The 2 Day Work with & AI Agents - The Future with Nathan Pettyjohn

You know, a lot of times it's being able to access decision makers where somebody might like land a deal they never would have had the opportunity to. So, like we've had uh like a tech company, I'm trying to be a little careful, but I will say they were able to join an industry committee group. It's like a retail committee. You've got companies in that committee from like Google, Walmart, Target, and like, you know, half a dozen startups that are in this group and they're talking about topics coming together and trying to better the industry. And you know the large companies like Walmart are trying to find innovation. The innovative companies are trying to land deals with you know all the big vendors out there. >> Hi, my name is Demetri Bonichi and I'm a content creator, agency owner and AI enthusiast. You're listening to the

AI agents podcast brought to you by Jot Form and featuring our very own CEO and founder Idkin Tank. This is the show where artificial intelligence meets innovation, productivity, and the tools shaping the future of work. Enjoy the show. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the AI Agents podcast. In this episode, we're talking to Nathan Petty John, the founder and president of the Applied AI Association as well as the author of the two-day work week. How you doing, Nathan? >> I'm good, Demetri. It's uh it's a Tuesday. I think I'm almost done with the work week, >> right? Yeah. So, talk to us a little bit about uh about, you know, how you got to where you're at. I think there's a there's a lot of different routes we can go with the conversation. First and foremost, you know, um I think I

the uh work you're doing at your company will be interesting and then I'd be excited to talk about the book as well. >> Awesome. That sounds great. Yeah. So, um go go ahead. >> No, sorry. I was trying to queue you in. Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about how you got started with the Apply AI um association. >> Yeah. So the applied AI association started in uh 2024 and um it's really about like building communities and connecting people who are taking the technology and applying it into business. Um right now you know there's probably every everybody in their dog is having an event or like you know meetup around AI it seems like. Um I I jokingly say but we're we're a professional organization and we try to become that facilitator connecting everyone. Um I had started uh about 10 years ago another

industry association called the VR AR association focused on virtual reality and augmented reality and it's grown to be like the largest in the world and um I saw a need with you know AI just becoming proficient in every industry that um we should be doing the same thing um for for the AI ecosystem. So, we've got global chapters um in cities around the world. Um just in the past year, we've grown to I think we're at 16 chapters. They're run by chapter presidents that hold professional networking events about every quarter. And then we've got industry committees that meet on different industry topics, mostly virtual. Um, we put out some industry reports and really tried to just focus on connecting and allowing people to do business, kind of grow, learn, and connect and it becomes just a really great community. Um, there's there's always somebody willing

to help. >> Very cool. And you're based out of California. So, kind of what is I I guess what do like events and what like whatnot look like that with this association? Because I see a lot of different events listed on the website. So, are they mainly like digital or in person? What does it look like? >> It's all a mix right now. So, um we we have like a Silicon Valley chapter and one in San Francisco City and usually we'll team up with some kind of a company that is an AI solution provider um for example and then they'll host an event. We help market it and push it out and drive more attendees to it and bring everybody together. So, um, we had a a company recently called Freepick that that had a a really cool event in in San Francisco and, uh,

you know, but panel discussion kind of a keynote topic. We had a guy named Charlie Frink that that, um, gave kind of the keynote talk. He was one of the authors of um, and creators of The Lion King actually at Disney and has stayed a part of like digital transformation ever since then. and and so anyway it's a great way to kind of like learn come connect and do business together with people. >> Okay. Um my uh question is how many people like work at the applied AI association or a part of it? >> Yeah. So we've got like a core team of like five people that are you know the the core global team managing marketing operations general management and then we have um independent contractors who are like the chapter presidents that run the different chapters. Um so right now like that one's

growing. We have 16 of those chapter presidents and then we're standing up uh industry committees right now. So, it's kind of our next wave of growth right now. And um we're getting ready to launch like a a new uh gaming committee with actually some really who's who in the gaming industry. Um and they'll be holding like monthly virtual events and topics. There's a Discord channel that's being set up and and essentially it's just a way for people to more easily connect on certain topics. We help organize it. We have a a community functionality um through this tool set, this online tool set that you can come and and really interact and uh just better yourself in the industry. You know, I have some questions about that. What is um I guess like gaming kind of connect here with like AI? How does that kind of

fall into this? And maybe I'm not seeing the connection with AI and gaming. I haven't been in the gaming world for a while since I quit my World of Warcraft addiction back in 2018, whatever that was. But uh >> yeah, so I mean there there's different paths to it, but um some of it has to do with like the the generative AI creation of of 3D worlds. Um it also has to do with um like AI avatars that are interacting in these gaming environments. Uh there's a company called InWorld that you might might have heard of that's doing some really interesting things around um these these AI avatars and they're baking them into the gaming industry. So companies like Epic Games, even people from Unity, and then all these different like software companies that are that are actually building gaming environments um are tapping into

all these different AI tools and technologies. Um there's even kind of a wave of that kind of blends into like the virtual reality and augmented reality space. So um you know create creating gaming environments that are like adapting as you go through um leveraging AI in in new ways. So it's um I'm not a gaming expert myself but you know we're just trying to put the framework around all these teams coming in. And I know um there's uh someone from EA uh Electronic Arts that's um kind of part of the advisory board for that committee as well. So there's a lot of different angles and it's one of those where anybody can come and and join those um who are a member and actually learn more and you know so it's like people like you sometimes that are saying hey I want to learn more

let me get involved dive in I can jump into like a committee meeting and really start to understand what what's happening in that world. Okay. And what's the kind of ultimate goal um and ethos of what you know you're doing over there? Like uh what what would be if you had an ideal uh vision of what the association would look like, what would that be? >> Well, that's a great question. So, I I'll give you kind of my personal like mission is to I want to help like a 100red million people achieve more in their career than they ever thought possible. um which is kind of a big audacious crazy goal, but it it create creates a path for me to think a little bit differently. And so um ultimately we want um the applied AI association to be like kind of the de facto

trusted global organization that facilitates the industry um to get work done um and for people to grow, learn and connect. And so that's again um kind of lofty, but you know, we try to be friendly with everybody in the industry. So we're not necessarily out there trying to do uh training and workshops, but we we partner and create this community so that all the the companies that are doing training and workshop can like tap into it and more easily impact all the of the the community. And so it's kind of that that caused like my personal mission caused me to think a little bit differently um versus like if if I said hey I'm going to go create a training company um but I want to create the environment to bring together all the different training companies in the industry. >> Okay. So you know

I I haven't really dealt a lot with um companies like this before. Are there any other like uh people that you're kind of I I don't want to say competing with like what does the landscape look like in this uh kind of industry for yourself? Are there other people trying to do something similar? How do you guys like stand out in comparison? I guess is kind of where what I'm getting at with that question. >> Yeah. Well, yeah, there's different companies that take different paths where maybe they're more focused on um or organizations that are focused on >> Yes. organizations, sir. like deep deep technology within the AI industry. And so there's another organization that's been around for over a decade that's like hyper uh technical in focus and bringing together like engineers and talking about uh the details uh of like engineering for example.

Then there's other organizations that might focus on um like a standards body for the industry and lobbying with the government and um that's not us but like we will work and partner with those organizations like if they're having events we'll help promote it um and vice versa sometimes. So, uh, you know, a a good example is, um, and this is again kind of a blending of the the VR in immersive tech, but also with AI. There's an organization called XR, and it's called like E XR Association. They're doing lobbying up in Washington DC all the time. Um, and doing like research studies that help support how government should be looking at laws for technology, whether it's like um, you know, uh, consumer protection or um, just kind of like trade type of laws. and then we'll help go and promote what they're doing and drive

people to those events, create awareness around their industry reports and things. So, we try not to compete with anybody directly, but be like that broad facilitator. >> Interesting. Okay. Yeah. No, it does. Um, and what are kind of some of the cool success stories that you're seeing out of uh the different uh you know, companies and groups you're working with? Like what are what are some of the like main things you hear that people are benefiting? Um, you know, a lot of times it's it's getting being able to access decision makers um where somebody might like land a deal that they they never would have had the opportunity to. So, um, like we've had uh like a tech company and I'm I'm will I will say they were able to join an industry committee group. Um, there were it's like a retail uh committee. You've

got companies in that committee from like Google, Walmart, Target and like you know half a dozen startups that are in this group and they're talking about topics coming together and trying to better the industry and you know the large find innovation and the innovative you know all the big big uh vendors out there and so um we had a company that joined one of those was was able to create kind of a um a relationship with the team at Walmart and then that led into kind of like a soft approach to like, hey, we ought to be looking at your software and they landed a deal that I think the first year was like a half a million dollars um in revenue that they were able to create and it was one of those where they never would have had the chance if they would

have just been cold calling, emailing. Um and so it's just it creates like a soft approach to build trust and credibility inside the ecosystem and then land revenue generating opportunities. So I I would say that's typically what happens and then also like you know if you're try there's like such a sea of different uh companies out there especially like in the AI world right now it's like every every day there's hundreds of new new things that we're reading about. >> There's a lot. Yeah. Um, and it's so like how do you break through all of that and kind of get to some decision makers? We're kind of creating that environment hopefully. Um, and then also creating a path to awareness as we grow our audience. >> What have you found has been some of the best ways to kind of uh grow that awareness about

what you guys are doing? >> Um, I would say like so we we actually we tap into tools and systems for example. Um, and um, I would say, you know, it's it's it's a collective mix. So, it's it's things like this, being on your podcast. Um, and then being able to create awareness. It's um, you know, we'll hold uh, virtual events. We use like um, a webinar tool called Bright Talk. And they actually designed this around a lot of associations. And so we can drive, you know, a thousand audience members to a webinar talk for a small startup that might not be able to get that word out otherwise. And so, you know, we go out and kind of find some of these tools like a bright talk. I think um you know, for example, our our VR association has 14 or 15,000 subscribers just

to our Bright Talk channel. And so that that creates an awareness opportunity where and these are all like um kind of enterprise executives, decision makers and um they'll gravitate to the webinar, see see something kind of get involved in the association and then start doing deals and it's you know we've grown um the association where we've had over I think a thousand companies uh that are members of when you look at both of those associations And a lot of it comes from just, you know, creating awareness in digital media or events, um, whether those are chapter events that are taking place at a at a local level or industry summits that we're hosting as well. So, I like to think there's not one silver bullet, but it's like this collective, you know, comprehensive way of of getting awareness out through events, digital, social, email marketing.

Yeah, it takes a lot of different honestly it does and nowadays I feel like in order to stay competitive you have to do a lot of uh different things. So you know just just on a more tangible um level I guess what do you think is some of the more interesting sectors that uh you know or not sectors different like products that you found recently to be really good in the AI space. like we've interviewed a lot of different companies on this podcast and I'm I'm just curious what you see is some of the different like sectors that AI has been doing really well in uh product wise. >> Uh that's that's a good question. I mean you your audience might be aware of this but I think what what's really um powerful in creating like dramatic impact is in the legal ecosystem. >> Yeah.

Uh, you know what? We haven't touched on that that much. Expand on that a little bit. >> Yeah. Well, I think you know, anywhere where there's like um contracts and documentation that can be automated. >> Oh, okay. >> Super ripe. And um you know, the the legal industry is one of those where it's just there's massive shift right now taking place. And um you've probably heard of Harvey, the company that I think has reached unicorn status, over a billion in valuation. I think multi-billion almost now and they've just really focused in on the legal ecosystem and it's something that like the large you know the big LLMs right now can't quite tackle because they don't have um the refined databases to to pull from and Harvey's like really focused on that and so I' I've just been impressed with seeing a lot of the news

and and how that's just dramatically transforming what's taking place. And you're you're seeing, you know, um the knowledge worker to the extreme getting displaced. Um especially, you know, some of like the the younger um you know, attorneys that are getting in like a lot of that work that normally would be handled is like being done by AI. So, it's >> Yeah. You know, I actually I have um we haven't talked about it a lot in the podcast, uh but uh I do know somebody pretty close to me that just graduated law school and um they have family members that are in law and they're, you know, they just, you know, to the bar and that kind of stuff and they have a lot of friends who are in that uh kind of new associate stage um or that weird stage between being a clerk and

an associate before the the bar actually tells you whether you passed or not. Um, and yeah, that that's definitely something I find interesting is a lot of what law is regionally, nationally, I'd imagine can be pattern recognized by AI to some extent, right? Um, you know, like there's certain rules and regulations around things. So, mattering on what the documents say. You know, it's funny. I was watching there's a really good show actually on Apple TV. Do you do you have Apple TV? The Yeah. Have you ever seen uh Platonic? Okay. It's a show with Seth Rogan and you'll forgive me. Uh it's the woman who's really funny. She's Australian. Uh Rose Burn I think if I maybe that's how you pronounce her name. Um she is uh she's in like Have you ever seen the movie the uh the internship? Yeah. She's the Australian girl

that Owen Wilson gets with at the end of the movie. That's so it's it's those two, right? And um we were just Oh jeez. Did I do the thing where I tangented too hard? Uh what brought me into that? Why did what was the connection there? What was the connection? Oh, um she is somebody who's going back into the workforce, right? And she went to law school and so did her husband. And she had an associate is just given from the partners ungodly amounts of stacks of papers to read through to get, you know, information from. And I can imagine where that's just stupid work at some point, right? There's no need for it. Um, I think it'll be an interesting uh tangent later on to talk about kind of what your ethos is with with silly stupid just uh if then logic work, you

know, and how your book uh kind of probably touches on that a little bit. Um, but yeah, so I I know a lot of people who in that industry, I'm sure, are going to benefit from it because if anyone knows anything about the law uh industry, it's that it's pretty slowm moving. It's kind of archaic. They're disorganized. And I think AI might finally be one of the solutions to make cases move fast. >> Yeah, I would hope so. >> If it doesn't, I actually don't know what would to be frank, right? like if a if a if a tool was able to parse out a bunch of different writings and come to conclusions based off of uh cases quickly uh and that's not going to help us have a quicker law system. I really don't know what will. I mean it is it is um

it is interesting like when you look at that like even I I personally have experienced that where I'll take um you know a document that my attorney will give me and I'll run it through an AI and ask it questions like what else should I be considering and the feedback that I get is far more elaborate and makes a lot more sense to me than what my attorney is telling me you know in an email or on a phone And uh and it happens within 30 seconds. Um and then I can formulate like my response and say, "Okay, like here's how I'm thinking about it. You know, AI will give me um generally like how I will respond to my attorney. I'll redline everything, send it back, and then wait a week for them to look at it and when and so it's just um

you know there it's a broken ecosystem for sure. >> Yeah, absolutely. Are there any other industries like that? I mean, I I'd say law. I'd say some of the We definitely talk a lot about customer service here um on the channel. >> Yeah, I mean, customer service is definitely something where you're seeing, you know, um customer service reps getting replaced. Not all of them, but you know, a huge percentage is taking kind of like this early stage. I >> And I I think this starts here and will happen across more industries as the AI is more capable. So like right now we're having AI that can answer like what can LLM with knowledge bases do answer questions right um so step one is okay what category of work can be just question answering and that's definitely customer service so what we're seeing is a lot

of the customer service reps at the baseline get uh phased out honestly through these AIs and then their middle management kind of backs them up if there's any confusion or questions. So, are there any other industries like that that you're you're seeing or talking to a lot that you find industry interesting? >> Well, I would definitely say like uh content creation and marketing services. And so, um you know, again, like I'm I've got personal experience where I deal with it, you know, where I can go in and um you know, I want new like landing pages or something set up on a website. And if you're using the right AI tool, you know, you can go in and and pull from a database of everything you already have. Say, here's what I want to achieve. Get an outline within 30 seconds for the new web

page. Plug it into a tool. You know, there's several out there. Um, one that I think is pretty cool is called Gamma that you might have heard of. Uh, gamma.app, I think, is the website. So, um, gamma.app app originally was built by um built to kind of create presentations automatically. So within seconds instead of building a PowerPoint, you plug in the content maybe like an outline and it just generates within 60 seconds you know a presentation which it gets you about 90% of the way there. Um whereas you would spend maybe two hours building that presentation and you've just shaved two hours off. >> Yeah. Hey, you know what, man? We we just did a video, maybe it's out, I'm not sure, uh on presentation uh AI agents. It's actually kind of crazy how much of corporate America, and I'm sure globally, I don't want

to call it America on that, is just, oh, I know what I need to talk about during this presentation. So, let let me take this PowerPoint or Google Slides app and let me spend two hours arbitrarily taking the knowledge I have in my head, organizing it with like pictures that might be good, might not be. No one really cares. And I just find it amazing that in the last year, we saw the immediate transition from gosh, I have to make this deck later to, oh, I have to make this deck, but I guess it's not going to take that long. which is so amazing cuz the one thing I hated prior to, you know, running this agency was I just couldn't stand making decks cuz it's just such a waste of time. It's like I know what I want to talk about. I literally if

I just put up images for like 10 slides, I feel like I could do a decent job cuz I'm I'm somebody who can talk off the top of my head. I you know I I do media so it's fine. But everyone always wanted like a well put together uh presentation and you got to deck dazzle and I'm like client's not even going to read this thing. So, I find it amazing that we've kind of moved out of uh presentations taking long to work. >> Yeah, it's huge. I mean, I I used to work uh at Lenovo for three years, and I I have nothing but great things to say about Lenovo. It's a fantastic company. Most people know it for like their, you know, ThinkPad, laptops, and computers. They're number one in PCs. Huge company. I think like over $60 billion, you know, company. um

tens of thousands of employees. But um I was running strategy for all the go to market for augmented reality, virtual reality and um you know it was it was one of those things just like you said it it wasn't really an official meeting unless you had a PowerPoint but just I just don't I don't get it. like you said. Um, and some of these PowerPoints, um, they look beautiful, but then when you kind of step back and say, "Wait a second." So, there's 20 slides and each slide has four bullet points on it. Like, it could have been, you know, a two-page email brief. >> Yeah. Could have been a two Yeah. two sheetter. And I'm just I don't understand what was the point of making it look pretty. It's like and like and I went to I mean I I have respect for business

school. I think there's some use to it. Um I don't think my program was partic as I I didn't find it as efficac uh as it could have been. I I had an unfortunate situation when I did my MBA. It was that year during COVID. So, you know, I just finished my undergrad, went right into the that program and I just felt like most of my last couple years of business school were just about decks and I needed to have a deck or we had a group project with a deck and I'm just like I don't I don't get it. Like decks don't practically, in my opinion, provide value to the marketplace, but I'm in business school which is all about supposedly, you know, teaching me how to provide value to the marketplace. That was just a wild sorry I that that's one of those

like weird you know like icks I have uh as the kids say. But yeah, no that that's very it's very good. I mean we talked about it last week. So if you missed that episode, check it out. But um yeah, there was a lot of really there's a lot of really cool tools and uh here at Jot Form, we even have like a presentation agent that can actually give the presentations for you. Um I mean this comes from a guy who I made like a thousand YouTube videos on my channel. Um uh and I didn't script anything. So I kind of really just I have like a very I have like a negative association with like prep work to overextense like besides bullet points for for presenting anyways. But that's sometimes I got to I got to calm down about that. But anyways um you

know let's let's talk a little bit about speaking of wasted time and uh time spent doing things that make no sense. I definitely think presentations are on that list. um document analysis like with law as you mentioned what uh I want to talk about now is your book and you know your book it's the two-day work week uh not to be confused with the 4-hour work week by week by Tim Ferris I before uh we started recording I was like it's called the 2-hour work week and and he's like that'd be awesome but not quite. Um, we, you know, we we, uh, we really appreciate all the things these tools do for us. Um, and they save us time with AI now. But I think what's going to be interesting is you talking about your book a little bit because I think the ethos is

something that's kind of lost on this whole uh, adjustment to the workplace. >> Yeah. Well, when I wrote the book, you know, I I wanted to do more than just talk about all the AI tools that are out there, um, which change every week, by the way. And, um, so, uh, and it takes a while to write a book. Um, I even talk I have a section in the book on how I used AI to help write the book. Um, and it probably shaved six months off my time. And, you know, I thought I could do it even faster leveraging AI. But um to your point, like we can touch on that in a minute, but to your point there, the book that I wrote called Two-day Work Week, it has three parts to it. It's um AI, mindset, and then systems that you put

in place. And I think the mindset piece is really big because um and it took on more weight than I originally planned, but as I started interviewing people, you know, everyone kind of says, "Oh, two-day work week, that'd be awesome." Um, but you can only lay on the beach so long. And I I even interviewed some people who had been, you know, entrepreneurs or retired and they they're like, "Yeah, I kind of achieved that where but then I got bored." Um, and so with within humanity, I think uh and I and I studied this a little bit too. It's just like we have this urge to be productive and to accomplish and it's part of like happiness. >> There's a book written on this, wasn't there? I feel like there was a book written about um our lack of ability to I'll look it up

in the background, but you keep going. >> Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I think it's something to do with like, you know, what's the key to happiness and um it come some of it comes down to hope, like being able to have hope, but also um accomplishing things. And um you know, there's this nice blended mix though of accomplishment and reward. So, I talk a lot about like the the mindset um one you you start with like what's your mindset on using AI and looking at AI as kind of like an employee um to get things done for you and then give it feedback um to refine that and then get the polished work and you kind of think like a CEO almost leveraging your AI tools that are out there. Um, but the other part of the mindset that I talked about is um, you know,

because we can be so much more productive, how about we actually enjoy life a little bit more and and take a little time to refresh and recharge. And so I talk about like a micro vacation and uh, something that I I started practicing um, six, seven months ago. and I'll go on regular like 24 to 48 hour trips even to like exotic locations and and just get like a kind of a shot in the arm of relaxation and and it reboosts me. Um, but I I've kind of designed it and and I talk about kind of how you can design your own micro vacations going on kind of like a a longer hall flight where you're on for four or five hours. So you can actually you get focus productivity on that flight and then you land and you've got an afternoon and evening to

like completely just chill out and relax. And um and then it when you combine it with kind of like setting up and leveraging AI systems, it's like you did as much as you would have done in a full day work, you know, in three focused hours on a flight to a cool place like Hawaii. >> You know what? That's actually pretty interesting. I I You're in California, right? So that's uh so I've been to Maui a couple times um from Chicago and I know it's like a three- four hour flight to you guys from here and then it's like a 5 hour flight to Hawaii, right? >> Yeah. Four and a half to five hours. >> Okay. Yeah. So yeah, that actually works out for you. That's pretty cool. >> Yeah. And you know I can even um I've done like Cancun as well you

know it's it's like a four and a half five hour flight to Cancun from California. So anyway, there's some fun places like that. >> Yeah, I've never been to Cancun. I've been to um Ply Del Karma, which is like right there, I think, if I'm not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Um very cool. Yeah. You know, I this concept of micro vacations. Is this like a a decent section to your book? I'm guessing there's a couple chapters, if not just a chapter on it. Uh there's there's one full chapter on it and then there's another chapter that's that talks about kind of um being able to work remotely which is not like a new concept. You know what for all intents and purposes it it is in the grand you know scheme of things. It is kind of new like Tim Ferrris talked about it and I

guess when did I think the four work week came out in like 2004 right? Did the four >> I thought it was 2008. >> Oh I I must be you're right. No, 2008's right. So, published in 2007 and updated in '09. Yeah. So, I guess it's been actually a decent amount of time. Yeah. But I don't think practically I think it was lifechanging for uh business owners but I don't actually think the average knowledge worker has seen any of the similar type of adjustment to their work life until uh co with um the advent of like all this remote work you know. Um, I found that pretty intriguing that I got really into the whole self-help space and stuff like that pre-2020. Um, probably the 2018 to 2020 range. I had already like pre like when the pandemic started, I had already read like all

of the the classics, you know, the 4-hour work week, the deep work, the habits, etc. Then the pandemic hit and I was like, what's crazy is that Tim was kind of revolutionary and the world just kind of allowed this to be a thing in about in about one day of shutting everything down. Um, yeah, but now I guess people don't realize it's it's more applicable than ever that this could be a thing because the the marketplace is just so much less uh in person required. >> Yeah. And the the 4-hour work week, I you know, I read the book early on when it came out and loved it and followed Tim Ferrris for a long time and um but but the 4-hour work week is kind of uh it it was really unique. I mean, you kind of had to be like a self like

um you know, soloreneur as they call it. >> Yeah, you had to be a soloreneur or you had to, if I recall correctly from the book, do a a litany of different steps in order to convince your boss that being in person was optional. Um, which I do think as much as it was an interesting concept and I I I would have liked to tried it out, I don't think would have worked for a lot of people. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I think it's a lot more doable now. And but the two-day work week, I think it is actually somewhat practical and in that but I don't think everyone's going to shift and only work two days and then just like chill the rest of the week. I think it's going to free up them to do more things that they want. Even if

it's like within their current job, it's like, hey, let me take on something different or unique or new that I wouldn't have otherwise. Um, and there's there's a delicate balance of corporations just trying to get more out of everybody versus like allowing people to um enjoy life. And I actually um it's an interesting um transition here, but I I ended up in researching this book, I found that Iceland um enacted a 4-day work week, and they did this three-year test. This is like pregenai era. Um >> Oh, 2015 through 2019, it says. Yeah. >> Yeah. And they actually like took 2500 um employees in the public sector and did this three-year test. They found that people were as productive or more in general and that they were happier, much happier, less stress. Um, and so they they then took measures and there's a kind of

a strong like union base in Iceland and how um the workforce is set up, but they the government went and then created policies that allowed most of the workforce to be able to negotiate um like a 4-day type of work >> publicly um or once again or uh privately because it so this was done like in the Icelandic government like jobs. Am I correct? Okay. >> Yeah, public sector is where the test took place. Um, and I actually went to Iceland as part of this book kind of as a mix of um kind of a micro vacation, but also um to like talk to the people there and um and see like how they interacted and everybody from down to, you know, going into like retail shops. Um I talked with with people who said, "Oh yeah, like we we only work like um a

subsection of the week. Like they can't really push us to work to overwork here. And it creates an opportunity for people to be happier, take on other jobs, you know, like um one of the guys I remember talking to at one of the sports equipment stores and he's like, "Oh yeah, it allows me, you know, I've got like four days out of the week that I don't work and they can't force me to work." And so I started, you know, doing um like ice cave tours and, you know, um hiking tours, that sort of thing. And so he's doing things that he's really passionate about. And he's like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Plus," and now I'm using AI even while I'm in the store to help customers. He's like, you know, I pull up, they have questions on products and things. I'll pull it up

on my phone, ask questions, and it's helping me delight, you know, customers on the spot. So, it's just interesting to see like at every level, you know, you wouldn't necessarily consider like um a retail associate as a what they categorize as a knowledge worker necessarily, but um but they're using AI. They're getting the benefit of less work in Iceland, and it's why it's I think ranked the third happiest place, third happiest country uh in the world. >> Okay. >> So, we can learn a lot. Uh what's interesting about this is I was talking to you about this before the episode started. There was a uh I got I'm trying to pull up the it's called In Praise of Idleness. Um it's one of my favorite like quotable uh PDF sort of quick writings. Um I think it was written it's I'm just double checking. Oh,

it's a collection of essays first published in 1932. So this is like preworld war I basically the industrial uh capabilities of the US and otherwise were uh improved significantly through what he even called automation at the time. And he's like man we had just been blowing each other up arbitrarily for the last uh 8 years and we had economic uh growth technically and half of our workforce wasn't working. um because I think that was probably one of the first uh largecale women getting moved into the into like the workforce because of like wartime needs. And um it was just funny. He's like, you know, this is going to be awesome. We have more uh economic and like efficiency. We have more workers, so we're going to be able to work less. And it's been almost 100 years and nothing's happened. So how do you think

the Well, obviously some things have happened. we do have better work life balance than in the 1930s. But um he was arguing for like a four 4 day 30 hour 20our work week back then because I think it's one of those things where competition is one of the great things that drives uh economic growth and and stuff like that. But the truth of the matter is if we weren't as competitive all the time, we all could work less and you know it's uh it's a bit arbitrary the the level of work that we do uh right now um as a country and and just globally. So my question to you is, you know, your book, right? If you had one, there two questions. One specific piece of advice that you'd like to give everybody uh and what they'd probably glean from the book to give

them a teaser. What would that be? And secondarily, how long do you think until you know at a large level, not saying whatever impact the book has made isn't an impact, I just mean like um on the macro, do you find that people will actually start implementing uh you know, time savings from technology to actually get, you know, a shorter work week in their life? Cuz I'm sure there will be people who read this and will have a big impact on it. But I just think at a larger scale, when do you think that'll um practically happen for all? >> Yeah. Well, to start with kind of like what what's that one thing that I give people? Um I have this kind of uh philosophy that I I sprinkle throughout the book and it's um it's create time, uh think big, and break rules and

do it all at the same time. And that's how you can kind of achieve this two-day work week phenomenon. And it's um you know creating time is like actually going in and and using the tools that are there now like especially for knowledge workers to to truly create and free up time. But it's then also, you know, you've got to think big and break rules and and breaking rules kind of goes back to what you were saying about like this, you know, the work week that was set up way back in the industrial era. Um, for whatever reason, you know, it's like why why does it have to be five days? Um, >> yeah. Yeah. I mean, and even at that point, right, that was uh what's what I find intriguing about that is that was decreased from what had been for all intents is

six or if not seven days uh before like the union strikes and whatnot, you know, like like we did push it down a lot for all intents and purposes, right? We did um push it down at least a day because I'm sure there was there was plenty of areas that were um fine with Sundays being off for obvious reasons, but yeah. >> Yeah, you're you're exactly right. And so it's it's like thinking like, hey, I don't want to increase my work productivity or my happiness by like 10%. It's like I want to double it or or triple it. And then that'll cause you to kind of think through differently how to set it up. And I do have um a couple chapters in the book that talk about like how you can go through a process of of actually setting up a two-day work week.

And and it breaks it down. You're not you're not doing everything all at once. It's kind of a process and there's kind of like a 90-day plan of how you start working your way into it. Um, and then even, you know, most most all of us if we're doing anything in work, there's teams of people that we work with, whether it's our own internal team or external teams. So, it's like how do you get your those teams using these systems as well um to be better um and more efficient. So, and I think um you know this this concept uh is a is a reality that we're all going to be facing. So, I think it's we've got a unique window right now where you know not everyone has adopted all the tools that are possible, but if you harness it like you can truly

like really get ahead right now. Um it's just like a really unique time frame and and probably like two to three years you'll see like okay everybody's adopted this and it's hard it's going to be a lot harder to stand out when you look at all the different AI tools that are out there um to help you across like marketing operations HR legal finance um and the the concept today of like two days I was inspired by of this um interview from Bill Gates and so you know kind of like looking at other credible figures that have talked about this. Bill Gates was um he was on a interview with Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show and he was talking about how like you know education and healthc care is going to get to a point where it it it almost is free to everybody

because it's so easy to achieve. and he's like, "Oh, wow." You know, Jimmy Fallon's like, "That's really cool." And Bill Gates is like, "Yeah, I mean, within the next five years, we might get to a point where we're we're all able to work just two or three days a week." And um you know, it's it's one of those like there were some news media outlets that picked up on that and then that that kind of inspired me and triggered me and said like, "Hey, that's that's the name of the book, Two-day Work Week." Um and as I started interviewing people all across the industry, I mean I was finding that that kind of dramatic impact is achievable and it's happening now like um even especially one topic we haven't talked about. I know you've addressed it in the past but you know it's like programmers

and coders and even like sophisticated solutions architects. Um, somebody that I I know at at AWS, for example, told me that they just uh completed a project that would have normally taken him six months and he did it in a month uh leveraging multiple AI tools. So, he's like, it doesn't happen overnight, but he's like literally I I got something done in a month that would have taken me six months. >> That's incredible. I mean, there's so many there's so many uh examples like that right now. >> Yeah. It's just over and over and over. Um Right. So, >> but then it's always on to like the next thing, right? And on to the next thing and to the next thing. So, when So, when do you think it's uh we're gonna actually see >> He took a couple months off. >> Oh, good. Okay,

good for him. Yeah, because a lot of people just be like, "All right, I'm going to keep working." >> He quite did that. But he he he was able he was like I literally have this project mapped out for 6 months to take me you know two quarters to finish by you know the half of the year and I was done in a month and so yeah it was kind of like I can relax now but to your point then every it's like what are what what are you going to do then? Yeah, but I mean like you know and in my opinion obviously everyone has the ability to do what they what they want and if they they they they're going to find value in that. Sure. But uh or I guess like life um fulfillment in that sure but I think most people

are lying to themselves with the answer of oh more work equals more fulfillment um at some point right and I think a lot of us would would kind of be benefited by this concept of trying to reduce work and do a little bit more of the things that fulfill us whether that be I mean health is a big thing in the country right now uh mental and and physical so I I think if you know, for me, I could spend more time on on those categories rather than working as much. I definitely would. Um, and what's so funny is, you know, in previous generations, you know, they maybe didn't live as long. Um, there's a litany of reasons for that. Uh, but, you know, I don't actually think it was a lack of physical activity that, uh, in previous generation caused uh, them to not

live as long. Cuz I tell you what, you know, we we sit. They say sitting is the new uh, smoking, right? Is that like the the new saying? Um, and I and I just think most activities people would find themselves in would be pretty healthy and they'd find themselves happy. Uh, I know I know for me I I just felt like the summer flew by and I didn't spend a lot of time outside and that's not something that should be happening with like we spend less time working because of all these new AI advancements. So, you know, it's uh it's it's hard, right? It's an important topic though you bring up and like you said um physical activity can help your you know physical health. I actually I do have a chapter on it too. Um talking about um but it's more about like physical

activity and exercise for your mental boost and the dopamine effect and and then what that helps you do is like create these like hyper um efficient and productive boosts of of work that you can do. Um and so like I you know there's many ways to achieve it. My suggestion and what I like to live by is like six days a week, 30 minutes of exercise and kind of a mix of cardio and and weightlifting. And for me, I find that it just it boosts my my mindset. I'm more positive. I think clear and faster when I do it. And and especially like if you combine all of it together, like you can be super productive and then take some time to relax that you might not have otherwise had. And there's all kinds of like studies and science to this about how, you know,

if you look at the average work week, the the actual productivity that comes out is probably about 30% of the week is when you're getting most of your work done. Everything everything else is a distraction. >> Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think there's some nonsense. I I was talking to one of my employees today and I basically was like, "All right, here's the deal. You have a lot of things that come up." He kind of works as a client success manager, right? And whether it be through internal workings on the team or, you know, with clients, I'm like, "Hey buddy, let's be honest. You have a lot of urgent but not important things that come up. People messaging you about this, that, or the other. You want to save your time. Here's my suggestion. In the morning, you're going to log in, and

what you're going to do is you're going to do two 45minute pomodoro sessions. And he's supposed to do some sales stuff." And I'm like, "Do that for two 45 minute like sessions with 10-minute breaks." All right, you're going to sell for like 90 minutes basically and that's going to be the best ROI thing of the day. And then when you come back to your Slack and your email, what you're going to do is if there's something on the team where someone's confused or you know there's an issue, you're going to actually put the question on them to be like, "Hey, um, so this didn't go well uh in the sense that you messed up XYZ way. How do you think we can solve it?" And magically, you're going to have like so much more of a productive day because you're putting the uh brainsolving power

of, hey, what do I do to fix this problem on the person who messed it up in the first place? And they'll probably get half of the way there and then uh you're focused on the thing that importance first is important first thing to start the day and magically you might have time for another selling session later. So, you know, it's all about kind of how I I I got really good at this cuz my obsession prior to this AI stuff was just like how can one be productive? What does that look like? How do you save time? Like I said, 4-hour work week, atomic habits, all that stuff. And I think uh you know, earlier on in my my content creation, I I kind of spend a lot of time not trying to be rude, but acknowledging the the lack of efficiency of of

workplaces. Um, it's very annoying as a business owner when I see it, but I I just kind of like take it for what it is at times because yeah, most people don't actually work that much like practically speaking like you're saying out of the work week. Um, it's it's it's a very intriguing sort of thing. So, what you're proposing might sound radical because people are like, "Oh, what? People can't work two hour two days a week." And I would say as a business owner um and as somebody who's read the literature on this, people are only working two days a week. Like not to be rude, but they they are only working two days a week. It's it's just a matter of how we frame it to be. It's like, oh, I work 40 hours a week. No, you don't. You work like No, you

don't. You work like 16 and a half, maybe. That's the That's the literature. It's what it says. You open up your Slack 28 times in 62 minutes. So, you think you were working, but it's just like dopamine hits, you know? It's like it's like saying to somebody, "Do you feel like you relaxed today?" It's like, "Oh, yeah, of course I did. I I sat around and you know, I didn't really do much." I'm like, "No, you scrolled through like 800 reels today and and opened your texts for six straight hours. That's not relaxing. That's a bunch of like micro interactions that stressed your brain out, but you just feel like it was relaxing because it wasn't work." But I'm like, "No, not really." So, when you read the literature on this stuff, two-day work week actually doesn't sound crazy because it's like, no, people people

don't really relax and people don't really don't really work based uh and not saying that they they don't spend the time sitting in the area of their home where it could be work or relaxation, but the actions they're taking are actually not the thing that they're saying they are. You know what I'm saying? >> Yeah, for sure. It's It's like It's like saying, for example, do you watch baseball? Okay. All right. Well, that'd be like um, well, I don't know if you're a Dodgers fan cuz, you know, you're in California, but if like if you're not, but anyways, that'd be like if uh that'd be like if you're a DH and you're like, "What do you do for a living? I hit." It's like, "Okay, but you're batting like a 100." It's like, yeah, you sat at you stood at the plate and swung like

a 100 times, but you didn't really hit anything, did you? You know what I mean? So, um, that's kind of what's happening. A lot of people sit at their desk and they're like, "Oh, I was working." It's like, "Ah, you kind of multitaskked and scrolled." But anyways, that's a rabbit hole. I could go on that rant for about Yeah, I could go on that rant for forever, but yep. And I think um you know I've I think everyone everyone needs to think AI first. That's kind of like just a little phrase that I've I've heard and I've started using and I even with my internal teams that I work with. um you know we'll have a meeting and I'll give an example and you know we'll be talking about you know marketing strategy and we'll maybe we should do this and we should do that

and I'll say did you even plug this in to whatever you know chat GPT or Gemini or whatever tool you know that you're using um it's like well not yet and I wanted to get your input on it first it's like you can't you can't think that way you know because like we've just wasted 15 minutes And by the way, while you were talking, I typed in three different prompts and I've sent you a link to the Google Doc now that has the the content calendar and the strategy based upon what would have taken, you know, two minutes. And now we've got four people on the phone that have just spent 15 minutes and we've got nothing. >> Yeah. People don't uh you know, there was um you know, I guess I'm making a choice. All right. As much as you know, he can be

a controversial figure, the uh so just trying to pander when I say that uh when Elon made that whole thing about the um list of things in order to make Twitter more productive, coming from the the the YouTube productivity nerd guy, that list was just completely accurate. It's just no one wanted to hear it. Um like uh it was like after he bought Twitter, he basically said if there's more than x amount of people in a meeting, no need for them to be there. Um he he did he basically I was like this is just an Ali Abdoll productivity tips video, but uh it's charged because of who he is. Um and uh I I just found it very yeah very interesting. People don't people see things through their own uh dimension or maybe the dimension of themselves involved with another person you know like

you and I are having this conversation right now and you know there have been podcasts where people come on and they have an assistant who's kind of sitting there and watching in the background and for me I think about it through the lens of like how that plays out in multiple category or in multiple dimensions of time. Um, but most people don't think like that when when they're asking a follow-up question, which I don't think there's anything wrong with a follow-up question. So, I don't want one of my employees to hear this and be like, don't I can't ask him anything. It's not that. I I just would like people to think, well, if you ask yourself first and then try to solve it yourself first, you can save an hour of time. It's like, well, I only saved like 15 minutes of my own

time. It's like, no, no, no. Five people or four people were on the call and you wasted 15 minutes of their time. That's an hour. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So, >> I mean, um, the one one agent that I haven't quite seen yet, I know it's going to happen if we get back to agents. And you mentioned assistants. So, I've got like great uh like executive assistant, but um, you know, like booking travel for example. You know, this is one of these things where it's, you know, my assistant will say, "Hey, I can book travel, you know, your hotel, your airfare, blah blah blah." It's like I've got it kind of down to with some of the tools. You know, I can go on the Marriott app and 60 seconds, like three taps and I've got a a place booked. Whereas she might contact me,

hey, do you want this room? Do you need that? You know, back and forth text. I'm like, I could have just booked it. But, um, I do want that agent. Maybe, you know, but I I haven't found it yet, but where I can say, you know, hey, I'm going on this trip. Schedule everything I need for me. and it's like hotel, flight, you know, if I need a a car, um, whatever it might be. And just the the conversational like, oh, I want to, you know, like I was in, uh, Kakona, Hawaii recently, and wanted to book, you know, like the manoray the night, which I did, and it was really cool. Kind of like you can go out in the ocean at night and like have these lights and you see the manorays. There's like, you know, five different ones and you're trying to

figure out which one should I use. It's just like, hey, just go book that for me on this day and tell me, you know, come back with it booked and being able to be like that travel AI concierge is something that'd be really cool. I don't know if you found it yet, Dimmitri, but >> No, I haven't actually. You know, I I've heard of people using different tools here and there, like they have cha and like the new chip agent functionality, uh where you can basically type in and be like, "Hey, uh could you check out stuff on, you know, XYZ, the platform for uh what the heck is the name of that? Uh Xedia, like for example." Um and a lot of those tools have some assistance now, uh individually, but you know, no, I haven't really found anything like that. I would love

that, though. I would I would love an all-purpose like personal assistant that has a gentic action capability, but eh I don't I don't really think we're there yet. But we are a couple years from it and we are what's going to be really interesting just to kind of close it out cuz this has been a great conversation. It's actually going longer than it usually does. Um the you know in the next couple years we're probably going to see OpenAI and all these tools release competing browsers you know like that have agentic capabilities to them. I'd imagine OpenAI will release an agentic browser. Chrome will become an agentic browser very quickly and that will hopefully do the things you're asking for because a lot of is just um it's not like the uh the way to frame it I'm trying to think of how to say

it. So we previously to you know at the start of tech we were limited by compute right we're not really limited by comput anymore um then we were limited by like cloud compute um we're not really limited by that anymore we're limited by API endpoints to a certain point and now we're not really limited by API endpoints anymore um practically though we are limited by what exists to be API iable and the scale at which you'd have to increase the amount of APIs in order for you to just like have an agent like you're asking is just too large. So the actual solution is just to make a clickable uh agent where it has the ability to like autonomously interact with the browser and whatnot because at some point it becomes too like there's too many micro interactions that could happen on a screen in

order for you to cloud uh API everything right um so as you know software's feature set grows you know that would be an exponential like problem right it's like feature that grows by X amount, you have to release the same amount of endpoints. It's impossible. So, what we're going to get, I think, at some point is just a chatbt browser or OpenAI browser that has the ability to do exactly what you're asking for so that it can across anything do it. Um, I don't know when that critical mass is going to hit, but when that critical mass hits, I hope we hit a two-day work week because if we don't with something to that effect, I actually would lose it because I'd be like, "All right, we're in the matrix." like nothing's ever going to change. No one's waking up to the fact that like

20 years ago we were limited by compute on like our hardware. So yeah, sorry. Um rant over >> the to that point you me you talked about the browser. So, I don't know if I don't know if you saw this yet, but while we're recording this, just I think yesterday, I saw that OpenAI is making a bid for Google's Chrome browser because apparently Google's going to have to sell Chrome because they've deemed it as like being too monopolistic with Google's other business. And >> are you serious? >> Yeah, Perplexity is also making a bid for it. >> I knew Perplexity was in the mix for probably making a browser. Really? They If Google's forced to sell, did you Okay, so I can see antitrust is the antitrust concern due to the fact that they have monopolistic nature over like um uh search advertising and YouTube

advertising and stuff. So it kind and since they have everyone's data on the browsing, it becomes like an antitrust problem. Is that why? I've always thought that I've always thought that they were kind of cheating with that, right? It's like they sell everything to everyone through their ads platform and they set the market for ads and they also have the data of everybody because they log into every platform using Google suite and their browsers. Oh, interesting. That just sounds interesting. >> Like OpenAI takes it on and then all a sudden you've got >> it's the same I don't I don't see how that wouldn't be the same. Yeah, exactly. I don't see how I mean I I fundamentally think the only way to solve that was would be if you're going to have a browser you're only allowed to have a browser. Well my question

is not to wait. Okay. This this opens up a whole can of worms. So just to to this opens up a whole another can of worms. How do browsers monetize? Because they can't really practically without ads. So you just m I'm trying to you know what I mean? like outside of like a monthly subscription browsers can't really monetize uh practically maybe a extens maybe they take a rate off of extension costs or fees but then again most of those are free >> I think like Mozilla I read this >> Firefox yeah how does Firefox make money >> they sell um so like Google pays them it's a crazy number I'm probably way off here but it's like a hundred million plus a year to be the default search >> oh the default search engine. Okay. So, um I mean that's one way. >> Yeah. But

okay. So, not to say that. Okay. Last thing. This is this actually pretty funny. So, how does Edge not get required to be sold either because obviously I understand that they're doing it a smaller scale. However, the size of Microsoft as a company is comparable to Google. Um anybody who's used Edge understands that it's based off of the same Chromium infrastructure. I use Edge instead of Chrome and I'm a nerd. Um, which is funny cuz I actually think Edge is similarly capable if not better. Uh, it's like my preference actually has been for like 3 years. Um, and they own a similar amount of ads traffic on the search side. Well, well, they have a monopoly over obviously their own big engine search. So, I'm just trying to, you know what I mean? Like how does how does this opens up the can of worms

for Microsoft? Wait, does But doesn't Microsoft have a significant bid in OpenAI? >> Yeah, I believe so. >> Yeah. How does that How does that not become a problem? Yeah. How does that not become a problem? Is they own the other big browser. So, >> yeah, that's it's that is a mess. And and then you get into like the the other category of all the the the big LLMs, you know, and uh I've had this discussion a few times where it's like all these other, you know, companies are probably just going to eventually get folded in or they're going to just get wiped out when OpenAI announces like, hey, we've got a tool to integrate X, Y, and Z. And you know, they just kill off 10 companies that were already doing the same thing. So um because when I when I interview and talk

to a lot of people um most most people are just using you know the the main engines out there like Chad GBT. >> Yeah. Chad GBT claw perplexity. Yeah. I I I I I find that interesting that, you know, I think microSAS or micro agents and like AI tools that are going to have specific uses are going to be around for a long time, but the anyone trying to compete with OpenAI or Claude or Perplexity is wasting their time. Um, so yeah, that's Yeah, I don't know. or Gemini obviously and that's a whole another thing people uh I just can't wait to see in the next 5 to 10 years when critical mass hits on the capabilities of these tools because obviously they've continued to improve at such an exponential rate people are living in it so they don't even realize it like I'm in

a tech bubble or I'm in an AI agent bubble I I know the updates I experience the updates I I talk about the updates the average person is just blissfully unaware of how fast it's moving. So, you know, like image generation was god awful 7 8 months ago. Open AI released their uh I should rephrase that. Text in images was god awful like four to five months ago. Open AI opened the floodgates for text and and generated images to be accurate all the time. And the next thing you know it went from it can never get anything right to it's always right. uh which is incredible. Um and I I I just don't I don't think anyone can predict what's going to happen in the next couple years for for these tools. And I find I sorry I got to I got to maybe make

a video on that. I I'm very intrigued to see what would happen if OpenAI actually buys Chrome. That would be wild. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. All right. Well, Nathan, you know what? I I I appreciate it. Uh, I think it's one of those things where we probably could ramble forever. So, last last thing, let's just ask you one final question. If you had to plug anything on the planet for the audience to go check out and where they would check it out, the floor is yours. >> Yeah. Uh, cool. Uh, I would say check out the two-day work week book. Um, just because it encompasses so much. I've got it here. I'll hold it up. My my it's flickering here. But um and then the best way would be, you know, I've got a web page for it. Um um but

I would say if you go to just my website, nathanpettyjh.com, it kind of encompasses everything that that I'm doing. So if anything has resonated in this podcast, like it kind of talks about the book and the VR association, applied AI association, the consulting agency and everything. So, and it's uh just nathanpedyj.com and check out the book. >> Awesome. Well, make sure to go to nathanpedyj.com. Thank you so much for >> And I'll get you a book, too, by the way. >> Okay. You know what? That'd be awesome. Yeah, I do. I actually find this uh stuff pretty intriguing. So, we'll talk offline about that. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for watching this episode. We appreciate it. And we'll see you in the next one. Peace. >> Thanks. [Music]