Here's your show description for the Marie episode:

Marie Doce spent 15 years in big tech. Then she came home, to Humboldt County, California, 300 miles north of San Francisco, where Google Maps is still wrong half the time and Amazon takes five to seven days. And instead of leaving her tech career behind, she built something new. Grounded AI is an AI consulting and learning firm helping rural businesses implement AI where it actually makes sense for them. In this episode Katie and Dr. Ericka sit down with Marie for an honest conversation about the rural tech gap, who AI actually belongs to, and why the people shouting loudest about it online are probably the least qualified to define it for the rest of us.

What's Inside:

The Rural Tech Gap — 20% of Americans live in rural areas but you'd never know it from the AI conversation. What the gap looks like on the ground and why it's about to get wider

Grounded AI — How a coffee shop flyer, a local venture fund, and one conversation changed the trajectory of Marie's career and brought her expertise home where it was needed most

Random Acts of AI — Why most small business owners are already using AI but saving zero time doing it, and what the next step actually looks like

Human Enablement, Not Human Replacement — The framing that changed how Marie thinks about her work and why it should change how you think about yours

Totally Different Worlds — Why a business owner and an artist hear the word "AI" and think of completely different things, and why that gap matters more than the tech itself

Everybody's Tech — The case for local, grounded, community-rooted AI literacy before the big tech companies come in and define it for all of us

Want to Learn More About Marie's Work? Marie Doce is the founder of Grounded AI, bringing practical, community-rooted AI consulting and training to businesses on California's North Coast, and showing the rest of us what it looks like when somebody who belongs to a place brings their expertise home. Find her at groundedai.co

Want to Work With Us? If you are ready to bring AI into your work or your organization in a way that actually makes sense, we would love to talk. Visit us at empoweredailearning.com to learn more about our courses, workshops, and consulting. Subscribe to our Substack for weekly AI insights between episodes.

Website: empoweredailearning.com Substack: empoweredai.substack.com

Connect With Us: Have a question, a topic you want us to cover, or an AI win you want to share? Reach out — we want to hear from you.

Contact: hello@empoweredailearning.com

AI Mixtape — where you understand the AI, and you stay human.

Earlier this year the federal government released a free 7-day AI course delivered straight to your phone, and 92 million Americans have never touched an AI tool. Sounds like a fix. But is it? In this episode Katie Branley and Dr. Ericka Pitman put the Make AI Ready program to the test, break down what it actually delivers, and give you the three rules for going from "I took a course once" to genuinely fluent. Because knowing what AI is and knowing how to use it are two very different things.

What's Inside:

Make AI Ready — Text READY to 20202, the free 7-day course the federal government dropped earlier this year and what you actually get out of it

The 92 Million Gap — Why most Americans have never opened an AI tool and what that means for the workforce right now

Google AI Essentials vs. Anthropic Academy — Which course is right for where you are and what each one actually teaches you

The On-Ramp Rule — A course is where you start, not where you stop. Theory without application is just a simulator

The Role Swap Rule — Don't learn AI in general. Pick one task you do every week and learn AI for exactly that task

The Audit Rule — Most people ask if AI is saving them time. The better question is whether it's making the work better

This Week's Mixtape Rules:

1. The On-Ramp Rule — finish a course and then get out on the road. Apply it to something real before you move on
2. The Role Swap Rule — start with the problem you want solved, not the tool you want to try
3. The Audit Rule — make AI earn its place. Go back and look honestly at the output, not just the speed

Want to Work With Us? If you are ready to bring AI into your work or your organization in a way that actually makes sense, we would love to talk. Visit us at empoweredailearning.com to learn more about our courses, workshops, and consulting. Subscribe to our Substack for weekly AI insights between episodes.

Website: empoweredailearning.com Substack: empoweredai.substack.com

Connect With Us: Have a question, a topic you want us to cover, or an AI win you want to share? Reach out — we want to hear from you.

Contact: hello@empoweredailearning.com

AI Mixtape — where you understand the AI, and you stay human.

The average knowledge worker spends nine hours every week just searching for stuff — documents, emails, information scattered across every app in their life. Nine hours. And 60% of workers say they feel burned out. AI is supposed to fix this. In this episode Katie Branley and Dr. Ericka Pitman break down the roadmap from toy to tool to system — and give you the three rules to actually claw back your time.

What's Inside:

The Burnout Gap — Why 85% of AI users say it saves them hours but most people still can't feel it yet

Toy to Tool to System — The three stages every AI user goes through and why most people get stuck between one and two

The Meeting Minutes Example — How one repetitive task becomes a full workflow that runs your week for you

AI Has a Brain. Give It Hands. — Why ChatGPT alone can't move the needle and what Google Apps Scripts changes

The 409 Principle — Why your messy, imperfect first system is exactly what this moment needs

The Tool Trap — Why adding more apps is the red herring of this AI era and what to do instead

This Week's Mixtape Rules:

1. Find the nine hours — start with the problem you want solved, not the tool you want to try
2. Build a system, not a collection of tools — stay in the messy middle, that's where the real work happens
3. Stay in the loop — AI drafts, you decide, always

Want to Work With Us? If you are ready to bring AI into your work or your organization in a way that actually makes sense, we would love to talk. Visit us at empoweredailearning.com to learn more about our courses, workshops, and consulting. Subscribe to our Substack for weekly AI insights between episodes.

Website: empoweredailearning.com

Substack: empoweredai.substack.com

Connect With Us: Have a question, a topic you want us to cover, or an AI win you want to share? Reach out — we want to hear from you.

Contact: hello@empoweredailearning.com

AI Mixtape — where you understand the AI, and you stay human.