The Agents: AI at Work

What happens on November 4th? Election work ends, things slow down, and most print shops are too busy right now to think about what comes next. Dave and Brian spent October in rooms full of people from the industry, and they came back surprised. A lot of shops still don't know where to start with AI. And at one shop, the people who had started were doing it without their own bosses knowing. By the end you'll hear where to actually start, the one job Dave says his own agent is most useful for, and what changed with these tools in just the last three weeks.

Most sales teams ask AI to help them find more leads. Brian Badillo starts somewhere else: with the customers, active deals, and dormant accounts already in front of them. Amber takes listeners inside a private webinar Dave Rosendahl and Brian hosted for 64 people from the print and mail industry. The conversation explores how AI can challenge happy ears, connect imperfect evidence, and uncover growth without replacing human judgment.

Dave told his AI chief of staff, "act as an expert podcast producer and get us to number one." Then he and Brian recorded for fifty minutes and sent her the file. This is what came back. Brian Badillo and Dave Rosendahl have both spent twenty-five years in print and mail, and neither has ever made a podcast. In episode one they work out what an agent actually is, walk through the six stages of how Brian's AI use evolved, and land on the line that becomes the thesis of the show: the human is the constraint.