05:46Nate Herk | AI Automation · Demo
Claude Fable 5 Made This Entire Video By Itself
A 5-minute video that proves its own thesis: one prompt, no filming, no editing, a finished YouTube video.
June 12thThe argument in one line.
The fastest path to an AI leadership role is not credentials or years of technical experience but a documented public trail of built things that proves you can ship.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You are mid-career in a non-technical role -- marketing, ops, admin, project management -- and feel left behind by the AI shift.
- You are job-hunting in AI or automation but have no formal CS background and do not know how to stand out on paper.
- You have been learning n8n, Make, or Zapier for a few months and wonder whether that is enough to apply for serious roles.
- You manage a team and want to understand what companies are actually hiring for when they post Head of AI or Chief AI Officer.
SKIP IF…
- You are already in a senior AI/ML engineering role and need technical depth -- this is a career-transition and mindset episode.
- You are looking for a specific tool tutorial or hands-on automation walkthrough.
The full version, fast.
A laid-off email developer with no AI background became Head of AI at a 15-company group in under a year by doing three things: learning no-code automation tools with AI as a real-time tutor, showing up publicly before she felt ready, and applying selectively to roles she actually wanted. When HR asked what she had built, she had YouTube demos, a LinkedIn portfolio, and a speaker credit ready. The interview went straight to the CEO, a two-week strategy trial followed, and the offer came. In a field this fast, proof of shipping beats years of credentials every time.
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Create a free account →Who's talking.
01:06hostNate Herk
01:23guestAileen Werner
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:05
01 · Cold open
Teaser clips from Aileen: head of AI role announcement, IBM CEO stat, the hands-on mandate.
01:06 – 10:55
02 · The role and the IBM data
Aileen introduces her role at YOUNG -- 15 vertical companies, AI strategy plus implementation plus team building. IBM 2026 CEO survey surfaces: 76% of major companies have a CAIO equivalent, up from 26% two years prior. HyperAgent sponsor block at 9:08.
10:56 – 13:19
03 · Where I came from
15 years as an email developer, promoted to Technical Lead managing 16 people. The entire team was let go in a company restructure unrelated to performance.
13:20 – 14:58
04 · The pivot
39 years old, unemployed, two kids ages 3 and 5. Opens LinkedIn and realizes email dev roles are disappearing. Decides to find a new direction entirely.
14:59 – 18:28
05 · Going all in on automations
Tries Zapier (fun), then Make (better), then n8n (community clicks). Joins AIS+ course. Uses ChatGPT as a node-by-node tutor inside n8n. When Claude Code arrives, the course pivots and she dives deeper fast.
18:29 – 23:06
06 · Show yourself
Discovers Hormozi's $100M Offers on daily walks. Takes the show-yourself advice literally: two YouTube channels (English and Spanish), consistent LinkedIn posting, and a talk at an n8n meetup with 90 people despite lifelong fear of public speaking.
23:07 – 30:53
07 · What have you built?
Applies selectively to a handful of roles. HR at YOUNG sends one question: what have you built that you can show us? She has YouTube demo links, a LinkedIn portfolio, a speaker slot lined up, and recorded automation walkthroughs -- none requiring a large audience to be credible.
30:54 – 36:24
08 · Making it real
The call goes directly to the CEO. A two-week unpaid strategy trial inside one YOUNG hotel: process mapping, prioritization, feedback from the CEO and founder. Team is excited rather than threatened.
36:25 – 41:50
09 · Full circle
Advice for people targeting similar roles: research the company specifically, apply before you feel ready, have something to show. Transition curve framework. Aileen notes Nate was the first YouTube result she found when she searched automation a year ago.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- The fastest-growing C-suite title in 2026 is Chief AI Officer -- 76% of major companies have one now, up from 26% just two years ago.
- Proof of shipping beats years of credentials in an AI hiring conversation.
- When HR asks what you have built that you can show them, low-view YouTube demos and thin LinkedIn pages still count -- presence beats polish.
- You can use the tool you are learning as a real-time tutor while you build -- node-by-node ChatGPT prompting inside n8n is a legitimate method, not a shortcut.
- A zero-follower YouTube channel still constitutes a portfolio if it shows your face explaining things you actually built.
- Stage fright is a door, not a wall -- speaking at a 90-person meetup while terrified opened the hiring conversation that led to a head of AI role.
- Applying selectively to ten roles you actually want beats blasting a thousand applications built on desperation.
- AI utilization lags AI readiness by roughly 60 percentage points inside most companies -- that gap is the job description for a head of AI.
- Framing AI as taking the boring out rather than replacing headcount is the framing that gets organizational buy-in.
- The transition curve always goes uninformed optimist to informed pessimist to informed optimist -- knowing the shape means the pessimist dip does not end you.
- Staying hands on in an AI leadership role is a deliberate choice; in a field changing daily, losing technical contact means losing judgment.
- IBM's 2026 survey found 85% of employees have or could quickly develop AI skills, yet only about 25% are actually using AI at work.
You do not need a CS degree to land an AI leadership role
WHAT TO LEARN
In a field moving this fast, proof of shipping beats years of credentials -- and you build that proof by documenting every automation publicly before anyone is watching.
- Start with one automation tool and use AI to teach you in real time as you build -- prompting ChatGPT or Claude node-by-node inside n8n is a legitimate learning method.
- Create a YouTube video or LinkedIn post for every automation you finish, even with zero followers -- the content exists as evidence, not as a growth strategy.
- Apply selectively to a small number of roles you actually want; selectivity signals confidence and forces you to research each company deeply before the interview.
- When a company asks what you have built, the answer is links, not descriptions -- demo videos and portfolio pages convert, verbal claims do not.
- Speak at a local meetup or community event, even terrified -- the discomfort is the point, and the doors it opens are ones a job application alone cannot reach.
- Staying hands on in a leadership role is a deliberate choice; in a field changing daily, losing technical contact means losing the judgment to lead it.
- Frame AI to existing teams as taking the boring out rather than replacing people -- this framing gets buy-in where top-down mandates stall.
- The transition curve goes uninformed optimist to informed pessimist to informed optimist for every new skill -- knowing you will feel overwhelmed at the midpoint is what keeps most people from quitting there.
Terms worth knowing.
- Head of AI
- An executive role responsible for owning an organization's AI strategy and hands-on implementation -- typically combining roadmap design, vendor selection, and direct building or team management.
- n8n
- An open-source workflow automation tool built in Berlin in 2019. It lets non-developers connect apps and build automated pipelines using a visual node editor, with optional JavaScript for advanced logic.
- Claude Code
- Anthropic's agentic command-line tool, launched February 2025, that writes and runs code from plain-English prompts. It reached $1B in annualized revenue within months of launch.
- HyperAgent
- A cloud-based AI agent building platform built by Airtable. Agents run on virtual desktops in the cloud, eliminating the need for a local machine or VPS.
- Chief AI Officer
- A C-suite title responsible for an organization's overall artificial intelligence strategy, analogous to Chief Technology Officer but focused specifically on AI adoption and governance.
- AIS+ course
- Nate Herk's AI Automation Society paid course covering n8n, Claude Code, and related automation tooling, accompanied by a community where members share builds and find collaborators.
- Transition curve
- A framework describing the emotional arc of learning any new skill: an initial peak of uninformed optimism, followed by a trough of informed pessimism, resolved by pushing through to informed optimism.
Things they pointed at.
06:37linkIBM CEO survey 2026
19:03book$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi
16:16productNate Herk AIS+ course
Lines you could clip.
00:58
“If you're not hands on, literally every day, you're out.”
08:11
“You can outsource the thinking, but you can't outsource the understanding.”
26:56
“What have you built that you can show us?”
34:00
“It's not taking everything out of their plate. It's just taking the boring out.”
40:28
“A year from basically no AI experience to head of AI at an awesome company.”
Where the conversation goes.
01:06 – 06:30denseRole definition -- what a head of AI actually does day to day
06:31 – 10:55steadyIBM CEO survey data -- CAIO growth and the adoption gap
10:56 – 14:58denseCareer background -- 15 years email dev, team layoff
14:59 – 18:28denseLearning path -- Zapier to n8n to Claude Code
18:29 – 23:06denseBuilding in public -- YouTube, LinkedIn, meetup speaking
23:07 – 30:53denseThe hiring moment -- the one question that decides everything
30:54 – 36:24denseThe trial and offer -- CEO call, two-week strategy test
34:00 – 36:24steadyChange management -- AI adoption inside a real organization
36:25 – 41:50denseAdvice for people targeting head of AI roles
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metaphorstory
00:00I recently started a new role as head of AI. I own the AI strategy for 15 different companies.
00:07Real quick, jump back to that IBM survey that I talked about earlier. One of the stats that blew my mind, out of these 2,000 CEOs, 76% of them said that they had essentially an equivalent of a chief AI officer.
00:19And in 2025, the number was 26%.
00:21So it jumped up 50% in just twenty four months. This is no longer something that huge companies can have. It's actually something that every company will have.
00:30It looks technical, but it's absolutely nontechnical.
00:33The other thing from this study that really blew my mind was the adoption. Around 85% of their employees have the skills to use AI, but they felt that the actual utilization of this technology were more around 25%. So then after you showed this person what you've been building, what did the rest of that process look like?
00:51had a call directly with the CEO of the company. It was picked HR. If you're not hands on literally every day, you're out.
01:06Okay, Eilin. Thank you so much for being here. I'm super excited to chat with you today.
01:10You just got a super exciting job offer to be a head of AI, so congratulations about that. I'm really excited to dive in. So if you'd like to give everyone a real quick intro, um, of who you are, and then let's just kinda jump right in.
01:22Alrighty.
01:23First of all, thanks to you for having me here. Hello, everybody. I'm Aileen.
01:28Like Nate said, I recently started a new role as head of AI, and I am super excited to share everything that I've been going through in the last few months with everyone watching this.
01:40So yeah.
01:41Awesome. Thank you. Yeah.
01:43I'm really, really excited to dive into your journey and your background to understand how you got here. So let's start with the end first. What exactly is a head of AI?
01:53So head of AI. This is basically what I do every day.
01:58I started recently, and I work at a company called YAM, which is basically an entrepreneurial ecosystem.
02:05Um, it's one parent company, and then it's got 15 vertical companies underneath it. But they have huge plans to grow. So they they really want to grow and and make it bigger, which is, you know, crazy because they it's quite big already, uh, in a good way, by the way.
02:23And so what I do as the head of AI is I own the AI strategy across the group, which may not seem huge.
02:33But if you think about it, it's actually defining the strategy for 15 different companies, and this is only going to continue growing. So it's it's a lot in there.
02:43There's a lot of things that can be done. And we basically you know, I need to think of what we built, where, how, why, what makes sense, what to, you know, prioritize, what to leave it, you know, for the end or the quick wins and so on.
03:00So it's actually it's a lot of work, but it's really, really good sign. Mhmm.
03:05Then there's the implementation because it's not only strategy. I'm actually hands on.
03:10So it's not only saying, okay. This is going to come first because of this, but it's actually, let's build it.
03:17How do we build it? How do we put it in place? So it's basically working from start to finish until it's live and met seeing it work, basically.
03:27Yeah. That is awesome. That's really, really interesting.
03:29So across these 15 different groups, do each of them have, like, kind of different different budgets to work with and different teams and different, you know, ultimate end goals? I think it's it's a it you know, I imagine there's so many different sub bullets and decisions that go into just saying, know, I own AI strategy.
03:48Yes. Absolutely. So each company is completely different.
03:52So it's all under one parent company, but each of them just their own. So for example, there's young coworking. There's young coffee, young co co sorry, coworking spaces, young coffee, Yang Hotels.
04:06There's so many of them, and they're completely different. So what company one does is completely different to what the other one does. So the strategy around what to automate and what, well, maybe even what doesn't make sense to automate.
04:22It's completely different from one to the other. Yeah. So it's it's very interesting.
04:28It's there's a lot to learn. Like I said, I started recently, but it's incredible.
04:34Like, it's very, very interesting. And then, of course, because it's so much, it's not a one person job. So I'm in the process of actually hiring a team, and I'm actually using your community quite a lot because the people there are amazing.
04:50And I'm trying to yeah. I'm trying to hire from there because you can see the energy. You can see the people there, the the commitment to learn and implement and so on.
04:59So it's it's a really fun thing to do.
05:03Absolutely. So it sounds like you are driving strategy and, you know, kind of managing these projects in a way, but you're not hands on, obviously, building this stuff.
05:14How technical would you say you oh, maybe you are. How can you dive into that a little bit for us? So I'm actually at the moment, I'm actually doing the the builds as well.
05:24So, you know, I jump in a call with person a. We define what the process looks like. We
05:31think about what makes sense to automate because not everything makes sense to automate. Some things you want to keep human.
05:38And once we have the whole process mapped, it's just a matter of going into plot code and starting the fun part, which is actually implementing this and seeing what it comes up with and what makes better sense than other approaches and so on. So it is actually put on, you know, hands on.
05:58And I also will be, you know, managing the team and, of course, driving the the strategy and so on. But I do want to be held hands on because this changes so quickly nowadays that if Mhmm.
06:12You know, if you're not hands on, route because you Yeah.
06:17There's new things every literally every day. So I actually want to keep that part, at least for now, very hands on. So I get to continue learning, continue seeing how the space evolves, and, yeah, it's it's good.
06:32It's good. Yeah. Absolutely.
06:34So I've got I've got a quick question for you. I'd love to hear your take on. Um, there was a study that came out or a survey, I should say, from IBM.
06:41They surveyed 2,000 CEOs. I think the median annual revenue was about 6,000,000,000 of these 2,000 CEOs. And 25% of them said that they are comfortable with sort of, like, the operational decisions being made by AI, sort of, like, strategy type decisions, and it's expected to almost double by 2030 to about 50%.
07:03So I'd be curious to hear from you. When it comes to you brainstorming and and driving strategy across these different groups, how comfortable do you feel and how much do you use AI in the brainstorming and, like, decision making process, or do you like to keep that aspect very human?
07:20I do a mix. So I love to use AI, and I think sometimes it thinks of things that maybe I haven't thought through, and it's really good input.
07:30Um, but it also there are situations where you ask something, and it gives you such a reassurance reply.
07:37And it's like, it's the only way. And then suddenly, you're like, hold on. Darn.
07:43You know, maybe we can do this this other way. And it's like Mhmm. Absolutely.
07:47So Yeah. Know, I think a bit of both is good.
07:51Um, not using it at all nowadays, I think, is not the way to go because there's a lot of valuable
07:57input out of it. But, uh, using it for everything, it's dangerous as well. Absolutely.
08:03Yeah. There there's this quote that I that I keep hearing, which I love, which is that . And I think that that's a great example of having AI think about the different paths and do research and bring you these different decisions.
08:17But ultimately, you should be the one that understands the pros and cons and the trade offs of each of these decisions, and then you, the human, are making that decision. So, yeah, I appreciate the the thoughts there.
08:27Alright, guys. Real quick. I need to take a second to tell you guys about the sponsor of today's video, HyperAgent.
08:31So HyperAgent is an AI agent building platform that is completely in the cloud, and it is actually built by Airtable. So if you guys already use Airtable for a lot of your data, then HyperAgent is the next natural step. But if you've never used Airtable before, don't worry.
08:43This is a completely separate platform, and just think of it as a cloud AI agent builder. This is what the command center looks like. And by the way, that video you guys just saw, yes, I did build that with my HyperAgent here.
08:54And what I love about this is it's got its own little virtual desktop over here that I can move around. I can see its plans. I can see the documents.
09:00I can see the videos. It's super cool. They each have their own kind of, like, little virtual computer.
09:04But, anyways, if you guys have seen stuff like OpenClaw or Paperclip, that is exactly what this feels like to me except for you don't have that technical overhead of, oh, do I need a Mac mini or do I need to get a VPS? You literally just log on to HyperAgent and it works instantly out of the box.
09:18You can see here I can manage my two agents, which right now I have a sales prospector and a chief of staff. I can see the cost. I can see the breakdown.
09:24I can see what needs improvement. I can see what's going on right here. From So let's say I wanted to build a new agent.
09:29I would just come over here, click on new agent, and I can create an agent with chat, or I could start from a template and choose one of these. And what I just asked it to create me here is an AI agent that will live in my Slack and basically look at my calendar and proactively do research before I have a sales call, and it will give me a brief.
09:44And so that's the shift here is we're not thinking of these things as AI agents. We're more so thinking of them as coworkers because they're always on and they live in the apps that you already use, like Slack, like Google, whatever it is. So this to me just feels like OpenClaw, but it's way less technical.
09:58Because if you ever wanna connect to something, you literally just click on integrations, and then you just have to sign in to all of these different platforms. And then you can just at mention them in something like Slack, and they're awake, and they can respond to you.
10:08Just a quick heads up though, HyperAgent does use usage based pricing, so you can't just plug in your, you know, Claude or ChatGPT subscription. But what's cool about this is you can refer a bunch of friends and you get a $100, they get a thousand dollars. And right now, because I'm working with the hyper agent team, they are doing a limited time bonus where you right now can go get a thousand dollars of free usage right here.
10:30It's only for the first a thousand people that click the link in the description. So go ahead and claim that bonus before it's gone. So anyways, let's get back to the video.
10:36Yeah. Let's keep on moving through here. I'd love to know about a little bit about your background before you had this role and, you know, the steps that people could take if they would like to get a similar sort of role in head of AI or director of AI or maybe even chief AI officer, whatever.
10:49You know, they're all being called nowadays. So, yeah, let's let's dive into that. Alright.
10:54So wait. Sorry.
10:56My background. I spent fifteen years as an email developer, which is a lot of time.
11:02It's ridiculously a lot of time. People usually move from that to front end developer. I am not a developer.
11:09My head doesn't work like that. When, you know, something breaks for a developer, they try to fix it and they're motivated. Where for me, if something broke, I wanted to cry, basically.
11:21I was like, can someone fix this? And no.
11:24I don't think I've ever heard that term before. What is an email developer?
11:27So you know when you subscribe to some sort of or sorry. You know when you subscribe for a company's email and you want to receive updates or anything that you're interested, you receive a an email that has images, has call to actions, text, and so on.
11:45Mhmm. That for it to render properly, you actually have to code it using HTML and c CSS, inline CSS. Well, yeah, something like that.
11:56So for it to you know, if you click on the button and for it to take you somewhere else, you actually have to add the code and publish the images and test in all email clients to make sure that everything looks good. And once you're happy, the email can go out. Uh, but it's Gotcha.
12:12Okay. Yeah. It's working properly in all email clients.
12:15You were handwriting all of that, like, HTML and CSS and gotcha. Okay. Okay.
12:19Yes. Uh, but if you ask a proper front end developer if email marketing or HTML is actually developing, they will laugh at your face because, yeah, it's like the very basics of it.
12:33Gotcha. Okay. Yeah.
12:36So then I got promoted to technical lead, and I was the manager of a team of 16 email developers and QA's. And so we were doing a lot of emails every day. I was leading the the team.
12:48It was a really, really fun job. I I really enjoyed being a management leadership role. And then two years later, all of a sudden, the entire team was let go.
13:00It wasn't, you know, about performance or anything like that.
13:06There were reasons behind it unrelated to to anything like that, but it was real. You know?
13:12We were all let go. And then from one day to the other, the role that I really loved, I think it's nonexistent.
13:20Mhmm. And so Nitin was 39 years old, unemployed.
13:26I have two kids, very small kids, three and five now, and this was almost a year ago. I was completely done with email development.
13:36But as it usually happens, the day that I found out that I was going to lose my job, I opened LinkedIn, and I started looking for email development management, even email development even though I didn't want to go back.
13:49But there are so many tools out there that you can just do a drag and drop without requiring coding or anything that the email development role in itself is actually disappearing. So let alone find a management email development or email team role.
14:06It's actually almost impossible nowadays. So I thought, what can I do to actually get out of the email world? Because I was done with working with emails.
14:17Uh, fifteen years of emails, it's insane. Like, I don't wanna see any more emails ever again, basically. So I was like, what can I do?
14:26This is happening for a reason. I need to find out where or what to do instead of this because I'm I'm done. Like, I don't wanna see one more email.
14:35Mhmm. So I was on a call with a friend. And she mentioned automations, and I was like, but isn't that for really technical people?
14:43And she was like, well, you know, not really. You have tools like n a 10, and it's like really you know, it's exploded.
14:51People all over are using an a 10, and the community is great and and so on. So I thought, okay. Maybe I'll give it a try.
14:58So she told me, okay. Just give it a try. Let's have a call in, you know, two weeks, and you tell me what you think.
15:07So I did. I went first into Zapier. Fun.
15:13Easy. Fun. Then I went into make.
15:17It was a lot better at in my opinion, like, lot Mhmm. More things to do. And then I went to into into an I 10, and it exploded.
15:29It was like, okay. This is it. The community is amazing.
15:32N I ten is great. It's nontechnical. And if there's any code or anything, I have ChatGPT to kind of copy paste the code.
15:42So I opened Atlas, the browser, with on the side and a 10 on the main window, and I started the the automations, which meant, hey, ChatGPT.
15:55I want to create an automation of
15:57Yep.
15:58So it would tell me node by node exactly what I needed to put, how to put it, how to connect it. Um, and then, of course, it would break at some point, and it would start a loop that wouldn't help me fix it, and I had no idea what I was doing. So I decided to join your community, the the AIS plus course.
16:19And it was great because I got to go through the whole n a 10 course, and then the course pivot into plot code. And if n a 10 had blown my mind before, plot code just
16:33exploded. Oh, a 100%. Yeah.
16:35So something I'd like to to double tap on real quick is the fact that you had a background, fifteen years in email development, and were also promoted to a tech lead there.
16:45But what I wanted to highlight for people listening is that you didn't have fifteen years experience in AI or in automation. You were writing code in, you know, HTML and and CSS, but you kind of got you were very new into the AI automation world and were still able to, in a very short amount of time, take on this head of AI role.
17:02So I think it's just really cool to hear, and it's it's inspiring to hear that you don't have to be, you know, someone that's been in the AI game for decades already to be able to
17:12earn a spot like this. So it's very cool. I agree.
17:15I agree a 100%. And, yes, you're correct on what you say. And one thing to add here is that a lot of people are scared of going into AI because they think it's really technical, and it's not.
17:28Like, especially now with code, it's it looks technical, but it's absolutely nontechnical. So anyone listen listening to this, don't be scared of, you know, trying it out because it's as long as you can follow something to learn, it's easy.
17:46It's really interesting, and it's actually amazing.
17:49Right. Yeah. And I think the best way to approach it is, like, whatever your domain of expertise is, just open up something like Claude and say, hey.
17:58Every day, I do x y and z. How could AI help me here? It's not like you have to learn a completely new skill.
18:04Like, just I already do this. How can AI make me faster and better at this? And I think that's the mindset shift that people who haven't really touched it need to take on.
18:12Exactly. Exact well, and literally,
18:15the the skills. Right? Because you can also create skills that do these things for you without Mhmm.
18:20Without, you know, one line of text saying, hey. I need to design this.
18:25Done. Absolutely.
18:26So it's easy.
18:29Yeah. So then after you kinda fell into the Cloud Code rabbit hole, what what started going on next?
18:35So I know you know this. Uh-huh.
18:39Discovered Alex Hormozi, and my world changed completely. I never heard of him until this point, and I started going on daily walks because I had the time. I was unemployed, and I Wow.
18:51You heard of you heard of Nate Hirck before Hermozy.
18:54I did. Compliment.
18:56I yeah. We're on a call. Amazing.
18:59So, yeah, I thought, okay. I need something to get me interested interested in during my walks. Otherwise, I would stop doing it.
19:08And somehow, I got to the $100,000,000 offers book. So I thought, okay.
19:14Let's give it a try. I don't know what this is, but it sounds interesting. I mean, of course, I want that.
19:20So I started listening to it and session. Seriously.
19:26Yeah. Yeah.
19:27Session. Something that looked so impossible to achieve before I discovered this was actually it was giving me the path right there in my audiobook while I was walking every day.
19:41Mhmm. And so, you know, I became obsessed and and with both automations and how to make it work and try to practice and think ahead of maybe not just doing any single thing, but doing things that actually interest me and and putting myself out there. Yeah.
19:59The recipe was right there in in my ears because I was listening to it.
20:05I love that. Yeah. I think then
20:08the one thing that Alex and, again, you you know this for sure. The one thing that Alex keeps bringing up is show yourself.
20:17If you want to become someone or do something like big, the first step, you gotta show yourself.
20:24You gotta put yourself out there. It doesn't matter if it's perfect. It doesn't matter.
20:28Just do it. Start. And so but then, this is this was before the the jump into plot code.
20:37I was starting with an a 10, and I thought, I want to become an ambassador. So I reached out to the guy here in Valencia. He recently became the first ambassador here in Valencia, Spain.
20:47So I reached yeah. Out
20:49And I was like, hey. So can I give you a hand organizing the next event? Because I know this kind of adds some points to your application when you do apply.
20:59I see was something that left me kind of like, wait. What?
21:05He said, do you actually want to be a speaker in in the meetup? Like, no. So I do not thank you, but no.
21:16And he was lovely. He said, you know, just think about it. If you decide no is the answer, that's absolutely okay.
21:22But if you change your mind, just let me know, and you'll become a speaker. So the next twenty four hours, all I could think was Alex Hermosy said, you gotta show yourself.
21:33Let's go out there and do it. So twenty four hours later, I reached out to this guy, and I was like, okay. Let's do it.
21:41So I decided to give a chat on any tent for nontechnical people. And the day came, I was honestly terrified.
21:51I hate talking to people. That's the one thing I knew all my life I was never going to do. And the guy goes to the front.
21:59I was like, okay. We're gonna start this and, you know, shared a bit of information, and the first speaker was me. And when he called my name, I went up the stage, and my legs were shaking so bad that I thought I was gonna faint.
22:14But, anyways, I started talking. I started giving the the chat. It felt more comfortable after a couple of minutes, and that was that.
22:22Suddenly, I had, you know, pictures to show on LinkedIn and Yeah. Content to put out there about me putting myself out there and so on.
22:32So this is bringing this up because it actually matters later down the the line on how I got the role of Adobe AI.
22:39By the way, guys, I know we are diving into a ton of information in this episode. So what I did is I broke all of this down into a free resource guide that you can access for completely free by joining the free school community. The link for that is down in the description.
22:50Also, if you wanna check out some of the key moments from this episode and all future podcasts on my channel, then go ahead and check out the AI automation society YouTube channel where we're gonna be posting some of the best moments from the podcast over there. I'll link that YouTube channel in the description of this video as well.
23:05Anyways, thanks, guys. Let's get back to the podcast. Awesome.
23:08Yeah. Well well, you know, good for you. Good for you doing that.
23:11It it takes obviously a lot of guts to get up in front of, um, a bunch of people in person and and do something like that, but it sounds like it certainly paid off. So good for you.
23:21It was fun. It was more than 90 people,
23:24which I never thought I would do something like that. So it was, yeah, it was interesting. Um, so between everything that had gone through up until now, the most or the better advice that I can give is show yourself.
23:43So I created two YouTube channels. One is in English and one is in Spanish because I'm Argentinian, so it's more comfortable for me.
23:52Okay. I'm posting steadily or often on LinkedIn. It sometimes it's great.
23:58Sometimes it's not, but still content goes out. Yep. Consistency is good.
24:03Exactly. Exactly. I follow your course from start to finish, and I'm recording everything that I'm building just to be able to show it when the time comes.
24:14Awesome. I am definitely out of my comfort zone as much as I can. So getting on there, putting videos up.
24:21I don't have a lot of followers or subscribers or anything in in YouTube, but I'm still doing it. It's creating visibility.
24:30So if I build something, I'll put it there, and people can check. And by the time you get to an interview, that actually shows.
24:39Because if you have things that you can actually show and there's a person there, and it's going through it, and it's explaining, it becomes real. Mhmm.
24:48Mhmm. So going back to the slides in here, what I still do even in this role, I still try to go out there.
25:01I still try to walk one hour a day with my audiobook. I actually I'm actually listen to listening to Hormozi again Mhmm.
25:09Just to keep motivated, and the first time you listen to it, you know, you forget stuff.
25:15So I'm going back to it. I keep hearing the show yourself advice, so it's helping me keep on going.
25:23And I am part of the 4AM club. So I wake up every morning at 4AM. I have some concentration period where I can learn, practice, build automations without any interruptions or anything.
25:36And it actually helps me a lot because my day is a lot more structured because of this.
25:42Yeah. You set up you set up your own scheduled automation for yourself for a cron job.
25:47Just wake every day.
25:49I love that. I love that because, like, the majority of people, if I made the joke like that, would just look at me like I'm crazy, but you gotta find the niche people who like AI automation.
25:59Exactly right. And it it is true at the end of the day.
26:02It's, you know, day in and day out. It's happening. Monday to Friday.
26:06That's it. Absolutely.
26:07Yeah. I love it.
26:09Um, so after all of this, and it might seem a little bit disconnected from bits and pieces, but it's all coming to this.
26:18Okay. I
26:20decided to start applying to jobs, and it took me a while. I didn't want to go back to doing just anything. I wanted something that actually gave me motivation and that I actually enjoy what I was doing.
26:34So I didn't apply to a thousand jobs. I applied maybe 10 or something like that. And one of these was the head of AI role.
26:44And they had my CV because I applied through LinkedIn, but the HR lady sent me an email. And she was lovely, and the one thing that she asked me was, what have you built?
26:58So if I hadn't gone through this whole path, I would try to give her an explanation of all the things that I built but that she couldn't see and all the things I had in my head, but it's just an email that Chad GPT or Claude or anyone can actually create for you.
27:18So by the time I actually got this email, I had two channels or two YouTube link channels to share, one in English, one in Spanish, which was really funny because there are some people from Argentina in the company and some people from Netherlands.
27:34So it actually they actually watch both of it. I had the LinkedIn proof of everything that I had built. I had the n eight ten meetup lined up for the following week.
27:45So it didn't happen back then, but it was about to happen. Yeah. I had all the demos that I built through, and I was explaining how to do it and how it worked and showing on screen, you know, if you press this, it will generate the replies on emails or whatever it was or agents or whatever.
28:03So they could actually see that, and it wasn't just a person randomly talking about all the awesome things that I did, but I cannot show you because I don't have a video or or proof.
28:15Yeah.
28:16That's incredible. I mean, that is what separates you from all the other people that they're looking at on paper when they can put a face to the name and maybe even a voice to the to the face and Exactly. See this proof.
28:28And I think it's just like whether you are applying for a head of AI role or whether you're trying to go get your first client or your seventh, all of them are probably gonna ask you what have you built? And all of them are going to want to see that.
28:38And I think what you said earlier about like, know, at this point I didn't even have many followers and I was just kind of posting and, you know, building my proof. I think it's so important because that sort of metric is what might discourage a lot of people.
28:52But to me, if I was looking to hire someone and I see that they've been posting consistently on LinkedIn and YouTube and they're not even having anything go viral or having a bunch of subscribers or followers, then to me, that almost makes it like more respectable because it's like, what is this person's incentive here? It's not maybe to blow up.
29:10It's not to go viral. It's not for money. It's because this person clearly has a passion for it, and I think that that's just really amazing.
29:17Exactly. And, honestly, even if you have zero followers, you're able or sorry, subscriber, you're actually able to show it.
29:27So when the time comes and they ask you what have you built, you have links. It doesn't matter how many views they have.
29:34You can show it, and it's you there. It's your face.
29:38I have so many people on LinkedIn that they just post content, and you have no idea who they are or maybe even photos or something.
29:47But for me, the videos, they they show the person more than a postcard.
29:52Absolutely. Awesome. So then after you showed this person what you've been building, what did the rest of that process look like?
30:01I had a call directly with the CEO of the company. Okay.
30:07So speak to HR Wow. And went straight to the to the CEO.
30:12We decided to do a two week trial, not hands on building, but more strategic thinking.
30:20And she put me on on one of the in the hotels young hotels, and I started talking to the team and seeing what opportunities there were and what I would do, and I would propose things.
30:32And she gave me some feedback, the the CEO, I mean. And then that became, you know, a really interesting work because it wasn't actually doing automations.
30:41It was just thinking about how to improve this, how to do that, what I don't want to automate, what I do want to automate, and what I would do first because, you know, it saves money and it makes sense and and so on. Yeah.
30:54And within that trial, I had a a call with the founder, and he is really on board with AI and automations and how to make the best use out of it.
31:08So he's actually, you know, giving me a green light to do so many cool things, both of them Mhmm. That actually makes it perfect.
31:18It's like the perfect job. It's interesting. It's got strategy.
31:22It's actually hands on. I get the team, which is what I love from my other job. It's the perfect role.
31:29Yeah. Absolutely. I think that that's so interesting.
31:33And if I, real quick, jump back to that, uh, IBM survey that I talked about earlier, one of the stats that blew my mind and now, obviously, take this with a grain of salt because this was 2,000 CEOs. But out of these 2,000, 76% of them said that they had essentially an equivalent of a chief AI officer in their organizations, which is 76%, which blew my mind.
31:54And in 2025, so just a year before or sorry. I think it was actually two years before, the number was 26%.
32:00So it jumped up 50% in just twenty four months, which is crazy for a c suite role. And the other thing from this study that really blew my mind was the adoption.
32:09They basically said that they would predict that around 85% of their employees have the skills or if they were to take a few lessons or courses, they could have the skills to use AI. But they felt that the actual utilization of this technology and of the skills were more around 25%.
32:28So I'd be curious to hear from you. Like, when you think about this head of AI role, you're obviously leading strategy and working on projects and making sure that those projects directly correlate with some sort of KPI and ultimately drive profits or growth to the business in some way. But how are you and your team also thinking about adoption and making this stuff stick, um, kind of the change management from top down?
32:48What does that look like for you guys?
32:51I think most people I I don't know the entire team yet, but I think most people are very excited about this. Uh, and I can already see people reaching out saying, hey.
33:03I would really like to automate this. What do you think? And I think that people are interested.
33:10Mhmm. I went into the first call saying, hey. Hello.
33:13This is me. First of all, I'm not trying to replace anyone. Kind of just putting it out there.
33:18And they were like, oh, no. We don't care about that. We're really excited about this.
33:22So I think awesome. Yeah.
33:25Yeah. The team is making it really easy on me. Like, it's That's great.
33:29It's great. They want to see it working. They want to use it.
33:33They I think they under they all understand what it brings to the table. It's not about firing people to get replaced by AI, but it's making their life better.
33:44Mhmm. They can actually of life. Yeah.
33:46Yeah. So they can actually do more interesting stuff rather than their repetitive automated or not automated, boring day to day stuff. So it's Absolutely.
33:56It's not taking everything out of their plate. It's just taking the boring out.
34:01Yeah. I mean, it's gotta be a culture shift from the top down. It's not a, you know, two month workshop that we're doing this quarter or a compliance training you have to click through.
34:11It has to be a culture shift. And I think that's what's so difficult, especially for these larger organizations with legacy systems, legacy SOPs.
34:19It is tough. And I think it's great that you stepped into an environment where everyone was pretty excited. That's that's huge.
34:26Yes. Because I've definitely felt that before where that's not the case.
34:30You know? People are like, oh, look at this guy. This is the one that this guy wants to come in here and take my job with his robots.
34:35Yes. So that's great that you have, um, sounds like just a nice supportive culture.
34:40Yes. And I was quite scared of that before my first call. So I honestly, I went in, and that was the first thing I said.
34:48I'm not trying to replace anyone. Please don't hate me. You know, this is going to be great.
34:53And I was shocked by your response. Yeah. Especially because, I mean, you are also in house, but for people that maybe are taking the approach of, like, being consultants that come from external into the org, it's like consultants already sometimes have a really negative connotation for the the actual stakeholders of the process.
35:12So very, very important either way. But awesome.
35:14Yeah. So what
35:15what kinda happened after you got started then? Yes. So the first few weeks, it was more understanding what the company is and what each branch of it is and so on.
35:28And then, of course, it was thinking about the processes and better use cases of automations and what was more important within those automations.
35:38And now I'm on the process of hiring a team because this is huge. Like, the amount of work there is to do, if I'm the only person doing it, I'm going to be the bottleneck, and it's gonna get stuck.
35:51And, you know, we're gonna lose that momentum, So we are actually starting to hire and having interviews with some people of a I AIS plus.
36:01Awesome.
36:02Awesome. Yeah. Seeing how it goes, but it's it's interesting.
36:07There's a lot of people really committed and really looking to make a change in this new era with AI and so on. So it's it's a good place to be.
36:17It's a good place to dive into AI and everything that can come out of it.
36:23So you have talked about kind of how you went from not really feeling comfortable with AI and automation to starting to learn how to build.
36:32And I think that building to some extent is very important. I'm not saying that everyone needs to go figure out how to build a full stack app themselves, but I think, you know, obviously, you have to understand what you're building and why and how it works. You've also talked about building in public and sort of documenting some of the stuff, getting out of your comfort zone.
36:48What else do you have to tell people who maybe would like to be able to step into some sort of role like head of AI? What else could they be doing when it comes to the the prep or maybe even like the interviewing and the applications?
37:01What else could people be sort of taking away from this?
37:05I think a couple of advices for people going into interviews. Things that I've started to see now is do your research.
37:15Research the person that's going to interview to interview you or research the company, even more important. I had people coming into the interview saying, so I researched Jung, and, you know, I know this, this, this, and that, and I think we can do some really cool stuff on this.
37:31And actually showing the motivation of what they want to do and what they want to bring to the table. And then I have other people reaching out and sending abbreviations of the words.
37:43I'm like, hey. What up? And I'm like, hold on.
37:47Are you looking for a job? Or like so I would say try to take it serious.
37:53Try to do your research. Have something to show. Just it's gonna happen.
38:00There's gonna be so many jobs on AI and automations because the world is, as we know it, is changing, and this is no longer something that huge companies can have. It's actually something that every company will have.
38:14So if you're interested in doing this, just dive deep, learn it, play with it, apply to jobs, just with the Band Aid.
38:25Don't don't stay here waiting to, you know, see what happens or maybe AI won't replace me.
38:32Just go on go out there and make it happen. It's so much fun.
38:38It really is. It really is. Once you get in the mindset that everything that you do in life, everything that you try, you always kind of go through that period.
38:47And and this is a this is something I talk about a lot in the community, which is something that I got from Hermozzi, which is like the the entrepreneurial, um, transition curve or just in general, the transition curve.
38:58And the idea that you always are excited at the beginning, and that's the stage of the uninformed optimist because you just don't really understand the complexities.
39:07You come over that hump, and you become the informed pessimist. And then you just basically have this decision of, do you want to crash and burn, or are you going to take that momentum all the way back up again? Now you're also an optimist, but you're an informed optimist.
39:20It and I think that that's really important for people to understand that everyone has that feeling of overwhelm. And it's not just once. You get that feeling maybe every week, maybe every month.
39:28But you just gotta push through, and I think that's really important. So, yeah, we covered a lot of great stuff today.
39:35What do you have here on this last slide to sort of close us out today? Just the closing. I want to thank you, Nate.
39:41Uh, if you asked me, I don't know, a year ago,
39:46if I saw this call coming, I would have laughed at anyone's face. Like, the first thing that came up when I googled automation was you and your videos, and I started going into it.
39:57And then I asked someone on my LinkedIn, like, I'm starting on this. Do you know of any courses that I could do?
40:04And the guy's reply was, Nate's course.
40:08And that's it. Awesome. I love it.
40:11When I started, I was like, this guy is awesome. So having you know, being here today with you, it feels unreal.
40:19It it and I can't believe it's only been a year since I started this journey. It's it's insane.
40:25It's incredible. A year from basically no AI experience to head of AI at a at a at an awesome company is incredible.
40:32It's super, super motivating. And I'm really glad that you were, you know, in our community and that I had the chance to get to talk to you today. Me too.
40:41Thank you. And if anyone having a look at this, if you want to connect on LinkedIn or follow or subscribe to my channel, it's English, Spanish. All the QR codes are there, so feel free to give it a call and stay in touch.
40:56Awesome. Well, Eilin, folks, thanks so much for joining today.
41:00This was an awesome conversation, and I am super excited to follow your journey at Young and see what else you get up to.
41:08And maybe we'll have to bring you back, and you can tell us about all the great stuff that you've been doing for the past couple years at Young and how the head of AI role has evolved. Because I imagine it's going to evolve a lot over your next couple years. So Yeah.
41:19Yeah. Let's let's keep in touch. Congratulations again on this awesome opportunity, and thank you so much for hopping on today.
41:26Thank you, Nate. And, seriously, this is a great opportunity. It's really good to get to know you even through the sprint,
41:33and thank you for the chance of being here.
41:35Awesome. Thanks so much. Thanks.
41:37Bye. Thanks so much for watching today's episode. I hope that you guys enjoyed.
41:41Don't forget that I broke all of us down into a free resource guide that you can access for completely free using the link in the description to join our free school community. I'll see you guys in there. Thanks so much.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
Fifteen years writing HTML emails for a living, then a team-wide layoff at 39 with two young kids at home -- that is where Aileen Werner's AI career began. In under twelve months she went from unemployed to Head of AI at a 15-company entrepreneurial group, not by going back to school, but by building automations in public, speaking at a meetup while her legs shook, and having one answer ready when HR asked the question that decides everything.
How they asked for the click.
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