Beyond the Prompt: Ellen Choi on Firm-Wide AI Enablement
In this episode, Doug, Emily, and Matt sit down with Ellen Choi of Edgefield Group to talk about what actually separates firms making real AI progress from those still stuck experimenting.
About this episode
Beyond the Prompt: Ellen Choi on Firm-Wide AI Enablement
In this episode, Doug, Emily, and Matt sit down with Ellen Choi of Edgefield Group to talk about what actually separates firms making real AI progress from those still stuck experimenting.
Ellen is the founder of Edgefield Group and a former Awin chief product officer. She walks through her firm maturity scorecard and why return on investment is harder to pin down than partners assume.
The conversation also covers token costs, on-prem alternatives, and the 20 minutes a day she wants from practitioners. She is blunt about vendor ROI claims and hidden enablement costs. An outdated AI policy, in her view, can be a bigger risk than no policy at all.
They close on who owns the rollout, Copilot-first starts, and how to keep the human touch when the tools get faster.
CHAPTERS
Listen to learn more about
- (00:00) Podcast intro
- (00:38) Meet Ellen Choi
- (02:22) Meditation and retreats
- (05:07) Who Edgefield serves
- (08:19) AI adoption shifts
- (11:40) What triggers change
- (13:21) How firms implement AI
- (16:43) Cutting through AI noise
- (22:03) Edgefield AI Foundations
- (23:41) AI maturity scorecard
- (27:20) Vendor ROI hype
- (28:16) ROI Investment Reality
- (29:24) Hidden AI Enablement Costs
- (30:16) Turning Time Into Revenue
- (31:43) Measuring Qualitative Returns
- (33:03) Why 20 Minutes Daily
- (36:50) Big Firm Spending Headlines
- (39:31) Rising AI Costs And Tokens
- (42:21) Open Source On Prem 2.0
- (44:26) Where To Start With AI
- (45:51) Copilot First And Policy
- (47:02) Who Owns AI Rollout
- (49:22) Keeping The Human Touch
- (51:04) Final Takeaway And Wrap
Related Industries
- SaaS
- Financial Services
- Technology
- Corporate Finance
Speakers
Doug Lewis
Host | Consultant
LinkedIn
Emily Madere
Host | Solutions Architect
LinkedIn
Matt Lescault
Host | CEO, Lescault & Walderman
LinkedIn
Ellen Choi
Guest | Edgefield Group
LinkedIn
Related Resources
FAQ
Questions from this episode
What is a prompt in this episode?
The instruction you type into an AI tool. The title is "beyond the prompt" because Ellen's bar is policy, cost, and who owns the rollout, not clever prompting.
What is a firm maturity scorecard?
Ellen's tool for telling experimenting firms from firms making real progress.
What are token costs?
Usage-based AI costs. She also covers on-prem alternatives and hidden enablement costs that vendor ROI slides skip.
What is an outdated AI policy?
A written policy that no longer matches how the firm actually uses the tools. Ellen says that's a bigger risk than having no policy.
IN THIS EPISODE
Host
Doug Lewis
Managing Director at The Visionary Group
Host
Emily Madere
Host
Matt Lescault
Founder & CEO at TydeCo
Guest
Ellen Choi
Founder/CEO at Edgefield Group
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