About Nathan Whittacre: CEO of Stimulus Technologies, Nathan Whittacre, is a visionary leader who has spent his three-decade career at the forefront of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. He is a trusted advisor, mentor, and thought leader in the technology field, and the author of The CEO’s Digital Survival Guide: A Practical Handbook to Navigating the Future. Stimulus Technologies is focused on providing the best technology to businesses, including IT services, Internet, and VoIP. Nathan’s passion lies in helping people better their lives through technology, cybersecurity, and intentional culture. In this episode, Dean Newlund and Nathan Whittacre discuss: The evolving role of AI in business and society Balancing human connection with technological efficiency Leadership strategies in the age of digital transformation The impact of AI adoption on workforce roles and subject matter expertise Ethical and practical considerations of AI in sensitive industries like healthcare Key Takeaways: While large enterprises like credit card companies have used AI for over a decade in areas such as fraud detection, most small and mid-sized businesses are still on the lower ramp of adoption, only beginning to see incremental ROI as vendors embed AI into everyday systems to ease mundane tasks. Nathan’s company experimented with replacing its outsourced after-hours call center with an AI agent, and although some customers were initially skeptical, the AI delivered faster and more accurate support than humans, ultimately providing a better overall customer experience. Leaders must resist the temptation to outsource or automate the very elements that make their company unique, instead focusing on strategically using AI to streamline non-core processes like ticket entry or document reviews while ensuring core functions remain human-driven. In healthcare and other sensitive industries, the future of AI adoption will rely heavily on HIPAA-compliant or private, specialized models designed for specific diagnostic support—such as radiology scans—since public large language models are not sufficient to meet strict security and compliance needs. "I like referring to your ChatGPTs, or Grok, or some of these language models that we’re using, are just really smart interns, very excited and smart interns.” — Nathan Whittacre Connect with Nathan Whittacre:  Website: https://www.stimulustech.com/ Book: The CEO’s Digital Survival Guide: A Practical Handbook to Navigating the Future: https://www.amazon.com/CEOs-Digital-Survival-Guide-Navigating/dp/1642256307 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanwhittacre/ & https://www.linkedin.com/company/stimulus-technologies Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nwhittacre See Dean’s TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I Connect with Dean: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkw Website: https://www.mfileadership.com/ The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/ X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/ Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.com Phone: 1-800-926-7370 Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.