Interview with Ryan Katz

Celebrating AI Heroes: Ryan Katz’s Journey with AI in Creativity and Business

Botco.ai continues its mission of spotlighting AI’s transformative impact through its latest interview series, Celebrating AI Heroes. This series highlights early adopters who are using AI to drive innovation in business and everyday life.

Ryan Katz, Director of Business Development at Ideas Collide, shares his personal journey of embracing AI—from enhancing his writing skills with ChatGPT to leveraging AI tools for business development, e-commerce, and even gaming. As a creative professional with a background in graphic design, Katz explores how AI has become an essential tool in both his professional and personal life. His insights shed light on AI’s evolving role in problem-solving, efficiency, and even reshaping industries like education and customer service.

Read on to discover how Ryan Katz is putting AI to work for good.

How did you become an early adopter of AI?

My background is in graphic design. Being the creative visual guy, I was always doing logos and doodles — writing was never my strong suit. So when ChatGPT was announced, I saw it as an opportunity to improve my writing skills. While many people lean on AI heavily for writing, I found it helped me learn to write better by understanding what I was doing wrong and seeing how it could be improved. It really exploded from there. With creative industry tools, once you learn one, you often understand the foundations for others. AI is becoming similar – the foundational techniques you learn with one tool can be implemented across many others.

Do you have a preferred AI tool?

I have a lot of favorite AI tools and they are all useful in their own way. What I envision for AI tools is that each has its specialties and focuses. I don’t think there’s going to be one AI tool that does everything super well – if it does, it would be because it’s using those smaller, specialized AI tools. For instance, when ChatGPT offers image generation, it’s nowhere near as sophisticated as specialized tools like Mid-journey. I see a lot of room for each tool to improve while maintaining their unique strengths.

In what ways have you seen AI tools make a difference in your customers' businesses?

I love sharing the Botco.ai story about Massage Envy because it perfectly showcases the dual impact of chatbots as both a marketing tool and a data collection tool. By implementing a chatbot, they discovered that many customers were asking questions about acne treatments. This insight led them to develop and implement an acne treatment program, which has become one of their most successful business drivers. Without the chatbot collecting and analyzing this customer data, they might have missed this significant business opportunity. It demonstrates how AI tools can not only improve customer service efficiency but also provide valuable insights that drive business growth and innovation.

How else has AI helped you in your work?

I’ve used AI in numerous ways to enhance efficiency and problem-solving. For example, during a client meeting about competitors, I struggled to understand a company name due to a fast-paced conversation and an accent – it sounded like “Accutane.” After spending 30 minutes searching Google with various spellings, I turned to ChatGPT. By providing context about the company and industry, it immediately identified the correct name. This experience showed me how AI can solve problems that traditional search engines can’t.

I’ve also used AI for programming support. When we needed to check which clients had implemented GA4 during the Google Analytics transition, I used ChatGPT to help write a Google Sheets script that automatically searched websites for specific code and returned true/false statements. This helped us identify which clients needed assistance with their GA4 setup.

What creative projects have you developed using AI?

I’ve been working on developing a board game that simulates the career path in a marketing agency. The concept came from my own industry experience – players start as interns and navigate different career paths based on their interactions with clients and professional development. Similar to the Game of Life, but focused specifically on agency career progression, with salary adjustments and the ultimate goal of becoming an Agency Partner. AI has been instrumental in helping me structure the game mechanics, develop rules, and refine the content. While it’s still a work in progress, AI has provided valuable feedback and helped me lay the groundwork for when I have time to bring it to life.

Are there any big problems, either locally or globally, that you think AI tech could help solve?

Honestly, the education system right now needs transformation. As someone who experienced ADHD and struggled with traditional education methods, I see immense potential in AI to personalize learning experiences. I went from struggling in college to becoming valedictorian at an accelerated school that offered an program better suited to my learning style. This experience showed me how different learning approaches can dramatically impact success.

I see these tools as a way for us to have better education and knowledge interaction. They’re not just tools for automation – they’re preparing students for future skills that will be necessary. The personalization capabilities of AI could help create learning experiences tailored to each student’s unique needs and learning style.

I’d like to see more education platforms being built that focus on teaching both children and adults new skill sets and supporting their growth. By interacting with AI tools now, students are learning how to learn – a crucial skill for jobs that don’t even exist yet. AI could be a transformative factor in our education system if we embrace its potential rather than resist it.