Virtuoso:

Jeff Walter (00:00)

I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, where we explore training infrastructure that helps scale performance. My guest today is Jared Shaw of Virtuoso. Jared is the founder of Virtuoso, which is an AI mentorship platform. Welcome to the program, Jared.

 

Jared Shaw (00:16)

Thank you so much for having me, excited to be here.

 

Jeff Walter (00:18)

So I’m I’m really excited about this. I I I’ve I’ve been to a number of different shows. I was at ATD recently. ⁓ I’ve been to a bunch of different shows and talked to a bunch of different analysts in the last, you know, well, been to year or so, but it’s so cool because there’s ⁓ AI is the latest technology. I really am wanna learn more about what an AI mentorship platform is. But what what’s really exciting when you and I first talked.

 

is you’re doing something really interesting, really innovative. I just think it’s so cool. And you’re starting and and ⁓ and so anyway, I’ll let I’m just I’m just really geeked and jazzed about this because I really love what you’re doing. So but anyway, why don’t you you know help us understand you’re I I’m always interested as my listeners know in the the path that we all get to get where we’re at. It’s always an interesting journey and also helps explain

 

at least for me, helps me understand what they’re about and what they’re trying to do today. If you understand that journey. so had so you’re the founder of Virtuoso. How did you end up getting there? And then what is Virtuoso and what is an AI mentorship platform? Because I think that would probably a new term for most most listeners out there.

 

Jared Shaw (01:30)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I definitely have ⁓ somewhat of an unconventional path, you might say, ’cause I actually come from a musical background. So I was a a drummer growing up and I still it’s still my main profession actually like during the day or during the nights, you know, I’m gigging and and working on Virtuoso during the day. but I’ve always kind of split the brain. Like I used to work a lot in in the business of producing and production and video production. So kind of growing up I had these two pathway two pathways and as I say splitting the brain to to explore both of those avenues.

 

Never did I think I’d be working in, you know, ed tech necessarily. but there was kind of a pivotal point right after COVID where I was just practicing drums as all drummers do, like in their garage, literally in my garage downstairs. it’s still the kind of the period of isolation, so you couldn’t really do in-person lessons. And I was I was getting tired of like those those static video courses, which you know, all musicians have to, you know, you just go through and you you you get them for inspiration. But they’re great and they’re useful tools for what they are.

 

⁓ but you know, they’re not interactive. They’re not in necessarily ⁓ engaging or iterative where you can interface back and forth with it, or you’re getting like real time feedback. It’s missing those crucial components to to what a real lesson is, right? And you never want to replace what a real teacher does. But my it just got my wheels turning, like between the latest in AI technology, which back then was still kind of AI’s been around forever, but that’s when it was really starting to explode into the the current phenomenon that it is with the latest models.

 

Jeff Walter (02:46)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jared Shaw (02:50)

And between my video production experience, which was again just working in content creation and in unscripted and scripted productions, and just being a musician, I was like, okay, I want to s figure out a way to combine these three passions and come up with a product that I would want to use myself, right? and so the wheels got spinning. I was like, okay, well, what if we take the static video components that work so well? Yeah, my immediately my mind went to like a company like Masterclass. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but that’s where you get to study with the

 

the greatest mentors in any given domain, you know, Martin Scorsese for film, Serena Williams for tennis, master negotiators, et cetera, in business. And that’s really cool. But again, it’s just it’s static video. So it’s that’s why it’s called master class. It’s like it’s not meant to necessarily teach you from Row, but it’s gonna be like, you know, learn this new hobby or refine this skill. So it’s like the components of that would be really cool, the static video. It started with music just because that was my passion. So I was like, all right, I’ll come up with a drumming demo.

 

Jeff Walter (03:42)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jared Shaw (03:44)

but how does this actually how does this interaction actually work? And I was like, okay, well what if we had an avatar that is photorealistic the same as the video that we produced, so that it’s seamless. So the video might have a pre-produced video of the drummer teaching teaching an exercise, but then it cuts to this avatar seamlessly, and then you can ask questions. So that’s where like the comprehension checks come in, and that’s where you can just ask questions that go off on different you know, trains of thought. And ⁓

 

That’s kind of the genesis of the idea. So kinda somewhat unconventional, but I like, I feel like that we’re on to something here. This this marrying of those worlds is where the future is going. And it took me a while to I stuck to that kind of master class direct-to-consumer idea for a bit. Like, what if we got these famous mentors on board and and they all could, you know, license it and and ⁓ use it for their different needs by teaching these courses and curriculums. but as I kept going, I was like, I think there’s broader use cases and

 

For for myself to build a business that has all these famous mentors would be quite a hurdle to get them on board for my you know new startup. So I was like, okay, well the same underlying technology works in education and it works in potentially enterprise. That wasn’t the first thought. But speaking about education first, I was like, okay, if I were a student in

 

Jeff Walter (04:41)

Yeah.

 

Jared Shaw (04:57)

a student that’s you know a child actor on set or a tennis student and you know I really w like tennis most of my days on the court, but I have to be, you know, tutored as as all childs do, right? And as all children’s do. you know, what what how could this tool be leveraged in that capacity? And the biggest technological difference and what I really spent two years working on, it we only really debuted in January at the ⁓ FETC conference.

 

Jeff Walter (05:19)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jared Shaw (05:19)

Is how

 

we keep these lessons on track. Because a lot of the AI tools, like you mentioned in education, there’s a lot. There’s, you know, all bells and whistles out there, but a lot of them are what people would say like GPT rappers, which is essentially like a chat bot, and it comes in different forms, and they may be like fine-tuned or it may be honed in for one use case. But it at the end of the day, it doesn’t have a a curriculum behind it. Like it’s most likely, and this is what teachers

 

Jeff Walter (05:35)

Right.

 

Jared Shaw (05:44)

And just a lot of folks in AI and education say is the biggest problem is that it either spoon feeds the answer to the student or goes off on different tangents. ⁓ right from the get-go, I’m like the avatar layer is cool, the visual layer is cool, but it need the what it’s actually saying needs to be having some sort of a curriculum behind it. Just like you would when you open a masterclass lesson, like it’s a static video, but of course there’s different lessons. Like each lesson has a goal and ⁓ an overall arc as to what the experience should be and what the goals of the of the user should be, in this case, the student.

 

So was like, okay, so we developed a curriculum engine that kind of constrains the the real time model that you’re talking to to a sequence of events, like phase one of the lesson, phase two of the lesson, and as these you will only move on in those lessons had the AI determined you’ve met a certain level of comprehension to the subject matter. And and so it’s not just gonna be you go into this free form chatbot where you have to be the first one to talk, ⁓ and you just go off and asking questions. That could be cool and there’s a use case for that. We call it like extra help mode, but it’s not

 

Jeff Walter (06:13)

Hello.

 

Right.

 

Jared Shaw (06:42)

core of what you’ll be doing. You’ll go in, you’ll select a lesson that has a defined goal. The the the mentor, the digital mentor, will be leading the conversation based on the the materials uploaded by the teacher or the mentor so that it’s aligned to their standards. and yeah, I mean I could go more detail, but think that’s the the origin story and the technological backdrop.

 

Jeff Walter (06:57)

Yeah.

 

Well, so you said a couple of things that are really interesting. I mean i th there’s a lot to unpack in there, so we’re gonna have a lot of fun. but ⁓ I wanna go back to the beginning ’cause you you said something really ⁓ the the i if if I understand, y you know, you you were kind of the original origin idea was you’re looking at these master class videos, which are just, you know, traditional videos and they’re great because you’re picking up, you know, pearls of wisdom from people that have, you know, just

 

you know, the experts in the field, right? But then you you said you y you put together and you do the you do the a video and then you cut to an avatar is I I just want to make sure I understand this. So and and then and then as you evolve the product

 

It was like, hey, I can put a whole curriculum together and follow, you know, kind of curriculum design best practices, right? Like and and and you know, instead of you know, you see a lot of at this point, you see a lot of avatar training tools out there. And and they they end up with some rubric, you know, you know, you you can train the avatar on some rubric to grade the person on on on some type of rubric of and then you can kind of say, hey, the and and then you can load a scenario, right? This is the you know, this is the hostile.

 

you know it’s a sales training avatar this is a hostile guy this is a friendly guy this is a tire kicker ⁓ and you got different rubrics but you said something really interesting you you a video and then you cut to the avatar when you first started playing with this. So was because that caught my attention because what’s really interesting is what and I and and when we talked previously it did it didn’t click in my head until we just were until just now.

 

So that was you were actually demonstrating a technique or you would be you know, in the lesson you would do it you know on the drums with that with that video, you would you would show some type of technique and then it would cut to an avatar and I as a student can then ask the avatar about the technique that I just saw.

 

Jared Shaw (08:51)

Exactly. And this still exists ⁓ with clients that like do the video elements. It’s an optional feature. But but yeah, it’s it’s the the most authentic version of it is when you still have the real person. It’s based on filming themselves doing either an exercise or they just want to talk about a topic for one minute so that every student or user will see the same little snippet. But then seamlessly, yeah, as soon as that’s completed, the AI is aware of that. It says something and then you get to engage about it. So if you have a question you didn’t quite understand, it helps with that comprehension check in real time.

 

Jeff Walter (09:08)

Right.

 

That’s I mean, the and the reason I ⁓ that caught my attention is it and we we I wanna get into the curriculum design ’cause I think that’s another thing that really kinda separ i I that I find r that was the first thing I found really fascinating. Was was you actually went back and said, Hey, take all these materials when you were and and when you showed it to us and and and

 

And we’re like, create a you know, be an instructional designer that builds out a curriculum of lesson one, lesson two, lesson three, and then and then have the avatar take you through the lessons and and learn that knowledge or or that so that soft skill.

 

But the video component I find really interesting because one of the big so we you know, our our traditional ⁓ one one of the biggest challenges that we faced as an industry, as a learning and development industry, is we we’ve actually gotten pretty good at the learning side, the knowledge acquisition side. Especially, you know, in the last twenty years with with SCORM and and AI is helping make make that easier, better, faster, cheaper, all that good stuff. But

 

But as an industry we do we we do a pretty good job on the knowledge acquisition side and it’s getting better, right, with these tools. So I’m not discounting that. The thing that we’ve done a we haven’t done a great job on is skill development. ⁓ because traditionally skills are all about practice and coaching.

 

And you needed a practice facility, physical practice facility, and you needed a human to coach you. And those are very expensive, right? Like even if you’re doing sales training and you’re gonna go do role playing, you need somebody to play the role of disgruntled customer, difficult sale or whatever, and then you need the student to actually interact with that other human. Well that’s you’ve got to have at least two humans, and you need a coach. And so so even though you don’t need a specialized

 

And then when you get into like hard skill training, like, hey, here’s how you install a solar panel, or you know, here’s how you make cappuccino or a caramel macchiato, right? I mean, you don’t it’s it’s a it’s a hard it I call it hard skills because it’s actually a physical thing you’re doing, right? and ⁓ you know or or you know repairing an engine or any one of a million other things or playing the drums. That that’s what caught my my my my mind was it’s a technical skill.

 

Like you gotta do something and the and and you know it’s not just a soft skill of like empathetic listening, overcoming objections. And so I just thought that was really cool. Actually, when you just said I’m sorry to just be going off on it, because I just think it’s so freaking cool that not you know, like I I’ve seen a lot of the avatar type stuff, and they’re really cool, and I think it’s really great for for soft skill development, then that’s a huge but but what you’re talking about is actually doing that and hard skill development.

 

Because you can do the let me show you how this technique is done. What and you can pick anything, laying down a carpet, playing the drums, repairing an engine, doing an oil change, installing something, you know, making a a caramel macchiato. And then boom, ask and then all of a sudden, boom, talk to an avatar to to answer any questions you have about that.

 

And and then and then get comprehension. I I I I’m sorry, it’s just maybe I’m making a mountain out of molehill, but I just thought that was really freaking cool.

 

Jared Shaw (12:35)

No, I mean I think about Yeah, I think about

 

how different people learn. Like I’m a I’m a visual learner or like an on the job learner. Like I could have watched a a twenty minute video and probably gotten nothing from it by just, you know, not being invested or physically trying it myself, whether that’s a coffee drink or an exercise on the drum. So it’s like, All right, well companies aren’t gonna spend that money to to have a i if it was somehow a drumming company and fourteen different drumming mentors personalized for each student. So I’m like, Okay, well there there should be somewhere in the middle where

 

It has the authenticity and the reliability of those videos, of those materials, but then yeah, you get the you get the role plays, you get the interactions, somewhere that’s but it’s again aligned to the standards of whoever it is, the teacher, the the company, their playbooks, their hard skills. And so I think this is a a happy medium ⁓ from replacing not replacing ⁓ someone that would teach you it by road, because that’s what you’re going to do, but also not leaving you alone with a 30 minute ⁓ video where

 

Most likely it’s not the greatest results of what you’re looking for either.

 

Jeff Walter (13:31)

Yeah, well well on on the on the corporate side, the and this gets into the skill development. The the hardest thing has been that skill development because it’s hard to scale because it’s really expensive, because traditionally it required specialized settings and lots of humans.

 

And humans, you know, they like to get paid so they can make rent and they’re expensive. ⁓ and so it’s hard to scale. And we’ve done a lot of work in the o auto sector and they’ve got, you know, automotive tech shop training locations across the country and you know, dealers send their their people there. And it’s really, you know, y it’s it’s expensive. You gotta send somebody to the you know, it’s usually not in your town ’cause there’s only, you know, a half a dozen these in the country. So you’re sending somebody overnight someplace and like that that

 

That costs a lot of money. And then and then they’re going to a specialized facility that has specialized equipment. And and while that is excellent, it is expensive. And what we’ve seen over the years is you can kind of you can kind of slice the slice the onion or or or take chunks, right? Like one of the things we like I said earlier, like we’ve done it as an industry, is we took the whole knowledge acquisition part of that out and made it all self-study.

 

Right. So now you don’t have to go to a class for five days and start and have somebody teach you, you know, ABC and then apply it and do the technique. Now you can learn ABC at you know from a self-study thing, and now you only have to go for two days to actually apply it, right? So and now I’m think I feel like we’re cutting the next

 

piece of that off ⁓ thing off goes like, okay, here’s a here’s a technique. Now go try it. I try it, I’m failing, I’m trying, I’m struggling. But then I have an avatar. I can sit there and go, Okay, I’m having a hard time with this third step in this technique. What am And then they and then t then go, well common reasons why people struggle with the third time yeah with the third step are dot dot dot dot try this. Like I’m imagining that’s what the avatar would

 

Did am I am I on track here?

 

Jared Shaw (15:30)

Yeah. It’s

 

designed to be the perfect balance of meeting you where you’re at. So again, if that was step three where they’re struggling with, you go through all the steps, but it would detect in step three we’re having these issues and then that’s where it can take time to engage. but also you don’t want it to be totally free form ’cause if you just were talking to a chatbot, that might A not answer in the way that’s authentic to how you’re supposed to actually learn it, even if it’s, you know, half accurate, but then also goes on different tangents whereas you want to keep it on track, but ensure step three is understood in this case. So like you said. So

 

Jeff Walter (15:56)

A exactly. Like you know, there’s a five steps here and now you’re on step three and and yeah. I I’m sorry. I just I got all excited. That was just so cool. I know I know that’s how you you you were kinda talking about you just went like l you know, and then ⁓ so now so it it now it advanced way beyond on that and you got into the curriculum engine. So I think that’s the ⁓ the why why the the that the first part was just cool ’cause I hadn’t heard that before.

 

Right. Every time I’ve talked to folks about this, it’s always been just the avatar. Right. And and it’s always soft skills training. Right. And and so that ⁓ when when you said that initially, it was it was like, my gosh, we could use this for hard skill training. Right? Like and and and and that is I mean that we like there are simulation companies out there, but this is different.

 

And that and and I’m like, wow, that’s a a really cost effective way to do hard skills training. I’m like, wow, you know. And then and then when they come to the facility or they actually meet with that master, well now their skills are already elevated and now you’re talking about polishing, not you know. But but let’s let’s shift gears and y ’cause you also mentioned the curriculum engine. So help us h understand what that is and how that works. Cause I thought that was also a brilliant

 

Insight on your part.

 

Jared Shaw (17:15)

Yeah.

 

So like you said, there’s the avatar layer, which is important and I spend a lot of time on like the visual engagement and w the UX experience. But equally if not more important is obviously what the what’s being said, especially with schools and when you’re training, you know, clients that have real jobs to get to do. So it has to move beyond being cool to actually, you know, comprehension and and training new skills soft or hard. the biggest thing is that when you run into issues with AI, besides the issues I mentioned with spoon feeding or going off a tangent, is that

 

They’re not deterministic in nature, they’re probabilistic in nature, right? They’re predicting the next word, and they’re not ⁓ sometimes they’re sycophantic, et cetera. But I was like, you know, a curriculum needs to be deterministic somewhat because you have defined outputs. You need to have these concrete goals that have to be met for academic rigor, for comprehension, et cetera. So so how do we make it as deterministic as possible? And again, that’s where we have a patent for the the curriculum engine.

 

For what constrains the the model you’re speaking to in real time to stay on track. and not to get too technical, but again, that’s just like think of it like a linear phase of what’s happening in the lesson, like phase one of the lesson, or like you just said, that five-step program that might be five different steps of the lesson, and it’s only gonna move on to step four if step three has been, you know, and there’s a few ways it detects this, but the f it you know, ensures comprehension. So

 

Step one and two, you might have excelled in two seconds. Great, yeah, it’s gonna move on. The digital mentor will proceed with the lesson. But step three, you know, it’ll it’ll stick with you for a bit until you move on. And that’s that’s what we’ve figured out is the the not the secret sauce, but just the way we keep these on track and differentiate ourselves in terms of the the ⁓ the content of what is being delivered in an in in this interactive layer. But

 

Jeff Walter (18:54)

Yeah. Well and I and I think that’s important ’cause a lot of these ⁓ I mean, it’s first off just I’m a technologist at heart, so I just love all this tech stuff and it’s like I keep telling my staff it’s like nineteen ninety nine all over again. I’ll get to go through another, you know, ⁓ generational

 

step function in in in technology. You know, I was ro I was around for you you know, the e revolution and you know, it’s like every technological revolution, right? It’s like overpromised, under delivered, and eventually changes everything.

 

Jared Shaw (19:25)

There you go.

 

Jeff Walter (19:26)

Right. It’s like it hits the scene

 

and people are like, It can do everything. It can slice bread, it can cook your breakfast, it it can walk your dog. It’s amazing. It’ll do everything. And then it and then it doesn’t do everything. but but but then eventually it just it just chang it sh does change everything. Yeah, like what like ⁓ like

 

you know, like like we don’t even realize this is moderns, but it’s like the steam engine changed everything, right? Like your your town’s, you know, the the car changed everything. Electricity changed everything. Indoor plumbing changed like these are all technological revolutions, right? They happened a hundred plus years ago, so we don’t think much of it because we take our soci our the streets outside as as a given, right? But no, there were technological revolutions that change that were, you know, overhyped, under delivered, and eventually changed everything.

 

Jared Shaw (20:16)

Right.

 

Jeff Walter (20:17)

So they so they really weren’t overhyped. There is just a timing issue, you know, and then it was so cool because the last one was the the internet and you know, everything is online. It’s just, you know, amazing. And and this one is the next one and it’s just so exciting. But I’m sorry I got down that wormhole. but the cool thing is w when I’ve a a lot a lot it it’s interesting what you said, a lot of the avatar simulations that I’ve seen are more of that.

 

soft skills simulation where you’re put into a scenario, right?

 

And the and the classic one that we’re seeing a lot of is is the sales scenario, right? I’m a salesperson or or recruiting. You know, I’m the interviewer, you’re the interviewee, and I’m trying to build my interview skills. I’m trying to build my sales skills. And so you know, I’m presented with an avatar that’s my can the candidate I’m interviewing, or the prospect I’m I’m doing a sales call on, and that that avatar has certain characteristics built into them, easy, hard.

 

Difficult, whatever, knowledgeable, ignorant, of the product, and and therefore, and it’s got a rubric that it’s judging me on as I do my interaction, right? That’s kind of the typical soft skills avatar we’re starting to see. And it’s like what you said at the beginning. You go, hello, and they go hello, and then you start working your way through. So it’s it’s not through it’s not a mentor, it’s a s it’s a soft skills simulation, right?

 

Jared Shaw (21:43)

And it’s not really

 

leading the lesson either, it’s kind of piggybacking off what you say, right?

 

Jeff Walter (21:48)

Right, because it’s not a lesson. Right? It’s it’s you’re you’re being thrown into a simulation. It’s like here’s the control to the plane, land it at LaGuardia. Like, okay. Let’s see what ⁓ go this way, let’s see what happens. no, that was bad. Right. crash the plane, let me start again. Right? It’s it’s a lot of them are you really and which is great. Like I again, I d I don’t want to just I I I don’t want to poo-poo any of that because I like I said at the b beginning.

 

Jared Shaw (21:50)

Right, exactly.

 

Jeff Walter (22:14)

I’m so excited all about this because of not only is it going to make knowledge acquisition easier, better, faster, cheaper, but it’s going to do something we haven’t been able to do, which is skill development at a large scale. And having those simulations is crucial because skill development is about practice and coaching, right? But what’s so cool is your is the I’m going back to the curriculum engine. So so what does wh when somebody’s looking to use this, what do they start with? Like how how do you get from nothing

 

to a curriculum with an avatar actually teaching you and interacting. Like ha ha

 

Jared Shaw (22:48)

Yeah. Well s I’ll stick with

 

that same use case. Like let’s say we’re we want to train our sales engineer team or we wanna do like a mock negotiation ⁓ or just generic sales training in general. ⁓ we want that role play in there and that would be a part of it, but you to taking a step back first, the company, let’s ⁓ use a I don’t know, fictitious coffee company, they could upload their their playbooks, their SOPs. It’s very flexible. The more materials the better, but we keep it lightweight if if if it’s a startup or something and only have like a PDF.

 

guide, that’s good enough. You upload that materials, and then we have a section that says any specific requirements. It can just use plain language like I wanted to focus on you know unit seven of this playbook or we want to just focus on our our barista training or our sales engineering in this case. We want to refine our negotiation skills for our sales engineering team. Then there’s different interactive tools you can toggle and there’s different levers you can dial. Again, this is in the generation phase before the lesson exists.

 

Jeff Walter (23:32)

Sure.

 

Jared Shaw (23:45)

you could say, should this be teaching it from scratch? Should they already know some of this and we’re checking for comprehension, or should it be like a an assessment? Like they should already know these skills and we’re verifying this. So there’s different levels you can or leverage and dial in that sense. and you know, there’s more details obviously, but gener generically that’s what the the generation process looks like. You hit generate, it takes two to five minutes on the back end, and then you’ll have

 

Jeff Walter (23:57)

Hmm.

 

Jared Shaw (24:09)

What we call that lesson structure sequence, which is the lesson outline essentially. And you could do it for one lesson, you could do it for five lesson. But more importantly, within all those lessons are those steps I was talking about, step one, two, three, four, five within each lesson. That’s again how it stays on track. And then you go off, you have it generated once, you can refine the lesson. We have like a copilot tool. So if the lesson is good, but you want it to focus more on the the role playing, you can just use again, use plain language, and it’ll refine the lesson from there.

 

but to use that same example, so let’s say you uploaded that playbook, you gave two sentences of what you wanted to focus on in sales engineering, it would generate that lesson, it would check for you know check for specific skills that were in that PDF. Let’s say you did a PDF or you just uploaded a voice recording or webinar, that works too. and then let’s say step four of the lesson would be that role-playing simulator, and we have a tool that’s like a snipping assessment tool that handles this. You don’t have to create any bespoke new tools. Like we have a tool that will upload this scenario.

 

Jeff Walter (24:56)

Right.

 

Jared Shaw (25:04)

In real time, you’ll hit record as part of that exercise, they’ll do the the back and forth, and then they’ll get real time feedback as visual annotations on the screen, which of course the AI model receives. And then importantly, just because we talked you talked about like post-analysis report after the lesson wraps, you know, similar to those other tools where you’re you’re checking for performance metrics and comprehension checks, our AI model.

 

will, you know, come up with those reports for you. That could be passed along to a learning management management system or just, you know, be a concise report on the the dashboard for the user. But that’s kind of the the flow of the experience.

 

Jeff Walter (25:32)

This

 

So ⁓ well that that’s interesting ’cause you ⁓ y it’s it’s cool ’cause talking to you I always learn something, so thank you. so y so I could take a a a a a set of materials and then in my instructions I could say

 

I’d like to put together a curriculum for a you know a new barista, right? So I got my playbook and I’ve got everything. Yeah, a new hire who’s never been a barista before, right? And that would create one curriculum with one set of lessons and simulations and and everything. But then I but then I could take that same set and go and and and and here’s the things that are important, A, B, and C, right?

 

And then I can take that same set of materials and go, okay, this is for an experienced barista and we wanna make sh and we wanna make sure that they know the finer elements of what’s in our playbook. Right. So we’re so we’re okay with the entry level person if they get the basics and you know, of course we want them to know everything, but the bar is, you know, say mid level.

 

Right. Like they can get through the lesson, they can get through the curriculum if they have a good understanding. And in the simulation, they’re able to, you know, say simulate a customer interaction. you know, kind of eight you know, the eighty percent of our customer interactions like this. Right. But then it can go to the same core material and go, okay, I’m gonna not take it up a notch. and I want to have my ex this is my expert barista curriculum.

 

And so where it’s like, okay, now it’s assumed that you know these ten things, but we’re gonna make sure you do.

 

But I want to make sure you now know these other five things. And we get into the simulation rather than, hey, here’s the typical type of customer interaction, let’s say, here’s six more a couple more scenarios that take us up to like 95% of the customer interactions. And so now I’ve got a bunch of types of customer interactions that are in the simulation that are different than at the but it’s all coming from the same base material, because in the base material it says, hey, when you got this type of customer, do this. When you got this type of customer interaction, you do that.

 

With the big when I created the curriculum for the entry level person, it it took the most typical situation. The expert I got all the edge cases, as it were. Is that am I getting that right?

 

Jared Shaw (27:53)

Yeah, absolutely. And there’s there’s two pathways in which that could happen. It could be, you know, from the beginning, like I said, like you have a bunch of people that are an expert and you want that bespoke lesson specifically for them. You could also have a baseline lesson. And then when that user logs in, it remembers their context. It knows are they beginner, intermediate, advanced. so not only the lesson could be the same, but the the the model is inherently adapting to the skill level and interests and passions of the the people you’re speaking to to keep it more engaging, adaptive from an academic standpoint.

 

Jeff Walter (27:57)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Jared Shaw (28:22)

And from a personalization standpoint. So if I’m Tommy, Anna Babarista, like for schools, we we also add things like he’s a tennis student or something, just things to keep it personalized and relatable when possible. But it also knows he just joined last week. It he comes to lesson with that, he joined last week, and the lesson inherently, even if you have the same lesson for beginner intervening advanced, we’ll keep that in mind. It might go slower, it might reframe concepts, et cetera. So there’s two layers at play.

 

Jeff Walter (28:48)

Okay. And th and then and then the the other thing you said that was really interesting is is the periodic check in. Right? It’s like, okay, y you you went through beginner, you went through advanced, you know, but now it’s you know a year later and we want to make sure your your your your skills are still up to par, right? In which case

 

Same set of core materials but a completely different user experience because there we’re not we’re we’re assuming you already have the you you already have the skills at at a certain level, the knowledge and skills at a certain level, and so we’re just validating that you still you that you still maintain then that’s a very different learning experience. If if I’m

 

Jared Shaw (29:21)

Yeah. Yeah.

 

So like the mentor won’t be teaching you. It’ll like checking for comprehension. It’ll be asking questions like can you explain this instead of teaching? And then you might have different interactive tools like we have multiple choice quizzes that come on in certain points of lessons. You might find that kind of a lesson will rely more on that because again it’s it’s checking as it rather than, you know, relaying.

 

Jeff Walter (29:34)

Right.

 

Right.

 

Checking knowledge and then and then on the simulation it might be like, okay, let’s just make sure you can handle these edge case ⁓ use cases because we’re assuming you’re you still can do the ba the the the the the the basic, right? Or or s it’s it but it but that’s really cool because that ongoing validation is a very you know, knowledge and skills you d y y you have but if they atrophy, they all you know, they act they have a half life.

 

You know, if you’re not well, if you’re not using them and ⁓ you know, you you have a tendency to forget things and then you have a tendency to no longer be able to do the things you used to be able to do if you haven’t been if you haven’t been doing it regularly, right? If you haven’t been accessing that knowledge regularly, if you haven’t been applying that skill regularly, you know, you’re like, you know, it it things do have a half life. So that’s that’s very cool. That’s that that that’s that’s I like that. That’s I like that. sorry. So ⁓

 

So you start off in the academic side. I mean it’s I I I I love the arc here. Cause and what I love about it is it’s it’s an you’re an entrepreneur that had a particular personal thing. And in this case, it’s you know, the pandemic, and I I want to be able to practice my craft, get better at my craft. How can I and and I’ve got these interests and how can I bring those all together to help me improve my craft? And then that

 

And then all of a sudden that opens up this world of possibility and you’re like, well if I tweak it this way, it’s good for these people. And then you and then next thing you know, you’re in the academic setting. And and and now and w we’re focused mainly on you know, channels and and training your partners. so now I I believe you’re you’re starting to look more at the commercial side of things. and and how how’s that going or or what have you noticed as the difference between say the academic and the commercial side?

 

Jared Shaw (31:27)

Yeah. Well the I mean this is new for us. So we’re just recently shifting as a new a new possibility, a new vertical. We’re not certainly sticking with academia ’cause that’s an important core aspect of what it is. But w it’s just kind of a light bulb moment in my head. It’s like the same underlying technology. I think the light bulb, honestly, w I was taking one of those like static video HR courses that you have to take and I was like, Okay, well this is ⁓ people don’t enjoy these experiences too much, right? And

 

it’s you know, it’s kind of laborious and you have to force to watch the static video. You’re not you just answering those questions that come on the screen periodically. Surely there’s something to be done here too. And I was like, that same technology, whether it’s the seamless video interaction, the real time feedback, the the tools, the fact that it sticks to a curriculum. It might even be a more perfect use case, you know, and for s for something like that, whether that’s training, whether that’s an HR demonstration, ⁓ you know, there’s a you could go in so many directions.

 

⁓ so it’s just it’s just yeah exploring a new ⁓ new avenue here and I do think we’re differentiated from those avatar tools which have their place, certainly, but ⁓ whether it’s the difference between soft and hard skills or having a real company playbook behind these experiences, it’s just something we’re excited to explore. So yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (32:33)

Yeah. Well and and ⁓ well let let’s talk a little bit about the experience on ⁓ with the customers that you have had on the academic side. What what kind what what have they experienced as the benefit of using this particular technology? Like a as somebody who’s been in the industry for, you know, twenty plus years, I just think it’s really very v it’s very cool because I can see the potential.

 

And it’s going to and like I said, it’s going to change everything and I’m so excited about the possibilities for skill development and and better, quicker, faster knowledge acquisition. But so with with the folks that have been using it for a while now, what what are they experiencing? What what kind of benefits are they getting out of using this type of platform?

 

Jared Shaw (33:19)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean it works in in two sides. We want it to be an iterative experience for the student and of course for the teacher, because teachers are already overworked and you know, another tool is not something they want to see necessarily because they have a million things to do in a day and they’re already overworked. But to tie back real briefly to the original mission statement was we think about that master class drumming idea was democratizing access to world class education, right? You get to study with the best in whatever domain that is. And of course education would be applicable to that in any topic.

 

But the key differentiators for that, for the student side, are making an experience that I would have wanted to take as a as the drummer in that room. And so that’s was key to my focus. And that’s what students have also been excited with. And that’s also why our first customers were in like the asynchronous passion-based groups. So like ⁓ on the bigger schools and the smaller schools, there’s students that are traveling there. There’s schools where you know you have two hours of intense training, but then they’re on the the sports field, they’re on the in the music studio.

 

Jeff Walter (34:04)

Uh-huh.

 

Jared Shaw (34:17)

⁓ and for students like that, they get to dedicate their I think this is the future of education, by the way. Like they get to focus on their passion group and then get it high intensity asynchronous training. whether that’s online, whether that’s private schools, et cetera, that’s exploding as the market. But for the student perspective, what they’re really engaging with is the fact that it’s personalized. Like I log in as Jared, a drumming student. If we’re just doing a chemistry lesson, which truthfully typically I would have been very bored with ⁓ growing up.

 

Jeff Walter (34:43)

Right.

 

Jared Shaw (34:43)

it

 

when possible it makes relations to drumming. Think of this equation as a as this musical, you know, drum bill and how you can relate that or might try to bring an exercise that ⁓ ties that together. It also knows where I’m at in s you know yeah comprehension wise and rigor wise. So so it will adapt the lesson because I can understand this certain chemistry concept, whereas Tommy, this other student, may have blown right past that. Meets you know, every student will meet them where they’re at and

 

Just to you know think about vice versa, this isn’t to replace teachers, this is happening after their lessons. So this would be instead of assigning a boring worksheet for homework where it’s a you just pencil in true false. You don’t necessarily know why you got it wrong either, you just true or false and that’s it, and you move on. this is interactive. It’s based on the real teacher’s standards. The teacher gets insights into how the students are doing in real time. They don’t have to manually grade anything, so they can be like, it seems like a lot of the students are struggling in this area. I’m gonna change my lesson tomorrow to

 

to account for this. ⁓ And that’s the biggest thing for the students. Yeah, for the teachers, we just try to keep it very lightweight. They just upload their curriculum once, that lesson lives forever, and we give those insights so that they can see instantly without manually grading where things stand.

 

Jeff Walter (35:41)

Right.

 

So so you said something you you said something in passing that I thought that I just want to touch on. So y earlier you said meet the student where they’re at and what I thought immediately was like, okay, you know, here’s the ten things I I want my student to know, and this particular student knows three of ⁓ So I’m using the AI to pro to kind of do the assessment was like, okay, you already know these three things, you don’t know these seven things, we’re gonna focus on these seven. And

 

And that’s how that was what I connotated you meant by that. But you just said something interesting. It’s taking the context of the it it it the

 

It’s taking the it’s it’s actually personalizing the experience to the individual student based on their individual context. Is that that I is that right? Like you said, one knows I like drumming, so it it’s going to start to use metaphors and and and and drumming metaphors and and relate the lesson to drumming because it it knows I have a passion for drumming. Is that you know, versus this other person who’s ⁓

 

⁓ a tennis player it might say, it’s kinda like when you do an overhand smash at the net or like like it’s gonna use different it’ll adapt to the individual learner’s context, not just where they are and the the ten things they gotta know, but then also everything you know about the individual. Did I get that right?

 

Jared Shaw (37:17)

Yeah. So like that

 

yeah, that chemistry teacher could have uploaded their typical chemistry curriculum and every student gets assigned that lesson. But then when Jared logs in, it knows Jared’s a drummer. It knows how Jared did on the last five lessons. So it knows where he’s already struggling. It knows the questionnaire he answered in the beginning, which ⁓ you know, decides which skill level he’s at, but it it remembers all that context. So before the first utterance of either the student or the avatar is even begun, it has that inherent context from an analysis standpoint.

 

Jeff Walter (37:30)

Uh-huh.

 

Jared Shaw (37:46)

prior academic context, your personalization, et cetera. So that Tommy, this tennis student, will get a the same curriculum context and rigor, but personalized both from an academic standpoint and personalization standpoint, based on what his story.

 

Jeff Walter (38:00)

So

 

well that I mean, that’s much more sophisticated than I originally thought.

 

Because but what you what what I originally thought was like, okay, you know, here’s the ten things you gotta know. Tommy knows these three things, I gotta teach him seven. Jeff knows these three other things or these four other things, and so I gotta teach him these other things and and it it and and and so it’s kind of from a here’s my rubric and you know, when it assesses you, you’ve got these things where you’re good at and and things you need help in. My ru you know, same rubric but different. But then it’s actually changing

 

the how it teaches you based on what it knows about you. And that’s wild. That is crazy.

 

Jared Shaw (38:42)

Yeah. Importantly like it’s still the same. It’s crazy, right?

 

Importantly though, it’s like the same flow though. So each student will still get the same flow because you wanted to, of course, make sure that all ten steps are done. But again, it will it’ll stay in those steps that need more work depending on the student and again and also add that extra layer of personalization. ⁓ we think again that’s like the the happy medium where it has that certainty, but also, you know, adapt.

 

Jeff Walter (38:51)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Wow. Yeah, yeah.

 

I mean I mean the purpose of the curriculum is for you and I you know, if you and I are the students, it’s for you and I to be able to learn or do these ten things. Right. And so to get successfully get through the curriculum, you and I have to demonstrate that we know or can do these ten things.

 

And yeah, an an initial assessment, I’m good at a couple of them, and so I don’t have to they don’t have to spend a lot of time on that. You’re good at a couple of them that are different than what I’m good at. and so that’s when you said meet them where they’re at, that’s what I thought you were talking about. But it goes beyond that because it’s like, well

 

It has, you know, whatever information it has about the individual learner, it incorporates into how I’m going to teach you the next six things, you know, because we still got to get to the ten. It’s still deterministic in that I you know, to get through the lesson, to get through the curriculum, you need to know or do these ten things, right? But but how it explains it to you, so so maybe you know, there’s something, you know, that you and I, you know, like ⁓

 

Overc you know, if we go back to the sales example, you know. We we get assessed, we have different things that we know

 

you know, the different things are the ten things, but one of the things that we have that we both need work on is how to overcome objection, right? So le lesson five is on overcoming objection, right? But now, you know, you have an interest in in in music produ and producing and drumming. And so in in trying to explain to you techniques and ways to identify objection, overcome objection, it’s going to incorporate that into your lesson, still using that same

 

in order for you to ha have pass to to pass the lesson over overcoming objection, you know, these are the things you gotta be able to know and do. I I’m I’m you know I’m I’m a triathlon guy, I’m an endurance athlete. It’s gonna change the metaphors, it’s gonna change the, you know

 

⁓ based on my context or or maybe you know it knows you know I’m a father and I’ve got adult children and blah, blah, blah, blah, and and and and therefore it’s gonna ch whatever it knows about me, it’s gonna work that in to make it more relatable for me to to ⁓ that is wild. I gotta tell you, that’s the first time I’ve heard that. Anybody doing that. That that is the f that is really like I’ve heard a lot of things on the personalization

 

Jared Shaw (41:14)

Exactly.

 

Jeff Walter (41:28)

in terms of on a corporate side of using ai to look at your context i i i I have access to all your corporate emails I have access to all your reviews and because and and because of that I’m going to take all that and I can say okay Jared your training plan is A B C right

 

And then it same thing. It looks at me and all my emails and all my corporate reviews and you know any and all my Slack channel stuff and goes, okay, Jeff, you’re in the same position, but you know something different. you don’t need to do A. you do still need to do B and C and you should and you need to do D, right? For both of us to get to the next level. So from a personalized training plan. So it’s taking the but but it doesn’t change the lesson based on that context. It’s just evaluating.

 

What I’ve seen is like it is it’s evaluating like, okay, we got to do A, B, C, D, but you know, you already know you already know D, so you just know you need to do A, B, and C. I already know A, I need to just do B D. But but when you and I take B and C and D, B, and C, it’s the same experience. This is this is adapting the learner experience to their particular context. I wow.

 

Jared Shaw (42:33)

Exactly.

 

Jeff Walter (42:40)

Wow. I’m sorry. Just that is cr ⁓ wow. Wha and so when you when we when we s when you when we opened up and you said AI mentorship platform, it’s like, yeah, it’s like a personal mentor. Who knows you? Wow. That is a ⁓ wow. Now I get the whole

 

Jared Shaw (42:55)

Right, exactly.

 

Jeff Walter (43:03)

Though ⁓ w that just blows me away. That really blows me away. ‘Cause you’re changing the lesson to the individual context of the individual. That’s w

 

Jared Shaw (43:11)

Yeah, again, I think about the lesson I would have wanted

 

to take growing up. It’s like if it remembers who I am versus the twenty other students, that makes all the difference, along with what the teacher needs, which is the determinism of the lesson, and the engagement of the experience as well, which is what I spent a lot of time on.

 

Jeff Walter (43:21)

Yeah, yeah.

 

Yeah, well well and well and that’s where you really get effective and efficient learning, right? It’s it’s it’s it’s we all come at it from a different perspective. We we’ve gotta get to the goal line of whatever that curriculum is or whatever that lesson is. But I mean and this just happens naturally. It’s like we all get there differently.

 

Because we all come at it from different perspectives, right? I’ve got certain knowledge and skills you don’t have, you have some that that certain knowledge and skills I don’t have. So in a given course, we’re we’re already all doing that, right? And and then one of the things about you know when we get into study groups with each other, it’s like

 

You know, well you know that I’m this type of learner or the teacher knows I’m this type of learner, so they’ll go, well Jeff, it’s kinda like this, right? It’s kinda like when you’re running a marathon and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then they know you and they’ll go, Jared, you know, it’s kinda like, you know, when you’re on the s on the second act on a on a play and you’re bang banging away and everything’s all w and and and you know, relating it to your situation so you can learn the material better, faster, easier. But the AI is doing that. That is amazing.

 

That’s the first time I’ve heard of it. It’s blowing me away. I’m sorry. Sorry to just shatter, shatter, shatter. It’s just blowing me away.

 

Jared Shaw (44:29)

It’s all for

 

No.

 

For students too, there’s different learning styles. There’s like visual learners, there’s kinesthetic learners, it’s like hands-on, you know, ⁓ auditory learners. So that’s another dial that could be checked as well. And again, same lesson, but it might reframe what it brings onto the screen or how it engages with the student based on those parameters as well.

 

Jeff Walter (44:50)

That’s really, really wild. So wow, I’m just I’m still just blown away. That is so cool. That is I’m just I’m so excited about that. ⁓ yeah, well it I tell you, it’s it well, it’s the I I I I’ve I’ve been talking to a lot of people about this and ⁓ I was at and and and there’s a lot of really cool stuff going on. That’s stuff that’s just like never thought of, just really interesting.

 

Jared Shaw (44:59)

Yeah, I appreciate it.

 

Jeff Walter (45:15)

And what’s really cool is the coolest things I’ve seen, if I could just are are companies that were started by guys just like you. And what I mean by that is they’re not the traditional L and D guys. I I can’t tell there’s a there’s a couple that are coming to my mind right this moment where they were like, I never I thought I would end up in the learning and development space. I was just trying to solve this problem, right? Like like

 

Like like with you, is COVID and drumming and master classes and going how you know with the techno and and with your producer mindset, how can I make this a better experience? And then it it started there, and then you could you can see how it evolved from there, and it’s really cool. I was talking to another gentleman the other day ⁓ at and ⁓ they always had problems taking tests. And so him and his buddy.

 

created study spaces, a company called Study Spaces. And it’s about being able to, you know, use AI to load up a bunch of stuff, to create a to create a bunch of tools so that you can study for a test. And it’s evolved into an an AI tool to help to help

 

Tutors.

 

⁓ prepare students for high-stakes assessments like SATs, MCATs, and things like that. Right. So it started off with well, I’ve I’ve never been a good test taker. And so I’m I’m and so how can I use these tools to do something that would be good for guys like me to be able to take tests? And then it evolves into a business of

 

⁓ AI tool for tutors to help their students prepare for high stakes assessments. And I’m like, huh, that’s and then another one was is talking to a gentleman at the ATD show. He is a s he he’s a retired sales guy for a software company in in the dealer space. And he’s like and he’s sitting around and he’s a retired guy and he’s like wow with all this AI stuff, how would I use you know if I was back selling that software to dealers

 

How how would I use this stuff? And he creates a and him and his a an another buddy of his, you with with some, you know, technical help, they built this whole platform to use AI to help sales enablement. And and and and it was just and again it was like, Wow, I never thought of doing it like that. Right? Be and it’s so interesting. And I’m listening to your story and your origin story. That’s one of the reasons I love hearing your origin story. Is well, here’s another guy. Here’s a guy that was not in

 

the learning and development space, you know. He’s a professional drummer. He he he enjoys producing. and he’s and he’s like, hey, th there’s this master class. That’s really cool, but I wish this it would be better if we could do this. And I can learn more if we did this. And then and then you you piece something together and next thing you know, you wa you wake up a few years later and it’s like

 

Wow, that’s a really completely different way of looking at it. And then I’m listening to you going, my God, hard skills. Like drumming. It’s a it’s a it’s a technical talent. It’s it’s it’s it’s a hard skill. It’s not a soft skill. It’s not empathetic listening. It’s like, no, I you gotta you gotta you gotta generate this beat. You gotta do like it’s a it’s a s hard skill you do with your hands. like, you could translate that into a million other hard like s like and and and

 

And a lot of other guys I’m talking to, it it it i it it’s more the traditional simulation type thing, right? and ⁓ and I’m like, my god, that’s genius. Anyway, I’m sorry, you just I’m and then to have it personalized to the learner blew me away. I’m sorry to go off on a rant. You’re I’m talking I I’m talking more than I usually do, Jared, because I’m just so freaking blown away and excited. I just yeah.

 

Jared Shaw (48:45)

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

I appreciate it. But like the yeah,

 

I mean that all absolutely resonates. And the important thing is like for me personally, it’s not to replace what like my drum teacher did growing up. It’s not to replace like ideally it’s like, you know, the drum teacher has the lesson, but instead of the student going on their own to practice during the week, they have this tool to help them. The teacher has this tool instead of homework to give. The enterprise has this client before they do have the in-person training, this actually helpful experience beyond static video, you know. So that’s the the ideal

 

Marion of the Worlds again, where it’s it’s it’s not to replace the essence or the in person time, but it is to complement and make it more productive, efficient, and immersive at scale, you know.

 

Jeff Walter (49:28)

Well and and and that’s an important thing to note because we’ve seen the same thing with e learning over the last couple of decades. So it goes back to you used to be, like I said, you you would on the corporate side, it’s like, hey, send somebody to training, they spend five days in class, eighty percent of the time they’re they’re learning things that are in a in a book, right? Along comes e learning and it’s like, Hey, your time sitting in class, that’s that’s that’s expensive time.

 

You can learn all that through safe pr self-paced e-learning, right? And instead of somebody going away somewhere for five days, it’s like, hey, at work, in between when you have some slow time, do do the studying. And the co it doesn’t replace the instructor, but what happened is all what what happened with that, and I I’m guarantee it’s gonna happen with this, what happened with that is you still had the instructor, because nothing replaces that human interaction. And and

 

But the student showed up to not a five-day class, but now a two-day class, but they all had a certain level of knowledge. And so you could really tap into the expertise of that instructor, and you weren’t spending time and and wait wasting the instructor’s time on the remedial introductory stuff. It was like everybody had a certain level of knowledge. Let’s now let’s take it to the next level. And on the skills training, I can see the same thing happening.

 

Look, you’re never going to replace that specialized environment where a bunch of humans get together and then there’s human coaching. Like it but what you can do is do that same thing. It’s like, let’s get you up to a B level drummer, let’s say, and then take advantage of the specialized knowledge that that human instructor has t to really take you to the next level. Let’s get you the basics this way.

 

Jared Shaw (50:55)

Sorry.

 

Jeff Walter (51:19)

And then you’re really tapping into the human to really accelerate things and take you to the next level. So I’m I’m I agree with you. It’s not gonna replace, but it’s it’s and all of it allows us to acquire knowledge and skills better, faster, cheaper. And therefore we acquire more skills. You know, like it’s interesting. I’m sorry to like I was I was I was doing another podcast, the it was the study spaces guys.

 

And they said there are now competitions. This with there’s so much online col learning in college now that there you can actually get a degree through all self paced learning. And he and they said there’s there’s actually like informal competitions to see how quickly you can get a ⁓ an undergraduate degree. And the the the record right now, they said it you know, is forty one days.

 

Jared Shaw (52:03)

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (52:08)

You can go get an un you know, through through you know, somebody has gotten an un undergraduate degree from some these online universities where everything’s self paced in forty one days. Now, we both said that’s not gonna replace the human interaction with the professor. But what’s showing you is ha is that

 

There’s a lot of knowledge that can be acquired in a very short period of time at much less cost ⁓ in a college experience. And then if you were able to do that, then you can leverage the time to with a professor to take it to the next level, right? And it’s like I think that’s what you’re saying the same thing. It’s like you do this, it doesn’t replace them, but you can now acquire the knowledge and skills better, faster, cheaper, and now you can take advantage of that instructor time.

 

to take things to the next levels. And and I think that’s just really cool. And then a personal

 

Jared Shaw (52:53)

Yeah. Not everyone gets to

 

study with Scorsese for film, right? But if they can take this asynchronously on their own time at mu much cheaper than it would have cost to do the real lesson. But whether that’s a company or the user taking it, ⁓ that was the original inspiration, genesis of the idea, you know.

 

Jeff Walter (53:07)

Well and and what I get excited about, and and especially since you’re on the academic side as well, but it but to me it’s also translates over to the corporate side is look, the only natural resource a any society has is is the people’s brain power. Right? Brain power gets turned into technology, technology gets turned into, you know, how we live and and work and and and i like just over and over and over again studies show, you the the more you can tap into the brain power of your population, the better off the society is, you know.

 

And ⁓ you know, and there’s a ⁓ but and and so being able to do this at the K twelve and and where there’s such there have been so many things tried that have not improved the knowledge acquisition and skill development at at K twelve at the university level and then at the corporate level, all that just means that we’re gonna be able to, you know, the human brain has such capacity

 

To learn and do and if we can get there better, faster, cheaper. It’s not you know not quite the matrix. You know, we’re not just plugging in and learning judo. But but if we can do it in half the time, a quarter of the time, we’re just gonna learn more and do more and be more productive and and have and and and live better lives.

 

Jared Shaw (54:22)

Right. It’s an exciting future.

 

Jeff Walter (54:23)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. So I I I see we’re running out on time. You’ve been very generous with your time, so thank you. what what’s what’s the future hold for Virtuoso?

 

Jared Shaw (54:31)

Yeah, we’re exploited to excited to continue our journey, whether it’s with w in schools and academia, exploring enterprise and also working with individual mentors that want to scale their likeness. those are the three main categories we’re exploring and I think ⁓ very promising so far. So we’re excited to keep iterating and and working with more folks in those areas.

 

Jeff Walter (54:50)

Very cool. Very cool. before we wrap up, is there anything else you wanna ⁓ share with the audience? Or ⁓

 

Jared Shaw (54:56)

Yeah.

 

I mean if anyone s wants to discuss, you know, further with me or just get a demo, see what looks like, I’m always happy to do that. Give a free tailored demo to anyone, whether that’s a company or a school, wants to see what looks like. or just just to say hi in chat. always open to

 

Jeff Walter (55:09)

Well and so if somebody wanted to do that, what’s the best way for them to get a hold of you?

 

Jared Shaw (55:13)

Yeah, you could go to our webs website, our technology is VirtueVision, so it’s virtuevision dot app, or they could just send me an email or find me on LinkedIn and and I’ll get back to them.

 

Jeff Walter (55:22)

All right, and we’ll put a link in the show notes to the website so the folks can find you easily. So Jared, thank you so much for s just taking time today and and chatting with me. This is I I it just really blew me away. I mean we’ve we we’ve we’ve talked a little bit before this and and I thought I knew what you were doing and and I and I you know, but I at maybe the five thousand foot level. But man, the the personalization side and the then the hard skills side, that just

 

Those the curriculum thing is just amazing to start with, but then these other things, it just really man, really cool stuff. So congratulations and ⁓ I wish you the best of luck and everything and it’s just really cool. So thank you for taking time to talk with us.

 

Jared Shaw (56:08)

thank you so much. I really appreciate the enthusiasm and ⁓ for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

 

Jeff Walter (56:12)

Yeah. Yeah. And to everybody out there, thank you for joining us. I I learned something. I hope you did too. And we’ll we’ll see you around next time.