Beyond the Chatbot: What AI Mascots Reveal About the Next Wave of Business Innovation

In this conversation, Brandon Laws sits down with Fritz Brumder, serial entrepreneur and co-founder of WiseOx, to explore how “AI mascots” are helping organizations move from one-off ChatGPT experiments to secure, organization-wide automation. Fritz explains why legacy chatbots struggled, how large-language-model (LLM) technology unlocks far richer support and HR workflows, and what an 80/20 security model looks like in practice. They also discuss practical first-steps for leaders, new skills employees should cultivate, and a realistic one-, two-, and ten-year outlook on AI’s impact on talent and trust at work. If you’re AI-curious but cautious about compliance, this episode offers a roadmap—and a few reality checks—to get started.

Key Timestamps

Time stamp Topic 00:00 Welcome, show purpose, and Xenium HR sponsor read 02:00 Introducing Fritz Brumder and the concept of “AI mascots” at WiseOx 03:30 Fritz’s startup journey, timing the leap from video tech to GenAI 07:00 Chatbots 1.0 vs. LLM-powered assistants—what changed and why it matters 11:00 Training an AI on SOPs, policies, and compliance docs: HR use cases 15:00 Internal roll-outs first, then customer-facing support and sales assistants 18:00 Beyond chat: email, voice, multilingual interaction, and task automation 22:00 Data privacy & the 80/20 security model (private vector store + LLM) 26:00 Pricing, five-step implementation path, and change-management tips