If I Wanted to Start a Career in AI in 2026, I'd Do This (Without Coding)

Do you think you need to go to

university? It

>> could very well be that it's hard for

you to find a job. Everything that

happened over the past one or two years,

there will be very few.

>> Do you need to learn to code to succeed

in AI?

>> I would say these days, everyone is

trying to get into AI. But the question

is how do I need to learn how to code?

What routes are there in? What ways can

I actually monetize it? And what does

success actually look like? So, I wanted

to have this discussion with my good

friend Dave Eblahar who runs Data

Luminina, a training program for people

getting into Genai as a developer. and

also a founder of his own agency. So, we

have a lot in common there. And this

discussion is really a debate for both

camps of do you need to learn how to

code, do you take the developer route or

can you come through and learn no code

and build a successful business and

create the life of your dreams that way.

So, hope you enjoy this conversation

with Dave.

>> Dave, mate, what's up? What have you

been doing?

>> What up, Liam? Great to be here, man.

So, primarily what we're focusing on

right now in Data Luminina is we're

really building out the educational

programs that we have for all of the

developers that we want to help in the

AI space. and essentially help people

all the way from never having written

for example a single line of of code all

the way to the AI engineering that we do

and then also selling that as a service

to clients for example as a freelancer

and then of course with the agency

working on the client projects trying to

scale that up uh and that's constantly

moving right still trying to figure out

how to best go about that the types of

clients that we want to work with and

the types of like niching down we want

to do with the agency I think that's

also something you can probably relate

to.

>> Yeah. No, we can we can get into agency

niching a bit later, but I want I want

to start off with what probably people

have clicked on here to uh to have a

listen about, which is this. Do you need

to learn to code to succeed in AI, which

has been a pretty hot topic. I mean, I

got I got flamed a lot at the start of

my kind of my career on on YouTube here

for I think even like before we were

mates, like you made I made the I

started talking about obviously the no

code stuff and what we were seeing with

like client delivery. I think you made a

video and you like said there's there's

some guys on the internet talking about

this no code stuff, but I think like

we've all kind of converged on the same

conclusion that it doesn't really matter

how the you build the stuff. Like

like with the agent builder coming out

and things like that, it's very clear

now uh what the what the final

resolution there was. But as someone

who's literally training people into

into Gai development, you're probably

the best person to talk to on this. But

what's your perspective on do you need

to learn to code to succeed in AI? um we

probably should get clear on what what

success means first. So for for say your

students, what do you what do you class

as as success?

>> So when it comes to the students I work

with, success in AI primarily means look

I want to learn how to code to probably

like land a job uh or start as a

freelancer do my own thing but most of

them want to get a job in the field and

that is as a programmer as an AI

engineer as a developer. So that's what

most of my students would define as

success. But if we come back to look, if

you want to take part in AI, if you want

to ride this wave essentially, do you

need to know how to code? I would say

definitely not. Even though like that's

heavily that's my background. That's

what I specialize in. That's what I

love. There are so many ways that you

can be successful within the space,

right? I know plenty of people who make

a living like just going to businesses

and helping just helping the the the

employees there get started with AI

understand what what that looks like. So

for for the people like watching it

really comes down to look at what kind

of level um do you want to work with AI?

Do you just want to use the tools that

are already available? Do you want to

learn how to use these models? Then

that's a level you can play the game at.

or do are you like more interested in

this and maybe a little bit more

technical and you feel like look I I

really also want to learn how to code

and then that could be uh something for

you to focus on and that's also how you

can be successful. So yeah long long

answer short you don't have to code in

order to be successful in AI it's

something you can explore. I think one

of the the good things that we're seeing

at the moment is the market really

taking shape and over the past I'd say

12 12 months it's become very clear that

there's a there's a development portion

there's of course like the no code

development there's there's make.com

there's uh any of the I mean agent

builder coming out now as well it's very

clear that there's a there's definitely

a path into it that way and then there's

the more like I want to be an actual

geni engineer and I mean these are the

people that we need at at companies and

agencies like ours there's also the

consulting route that's popping up

there's also the outright education like

you're talking about some people that

you you already know, you can go into

companies and train them on how to use

JGBT. I I still think that's a massive

opportunity. I've had people who are who

are good mates of mine getting into

doing workshops. I think if you're

looking to come in like the original

route into AI was was through the the

low code or or to actual development and

now there's like I think you kind of

flip it on its head and go in through

the workshop route, go start with

education and then move down to offering

consulting after that and then

eventually get into development at the

end of it. So you used to be able to

only go through the development portion,

but I think now you could come down from

the top and start off as nontechnical

and if you're talking about like

success, if it's monetary success,

there's so many different ways to do it

now. So there's definitely still a

massive need for the for the AI

engineers and that's only going to

increase. Like we're we're always hiring

as I'm sure sure you are for good

talent, but the the definition of of

success is is really broadened a lot.

Obviously you teach the the genai

development actual actual codebased. Um,

do you think it's necessary for those

kinds of people to also pick up the the

lower code stuff and be kind of cuz we

have this as well when we're hiring for

our developers at Morningside. We will

also say, "Hey, it's like it's a it's a

nice to have if you're also familiar

with that whole no code stack because

it's just like in a lot of cases it's

much more expedient to to build on that

or we might have a client project that

is already using that or we want to

build something ourselves." So there's

like two sides to it and obviously the

the ideal developer would have both. So

what do you think? Okay guys, very

quickly two things from me. If you're a

business owner who's interested in what

generative AI can do for your business,

you can get in touch with me and my team

at Mornings.AI in one of the links in

the description below and we can start

your entire AI transformation process

going all the way from the education and

training of your staff to the

identification of the best AI use cases

for your company all the way through to

development and beyond. We have worked

with some of the world's biggest sports

teams and also publicly traded

companies. So rest assured, you are in

good hands. If you're an aspiring

entrepreneur and want to start your own

AI business and you haven't already

joined my free school community, it's

down there in one of the links in the

description below. has my full free

course on how to start your own AI

agency as a complete beginner and you're

surrounded by over a quarter million

people who are also striving towards the

same thing. There's no better place on

the planet right now to be surrounded by

like-minded people and you get free

weekly Q&A with me where you can ask

questions directly to me about how to

start and scale your business. I'll see

you in there. I totally agree with you

there. We in our agency had to learn the

hard way. So, um a lot of engineers of

course super technical, right? They want

to solve most of their problems through

like the the technical knowledge and the

tools that they have, right? So, similar

to when you have a hammer, everything

looks like a nail, right? But then

stepping in and like zooming out a

little bit and be like, look, this is

actually a problem. Like you don't need

to custom build for this. Like you don't

need to spend like two, three weeks,

maybe even a month to set this up and

then have the whole like production

pipeline. This can literally just be an

NAND automation and we can set it up in

a day. Even if you are super technical,

even if you're an engineer and that is

what you do, knowing also how to use

these low code no code tools and knowing

how they work and also being able to u

uh clearly educate a client and say look

you're asking for this but it would

actually be better for you if we do it

that like this long term. This is also

something I'm uh teaching in my programs

right now just so um that also the

clients that also work with our students

have a better overall experience so you

don't end up wasting like tens of

thousands of dollars maybe on a proof of

concept that in the end doesn't work

that maybe could have been validated

with a quick NAN build.

>> Yeah 100%. Um and with with your

students that you're working with why

don't you if you could just give a rough

rundown if someone else was wanting to

take that path and get into the point of

like basically AI freelancing. um why

don't you give your your route through

that you're pushing them pushing them

through and then I can kind of give uh

and and some examples as well of of sort

of the other route if you're completely

nontechnical now and you're wanting to

learn AI I can I can kind of give what

I've seen works on on mine.

>> Yeah, sure. So I can quickly walk you

through kind of like my path. Um and

then what I do right now is I I teach

the exact same path that I went through

but then just in a way I could just

>> not in 10 years or whatever.

>> Just not in 10 years. So I started I

started studying AI actually in 2013

already. So this is literally over 10

years ago. So did the bachelor, did the

master uh yeah technical training and

then out of uni I started um I started

working as a data scientist and I

already immediately got into freelancing

just just came came out of nowhere on my

path like in the beginning like the

first one to be honest was quite lucky

and then from there you just like built

built the skill built the muscle and you

essentially know how to find the next

project and the next project and that's

essentially how you roll into it. That's

how I got there. First it was in data

science and then when chat GPT was

released I immediately saw look I need

to go all in on AI this on genai I

should say I need to go all in on geni.

So that's what I did with it with the

business. And at that time um before

this chat GPT boom and when I was just

starting out with YouTube, what I

primarily was doing, I was mostly going

from long-term contract to long-term

contract. Because one of the things that

you should understand about freelancing

in the tech industry. So this is if you

have technical skills, if you are a

programmer, it's not so much that you

jump from like a 3K project to a 5K

project and you're juggling three to

five clients per month. Like you can do

this, but as a freelance in the tech

industry, like 80% of them, they just

have one or two clients at the same time

and just cruise three months, six

months. I even had contracts that were

just a year long and they're not

full-time. And then on top of that, I

would stack other uh projects as well.

And there are actually people here who

are paid to find people like you and

place them inside companies where you

can just cruise for 24 hours per week or

32 hours per week. And then that is a

way into freelancing for you. So that's

kind of like a stepping stone that I did

in the beginning. And then um as uh Chet

GBT was getting bigger and bigger at

that time, I was already I was I already

had my YouTube channel. Creating content

is of course another great way to like

get yourself on the radar. I don't have

to tell you this. And with that, you

also find that over time, if you do it

right, you'll get inbound leads. So,

this is now where you have these longer

term contracts which are paid really

well. Like if you're an engineer, like

hourly rates, €100 or 100 USD, 120, 150,

and if you have like 24 22 or 20 32

hours per week, you can make great

money. So that's all great. Then when

you stack a personal brand on top of

that and you also start to get inbound

leads and you with those you focus more

on the on the quick projects that you

maybe do via a uh for a fixed price,

right? That is essentially the the

secret sauce in the mix that we teach

inside our program. So that hybrid

approach where on the one hand you have

the security as an engineer or developer

and you stack smaller more higher paid

projects on top of that and that's how

we find that students have really high

success rate. It's really fun. the work

is dynamic. Uh, but you never have have

to have that feast or famine life cycles

that you can have, right, as an agency

owner or as a freelancer.

>> Are you saying that everyone should do

the the content thing? Cuz that's

something that I've I've struggled with

with um helping my students.

>> You should try content and see if it's

for you. See if you like it. But it's

not for everyone. It's just not for

everyone. But you you don't know that

until you give it a try. So this is and

this is then also like kind of like

tricky to do, right? is you need to get

in a couple of reps because in the

beginning everyone's going to suck,

right? In the beginning, no one is good

at this and you need to get better at

this. You also need to have just some

kind of like it factor, right? Some

people just have that and then you see

the channels pop up. That is just

something where you just got to you just

got to be really honest with yourself

and you got to put in the work. You got

to try and like make a couple of videos.

See if you like it. See if you get some

traction and also like critically look

at at the videos and actually like look

it is this adding really any value? Am I

really helping people? What are what do

the comments look like? And if you get

some early traction there and you really

like it, that could be a good signal

that you should continue with that. If

you like absolutely dread it and you

tried like three, five videos and you're

like I hate this. I don't see any

results. It might be that content is not

for you. And it might be more so that

for example as an engineer, as a

technical person, you are way better off

maybe for example going on a platform

like Upwork and being more behind the

scenes and just bang out proposals there

and make sure you create a killer

profile there and build up the

reputation there so you never have to

worry about any sales or marketing and

clients just come to you. So that's

another way that you can create inbound

leads. there are more uh alternatives

that you can get into

>> the pathway into it. We've got obviously

there's there's like a Python base and

stuff and I assume there's like do you

put your guys through a mandatory set of

like fixed projects like hey you're

going to run into a rag system you're

going to run into like a a chat 2

database system like what's is there

obviously a Python base probably if

they're learning that initially and then

going through to uh knocking off a few

of those initial builds like what would

you say if you had to have like the main

three to five uh use cases that if you

were to learn to code uh you would need

to to know as a GI developer. Great

question. So when um when it comes to

essentially building Genai applications

that can actually make it to production,

I would say there are six key components

that you really need to understand

beyond just the basic Python skills,

right? So first is really about the uh

really the the fundamentals that you

need to understand about the the

language models that you're working

with. So this is everything that has to

do with like tokenization, prompt

engineering, how do these models work?

This is the entry point. So you start to

get a fundamental understanding of look

we have this medium that is a language

model and we as engineers we can program

around this. This is also where you get

into all of the SDKs for all of the big

models right so open AI entropic

understand how how they work understand

what function calling is understand what

structured output is uh how to use tools

in there so really these fundamentals

then the second thing that you really

need to understand is um system design.

So this is now knowing that you have

this this medium that is a a large

language model and how to look at the

business process and I always recommend

like really creating diagrams and going

to the whiteboard

>> and then designing the architecture and

designing the system. This is also

sometimes referred to as a cognitive

architecture. So can you draw out on the

whiteboard what the business process is

where you just need like simple

programming logic and where you maybe

need large language models because all

really AI engineering and GI engineering

really is about is about essentially

taking a problem and finding a small

enough component where you want to pluck

in the language model. You don't want to

solve big problems with large language

models because that can get really

messy. The third thing that you need to

uh essentially that we also walk people

through is getting to the core of okay

look I can uh take this model I can

build stuff with it but how do I piece

it together in something that we would

call a production ready application

right so this is your endpoints your

databases how do you stack that together

using ideally using docker that's what

we recommend and you package it in such

a way where now it becomes an

application then you're already uh

really far ahead in terms of what you

can

And then if you want to get even

further, what you also need is you need

a solid solid understanding of rack and

all the like concepts around that. So

retrieval augmented generation. So

factor databases, factor pipelines, how

you can take uh document processing

pipelines and then also advanced

algorithms that you can use to uh

improve your your retrieval

>> reanking. Yeah, reranking etc. So all of

these concepts around rack I would say

that's also a core skill where if you

want to get into any job uh whether it's

freelancing or full-time like you need

to know rag because otherwise the

interview will be kind of awkward.

Essentially the next step after that is

this is probably the most important one

everything that has to do with

monitoring evaluations and guardrails

because these applications are messy.

The thing the one of the challenges with

Gen AI and with AI engineering is as

soon as you launch something whether

it's a proof of concept and MVP it's

never going to be 100%. It's going to be

60 70 80% and this is tricky because for

some use cases 80% might not be enough

and it might take you for example like 1

2 3 weeks to get to 80% and it might

take you 6 months to get to 85% and it

still might not be enough. So you need

to have a really good set of tools and

skills to understand monitoring. So we

for example use lang fuse uh for that

internally. You need to understand about

guard rails, how to set up evaluations.

And then step number six that you also

need is uh a solid understanding of

deployment. So your deployment

strategies, you take all of all the

things that you did before that and now

you can actually put that onto a server

or deploy it somewhere and now it can

actually start to generate value. So

that's the road map. we uh we take

people through um and also all of the

things that I had to learn over the over

the last years which we now use to help

yeah build and deploy all of the

projects for our clients. Well, I'd be

interested to to know your thoughts on I

mean, you talked there about the the

difficulty and the success rates that

that you encounter in pretty much any

any tune AI project and and we know this

very well at Morningside as well, how

much that last like 5 10% can be

sometimes. And on some use cases, it's

it's okay and like you can have a little

bit of particular if there's like a

human in the middle or or a staff member

using it, but as soon as that's going

out to the prospects um and the outer

world, then then you're in in trouble.

But with this new agent builder and what

OpenAI has released there, obviously

multi- aent and I mean that just makes

me like sort of shiver as a as an agency

owner because I know like a single agent

is often difficult enough to get working

let alone multiple agents talking to

each other. So and baked into that we've

got observability, we've got evals and

things like that. So what are your

thoughts on on this new platform? We're

already kind of looking at it for some

of our builds that we've got coming up.

Um and just try and say, hey, how far

can we push this thing? um can we

replace them with our custom code with

it? Uh what are your thoughts overall on

the on the agent builder and how it fits

into into the agency landscape and just

to develop a toolkit that way?

>> Well, it it's one of those things it

looks very promising. I haven't really

like fully uh like build out an entire

project with it, but based on what I've

heard is like so it's early, right? And

OpenAI has a tendency to release stuff

that in the demo looks really good like

like the assistance API was also one of

those things where we thought oh yeah we

don't we can just use the assistance API

right we it can take care of rack it can

keep track of our our conversations in

like the real world like no engineer is

is using that so I feel like the the the

agent the agent builder is in a similar

stage right now where it looks promising

but it's still the thing is you are

you're building an abstraction a

a visual interface over the core logic

where at some point you're going to hit

a limit. So I think this is still going

to be super valuable and for like but

similar in a way how NAN is super

valuable and make.com is super valuable

and all of these tools are super

valuable in their own way but at some

point you're you're likely going to run

into a limitation where yeah now we need

to tweak the performance even more and

it can get tricky. What I like about

agent kit, agent builder in uh uh

specifically is that it's like fully

like LLM geni first, right? If you look

at NAN, make.com, Zapier, they are they

were all like low code no code like

stacked AI on top of it. So what you see

in the design of the system is you see

all these common patterns that we need

when we're trying to build agent

applications. So like guard rails like

completely built into it because it's

really important and making that really

easy and of course like changing all the

different models and prompts and all of

that. I like how LLM and Genai native it

is. Um and I think it's a really good

tool but I think ultimately you're going

to run into the same issues that you

have when you're for example using N8N

with more complex builds that at some

point you're just going to hit a wall.

>> Yeah. I mean when I was looking at it,

it obviously looks looks nice and they

have made these kind of big big promises

before. Um I I think it's interesting

from a from a perspective I see them as

kind of being the the apple of AI

automation at this point. You know,

they're trying to make the closed

ecosystem where like you know you're not

going to be plugging in all these

different models. You lose the ability

to be model agnostic, but what you get

in Exchange is just like ease of use,

ease of experience, like a nice customer

experience and user experience when

you're setting it up. Um, and then all

these little like quality of life things

that are sort of native to it because

it's GI first. So, I'm excited. I'm

going to be jumping in more and seeing

what I can I can cook up and maybe

putting a video out on it. But, I was

kind of shocked when it came out to be

honest. I didn't I didn't see them going

that way. But, it's it's just another

example of like when the assistance API

came out, they nuked a whole bunch of

startups there and they've done it

again. Right now, these are all early

stages, right? But what you'll find

often is that like Chad GBT remains the

center of it, right? it usually remains

like the nucleus which where it can

really easily integrate with with chat

GPT who's like everyone is using right

so I think having that power and then on

top of that like making all of these

other tools better and better and better

where that that could be really where

you get that Apple effect that lock in

where you feel like yeah okay I could

use that other tool it might be like a

couple% better but it's just so easy

that I have everything in here why would

I even bother

>> that's the allure right I think It's I I

call it like Apple versus Android where

are you going to maybe take a little bit

longer to set up and I think once you

layer on top something like these these

like vibe automation things as I'm I'm

calling calling it now where you can

like if you go to NAT and they've got

for some people you have access to the

to the like text interface where you can

go text to workflow. I think like the

ease of setting stuff up is going to be

insane when you have a like an assistant

in there on the agent builder where you

can like type into it hey I'm building

this and instead of actually having to

move things around manually yourself. um

you're able to to prompt in to get it to

build it for you. So, uh that that does

open a big question which a lot of the

agency owners on here would be would be

eager to know like this seems like

development development is kind of

racing to zero and it's like a business

is going to start to do this and my my

push back on that is like no this is a

dev day. It wasn't a business day like

it's still developer tools like business

are not going to be hopping on there and

building their own multi- aent systems.

So, it's still uh very much very much in

our in our uh court. But with the

development becoming a lot easier,

there's questions around like is this

going to lead to a massive influx of new

people in there? And again, I still

think like these no code platforms been

around and they're probably a lot easier

for most of the basic use cases. People

have had plenty of time to get into it.

Um, but there's sort of the broader

question of of what happens to

development long term as these things

get easier. So, what are your thoughts

on on Genai development with the rise of

these no-go platforms like viable

automation becoming easier and easier

and how that's going to affect the uh

the agency market? So first let let's

start what we already see happening in

in the big corporates and the

enterprises right and then we can get

down to kind of like the agency uh level

where what we're already seeing is that

kind kind of like the paradigm of really

big organizations with huge engineering

teams. We already see that shrinking

because they're just trying they're just

figuring out look if we have like a

couple hundred instead of a couple

thousand like really good engineers with

AI assisted coding tools we can be much

more efficient. So there definitely

things are changing and yeah we're not

really sure where this is. Like on the

one hand like every other quarter you

get like these crazy new up news updates

where it's like oh this company like

fired like half of their engineers and

then another quarter is like oh they

hired them back. So like we're still

like trying to figure out but I I there

is definitely a trend going on like

developer productivity has increased

tremendously. I think out of I think out

of everything where AI can add value and

add productivity right now, it's

probably the developers that benefit the

most from it in terms of like pure like

hours saved on a monthly

>> ROI. Yeah.

>> Clear ROI because it's just so good

there because LLM's and and and AI is

like coding is such a nice and defined

problem, right? You have a problem, you

create a code, you run it. Does it work?

No. Okay, you iterate on the error and

>> it's all basically text base, right?

like a

>> it's such a nice environment uh uh to uh

to use these language models in and it

is now really up to up to us up to the

world to figure out okay what's going to

be the cursor what's going to be the

clawed codes but then for other domains

right for the medical domain for for law

whatever and that that's a trend that

that we're seeing there but then if we

boil it down to like the the the smaller

organizations what I think is going to

happen is we will see distribution of

all that development talent. Well, where

before it was more concentrated

um in larger organizations where huge

development teams would work together

and a lot of companies

don't need used to not need a developer.

Many industries like you don't need a

developer. Right now is like every I

feel like every company if you want to

stay competitive you should have AI on

your radar and you should do stuff with

that. Even if you're just like a con

construction company, even for like the

ad administrative process or something

like that, AI can probably help you

there. So, what you'll probably see is

that you'll have more and more smaller

companies that are not going to hire a

full-time developer because that doesn't

make sense, but they do want in on AI.

So, then they're going to look around

them and that's where the agencies and

the freelancers can come in. So, I

that's that's that's a trend that I see.

So when we are in this like agency

freelance tech bubble right where we see

that there are so many people like

jumping onto this but if you look

outside our bubble there are also so

many businesses who are starting to jump

on on AI in the nearshort term thinking

like next 1 2 3 4 5 years and who knows

where AI is then I I still think there

is plenty of space for developers at any

level whether you use n10.com make or

you become a full-blown AI engineer

there will be opportunities for you, but

you need to be more strategic about it

because it could very well be that if

you now go to uni, you do computer

science, you specialize in AI

engineering, it could very well be that

it's hard for you to find a job if you

go the traditional route and try to uh

uh work for the top companies because

they're just like rep prioritizing as to

what it means to have uh a big

engineering teams. Do you think you need

to go to university at this point to get

into to to succeed in some way? What

would you recommend? They do the kind of

self-taught scrappy route or they go to

university, do the computer science and

they add AI on top of that. What do you

think is is is the best best route at

this point?

>> With the knowledge that I have right now

and if I look what I learned in uni,

there are so there are so much faster

ways to to get up up to speed into

what's going on. And on top of that, if

you go to uni right now, all of the

stuff that you'll learn on AI, even even

you like computer science, artificial

intelligence, that like curriculum will

be outdated because they they cannot

keep up. Like everything that happened

over the past one or two years, there

will be very few like uni studies that

uh teach what what really can get you a

job right now. But that said, having

like the credibility, having the

university paper, it still is a form of

credibility, right? And if you want to

get into certain fields or you want to

get into certain companies, it might not

it might still be required. So, you

won't even like really get on the radar

if you don't have a degree. That's still

the world that we that we live in. But

is it a is it a good way to learn AI?

Definitely not. just go to YouTube and

like watch what the the creators are

doing there. Watch the the latest news

and how they are building with these

models. So that's how you learn fast and

then coming back to do you need it. So

it it depends on the route that you want

to take and if you're like look I'm also

totally okay with maybe like working for

like smaller companies starting my own

thing then they don't care about your

degree and your credentials. They only

care if you care about what you

>> done. Yeah.

>> Yeah. Yeah. The experience talks 100%.

And um it just goes to show if you're

looking at like the people like with

programs and and selling courses around

this stuff like even in the online space

it's hard to keep up and like even for

you you can be you're very very very

like on top of things but as soon as you

make course material 3 6 months later

you got to make new stuff like it even

for people who are are literally moving

at the at the fastest pace with the

stuff. It's still hard to to keep pace.

So you can't expect some slow clunky

university to be able to do it. The way

I see it at least as someone who like I

dropped out of uni and I'm glad I did.

What do you think is going to get you

further in your career? Is it like four

years, 5 years and a piece of paper that

gets you that credibility or four to

five years in the trenches building it

and working as a freelancer or building

your own agency and stuff like that? So,

and I think if you do it right,

obviously the four to five years spent

in a in a business like we're I'm only

we're only getting into really like year

three here and look at look how far both

of us have come. So, uh I I know where I

I stand on that for sure.

>> I share this perspective, right? So, you

can follow your old traditional model

and it it it might still work out,

right? that is still a proven path that

you can take, but you don't have to in

today's day and age. And if you want to

keep up, uni is not the place to go to.

And there are plenty of opportunities if

you can just if you can build stuff, if

you can help people, which now is easier

and easier because here here's also the

thing. When I was in uni and when I just

started working, AI and data science was

only really for the big enterprises who

had like big budgets, big data sets. We

would train custom machine learning

models. It would take like months to get

to a model that we could put into

production all like very long big

enterprisey kind of like projects. But

right now AI like I've said literally

every b business can benefit from that.

And knowing that opens up the door for

so many opportunities if you just learn

how to like work with these tools and

actually create useful automation. So

don't just like study the material, go

and build stuff like and first try to

try to solve your own problems, right?

That's how how I always like to learn

like for example when there's something

new, let's try and automate something in

my business using some of these new

stacks and then you you it starts to

click and then once you prove that there

there's probably someone else on this

planet that is willing to pay you for

that uh to help them solve a similar

problem.

>> You've run through the the the coding

route to go and that that you recommend.

Uh, as for if you're if you're

non-technical and you're watching this

and you're wondering about like, oh,

what's what's my best way? And if I

don't necessarily think I've got the

I've got the got the skills or or I

don't really see myself going into the

full code way. I have seen like dozens

if not hundreds of people now, they go

into the the low code route, no code

route, and they just kind of like bash

their head against it until they figure

it out. And it's completely possible.

Like we have uh I had Henrik on the

channel recently and he he joined my

program uh like a year and a year and a

half ago, maybe maybe even more now. Um,

and for the first like six to 6 to 12

months, he came in completely green,

like absolutely no business or or AI

experience. And now after bashing head

on.com for I think it was like 6 months

before he really started to get the

knack of it and started landing clients.

But 6 months after that, he started

working with voice agents. I connected

him with Giannis and now they built a

really successful agency and a program

as well. And he's one of the one of the

leading voices in terms of practitioners

actually out there delivering voice AI

for businesses. He's there delivering

like multi multi-f figure projects for I

think they had like a billion dollar uh

client. So it's completely possible for

you to go that route and it's just a

case of I mean I had Mckll on here

recently as well. I'll link that uh in

the description but he was completely

non techchnical as well. He's like I'm

just going to learn make.com as my base

and I think as a meta skill learning

automation via nad or make.com probably

push beginners to to make.com just to

start. It's a little bit more beginner

friendly, but you can just sort of bash

your way through it and finding okay

personal problems. There's so much

information on YouTube now for it.

There's I've got a full course on on

learning make automation and

particularly the AI portion of it. So,

I'll also link that down below. But all

the information is out there. I think

people just need to be a bit more

patient with themselves. And like you're

learning an entirely new kind of

automation development skills here from

the ground up. It's not going to happen

overnight, but it's definitely possible

within 3 to 6 months of just working

away. If you do some personal projects,

do it for your friends and family. Start

to reach out to people around you. Hey,

I've learned this AI automation thing. U

would there be anything that you're

interested in maybe having a chat and

see if I can help your business. I'll do

it for free. And then from there, you

can go to communities like mine and

yours and start posting. I've had so

many people now who are in there and

they're making posts and saying, "Hey,

look, I'm available for work. I've done

sort of these these few things. I can

have a chat with you and let you know if

uh there's anything I can help you with

offering work for free." And then from

there, they start getting paid clients

off the back of that. I see even like

another layer coming out at the moment

in terms of like succeeding in AI where

there's these like service delivery

platforms that have abstracted it one

layer even further where you've got I

see you having custom code as the bottom

layer and you kind of abstract that into

no code and then now instead of like

having to learn like six different no

code tools and make like have a kind of

flexible skill set you can abstract that

even further into these like targeted

platforms kind of like what Simon has

with with Booked in that takes a lot of

the complexity away of connecting six

tools to just being able to say okay I'm

going to build a inbound voice agent or

receptionist on this platform and it

takes away a lot of the complexity for

me. So that's a really really good time

for people to be getting in and getting

onto onto those platforms and that's

just the development portion. If you

want to go the AI consultant route

that's a thing. If you want to go AI

workshop route that's another I'm so

blessed to have been able to get into

this at the time we did and I still

think it's ridiculously early. Uh I'm

I'm almost close to saying like

>> it's pretty hard to not like get some

success in this in the space if you just

apply yourself, you keep your ears open,

you are participating communities.

literally I haven't seen a safer bet or

a sher bet or like a guaranteed bet in

terms of entrepreneurship um that I wish

I had when I started. Man, I wish I

started on this stuff.

>> I was like bashing my head away on on

like e-commerce stuff and just eating

for so long and losing all my

money. Um this is such an incredible

time for particularly young people to to

start the careers.

>> There's one more thing right now which

is also was also uh worth something uh

looking into right now which is I'm

curious to hear your take on it. So you

know right now MCPs are like everywhere

right? So MCP servers where you have all

kinds of tools that are available right

now and more and more companies are

creating MCP servers for their tool

right and you can hook them up to either

chatpt or to cloud desktop and one of

the things we are exploring right now is

instead of like doing builds kind of

like from top down. So you come in, you

solve a big problem and then you embed

that into the business. You kind of like

work your you work your way up and you

start where people are already using AI

because everyone in almost all company

like you have some teams already most of

the people are already using chat GPT

they're already familiar uh with those

tools. So then instead of coming in and

doing a build, for example, either like

custom or through make.com or nitn to

automate a portion, you make it

available as a tool within an AI chat

application that they're already using.

And this way you also automatically

embed the human in the loop. And now all

of a sudden you can let someone like

let's say a sales rep, you can say,

"Hey, what are my um what are my

appointments for today?" Use the MCP

server from the calendar. It loads in

the context of that day. Okay. Now I see

okay I have a I have a call with John at

10. So now all in chat GBT hey let let's

actually pull the latest information

from the CRM like for John. And now you

actually get like a report for the sales

rep all in chat GPT. And this is just

different way of trying to creating

these automation doing it in inside

these applications which I think even if

you're a beginner and you're not that

technical hooking up those MCP servers

through tools like chat GBT and cloud

desktop anyone can learn that.

>> Think of that as like a service like

I'll go into your company and I'll set

everyone up with the right tools. I'll

I'll hook up the MCPS to their uh to

their claude and then I'm going to show

them how to do it. Is that is that the

service?

>> For sure.

>> Yeah, for sure.

>> I really like that.

genius for you like this is a sick

surface because you can come in and you

can can create all kinds of offers

around this right I could do 10 tools

tennium CPU surface this that you can

you can you can really package that and

what essentially the pitch is here is

say let's say look people inside your

company they're all already using CGP

right yes they're already using CHP okay

that already makes them a certain

percentage more productive you like you

can find the latest information on I

don't know the exact numbers but

essentially like the pitch that you have

is Look, in 2 weeks, I can make all of

your employees who use CHBT, I can make

them 5% more productive by integrating

custom MCP servers specifically for your

business. And

>> that's on the low end. That's like

absolutely on on the low end of things.

Um, I mean, that's that's just genius

cuz you're just like the interface is

always a tricky part, you know, like you

can build the back end and stuff and

>> worry about that. You can rely on R&D

budget from OpenAI to handle this for

you.

>> Yeah. No, that's genius. That's genius.

Um I I think just generally I'm I'm

really still waiting for someone to do

it. We have our own education uh like

workshops at Morningside that we do. Uh

but in terms of building out an entire

like I still think if you did a a chat

GBT course for businesses and then you

broke it sort of general chatbt training

and then you broke it down by like uh by

department. So like okay if you're in

the marketing department here's a few

different like here's the specific

skills of how you can apply deep

research or how you can apply uh the

image generation or you can apply sore

and things like this and you break it

down within each department. I think if

you threw on top of that like I'll set

up I'll set set up the MCPS for each uh

each person's uh chat or cloud instance

I think that would that would absolutely

cook. So I really think training that

that seems to be the lowest hanging

fruit in my eyes is just teaching people

how to use these tools is already the

data on how much more productive uh

people are when they're using it. It

should be should be an easy sell and

also it's probably a lot more lot more

scalable than like outright dev. Yeah

the MCP thing smart bro.

>> Yeah it's a good one. is like like it

like you don't need to worry about the

UI that's covered for you and these MCP

servers are getting get better and

better and as the models get better this

is also one of one of the things as the

AI models get better your solutions also

get better so it's just is like one of

the things you just bet on OpenAI and

entropic to like go crush it and then

you can build your service around that

we see a lot of opportunity in there and

we're just kind of like right now

waiting for like the right client the

right use case where they maybe want a

custom build and we say look I think we

can do this do is shipped through MCP

servers.

>> I mean, there's the there's a next step

after that which is like trying to build

the white labelled version of that and

doing it through through the API. Um,

which I still think is a massive

opportunity. I I've seen some some

startups appear that is kind of like

they call like an AI platform for your

company and I think this is like a a

great idea for someone to to build out.

probably a bit on the like sort of heavy

side, but when I think about what AI

agencies can be upselling to their

clients if you have this like hey all of

you you already got like 90% shadow AI

usage they're all using it they're all

sending your data through the through

the chat to you without knowing there's

a big like risk of leakage there and and

and sort of compliance and stuff like

that there's that risk how about we set

you up a custom platform these things

exist already and it's you can have

access to all the models you might be

able to like query them side by side and

then you can start to add on like okay

the co-pilots and the agents that you

build can start to be put in there as

well. And basically you can add like

permissions and you can start to analyze

how people are using I think just

analyzing how say you had that MCP thing

set up as well knowing how your your

your team are using using chatbt and the

things they're using it for that will

sort of identify the use cases for the

agency to build out. So if you had a

platform, it's like, okay, everyone are

going to use JPT and Anthropic and

Claude and things like this all through

this platform and you're able to run

analysis off the back of that for the

business owner saying, "Hey, look, looks

like Sand Sandra and and Jimmy and the

marketing department are using it for

these specific tasks. We could

potentially like mine like the inside

out of that and build something." Um,

that's kind of that like bottom up

allowing them to figure out the the path

of least resistance.

>> Yeah, it's great. You can also like see

who the power users are, right? So you

can see like essentially what they're

doing like who's using it and who's not.

>> Yeah, you could even get put targets on

it like we you need to use AI like

certain percent

like if you want to like sell it is

probably like a little bit of a of a

build in the beginning but once you have

something like that you have that

platform you can easily like redeploy

it. I know that there are great like

starter kits for this already. So like

for example, do you know open web? I

think it's called open web UI something

like that. It it's kind of like this

chat GPT clone that you it's open source

that use and you can out of the box like

this all already like you need to be a

developer in order to like really like

work with this. But you you see more and

more of this where you essentially have

a chat clone. You can select all the

models and you can white label it and

you can just yeah deploy it on premise

or completely private for a company that

could smash if you have if you have

deals like that because if you can sell

that there's lot of recurring revenue

because you essentially become the

vendor. I always think of like you have

like rockstar offers for your agency. If

you've niched down, you've got like a

real specific you sell that you like

getting you more appointments is kind of

like the the classic one. Can I increase

revenue? But the a typical business

strategy you have a really like

attractive thing like that that you can

run ads so you can sort of talk about a

lot that gets a lot of people in. But

I'm looking more and more what are these

upselles that agencies can do. It's like

oh yeah you we of course we can build

you that that's going to get you a lot

more a lot more lot more appointments.

Oh, but we could also like hey you

probably got shadow AI usage. Why don't

we? And is you have like these softwares

like the one we've just been talking

about where you're basically like a

partner or a distributor of you set them

up on it. You get like a referral for

your kickback from setting them up on it

and you can charge them five grand for

the setup and stuff like that. I'm

really excited as this like agency

market continues to kind of flourish and

and grow um what the these kinds of

solutions that pop up um in the

marketplace because it's just going to

allow you to expand your revenue so so

much and and a lot of the hard work's

already been done by the by the SAS

platform. Of course, you always find

that if you have your foot in the door,

like you said, you have a fancy like

offer that you can uh like sell on the

front end. Whenever you just do a little

bit of digging in any company, this just

like literally talking to people, it's

so easy to find use cases like and it's

it mostly comes down to like like

process processes that are just like

like not optimized. So like every like

every company especially if you grow you

you have this, right? And AI is so good

in that. We also as an agency have like

struggled with this at times like what

do we want to focus on? And then every

time we think okay look this is kind of

like a common pattern that we see. I

think this is maybe something that we

can productize something around and then

another client comes in and like look

something completely new. It's like oh

yeah this is also something you can do

and then another client has something

completely different. So it's also like

I really liked and that's also what I

like about the MCP ID right where you

can kind of like standardize some kind

of an offer is standardize an offer and

then you can like get a foot in the door

and like look we can like do do this

build in like a couple of days we'll

give couple of MCP servers your

employees are already more productive

and then they're going to run into

limits and they're going to ask

questions right hey can it also do this

can it also do this and now that could

like spiral off to uh bigger builds

consulting uh more work

>> we find it as well when you work with a

company who comes in like they come in

hot and they know exactly they seem to

know exactly what they want and you're

like, "Oh, well, I'm just I I'm here to

do what you tell me to a certain

degree." Um, that might those those

people tend to be a lot more difficult

than if you sit them down and like,

"Okay, let's let's like get to know your

business first. Let's figure out like

there's way lower hanging fruit in most

cases." And it's so refreshing for us

once we started doing consulting and

then doing development off the back of

that. It's like, "Oh we were like

doing the hard stuff all the time cuz we

were letting them tell us what to do."

And so there's like absolute layups that

are that are hidden in most businesses

that are that they're not taken

advantage of.

>> That is so relatable that we we in the

beginning had that all the time. And we

also had to um in the in the beginning

when uh Chad GBT and this whole new

thing was was new, right? We were also

excited as an agent, right? Like sure,

yeah, we'll build it. Like that sounds

cool. Let's try and build it. And over

time, we found that, oh, this is

actually pretty hard. And we would have

projects that would stay stuck at the

proof of concept, right? So, we do like

a big build and then it it kind of

worked, but it just wasn't good enough

to move to the next stage. And it wasn't

really because the tech wasn't that

good, but it's just like the business

case didn't make sense, right? It was

actually too big, too hard of a problem.

And if you really want to solve it, like

you put you need to put like another six

figures into it to like get it to a

degree and then the business gets

>> and then it's still kind of a dice roll

as well, you know, like

>> you never know. Yeah, you could put even

more into this thing like run up the

bark up the wrong tree even further and

like

>> and and as an agency owner, you kind of

just like it's not even worth sure, it

might be a lot of money, but it's just

not worth the stress at that point. So

that so that's also that's also a skill

uh that you need to develop knowing like

which are the use cases uh that are very

doable which ones are tricky and how to

take the the big ones when when clients

just ask hey can you build this out for

us to really say look this is a really

big problem let's start here because I

know we can do that instead of like

tackling an entire big problem and

automating an entire department or

something like that

>> and I think what you said before about

like the MCP server being a sort of

inroad. I think that's a really really

smart strategy these days is finding

something general. Um I mean or I

suppose it's a specific I know every

company's going to want to like get more

leads or like but in this case like I

know all of them are probably wanting to

get their employees to be more

productive. So if you can find kind of a

general small offer that's quite easy

for you to deliver but has a has a

significant uplift for them and benefit.

Hey, I'll come in and I'll set up your

team on these MCP servers and uh I'll

train them on how to use it. You're

going to get a quick lift. that just

gets that foot in the door and even if

you just like set and forget that and

they're going to get the insights on

like oh XYZ is using it the most uh

these are the kind of insuh use cases

that are coming off of it then you've

got your foot in the door and from there

can come the consulting or the

development or further education I

really think these these companies do

need to be eased into it and that's a

really really good way to do it so uh if

you're smart and you're getting started

you'll try to find um offers like that

just to summarize about what we've been

through here uh no you don't need to

know how to code to succeed in AI And of

course like success is is that is it

outright monetary? Is it like making a

billion dollars? Is it just sort of

quitting your job? There's all these

different versions and it's such a

diverse range of things that have

appeared. The market's really taking

shape now. Um Dave has given us a

rundown on how if you wanted to go the

the developer GI developer route, the

things you need to know. I've broken

down how if you were a nontechnical

person, you can go as well. Um, but

overall, if you're watching this, you

have the the chance right now to to take

action on this stuff and and literally

within the space of at 6, 12, 24 months,

be living a completely different life or

quit your job or whatever it is. Um, and

I wholeheartedly believe that. I've seen

it hundreds of times now, as I'm sure

you have, Dave, as well. So just from

from from me and I guess Dave as well

like you guys are in the right place and

uh every day I'm I'm so happy to see

people who have taken this opportunity

and run with it cuz um these things this

this big and this much of a layup don't

come around that often. Well Dave, it's

been uh great to have you on mate as

always and um hopefully have you back on

and we can discuss some more uh of the

of the news as it comes out. But yeah,

this has been great. So that is all for

this episode of the podcast guys. If you

want to see something similar that I

really think you'd like, you can click

up here to watch another one. And

remember, if you think you have a story

worth telling and some valuable insight

you can share with the community, you

can fill out my podcast application form

in the description below. I'd love to

have a chat with you and get some

exposure for your business. Aside from

that, guys, that's all for the video.

Thank you so much for watching and I'll

see you in the next