How much time can AI actually save a business—and where does it still need a human in the loop?

In this episode of Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable, Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhart talk with Ryan Charles of Omni Common about how his growth marketing agency is putting AI to work every day.

Ryan explains how his team uses Notion as a central source of truth, connecting client data, project management, meeting notes, reporting and other information—and then works with Claude to analyze that information and turn it into actionable business insights.

The results can be dramatic. Ryan describes one data-analysis and strategy workflow that once could have taken roughly 80 hours and now takes about eight.

AI can produce major time savings: Ryan describes cutting a data-analysis and growth-strategy workflow from about 80 hours to 8 hours using Claude.

Give AI a reliable source of truth: Notion, spreadsheets and raw data files help keep business information organized and reduce dependence on an LLM's memory.

Human oversight still matters: AI can analyze data, build presentations and help create content, but numbers need verification and AI-generated writing often needs substantial editing to preserve an authentic brand voice.

How Omni Common uses Notion + Claude as part of its AI workflow

Connecting Claude to Notion using MCP

Using AI to analyze Google Analytics, Shopify, Square and other business data

Turning complex data analysis into client presentations

How AI cut one workflow from roughly 80 hours to 8 hours

Why AI-generated numbers still need to be verified

Using spreadsheets as a reliable source of truth

Creating presentations with Claude and applying brand guidelines

Why AI still struggles to preserve a company's—or person's—authentic voice

The problem of "AI slop"

Why human writers remain important even when AI is part of the content workflow

How Elizabeth uses AI to optimize her own writing for LLM and AI search without giving up her voice

Why different LLMs may be better suited to different jobs

Ryan also shares why his agency still relies heavily on humans for final content creation. AI can research, synthesize and organize information remarkably quickly, but getting the final product truly on brand and in the right voice can require substantial human intervention.

The takeaway: AI can dramatically accelerate business intelligence, marketing and content workflows—but the best results come when businesses combine AI's speed with reliable data, verification and human judgment.

Notion can serve as a central repository for client information, project data, meeting notes, tasks and reporting. Ryan's team connects Notion with Claude so Claude can access that information and use it for analysis and other business tasks.

Yes. Ryan describes connecting Claude and Notion using MCP (Model Context Protocol), allowing Claude to access information stored in Notion as part of the workflow.

In Ryan's experience, the savings can be substantial. He describes a data-analysis and growth-strategy project that might previously have required around 80 hours but can now be completed in approximately eight hours with AI assistance.

Not without verification. Ryan estimates about 90% confidence in some of his AI-generated analysis but says the AI sometimes gets things wrong. He stresses the importance of checking calculations, assumptions, categories and KPIs.

A spreadsheet or other structured data source can provide a consistent source of truth. Rather than depending on an LLM to remember historical information accurately, businesses can maintain the underlying data separately and give the AI current, structured information to analyze.

Yes. Ryan uses Claude to analyze raw business data and turn the findings into extensive presentations. He can also provide examples of previous presentations to help guide the format of a new deck.

It can help, but human review is still necessary. Ryan describes using brand guidelines and a brand kit to style presentations, while still needing to correct issues such as fonts, sizing and formatting.

It can be useful for research, synthesis, organization and first drafts, but Ryan's agency still relies heavily on human writers. AI-generated writing can sound generic or fail to capture the company's voice and tone, sometimes creating more editing work than expected.

One approach is to write the original ideas yourself and use AI afterward. Elizabeth describes writing her own blog posts and then using ChatGPT to optimize their structure for LLM search, including TL;DL summaries and FAQs, while editing the results to make sure her original voice remains intact.

Not necessarily. The episode illustrates how different tools can serve different purposes. Ryan discusses using Claude heavily for work and data analysis, while using ChatGPT more for search and research and other AI tools for different tasks.

Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable explores how real business owners and professionals are using artificial intelligence right now—not someday. Hosted by Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhart and recorded at the iHeart Studios in Manhattan as part of the Passage to Profit Radio Show.

Can AI make you more creative—or does it slowly make everyone sound the same? That's the question this episode tackles as business owners from different industries share how they're actually using artificial intelligence in their daily work.

From machine learning that predicts when fresh bagels should come out of the oven, to AI-powered market research, fact-checking, content creation, and business strategy, this roundtable explores practical AI applications without the hype.

Elizabeth Gearhart, Richard Gearhart, Romaine Waite, Jeff Perera, and Deon Hargrove discuss where AI saves time, where human judgment is still essential, and why the best results come from treating AI as a tool—not a replacement for expertise.

Whether you're a business owner, marketer, entrepreneur, or simply trying to use AI more effectively, this conversation offers practical insights you can apply today.

AI works best as a productivity tool, not a substitute for human expertise.

Machine learning is helping businesses predict customer demand and improve operations.

Always fact-check AI by requesting sources and verifying important information.

AI can accelerate research and learning but shouldn't replace deep understanding.

Human creativity is still critical for marketing, branding, and compelling content.

Overusing AI leads to "AI slop"—generic, repetitive content that audiences recognize.

Video content continues to rise as one of the most effective marketing formats for small businesses.

Can AI improve creativity?
The panel concludes that AI can enhance creativity by accelerating research and brainstorming, but relying on it too heavily can produce generic work and weaken original thinking.

How are businesses using AI today?
Examples include machine learning for inventory forecasting, marketing research, summarizing complex information, creating content, and supporting strategic decision-making.

Should you trust AI-generated information?
No. The guests recommend asking AI to provide sources and independently verifying important facts before using them.

What is "AI slop"?
AI slop refers to generic, repetitive content that lacks originality and often uses recognizable AI-generated language and patterns. The panel discusses why human editing remains essential.

Why is video becoming more important than podcasts for some businesses?
Elizabeth explains why she's shifting more of her business toward video content creation, citing AI research showing that short-form and long-form video have become increasingly important marketing channels.

What is the best way to use AI in business?
Use AI to research, brainstorm, automate repetitive tasks, and increase productivity—but rely on human expertise, creativity, and critical thinking for the final product.

AI is making content creation faster. Business owners are using AI to generate ideas, write LinkedIn posts, edit videos, and streamline their marketing workflows.

YouTube success is driven by engagement. The panel discusses optimizing YouTube Shorts with stronger hooks, better titles, and improved audience retention.

Human expertise still wins. While AI automates repetitive tasks, communication, creativity, and relationship-building remain the skills that set businesses apart.

AI is transforming more than marketing. Entrepreneurs are using AI for client research, intellectual property analysis, and identifying new business opportunities.

The future belongs to AI-powered professionals. The panel believes AI will change jobs—not eliminate the need for people who learn to work alongside it.

How are successful business owners actually using AI? Is artificial intelligence replacing jobs, or creating entirely new opportunities?

Hosts Elizabeth Gearhart, Ph.D. and Richard Gearhart welcome Robert Tuchman, founder of Amaze Media Labs, and Giuseppe Grammatico, franchise consultant and business coach, for a practical discussion about how entrepreneurs are integrating AI into their daily work.

The panel shares real-world examples of using AI to generate LinkedIn content, optimize YouTube Shorts, identify trending topics, analyze potential clients, and speed up content creation while keeping humans in control of quality and strategy.

The conversation also tackles one of today's biggest business questions: Will AI replace jobs? While automation will change many roles, the guests agree that professionals who develop communication, creativity, and strategic thinking skills will become even more valuable in an AI-powered economy.

The panel discusses using AI to generate content ideas, write LinkedIn posts, optimize marketing copy, edit videos, and create YouTube Shorts while keeping a human editor involved to ensure quality and authenticity.

AI can analyze viewer retention, identify weak openings, recommend stronger hooks, suggest better titles, and help creators produce videos that keep viewers watching longer.

No. The discussion emphasizes that AI is helping creators produce more content more efficiently, while human creativity, storytelling, editing, and business judgment remain essential.

Yes. AI can generate post ideas, draft LinkedIn content, improve headlines, and help business owners publish consistently while maintaining their own voice and expertise.

The episode explores using AI to research potential clients, analyze intellectual property portfolios, identify business opportunities, and improve decision-making through faster research.

The panel believes AI will automate many routine tasks and change the nature of work, but it will also create new opportunities for people who learn to use AI effectively.

As AI handles more technical work, communication, leadership, relationship-building, negotiation, and creativity become greater competitive advantages because they are difficult to automate.

Business owners, entrepreneurs, marketers, consultants, content creators, and professionals who want practical examples of how AI is being used to improve productivity, marketing, and business growth.

Topics: AI content creation, artificial intelligence for business, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn marketing, AI marketing, entrepreneur tools, content strategy, audience engagement, business growth, future of work, AI productivity, generative AI, marketing automation.

AI is transforming real businesses far beyond hype—and this roundtable gets brutally honest about what’s actually happening on the ground. Hosted by Elizabeth and Richard Gearhart, this episode of Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable brings together entrepreneurs using AI every day in customer service, analytics, content, and strategy.

You’ll hear James Thornton on fully AI‑powered customer service and quality assurance, Cliff Nonnenmacher on AI as decision support and operational leverage, Eric Kanagy on turning hidden infrastructure data into dashboards in seconds, and Richard Gearhart on the legal risks when AI prompts become discoverable evidence. Elizabeth shares how AI image generation went from “terrible thumbnails” to studio‑quality YouTube covers—and why human prompts and creativity still matter.

Key takeaways:

How AI is reshaping jobs, human capital, and the debate over universal basic income.

Practical AI use cases in customer service, CRM workflows, data visualization, and vendor search.

Why AI prompts, strategies, and outputs can be legally discoverable—and what that means for leaders.

The difference between “AI slop” and thoughtful, human‑guided content and prompts.

Where current language models fall short on emotion—and what might come next.

Who this is for:
Entrepreneurs, small business owners, and professionals who want real‑world AI use cases, not theory—and who care about both opportunity and risk as AI accelerates.

Can you create an AI clone of yourself for your business? Which AI avatar platform is best? How do you train an AI assistant on your own knowledge?

Those are the questions answered in this episode of Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable.

Hosts Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhart are joined by Dr. Patrick Porter, Lynn Rogoff, and Sherrill Mosee to discuss how businesses are using artificial intelligence today to create AI avatars, digital clones, custom knowledge bases, AI-generated video, and expert assistants trained on their own content. They also explore why AI patent filings are exploding across nearly every industry.

If you're wondering whether AI can represent your expertise, answer customer questions, or create marketing videos without you appearing on camera every time, this episode provides real-world examples from business owners already doing it.

How Dr. Patrick Porter created an AI assistant trained on his books, lectures, and educational content to answer customer questions.

How businesses are building AI knowledge bases that stay within approved information instead of pulling answers from the open internet.

The advantages and limitations of AI avatars and digital clones.

Why HeyGen, D-ID, Runway, Kling, Sora, ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini all play different roles in an AI content workflow.

Best practices for creating a realistic AI clone using professional lighting, cameras, and microphones.

How prompt engineering improves AI-generated video and images.

Why enterprise AI solutions offer stronger privacy and control than consumer AI tools.

How to reduce AI hallucinations by controlling the knowledge source.

Why intellectual property attorneys are seeing a surge in AI-related patent applications across industries.

Practical ways entrepreneurs, marketers, educators, and business owners are using AI today.

ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Claude, HeyGen, D-ID, Runway, Kling, Sora, Creatify, Harvey AI, AI avatars, AI clones, prompt engineering, AI video generation, enterprise AI, retrieval-based AI, custom AI assistants, knowledge bases, intellectual property, AI patents.

This episode is valuable for:

Business owners exploring AI automation

Marketing professionals using AI for content creation

Entrepreneurs building thought leadership

Educators creating AI learning assistants

Attorneys and innovators interested in AI patents

Anyone considering an AI avatar or digital clone for customer engagement

About Real AI Use Cases

Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable features real entrepreneurs sharing practical, proven applications of artificial intelligence. Instead of AI hype, you'll hear how companies are actually using AI to improve marketing, customer service, operations, education, and innovation.

What happens when AI becomes your assistant, your creative partner, and potentially your replacement?

In this episode of Real AI Use Cases, hosts Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhart are joined by etiquette expert Thomas Farley (Mr. Manners), business strategist Lauren Paxton, and skincare educator Eva Kerschbaumer to discuss how they're using AI in their businesses today—and the concerns that come with it.

From AI-generated visuals and automated presentations to diagnostic tools and digital clones, this conversation explores practical applications of AI alongside important questions about privacy, intellectual property, employment, authenticity, and human creativity.

Thomas uses Midjourney to create highly customized visual backgrounds for his weekly "Mr. Manners Mondays" segments. AI allows him to generate scenes that perfectly match his content, helping audiences better visualize his message.

Lauren uses AI to convert dictated thoughts and presentation outlines into polished business materials, including PowerPoint presentations, worksheets, agendas, and supporting resources.

Eva leverages AI as an educational tool for clients and uses emerging diagnostic technologies to help identify skin concerns and facilitate communication with healthcare professionals.

Elizabeth shares her plans to create a digital version of herself using HeyGen. The goal is to produce educational short-form videos more efficiently while exploring the future of AI-generated personal branding.

Thomas raises concerns that employees may unknowingly be teaching AI systems how they perform their jobs. As AI learns workflows, decision-making processes, and prompts, organizations could potentially use that knowledge to automate roles or train future employees.

The panel discusses whether prompts and AI workflows constitute intellectual property. Elizabeth argues that the questions people ask—and how they ask them—may become one of the most valuable forms of human creativity in the AI era.

Lauren explains why she invested in a closed, encrypted AI environment that keeps her information local rather than contributing to public AI training models.

Eva highlights concerns about AI-generated images creating unrealistic expectations, particularly among younger people who may struggle to distinguish between authentic appearances and digitally enhanced perfection.

"The prompts are so important. That's where the human ingenuity comes in." – Elizabeth Gearhart

"We're training our own replacements." – Thomas Farley

"Everything I put in my AI stays local and no one else has access to it." – Lauren Paxton

"AI is a tool, but it's also extremely scary for me." – Eva Kerschbaumer

Elizabeth Gearhart, Ph.D. – Marketing strategist, podcast consultant, AI educator, and founder of Gear Media Studios.

Richard Gearhart, Esq. – Intellectual property attorney, entrepreneur, and co-host of Real AI Use Cases.

If you enjoyed this discussion, subscribe to Real AI Use Cases for practical conversations about how real businesses are using AI today—along with the opportunities, risks, and lessons learned along the way.

The Big Idea: Stop guessing if your sales team is hitting their marks. Jace Graham shares how he built a custom GPT "AI Supervisor" that listens to sales calls, grades performance, and writes immediate, personalized follow-up emails.

Roundtable Blitz:

Amy Scruggs reveals her blueprint for turning one long coaching video into a week's worth of social media content.

Every Cat shows how they use AI to instantly translate dense, intimidating scientific papers into easy-to-read public updates.

Richard Gearhart shares the frustrating, messy reality of trying to get different legal software platforms to talk to each other through AI.

The Hidden Cost: Why the massive boom in AI data centers is unexpectedly creating a gold rush for the natural gas industry and pushing the physical power grid to its absolute limits.

How are real companies actually moving past the AI hype and driving measurable business results today? In this episode of Real AI Use Cases, host Elizabeth Gearhart brings together a roundtable of industry experts, founders, and professionals to pull back the curtain on how AI is changing the daily landscape of sales, marketing, non-profit operations, and infrastructure.

Our featured guest, Jace Graham of Rising Phoenix, breaks down how his company built a proprietary ChatGPT knowledge base that acts like an interactive supervisor for his sales team—grading calls, providing real-time critique, and auto-drafting hyper-personalized follow-up emails.

Plus, our roundtable dives into the challenges of system integration, the rapidly evolving landscape of new AI creative tools, and a fascinating look at the massive infrastructure and energy demands the AI boom is placing on the global power grid.

The Custom AI Sales Supervisor: How Jace Graham leverages custom GPT frameworks to onboard teams, score live sales calls, and drastically reduce manual follow-up workflows.

Content Repurposing for Creators: Amy Scruggs (Amy Scruggs Media) explains her framework for instantly turning long-form video coaching logs into high-performing social media micro-assets.

AI inside Nonprofits: Jackie Ott Jaakola and Dr. Maggie Clacer (Every Cat) share how they use AI to instantly translate dense academic and scientific research papers into clear, accessible language for the public.

The System Integration Headache: Richard Gearhart (Gearhart Law) pulls back the curtain on the messy reality of trying to force separate legacy infrastructure platforms to communicate with one another using automated AI scripts.

The Real Cost of AI Power: A deep-dive look into data center infrastructure, the power grid, and why the AI revolution is creating an unprecedented long-term demand for natural gas.

Bio: Elizabeth Gearhart, Ph.D. is a marketing executive, legal professional, and founder of Gear Media Studios. Holding a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry, Elizabeth bridges the gap between deep technical science and creative media execution, hosting the Real AI Use Cases roundtable to discover practical digital strategies for modern business owners.

Connect: Gear Media Studios

Bio: Richard Gearhart is an entrepreneur, seasoned business owner, and intellectual property attorney specializing in innovation and patent strategy. As the founder of Gearhart Law, Richard brings over two decades of experience helping inventors and businesses protect their intellectual property, while consistently exploring how emerging technologies like automation and AI can streamline administrative enterprise infrastructure.

Connect: Gearhart Law

Bio: Jace Graham is an energy sector analyst and the founder of Rising Phoenix, a company specializing in advanced business solutions, AI strategy integrations, and operational automation.

Connect: Rising Phoenix

Amy Scruggs: Media consultant, national TV host, and founder of Amy Scruggs Media.

Jackie Ott Jaakola & Dr. Maggie Clacer: Executive leadership and research contributors representing Every Cat, a non-profit organization dedicated to feline health advancement.

Richard Gearhart, Esq.: Founder of Gearhart Law, seasoned intellectual property attorney, and innovation strategist.

What are businesses actually doing with AI right now — beyond the hype?

In this episode of Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable, entrepreneurs, marketers, engineers, podcasters, and innovators share real-world ways they’re using AI to increase productivity, improve operations, create content faster, scale businesses, and drive measurable growth.

Hosts Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhart lead a lively discussion featuring:

The conversation explores seven practical AI use cases businesses can apply today, including:

You’ll hear candid discussions about the benefits and risks of AI, including concerns about authenticity, automation, over-engineering content, and the future of creative work.

Some standout moments include:

This episode was recorded at the iHeart Studios in Manhattan as part of the Passage to Profit broadcast.

Businesses are using AI for research, customer service, software development, marketing, podcast production, health tracking, surveillance systems, SEO, automation, and content generation.

Entrepreneurs in this episode discuss using AI to automate repetitive work, speed up coding, monitor health metrics, optimize content, and generate marketing assets faster.

Yes. Elizabeth Gearhart discusses using AI tools like Google Gemini and ChatGPT to improve viewer retention, optimize videos, and structure content for better YouTube performance.

Not entirely. The guests explain that AI is making engineers significantly more productive by helping write and improve code, but human oversight is still critical.

James McCormick explains how AI-powered video surveillance systems can identify threatening activities in real time and help deter incidents before they happen.

AI avatars are digital versions of people created using artificial intelligence. Businesses and creators are increasingly using them to generate scalable video and social media content.

The episode explores both sides of this debate. While AI-generated content is becoming more advanced, several guests argue that authentic human-created content still resonates more strongly with audiences.

Absolutely. Podcasters are using AI for scripting, editing, show notes, SEO optimization, repurposing content, social clips, and audience retention strategies.

Some guests discuss concerns around authenticity, privacy, creative jobs, and over-reliance on automation. Others see AI as a powerful assistant that helps small teams scale faster.

This episode is ideal for:

In this episode of Real AI Use Cases: Business Owners Roundtable, hosts Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhartsit down with business leaders using AI in practical, revenue-generating ways right now.

From AI customer service agents and AI-powered marketing workflows to website SEO optimization, personal branding, and even longevity planning, this conversation explores how entrepreneurs are integrating tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Manus AI, and AI agents into their everyday operations.

You’ll hear:

Guests include:

Key topics discussed:

This episode was recorded at the iHeart Studios in Manhattan as part of the Passage to Profit radio show and podcast.

AI agents are software systems that can perform tasks autonomously or semi-autonomously using artificial intelligence. Businesses use them for customer support, scheduling, marketing automation, research, analytics, and workflow management.

Businesses are using ChatGPT for SEO optimization, customer service, brainstorming, strategic planning, writing marketing copy, health tracking, business analysis, and personal productivity.

Yes. In this episode, Matt Ross explains how his company is building an AI-powered customer service tool that instantly answers common member questions, improving response time and customer satisfaction.

Marketing agencies are increasingly using AI agents and automation tools for writing, design, content production, workflow optimization, and research. Eleanor Kubacki discusses how AI is already handling a significant percentage of agency work.

The discussion includes:

Yes. Elizabeth Gearhart discusses using AI tools to identify website problems and optimize pages to rank higher in Google search results.

The guests discuss how AI can get “stuck,” miss smaller businesses or niche results, generate incorrect answers, and lead users down endless rabbit holes of information. Human judgment is still essential.

The episode explores this concern directly. Eleanor Kubacki explains that AI is already doing a meaningful portion of creative agency work, creating both opportunities and concerns for leaders managing creative teams.

Guests discuss using AI for learning, health optimization, weight loss tracking, longevity planning, productivity coaching, and personal branding.

This episode is valuable for:

In this episode of Real AI Use Cases – Business Owners Roundtable, hosts Elizabeth Gearhart and Richard Gearhart sit down with Daniel Burrus, Mark Fox, and Dwight Heck to break down how real businesses are using AI right now—and what’s actually working.

This isn’t theory. It’s practical, in-the-trenches use of AI tools across marketing, operations, product development, and decision-making.

From AI-powered “thought starters” tailored to your role and industry, to using AI to audit (and even replace) underperforming vendors, this episode shows how business owners are turning AI into a competitive advantage.

But it’s not all upside. The group also digs into the risks—unexpected costs, unreliable outputs, data concerns, and even ownership issues around AI clones.

Real AI Use Cases – Business Owners Roundtable features real entrepreneurs sharing how they’re using AI in their businesses today—what works, what doesn’t, and what’s coming next.