Gabe Abshire spent six to eight months telling his leadership team to start using AI. Nothing moved. Then he brought in EY to run a session for that same group, and he says that in the six months since, the perception of every one of his leaders has changed. Same message. Different messenger.

In this episode of The IT Masters Podcast, host Rob DeVita sits down with Gabe Abshire, founder and CEO of Move Concierge, a nationwide company of about 180 people that helps roughly 35,000 home buyers a month sort out internet, electricity, security, and a dozen other services when they move into a new house. Gabe started a satellite installation company back in 2004 and kept losing jobs because nobody had turned the power on at the house or the TV was still sitting in the moving truck. He built a business in that gap, and the channel it created is now named after his company.

This one is not about the moving industry. Rob and Gabe get into what actually decides whether technology gets used:

• Why six to eight months of the CEO pushing AI did nothing, and what changed when an outside firm made the same case to the same people
• The rule that stuck: use AI as a thought partner first, before you try to build anything with it
• Why the budget objection disappears when you talk to a business unit leader instead of the IT team
• How Gabe analyzed CFO candidates with AI, and why his advisors came back asking which search firm he had hired
• The 30 percent of customers he says he loses simply because the only way in is a phone call, at a company with 25,000 five-star reviews
• What happens when every employee's numbers go out company-wide every morning, and why the people who do not want that accountability leave on their own
• Why he believes HR should never have owned recruiting, and the hire he just made to fix it
• What he wants from a technology leader on AI right now, including agents that prep the day so his team can stop cold calling
• Where the business goes next, with 1.2 million neighborhood boundaries from LiveBy and a new product built for what happens after the move

Gabe has been building this for 17 years. Move Concierge has spent six consecutive years on the Inc. 5000, works with tens of thousands of real estate professionals, and recently rebranded, expanded its leadership team, and acquired LiveBy.

If you are a CIO, CTO, or executive trying to get AI past the pilot stage and into how your leaders actually think, this is a conversation worth your time.

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