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This week on Sidecar Sync, Amith Nagarajan and Mallory Mejias explore Wells Fargo’s virtual assistant “Fargo” and how it stacks up against Klarna’s AI tool from a year ago. With 250 million fully automated interactions and measurable impact on customer engagement and bias reduction, Fargo offers a powerful case study in applied AI. Amith reflects on what’s now possible for associations, why a narrow pilot project is a smart first move, and how “human in the loop” isn’t just a safety net—it’s strategic. The duo also breaks down Microsoft’s new Phi-4 reasoning models, which pack PhD-level performance into incredibly compact packages that can run on your phone. If you're wondering where the AI trend line is heading, this one’s for you.

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
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🎉 More from Today’s Sponsors:
CDS Global: https://www.cds-global.com/
VideoRequest: https://videorequest.io/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Fargo ➡ https://sites.wf.com/fargo/
Klarna AI Assistant ➡ https://www.klarna.com
Microsoft Phi-4 Reasoning Models ➡ https://huggingface.co/microsoft

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
03:47 - Meet Fargo: Wells Fargo’s AI Assistant
05:59 - Comparing Fargo with Klarna’s Assistant
08:57 - The State of AI Agents in Associations
13:05 - Event Support: A Smart Use Case for AI
15:00 - Human-in-the-Loop: Not Optional, But Essential
23:44 - Private AI: Local vs. Cloud Deployment
26:46 - Microsoft’s Phi-4 Models: Small and Mighty
32:50 - Why Small Models are a Big Deal
43:54 - AI Trendlines and the Future for Associations

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More about Your Hosts:

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress 🔗 https://BlueCypress.io, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

📣 Follow Amith on LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is the Manager at Sidecar, and she's passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space.

📣 Follow Mallory on Linkedin:
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In this episode of Sidecar Sync, hosts Mallory Mejias and Amith Nagarajan take a deep dive into Model Context Protocol (MCP), a revolutionary standard making it dramatically easier for AI to interact with data, tools, and systems—no code required. Mallory shares her personal setup experience with Claude for desktop, walking through a live example of using MCP to automate file organization. Amith expands on why MCP is a game-changer for association leaders, how it enables business users to go from idea to execution quickly, and why data liberation is the missing piece for many organizations. The duo also breaks down new insights from Anthropic’s Economic Index, which reveals that AI is currently used far more for augmenting human effort than full automation. It’s an episode rich with practical insights, technical clarity, and a peek into the fast-arriving future of AI in the workplace.

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

🎉 More from Today’s Sponsors:
CDS Global https://www.cds-global.com/
VideoRequest https://videorequest.io/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
MCP Quickstart Guide ➡ https://modelcontextprotocol.io/quickstart/user
Claude for Desktop ➡ https://www.anthropic.com
Zapier ➡ https://zapier.com
Cursor ➡ https://www.cursor.so

Chapters:
00:00 - Welcome to Sidecar Sync and What’s Ahead
01:02 - Catching Up: Spring Break and Autonomous Driving
05:02 - What Is Model Context Protocol (MCP)?
07:06 - How MCP Works: Mallory’s Simple Explanation
08:11 - Step-by-Step: Setting Up Claude Desktop With MCP
12:42 - Live Demo: Moving Files Using Claude and MCP
18:01 - Why Associations Should Care About MCP
26:44 - MCP and the Role of AI Data Platforms
33:07 - What Is the Anthropic Economic Index?
35:59 - Key Findings: Augmentation Over Automation
39:34 - Amith on Real-World Automation Examples
44:46 - Vibe Coding: Cool Concept or Caution Zone?

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👍 Please Like & Subscribe!
https://twitter.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
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More about Your Hosts:

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress 🔗 https://BlueCypress.io, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

📣 Follow Amith on LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is the Manager at Sidecar, and she's passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space.

📣 Follow Mallory on Linkedin:
https://linkedin.com/mallorymejias

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In this special episode of Sidecar Sync, we dive into the future of AI infrastructure with Ian Andrews, Chief Revenue Officer at Groq (that’s Groq with a Q!). Ian shares the story behind Groq’s rise, how their LPU chip challenges Nvidia’s dominance, and why fast, low-cost, high-quality inference is about to unlock entirely new categories of AI-powered applications. We talk about the human side of prompting, the evolving skillset needed to work with large language models, and what agents and reasoning models mean for the future of knowledge work. Plus, Ian shares how Groq uses AI internally, including an incredible story about an AI-generated RFP audit that caught things humans missed. Tune in for practical insights, forward-looking trends, and plenty of laughs along the way.

🔎 Find Out More About Ian Andrews and Groq:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianhandrews/
https://www.groq.com

🔎 Check out Sidecar's AI Learning Hub and get your Association AI Professional (AAiP) certification:
https://learn.sidecar.ai

📕 Download ‘Ascend 2nd Edition: Unlocking the Power of AI for Associations’ for FREE
https://sidecar.ai/ai

📅 Find out more digitalNow 2025 and register now:
https://digitalnow.sidecar.ai/

✨ Power Your Newsletter with AI Personalization at rasa.io:
https://rasa.io/products/campaigns/

🛠 AI Tools and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
Superhuman ➡ https://superhuman.com
Groq Cloud ➡ https://www.groq.com
ChatGPT ➡ https://chat.openai.com
Claude (Anthropic) ➡ https://www.anthropic.com
Perplexity ➡ https://www.perplexity.ai

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
02:10 - Meet Ian Andrews, CRO of Groq
05:48 - Ian’s Generative AI “Aha” Moment
10:30 - What Groq Is and What It Does
14:57 - The Launch and Growth of Groq Cloud
18:25 - What “High Quality Inference” Really Means
23:10 - Agents and Interns: Speed in Autonomous Work
29:26 - Use Cases: Finance, Legal, Customer Service
35:25 - Member Services Reimagined Through AI
39:06 - How Groq Uses AI Internally: Real Examples
53:23 - What’s Next for Groq in 2025 and Beyond

🚀 Follow Sidecar on LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidecar-global/

👍 Please Like & Subscribe!
https://x.com/sidecarglobal
https://www.youtube.com/@SidecarSync
https://sidecar.ai/

More about Your Hosts:

Amith Nagarajan is the Chairman of Blue Cypress 🔗 https://BlueCypress.io, a family of purpose-driven companies and proud practitioners of Conscious Capitalism. The Blue Cypress companies focus on helping associations, non-profits, and other purpose-driven organizations achieve long-term success. Amith is also an active early-stage investor in B2B SaaS companies. He’s had the good fortune of nearly three decades of success as an entrepreneur and enjoys helping others in their journey.

📣 Follow Amith on LinkedIn:
https://linkedin.com/amithnagarajan

Mallory Mejias is the Manager at Sidecar, and she's passionate about creating opportunities for association professionals to learn, grow, and better serve their members using artificial intelligence. She enjoys blending creativity and innovation to produce fresh, meaningful content for the association space.

📣 Follow Mallory on Linkedin:
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