Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
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Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
How A Voice-First Mentor Delivers The Right Knowledge At The Right Time with Derek Crager
A smarter path to AI starts with a simple idea: the best help feels like calling a friend who knows your world. We sit down with Derek Krager, founder of Practical AI and creator of Pocket Mentor, to unpack how voice-first guidance can deliver the right knowledge at the right time. Instead of flooding teams with generic answers, Pocket Mentor captures a company’s way of working and serves it back as clear, compassionate coaching. It’s not AI that tells you what to think; it’s a mentor that thinks with you, in your language, at your pace.
Derek shares the origin story behind building Amazon’s highest-rated training program and why a conversation beats keystrokes for speed, nuance, and confidence. We dig into the platform’s domain-focused design—one craft at a time, curated to reflect real standards and culture—so learners get the brand’s best practices, not random internet advice. A highlight is Neurocompanion, a specialized track that supports neurodivergent employees and gives managers practical, judgment-free help to prepare better one-on-ones, reduce friction, and build trust across diverse teams.
We also explore practical uses beyond the enterprise: from formulating natural products to scaling nonprofit programs like therapeutic horticulture, pilots can turn a vision into a repeatable, voice-guided workflow. Derek explains why human-first AI is the fork in the road that matters now: augment people to become indispensable problem-solvers, or risk a future of rigid processes with no room for creativity. If you want AI that mirrors your expertise and helps your team act with clarity, this conversation shows what’s already working—and what’s next.
Want more? Grab the free first chapter of Human First AI at humanfirstai.net, visit practicalai.app to connect, and share this episode with someone who needs a smarter mentor on speed dial. Subscribe, rate, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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Well, hello, and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and today we've got a very special guest. His name's Derek Krager. And uh, Derek is the founder and CEO of Practical AI and creator of Pocket Mentor, author of Human First AI, is a visionary tech founder and AI thought leader, and he bridges the cutting-edge innovation with human-centric purpose. Um, he built Amazon's highest-rated employee training program in company history and created the Pocket Mentor, first voice-based AI mentor for in-air, hands-free, eye-free, real-time support on the job that magnifies learning 30 times. Um, he's got an upcoming book, Human First AI. Derek is spearheading a timely tribe-building initiative to keep technology human-centered. And uh, you know, Derek, without jumping too further into it, this is very interesting. And I'm looking forward to hearing all about your technology and the work you're doing. Welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Well, thank you, Joe, and thank you to all the listeners here. I uh I'm grateful you brought me on.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and as always, um, as we get into this conversation, our listeners and myself especially, we like to hear about, you know, how'd you get here? What brought you to this place that you're at right now?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, certainly. So uh I think life, uh a lot of success in life is about having the right information at the right time. You know, it's it's uh I think I kicked myself in the butt a time or two over my course of my life where I it's like, oh, I wish I would have said this, or I wish I would have known that. And don't want to live with regret. So uh the pattern of success that I've had in life is that uh when I've had the knowledge with me when I needed it is when I was most successful. So where I'm at today, I've after leaving Amazon with the success that I had there and the training methodologies that I had developed, um, I leveraged this uh new thing called AI. You might have heard of it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. It seems to be a little bit catching on out there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. So uh I uh I'm leaning on EI, not to think for the user, but to think with the user very conversationally. And I really believe that this is the um the value that AI can bring us. And the way I deliver that is through a voice interface, which means it's it's no harder than than phoning a friend. It's no harder than calling Joe up and saying, hey, Joe, you've done this before. Can you talk me through it? And and that's how we get there. So that's that's what this is all about. It's about being able to give people access to the right information at the right time so they can take control of their own future as they move forward in life.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. And, you know, I've I've had a number of guests that are working on AI type projects, and they vary from uh one guy who's working on uh a doctor's network, and there's all these different, you know, practical uses when you refine this thing. Um of course, you know, it's got its limitations, at least today, and it's got its weaknesses, and yeah, people are afraid of it in some cases, and and there's all kinds of you know obstacles in our way. Meanwhile, it's it's you know marching forward at breakneck pace. And um what what is your target, you know, demographic for this? Who are you looking to uh build this business around?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I uh I'm glad you use the term practical in AI use. That's uh coincidentally that's the name of my company, practical AI. And everything that we build is has a practical mindset. We're not looking for headlines, we're not looking to say, hey, we're the cool kids on the block, because I was never the cool kid on the block. I was just the one kind of left holding the bag and trying to make resolution and and solve things. So, who are we building this for? So essentially, what I've built is the platform. It's kind of like uh Gutenberg when when the Gutenberg Press was invented. It's a tool, but what's the value of the tool unless you have the information? So at its raw core, Joe, um, what I've built is an interface that can you can plug in any knowledge domain in the world. And it's important that we talk that we're only working on one knowledge domain at a time. It could be for a uh maybe like a um a product manager role at Amazon where I worked. Maybe it could be as an electrician at the Ford Motor Company. And um we build those out special with that specialized knowledge. But um something that's very passionate uh to me and our team here is uh what we call neurocompanion. So it's it's pocket mentor, but this specific chapter is uh written into helping those that are neurodivergent at work. And it there's two sides of this coin. There's the side that uh, hey, I've always been the weird kid, let me hit the easy button, call it pocket mentor, uh, neurocompanion, and just bear my heart, uh, which I wouldn't do with another human. I mean, really, most people don't. But if I'm talking to a machine and I get back this voice conversational, it sounds human, um, it's uh it's compassionate, it's supportive, and it's patient, and it's available to me 24/7. Well, me onboarding to a new company, and that's that's the feather of my cap at Amazon, was an onboarding program that helped onboard 35,000 employees in one year back in 2021 and and beyond. But it's about giving that new hire a friend, or maybe you know, any employee a friend when they need one, 247, 365. And it might be, hey, how do I change the toner again? Or it's like, what is I have an important decision to make, what is the mission or vision statement of the company applied to my role or this decision? And just like uh you would call up your best friend in the world and say, Hey, I just need a soundboard right now, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:And that's that, yeah, that's what Pocket Mentor does. It's a soundboard. Yeah, absolutely. So it's on the uh the neurodivergent side, and really I I really fall into this neuroagnostic because at its root, all of us think differently. Sure. So there's there's no two people alike. So we can soundboard as an employee to get us through our day. And on the flip side, how about that manager? You know, we lean hard into managers and supervisors saying how bad they are. They're in the headlines, people don't quit jobs, they quit managers or they quit supervisors. And the big part of it is that those managers and supervisors, they're not prepared properly because it's impossible to prepare somebody for every circumstance, every perspective uh of employees and situations. So the flip side of this is that the manager or supervisor can call up pocket mentor, neurocompanion, and say, Hey, I've got this guy named Derek. He tells me he's autistic and he's got ADHD. And I'm not really sure what that even is. I I heard about these words, but I've I've been scared to even talk about it. So, how do I engage this person? We're coming up on our first one-on-one conversation. How do I follow through? And then just like Joe, just like you would consult me in a conversation, pocket mentor, neurocompanion does the same thing to that manager and it sets them up for success. Is it going to give them all the answers? No, but it's going to put them in the right direction so they have the best chance of succeeding in that conversation.
SPEAKER_01:Interesting. So, you know, most of our listeners, uh, you know, again, we have worldwide listeners with every possible situation you could imagine from, you know, uh chronic and terminal diseases all the way to mild, you know, Asperger's, whatever it is that you want to think of, you know, maybe I got an itch on my nose. Well, that's a health issue, right? And so you've got people that are looking to solve their own problems. You got people that are just in here trying to uh live longer, you know, biohackers trying to, you know, solve the longevity uh quiz. Um aside from people in the workplace specifically with the target that you have, how would our listeners look to this and say, oh wow, I could see myself using this in a practical way beyond, you know, maybe I'm retired or maybe I have my own business and I'm not I don't have employees or whatever. Maybe there's like not the thing that it was specifically designed for, but it seems like a pretty handy tool. How would you see that um you know this community could uh embrace this technology?
SPEAKER_00:By all means, reach out to me and ask. I'd I'd love to set up pilot programs and much using you know that metaphor of the uh Gutenberg Press. You know, the Gutenberg Press, you know, the first year or century or two, right, it it put out the Gutenberg Bible. So it was printing one thing. So it's important for my company from a business standpoint to you know follow a niche, start there until we dig in deep, and then we expand. We we uh we can't be the cure all for everybody, right? But it's like we invented the book, we invented a new technology. So we're looking for this to grow organically in the need. So people that are raising their hands and saying, Hey, Derek, have you thought about this? And it's like, you know what? I like that idea. Talk me through it a little bit. And then if there's a use case, then we'll come up and we will uh create uh at no cost, you know, a pilot program for the use case, and we will work with you and uh get it, uh, give you a chance to uh use it and utilize it. And then if you find value in it, we say, okay, you know, how can we uh how can we expand this? How can we uh help your market? How can we help your organization, whether it be for profit?
SPEAKER_01:You know, the first is real simple. I'm a formulator, um, I make natural products, and certainly, you know, um there's so much information out there today in developing formulas that, you know, I use a little AI in my research, but a lot of it is looking at things that work and ingredients and all of that. That would be certainly one application I'd be interested in looking at. But the second is um I have a nonprofit um that's a couple of years old. We're working on securing funding, and and you know, we've gotten a couple of little grants, and um we have a two and a half acre botanical garden where we use uh these gardens for what we call therapeutic horticulture and developing programs, working with uh special needs kids and adults, um even uh mental health therapy sessions. I would think that there would be a way to use a tool like this to take an idea into fruition or to find funding sources or to find partners or or clients or you know, resources of any kind. I would think that something like that might be a really interesting and potential use for something like this.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And you have your brand, and your brand is your perspective on life and what you do. So I was asked earlier today, said uh Derek, you know, why Pocket Mentor, why Neurocompanion, why why this specialized tool if I can just talk to Chat GPT? Sure. Well, the difference is that uh talking to Chat GPT is like talking to um, I don't know, uh a billion Legos that they're all in in their individual pieces. Right. Yeah, it's all there, but what I want, I want to speak and I want to hear the perspective of of the chef, right? That that's following them. I want to hear the Joe's perspective on how Joe does it because I like the way Joe does it. And this is where we take that knowledge and we put it in a container, and we make sure that our the conversation is is uh curated around your knowledge, nobody else's, just yours in your flavor at the pace you give it. Um, you know, I know my uh my mom had, I think I counted one time, eight different recipes for brownies, but there was only there was only one brownie I really liked. And mine, it's got to have walnuts in it. So in in this example, it would be like, okay, let's wrap this around how to make the best brownie in the world, like Derek would do it, or like Derek's grandmother did. And I don't want to know a thousand different ways. I mean, if we Googled, you know, I guess that was last year's term Googling, but today we we chat GPT something, sure.
SPEAKER_01:It's working its way into the lexicon for sure.
SPEAKER_00:It is for sure, absolutely. So I don't want to know just a recipe for brownies, I want to know the recipe, or I don't want to know, you know, how do I, you know, till a garden, how do I plant, how do I uh use pesticides or or organic pesticides or pest control that doesn't use pesticides, and and how do I do it Joe's way, or how do I do it Derek's way, or just put your name there. That's where we specialize. We we replicate your way and we make sure that um whoever is talking to your virtual self gets your answers only the way you would deliver them in that flavor.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay. So so I I'm starting to maybe wrap my head around this a little bit better than what I thought it was doing. So it would basically be almost like the old days. I don't know if you remember way back when the voice recognition software was new, and you had this uh dragon software where you had to put this headphone on and read to it over and over and over again, and eventually it would start to learn your dialect a little bit better, and it took forever and it was clunky and slow, and it messed up worse than Siri does today. But it was it learned your voice patterns and your um whatever, your choice of words, and it and eventually sort of was able to translate what you were saying into a printed word pretty well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, that dragon dictate. I think I had version 14 of it, was my last one. And to be honest, I think it's still sitting on the CD or DVD in my basement. Probably unwrapped. Probably, yeah. So that's our fascination with conversations, is that we know that our voice uh through conversation mode is the quickest way to interact, right? You and I, right now, we could have this camera on, we could be looking at each other, and we can either talk like we are, and you can hear my words, my tonality, uh, you can see my body language, and you can glean so much from the conversation just outside of the words and how quick they're delivered, versus we could also be here just typing, you know, yeah, no audio, and it's just a complete different experience. It's sanitized when it goes through key clicks.
SPEAKER_01:There's a real good reason why I do my interviews this way, and it's not just the spoken word over the written word, but it's the it's the eye-to-eye micro expression, the reading each other's tones, all of that is critical to actually transfer one thought to another effectively. You know, you got to be a really good writer to communicate through written word.
SPEAKER_00:Well, true that. True that. And that's what our software does. And I say software, but it's it's only software in the sense that there's some ones and zeros that are put together. But uh the way we do the interface is that you can just pick up your telephone and hit speed dial or tap your earbud, and you're connected to this authentic uh human proxy that's every bit as compassionate, or maybe more so than uh than than humans are, because humans have anxiety and priorities and limited time per day. Um, but if we could imprint Joe uh on his best day and give everybody access to that, uh to the information that you wanted to share, then they're always going to be connecting with Joe on his best day from here uh to eternity. And that's that's what we're we're proposing.
SPEAKER_01:Or things like putting together a training or a workshop or uh presenting some kind of a program or anything like that, this could be invaluable.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, it's it's a big helper. So anytime that you'd want to uh soundboard, and sometimes you know, I just try to soundboard with myself, right? And so just talking through it helps me understand.
SPEAKER_01:And if I have somebody absolutely 100%, and you know, I'm I'm a visionary and an innovator, and you know, I blow people apart with my conversation sometimes, you know. I get excited and start to uh, you know, go into a passionate uh delivery of explaining a thought that I have that I see from you know a universal perspective, and they're looking at it from the front door, and I'm like trying to take them back to where they can understand it all. And before you know it, you see the eyes glaze over and like, ah crap, I lost another one, you know. And so, you know, certainly to have a sounding board when you're walking through to coalesce ideas and to break it down into something that's deliverable where people, the general population can consume it without you know having sensory overload. Um, that sounds, you know, very interesting and and enticing. So it sounds like based on the demographic and the way you've described its practical application, this is available or primarily made available to businesses and um executives and people that are um people that are in an operation where they could use this in multiple units or whatever. Is that the case, or is a single individual have access to this? And if so, how does that work?
SPEAKER_00:Well, our uh our focus right now, and the marketing team tells me, you know, we got to sharpen that spear to focus and articulate our goal, right? Some cool, you know, business terminology, I guess. Um, but uh yeah, so right now our driving focus is uh enterprise level, uh, because you know they're the ones with the deep pockets, and honestly, they're the ones that uh we could help the most people in the shortest amount of time. We're looking at a uh kind of a freemium option um on ways to do that. Uh we're kicking around some ideas ourselves, and um, I know when we get our the first one that we're going to turn loose on that would be the Pocket Mentor Neuro Companion, which is just to help people through, you know, sometimes the roughest days in in the world. They just need somebody to talk to. And and if it's 2 a.m. on a Saturday, you know, their company EAP program isn't available, or their um their best friend might not be available, and a professional's not going to be available until Monday. So what could we do just to help them through their days? So uh we're looking at models. So if somebody has uh some suggestions and ideas, otherwise, I would say, you know, come to our website, uh, you know, jump on, you know, click the little newsletter or remind me when uh button that all websites have today. And uh as we develop and release to the individual, uh, we'll certainly make you aware of that.
SPEAKER_01:Fantastic. So um, you know, this is a product that's still in development. It's um, you know, you're you're you're working at this and on this. What is the status of your rollout? Like um, when would a company or an individual, you know, obviously you got two different things. One is this version for the for the company or the, you know, like you're talking about your target. Um, and then second, you're talking about this pocket um version that would be more of an individual tool. What's what's your rollout looking like or or your projection or your thoughts?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the uh the freemium consumer model is uh still on the roadmap. Uh, we haven't uh launched that at this point, but the enterprise uh project uh and product has been launched. And we're all yeah, we're we uh we've we have successful implementations, we're in the process of implementing more and onboarding uh more companies and organizations. So uh yeah, it's it's a proven model, um, and we're happy that it is. And the reason that I'm I'm behind this uh driving force so much, uh you mentioned human-first AI. I truly believe that uh we need to put the humans first when AI is involved because we're at this fork in the road. And uh to uh you know uh leave Yogi Berra quote aside, right? Right, um, we're at this fork in the road where we can either augment humans to be the best humans they've ever been in life, which that would be the mental side of our health, right? To make us as better people, better humans. Or the flip side is everybody's seen the headlines. AI is uh replacing workforces, and that's not what we're looking to do. We want to make sure that we're using AI to improve that human, to make them irreplaceable, indispensable. Uh, because if otherwise we're gonna lose that outside the box thinking, and it's the human factor. We've all seen enough sci-fi out there when we take the human element out of a situation that we get locked in to just rote process and nothing new ever happens. So uh I really am pushing this human first AI, let's augment the humans. Uh, you know, sure, improve the production for the company, but make sure that the individuals uh that are that are building and creating have more opportunity to build and create, and they have those answers when they need them. Otherwise, we're gonna go down a dark path and that's not gonna be good for anybody.
SPEAKER_01:Exactly. We don't want to see that T100 coming down the road for any good reason, right? Um, well, Derek, as always, um, this has been a very interesting conversation. I look forward to hearing the future as this thing rolls out, especially uh for an individual like me to have access to something like this. Um, I always like to give you an opportunity to kind of wrap your thoughts up into a central uh parting shot for everybody, and then uh let us know the best way to get a hold of you and to learn more. And uh maybe uh some of our business owners would be interested in uh learning more about your enterprise system.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, absolutely. Thank you. So uh my thought on AI in general is don't be afraid of AI. You know, it's uh kind of like the internet. The internet was uh launched in 1989 publicly, but it really didn't hit the tipping point until 2006. So that was 17 years that of the inevitability. And if all of us would have jumped on that wave in the earliest, we all could have benefited the most. Right. Not necessarily implementing it, but at least understanding it. And the same way with AI here, you know, be cautious, ask your questions, you know, pro, make sure that things are being done the right way, but let's not bury our head in the sand. So that's that's the big part. And as far as what we're doing here, our human-first AI augmentation, um, we're we're driving this. It's our platform. We want everybody to benefit in in every way possible. Uh, our company is practicalai. I think our domain, you can find us at practicalai.app. That's dot app. And uh you can find my name on LinkedIn and feel free to reach out and make a connection there. And you mentioned uh my book that I have come out, Human First AI. Yeah, uh, everyone here, I'll give you the first chapter for free. Just go to uh humanfirstai.net and uh you can read that first chapter for free and get notified when it uh gets released on uh Amazon and other platforms.
SPEAKER_01:Beautiful. Well, Derek, this has been an intriguing conversation. I'm looking forward to learning more. Um, I'd like to welcome our guests back if you've got updates and and more information to share in the future. And uh just want to thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_00:Well, Joe, thank you and uh your audience uh so much. It's uh been my privilege. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01:Beautiful. This has been another edition of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumba, and I want to thank all of our listeners that make this show possible, and we will see you next time.
