Gibraltar Business Podcast
The Gibraltar Business Podcast by the GFSB taps into the issues that drive business on the Rock. Host David Revagliatte interviews expert guests, including local business owners, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders. Listeners can expect to hear in-depth, candid discussions on a wide range of topics. The Gibraltar Business Podcast is sponsored by Gibraltar International Bank. Production: Motion-gi.com
Gibraltar Business Podcast
S6. E6. Special Episode: Unlock Business Growth with AI
David Revagliatte meets Daniel Brookes, the founder of Rdentify to explore how AI can benefit businesses. This episode forms part of Thrive Magazine's 'Thrive on AI' special feature.
Daniel shares his journey from Manchester to Israel, delving into his experience in the financial and gaming sectors. He explains how his studies in economics and politics have driven his business ambitions.
We discuss how Rdentify was founded and developed a useful tool for analysing conversational data across various sectors, showing how AI might enhance customer interactions. Daniel's involvement in a Gibraltar-based gaming company and Rdentify's clients in Gibraltar show the broad possibilities AI offers to local businesses.
We examine the practical uses of AI and machine learning for small business owners beginning their technology journey. At a recent GFSB event, local business owners gathered to talk about integrating AI, sparking interest and offering clear guidance. We discuss how pinpointing specific business issues can facilitate AI adoption.
Thanks for listening to the Gibraltar Business Podcast by the GFSB! Follow us on Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook!
Hello and welcome to the Gibraltar Business Podcast. I'm your David Revagliatte, . In each episode, I'm joined by a different guest, and we discuss themes like leadership and running a business and explore loads of topical issues too. If you already know the show, well, welcome back. If you're discovering the podcast, hello, and where have you been? The Gibraltar Business Podcast is brought to you by the GFSB and is sponsored by Gibraltar International Bank, an institution that shares our passion for business. If you know the show, you'll know that today's slightly is different.
David Revagliatte:AI, artificial intelligence, has been a theme of many of my discussions on this podcast, but today, my guest, Daniel Brookes, and I explore it in greater detail. Daniel is the founder of Identify, a firm that offers AI-powered solutions to its clients. He tells us exactly what they are during the interview. AI's adoption across local businesses has increased in recent months, and for many, it's revolutionizing how we live, how we work and how we operate our businesses. Ai is really high on the agenda at the GFSB, too. To inform its members of ways that AI could benefit them, it ran a special AI Lunch today's guest I really enjoyed talking with Daniel and learning so much more about AI, and I hope that you enjoy our discussion and take something back that can help your business. The current edition of its Thrive magazine explores AI in Today's more detail. episode forms part of its Thrive on AI feature. So, daniel, thank you for joining me on the Gibraltar Business Podcast.
Daniel Brookes :Oh, you're very welcome. Thank you for having me.
David Revagliatte:I usually start this question with all of my guests on the podcast and you will come back to your specialism a bit later, but could you share with us your career journey to date, maybe like your educational background, and what inspired you to set up Identify?
Daniel Brookes :date and maybe like your educational background and what inspired you to set up identify? Yeah, absolutely so. I grew up in manchester in england and at the age of 21 22, I ended up going on a back packing trip to israel which led to an eight-year journey in which I worked in the financial services and gaming and completed a degree in economics and politics and I guess that set me on my journey as I worked for a lot of startups wanting to kind of build and develop really useful, interesting, like kind of insightful technology. So when I moved back to Manchester at the time I was an operations director and I was buying a lot of businesses out of insolvency and kind of turning them around and I knew that I really wanted to kind of move into the startup world and develop my own technology. And essentially a couple of years ago that's how Identify came about. So I was very lucky. You know it starts kind of aligned because one of my business partners is like an excellent, excellent data scientist with an amazing head for product. Like an excellent, excellent data scientist with an amazing head for product.
Daniel Brookes :Between me and him and another one of our business partners, we founded Identify and Identify originally was set up to be able to identify signs of customer vulnerability, so potential mental health issues, in conversational data. Because ultimately, like we are kind of social beings, we talk all the time to each other and I felt like no one was really analyzing those conversations that people were having in high-risk industries, whether that be live chat, email or phone calls, so I really wanted to do something in that space. So we developed some really interesting models for kind of the world of chat, gpt and large language models to be able to do that. Nowadays, of course, that's become one module and now what we ultimately do is we look at the full kind of customer journey. So if you've got a customer support function or a sales function, we analyze all the conversations that go through and we give you all the insights into what the customer wants, what they're thinking, how happy and sad they are. But we also do for qa on the customer agent are they performing as they're meant to?
David Revagliatte:and, uh, from there it's grown from there really david of course, and that seems like you know that that is an area of growth for sure, and I know that for big tech and big firms, that technology is going to be completely valid and useful. But how does that work? You know what are the sectors that you're currently working with now. So where are the businesses that are really kind of using this technology that you've developed?
Daniel Brookes :Yeah, we've got businesses working with us in an array of different places. We've got financial services, We've got gaming clients like international multilingual support. We have customer support rooms. I think we have one car sales company as well that uses us. So there's a whole array of different businesses. We're talking a lot with company as well that uses us. So there's a whole array of different businesses. We're talking a lot with government as well, work with charities that use the service. Essentially, if you have a touch point with a customer, then the tool is relevant for you.
David Revagliatte:Maybe one of those sectors is maybe what your link to Jib was. But actually that was one of my questions. It was like what's your association with Gibraltar and does Identify have a presence here already?
Daniel Brookes :Well, yes, it does. So my link is I've been coming over to Gibraltar regularly for quite a while. I'm a director in a gaming business that's in Corpus in Gibraltar and has like a presence there and staff, so I'm over at least quarterly. I'm kind of talking with many different businesses, especially in gaming in Gibraltar, and actually the head of business development that I have for Identify a lady called Daisy White. She lives in gibraltar, uh, full time. So, um, you know, I have a lot of kind of very close touch points in gibraltar. Um, yeah, so I'm over all this time. You know, it's only gonna. It's only gonna be more and more, I think, in the coming years we're looking forward to that.
David Revagliatte:Like, and you know what, since I've been doing this podcast and uh spoke to lots of people in lots of different sectors, I never fail to be amazed how many people have a, how many businesses have a link to Jib right financial services and you know a lot of those businesses I work with or worked for um then you know, got involved from different levels are based in gibraltar, um.
Daniel Brookes :So yeah, I mean gibraltar is it really punches for the size of um?
David Revagliatte:you know the size of the peninsula, it really really punches hard, so that doesn't surprise me at all one of the reasons why we're having this conversation today, then, is about, um, of course, one of the core uh elements of the technology. Why we're having this conversation today, lenin, is about, of course, one of the core elements of the technology, which is AI. Right, like what I found definitely is, the interest in, and adoption of, ai seems to have exploded in the last two years. What are your personal reflections on the current state of play with AI?
Daniel Brookes :Yeah, I mean it's been incredible this growth journey. Yeah, I mean it's been incredible, this growth journey. I mean I kind of see it almost like pre-large language models and after large language models, because I think since the launch of ChatGPT and Google Genesis, the whole landscape has changed, especially when we're talking about generative AI. The whole landscape has changed, especially when we talk about generative AI. So AI, it really creates headlines, doesn't it? Like? It's always in the news, but what's it going to do?
Daniel Brookes :I did the recent talk on basically, will it take my job? Actually, I just think the opportunities are amazing. On one level, we're talking about a lot of things that we do repetitively in the workplace. We can do a lot of automation and do a lot of really good stuff there, giving us time to focus on other things and to be able to really make things more efficient, to save money, make money. I think there's huge opportunities for that, just like on a daily level. Money I think there's huge opportunities for that, just like on a daily level. And I think, if you really look outside the box and kind of like, look kind of gaze into the future what, what is what, what we could do with it I think the opportunities are incredible and you know everything you said there.
David Revagliatte:I kind of agree and I think, if you look at the concept of ai, right, the ones that maybe you and I grew up with For me certainly it was very much like laboratories kind of big AI robot, a kind of synthetic brain. It was very much a concept, something ethereal that we didn't kind of get. And ever since chat, gpt, it's kind of just gone, boom, right. It's kind of now all of us have access to this kind of technology. So of course, a lot of people are being kind of feeling threatened and kind of those sci-fi kind of technology. So of course, a lot of people are being kind of um, feeling threatened and kind of those sci-fi kind of stereotypes are coming through. Right, how do you see now that the future?
Daniel Brookes :should we be that scared?
David Revagliatte:sorry to ask such a basic question, but I know that some of our listeners will be trying to still get their head around um what this could mean for them I'm on the side.
Daniel Brookes :I don't think so, and the reason I don't believe we should be afraid of it is because humans by nature and we embrace technology and that's how we grow as a species. If you think into in the last 60, 70 years and what we've kind of lived through, you know, 50, 60 years ago we would write some pen and paper on the desk. There's filing cabinets in the office. There was no tv, you know, never mind the internet or mobile phones, um, definitely no google search engines. So even in the workplace, um, if you think about how we've adapted and changed over over the course of those years, it's incredible, um. And at home as well, think about all the technology that you now have in your house that your parents certainly didn't have and would be completely alien and science fiction to them.
David Revagliatte:It's true, yeah, you're right. If you ask our speakers to play music now, it's kind of natural right. So you're right.
Daniel Brookes :Exactly that, exactly that, exactly that. So I feel like this is just the next step forward. It Exactly that. So I feel like this is just the next step forward. It's the evolution of technology and it's, you know, our children. This will just be the norm that these tools and these options are available to us, and it's for us to embrace the possibilities and utilize what we have in front of us to enable us to grow and develop and improve our quality of life. And these things are always disruptive they always are and that may shift jobs from one area to another. However, certainly I don't believe we'll reduce the amount of jobs. I think it will open up new opportunities that we haven't really thought about. Just look at the technology industry. It's huge how many jobs there are there. So, you know, ai will be part of that.
David Revagliatte:In what sense, though? Because the way that, where I'm looking like you've got maybe coders, people who are in highly technical jobs that these are looking more and more that AI tools can kind of take on Things like, for example, your firm is looking at how AI could be used to enhance security, but food AI then could be used to breach that system. Could it be used against, like, what kind of you know from where you're sitting? How big is that, that risk?
Daniel Brookes :I think.
Daniel Brookes :I think there's always risks um, and you know, in some respect we're talking about technology arms race.
Daniel Brookes :So, um, I was working um on a project um a bit separate from what we do day to day, but essentially the.
Daniel Brookes :The kind of problem statement is that, well, could you use ai and to essentially children online, especially in gaming environments, so you could create scripts that reached out to the vulnerable and essentially, um, you know, you only need one bite of the cherry and essentially, maybe that that person could be corrupted or brought into an unsafe environment and the, the, the possibilities to use technology for good and bad um are both there.
Daniel Brookes :So it's about making sure that we understand the technology enough to put things in place against that and defend against it. And I think if we know that um, machine learning is there, um, which is what you say, ai, essentially machine learning, natural language processing, a few other things then we would be kind of not doing our jobs correctly and kind of burying our head in the sand not to also embrace it and to utilize it. Now, I believe there's a lot of good opportunities to use it in smaller businesses to enhance what people are doing day to day um and improve services, but within larger, larger businesses and stuff like that and um online we need to be, we need to ensure that we're savvy and we understand um how these things can affect us and talking about like and learning how to be more savvy.
David Revagliatte:I know that you recently led a really kind of I popped in for when you were doing the talk and it was buzzy. You recently recently led a really highly successful event at the gfsb which was titled the benefits of ai to your business. Uh, how did this come home about?
Daniel Brookes :so there's. I did a similar talk for the compliance association and j and a gentleman called Carlos who I met through another event coincidentally, he's brilliant. He's a brilliant guy who runs that and also lectures at the university. I did a talk for him there as well. So essentially he made the introduction and said would you? You know we had the conversation and I was very willing to do that talk and just to bring people into it. It's an area that I'm passionate about.
Daniel Brookes :Um. I find myself more and more these days doing these, doing these things. So, um, obviously, my bread and butter in day-to-day is the technology um side of things. I've also got the um, the, the bet comply, which is the compliance business which is doing really well. Um, however, on a personal note, I really enjoy doing the talks and training on these matters because I feel like for me it's it's very obvious these days. You know, and it's part of my life um using machine learning, and yesterday I used chat gp. I'm going on holiday to cyprus in two weeks. They use chat gpt to tell me what to pack for my children, gave me a long list. It was great. But these things are very natural for me um to use to simplify my life, but for a lot of people they're not, and especially people who are business owners. Um, it can be very confusing and, um, and difficult to kind of think through. What's going to help the business versus what's going to slow it down, versus you know um I think so.
David Revagliatte:I think so, daniel, I think a lot of you know when you're looking at small businesses, and I think one thing is fair to say unless you're a big kind of gaming firm, most of the businesses in Gibraltar are small. When you compare them to maybe medium-sized businesses in the UK, it is overwhelming because you've got many hats and you're doing a lot of different things. So that example of like things, using it to do a list to pack is genius, but many people, as you say, may not have thought about it. We're going going back to that event that you ran for the gfsb. What was the response from from part from participants?
Daniel Brookes :it was amazing. So the room was buzzing. Yeah, it was great. We did some kind of like a little breakout sessions, um, you know, where people were really talking about how they can implement it, you know, potential pitfalls of implementing it, you know, and the possibilities and just really kind of getting the team stuck into it, you know, and there were just so many questions, like I think you know we talked about an hour probably and there was a good 20, 25 minutes at the end where people were just asking questions and debating and talking and it was really positive and, you know, I really came away feeling like people have got some really good insights and things that they could potentially, you know, do within their own businesses. So, yeah, I really think that those kind of conversations, those meeting places actually for whatever the subject might be on there's meeting places actually for whatever the subject might be on um, super valuable because it it just allows people to share ideas, you know, and to brainstorm and think about how they can innovate and prove stuff what?
David Revagliatte:what did you think was what? Some of those key, key things, you know because, because I guess you're doing a lot of these talks, you're talking to a lot of people, like, in all the different markets that you're, you're you, from that event, if you go back, what was some of those take-ups, what were the biggest concerns?
Daniel Brookes :I guess, from around the room, I think probably the biggest concern was, well, I don't know how to do it Like I don't know what's. It could be very expensive. There was one or two about you know what harm could it do in the long term, but in general I felt it was more along the lines of well, how do I get started with this? I've got no idea where to start within the business. So I always say, well, what are your biggest pain points? You know what takes the most time in your day. You know that's a repetitive task. Um, you know what could bring you a really good roi. You know you know what does your marketing look like.
Daniel Brookes :So, basically, depending on the company, it's very simple to kind of ascertain quite, quite quickly and what are the pain points in terms of doing work and where, where could they make money, where could they get and where don't they have the expertise. And as soon as you know that, or straight away, then you start to think about okay, fine, so let's just do a simple Google or use one of the AI tools to say, okay, well, I've got this thing. How could I use machine learning to help? And there's a ton of tools out there. And I think I gave in the presentation, like a couple of different tools that have AI in them that can help. So AI in them that can help, so you don't necessarily need to build your own thing. There's a lot of stuff that you can buy off the shelf and essentially you can start to use those, and a lot of them have freemium models as well to hopefully save money and bring value to the business.
Daniel Brookes :But listen, I'm here anyway, yeah, or you're going to say finish, finish, no. I'm also like if people ever want to know about these things, I'm available. You can add me on LinkedIn or wherever. I'll happily give my two cents, Thank you, thank you. This is it.
David Revagliatte:I think another concern that you mentioned, you compared AI to some of the technological advances that we would never have imagined that we work with right every day and kind of it's the adoption, kind of anxiety, I guess. Right, yes, If anyone's listening now.
David Revagliatte:They're in that same boat, but maybe they missed your session and they're like I don't know where to get started. I've got this problem that I need to solve at work. What do you recommend they do? Is it chat, gpt? Is there a platform that you use that you prefer as your go-to? How should they do it?
Daniel Brookes :Well, I think there's several things. First of all, use me as a resource. I can direct you to the right place Every day of the week, yeah, and I think the first thing is to do some research. So, essentially, you'll have a problem statement which is, um, I have usually, if you're thinking I don't know what to do, there's an issue. So you know, I have this issue and I want to go about solving it, um, so it's very simple advice, um, but I think that's what's needed for this at this stage is is search what? Search that out.
Daniel Brookes :I'll Put that problem statement to Google, or actually, or use something like Google Genie for it, which is now Google Genesis, because it gives you, it will give you links to resources that say I've got this problem statement, I want to save it. It is a way to utilize AI or whatever to help with this and, straight away, a bunch of really interesting information will be provided to you and then you can ask for links. Okay, this looks really good. I want to follow this up. Can you provide me links to relevant resources and you can click through the links. So it's just a really easy way to do some research and use it as a tool to learn from.
David Revagliatte:Initially, initially, I guess it is. You know it's almost like it's similar. You know we're talking in pretty basic terms here, but it's sometimes you go, you ask a question, but then you can kind of follow up and prompt it, and I guess those are the the key things that are different. Right, it's? It's like a the take it past the google search yes, it's a conversation.
Daniel Brookes :So with Google search, this is where the kind of journey is going. With Google search, as everyone knows, you search like 10, 15 relevant articles that pop up. You have to go through them or read them, or you kind of take the information that you need out. What AI, what machine learning, really does is in this sense it's quite in this specific sense it will summarize a lot of that information and give you kind of an answer, and it's more like a conversation. So then you can keep asking questions and it'll give you the relevant information that you need and then, at the point where you need to, you can then take that away essentially, and you can get links from these things and they'll take you to a relevant website. But then you're essentially taking that information and then you can do what you want with it and you can go back to Google search and find a specific company and check that information.
Daniel Brookes :But it's a learning tool for you to be able to develop an idea. So, yeah, I recommend it. It's quite fun just to go. It's very simple. You just put the URL in and just ask it some questions, just see how it works.
David Revagliatte:I agree there's a lot of fun to be had and I think it's something that you need to kind of as someone who uses it. I think it's that second, the prompt and the follow-up is key, and I think the way that you put it there and I haven't heard it described as a conversation before and it's a really nice way to relate to the technology right, because you might have some results given to you by ChatGPT or Google Genie, but you can then follow up and say why is that? Or maybe improve it or how would you critique this and then use those critiques to do it again, kind of thing. Right, so it learns from what you need. Is that fair?
Daniel Brookes :Exactly and that's how it works on a simple user interface level. On a business level's. Taking it once deeper, we can use um a lot of the underlying intelligence to be able to find specific insights and we can tailor that to our business use case. So, for instance, if um our business wanted to, I spoke to a pr company earlier on and basically they've got a fantastic idea um to basically be able to filter through all the the stuff online um, like you know, um about a specific topic and find kind of the risks, um if you want to take a certain step as in a business. And it's an interesting proposal.
Daniel Brookes :But that's not the point. The point is that what they're doing to do that, similar to what we do, is they're using the large language model, so the training model, specifically to find answers to specific questions and and put that in front of the person who needs to see it. Um. And I think that, in terms of um business and how businesses are using um, this type of um generative, ai and lm type type models, it's um, it's it's basically being able to find the information that people need and give it to them within certain data. I think that's really massive at the moment there's a massive kind of arms race from all the existing companies and new startup companies trying to utilize that technology to provide better service to their end users.
David Revagliatte:It does feel like and then you know that reference to an arms race or whatever, but it does definitely feel like a race. You know going about quickly things have progressed in the last kind of 18 months and how they are going and how many different platforms are emerging. It definitely feels that way. Thank you, daniel, for offering I hope you don't regret it, but listeners to kind of reach out to direct if they have any questions. I have one last question, and it's a question that I ask all of my guests. Actually, what would you say is the most crucial factor for a new business to succeed in today's environment? And sorry, just a second to that is could you offer any advice to those considering launching their own enterprise?
Daniel Brookes :well, um, so I think having a clear idea of what it is that you do as a business is super important. There's so many different avenues that you can go down and ideas, but knowing kind of who you are and what your dna is it is is very, um very important uh to success. Um, initially, um, I think for a someone wanting to start a new business, and if that is for you and that's something that you want to do, you have you want to take on that risk and that kind of up and down feeling uh, which I personally love thinking about it yeah, it's um I I would recommend uh doing it.
Daniel Brookes :I think um, like having a clear idea of what, of what you're doing and having that written out is important. Um, and discussing it with people who are who, who are willing to listen and potentially challenge you and to understand take that feedback on board, is essential. You might ignore that feedback if you really disagree with it, but basically listen to it, really think about those challenges and what people are saying to you before launching and basically speaking to as many people as you can. And networking is essential to early success, in my opinion.
David Revagliatte:Really brilliant. Well, thanks, daniel, I think yeah, those definitely will resonate. You've got to. I've always found that in business. Anyways, ask for lots of opinions and do listen. I would say you know, don't take that advice at your own peril. I guess right. But thanks, Daniel, for your time today and thanks for the insights on.
Daniel Brookes :AI. It's absolutely my pleasure. Thank you very much.
David Revagliatte:So that's it for this special AI-themed episode of the Gibraltar Business Podcast. Thank you to Daniel Brooks for your time and your offer to take questions from our listeners. I really hope you don't regret that. As always, thank you to the team at the GFSB, our sponsor, the Gibraltar International Bank, and everyone who contributes to this project and keeps the podcast going from strength to strength. I hope you've enjoyed listening. Remember you can catch up on any episodes we've missed anytime you like. So it's a goodbye from me until next week. Until then, keep pushing boundaries and stay curious, Stay inspired and see you very soon.
