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Building a Business That Builds Itself

Six Weeks to a New Foundation

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Teaching AI From the Inside Out

Hidden-Gem AI Tools

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Ask More Questions

ne of the most underrated professional skills has nothing to do with technology, leadership theory, or having the right degree. It is curiosity. The people I have learned the most from throughout my career are usually the people who ask the best questions. They want to know how something works, why a decision was made, what could be done differently, and what they might be missing. They are not afraid to admit

when they do not know something, because they are more interested in learning than appearing knowledgeable. Good questions uncover problems before they become expensive. They help leaders understand employees, customers, and markets more clearly. They challenge assumptions that may have gone unquestioned for years. Sometimes, one simple question can completely change the direction of a project.

Curiosity also leads to more in-depth conversation. As someone who spends a lot of time interviewing business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals, I am constantly reminded that nearly everyone has something interesting to teach you if you are willing to keep digging. The same principle applies outside of interviews.

Ask the longtime employee why a process works the way it does. Ask the new hire what surprised them. Ask customers what frustrates them. Ask someone in a completely different industry how they would approach your problem. And perhaps most importantly, ask yourself questions. Why are we doing this? Is there a better way? What am I assuming? What would I try if I were starting over?

You do not need to have every answer to be effective. In fact, the people who believe they already have all the answers are often the ones who stop growing. Stay curious. Keep asking questions. You never know which one will lead somewhere important.

Brady Drake Fargo INC! Editor

Brady Drake, Fargo INC! Editor

fargoinc@spotlightmediafargo.com

SEPTEMBER 2026 Volume 11 Issue 9

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rganization isn’t about perfection; it’s about efficiency. Every decision we make in our warehouse impacts the whole company across our team, our audiences, and our clients. Any company is only as good as its team! One thing I’ve learned in management over the last 10 years is that the work of a leader is not to control, but to coordinate. There are so many moving parts for even just one event. Having said that, we have made many procedures for every event to produce the same consistent environment, workflow, and accuracy for our team and clients. When guests walk into a venue and see a finished stage, they see the result of weeks, months, and sometimes years of planning. What goes unseen is the journey every piece of gear takes to get there—a process that begins and ends on the Livewire warehouse floor. Behind every successful production is a foundation built on organization, inventory accuracy, and careful prep work completed long before a truck ever hits the road. Livewire

By John Golembeck, Warehouse Lead, Livewire

A successful event starts with an organized warehouse. At Livewire, every lighting fixture, speaker, cable, power unit, and adapter has an assigned place. Accurate inventory records ensure the team knows what gear is available, where it is stored, and its working condition. Because our team inspects, tests, and re-kits equipment during de-prep, gear on our shelves is always show-ready, allowing us to load trucks efficiently without last-minute prep delays. For a smooth setup on site, road cases are packed systematically with clear labeling that identifies the contents and venue placement. When technicians unload, no time is wasted sorting through unmarked trunks or hunting for gear. Cases roll directly to their designated spots on the floor, cutting down setup time and keeping load-in running smoothly. By standardizing every step of the journey, Livewire technicians can focus on assembling the setup, fine-tuning systems, and running a flawless show rather than troubleshooting gear issues

under tight deadlines. When trucks roll back to the shop, the de-prep process begins. Equipment is checked in against the inventory system, cleaned, and inspected. Livewire ensures every kit retains all necessary accessories, power cables, jumpers, and mounting brackets before returning to its shelf. By managing the lifecycle of our gear with care, Livewire ensures every piece of equipment works properly the moment it turns on. Taking care of work behind the scenes allows every event to run seamlessly out in front. Whether you are planning a corporate conference, a festival, or a local community gathering, your event depends on reliable technical execution. Let Livewire handle the logistics and production details so you can focus on your guests. Visit us at livewirenow.com or reach out to our team today to get started.

By Brady Drake provided by Radiant Creative Homes

custom home rarely begins with a cabinet color or a line on a blueprint. It begins with a life in motion where children are dropping winter gear in the mudroom, friends are gathering around the kitchen island, quiet mornings beside a lake, or a room designed around a lifelong hobby. Those everyday details are where Radiant Homes begins. The Fargo builder’s philosophy is that a home should not force people to adapt to it. Instead, the architecture, function and construction should be organized around the people who will live there.

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That idea has guided the company since it was established in Fargo in 2012 as Radiant Creative Homes, LLC with President and Owner David Reid at the helm. Reid grew up in East Tennessee as the son of an architect, surrounded by conversations about design and construction. That exposure developed into an appreciation for homes in which creative ambition and technical execution strengthen one another rather than compete. Radiant’s work includes custom new construction, significant residential renovations and additions. Its service area generally extends about 65 miles from Fargo, with a focus on Fargo-Moorhead and the lakes region of Otter Tail and Becker counties.

Radiant does not treat custom building as a relay race in which an architect finishes a drawing, an interior designer makes selections and a builder is asked to assemble everything afterward. The company works with outside architects, interior designers, engineers and other specialists, helping clients assemble a team suited to the character and complexity of each project. Bringing those professionals together early is more than a communication preference. It allows design decisions to be evaluated for feasibility, construction method, budget and timing while ideas are still flexible. A dramatic staircase, expansive wall of glass or integrated wellness space may look effortless in the finished home, but only because structural, mechanical and material questions were resolved long before installation. Early builder involvement can also keep a client from becoming attached to a plan that cannot be constructed within the intended investment. As Reid has put it, “A custom home should be a source of pride, not a source of stress.” For Radiant, reducing that stress does not mean limiting creativity. It means giving creativity a structure strong enough to survive the journey from inspiration image to completed home.

- David Reid, President & Owner

FARGOINC.COM

Radiant divides its work into three phases:

The first begins with a budget study. A client may arrive with architectural plans, a collection of photographs or little more than a sketch and a list of priorities. The team studies the vision, identifies the major goals and develops an early investment range before design advances too far. The builder then helps guide design development, offering input on constructability and feasibility. Once plans are sufficiently defined, Radiant documents a detailed scope of work, gathers bids from prequalified trade partners and prepares a comprehensive proposal. That sequence matters because a low number is not useful when it leaves the homeowner uncertain about what has—and has not— been included. The familiar question, “What is the cost per square foot?” therefore has limited value on a truly custom project. Two homes with the same footprint can have dramatically different structural requirements, window packages, mechanical systems, architectural details, and finish levels. Radiant redirects the conversation toward cost versus value: -

What is included?

Where will the family feel the investment every day?

Which details should be protected, and where can the design be simplified without losing its intent?

Construction brings schedules, site coordination, client meetings and walkthroughs with the design team. Radiant says it provides regular updates on budget and schedule while monitoring labor and materials throughout the build. Its average new-home construction timeline is about 12 months, although size, complexity, finishes and the speed of owner decisions can affect it. Renovation timelines vary more widely. After completion, the company conducts a final orientation and introduces the homeowner to its warranty and service process.

SEPTEMBER 2026

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RTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IS NO LONGER SOMETHING BUSINESSES ARE PREPARING FOR—IT IS ALREADY CHANGING HOW WORK GETS DONE. ACROSS OUR REGION, COMPANIES ARE USING AI TO AUTOMATE REPETITIVE TASKS, BUILD NEW PRODUCTS, SERVE CUSTOMERS FASTER, AND RETHINK PROCESSES THAT HAVE EXISTED FOR YEARS. IN THIS ISSUE OF FARGO INC!, WE LOOK AT THE PEOPLE, BUSINESSES, TOOLS, AND IDEAS SHAPING THAT TRANSFORMATION.

FARGOINC.COM

SEPTEMBER 2026

By Brady Drake |

J. Alan Paul Photography

BUILDING A BUSINESS Two years after Chipp made branded AI chatbots accessible to small businesses, Scott Meyer is making a much larger bet: that AI can build software, run workflows and handle entire parts of a company—without asking business owners to become technologists.

wo years is a long time in artificial intelligence. It is long enough for a startup’s original pitch to sound like a description of another era. In May 2024, when Fargo INC! first profiled Scott Meyer and Chipp.ai, the company was easy to explain. Chipp let a business create a custom AI assistant, train it on company knowledge, wrap it in its own branding and share it with customers or employees. The company had roughly 2,000 unique users, and its most visible applications included lead generation, tutoring, strategy and internal knowledge. That product still exists. It is now the smallest part of the story. Meyer reaches for an iceberg to

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THAT BUILDS ITSELF describe what has happened since. The branded chatbot remains above the waterline—the familiar box where someone types a question. Beneath it, Chipp has been adding layers with agents that take action, workflows that run on schedules, systems that connect to company data and, now, autonomous developers that can build, deploy, monitor and repair software. “We just keep adding stuff underneath,” Meyer said. He sees AI’s business evolution in three stages. First came chatbots, which wait for someone to ask a question. Then came agents, which can complete tasks. Now, Meyer believes businesses are entering the autonomous stage, where a system can recognize that work needs to happen and begin without waiting for a person to prompt it.

That progression has changed both Chipp’s product and its ambition. Founded in 2023 by Meyer and technical co-founder Hunter Hodnett, Chipp now describes itself as a platform for building “autonomous companies.” By July 2026, the company reported more than 22,000 builders, 125,000 AI agents and 14 million conversations across those agents. Chipp entered this new phase with venture backing, having announced a $2 million seed round at an $11 million valuation in July 2025. What Meyer is building is no longer simply a better chatbot. It is an operating layer between a business and the growing number of AI models capable of doing its work.

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BUILDING A BUSINESS THAT BUILDS ITSELF

WHEN I ASK A QUESTION, I DON’T HAVE TO TRAIN IT OR UPLOAD FILES OR CREATE A PROJECT. IT’S ALREADY BUILT FOR THAT SPECIFIC USE CASE.”

THE LAYER ABOVE THE MODELS Chipp does not train its own foundational AI model. It sits above models from companies such as Anthropic, Google and OpenAI, allowing a business to choose which “brain” fits a task while keeping its own workflow, data connections, rules, and interface intact. Meyer compares that layer to a harness. A general-purpose AI tool works largely the same for everyone. The user must explain the situation, provide the right documents, define the desired outcome and repeat much of that context the next time. A Chipp application can be designed

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specifically for one logistics company, one clinic or one agency. It already knows which information it may access, which steps to follow, which actions it can take and when a person must approve the result. “When I ask a question, I don’t have to train it or upload files or create a project,” Meyer said. “It’s already built for that specific use case.” Meyer believes the underlying models are becoming commodities. One may be better at coding. Another may be more useful for research, writing or data analysis. Those advantages can change quickly. Chipp’s wager is that businesses will not want to rebuild their systems every time a new model takes the lead. The durable value will sit in the company’s memory, workflows, integrations and rules—and in the freedom to switch models without

reconstructing everything around them. That is also a pragmatic strategy for a company headquartered in Fargo. Chipp does not need to outspend the companies training the world’s largest models. It wants to become the layer that makes those models useful inside a real business. Meyer said the company currently processes about $130,000 a month in model usage across its customers. Chipp manages that access, gives customers an included amount of usage and charges for additional consumption with a platform fee on top. The figure is less interesting as an expense than as a signal. The intelligence underneath Chipp is already beginning to look like a utility. The business Chipp wants to own sits one layer higher.

CONTINUED

Andrew Stone Photography

THE THREE STAGES OF BUSINESS AI

1. CHATBOTS A chatbot waits for a person to ask a question. It can provide information, draft content or help someone think through a problem, but the interaction begins with a human prompt.

NO-CODE WAS NOT THE FINISH LINE Meyer has spent much of his career translating new technology for people who do not live inside it. He co-founded the digital marketing agency 9 Clouds before moving into entrepreneurship and higher education. He later taught emerging technologies to developers and built FiveMin.AI around helping ordinary people put artificial intelligence to practical use. Chipp’s original mission—“AI for All”— fit that pattern. But the meaning of access has changed.

2. AGENTS An agent can perform a task based on a schedule or trigger. It might prepare a report every Monday, update content or complete another recurring process without requiring a new prompt each time.

3. AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS An autonomous system continuously monitors what is happening and initiates work on its own. In software development, that could mean recognizing a bug, attempting a repair and escalating the problem only when human judgment is required. Meyer believes businesses are moving rapidly from the first stage toward the third.

In 2024, access meant no-code: give a nontechnical person an easy builder and let that person create the tool. As Chipp expanded from chatbots into agents, integrations and custom software, customers started giving Meyer a different answer. “They just want it done,” he said. A business owner may be capable of prompting an application into existence. That does not mean the owner wants to spend days learning a platform, testing edge cases, connecting data and preparing the application for employees or customers. Increasingly, Chipp is doing that work for the customer. Its team builds and launches the system, then hands it back so the company can operate, maintain and improve it through conversation. “They want to get it live and then maintain it with prompting rather than starting from scratch,” Meyer said.

This “done-for-you” model is more than a service add-on. It corrects one of the technology industry’s favorite assumptions, which is that making a tool easier to use means everyone will want to become a builder. Most people do not want to build AI. They want the proposal sent. They want the patient followed up with. They want the data reconciled, the report updated, the customer answered, or the software fixed. The next step in making AI accessible may be removing the building step entirely. Meyer is also candid about where Chipp does not add much value. For a solo user handling one-off tasks, he recommends a general-purpose tool such as Claude or ChatGPT. Chipp becomes more useful when a team needs the same process performed the same way. “If it’s just you trying to do stuff, I would just use Claude or ChatGPT,” Meyer said. “Chipp is better for a team than one person.”

CHIPP BECAME ITS OWN CASE STUDY The boldest proof of Chipp’s autonomous-company thesis is Chipp itself. Meyer said the company went from five people to two and then grew fourfold. In a July 2026 investor brief, Chipp said its two founders were shipping 20 to 30 production deployments per day through autonomous developers that pick up tickets, write code, test changes, and push them live. That does not mean Meyer spends his days watching a business run without him.

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BUILDING A BUSINESS THAT BUILDS ITSELF

His role has shifted toward oversight, exceptions and growth. Each done-for-you customer has a Slack channel. Chipp’s agents work inside those channels, and Meyer monitors them for stalled tasks, client requests or new features that require approval. Around that triage, he handles onboarding, sales calls, and demonstrations. His workday sounds less like managing a conventional software department and more like directing air traffic with watch the systems, intervene when judgment is required and keep new business moving into the network. “I kind of have this hovering on the side,” Meyer said. “Then I’m doing a lot of onboarding and sales and demos.” This is the distinction Meyer wants businesses to understand. Autonomy does not necessarily remove people from a company. It changes where they spend their time. The machine handles more execution. The human decides what deserves to be built, which tradeoffs are acceptable and when the system should stop.

THE SIX-WEEK REBUILD The clearest customer example is Valor Victoria, a West Fargo logistics company that helps move intermodal freight and gives customers visibility into containers as they travel from ports to rail lines and inland destinations. In that world, predictability has a price. Air freight can deliver quickly and reliably, but rail is significantly less expensive. The challenge is knowing

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CONTINUED

ASKING THE “BUSINESS BRAIN” Meyer describes one of Chipp’s central concepts as a “business brain.” Imagine a command center containing a company’s financial results, sales activity, growth metrics and operational data. Instead of opening several programs and assembling the information manually, a leader could ask a question such as:

Why did revenue increase yesterday? The system could review the connected data, explain what changed and allow the user to act on the answer. If an overdue payment affected the numbers, the leader could ask the system to send a reminder. If a sales opportunity stalled, it could create a follow-up task. The goal is to place a conversational layer over tools such as a company’s CRM, email, calendar and financial systems. Employees would not simply receive answers from the AI. They could use the same conversation to initiate work.

where a container is, where it may be delayed and whether it will reach its destination on time. Valor Victoria built its business around bringing order to that uncertainty, coordinating inland shipping and giving customers better visibility into their supply chains. The company had also built software to organize that complexity. According to Chipp’s published case study, Valor

BUILDING A BUSINESS THAT BUILDS ITSELF

Valor Victoria’s previous platform took three years and $1.2 million to build. Chipp’s autonomous development system rebuilt the foundation of Valor Victoria’s platform in approximately six weeks. The company has continued refining the system in the months since, progressively transitioning operational workflows from manual processes toward AI-assisted and autonomous execution. The shift has allowed Valor Victoria to reduce its engineering operation from nearly 20 developers to one.”

enough to keep but poorly enough to drain the business.

That does not make autonomous development universal.

In the past, rebuilding it may have required another multimillion-dollar project, a large development team and years of work. Chipp believes autonomous development can compress that process into weeks.

Chipp’s own materials say its Alchemist Cloud system currently builds web applications on a prescribed technology stack and requires access to usable data through an API, database or authenticated portal. It is not yet a fit for native mobile applications or projects contractually locked into another stack.

The same economics could open software creation to smaller businesses.

The transformation also produced significant financial efficiencies, dramatically reducing the resources required to develop and maintain the platform.

Consider a consultant or instructor who has historically sold expertise through coaching, a course platform or a downloadable guide. Building custom software around that method may never have been financially realistic.

For Meyer, Valor Victoria represents the ideal legacy-software customer: a company with an old, expensive or unwieldy system that works well

Meyer believes that expert can turn the process into a product. Instead of selling hours, the person can sell software that performs the method.

The company also cautions that “self-healing” does not mean infallible. The system repairs what it can resolve safely and escalates judgment calls to a human engineer rather than guessing. Those limits matter.

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The more work a system can do without asking, the more important it becomes to define where it must ask.

CONTINUED

YOU CAN DECIDE HOW MUCH HUMAN IN THE LOOP YOU WANT. MOST PEOPLE START BY APPROVING EVERYTHING. ONCE THEY TRUST IT, THEY LET GO OF SOME OF IT.”

A COMPANY YOU CAN TALK TO Meyer often describes Chipp as a “business brain.” The idea begins with a command center—a dashboard that brings together performance, growth and financial data. Instead of opening separate applications and hunting for answers, a leader could ask, “Why did revenue rise 5% yesterday?” Chipp could analyze the connected data, explain what changed and then act on the answer—sending a reminder to an overdue customer, updating a forecast or creating a follow-up task. “It’s the conversation layer on top of everything else,” Meyer said. “I can just talk to all this stuff in one place instead of having to jump around.” In healthcare, the same concept can begin with an audio recording of an appointment.

The system can transcribe the conversation, draft a letter for a parent, prepare a referral note for a dentist and create structured information for the patient chart. One human interaction creates a waterfall of administrative work. The doctor or staff member can still review each output before it leaves the system. Healthcare has become an important market for Chipp because the company offers security and compliance controls for regulated workflows. Its documentation says it holds business associate agreements for eligible Google Gemini and Anthropic Claude models. HIPAA compliance depends on how a system is configured and used. Voice, transcription, memory and other supporting services may involve different providers and require additional review. Turning on a compliance setting does not automatically make an entire workflow compliant.

That caveat is not a weakness. It is a reminder that “compliant AI” is a system-design question, not a button a company can press and forget. Meyer recommends that customers begin with a person in the loop. Approve everything. Watch how the system behaves. Learn where it is dependable and where it needs better instructions. Then remove approvals selectively as trust grows. “You can decide how much human in the loop you want,” Meyer said. “Most people start by approving everything. Once they trust it, they let go of some of it.” Autonomy, in this model, is not an on-off switch. It is a series of decisions about how much authority to delegate.

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BUILDING A BUSINESS THAT BUILDS ITSELF

THE WORK THAT REMAINS HUMAN Chipp’s growth makes the workforce question impossible to avoid. If a two-person company can produce the output of a much larger software team, and if a customer can reduce an engineering operation from 25 people to one, what happens to the work that disappears? Meyer does not claim to know a company personally that operates with no employees. He also does not frame the change as every job vanishing at once. He sees tasks separating from roles. “If your job is to move information— either taking information up to the C-level or getting information from the C-level down to the team—that’s where your job is at risk,” Meyer said. “There’s no need to have people help

FOUR MORE WAYS BUSINESSES ARE USING 1. BUILDING PROPOSALS

3. TURNING INTERVIEWS INTO CONTENT

Meyer described an agency using AI to pull information from sales conversations, prepare proposals and return them to clients. The process became so fast that the agency began building in a delay before sending the proposals because an immediate response could reveal how heavily the work had been automated.

An interview recording can become more than an article transcript. The same conversation can be used to prepare and schedule social media posts across several platforms.

2. CREATING PERSONALIZED CURRICULUM TNT Fitness was beginning to use Chipp to develop curriculum for schools around the country, with material personalized to the students or needs inside a particular classroom.

SEPTEMBER 2026

4. RUNNING RECURRING WORKFLOWS An AI agent can prepare weekly reports, update content, copy edit material or complete other recurring tasks based on a schedule rather than waiting for a person to initiate each assignment.

move information anymore.”

THE NEXT LAYER

The distinction he draws is between moving information and creating something that requires judgment, taste, trust, or human energy.

Meyer believes every company will become autonomous in some form within the next 18 months.

AI is already strong at code, numbers, summaries and structured transformations. Meyer expects people to remain important longer in sales, where a buyer often wants another person to listen, react and build confidence. That line will continue to move. Yet Chipp’s own operating model suggests that the near-term future is not a company without humans. It is a company with fewer people performing repetitive coordination and more people handling goals, relationships, exceptions and judgment. Those are not automatically easier jobs. They require a business to know its processes well enough to formalize them—and its values well enough to decide what should never be automated.

For one business, that may mean an AI system reschedules appointments. For another, it may check billing, prepare proposals, monitor software or run most of an operation with one person overseeing it. Companies will choose different levels of autonomy, but Meyer believes nearly all of them will choose some. The prediction is aggressive, and, easier to see. Meyer’s career has been one long exercise in translation. The technology keeps changing, but his question has not: How do ordinary people and businesses gain access to capabilities that once belonged only to specialists?

ambitious: let people describe the business, connect the data and decide the guardrails—then let the software build, act, monitor and repair. That is a harder product to build and a harder promise to keep. It is also the bet beneath Chipp’s familiar chat window. The companies that benefit most may not be those with the largest engineering teams. They may be those with the clearest processes, the best judgment and the discipline to decide what should—and should not—run on its own. For Meyer, “AI for All” no longer means everyone becomes a programmer. It means fewer people have to.

chipp.ai

In 2024, Chipp’s answer was to let anyone build a custom chatbot.

/chippdotai

In 2026, its answer is more

@chippdotai

FARGOINC.COM

By Brady Drake |

Andrew Stone Photography

SIX WEEKS TO A NEW FOUNDATION F

or years, Ashley Ritteman tried to build the technology Valor Victoria needed.

The West Fargo-based company does not simply arrange transportation for freight. It tracks containers moving through a complicated network of ports, rail terminals, ocean carriers, railroads, and trucking companies—and intervenes when the original plan is no longer likely to meet the customer’s goals. That work requires people to monitor scattered information, recognize developing problems, and act before a delayed container becomes a stopped production line or an empty space on a retailer’s shelf. Traditional logistics software could provide pieces of that visibility, but Ritteman needed something more proactive. She wanted technology capable of understanding how Valor Victoria operates and carrying out the tracking workflows her team

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had developed through years of experience. Valor Victoria invested millions of dollars and more than six years working with software engineers in the United States and India. At one point, according to Chipp.ai Founder Scott Meyer, approximately 25 developers had been involved in the effort. Yet the technology available at the time was not capable of reliably scaling around the complexity of Valor Victoria’s operation. Then Ritteman began working with Meyer and Fargo-based Chipp.ai. Chipp’s autonomous development system rebuilt the foundation of Valor Victoria’s platform in approximately six weeks. The company has continued refining the system in the months since, progressively transitioning operational workflows from manual processes toward AIassisted and autonomous execution.

“It allowed us to speak plainly to the agents and build a reliable system,” Ritteman said. The contrast is striking, with years of conventional software development condensed into weeks of working with AI. However, the story is not simply about producing software faster. It is about pairing new technology with the specialized knowledge Ritteman has spent her career developing.

BUILDING ORDER WITHIN THE CHAOS Ritteman’s interest in freight movement began long before artificial intelligence became part of the conversation. She earned a master’s degree in agribusiness and applied economics from North Dakota State University, where she studied under longtime agribusiness professor and mentor Dr. Bill Wilson. She later worked for BNSF Railway during the Western

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Ashley Ritteman North Dakota oil boom, gaining firsthand experience with the movement of frack sand into the region and agricultural products out of it. The work exposed her to one of the structural challenges facing freight transportation in rural America. Imported goods naturally move toward large population centers. Export products, including many agricultural commodities, frequently originate in rural regions. That creates an imbalance where the places producing goods for export are not necessarily the same places receiving enough imported containers to support efficient twoway rail service. North Dakota illustrates the problem. Much of the state’s imported freight is fragmented among individual businesses and arrives by truck from larger distribution centers such as Chicago or Minneapolis.

Without concentrated import volume, railroads have less incentive to stop and unload containers locally. Exporters can then struggle to access the equipment and service needed to ship products efficiently. Valor Victoria was created to help bring order to that system. The company coordinates the inland movement of containers for major importers, exporters, manufacturers, retailers, and freight consolidators. Although its roots and headquarters are in North Dakota, much of its work occurs on cross-country routes such as Los Angeles to Memphis, Seattle to Atlanta, and Los Angeles to Baltimore. Valor Victoria develops relationships across the transportation chain to gain a clearer view of what is happening at ports and rail terminals. When congestion, equipment shortages, or another disruption threatens a shipment, the company can identify alternatives and help

redirect the freight. That intervention can carry consequences far beyond whether a container arrives a few days late. A manufacturer waiting for a critical component may be forced to slow production or furlough workers. A major retailer can lose a valuable shelf-space commitment if inventory fails to arrive. In those moments, container tracking becomes a form of business continuity. Valor Victoria’s services may be offered as a surcharge through one of its ocean-carrier partnerships or incorporated into the price of a traditional brokerage move. In either model, the objective is to monitor the shipment closely enough to respond before a transportation problem becomes a customer crisis.

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SIX WEEKS TO A NEW SUPPLY CHAIN

THE WORK HUMANS COULD NOT SUSTAIN The challenge was scale. Tracking and tracing freight involves information dispersed across emails, portals, carrier updates, and other systems. A person can spend hours moving between those sources, checking the status of individual containers and determining whether any require action. Valor Victoria employed people to perform that work full time, but Ritteman said the volume could still overwhelm the available human capacity. The company had accumulated nearly a decade of workflows and institutional knowledge, yet its existing software efforts could not translate that

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experience into a sufficiently reliable automated system. Chipp.ai offered a different approach. Meyer describes the development of modern AI in three broad eras: chat, reasoning, and autonomy. Chat-based tools answer questions. Reasoning systems can examine information and make more sophisticated decisions. Autonomous systems can work toward a defined goal, complete tasks, and continue through a process without requiring a human to provide every individual instruction. Chipp.ai sits above multiple large language models and allows businesses to create private systems built around their own data, knowledge, and workflows. Rather than forcing a company to conform to a generic piece of software, the platform is designed to help the software conform to the business.

In Valor Victoria’s case, that meant turning its established tracking processes into autonomous workflows. AI agents can now monitor the communications and information moving among different links in the supply chain. They can recognize when a container has arrived, identify developing disruptions, and surface situations requiring intervention. Human team members remain responsible for the judgment, relationships, and higher-level decisions, but they no longer have to manually complete every repetitive step required to reach those decisions. Ritteman estimates the new system has returned approximately three hours to her day. She can redirect that time toward customers, strategy, and growing the company.

SIX WEEKS TO A NEW SUPPLY CHAIN

The transformation also produced significant financial efficiencies, dramatically reducing the resources required to develop and maintain the platform.

EXPERTISE IS STILL THE ADVANTAGE The speed of the rebuild could make it tempting to conclude that AI has eliminated the need for deep industry expertise. Ritteman believes the opposite is true.

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Artificial intelligence can execute and scale a strong process, but someone must first understand what the process should accomplish. The system needs the context to distinguish an ordinary update from an emerging threat and to understand why one transportation alternative may better serve a customer than another.

from Wilson, which is “Specialize, specialize, specialize.”

That context came from Ritteman’s education, railroad experience, and years of managing freight.

AI then becomes a force multiplier for that expertise.

Her advice to other entrepreneurs echoes guidance she received

Rather than trying to serve every possible market, she recommends becoming an expert in a foundational industry with long-term importance. For Ritteman, that industry is the movement of commercial freight across the United States.

ABOUT VALOR VICTORIA Valor Victoria is a womanowned company founded in 2016. They are proud to be one of the few businesses in the international supply chain with this characterization. It all started with the goal of opening America’s interior exports to the rest of the world. Now, the company has transformed into serving and expanding all parts of the inland supply chain to make sure shipments can reach their final customers regardless of location.

Ritteman encourages business owners interested in autonomous systems to preserve robust records of their operations. Meeting transcripts, process explanations, and decision logs can help an AI system understand the language, priorities, and accumulated knowledge of a company. The better the source material, the less time a founder must spend repeatedly explaining the same context. She uses AI in her own learning as well. As an auditory learner, Ritteman has tools to synthesize complicated information from meeting transcripts and read summaries aloud. She can then test her understanding of unfamiliar subjects, including areas such as raising capital, while continuing to bring her own judgment to the material.

FOLLOW VALOR VICTORIA valorvictoria.com /valorvictoria

FARGOINC.COM

The Math Behind the Missing Calves 701x Turns Death Loss into Dollars

die 2.4 calves per year!

million

Photos provided by 701x

omewhere between the maternity pen and the packing plant, nearly 2.4 million calves disappear from the U.S. beef supply every single year. Not misplaced on a ledger. Dead — lost to dystocia, scours, pneumonia, predators, and the hundred other issues that happen when a 1,200-pound cow calves alone in a pasture nobody's watching at 3 a.m. It's a problem that's always existed in cattle ranching. But it's never mattered this much.

As of January 1, 2026, the U.S. cattle herd fell to 86.2 million head—the smallest national inventory in 75 years[1]. The beef cow herd specifically dropped to 27.6 million head, its lowest point since 1961[2]. And the 2025 calf crop—the industry's raw material for the next two years of beef production—came in at just 32.9 million head, down 520,900 head from 2024 and the smallest calf crop since 1941[3]. Herd rebuilding, when it eventually starts, takes years to show up as market-ready cattle. In the meantime, ranchers are fighting over a shrinking pool of calves with historically few tools to grow that pool faster. That's what makes death loss such an urgent, and solvable, piece of the puzzle.

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Where the Calves Go USDA's National Animal Health Monitoring System has tracked calf mortality for decades, and the numbers tell a consistent story in two acts. Act one: birth to weaning. USDA's most current annual accounting puts this figure higher than older estimates suggest. USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that 1,975,200 calves died in the United States in 2024 out of a 33,529,500-head calf crop — a national calf death rate of 5.9 percent, following a 6.1 percent rate the year before[4]. That's a meaningfully higher rate than the 3.6 percent birth-to-weaning loss recorded in USDA's last full-scale mortality census in 2007–08[5]—a sign the problem has gotten worse, not better, in the years since. Applied to the 2025 calf crop of 32.9 million head, a 5.9 percent death rate means roughly 1.94 million calves lost before they ever reach the weaning pen.

steer at roughly $2,550 a head[7]. Multiply that against 2.44 million lost calves, and the beef industry is watching more than $6.2 billion in potential value die in the pasture and the feedlot every single year—money that never reaches a rancher's bank account, never shows up as beef on a shelf, and never helps close the supply gap the entire industry is fighting right now. Death loss isn't the only leak in the system. USDA's most recent cow-calf management study found that 93.5 percent of cows and 83 percent of heifers produced a calf in a given year[8]—meaning roughly 6.5 percent of cows and 17 percent of heifers came up open (not pregnant) at the end of the breeding season. Applied to today's 27.6 million-head beef cow herd, that's nearly 1.8 million cows nationally that ate, drank, and occupied pasture for a full year without producing a single calf. Cut that open rate in half—from 6.5 percent down to 3.25 percent—and roughly 897,000 more cows become pregnant nationwide. That's enough additional calves to nearly erase last year's entire 520,900-head calf crop decline in a single breeding season. In an industry starved for supply, that's not a marginal improvement. That's a meaningful step back toward herd rebuilding, without waiting years for it to happen naturally.

Act two: weaning to the packer. USDA-NAHMS reports average feedlot death rates of 1.4 percent for small feedlots and 1.6 percent for large feedlots—and independent data out of Kansas shows the monthly feedlot death rate for steers more than doubled between 1992 and 2017, climbing from 0.70 percent to 1.74 percent[6]. Applying a conservative 1.6 percent rate to the roughly 30.96 million calves that survive to weaning adds another 495,000 head lost on the way to slaughter. Add the two together, and the beef industry loses close to 2.44 million calves a year—before they ever generate a dollar of revenue. At today's prices, that's not a rounding error. Feeder cattle are averaging $364 per hundredweight for 750–800 pound calves in 2026, putting the market value of a 700-pound

continued> FARGOINC.COM

The 701x Solution This is precisely the gap 701x's ecosystem of smart ear tags is built to close. The xTpro tag—a satellite-connected, GPSenabled ear tag built for cows and bulls—delivers location, health alerts, and estrus and bull-mounting detection, and calving alerts, priced at $175 per tag9. The xTlite tag, a lightweight wireless tag designed for calves, runs $20 per tag and pairs with nearby xTpro tags to track calf location, health alerts, nursing behavior, and send missing-calf alerts[9]. 701x recommends one xTpro tag for roughly every ten xTlite tags in a herd.

6.2

billion

lost in potential earnings every year

Run the math on a typical 100-cow operation, and the return on investment writes itself many different ways. The tags pay for themselves with one saved calf. Tagging 10 xTpro units and 90 xTlite units costs roughly $3,550. At today's ~$2,550 average calf value, catching just 1.4 calves that would otherwise have been lost—one missed dystocia alert flagged in time, one wandering newborn found before dark—recovers the entire year's tag investment for the whole herd. You don't need to beat the industry's death loss rate—just chip away at it. Each $20 xTlite tag only needs to save 1 calf out of every 128 it protects to pay for itself, against a national calf death rate of 5.9 percent—nearly 7.5 times the rate a tag needs to hit to break even. 701x doesn't need to solve calf mortality completely to deliver a return; it just needs to catch a fraction of what's already happening on autopilot. The ecosystem compounds—it doesn't just save calves, it makes more of them. Beyond loss prevention, xTpro's estrus detection and bull-mounting analytics are aimed squarely at the open-cow problem. USDA's most recent data puts the industry-average open rate at 11.75 percent—a blend of 6.5 percent for cows and 17 percent for heifers. If a 100-cow operation cuts that average open rate in half, from 11.75 percent down to 5.875 percent, that's roughly 6 additional calves born per year—worth $15,000 or more in added weaned-calf revenue—against a one-time tag investment of $3,550. That's better than a 4x return in year one alone. Sources: [1] Drovers, "U.S. Cattle Inventory Hits 75-Year Low at 86.2 Million Head," Jan. 30, 2026. https://www.drovers.com/news/industry/u-s-beef-herd-continues-downward-862-million-head [2] AGDAILY, "U.S. cattle inventory dips again as herd rebuild remains slow," Feb. 2026. https://www.agdaily.com/livestock/u-s-cattle-inventory-dips-herd-rebuildremains-slow/ [3] University of Florida IFAS, "Annual Cattle Market Update: January 2026." https://rcrec-ona.ifas.ufl.edu/media/rcrec-onaifasufledu/pdf/2026_01_AR.pdf [4] USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, "Meat Animals Production, Disposition, and Income — 2024 Summary," April 2025 (calf inventory/death balance-sheet tables). https://esmis.nal. usda.gov/sites/default/release-files/02870v85d/pv63hx709/k356c2658/meatan25.pdf [5] USDA APHIS, "Mortality of Calves and Cattle on U.S. Beef Cow-calf Operations," NAHMS Beef 2007–08 study. https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/default/files/beef0708_dr_partiv.pdf [6] Buda, M., Raper, K.C., Riley, J.M., Peel, D.S., "Structural change in feedlot cattle death loss rates," Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 2023. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2023.1087080/full [7] Live Stock Farm USA, "Feeder Cattle Prices Surging in 2026 — And What It Means for Buyers." https://livestockfarmusa.com/feeder-cattle-prices-2026/ [8] University of Florida IFAS Extension, "Analysis of the USDA's 2017 Cow-Calf Management Practices Results: Part 2 — Breeding Practices/Reproductive Technologies" (AN379). https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/AN379 [9] 701x Marketplace (official tag pricing). https://marketplace.701x.com/ Note: Head counts, dollar totals, and ROI examples (e.g., total calves lost, total dollar value lost, open-cow head counts, per-operation ROI math) are calculations applying the cited USDA/industry rates to current USDA herd and calf-crop figures. They are original calculations for this piece, not standalone USDA statistics.

SEPTEMBER 2026

By Brady Drake |

provided by Applied Digital

THIS IS WHAT

APPLIED DIGITAL

HAS TO SAY

We understand that AI data centers in the region have generated controversy, so we decided to ask Applied Digital— the company behind Polaris Forge 1 in Ellendale and Polaris Forge 2 near Harwood—some questions. This is what they’re saying.

Q&A WITH NICK PHILLIPS, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF EXTERNAL AFFAIRS AT APPLIED DIGITAL

Q: WHAT WORK WILL GO TO LOCAL CONTRACTORS? A: We have electrical, mechanical,

concrete, security, logistics, various types of engineering, and many other types of work that are being performed by contractors and subcontractors from Fargo and the surrounding areas.

Q: WHAT NEW TRAINING PROGRAMS WILL BE NEEDED? Q: HOW MANY PERMANENT JOBS WILL IT PRODUCE, AND WHAT WILL THOSE JOBS PAY? A: The Polaris Forge 2 campus

in Harwood, ND, is expected to generate 200 full-time jobs with an average salary greater than $65,000.

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A: In the short term, we’re

completing much of our training in-house by utilizing highly skilled workers in electrical, mechanical, facilities maintenance, IT, security, and other trades and giving them specific information surrounding our specific facilities. However, many of these trades are short on workforce.

We’re hopeful that existing programs in the state, from electrical to HVAC to welding and other trades, will increase in popularity among workers looking to earn a good living and that over the coming years we can work with these trade schools, colleges, and universities to grow more data center-specific curriculum over time.

Q: HOW MUCH TAX REVENUE COULD BE GENERATED? A: This project is already generating significant increases in sales tax collections for the City of Harwood for purchases that we make, but it’s still early in the project. The Polaris Forge 2 project in Harwood, ND will certainly be the largest property taxpayer in the city, and likely in the county. In Ellendale, North Dakota, our total property taxes for 2026

CONTINUED

are roughly $4,300,000, and we anticipate that once construction is completed, taxes there will be near $12,000,000 per year, making that project one of the single largest property taxpayers in the state. Harwood is a smaller project than Ellendale, but it’s still expected to contribute several million dollars per year in total property taxes. Combined with our other projects in state, we anticipate that Applied Digital is likely to be the largest single property taxpayer in North Dakota in the coming years.

Q: WHAT DOES THE PROJECT MEAN FOR CASS COUNTY ELECTRIC, MINNKOTA AND THE REGIONAL GRID? A: Applied Digital recently committed to an over $112,000,000 infrastructure upgrade to the region. This infrastructure upgrade will support our facilities and also add much needed growth in grid assets nearby. Beyond this, Applied Digital has a large load, which is currently

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THIS IS WHAT APPLIED DIGITAL HAS TO SAY

approved at a peak 280MW more than doubles the existing load of Cass County Electric, which is now a peak of 270MW. This increase in total load is expected to put downward pressure on prices for other consumers in the area due to our coverage of fixed costs related to the grid, which is charged based on how much power each consumer uses. In Ellendale, ND, this has resulted in millions of dollars of savings to other ratepayers around the state.

Q: WHAT DOES THE COMMUNITY NEED TO KNOW ABOUT CHANGES TO THE LOCAL INFRASTRUCTURE? A: Applied Digital is funding grid

improvements that benefit the whole region, which is a huge benefit to all electrical customers. Beyond this, we

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anticipate attracting other businesses to the area and believe our presence will help lead to other broader improvements as well.

applieddigital.com

Q: WHAT ARE THE RISKS FOR RATEPAYERS AND NEARBY COMMUNITIES?

/applied-digital-co

A: From a ratepayer perspective, for

both water and electricity, the risks are low. The utilities, regulators, and Applied Digital are fundamentally opposed to shifting costs that result from our projects onto others, and in fact we’ve seen our projects save ratepayers money. From a wider viewpoint, there is more impact from our projects during construction due to traffic, but we work closely with the local authorities to help mitigate these risks.

/APLDdigital @applied_digital

By Brady Drake |

provided by Mobile Pro

obile Pro has spent years producing live events where the technology has to work the first time. Now, through Pro Install, the West Fargo company is bringing that same show-day experience to permanent audio, video and lighting systems for businesses, churches and event venues across North Dakota and Minnesota. “We’ve spent years walking into other people’s rooms on show day and fixing what wasn’t built right the first time,” Mobile Pro CEO Brian Bestge said. “Pro Install is what happens when the people who run events under pressure get to design the system from the start.” That live-production experience is the difference. Mobile Pro’s team operates professional systems at more than 200 events each year, giving it firsthand knowledge of what holds up under pressure, what

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fails at the worst moment and what inexperienced operators struggle to use. At the North Dakota Safety Council’s Safety + Health Conference, for example, the team managed pre-show preparation and made adjustments while the event was underway—the same practical perspective it now brings to every installed system. Pro Install begins with how a room needs to function, then carries the project through system design, equipment selection, wiring, installation, programming, commissioning and user training. The result is a permanent system built around the people who will operate it and the outcome the organization needs. “We take ownership of the outcome,” Bestge said.

Instead of beginning with a list of equipment, the team begins with questions: Business owners do not necessarily need to know which display, processor, microphone, or lighting fixture should be specified. They need to know what they want the room to accomplish.

A worship service runs through a permanent Pro Install system designed to make dependable audio, video and lighting easier for the Cormorant Lutheran Church’s tech booth volunteers to operate. With Pro Install, church volunteers can run the system confidently without depending on one technical expert for every service.

Once those outcomes are defined, Mobile Pro can build the technology around them.

livestreaming system that can be operated by a volunteer—or supported remotely when a volunteer is unavailable.

That may mean a corporate media wall that feels like part of the architecture rather than a collection of screens bolted to a wall. It may mean an event space where the lights dim, the display turns on and the audio routes correctly through a simple preset. In a church, it may mean a sound and

Starting with the outcome also helps protect the investment. A room can contain impressive technology and still fail to serve the organization that paid for it. The right system is not the one with the longest equipment list. It is the one that reliably does what the organization needs it to do. CONTINUED

FARGOINC.COM

Ease of use is one of the primary reasons organizations invest in a professionally integrated system. Employees, volunteers and renters should not need an IT director beside them every time they turn on a microphone or begin a presentation. Mobile Pro can program systems so common functions are available through straightforward controls, including wallmounted touchscreens or tablets. A user can select the type of event or presentation taking place and allow the system to handle multiple functions behind the scenes. That simplicity matters because organizations change. Employees leave, volunteers rotate and outside groups rent spaces. When critical knowledge lives with one person—the only person who understands the system—every event depends on that person being available.

A simplified iPad interface gives the church’s team one place to manage the room’s audio, video and lighting.

A well-designed installation replaces that vulnerability with repeatable processes. It gives the organization a dependable technological baseline regardless of who happens to be in the room.

Installation is only the beginning of the relationship. Mobile Pro includes training and can provide ongoing service after the system is commissioned. Depending on the organization’s needs, that support may include periodic check-ins, remote troubleshooting, event-by-event backup, or on-site assistance for higher-stakes occasions. Because many system issues can be addressed remotely, Mobile Pro may be able to log in, diagnose the problem and help get an event back on track without waiting for a technician to arrive. The company has already used that capability to support church systems, including microphones and livestreaming, when an organization did not have someone available to fill the technical role. Behind the scenes, the new rack consolidates the church’s AV infrastructure into one organized, supportable system.

ELEVATE YOUR NEXT EVENT

SEPTEMBER 2026

For business owners and venue operators, that support creates continuity. It also helps ensure the system remains properly configured over time instead of gradually becoming less reliable as settings change, components are added, or knowledgeable users move on.

mobileproduction.net

/mobileprofargo

In a conference setting, Pro Install gives presenters a polished, reliable environment while keeping the technology simple for staff to operate.

may be able to use the installed system without bringing in a full production package, while larger or more complex events can still call on Mobile Pro for additional equipment, creative content and production support. Mobile Pro’s move into installation is a natural extension of what its team encounters in live production. When the company enters a venue for an event, the quality of the existing system can vary dramatically. Speakers may not be tuned for the room. Audio delays may be incorrect. Connections may be unreliable. A system may appear capable on paper but fail when a large audience arrives. Those experiences give the Mobile Pro team a practical understanding of what installed systems must do under real conditions. The company works with audio, video and lighting every day—not only as equipment, but as the infrastructure behind the audience’s experience.

That creates flexibility. The same room can be simple enough for a community meeting and robust enough to scale for a major corporate presentation. The installed system handles the everyday needs; professional production support remains available when the stakes or complexity increase. For a free quote for your system connect, with Pro Install at quote@mobileproduction.net or give them a call at 701-356-7770.

For venues, a capable permanent system can also make the property more useful and marketable. Smaller gatherings

@mobile_pro_fargo

/mobile-pro-fargo

(701) 356-7770

FARGOINC.COM

By Brady Drake |

provided by NDSU

TEACHING

FROM THE INSIDE OUT

rtificial intelligence is already changing how companies write, code, analyze information, and automate everyday tasks. However, as businesses race to adopt the technology, many are still trying to understand what these systems actually do, where they are most useful, and what can happen when their output goes unchecked. North Dakota State University is preparing students and working professionals to answer those questions through an expanding lineup of AI education. In fall 2026, the university is launching a specialized artificial intelligence major that will build upon its existing AI minor, data science curriculum, and certificate offerings.

Simone Ludwig

SEPTEMBER 2026

Unlike programs focused primarily on using the latest tools, NDSU’s degree is designed to help students understand how AI systems are created, why they behave the way they do and where they are likely to fail. Coursework will explore large language models, computer vision, ethics and the theoretical foundations behind the technology. In the following conversation, NDSU faculty members Simone Ludwig and Sean Whalen discuss what will distinguish the new degree, the career opportunities it may create and why every organization using AI still needs knowledgeable people reviewing its work. They also explain why polished writing should not be mistaken for accurate information—and why businesses should view AI as a powerful tool rather than an unquestioned authority.

Sean Whalen

CONTINUED

Q: HOW LONG HAS THIS PROGRAM BEEN AT NDSU? Simone: We are just rolling out the AI program now for the fall. We have had a minor in AI for three years, I believe. We have also had a data science track as part of our bachelor’s degree in computer science for maybe six years, and AI is part of that track as well. We also have a certificate in AI that we launched a year or two ago. Students throughout the university can take it, so it is a nice, entry-level AI certificate.

Q: WHAT ARE STUDENTS GOING TO GAIN FROM HAVING A MAJOR AS OPPOSED TO A MINOR AND COMPLETING THAT LONGER STRETCH OF COURSEWORK? WILL IT BE MORE SPECIALIZED? Simone: It is a specialized degree. We have our bachelor’s degree in computer science, which is very general and is still our flagship degree. In recent years, we have added degrees in software engineering, data science, information technology, and cybersecurity. Now, we are rolling out the AI degree. We are hoping we can attract more students, especially because AI is being used everywhere nowadays. Sean: It will be interesting to see because there is obviously some pushback from the younger generation as well. The hope is that now, if you have a degree specifically focused on AI and go into it in depth, you will have a particular set of courses that gives you an understanding of how AI is created and how it works. You could take many of these courses as electives while pursuing

a computer science degree. This degree simply means you have chosen a specific set of courses. The required courses go into large language models, which have become the main thing everybody talks about when they talk about AI, and computer vision, which is not quite as popular but is frankly more commonly deployed right now. Those are the two main technologies we are focusing on.

Q: DID YOU SAY COMPUTER VISION? Sean: Yes. For example, when you log into your phone using Face ID, that is a computer vision task. That is literally one of the examples I use during the course I am creating. How does that work? What is it using? How do we do that? Self-driving cars are another great example of a computer vision task. Facial recognition on your phone or camera is computer vision. A Ring doorbell identifying that a person was there, as opposed to simply giving you eight hours of uninterrupted recording, is another example. Computer vision is more ubiquitous and operates more at the infrastructure level, but it has not gained the notoriety that LLMs have. Those are the two technologies that serve as the expansion courses for the AI degree.

Q: THROUGH THIS DEGREE, WHAT JOBS DO YOU SEE BECOMING AVAILABLE FOR STUDENTS? Simone: Job titles are changing all the time, and I think more of them are now geared toward AI and actually spell it out. Employers want an AI developer or someone who can do work involving AI or LLMs. There

NDSU’S GROWING AI EDUCATION OPTIONS Artificial Intelligence Major Launching in fall 2026, the specialized degree will explore the theory, development and application of AI systems. Artificial Intelligence Minor The university has offered an AI minor for approximately three years, allowing students in other majors to supplement their primary field of study. Data Science Track AI has also been included within the data science track of NDSU’s computer science bachelor’s program. AI for All Careers Certificate Designed as an accessible introduction, the certificate does not assume students have a computer science background and is available to working professionals as well as traditional students.

is definitely demand for a specialized degree. Students who are taking the computer science degree and have a minor in AI will also be very well equipped after taking these courses. However, this is a very specialized degree that really focuses on AI. It is more theoretical. AI degrees are popping up all over the place,

FARGOINC.COM

TEACHING AI FROM THE INSIDE OUT

THREE TERMS TO KNOW Hallucination An answer generated by AI that sounds plausible but contains false, invented or unsupported information. Human in the Loop A process in which a person reviews, approves or corrects an AI system’s output before it is used. Vibe Coding A development approach in which a person describes what they want software to do and relies heavily on an AI coding assistant to generate the code. The approach can make development faster, but the resulting code still requires knowledgeable review and testing.

but many of them focus only on the application side of things. We still have the foundations, and then, of course, we have the applications too. I think that is a major distinguishing factor of our degree. Sean: I would place much more emphasis on understanding the systems. There is some discussion of how you use them, and we are incorporating that into some of our lower-division courses as well. However, the courses I am creating are more about understanding exactly how these systems are created so that you know when they should and should not be used. We have this tool, and various people are saying everybody should be using an LLM, but you need to be very careful about when you should use it and when it can actually benefit you. I am pushing the courses in that direction so students can understand how the systems are created and exactly where they fail and succeed. Then, if they have a choice, they can determine whether an LLM would be beneficial.

SEPTEMBER 2026

Q: WOULD YOU SAY THAT IS THE MAIN DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HAVING A PROGRAM GROUNDED IN THEORY AND ONE GROUNDED ONLY IN APPLICATION? Sean: Yes. The theory goes through how the systems were created. There are historical reasons why certain things are done and how they were developed. The big emphasis on the theory side is understanding how they were created so that, once you know the tool you are using, you know how best to apply it. I love the term “automagic.” When you see a lot of computer programming from the outside, it is automagic. It just kind of works, and you hope it continues to work. The point of the upper-division courses in this degree is to move beyond that. You are not going to understand every implication of every decision within a 200-layer system. The AI companies do not understand all of that either. However, you can get an idea of how a system was designed, what its likely properties are, how you go about building it, what issues developers are encountering, and why it takes a couple of billion dollars to train one of these models.

Q: ARE THE STRENGTHS, WEAKNESSES AND LIMITATIONS SIMILAR ACROSS ALL THE MAJOR LLMS THAT EVERYDAY PEOPLE ARE USING? Sean: That is a big question. It is a matter of levels. One issue with many of the new large language models from various companies is that everybody has trained them on the entire internet. We vacuumed that up years ago. From a practical perspective, the difference between the various LLMs—whether you should use OpenAI, Claude or another model— comes down to what additional information they trained on and what they focused on. Until maybe the middle or end of last year, LLMs were always trying to be a general solution to everything. The main application now is coding or other specific tasks. With the frontier models, it really comes down to which company had which training data and what it focused on. In terms of more general failures, yes, they all fail. One thing I have been telling anybody who will listen is that LLMs think very syntactically. They love patterns in speech, but they do not think semantically. They have

CONTINUED

At that level, all of them fundamentally have the same problem.

Q: WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU HAVE FOR COMPANIES OR INDIVIDUALS USING LLMS?

LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS VS. COMPUTER VISION Large language models may receive most of the attention, but they represent only one major branch of artificial intelligence. Large Language Models LLMs identify patterns in language and generate text that resembles human writing. They can assist with drafting, coding, summarizing and organizing information, but they do not inherently know whether their output is true. Computer Vision Computer vision allows systems to interpret images and video. Common examples include Face ID, facial recognition, self-driving vehicle systems and doorbell cameras that distinguish people from hours of ordinary footage.

no concept of whether something is right. They have a concept of whether something looks right. There is a famous research paper called “Stochastic Parrots” that argues for this idea. Another way I have heard it phrased is that they are “sentence calculators.” They create something that looks like a valid, grammatically correct sentence, but that sentence may or may not actually have meaning.

Simone: You have to be careful. You always have to verify whatever you ask ChatGPT or another application to do. Do not trust it all without verification. In our computer science world, a computer can produce code, but if nobody understands and can verify the code, many things can happen, including dangerous things. It is really important for people to be careful and ask whether the output is correct. They may need to go back and check the sources as well because a lot of hallucination is happening. Sean: I think of them as accidental evil genies. You can ask them for what you want, but they may totally misinterpret it. They are not doing it maliciously. You have to realize that they are essentially looking down a whole bunch of different dialogue trees. When you ask a question, you are hoping you get one of the trees that leads to the right answer, but you have no guarantee that will happen.

make absolutely no sense. There are human biases built into that. We tend to like and skip over things that sound very fluent. It is a bias we have. It is legitimately difficult to read random, non-fluent sentences out loud. Because of that, we have biases in how we interpret data. An LLM can create something that looks very fluent to us, and our bias then says, “That’s good. I don’t have to look at it too closely.” As humans, we generally learn the substance of a topic and then learn how to say it fluently. An LLM does not necessarily work that way. If businesses are going to deploy an AI system—and everybody seems to be deploying one in some manner— they need somebody on the other end who can identify where the problems are. There are really two aspects to that. One is knowledge of the field. You can get output, but you need someone with knowledge of the field to know whether that output is correct. The other is knowledge of how AI systems are likely to fail. Ideally, I would have at least two people involved: one who is a subject-matter expert and one who has knowledge of LLMs.

I agree with what Simone said. No output from AI should go forward without someone verifying it. That is called having a “human in the loop.”

Q: YOU MENTIONED THAT DANGEROUS THINGS CAN HAPPEN WHEN SOME OF THIS GOES UNCHECKED. DO YOU HAVE ANY SPECIFIC CASE STUDIES THAT YOU DISCUSS WITH STUDENTS THAT READERS MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN LEARNING ABOUT?

The more knowledgeable that person is, the better. LLMs create very eloquent sentences that may

Simone: We have two dedicated ethics classes. Usually, our degrees require only one, but for AI, we

That is how you get hallucinations. The way you ask the question or the extra information you provide may light up a portion of the network that does not contain what you are looking for.

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TEACHING AI FROM THE INSIDE OUT

doubled down and have a course specifically on AI and ethics. I do not teach that course, but I know we use case studies. Sean: It depends on the degree of damage you are looking for. I can definitely give you some examples. I did my Ph.D. in privacy and machine learning, so there is a lot of overlap. I have a slideshow of horrible situations involving AI. For LLM-specific examples, there have been several that are almost darkly humorous. One of the big evangelists for AI, LLMs and vibe coding recently had an AI system delete his entire home directory— essentially all the documents on his computer.

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There was another example in which an AI deleted an entire production server from an actual working company. The company lost customer information from the last several years. Those examples should be available through a quick Google search, and they occurred within the last six months. There are older examples involving AI more generally rather than LLMs.

Q: I ASSUME LLMS ARE WHAT MOST OF OUR READERS WOULD BE FAMILIAR WITH. Sean: If you are dealing with a business audience, they probably will not care as much about the distinction. I would focus on the

examples from the last six months. There was the production server deletion. Meta’s chief AI officer also reportedly had an AI delete her entire email inbox. That was, I believe, in March. I have been putting off creating the lecture about where we are headed in the future because what that lecture would have said when I started in January is very different from what it would say now—even compared with three weeks ago. The newest systems have become notorious for deleting production systems, to the point that one model’s white paper reportedly says it has a tendency to delete things.

CONTINUED

Q: IS IT DIFFICULT TO STRUCTURE COURSES THAT FOCUS MORE ON APPLICATIONS WHEN THE MAIN PROGRAMS PEOPLE ARE USING KEEP CHANGING AND RELEASING UPDATES?

THE TWO-PERSON AI CHECK Before an organization uses AIgenerated work, Sean Whalen recommends having at least two knowledgeable people review it. 1. The Subject-Matter Expert This person understands the industry, assignment or technical field well enough to determine whether the output is factually and professionally correct. 2. The AI-Savvy Reviewer This person understands how large language models behave, including their tendency to hallucinate, misinterpret instructions and produce confident-sounding errors.

Ultimately, the biggest issue with LLM failures is capability. People assume an LLM is much more capable of taking autonomous action than it is, and then they do not monitor it. If a chatbot simply said, “Delete the entire database,” I could ignore that output. However, if the chatbot is plugged into another program that can automatically take actions when it sees instructions structured in a certain way, you can suddenly have a deleted database.

Sean: I am not as involved in that portion. The biggest application emphasis is data engineering. From what I have seen when discussing the courses with others, they are mostly using AI through chatbot integration. Because we are computer scientists, that often means AI coding assistants. Those systems change, but the changes are almost invisible to users. It may simply be a drop-down menu that determines which model is responding to you. In my courses, even when I go into particular systems, I focus more on foundational concepts. We run local LLMs rather than worrying about the differences among the latest ChatGPT settings. I focus on making sure students understand the fundamental ideas and theory. That is easier to do using slightly older models that we do not have to pay for. There can be some problems, but we mostly deal with the invisible aspect of the changes. Students may be using VS Code, for example. If VS Code changes which chatbot is technically answering when they ask it to write a small snippet of code, that is largely invisible to them—unless it suddenly starts producing worse output. So far, AI has not reached the point where the entire paradigm changes every three years. It follows more of the traditional software-as-a-service model. We do not have enough money to maintain racks of GPUs

to run the equivalent of ChatGPT or Claude ourselves. One of those racks can cost a couple of million dollars. In that regard, we are still essentially dealing with a chatbot and its integration into other systems.

Q: DO YOU USE LLMS? WHAT DO YOU MOSTLY USE THEM FOR? Simone: I am the chair of the department, so I have to do a lot of letter writing and recommendations. English is not my first language, so I use LLMs to polish my sentences. For research, I use them a little to pull together information about a particular topic area, but that is basically it. I mostly use them for writing because they can write much better than I can. Sean: I am a native English speaker, and they can write better than I can in certain regards. Honestly, I have been using them to help create my courses. If you think about it, the systems have ingested a large number of university courses. If you ask one to produce something that looks like a university course, it does a pretty good job as a first draft. Again, I would never trust anything automatically. Nothing goes straight from the LLM to the students. You have to verify it, tweak it and incorporate your own ideas. It is very good at creating text once you know what you want it to say and can verify that it is saying it correctly. I can have an idea and describe it in six sentences, and a chatbot can turn those six sentences into something resembling 20 minutes of PowerPoint slides or rephrase it in a more fluent manner. The issue with chatbots has never been whether they can say something fluently or even

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TEACHING AI FROM THE INSIDE OUT

eloquently. You just have to make sure what they are saying is accurate. My brother is also a professor at another school, and one of his coauthors used an LLM to help produce a mathematical proof. They obviously checked the proof, but the system was very good at producing that first draft, and the proof was correct. There are many applications for LLMs for anybody who has to produce text.

Q: WHAT ELSE DO YOU THINK THE BUSINESS COMMUNITY SHOULD HEAR? ALSO, IS THE CERTIFICATE AVAILABLE ONLY TO CURRENT STUDENTS, OR COULD A WORKING PROFESSIONAL ENROLL? Simone: A working professional can sign up for the certificate or a graduate program. We have a number of certificates available at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. If someone has schooling in another area but wants to strengthen their AI knowledge for the business they run, they can absolutely take it.

Q: IN THAT SCENARIO, WHAT COULD SOMEONE WHO RUNS A BUSINESS OR IS ALREADY WORKING AS A PROFESSIONAL GAIN FROM THE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM? Simone: It is an introduction to what AI is. The first course covers the entire AI spectrum, not only the LLMs everybody is talking about, which I think is nice. We also cover the ethical aspect and have a communications course through the communication department. Then, we have a onecredit self-study course in which we ask students to write a report about how AI is used in their field, whatever that field may be. It will be beneficial because it exposes students to different AI programs. They also have to write a little code, or ask AI to write some code, and then run it. We do not assume students have any computer science background. It really is for everyone. We originally wanted to call the certificate “AI for Everyone.” The first course is called “AI for Everyone,” but the certificate itself is called “AI for All Careers.” That is what the provost wanted, so that is what we ended up with.

LEARN MORE ABOUT NDSU’S AI PROGRAM BY SCANNING THE CODE! /ndsu.official @ndsu.official /north-dakota-state-university

SEPTEMBER 2026

BEFORE YOU USE AI OUTPUT NDSU faculty recommend asking these questions before relying on anything produced by an AI system: ∙ Is the information factually correct? ∙ Can the claims be traced to trustworthy sources? ∙ Does a knowledgeable person understand and approve the output? ∙ Did the system answer the question that was actually asked? ∙ Could an incorrect response create financial, legal, operational or safety risks? ∙ Does the AI have permission to access or change the connected files and systems? ∙ Is a person still responsible for the final decision? Fluent writing can create a false sense of confidence. An answer may sound polished while still being incomplete, misleading, or entirely wrong.

By Brady Drake

HIDDEN-GEM

TOOLS

ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot, and the other major platforms receive most of the attention, but some of the most useful artificial intelligence products are designed for much narrower jobs. They help researchers verify scientific claims, turn interviews into organized notes, clean podcast audio, create technical diagrams, automate browser work, analyze spreadsheets, or run private AI models on a local computer.

AI TOOLS FOR:

RESEARCH, EVIDENCE AND FACT-CHECKING ELICIT Elicit is built for people who need to investigate a research question rather than merely search for a few articles. It can locate relevant papers, help researchers screen them, extract information into structured tables, and produce evidence-based reports. It is especially useful for researchers, health writers, policy teams and journalists working through a large body of academic literature. Best For: Structured literature reviews elicit.com

CONSENSUS Consensus searches academic literature and synthesizes findings from peerreviewed research. A user can ask a natural-language question—such as whether a business practice

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improves productivity or whether an intervention has measurable benefits—and receive a response connected to the underlying studies. It is a useful bridge between a traditional academic database and a conversational assistant. Best For: Getting research-grounded answers to direct questions consensus.app

SCITE Scite’s most distinctive feature is its system of “Smart Citations.” Instead of showing only that one paper cited another, it identifies whether the later citation supports, disputes, or simply mentions the original claim. Its assistant can also answer questions using research literature, making Scite particularly valuable when a study sounds impressive but needs additional scrutiny. Best For: Checking whether research has actually held up scite.ai

SCISPACE SciSpace helps users explain passages, examine research methods, explore citations, conduct literature reviews, and work through technical papers. It is useful for readers who need more than a summary and want assistance understanding the language, tables, methodology, and implications of a study. Best For: Reading and understanding complicated academic papers scispace.com

UNDERMIND Undermind positions itself as an AI research partner that searches more deeply than a conventional keyword tool. It can analyze full papers, including details contained in figures and methods sections, and is designed to find relevant studies that may not use the exact terminology in the original query. That makes it useful for emerging, interdisciplinary, or narrowly defined research topics. Best For: Finding obscure or difficult-tolocate research undermind.ai

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GENSPARK

GRANOLA

Genspark combines research agents with tools for generating documents, presentations, spreadsheets and other outputs. Its strength is not simply answering a question; it is carrying a broader assignment through several stages, such as gathering information, organizing it and turning it into a usable deliverable.

Granola captures meeting audio from the user’s device and combines the transcript with notes the user takes during the conversation. It can then organize the material into summaries, decisions, and action items. Its bot-free design makes it especially appealing for interviews and smaller conversations where adding an automated meeting participant could feel intrusive.

Best For: Turning research into a finished deliverable

Best For: Meeting notes without an obvious bot joining the call

genspark.ai

EXA

granola.ai

WISPR FLOW

Exa is primarily aimed at developers rather than everyday searchers. It provides semantic search, content retrieval and structured web-research tools that applications and AI agents can use. Its Websets product can find, verify, and enrich collections of companies, people, or other entities, making it useful for market research, lead generation, and custom AI products.

Wispr Flow allows users to dictate inside other applications rather than moving to a separate transcription program. It removes verbal clutter, adjusts formatting, and turns conversational speech into cleaner, ready-to-use text. It is useful for emails, messages, notes, article drafts, and anyone who can explain an idea faster than they can type it.

Best For: Giving AI agents a better way to search the web

Best For: Replacing typing with natural speech wisprflow.ai

exa.ai

AI TOOLS FOR:

MEETINGS, WRITING AND KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

SUPERWHISPER Superwhisper offers voice dictation across Mac, Windows, and iOS, with a combination of local and cloudbased models. It supports more than 100 languages and can be

configured for different writing tasks. Its local-processing options make it especially interesting for users who want greater control over where their recordings and text are processed. Best For: Flexible voice-to-text with offline options superwhisper.com

LEX Lex is an AI-native word processor rather than a general chatbot. It includes writing assistance, feedback, checks, reusable prompts, style guidance, and knowledge bases. Its focused interface can be more useful than drafting inside a chatbot when the writer needs to revise, structure and manage a substantial document. Best For: Writers who want AI inside a focused writing environment lex.page

TYPE.AI Type.ai is designed around longer writing projects such as novels, screenplays, essays, and books. It can maintain notes about characters, settings, story details, and other persistent information while helping with drafting and revision, Best For: Books, scripts and long-form creative projects type.ai

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HIDDEN-GEM AI TOOLS

TANA Tana combines note-taking, meeting capture, structured information and AI agents inside a connected knowledge system. Information can be organized as reusable objects rather than isolated pages, allowing a meeting note to connect automatically with the relevant person, project or assignment. It is powerful, although its flexibility can require more setup than a traditional notes application. Best For: Connecting meetings, notes, people and projects tana.inc

Its Ghostreader assistant can summarize a document, explain a passage, define terminology, translate text, generate newsletter blurbs and answer questions without forcing the reader to leave the document. Best For: Reading articles, PDFs, newsletters and documents in one place

gumloop.com

AI TOOLS FOR:

WORKFLOW AUTOMATION AND AI AGENTS LINDY

Capacities organizes information around objects such as people, books, meetings, ideas, and projects. Its AI features can help users interact with and develop the information stored in that system. It is a strong option for users who find folders too rigid but do not want to manually construct a complicated knowledge graph.

Lindy allows users to create agents that work with email, calendars, meetings, and other business systems. It can be used for inbox management, scheduling, follow-ups, meeting preparation, and custom multistep processes. Its interface is intended to make agent building accessible without requiring a software-development team.

Best For: Visual, object-based personal knowledge management

Best For: Building an AI executive assistant lindy.ai

capacities.io

Readwise Reader brings articles, PDFs, EPUBs, newsletters, RSS feeds, videos, and other material into a unified reading environment.

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Best For: Visually building AI-powered workflows

readwise.io

CAPACITIES

READWISE

research, document processing, lead enrichment, content operations or internal data movement. Its visual design makes complex processes easier to understand than a collection of disconnected prompts.

GUMLOOP Gumloop provides a no-code environment for connecting models, applications, and structured workflow steps. A company can use it to automate

RELEVANCE AI Relevance AI focuses on building “AI workforces” composed of specialized agents. One agent might research prospects, another draft outreach, and another update a system of record. It is more ambitious than a conventional automation builder and is best suited to organizations with a clearly defined, repeatable process. Best For: Creating teams of specialized AI agents relevanceai.com

LUTRA Lutra translates natural-language instructions into code-based workflows. It can research information, enrich data, process documents, send messages, and work with connected applications. The code-based approach is intended to make repeated runs more predictable than relying on an open-ended agent to improvise the entire process each time.

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Best For: Converting plain-English instructions into dependable automations lutra.ai

BARDEEN Bardeen combines browser automation with AI agents. It can collect information from webpages, perform structured research, populate business systems, and move data between applications. It is particularly useful for tasks that still involve copying information from websites into spreadsheets, customer databases, or internal tools. Best For: Automating repetitive browser work

STACKAI StackAI provides a no-code environment for building enterprise agents and AI-powered applications. It is positioned for organizations that need security, governance and controlled connections to company information. Common uses include internal knowledge assistants, document processing and business-process automation. Best For: Secure internal AI applications stackai

AI TOOLS FOR:

DATA, ANALYTICS AND SPREADSHEETS

bardeen.ai

ROWS N8N n8n combines traditional workflow automation with AI models and agents. It can be self-hosted, connected to a large number of services, and extended with code when a visual workflow is not enough. Its naturallanguage assistant can also help construct and test workflows, but n8n remains most valuable to users willing to understand the underlying process. Best For: Technical teams that want control over automation n8n.io

Rows combines spreadsheet functions with an AI analyst, data integrations and reporting tools. Users can ask questions about data, extract information from documents, generate formulas and build reports without leaving the spreadsheet environment. It is a practical bridge between Excelstyle work and more advanced analysis. Best For: People who want AI inside a familiar spreadsheet rows.com

HIDDEN-GEM AI TOOLS

JULIUS AI Julius allows users to upload spreadsheets and other datasets, then ask questions in ordinary language. It can clean data, build visualizations, conduct statistical analysis, forecast outcomes, and expose the code behind its work. That last feature is important for analysts who want to inspect how a result was produced. Best For: Conversational analysis of uploaded data julius.ai

BRICKS Bricks is designed to transform spreadsheet and CSV data into charts, dashboards, reports and other visual outputs. It is particularly useful for users who possess the data but do not have the time or design expertise to build a polished reporting package manually. Best For: Turning a spreadsheet into a presentation-ready dashboard thebricks.com

QUADRATIC Quadratic offers a spreadsheet-like canvas that can use formulas, AI, Python, SQL and JavaScript. It gives technical users the flexibility of code while preserving a visual grid that nontechnical collaborators can follow. It is well suited to exploratory analysis and work involving live data sources.

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Best For: Combining spreadsheets with Python, SQL and JavaScript quadratichq.com

AI TOOLS FOR:

DESIGN, DIAGRAMS AND VISUAL COMMUNICATION

SOURCETABLE Sourcetable uses a spreadsheet interface for data analysis, modeling, reporting, and dashboard creation. Its assistant can help generate formulas, analyze information, and create business models. The platform is aimed at users who want advanced analytical help without moving into a full programming environment. Best For: Finance and operations teams seeking an AI spreadsheet sourcetable.com

HEX Hex combines notebooks, data connections, applications, and natural-language analysis. Analysts can use SQL and Python while business users interact with the results through more accessible interfaces. Its AI tools are designed to work with an organization’s actual data and analytical context rather than producing an isolated answer. Best For: Collaborative analytics across technical and business teams hex.tech

NAPKIN AI Napkin AI converts written ideas into diagrams, flowcharts, timelines, mind maps, comparisons, and other visual structures. The results remain editable and can be exported in formats such as PNG, PDF, SVG, and PowerPoint. It is especially valuable for presentations, magazine sidebars, reports and social graphics that need to explain a concept rather than merely decorate a page. Best For: Turning text into publication-ready explanatory visuals napkin.ai

RECRAFT Recraft is built with professional design work in mind. It supports raster images, illustrations, icons, mockups, and editable vector graphics, including production-ready SVG output. Its style controls and design-oriented environment make it particularly useful for creating a coordinated family of assets rather than a single attractive image. Best For: Brand-conscious image and vector generation recraft.ai

CONTINUED

KREA Krea brings image generation, editing, enhancement, video, and 3D tools into a single creative workspace. Its real-time generation system allows a user to sketch or change an input and watch the resulting visual evolve immediately. This makes it useful during early concept development, when speed and experimentation matter more than producing one final image. Best For: Real-time visual experimentation krea.ai

MAGNIFIC Magnific specializes in enhancing resolution, texture, and perceived detail. Users can adjust how creatively the system interprets an image, ranging from conservative enhancement to more substantial reinvention. It can rescue small or soft images, although highly creative settings may add details that were not present in the original. Best For: Upscaling and adding detail to existing images

suited to e-commerce, consumer products, and social advertising where many backgrounds, formats, or seasonal versions are required. Best For: AI product photography flair.ai

Flair.ai helps brands place product images into generated scenes, create advertising compositions, and produce variations without arranging a traditional photoshoot for every asset. It is best

Best For: Developing an entire video from an initial idea ltx.io/studio

ERASER Eraser combines collaborative documents with diagram-as-code and AI diagram generation. It can help create architecture diagrams, flowcharts, entity-relationship diagrams, and technical documentation from natural-language descriptions. Because the diagrams remain structured, they are easier to revise than a flat generated image. Best For: Technical diagrams and system documentation

HIGGSFIELD Higgsfield emphasizes camera motion, visual effects, character consistency, and cinematic shot creation. Its controls make it useful for creators who want to specify how a virtual camera should move rather than simply asking for a generic video. Best For: Cinematic movement and controlled AI shots higgsfield.ai

eraser.io

KATALIST

AI TOOLS FOR:

VIDEO CREATION AND REPURPOSING

magnific.com

FLAIR.AI

platforms for filmmakers, agencies, and marketing teams that need continuity across multiple shots.

LTX STUDIO LTX Studio approaches AI video as a production process rather than a single prompt. It can help move from a concept or script into scenes, characters, storyboards, shots, and an editable sequence. It is one of the more useful

Katalist can turn written scripts into storyboards and videos while attempting to maintain consistency among characters and scenes. It is valuable for advertising concepts, explainers, short narrative projects, and preproduction planning before a team commits to a full shoot. Best For: Converting a script into a visual storyboard katalist.ai

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HIDDEN-GEM AI TOOLS

OPUSCLIP OpusClip analyzes longer recordings and identifies segments that could work as standalone short-form content. It can reframe footage vertically, add captions, and organize clips for social distribution. The tool is useful for podcasts, webinars, interviews and presentations that would otherwise require hours of manual review. Best For: Finding short social clips inside long videos opuspro.com

VIZARD Vizard also converts long-form video into shorter clips, with tools for identifying moments, reframing speakers and preparing social-ready output. It is a practical option for teams that regularly publish interviews but do not have a dedicated editor available for every recording. Best For: Rapidly repurposing interviews and webinars vizard.ai

JUPITRR Jupitrr is designed for creators who already have a spoken recording but need supporting visuals. It can add B-roll, captions, hooks, music, and other editorial elements to talking-head footage. This makes it useful for experts, educators, and business owners who can record a message

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but do not want to build the entire edit manually. Best For: Rapidly repurposing interviews and webinars

AI TOOLS FOR:

AUDIO, PODCASTS AND VOICE

vizard.ai

AUPHONIC TAVUS Tavus develops conversational video agents that can appear to hold live, face-toface interactions. It can also create personalized video experiences using approved digital replicas. Potential applications include onboarding, education, customer support, and sales. Best For: Interactive AI video representatives

Best For: Automatic podcast and interview post production auphonic.com

tavus.io

CREATIFY Creatify can use a product URL or uploaded information to generate scripts, voiceovers, avatars, and videoad variations. It is designed for performance marketers who need to test many creative directions without filming each version separately. Best For: Generating video ads from a product page creatify.ai

Auphonic handles loudness normalization, audio leveling, noise reduction, filtering, metadata, and publishing. It does not try to replace an entire professional audio workstation. Instead, it automates the repetitive technical cleanup that can make a podcast or interview sound substantially more consistent.

WONDERCRAFT Wondercraft combines voice generation, editing, and production tools for advertisements, audiobooks, podcasts, voiceovers, and video. It is useful when a team has written content but needs to turn it into polished spoken media in multiple voices or languages. Best For: Producing narrated content from a script wondercraft.ai

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HUME AI Hume develops voice models and interfaces designed to respond with more emotional expression than conventional textto-speech systems. Its APIs can be used to build voice agents that detect aspects of a speaker’s expression and respond in a more natural manner. The technology is especially relevant to customer experiences, coaching, and interactive applications. Best For: Expressive conversational voices

AIDER Aider works directly with a local Git repository and allows a developer to ask an AI model to edit code, explain a project, run checks, and assist with implementation. Its command-line approach appeals to developers who prefer to stay close to their existing tools and version-control workflow.. Best For: Pair programming from the terminal

CLINE Cline is an opensource coding agent that works in an editor and terminal. It can inspect files, write code, execute commands, and use browser tools, but its approval system allows the developer to review actions before they occur. It also supports a wide range of model providers rather than locking the user into one model. Best For: Developers who want visibility and control over an AI agent cline.bot

AI TOOLS FOR:

PRIVATE AND LOCAL AI LM STUDIO

OPENHANDS

CODING AND APP BUILDING

dyad.sh

aider.chat

hume.ai

AI TOOLS FOR:

Best For: Building an application locally without being trapped in one platform

OpenHands is an open platform for coding agents that can plan, write, and apply changes across a codebase. It supports autonomous cloud agents as well as a local visual Agent Canvas for running multiple coding agents. The emphasis is on completing an engineering assignment rather than suggesting the next line of code. Best For: Delegating complete softwaredevelopment tasks

LM Studio allows users to discover, download, and run open models locally through a desktop interface. It also offers local APIs and development tools, while its newer Bionic agent can work on documents, presentations, software, and other assignments using local or cloud models. Best For: Running and testing AI models on a personal computer lmstudio.ai

JAN

openhands.dev

DYAD Dyad is a local, open-source AI app builder. Users describe an application, select an AI model, and receive working code that they can inspect, export, and continue developing. It supports cloud models as well as local models through tools such as LM Studio and Ollama.

Jan is an opensource alternative to cloud-only AI assistants. It can run models on the user’s hardware or connect to cloud providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic. It is a strong entry point for someone who wants local AI without beginning entirely from a command line. Best For: An open-source, locally operated chatbot experience jan.ai

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HIDDEN-GEM AI TOOLS

ANYTHINGLLM AnythingLLM combines local models, document retrieval, workspaces, and AI agents in a desktop application. Users can create private knowledge bases, ask questions across their files and give agents access to selected tools. Its desktop edition is intended to minimize the configuration normally required for local document-based AI. Best For: Privately chatting with documents and building local agents anythingllm.com

OPEN WEBUI Open WebUI is a self-hosted platform that can connect to local models and cloud providers. It supports knowledge bases, tools, agents, extensions, and team controls. It is more technical to deploy than a consumer chatbot, but it gives organizations much greater authority over model access and where the interface runs. Best For: Giving a team one self-hosted interface for many models openwebui.com

OLLAMA Ollama provides a straightforward way to run language, reasoning, vision, coding, and embedding models locally. It includes a large model library and APIs that

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other applications can use. It is one of the most useful foundations for local AI, even though many everyday users have never encountered it directly. Best For: Quickly downloading and running open models

for both traditional and AI-driven search. Best For: Managing content operations and visibility in AI search airops.com

ollama.com

METAVIEW

AI TOOLS FOR:

MARKETING, SALES, HIRING AND TRAINING LAVENDER Lavender analyzes sales emails and provides feedback on clarity, personalization, length, and other factors connected to reply performance. Its focus is narrower than that of a general writing assistant, which is its advantage: it is specifically designed to coach sales representatives while they write. Best For: Improving outbound sales emails lavender.ai

AIROPS AirOps combines content workflows, brand context, AI agents and tools for tracking whether a company appears in answers from platforms such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. It can help identify content gaps, refresh existing pages and coordinate the production of material designed

Metaview records and organizes candidate interviews, generating structured notes, summaries, and recruiting reports. Unlike a general meeting assistant, its templates and workflows are designed around candidate evaluation, job requirements and hiring-team collaboration. Best For: Recruiting-specific interview documentation metaview.ai

YOODLI Yoodli creates AIpowered roleplays and provides feedback on communication. Individuals and teams can practice sales pitches, job interviews, public speaking, management conversations and other high-stakes interactions in a private environment before facing the real audience. Best For: Practicing presentations, interviews and difficult conversations yoodli.ai

RILLA Rilla records, transcribes, and analyzes face-to-face sales conversations. Its “virtual ridealong” approach is aimed at industries in which sales happen in homes, showrooms, or field locations rather than on Zoom. Managers can review conversations and provide coaching without physically accompanying every representative.

Best For: Turning an expert’s body of work into an interactive digital presence delphi.ai

AI TOOLS FOR:

EVERYDAY PRODUCTIVITY AND TRAVEL

Best For: Coaching in-person sales teams rilla.com

DELPHI Delphi creates what it calls a “Digital Mind” from an individual’s approved content, ideas, and expertise. The resulting assistant can answer audience questions using that person’s knowledge and style. Potential users include authors, speakers, coaches, business owners, and educators who repeatedly answer similar questions.

MINDTRIP Mindtrip combines conversational planning with destinations, hotels, flights, restaurants, attractions, maps, and itinerary management. Instead of returning only a written list, it helps users organize recommendations into an actual trip. Its flight tools also incorporate real-time pricing and availability across hundreds of airlines. Best For: Building an actionable travel itinerary mindtrip.ai

Ultimately, AI can make your workflow faster, more efficient, and easier to scale—but it works best as a tool, not a replacement for human judgment. By understanding its limitations alongside its strengths, you can use AI to handle repetitive tasks, spark new ideas, and free up more time for the work that requires creativity, strategy, and a personal touch.

By AL Hanninen, Service Team Member ou are not just another policy with us. We help all walks of life: individuals, families, businesses, and farmers, focusing on their world. Because of DJ’s educational background, he focuses on an education-first mindset by leading with questions to help identify what really matters to YOU. It’s not just another policy but a PLAN. Risk management isn’t one-size-fits-all. Our job is to help you understand which coverages apply and where there may be gaps to ensure that everything you have worked for is protected not only for today, but when you need it most. Whether you’re just getting started or have years under your belt, we’d love to help you protect what matters!

We are here to Educate, Empower, and Equip our clients to make decisions that make the most sense for their life. We start by taking insurance up a notch; by unlocking a space for elite coverage conversations, understanding the WHY, and taking the time to ask the right questions, we can put a plan into action and play out possibilities. We WIN when our clients come in with questions and leave with answers. We WIN when our agency is the first to hear about the exciting life changes (new car, first home, and first-born child). We CELEBRATE with you by watching your dreams come true. All that said, we take the time to focus on the details because YOU matter most.

In July of 2003, when DJ moved here for a job, he didn’t know anyone. Honestly, he figured it would be a pit-stop, on his way into a Management or Leadership position somewhere else. But he never left because of the people. The communities of Fargo, West Fargo, Horace, and the greater metro area gave him a chance as an “outsider” to learn about the people and the culture. Through many years of getting to know people and community involvement, he learned that this is where he needs to be. The people, culture, and community resounded with his core principles. What a blessing to have landed in the Midwest, with the VERY best.

4215 31st Ave S Ste B, Fargo 701-235-6641 teamcolter@amfam.com @djcolteragency /djcolter

SEPTEMBER 2026

FINDING HIDDEN HOLIDAY PROFITS

ur paths and work in the Fargo-Moorhead business community commonly have us passing each other at networking events, chamber functions, and local storefronts. Recently, I sat down with Gary Manske from Prairie Growth Solutions of West Fargo, ND, to talk shop about marketing. In our conversation, we zeroed in on some key pointers that business owners often forget to do, especially right now, as everyone prepares for the upcoming holiday season. Here is what Gary shared on how to win Q4. The fourth quarter makes the year for many Fargo-Moorhead retailers, service providers, and B2B firms. It is also the quarter when owners burn the most cash. The instinct in October is to buy attention: more ads, deeper discounts, wider reach. For a local business, that is usually the fastest way to spend a lot and learn nothing. The better play costs almost nothing. It is working on the assets you already own and knowing exactly what every dollar you do spend brings back. The goal for the next ninety days is simple: final net profit beats vanity gross revenue. Gary pointed out four places to find margin that is already sitting under your nose.

If you cannot cleanly track it, do not fund it this season.

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Most holiday marketing is hope-based. An owner prints coupons, boosts a few posts, buys a radio spot, and hopes the register tells a happy story in January. Hope is not a strategy, and Q4 is the most expensive possible time to guess. Ad rates climb, attention fragments, and every mistake is multiplied by holiday volume. Before you spend the first dollar, set a customer acquisition cost benchmark. The math takes ten minutes. Take what you plan to spend on a campaign and divide it by the number of new customers it can realistically produce. If a $1,000 promotion needs 20 new customers to pencil out, and your average holiday customer is worth $60 in gross profit, that campaign fails before it starts. Run that arithmetic on every idea in your holiday plan, and be honest about the customer count. Optimism in October becomes a loss in January. Second, aim the spend. Identify your two or three highest-margin holiday offerings and point every tracked dollar at those specific items. A campaign that fills the store with buyers of your lowestmargin product grows revenue and starves profit. Third, install a kill switch. Every campaign, ad, and discount gets a specific promo code or a unique link. If an idea cannot be measured that cleanly, cut it from the budget now. The kill switch feels harsh in October. It feels brilliant in January, when you know exactly which dollars worked.

Micro-tweaks at checkout protect your holiday margin. The cheapest sale you will make this season happens in the fifteen seconds after a customer has already said yes. Buying intent peaks at the counter, the cart, and the booking screen. Three tweaks capture it. Give your frontline staff an exact script, not a suggestion. “Would you like to protect this gift with our pre-wrapped seasonal gift box for an extra five dollars?” is a script. “Try to upsell when you can” is a wish. Write the sentence, practice it at the Monday huddle, and track how often it lands. Bundle your slow movers with your best sellers. Pairing aging inventory with a high-demand holiday item clears shelf space at full or near-full value instead of through a January clearance rack. The bundle can still read as a deal to the customer while recovering margin you would otherwise write off. A gift basket that moves three stale items alongside one bestseller beats any markdown you could run on those items alone. Finally, run the math on a 3 to 5 percent price adjustment on your premium, high-convenience holiday packages. These are the offerings people buy to save time and stress, and price is rarely the deciding factor in that moment. Do not take my word for it.

Test it for one week, watch your close rate, and keep the new price if the rate holds. The sidebar on this page shows what a small move at checkout does: in the illustration, a four-dollar bump on an eighty-dollar average ticket becomes a thirteen percent jump in net profit without one additional customer walking through the door.

Your most profitable holiday client is the one who already trusts you. Cold internet traffic is the most expensive audience you can chase in Q4, because every business in America is bidding for it at the same time. The 80/20 rule points the other way. A small share of your past customers produces most of your profit, and reaching them costs almost nothing. Start with the 20 percent pull. Go into your CRM, your invoice history, or the shoebox of receipts and isolate your top past spenders. This is a list of names, not a demographic. For most local businesses it will be somewhere between a few dozen and a hundred people, and you can build it in an afternoon. Do it in October, before the rush, so the list is ready the moment your holiday offer is. Then bypass the inbox. In November and December, email folders are a war zone of promotions. A phone call or a direct text from the owner cuts through everything. “You were one of our best customers this year and I wanted you to hear this first” is a message no national retailer can send credibly.

Give the list somewhere to go. Host a closed-door event: a private earlyaccess shopping hour, or a reserved booking window before the public calendar opens, with zero-cost local perks. The perks cost little. The exclusivity is the product, and it deepens exactly the relationships that fund your next year.

Stop listing features. Solve the anxiety of the season. December customers are not researching specifications. They are short on time, long on obligations, and buying relief. The businesses that win the rush are the ones whose marketing says, plainly, we will take this off your plate. Rewrite your copy with that filter. “We offer winterizing packages” describes a service. “We protect your asset so you can travel stress-free through the holidays” solves a worry. Same offering, different sentence, very different response. Walk through your website, your signage, and your social posts and convert every feature statement into an outcome statement. Then remove friction anywhere you find it. Complimentary gift wrapping, guaranteed local drop-off before a promised date, a one-page corporate gift guide for the office manager who buys for twenty people at once. Each costs little to deliver and answers the question every stressed shopper is silently asking: how fast can this be done for me? The corporate gift guide deserves special attention in a market like ours. One office manager

placing a bulk order is worth twenty individual shoppers, and almost nobody makes it easy for her.

None of this requires new ad spend. It requires an owner willing to track a number, script a sentence, pull a list, and rewrite a headline. Do those four things in October and November, and you will finish the season with something better than a big top-line story. You will finish with profit you can name, sourced from assets you already own. That discipline does not expire on December 26. The CAC benchmark, the checkout script, the VIP list, and the outcomefocused copy all work in February, too. Carry them into the new year, and they compound. As Gary and I wrapped up our conversation over coffee, it became clear that navigating Q4 successfully doesn’t require a massive agency budget or a complex media buy. It simply takes intentionality. By focusing on your existing assets, tightening up your frontline messaging, and treating your loyal customers like the VIPs they are, local businesses across Fargo-Moorhead can turn this holiday season into their most profitable quarter yet. Implement these strategies now, and you’ll ring in the new year with money in the bank and peace of mind.

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Why Geography Matters Less Than Ever By Michael Danielson, Veterans Business Outreach Specialist Photo Courtesy of VBOC of the Dakotas

or generations, entrepreneurship in rural North and South Dakota has been defined by geography. Distance from major markets, limited access to capital, workforce constraints, and infrastructure challenges have shaped how businesses start, grow, and compete. Entrepreneurs in communities such as Rugby, Bottineau, Bowman, Mobridge, and dozens of other rural towns have often faced a different reality than their counterparts in larger metropolitan areas. Success required overcoming barriers that many urban businesses never encountered, from recruiting employees and attracting customers to managing logistics and accessing professional services. Yet as 2026 unfolds, a remarkable shift is taking place across rural America. Technology, changing consumer behavior, and evolving business models are reducing the influence of geography in ways that would have seemed impossible just a decade ago. While location still matters, it no longer defines opportunity in the same way it once did. Today, a business owner operating from a town of 500 people can sell products nationwide, access expert advisors virtually, hire remote talent, leverage artificial intelligence, and compete in markets that were once out of reach.

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This transformation is creating new possibilities for rural entrepreneurs throughout the Dakotas. Communities that were once viewed as disadvantaged because of their location are increasingly discovering that their greatest strengths may be found in the very characteristics that make them unique. One of the most significant changes driving this shift is the continued expansion of digital connectivity. Broadband infrastructure investments throughout North and South Dakota have improved internet access in many rural communities, creating opportunities that extend far beyond basic communication. Reliable internet service has become a form of economic infrastructure, much like roads, railways, and utilities. For entrepreneurs, connectivity provides access to customers, suppliers, training programs, financial institutions, and professional networks regardless of physical location. This improved connectivity has fundamentally changed how businesses reach customers. In previous decades, a rural business often depended heavily on local demand. A retailer’s customer base was largely limited to the people who could physically enter the store. Today, e-commerce platforms allow businesses to market and sell products across the country and around the world. A specialty food producer in rural North Dakota can ship products to customers in Florida. A handcrafted goods business in South Dakota can develop a national following through social media and online marketplaces. Geographic boundaries that once constrained growth have become significantly less restrictive. The rise of remote work has further accelerated this trend. During the past several years, many businesses and professionals have embraced flexible work arrangements that were once considered temporary solutions. What began as necessity has evolved into a long-term shift in how work is performed. As a result, rural communities are increasingly

attractive to professionals seeking lower costs of living, greater quality of life, and stronger community connections. For entrepreneurs, this shift presents several advantages. Businesses can recruit talent from a broader geographic area rather than relying solely on local labor pools. A company based in Devils Lake can hire a marketing specialist living in Fargo. A business in Spearfish can work with a bookkeeper in Sioux Falls or a graphic designer located elsewhere in the country. The ability to access talent remotely helps rural businesses overcome one of their most persistent challenges while allowing them to remain rooted in their local communities. Artificial intelligence is also playing a growing role in leveling the playing field for rural entrepreneurs. Many small businesses lack the financial resources to hire large teams of specialists in areas such as marketing, data analysis, customer service, and content creation. AI-powered tools are helping close that gap by providing affordable access to capabilities that were once available only to larger organizations. Business owners can now use AI to draft marketing campaigns, analyze customer trends, develop business plans, improve operational efficiency, and automate routine tasks. These technologies allow entrepreneurs to focus more of their time on strategic growth and customer relationships rather than administrative work. For rural businesses operating with lean teams and limited resources, these productivity gains can be especially valuable. At the same time, changing consumer preferences are creating new opportunities for businesses located

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in smaller communities. Many consumers increasingly value authenticity, local connections, and personalized service. Rural businesses often excel in these areas because they are deeply connected to their communities and customers. While large corporations may compete on scale, rural businesses frequently compete on relationships, trust, and specialized expertise. This advantage is particularly evident in industries such as tourism, agriculture, food production, outdoor recreation, and specialty manufacturing. Consumers are increasingly interested in understanding where products come from and who produces them. Businesses that can tell a compelling story about their community, values, and mission often find that their rural location becomes a marketing asset rather than a limitation. Tourism continues to provide significant opportunities across both states. Visitors are increasingly seeking authentic experiences that connect them with local culture, outdoor recreation, and regional heritage. From the Badlands and Black Hills to the lakes and prairie landscapes of North Dakota, entrepreneurs are finding innovative ways to serve travelers looking for experiences that cannot be replicated elsewhere. Lodging providers, outfitters, restaurants, retailers, and experience-based businesses all benefit from growing interest in rural destinations. Agriculture remains another area where entrepreneurship is evolving rapidly. While farming and ranching continue to serve as economic foundations for many communities, entrepreneurs are increasingly identifying opportunities beyond traditional production. Value-added agriculture, agritourism, specialty foods, agricultural technology, and direct-to-consumer sales models

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are creating new revenue streams throughout the region. Technology allows producers to connect directly with customers and diversify their operations in ways that were once difficult to achieve. Despite these opportunities, rural entrepreneurship still faces challenges. Workforce availability remains a concern in many communities. Access to capital can be more limited than in larger markets. Housing shortages continue to affect recruitment efforts in some areas. Transportation and logistics costs remain important considerations for businesses serving national markets. Geography may matter less than it once did, but it has not disappeared entirely. The difference today is that entrepreneurs have more tools available to overcome these obstacles. Virtual advising, online education, digital marketing, cloud-based software, and remote collaboration platforms allow businesses to operate more efficiently and access resources regardless of location. Organizations such as Small Business Development Centers, SCORE, Women’s Business Centers, Veterans Business Outreach Centers, APEX Accelerators, chambers of commerce, and local economic development organizations continue to expand their support services, making expertise more accessible than ever before. Community leadership also plays an important role in sustaining entrepreneurial growth. Communities that invest in broadband, housing, workforce development, and qualityof-life initiatives position themselves to attract both entrepreneurs and skilled workers. Rural entrepreneurship does not occur in isolation. It thrives within ecosystems that encourage innovation, support risk-taking, and foster collaboration.

Perhaps most importantly, rural entrepreneurs themselves are redefining what success looks like. Growth is no longer measured solely by physical expansion or geographic reach. Many business owners are building sustainable enterprises that leverage technology while remaining deeply connected to their communities. They are creating businesses that provide flexibility, support local economies, and contribute to the long-term vitality of the places they call home. The future of entrepreneurship in the Dakotas will continue to be influenced by geography but not constrained by it. Technology has reduced barriers that once seemed permanent. New business models have expanded access to markets. Consumers increasingly value authenticity and local connections. Together, these trends are creating an environment where entrepreneurs can build successful businesses from virtually anywhere. For rural communities across North and South Dakota, this represents more than an economic opportunity. It is a chance to reshape perceptions about what is possible. Entrepreneurship is no longer confined to major population centers or technology hubs. Innovation can emerge from small towns, rural main streets, and agricultural communities just as readily as it can from urban business districts. In 2026, rural entrepreneurs most often succeed by combining the strengths of their communities with the opportunities created by technology and connectivity. They are proving that geography matters less than ever before. The future of rural entrepreneurship in the Dakotas is not defined by distance, but by vision, adaptability, and the willingness to embrace new possibilities.

10 Questions

Questions

ohn Machacek, Chief Innovation Officer for the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation, has worked with countless startups throughout our community over the years. He knows their ups, and their downs, but most of all, he knows the questions to ask them. Here are John Machacek’s 10 questions for Harvinder Kaur, Co-Founder and CEO, SpaceBeacon Inc.

By John Machacek Photo provided by Harvinder Kaur 98

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01 WILL YOU PLEASE TELL ME YOUR ELEVATOR PITCH FOR SPACEBEACON? Serving users and partners worldwide, at SpaceBeacon, we make technology accessible for everyone. Technology keeps moving faster than most people can keep up with. Every new app is one more thing to learn, and when you add language or accessibility barriers on top of that, a lot of people simply get left out. So, we took a different approach. We build the underlying infrastructure ourselves, navigation, travel booking, commerce, daily coordination, and then we put the simplest possible layer on top: you just talk to it, in your own language. We support more than 120 languages. So, you can plan a trip, book travel, navigate, manage your day, or run your business just by speaking naturally. No menus, no forms, nothing to translate. At our flagship British Columbia company Preeminent Technologies, we call this category Participation Intelligence. Our mission in one line: technology for everyone, in every language.

person. The way we do it is by building the infrastructure ourselves and making the way you use it a natural conversation instead of screens, menus, and forms. More than 80% of the world doesn’t speak English as a first language, and much of that population is held back from technology because of it. That’s not a niche. That’s the market. We serve two core groups: everyday consumers and small and mediumsized businesses. The common thread is anyone who navigates, transacts, or interacts with digital tools and would rather do it in their own language. Here’s an everyday example. A parent or a student juggling life across platforms, personal appointments on Google, work meetings on Microsoft. Our infrastructure pulls all those events into one place, and the voice layer on top means you never touch a menu. You just talk to your calendar: I’m running ten minutes late for my doctor’s appointment, please let the office know. Navigation works the same way. It runs on our own geo-satellite navigation stack, built from the ground up, and you use it simply by talking there’s heavy traffic and rain, add ten minutes to my commute. You keep moving without switching apps. For SMEs, it’s the same model, our infrastructure underneath and natural conversation on top, applied to daily operations and customer engagement. From travel to commute to commerce, we’re building daily-utility products people can rely on in the language they think in.

03 ON THE SPACEBEACON WEBSITE, I SEE THE TRAVEL TAB AS WELL AS THE AFFILIATE AND TRAVEL PARTNER PARTS UNDER THE EARN TAB. CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME THE FUNCTIONALITY OF WHAT THESE ARE? Travel is really our infrastructure in action. Underneath is a full travel booking platform with global inventory. On top is the voice layer, so a traveler can say, help me decide between Japan and Paris, get real pre-travel planning insight, then search and book completely in their own language, hands-free, on the go. We’re also extending this into a premium concierge service, because the most stressful part of travel is when things go wrong. Instead of waiting on hold with an airline after a cancellation, our AI assistant reaches out to you with rebooking options while you’re still in the air or at the gate. What normally takes hours or days gets sorted in minutes. That helps travelers, and it helps airline agents too, because mass cancellations put pressure on both sides.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR CORE CUSTOMERS AND MARKET FOR THIS?

The Earn tab is where other people build on what we’ve built. The Affiliate program is for anyone who already has an audience. Travel bloggers and online communities can register in minutes, share links to places their audience is already asking about, and earn a commission on every booking that comes through those links.

Our mission is to make technology inclusive and accessible for every

The Travel Partner program goes a level deeper. Small and medium-

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10 Questions sized hospitality and tourism businesses get visibility on a global platform without the heavy fees the traditional platforms charge. And anyone who wants to start a travel business can operate under SpaceBeacon’s accreditation instead of spending years on certifications and licenses, with instant access to global inventory and net rates with the ability to sell worldwide from day one. It gives people real onramps into a nine trillion dollar global travel market, whether they’re looking for extra income or a way to get started.

04 WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO TALK MUCH ABOUT THE SPECIFICS, BUT I KNOW YOU HAD A RECENT WIN AND TRACTION WITH A NEW CUSTOMER AGREEMENT. ARE YOU ABLE TO SHARE A BIT ABOUT THAT, AS I THINK IT MAY BE NICE TO TALK ABOUT, AS POTENTIAL FUTURE CUSTOMERS OR INVESTORS MAY READ ABOUT IT AND GIVE THOUGHT TO CONNECTING WITH YOU? Yes. We’ve fully executed a twoyear agreement with one of the largest telecom operators in Africa, with a footprint across more than 19 markets. For us it’s a major commercial validation of the whole model: our infrastructure underneath, and a voice layer on top that subscribers can use from day one with nothing new to learn. When language stops being a barrier, technology changes how people 100

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work, communicate, learn, travel, and access opportunity. And through this partnership there’s a path to markets beyond Africa as well. The playbook matters as much as the deal. Telecom-led distribution puts us in front of millions of existing subscribers through channels our partner already owns, so we reach customers at a fraction of the usual acquisition cost. It’s a model we plan to replicate with operators in other regions. We launch with this partner in mid to late September. From there, the roadmap starts with Spanishspeaking markets in Europe and with India, with regional language support in both. The infrastructure stays the same. Only the languages change.

05 THAT’S SO AWESOME TO HEAR. CONGRATULATIONS ON THIS SIGNIFICANT MILESTONE. BEFORE THIS INTERVIEW, I WAS LOOKING AT ONE OF OUR PAST EMAILS WITH EACH OTHER. I SAW A REFERENCE WHERE YOU MENTIONED BUILDING THE FOUNDATION FOR YOUR NEXT PHASE OF GROWTH INTO PHYSICAL AI, IOT AND AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS. WILL YOU PLEASE ELABORATE ON THAT TO EXPLAIN WHAT THAT MEANS? Absolutely. This is where owning the infrastructure really pays off. Take our navigation platform. We built it from

the ground up and we own every layer: the data, the routing engine, the turn-by-turn directions, the tile server. People use that infrastructure through voice. Machines can use it directly. That’s what opens the door to physical AI, IoT, and autonomous systems. Drone innovation in agtech is a key focus area for us, where controlled and fully autonomous systems can run on the same navigation infrastructure that powers someone’s daily commute. We don’t have to build something new for machines. We built it once, we own it end to end, and it can serve a person on the road and a drone over a field. Closer to home, we’d love to build a pilot with an airport, and Hector International Airport would be a great fit. There, the voice layer is the star: international visitors can explore the area, find places to stay, and arrange ground transportation, all in their own language, exploring the local tourism. This pilot can be extended to include AI flight assistant for airlines to support travelers during rebookings, cancellations, delays etc. to reduce stress, enhance productivity with payment via human in the loop, the live agent. I also think there’s a good use case where we could partner with healthcare for our real time intelligent platform in the future roadmap.

06 WHAT WOULD THAT USE CASE BE, AND BY HEALTHCARE SYSTEMS, ARE YOU REFERRING TO SOMETHING LIKE SANFORD HEALTH OR ESSENTIA HEALTH? Correct, a system like Sanford Health

is exactly what we have in mind. On the infrastructure side, it’s scheduling and coordination. Patients need a simple way to manage appointments and organize their day, and staff need the same for daily clinical operations and scheduling. Both are already core to what we’ve built. The voice layer is what makes it powerful in healthcare. Health systems here serve patients from many language backgrounds, and today that usually means requesting translation services and waiting. Multilingual voice is native to our platform, so a patient can manage appointments, get reminders, and find information just by speaking in their own language, while staff manage their day from the same system. We haven’t finalized every detail, but the use case is strong, and it’s exactly the kind of collaboration we’d love to explore with a partner like Sanford.

07 I WANT TO MAKE SURE I LEAVE SOME TIME TO TALK ABOUT YOUR DECISION TO LOOK AT RELOCATING YOUR BUSINESS FROM BRITISH COLUMBIA TO NORTH DAKOTA, AND YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH THAT. SO, FIRST OF ALL, WHY NORTH DAKOTA? Thank you for asking this question. We did serious research across the U.S. on where to set up the headquarters that will serve our global markets. California was on the list, for Silicon Valley’s capital and talent. But when we weighed the ecosystem, the collaboration opportunities, and the stage we’re at,

professionally and personally, raising a family while scaling a company, North Dakota was the clear fit. The fundamentals are strong. North Dakota was nationally ranked third for raising a family. NDSU is an R1 research institution whose researchers rank among the top 2% most cited globally. Microsoft has had a large presence in Fargo for more than 20 years, which matters for talent and long-term innovation. And the state and local support for expansion and investment is real. There’s a personal thread too. My connection with NDSU goes back more than two decades, to my grad school days. My family and I visited in July, and I was genuinely surprised by the growth. That visit sealed it. We met local partners and people across the ecosystem we can work with, and we felt that welcoming, close-knit community the Midwest is known for. Fargo and North Dakota line up with our priorities on every front, and we’re excited about the move.

08 THAT’S GREAT TO HEAR THAT NOT ONLY DOES OUR AREA ALIGN WITH BOTH PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL PRIORITIES, BUT THAT YOU ALSO HAVE HAD SUCH A GOOD EXPERIENCE WITH THE PEOPLE YOU ARE ENGAGING WITH HERE, WHETHER VIRTUALLY OR DURING YOUR VISIT. KNOWING THE CONSIDERATION YOU ARE PUTTING IN TOWARDS YOUR FAMILY ENVIRONMENT, IT

WORKED OUT NICELY THAT THE STARTUPBREW YOU ATTENDED WAS YOUTH ENTREPRENEURFOCUSED AND THAT YOU BROUGHT YOUR DAUGHTER WITH; THAT YOU BOTH GOT TO SEE AND FEEL THAT FARGO MOORHEAD-FRIENDLY STARTUP VIBE. DO YOU HAVE ANY ADDITIONAL COMMENTS ABOUT THE COMMUNITY, THE ECOSYSTEM AND/OR YOUR VISIT THAT YOU WANT TO SHARE? The community is what stayed with me. Seeing young entrepreneurs valued and encouraged to chase their ideas early says a lot about a place. It’s family-friendly, kid-friendly, and genuinely welcoming. The community has grown a great deal, but that friendliness hasn’t changed in the 20-plus years since I first came to the U.S. from India and started my journey here. The state programs also match what growth-stage companies actually need. Programs like LIFT, Innovate ND, and the Angel Match Program provide financing support alongside equity capital. That matters, because most founders want to hit a major milestone or get to revenue before diluting, so they can raise at a valuation they’ve earned. The North Dakota Department of Commerce programs de-risk that journey and help entrepreneurs build confidently in the region. I also want to recognize GFMEDC for connecting entrepreneurs with talent, partners, and programs. That kind of direct support was missing when we looked at Austin and California, which are very crowded spaces. North Dakota makes a beautiful home for

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10 Questions growth-stage companies. It takes a lot of stress out of the stage where local support matters most. And for women leaders who want to raise a family while running a business, the support coming directly from the state makes it a great place to do both.

09 OKAY, LET'S JUST GO IN THE TIME MACHINE TO VISIT A YOUNGER VERSION OF JACK. WHAT HINDSIGHT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE YOURSELF? I’d say that distribution decides scale. Great technology matters, but the right partnership puts you in front of millions of customers overnight. I’d tell my younger self to think about distribution from day one, not after the product is polished. Our board member and Executive advisor helped us in locking this down for us. Since we have accomplished this major milestone around commercial validation and should be at a steady revenue stage and the support from

North Dakota on financing, I would like to collaborate and get support by bringing in executive board members, advisors and C-suite executives and grow our team to take this mission forward. For years I tried to carry too much.

10 JUST LIKE WITH STARTUPBREW, WITH MY LAST QUESTION, I ALWAYS LIKE TO ASK, WHAT CAN WE DO AS A COMMUNITY TO HELP YOU AND SPACEBEACON SUCCEED? Firstly, introductions are the most valuable thing this community can offer. We’d welcome connections to Hector International Airport and the region’s travel and tourism organizations for a multilingual visitor experience pilot, to health systems like Sanford and Essentia on language access and coordination, and to any enterprise or publicsector leaders thinking about how to transform industry sectors to serve multilingual communities better.

Second, talent. We’re building highwage AI and engineering roles in North Dakota, and we want students, researchers, and experienced professionals in the region to know SpaceBeacon is a place where they can do globally significant work from Fargo. And third, be our early users and share your feedback to make things better. Try the platform, speak to it in your language, and tell us what works and what doesn’t. Then keep doing what this community already does so well: welcoming founders and their families. That welcome is why we’re here, and we intend to give back many times over.

SPACEBEACON INC. (A PREEMINENT TECHNOLOGIES COMPANY) spacebeacon.com Search “SpaceBeacon” @spacebeacontravel /spacebeacon

PREEMINENT TECHNOLOGIES go-preeminent.com

About John John Machacek has been helping local startups with the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation for over a decade. Before joining the GFMEDC ream, John's career path has varied in areas such as banking, accounting, and management in the nonprofit, food & retail sectors.

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From the Laundry Room Photos provided by TLC Cleaning

n Veronica McCloud’s first day at TLC Cleaning in July 2011, founder Trisha Lake walked up to the car and asked how it had gone. Veronica told her it was great. That was not entirely true. “In my head, I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can do this. This is really hard,’” Veronica said. “But I went back the next day and faked it for another day.” She kept returning. At first, she needed the paycheck and the consistent hours. Before TLC, she had been working for a political survey call service, and members of her family already employed by the cleaning company had encouraged her to give it a try. She started as a cleaning technician, learning the work from the ground up. Over time, however, Veronica’s reason for coming back changed. She began to see something in TLC that felt different from an ordinary job. She watched Trisha, then a single mother building a company almost hour by hour, do everything she could to keep employees working. When the schedule was light, Trisha found other tasks. When teams were overwhelmed, she joined them in the field. During latenight move-out cleanings, Trisha and her husband drove between jobs with food for employees who were working into the early morning. Another person who played an important role in keeping Veronica at TLC was Operations Manager 104

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Photo by J. Alan Paul Photography

Iris Rodriguez. Iris stayed late with Veronica on long jobs and stood by her side, providing support throughout her years with the company. Fifteen years later, Veronica is still returning—but she no longer has to pretend she belongs. Today, her role at TLC is Trainer, and she is one of the people standing at the front of the company’s classroom, teaching new employees how to do the job that once intimidated her. “I always tell people, anything that you’ve done, I’ve done,” she said. “Any mistakes, I’ve already done, and I’m here to tell you not to do that—and why.” Her journey has become part of the company’s institutional knowledge. It is also a living record of just how much TLC Cleaning has changed.

D HE R VE RO NI CA ANC FO R SO N JO IN TL IC K’ S DAY TH E ST PATR FA RG O PA RA DE IN

Learning a Business as

TLC Cleaning was founded in 2010, only about a year before Veronica joined the company in July 2011. In those early days, team meetings happened in Trisha’s home. Employees sat on the living room floor, folded laundry, and talked through the day’s assignments while Trisha’s cat, Smudge, wandered nearby. The laundry room served as the company’s base. Assignments were kept in binders. Employees recorded their work and hours on pieces of paper. There were no extensive training videos, classroom lessons or sophisticated scheduling platforms. “We were just sitting there folding rags and making our own chemicals,” Veronica said. “We thought we were chemists.” Since then, TLC has grown into a company

with more than 85 employees and service areas centered around Fargo, Grand Forks and Detroit Lakes. The operation now includes company vehicles, dedicated offices, digital scheduling and communication systems, formal benefits, and a structured training program. Veronica has been present for nearly every stage of that transformation. She saw the first company cars, the first office, new uniforms, changes in management, evolving cleaning products, and the transition from handwritten records to apps capable of sending clients real-time notifications.

Trisha believed it would. “She was like, ‘It will work this time because I know what to do now, and I know how to do it,’” Veronica said. That willingness to close a door, learn and try again left an impression on Veronica. The company’s growth did not come from avoiding mistakes. It came from responding to them. Adaptability and trust are among TLC’s stated values. Veronica’s story adds another word to the picture: resilience.

She also witnessed the less straightforward parts of growth. TLC’s first attempt to establish a Grand Forks location did not work. Rather than continuing before the operation was ready, Trisha closed it and refocused on Fargo. When the company re-opened its doors in Grand Forks 9 years later, Veronica remembers employees wondering whether the result would be different. FARGOINC.COM

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Support With

When Veronica began working at TLC, she was rebuilding her life. She was living with her mother, trying to become financially independent and unsure of what adulthood was supposed to look like. She did not have a driver’s license, something that eventually became an obstacle as she began taking on more responsibility in the field. Trisha challenged her to change that. 106

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“If you want people to respect you and take you seriously, you can’t have them drive you around,” Veronica remembers Trisha telling her. “If you’re going to lead, you have to show them that you’re a pusher.” Veronica did not appreciate the message immediately. Eventually, she paid what she needed to pay, earned her license, and became capable of driving and leading a team.

That pattern repeated throughout her career. TLC offered support, but the support was usually paired with an expectation that Veronica would continue moving forward. “She doesn’t just give us things,” Veronica said. “She’s like, ‘You put in the work, and I’ll put in the same.’ You have to show that you’re willing to do what it takes to get where you need to be, and she’ll help you with that.”

That support came from others within TLC as well. Veronica credits Operations Manager Iris Rodriguez as one of the people who helped her through the difficult days and gave her reasons to stay. On particularly long jobs, Iris stayed late alongside her. Throughout Veronica’s time at TLC, Iris remained someone she could count on to stand beside her and offer support when she needed it. That help extended far beyond cleaning. When Veronica became responsible for raising her son, employees and their family members helped provide childcare. At times, he could

spend part of the day at the TLC office until someone was available to watch him. During a difficult custody process, Trisha supported Veronica’s fundraising efforts, helped her manage the financial strain and testified in court about her employment, income and personal growth. The company also created moments of relief from the pressures of work and home. Employees have attended family campouts, barbecues, anniversary dinners, and surprise outings. The company serves a homemade breakfast on Mondays and stocks everyday necessities employees may need but might not feel comfortable requesting.

“You don’t know anybody’s relationship in life or where they’re coming to us from,” Veronica said. “They just want to make sure people feel taken care of.” TLC’s current employee offerings include health insurance, company vehicles, 401(k) plans, paid vacations, and other benefits that Trisha has said she prioritizes because she remembers what it was like to work without them.

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AT TLC C L E A N IN G , VERONI CA H A S G R O WN FROM A N E R V O U S N E W CLEAN E R IN T O O N E OF THE C O MPA N Y ’S MOST E X P E R IE N C E D TRA IN E R S .

Turning Experience

Veronica’s first transition into leadership happened informally. A few years into her time at TLC, a team lead left. Veronica already knew the clients and homes well enough to guide other employees, so she was told it was time to take over. Her reaction was predictable. “I was like, ‘No, I don’t have to do anything you say,’” she recalled. “I was scared. I didn’t know how to be a grown adult. I thought it was too much.” She did it anyway. As the number of staff grew, Veronica continued to train and mentor new employees. By then,

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TLC’s training had become more organized. There were books, defined procedures, and clearer expectations. Over time, the company continued refining the program with videos, field instruction and dedicated trainers. In 2026, TLC expanded the program again by adding classroom-based instruction. Veronica was among the first employees selected to lead it. Her lessons cover techniques, products and processes, but her greatest value cannot be captured entirely in a manual. She knows what happens when an employee feels overwhelmed, falls behind or carries a difficult personal situation into work because she has experienced those moments herself.

She also remembers learning many cleaning techniques through trial and error. When a surface did not look right, she became determined to understand why. She learned to view counters and furniture from eye level, where leftover dust is easier to see. She refined a wet-to-dry dusting method. She experimented with ways to remove stubborn residue without relying on an expensive product for every individual task. Those experiences now become stories in the classroom. “I’m a silent operator,” she said. “I’d rather be out in the field and watch everybody grow and be a pusher behind the scenes.”

Veronica’s 10

The Human Side of a

Cleaning Rules 1. One room at a time is enough. A home does not need to be cleaned from top to bottom every day. Completing one manageable space is still progress.

For Veronica, cleaning has never been only about surfaces. Inviting someone into a home can make clients feel vulnerable. They may worry about being judged for clutter, pet hair, dishes, laundry, or the simple evidence of a busy life. TLC attempts to make that experience more personal by introducing its employees through online biographies and sending clients information about the person who completed their cleaning. Even when a client is away at work, the goal is to help them understand that a real person—not an anonymous corporate workforce—was caring for the space. “We’re not corporate,” Veronica said. “We’re very much mom-and-pop, but with a big vibe.” That personal connection matters because every home carries a story. TLC employees may be cleaning for new parents, older adults, people with disabilities, families grieving a death, or clients trying to hold life together during a difficult season. Some live in large, immaculate houses.

Others may be facing severe clutter or hoarding. Veronica teaches new employees that none of those circumstances determines how much dignity a client deserves. “You should treat that person in a hoarding situation like they won the lottery,” she said, “because they need you to make them feel seen and heard and that they’re not a problem.” The same respect should be extended to every client, regardless of the size of the home or how a situation may look from the outside. “We don’t know what’s happening in their life,” Veronica said. That compassion does not require employees to accept mistreatment. Earlier in her career, Veronica believed difficult or abusive behavior was simply something service workers were expected to tolerate. Trisha made it clear that was not the case. TLC could show care for clients while also setting boundaries to protect its employees. The respect had to work in both directions.

2. Make the bed and take out the trash. A few high-impact tasks can make a home feel calmer without requiring hours of work. 3. Use a wet-to-dry method when dusting. Wipe the surface with the damp portion of a cloth, then finish with a dry section to pick up remaining moisture and dust. 4. Look at surfaces from eye level. Changing your angle can reveal dust, crumbs or residue that is difficult to see while standing directly above a counter or table. 5. Turn off the vanity lights before cleaning a mirror. This is Veronica’s trick for giving herself more time to wipe the surface before the cleaner begins drying and leaving streaks. 6. Keep the supply cabinet simple. An all-purpose cleaner and quality microfiber cloths can handle more household tasks than many people realize. 7. Use only as much product as the job requires. More cleaner does not automatically produce a better result and may leave additional residue behind. 8. Treat stubborn buildup strategically. For hairspray residue, Veronica may use a small amount of glass cleaner on a compatible surface rather than immediately purchasing another specialty product. 9. Do not clean because the cleaner is coming. Pick up personal items when necessary, but do not feel obligated to hide the fact that people live in the home. 10. Remember what the home is for. “Your home is to be lived in,” Veronica said. “It’s to be enjoyed. It’s not supposed to be a show house.” FARGOINC.COM

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The Upside-Down

Trisha has described TLC’s structure as an upside-down pyramid. The cleaning technicians are at the top because they are the people entering homes, building relationships and representing the company. The office and leadership team are underneath them, providing the support that allows them to succeed. “The better we’re taken care of, the better we take care of our clients,” Veronica said. That philosophy helps explain why she is no longer the only unusually long-tenured employee. Several coworkers are only a few years behind her, with five- and 10-year anniversaries becoming increasingly common. TLC has marked Veronica’s milestones in personal ways. For her fifth anniversary, she traveled to

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the Twin Cities with Trisha and their children. Her 10-year recognition included a fully-paid trip to California for her and her son. For her 15th anniversary, Veronica was given several choices, including a trip, a cruise, or money that could be used toward a future home purchase. She chose a fully-paid trip to Orlando with her mother—the woman she credits with teaching her how to care for others—and son. “I got my hustle from Trisha, and I got my nurturing aspect from my mom,” Veronica said. “Combining those two made me a good trainer.” When Veronica imagines TLC’s next five or 10 years, she sees the possibility of another location, perhaps even outside North Dakota. But in her vision, expansion would not simply mean placing another dot on a map. It would mean identifying an employee or family ready for a

new opportunity and giving them the structure to build something of their own. That is how Veronica has come to understand growth: the company moves forward by helping its people move forward. Fifteen years ago, she was not sure she could make it through a second day. Today, she is the person standing in front of a classroom, showing new employees that difficult work can be learned, mistakes can become lessons and a job can grow into a career—and even a community. People still ask what she plans to do next. Her answer is simple. “I can work here forever, can’t I?