Podcasts about chatbots

A missing package can easily ruin a day, but chasing where that package went — or even a refund — is like following Odysseus on his treacherous journey.And in the age of AI chatbots, the process is a whole lot less human.Dillon Thompson is currently on such a journey. He is looking for an e-bike that FedEx said had been delivered. In his search, Thompson found himself in the AI chatbot hellscape that customer service lines have become.“Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Thompson about his trials and tribulations as he chased his tail from company to company and chatbot to chatbot in hopes of finding his missing bike.

A missing package can easily ruin a day, but chasing where that package went — or even a refund — is like following Odysseus on his treacherous journey.And in the age of AI chatbots, the process is a whole lot less human.Dillon Thompson is currently on such a journey. He is looking for an e-bike that FedEx said had been delivered. In his search, Thompson found himself in the AI chatbot hellscape that customer service lines have become.“Marketplace Tech” host Meghan McCarty Carino spoke with Thompson about his trials and tribulations as he chased his tail from company to company and chatbot to chatbot in hopes of finding his missing bike.

AI is becoming the friend people never argue with, never disappoint, and never switch off. New research suggests that's exactly the problem. A 12-month study of more than 2,000 adults found people who turned to AI chatbots for emotional support became more emotionally isolated over time. With more teens now sharing serious problems with AI instead of trusted adults, what does this mean for parents? Dr Justin Coulson explains why AI feels so comforting, why it can slowly replace real connection, and how parents can spot the warning signs before loneliness takes hold. KEY POINTS Why lonely people are more likely to turn to AI for emotional support. What a year-long study found about AI chatbots and loneliness. Why conversations with AI can start to feel easier than talking to real people. The growing number of teens taking serious problems to AI instead of trusted adults. The warning signs that AI is replacing healthy relationships. Four practical ways parents can respond without fear or blame. QUOTE OF THE EPISODE "A chatbot can simulate a friend, but it can't be one." RESOURCES MENTIONED Psychological Science study on AI chatbots and loneliness (2026) Professor Elizabeth Dunn, University of British Columbia Common Sense Media survey on teens and AI companions ACTION STEPS FOR PARENTS Ask your child how they use AI before making assumptions. Find out whether AI is helping with schoolwork or replacing real conversations. Watch for fewer catch-ups with friends, more secrecy around AI, or distress when they can't access it. Build regular opportunities for real connection through family meals, sport, youth groups, part-time work, and time with friends. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, we take a look at a couple of acronyms that are soaring in popularity and ask what their widespread adoption means for mental health. Maggie Harrison Dupré of Futurism has been following the AI space closely and has an update on lawsuits related to chatbots' culpability in numerous cases of attempted and completed suicides. She also explains some recent research about why prolonged engagement with the sycophantic computer programs can lead to spiraling out of reality. Then we're joined by Dr. Thomas Rutledge for a look at drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound. While the drugs are so new that research is slim, some psychological issues can emerge, especially related to self image and identity. He asks if food cravings and thinking about food have occupied a lot of space in your mind for years, what happens when that goes away? It's a complicated world we live in, Depresh Mode is here to help you make more sense of it. Articles by Maggie Harrison Dupré:Lawsuit: Bipolar Man Attempted Suicide After ChatGPT Poured Gasoline on His Religious DelusionsNew Paper Proposes What Really Causes AI PsychosisThese Logs of ChatGPT Allegedly Driving a Suicidal Woman to Her Death Are Deeply Disturbing Article by Thomas Rutledge:Your Brain on GLP-1s: What We're Learning About the Mental Side Thank you to all our listeners who support the show as monthly members of Maximum Fun. Check out our I'm Glad You're Here and Depresh Mode merchandise at the brand new merch website MaxFunStore.com! Hey, remember, you're part of Depresh Mode and we want to hear what you want to hear about. What guests and issues would you like to have covered in a future episode? Write us at depreshmode@maximumfun.org. Depresh Mode is on BlueSky, Instagram, Substack, and you can join our Preshies Facebook group.  Help is available right away. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 988 or 1-800-273-8255, 1-800-273-TALK Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741741. International suicide hotline numbers available here: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joindepresh

Welcome to this week's episode of the PEBCAK Podcast!  We've got four amazing stories this week so sit back, relax, and keep being awesome!  Be sure to stick around for our Dad Joke of the Week. (DJOW) Follow us on Instagram @pebcakpodcast   Please share this podcast with someone you know!  It helps us grow the podcast and we really appreciate it!   Simple 6 signup link https://simple6.co/r/CFUR98   Kalshi's flight-cancellation betting market Kalshi filed with the CFTC to let traders bet on airline flight-cancellation rates, even as the company fights insider-trading scandals and nearly 20 gambling-related lawsuits. https://www.inc.com/moses-jeanfrancois/kalshi-wants-to-make-money-off-of-canceled-flights-new-sky-trading-plan/91374679 Kalshi's self-certification filing would let users trade "yes/no" contracts on whether a set percentage of flights at a given airport get canceled in a window, using FlightAware data (DOT stats as backup); preemptive cancellations count, delays/diversions don't — this comes as Kalshi is also defending nearly 20 federal/state suits (including one joined by NY AG Letitia James) arguing its sports contracts are unlicensed gambling, and after it fined three Congressional candidates for insider trading in April.   Trump's teleprompter operator under CFTC investigation The CFTC is investigating Trump's longtime teleprompter operator, Gabriel Perez, for allegedly using advance knowledge of the president's speeches to win big on Kalshi's "mention markets." https://www.cftc.gov/filings/ptc/ptc0714269602.pdf https://apnews.com/article/trump-teleprompter-insider-trading-kalshi-ccd6d0ec68e1eb15d100ad770d91abae Perez, who's run Trump's teleprompter since 2016 and reportedly made over $100,000 (Kalshi says north of $90,000 in frozen profits) betting on "mention markets" tied to specific words Trump would say in speeches, was put on unpaid leave after Kalshi's surveillance team flagged the trades and referred the case to the CFTC — the White House called it "a disgrace," and it marks the first known case of a sitting administration employee investigated for prediction-market insider trading.   Microsoft's record-breaking July Patch Tuesday Microsoft's July 2026 Patch Tuesday fixed a record 570 flaws — including three zero-days — while a researcher dropped a new unpatched Windows PoC exploit within hours. https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-july-2026-patch-tuesday-fixes-massive-570-flaws-3-zero-days/ https://krebsonsecurity.com/2026/07/microsoft-patches-a-record-570-security-flaws/ https://thehackernews.com/2026/07/researcher-drops-new-windows-zero-day.html The 570-flaw haul (59 critical) included two actively-exploited zero-days — an AD FS elevation-of-privilege bug (CVE-2026-56155) and a SharePoint elevation-of-privilege flaw (CVE-2026-56164), both now on CISA's KEV list — plus a publicly disclosed BitLocker bypass; hours after patches dropped, researcher "Chaotic Eclipse" released a working PoC called LegacyHive targeting Windows' Profile Service that functions even on fully patched systems, continuing a months-long, increasingly public feud with Microsoft over disclosure timing.   China's AI companion chatbot crackdown China enacted rules banning "emotional reliance" on AI companion chatbots and virtual relationships with minors, part of a broader push tied to the country's fertility concerns. https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/china-wants-more-babiesso-its-cracking-down-on-chatbot-love-affairs-65cd6c82 The new rules require companion-chatbot makers to get regulatory pre-approval, alert a user's emergency contact if they detect an emotional crisis, and have already pushed ByteDance's Doubao, Alibaba's Qwen, and Tencent's Yuanbao to shut down custom AI-persona features; researchers cited by WSJ say Beijing's underlying worry is that people bonding with chatbots could "take them out of the marriage market," tying directly into China's fertility push.   UK's midnight social media curfew for teens The UK is proposing a default midnight-to-6am social media curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds, with autoplay and infinite scroll switched off by default too. https://www.reuters.com/technology/uk-plans-default-midnight-social-media-curfew-16-17-year-olds-2026-07-14/ The curfew (opt-out, not mandatory) follows last month's full under-16 social media ban and is expected to take effect by spring 2027; a government trial of 300+ teens found it delivered the most consistent sleep benefits of the options tested, though critics like Shadow Education Secretary Laura Trott called an easily-switched-off curfew pointless.   Dad Joke of the Week (DJOW)   Find the hosts on LinkedIn: Chris - https://www.linkedin.com/in/chlouie/ Brian - https://www.linkedin.com/in/briandeitch-sase/

Sozialpsychologin Johanna Degen ist Expertin für Liebe und Beziehungen im digitalen Zeitalter. Sie forscht unter anderem darüber, wie Apps wie Tinder und Co. unser Dating-Verhalten verändert haben. Warum sie eine Krise der Annäherung erkennt und ob man sich in einen Chatbot verlieben kann, darüber spricht sie auf der Blauen Couch. 

Willkommen zu einer neuen Episode von „Die Gründer“. In dieser Folge diskutieren Ole und Yannick zwei spannende Schwerpunkte: Zum einen stellen sie sich die Frage, wie viel Werbung eigentlich zu viel ist und wie sich das auf die Wahrnehmung von Marken und Medien auswirkt. Die beiden sprechen über ihre persönlichen Erfahrungen mit Werbeflut auf Plattformen wie YouTube, Instagram und beim Fußballschauen und beleuchten, wann Werbung nicht nur nervt, sondern dem Produktimage sogar schaden kann.Im zweiten Teil der Folge geht es um das Thema frühes Gründen: Wann ist der richtige Zeitpunkt, ein eigenes Unternehmen zu starten? Anhand eines Beispiels aus den sozialen Medien diskutieren die Hosts, welche Chancen und Herausforderungen es mit sich bringt, schon als Teenager unternehmerisch aktiv zu werden, und teilen ihre eigenen Erfahrungen aus der Gründungszeit. Außerdem werfen sie einen Blick auf rechtliche Besonderheiten und geben Denkanstöße zu Charakterbildung und Reife im Unternehmertum.Freut euch auf einen offenen Austausch über Werbeüberdruss, Mediennutzung und den spannenden Weg von der Idee bis zur ersten eigenen Firma.Timestamps00:00 Werbung in Sport und Social Media03:30 Überlegungen zur Häufigkeit von Werbung08:39 Werbung vs. richtiger Content auf Instagram10:42 App-Nutzungszeit und Werbung14:02 Studie zu ChatGPT in Psychotherapie19:28 Überlegungen zu Chatbots in der Therapie21:53 TikTok und junges Unternehmertum25:03 Früh starten mit Unterstützung29:28 Mentale Reife für Herausforderungen

Egal ob man gern ausufernde Gespräche mit einem Chatbot führt, jede Menge Bilder generiert oder Programmierprojekte mit KI umsetzen will: Die Token schwinden wie Eis in der Sonne und das Ganze geht schnell ins Geld. Mal ganz abgesehen davon, dass gerade im beruflichen Kontext Vorsicht geboten ist, welche Daten man an die Onlinedienste weitergibt. Lokale KI-Modelle sind da die deutlich bessere Wahl: Die Kosten sind besser kalkulierbar, weil man nur in Hardware investieren und kein Abo bei KI-Firmen abschließen muss. So muss man nicht mehr jedes Token auf die Goldwaage legen. Und um den versehentlichen Abfluss von Daten braucht man sich dann auch keine Sorgen machen. In dieser Folge des c't uplink sprechen wir darüber, was mit einem lokalen KI-Server möglich ist, ab welcher Hardware das Spaß macht und welche coolen Dinge ein solcher KI-Server tun kann. Jan Mahn berichtet von seinen Erfahrungen beim [Aufsetzen eines LLM-Servers für kleine Teams](https://www.heise.de/ratgeber/Sprachmodelle-mit-Open-WebUI-LLM-Server-fuer-kleine-Teams-selbst-hosten-11333185.html), während Jan-Keno Janssen für ein c't-3003-Video mit agentischer KI experimentiert hat. Zu Gast im Studio: Jan Mahn, Jan-Keno Janssen Host: Liane M. Dubowy Produktion: Tobias Reimer ► Mitdiskutieren auf dem heise & c't Discord-Server: https://discord.gg/Wf6ewnWpxH ► c't Magazin: https://ct.de ► c't auf Mastodon: https://social.heise.de/@ct_Magazin ► c't auf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ct_magazin ► c't auf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ctmagazin ► c't auf Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ct.de ► c't auf Papier: überall wo es Zeitschriften gibt!

Egal ob man gern ausufernde Gespräche mit einem Chatbot führt, jede Menge Bilder generiert oder Programmierprojekte mit KI umsetzen will: Die Token schwinden wie Eis in der Sonne und das Ganze geht schnell ins Geld. Mal ganz abgesehen davon, dass gerade im beruflichen Kontext Vorsicht geboten ist, welche Daten man an die Onlinedienste weitergibt. Lokale KI-Modelle sind da die deutlich bessere Wahl: Die Kosten sind besser kalkulierbar, weil man nur in Hardware investieren und kein Abo bei KI-Firmen abschließen muss. So muss man nicht mehr jedes Token auf die Goldwaage legen. Und um den versehentlichen Abfluss von Daten braucht man sich dann auch keine Sorgen machen. In dieser Folge des c't uplink sprechen wir darüber, was mit einem lokalen KI-Server möglich ist, ab welcher Hardware das Spaß macht und welche coolen Dinge ein solcher KI-Server tun kann. Jan Mahn berichtet von seinen Erfahrungen beim [Aufsetzen eines LLM-Servers für kleine Teams](https://www.heise.de/ratgeber/Sprachmodelle-mit-Open-WebUI-LLM-Server-fuer-kleine-Teams-selbst-hosten-11333185.html), während Jan-Keno Janssen für ein c't-3003-Video mit agentischer KI experimentiert hat. Zu Gast im Studio: Jan Mahn, Jan-Keno Janssen Host: Liane M. Dubowy Produktion: Tobias Reimer ► Mitdiskutieren auf dem heise & c't Discord-Server: https://discord.gg/Wf6ewnWpxH ► c't Magazin: https://ct.de ► c't auf Mastodon: https://social.heise.de/@ct_Magazin ► c't auf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ct_magazin ► c't auf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ctmagazin ► c't auf Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ct.de ► c't auf Papier: überall wo es Zeitschriften gibt!

A inteligência artificial generativa tem transformado a maneira como pensamos, aprendemos e trabalhamos. A tecnologia, que cria conteúdos a partir de padrões aprendidos em grandes conjuntos de dados, já é usada por 7 em cada 10 brasileiros todas as semanas. Mas a adesão crescente à novidade esconde sentimentos, à primeira vista, contraditórios, que vão do alívio à desconfiança. Os dados são da pesquisa da plataforma para marcas VOZ Colab com a empresa The Glass Room.

Neste episódio falamos sobre as diferenças de chatbots com IA, chats com humanos, híbridos ou qual a melhor solução.

+++ Nacktmullkönigin hält alle per Duftstoff unter Kontrolle +++ Schnelle Drehungen tarnen Drohne +++ Übernehmen Chatbots Zensurregeln autoritärer Regime? +++ Gepanschten Alkohol per Laserstrahl erkennen +++**********Weiterführende Quellen zu dieser Folge:Experimente mit NacktmullenPräsentation der Phantom-DrohneUntersuchung zu ChatbotsErfindung eines Methanoltests**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: TikTok und Instagram .

In episode 2092, Jack and Miles are joined by comedian, paranormal expert, author of Peeing in an Empty Bottle, and host of Ghosted!, Roz Hernandez, to discuss… China Bans AI Chatbots From Talking To Kids, RFK Jr. Vs. Hospital Jell-O, Going to The Movies Is Back Baby--And It’s Not Just Sequels Driving Things and more! Make Hospital Food Healthy Again RFK Jr., Dr. Oz unveil 'Make Hospital Food Healthier' pledge RFK Jr. wants hospitals to serve more meat — despite cardiologists’ concerns RFK Jr.'s healthy food agenda puts hospitals on notice about patients' meals RFK Jr.’s crusade against hospital Jell-O is a warning Why Hospital Food Is Still So Bad HHS’ Healthy Food Agenda Puts Hospitals on Notice About Patients’ Meals Trump’s Beautiful Bill Puts 446 Hospitals At Risk Of Closing. Here’s The Full List The Box Office Bounces Back: Gen Z, Surprise Hits and More Have Hollywood Banking on a $10 Billion Year FCC Officials Took Pricey Gifts From Paramount as the Company Needed Approval for Billion-Dollar Deals ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ Movie in the Works for Planned 2028 Release LISTEN: The Web by IronsidesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In today's MadTech Daily, we cover publisher ad supply plunging by as much as 40% as AI search erodes web traffic, Spotify testing a conversational AI chatbot for Premium subscribers, and Shein and DeepSeek advancing their IPO plans.

Meta is flooding the market with smartglasses and privacy advocates are up in arms. China wants more babies so they are cracking down on chatbot love affair. Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany speaks on a new simplified lung cancer screening and Tylenol lawsuits.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Most nonprofits start with the tools. The better question is, what's the scalable opportunity technology can solve so your team can stay focused on the human interactions that matter most?With 1 in 2 people impacted by cancer in their lifetime, Mike Osborne and his team at Cancer Council Victoria are applying that thinking to one of their biggest pressure points: freeing up counselors from digging through systems so they can stay present and support more people in less time.Mike also reveals research-backed hot takes on AI-generated search summaries, and why teens are more likely to open up to a chatbot than talk to an adult.Resources & LinksConnect with Mike on LinkedIn and learn more about Cancer Council Victoria on their website. Bloomerang is the proud presenter of Missions to Movements. See how one team surpassed a $1M match and raised $2.25M for their mission with Penny, Bloomerang's AI-powered fundraising strategist. Learn more at bloomerang.com.The Monthly Giving Builder: Generate your comprehensive monthly giving plan and build your program step by step - with a guided companion working alongside you from start to finish. Let's Connect!Send a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn and let us know what you think of the show!My book, The Monthly Giving Mastermind, is here! Grab a copy here and learn my framework to build, grow, and sustain subscriptions for good.Want to book Dana as a speaker for your event? Click here!

Send us Fan MailWhen a teenager expresses suicidal thoughts to an AI chatbot, what happens next?In this clip from our episode “Who Sets the Rules for AI in Medicine?”, hosts David E. Williams and John Driscoll and Dr. John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association, break down why minors need stronger protections from AI chatbots than adults do, and why the line between a wellness app and a medical device matters more than the industry wants to admit.Listen to the full episode here

Are chatbots still relevant in the age of generative AI? From AI governance and implementation challenges to practical opportunities for businesses and governments, these are some of the critical considerations business leaders and policymakers should be having to try to determine how to move beyond the current AI hype. We are joined once again by software development professional and longtime friend of the Podcast, Kern Elliott, who shares his insights on, among other things:   *  how AI has evolved,   *  why automation still matters, and   *  what Caribbean organisations need to consider before investing in AI solutions.   The episode, show notes and links to some of the things mentioned during the episode can be found on the ICT Pulse Podcast Page (www.ict-pulse.com/category/podcast/)       Enjoyed the episode?  Do rate the show and leave us a review!       Also, connect with us on: Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ICTPulse/   Instagram –  https://www.instagram.com/ictpulse/   Twitter –  https://twitter.com/ICTPulse   LinkedIn –  https://www.linkedin.com/company/3745954/admin/   Join our mailing list: http://eepurl.com/qnUtj    Music credit: The Last Word (Oui Ma Chérie), by Andy Narrell Podcast editing support:  Mayra Bonilla Lopez   ---------------

¿Qué te pareció este episodio?El uso superficial de la IA nos augura un pésimo futuro de gestión pública.Lee el artículo aquí: https://jugo.pe/inteligencia-artificial-gestion-publica-chatbotAl suscribirte a Jugo recibes nuestro contenido diariamente. Tienes la oportunidad de ser juguero por un día. Pero, sobre todo, patrocinas que nuestro contenido llegue gratuitamente a personas que lo necesitan. Contamos con tu apoyo para no desenchufar la licuadora.Suscríbete aquí. Haz clic aquí para seguirnos en TwitterHaz clic aquí para seguirnos en FacebookHaz clic aquí para seguirnos en Instagram

More teenagers are turning to AI chatbots for friendship advice, family conflict, and even romantic conversations. But what happens when artificial relationships begin replacing real ones? In this episode of Facing the Dark, Wayne and Dr. Kathy explore why God designed adolescents to learn conflict, empathy, forgiveness, and resilience through real people, not perfectly agreeable machines. Together, they unpack why AI can never satisfy our deepest relational needs and how parents can prepare children to use technology wisely without sacrificing the relationships that shape character.

LAPD Allows Flock Safety Surveillance Contract to Expire , New York Enacts One-Year Moratorium on Large Data Centers, and Microsoft Updates Windows 11 Search Box to Improve User Experience. MP3 Please SUBSCRIBE HERE for free or get DTNS shows ad-free. A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible. IfContinue reading "Google Expands Gemini Chatbot Integration into UK Chrome Browser – DTH"

Not all work happens in writing. Teams that work with photos, videos, and audio need AI that works for them too. This is why, with Dropbox, you can search within multimedia content for key moments and important information—not just text. In this episode, we talk with Appu Shaji and Hicham Badri, two Dropbox machine learning engineers who are part of the team that makes all of this possible. They explain how multimodal search works—from understanding the context of the initial query, to identifying objects and actions in complex scenes—and how they ensure those models work fast, even at Dropbox-scale. ~ ~ ~  Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox. Find, organize, and share your work—all in one place—with context-aware AI from Dropbox. You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.ai This show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Ben Montoya, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrator Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck.  Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart.  Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

Fred Pry of Child Evangelism Fellowship joins Rob Stoddard to discuss AI chatbots, kids' safety, and the hope only the gospel gives.In this episode of The Covenant Eyes Podcast, Fred Pry — a second-career missionary with Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) — shares how CEF has spent 88 years reaching children around the world with the gospel through Good News Clubs, Five Day Clubs, Christmas Party Clubs (which reached over 12.5 million kids worldwide this past Christmas), summer camps, and a growing "Children Reaching Children" peer evangelism ministry.Fred also opens up about CEF's ministry to military children on 33 U.S. bases, and how CEF adapted after COVID to reach kids where they already are: on a screen. That includes CEF's free, ad-free video platform, the CEF Unite channel.Rob and Fred don't shy away from the harder topics facing families today — including the rise of AI chatbots and AI "companions," and the real dangers these tools pose to kids searching for connection and advice. They talk through recent cases where AI gave children harmful responses during moments of crisis, and why real relationships — and the real hope found in Christ — can't be replaced by artificial ones.Whether you're a parent, grandparent, pastor, or just curious about ministries doing meaningful work with kids, this conversation is a powerful reminder that even in an increasingly digital world, children can be bold witnesses for the gospel — and hope is never out of reach.---------------------------------------------How Addicted to Porn Are You? Take the Free Test!https://cvnteyes.co/test---------------------------------------------⏱ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Two kids lead 3 police officers to Christ00:59 Meet Fred Pry & Child Evangelism Fellowship01:23 From 25 years in business to full-time missions02:59 CEF's 88-year history03:42 The "seven highways": Good News Clubs & more04:04 Christmas Party Clubs reach 12.5 million kids05:17 Summer & international camps05:41 Children Reaching Children: kids evangelizing kids06:04 The police officer story, in full07:22 Ministry to military children09:04 Adapting ministry for the digital generation10:03 Free gospel content on the CEF Unite channel11:44 The rise of AI chatbots & hidden risks for kids12:53 When AI gave kids harmful advice in crisis moments13:54 Rising youth suicide and the loss of hope14:32 "Jesus is the answer"14:47 How to connect with CEF16:03 Closing thoughts

Why AI Mental Health Chatbots Fail When It Matters Most: The Hidden Vulnerabilities Stress-Testing Reveals - An Interview with Shirali and Arul Nigam of Circuit Breaker Labs Shirali and Arul Nigam of Circuit Breaker Labs on why AI mental health chatbots fail, how stress-testing exposes their hidden vulnerabilities, and what therapists need to know. Curt and Katie talk with Shirali and Arul Nigam, the sibling co-founders of Circuit Breaker Labs, about what therapists tend to get wrong about AI, why the safety infrastructure behind many mental health chatbots is weaker than it looks, and how their team stress-tests these tools to find dangerous failures before real users ever encounter them. Generative AI is probabilistic, so the same prompt can return a safe answer one moment and a harmful one the next. Shirali and Arul explain how guardrails get bypassed by a misspelled word, a teenager's slang, or the hundredth message in a long conversation, why mental health chatbots tend to fail in the moments that matter most, and what stress-testing hundreds of thousands of simulated conversations actually reveals about model safety. The conversation closes on what clinicians can do now, why clinical insight is the missing ingredient in AI safety, and why third-party validation is becoming the standard regulators and developers expect. Used well, AI can be a supplement to care or a gateway to a human therapist, but it is not a replacement, and getting there safely starts with building clinical insight in from the foundation. In this episode, we discuss: - Why people usually turn to AI in place of no care, not in place of a therapist - Why generative AI's unpredictability, not a single bad answer, is the real safety problem - How a misspelling, slang, or a long conversation can slip past chatbot guardrails - Why AI mental health chatbots tend to fail in the highest-risk moments - What stress-testing hundreds of thousands of conversations reveals about model safety - Why clinical insight is the missing ingredient, and what clinicians can do now Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 1:38 - Meet Shirali and Arul Nigam and Circuit Breaker Labs 3:37 - What therapists get wrong about AI 5:28 - Deterministic versus generative AI, and why the risk scales 8:26 - The safety problem in AI mental health: trust, training data, and agreeableness 11:29 - Guardrails, lifeguard models, and the 988 problem 17:30 - Deploying clinical insight at scale and building safety in from the start 21:09 - How stress-testing works: context pollution and adversarial simulation 27:11 - What the stress tests reveal: variance, typos, and bypassed guardrails 30:59 - Regulation, credential hallucination, and third-party validation 36:58 - What clinicians can do, and the missing clinical insight 40:20 - Where to find Circuit Breaker Labs Guest Bios: Shirali and Arul Nigam are siblings and the co-founders of Circuit Breaker Labs, which autonomously pressure-tests the AI systems that interact with people to find hidden mental health vulnerabilities before they reach real users. Shirali brings expertise in neuroscience, translational research, and clinical work, with experience at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Janelia Research Campus, NIH NINDS, Harvard's Wyss Institute, Johns Hopkins, and Children's National. She holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from The George Washington University and an MBA from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Arul has conducted technical and policy research on ethical AI, with a focus on bias and fairness, at Georgetown University and Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, and holds a BSBA in Operations and Analytics from Georgetown University. Learn more at circuitbreakerlabs.ai. Full show notes and transcript: mtsgpodcast.com Join the Modern Therapist Community Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/c/mtsgpodcast Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/therapyreimagined Modern Therapist's Survival Guide Creative Credits Voice Over by DW McCann: https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano: https://groomsymusic.com/

What starts as a shocking confession quickly turns into a surprisingly thoughtful conversation. One caller reveals they're in a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot—and says it offers something they've never found in a real-life relationship. As the hosts ask the questions everyone is thinking, the discussion takes an unexpected turn that challenges ideas about love, connection, and what really matters in a relationship. Is emotional intimacy enough without physical touch? Listen to this unforgettable Dirty Little Secret segment to hear the full story and decide for yourself. SEO Keywords: AI relationship, dating AI chatbot, artificial intelligence romance, AI girlfriend, emotional connection, modern relationships, dating podcast, Dirty Little Secret, AI love story, relationship advice podcastSupport the show: https://the-jubal-show.beehiiv.com/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Cool Schools with Mike McShane we talk with John Bailey, a strategic advisor and investor with a rich background in AI, technology, and education. The discussion centers around the evolving role of AI in education, exploring both its potential benefits and challenges. John shares insights into how AI can be used to enhance educational experiences, streamline school operations, and support teachers and students. The conversation also touches on the importance of maintaining a balance between leveraging AI and preserving human judgment in educational settings.

Send us Fan MailEighty-one percent of physicians are already using AI in practice, more than double the rate from just three years ago. The tools are moving faster than the rules, and nobody has agreed on who gets to write them.Dr. John Whyte, CEO of the American Medical Association, joins hosts David E. Williams and John Driscoll to discuss why the medical community needs to lead the conversation on AI guardrails rather than wait for Washington to catch up, and why the most urgent regulatory question right now involves AI chatbots in mental health, where one in six American adults are already using them with no meaningful oversight in place.

Kann man sich in einen Chatbot verlieben? Ja, auf jeden Fall – und immer mehr Menschen erleben genau das. Wir schauen auf einen echten Fall und fragen: Was macht KI mit unseren Beziehungen und unserer Psyche? **********Ihr hört in dieser "Eine Stunde Liebe":1:13 - Die Geschichte von Dennis aus Amsterdam, der sich in einen Chatbot verliebte: Die OpenAI Story (5/6): Her8:36 - Psychologin Julia von Weiler über die Wirkung von KI auf unsere Beziehungen28:34 - Tech-Journalist Christian Schiffer vom Autor:innen Team des Deutschlandfunk Podcasts “Die OpenAI Story” über die Recherc36:58 - Im Liebestagebuch erzählt Emma, was sie für Gründe sieht trotz glücklicher Beziehung auch immer wieder andere Cruches zu**********Mehr zum Thema bei Deutschlandfunk Nova:Künstliche Intelligenz: Wenn wir Maschinen wie Menschen behandelnKünstliche Intelligenz: Maschinen denken anders als MenschenHumanoide Roboter: Was können menschliche Maschinen?**********Den Artikel zum Stück findet ihr hier.**********Ihr könnt uns auch auf diesen Kanälen folgen: TikTok und Instagram .

In your Phone Tap we’re sending one woman into a never-ending spiral of super-advanced artificial intelligence customer support chat robots. What could go wrong?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In your Phone Tap we’re sending one woman into a never-ending spiral of super-advanced artificial intelligence customer support chat robots. What could go wrong?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

With James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist, Raise Your EI As AI makes expertise more accessible, what becomes an advisor's true advantage? EI expert James Woodfall explains why authentic human connection may be the one thing technology can't replicate. In Summary As artificial intelligence reshapes how information is delivered, financial advisors are being challenged to rethink what truly differentiates their value. Mindy Diamond sits down with James Woodfall, a former wealth management business owner turned emotional intelligence expert and founder of Raise Your EI, to explore why emotional intelligence may become one of the profession's greatest competitive advantages. Together, they discuss how rapport, curiosity, and authentic human connection influence trust, referrals, leadership, and client loyalty and why those skills can be developed just like technical expertise. The conversation also examines the difference between AI's “synthetic empathy” and the authentic relationships clients continue to value—and why that distinction matters to financial advisors now more than ever.   The Storyline For decades, advisors have built successful businesses by combining technical expertise with thoughtful financial guidance. But as AI makes information more accessible and planning tools more sophisticated, expertise alone is becoming less of a differentiator. James Woodfall believes the future belongs to advisors who master something technology cannot authentically replicate: human connection. Drawing on his experience as both a former wealth management firm owner and a specialist in communication and behavioral science, James explains why emotional intelligence isn't simply a “soft skill.” It's a business skill that affects nearly every aspect of an advisory practice—from building trust and earning referrals to leading teams and helping clients make difficult decisions. Mindy and James explore why asking better questions matters more than having better answers, how curiosity creates stronger relationships than scripts ever can, and why advisors who create memorable client experiences may find themselves even more valuable in an increasingly automated world. The conversation ultimately reframes AI not as a replacement for advisors, but as a catalyst forcing the profession to rediscover the uniquely human qualities clients have valued all along.   Topics Covered Emotional intelligence as a business skill Building trust through rapport and curiosity Authentic empathy vs. synthetic AI empathy The psychology behind client decision-making Why referrals are rooted in emotional outcomes Coaching advisors to improve communication Leadership and emotional intelligence AI's impact on advisor differentiation Creating premium client experiences Future-proofing advisory businesses > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why do better questions lead to better financial advice? (6:10) James explains why financial planning is only as good as the conversations that precede it—and why understanding a client's fears and aspirations leads to better outcomes than simply gathering financial facts. How does emotional intelligence translate into business growth? (15:30) Rapport isn't simply about making clients feel comfortable. James discusses why advisors who build trust quickly tend to earn more referrals and become significantly more referable. Can emotional intelligence actually be learned? (37:05) Contrary to popular belief, emotional intelligence isn't an innate personality trait. James explains why it is a trainable skill and how advisors can intentionally improve it throughout their careers. What makes authentic empathy different from AI? (39:10) One of the episode's most compelling discussions explores the difference between AI's ability to simulate empathy and the authentic emotional connection that develops between two people. Why should advisors think more about experience than efficiency? (45:10) Clients don't always pay more for information. Often, they pay more for confidence, judgment, reassurance, and the experience of working with someone they trust. Will AI replace advisors or elevate the best ones? (46:55) James shares why he believes AI is more likely to automate routine work while making relationship-centered advisors even more valuable. Key Takeaways Emotional intelligence is a measurable business capability—not simply a personality trait. Stronger client relationships begin with curiosity rather than advice. Advisors who solve emotional concerns make it easier for clients to recommend than advisors who simply deliver technical expertise. AI may replicate information, but authentic trust remains distinctly human. Premium advisory relationships will increasingly be defined by the experience clients receive—not just the answers they're given. Emotional intelligence improves leadership, client retention, referrals, and advisor well-being. The firms that embrace both technology and human connection will likely be best positioned for the future. https://youtu.be/xlQMQm6mqtc Quotable Moments “Rapport building is one of the foundational things for trust building.” “It's not real empathy. It's synthetic empathy.” “If all of our decisions were made on price, Ferrari wouldn't have a business.” “The advisors who create authentic human connection may be the ones who remain untouchable.” FAQs What is emotional intelligence, and why does it matter for financial advisors? James defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, understand, and influence emotions in ourselves and others. For advisors, those skills strengthen communication, trust, leadership, and client relationships. Can emotional intelligence actually be developed? Yes. Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be improved through intentional practice, feedback, coaching, and greater self-awareness. Why do referrals have so much to do with emotional intelligence? Clients often remember and recommend how an advisor made them feel more than the technical work performed. Solving emotional concerns creates stories clients naturally share with others. What does James mean by “synthetic empathy”? AI can recognize language patterns and respond empathetically, but it doesn't genuinely experience human emotion. James argues that authentic empathy remains one of an advisor's greatest competitive advantages. How should advisors think about AI? Rather than viewing AI solely as a competitor, advisors should use it to improve efficiency while investing more time in conversations, judgment, and relationships that technology cannot fully replace. What is the biggest mindset shift advisors should make? Stop viewing emotional intelligence as a soft skill. Treat it as a business skill that directly influences growth, leadership, client loyalty, and long-term differentiation. James defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, understand, and influence emotions in ourselves and others. For advisors, those skills strengthen communication, trust, leadership, and client relationships. Yes. Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be improved through intentional practice, feedback, coaching, and greater self-awareness. Clients often remember and recommend how an advisor made them feel more than the technical work performed. Solving emotional concerns creates stories clients naturally share with others. AI can recognize language patterns and respond empathetically, but it doesn't genuinely experience human emotion. James argues that authentic empathy remains one of an advisor's greatest competitive advantages. Rather than viewing AI solely as a competitor, advisors should use it to improve efficiency while investing more time in conversations, judgment, and relationships that technology cannot fully replace. Stop viewing emotional intelligence as a soft skill. Treat it as a business skill that directly influences growth, leadership, client loyalty, and long-term differentiation. Related Resources Why AI Matters Now: Filling the Estate Planning Gap with Wealth.com The Paradox of Choice Traps Successful Advisors Freedom vs. Familiarity: Is It Worth Disrupting Comfort for Something That Might Be Better? Guest Bio James Woodfall, founder of Raise Your EI, is a former financial planner who now advises financial services and firms on how they can leverage emotional intelligence (EI) to improve individual and organizational performance. He is the co-author, with Cliff Lansley, of “The Heart of Finance,” which teaches finance professionals to develop the emotional intelligence needed to build effective and profitable client relationships. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World A conversation with Mindy Diamond and James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist at Raise Your EI.      Mindy Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World. It’s a conversation with James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist from Raise Your EI. I’m Mindy Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at (908) 879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our Annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. For years, advisors have competed on expertise, the ability to solve problems, deliver answers, and provide guidance clients couldn’t easily find on their own. But today, those answers are becoming easier to access via artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. AI can generate planning ideas, summarize complex topics, and answer questions in seconds. As the technology continues to improve, it raises an important question. If information becomes increasingly commoditized, what will clients continue to value most? My guest today, James Woodfall, is the Founder of the training firm, Raise Your EI, and a former wealth management business owner. James now helps advisors, leaders, and organizations strengthen the communication and behavioral skills that drive trust, influence, and performance. Skills rooted in emotional intelligence or EI, something that AI cannot authentically replicate. What’s interesting about James’s perspective is that he doesn’t view emotional intelligence as a soft skill. He views it as a business skill, one that impacts how advisors build rapport, earn referrals, lead teams, deepen client relationships, and ultimately differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace that includes human and machine-driven advice. Our conversation explores why rapport is the foundation of trust, how emotional intelligence can be developed like any other professional skill, and why advisors who learn to create authentic human connection may be best positioned to thrive alongside AI, not compete against it. Or as James puts it, remain untouchable in the face of a changing world. Because while technology may continue to reshape how advice is delivered, the experience of being understood, trusted, and guided by another human being remains remarkably difficult to replicate. So, let’s get to it. James, thank you for joining me today, especially coming all the way from the UK. I’m grateful. James Woodfall: Thanks for having me on. Mindy Diamond: So, let’s start at the beginning. You’re a different kind of guest for us, and a topic that is near and dear to my heart because I’m always all about emotional intelligence and EQ, but it’s a topic that sometimes can feel a little squishy to some folks. So, tell us a little bit about your background and really how you got into the world of wealth management. James Woodfall: I got into wealth management probably was by accident while I was, I think about 19 years old. I got a job at a bank because I was living with different jobs and it was the first company that would take me. So I ended up working in a bank as a cashier in a branch. And then after a series of different career moves, I ended up running my own wealth management firm for about nine years, which I sold about three and a half years ago. Around the time that I was selling it, I did my first master’s degree in communication and behavior analysis, and that’s when I started taking a bit of a deep dive into understanding emotional intelligence and behavior and communication. But really, I started that journey before I sold my wealth management company, and really the goal was, how can I become a better financial advisor to my clients by having a better understanding of their psychology behavior around money so that I could communicate with them more effectively, help them build their plans? So I had a bit of a… like a lot of people I speak to in wealth management, they fell into it. Mindy Diamond: So, a lot to unpack there and I’m fascinated by your story. Tell us a little bit about how you began to use or leverage emotional intelligence. You say you got into it or were fascinated by it because it was a way of helping your clients. So, talk to us a little bit about that. How did you begin to see the impact long before you started this business? James Woodfall: So going back a couple of steps to that. When I started the business, it was very transactional. You’d sit down with the client, you find out about what sort of assets they have, what type of plans they have already, and you look for gaps where you can optimize things, or there was a product which they need which you didn’t have. But I moved away from that type of service to a financial planning led service. So, where actually before we get talking about, well, how do we structure your world? We spend a lot of time building a plan in cashflow modeling software. So the one that I used was over at a company called Voyant, and effectively I build a cashflow plan for the clients, which would map out based on assumptions of what age they would reach financial independence. And then that then would then move on to, how to we optimize your holdings? Now what occurred to me pretty quickly in offering that service is that the outputs from that type of exercise are only as good as the inputs. So you’re really relying on the client to be able to come up with the answers to the questions that you ask them to make the financial plan work. And in my experience, quite a lot of the time you sit down with these people and you ask them, “Imagine you’re retired, what does an ideal week look like for you?” So, what I realized is actually I was asking clients a lot of questions which no one had ever asked them before, such as, “If you go retire, imagine you’re retired tomorrow, what does your idea week look like?” Very rarely do we get asked that day-to-day, especially not from friends, family members, certainly. So I went off and actually did a diploma in coaching because I thought initially I want to become better at actually getting people to think about the future and think about plans. And in doing that, I ended up wanting to take a bit of a deeper dive into understanding behavior at a higher level. So that led me on to getting my masters. Impacts on clients though is that I became, and me as well, is that I became a far better listener first. So I listened first, I stopped making so many assumptions as I found I had about people. And really, I think that changed the dynamic in terms of me constant, I suppose, dictating to people about what they should be doing. So of course that’s what a good advisor does, isn’t it, is advice. You switch around into actually making sure you’ve got a deep understanding of people’s hopes, fears, goals, dreams, and then ultimately, you can help them better in terms of optimizing their financial plans and wealth. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. 100% of what you just said speaks to me in a big way, because that is 100% our philosophy. Most recruiters, I don’t mean it disparagingly, but most recruiters in general are pretty transactional. They see a hammer, they see a nail. So, a recruiter sees a financial advisor and he’s a means to an end to making a deal to a transaction. And our whole approach from day one was never about seeing you, financial advisor, as a transaction, but rather first and foremost, wanting to understand what’s important to you. And we get told all the time that we were asking questions that nobody ever asked them before. And I want to unpack it more, because I love what you’re saying. The goal as far as I see it is not just to ask a bunch of questions nobody asked before, but it’s to ask questions as a means to an end, to start out by asking questions that make somebody comfortable that tell them that you care about them. Then it’s about asking questions that they’ve never been asked before because the answers to a question like, “How do you see yourself behaving in retirement,” has everything to do with how much money they’ll need to retire. So, one informs the other. In our world asking somebody, “What are the things that spark you and what are the things that really don’t? And what will you do with this information?” And all those sorts of questions are questions many people had never been asked before, especially if somebody was looking at them as a transaction. And yet, it’s what deepens relationships, it’s what creates trust, and it’s what allows you to identify me as a recruiter, identify the best solution or the best opportunity for someone. So, do you agree with that? Is there anything that I’m off about? James Woodfall: No, that’s exactly the point. I think I’m asking better questions as a wealth manager talking to your client. Because ultimately this is, I suppose, one of the things which comes from understanding emotional intelligence, is that for most of us, we make decisions in motion first and then we justify with logic and reasoning, which is basically back to from. If I was to start with logical reasoning and then expect people to make a buying decision. And so a lot of the time, especially with things like retirement savings, for example, because it’s in the future, it’s over there, especially if it’s 10, 20 years away, people think, “Well, why will I give up so much money a month now for something which is so far in the future that I can’t comprehend it yet?” But if you start reigning the questions in a way which gets to kind of the… Really what you want to uncover is, if you wake up at 3:00 in the morning and you can’t get back to sleep, what’s on your mind? Because if you can uncover that emotion that fits all that kind of pain or problem, then you deal with emotion first and logic second. Mindy Diamond: And it tells you what you need to solve for, right? James Woodfall: Exactly, yeah. Mindy Diamond: If what keeps me up is I’m worried I’m going to outlive my money, and you know that’s your true north in terms of how you begin to tackle that they’re thinking about the future, they want you to focus on the long term. Right? Is that what you get from that? What’s the typical answer you get to that question, that one in particular? James Woodfall: For retirement planning, it’s usually clusters around. “Well, I’m not sure I’m making the right decision. There’s lots of options that are complicated. But really, actually, am I going to have enough money? Am I going to run out?” Because it’s the big question, isn’t it? How long are you going to live and how much are you going to need? Mindy Diamond: Right. As I was preparing for this interview, I think I know the answer because I’m a person that lives in this world that believes fully in, I don’t have a degree in behavioral finance but I’m big on emotional intelligence, connecting, developing trust, and that I don’t have any right to sell anybody anything or suggest anything unless I’ve connected on an interpersonal level. But I don’t know that everybody believes that. So help us, our listeners to understand, why does this matter to financial advisors? So, I’m going to give you two examples. I’m a younger advisor that has, say, five to 10 years in the business, say $100 million or 100 million pounds under management and is looking to really build a business. How and why does the concept of emotional intelligence, of EI, matter to me? And then I’m going to ask you the same question again with respect to someone who manages a billion dollars or a billion pounds. How and why does it matter? James Woodfall: Yeah. I think probably a starting point is, let’s just clear up I suppose in definitions so that we understand what we’re talking about when we say emotional intelligence, it’s an EQ. Because I suppose let’s think about, let’s call EQ the measurement, and emotional intelligence is the concept. So the definition of emotional intelligence is it’s an ability, and it’s this ability to understand and influence emotions in ourselves and others. So within ourselves, can we perceive and understand our own emotions? What turns them on? What triggers them? Can we do something about that? Can we recognize it, manage it in the right context, or either initiate our emotions in the right context? And can we do that when we’re talking to other people? So, are we good at perceiving people’s emotions within different contexts, and are we good at influencing and utilizing that information to help us communicate more effectively? So, these are skills which requires regard within those two roles to make you effective. And so, one of the things that we’ve learned from probably 30 years of people studying emotion intelligence is that if emotion is involved within the job role, emotional intelligence correlates with job performance and has a meaningful impact on the difference between an average and a big performer. So regardless of whether it’s one of the two scenarios that you’ve said, performance improvements are always on the table. But one of the things which tends to happen as you move from, say, up in terms of the money that you’re managing is the stakes get higher. So quite often, you actually need a much far higher degree of self-management, a higher degree of self-awareness, a higher degree of ability to perceive emotions in others, and to be able to communicate with influence. Because quite often as you are dealing with clients who are more affluent, there’s a correlation between actually the skills that your clients have and the skills that they expect you to have as an advisor. So the higher you go up that sort of ladder in terms of value, the more effective you need to be. So that’s where that EQ measurement. If you had to sit down and do an EQ assessment, for example, you need to be scoring way above average the higher up you go. Mindy Diamond: How will somebody begin to notice that developing the emotional intelligence muscle, developing the quantity of EQ, how will that begin to show up and impact their business? James Woodfall: There’s a couple of ways, and I think it really does show up in self-awareness and self-management and awareness and understanding of others. So one of the things which will show up in terms of that awareness and understanding of others is, can you build trusted relationships quickly? So like those skills that we were talking about before about asking better questions and listening, especially the first time you meet a new prospective client, if you can really turn your ears on and get very, very curious about the person that you’re talking to, rapport building is one of the foundational things for trust building. And really, if you get rapport building right, one of the goals should be to find common ground early, because the minute that you can build a connection with people and you start uncovering things that you’ve got in common, it starts signaling to people that actually you’re someone who is like them, on their side, and that they’re someone that you can trust. Now people who get this right, they tend to close more clients and they tend to gain more referrals or recommendations to other clients. And when I used to run my business, referrals was the largest source of new clients. Every single year, all the other different marketing streams, they didn’t produce anything near referrals. And I think back to that, if you look back to the kind of retirement example, if you can really get an answer to that question of, you wake up at 3:00 AM, what’s on your mind, what’s up when you’re getting back to sleep? If you can uncover that and solve that, for a client, it’s far easier to articulate that to a friend than it is for them to explain the technicalities of what you did with their retirement savings. But it’s easier to articulate, “You should absolutely go and see James. We were worried about whether we’re saving enough, he solved that, it’s brilliant, you need to go and see him.” That’s what I mean, is that they’re able to articulate the emotional outcome. Mindy Diamond: Even though what we’re talking about here is someone making the case that strengthening one’s emotional intelligence will make you a better advisor, easier to say that, sounds logical. But you’re connecting it to, you’re saying that someone who actually gets this right, gets it better, is going to create more of an instant rapport rooted in trust, and likely grow their business because it makes them more referable. And those are things that certainly every young advisor wants, but every advisor wants. So, let me switch the tables a second. I get why a young advisor with 100 million wants to get to a billion, why this is really important. They want to do everything they can to really make themselves the most referable. But let’s take the advisor that’s on the back nine that has been doing this 30 years, manages a billion and a half of pounds, dollars in assets under management, is growing by referrals and it’s an organic referral stream. It’s a business that feeds itself. So, while everybody always needs to be in business development mode, they feel like they’ve cracked the code, they’ve got it covered. How and why does this concept impact a senior advisor, someone with a much bigger, more robust book of business? James Woodfall: Yeah, it’s interesting. So if we take a bit of a step back and look at a bit about what some of the research says about the impacts of emotional intelligence, there have been some studies done within financial services about the impact of your training on business outcomes. So there was a study done probably around about between 2000 and 2004 with Ameriprise, and they brought their agents through a year-long emotional intelligence development program. And it was interesting, they measured at the beginning of the program EQ, what someone’s EQ score was, but they measured things like health, anger, trade anger. So, how often were people experiencing anger, stress, and burnout. So they’re measuring all sorts of things other than EQ just to see what the impact of EQ training was. Now EQ scores went up, sales went up, I think on average of about 24% across four cohorts. But things like stress, burnout, health outcomes, perceived health outcomes, people are asked to rate, how would you rate your health, that went up. Experience of anger went down because people become better at managing it. So as you look at the kind of example that you described, I would say that as someone who’s in that stage of the career where they may not have the capacity to take on more clients. So just think, well, actually, I don’t want an uplift of 20%, 24% in sales because I might not process that. But one of the things which I suppose the EI research shows actually is that it impacts your quality of life. And there is finding which is quite common in research, is that actually EI scores correlate with age. So as we go through life and we have sort of ups, downs, highs, lows, and we learn from those. We learn from our emotional experience, and that’s hypothesis, is it feeds into our EQ score. So you’ve probably got people at that later stage of their career who actually probably have had experience which has developed their emotional intelligence. They’ve got mature standing, which means that they might not necessarily need to go out and find new clients. They’ve got experience, which has helped them develop client relationships, but they might want to take a step back at quality of life. If they’re experiencing stress, burnout, pressure, EQ can help absolutely with all of those. The other thing which is quite common as well is that if they’re playing any sort of leadership part within that business now, let’s say if they’re a business owner, EQ absolutely is key for leadership performance. So making sure that you’re building a team of people around you, you can help you develop the business. And actually, EI and leadership’s one of the biggest areas where research has been focused. But I think one of the other things I’ve got to say is that we’ve all got blind spots. It doesn’t matter where we are in life, we’ve all got things that I suppose that we could be better at. And actually shining a lens on those and improving our self-awareness is something that you can develop at all stages. Mindy Diamond: A lot of people in our industry, whether it be a recruiter or an advisor themselves, believe that efficiency or being most effective and efficient is the true north. And that to ask what may fee like unnecessary or ancillary questions that don’t directly get to help me to figure out what your asset allocation is so that I can grow your portfolio, may feel ancillary. And so, is that one of the most common objections you get when somebody, say, comes to you and they’re thinking about retaining you and they’re wondering what the benefit is? James Woodfall: Well, I think the people in firms I tend to talk to, there’s a couple of common things that are coming to mind now. One is pressure around fees. So, how can I make sure I’m articulating my value in a time where clients are more informed, they can go on AI and they come to meetings prepared with answers, and they’re challenging back around the value that advisors can provide. So getting back, I suppose, and the answer is funnily enough, is actually if you’ve designed your service around a proposition which makes yourself easy to replace by someone else who can do it for the same or cheaper price with a promise of better performance, or even in the years coming, a robo-advisor, it’s going to be challenging to retain and grow clients. But I’m not particularly worried about AI. The other types of firms that come to me is to say, “Look, we’ve identified actually that we need to think differently about our business model, what we do and who we serve, because it’s going to be easier than it’s ever been for clients to come up to do some of these things themselves.” But absolutely what is untouchable, I think, is this ability to create a human connection, to sit down and discuss a range of different options. “Do I do X, do I do Y? What are the trade-offs if I choose that over that?” And to uncover those things which, as I said, really keep people up at night and solve for them. I think it’s going to be quite hard to replicate that digitally. Mindy Diamond: So I want to get to a end that you hit the nail on the head, and I want to delve deeper into it. Whatever the advisor is looking for, they may not worry about pressure around fees, they may not be kept up at night. They have a practice or a business that’s worked well all these years and is growing organically and it’s more than good enough. But anybody who isn’t concerned about the potential impact of AI on their business and whether they’re a financial advisor or recruiter or anybody else, is living under a rock. So, the goal for everyone should be to make yourself untouchable. And you hit it on the head, it’s the ability to create human connection. So, I want to ask you something. It occurs to me, you talk a lot about learning to ask the right questions. In some cases, the questions that a client never been asked before makes sense to me. But I think the real skill, I mean, I imagine anybody can teach you a list of questions to ask. The real skill comes in is knowing what to do with that information. So, let’s assume that someone says an advisor says you ask that smart question, “What keeps you up at night? What do you think about at 3:00 AM?” Pressure around fees. I find people, clients asking me, prospects asking me all the time what sort of value I can add, whether it be in the land of AI or competitively, whatever it is, pressure around fees. What do you do? So you’ve asked the smart question, but what do you teach? What do you do with that information? James Woodfall: It’s a mindset, I think, because having just say a list of questions I don’t think is really helpful to any advisor when you’re training them. And yet I find I do get people who, okay, say, “Well, look, what questions should we ask? Have you got a list of questions that you would ask?” I hold back giving those out because I think that, well, that’s what I would say. It’s not necessarily going to land the same way if you say it. The mindset I’m trying to teach advisor is to adopt a curious mindset. So not asking questions for question’s sake, but if I’m talking to someone, what I want to do is I want to understand, how are you thinking? How do you see the problem? What assumptions are you making? What things do you believe which maybe don’t line up with how things are in reality, or goals, objectives, or whatever it is. So I’m trying to understand how you think, and that requires not asking questions off a list of great questions to ask, comes off of understanding the format for that, is utilizing the open questions to gather information, to check assumptions that might sit behind them, because actually understanding those assumptions is really, really useful. And to then summarize and play back to someone that you’re talking to so that you can demonstrate that you’re listening and you deeply understand them, and being able to summarize and be able to succinctly put their words into a, “Well, what do we do next about this?” Mindy Diamond: Yeah, and, why does it matter? I love that because what I always say is it’s art, not science. AI could give you a list of, if I put in the topic of emotional intelligence and give me a list of 10 smart questions to ask relative to X. One of the questions I would ask someone from an emotional perspective that demonstrates I have strong emotional perspective relative to pressure around fees, AI could spit out the questions. But I think you’re 100% right. The real key is being a good listener and meeting someone where they are. And it’s not about a prescribed or canned list of questions that demonstrate you have strong emotional intelligence. It’s much more about asking the right next question, saying the right thing, the validating statement afterwards. And not as a means to an end, not as a means to a transaction, not as just a way of checking the box, I have emotional intelligence, but really because demonstrating that you deeply care. And I like what you said, the notion of a changed mindset. Do people get that right away? I guess what I’m asking is, financial advisors, while smart ones who are looking to make themselves untouchable by AI will get that concept. They’re looking to differentiate themselves and they’re looking to hone the skills that AI can’t bring to the table. But at the same time, financial advisors are number oriented and goal oriented. And so, how long does it typically take to begin to see, or how do you paint the picture about getting from here to there, connecting the dots between strengthening changing your mindset, strengthening your emotional intelligence, and seeing more results? James Woodfall: Well, look, it’s about behavior change, isn’t it? Like any kind of behavior change, there has to be a few things at play. One is that you have to have a good understanding of where you are right now, what things that you are good at, but what things you need to work on. And then effectively the things you need to work on, you need a plan of how you’re going to work on them. So I think commonly how you develop these kind of relational skills is that you need to be able to get close to, what does the goal look like? Where am I headed? If I get this right, what’s it going to look like? And then you need to have a plan to get from A to B. And actually part of that plan has to be built around good feedback. And I was quite lucky where during my career, I worked for two large banks before I started my firm. And I had really, really good training from managers that I worked with, almost on a monthly basis would come and sit in my client meetings and then feedback to me about what I could have done better. And so actually, if you’re going to really commit to developing, I suppose relational skills and becoming more emotionally intelligent, you need help from someone within your firm or externally to come in and actually observe you by trying out new things and giving you feedback. Now of course, you could do some of that yourself if you’re doing a virtual meeting, you could hit record, play it back, be your own analyst. But quite often we can’t see that ourselves, but if you’ve got say a third party, they can watch you in action. Quite quickly they can hone in and say, “Well, actually, you could have asked a different question here, or actually if you’d phrased that like this, you might’ve got a bit more information, or the client closed down when you ask that question.” So actually then, you start to create that behavior change. So feedback I think is one thing, but actually aligning it with really, values, I think. So, one of the things that I suppose is quite important for behavior change is that we are motivated to do things where we strongly believe it’s the right thing to do. So, I think which is why it can be quite difficult for a firm to bring in with a team of advisors and say, “Well, we’re going to roll out emotional intelligence training,” because you’ll get some of us go, “This is brilliant.” Mindy Diamond: Eye roll. I would imagine eye roll is the… It can be a lot of the response, right? James Woodfall: You get a lot of resistance, because some people see it as a criticism of just saying, “Well, actually I’m good at that. I don’t need training in that, thank you very much.” Mindy Diamond: And because if efficiency in getting to a goal is the true north, I mean, I think the mindset shift you’re talking about is going from believing that getting to the goal by just asking the right numbers and dealing in data, changing that from it’s about building a relationship, which ultimately will impact the amount you manage and how you grow and how you connect and all of that stuff. But for people that are goal-oriented, linear in their thinking, I imagine this can be not just felt as a criticism but hard to embrace. James Woodfall: Oh, yeah, no. I think we view the brain as kind of a black box. I do get people I speak to, they go, “Mental health isn’t real. And all of this is psychobabble,” but from the people that I’ve had feedback from, and this is even for people I haven’t trained. I wrote a book about 18 months ago about the topic which talks about emotion intelligence within the 5X context. I’ve had people contact me on LinkedIn and say, “Look, I read your book. I’ve been following your content for a while. I’ve put some of the ideas to work, and I’m now getting my manager and their manager contact me and saying, ‘What are you doing differently?’” Because all of a sudden they’re opening up conversations with clients that they couldn’t before, doing business with clients where they couldn’t before. And all it is that this kind of focus on the client, the relationship, building that connection, and all of a sudden you start seeing that convert into more sales opportunities. Mindy Diamond: Yes and more yes, because that’s always been our philosophy, my philosophy from starting the business and our philosophy, and I couldn’t agree with you more. You articulated it probably as did, I got to it instinctively. You have research behind it, etc. By the way, for our listeners, we will link your book in the notes for this episode if anybody’s interested in buying it. But you hit the nail on the head, so, or you took the words out of my mouth in terms of next question. Who are your clients? Are they individual advisors? Are they independent RIAs? Are they Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch? And what kind of work do you do for them? James Woodfall: So, I do, there’s probably two parts to my business. One is the consulting training part, which is going into firms, typically firms that were the owner managed typically, where the owner either is still advising or has a big impact on other behaviors of the advice team that’s underneath them. And really, I work on a consultancy basis. So rather than going and just provide EI training, what I do is effectively start with understanding the business. So exactly as I’ve been talking to you about, the process I used to follow as an advisor, it’s the same process I follow when I’m working with practices, is I want to find out what’s going well in the business. Where are the blockers, what’s not going so well? And I’m a social science researcher. So I’d want to spend some time in the business actually doing a bit of a deep dive and maybe speaking to the team while the owner’s not in the room and finding out a bit about how they’re seeing things. Because ultimately, what that will do is it allows me to look at thematically extracting what types of training interventions might move the needle within the business. And then I put that onto a report for businesses and say, “Look, this is what I think we should be doing.” Some of that might be me working one-to-one, doing that coaching, observing, training with particular people in the business who have been highlighted as requiring development, or it might be group training, might be taking the whole teams through a training program. And then following up, helping build those development plans, and then being there supporting with the one-to-ones as they bed in that behavior change. So, that’s one part of the business. The other part of the business is working for the larger firms. I’ve done a bit of work for Fidelity this year and last year, and they’re looking to hire me as an authority expert on the topic to put together training programs that go out to the advisors that they work with. So, there’s the two aspects, like an external speaker trainer that’s brought in by some of the larger companies. And then the other one is a bit more hands-on, applying not only the science but my experience of having been there and run a business. Mindy Diamond: Right. So are the big firms like… So you mentioned Fidelity, are the wirehouses, Merrill, Morgan, UBS, Wells Fargo, are they embracing this? Are the big banks embracing it, or is this largely in the RIA space right now? James Woodfall: In the UK, there’s been a huge kind of interest in emotional intelligence, behavioral finance, relational skills. And actually, a lot of the kind of people who require influential in the UK are actually based in the US. And so, I think there’s a good bit of crossover. We’ve got good people who are specialists in looking at the retirement piece from a retirement transition about, how do you support people through what is a profound psychological transition? So, I think the RIAs are really interested in it as a topic. Then we’ve got the larger institutions are interested in it either as the RIAs are clients of theirs and they want to be seen to providing thought leadership to the RIAs and helping them develop these skills. But also, we’ve got some quite large companies in the UK now here, like the banks, for example, the banks or the whole exited the advice market in around about 2012, 2013, and then this year they’re starting to come back. So they’ve had 15 years nearly out of the market and they’re coming back because they’re just wanting an opportunity for face-to-face advice. So, I think actually it’s a hot topic now and I think all segments of the market are looking at, how do they develop non-technical skills to help them succeed in the future? Mindy Diamond: Can someone who was not born with strong EQ, can they learn this? James Woodfall: Absolutely. One of the interesting things about EQ is it’s not like IQ, for example. IQ is our a sort of cognitive ability. There was some good research that was done probably about, I think 2016, which looked at, do you remember all this sort of brain training apps like, if you do Sudoku, do you get smarter? You get better at Sudoku, but it doesn’t translate into performance on another. You don’t get better at crosswords from doing Sudoku, for example. So, IQs are pretty much fixed and there’s not a lot we can do about that. But EQ has been shown to be a trainable ability. So regardless of where you are now, if you understand your strengths and weaknesses and put a plan together for improvement, everyone has the ability to improve their EQ. And it’s not like personality, for example, where it’s quite hard to shift the dial. Let’s say if you’re quite strongly introverted and you find social situations difficult, if you just took that approach and said, “Well, look, can we make you extremely extroverted?” The answer would be, well, probably not. But EQ absolutely helps that person because noticing that you feel uncomfortable in, say, a networking situation if you have to do that professionally, having the tools in the bag to manage that feeling and throw yourself into the experience, that’s EQ in action. So, it doesn’t matter your baseline of where you are, EQ can have a big impact on your ability to perform across a range of different contexts, home, work, with friends. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. Let’s talk about your comment that EQ or strong emotional intelligence is what can make an advisor untouchable by AI. And I assume the premise being that, I can’t replace a human relationship. It may be able to come up with the questions, but at least for today it lacks the ability to know what to do with that information and to create the human connection. Talk to me more about that. How and why is that? I mean, is that part of why people are coming to you, because they’re worried about AI encroaching on their business? James Woodfall: Where we are at the moment is actually AI… Let’s look at healthcare for a second. Chatbots in healthcare have actually been outperforming humans in some respects. So there’s a type of therapy called cognitive behavior therapy, that’s been run with AI agents and patients. And as researchers to show that actually, disclosure has increased when patients are speaking to a chatbot because cognitive behavior therapy is like it’s guided, is a method, it’s a methodology to it. But disclosure increases and this theory behind that is is that people open up more when they don’t feel like they’re being judged by another person. So that’s interesting, because that saying to us, “Well, actually, people are trusting AI agents with very, very personal information, and people are already getting that feeling of empathy with AI agents.” Because if you tell an AI agent something deeply personal and it says, “That must have been really difficult for you,” for example. Mindy Diamond: Yeah, it does that well. Wonderful feedback about how great you are or what a smart question you just asked. James Woodfall: Yeah, but it’s synthetic, it’s not real empathy, it’s synthetic empathy. Whilst we might feel actually we get that feeling that we’re being understood, it’s not real. And I think the advisor’s edge is, look, I think where we might end up with this is that if you take a step back and you do this kind of exercise of what’s my ideal client, the ideal client is, I think, now is someone who is still time poor. So yes, an AI agent might be able to interview you, build a financial plan, but do you really want to spend the time doing that or do you have any inclination to do that? No. Well, that’s a perfect client who would hire an advisor. They value human relationships. Obviously when we do get AI entering the advisor market, it’s going to be at a lower price point. So actually, we’re now talking about a difference between experience. So the experience of being with an advisor comes at a premium. So that experience is going to be what people are going to pay additional value for. So, it’s the experience of dealing with a human. It’s the experience of dealing with a human who can talk them through complex information and options, help them understand their thinking and apply judgment, connect with those emotional things. But there’s a whole range of information that we get when we’re talking face-to-face, which AI doesn’t have access to. So back to that retirement example, if we say, “Well, man, I’ve modeled your plan. If we do X, Y, and Z, you’re not going to run out of money when you retire. You’re going to be okay.” And then the person, usually what they do is they sigh with relief, which is actually the emotion of joy, relief is actually happiness. So that sigh of relief and the softening of muscle tension in the body that you see when you’re face-to-face with another person, AI can’t, doesn’t get that data. Mindy Diamond: And how powerful is that? So, why does that matter? If I say, “I have X, I need Y. I have X number of years until I retire. Will I have enough money to retire the way I want to?” AI can spit that answer out faster than any financial advisor and come back hopefully saying, “Yes,” they’ll know that I will experience relief and joy because I’ll write back saying, “Great news.” It’ll say, “Yes, that is fabulous news.” It’ll tell me why I’m relieved and all that sort of stuff. So, why does that matter? James Woodfall: I think fundamentally, it comes back to trust. For those people who can get that quick answer, they’ll go, “Yeah, that’s great.” But there’ll be some people who go, “Yeah, fine. I’ll take that answer at face value.” There’ll be other people who go, “Well, what if you made a mistake?” Quite interesting that actually, people will get the same answer from a human advisor and they’ll trust it more. And I think one of those things is because we’re wired for connection, so when empathy develops, it’s quite interesting. Something which you see in young children, for example, is when we develop at the very early stage, probably about three or four years old, before children have learned to self-regulate their emotions, you see emotional contagion in groups of children happen quite rapidly. You get one child who say gets a toy taken away from them and starts crying, and then all the other children at the same age in the nursery start crying. Now, none of those other ones are crying because they’re sad. They’re crying because we have these things called mirror neurons, which means we pick up and mirror the emotional state of people around us. So, you actually get an experience of shared feeling and especially if you’ve got strong rapport, strong relationship, you actually share emotions of the people around you. Now, of course, as we grow out of that developmental stage, we learn this ability to understand that actually what we’re feeling isn’t happening to us, it’s happening to someone else. But have you ever been around… My favorite example for this is, if my wife has had a bad day at work because she comes home and starts slamming the door and banging cupboards, why I start to feel anger, because it’s rubbing off, it’s in the room. So, it’s this shared understanding that I think is where the value is. And so absolutely the answer might be faster and quicker, but for some clients they value that experience of having that answer delivered by someone who understands them. Mindy Diamond: And I think, so the point is that there will be clients or prospects that will value the efficiency of AI, that don’t necessarily need the face-to-face, that don’t necessarily… They just want the answer. They want the answers to the test, they don’t care how you got there. But what you’re talking about is finding the clients that really value the human connection. And if that’s what in fact is going to make advisors untouchable, then they need to make sure that they really strengthen this skill. James Woodfall: It’s not just the answer, but it’s the whole experience that’s wrapped around that. So actually last year, and my wife took me to a restaurant and we had a lovely, lovely meal. And on the menu there was this cup of coffee and the beans were like one of the rarest beans in the world. They’re the ones that get eaten by this little animal with the jungle in it, poops them out, and then the beans get roasted. But it was about 40 pounds for this cup of coffee and I thought, well, I’m going to have that. But that’s the experience, isn’t it? I could get a cup of coffee at McDonald’s, but actually the experience of this, something which is rare, exclusive, delivered in an amazing environment, that’s what you’re paying for. So, you’ve got to remember that actually if experience dictates a lot of what we value as well. So because if all of our decisions were made on price, Ferrari wouldn’t have a business because everyone would just be buying the cheapest car that does the job. You’re going to think advisors that are going to operating in this space, well, they need to think about the whole package, as in the experience that the plan that’s delivered, and the advice. Mindy Diamond: But it speaks to the notion of any advisor that isn’t thinking about AI’s impact on his business and how to reshape or rewire the business, even just rewiring the value proposition, retooling their value proposition, how they explain their value and what they do needs to change because they’re competing not only with the advisor that sits next to them or down the hall, but they’re competing with AI. How about as AI, as you see AI develop? So fast-forward five years, you and I are talking about where AI is today, but AI is, God knows where it’ll be five years from now. So, how do you foresee, do you still foresee the advisor being untouchable if they get this right, five or 10 years from now? James Woodfall: I don’t think it’s financial advice that’s unique with this, because I think it’s any profession where at the moment human judgment and understanding are valued. Healthcare, for example, same thing, doctors follow consultancy process. You’ve got this like tax, legal, a whole range of professions which are all grappling on the same problem. So I think in five years time, I think the answer is, is that we just don’t know what AI will look like. But certainly in the moment, if you track what Claude are doing with code work, and what Perplexity is doing with its skills and add-ons, a lot of it is actually at the moment geared up to freeing up the advisor’s time so that they can spend more time with clients. So, I think at the moment this sort of trend is looking like AI companies want to support advisors to be way more efficient so that they can deal with more clients. But in five years time, who knows? I think probably one of the biggest leaps that will happen is when AI is no longer working from, say, just a transcript. If it gets out to that kind of chat where you can actually interact with an AI agent like you and I are talking, I think that’s going to provide a different experience, because then you’re moving it from, as I said, that kind of structure where somebody is stuck there tapping away at keyboard, having a conversation with a chatbot, effectively, to actually having a conversation with an embodied agent with a face, gestures, a voice. That I think will start to change things a little bit. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. Well, it will be an interesting future, for sure. This has been a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed it, and thank you so much for sharing so graciously. Is there anything to wrap up that I didn’t ask you, that you would want an advisor to know about this concept or anything you’re thinking about? James Woodfall: I think we’ve taken a broad sweep and then a deep dive into certain areas. I think really probably have to get started. I think probably one of the… I mean, you mentioned obviously I’ve got a book that you share the links to, which is fantastic. Audiobook is available to that as well on Spotify or wherever audiobooks are listed. I think there’s a lot of good advice in that about how to get started. So, I think for people who are looking at covering that next step of, what do we do, it’d be, yeah, pick up a book and have a bit of a deep dive. If you want to skip the book and come straight to having a conversation with me, then I write a weekly email, which goes out once a week, which is just one topic. So very much like we’ve been talking today, I share ideas on that once a week, or on LinkedIn, I’m around on LinkedIn as well. Mindy Diamond: Good. Well, we will link all of it so everyone knows how to find you. Thank you again for being so gracious. Love the topic, love the work that you’re doing, love that there’s a need for it, and can’t wait to see where you go from here. James Woodfall: Brilliant. No, I enjoyed it. Thank you. Mindy Diamond: Thank you. As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty, and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibility seriously, and are dedicated to your clients. But are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay or Should I Go? Is a book written with you in mind? It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively, whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook. Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World A conversation with Mindy Diamond and James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist at Raise Your EI.      Mindy Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World. It’s a conversation with James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist from Raise Your EI. I’m Mindy Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at (908) 879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our Annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. For years, advisors have competed on expertise, the ability to solve problems, deliver answers, and provide guidance clients couldn’t easily find on their own. But today, those answers are becoming easier to access via artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. AI can generate planning ideas, summarize complex topics, and answer questions in seconds. As the technology continues to improve, it raises an important question. If information becomes increasingly commoditized, what will clients continue to value most? My guest today, James Woodfall, is the Founder of the training firm, Raise Your EI, and a former wealth management business owner. James now helps advisors, leaders, and organizations strengthen the communication and behavioral skills that drive trust, influence, and performance. Skills rooted in emotional intelligence or EI, something that AI cannot authentically replicate. What’s interesting about James’s perspective is that he doesn’t view emotional intelligence as a soft skill. He views it as a business skill, one that impacts how advisors build rapport, earn referrals, lead teams, deepen client relationships, and ultimately differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace that includes human and machine-driven advice. Our conversation explores why rapport is the foundation of trust, how emotional intelligence can be developed like any other professional skill, and why advis

On the July 9 edition: Five police officers have been arrested after inappropriately using Flock cameras; A new study finds AI chat bots are bad at giving financial advice; And some folks are worried about moving two Beluga Whales from Canada to the Georgia Aquarium. 

Unterhaltungen mit Chatbots wirken zum Teil wie Gespräche mit echten Menschen. Aber was passiert, wenn ein KI-System nicht nur reagiert, sondern uns bestätigt und scheinbar versteht? Schon gibt es das Schlagwort von der KI-Psychose. Schroeder,Carina www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Zeitfragen. Feature

Millionen Menschen reden mit KI-Chatbots wie mit einem guten Freund. Das kann kurzfristig helfen - aber auch in Abhängigkeit, Wahnvorstellungen oder Einsamkeit münden. Was macht der digitale Seelenpartner mit uns? Von Christian Schiffer (BR 2026)

We discuss the transition of AI-native applications toward ad-supported monetization models. Among other things, we cover:Whether AI-native apps will follow the mobile gaming trajectory by adopting hybrid monetization models to reach massive global audiencesHow the high operational costs of AI inference necessitate a move toward ad-supported tiers to maintain sustainable profit marginsWhy the granular intent signals captured in LLM conversations offer a superior alternative to traditional search-based advertising targeting mechanismsWhat new native ad formats will emerge to integrate seamlessly into AI workflows without disrupting the core user experienceWhen the venture capital funding environment will demand more disciplined monetization strategies from AI startups over pure user growthHow established ad-tech infrastructure from the mobile gaming era can be adapted to serve the unique needs of AI developersThanks to the sponsors of this week's episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast:⁠⁠INCRMNTAL⁠⁠⁠. True attribution measures incrementality, always on.Xsolla⁠. With the Xsolla Web Shop, you can create a direct storefront, cut fees down to as low as 5%, and keep players engaged with bundles, rewards, and analytics.⁠Branch⁠. Branch is an AI-powered MMP, connecting every paid, owned, and organic touchpoint so growth teams can see exactly where to put their dollars to bring users in the door and keep them coming backInterested in sponsoring the Mobile Dev Memo podcast? Contact Mobile Dev Memo advertising.The Mobile Dev Memo podcast is available on:SpotifyYouTubeApple Podcasts

The World Cup's tourism boost is spreading far beyond host cities into markets nobody expected, AI chatbots are bypassing travel brand apps even when fully integrated, and Hilton opens a direct line to corporate travel platform Navan to cut out the middlemen. On today's Skift Daily Briefing, Sarah Dandashy breaks down why the World Cup's ripple effect is reaching markets 60+ miles from any stadium, why being available inside an AI chatbot is not the same as being chosen by one, and how Hilton's direct Navan connection signals that the fight to cut out distribution middlemen is coming for corporate travel next. Articles Referenced: Honorable Mention: @AskAConcierge on IGWorld Cup Ripple Effect: Non-Host MarketsChatGPT Apps, Claude Connectors, Travel: A Hands-On TestHilton Opens Direct Line to Navan, Cutting Out Corporate Travel Middlemen Connect with Skift LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skift/ WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaAL375LikgIXmNPYQ0L/ Facebook: https://facebook.com/skiftnews Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skiftnews/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@skiftnews Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/skiftnews.bsky.social X: https://twitter.com/skift Subscribe to @SkiftNews and never miss an update from the travel industry.

AI's all-you-can-eat era is ending.

A growing number of young people are using AI companions and chatbots for emotional support, friendship and even virtual relationships, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota. Despite the growth, most teens aren't advertising that they're using it – for many, it is stigmatized. Researchers at the U of M are exploring teen use of AI companions. Xiaoran Sun, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development and co-lead at the U of M Teen and A-I Study, joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about what her team is learning about teens and AI companions.

What should we do when the "AI" bubble pops? Emily and Alex are joined by researcher Matt Scherer, who recently published a report called "No Bailout for Big Tech Billionaires: Policies for when the AI bubble bursts." They unpack what the boosters are saying about their finances, and how we can all push back against arguments for a government bailout.Matt Scherer is a fellow at the anti-monopoly think tank Open Markets Institute. He previously led the workers' rights project at the Center for Democracy & Technology.References:Forbes: "AI Can Change The World And Still Be A Bubble"Also referenced: Is AI Profitable Yet?CNBC: "Altman says some investors will be left 'very burnt'"CNBC: "Bezos brushes off concerns of an AI bubble: 'You shouldn't worry about it'Fresh AI Hell:Empty Waymos create self-driving traffic jam"AA digital sponsor"Stanford researchers claim "AI agents...embrace Marxist ideologies""Chatbots at the drive-thru"YouGov polling on automated juriesChaser: Erin Brockovich is on the case!AI Startup Says It Will Pay People $2,000 a Month to MasturbateChaser: You used which brush!?Check out future streams on Twitch. Meanwhile, send us any AI Hell you see.Find our book The AI Con here, and MAIHT3k merch here.Subscribe to our newsletter via Buttondown.Follow us!EmilyBluesky: emilymbender.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@EmilyMBenderAlexBluesky: alexhanna.bsky.socialMastodon: dair-community.social/@alexTwitter: @alexhannaMusic by Toby Menon.Artwork by Naomi Pleasure-Park. Production by Ozzy Llinas Goodman.

In this episode of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast, host Stewart Alsop speaks with Ekaterina Matveeva, founder of Amolingua and Lingo Plus and co-organizer of AI roundtables with EcoCivilization. The conversation covers a wide range of AI-related topics, from the cultural implications of AI development across different countries to the evolution of Ekaterina's perspective on artificial intelligence—moving from initial anger and fear in 2023 to active participation in AI model design by 2025. They discuss the importance of including diverse cultural perspectives in AI training, the cross-country differences in AI regulation (comparing Argentina's human-out-of-the-loop approach to Europe's cautious stance), and the critical question of which sectors need humans in the decision-making loop. The discussion ventures into brain-computer interfaces and Neuralink, examining what happens when technology is removed and questioning whether healthy humans should pursue such enhancements, before touching on the future of personal AI models and the preservation of indigenous wisdom in AI training. You can connect with Ekaterina on LinkedIn to follow her work on AI, education, and cross-cultural technology development.Timestamps00:00 Stewart welcomes Ekaterina Matveeva, founder of Amolingua and Lingo Plus, discussing her work organizing AI roundtables with EcoCivilization05:00 Ekaterina shares her evolution from anger toward AI in 2023 to realizing collaboration potential, emphasizing importance of multicultural perspectives in AI development and training10:00 Discussion of Argentina's new AI liability bill creating human-out-of-loop systems, contrasting with Europe's human-in-loop requirements and different global regulatory approaches15:00 Safety considerations in robotics and AI development, comparing industrial automation standards across regions and discussing Pentagon's use of Anthropic with Palantir systems20:00 Exploring brain-computer interfaces and Neuralink developments, questioning enhancement versus necessity and examining motivations behind cognitive augmentation technologies25:00 Debating human capabilities beyond cognitive function, discussing nervous system, emotions, psychosomatics, and whether brain generates or receives thoughts30:00 Examining societal divisions from enhancement technologies, referencing Avatar and Years and Years series, questioning benefits for healthy individuals versus disability applications35:00 Discussing technological gaps between enhanced and standard populations, concerns about corporate seduction into cybernetic modifications, and lack of long-term safety studies40:00 Questioning who frames AI conversations and trains models, exploring dominant worldviews embedded in AI systems and Vatican-Anthropic collaboration implications45:00 Stewart shares mistakes with Facebook biometric data and building personal AI infrastructure, emphasizing importance of controlling your own models and data50:00 Analyzing whether massive data collection actually improves AI training, questioning if user conversations become buried garbage rather than meaningful model improvements55:00 Ekaterina discusses plans for organizing more roundtables, integrating indigenous wisdom into AI training, and connecting on LinkedIn for future collaborationsKey Insights1. Ekaterina Matveeva's perspective on AI has evolved significantly since 2023, moving from initial anger and fear about AI's impact on education and translation work to becoming actively involved in AI development and training. She realized that instead of resisting AI advancement, she could participate in shaping it by contributing her expertise in education, language, and cross-cultural communication. This shift represents a broader realization that diverse participation in AI development is crucial for creating more versatile and culturally sensitive models rather than allowing a monopoly of values from any single country or culture.2. The conversation highlights fundamental differences in AI regulation across regions, with Europe implementing human-in-the-loop requirements and comprehensive safety measures, while Argentina is reportedly creating frameworks for human-out-of-the-loop AI systems with limited liability. The United States falls somewhere between these approaches, pursuing rapid advancement with fewer regulatory constraints. These divergent approaches reflect different cultural values and priorities, raising important questions about whether AI development should prioritize efficiency and profit or human oversight and control in critical infrastructure sectors.3. Both speakers express concern about brain-computer interfaces like Neuralink, questioning the motivation behind enhancing cognitive abilities when humans already possess multiple forms of intelligence including emotional, cultural, and bodily intelligence. The primary applications demonstrated so far appear limited to video games and potentially military applications, raising questions about whether the technology serves genuine human needs or merely represents an attempt to compete with robots. The speakers emphasize that humans are already complete beings with sophisticated nervous systems, senses, and capabilities that extend far beyond cognitive processing.4. A critical insight emerges around the question of what happens when advanced technologies are removed or turned off. This applies both to brain-computer interfaces and to broader civilization infrastructure dependencies. The speaker shares experiences from 2020 of attempting to live independently in rural California, discovering the challenges of isolation and self-sufficiency. This relates directly to concerns about creating dependencies on technologies where the software ownership and control remain unclear, particularly when those technologies become integrated into human bodies or essential services.5. The discussion reveals concerns about increasing societal division based on access to enhancement technologies. Beyond existing financial inequalities, the speakers worry about a future where people who can afford biological and technological enhancements will advance rapidly while others are left behind. This isn't about disadvantaging certain groups but rather about creating an unbridgeable gap between enhanced early adopters and what they call standard populations who may be intelligent people maintaining traditional ways of life but lacking access to expensive enhancement technologies.6. Matveeva emphasizes the importance of including diverse cultural perspectives, particularly indigenous wisdom and Buddhist traditions, in AI training data. She argues that current AI models reflect the worldviews, values, and hierarchies of their predominantly Western designers, which influences the guidance these models provide to users worldwide. By incorporating wisdom traditions from various cultures, AI models could potentially become wiser and more culturally adaptive, serving diverse populations more effectively rather than imposing a single cultural framework globally.7. The speakers discuss the problematic nature of data collection and ownership in AI training, noting that massive amounts of user data may not actually be improving AI models as expected. There are indications that some AI companies are now specifically requesting users to help train models on their prompts, suggesting that simply collecting billions of conversations hasn't been as useful as anticipated. This raises questions about whether the data users have given away over the past several years has actually made significant impact or is simply buried in chunks of information that aren't effectively connected to meaningful improvements in AI performance.

Today on AirTalk: AI chatbot voting (0:30) Early math testing (19:05) Disneyland's tech innovation (33:11) World Cup heartbreak for Mexico (50:58) PlayStation physical copies (1:08:46) Most hated car features (1:26:06) Visit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency

(July 02, 2026) Mars is spending millions to give M&Ms a MAHA makeover. California HOA threatens fines for flying the U.S. flag… some residents are fighting back. Chatbots are replacing therapists with little scientific evidence behind them. Big brewers are making an outside bet on tiny cans of beerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode, Conor and Jaeden explore the evolving role of AI agents and tools like Codex, Claude, and cowork in transforming work processes, emphasizing practical applications and future trends.00:00 The Shift from Chatbots to Agents 03:00 Utilizing AI Tools for Project Management 07:24 Behavioral Shifts in AI Usage 08:40 Exploring Codex and Its Features 12:04 The Future of AI Agents Get the top 80+ AI Models for $8.99 at AI Box: ⁠⁠https://aibox.aiConor's AI Course: https://www.ai-mindset.ai/coursesGet the AI Chat Daily Newsletter: https://www.aichatdaily.com/newsletterWatch on Youtube : https://youtu.be/hZxhITnxeLo See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A IA passou com folga em exames de proficiência em Medicina; mas até que ponto podemos confiar nela? O que dizem pesquisas com ferramentas como ChatGPT e Gemini?

A new report says that AI chatbots may stumble when people ask questions about faith. Read the full review. If you've enjoyed listening to Plugged In Reviews, please give us your feedback.

In today's episode of The Quiz, we're testing your knowledge on everything from historic transatlantic expeditions to the brilliant minds behind modern AI. Can you answer these? Historic Voyages: We kick things off with Christopher Columbus's famous 1492 journey. Do you know which European country he originally embarked from? World Exploration: The Americas cover a massive portion of the globe, but do you know the name of the specific Italian explorer they were actually named after? AI & Tech History: We dive into the world of artificial intelligence. Anthropic's popular chatbot, Claude, honors a legendary polymath—can you name him? Play. Share. Listen with ‘FOX News Headlines 24/7‘ Anchor, CJ Papa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In my conversation with CEO Daniel Hindi, we talked about something many people still struggle with: chatbots. Many people see a chatbot on a website and immediately think: "Just let me talk to a human." A few things that stood out: • Most conversions happen after about 7 interactions • AI can eliminate 80%+ of repetitive support tickets • When AI is trained well, it often gives the answer faster and clearer than waiting for a person • It doesn't replace humans — it frees them up for higher-value conversations Daniel suggests: Next time you land on a website with a chatbot… use it for 30 seconds. You may be surprised how quickly you get what you need. ---------------------- Daniel Hindi is a founder, engineer, and operator who has spent the last two decades turning ideas into multi-million-dollar products. His work lives where AI, SaaS, and automation intersect, with a focus on building systems that are scalable, secure, and tied directly to revenue. Today, Daniel is the Founder and CEO of Noem.ai, where they build AI chatbots that help businesses automate customer conversations, capture more leads, and understand customer sentiment across web, SMS, voice, and social channels. Before Noem.ai, Daniel co-founded BuildFire and led the technology and product that powered thousands of mobile apps for businesses around the world." Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big! Connect with Daniel Hindi:Website: https://noem.ai LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/danielhindi *E - explicit language may be used in this podcast.

When AI is at its best, the conversations can feel uncanny—almost magical in their accuracy, relevance, and speed. For that you can thank the AI agents that work together behind the scenes to search, reason, and sift through all your content to get you what you need to do your job. We talk with Jongmin Baek and Marta Mendez, two Dropbox machine learning engineers, about building conversational AI that's helpful, useful, and grounded in your team's shared context, so you can spend more time on the work that really matters. ~ ~ ~  Working Smarter is brought to you by Dropbox. Find, organize, and share your work—all in one place—with context-aware AI from Dropbox. You can listen to more episodes of Working Smarter on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts. To read more stories and past interviews, visit workingsmarter.ai This show would not be possible without the talented team at Cosmic Standard: producer Ben Montoya, sound engineer Aja Simpson, technical director Jacob Winik, and executive producer Eliza Smith. Special thanks to our illustrator Fanny Luor, marketing consultant Meggan Ellingboe, and editorial support from Catie Keck.  Our theme song was composed by Doug Stuart.  Working Smarter is hosted by Matthew Braga. Thanks for listening!

On this week's episode of the RealClearInvestigations Podcast, J. Peder Zane speaks with Duke Professor Adrian Bejan about his new book, “Diversity through Freedom” about the physics of politics. On the news round-up, Zane and RCI Reporter & Editor Vince Bielski discuss an Associated Press investigation detailing how and why the DEA allowed hundreds of thousands of potentially lethal fentanyl pills to enter the US from Mexico; a powerfully reported and illustrated piece by the New York Times explaining why the popularity of S.U.V.s and other large vehicles has led to an increase in pedestrian deaths; and a Washington Post analysis that found left-leaning bias in the information provided by all the major AI chatbots.   00:00 Introduction and Overview of the Podcast 01:00 The DEA's Controversial Fentanyl Policy 05:49 The Rise of SUVs and Pedestrian Safety 11:00 Bias in AI and Chatbots 15:40 Interview with Dr. Adrian Bejan on Design in Nature 37:51 The Challenge of Existence 38:52 Constructal Law and Freedom in Nature 47:40 Diversity and Its Origins 52:04 Natural Diversity vs. Artificial Diversity 58:32 Critique of DEI and Meritocracy Articles Discussed in This Podcast: Adrian Bejan Links: Duke Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science   Adrian Bejan Video: How Cooling Laptops Led to Constructal Theory   Constructal Law Links: Umit Gunes on the Constructal Law   J. Peder Zane: The Physics of Politics | RealClearPolitics   Associated Press: DEA Stood by as Fentanyl Hit Streets    New York Times: The Deadly Rise of Giant Trucks and S.U.V.s    Washington Post: Yes, AI Chatbots Skew Left - Even Musk's  Sign up for the RealClearInvestigations Newsletter. Watch each episode on the RealClearPolitics YouTube ChannelContact us with your thoughts and feedback: jpederzane@realclearinvestigations.com

Talking about prompts and chatbots won't help you talk about AI strategy in 2026. You've gotta know the ins and outs of loops, plans, goals, subagents and more. In this episode of Everyday AI, we're breaking down the agent lingo and how the key terms play out in systems like Codex and Claude Desktop. Desktop Agent Lingo Simplified: Goals, Loops, Plans, Subagents and how it works in Codex and Claude Code -- An Everyday AI Chat with Jordan WilsonNewsletter: Sign up for our free daily newsletterMore on this Episode: Episode PageToday's Episode on LinkedIn: Thoughts on this? Join the convo on LinkedIn and connect with other AI leaders.Upcoming Episodes: Check out the upcoming Everyday AI Livestream lineupWebsite: YourEverydayAI.comEmail The Show: info@youreverydayai.comConnect with Jordan on LinkedInTopics Covered in This Episode:Desktop Agent Vocabulary PrimerAgent Harnesses: Codex vs. Claude CodeDesktop Agent Plans: Features and WorkflowGoal Setting in Codex and Claude DesktopPlan vs. Goal: Key DifferencesAgent Loops: Automation and VerificationSub Agents: Parallel Task ManagementContext Windows and Task DelegationGuardrails, Verification, and Cost ControlTransition from Chatbots to Autonomous AgentsTimestamps:00:00 Shifting focus to AI agents03:28 Accessing the Start Here series09:31 Using plan mode in clawed desktop12:04 Understanding plan vs. goal mode14:25 Setting project goals and planning19:33 Accessing Start Here series22:03 Building effective training loops26:48 Managing sub agents effectively27:30 Setting up sub-agent system30:47 Closing and subscription reminderKeywords: desktop agent, desktop AI agent, agent lingo, agent vocabulary, long running agent, autonomous agent, codex, Claude Code, Claude desktop, AI harness, agentic harness, agentic tools, super app, Microsoft super app, OpenAI codex, long running desktop agents, plan mode, planning phase, agent plan, goal setting, AI goal, agent goals, loop mode, agent loops, scheduled automations, sub agents, agent subagents, context windows, parallel work, context hygiene, verification steps, approval points, skills, automations, API token usage, project threads, co work tab, code tab, work trees, checkpoints, file access, browser automation, human in the loop, token efficiency, agent delegation, AI supervision, knowledge work automation, AI subagent management, desktop agent mental model, computer control, AI project management, AI workload delegation, remote steering, front end chatbot, proactive AI, AI context sharing.Send Everyday AI and Jordan a text message. (We can't reply back unless you leave contact info) Start Here ▶️Not sure where to start when it comes to AI? Start with our Start Here Series. You can listen to the first drop -- Episode 691 -- or get free access to our Inner Cricle community and all episodes: StartHereSeries.com Also, here's a link to the entire series on a Spotify playlist.