#663 Voice AI in Training: How Smart Audio Transforms Workforce Learning with Derek Crager

What if every work task became a training opportunity? 

In this episode, Derek Crager, founder of Practical AI and creator of Pocket Mentor, shares how Voice AI is transforming industrial training—turning downtime into real-time learning. Forget screens and software—Derek’s system delivers guidance, troubleshooting, and skill-building through simple phone calls.

Discover how Voice AI helps close the global skills gap, preserve tribal knowledge, and empower workers to learn on the job. Derek’s neurodivergent perspective offers a refreshing take on AI that feels human, inclusive, and practical.

You’ll learn how Voice AI:
✅ Turns every task into a training opportunity
 ✅ Solves the biggest weaknesses of traditional training
 ✅ Makes expert knowledge accessible to everyone, anytime

This conversation is for leaders ready to upskill teams, modernise learning, and make technology work for people, not replace them.

🔗 CONNECT WITH DEREK

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amazonleadership/

Websites:

https://www.practicalai.app
https://pocket-mentor-extending--ow7cs3r.gamma.site/
https://neurocompanion-support-f-g9go2c2.gamma.site/

📌 PROMOTION: https://why-traditional-training-ry9czxd.gamma.site/

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Transcript

Intro | 00:00
Business insights on talking with the experts. Hosted by Rose Davidson. 

 Rose | 00:10
Have you ever thought about training with an AI voice? Voice AI is artificial intelligence that understands and responds to spoken language in real time, making it ideal for hands-free environments like factories or field work. My next guest, Derek Crager, is going to be discussing voice How voice AI turns every task into a training opportunity, why traditional training fails and how voice AI democratises expertise across your workforce. Derek is the founder of Practical AI and the creator of Pocket Mentor, the world's first voice-based AI mentor with... Hands-free real-time industrial support. He's a veteran in industrial reliability and training and draws on his neurodivergence, his autism, his ADHD and dyslexia as a strategic edge in pattern recognition and human-centered AI design. Through Practical AI, Derek helps companies close the skills gap by turning tribal knowledge into voice-guided support employees can access at any time. With just a phone call, no app, no login, Pocket Mentor enables technicians to troubleshoot, install and repair systems on the job. Derek's mission is to simplify AI, empower workers and scale expertise without increasing headcount. He works... His work sits at the intersection of digital transformation and real-world productivity, helping teams work smarter, learn faster, and serve customers better, no matter who's on shift. Derek, it is such a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for joining me here on Talking With The Experts. 

 Derek | 01:58
Well, thank you, Rose. It's a pleasure and I'm grateful for the invitation. 

 Rose | 02:03
So, Derek, tell me about why... Pocket Mentor is such an advantage for business owners and what prompted you to come up with the idea. 

 Derek | 02:13
Well, my experience in life, Rose, is that humans can accomplish anything in life if they have the right answer at the right time. And that doesn't mean that, you know, hey, we got a library back here in the back that you can go check out because that takes the human, whether it is on a professional employment or just in themselves, out of what they're doing. 
 And then they have to walk back and they're shifting gears. And now, you know, we're just humans. 
 So I like the idea of that phone a friend concept. I loved it on the game show. And I just like having a friend. 
 I mean, I think we all like having friends, especially those that are knowledgeable. So that's where I designed Pocket Mentor. It's an AI, but I want to share that it's not AI that thinks for the human. It's AI that thinks with the human. 
 So Pocket we can call it tapping the industrial easy button right we just have these earbuds we just you know do a tap and pocket mentor comes on with something you know fun like hi i'm mike with pocket mentor you know how can i help you today and then you just jump right into it you talk to him or her as if it's a friend and you say hey mike I'm doing this thing and it could be, you know, maybe changing the toner and the printer that we do once a year. We don't have to memorize that. Right. Or it could be in an industrial setting where an electrician is looking to diagnose a electrical motor that they've never diagnosed before. They know the safety process. They know how to. Keep safe and keep others safe, but they forgot the steps. 
 So they just tap that easy button and they say, Hey, I'm here on this machine and it's a 480 volt motor and I have this error code. So, in response, conversationally, it's like, "Hey, yeah, let me walk you through that, Derek, and start here, start there. That error code tells you this." And now it's just like a human. 
 And then I get there, I say, "Well, wait a minute. I know the manual said there's supposed to be three wires, but there's actually four. What's going on?" " no worries. You probably have the version 1.2a instead of 1.2 on its own." So if we were looking at this in a manual, We'd be sitting here and just shaking our head because we'd be sitting in a room by ourselves and just looking at this manual, trying to figure out the answer when the answer is not in the manual. Because I'll let you in on a little secret, Rose. These machines don't read the manuals like we're supposed to, right? Those SOPs and all that. 
 So that's the concept. That's how it came about is just having that friendly voice that makes sure that we're never alone. 

 Rose | 05:01
Yeah, it's a great concept. I mean, you know, when I was used to go and search ships and things once upon a time, you know, would have been handy just then to say, well, you know, I'm not quite sure about this, you know, what are your thoughts? 
 So yeah, it would have been a great little concept to have back in the day. But how can voice AI, how can it turn every task into a training opportunity? 

 Derek | 05:27
Well, there's a 70-20-10 training outline or philosophy that was started at North Carolina University. And what it states is that 70% of all learning happens on the job. 20% of all learning actually happens in between jobs when we're talking with coworkers, peers. 
 And then 10%, which is just Like, gosh, one hour out of 10, right, is that's when we learn through the traditional methods and traditional methods are, you know, we sit in a workshop, we read a book, we do homework, you know, call it whatever you like, but these are the traditional methods. So The way Pocket Mentor comes in and supports that training all day long through all 100% is that you don't have to carry around a textbook. It's great if you read the textbook, that way you have a background on it. But when you're on the job, and it could be a white collar job, it can be a blue collar trades job, a frontline workers job. But when we're working, we generally have our hands busy, right? And our eyes busy because we're looking at what we're working on. And if we have to stop and pick up a tablet to read a PDF or a paper manual to read, that means we're taking. Out of that inertia. We can no longer fix or do or iterate. In our task. And that makes us as humans feel a little bit depleted. 
 You know, I really wanted to accomplish something instead of just looking, reading books all day long. So that's where really any topic at all. If there's a mentor, if you can picture calling a friend, calling a teacher, calling a professor, calling an instructor and saying, hey, you've done this before. Can you talk me through it? 
 Well, in that same instance, we take an imprint of that subject matter expert and this digital imprint is how we interface with the human through AI. And once again, I want to state, we're not using AI to think for the person. We're using AI to soundboard with that person to do more than, you know, read the stats one, two, three, four. We're looking to solve a root cause analysis or diagnostics. And to get to the root of the problem when the manuals don't have an. 

 Rose | 07:46
Answer. Yeah, and that can be quite a challenge too when you read the manual back to front You think you've memorized everything. 
 And then you come up with a problem that you can't solve because it's not in the manual. As much as you search and search, you can't find the solution. 
 So that sounds really... Great to be able to do that. Derek, why does traditional training fail and how does voice AI fix that? 

 Derek | 08:16
Well, traditional training, there's something called the forgetting curve. Scientist Ebbinghaus came up with it in the late 1800s, and he did some studies. And he said, okay, we learn, right? We have a book, we read. Today, you know, we watch videos or listen to podcasts, right, to learn. But as soon as that learning stops, kind of like we take the foot off the gas, right? What happens in our car when we take the foot off the gas yeah all right we slow down and that's what our brains do our brain slows down and ebbinghaus demonstrated that 50 or half of everything that we learn we forget within 20 minutes it seems outlandish but it's true right and when we're starting something new the best thing that we can have is a friend And that phone a friend instance is what we give using this AI Pocket Mentor voice first technology. And it's scalable and that's really the benefit here. We could probably as companies hire a mentor for every employee we have. But realistically, economically, that would be doubling our workforce, doubling our responsibilities, and their only job would be to answer questions right there and then. But it's not scalable, right? Even me hearing me talk through it, that's, well, that's kind of silly, Derek. 
 Well, you know, it is kind of silly. And I want to iterate as well that we're not looking to replace traditional training. Traditional training is what gives that foundation. But we're looking to be there with just in time knowledge that can support that worker, to support that employee, that human in their moment of need. And there's a side benefit here too. Humans, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, they have a research that says humans would rather talk to AI than talk to a human because when Me as a human, ask another human a question. Now I'm at a place of fear of being judged. And that just compounds anxiety if we're new to AI. 

 Rose | 10:27
Workforce. Yeah, absolutely. I get that. I was just going to finish your sentence for you because that's how I would feel, you know, that they're being a little bit judgy because, you know, you should know that and, you know, you don't. You might know it in the back of your brain somewhere, but it's been lost and, you know, you can't. To try and figure it out would take a long time when you don't maybe don't have that time. - Derek, how can voice AI democratise expertise across the workforce? 

 Derek | 10:57
Well, that's the real goal here. In many companies, there is usually somebody that is the go-to person. I've got a guy, I've got a gal, I've got somebody to answer that question. Just let me check with them. But If it's one person on a team of two, you know, maybe that's not so bad. But if it's one person on a team of 10 or 50 waiting for that person to, you know, clock in for the day or come in from the weekend or come in from their vacation to ask them the question to solve the problem for us. 
 Well, that's just problematic. So the democratization comes in is where We take the information that is out there, everything that everybody should know. And that's where we're at. We're all in a different state of learning. And somebody has been doing a job for 30 years, of course, they're going to be experts at it. They've been doing it for 30 years. But If we can, and we can, that's what we do at Pocket Mentor. Document all that knowledge and it's the knowledge from the SOPs, the operations manuals, the maintenance manuals. And we even document that what's been called tribal knowledge or institutional knowledge that's undocumented. We document that from the best people on your team. 
 So They can take their vacations. They can have their weekends without carrying the phone with them because now that information is available through, you know, just tap the button on our earpiece. We hit that easy button. And instead of asking Jim or Janet, You know, it's 2 a.m., you know, and I'm answering the phone, so it's my fault, too. But how can I help you? 
 So instead of doing that, which still isn't scalable, even if they're willing to answer the phone after midnight, they tap a button and. Companies for pennies on the dollar can distribute that expertise to everybody on their team and make everybody a valuable and productive employee. 

 Rose | 13:00
I know AI is not perfect and I know it can only do what data is entered into it. What happens when there's a step missed or the AI can't answer the question. 

 Derek | 13:18
Well, that's a great question right there because there's AI in the wild that we hear about that hallucinations, you know, people mention that it's just giving me the wrong answer. So the way we build it inside a box. And by definition, that's all AI can do is operate inside a box because We're the humans who built it. 
 So in order to raise the caliber and the quality of that instruction, that knowledge set, we put that knowledge into a box and we don't let the AI out. The AI is like a genie in a bottle. And it's going to access the information that the company has authorized, that the subject matter experts at the company have authorized that say, hey, this is the way we do things. There might be three different ways of doing something, but this is the safest and the most efficient. 
 So that's the only answer that we're going to give. Now, there will come a time when somebody asks a question that's not on the topic of what the knowledge is in that box. And it will say, we program it that way to say, you know what, that's a topic I'm not familiar with. And that could be something like in the industrial setting, if they're talking and diagnosing an electrical problem, and then just out of the blue, the user says, hey, I have this pneumatic valve that stuck. Can you talk me through fixing this? 
 Well, that's where I say no, because I'm an electrical subject matter expert, not a pneumatic. And in that instance, it's just like pulling another book off the shelf. We go to books because that's a has specific knowledge, but we don't expect one book to have all the knowledge. 
 So we designed one pocket mentor, two pocket mentors, and I feel a little bit like Sesame Street, three pocket mentors. 

 Rose | 15:11
Okay, so you only carry the one pocket mentor with you at all, you know, or do you? Carry all three. 

 Derek | 15:20
Well, that's the neat thing about ones and zeros in this digital world is that Pocket Mentor, we utilize a mobile phone to get access to it. And that mobile phone has access to everything that's on the phone and everything in the world. 
 So let's look at, let's say in that industrial setting again, there's a QR code on line one that tells the frontline workers everything about line one. And a separate QR code on line two and a third QR code on line three. 
 So as a worker, we can just go in there and tap the speed button to automatically connect because it could be mobile phones, it could be phones on the wall, it could be a web browser that we're just tapping a button, but it still comes to this voice setting. So we're going to be accessing the knowledge that we need for that specific instance. 
 So, you know, could there be three pocket mentors, five, 50, 500? Absolutely. And each company has access to all those, but we make it simple so the employee does not need to think. They just go and they scan the NFC or they scan the QR code or they just pick up the phone on the wall that's pre-programmed to dial. That specific subject matter expert. 
 And then they get the answer that that's specific to that line or that operation. 

 Rose | 16:40
Wonderful. So you really don't, you're not really carrying a device. You're just wearing earbuds. 

 Derek | 16:45
Yes. 

 Rose | 16:47
Wow, that's exciting. That is exciting. And how many companies have taken up your... See you guys. 

 Derek | 16:57
Well, not nearly enough. Let me tell you that. It's, we're working right now with 18 different companies. And it's, we start out the typical processes start on a pilot, where, you know, it's a get to know you scenario, because there's new technology involved. And anytime there's new technology involved, there's this. 
 But it's that change process to begin with that slows people down on the adoption. So we're here to share that, you know, try a pilot, work through it. And if AI is not the right solution for a problem, then, yeah, we'll tell you that too. But Again, I want to emphasize that we are not using AI to think for the person. We're using AI to think with the person and really augment them to the training. 
 So that makes it more receptive.

 
 Rose | 18:19
Yeah, I agree. I think... AI, most people imagine it as you put in a prompt and it will think for you. But if it's working with you, then it can only be of benefit. 

 Derek | 18:34
Yeah, 100%. I know MIT a couple months ago released a, I don't know if it was a blog post or an article, but MIT, the school in North America, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, they were talking about the dumbing down of students that use, and this is what made the headlines two and three years ago, is that students would type in a subject into ChatGPT and say, give me a report or give me a book report or a thesis, et cetera, and then it would spit it out. 
 So in this instance, in that example, rather, the student would Copy. Taste and they're done. 
 So the knowledge never actually goes through their brain. So the benefit here with voice technology is that they have to learn it as they're using it because just like you and I are having a conversation now, Everything that I hear you say goes into my brain. And if I was just going to transcribe it myself manually, it would have to go through my brain. I would have to understand it before it allowed to go out to down my arm, into my hand, into a writing instrument that will allow me to write it out. 
 So that's another advantage, a built-in advantage of using the voice interface is that the person using it their brain has to work because it's a two-way conversation. It's not a copy and paste. And that's the bonus. 

 Rose | 20:04
It has to be understood, doesn't it? And that's really important in the fact that they're learning at the same time as they're doing. 

 Derek | 20:13
Correct. Correct. 

 Rose | 20:16
If you want to reach out to Derek, you can find him on LinkedIn at Amazon Leadership on his website at www.practicalai.app. Pocket Mentor Extending and Neuro... Companion support and you have a traditional training that you want to gift our listeners today? 

 Derek | 20:41
You say a traditional training? 

 Rose | 20:43
Yeah. Why traditional training? 

 Derek | 20:46
We might have had a miscue on that, but no. Well, actually, as far as a statement, the advice that I give is that, you know, identify the gaps that you have on your team and address those gaps and find out what the reasoning, the root causes that. Don't just throw more and more training at your team. Your employees just because they didn't get the first batch. Because if they didn't get the first batch, they're not going to get the second and third. And so be spend as much time paring down your training to remove what is no longer needed, as you do, you know, acting responsibility or responsible to make sure they have the right training in their hands. That's just as important. 

 Rose | 21:33
Yeah, it's a bit like going to university. If you miss the first lecture, don't bother going to the second or third because you've missed the fundamentals. 

 Derek | 21:42
And the medals are important. 

 Rose | 21:44
Absolutely. Derek, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing and really good luck with your app. 

 Derek | 21:51
Thank you, Rose. And thank you to all your listeners. You have a great program. I hope that you go on forever. 

 Rose | 21:58
Thank you. Bye-bye for now. 

 Derek | 22:02
Bye-bye for now. 

 Outro | 22:04
You've been listening to Talking with the Experts with Rose Davidson. The podcast that brings you real stories, bold insights, and strategies that work. Be sure to subscribe on YouTube or your favorite podcast channel so you never miss an episode and dive into our full library anytime at talkingwiththeexperts.com. Until next time, keep learning, keep growing and keep talking with the experts.