America's Chief AI Officer for Travel Shares Advice for 2025 - Janette Roush, Brand USA

Josiah: How would you describe Brand USA, its mission, and the work of the organization?

Janette: Well, we're the destination marketing organization for the United States. So we are here to drive international travel into the United States for the benefit of American citizens, for our businesses, and for the benefit of those travelers. So if you think about travel as a tool to build diplomacy and to build empathy, That's an amazing opportunity that we have to tell the stories of all of the destinations inside of the United States. And from the diplomacy piece, that's where thought leadership can come in. So it's created this nice opening for a role like SVP innovation and chief AI officer to live inside of our mission in this company.

Josiah: I love that. I would love to hear a little bit more about your role. Being chief AI officer is a unique role. It seems like an exciting role. What does it cover?

Janette: So it's just making sure that our industry is going to be prepared to benefit from these new tools. And innovation could cover things like augmented reality and virtual reality, as well as all types of AI. So whether that's predictive AI, so that we're making better use of our data to help destinations and tourism businesses make decisions, or generative AI, and whether that comes to helping us clarify our thoughts, which is a big way how I use it, or, you know, helping with the creation of content. We see new tools coming out every single day, right? It's a lot to keep up with. So understanding what role are those tools going to play in the work that we do in the future, because that work is going to change. And that's not new. Knowledge work is always changing. But in 2030, our work's going to look a lot different than it does in 2025. And I want to make sure we're ready.

Josiah: I'm excited to get into that in this conversation. I was talking with my friend, Ed Skapinok, who's doing great things in tourism marketing in St. Louis this morning. I said that we had this conversation coming up and he was also, he had a lot of questions, but he was interested in if you're able to share a little bit of the backstory and how this role came to be within Brand USA. Because I think a lot of organizations are thinking about, do we, you know, do we staff at what level? Are you able to share a little bit of the backstory of how this role came to be?

Janette: The idea is that we won't always be able to outspend every international destination. So if you look at destinations in the Middle East and the enormous financial investments that they are making in attracting the international traveler, and whether that's consumer advertising or working through B2B channels with the travel trade, with business event planners. We're not always going to be in the position to outspend other destinations, but we want to make sure that we're competitive from a smarts level. And so that's the approach we're hoping to take.

Josiah: I love it. I'm curious for you personally, why did you take the job? I mean, you've described a lot of very interesting things. I'm curious on how you thought about this in your own career and life's work. What made you take this role?

Janette: You know, I have a really kind of diverse background that is not tech at all for the most part. I have a theater major. I moved to New York City to get a master's in performing arts management. And the first job that I got was at a company called Theater Direct that ended up being purchased by Broadway.com. And so it was, I was thinking I was moving here to work in theater, but this was a tourism company. I spent eight years developing the Asia Pacific market through B2B sales channels for this company. So working on both group ticketing and FIT sales, understanding OTAs and distribution models as those were built up. I remember being at World Travel Market, probably in 2000, and all the middle-aged men who wanted to come by and say, oh, I don't know about this whole internet thing. I don't think you have a business model. I'm like, well, OK, grandpa, we'll see how that plays out. And we see that happening today, I think, with AI. There's definitely a community of people who are starting to push back a little bit. And I think just like with the dot-com bubble, that wasn't an indication that the internet wasn't a way that we were going to do business. That was just an indication that some companies were overhyped. If you think about like pets.com. Like, just having a great URL wasn't the same thing as having a great business model. And we will see that happen. that's absolutely going to happen with generative AI. But it doesn't mean that this isn't going to change really deeply the work that we do. And so I just, I stayed with it because when this was released, when chatGPT came out to the public in November of 2022, I was working in marketing for New York City Tourism. And I just became obsessed. And it reminded me of a few years earlier, I had been running the insights department at a Broadway ad agency. And I was so jealous that these tools didn't exist to help me do that job a decade earlier. And so I just, I really dove in. And so I've, I've become this passionate evangelist about these tools and that's what attracted me to the role.

Josiah: I can't wait to get into some of the details of innovation in AI specifically, but I appreciate you sharing that because I love speaking with people who build these varied careers across industries, across different types of work, and then they incorporate it into what they do now. And I'm curious, broadly speaking, as you think about innovation in general, working across these different industries, Were there skills or capabilities you developed building your career there that you're now finding useful as you're innovating in the world of tourism and travel?

Janette: all kinds of stuff. I would say, honestly, curiosity and kind of the tenacity to keep poking at something until you figure out how it works. I've heard people say that Gen X is specifically really well positioned to learn how to use Gen AI because we know that you have to take out the Nintendo cartridge and blow on it to make it work. We know that technology doesn't do exactly what you want it to do the very first time that you take it out. And boy, is that true for these tools. You have to go through a lot of trial and error to get the results that you're looking for. And so being able to continually poke at it because you know it's in there, that served me well.

Josiah: I love that. And I'm thinking back to something I recall you mentioning in an earlier event presentation that you gave, where if you are not bringing all that life and career experience to it, it can seem magical, right? But there's a certain degree of healthy skepticism that actually makes this work better. And so that is, I think, is interesting. And as we think about innovation and technology, folks that are listening with a lot of life and career experience, this is actually a great opportunity for you, it seems.

Janette: Yes, I think you have to have the experience to look at the output and know if it is good or not. So if you think of the college student or the intern who, oh, write a paper for me, and you are so blown away by the fact that a computer can write a paper for you that you just rush to turn it in because it looks polished, it follows all of the rules of writing a paper. that you don't stop to really read it and think, this actually, this needs a lot of work. This is not the final product. I was using ChatGPT to help me write a Python code. I don't know how to write Python code. I don't know anything about Python. It was walking me through from the very first step of what do you have to install on your computer in order to run Python? And so it's amazing that I can get from 0% to 60%, but if something goes wrong, I can't look at it and know where exactly to go in and troubleshoot. I have to completely rely on the chatbot to guide me through troubleshooting. And so those jobs, they're going to continue to exist because you still are going to need the people who can look at something and know if it is good or not. If I'm asking for a SWOT analysis, I need to be able to look at the output and know if that is usable or not, if it's going to help me or not. It's not enough that a computer did it instantaneously.

Josiah: That's very interesting to me. I want to move to talking kind of very directly around AI and kind of how you thought about this, you know, now in your role today, and maybe start that conversation by talking about the framework. I would love to hear you describe the framework, but before we even get into that, I'm curious, why create a framework? Why not just come in and say, I've seen this, I've been experimenting with for years now, we need to do X, Y, and Z. Why start out with a framework?

Janette: I think a framework helps us understand what the role at hand is. Like, what is it that we need to get done? And I've learned, honestly, through working with the chatbot tools over the last two years, they are algorithms that are looking for patterns and data. And a framework is a way of organizing the patterns in that data. So that's why frameworks are taught at business schools because it allows you to take big problems and organize the information around the problem in a way that might lead you to a solution. And it's a good talking point so that you can be succinct and you can more easily communicate a message. So that's why I've leaned into frameworks as a way to help people get a handle on what I want to try to do and help myself.

Josiah: I appreciate you putting it together. I'll link in the show notes where people can read it in its entirety. But if I think about kind of even just all you've done in recent weeks and months is you've really advocated for the potential of this. And you've invested a lot in education, not only within your organization, but helping others. And I appreciate that. I've learned a lot from you there. So I'll link to some of those places where they can not only hear some of the remarks you've given on this, but also read the framework. But I think for people watching and listening to this, I would love for you to describe in your own words at a high level, you know, kind of what does this framework include?

Janette: So, initially, there's three components of it. I think the most important component is that you have to start small in order to think big. So, don't approach the problem with, oh my goodness, I need to AI my website, let's get a chatbot on there, and then I can check AI off the list. The role is more helping your staff understand what the opportunities are. And the only way you can do that is rolling up your sleeves and getting in there. Because AI, generative AI, does not work the way that we're accustomed to software working. We know that in Excel, if you put a formula in a cell, you're going to get the same output every single time. That is not true for generative AI. And so by helping your individual contributors at your organization see the nuances of what AI is good at, what it's bad at, and seeing how that changes over time. Because things it was terrible at a year ago, it may very easily accomplish now. And so helping people see the little ways that it can make your workday less annoying or flow a little more smoothly or help you out, that is going to show you, oh, there's actually some big ideas. that we can take on board. And I know that AI can do this because I really see the way that AI operates. So the little ideas will ultimately lead to the bigger helpful use cases. And I don't think there's a shortcut to that.

Josiah: It's so fascinating. I mean, just to follow up on this point, I have talked to so many people about how they are using AI personally and in their organizations over the past couple of years. And it's interesting, often there are either for people themselves or kind of observations they've had of their teams. I don't wanna say a stigma, but like kind of this interesting dynamic where it's like, you know, can I be using it? Is that cheating? Is it, you know, kind of like, how do I think about that? But I think, you know, I mean, to your point there, it seems like this stuff needs to get out in the open. I see you modeling this in your work, even kind of the guidelines you mentioned at the bottom of the page, you kind of talk about how you use AI. And it feels like there's a certain level of this needs to be an open conversation. to your point of getting this out there and helping us start to learn about the use and its impact in our teams and our organizations?

Janette: The cheating question is really interesting, right? Like, that came up in a conversation I was having with a colleague a couple of weeks ago. She's like, yeah, well, we're, you know, people here have started diving into it a little bit before you came on board, but people are concerned they're not really doing the work if it doesn't feel hard. I would reframe that. If you look at people who bill by the hour, if you look at law firms or advertising agencies, there's almost a moral question that these companies will have to start wrestling with, which is if something can be done in 30 seconds, Is it moral to bill for seven hours to do that exact same work? And I think from a nonprofit perspective, from a DMO perspective, you know, we have the privilege of working, you know, in some cases with public funding in order to benefit our destinations. So might we have an ethical obligation to do the best work that we can and to do as much of it as we can to not spend seven hours on the 30-minute or 30-second project. And so that reframing, I think, is eye-opening for a lot of people.

Josiah: I love it. I would love to get into the other two components of your framework because I think there's a lot to unpack around this. What's the next one?

Janette: It's aligning leadership with learning. So it's thinking about this as both a top-down approach and a bottom-up approach to AI adoption in your organization. And you have to have both. So you really, you need leadership, you need the C-suite to be completely on board with this. Because otherwise, your staff is going to be concerned that this is cheating, that they're not supposed to do this. They may not have then paid tools to do this work. And so you could be dealing with BYO AI, people who have their own paid tools that they're using, or worse, they might be using free versions of these tools. And the free versions, they're going to be training future models on the data that you put in. It also means that if people are not confident to use the tools at work, they're not going to say what they're doing with it. So nobody else gets to learn from what they're doing, and they may not know that, oh, you really shouldn't put confidential financial data or resumes into these tools. And in the free versions of those tools, you absolutely should not be doing that. And your legal team should look at what is, you know, safe to do with a paid tool. And so if you don't have those conversations at a high level, you just have people sneaking around and it's putting your company at risk. But you can't rely on the C-suite to say, great, this is exactly how you're going to use AI. Because it's the people doing the work on the ground who are going to know what those opportunities are to learn. And so I'm not going to say, oh, goodness, I think the person who is taking minutes for the board meeting and publishing those that they should have the transcript and then use AI to help them, you know, transform a board script into a board minutes. Like the person doing that work knows they do that work and that there might be ways to make it easier. So both are really critical to success.

Josiah: I appreciate you sharing that because you've shared before where the opportunity and the need for using AIs is fundamentally a change management issue, right? And you've described a great framework for our listeners to understand how they can think about this. And, you know, kind of just thinking back to what you shared earlier, this is the opportunity for the leaders listening to this to state this is, we have this obligation, as you mentioned, to the people we're working with in the case of destination marketing, the community, you know, all the stakeholders involved in that, and as part of that obligation and privilege, of the work is we're going to do this collectively as an organization. We're going to be up front with our use of AI and empowering us to become better professionals, and we're going to share what we're learning. Is that a fair recap? Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. And then there's a third component that I find really fascinating to your framework. What is that?

Janette: So I'm still building out what this really means, but it's the idea of leading with wonder. Because the stuff is really cool and it is really fun. It's amazing that this, I truly, I cannot believe that these tools exist, you know, in 2024. that they are free or very accessibly priced for regular people to access them. You don't have to be the CEO of a company to be able to use these tools. And that everybody isn't completely diving into it. So I approach everything I do with this sense of, oh my goodness, I can't believe this is possible. And I think that's a much more inspirational framework than, hey, don't you want to be more efficient?

Josiah: Motivates nobody.

Janette: No, no, that's not very inspirational. So finding a sense of play with these tools and making it fun. I don't think there's anything wrong with a little more fun in our lives.

Josiah: I love it. And I'm curious on your take of this, but I think if in my own experiments and practice of bringing what you just shared to life, you have to always be experimenting. And I understand when ChachiDP first came out, I believe this was January of 2023, you ran an experiment where every day you were trying something new. And I found that important for myself. So I think for people listening, like, how do I stay curious? How do I stay inspired? You have to do it yourself. I wonder, would you be open to sharing a little bit about that experiment you ran and kind of what you learned through it?

Janette: Oh, goodness. Yeah, it was just every single day I wanted to try something new from a work perspective that this tool might be good at, and then write about it on LinkedIn so that I could share the process of what I was learning. Because I set up an account on November 30th, like on the day that this came out, and then I spent all December Googling to see who's writing about this who's gonna teach me how to use this and it was in January I said, I I guess it's got to be me because nobody else is Jumping in for some reason even though this is the most transformative technology I have ever seen so it was movie it moved me from oh, let's write a haiku and to, oh, I wonder if this can reproduce my voice. If I were to paste in examples of LinkedIn posts, could it learn how to write a little bit more like me? And at the end of January, the answer to that was, not really. like a little bit but it also shows that you have things that didn't work you get to go back and try again later because now these tools can be pretty remarkably good at reproducing voice. So like I wouldn't use it for LinkedIn but for corporate writing that the type of stuff that you have to do and nobody is terribly excited to do that writing or probably to read that writing To have something that makes it a little easier is a gift.

Josiah: One of the things I appreciate about your work is you do very specific things to move things from ideas into practice, right? And one of those I heard you talk about before was having an extra monitor on your desk where it's always up with an AI tool, right? And I feel like that is so powerful because you just think about the ease of access, right? It's not even just another tab, it's just there. And I imagine that subconsciously starts to train you to think about how do I use this as an assistant?

Janette: Yes. If you've followed Conor Grennan et al., who's the chief AI architect at the Stern School of Business, and he's someone else that he was the dean of students there. So I don't think he came into this with a tech background. You know, he's more of a writer and educator. And I think similar to me, just was really fascinated by this. And so now he has a whole consulting business. And he will, when he is doing talks, he will pull a post-it note off of his computer monitor that says, try chat GPT. And he's like, even I, I have to remember to remind myself, see what it will do, because we don't know. And the answer to what can it do is different every day.

Josiah: Interesting. So you mentioned him and his work. You mentioned Google and doing a lot of research when Chats GTP first came out. I'm curious for you, what sources, authors, speakers, other sources are you looking to learn today? What are you finding useful?

Janette: Ethan Mollick, who is a professor at the Wharton School of Business. He posts a lot on LinkedIn. He has a newsletter called One Useful Thing. I think he contributes a lot of really great practical ideas to kind of the discussion of AI. I subscribe to a media company called Every. I think the website is every.to. I enjoy their work because it's much more philosophical. So they put out three pieces of content a week and it goes just a little deeper into the, what is the meaning of this? What will our jobs look like in 2030? What are the high level implications? of AI on society. And whether or not that's useful in my day-to-day job, just as a person, I think that's really fascinating. And then I follow a number of people who write about AI governance, because it's an area that I don't have a lot of expertise. I think it's only going to become more important. I think in the tourism industry, as we do work with Europe, Europe is buttoned up when it comes to their AI governance. If you want to understand tools that you build and how they are going to be used by the European Union, you need to understand implications around privacy and GDPR as it comes to taking personal data from European citizens and putting them into a language model. Like, they have to give explicit consent for their PII, their personally identifiable information, to be used in a model. And so to understand how to set up a governance practice at your own company to make sure that everybody knows what's okay to do with the language model and what's not, it's really important. I've taken classes on Udemy about that. There's a certification you can get that might be over my head. It's very much geared at lawyers and privacy professionals, which is not my area of expertise. But I want it to be, so I'm pursuing it as hard as I can.

Josiah: I appreciate that. And I feel, I mean, not only from a privacy and data protection perspective, but these guardrails feel like they are very strategically important. I think going back to what you mentioned earlier, leaders need to take action. You can't just let this stuff happen. It feels like there's many strategic considerations, even just what is the mission of your organization. Without some of these guardrails, at a minimum, it won't be nearly as effective as it could be, but it could also cause damage.

Janette: Yeah, I've heard the analogy that you'll drive faster in your car if you know how to use the brake pedal.

Josiah: I like that. Let's stay with education a moment because you personally invest a lot of your time in education. You're having this conversation and teaching us all, which I appreciate, but also in some of your guidelines that I have up or a recent newsletter you had that's coming out about a a week after our time of our recording you talk about education and you specifically talk to conference organizers adding you know kind of one-on-one level workshops. I've come across actually a lot of people in these interviews that have been the beneficiaries of some of these early ones and have really opened their eyes. I talked to even kind of people working on the front lines of hospitality was attended a a local destination marketing hosted education webinar and was translating that into her work, working the front desk of a small hotel on the coast of California. And so I think there's such a big opportunity here. And so to make this more of a question, I guess for those that are in a capacity to host training, either internally for their organizations or a conference organizer, what would you suggest they be thinking about so that they can be educating others on this?

Janette: I think having that 101 course is so important because so many conferences, and I love this, are really diving into having content about AI. But everybody is at a different place in that journey. And I think a lot of people are more at the beginning end of the journey than conference organizers might recognize. When I'm speaking and ask how many people in the room have access to a paid tool, typically it's five or 10% of the room is raising their hands. And for me, that is the barometer of, are you really diving into this or not? Because it's easy to say, oh, I use it a few times a week. But if you're using AI like it's fancy Google or like it is your email rewriter, then, I mean, those are great use cases, but that's scratching the surface. And so helping people see the next step beyond that, you need to do that because otherwise they're not getting value out of the AI presentations that you have. And I think a lot of those presentations will really focus on, you know, oh, it's very important that everybody in the room understand the difference between machine learning and generative AI. Or let me walk you through the 60, 70 year history of artificial intelligence. I mean, which is fine, but I don't think that's going to help small businesses. I think, and so that's a conversation that I had a couple of days ago that I thought was so important, that small businesses, if you are to a five person, a 10 person shop, and you don't understand how these tools can help you leverage what you do, you know, to the nth degree, Like, I think so many of us, particularly in the DMO space, a big part of our mission is supporting small, minority, female-owned businesses. And teaching them how AI can very practically help them scale what they do, it's a big opportunity. But to do that, and you need the staff of your own company to know how to use it too.

Josiah: Exactly, right, and builds on everything that you shared earlier. But I think to this notion of helping people get started, one thing I've appreciated you share earlier was this notion of just think about saving 5% of your time. And what I love about this is I've spent most of my career working in technology and kind of digital initiatives of one sort or another. And often that is framed as, you know, digital transformation or some of these things, which I think do a disservice to moving innovation forward because it thinks that everything is dramatically changed overnight. And I feel like there is some value to this sort of think about, you know, one painful thing or one time consuming thing. But would love to hear your thoughts a little bit more on that. Just like kind of how do we start to take a step forward?

Janette: Yeah, it's so that's that's a notion that I borrowed from Todd Brooks, who's the owner of an agency, a consulting agency called Envision It. As if the only thing you are trying to do is recoup five percent of your day Like, there's something about that notion that turns people off. Or like, well, that's not big enough. But you extrapolate that over a year or over all of your employees, that's substantial. That is a huge difference to the type of work that you are doing. And if you go into a project only looking for that, And if that's the only thing you ever achieve, I think that's still a big win because the 5% does not have to be the favorite part of your work. Like my 5% isn't going to be writing a post on LinkedIn because that's how I learn. Like that is how I kind of think through what is my thought process about an idea. I don't need to outsource the things I like. I need to outsource compiling, you know, information from 20 different people at my company for the annual report. That is not a job I ever enjoyed. And so something that makes that easier and quicker and a little bit fun Sign me up. I think that's great. So help people see this isn't about, oh, goodness, the robots are stealing my job. I'll be unemployed tomorrow. No, just the bar is going to raise. And so how are we preparing for that?

Josiah: I like that a lot because for two reasons, I think it gives practical insight on how we can move forward, but it also, I think kind of some of these creative activities are a good example. It's like, no, that is not only kind of the fun, and you talked about kind of leading with joy or wonder before, but I think like you have to kind of stay close to that. Like that brings excitement to life, right? And so there's a huge opportunity there. And so kind of seeing, you know, maybe it's used elsewhere, but it does, bring up a question in my mind as I think about this because AI seems so good at maybe some of that data analysis or using or remixing information. I'm curious then for our listeners, what should they be focused on either in terms of developing skills outside of the world of AI, if you kind of have AI more and more capable, I think you started to touch on this in what you shared there, but what should we focus on creating that is original, that maybe AI remixes or reuses down the line?

Janette: Well, if you can think about how Our missions won't change, but I think the way that we get at the work is going to change. So many DMOs specifically are very focused on content creation for their websites or their social media channels. And there's a big concern in the community because AI overviews and people going directly to tools like ChatGPT for information on your destination means that fewer people will be coming to your website. And if that's not something that you're seeing today, it's very likely that a year from now that is something that you're going to see. So, we have to remember that our mission isn't necessarily drive website traffic, it's, you know, drive that visitation for the benefit of your communities. And so, one small way that's going to change is just making sure that the information on your website, that you are thinking about how will, you know, how will chat GPT, how will open AI come and scrape that data? Because you want to ensure that the storytelling that the language models are doing in a more personalized way, then if it's going to be drawing upon your knowledge, and I think you want it to, that it's set up in a structure that makes it more likely that it is going to look at what you have written. So no more websites like with the recipes that tell your family history of your mom's chili recipe. It's going to be more get to the point. And that's a good thing, right? We only ever did that because it helped with your SEO. But helping with SEO isn't the same thing as helping that visitor. And so just keeping in mind what helps the visitor, I think that's really important. And then looking at what are new storytelling channels in the future.

Josiah: That's so exciting. I think I was just laughing because your Chile example is very recent. A couple days ago, I found myself there scrolling and scrolling on my phone. I'm closing five pop-ups. So this is a world that's exciting for me on a lot of levels. And I think it's opportunity in tourism. I hear so much conversation around sometimes attractions or parts of cities or countries get overcrowded because the diversity of the beauty of that country, that destination isn't told. So for tourism marketers, this seems an opportunity to showcase everything beautiful in your area. But for anyone listening in hospitality or beyond, you can share your point of view, you can create that. And I think there's a world if you're optimizing, as you just said, then you can kind of achieve your goals with that. So that's exciting. I would like to look into the future, not so much as a prediction, but what might the world look like as I'm kind of trying to connect themes of everything you shared, where people could be more empowered, they could be more creative, How does that translate into the world of travel where AI is empowering to a level where it could be?

Janette: So I'll use the analogy of video production. So think 20 years ago, if you wanted to produce video, you needed to have expensive equipment. You needed to have staff and talent who were skilled in using that equipment. And then you needed to have the money to distribute that content that you were creating on TV, because that was the universe we operated in. And then we got smartphones. And then we got social media channels. And so all of a sudden, the creation of that video and the distribution of that video became democratized. And note that it didn't eliminate the need for expensive equipment and those people who knew how to use it. I'd suggest it probably increased the desire to have that really highly produced video. But alongside it is now the video content that we can do ourselves, just like, you know, podcasting. Podcasting wasn't a thing 20 years ago because it wasn't something we could do on our computers in our living rooms. So that same notion is coming to software development. So something that requires developers and expensive talent and skills. Pretty soon, we're not there today, but in a few years, anybody is going to be able to spin up software to solve small problems. And I don't think that will get rid of software developers because you're still going to need people building complicated systems for complicated problems. We just don't bother with it for little things right now because it's throwing too much power at a small problem. But imagine the DMO who, you know, part of what we do is solve problems that sit in that intersection of government, business, and the traveler. So if you could think of, you know, a crisis in your community as an example. So let's say it's Hurricane Sandy. We need to move in New York City. People from hotels that were affected by the hurricane. into hotels that weren't. And when that happened, and I wasn't at the DMO at that time, but it was picking up the phone and trying to figure out phone numbers of hotel GMs to play matchmaker. And it's not a role that sits in government. It's not the traveler's responsibility. That is a very uniquely DMO role. And so if you could spin up very quickly a program that would help automate that process, then that is a unique value that the DMO can provide that isn't possible today. So I think we will see us learning new ways to solve old problems.

Josiah: Interesting. I mean, just to elaborate on that for a moment, you've shared in some of your remarks about the power of AI agents. And I have to timestamp this because this will move so quickly. We're recording at the end of 2024. But is this, I mean, I'm just thinking of this example you just shared. It isn't enough just for an organization, New York City in this case, to contact all the GMs. Is this maybe we're a world where agents or kind of these tools acting on behalf of entities can interact with one another and you're able to not only make those connections, but drive whatever change needs to be made?

Janette: Exactly. And you will still need the people who have the ideas in order to instruct the agents on what they need to do. The agents aren't on their own going to say, oh goodness, hurricane coming, let me jump into action. We can see our roles more as overseeing armies of these agents that are doing all of these individual tasks or building these individual programs for us.

Josiah: I'm very excited about what's ahead. Jeanette, thanks so much for taking time to speak today. I'll include some links in the show notes so people can learn more, but is there any specific place you would point our listeners and viewers where they can learn more about you and your work?

Janette: I'm very active on LinkedIn, so I think that would be the best resource.

Josiah: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk today. Thank you so much, Josiah.