Is Your Company Being Left Behind by AI?

Welcome, dear listeners, to the Speak and Flow podcast, where we dive into unique stories to help you and your team achieve maximum potential and flow, even when the stakes are high. I am so thrilled to introduce to you an amazing, radiant, smart.

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Melinda Lee: powerhouse leader, she's an AI expert, and she's been that for a while now, but she's also 3 times

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Melinda Lee: founder.

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Melinda Lee: She's leading the charge and adopting a GenX AI for growth for companies.

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Melinda Lee: She is the founder of Forsify, CEO and co-founder of AdList. Her name is Anna Stepura.

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Anna Stepura: Thank you so much, Melinda, for having me. It's my honor to be here, and I'm super, super excited!

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Melinda Lee: I'm excited too, because AI is just taking over, and I think that it's an exciting time. I'm excited. But, before we go into how come people are not so excited, there's a lot of, you know.

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Anna Stepura: Yes?

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Melinda Lee: Can you share with us your journey, what, you know, what you're excited about when you see AI, when you talk about it?

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Anna Stepura: Oh, yeah, so, my journey with AI started about 5 years ago, when I launched my first company. We had AI and machine learning. At the time it was before I even opened AI and ChatGPT, you know? And, yes, that's how I came to Silicon Valley, because I was accepted to Accelerator, and yes, my life changed since that moment, because I started diving inside of this,

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Anna Stepura: technology is actually changing the world, and since then, I was a part of that movement, and I'm really excited to be a builder in that part, and also to bring some products and services that really makes businesses and people's lives easier, better at some point, yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I think that it can be a fantastic tool to help people. And it could also be a tool to damage and to do harm, and perhaps that is some of the reasons why people are not adopting it as quickly. And so, can you share with us, what are the three things that you see, that people are resistant to?

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Anna Stepura: Oh yeah, oh my gosh, it's just like…

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Anna Stepura: crazy topic, because everyone is super excited about AI in Silicon Valley, but when you go a bit outside of the valley, even 20 miles, so you can meet many people who are really terrified about AI, because they… they think that, yes, it's cool to use

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Anna Stepura: ChatGBT, but when they think that, yeah, I can do some work, help with some tasks.

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Anna Stepura: they start to mention the thing that AI would replace them. So one main point of resistance is that people think that it would replace them.

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Anna Stepura: And I would tell more about that topic later, I think. The second one is from business owners, founders, because I, of course, I was talking to a lot of them, and they told me that

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Anna Stepura: Actually, Anna, you know, we don't believe that AI would actually make a lot of sense for us, because it's not good enough yet. It was the main concern, I would say, a year ago, when, of course, AI was not that powerful as everything, right? So, of course, we are evolving, everything's getting better.

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Anna Stepura: Yeah, but yes, it was the second concern. And I would say the third concern was that

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Anna Stepura: Decision makers, C-level executives, founders, sometimes they are not adopting AI because they feel that there is decision-making fatigue, there is too much AI, especially when people come to San Francisco to some conferences, and I'm from here, so I live here.

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Anna Stepura: And, I meet them, and they was like, oh my god, how to make a decision to buy some AI marketing tool? I do not know, because there is, like, hundreds of them, and we don't know what is the best, and so on, and they just end up doing nothing. So, the third, like, very opposite, but also resistance in adopting AI.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, and if you think about it, then over the next 3 years.

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Melinda Lee: There's gonna be companies that adopt it rapidly, and then other companies that may adopt it slowly, and then companies that don't adopt it at all in the next 3 years, maybe they wait.

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Melinda Lee: Right? There's a couple… there's a different variety of ways to go about it. I'm wondering, what are the things that you think might happen when a company does not adopt it fast enough?

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Anna Stepura: You know, sometimes when you do nothing, and then you eventually end up with the best solution, with the most powerful, it's already great, you know, like, I think, like, almost no… no difference.

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Anna Stepura: With those companies who was always involved and always was up-to-date. But, you know, like, it's not how our brain works. We either have our innovation mentality in our brain, or we don't. Of course, we can try to bring it, and we can bring it, actually, by testing, trying, iterating, but many times, what I've seen among leaders, that they could be, like, innovation…

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Anna Stepura: innovative or not innovative, you know? Sometimes more traditional, sometimes more innovative. Those who are innovative, they try to experiment, they subscribe for a $100 tool just for themselves, or give it to some other manager. Do not buy for the whole organization, but they're already there. They're testing, they're seeing what works the best for their company, because, of course, every company is unique, and you have to

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Anna Stepura: You know, to find what fits your needs.

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Anna Stepura: But those who are traditional, they can try one tool which has not satisfied them. Maybe it was not very good quality, maybe that was not according to the needs.

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Anna Stepura: And they just, okay, nothing works, and that's it, and they continue doing everything manually. But I do believe that, especially in this era of transition, when we have such a powerful technology, which we still need to figure out how to use in the right way, in the best way, to make the most of that.

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Anna Stepura: we have to have that at least, I don't know, like, let's say 10% of your time, capacity, or budget for experimenting, for testing, for bringing that. Because if you do that, eventually, one of the experiments would work, and…

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Anna Stepura: it would bring a huge result to a company. If you do not know that.

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Anna Stepura: then you can wait, and then you can maybe hear from some of your friends, co-worker, that something is working very well, and just rapidly adapt it, and that's good, but usually it doesn't work like that. You have to have that mentality.

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Melinda Lee: Well, this goes to one of the three resistance points, which was the founder, and a lot of the founders today are not adopting it because there's so much…

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Melinda Lee: there's so many options, and they're over, like, decision fatigue. So, like you mentioned, maybe just start with one or two tools, but if I'm a founder, maybe do I start to think about what is the direction

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Melinda Lee: that I want the company to go, especially, we talked about how AI can propel us 10x bigger.

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Melinda Lee: Right? So, wouldn't that be for me as a founder? If I could see what is my 10x, like, version of myself, then I could probably think about, is that the right thing? Think about what is a tool that can help me and the organization, and then start to test that.

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Anna Stepura: Yes, kind of, but, you know, that's what I see where there's a huge need for, let's say, consultancy, or having someone who is understandable a bit more than you, because many times, founders come and say, like, oh, you know, we really have this problem, and we think that, can we have this tool? And many times, they come up with something very unique, that you have to build the tool from ground up.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Anna Stepura: This is not a cheap solution, would be, and maybe they would not have a huge ROI return of investment out of that, because they would invest, I don't know, like, a few hundred thousand dollars or a million in building that specifically custom for them, but the usage of that would be not, you know, that much.

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Melinda Lee: Okay.

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Anna Stepura: And that's why… but when you work, for example, with some consultancy or someone who is AI expert, they tell you where you can bring AI, which can bring you the most, the highest return of investment. Let's say that there is a lot of solutions in marketing or, personal outreaches, and all of that, and if you have some old model.

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Anna Stepura: old system, or you do not have system at all, and it's just a mess in that part, so maybe it's a time to bring AI-connected engine, let's say, like, a set of tools which would connect, like, one engine, or at least one tool, you know, which really would fix the pain, and make this process more automatic, without manual inputs, without… with better outcomes. Maybe you have, like, 10

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Anna Stepura: small leads, you know, which would drive the company's revenue, right? And you would measure, like, by money, that ROI. And yes, maybe it sounds not that

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Anna Stepura: fancy idea, rather than something what the company really come up with, like, oh, this is what we have, very unique, and so on, but for that very fancy idea, you would invest a million dollars, and maybe very small ROI. And for that, you would invest

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Anna Stepura: $200 for a tool for whole your team, and it would bring results, you know?

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Melinda Lee: Got it, got it. That makes a lot of sense, because…

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Melinda Lee: Right, like you said, a lot of the… if we're investing in something that's new, it's gonna definitely take a lot more money. But if you're looking at what is the pain point of the organization, and then how can AI, speed up, like, my decision making, or productivity, whatever the pain point is for the organization, because a lot of these AI tools are already developed.

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Melinda Lee: And out there already.

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Anna Stepura: Depends on the company. Sometimes, really, the big companies really need that custom thing, and especially because they're protected with the data, or with other things, so they don't want to disclose any information. In this case, yes, but that should be also, like, the company which can afford such expenses. For smaller, mid-sized companies, I wouldn't say that it would be a solution. It's better to go with something that already exists.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: And what about those people that are afraid that the AI is gonna take my job?

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Melinda Lee: What was it?

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Anna Stepura: Yes, it's an interesting, type of personalities, I would say, because, you know, there is… always was in our history such transition points, some…

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Anna Stepura: moments in history where the humanity actually make a huge leap to the better future, to the more developed future, and so on. And I do believe

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Anna Stepura: that AI and this innovation has more upsides and downsides, because maybe I'm an optimistic person, I don't know. But I do believe that actually technology makes our lives better. But always it has the second part of the coin, right? And for example, remember… maybe we don't remember, but, like, in the history, people remember that once the machine came.

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Anna Stepura: Like, and before that, people was, riding horses, right? And they was like, oh my god, what would…

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Anna Stepura: what would I do? Like, because now I don't have that, job, like, whatever, horse rider. I don't know the proper name for that job.

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Anna Stepura: to see how much we evolved. But, yes, and that people actually lost the job. And then the machine came, and it was much better things, and more automated, and so on.

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Anna Stepura: And then, with the time, there's new jobs appears. So, people just change the skill set, and they adapt to new realities, and they continue growing. The same comes right now. So, those people who are really worried about losing their jobs because of AI automation and so on, there is

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Anna Stepura: two things. One, if your job is really only about manual things, pressing the button, I don't know, like, clicking something, doing something, like, super, super manual, which super easy would be replaced by AI, then yes, you have to be worried, and you have to think about your next

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Anna Stepura: skills next, trajectory in your career, and so on. But if your skills also has a lot of, let's say, proprietary data in your brain, like decision-making algorithms, how you actually think that this is a good decision or bad decision, how you actually make that decision.

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Anna Stepura: let's say, like, in advertising management, because that's where one of our company is, those media buyers with who we had a chat, and we presented ad list, and they told us, oh.

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Anna Stepura: I really worried that it would take my job, and they start to be so closed. And I said, no, guys, you look at this, it's very completely opposite way, how it should be. It actually amplifies your job, because you have very unique skill sets, you have very unique understanding and knowledge in your brain, and this tool actually helps you to…

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Anna Stepura: let's say, serve 10 companies instead of 1, 10 clients instead of 1, right? So you can just give a task, iterate, and orchestrate this AI worker. Like, now humans evolve in completely different skill sets when they have to be responsible for the strategy for the next decision, and actually to make

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Anna Stepura: 10 times more decisions at the same period of time is a very complex job. It's a very hard thing, and you have to have a lot of…

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Anna Stepura: support, tools, knowledge, and all of that in order to be able to do that, because also the quality of your decisions would be a major impact of the whole future, because what would be left for you if the rest would be automated by AI? Only decision-making, right? The strategy.

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Anna Stepura: But you have to be very good at it.

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Anna Stepura: So I… Yeah, that's the next step.

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Melinda Lee: I love that. I mean, it's so true. I love how you said, this is actually going to help you be able to serve more clients, rather than just serving one client. Now you can serve 10 clients.

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Melinda Lee: I mean, your manager would be happy, the owner of the organization is going to be very happy, because now you're serving 10 clients, and then you could free up your time with making really strategic decisions for the company, right? And then, taking all that knowledge that you have and actually putting it to work more often.

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Melinda Lee: To make strategic decisions, and doing things that are more of a strategic level.

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Melinda Lee: Is that what you're saying?

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Anna Stepura: Yes, yes.

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Melinda Lee: I mean, I think that that's so powerful, and I really hope that people, yeah, are not as afraid to… that their jobs are gonna be taken away and use it more as, like, a partner.

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Melinda Lee: A partner and somebody to help you, do your jobs faster.

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Anna Stepura: laptops would be replaced in this case.

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Melinda Lee: will be replaced, yeah. So then they have to… these people really have to think about… but a lot… and these are the rote people, these are the people that are just pressing the button, doing things that are manual.

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Anna Stepura: Yeah, but in this case, they still have time to figure out what…

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Anna Stepura: One thing which I also think very powerful, if you were the person who was pressing buttons, doing that manual things all the time, you are the best expert in that, and help to educate the machine.

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Anna Stepura: And create your own company, you know, like…

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, I agree.

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Anna Stepura: Oh, yes.

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Melinda Lee: And that's the beautiful thing about AI, because, like, the playing field is almost, like, flattened out, because, yes, you know, there's… that tool is at the tips of anybody who wants to learn how to use it, or can adopt it.

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Anna Stepura: Hmm.

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Melinda Lee: Right, so that's amazing. And then, so,

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Melinda Lee: I think that that's so wonderful, and I think that, like you said, a lot of these things are myths or resistance, and if we can just learn how to adapt it for our own use.

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Melinda Lee: In a way that makes sense for us, I think that that's the way to go. It's like, it's gonna be here to stay. And, just like the Industrial Revolution, it did, take away a lot of the jobs, but then it also propelled us forward as humans, and so this is what AI is probably gonna end up doing.

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Anna Stepura: Yes, yes, that's the 100%. But, you know, like, that has a very great opportunity and potential for all of us, because imagine if everyone would use

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Anna Stepura: AI for better outcomes, for faster outcomes, for 10X outcomes. Of course, there would be not such case that I'm using you or not. Of course, if it's available for everyone, everyone, to some extent, would try to use it. Someone is a maximum capacity, someone at at least 5-3% of capacities, and so on. But what would end up happening that

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Anna Stepura: We, as human beings, would just…

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Anna Stepura: evolve 10x faster than before. Yes, everything would be happening faster. Right now, even in the company, in the startup industry,

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Anna Stepura: if before, to… to reach 100 million revenue, it would take, I don't know, like, 10, 8 years. Right now, we've seen, like, companies that are doing records, and reaching that point in a year, or 2 years.

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Anna Stepura: It's just so much faster. It's not easier, I mean, because it requires different skill sets, you know, but the thing is that everything's just happening faster and faster in this world, and that's… that's the point, and people have to adjust, we have no choice. You… you cannot resist, and saying that I would not use AI because I'm afraid that it would replace me, or because I still do not believe how good is it, and so on.

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Anna Stepura: all will be there. Like, intranet came, maybe some people also was against the intranet, but that changed the whole trajectory of the human history. The same is happening right now, and you have no choice just to be a part of this revolution, and that's…

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah, is here. So I'm curious, because you mentioned that it's going to help us do our jobs faster, right, 10 times faster. What do you think that this will do to our concept of time?

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Melinda Lee: And I'll give you an example. So, I had mentioned earlier that, my… I have, allergies right now because I have mold in my house, and so we're doing this complete remediation.

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Melinda Lee: And so I've moved out to a different place, with my daughter, and my daughter at this new place has no TV. And she's like.

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Melinda Lee: wow, you know, I… I have so much time, I don't know what to do with myself, right? And then we're trying to think of, why do you feel like that? And I was like, oh, there's no TV here. There's no… because she's constantly… when she goes to my house, there's… she's a very… she's a studious worker, she also does gymnastics and volleyball, and she does her homework, and then she also spends time on the TV, so I thought

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Melinda Lee: I feel like a lot of those things, especially with a TV, take up some of her time, and then when you take it away, it kind of feels like there's more spaciousness.

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Melinda Lee: with this adoption of AI, and more, it feels like there's more to do, because they're doing things faster.

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Melinda Lee: it was taking up the space in our time, like, our concept of time, like, what do you think that that does? You know, you hear, like, people getting more information and faster and faster, and it feels like we have no time.

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Anna Stepura: Yeah, I mean, that's a good question. You know, like, we are not at the point when we're already doing 10X faster everything. It's not yet there. You've reached some… at some point, but now, according to the research, it shows, like, a very small difference between, like, the manual task and with AI, because it requires always iteration and reviewing the results after AI, but of course it's getting better.

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Anna Stepura: so it requires less and less time, and we see, like, already the spike in the productivity, finally. But in terms of productivity, yes.

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Anna Stepura: Comparing to my, work schedule, let's say, before AI, and now, nothing changed. I still work 8 to 10 hours a day.

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Anna Stepura: Sometimes I work during the weekend, but just because it's my type of personality, not people who are like that, I know that it's a very big trend in Silicon Valley, that a lot of people working right now, like, tremendous numbers of hours, just because they really like the technology, and they would like to do something

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Anna Stepura: on their own with that, launching the business, creating the app, you know, all of that. And of course, it requires time. If you talk about

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Anna Stepura: let's say, other type of personalities, I would say that because we have such a fast-paced world.

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Anna Stepura: it just requires also some… I would say maybe more time for our organism to, to relax. I don't know how to say it, because, like, everything's so intense that sometimes you really have to, like, spend a few hours without

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Anna Stepura: Doing anything, or, you know, like, being silenced.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: I think… I think so. I truly believe that. I think it makes them more important, because things are going so fast, that we take intentional time. Like you said, and maybe after 8 or 10 hours you're done.

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Melinda Lee: You go to silence, you go do your own thing to reset, to recalibrate, to, to use… because our nervous system, our body.

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Melinda Lee: you know, needs a little bit of rest and recalibration, and so I think, yeah, just have that intentional time. I,

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Melinda Lee: have some intentional time right now where I just, really journal, and I reflect back on, like, the successes, the challenges, just to take a moment to appreciate both sides, things like that.

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Anna Stepura: It's a good practice. I also think that we would have more events in our life, comparing to people who lived, like, let's say 10, 20, 50, 100 years ago. It would be just so much density of events.

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Melinda Lee: Yeah.

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Anna Stepura: before, like, if you feel, I literally, I feel it in 2025, it's just some year where the density of events, like, good and bad and medium, is just, like, so much more than ever before.

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Melinda Lee: Right, right. And that's why I'm a little concerned about how people feel, but then it feels like it goes by so fast, because there's so many events.

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Anna Stepura: Yes, yes.

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Melinda Lee: then your year's gonna go by so fast, and it's over. So then, yeah, taking that time to just slow down, and carving out no events. Yeah, yeah.

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Anna Stepura: is sometimes, like, when I look at the… even, like, my, my phone, like, the photos from the months right now, if, if before people was, like, posting something about, okay, this week was today, or something like that, right now, people are posting, like, October, and 10 pictures, because it's just so fast, and there's so much events, and sometimes in one month, it could be literally, like.

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Anna Stepura: 10 Life Changes events.

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Anna Stepura: Yeah. Like, never before, like, before you had ever seen in a year, like today, in a month, and way before, maybe it should be happening in a decade. So, I think, yeah, we would live, like, a few lives comparing to the previous generations.

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Anna Stepura: You know, like, just so much things.

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Melinda Lee: You're right!

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Anna Stepura: Yep.

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Melinda Lee: Right. And we're living on people's lives, because we see all of their events.

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Anna Stepura: Yeah, what was about like that?

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Melinda Lee: No wonder why we're exhausted.

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Anna Stepura: Like, at the end of the day, it's just like, no, no news, nothing. And also, I feel like right now, people start, using sometimes less social media because they're overwhelmed.

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Anna Stepura: Right. Because there's already so much events in your life, plus so much events in everyone's life, you cannot… you cannot do that.

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Anna Stepura: over.

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Melinda Lee: Right? Right. And then you're constantly trying to move things forward, new projects, new companies, like, you know, and adopting that with all the.

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Anna Stepura: Yeah.

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Melinda Lee: So…

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Melinda Lee: So yeah, so I really appreciate this conversation, because it's like taking a pause, in my… and I think about that in my own business, and think about how AI is impacting the world, and it's really great to have an AI expert like you to teach us, to share some light about what is happening, so we can all kind of get a grasp of

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Melinda Lee: of an understanding of how it can impact us, and so I really appreciate your time. And so, when we close, as we close, can I ask you one question that I ask my guests?

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Melinda Lee: Is, what is that one leadership golden takeaway that you want people to remember?

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Anna Stepura: I would say that, my… my main character, I would say that I'm resilient.

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Anna Stepura: And the resilience, I think one of the…

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Anna Stepura: very good character of every leader, but also, as a rule, I always use to myself that you have to be an example, and if you would like

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Anna Stepura: that someone would be always on time, you also have to be always on time. If you would like someone would stick to their words, you always have to do what you

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Anna Stepura: set you would do. And, yeah, if you always lead with example, and eventually you build the whole culture and the whole company.

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Anna Stepura: With the same people like you, or they become, by your example, with the similar characters.

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Melinda Lee: Oh, I love that, I love that. And the people who are with you, in your company, they're very fortunate to have a leader like you, who is innovative, also caring and kind, and really think about, yeah, others. So I really appreciate you.

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Anna Stepura: Thank you so much, Melinda, it was my pleasure. It's an amazing conversation, yeah.

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Melinda Lee: So fun, so fun. And how can people get ahold of you?

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Anna Stepura: Yeah, I have my LinkedIn, where I'm very active, Anastapura. I also have my YouTube channel, but we cannot communicate there, it's only where I post content about AI in business, actually, so it's also the name Annastapura, and we talk about different use cases and different new technologies there, but in a very human-like conversation.

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Anna Stepura: without technical, words, I would say, just plain English, which would be understandable for everybody. And yes.

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Melinda Lee: I love that. So check her out, check out her YouTube, learn some things, or also reach out to her on LinkedIn.

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Anna Stepura: Perfect. Thank you so much. Yes, it was a pleasure to speak with you, speaking flow, because I literally feel that flow once I was talking about the topic which I'm really passionate about.

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Melinda Lee: I love it. We were in flow. Thank you.

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Melinda Lee: And thank you, audience, for being here. I trust you got your golden takeaway. Remember, be kind, be a role model as the leader, do what you say, and people will follow. And so remember that. And until next time, I am your sister in flow. May prosperity flow to you and through you, and onto others, always. Take care.

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Melinda Lee: Bye-bye!

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Anna Stepura: Bye, Anna.

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Anna Stepura: Bye!