The Podcast

ROI with AI

The show where we measure what matters before we automate anything. Real conversations about AI, business, and the human decisions that drive both.

Hosted by TerDawn DeBoe•Co-hosted by TeJaye (AI)•New episodes 2–3×/week

Full Episodes

August 13, 2026ft. Apryl Beverly1.4K

The $3 Billion Copywriter: How To Make AI Sound Like You | Apryl Beverly

Apryl Beverly's words have made her clients over $3 billion since 2011. She built an AI that writes in the end user's voice. Here is how to make AI sound like you, not everyone else. Apryl is the CEO and founder of BAAB, a seven figure WOSB and WBE certified company, and the creator of PRO, Pitch Respond Offer, the first culturally smart AI sales and marketing platform. Since launching in June 2024 it has grown past 2,000 users and multiple six figures in eighteen months. Her clients see an average 30% lift in client acquisition. In this conversation she opens up the third grade essay that started everything, the subject line that still outperforms everything else she has ever written, and what she learned building a software company with no software background. Then she turns the mic around and asks TerDawn her own questions. In this episode The free storytelling tools & prompts from this episode https://instituteofbusinessai.org/brand-storytelling Apryl Beverly and PRO https://www.propitchtool.ai/about-pro ROI with AI is hosted by TerDawn DeBoe, Forbes contributor and founder of the Institute of Business AI. Learn more here: www.TerDawn.com www.InstituteOfBusinessAI.org 00:00 The Cold Open You Need To Hear Apryl on why most AI gets the culture wrong. Slang gone bad. Trying way too hard. The 90 seconds that set up the whole conversation. 03:37 The Third Grade Essay That Changed Her Life Apryl wrote her first "sales letter" at eight years old. It was an assignment about her home life. What her mother did after reading it changed the trajectory of the whole family. 08:34 The Highest Open Rate Subject Line She Has Ever Written Two decades of copywriting. Three billion dollars in revenue generated. One word she still uses today that outperforms everything else. Get your notes ready. 11:20 Why Storytelling Beats Every Copywriting Framework Apryl explains why the "highlighter on the page" psychology tactics do not work. And why one sales page she wrote years ago is still making clients millions. 13:08 The AI Micro-Drama That Hit 5 Million Views In 20 Days Vic's Lies. 49,000 followers in three weeks. Why drama sells and how Apryl built a whole viral property using AI without losing her voice. 17:31 Watch AI Fail In Real Time TerDawn types the same prompt into a generic AI tool and into PRO on camera. The difference in what each one produces will end the "just make it cultural" debate for good. 22:47 The Software Developer Who Tried To Steal Her Idea Apryl went to build PRO with no software background. The first developer she interviewed demanded co-ownership of a product she conceived. What she said back is a masterclass in protecting your work. 35:32 The Grief That Pushed Her Deeper Into AI TerDawn shares something she has never talked about publicly. The phone call about her two-year-old grandson. What she did next while still running a business. And how it changed how she uses AI forever. 38:14 What To Do When People Steal Your Content Apryl gets asked about copycats stealing her viral work. Her answer flips the whole conversation. The one thing that makes stealing pointless — and how to build it. 48:26 The AI Advice For Anyone Whose Content Is Not Landing Apryl looks directly into the camera and gives the answer for every business owner who is tired of AI sounding like everyone else. This is the sign-off that will make you rewatch the whole episode.

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He Lost 3,500 Members In One Weekend. His Revenue Went Up.

Episode 2

July 16, 2026ft. Kristian A. Smith3.9K

He Lost 3,500 Members In One Weekend. His Revenue Went Up.

Kristian A. Smith lost 3,500 members in one weekend, then rebuilt with AI: 70% email open rates, 44% more revenue, 1,000+ paying members. In 2023, Kristian A. Smith shut off free access to a 3,500-person digital ministry and put a subscription in its place. He lost 3,050 people in one weekend. Revenue went up anyway. Sixteen months later, working with TerDawn DeBoe and the Institute of Business AI, that ministry runs on a documented AI system. Email open rates hold at 60 to 70 percent for 13 consecutive months, against an industry average of 20 to 25 percent. Membership has passed 1,000 paying members. One book, paired with an AI companion and zero new content, added 44 percent in revenue. This conversation covers the decision that cost him 90 percent of his audience on purpose, what actually changed in the 16 months since, and the AI system underneath every number. 0:00 — The teaser clips: the $300K figure, 3,500 to 450, revenue going up anyway, the 25% to 60-70% email jump. This is the cold open. 1:05 — Your formal intro. "Peace, and welcome to ROI with AI." Who Kristian is, what the episode covers. 2:28 — "You call yourself a Black church kid, a spiritual humanist, and a heretic. If all three disappeared tomorrow, who's the man left in the room?" His creative background, video editing, styling, music. 8:04 — The family tension question, which leads into his pastor's actual pulpit confession ("everything I've been teaching is a lie"), your own deconstruction story, and the loneliness of losing his church community. 21:29 — The rumor segment. TS Madison, the assumptions about his sexuality, and his answer on why he's comfortable enough to not care. 31:50 — The explicit pivot: "we're about to transition over to AI." The knife analogy, the Bible analogy, the "some of these people are just downright evil" line about who controls AI. 42:31 — "I want to now shift to us working together." The business model, the subscription decision, 3,500 to 450, the team collapsing from 10 to 2, the AI results, the mid-roll case study CTA lands naturally inside this one around 53:00. 56:23 — "Now I'mma let you go ahead and flip the mic on me." Kristian interviews you for the back stretch of the episode. Download the full case study for free: instituteofbusinessai.org/kristian-case-study More from the Institute of Business AI: instituteofbusinessai.org More about TerDawn: TerDawn.com More from Kristian A. Smith and The Faith Community: Subscribe to TFC: youtube.com/@tfc.virtual Get Question Your Answers: questionyouranswers.kristianasmith.com

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Stop Learning AI Tools. Start Learning to Think. | 19 Keys x TerDawn DeBoe

Episode 1

April 27, 2026ft. 19 Keys4.1K

Stop Learning AI Tools. Start Learning to Think. | 19 Keys x TerDawn DeBoe

Most business owners are collecting AI tools. 19 Keys argues that is exactly the wrong starting point and the data backs him up. In this episode of ROI with AI, TerDawn DeBoe sits down with global thought leader, futurist, and cultural architect 19 Keys. He is the founder of High Level Conversations, co-founder of Goldwater High Level Media and Supermind. This is a conversation that goes where most AI discussions refuse to go: the internal operating system that determines whether any tool produces a return. This is not a tools walkthrough. This is a documented, framework-driven conversation about why AI ROI starts with self-awareness, and what happens when it does not. What you will hear in this episode: — Why 19 Keys' formula AI + NI = EI (Artificial Intelligence + Natural Intelligence = Enhanced Intelligence) is the operating principle most business owners skip entirely — How unclear intention is the reason AI workflows produce noise instead of revenue — and the specific process 19 Keys uses to fix that — The production overhead reduction 19 Keys achieved at High Level Media by replacing a full B-roll department with AI-generated video — without sacrificing brand integrity — Why the permissionless economy has shifted the wealth transfer window, and what it costs to miss another cycle — The ManyChat workflow strategy 19 Keys calls the most underutilized conversion tool in business today — How 19 Keys used a dossier of his own gifts, blind spots, and thinking patterns to reverse-engineer the science behind his own success; and why that is now teachable — The agentic AI email-filtering system his team built to qualify and respond to hundreds of booking inquiries without human intervention — What world building actually means as a business strategy and why it produces brand authority that outlasts every algorithm change — The vibe-coded Crown Society app 19 Keys built in days using Figma, designed around solar and lunar cycles, for his Superman Coffee cognitive health brand RESOURCES MENTIONED OR RELEVANT TO THIS EPISODE: Forbes article with the full case study and details discussed by 19Keys https://www.forbes.com/sites/terdawn-deboe/2026/04/27/how-19-keys-outperforms-enterprise-ai-without-their-budget/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Free Know Thyself First Tool https://instituteofbusinessai.org/know-thyself-first ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ AI Business Intelligence Society Monthly membership for established business owners building measurable AI systems. https://instituteofbusinessai.org/membership ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ CONNECT WITH 19 KEYS High Level Conversations @19KEYS https://19keys.com/ CONNECT WITH TERDAWN DEBOE Forbes Contributing Columnist | Founder, Institute of Business AI TerDawn.com @ TerDawn DeBoe on IG, FB, LinkedIn ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ If your AI investment has not produced a measurable return, this conversation explains why and gives you a framework to change that.

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April 27, 202673

Welcome to the Institute of Business AI | Meet TeJaye, Your AI Guide

Meet TeJaye. TerDawn DeBoe's AI assistant and your guide to the Institute of Business AI YouTube channel. While TerDawn is building curriculum, training clients, writing for Forbes, or somewhere in nature with her phone on do not disturb, TeJaye is here every week with AI tips, strategies, and frameworks that actually work inside real businesses. This channel is built for business owners, consultants, speakers, and founders who are done experimenting with AI and ready to measure the return. What you will find here: - AI implementation strategies that produce documented ROI -The STEAD Framework for measuring AI across 5 business levers - AI Tool Tutorials - AI agent builds you can deploy this week - Real client case studies with real numbers TerDawn DeBoe is a Forbes Contributor, AI ROI Strategist, and Founder of the Institute of Business AI. She holds the only CPD-accredited AI ROI certification program in the industry. FREE TRAINING Register for the AI Advantage Masterclass (Free): https://instituteofbusinessai.org/masterclass JOIN THE COMMUNITY AI Business Intelligence Society: https://instituteofbusinessai.org/membership CONNECT Forbes Column: https://forbes.com/sites/terdawndeboe Instagram: https://instagram.com/terdawndeboe LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/terdawndeboe Website: https://instituteofbusinessai.org #AIforBusiness #AIROI #AIStrategy #SmallBusinessAI #AIImplementation #InstituteOfBusinessAI #TeJaye #AIAgent #ClaudeAI #businessgrowth

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Clips & Shorts

Quick takeaways from conversations that matter.

The Tool Isn’t the Problem

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Turn One Live Class Into an AI System

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We’re Going Up Together #ReturnOnIntention #BusinessWithPurpose #ROIwithAI

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When AI Gets the Culture Wrong #CulturalIntelligence #AICopywriting #AIForBusiness

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About ROI with AI

What is ROI with AI?

ROI with AI is a podcast and YouTube show by the Institute of Business AI. Hosted by TerDawn DeBoe with AI co-host TeJaye, the show explores how business owners can measure and maximize their return on investment from artificial intelligence — focusing on self-knowledge, systems, and strategic implementation rather than just tool collection.

Who hosts ROI with AI?

TerDawn DeBoe, founder of the Institute of Business AI, Forbes Contributor, and creator of the 5 ROI Levers™ framework hosts the show. Most episodes also feature TeJaye, TerDawn's AI co-host, who provides insights and keeps the conversation going between guest episodes.

How often are new episodes released?

New episodes drop 2–3 times per week on the Institute of Business AI YouTube channel. Full-length episodes feature in-depth conversations with guests, while shorter clips highlight key takeaways and insights.

Where can I watch ROI with AI?

ROI with AI is available exclusively on YouTube. Subscribe to the Institute of Business AI channel to get notified of new episodes as they drop.

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