all, I sold it, that it’s like he or she is lying, right? So we don’t know. What we don’t, we know is when I get papers and if it is fully written by AI, I understand. And then I make only one comment: Over-reliance on AI killed this paper.

EP Very honest, very honest.

SR Wow.

RK Look, I can also, although it says, this is not 100% truth, there’s a, you know, Turn ItIin. Normally, we used to do Turn It In, and the Turn It In used to say, all right, you actually plagiarized from these websites, 60%, 80% etc. Now Turn It In added the AI component on it. I can actually see. See the paper that it is, you know, 90% robot written, but I can’t use that, because this is not 100%. I tell my students as well. Events, future events managers or hospitality students and I make my stance over reliance. How do we get this?

My students are like, sir, how do you actually understand this? First off, it’s, it’s still very generic. So that’s why, so when you use AI, I say, use it, but take responsibility and then humanize it, because in many cases, AI is very, very generic. It is a very robotic terms. And then, and then AI loves certain words as well, that you know. And it’s gonna get better and better. It’s gonna be written as, you know, like humans. But right now, it’s not there. So, and then when you read hundreds of papers, like we do, on each assignments, we basically and especially when you see the students in the class, how they speak and the command of their English and everything as well, then you basically understand that that you know, heavy reliance. So my direction is, use it. Use AI.

Same thing with the meeting planners and the students to actually give you ideas, ideas to make you more productive, and then to basically get more ideas, and then, and use your human side of it, use your intelligence, because still, thank God, it might change, still, humans are at this time, better on humanizing the paper than the robots. So that’s basically the case when I say responsibly. And again, if you take everything from AI, cut and paste it and sell it, this is your work and, and I, you know, you need to take responsibility. That’s really your work. You’re basically saying, hey, you know, this is this, is it? And, unfortunately, or fortunately. there, there’s a huge thing is called hallucination. Not everything in AI is, is, is true. And in fact, especially when you say, you know, do this. But then give me citations on, on these topics, and I double check, triple check, and then I find it these one or two citations that AI is giving me that is not a real citation, that is not a real paper.

So, and that’s what I tell the students you know, like the, the word is trust, but verify. Don’t go blind. Don’t go flying blind. Great, it might sound, but how real is that, for everything? How realistic that is, and also what, you know, all the citations that are giving within AI, it might not be the right thing. And then sometimes I even say, you know, I’m teaching entrepreneurship. Give me the best TED talks on entrepreneurship in this topic. Six out of 10 are the wrong TED Talk links. So, if I didn’t check it, if I send it to the students, Hey, these are the best, and they would laugh at me. So still, is not perfect, especially when it’s actually making the link. So, it’s critical that people actually double check their work and double check the work of AI or the robots.

EP Are you, are you seeing more of the people you work with using AI, like, in like, almost like, like, using like, these, they use it like, way more than they should? Or are you seeing like a moderate version of it?

RK Some people, they do use and again, one of the thing that what AI did, best thing is, it’s really democratized the language barrier, right, right now, you know, I have a lot of Asian students and Indian students and South American students, and English was always the barrier for like, you know, a native English speaker versus a Chinese students English speaker. So AI just really took that over so you can easily write emails, like everyone is doing it. Hey, make it professionals, and then, and then bingo, that AI gives you beautiful. And that’s what I even tell the students, like, do not send me this right now, when I get these emails, I know 99% which one actually was robot written. I said, you don’t even sound like this. Why do you actually send an email like that? I said, it’s okay to check the grammar, check the edits and everything.

But when you actually sound like, oh my God, I don’t even know this word. Like, I know you wouldn’t know. Like, how would you even it is just, you know, personalize it, right? So, and some people, unfortunately, just like every technology, just like alcohol, right? Alcohol is good, just to make you feel, you know, in the cocktails, but if you have it too much, I mean, alcohol is not good. So for those of you listening to me, no, no, no. But for, for if it’s too much, then that just really, just like everything, and it hurts you at the end. It hurts the quality of your work. But it definitely a lot of people thinks, oh, my God, is AI killing the teaching? Or, is AI in hindering the creativity? I am a big, big believer that AI is enhancing the teaching, enhancing the creativity, as long as you know how you use it, and, and when you use it.

SR Totally. I think there’s also a difference in, like, different formats of AI, like a large language model that can, like, write up something for you, versus something like Grammarly AI, which will check your work, proofread your work for you. Or Otter AI, which is a transcription program, you know, it’ll transcribe audio for you and make a transcript. So you don’t have to have somebody, like, transcribing it during a, you know, board meeting or something like that, you know. So, like, there are different forms.

RK That’s exactly, and I tell everyone like that $20 that I spent for AI’s ChatGPT Plus, that’s the best $20 a month. I basically say I feel like I have an assistant full time. 724, over $20, $20 a month, and it’s less than a couple of Starbucks lattes, right? So, in a way, that’s the best investments. And you can do everything with AI. And then there are different kinds of AIs. I don’t know if you guys know Motebook LM, by Google. Phenomenal. Notebook LM. And now, not that many people know this, because everyone thinks AI is ChatGPT. ChatGPT is only one of them, because OpenAI, they were the first one. Just like everyone knows Uber, then everyone calls Uber, even the Lyft. Hey, did you call Uber? I use Lyft. And just the name recognition, right?

So Notebook LM, Google’s Gemini, is their AI, and it does wonders. CoPilot, Microsoft Co Pilot Plus does phenomenal presentations. In fact, the other day, I told the students, I said, you know, don’t waste your time to create these presentations. Work on the content. Spend more time on content developments. And then put in AI, put in Microsoft Copilot, if you have that, you know, Plus version, and they do wonders on PowerPoint presentations. And so, then you have enormous amount of time for your hand, rather than trying to beautify your presentation. That have websites to do that for you.

SR That’s something that I think we’re hearing a lot of people say about AI, is that you can use it to do those things that are time consuming tasks that don’t take a lot of brain power. And then you can use that time that you’re given to implement your own creative, analytical mind.

RK And, exactly, and you can put your human, and I always say, humanize it. Put your own personality on it. It just started now in the beginning when I said that Stanford study, that they are personalizing it based on you, and then I think they’re going to get to know you. So you’re going to have your super agents, AI agent, it’s going to be exactly like the, like, what you like, what you say, and what you do, until then, really humanize and put your personality and then that’s going to make you a better student, better worker, better meeting planner as well. Rather than cut and paste it, whatever AI says, and send it to your customer or send it to your professor, that’s not fun. That’s not you.

EP Right. One of the things that we sort of talked about in our last talk for my last article I did with you were kind of giving us a sense of, like, what are the new aspects that folks at NYU are using? Like you talked about the

RK VR, VR.

EP VR headset, yeah, and that’s, and you talked about, the first thing you talked about it the first time, about you told me it was like, it was all right. And then the second time you talked about it, you said it was amazing. So is there any updates how that has progressed? Do you use it more like or has it evolved in any way that was interesting for you guys?

RK Yeah, it’s exciting. Because, I mean, the first time, we started with Oculus, right?

EP Right, Oculus.

RK So now you realize it wasn’t, it’s clunky, you hold these two, then came Apple Vision Pro. Oh my god, Apple Vision. And for those of you, and for your audience, if they could ever demo the Apple Vision Pro, and that was a class assignment for my students, go to nearest Apple Store. It’s free. It takes 20 minutes. You can even schedule that and get the demo of Apple Vision Pro, just say I’m here to actually get a demo. They give you 20 minute, 20 minutes demo. Many of the students found it as life changing. So that came Apple Vision Pro. One of the biggest thing with Apple Vision Pro was everything was perfect, except the price. $3800. So now Apple announced that they are actually coming with a $1500 or $1800 version. Still, but the technology is getting cheaper. And then what I’m actually excited and it’s now the new version also came up, is the Ray Ban Metaglasses as well. That that, I think it’s, I’m the most excited about.

EP Have you used it yet?

SR Oh, I’m not familiar with that.

RK I haven’t. I haven’t used this. I have customers, and then I have also friends who have that. So if you actually Google it, Ray Ban Metaglasses, it’s all called smart glasses, exactly like that, like what I have, but it’s smart, so I can actually, you know, record this conversation or make a live feed to my Facebook and then send messages and find the answers if I see any questions.

SR I’ve never seen anything like that, except for in sci fi movies. So it really is the 21st century. Oh, my goodness.

RK It is. Whatever you see in sci fi movies like, I mean, I don’t know when we were a child, you were again, too young. Jetsons, whatever Jetsons happening.

EP Love the Jetsons.

RK I mean, this is happening. Flying cars, flying uh, you know, that’s in Dubai. You can actually take the flying taxis, right? So that’s, and robot, the holograms, and now super agents, I can send to this podcast, my super agent, mark my word, in two to three years, you might be actually doing this podcast, or maybe entire AI generation, the three of us, we don’t have to be physically at the same room. And then our super agents will actually be doing this, because they will know exactly what we know. They will know exactly how we talk with my voice as well and your voice. And listen to this. I’ll send you the link that that the AI generated podcast with the actual voice. It’s phenomenal.

EP Okay, I have two questions. One, for those who don’t really know how those glasses work, how does that work for people in this industry? How can they, how can they use that in a way that is helpful for them. And two, how does the super agent also help me? Like, how, I get that it’s new, but what, how would that, what would that do? Like, how would that change the game the industry? If I could just add

SR I have a question about the super agent also, it’s like, you know, say we are using super agents, how will us, like the real us, know, you know, what we’ve talked about, the information that we’ve gathered, and you know, like what, you know, thoughts were brought up?

RK The first part of the question of that they got us, what we call this concept of try before you buy concept right? Or now, try before you book. And many of the meeting planners could actually use. They don’t have to travel. Good old days that we used to go site visits and everything as well. All you have to do now put your virtual glasses, see the city, see the attractions, or see the hotel, meeting planning space and see the conventions. You don’t have to even travel, or you don’t have to waste that time just for the site inspections, right? We used to, old times, one of the best things that they used to do, oh, I’m going to site visits. You know, different cities, different convention centers now, is everything there. Marriott is using it. A lot of CVBs are using it. There’s great YouTube, 360 videos, and that works beautifully with the big VR glasses, right? So that actually could be one of the best use on that. The second part of the question, super agent is brand new, as I told you, literally, I heard this couple of days ago. Literally, I just read it.

EP Breaking news!

RK Breaking news from MIT and Stanford. So they basically hired 1000 Stanford computer science students. They pay them only $100 they interview each of them, two, two weeks, constantly. Let’s get to know them. And they basically created super agents that every, and that’s what people in the AI conference, they were talking about this, all of us, we used to call avatar, but it’s all of us are going to have the agents right now. For example, there’s task agents right when you go to virtual chat box, NYU has it, we name it Violet because the violet color. Every company, Amazon has it. Bank of America has Erica. So all these virtual chat bots those are what we call this Task Force, right? So you just ask them now, they are actually the super agents. I’m gonna have my agent so I can actually send it to wherever, the wherever I want my agent to be, and then I don’t need to be in sometimes, don’t we wish?

Oh, my God, I wish I would clone myself. You will be able to clone yourself digitally, digitally. But what my understanding on the super agents? So I’m gonna tell my super agent, Richie, go actually plan family vacation. You know my family, you know my budget, you know. So my agent is gonna go talk to the different agents, travel agents, this time, and then talk to different agent who was basically in booking the hotels, and talk to the virtual agents, maybe in the hotel. And my agent is going to do that. I don’t have to spend time on this, or I’m going to tell my professor agent say, hey, you know, I’m doing an AI research. Do all the research for me. Come up with the top 10 sources, then I can do other things. So I think we are getting there. It’s very exciting. I mean, when I see this, it is, it is coming. It’s brand new. But imagine it’s getting there, because technology allows that right now.

SR Right, and then the real you would just be able to, sort of like, look at what the agent found and determine what is the best way.

RK And your your question, Sara, is like, oh my god, isn’t that scary? It is scary.

SR It’s a little scary.

RK Like, what’s gonna happen? Like, what if, if, you know, people use, same thing, I think one of the dental company was using Tom Hanks for their ads and Tom Hanks was like, it’s not me. I mean, that looks like me, sounds like me, acts like me, but that’s not me. And in fact, that was exactly during Hollywood strike, and you guys are in the West Coast, and that was one of the main thing on the negotiations, AI usage of actual brands of the actors right, right now. I mean, that’s why the you said, Oh my God, it’s like sci fi. I said, Black Mirror.

SR Kinda!

RK Watch the Black Mirror episodes.

EP That’s what I was thinking about. You said it, I was like, oh my god, it’s literally Black Mirror.

RK Have you watched the Salma Hayek episode?

EP Yes, yes.

SR Mmhm, yeah.

RK That is, that is super agent. Salma Hayek, nope. Sorry. You gave the name and you gave the look you gave, the sound you gave the acting. And then they use Salma Hayek’s without Salma Hayek’s knowing.

EP Do they, did they, did they give you a sense about how long that would take to enter the, like, the public realm of use, or is it just like, it’s, okay, I get it’s so new, but like

RK It’s gonna be quick, I think, I think I would say about in two years, it’s gonna go in there. So because, it’s because technology is so quick, right now, right?

SR Yeah.

RK So it’s just really, And then what happens to Sara’s point? Oh, my God, the law. So everyone’s talking about AI regulation. It AI is now wild, wild west. No one understands it. Everybody’s doing it. It sounds cool, sexy quick, but then who’s controlling that? But Sara goes like, oh my god, what about you have an issue with this? Who do you go? Which law is protecting you? And in fact, that’s what I tell, my son is getting ready for law school. And I said, Dude you have to actually select many of the good law schools, now they have the AI technology law track.

No more criminal, l I mean, there’s criminal defense and tax and now, you know, now they’re looking at the AI and technology law, because law is way behind of technology, and it’s gonna have to catch up. And Sara’s point is, who gonna protect me if I, if my agent, super agent, does something bad, go crack the code for a bank and then rob the bank on online, and then, I’m not saying that’s gonna happen, but then, then I’m here. But who, right now, people are talking about this, like I can generate an art in AI, whose art is this? Do I have a copyright? In fact, that’s why the meeting planners now, I use a lot of AI generated images in my presentation. I just have to have AI generated. I don’t have to give any copyright to materials.

SR In the sense of meeting planners, you know, when it comes to a person’s privacy, a person’s data, a person’s, you know, private company information, you know, how will the agent, how will you make sure that the agent protects that information?

RK Yeah, you know, we’ve just talked about this in a meeting. And then in the marketers, there’s this paradoxical piece. We call it, like marketing, marketer’s nightmare, two P’s paradox: One is privacy, one is personalization. Now the consumers, meeting attendees, they want to be as personalized service as possible. The more personalized service you want, the more data you have to give in, and that means you’re giving in your privacy. And then what happens then, right now, I tell my students, cybersecurity is one of the top career track, because then you’re gonna need cyber security experts that build the data protections and everything as well, and, and, you know, it’s funny, because the new generations we were discussing this in this meeting, they said, look, you know, TikTok has all my information anyway, TikTok knows me better than most of my friends. I mean, right now, imagine there was a suicide, when the one of the high school guy was actually

SR Mmhm, I heard about that.

RK Discussing with the chat bot and fall in love and everything. I mean, these things happening, and those are just the bad example, extreme example. I’m sure there are a lot of people out there right now. They are having relationship or creating emotional bond with the chat bot, or with the super agents, or any agent. Those are the digital chat bots. They are the AI. So, who’s going to regulate, regulate that? And that’s, the governments are actually working on it right now. They’re not there yet.

EP At the event you were at, did they discuss, like the new, the incoming person who’s gonna be leading our country, and how that might affect that, and how that was gonna be an issue? Because I feel like that’s gonna be a conversation.

RK No because…because that it before that right now, everybody start using it. I love using Erica and Bank of America. Violet, we use a lot in NYU, and I love Expedia and amazon.com. Chat bots are phenomenal, right? So we are already using agents at one sided. We just tell them, Okay, do this, do this. And we’re getting used to it. And now they said, Look, imagine, because everyone has different personas. I have a persona as a dad, I have a persona as an NYU professor, I have a persona as a husband.

So then I’m gonna actually tell one of my, it’s like, okay, you know, get a gift for my wife for the 25th year anniversary, go search and that. That’s gonna be that’s the case, and go search it. Basically, that’s what they did. They were actually a couple of presenters there. I’m like, wow, that makes perfect sense, because there’s a task force digital. It’s basically your digital twin, in a way, with different personas and, and, and the technology will allow that, and it’s doing it. And I’ll definitely send you, that, that article, so you’ll get a kick out of it, and it’s great. I mean, I always follow MIT Lab and Stanford. These are our forefront of AI, so you you learn all the new things.

EP Do you think that with all these new innovations that are happening, that it’s helping or hurting the incoming group that are going to be working in this industry? Like, because it’s like, these tools are helpful, but they also may be hindering, like, your ability to, like, actually learn a skill set, in a way. So are you seeing that as a problem with this, or are you just kind of like, we’re just gonna see what happens, and hopefully it works out?

RK You know, it’s there are two schools of thought, right? Like everything, I think no, definitely not gonna hurt them. They’re not gonna, it’s not gonna make them lazy. It’s not gonna make them less creative. It’s not gonna make them, and it’s only going to make them more creative and, and we’re gonna get used to it. It’s kind of, this is the hybrid world. AI and human are written. So right now, everyone’s like, Oh my god, I wonder who wrote this, right? Is this AI written or human? And I think we’re gonna get used to this, this hybrid work, hybrid product, hybrid brochures and hybrid meeting planners, like, together with AI and, and then human, it’s really gonna make them just, you know, more productive. And just before this podcast, I was curious, and I gave the right prompts, it’s all about prompting, right?

The more prompt you give to ChatGPT, I did this for both, in Notebook LM. And I said, All right, I’m, you know, organizing, I’m a new event planner, organizing a board meeting for university, two days. Give me some ideas. My god, that’s, I mean, everything, some of the things that I didn’t even think, oh, I can have that meeting in New York library. That is a phenomenal and they can stay in the such a such hotel, because then they can walk to, so imagine all the details, all the personalization details, and the more you ask and the agenda items and how I can make it more fun, more educate, the more you give. They’re like, Oh my God, you know, then you have all these options. Then you use your person, because you’re gonna choose that. Then, oh my god, this is great. I’m choosing this, even to the title, okay, let’s find a sexier name for the meeting, and then it gives you five. AI’s not choosing that for you, giving that and you use, okay, this could be actually very good, and that complements it, basically.

EP Yeah, I went to an event called, called sorry, the C2 in and they the big thing about AI. They were saying it was like, don’t worry about the AI becoming a robot and doing that. It’s the people who are working on it, who are inputting the code, who are telling the prompts what to do, those are the people we should be worried about, so, and, it kind of scared me a little bit because, like, if that’s the future that, and then this, like, so with all of this, are you hopeful that AI is going to be a thing for, for good? Or is there, because there’s so many question marks now, as to what can be done, who’s controlling it, and how it’s going to be used. I mean, I get that in in our industry, that maybe isn’t the issue, per se, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be, so just like, from that point, like, how do you feel?

RK I’m cautiously optimistic, cautiously hopeful, I would say. And what I think I only wish, yeah, one of the things that you said, AI is good of as the people who actually design it, hence the hallucinations and bias. I mean, in one when you basically tell them, hey, give me a picture of female, female professors, AI automatically assumes that female is going to be white.

EP Right, exactly.

RK As if there is no African American, so, that’s one bias. Why, it should have asked, would you like to have, you know, Asians and Caucasians and this that, and I think it’s going to have to get there, rather than automatically, actually asking more questions. And because there are a lot of biases, there are a lot of hallucinations. I told you about, you know, citations and those are very dangerous, still not there. And the second, I really wish that the law is going to catch up, because it, just like every technology, it could be like a nuclear, uh. weapons, right? How do you use that? That’s, you know, it’s, it’s, right now, a lot of people are on the other side, I don’t know, but it’s coming, whether you know, that’s what, you can’t put your head in the sand, and that’s what I tell my students and events managers. Read, form your own opinion. Listen to podcasts like this. Go read about AI and, and just like when I say, you know, when we talk about politics, listen CNN, Fox, MSNBC, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, then form your own opinion. Rather than going with that. Same thing, I would say, you know, read and you decide what it needs to be done to me based on that law needs to really catch up as soon as possible, because right now you said nobody’s actually protecting or nobody’s actually watching what’s happening in an AI where everyone can do, they can create any products that they want.

SR Yeah,

EP Yeah. On that note, I’ve thoroughly depressed myself, but thanks. My own fault.

RK It’s not, everyone, everyone thought that Internet came in, oh my god, internet is gonna actually kill. Look at this right now, right? That we can’t even live without an internet right? So, like, it’s just, it’s funny. When we were children, we used to, whenever we go into someone else’s house, we used, the first question we used to ask, where is your bathroom, right? And when my kids now go, like, the first question they ask, what’s your Wi-Fi code?

EP Wi-Fi password, right.

RK Right? So it’s interesting. And when the, in the 90s. Oh, my God, this, this pawn side, is gonna make the societies, is that and is this, you know, banking, is it safe and that, look where we are right now. We really, same thing with AI and AI is really, I mean, everybody’s using it already. That’s, same thing. When I actually say, you know, who’s using AI? Like, Oh no, we don’t use AI. We don’t like, Okay, who talked to Siri well last time? Okay, who actually use the chat bot in it? Those are already AI and it’s coming in. And then now, ironically, some of the event managers are not using it, because then I actually said, you know, they are A. they are not trusting. They don’t feel comfortable. Still to this day, I think it’s almost 60% last time, and I did this whole thing, they don’t have the Pro version. They still use the free version. It’s good, but it’s not as good as that. They didn’t even know that they actually had options, and little they know. So I think more people figured that out, like when I figured Co Pilot Plus, with that great addition to the PowerPoint, oh my God, and I feel like, you know, then you don’t need a designer. You can actually design beautiful PowerPoint presentations, and so you don’t have to find a designer, pay for the designer. So they’re learning it. And I think the more people will learn how you can make your life easier.

SR Yeah.

EP Right.

RK And one of the things that I saw is like, one lady says, I wish AI could do my laundry, AI could do my, you know, ironing and everything. I don’t know. Robots, I’m sure, are going to come in one day, just like we discussed, in the hotels are using robots for a room service delivery, and maybe we’ll get there as well. My prediction, in 10 years from today, you will have robot co-workers in any of the offices.

EP Wow.

SR Yeah.

EP Looking forward to that day. It’s gonna be interesting.

SR Right? One thing that I really want to briefly bring up, because it came up just a little while ago, is this concept of prompt engineering. So listeners, if you haven’t heard of it, you can actually hear a lot more about it in our AI episode from last year with Sindhu Srivastava and Janette Roush and Bias in AI. So she was, Sindu was talking a little bit about prompt engineering. Essentially, it’s like that thing where Richie, Dr. K just brought up, you know, you can say, give me an image of a female professor, and it’ll give you an image of a white female professor. That’s when you go in with recreate this image to show me an African American female professor who wears glasses, while she is standing at a podium, talking to her students. You know you can tack on those extra things that will curate the image to what you want, and you can use your own intellect to ensure that it is inclusive in the way that you need it to be, you know, in the way that your viewers, your audience, needs it to be. So, I just wanted to briefly mention that check out our episode, Bias in AI from last year, to learn more.

RK Yeah. I mean, I think meeting planners can also use AI before meeting, during meeting and after meeting. One of the best thing that I sometimes use when I actually get my student evaluations from each class, and I put them in an AI, is it, you know, tell me good, bad than ugly. And then give me suggestions, basically for based on the low remarks, give me the how I can make it, I thank God I have very high ratings. But then I use that feedback generation, and then they can actually do that as well. Like, you know, when you have all the feedback forms, no more just trying to put them in an Excel and then trying to do this, put that in, ask any questions, what kind of action items you should actually get. That, that’s huge.

Any kind of feedback, how you can even do better, how you can personalize it. One of the main, main thing, the key we are talking about in that meeting, and I’ll be speaking also on CES, Consumer Electronics Show, in January, in Las Vegas, on the topic of hyper-personalization. Hyper-personalization is the same thing for, for the meeting planners as well. How could you personalize the experience for each of your attendees? And unfortunately, many meetings you go, there is very little personalization. So you’re actually the same. They treat you as if you and I, we are the same, same age. We go the same meetings, the same contents, and this, that, same attractions, and nothing, like you know, I’ve seen it even many meetings, and I’m there with the 20-year-old and 80-year-old, but we were doing the same thing.

EP Right, right.

RK So it’s gonna get there. And I think AI is really giving that as well, is that, that personalization aspect, that they can actually use it and, and also, when I talk to some of the meeting planners, they use it for their marketings, they use it for their design, for their meetings, especially the new meeting planners, and it gives them an edge, right away, that’s actually very good. Like how you, how you design the room, look for different options, and how you design the marketing materials. I mean, it just, think of this as you have a very smart assistant, especially if you’re new meeting planners. No more this learning curve, right? We used to have a very big learning curve for the newcomers. You just finished school, I’m like, oh my god, your first meeting, and people are paying a lot of money to come to that meetings, and you’re designing everything now it’s actually just like we’ve discussed democratizing the language barriers, that, and also you could even design multiple languages, if you have international thing. You don’t even have to pay enormous amounts of money, like good old days for translation.

EP Yeah.

RK Hey, you know, make these marketing materials in Chinese, make this marketing materials in Spanish.

EP Right.

RK And this, this, this, and then here we go. That’s part of personalization.

SR Yeah.

EP Well.

RK And it’s free. It’s actually $20 a month, but that’s

[laughter]

EP So you, you, you have given us a lot to think about on this episode. So thank you so much. But before we close out, we usually ask our guests at the end of every episode, what is something that you have learned in your life that you think would benefit those who are listening to this podcast, so essentially, what is in your, your uh

SR Toolbox.

EP Toolbox. Thank you, Sara.

SR What’s in your toolbox?

RK What’s in my toolbox is curiosity. Be curious. Curiosity is really the case. And be curious to everyone. And I’m very curious, and one of my favorite quotes, and, comes from a very smart guy named Albert Einstein, “By the time you stop learning, you start dying.” So use your curiosity out of your toolbox to constantly learn and constantly be up to date, like we’ve just talked about this. You know, you’ve read it today, hot off the press super agents this, that, and start. And you know you can personalize your news with even like, and then learn, just do technologies and AIs and Metaverse, whatever that, you’re curious about, but be curious, and that could really be the case, and always learn, because if you stop learning, not only you start dying, you’re going to be an obsolete and nobody’s going to want to hire or do business with an obsolete person that doesn’t know anything what’s going on, especially with the age of AI, age of technology.

EP Right.

RK Every day, everything is changing. I mean, it’s like, you know now, this is the time of FOMO, fear of missing out. Am I missing something, on, on, on my job? So this is the time of that, basically, but just stay curious. That would be my advice.

SR Stay curious.

EP Stay curious.

SR Beautiful. We are in the age of curiosity. I mean, it’s always been the age of curiosity, but, yeah.

EP Innovative curiosity, at best.

SR Innovative curiosity, I mean, there’s a lot of curiosity these days, as you can tell, from this episode.

RK And again, trust, but verify, again. Just, that comes with the curiosity. Is it really true? Like, when you read something, I’m like, Oh, I got this from Tik Tok. Like, how do you know?

[laughter]

SR Yeah.

RK You know just go, rather than you know that, even with AI, oh, I got all these answers.

EP Right.

RK Read it, did you just double check it? Check it, and that’s, that’s all curiosity, curious mind, basically. And just don’t ever lose that.

SR Right.

RK And verification methods. And be human. Have fun.

EP We’ll try. We will definitely try.

RK Yeah, that’s fine, that’s fine, everything’s gonna be great. So, no more, Oh my god, I’m depressed, Dr. K, this technology.

[laughter]

RK And you know, the other thing you asked me about the toolbox, just worry about the things you have control over. Don’t worry about the things you don’t have control over.

SR Good advice for AI and for life.

RK So, yeah, if you start worrying about the things you don’t have control over, life is going to be miserable.

EP Very good advice.

RK So just focus on the things you have control over and, and then ask yourself, Do I have control over the exchange rate? No.

[laughter]

RK Do I have control over the Ukraine and Russia peace conference? No, none. You know it just, what do I have control over? My time, my 24 hours, right, then I can actually control that.

EP Well, thank you. Dr. K.

SR Thank you so much, Dr. K.

EP I always love talking to you. You always teach me so many things and things that I didn’t know were happening, apparently, in the world of tech.

RK So what would you name for this podcast? All right, Sara, just like if, because one of the things that just, oh, send us your pictures and now make the caption. What would be the caption be?

SR Well, we can’t answer that right now, but I promise we’re gonna come up with something good.

[laughter]

RK Let’s put the transcript in the Chat GPT, ask for what would be the best thing, is, a lot of people are doing it, by the way,

SR Yeah, definitely.

RK And then if you like that.

SR One thing I can tell you is that we do actually read through the transcript. So Eming is, like, when she edits the audio, she’s listening to it piece by piece, over and over like so we know this podcast inside and out by the time we’re naming it.

RK That’s this has been fun anytime. So next time, I’ll bring my super agents. Let’s see if you’re gonna see the difference. We can actually ask the same question to my super agent and myself. So we’ll see.

SR Woaah.

EP If you do get a chance to use that, please let us know so we can talk to you about it, because that is going to be big when it actually hits.

RK And then I will, right after this, I’m going to send you for that, that research.

SR Thank you.

EP Thank you so much.

SR Thank you for being here.

EP Well, have a great day, and we hope to have you on the future, definitely, definitely, and I’ll be in touch.

RK Let me know when you have the linkage ready so I can also put it in the, so I can link this so I can give you guys a shoutout as well.

EP Of course, of course.

[radio tuning sound]

EP Like I said, that was a great, great, a great chat we had with Dr. K. I love that he brought so much insight to things I honestly had never thought about or considered and the new things happening that are also freaking scary.

SR A little bit scary, a little bit scary. But honestly, I think that Dr. K puts it really well when he says that this isn’t something that we need to be afraid of. It’s something that we need to be aware of and responsible with, right? So, yeah, honestly, go forth into the world. Keep educating yourself, keep checking out our tools that we’re creating for you, our resources and content that we’re creating for you, because at the end of the day, we are your resource, and that’s why we brought on Dr. K to talk to you.

EP Yeah, um. And if you happen upon a super agent Sara or Eming in the universe, just know that it’s not really us.

SR Yeah.

[laughter]

SR I wonder if we’ll make a super agent of Charlotte, somebody to keep Charlotte entertained. Oh, you know what I could use a super agent for. I could use a Sara super agent to keep Charlotte entertained when I’m trying to record a podcast.

EP But you see, in that instance, I think Charlotte will know that that is not you,

SR Yes, yeah.

EP That’s the one time she’s like, No, you’re a screen. You’re a holo, projection.

SR I know. I don’t, I don’t think that, I think we’re a couple centuries away from having a super agent that can give my cat ears scritchies.

[laughter]

EP Ah, maybe, I mean, well, maybe next year, we’ll have that update for you guys. The super update on AI, the machines are alive. Watch out.

[laughter]

EP But thank you all for tuning in for our first episode of our second season.

SR Happy New Year and happy season two.

EP Yeah!

SR We are so thrilled that you’re here with us, and thank you for being a member of our Smart Start community.

EP We’re happy to have you here. We’ll see you guys next time.

SR And, you belong here.

You’ve been listening to Smart Start Radio, a Smart Meetings production. Interested in being our next guest? Connect with us at editor@smartmeetings.com.