206: AI, Search, and the Jobs of Tomorrow with Olga Andrienko

The world of work is changing faster than ever, and AI is leading the charge. What does this mean for industries like SEO, marketing, and content? And more importantly, what does it mean for your career?

In this episode of No Hacks, I’m joined by Olga Andrienko, a marketing leader who transitioned from VP of Brand Marketing into AI operations. Her journey is the perfect case study for how professionals can adapt when the ground shifts under their feet.

We start with Olga’s “lightning bolt moment” at an AI course that showed her the power of automation and AI agents. From there, we explore:

• The future of SEO and search: why Google’s AI Overviews are disrupting traffic, how “search everywhere optimization” is replacing traditional SEO, and what it means for attribution.
• AI business models and big tech: the economic reality behind AI tools, the competition between Google and OpenAI, and why Olga switched from iPhone to Google Pixel for integrated AI features.
• Practical automation in marketing ops: real workflows Olga and her team automated, how to identify the right tasks to start with, and what role AI workflow architects play.
• The jobs of tomorrow: emerging roles like Heads of AI Ops and AI workflow specialists, why community and events still matter, and how to stand out in a flood of AI sameness.
• Human creativity in an AI-first world: why now is the easiest time to stand out online, and why clumsy, authentic writing can be a feature, not a bug.

This conversation is not just about AI tools. It is about how work itself is being reshaped, what skills will still matter five or ten years from now, and how you can adapt your career for long-term success.

👉 If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss what’s next. And join the Substack, where I share deeper insights, notes, and resources to help you navigate the future of work. 

Episode links:

• No Hacks Substack
• How to start in any brand role (Olga's LinkedIn post)

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Transcript

206: Olga Andrienko
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[00:00:00] Welcome back to No Hacks. Before we dive into episode 206, I wanna share something really important, this podcast. Is evolving. The world of work is shifting faster than ever. AI is changing the rules in real time in every single industry. So from now on, this show is going to be about the future of work and the strategies that will stand the test of time, even as technology transforms everything around us.

No hacks. There's no better guest to kick this off than Olga Ko. Olga is a marketing leader turned AI ops expert, and she's been on the front lines of how automation, search and entire industries are being reshaped. We talk about the decline of traditional SEO, the rise of AI driven workflows, and how to stay creative and employable.

In a world where AI is taking over the repetitive work, stick around this one. Respect with insights about where work is headed and how you can [00:01:00] adapt.

​

Sani: today, I have a pleasure to host Olga KO marketing, AI ops expert and ex samr, VP of Brand Marketing. Olga, welcome to the podcast. Pleasure to have you on.

Olga: Thank you so much for inviting me. I'm very excited to talk about this.

Sani: Same here. So tell me about your journey in marketing ops. How did you start? How did you end up where you are today?

Olga: Um, it started in actually January, 2025, so it's not that, um, well far. Um. Or far back. Um, and I was, um, I attend, I attended a weekend, um, course on ai and I was very, I thought I was very proficient with prompting with chatbots. And this is, this was a part of AI that I really already. I kind of [00:02:00] not mastered, but I was, I was advanced compared to most people around me.

Olga: So I thought, okay, well, and I spent most weekends experimenting with AI like in 2024 already. Um, and then, uh, there were two days and there was nothing about chatbots. It was just only about automation, AI agents. And that was like a well lightning raw moment, um, because, uh. That's, I thought that's how we are going to be replaced.

Olga: Like that's not, the chat bots will make me efficient, like 30%. Uh, but it's still like me and my tasks. But then. AI agents could really, uh, well scale stuff and then well, it, it, it, it really exponentially can grow the business. And it was about recruitment, it was about content. It was about SEO, um, so all sorts of, uh, workflows.

Olga: And uh, [00:03:00] that's where I realized that everything I know in brand, uh. And marketing is great, but everything needs to be rewired and, um, kind of restructured and rebuilt. And that's where I thought, okay, like brand will still exist, of course, uh, but. The truly kind of the job that would be growing much faster would be operations because you work with all the departments and you, you just rebuilt stuff with them.

Olga: So that's how I thought, okay, this is where I need to go. And I pitched the change and became the VP of marketing Ops in two, in one and a half

Sani: funny story, I recently did with a, with a friend. We did a webinar. We hosted a webinar called AI Beyond the Chatbot, so I'm not making it up. It's literally the name of the, of the webinar, because going to the chatbot to do your ai, whatever that is, is like [00:04:00] going to the bank to get your salary. It's not necessary.

Sani: It doesn't have to be just in that one tab. And the real power, as you know, and this is, this is where you are, the marketing AIOps expert. It needs to be everywhere and anywhere and wherever you need it, whenever you need it. So,

Olga: Yep.

Sani: great start to this conversation because we are completely aligned. Uh, so that single, the single moment you realize AI would change the future was that weekend and, and figuring out the chat bot is not the best way moving forward.

Olga: Yes, correct.

Sani: I love that. I love that. Can we talk about SEOA little bit and, and I mean the elephant in the room because you were with a huge SEO company. Uh. What the hell is happening to search?

Olga: Um, so, uh, clicks are declining and 2024 was the. Year with like highest number, highest amount of traffic you ever got from Google, probably. So you will [00:05:00] not get that much like ever again. Probably. So a lot of websites, uh, got, um. 10 from 10% to 45% decrease. Uh, some were slashed, like 75%. Uh, and some also suing Google already, uh, for, um, well, because this is such a, uh, well, such an instrumental, um, um, channel for, for their business.

Olga: Um, and what Google has to also, but Google has to adapt as like every other company. Uh, and, uh, they change, well, they introduced AI overview, which means that like, there's, there are a lot of links and there are a lot of citations, uh, in AI overview, but people just, um, the behavior is just go read and leave.

Olga: So Google also claims like they have even more searches happening, which, which is like, we, we, well, um. Which also some of the studies show, [00:06:00] uh, but well, that doesn't translate to clicks and, uh, search is becoming like a brand channel. So, um, my bar, my background is social media and influences and community and, uh, social media managers, they always have to, like, they always had to have different channels.

Olga: So you optimize and you kind of rank, right? Like you, you optimize for. Um, for Instagram, for TikTok, for LinkedIn, for, um, like for Facebook, like for X. Uh, and, uh, there was are different algorithms, like, and those are like multi-platform was always a reality for a lot of marketers. For SEOs, this was only one channel for 20 years.

Olga: That was like a blessing, I would say it, it is constantly changing. The rules were changing, but it's not the same as like a lot of like brand marketers, they always work with multiple channels.

Sani: Mm-hmm.

Olga: And now SEO is like transforming, like to search everywhere, optimization, not only search engine optimization.

Olga: So, [00:07:00] uh, these, this means like chat bots optimization, Google still like, and also YouTube is a search engine. TikTok is a search engine. So behavior is a changing, and I think like SEO is still SEO, but uh. The, the metrics are different, so it's just more about impressions, uh, and, uh, the good old prs back again.

Olga: Um, you need citations, you need mentions. Uh, it's not now like only about the rankings. It's about like real estate and surround sound. And, um, this is a very hard moment to adjust. And then the companies like need to recalculate like their forecasts because suddenly they cannot measure, uh, the most measurable channel out there except for paid.

Olga: Um, so yeah, uh, it's, uh, it's like, I would say it's very interesting times. Like brand is more important than than ever. And that means also like pr. So [00:08:00] what I would, and links are also important, like if you go and do deep research and Gemini, um, and you can see how many links. Deep research will give you and, uh, well, geminis like the, it has the largest number of resources.

Olga: So it would like cite 50 resources and we would read like over maybe even sometimes like a hundred more. Um, so there you really understand that links are still important. And, uh, it's still like a part of SEO. Also digital pr, like citations. Like you need to do studies and you need to be a reputable resource, and then you need to do this outreach.

Olga: So you would be mentioned on other websites because this is where your citations and mentions would come from. So these are actually really foundational, all tactics you still need. Um, and these are just like coming back. Um, and, uh, you don't need to focus on solely on Google, like you really need [00:09:00] to, um, also understand the, like how to appear in chat bots.

Sani: I have so many follow up questions that I'm sure I'll forget a few because talking to someone who's been in the trenches of this industry for, for so long, maybe not directly doing SEO, but you were there. Number, number one thing I'll say. When will Google Point to EEAT introducing that as a con concept and saying, we told you so and you didn't listen, and now you're just losing all the traffic because of it.

Sani: I mean, because this is clearly what EEAT was. Preparing the world for in many ways. Number two, I had Jonah Olson a few months ago on this podcast. I'm sure you everyone knows Jono. He talked about solved query space and how if you are in the solved query space, which means AI doesn't need you anymore to answer that query that has got the information from you, you're screwed.

Sani: You're just going down. There's no recovering from that. You need to adapt what you're doing. And I forgot number three, of course I did, but, but, uh, this is a. [00:10:00] Like you said, this is a foundational shift to an industry that has not seen foundational shifts since day one. There was black cat there, there was there, there were all the, all those tricks you can do to trick Google and into ranking you and then you go down again.

Sani: But it was always the same. You're supposed to be number 1, 2, 3, or four or whatever, and if you're there, good. If you're not, fight to get there and fight the competitors. Now. I think the biggest problem with this new world is that. There's a layer of AI between a brand and knowing where the customers are coming from and, and it's getting trickier and trickier to figure it out.

Sani: There's no attribution is a nightmare, basically 'cause of this.

Olga: correct. Yeah.

Sani: So we are gonna get paid LLM placements, I'm sure that's gonna happen.

Olga: Yeah. Yes. And also, uh, they're like really burning cash right now. Like all of the, like, this is like the industry that is burning money, like the, like the faster than anybody else. [00:11:00] Uh, they need to probably become like, well, of course not profitable, but like, they need to earn, um, more. And that's where the ads can really appear.

Olga: Um, so that's like one of the. Potential solutions? Definitely. Well, in terms of the biggest LS, so I think that's where like OpenAI doesn't like, have a lot of opportunities for growth. Uh, while Google is a machine, like they have like the, the largest email, um, they, like, they, they're, while they're earning money from corporations and it's very easy for them to incorporate like their new services.

Olga: So even if like the search. And ad revenue goes down, like they're now introducing really, really strong, uh, competitive like tools in the AI space that they are integrating in those companies very quickly. And, uh, that's how they will like, stay afloat. And then they, I, I really like how they pivoting. Like, well, I don't like what's happening in search, but I do like, um, how [00:12:00] Google is behaving.

Olga: They're like, they're rolling out everything not as fast. But what they are rolling out is clearly embedded very seamlessly in like in experiences of the their clients, which is like, I think an amazing thing.

Sani: Yes, and this summer I'm, I'm still reading, uh, empire of ai and, and what you said about open ai, not making money, not. It's a horrific story. If, if listeners, if you haven't yet read Empire of AI and you want to understand how these big AI companies actually operate, I think it's the most important book.

Sani: Released, released this year at least. Tech book. Uh, now I read, I started somewhere. It's uh, it's in the a Citron's, uh, newsletter, the host of Better Offline podcast. He said something like, uh, 2024 Entire revenue of AI companies was $18 billion. Smartwatch industry was $32 billion. So this is what we're talking about.

Sani: They're, I mean, they're burning trillions and making [00:13:00] 18 billions.

Olga: They're very, like, they're, they're well compared, like to other industries, they're still like, baby, they're steps, like they're infants. So if, if like smart, if we compare the early days of smartwatch, then it's probably was a fraction. But, uh, yeah. But the amount of money that smart well smartwatch was investing, uh, then it was like nowhere near, uh, what's needed for ai.

Olga: So. Yeah, we'll still yet to see how this all plays out. And then maybe there will be also like, it's now where we're in a bubble, then like we'll see mergers and acquisitions. I'm still very interested in what Apple will do because they're quick, like clearly late. So they need to buy someone. Uh, and uh, yeah, and by the way, like I am, I'm changing my phone in September, like first, like I've been a, um, Mac and Apple.

Olga: User for, I don't know, like, for, for 15 years. Like when, or not 15, but like, [00:14:00] yeah, definitely 10. Um, yeah, like, well, Google Pixel is coming. Yeah.

Sani: why? I wanna know why.

Olga: Uh, because uh, this phone like has, like, it doesn't have like ai it will not help me. Um, and, uh, Google Pixel obviously has everything integrated and then, well, Siri is like a.

Sani: Serious. Like a previous gen assistant?

Olga: but like, Gemini, uh, would be, um, yeah, would be like a better option. So that's what I'm like testing and it's very painful, but I feel that like Apple is so behind that. Also the technology, it's just like, I, I'm also, I wanna, I wanna have like my most important device, like it needs to be up to date.

Sani: That, that's a valid reason. I'm still, I'm not ready because I'm so embedded in into Apple. Uh. Space, complete laptop iPad. I don't have an Apple watch because of the stupid battery life. But, uh, if that was not a [00:15:00] problem, I would, I would sell my Garmin and buy an Apple watch. So, uh, you've spent the summer, let's talk about it.

Sani: You spent the summer working, learning about all of these tools and, and working on automations. What was the first workflow, real practical application of a workflow that you have automated?

Olga: Um, that was actually, um, earlier. So, um, when I pivoted to marketing ops, uh, in emr, I hired within three weeks and the AI Workflow architect. Uh, so how, like, how we worked is that I, ID ideated I know like all of the channels and marketing, I have not, uh, like personally managed the team of affiliates. And, um, like I would say, well, SEO team is separate and performance, but then I worked in performance campaigns like in multimillion dollar campaigns as well.

Olga: So I know like most, and I know brand, I know performance, um, I know PR and that made, um. Me quite [00:16:00] unique that I understand the difficulties or the routines, uh, in every channel. So I started describing the processes, also interviewing the teams. We, uh, identified the boring tasks. Uh, and then I described everything in detail to the, um, AI workflow architect.

Olga: And then he kind of like already started building automations, and I think this is like the best. Um, option if, like, if, if. Um, if someone's listening is like, head of marketing or, well, even like a founder, uh, someone who is ideating, describing and strategizing, plus someone who actually executes, like they're two different people.

Olga: Like if you're hiring one person, they're not strategic enough and they're not technical enough probably. Uh, if of course it's a startup, then like you need to combine, but then the scale of your operations will be so much lower.

Sani: great advice. That's because you cannot be a strategic [00:17:00] thinker and implement at the same time. This, this goes. For any industry out there, but especially now when you can move so fast, I think it, it, it's, it's great advice.

Olga: Yep. So, um, we, well, I, how I thought about this, they are fundamental, like very important, processes like, um, reporting analytics, but that means financial data. That means like we cannot. Well, ai, like, well, chatt like, well, it just, we, we cannot, we cannot even like use open api. I, uh, open API and so on.

Olga: And then there are, uh, channels that are like that. You can automate a lot of stuff, but then it would be high stakes, like performance, uh, because there are like a, well, a big budget involved. And then any mistake would like actually be very, very. Risky. And then there are channels like social media that doesn't have proprietary data. Uh, and it's like [00:18:00] easy, uh, and then, well, legal team would not be as interested, uh, um, in chasing me. So that's what I started with. And for example, there was a reporting on share of voice. So there were mentions tracked from influencers on SR. And competitors. And then, um, like the, well, the influencer manager had to go to Twitter, well, it's, and to LinkedIn and to track this manually.

Olga: So they would, well, she would enter SAMR and, well, she, she would go search for influencer, enter samr, then enter competitors, and then calculate how many posts they did about like certain brands. This was like very, very manual and it was about maybe six hours per month. She was doing that, if not more. Um, so that was a clear automation and this was done like now it's like all, uh, well technical, but she gets the same result in the same spreadsheet.

Olga: She was filling it

Sani: Without doing it

Olga: how we did it with NA 10. [00:19:00] Um, and, uh, tools like Epi Amplify, uh, where you can, uh, scrape like through API, uh, with Twitter you can also use a native API, uh, with LinkedIn it's a bit. Difficult. Uh, yeah. So it's either rapid, API or a pfi, uh, that kind of is like a gray area, but it's so possible.

Olga: And, uh, then like once mentions are collected, then AI agent, like through NA 10, analyzes this. And then like it's embedded in the specific columns, like in spreadsheets because Google Drive is also connected to that automation.

Sani: I love what you said. Start with the boring tasks, and this is what I tell my clients as well. If you have something that makes you go, ugh, not again. Please think about automating that, that that is the easiest win you can have if you have something to do every month, every week, where that really makes you go, I don't want to do this again, but I have to.

Sani: That's what you have to automate. And then, you know, once you're [00:20:00] comfortable automating that or. Add something bigger, and then it's, it's a question of how much you can trust in automation and ai, of course, but find the smallest possible task you can trust it with and let it, let it go from there. This is, this is really good.

Sani: How do you choose, how do you decide which model to use for, for an automation?

Olga: Um, so first is it depends on the security and what I'm doing, so. Um, and it's very different, like when I did it for SEMrush and when I do it now for myself. So like with SEMrush, like any, so EMR uses, like, it's in a Google well space, right? So it has Google Drive and like we, we have Google Cloud, so that means that Gemini already exists in there.

Olga: Um, and that means that with like, well legal team would be inclined to approve. Gemini with a lot of tasks because of already existing access. And Google has, um, some enterprise grade tools available [00:21:00] to the com, like bigger companies with on a bigger, uh, plans. Uh, for example, there's Vertex ai. You can build agents with Vertex ai, but you can also create like, um, sort of like a bakery, well, you could create a space for specific team, uh, that is like only available for this team.

Olga: You create a prompt there that is very, very long and very detailed. And, um, let's say it would be working for, um, advertising teams and for analytics teams because they can upload the CSV there. It's not stored, it's not processed, like it's only existing with this window, but you can talk to the data.

Sani: Hmm.

Olga: that was like approved by security.

Olga: Was approved by legal. Um, because it was like with Gemini that is already like preexisting. So that's how I thought of the, uh, well, of the models that like, if it's already, like, it just, it has to be zero pain [00:22:00] entry, um, for something. Uh, that we had, for example, we also created like an add-on for content checks.

Olga: Um, and there like, by that time, Claude was like the known as like as best for content. I would argue about this now, but like, that's why we tested like Claude and Tropic API, um, because this was like, there, like I thought, okay, Claude, like understands content better. Um, and uh, in terms of like open API models.

Olga: Open AI models. Uh, then it was just, um, reasoning models like, great if you need like real AI agent to think they're more expensive. And also, for example, if we, if I needed anything search, I would use perplexity. Um, so we had an automation that like, um, I created with employee advocacy, uh, where there was an input form.

Olga: Then it was [00:23:00] enriched by perplexity search and then only, and then AI agents started, uh, creating content. So, uh, now in terms of also search if you need, well then Perplexity and Gemini is actually, Gemini is very, very affordable and keep right now. So for search, I would use either these two, but like nothing.

Olga: And for example, with the, uh, if you need to enrich the data. In, um, like in a very thoughtful form then, uh, that, that would mean like, um, deep research and now I would use Gemini or I would use. Um, open AI, API because they have it now, like in API form. So that's how I thought about the models. It's just, uh, I own, well, first I started think about use case and then I think about like whether it's secure, whether it would be, uh, easy or not easy to use.

Olga: And then, um, yeah, that's, and then like we would test, [00:24:00] um, two, um, two models for,

Sani: For results. But, but the thing with legal and security, this is what most YouTube tutorials and people building stuff on their own just for themselves, don't even think about working for a large company. It's not about choosing, not even the best, I would say they're all the same. It, it's really percentages that, that, that are between them, that they're, they.

Sani: You get similar results, you get very similar results. But I think legal and security and that kind of stuff, this is, this is probably more important than if it's a Chad GPT or clot or even Gemini or whatever else. Uh, a very, very interesting answer before we move on to looking at the future and how future work and everything will be changed. Let's do a few lightning round questions. The first one, there's nobody in the world more ready to answer this than you at this moment. If you had a hundred Euros to spend on AI tools, what are you spending it on?[00:25:00] 

Olga: I am spending, uh, this on digital ocean, um, because I'm self-hosting n8n uh,

Sani: that answer. Okay.

Olga: uh, so that actually can be, um, that could be even after up and up. Until like 50 bucks. But like, let's say I spend 40 bucks on

Sani: Okay.

Olga: um, and then I need to spend on API, um, and I would, I. Well before ChatGPT-5 I actually would be definitely going with the, um, with the open AI API because of how many models they had.

Olga: Um, and it's like, was very attractive. Now I could probably even consider just Gemini, um, because Gemini, well can process largest chunks of data without hallucinating. So if I can choose one, I would, uh, go for this. Um, but I would still need the [00:26:00] chatbot. Um, so I would go for, um, either, um, yeah, I would go for still, uh, ChatGPT because of custom GPTs and because of like, well there's agent now, like it just like all in one, I would say.

Olga: But I really like Manus as well. I just, I've been using it more and more, but like, I would not, well, I, I could only, um, so yeah, that's, and I would, I would also like the rest, I would sp spend on Apify 

Sani: Hmm. Okay. Okay. Just to get the data and then to

Olga: Yeah, just like scraping everything because without that, like it just, well, it would be a nightmare to pull it manually anywhere.

Sani: Great answer. I love that stack. So one more if you, well, a few more if you want to. If, if you could ban one AI hype or buzzword in the next 12 months, what would that be? Too many to choose

Olga: It completely [00:27:00] revolutionized the way I work

Sani: yes, please. That's amazing.

Olga: it. Just, uh, and then also just someone is cooked. Uh, so this is like whenever something is like, well, either the de designers are cooked or,

Sani: Or SEO is dead or

Olga: uh, yeah. Yes. So, um, so what I, and one that I would not. Kill, uh, would be that, uh, someone will be out of job.

Olga: Like, because it will be the reality. Like we will see this, uh, it would probably happen as we, as we see now, like with like new models, it's kind of slowing down. So like the myth is like, well being debunked that is like, it's so fast. But anyway, like it's, um. We see a shift where there are a lot of, especially junior positions, like, well in research, I even, like, I, I used to have someone who would like, gather data for me and, uh, do the manual work Now.

Olga: I was like, no, you know what, like, don't do [00:28:00] it like I do it myself, like 10 minutes and it's done. So. And, uh, she was actually quite discouraged as well, like when, when she realized like how many tasks were just like, well going away. Um, so that's something that is definitely like, I think it has ground like, and we need to be worried.

Olga: I'm worried. Um, uh, yeah. But like in terms of the things I hate is like this revolutionized and.

Sani: yes, yes, please. That, that needs to be gone. The last one, if you could put AI into one everyday object, what would that be and what would it do?

Olga: Mm.

Sani: I just read an article about Smart Taps or LinkedIn post about smart taps in, in a, in an office, in a company building, and they, they stopped working and people could not get water. So I guess it's

Olga: I, well, the one that I really liked, well, it's not existing yet, and it's not like an everyday object, but I really like [00:29:00] the, uh, robot dogs, uh, for blind people.

Sani: Ooh.

Olga: So, um, because, well, I don't really like this, uh, idea that dogs are trained, uh, very, very, um, um, harshly, uh, to be the guide dogs. And they also, like, they cost a lot.

Olga: They suffer a lot and they also, like, they only work for 10 years. Um, but like, well the person lifespan is hopefully a lot longer. So if they have a robot dog that has ai, then like, dogs are just pets. Then this is a working machine, um, that is smart and that could really help.

Sani: That's a great, uh, great example. Uh, yeah, but. I hope that happens. I don't see it happening because there's weapons they will want to build before they build robodoc and stuff like that, but that, that is exactly what AI should be doing for humanity. Uh, let's talk about the changes in the work. Everyone's scared.

Sani: [00:30:00] Everyone should be at least a little bit scared. Even if you know what you're doing, if you're ahead of the curve, you're at least anxious about what's going to happen because. Not because it's bad, it's because we don't know. Last 20 years there was comfort zone. There's no comfort zone anyway anymore.

Sani: What are some of the emerging roles that you think will be appearing in the next few years?

Olga: Um, well there, um, um. Experts in prompting, uh, they're experts also, like in validating, um, uh, how, how AI is used. Uh, there is also people who are interested, well, and who are working in ethical ai. Um, and that means also just. How even the company is using ai and then it's very easy to go into Apify scrape, like, well, thousands of LinkedIn posts and then don't do like anything on like, well, it's just basically unoriginal content that you are like repurposing.

Olga: And this, I would say this is [00:31:00] also unethical and, uh, to ensure that, uh, the companies are using the AI in the right way. Um, and. Well, just ops, well, the head of AI is now the, the new hot role, I think. Um, or the VP of ai, just so it's, I see it everywhere. Um, and, uh, well, it's, it's now, well, a lot of SEOs are transitioning in, well in this more of, uh.

Olga: Um, I would say even like agent experience, uh, optimization. Um, and then they have like, they used to talk to search engines, but like, well now we need to optimize site sites for the, for, for the agents and then for for chatbots. So, uh, this is also emerging. Um, and, um, um, and yeah,

Sani: Is there anything that's not about ai? Is there anything emerging that's not [00:32:00] about ai? 

Olga: There are certain areas where AI is less, uh, competitive and uh, it's the events and community. Uh, so those are very, I would say, immune because yes, routine tasks can be automated, but not as much. And I believe the events also, uh, will have their moment, uh, more and more, and not maybe bigger events, but smaller events.

Olga: Uh, that means that. People would want to have someone skilled in event marketing to ensure that, and this could be like community and events can, can well go together, and that, that is, uh, that is not emerging yet. But, uh, one, like people are really tired. Like, well actually my dream job was like, uh, owning an alpaca farm.

Olga: Like it's not working in [00:33:00] ai. And this is like my retirement plan. Uh, so I would say like a lot of people also, like the, the jobs that will be merging is like either ecotourism, um, or well, just something that is like completely non-competitive to ai. And because people retired, there's, well, they want this, uh, well, I detox.

Olga: And that's where they would wanna go in nature, but have better experiences than what, what's offered now. Um, so yeah. That, that's also like non-AI that is emerging. Yep.

Sani: I, I, I worked for 10 plus years as a web developer. I, I have not met a single one, a single web developer that did not at some point dream about being a farmer, not a single one, because tech burnout is real. And when you're in tech and you're making. Good money. It used to be like that. Now, now it's kind of leveling down to, to average is everything else, but when you make a lot of money, you feel like you're in a golden cage and you cannot leave tech because everything else [00:34:00] you, you have to downgrade your life or you can't pay the bills or whatever.

Sani: But moving to non-tech professions with the tech and AI skills and, and bringing that up to the level where, where your tech career was. Not in the next year or two, but I think that is the future of our lives in our lifetimes. That's going to happen a lot and I'm very happy about that. If I can work auto a screen, I want to work without a screen like that.

Sani: That's really, and I don't mean just a dumb phone instead of a smart, I mean I don't need this at all. Like alpaca farm like that. That is just beautiful. So, uh, what are leaving alpacas aside, what are the best ways to get hired today? Someone who is not really. Up to date with AI or up to date with, with current tech?

Sani: What is their best case scenario of getting hired in the next year or two?

Olga: And they don't know AI right

Sani: Um, they probably don't know AI well enough. Yes.

Olga: Okay. Uh, what's beautiful about [00:35:00] ai, it never judges and it never, well, you can ask the, any number of questions to it. And, um, so if you, if you don't know ai, uh, buy and well access probably again, to, to chat and then starts, well just asking, well, describing what you do, like what you know.

Olga: So if you are, um. Um, well, if, if you are working like, as a content, uh, manager, it would say, okay, I'm a content manager. I specialize in this, this, this, these are well examples of my work. This is how I write. Um, just you, you are, you are my mentor. And then you pick, uh, the few people that you really admire in the content space and then describe what.

Olga: Is really inspiring to you about them, and then kind of that's already your project where you task AI to mentor you on how to use ai, but well in the [00:36:00] voice and in the style of those people. So you can ask like, what should I do? How, like what's the easiest way I could optimize my work, what tools I can use?

Olga: I give an example of like this task, I just spent two hours doing this. Um, suggest how I could save this or I could well spend half of that time. So it's, it's, and that's how you learn how to use ai, how to prompt better at the same time you learn new tricks and recommendations, how you can save time. So I would just really talk and I would use the, um, voice as well as well, like to really, uh, speed things up.

Olga: Um, and uh, also if you are actively hiring, well, if actively applying for positions before you even apply for the job, or like, if you already are going to the interview, then you need to do a deep research, uh, on the company. [00:37:00] Then specifically to your, to your niche. So if you are a content writer, then you could like do a deep research, explain well, in tasking this to analyze all of the content and all of the content of the competitors in the past five years, identifying the gaps, what's great with competitors.

Olga: And then you do like really, you really do a long prompt ask and it's just within like 10 minutes, you'll have a good insight. And because you're already an expert. Then you'll have like a lot of ideas already on how to improve this, and then you'll be standing out from the other candidates for sure. So,

Sani: is where I have to mention your LinkedIn post from last week exactly about this. I'll put it in the description, uh, in the show notes because. It went viral. Number one is it's really a big post it. It is great if you're trying to get hired. That is a blueprint for how to stand out. That's literally, there's a diagram.

Sani: There's all that stuff. So I'll put that in the description. But yes, this is really good advice talking to asking AI [00:38:00] how to do and even how to prompt it. Like if you ask AI how to write a prompt, I guarantee you its first pass is going to be better than yours. Always, every time because he knows how it works better than you do, better than anyone does other than maybe Sam Altman, I dunno, maybe not even him.

Sani: Uh, so, uh, yeah, this is, this is excellent advice. Let's talk about, uh, you mentioned privacy and security when you talked about, uh, getting approval in, in corporate world. How do you feel about local versus cloud LLMs?

Olga: I think. Uh, local really is more of the future. Well, even with Nvidia, um, offering this like super computer, like it's not there yet, but then having a machine that would run locally for like every one of us. Uh, and well, I will be then, like soon I will be able to fly on like a 10,000 feet and then work with AI without.

Olga: Internet. Like that's, that's not a [00:39:00] distant future. So I truly believe in like, in hosting, like in self-hosted, uh, models. Uh, but cloud is also great, uh, for, for, for, for first start. Like you just don't have to, like, you just buy the subscription like 20 bucks. It's stores somewhere else. You don't worry about that.

Olga: You don't pay. And then nothing breaks. Like don't lose the data. So, um, for beginner level, for entry level, or for something that you don't really care about in terms of security? For sure, like, cloud is great for anything more sensitive. Um, or for like, if you wanna have more control or then in the future where you don't want to really be dependent on the access to the internet, then like local is, is great.

Sani: Yeah, I have a friend, uh, Al Ali, who got me into trying LM Studio. I, I tried it about a month ago for the first time, and when I tried the QU three. It's the smallest model. That one, the Chinese LLM had 4 billion [00:40:00] parameters. It's, it's 2.2 gigabytes, the entire model. And when I realized this is 80 to 85% as good as chat, GPT as latest chat, GPT model.

Sani: And I can run it locally and it barely gets the fans running on my MacBook. Like, why? What are we chasing? Why, why aren't we using the tech we already have? I, I, I think I agree. The future is in, in locally run LLMs. In the companies, individuals, whatever it is. But there is not going to be as much reliance on open AI, on Anthropic, even Google, all of those because everyone, like we had, you know, servers to host WordPress websites for us, we can have LMS hosted that either work with the website or you work with them directly.

Sani: So I'm very big, I'm, I'm, I'm willing to bet on locally run LLMs in the future because. It's significantly easier and better than people realize. Most people at least. Uh, okay. A few, few more questions. So, uh, [00:41:00] you worked with a huge organization, you were marketing ops AOPs. How do you get teams to accept or adopt this new world and, and start thinking in terms of leveling up their AI literacy and fluency, and how do you get them to want to do that and not feel forced?

Olga: That's actually a really tough process and that's why I think corporations are far behind in terms of AI adoption because once you need to regulate, you need to educate. Um, and uh, also it's impossible. You a thousand people organization, do you buy Chad GT accounts for everybody? That's like, that's becoming like a really, really expensive problem.

Olga: Um, so that's why also that's like one of the internal triggers that really. Made me rethink, um, my job, uh, because I was approving the invoices for Claude and for chat pt and I, well, I saw the growth. Then I saw like, well, my team, but I [00:42:00] also saw the whole invoice. Uh, across the organization and I was like thinking, okay, I need to centralize this.

Olga: I need to do something like even within marketing to ensure that, uh, people well would feel that they don't need the chat bot. And then like the bigger stuff, like is already solved. So I think, um, the, the best thing for bigger organization is definitely having the strong, um, ops person from every team, like from rev ops, marketing ops, um, or it for sure.

Olga: And then when you like, think well and automate things for people, um, and really even eliminate the need. So there's Gemini that people could use. There's, well, it's embedded or well, it's copilot for Microsoft, uh, which I've never used, but yeah, Microsoft teams or something that is, uh, scaring me. Um, but, uh, so, uh, and.

Olga: That is basically how I wanted to really just already [00:43:00] extract, um, even like all the tasks and then all the custom gpt that somehow just started like emerging everywhere. You have no control of what's happening and what's like, well in inside that. And um, uh, it needs to be centralized. So either it needs to be, uh, some.

Olga: Enterprise. Um, for example, now, like with Google, there is, well this Google Opal, right? Like that I had in my, this is probably, this is embedded, like now it's in us, uh, only, but, uh, so it's a service that is embedded in the Google family of tools and that is the tool that any, any, uh, team member could use.

Olga: And then they can connect, like, let's say there is like API key for every team that is like shared. Um, separately, and then they can like, use that for their tasks. So, um, ideally, it's not like a multiple chatbots, uh, but [00:44:00] it's, it's a unified system where people, like we had a Monday board for AI workflows, requests.

Olga: So people filled in the, um, description. Then there was a call we had with them, and then we started like automating things and there's an AI backlog. Everyone sees what tasks, like how they're rated. Uh, so this is how you make people excited when you remove routine, but you do not remove routine with a chatbot.

Olga: Like it's a just it, people feel more overwhelmed, like they are busy delivering their goals, then they wanna go home and relax. So once you remove those two, three hours, uh, a week for them, that made like, well, that also was about frustrating tasks. Then you can. Infiltrate this two, three hours with AI education that people are already excited about because AI just removed the most like hateful, uh, part of their job.

Sani: this is a great answer and I, and I think. [00:45:00] Forcing someone to, they're just saying, I, I want you to use AI and here's your chat CPT account, like that, that is never going to work. As well as here's the invisible AI that helps you free up your time, and I want you, like you said, spend 2, 2, 3 hours to learn more about it, which is just beautiful.

Sani: Final question for today. We're increasingly living in an AI and tech world. Agentic world, I mean, web. It, it hasn't been announced yet, but this is Agentic web. Now we're living in, this is more than 50% of interactions are machine to machine online and, and that's never going back. It's never going to be human web again, I, I'm not happy about it, but it's just a fact.

Sani: How do you make sure you keep your human creativity in this overly technical NIA world.

Olga: I think now it is easiest time to stand out. I have not, uh, [00:46:00] seen the time where it would because we are in the sea of sameness. Like I opened the MVP for a website. It's the same icons from lovable, from Bold. Well, and that this is, well, I, I had like a, well I'm, I'm a mentor for early stage startups. I, I've seen five websites, uh, out of 10 companies I talked with, like they are vibe coded.

Olga: Uh, one because this is very early stage, but this is the same layout. Very neat. But I can already see that. Um, and the same like, will I open LinkedIn? Same posts. If like, there is one interesting topic, then it would be just half of my feed would be that if you're not posting about this, like, but posting about something unique, you already won.

Olga: So I think it's like super easy because um, people are getting lazy. They are just taking what works and then replicating this and then even with not their own language, but just with [00:47:00] AI language and. The, like the, the interesting posts that are human, and this is like less than 10%. So if you are in that 10%, if actually your writing is clumsy now, it's like your feature, well.

Sani: That's a great point. I'll just add video if people can see you. Like, I mean talking head video, 

Sani: not AI swap videos. If you're talking to the camera and people can see you and then you can write a post that, that's going to cover what you're saying in the video, but it's clear that you didn't do this in one minute.

Sani: 'cause anything that anyone can do in five minutes or less. Will be done by a lot of people in five minutes or less, and there's gonna be slop and, and that this is the, the, the road you don't wanna walk. Uh, great advice. I think this is good and, uh, amazing conversation. I'm, I'm just happy we are aligned on so many things about where the world is going and, and how we can adapt.

Sani: So what is the best way for the listeners to connect with you?[00:48:00] 

Olga: On LinkedIn, Olga and ko, uh, that's actually the only platform I'm really active on. Um, yeah, and that would, I, I will just send me a DM or, um, send a connection request.

Sani: Perfect. Thank you so much for being a guest.

Olga: Thank you. Thank you very much. It was great.

​

That was my conversation with Olga, Andrea Quinn. What a way to kick off the new direction for this show. A few things that really stood out for me. The first thing is the shift in Seo o and search. It's not just about rankings anymore, it's about visibility across every platform and preparing for a world where that AI filter.

Is between us and the information, and it decides so much of what we see and we don't see. Secondly, automation, it's real and it's practical right now. August showed how even some boring tasks like reporting [00:49:00] of social tracking can be automated today. Freeing teams to focus on higher level work. And third, we touched on the future work, the new direction of this podcast, new roles that like AI ops and workflow architects that are emerging while human creativity and community building remains more valuable than ever.

So this conversation is exactly why I wanted to make this shift. The goal here is to explore what's changing, but also what will still matter five, 10, even 20 years from now, so you can make better career and busy decisions in this new. AI infused landscape. If you enjoy this episode, please make sure to subscribe to the podcast and also to the substack@nohacks.substack.com, where I share extra insights, notes.

Some behind the scenes looks, resources you will not hear on the show. So you'll find the link in the description. But here it is again, no hacks.substack.com. Thank you for listening and let's keep building a future of work that works for us.