A practical AI talk for people who run businesses.
Real examples of where AI fits in a growing business, what works, what doesn't, and no sales pitch. From an AI engineer who builds this work.
- Length
- 30 to 45 minutes, plus questions
- Where
- In person around Acadiana, or over video
- For
- Chambers, associations, business groups, podcasts
- Fee
- None for local business groups and podcasts
The talk.
I show what AI can and can't do right now, live, on the kind of work your members do. Then questions, as many as you have time for.
- Live demos on everyday business work: estimates, invoices, scheduling, paperwork.
- Where AI fits in a growing business, and where it doesn't yet.
- What never to paste into a chatbot.
- A one-page sheet for everyone, to write down the one handoff that eats the most hours in their week.
What I need from you: a screen I can plug a laptop into, and time for questions at the end.
Topics I can talk about.
Every one of them comes back to the same question: what does this mean for people's actual work?
What AI means for your industry's actual work
Will AI take trades jobs? The honest answer
Why most company AI pilots fail, and why it's rarely the model
When a ten-hour task takes ten minutes, who keeps the savings?
What a software engineer's job looks like now
Building an AI company in public, from Louisiana
Layken Varholdt
Air Force veteran and AI engineer in Lafayette. I've shipped eight production systems, including a federal document parser, won first place at the Convex Modern Stack Hackathon, and I make short videos about what AI means for real jobs and real businesses.
Tell me about your group or show.
Who's in the room or listening, and roughly when. I'll reply within two business days.
- 30 minutes, video or phone
- layken@varholdt.com
- Lafayette, Louisiana · happy to meet in person