WIN WITH AI:How to REINVENT for Your Future Member wITH TRENT GILLESPIE
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Operationalizing AI for Roadway Safety
Presenter: Trent Gillespie | ATSSA Conference
The Dual Opportunity
Trent opened by emphasizing the unique opportunity for ATSSA members: AI can support the mission of keeping roadways safe and reducing injuries while creating job growth across the industry and in local communities. Both outcomes are possible and achievable.
The Conference Room Moment
On his third day at Amazon, Trent was called into the VP's office and asked to "fix Amazon's global growth"—a role he wasn't hired for and knew nothing about. That one decision to step up and lead, despite being unprepared, changed his entire career and enabled him to drive Amazon's expansion, reinvent last-mile delivery, and define Alexa's privacy standards.
The Two Big Mistakes Leaders Make
Mistake #1: Treating AI as an IT Project
AI isn't a tool rollout or CRM upgrade—it's a leadership challenge and complete business rewiring that will change your products, services, delivery methods, required skills, and potentially your customers. If you learn and incorporate AI properly, you'll create efficiency while empowering employees to build the future instead of being bystanders.
Mistake #2: Optimizing for a World That No Longer Exists
Leaders are applying AI to processes created decades ago rather than reinventing those processes with AI at the center. To get real benefits, organizations must re-envision workflows around AI capabilities.
The Amazon Success Formula
Amazon's growth came from two factors: building a culture where everyone was expected and empowered to innovate, then using AI to scale that innovation beyond human ability. With generative AI, both capabilities are now available to every organization for approximately $30 per month per person—requiring only leadership, vision, and action.
Current AI Adoption Reality
Approximately 50% of the room uses AI daily—already in the lead. Survey data shows daily AI users report 20% productivity improvements, while 40% of knowledge workers use AI even without approval. Three key takeaways: people find real value (not just hype), adoption is approaching 50% (non-users will be in the minority), and organizations not empowering use are leaving opportunity on the table while creating data security risks.
The Amazon Vision Method
At Amazon, vision came from one relentless question: What will our future customer want five years from now? The team imagined that future and built toward it, creating products like Kindle and Alexa. This mindset is essential now because customer expectations are changing—58% of consumers are replacing search engines with AI tools, yet very few organizations are visible in AI search results or equipped to service AI agents.
What Changes When Intelligence Becomes Cheap?
For all of human history, intelligence has been what we've paid the most for—hiring the best leaders and building organizational structures around routing decisions through them. Now intelligence is $30 per month, on-demand, and instant. Trent compared it to electricity for thinking.
Live Demonstration
Trent demonstrated building a member reactivation application in 15 minutes for $0.99 using ChatGPT and Replit. The application imported member lists, identified dormant members, and sent personalized reactivation campaigns. When organizations would take 2-60 months to decide to build this, the key question becomes: when anyone can customize processes in 15 minutes for less than a cup of Starbucks, who in your organization will do it first?
The Agent Economy
General Purpose and Specialty Agents
Workers will use general purpose AI agents (like ChatGPT) as the primary interface to their workday, potentially replacing email clients, Microsoft Office, and CRM systems. For specialized workflows, organizations need specialty agents trained on specific processes—membership management, continuing education, event planning, policy navigation. These agents are available now; ChatGPT has agent functionality for all users today.
Agent-to-Agent Commerce
Members, customers, and partners will have AI agents that decide if your organization makes the cut. They may never browse your website, call, or email again. Their agent will search, find your membership AI agent, communicate, and potentially complete transactions while keeping humans informed. This infrastructure is being built now.
Revisiting Member Values
Trent introduced a framework of questions to help organizations develop AI vision, starting with: What do members value most today? (likely network opportunities, education, guidance, advocacy).
After explaining the AI landscape, he added context through additional questions:
- Which values will AI make available to everybody? (What can you no longer charge for?)
- When everything is measured and all tools are equal, what gives you an edge? (What differentiates you?)
ATSSA-Specific Analysis
Trent's AI analyzed potential value shifts for ATSSA members. Current offerings like training/certification, safety resources, and basic events may decrease in importance as AI democratizes content creation. Emerging opportunities include real-person certification for trust, new certifications (integrated systems, design auditing), and cost reduction enabling more high-quality training with measurable impact.
The key takeaway: conducting this exercise with leadership helps you understand how expectations will change so you can build toward that future.
What's Left for Humans? Vision.
When intelligence is no longer your limit, imagination becomes the constraint. The human advantage is seeing opportunities on the horizon, creating plans to reach them, and bringing organizations along. This responsibility exists at every organizational level—your edge comes from people closest to members who see problems and build solutions.
Why Trent Does This Work
After nine years at Amazon, Trent read The Warehouse—a dystopian novel about a company so dominant in e-commerce and AI that it took over the world (with a bad ending). Realizing that was essentially his job, he decided not to make big tech companies bigger for bigger's sake. Instead, for three years he's worked to make AI easy, repeatable, and actionable for local and smaller organizations at a disadvantage.
The AI Sprint Framework
The best approach isn't one-time big projects—it's a monthly rhythm and discipline. Successful organizations ask every month: "What is our best opportunity to use AI right now?" Then they try it, reflect on learnings, adjust course, and take another step. This applies at all organizational levels.
The Six-Step SPRINT Framework
S - Spark Action (Leader Education)
Educate leadership hands-on together, assign a transformation owner (not IT—this is business transformation), and start monthly sprint cycles beginning with leadership.
P - Position Your Company to Win with AI
Design for AI-enabled future customers through a half-day workshop answering five questions about member values, AI availability, organizational edge, human touch, and new value creation.
R - Rally Employees to Use AI Daily
Create an environment where AI use is normal, expected, and supported. Implement acceptable use policies, clarify job safety (focus on growth through reinvestment), equip and train employees, and incentivize usage.
I - Integrate (Start with Revenue Creation)
Don't pursue integration until completing the first three steps. Start with marketing/communications and sales/membership development (low cost, low risk, funds the future), then address your biggest bottleneck.
N - iNnovate (Enable Culture of Innovation)
AI provides 100% improvement in innovation ability without training. Combined with monthly AI Sprint rhythm, this creates a living, breathing innovation culture.
T - Trailblaze with New Offerings
When everything is working and everyone is aligned, invest in building services that answer final vision questions and address industry opportunities.
Key trends and opportunities for ATSSA:
- Training content creation: Real-person certification for trust, new certifications for integrated systems and design auditing
- Universal measurement: Integrated system measurement, independent crash/near-miss data provisioning, safety investment prediction
- AI-accelerated product development: Product certification/registry for AI-enabled products, streamlined approval through industry-created testing and self-governance
Action Items
- Begin using AI daily yourself
- Schedule hands-on AI training with leadership team
- Assign a transformation owner (not IT)
- Complete the five-question exercise about future member values
- Create AI acceptable use policies and address job safety concerns
- Begin monthly AI sprint cycles at all levels
- Start with revenue-creating activities first
Copyright Trent Gillespie 2025