Cannabis & Artificial Intelligence - Branding Bud Live Episode 31
THE SUMMARY
From genetics and cultivation to harvesting and curing, weighing and packaging, sales and distribution, and even the customer experience and consumer loyalty – AI is or can be involved at every step. It's intriguing, captivating, and even a bit concerning to witness the extent to which AI has integrated into the cannabis industry.
THE CO-HOSTS
David Paleschuck, Adriana Hemans
THE SPECIAL GUEST
Eric Mercado, COO, Terpli
THE TRANSCRIPT
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Welcome to Branding Bud Live, the live stream that’s 100% THC and 0% WTF. Every week we speak with business people about the business of cannabis. I’m David Paleschuck, founder of Branding Bud Consulting Group and author of the first book on cannabis branding. I’m joined by my co-host Adriana Hemans, a Marketing executive with over 8 years in the cannabis space. Hi Adriana!
ADRIANA HEMANS
Hi David. Thank you for that intro. I’m so excited to co-host the show with you. We’re bringing amazing guests from across the cannabis ecosystem to share their perspectives. My favorite thing about Branding Bud Live is that we focus on building community - and we encourage audience participation. It’s not just about us talking, it’s about all of us building something together. So feel free to drop your questions and/or opinions in the chat, and we’ll share them too.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Thank you, Adriana. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We have a lot to get into today. Today, we’ll be talking with Eric Mercado, COO, Terpli, an AI budtender ecommerce solution designed to help consumers make the right cannabis choices. From genetics and cultivation to harvesting and curing, weighing and packaging, sales and distribution, and even the customer experience and consumer loyalty – AI is or can be involved at every step. It's intriguing, captivating, and even a bit concerning to witness the extent to which AI has integrated into the cannabis industry. Some of the topics we covered are:
Can AI truly revolutionize the way we consume cannabis?
Will it help develop personalized dosage recommendations?
Will it be able to correlate cannabinoids to benefits and effects?
I’m super excited to chat with Eric today.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Me too!
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Let’s welcome him to the show.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Let's do it. Hi Eric!
ERIC MERCADO
Hi guys, thank you so much for having me.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Welcome to Branding Bud Live. We're excited to chat with you. Would you kick us off with tell us about yourself and what you're passionate about?
ERIC MERCADO
Yeah, absolutely. So first and foremost, I'm passionate about growing the industry to destigmatize it to optimize it and to legitimize it as an industry as well as the plant medicine that it truly is. My background is a far cry from a cannabis data startup. I spent about 10 years with Ernst & Young and client services. So I did a full gambit started off in Dallas in oil and gas and real estate did a couple of Restaurant Group IPOs couple of distribution companies worked in a lead recycling and smelting company the joys of Big Four accounting, but ultimately, I landed in CPG. And when I was with CPG biggest home run in my career was a company called solo stove. If you haven't heard of it, they do the smokeless stainless steel firepits. They also own an origami kayak company and inflatable paddleboard company. And then they own Chubbies short shorts. And I was the lead on the EY side that took them public in October of 2001. Their ticker is actually DTC. So all they do is ecommerce. And that's right around the time when Peter who was my best friend from undergrad, best friends, roommates pledge brothers, we have the same birthday, the whole nine yards, he actually came to me with this new idea for a cannabis data company, a predictive analytic that he had created based on the modes, and how that can create positive impacts for end consumers. And I was going through my own woes with my own personal cannabis consumption. He and I had been passionate consumers forever, I was using it for chronic pain, I was using it for stress, I was working 100-120 hour weeks with the firm. And that was my escape. And then all of the sudden formulations changed. My biochemistry changed all of the positive impacts that the product was having on my life, were now exacerbated and made worse, I wasn't feeling better. I was feeling anxious, I was feeling overwhelmed. And so this really, really played into the passions that I had for being able to improve my personal experience, as well as the experience of everybody. And so where we've been trying to bring this is taking a lot of best practices from outside of the industry and applying them in a meaningful way. Does it help customers? Does it help retailers make money and grow the industry? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, it's how can we better serve customers understand what they want, and provide product transparency and a consistent experience that they need to feel better and use this plan for what really helps them?
DAVID PALESCHUCK
When we talk about CPG and we talk about branding, you know, consistency is what it's all about, right? It's that's how you build a loyal following. That's how people know what to expect. That's why most brands most big brands are what they are because there's the sense of consistency. So it's intriguing to, you know, start off on that or to hear about that, you know, as we jump into, into artificial intelligence, or into intelligence to begin with, you know, to kick it off, we have a slide which is really AI versus BI. You know, when normally we think of business and we think of planning we think of execution we think of operations we think that those types of things, but let's just level set for a moment just talk about business intelligence versus artificial intelligence.
Business intelligence takes a traditional approach uses descriptive analytics looks at what happened in the past and leaves decision making to humans and artificial intelligence implements on advanced process uses predictive and prescriptive analytics answers what can happen in the future and then empowers a computer or a number of computers to make decisions by themselves? And so, you know, I just wanted to start off there. So at least we're sort of talking about how human intelligence and artificial intelligence interact. And, you know, if we can understand each of their sandboxes, and then how they might overlap, I think that's a great place to start. So I think it's important to understand these things, in hopes of being less fearful of these things.
ERIC MERCADO
Yeah, absolutely. And I think to level set in terms of the availability of information, when it comes to true AI, there has to be a critical mass of information. And with cannabis, being a nascent industry, many times that that level of data just does not exist, we really need an opportunity to have more time to understand what these datasets can be, to be able to leverage true machine learning techniques. We're leveraging a lot of the techniques in AI the techniques in machine learning across the board, but truth be told, cannabis is a decade behind what other industries are able to do and that is part of the legitimate the legitimization opportunity that we have to really excel cannabis into the next step.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
So what I mean, so to jump into it, what could you give us a few examples of where ay where AI, you know, falls within cannabis?
ERIC MERCADO
Absolutely. So first and foremost, when you're looking at the opportunities to leverage tool like AI, a lot of people are familiar with ChatGPT, with Bard with the Bing version of these chat functionalities, these large language models that you can use as what one of my buddies dubbed last night at a high end intern, right? Is it going to give you every amount of information that you need? No, is it going to require a certain level of guidance from you, and a certain level of honing down into what you're really trying to accomplish to really give you a meaningful outcome? What are the opportunities to leverage AI in the cannabis industry? will it provide exactly everything that you need to talk about? No, but it can provide you an outline of where to start. And that can be used in every single business practice that everybody is using right now. Whether you're a cultivator an operator, a retailer, a marketer, someone who's generating content, every single component, from every aspect of a business can have value for using one of these tools, right? It's basically the Microsoft paperclip for your life, it can be used. That being said there's specific opportunities within the cannabis industry where I've seen a lot of traction, some really exciting things.
First and foremost is that in cultivation and genetics, we were just talking David about the opportunity to have a scanning a thermal scanning mechanism, or a laser scanning mechanism that can go through a cultivation facility, scan every single plant take hundreds and hundreds of pictures and thermal scans of every single leaf on every single plant and every single bud and be able to identify what the surface temperature is of every single plant, what the content in the air is what every single facet that is being tracked in the ultimate, ultimate yield of those plants can be tracked, understood and then changed in real time. If this plant needs more water than one over in the corner of the room, because it has a different temperature gauge, those are able to be acted upon in real time, that's going to significantly increase yields is going to significantly increase quality of those products. Another one that I've seen is genetic understanding, as we have more and more testing in the space and product testing is a whole other rabbit hole that we can go down probably in a separate discussion. But taking into consideration that many companies are now testing for terpene and minor cannabinoids, they have an understanding of what is in their inventory, what they're selling. Now we can use predictive analytics to be able to understand from a mass population, what are the desired outcomes that people have? And then what chemical formulations are going to allow for that for the vast majority and then on an individual scale? How can we track it because everybody's endocannabinoid systems are so different? How can each individual have the opportunity to have that same level of tracking and understanding of their own biochemistry and how to best leverage the plant? Right? Other ways that I've seen SEO quality control content, someone just put in the chat about content generation. Those are phenomenal. I don't know if you've seen my journey, but it's pretty ridiculous. How fun. We even just had a couple of social media posts go out about Terpli’s favorite strain names and basically just put in unicorn poop into mid journey and how to generate an image for us with There's your social media posts. So a lot of this can be optimization.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
My experience has been I have I have gotten a number of things out of ChatGPT, where not only does it often repeat itself. But it just has a certain tone and cadence where, where you're pretty much able, if you're experienced with it enough, you're able to see that it's, it's pretty bland overall.
ERIC MERCADO
Yeah, it would be a fun, a fun quiz game. Since you guys do a bunch of quizzes. Was this a true quote from a celebrity? Or a, you know, institution? Or was this a ChatGPT generated quote, for about a certain topic, and I think that'd be a pretty fun game.
ADRIANA HEMANS
I love this. I'm getting I'm getting so many ideas. Eric, I want to go back for just a second about something you said earlier about how it's hard to predict at the individual level, what your experience with different cultivars will be. And that there may be some hope that using AI to parse through all these millions and billions of data points, we'll be able to have a better understanding of what characteristics of the human body would lead them to have certain experiences. Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that that would shed some light on a huge problem that we're facing right now, which is that everyone's experience is different with different cultivars?
ERIC MERCADO
Absolutely, yeah. And I think not only is everyone's experience different with different cultivars, you also have an extremely varying level of quality control. That was a lot of my background, when I was with the firm is being able to make sure that you have a consistent product no matter what. And the issue that I see overarching in this space is don't get me wrong, white labeling is white labeling is okay. That is a general practice that a lot of people do in a lot of different industries. However, if I were to call something blue dreams, and it's not really blue dreams, and I have a billion different variables that go into play, but I call the end product, the same thing across different states across different times across different cultivars, phenotypes, all of the sudden, it's going to give people the idea that they're going to have a particular experience. And then ultimately, when they do not, it breaks consumer trust, that retailer is dead. To me, that brand is dead to me that Cote d'Ivoire might completely be dead to me, if I if I'm a brand new consumer, and I'm expecting to consume blue dreams and go to sleep, and I'm up all night. I don't like this product anymore. And if we want to truly legitimize the space, and destigmatize, we have to give clear and transparent understanding to what those products are going to do. So the problem that we have overarching is there is no governing body to say you're allowed to call this blue dreams, you're allowed to call this cheetah PIs, which is another phenomenal name that a new user is going to be very confused about, right. So the only way we can really provide that level of transparency for those consumers is to provide some semblance of it benchmarking for what a product actually should contain in order to be that thing. A Bordeaux is not a Bordeaux, if it's not from Bordeaux, right? Same with champagne. We don't have any of those governing bodies except for some of the phenotypes that are being actually copyrighted. With that being said, so we have the issue of white labeling, the highest and best piece of information that we have in this space for the chemical compounds back to your question, Adriana are the CEOs. So we understand what the underlying chemical compounds are. The big differentiator is that we don't understand what their reported effects are. There are review aggregators in the space that do a good job, but unfortunately, many times they're aggregated at the strain name, which reinforces the same problem. They're not time gated, and they're really low, many times low quality, they're not verified. And so in order to complete that closed feedback loop and truly create an opportunity for generative AI to impact future experiences, you have to know the underlying chemistry that way In and you have to know the ultimate outcome that came out. Only at that point are you able to impact future recommendations future understanding, because everybody's endocannabinoid system is different specifically related to people with like ADHD, their impacts are almost the complete opposite of what a, what a many people would feel, right. So if I have a product that's high and little, I've discovered that that's the only one that actually helps me sleep helps me relax, limiting I have a very adverse reaction to overstimulated over anxious, for some people, that's completely flipped. So the way that we can at least start is provide recommendations and provide education to customers based on what is what the chemical compounds they're consuming, is empower them to understand what that is, facilitate them coming back through some sort of incentive, whether it's their own personal development, loyalty points that we do through the tool, all of those great avenues. And now we have both the inputs and the outputs of that experience. And we can leverage that into better recommendations in the future at both a macro level for understanding and a micro level for your personal experiences.
ADRIANA HEMANS
It sounds almost like what you're describing is the ultimate loyalty program with real data to a certain component.
ERIC MERCADO
Absolutely, yes. But it's not just royalty to a particular retailer, which is important. It's also loyalty to this is a medicine that will help me right, that is one of the biggest differentiators from a recommendation engine for wind things of a veto. This isn't necessarily that's not medicine for some food, but it's probably shouldn't be right. So this is a way to help with those. To your point, yes, it creates loyalty, not just to the end, for the end consumer, for the retailer, but also to the product at large. And the industry at large.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
You know, there are there were certain things that you mentioned, lean a little when you mentioned limonene. And you know, there are certain I'll call them general truths, Linalool is predominantly found in lavender, Lavender has known to be very relaxing. Conversely, limonene is basically in citrus and known to be invigorating. So, you know, there are some general truths here that we could say, you know, depending on the terpenes, within a cultivar, or in the level of those terpenes, those will affect us in a certain way. How, how do we start to? You know, I guess you said the COA, so we're starting to aggregate all the data from a COA, how do we then bridge that gap over to the consumer in a way that we can get to a place where we can understand the effects on different consumers? And you touched upon it? I guess, a moment ago, where you said, those would add are reversed? So are there different consumer categories that we can better understand how they respond to certain cannabinoids?
ERIC MERCADO
Yes. And that's, that's, I think, a larger topic of consumer archetype thing. So I think for the medical education side of things versus all take two avenues here, you've got the brass dollars in tax side of things of how can we market better to people to give them what they want? You also have the idea of how we can, from a medical standpoint, better support those customers in taking the underlying chemistry and creating benchmarks and exposing customers to what these terpenes and cannabinoids even are is step zero in the process, in my opinion, if they don't know, carry a filing is very hard to pronounce. And I don't even know if I pronounced it right, because every person I talked to pronounces it slightly differently. Right. And then you had Beta-Caryophyllene … t blows novices minds. So it's very difficult to throw heavily scientific language at a new or a novice consumer and be able to have it stick. So the way that we're at least starting to try is within our tool, we have an advanced feature where you're able to actually select what type of terpene you would like to have the six most predominant terpenes that are found in all of cannabis, as well as an opportunity to click into that terpene and understand what it is What are the organic compounds it's found in and then most importantly, as an end consumer, why should I care? Right? Why should this be important? For me? The difficulty there is in getting a customer to actually buy it, you don't want to shove it down their throat that they're dumb if they don't know what limonene is. That is an adverse effect that you don't want half so how can you educate them on their terms on their grounds and be able to start to get them used to hearing this vernacular understanding what it means. Then within our tool, you also have a journaling component. When you come back and you leave a review on that product, you can see all of your previous experiences, what the THC CBD content was, what the minor cannabinoid and terpene content was, and then what I rated it for. This worked well for me for sleep and pain. But it gave me a really bad anxiety at the immediate onset, then freeform, I can say things like, hey, it was good for my anxiety, it was good for depression, it was good for post cancer treatment, nausea, those components that individuals care about, that they can keep for their own journal. So that's really the softer medical standpoint, from the brass tacks dollars and cents standpoint, it's being able to guide a customer. Right? If they're not incentivized to buy, then what will ultimately happen is the industry is shooting itself in it’s in the foot, because we're not providing any guidance for the customer. It's 300 to 400 skews. It's basically shopping on a glorified inventory listing with a bunch of made up names. There is no difference between those products. If I can't differentiate, ultimately, I'm going to price shop, because they're all the same. So I might as well buy the cheapest one. Right? And then it reinforces that same problem.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Yeah, it's super common to see that. And for consumers, particularly first time new entrants. It's so confusing, not only just understanding what a terpene is, or understanding what the effects of certain products are, but just there's like a whole universe of options within each product category. So what I find really fascinating about your products is that you can use customer feedback data to help inform the next set of customers that come along, which to me is like one of the most powerful applications of this technology.
ERIC MERCADO
That's exactly right. And that's one of the most interesting new topics relating to like ChatGPT for. So ChatGPT for is going to allow users to enter a private database into ChatGPT, that that large language model then can leverage data privacy is a whole different conversation that we could talk about for some of the limitations of that. But it does allow much more of that 10x development, the algorithms to be able to leverage AI appropriately in a variety of different facets, the barrier to entry is much, much lower. Creating a plugin won't be that heart. Right. Priceline just came out with their own AI chat bot; did anyone need that? I'm not really sure. But the barrier to entry to create it as it has become less and less. However, that just makes it data as an asset become more and more valuable in the future. If the data set on, which I'm training, my large language model is not strong. The output of that large language model will not be sufficient if you're using a free version of ChatGPT. Right now, your primary sources of information are Wikipedia and Reddit. valuable information short, but completely correct. Rolled into Yeah, right. Yes, and two years old. Exactly. Right. And so the big differentiator for what good AI is going to be in the future is the underlying data set on which you are training it and then it is training itself. And you've got to have that continual feedback loop to be able to have lasting results. What we believe to your point Adriana is that our dataset is going to be one of the most robust in the industry, not a whole lot of people are tracking individual CEOs all the way through to the consumer effects, whether it be at a level of you know, 10 of them, or 10,000 or 100,000 of those reviews linked to underlying chemistry. And that data set is what is going to allow us to modify those future recommendations. So for instance, if I leave a review on a product, high linalyl low THC flower product that I consumed and it was mild strength. I rate it super highly for sleep and pain relief, then Next time I come in that product very well could be out of stock. It happens all the time in the industry either grow conditions have changed, or industry has churned and we haven't gotten it in yet supply chain and AI and supply chain is an is another huge topic that we could talk about. But now instead of giving you a random indica, it's going to match you to a product that chemically the same or similar as a previous experience that you've already rated highly.
ADRIANA HEMANS
I can see how that would be hugely valuable for people. And I wanted to bring it up here just for one second, and move to our audience. A fun one today, and it's about beverages. So let's just think of this as we're taking a quick little beverage break. Sales data from 2021 and 2022 showed an uptick in demand for cannabis beverages in Canada in what season a spring B summer, C fall or D winter. I know from all from all of the comments and questions that are so excellent that we're getting in the chat that everyone's fingers are warmed up. So go ahead and drop your guests about which season saw an uptick in demand for cannabis beverages in Canada.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
You know, every week I this is when I save the audience. This is your chance to shine. And I just love saying that.
ADRIANA HEMANS
I was waiting for you to say that.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Well, I don't know this one seems like I'm going to say a no brainer to me because I'm just going to say I think people are their steering, warmer months. That's what I think. I don't know what Well, we've got somebody that actually thinks spring maybe it's when you're finally coming out of the winter months and you're ready to party. Who knows?
ADRIANA HEMANS
Maybe so Josh guess is D winter. Quinton gets a SAM guests summer is a good time for a frosty beverage and we have another guest for spring.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
This just goes to show you that people are more likely to have cannabis beverages in Canada, across all seasons, perhaps?
ADRIANA HEMANS
That's true. Yeah. In Canada beverages have, I think double the market share that they have in the US.
ERIC MERCADO
It's cold. It's cold up there, man.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Stay thirsty.
ERIC MERCADO
And I feel like I feel like a lot of the beverages that I've seen are generally a lighter, refreshing flavor. There's not as many of the deep dark heavies that I associate with cold weather, right? It's like light and cucumber, light, refreshing. seltzers are big right now. Anyways, yeah, I feel like that's sort of been what most of those beverage companies have started to produce.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Yeah, we had actually sang Robertson from Boston Beer Company on a couple of weeks ago talking about their product that they released just in Canada, called teapot, which to me has a very, it is like a very summery sort of beverage. So maybe that'll give a hint, but maybe we should reveal the answer. Let's do it. And not leave people in suspense any longer?
DAVID PALESCHUCK
And the answer is: we got to be summer.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Kind of an easy one. But it got us thinking and probably got us a little thirsty, too. It is Thirsty Thursday after all.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Right? All right, let's jump back. Yeah, here we go. Well, so you know, we've been talking about a whole bunch of different things. You know, Eric, what, before we before we came online, we were actually talking about, you know, AI and agriculture and how there was a cow farm that the AI was learning what was kale in the field versus everything else, and then put this information onto a tractor with a laser. And that laser was actually to run was able to run through the field. And zap for lack of a technical term zap with the laser, all of the weeds, or all of the other growth other than cattle in the field. So how close are we to something like that, you know, in the cannabis industry?
ERIC MERCADO
I think I think we're fairly close. I think, as I mentioned, you can change the growth conditions pretty readily. Especially with an outdoor grow. I think that a lot of the use cases for industries outside of cannabis, it's very easy to migrate that over, right? Growing weed, not to not to boil this down too much. But there are many, many similarities. Definitely not the same. But there are immense similarities between growing cannabis and growing lettuce and growing tomatoes. A lot of those agricultural best practices can be leveraged readily into the space. So I don't imagine were too far off from that use case. I think the need and the margin related to that is another question. But I do think we're very close. Interesting.
ADRIANA HEMANS
And what about bud tender? So I see Elena's fired up in the chat here talking about consumer confusion. Are they really that confused? Why are they so confused? We have a lot of content that we create, and we talk about it a lot. We certainly talk about it a lot on this show. What about AI assistants for bud tenders? They obviously need the information just as much as consumers do. Can you talk a little bit about that, Eric?
ERIC MERCADO
Absolutely. And we're specifically relating to bud tenders. Our hope is to be able to empower those bud tenders to the point of some of the folks that are in the chat. But tenders aren't always available. And truth be told, they're expensive compared to AI, if we're talking about an opportunity for retailers to increase margin, less workforces better, right, if we're all struggling, less workforces honestly better? I don't like that answer, because I think bud tenders are invaluable. So how are we able to empower them with that information, ideas that I've been talking to Peter about is not only the standardization of what those what these products should be called. But in many cases and understanding of demand planning every single customer that goes through this process. With Tripoli, they fill out a questionnaire, right, rather than going on the website and understanding what is in the inventory. These are all zero party consumer preference information points. How do you want to feel? How do you want to consume? What terpenes Do you want? What strength what price? Are you willing to pay for that experience, five super valuable zero party data points that should be leveraged back down into what we cultivate what we process, what we grow, and ultimately how we market and sell those products, and the bud tenders and the most important linear linchpin of the market and selling of those products? The dream state of this information is for somebody to be able to come into the store or shop online. And I have a basis of here's everything that Adriana has bought, here's everything that she searched for, that fell outside of the compound confines of what she bought, because the misses are just as important as the hits when it comes to a recommendation. How often are we actually having a search criteria that our inventory does not serve us? That means we have a gap in what are consumers are asking for having an arm a bud tender armed with that information, when you walk up to the counter to ask them, What do you recommend? Well, I have three or four products that were like this product that you did enjoy, or at the moment of purchase, you have upsold cross sell opportunities. Well, David, you always normally buy this, you know, sativa fast acting gummy with 80% of your orders, I noticed that it's not in your bag, do you need to re up there? Right. So those are all opportunities to better serve the end consumer via those bud tenders?
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Right. You know, speaking about that, you know, again, it's my experience with bud tenders. Usually when they recommend something, it's their personal experience and maybe some of the other bud tenders behind the counter. But I don't think bud tenders actually represent, you know, the average consumer. And often, and I have had experiences with new consumers that come in, that I've gone in with in the bud tenders or recommend recommending them things that I know we're going to knock the socks off these people for their for their first time. But having said that, I also think bud tenders are absolutely important and are really the front line, you know, representing our industry, quite frankly. So, you know, that said, we do have an audience participation slide and, and we're going to go to that right now. And the question is, in which you escaped, do bud tenders wield the most influence. And so this, I thought was quite interesting in terms of, you know, we're talking about different markets, some are more mature than others, you know, how does that affect the education? Right? So there's so many things here that we have to talk about. There's fragmented markets with different levels of education. And depending on where those markets are, and maybe misinformation and mis education. So it's really interesting, but I'm curious what is what are the listeners? Listeners, it's your chance to shine.
ADRIANA HEMANS
And the options here are
A. Illinois
B. Florida
C. California
D. Washington
The question again is, in which US state do bud tenders wield the most influence. This stat comes from our friends over at brightfield they survey 1000s of consumers every quarter and this data point came from a survey where they asked people to what extent bud tenders influenced their decision making process.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Yep, we have. We've got lots of lots more seats.
ADRIANA HEMANS
I see. Yeah, I see a lot of Cs for California.
ERIC MERCADO
I'm surprised, I would think that I would think that medical would be a lot more influential. But I don't know.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Well, it's interesting because I'm based in Washington, and I know this to be true here and as well as other places where on the medical side, there's many questions that can't be answered. But Ettrick, while they might have an opinion, or maybe are just not allowed to answer certain questions. Yep.
ERIC MERCADO
And that's an entire additional limitation that's in the spaces, even in our tool. I can't say it's good for anxiety. Right? Right. It opens everybody up to liability all of a sudden, right? So we have these commonly accepted phrases that mean one thing and another simultaneously. So there is there is a certain level of additional guidance that needs to happen. That's a good point for the medical side of things.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Yeah. Well, let's, let's jump to the answer. I think we have a winner here. It's D. Washington.
ADRIANA HEMANS
It's David's very own home state. Well, not really his home state. He's actually from New York, but his current resident state of Washington.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
And by the way that statistic came from Brightfield. We bring the data as well.
ADRIANA HEMANS
I think we have time for a couple more questions. There were so many awesome questions that came up in the chat. And I think it was Rob, who asked this was a minute ago, asked about privacy concerns. Can we chat about that for just a second?
ERIC MERCADO
Yeah, absolutely. So there's, is there a particular format of the question related to privacy? Or is it just across an aggregation of my personal information? Is that the privacy question?
ADRIANA HEMANS
Yes. It was like aggregating consumers data is what I believe. Let me go back and find the actual question.
ERIC MERCADO
So there's multiple schools of thought here. From a macro privacy data privacy perspective, there is the weather a large language model, me inputting a database B now becomes part of ChatGPT. And whether that data is private, that is a huge hot topic right now in all of AI. Because producers of these products want to be able to leverage their data set, because it provides them an immediate large language model, for instance, being able to use ChatGPT directly internally, I would love to be able to turn that on right now. But if we upload our database, does that now become the property of ChatGPT, who else has access to it? That is a lot of our value proposition as a company. So that's the honest and transparent answer is that there's a hot button topic right now in AI, from the data aggregation for your personal privacy. So customers don't have to log in to Turkey to be able to use it. That's the point is the ease of use. It's also the point of the ease of education is you're holding the hand of the consumer through this process. You don't, they don't have to provide you with their email address, if they don't want to, we do leverage loyalty platforms, like an Alpine IQ to be able to log into your loyalty wallet, get credit, get incentive, as well as be tracked as a turtle user for analytics purposes, as well as archetype thing, right to be able to understand and reach back out to that customer to say, Hey, you, you've responded well to these products, here's a brand new drop that matches your perfect chemistry for this thing. If you've opted out of text messages, you're not going to get those text messages, that's fine. And all of that information will just be a macroeconomic viewpoint of understanding what general consumers use. So our ideology is that we don't want to we don't really want to even hold that PII. From a public company's perspective, that is a different level of needed compliance as well. So we rely on partners that have those appropriate opt-out mechanisms.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
In closing out, what's, what's your greatest hope for artificial intelligence in the cannabis space?
ADRIANA HEMANS
Oh, good question.
ERIC MERCADO
I think overall, it's to empower everyone in the industry to have better outcomes. It's empowering and consumers to be able to have the outcomes that they need from the plant that supports them as a medicine as a social lubricant as an escape from the day as any outcomes that they really need or desire. For the operators in the space, it's an opportunity to optimize their own operations, to better understand their customers. One of the things that I've found across the board, whether you're a small mom and pop or an MSO, understanding your customers is very difficult. People are starved for feedback; they don't really understand. And I say this as a blanket statement. Obviously, there are operators out there that are super passionate about this and have really made it a staple for themselves. But many do not understand what their, what their ideal customers are. They don't understand what their customers are really looking for. at that early juncture, many are just selling weed, everything's up into the right, everything's green, then you hit 18 months of 24 months of legalization, and you realize saturation has hit. Now I don't understand what my customers are, because everyone was just buying. I was never tracking that information. So how can I better understand my customers track that understanding and then leverage it to better outcomes from my own personal operation as well. I think that that will help grow the industry and from a top line perspective, which will help with legitimization. And if we really want to truly impact change around the world, that's what we need. D stigmatize provide product transparency, provide that consistency of experience, and allow customers to know what they're getting themselves into before they start, right. That's really the only way to impact positive change.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
There's so much to unpack there. From the field, to the farm, to the store, there's so much that I think AI can do. It's just really how much information is there to leverage and, and how can we move that forward? Eric, I know this was a big topic to bite off today. And there's so many aspects of it. And trying to go deep on any one aspect of it is difficult. We thank you for your expertise and for what you bring to the industry every day. Thank you so much.
ERIC MERCADO
I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys, so much for having me. I really appreciate it. This was a blast.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Thanks so much, Eric.
DAVID PALESCHUCK
Thank you, Eric. As always, we've got great people sharing great ideas. That's what Branding Bud Live is about.
That’s our show for today. We’ll be back again next Thursday, June 15th with Steve Bloom, Founder & Editor of CelebStoner.com. Steve was the Editor of High Times Magazine from the late 80s to 2008 – almost 20 years. I’m looking forward to chatting about "Cannabis & Celebrities" with him.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Me too! We just dropped a link in the chat for next week’s episode. Hit that button to register so you don’t miss it. If you miss us in the meantime, you can re-watch today’s episode, or any of our previous episodes, on our LinkedIn page, Branding Bud Live, or on our YouTube channel. Please give us a follow on LinkedIn to stay on top of everything Branding Bud Live.
Find the link here to watch this week’s episode:
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DAVID PALESCHUCK
And don't forget to check out cannabis’s best kept secret at www.brandingbud.com.
Thank you, everybody. See you next week. Bye.
ADRIANA HEMANS
Thank you. Bye.
POST SHOW COMMENTS:
🌿 Update: Cannabis & Artificial Intelligence 🌿
Halfway through our insightful "Cannabis & Artificial Intelligence" livestream, I had a moment of realization: the topic we had chosen was undeniably vast. Artificial intelligence truly permeates every aspect of our lives, and it's no exception within the realm of cannabis.
From genetics and cultivation to harvesting and curing, weighing and packaging, sales and distribution, and even the customer experience and consumer loyalty – AI is or can be involved at every step. It's intriguing, captivating, and even a bit concerning to witness the extent to which AI has integrated into the cannabis industry.
As we explored the applications of AI within cannabis, I couldn't help but recognize that its impact goes far beyond what we currently understand. The potential for advancements in efficiency, quality, and innovation is enormous. However, we must also tread carefully and ensure that AI is utilized responsibly and ethically, safeguarding the values and integrity of the cannabis industry.
While the broad scope of AI's influence on cannabis may seem overwhelming, I remain optimistic. Our collective knowledge and collaboration can drive us towards harnessing the full potential of AI while maintaining the essence and uniqueness of the cannabis experience. It's a challenge that requires ongoing dialogue, research, and a commitment to understanding and addressing the implications of AI
Thank you to my co-host Adriana Hemans, and our guest, Eric Mercado, and everyone who participated in the livestream. If you missed it or want to revisit the conversation, you can find the recording on our LinkedIn page here👇
https://www.linkedin.com/video/event/urn:li:ugcPost:7069032816830779392/
Branding Bud Live – weekly productive distractions for the cannabis industry, where business people come to talk about the business of cannabis.
🌿Find out more about the best-kept secret in cannabis at👇
www.brandingbud.com
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