The whole industry is suddenly talking about AI, and everyone has an opinion. The brands using it well are getting hours back every week and making smarter decisions with less effort. The brands using it badly are generating embarrassing POS materials, asking ChatGPT to write distribution contracts, and feeding sensitive business data into free LLMs that are using it to train their next model. There's a third group — the ones ignoring AI entirely. All three groups are going to be in a very different place a year and a half from now.

In this episode, Julie reframes AI as a smart-but-untrained intern that needs context, guardrails, and supervision to actually be useful — and walks through where AI belongs in a small craft beverage brand, where it absolutely does not, and the privacy and data conversation almost no one is having out loud. Plus an honest take on the heated AI imagery debate from someone who runs a two-person brand of her own.

Best For:

Craft beverage brand owners, operators, and team members who want to use AI strategically — not generically — to free up time, level the data analytics playing field, and make smarter decisions.

What you'll learn in this episode:

• The two choices every craft beverage brand faces with AI right now
• A real-world example of using AI to build a weekly business dashboard from multiple data sources — for clients and for Julie's own brand
• Why thinking of AI as an intern changes how you use it
• Six places AI genuinely earns its keep for a small beverage brand
• Five categories of work where AI absolutely does not belong
• Julie's honest take on the AI imagery debate and how she handles it for her own two-person brand
• The five guardrails every brand needs in place before using AI consistently
• Why "using AI badly is worse than not using it at all"
• What's coming next: the full tech stack conversation in Episode 20

Catch Julie on the road:

June 29 — Pint-Sized Seminar at Tumbleweed Brewing, Albuquerque, NM

Texas Craft Brewery Roundup — Boerne, TX

August — New Jersey Brewers Conference

September — Virginia Brewers Conference

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