Employee Number Four to a $1.2B Unilever Exit: Katie Cirulli’s Story

I wanna wrap with one more topic.

Y'all were, I mean, just from what we've already talked about, you were really dialed in on like all the automations, using Zapier, just, just automating as much as you can.

So obviously, AI and Claude is that on steroids.

So I can imagine y'all are, and I know you are 'cause we talked about this at D2Ski, just super innovative and, and forward-thinking on how you're leveraging AI in, in Gruns and in your day-to-day life.

What does that look like at Gruns? Like, how are y'all leveraging AI? Um, yeah, can you fill us in on that?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think the coolest part about how we, you know, are doing AI at Gruns is actually how we're rolling it out.

I think that, um, you know, I've talked to so many different companies about how they're rolling out.

A lot of folks are bringing in like an external agency to help, you know, drive maybe specific projects or things like that.

But, um, at Gruns, you know, we built To the earlier discussion around data, you know, a data and biz ops team or a really strong data strategic hire, um, that team has fully built out our entire Claude, added all of the skills and, like, things that we needed to just have a baseline of working in Claude.

And then, like, Chad just championed it from the very beginning, and I think having someone at the top be the one that is like, uh, you know, "We have to use AI at this company, and, like, it is going to be the thing that, like, sets us apart and keeps us ahead." And then finding ways to actually, like, operationalize that, where, for instance, in our-- we were, um, doing, like, monthly projects where we had, like, there was, like, a prompt for the entire company, and everyone had to do that prompt and then upload it into Notion, um, to show, like, what they had built.

We did a big share out of, like, some of the coolest ways that people were leveraging AI, and I th- and then, like, also really worked closely with the managers of each team to be like, "Make sure that you're just, like, pushing the use of AI and making sure people know how to use it, when the-- like, what the best use cases are." Um, and so it's just been, like, awesome to see even, like, super junior people at our organization be like, "Oh, I can use Claude for this," or, "I'm gonna set up this amazing, like, diagnostic tool." Like, for instance, on our emerging brands, we had someone be like, "You know, every time our conversion rate is down, I go through the same exact steps.

So it's like, why don't I create this diagnostic tool with Claude that I can say, 'Hey, like, today our conversion rate's down.

Like, why might that be happening?'" And it goes through the exact steps that I would take an hour of my day to do.

Or even, like, take it a step further and set up an automation that says, like, every time our conversion rate drops, like, below this one thing, like, ping me a diagnostic of what you think might be going on, so it can, like, help guide where I'm going.

All the way to, like, we have all this B-roll and creative and, you know, all this, like, content available.

How do we create, like, a AI, like, a Claude search tool to go through that, that B-roll or go through all of that content to be like, "I really want, like, a disco ball"? Like, how, you know, like, how do we search for that a little bit easier than what we've been doing, um, you know, with our current tools that we have.

So kinda two steps.

There's, like, so many cool use cases for it, but I think it's all about how you actually roll out AI at your organization.

For it to be effective, it has to come from the top down, and it has to be, like, constantly, like, reminded of, like, this is a tool that we need to use, um, and, and, you know, we-- that we need to lean into to, to, um, you know, get the results that we wanna get.

So what's your-- what's, like, do you have, like, a director of AI, or do you have a, a AI lead?

Not necessarily, not in the title.

Our, it's our head of, um, head of data and biz ops who, who led the entire, yeah, rollout.

And is that person-- 'cause I think from talking with companies that are doing the best job of leveraging AI, like, they have someone inside of their organization that will actually, like, either someone can reach out to them, or that person will just go into, like, different functions and kinda audit all the work that's happening there.

And then, like, they're being like, "Oh, well, you could, you could make this more efficient," or, "We could do this.