Inside the AI-Driven Front Office
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, Kyle sits down with Will Hayes, Growth Manager at Third Way Health, to break down how AI is reshaping the front office of healthcare – from no-show patterns to call-center quality assurance to the very real human trust required to run a clinic.
Will brings a unique vantage point. He sits at the intersection of growth, product, and operations. He sees where clinics struggle, where AI shines, and where it still needs human reinforcement. And like many guests in the healthcare series, his insights are grounded in real-world outcomes, not theory.
His conversation with Kyle opens the door into how modern clinics operate – and where AI is making the biggest difference.
Meet Will Hayes & The Origin of Third Way Health
Before diving into AI and operations, Kyle asks Will to introduce himself and share what Third Way actually does.
Will explains that he joined Third Way two years ago, relocating from the Midwest to Los Angeles to help grow a young company tackling one of healthcare’s most universal problems: front-office complexity.
Third Way serves both payers and providers, acting as a virtual front office that handles appointment scheduling, phone calls, insurance verification, reminders, follow-ups, and patient questions – all so that in-clinic teams can focus solely on in-person patient care.
Will paints the picture clearly:
Patients still like calling. Phone volumes are high. Hold times can stretch 20 minutes or more. Front-desk teams are overwhelmed by juggling phones, walk-ins, insurance questions, and scheduling errors. Third Way solves this by running all of that infrastructure virtually, with AI and human teams working in tandem.
And before setting the foundation for the rest of the conversation, Will completes Kyle’s signature prompt:
“I think AI is exponential.”
As he explains it, adoption won’t grow in a straight line – it will compound, exactly the way the internet did.
What Healthcare Operations Really Means
Kyle asks Will to define “healthcare operations,” since the phrase can feel vague.
Will grounds it immediately in day-to-day reality. A medical practice’s front office handles everything: incoming calls, appointment changes, insurance checks, reminders, no-show follow-ups, and any question a patient might bring.
That environment is chaotic. Patients call for dozens of reasons, systems don’t always sync, and many clinics don’t have reliable self-scheduling. Even when online booking exists, patients still often prefer calling.
Third Way’s model simplifies the experience:
The in-clinic front desk handles only the in-person line.
Third Way handles everything else.
It’s operational clarity that feels rare in healthcare today.
The Hidden Story in No-Shows (and What Data Reveals)
Kyle then references a viral LinkedIn post from Third Way – an analysis of millions of appointment calls revealing when patients are most likely to no-show.
Will expands on the insights:
• Early morning: Everyone shows up.
• Lunch hour: In-person attendance stays strong, but telehealth dips significantly.
• 4 pm vs. 5 pm: A steep drop-off – “20% to close to 30% of people ended up not showing.”
This data shapes scheduling strategy, staffing decisions, and even double-booking logic. As Kyle notes, it tells a human story behind the numbers – burnout, transportation, routines, and friction.
And for clinics, it unlocks revenue and efficiency that used to feel unpredictable.
Where AI Creates the Biggest Impact Today
Kyle asks where AI is truly moving the needle in healthcare operations, and Will doesn’t hesitate: AI-powered quality assurance.
“No organization can realistically listen to every call,” Will explains. “For most organizations, it might be 5%, 10% you’re able to review. But with AI, you can review 100% of calls and it can score them.”
With full-call visibility, clinics can finally measure script adherence, audit tone, identify compliance issues, and train teams based on data – not assumptions.
The second major operational win?
Accurate scheduling and insurance verification.
As Will puts it:
“You don’t want someone showing up, getting seen, and then getting a surprise bill in the mail. AI in the background makes sure their insurance was verified before being seen.”
It’s the unglamorous, behind-the-scenes AI – and it’s where the biggest ROI lives.
AI + Humans > AI Alone
When Kyle asks the big question – Why not automate the entire front office? – Will’s answer is clear: AI is powerful, but it’s still a tool.
He explains Third Way’s hybrid model through their voice AI, Dino:
“You might call in and Dino can change your appointment… but if it’s something more complicated, Dino escalates it to a human.”
The danger of pure AI systems, Will says, is familiar:
“You fall into waiting 20 minutes on the phone – just like before ever working with Third Way.”
Third Way prevents that loop by combining automation with instant human escalation.
For a high-trust industry like healthcare, Will believes this is the only viable model:
“AI still needs people to make it right.”
Why Trust and Buy-In Still Matter
When Kyle asks about pushback from clinics, Will says the conversation always starts with trust.
“They want to know: Who are you? Can we trust you talking to our patients? Do you actually understand what we’re going through?”
And what’s especially interesting is the pattern he’s seen recently:
“In the past month, we’ve had several saying, ‘AI fell short. We were constantly having to update and manage the bot internally.’”
Leaders want AI – but they also want a partner who can manage it for them.
That’s where Third Way’s hybrid, high-trust model resonates most:
AI where it helps.
Humans where it matters.
A Real-World Success Story
When Kyle asks for a tangible win, Will shares a case from a 30-doctor, multi-location medical group struggling with both internal staffing and an external vendor.
After piloting Third Way at 1–2 sites, they expanded across the organization.
The results were decisive:
“We reduced their spend on patient access operations by 35% and they saw 11% more visits.”
As Will says, it’s the clearest operational win: do more for less – while improving the patient experience.
Why Patient Satisfaction (CSAT) Is the North Star
Kyle notes that Third Way holds a 4.8/5 patient satisfaction rating and asks how central that metric is internally.
Will’s answer:
“CSAT is always at the top of our analytics page.”
Every call ends with a survey.
Every client sees their numbers weekly.
Every team is accountable to what patients actually say.
“You can’t fight the data.”
Scaling AI Adoption Across Large Health Systems
Kyle then expands the conversation to the enterprise level:
How are the biggest health systems – those with dozens of clinics and thousands of employees – thinking about AI?
Will explains that their needs are very different from a single independent practice. Enterprise leaders think in terms of patterns across locations, operational bottlenecks, and systemic gaps that affect hundreds of thousands of patient interactions.
And to ground the conversation, he references Third Way’s internal analysis of 65 conversations with COOs and CEOs:
“Number one was staff turnover. Number two was cost pressures. Number three was service quality.”
This is the real picture inside large healthcare organizations. Leaders aren’t talking about futuristic AI.
They’re talking about staffing shortages, overflowing call queues, underbooked doctors, and rising costs.
Will adds that even at the highest levels – regional operators, VPs, enterprise COOs – the message is the same:
“Ever since COVID, we haven’t been able to staff this.”
It’s not a small-clinic problem.
It’s not a temporary problem.
It’s a system-wide problem.
And that’s why enterprise adoption of AI is accelerating. Not because it’s trendy, but because it relieves pressure where clinics are breaking down:
- AI stabilizes scheduling workflows
- AI reduces the burden on understaffed call centers
- AI helps fill doctor schedules
- AI increases service quality without increasing headcount
As Will puts it, large systems are now looking at AI not as a shiny new toy – but as an operational support layer holding together an overstretched ecosystem.
Looking Five Years Ahead
To close the conversation, Kyle zooms out and asks the big question:
What will healthcare operations look like five years from now?
Will immediately imagines a world where AI is fully normalized in everyday patient interactions – not in a sci-fi way, but in a practical, familiar way.
The same way we adjusted to online banking, mobile boarding passes, and customer-service chatbots.
But then he shifts to what he believes is the real transformation ahead.
“AI is going to really define what the human touch actually is.”
As AI becomes more capable, he believes it will sharpen-not blur-the lines between automation and empathy.
It will reveal exactly where humans matter most in care: trust, reassurance, nuance, emotion, and judgment.
He jokes about how foreign today’s processes will feel to the next generation:
“Back in my day, I had to call, we had to talk to a human… and we had to wait a long time.”
But beneath the humor, he draws a clear line.
Even in a world where AI handles routine intake, scheduling, reminders, routing, and documentation, Will stresses that human beings remain irreplaceable:
“I could confidently say we’re always going to need humans.”
In his view, AI won’t erase the human element of healthcare.
It will clear the noise so humans can focus on what they do best – connection, care, and the moments that impact patient trust.
Rapid Fire Highlights
If a genie granted you a fully implemented, automated system at no cost, what would it be?
“Laundry.”
A pitch you’ll never forget?
“Going on-site and meeting a client for the first time… interacting with doctors in the morning and then meeting with the C-suite.”
He added that the biggest lesson was realizing “the data drives the discussion” and that staying up late to get the numbers right “wasn’t wasted time.
As a mechanical engineering grad, what would you love to peek under the hood of?
“I want to talk to someone who designs roller coasters… an immersive day and then you get to ride at the end.”
Missouri BBQ or LA tacos?
“KC BBQ.”
Your MLB walk-up song?
“Hindsight by Audion.”
Final Thoughts
Will Hayes brings clarity to an overlooked truth: healthcare starts long before a patient walks into a clinic. Every call answered, every no-show recovered, every insurance check resolved-those operational moments shape trust, experience, and outcomes.
AI can accelerate all of it. But as Will emphasizes, the magic happens when AI handles the repetitive work and humans handle the nuance. Not AI alone. Not humans alone. A coordinated front office where each plays to its strengths.
Third Way Health is proving what modern healthcare operations can look like: measurable efficiency, happier patients, and teams that finally have room to breathe.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
📄 Read the full transcript on Left Brain AI
https://www.leftbrainenterprises.biz/
AI-Powered Precision Oncology
AI is changing how fast companies can discover, test, and bring cancer drugs to market – and in this conversation, we get a front-row look at what that actually looks like in the real world.
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, Kyle sits down with Aditya Pai, Head of Business Development at Genialis, a precision oncology company using machine learning to make cancer treatment more accurate, more predictable, and more personal.
It’s a deeply technical mission backed by a deeply personal story.
Before we dive into the science, the conversation begins with the origin that shaped Aditya’s career.
A Personal Mission That Became a Professional Calling
Before leading business development for Genialis, Aditya went through an experience that reshaped how he thought about cancer treatment entirely.
His mother was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in 2012. At the time, targeted therapies were still limited. Still, she received one – and survived 1,000 days, despite being told she would likely live no more than 100.
Years later, on the anniversary of her passing, Aditya wrote a LinkedIn blog reflecting on how fast cancer therapies had advanced in just five years. That post caught the eye of a future co-author, and together they wrote A Race Called Life, a fiction book inspired by families facing cancer where access to diagnostics and treatments can determine outcomes.
“All proceeds from that book go to Memorial Sloan Kettering,” he shared. “It was not a commercial venture by any stretch, largely one meant to inspire people.”
This combination of personal experience, scientific understanding, and mission-driven work became the throughline of Aditya’s role today: helping companies bring life-saving drugs to patients faster, more precisely, and with less guesswork.
How Genialis Thinks About Precision Oncology
Once the groundwork was set, Kyle asked Aditya to define precision oncology in plain language.
Aditya explained it this way: finding the right drug for the right patient at the right time. But Genialis doesn’t stop at matching a mutation to a medicine – their approach digs much deeper into the entire biological system of a cancer.
The conversation walks through legacy biomarkers versus next-generation biomarkers. Physicians are familiar with simple biomarkers like hemoglobin A1c or a KRAS mutation. Traditional KRAS testing, for instance, tells clinicians whether a single mutation exists – but not whether the patient will respond to a specific drug, resist treatment, or how long the response might last.
Genialis models the entire KRAS biological pathway instead of just a mutation on it. This holistic, pathway-level view enables them to build machine-learning biomarkers that answer far more complex questions.
As Aditya put it, “We are able to be much more precise. We’re able to effectively tell when a patient will benefit from that particular drug or perhaps a combination therapy that otherwise would not be achievable.”
He shares that Genialis recently presented research at ASCO showing how these models can predict when a cancer therapy is likely to stop working and what treatments might come next – a significant step toward more personalized oncology.
Inside the Genialis “Supermodel”: A Foundation Model for Cancer
Kyle then asked how much data this level of precision actually requires.
The answer: an enormous amount.
Genialis built a foundation model – what they call their “supermodel” – on 14 well-known hallmarks of cancer established by Hanahan and Weinberg. These hallmarks represent the broad biological reasons cancers develop.
From these hallmarks, Genialis created 150 biomodules trained on whole-transcriptome RNA data from diverse populations around the world. RNA, Aditya explains, shows what is actively happening in a tumor – not just what might happen based on DNA.
Each biomodule acts like a building block that can be combined in different ways depending on the drug target. Whether a biotech team is working on antibody-drug conjugates, immune checkpoint inhibitors, DNA damage repair agents, or KRAS inhibitors, Genialis can reconfigure these modules into a tailor-made biomarker.
This approach avoids the “black box” stigma of AI. As Aditya emphasized, “There’s no magic black box… We can go down to each biomodule and show exactly how a sample is performing.”
For drug developers, that transparency matters.
Why Drug Development Takes 10–15 Years – and How AI Reduces the Risk
Kyle shifts the conversation to a topic every biotech founder understands: the brutal timeline of drug development.
From early target discovery to FDA approval, the process typically lasts 10–15 years and costs around $2 billion.
With 90% to 95% of cancer drugs failing, a single misstep in phase two or three trials can bankrupt a company.
Aditya explains why an AI-driven, biomarker-first approach is so important. The earlier a biotech company can understand how its drug behaves, the more likely it is to avoid costly surprises.
For example, Genialis can build a biomarker during preclinical or phase 1 studies – long before a company invests in large patient cohorts. The biomarker can then be used as a selection tool to enroll only the patients most likely to respond.
This reduces wasted spend, improves trial success odds, and increases the likelihood that the eventual treatment will truly benefit the right patients.
It’s not just a scientific advantage – it’s an economic one.
The Business Development Side: Global Data, Strict Standards, and Collaborative Science
Kyle then asks what Aditya’s role looks like day-to-day, especially when sourcing the massive datasets needed to build accurate models.
Aditya breaks it into two worlds:
- Bringing high-quality data in.
- Partnering with pharma, biotech, and diagnostic companies to bring accurate biomarkers out.
On the data side, Genialis partners with organizations like the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, Sidra Medicine in the Middle East, Academia Sinica in Taiwan, and Tempus AI. Each provides unique transcriptomic data or real-world evidence that strengthens the supermodel.
But data alone isn’t enough. Genialis built a rigorous normalization pipeline that turns raw RNA sequencing files into “machine-learning-ready data.”
This ensures every dataset – regardless of country, lab, or method – is comparable.
As Aditya explains, “It is all about the quality of data.”
On the output side, Genialis collaborates with drug developers to build biomarkers, and with diagnostic companies to eventually convert those biomarkers into clinical trial assays or companion diagnostics.
It’s a complex ecosystem, but one built around a simple goal: choose the right patients from day one.
The Future: Unified Cancer Testing and More Accessible Diagnostics
The conversation then moves into the future of testing.
Today, lung cancer alone can require many individual tests – each tied to different mutations, drugs, or follow-up treatments. It’s confusing for physicians and overwhelming for patients.
Aditya believes a unified test is possible. Not today, but soon.
The challenge isn’t just scientific. It’s regulatory, educational, and tied closely to reimbursement. A unified test must be easy for physicians to understand, affordable for payers, and actionable for patients – and most current tests are linked to specific drugs.
Even so, Aditya sees consolidation coming. One test, one report, one interpretation path. Less friction at every step.
AI at Home: The Next Era of Patient Empowerment
Before wrapping, Kyle asks how AI will eventually reach patients directly – not just researchers and drug makers.
Aditya believes we’re already seeing the early steps.
Generative AI gives patients access to information that once required a specialist. They can ask smarter questions, interpret reports more easily, and explore options with more clarity.
The next frontier? At-home diagnostics.
Aditya imagines a world where early detection tools are as common as smart watches – perhaps even smart toilets that detect early signs of gynecological or urological cancers.
“Why not?” he says. If patients can detect cancer earlier, outcomes improve dramatically.
This future isn’t guaranteed, but it’s plausible – and AI sits at the center of it.
Rapid Fire: A Few Closing Moments
If you could automate one workflow instantly…
“Get the best drug to the best patient at the right time.”
Your biggest ‘aha’ moment?
- “Seeing the power of immune checkpoint inhibitors… realizing treatment could be tissue-agnostic.”
- “In university, understanding how molecular biology works – the complexity explains where we are today.”
If AI could answer any question… what would you ask?
“When will we get to an 80%+ response rate for certain cancers?”
Title of your autobiography?
“The Race Is Ongoing.”
Favorite hockey player?
“Teemu Selänne – The Finnish Flash.”
Final Thoughts
Aditya closed the episode by bringing everything back to people, not technology.
“I truly feel that the role I’m in is about really helping patients in the end.”
He spoke about friends currently battling cancer, others who passed away young, and why the industry must push harder:
“Why should that happen? It just means we’re not there yet.”
His message for anyone building in healthcare or AI:
“How do we drive ourselves to becoming better and continue this pursuit?”
And the reminder that ties it all together:
“Almost all of us know someone affected by cancer. That should be the driver.”
🎧 Listen to the full conversation:
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube📄
Read the full transcript on Left Brain AI
https://www.leftbrainenterprises.biz/
Building Community-First Healthcare with AI
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast, Kyle Lambert sits down with Jonny Cantrell, Senior Marketing Manager at Orchid Health, to explore how rural clinics are using AI to stay sustainable, reduce burnout, and remain deeply human.
Jonny shares how Orchid integrates AI tools like Freed to free up clinicians’ time and focus. He also explains how his team uses community trust and grassroots relationships as a powerful form of marketing-one that no ad can replace.
From Portland Roots to Rural Care: The Origin of Orchid’s Mission
Jonny’s story begins in the Pacific Northwest, where he’s spent most of his life.
He joined Orchid Health in 2020, when the organization operated just three clinics and around 50 employees.
Today, Orchid has six clinics and nearly 100 employees across Oregon-serving communities where healthcare options are often scarce.
“We serve rural communities-often underserved communities with limited health options. Our first appointments are 60 minutes long, so we can truly understand our patients.”
Each clinic is designed to act as a primary care home, offering everything from wellness visits and stitches to behavioral health counseling and end-of-life support. Orchid also employs community health workers who help patients access essentials like food, transportation, and housing-because, as Jonny puts it:
“About 90 to 95% of our health happens outside the doctor’s office.”
That philosophy-seeing health as a community ecosystem-has become the heartbeat of Orchid’s approach to care.
Resilience in the Face of Crisis: The Wildfire That Defined Orchid’s Values
The company’s culture of compassion was tested in 2020, when the Holiday Farm Fire destroyed one of its newest clinics on Oregon’s McKenzie River.
Instead of layoffs or panic, Orchid prioritized its people.
“We had multiple staff members evacuate their homes; a few even lost them. Orchid made sure those displaced continued receiving pay and weren’t expected to come back to work right away.”
The organization quickly pivoted-borrowing a mobile health clinic, then operating out of a local quilt shop until a new facility could be rebuilt.
That story, Jonny says, captured all four of Orchid’s guiding pillars: employee satisfaction, patient relationships, community health, and financial sustainability.
“Our belief is that if employees are happy, everything else trickles down.”
It was a defining moment that proved Orchid’s mission wasn’t just words on a wall-it was a lived culture of care.
Community Marketing That Money Can’t Buy
When it comes to marketing rural healthcare, Jonny’s strategy looks very different from the high-budget digital campaigns of big city providers.
For Orchid, success starts with trust.
“Word of mouth is our number one referral source. Our second biggest referrer? People seeing a sign.”
That simplicity reflects how tight-knit these communities are.
Instead of focusing on clicks and impressions, Jonny invests in relationships-connecting with schools, local leaders, and long-standing residents to build credibility from the inside out.
“Her endorsement was way stronger than any ad I could’ve run because she’s been in that community for decades.”
Offline relationships feed into online spaces, too.
Facebook community groups and local newspapers often outperform paid ads, while organic posts from clinic staff consistently outperform polished campaigns.
Jonny calls it the intersection of community, traditional, and digital media-a blend that keeps Orchid’s brand human and grounded.
“The posts that get the most engagement are when it’s a very real, down-to-earth post that came directly from the clinic.”
For Orchid, connection-not conversion-is the true measure of marketing success.
Putting People Before Profit
While growth and visibility are important, Jonny emphasizes that employee well-being always comes first.
Orchid’s internal policies reflect that belief: from flexible schedules and improved benefits to a $1,000 annual well-being fund each employee can use however they choose.
“I’ve bought knives with that. I’ve paid dental bills with that. Little things like that.”
That mindset, he says, prevents burnout and fosters loyalty in an industry notorious for turnover.
And when employees feel supported, patients feel it too.
AI as a Partner in Care and Creativity
Despite its rural footprint, Orchid Health is embracing AI thoughtfully.
Jonny and his team have implemented Freed.ai, an AI-powered medical scribe that helps clinicians spend more time with patients and less time on paperwork.
“Most providers get into this field to give care to people-not to do admin work. This tool has been really great because it’s saving providers time and mental energy.”
Beyond clinical support, Jonny uses AI every day in marketing-drafting copy, checking compliance details, researching local regulations, and brainstorming content ideas.
“There’s something powerful about having a tool that can pull from so much information-more than I could on my own.”
To him, AI acts as a creative teammate, not a replacement.
It accelerates production while allowing him to focus on the human side of storytelling.
Local Intelligence: Building AI-Powered Playbooks
Jonny is also experimenting with a localized AI playbook-a custom tool trained on each clinic’s demographics, culture, and needs.
The goal: to help local teams communicate quickly and create hyper-relevant messaging.
“I’ll feed it our brand guidelines and community data, then use that to get campaign ideas back. It’s helping us identify audiences for each clinic.”
For instance, when one clinic wanted to promote telehealth, AI suggested targeting working moms-a recommendation that proved right on target.
These micro-level insights let Orchid’s small marketing team act big-delivering relevance and empathy at scale.
Keeping Heart in Content
As AI becomes more capable, Jonny stays grounded in the one thing technology can’t replicate: humanity.
Every message, he says, must sound like it came from a real person who cares.
“I might use AI for the structure or outline, but then I’ll go in and add the heart. Talk to real people. Make sure it sounds human and trustworthy.”
That applies to visuals, too-AI may generate ideas, but Orchid always customizes and refines its creative work.
The focus is authenticity: showing real faces, real places, and real moments.
“We never want to lose sight of the people we’re serving.”
The Future of Healthcare: Hope and Humanity
Jonny’s outlook on AI in healthcare is balanced-optimistic but grounded.
He believes AI can help solve big problems, from early disease detection to reducing clinician burnout, as long as humans stay in control.
“If we use AI in a way that benefits society, we could be curing diseases. But humans have to stay at the center of it. We need empathy, not just sterile interactions.”
For him, the ultimate goal is empowerment: using technology to make people better at their jobs-not replace them.
⚡ Rapid-Fire Highlights
If a genie could automate one workflow…
“Social media. I’d love for my social media to be fully automated so I can walk away from it.”
Harder to convince – a flu shot or a newsletter sign-up?
“Probably the digital newsletter. I’ll give our clinics the benefit of the doubt on flu shots.”
Dream superpower?
“Teleportation.”
If you went viral for something non-work related…
“Probably improv – me making an ass out of myself on stage.”
Currently binge-watching?
“We got rid of our smart TV, so I’m rewatching The Simpsons on DVD. Seasons 1 through 12 – still the best.”
Closing Thoughts
Jonny closed the episode with a reminder that health doesn’t just live in hospitals-it thrives in communities.
“Only 5–10% of your health gets handled at the doctor’s office. The rest happens in your daily life-your walks, your conversations, your connections.”
It’s a message that captures Orchid Health’s mission perfectly:
build strong communities, care deeply, and use technology to make humanity stronger-not replace it.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
Read more interviews at Left Brain AI.
Fixing Clinical Burnout with AI
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint by Left Brain AI, Kyle sits down with Lauren Funaro, Content Marketing Manager at Freed, to discuss one of healthcare’s toughest challenges: clinician burnout.
At a time when many professionals are leaving medicine due to paperwork overload, Freed’s mission is refreshingly clear – use AI to reduce documentation, restore balance, and rebuild human connection in healthcare.
As Lauren puts it, “We’re not building doctors. We’re working with doctors – helping them spend less time clicking buttons and more time connecting with patients.”
Where It All Started: A Personal Mission to Give Time Back
Before Freed became one of healthcare’s most promising AI platforms, it began with something simple – a husband wanting to spend more time with his wife.
Freed’s founder built the company after watching his wife, a medical resident, spend long nights charting instead of resting. That frustration turned into a mission: build a tool that gives clinicians back their time.
Lauren says that story still defines the company’s culture today.
“Our whole value system is based on one question – ‘Is this going to benefit a clinician?’ If the answer is yes, that’s where we invest.”
That north star continues to guide Freed as it grows, shaping how it builds, markets, and measures success.
Rethinking AI’s Role in Healthcare: Efficiency Without Losing Empathy
When Kyle asked Lauren to finish the sentence “I think AI is…,” her answer captured Freed’s philosophy perfectly:
“I think AI is about making the work we care about easier – and making the work we don’t like to do disappear as much as possible.”
For clinicians, that means getting back the hours lost to admin tasks. Freed’s AI scribe eliminates tedious documentation, giving doctors and nurses more time for what really matters – patient care and personal well-being.
Lauren explained that many clinicians spend nearly 19 hours a week on notes and documentation, often after work hours. Freed’s technology now saves them millions of those hours – over 2.5 million since 2023 – without taking away their human touch.
“They love their patients, but they also love who they are outside of work,” Lauren said. “It’s our responsibility to help them do that without spending all their time staring at screens.
”Freed’s approach proves that AI doesn’t need to replace empathy – it can protect it.
How Freed’s AI Evolved from a Scribe to a Full Clinician Assistant
Kyle and Lauren then turned to how Freed is evolving. The company’s next phase goes beyond note-taking.
“Right now, we’re focused on the experience within the visit,” Lauren explained. “Next, we’re looking at how to support clinicians before the patient even walks in – and after they leave.”
With a $30 million Series A led by Sequoia, Freed is expanding into a full clinician assistant – helping with pre-charting, follow-ups, and seamless EHR (electronic health record) integrations.
The idea is simple: let AI handle the repetitive logistics so clinicians can focus on care. Lauren described the roadmap as “an evolution from a great scribe to a true right-hand assistant.”
And that vision ties back to Freed’s founding goal: not replacing doctors, but enabling them to thrive.
Marketing with Empathy: How Freed Builds Trust and Community
As Freed’s Content Marketing Manager, Lauren leads strategy for a growing community of more than 20,000 clinicians. Her focus isn’t on flashy growth hacks – it’s on trust.
Before joining Freed, she helped scale another SaaS company, Scribe, from 8,000 to 130,000 monthly visitors. Now, she applies those lessons with a different lens: storytelling that genuinely helps healthcare professionals.
“We’re a genuine PLG motion,” she said. “We speak to individual clinicians and small practices. Our content isn’t just top-funnel SEO – it’s lifecycle nurturing and education.”
Instead of relying on typical B2B platforms like LinkedIn, her team meets clinicians where they already are – inside niche Facebook groups, healthcare forums, and publications they read daily.
“Clinicians aren’t as active on LinkedIn,” Lauren explained. “So we go where they gather, listen to what they’re asking, and build resources that actually help.”
That strategy has turned Freed’s users into advocates – building a content ecosystem rooted in empathy, not ads.
Creating Depth Over Volume: Why Expertise Outranks Algorithms
When the conversation shifted to content quality, Lauren was direct:
“If you just use AI, it’s not going to perform well.”
She credits Freed’s visibility to E-E-A-T – expertise, experience, authority, and trustworthiness – and to collaborations with real clinicians. Every blog, article, and workflow guide pairs clinical accuracy with relatable storytelling.
“When I write about SOAP notes or charting, I work with real clinicians to show their actual templates,” she said. “It’s about making content that’s truly helpful.”
Freed’s internal blog, called “Note Bloat,” plays off a clinician term for overly long notes. The posts are intentionally short – two to three minutes – and deliver value fast.
The result? Content that earns credibility, not just clicks.
Turning Conversations into Actionable Content
Lauren doesn’t guess what clinicians need – she asks them. In her first year, she personally met with more than 50 clinicians to understand their workflows, pain points, and jargon.
“If I hadn’t spoken to them, we wouldn’t know what content works – or what doesn’t,” she said. “A single chat can lead to a blog, a demo, or even a product fix.”
That feedback often loops back into product development. When users highlight friction points, Freed’s marketing team passes those insights directly to engineering.
It’s content marketing that doesn’t just promote the product – it shapes it.
Where AI Fits – and Where It Doesn’t
Lauren made it clear that AI is a partner, not a replacement.
“People think AI on a marketing team means AI is writing everything. It’s not. What matters is figuring out where it’s actually useful and where it falls flat.”
At Freed, AI is used for analysis and efficiency, not storytelling. It helps identify gaps in content, generate summaries, and visualize data – but humans still write every final piece.
“AI gives me the foundation,” Lauren said. “Then humans layer in the expertise. That’s what makes content specific and valuable.”
That philosophy aligns with Freed’s product approach – automate what slows you down, but keep people at the center.
Protecting Privacy While Personalizing Care
When Kyle asked how Freed balances personalization with HIPAA compliance, Lauren didn’t hesitate.
“Security is fundamental. I can’t do anything if I’m not thinking about the safety of the user and their patient.”
Freed doesn’t touch patient data – it’s deleted after each use. What the team studies instead is interaction data: how clinicians use features, which tools they prefer, and where they encounter friction.
That insight helps shape product priorities – from pre-charting tools to post-visit instructions – while maintaining complete privacy.
“We’re not building doctors,” she emphasized again. “We’re working with doctors – and strengthening the administrative side so they don’t have to do it all themselves.”
It’s a model of ethical AI in action: personalization without compromise.
Empowering Humans Through AI Collaboration
As the discussion turned to the future, Lauren described how Freed’s internal hackathon led to one of her favorite innovations – an AI-powered trend-tracking system that monitors online conversations across healthcare forums.
“It’s 100 AI agents scanning the internet so we can spot new themes before they go mainstream,” she said.
The tool helps Freed stay ahead of emerging clinician topics long before they show up in search data – a perfect example of how AI can enhance creative instincts rather than replace them.
“Use AI to free you up for the fun stuff,” Lauren said. “That’s the goal.”
Looking Ahead: The Future of Content and Care
Lauren believes the next chapter of content marketing will go deeper, not broader.
“We’ll see a shift toward specificity, expert partnerships, and product integration,” she said. “It won’t just describe tools – it’ll explain workflows and real outcomes.”
That philosophy drives Freed’s plan to launch specialty-specific content hubs featuring real clinician workflows, templates, and case studies – practical assets, not just thought leadership.
The message is clear: depth and usefulness will define authority in the AI era.
Rapid-Fire Highlights
If you could snap your fingers and have a fully automated process or AI solution in place – what would it be?
“I might already have it with the hackathon – I wanted something that helps predict what’s coming, and I think we built it.”
Harder to perfect – headlines or visuals?
“Headlines can take forever because how do you distill something that’s going to catch attention? They see that first.”
Describe a crunch-time night before a big deadline.
“I have a cup of coffee and I’m crying – just kidding.”
“Usually, I’m refining copy with my team and sending it to my CMO, hoping she’s awake on the East Coast.”
Current social-media obsession?
“The musical Death Becomes Her on TikTok. Not useful to my marketing brain – but very fun.”
Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?
“Beyoncé, hands down.”
Built by and for Clinicians
Freed’s journey comes full circle – from a husband coding through the night to help his wife reclaim her evenings, to a global platform saving millions of hours for healthcare professionals worldwide.
Lauren summed it up best:
“If we can make clinicians’ lives better, we’ll always make that choice. That’s the win that matters.”
🎧 Listen to the full episode of The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast
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Embracing AI in Real Estate
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint by Left Brain AI, Kyle sits down with Lucy Edwards, a real estate veteran with over 25 years of experience and one of the pioneers who brought floor plans beyond New York City – into New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester County.
Known for her forward-thinking mindset and “love-hate but must-embrace” philosophy toward AI, Lucy represents the perfect mix of old-school grit and modern innovation.
How It All Began
Lucy’s career in real estate didn’t start with listings or luxury homes – it started with a dream.
Twenty-five years ago, she and her husband Peter bought a Victorian house on a lake in the Catskills, hoping to turn it into a bed and breakfast.
To prepare for zoning approvals, Lucy taught herself to create floor plans using $30 software while Peter learned photo editing. Though the project was ultimately denied, it led to a defining opportunity: her niece, who worked at Sotheby’s, saw the floor plans and introduced Lucy to agents who loved her work.
At that time, floor plans were only common in Manhattan. Lucy helped expand them into New Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester, effectively pioneering a new niche in the early 2000s.
From there, she and Peter built a full creative business offering floor plans, photography, and brochures – long before “marketing suites” were standard. Their foundation was trust, relationships, and adaptability.
As Lucy put it:
“You have to treat every business like your own. Give it passion, give it love, and success will follow.”
That same drive to adapt is what led her to embrace AI decades later.
The Power of Persistence: Learning AI by Doing
When the pandemic hit and open houses shut down, Lucy was forced to pivot quickly. Though she once disliked Matterport, the 3D virtual tour tool, she decided to master it – attending webinars, repeating lessons, and spending hours learning every function.
That persistence paid off. Lucy now calls virtual tours “a must-have solution,” especially in markets like Fort Lauderdale, where “50% of new developments are sold to international buyers.”
Matterport, she explains, isn’t just about visuals – it’s about storytelling. Agents can record narration or overlay text to describe features and flow, allowing buyers thousands of miles away to feel like they’re walking through the home in person.
Her advice is simple:
“Do it over until you feel comfortable. Practice makes perfect.”
Virtual Staging & Ethics: Realistic, Not Misleading
Virtual staging has revolutionized property marketing – but Lucy reminds agents that transparency must come first.
Affordable platforms like BoxBrownie make digital enhancements easy, but she warns against over-editing. She shared a Florida case where an agent was sued for removing telephone poles from listing photos.
“Always watermark your images as ‘Virtually Staged.’ Adjust skies or cabinets if needed, but never remove permanent structures.”
The lesson? Use technology to inspire imagination, not to deceive.
Virtual Assistants, Real Impact
At the Inman Connect conference, Lucy discovered a new favorite tool: OPY, an award-winning virtual assistant platform that blends AI with natural human conversation.
Unlike traditional call bots, OPY can understand pauses, interpret tone, and even remind agents to follow up with clients. “It really thinks before it responds,” she said.
Lucy also mentions Lofty as another useful AI assistant for automating follow-ups, calls, and emails – tools that make daily operations faster and more consistent.
AI in Everyday Workflows
Lucy uses ChatGPT daily to edit LinkedIn messages, write captions, and shorten long paragraphs without losing tone.
“I’ll paste something way too long – like War and Peace – and tell it, ‘Make it 300 characters.’ And boom, it gives me 287.”
But she stresses that AI should complement personality, not replace it:
“You still need to tweak it so it sounds like you.”
That balance between automation and authenticity, she says, is what keeps connections human.
CRM Systems: The Backbone of an Agent’s Business
Lucy has long used Salesforce in larger organizations, but she’s now exploring simpler, integrated CRM platforms – and plans to test the one Kyle uses, Go High Level.
Her philosophy is clear:
“If it’s not in your CRM, it’s not in your head. You might remember today, but in a week, you’ll forget. Your CRM keeps you organized – names, birthdays, notes, everything.”
A good CRM, she adds, doesn’t just track deals – it preserves the relationships and data that define an agent’s long-term success.
Predictive Analytics & the Future of Smart Real Estate
At Inman, Lucy also discovered TrustScout and ListTrac – two AI-driven data tools that help agents work smarter.
TrustScout aggregates deep demographic and behavioral data, helping brokers and recruiters identify high-fit leads. ListTrac tracks migration and engagement trends – showing who’s moving where and how agents can target accordingly.
“Let your CRM and AI tools contribute to your growth,” Lucy said. “They’re here to make you better, not replace you.”
From Predictive Tech to Property Care
Lucy also sees predictive analytics as a way to modernize property management. Just as a car reminds you to change the oil, smart systems can now flag upcoming maintenance or inefficiencies.
“Use triggers for everything that needs to be checked or maintained,” she advised.
She even joked about a “smart litter box” that texted her updates when it hadn’t been cleaned – proof, she laughed, that predictive tech has already reached everyday life.
Networking & Continuous Learning
Lucy’s career is built on relationships – and she continues to invest in learning. She attends major events like Inman, RISMedia, Real Deal, and the NYC Real Estate Expo.
Her networking tip:
“Buy the VIP ticket. That’s where you meet the real people. Everyone’s relaxed – and that’s where I’ve landed some of my best interviews.”
She also encourages agents to join webinars, repeat trainings, and keep learning new tools until they feel second nature.
The Human Edge
For Lucy, technology will never replace passion, persistence, or purpose.
“It’s important to wake up happy that the day is about to start – that you get to do what you love.”
Her final thought:
“Human beings will never be replaced. Be smarter than a robot – and make sure your clients can’t live without you.”
🎧 Listen to the full conversation:
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📖 Read the full transcript on Left Brain AI
AI and Personalization in Healthcare
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, Kyle sits down with Oghosa Evbuomwan, Head of Marketing at Agilix Health, to explore how artificial intelligence and personalization are reshaping care beyond the hospital walls.
At Agilix Health, a Massachusetts-based digital health company, the team focuses on whole-person nutrition programs for people living with chronic conditions and during pregnancy – connecting clinical treatment with the everyday choices that happen at home.
From predictive analytics to remote patient monitoring and culturally sensitive nutrition guidance, Agilix is helping providers bring continuous, personalized care directly to patients’ lives.
From the Clinic to the Kitchen: Rethinking Where Health Happens
Originally from Nigeria and trained as a primary care physician for over seven years, Oghosa’s career bridges medicine, public health, and marketing. Today, he leads Agilix’s marketing strategy – translating complex health programs into accessible, patient-centered experiences.
“We provide whole-person nutrition care to people living with chronic conditions and during pregnancy,” he explained. “When they’re outside the hospital setting – where health actually happens, at home – we help ensure that their nutrition is optimized, so the treatment they get in the hospital yields the most benefit afterward.”
It’s a holistic approach that recognizes something simple but powerful: healing doesn’t stop at discharge.
How Oghosa Defines AI – and Why Ethics Matter Most
When asked to define AI, Oghosa didn’t hesitate:
“I think AI is a powerful tool that’s very much dependent on the data that’s fed into it and the intent it’s designed to achieve.”
To him, the distinction between what AI can do and what it should do is critical. He’s seen firsthand how quickly trust can erode when systems aren’t transparent.
He recalled an interaction with Grok 3, where the model falsely claimed its own text wasn’t AI-generated:
“It said, ‘No, it wasn’t AI-generated. It was crafted by me.’ That gave some insight into what ethical AI should look like – or rather, how ethical systems need to be built into AI.”
Especially in healthcare – one of the most regulated and high-stakes industries – he believes accountability and human oversight must be built into every AI system from day one.
Closing the Preventive Care Gap
Outside of him role at Agilix, Oghosa also speaks at healthcare summits and community panels. Recently, he joined an event at Webster University focused on preventive medicine in the African diaspora – helping attendees understand how to navigate public health systems, interpret symptoms, and challenge cultural biases around care.
“We came together to address some of the biases people have – about their health-seeking behavior or how they interpret certain symptoms,” he said.
It’s part of a larger mission: making preventive care culturally relevant, accessible, and proactive.
What Advanced Primary Care Really Means
For Oghosa, “advanced primary care” isn’t just a buzzword – it’s a structural shift.
“It goes beyond just the episodic visits people make to their providers,” he explained. “It integrates a longitudinal piece – remote patient monitoring, automated scheduling, and predictive analytics.”
Whether through wearables like smartwatches or continuous glucose monitors, patients and providers can now track progress between appointments.
Still, he says adoption depends on one crucial factor: communication.
“Digital literacy and health literacy are huge factors when it comes to adopting these technologies,” he said. “How well a provider convinces a patient to use these tools goes a long way in determining how successful the program is.”
Personalization Needs People, Not Just Algorithms
At Agilix, personalization isn’t limited to data points – it includes culture, language, and lived experience.
“Part of our campaigns now involve translating content so people understand our message in their local dialect,” Oghosa said. “When we put a registered dietitian in the home of our patients – or members – we make sure the language and recommendations are culturally sensitive.”
That means ensuring a patient’s meal plan fits both their clinical needs and their cultural traditions.
And while AI plays a growing role in healthcare, Oghosa is firm on one principle:
“If you remove the human in the loop, it just becomes like everything else. Healthcare deals directly with lives. You always need a human element to vet whatever the AI produces.”
Building Digital Literacy Inside Medicine
A consistent theme in Oghosa’s work is education – both for patients and for healthcare professionals.
He’s been vocal about the digital literacy gap in medical training.
“Back in 2022, we published a paper and found that the majority of medical trainees are not digitally literate,” he said. “We’ve been advocating to embed ICT training into CME courses so providers become more digitally savvy.”
To him, modern medicine requires fluency not just in diagnostics and treatment – but in the technologies that enable them.
He practices what he preaches, mentoring interns on AI and marketing fundamentals while taking the same courses himself to stay ahead.
Evaluating AI with a Critical Eye
When deciding which tools or research to trust, Oghosa applies a simple but powerful filter: Who’s behind it?
“When I read papers or explore new technologies, I ask: Who are the authors? What are their affiliations? Who funded the research or product?”
Understanding motive, he says, is just as important as understanding methodology. It’s how he separates credible innovation from overhyped promises.
The Future of Care: Predictive, Preventive, and Personal
Looking ahead, Oghosa envisions a healthcare system built on continuous prediction rather than reaction.
“The current system is very old-fashioned and general,” he said. “In the future, we’ll see hyper-personalization of care – relying on predictive analytics, remote monitoring, and prevention rather than treatment.”
In that world, he says, doctors may have a digital twin – a data-driven assistant tuned to each patient’s unique physiology.
And payers are already catching up.
“Most preventive measures are covered by insurance companies,” he noted. “They’re incentivized to keep you out of the hospital. If these technologies show measurable value, insurance will cover them.”
That’s value-based care in action – and it’s accelerating.
His Moonshot Vision: Health Forecasting Like Weather
When asked about his dream AI project, Oghosa didn’t hesitate:
“Something around predictive analytics. Right now we have weather forecasts that can tell us tomorrow’s temperature – but we don’t have that for healthcare.”
He imagines a future where health forecasting is as normal as checking the weather app – predicting risks, relapses, or health milestones days or months in advance.
Beyond the Word ‘Patient’: Rethinking Identity in Healthcare
In one of his most striking points, Oghosa suggested retiring a word central to medicine: patient.
“Because at the end of the day, they’re people – users, members,” he said. “If you say ‘patient,’ it can sound diminishing. It might even be triggering for some.”
Instead, he encourages providers to use identity-first language – saying “people with diabetes” instead of “diabetic,” or “people with hypertension” instead of “hypertensive.”
It’s a small linguistic shift that reflects a larger truth: words shape care.
Preventive Health: The Most Underrated Discipline
As the conversation wrapped, Oghosa emphasized what she believes is healthcare’s most overlooked frontier – preventive medicine.
“People need to know they don’t have to have symptoms before going to the clinic,” he said. “The more intentional we are about our health, the more we prevent the catastrophes that come with delay.”
He also noted that immigrant populations are often slower to seek care – not just for financial reasons, but cultural ones.
“There’s sometimes a spiritual connotation to health issues. We need to see science for what it is and health for what it is.”
Global Perspective, Local Impact
Despite his U.S. base, Oghosa remains deeply connected to his home country.
“I’m still in touch with my family and friends – especially those in health tech,” he said. “We have a Digital Health Nigeria WhatsApp group where people are constantly building and collaborating across Africa.”
It’s a community that mirrors his philosophy: healthcare innovation should be both global and personal.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Connect, or YouTube
📖 Read the full transcript on Left Brain AI
How AI Helps Heal Healthcare Burnout
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, Kyle sits down with Naveen Koneru, Head of Partnerships at Healing Breaths, to explore how artificial intelligence is helping healthcare professionals fight burnout, reclaim balance, and scale well-being programs without losing the human touch.
Healing Breaths, an initiative within The Art of Living Foundation, has supported 15,000+ healthcare providers across 50+ institutions, including Harvard, Penn Medicine, and NYU Langone. Accredited and evidence-based, its programs are redefining what it means to take care of those who take care of others.
Healing Breaths: Supporting Those Who Heal Others
The story of Healing Breaths began eight years ago, when the foundation’s founder, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, asked a simple question:
“We’re serving so many parts of society – but are we doing anything for our physicians and nurses?”
That moment sparked a movement. Today, Healing Breaths offers accredited programs that help healthcare professionals move from burnout to balance, and eventually to becoming ambassadors of well-being for their peers.
“We believe well-being is a journey, not just a program,” Naveen explained. “Healing Breaths is intentionally designed to support healthcare professionals at every stage of that journey.”
By blending ancient breathing techniques with modern behavioral science, the organization gives physicians, nurses, and hospital teams the tools to recharge mentally and emotionally – something many have never been formally taught to do.
Redefining Burnout with Data, Empathy, and AI
When asked to define AI, Naveen’s response was both philosophical and practical:
“I think AI is the most potent and most adaptive assistant for humankind.”
To him, AI isn’t about replacement – it’s about relief. He uses it daily to speed up research, personalize outreach, and uncover patterns that help Healing Breaths reach more institutions.
From mapping hospital leadership structures to analyzing partnership opportunities, Naveen treats AI as a collaborative partner – one that helps him think faster and focus on what matters most: building human relationships.
“This used to take me 30 minutes – sometimes longer,” he said. “Now it’s instant.”
For an organization that operates with a small, mission-driven team, those time savings directly translate into more meaningful conversations with healthcare leaders and staff.
How AI Powers Outreach and Connection
Behind the scenes, Naveen and his team have built a lightweight but sophisticated tech stack. Tools like Apollo, HubSpot, and ChatGPT help streamline research and outreach, while platforms such as GoHighLevel, Twilio, and OpenPhone support automated texting and follow-ups.
What makes their approach unique is how they use these automations – not to flood inboxes, but to cut through the noise with genuine, relevant messages.
“We’re experimenting with ways to create authentic, transparent exchanges,” Naveen said. “Users know they’re talking to an agent, but can easily connect with a human who continues the conversation.”
By integrating AI with text-based communication, Healing Breaths meets healthcare professionals where they already are – on their phones, between shifts, with just seconds to spare.
Hyper-Personalization: From Conversations to Custom Proposals
Naveen believes personalization is the future of meaningful engagement – especially in healthcare, where every second counts.
He envisions a system where an AI assistant can listen to a conversation at a wellness event, capture key details, and follow up with personalized messages that reference that exact moment.
He’s already experimenting with tools like TL;DV to transcribe and summarize meetings, and with Qwilr to embed those insights directly into customized proposals.
“A remarkable use of AI could be taking meeting transcripts, identifying one or two key metrics, and embedding those into proposals,” he explained. “That level of personalization could be a game-changer.”
It’s a vision of AI not as a marketing gimmick, but as a way to make outreach feel human again.
Scaling Impact Through Storytelling and Word of Mouth
Despite the automation, Naveen says the organization’s true growth came from something timeless: stories.
“The greatest scaling actually happened when healthcare professionals heard stories of other providers going through the same experiences,” he said. “They were inspired and said, ‘If they can find peace through breathing, maybe I can too.’”
That peer-to-peer inspiration – a cardiologist sharing her transformation with another physician, or a nurse introducing the program to a colleague – became Healing Breaths’ most powerful growth engine.
“Conversation catches inspiration,” Naveen said simply.
Real Results: The Cardiologist Who Stopped Getting ‘Breathe’ Alerts
One of Naveen’s favorite stories comes from a respected cardiologist at Penn Medicine. During the height of the pandemic, her Apple Watch began alerting her to “breathe” up to five times a day – a clear signal of stress.
After joining Healing Breaths, those alerts dropped to one per day within a week – and soon, disappeared entirely.
Within a year, she became a certified facilitator herself, bringing the program to hundreds of colleagues. She later completed Stanford’s Chief Wellness Officer training and is now co-leading a Harvard–Penn Medicine randomized controlled trial studying Healing Breaths’ impact on physician well-being using wearable HRV data.
It’s one story – but for Naveen, it captures the mission perfectly: measurable science and human transformation working hand in hand.
Efficiency, Scalability, and the Human Metric
Even as AI enables Healing Breaths to scale, Naveen measures success through distinctly human outcomes.
“If I can reach a point where 30% of my time is spent doing follow-ups – and 70% in real human conversations – that’s ideal,” he said.
Efficiency, in his eyes, isn’t just speed – it’s time reclaimed for empathy. The team tracks three core metrics: how many institutions they reach, how many individuals engage, and how much time is freed up for authentic dialogue.
The lesson for other organizations is clear: automation matters most when it gives humans back the bandwidth to care.
The Future of Preventive AI in Healthcare
Looking ahead, Naveen envisions AI helping healthcare systems move from treating disease to teaching well-being.
“If we play it right, we could create a world where providers are examples of their own well-being,” he said. “Imagine seeing a doctor not because you’re sick, but to learn how to thrive.”
That’s where AI’s potential lies – not in replacing human care, but in empowering the people who deliver it.
Closing Thoughts: Human Empowerment, Not Replacement
When asked what AI tool he’d invent if he could, Naveen said:
“Maybe something that could self-integrate with all the other AI solutions I use, A/B test different combinations, and report back multiple times a day on how they’re performing.”
But his real takeaway goes deeper: AI’s purpose is to serve humanity – not the other way around.
Even as he experiments with robotics and automation, Naveen remains grounded in the simple truth that inspired Healing Breaths in the first place: sometimes, the most powerful healing still happens in silence, through a breath.
“We should prevent ourselves from being anything less than thriving,” he said.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube
📖 Read the full transcript on Left Brain AI
How AI Is Transforming Video Advertising – and Leveling the Playing Field
In this episode of The Brainiac Blueprint, Kyle sits down with Scott Salik, Founder and Executive Producer at Carpe Canum, to explore how AI is reshaping modern video advertising – from how ads are made to who can afford to make them.
With a career that spans Anchorman, Team America, and Beachbody’s early streaming era, Scott brings a rare perspective. He’s seen the shift from big-budget broadcast to agile, data-driven creative – and now, he’s using AI to make high-quality production accessible to everyone.
From Hollywood to Streaming: When TV Advertising Became Anyone’s Game
For decades, TV advertising was dominated by a few hundred brands with the budgets to own prime-time space. But the rise of streaming and connected TV changed that. Scott recognized early that technology could level the playing field for smaller businesses.
commercials at a fraction of traditional costs. Through a partnership with TV Scientific, his team creates “low-cost, not low-quality” spots – and helps brands deliver them to the right households with measurable results.
“Originally, 500 companies did something like 80% of the TV advertising in this country,” Scott said. “Now, any small business has that same superpower of television to grow their business.”
By combining production expertise with digital precision, Carpe Canum helps businesses bridge the gap between brand storytelling and performance marketing.
Personalization at Scale: High Volume Personalization (HVP)
Personalization has always been the key to performance – but scaling it for video has been costly and time-consuming. That’s where Scott’s team stepped in.
Their AI-powered system, High Volume Personalization (HVP), generates hundreds of ad variations automatically – adjusting creative elements like locations, voiceovers, or offers without sacrificing quality.
“We can take a commercial and modify it for each audience segment – whether it’s ten versions or 800 versions,” Scott said. “It used to take a week of editing. Now we can do it in 24 hours.”
When Carpe Canum produced 240+ localized ads for a casino app across 40 states, each version included state-specific disclaimers and offers. Within weeks, the data showed which creative performed best – allowing the client to double down on top performers.
“It’s another one of those things that allows a small business to have the same power as a major brand,” Scott added.
By merging automation with human review, HVP brings the speed and testing agility of paid media to high-quality video production.
Rethinking Focus Groups with AI
Before launching campaigns, big brands often rely on costly focus groups to predict audience response. Now, Scott’s team is testing a smarter, faster approach – AI-powered synthetic focus groups that replicate real-world feedback.
These AI “participants” are built on thousands of real human surveys and can even be interviewed to explain their reactions. The results are remarkably close to traditional testing – but available in hours instead of weeks.
“They did thousands of paper surveys with real participants to build the generative AI database,” Scott explained. “Now we can chat with synthetic participants and ask why they responded a certain way. It’s incredible for creative feedback.”
For smaller advertisers, it’s a breakthrough – offering research-level insights at startup-level costs.
The Human Layer Still Wins
As AI tools flood the market, Scott keeps a grounded perspective: automation works best when guided by people who understand storytelling.
“We always add that polish layer,” he said. “Most templated AI commercials have a pretty low success rate compared to the ones with human oversight.”
Carpe Canum uses AI to accelerate production and simplify repetitive edits – but never to replace creative direction. “We’re not rushing to do AI for AI’s sake,” Scott said. “We use it when it helps us make better work.”
It’s an approach that keeps authenticity intact while unlocking scale – something too many “AI-only” platforms miss.
What’s Next for Video Advertising
Scott believes the next frontier in video is data-driven personalization at scale – campaigns that adapt to what audiences are actually doing online.
“You’ll be able to look at your web data and build a commercial for the exact products people viewed that week,” he said. “That’s where the future is heading – being there with the right message at the right moment.”
He also hopes to see creators use AI responsibly – as a tool for amplification, not dependency. “Foster their talent,” he added. “Help them understand why we do things – so they can make better work in the future.”
For Scott, that’s the real goal: technology that expands creativity rather than replaces it.
Final Takeaway
Scott Salik’s journey – from movie sets to machine learning – shows how technology can amplify, not erode, the art of storytelling.
His message to marketers is clear:
AI doesn’t replace creativity – it democratizes it.
By combining automation, data, and human craftsmanship, Carpe Canum is proving that small and mid-sized brands can now produce video that performs like a national campaign.
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube.
📖 Or read the full transcript at Left Brain AI.
Scaling Compassion: How a Tech Sales Pro Helped Transform Alzheimer’s Care
In an industry where burnout and bureaucracy often slow progress, Sam Markovich, Head of Sales and Marketing at Millennium Memory Care, has managed to do the opposite. In just over a year, he helped grow occupancy across six New Jersey facilities from 62% to 96%.
His story isn’t just about marketing – it’s about rethinking how empathy and innovation can coexist inside one of healthcare’s most demanding sectors.
From Tech Sales to Healthcare
When Sam left a tech sales career to join the company his mother founded, he traded cold calls for crisis calls. Families reaching out to Millennium are rarely browsing – they’re desperate for immediate help.
Drawing on his background in sales and operations, Sam built structure around empathy. He treated every inquiry like a solution-oriented conversation rather than a transaction.
“Sales is all about talking to people, figuring out their problems and providing the solutions,” he said. That perspective helped him translate the logic of B2B growth into a business built on human care.
Standing Apart Through Guarantees and Clarity
Many assisted-living facilities struggle with consistency – shifting prices, narrow eligibility, and unpredictable policies. Millennium takes a different approach.
Its model is built on two guarantees: they will never hospitalize residents for behavioral issues, and they will accept patients regardless of behavioral severity. These policies have turned the company into a trusted partner for hospitals and families navigating Alzheimer’s and dementia care.
Sam also simplified pricing. Instead of multiple “levels of care,” Millennium offers one transparent, all-inclusive rate. The approach reduces confusion and signals integrity in an industry often clouded by complexity.
Growth Through Relationships, Not Ads
When asked how he achieved near-full occupancy without a large marketing budget, Sam pointed to one word: relationships.
Much of Millennium’s growth comes from hospital referrals and social worker partnerships. But those relationships are fragile – COVID restrictions and constant staff turnover make outreach difficult.
“Social workers are some of the busiest people I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said. “It’s hard to reach someone that’s constantly not at their desk.”
Instead of pushing sales pitches, Sam focuses on being a reliable resource. By offering help rather than persuasion, Millennium became a go-to option for time-strapped hospital teams managing patient discharges.
Combating Stigma and Misinformation
Memory care is often misunderstood, and many families approach it with guilt, fear, or misinformation. Sam sees education as part of his job.
“There is a lot of misinformation and a lot of stigma associated with memory care,” he said. Millennium combats that by being transparent about what families can expect and by guiding them to the best fit – even if that means recommending another facility.
This honesty has turned marketing into mission alignment. When the message centers on helping families, not capturing customers, trust becomes the natural outcome.
Marketing to an Offline Demographic
Reaching older audiences online is one of the toughest marketing challenges in healthcare. Despite strong SEO rankings, Millennium’s website visitors often don’t convert into leads.
Sam experimented with AI chatbots and streaming ads, but not every innovation paid off. “We’ve actually gotten less results, less leads since we implemented this chatbot because we removed the contact form,” he said.
The experience reinforced a simple truth: technology can’t replace accessibility. Millennium now pairs digital visibility with in-person engagement through community events, senior-center presentations, and direct hospital outreach.
Expanding With Purpose
Millennium has begun preparing for its next chapter – expanding beyond New Jersey. The first new facility will open in Florida, where the company recently purchased land. The move aligns with the state’s large senior population and the lack of comparable behavioral-focused care options.
Still, quality control remains the top priority. “We provide a very unique service that not everybody can do,” Sam said. “It’s very hard for us to maintain that quality and those standards when we manage everything privately.”
To stay grounded, Sam is pursuing his Certified Medication Aid certification and plans to work occasional shifts inside Millennium’s facilities. The goal: experience the day-to-day realities of caregivers firsthand to ensure that marketing aligns with reality.
The Future of Care: Where AI Meets Empathy
Sam believes AI can help advance – not replace – human care. He’s exploring both marketing automation and AI companions designed for dementia patients.
“The combination of AI and healthcare is definitely growing,” he said. “I want to include as much AI as possible into the Millennium business, not only from a sales and marketing side, but also from a care perspective.”
By pairing intelligent tools with an empathetic model, Millennium is defining what modern healthcare growth can look like: scalable, sustainable, and deeply human.
Takeaway
Sam Markovich’s journey from software sales to specialized healthcare shows that growth doesn’t have to come at the cost of compassion. His results are proof that transparency, education, and innovation can coexist when guided by empathy.
As he put it simply, “We’re kind of like a small business that’s looking to solve a huge problem.”
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on The Brainiac Blueprint Podcast by Left Brain AI
→ Spotify | Apple Podcasts | YouTube
For the complete transcript, visit Left Brain AI.
AI Marketing for Small Businesses: A No-Fluff Guide to Smarter Strategy
If you’re a solo entrepreneur or running a small business with a lean team, marketing can often feel like a chaotic blend of guesswork and juggling too many tools. You’re trying to grow your audience, manage platforms, write content, and maybe even analyze data-all while wearing five other hats.
Here’s the good news: modern marketing no longer requires a big team or a massive budget. With a thoughtful strategy and the right use of AI tools like ChatGPT, even the smallest business can run a focused, high-impact marketing operation.
This guide is designed to help you simplify, prioritize, and execute a smarter marketing plan using AI-one that’s actually tailored to your size, goals, and customers.
🧠 Step 1: Know Exactly Who You’re Talking To
Before you write a single post or spend a dollar on ads, get crystal clear on your ideal customer.
Here’s how to do that:
- Look at your top 5–10 past customers. What traits do they have in common?
- Use AI to create a customer persona including demographics, behaviors, goals, and pain points.
- If you’re unsure, use AI to draft a customer survey and ask about preferences, struggles, and where they spend time online.
Why it matters: Clear audience understanding saves time, sharpens messaging, and reduces wasted effort on channels that don’t convert.
💬 Step 2: Build a Unique Message That Cuts Through Noise
Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP) is what tells people, “Here’s why you should choose us.”
Use these questions to shape it:
- What problem do we solve?
- How do we do it better or differently than others?
- Why should our customers care?
Put it into action:
- Write a 1-sentence UVP.
- Create 3 quick elevator pitches (10 sec, 30 sec, 1 min) to use in different settings (social, email intros, web copy).
- Ask AI to rewrite or tighten your message for clarity and tone.
🔊 Step 3: Define a Brand Voice (and Use It Everywhere)
Small businesses often overlook this, but having a consistent voice builds credibility fast.
How to find your brand voice:
- List 3–5 adjectives that reflect your business personality (e.g., bold, friendly, knowledgeable).
- Use AI to create a “voice chart” with do’s and don’ts for content and customer service.
- Review existing communications to see if they match the voice-or need editing.
Pro tip: Adjust tone slightly by platform. Your voice on LinkedIn should sound more polished than on Instagram or in a text-based chatbot.
🎯 Step 4: Set Goals You Can Measure (and Reach)
“Get more followers” isn’t a strategy. Neither is “increase traffic.” You need SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
Examples:
- “Grow our email list from 500 to 1,000 in 60 days.”
- “Increase Instagram engagement by 20% over 3 months.”
Use AI to help you:
- Turn vague ideas into trackable metrics.
- Suggest KPIs that align with your growth phase.
- Set weekly or monthly check-ins to adjust tactics.
📣 Step 5: Focus on the Right Channels (Not All of Them)
Don’t try to be everywhere. Instead, double down on platforms that match your audience and business type.
What to ask yourself:
- Where do your ideal customers already hang out? (LinkedIn? Instagram? YouTube?)
- What format best showcases your offer-video, short posts, educational content?
Use AI to:
- Create a 30-day content calendar for one primary channel.
- Generate A/B test ideas to see what content performs best.
- Review performance and refine weekly.
🔁 Step 6: Map the Customer Journey & Fill the Gaps
Think beyond the first click. Great marketing nurtures relationships at every stage-from awareness to loyalty.
Customer journey stages:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Purchase
- Post-purchase
- Advocacy
Quick actions:
- Use AI to map out your journey.
- Identify friction points (e.g., “They don’t convert after viewing the pricing page”).
- Draft content and emails that move people to the next stage.
✅ Step 7: Build a Repeatable Execution Plan
Once your strategy is clear, you need a system to implement-not just brainstorm.
Simple 30-day plan:
- Pick 1–2 goals.
- Assign specific tasks weekly (content, email, outreach).
- Track results every Friday.
Use AI to:
- Build weekly task lists and accountability check-ins.
- Create a simple KPI dashboard in Google Sheets or Notion.
- Allocate a small budget and optimize spend as you go.
🛠 Final Tips for Smarter Small Business Marketing
- Use AI as a partner, not a crutch-you still know your business best.
- Start small, test fast-better to master one channel than dabble in five.
- Track what works-document wins, misses, and insights.
- Stay adaptable-your audience, tools, and market will keep evolving.
🚀 Ready to Get Moving?
If you’ve been feeling stuck or stretched thin, this approach is your reset. With AI and a focused plan, small teams can now execute like large ones-without the overhead. All it takes is clarity, consistency, and a system that supports execution.
Want help mapping out your first 30-day AI-driven marketing plan? Reach out and I’ll help you build one tailored to your business and bandwidth.
