427- The Hidden cost of AI w/Cody Aldinger

Cody Aldinger is VP of IT at KLJ, managing technology for 30 offices across the US. He's learned that a huge part of his job isn't technology—it's sales. Convincing business leaders that IT is worth listening to.His AI philosophy cuts through the hype: "The word hallucination is a fancy word for flat out wrong." He's focused on practical governance, teaching context over button-clicking, and using AI as a thought partner.We get into the gap between AI expectations and reality, why throwing AI at bad processes just makes them faster, and the pricing disaster nobody's talking about. Cody shares how he's rolling out Microsoft Copilot to 650 employees while keeping guardrails in place.The biggest takeaway? People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. In the AI world, that means listening first, understanding the real problem, then figuring out if AI is even the right tool for the job.