How and Why You Must Coexist with AI

With AI changing everything from search engines to staffing, how do professionals keep up without falling behind? In this episode of FH&P Lawyers’ Law Talk podcast, host Clay Williams is joined by innovation strategist and keynote speaker Rocky Ozaki for a timely conversation about the future—and the now—of work. Stay tuned for upcoming events from the NoW of Work team!

From AI adoption and talent retention to the “death of Google” and the rise of chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity, this fast-paced conversation offers clear insights for navigating a modern workplace. Read below and see how FH&P Lawyers is leading the charge—and what your team can do to stay ahead.

 Clay: Welcome to another edition of Law Talks. I'm Clay Williams. I'm a partner here at FH&P Lawyers, and I've got a special guest today. Rocky Ozaki.

So, to our listeners, Rocky was kind enough to come to our lawyer retreat and present and facilitate it. Yes. So it was very interesting. And now you're continuing your relationship with FH&P and doing a speaker series.

Rocky: Yes, I am.

Clay: So, first of all, I think our listeners would like to know a little bit about who you are, what are you doing? What's your background?

Rocky: Yeah, no, great. So I guess first and foremost, I am a local. I'm a transplant. I moved here in 2020 during the pandemic, and my parents were born and raised here. Always knew I wanted to retire here, but I was living in Vancouver, and during the pandemic, I said, it's time to move to God's country. So I'm a local, live right here in Lake Country.

A little bit about my background. I often say I'm a recovering corporate executive. I was a corporate leader of thousands of employees. And in 2010, I first heard this term, "the future of work." Where was it coming from? Silicon Valley. Back in 2010, I was like, dang, every company one day is going to become a technology company, Clay.

So, I left the corporate world, got into startup tech, got deeply entrenched in this global innovation and technology scene, and I ended up starting three tech companies myself with one exit. And then eight years ago, I started this business, which was on a mission to help legacy organizations modernize to thrive in these exponential times.

Clay: Like tech companies.

Rocky: Exactly.

Clay: And what I've written down here is that your firm is now called the Now of Work. Is that right?

Rocky: Yeah.

Clay: And why the Now of Work instead of the Future of Work?

Rocky: Because the future is now.

Clay: The future is now, of course. I guess I'm too dense to get that. So, what is your mission? What do you do with that?

Rocky: One of our mission statements, actually, we call it the Seven Cs, and I'll say it slowly because I think it's quite profound if you are a business leader today. What our organization will do in these crazy, exponential times—from AI and tariffs and global unrest and all this geopolitics—is bring you calm, clarity, confidence, compassion, creativity, and core capabilities to thrive in these exponential times. So we call that our Seven Cs. Whatever context your business is in—if we need to modernize, if we feel like we're falling behind—we probably have a solution for you.

Clay: I totally agree. AI is on everybody's lips right now. Tariffs, that kind of stuff—I don't know what you can do about that. But I think everybody needs to adopt AI. We are trying. We're certainly doing our best to stay on top of that curve, and that's one of the reasons we're associating with you. One of the things that I think it's important for our viewers to know is that one of the things that FH&P is doing is putting on these speaker series, and Rocky, you are our first speaker.

Rocky: Yes.

Clay: You're doing a series of three. You've just finished one, I understand. And that was, "How and Why You Must Coexist With AI."

Rocky: That's right.

Clay: Very well attended. People standing.

Rocky: And controversial. People...

Clay: Not everyone likes AI.

Rocky: Clay, it can be scary.

Clay: I think it's really scary, and I worry about what's going to happen with young people and training, and who's going to have a job.

Rocky: You're right.

Clay: A lot of people are very worried about what's going to happen. But you gave us some answers.

The Real Reasons Businesses Must Embrace AI

Rocky: I did. Again, remember: calm, clarity, compassion. That's what we bring.

Clay: So what are the answers?

Rocky: I could go on for hours, Clay.

Clay: Well, in fact, you did go on for hours.

Rocky: I did. I went on for two and a half hours. Actually, we went half an hour over. They were so engaged. The first reason why you're going to coexist with AI is because you're going to fall behind if not. So, whether you believe in AI or not, whether you don't trust it or not, the reality is that the leading organizations are investing there. The technology is growing fast, and the proof is there. The number one reason why people will coexist is because you're going to fall further and further behind if you don't. The second reason I propose is that history proves you will. I'm not picking on generations here, but when I first started getting on stages preaching about this—about eight years ago—the prevailing thought was that the world is screwed. We've got these pesky, lazy millennials stuck on their cell phones on this app called Facebook. We're doomed.

Clay: Now, Zoomers.

Rocky: I used to make fun of millennials, but now I make fun of Zoomers. And I bet you—I'm not calling you out specifically—but many baby boomers thought about that Facebook time suck, all these things. Within two years, the biggest adopter of Facebook were who?

Clay: Baby boomers or Gen X?

Rocky: I always knew when the turning point came about six years ago, because they finally saw the value proposition of reconnecting with high school friends, college buddies, getting pictures and videos of their grandkids. And now every boomer is out there like, "Look what I bought on Marketplace." So what did it take? One instance of seeing the value of Facebook. And the same thing happened with Airbnbs and Ubers. AI is the next big thing. The minute anyone who denies AI gets one piece of value from it, you are never going back.

Clay: I'm working with it a lot now, and you're preaching to the choir for me. I just really believe it's incredible. What it’s able to do... and every time I hear the new things it can do, it's just coming up with more and more things. But boy, as a research tool...

Rocky: It can be amazing. And it has downsides, as you know, because recently in California, another case went to court, and they used precedents that didn’t even exist.

Clay: Absolutely. And for lawyers, we need to be very careful not to allow our clients’ private information to get out on the internet. So we use a closed system. We're not allowed to put our clients' personal information onto platforms like Gemini or ChatGPT.

Rocky: You've got governance to manage that.

Clay: But it's amazing what it does.

Rocky: It does.

Clay: It's incredible. The future's going to be something.

Rocky: People might be wondering what the third reason is. I’m always a rule-of-three guy. The third reason why everyone is going to use AI is that your people are going to demand it. My thesis is simple: your top talent, who you're trying to attract and retain, they're worried about their futures too.

Whatever industry you're in, if your contemporary is using AI, has an AI strategy, and you're over here saying, “No, we’re scared, we’re too risk-averse,” where do you think top talent's going to gravitate to? And also, the client is going to expect personalization, which is only enabled by AI. We're all going to expect it. So if you're not using it, you're falling behind the people that want it—your talent and your customers.

Clay: I think most people understand that, but there’s a bit of concern or angst about it. “I want to stay on top of it. How do we do that?” That’s kind of where we’re at. We feel we’re with you—we want to stay on that crest of the wave. But how do you do that? We're going to need some help navigating.

Rocky: Well, you guys are doing really well. I would say, particularly compared to your peers, you're embracing it far more than the average firm. I think that's fantastic, particularly because you've got good guardrails. One of the keys is you've got to democratize the process. This isn’t about the partner saying, “Hey, we all have to be using AI.”

Clay: Well, I like to tell my employees it's always about the partners, but okay, I'll hear you out. We’ve got another podcast about that.

Rocky: Okay, hear me out. What happens instead if you go to your entire organization, from the intern to whoever, I don't care how long they've been there—and say, “What problems are you trying to solve?” Then they turn that into an AI use case, and you allow them, within your guardrails, to dabble and play with AI. That’s how you're going to stay current. It's never just top-down. It's about getting everyone in the organization who wants to use it.

Clay: But I disagree a little bit because very often you see management not embracing something. So I think management does need to embrace it and encourage everybody to use it. Here, we are making that concerted effort to do that. But yeah, it’s top-down as well as bottom-up, isn't it? We've got to allow our employees to do that.

Democratizing Innovation from the Bottom Up

Rocky: I agree. What I meant was it’s not you forcing them. It’s allowing them to come up with the use case. Leadership has got to be bought in.

Clay: We're going through that process right now. It’s a lot of work. You know, that whole “working on your business versus in your business” thing—it’s an interesting time to be a business owner right now, for sure. But you're right, there’s a lot of opportunity there as well.

So now you've already done one of your speaker series here. Sold-out event, standing room only. The engagement was incredible. Like I say, there are a lot of people like me who want to be there but wonder, “How do I do it? I want to stay on the crest.” So you've got two more events coming up. For our listeners, Rocky is doing an event here at FH&P, June 5th, and it’s called “Story Is the New Strategy.”

Rocky: Well, “The Death of Google.” And really we’re talking about SEO and how people search today. It's going to be very different. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, released some interesting stats. We don’t have time to go through all of them, but one thing is very clear: there’s a certain generation that has completely turned off from standard search, and everything is going through a chatbot—like Perplexity, ChatGPT, or whatever.

Clay: What is Perplexity? I saw that. Who does Perplexity? Is that another one?

Rocky: Yep.

Clay: I'd read that somewhere. I didn't know what it was.

Rocky: So there are different chatbots out there anchored on different large language models, and each one does something a little bit better than the other. The big ones out there are obviously ChatGPT—and it’s not even close, by the way, they’re the biggest. If you're in a Microsoft environment, you’re using Copilot. If you’re in Google, it’s Gemini. Claude is a big one. Perplexity is the other. That’s sort of the big five, I would say. Each one always operates a little differently. Perplexity, for me, is really good at any kind of web search and research.

We just planned our trip to New York, and Perplexity literally gave me, Clay, not just general info, it knew. I said, “I’m a Canucks fan and I’ve got to go to all the Canucks games.” It literally mapped out step-by-step how to get from my hotel to all the destinations I wanted to.

Clay: Oh, come on. It did? And does it buy the tickets now?

Rocky: It will. ChatGPT just turned this feature on, actually. Every one of them will soon allow you to seamlessly purchase and have that retail experience right within the chatbot. It’s here now.

Clay: Wow.

Rocky: In fact, you should try it in ChatGPT. Just ask it. The joke right now, or the go-to use case, is espresso machines. There’s a video of someone asking, and it came up with the top four, went to Amazon, and you could buy it right there.

Clay: Wow.

Rocky: It’s coming. But anyway, the point is: SEO—how people are advertising—if your dollars are in paid search, SEO is not going to be around in its current form for much longer.

Clay: I wanted to ask you—how does that work? Like when I use one of these, it shows me the website it’s drawing the information from. Is that right?

Rocky: Are you talking about ChatGPT and AI, or are you talking about Google?

Clay: Well, I was talking about Gemini. That’s the one I’ve been using, and it shows the sources and a bunch of websites. Is that where it’s drawing its information from?

Rocky: It is. You can train these chatbots, by the way. Let’s use ChatGPT, because in my opinion, it’s the easiest one to train about you. When I’m searching on ChatGPT, it’s not giving me the top sites or products based on someone who paid to be at the top or keywords that were on the website. It’s thinking about me as a person. I live in Lake Country, I have a family, I’ve got a 15-year-old daughter, I love the Canucks. Based on what it knows about me, it’s going to give me a personalized answer.

The old Google way was simply based on who was paying to get to the top—sponsored content—or there were tricks around getting higher rankings.

Clay: Like putting blogs on and stuff like that.

Rocky: Exactly. Which is still important, by the way.

Clay: Oh, is it still important?

Rocky: Yes.

Clay: And that’s what your next one is about. So, the death of Google—are you going to give us some tips about how to still be relevant in an AI world?

Rocky: Exactly. And by the way, if anyone here is listening or yourself is using Google today, you’ll see that AI is now the first response. Because they have to. That’s where the market is going. Whether or not that will be paid for in the future, it proves that the way rankings happen is changing, because even Google had to adjust.

Clay: Yeah.

Rocky: So, yes, we will give tactics on how to stay relevant in an AI-driven world versus an SEO and paid search-driven world.

Rethinking Search, Marketing, and Modern Relevance

Clay: Okay. That’s going to be interesting. By the way, do we keep doing blogs? Do we keep doing this type of stuff?

Rocky: Yes.

Clay: Do we—?

Rocky: Yes. And have a great story.

Clay: So on June 5th at that session, it’s not just about AI?

Rocky: It’s about modern marketing—how people search, the younger generation, and social media. Still, it’s TikTok. It’s fascinating. My 15-year-old daughter—if you want to know where she’s going to buy stuff—it’s TikTok.

Clay: Right. Wow.

Rocky: Our age? We’re going on to our chatbots. And that’s not SEO either. So yes, we’re going to talk not just about AI but about how different consumers find FH&P Lawyers.

Clay: Exactly. It’s not just about paying to put us in the search results.

Rocky: Exactly.

Clay: So that’s on June 5th. And then there’s one more in this series on June 19th called “Leadership in Times of Change.”

Rocky: Yeah.

Clay: I don’t know—do I need any further education on leadership? Because I think I’m perfect.

Rocky: Wow. Let’s ask your team.

Clay: I guess we’ll see what they say behind my back, maybe too.

Rocky: Yeah.

Clay: So what is “Times of Change”? Is that AI again?

Rocky: No, I think it’s everything. We live in a world with so much noise. AI is just one of them. We were talking before we started about geopolitics, political issues, tariffs, and shareholder value. There’s just so much happening. Not to mention general stress, cost of living, and all these things. We think leaders are as stressed and burned out as ever before.

What may have worked is not working today. One of our partners, Allison, is the head of leadership coaching, and she’s going to coach people through what burnout looks like, how to circumvent it, and what you can do to mitigate it. It’s not just about work; it’s your personal life too. We just think the world is stressed, and that we’re part of it because we’re pushing technology, AI, and modernization. So we needed a solution to also bring calm to leaders going through this change.

Clay: That we’re pushing them to go through. Having to deal with Zoomers. Zoomers—try and show up on time. Come on.

Rocky: Hopefully that’s part of it. We could talk about generations for a long time.

Clay: So if you’re interested in our speaker series and our inaugural speaker, Mr. Rocky Ozaki, you can sign up online. Thank you for coming out, and we’ll talk to you next time.

Rocky: Yeah, thanks very much.

Embracing AI and navigating workplace change doesn’t have to be overwhelming. With the right mindset—and the right strategy—your business can thrive in this new era of exponential innovation. Whether you're rethinking your marketing, empowering your team, or just starting to explore what AI can do, FH&P Lawyers is committed to staying ahead of the curve and helping clients do the same. Join us at an upcoming speaker series event or connect with our team to learn how we’re integrating innovation with trusted legal guidance.

Disclaimer: This material is provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter. Consult with a qualified lawyer for advice on specific legal issues.