iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Gems on personal Google accounts start turning into skills in November. Workspace business accounts keep theirs until March 2027. A Gem on a producer's personal Gmail moves first. theaihat.com/gemini-gems-retiring

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

A pilot can go fine and still die. If nobody at the agency owns what the tool produces, it stops being anyone's job. The blanks on your owner list are your Pilot Purgatory. theaihat.com/insurance-ai-pilots-st…

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Nobody hands the alarm code to a stranger in a company polo without calling the alarm company first. A skill from someone you can't name deserves the same two minutes. theaihat.com/ai-skill-security-chec…

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Take apart a meal kit. The skill is the recipe card, the Project is your kitchen, connectors are your suppliers and the plugin is the box. Know the parts and the box is optional. theaihat.com/skills-vs-projects-vs-…

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

OpenAI's GPT migration guidance is written for Enterprise. On Plus, you have four real options before December 11. Step one: copy your instructions into a doc today. theaihat.com/chatgpt-plus-custom-gp…

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Most custom GPTs are junk drawers: a procedure, some standing context and a few outside connections, all in one place. Moving to a skill is the chance to give each its own home. theaihat.com/migrate-custom-gpt-to-…

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Every custom GPT goes dark on December 11, on every ChatGPT plan. Your instructions and files can move with it. Custom actions, chat history and sharing settings stay behind. theaihat.com/custom-gpt-retirement

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Your phone resets itself when daylight saving ends. The car clock doesn't. Your Medicare AI prompts are the car clock, and CMS changed the marketing rules on October 1. theaihat.com/ai-medicare-marketing-…

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Joining me at the top of the hour is the one-and-only Chris Penn, here to break down for us what's going on with LinkedIn! RSVP using the link in comments.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

12 LinkedIn drafts. 0 published. Posts stall when they start from nothing. Archie starts from something you've already made - a webinar, an episode, an article - and turns it into posts in your voice, ready to schedule. agorapulse.pulse.ly/zbz9dloij4

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Give insurance agents 10 hours back and 42% would spend it on people: deeper client relationships and more discovery calls. The ambition is intact. The calendar is the problem.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Interviewed Rich Brooks. AI drafts his social posts from his transcripts, and he reads and edits every one before it goes out. We built Archie at @Agorapulse to work that way. Archie drafts, you decide. Live now, free during beta. agorapulse.pulse.ly/hgnhjswgwv #Archie

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The pattern that held across our whole insurance survey: confidence followed investment. Paid users mostly describe themselves as getting somewhere. Free users mostly describe themselves as stuck. Which causes which, a survey cannot say. The pattern is still worth acting on.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

30% of the insurance agents we surveyed named email and follow-up as the work that feels least like selling. It is the second biggest drain after the CRM, and it is the one most people have quietly accepted as the job.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

We described a simple idea to insurance agents: a one page briefing on every lead, waiting for you each morning. One reply: "30-45 mins and my day would change drastically." The fix people want is rarely the flashy one.

theaihat.com

Insurance AI Adoption Statistics 2026 - Survey Data From 100+ Agents

We surveyed insurance agents ahead of AI training. Nearly half rate their AI confidence a 1 or 2, and free-plan users are twice as likely to feel stuck.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

This one made me go count my own posts. Molly Mahoney sorts buyer objections into seven categories, and the one that keeps customers is the one almost nobody writes for. pulse.ly/jybuesxxc9

pulse.ly

Convert Skeptics to Buyers: Build an AI Tree of Beliefs

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

An insurance agent, asked about long term planning: "Right now all I do is react to the biggest crisis." That is what a week with no room in it sounds like.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Asked what feels like a waste of time but is required anyway, insurance agents pointed at two things: 24% hunting for product specs. 20% compliance and marketing review. Both are searches for something the organization already has.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

You bought the AI. So why is the day longer? Because a tool without a role is just one more system to manage. Nobody wrote the job.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

She spent the whole episode on what breaks an operation, then closed on this. Every decision that got you here was made by someone doing their best with what they had. That is not a failure worth carrying. Ty Givens, CX Collective, on episode 124 of The AI Hat Podcast.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Admin Drag is the gap between two org charts: the official one, and the one living inside everyone's calendar.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

One agent enters client information into Medicare Center, then enters the same information a second time just to run a quote. She knows it is duplicate work. The systems do not. From our 2026 survey of insurance professionals.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

A Digital Crew is not a pile of tools. It's governed agents with seats, a manager, and written rules.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Out of the box, every AI is a yes-man. You have enough people telling you you're right. Tell it to challenge your assumptions. Hire a colleague, not a cheerleader.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Shadow AI doesn't get eliminated. It gets illuminated: brought into the light, given rules, made safe.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Nobody thinks less of Da Vinci because his workshop mixed the pigment and stretched the canvas. A crew isn't cheating. It's staffing the mission.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

One insurance agent, asked what holds him back with AI: "I don't know what I could ask it to beyond polishing my emails." That is not a skill problem. Nobody showed him what the work could look like.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

AI is a brilliant new hire. PhD smarts, works around the clock, and knows absolutely nothing about your business. Brilliant and clueless. So onboard it.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Steve Bales called GO on the Apollo 11 1202 alarm because weeks earlier he'd blown the same call in a simulation, then gone back and written the rules. That's the first thing in my AI's filing cabinet. Standing decisions, written down before anybody needs them.

theaihat.com

How I Use Notion MCP to Give My AI Crew a Permanent Memory

Your AI starts every chat at zero. Here is how I use Notion MCP to give my Digital Crew a permanent memory - the setup, and the step most people skip.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Every agent in our survey chose to sign up for AI training. That leaves out the skeptical, the intimidated, and the ones too buried to consider a workshop. So 45% at the bottom of the confidence scale is the optimistic number. The industry is worse.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Redesign the work first. Then deploy the AI. Most teams reverse the order, and that's the whole story of why pilots stall.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Samsung engineers once pasted proprietary code into a free chatbot to debug it. It left their control the moment it went in. Swap code for client data and tell me how that ends.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Average self-rated AI confidence among the insurance agents we surveyed: 2.65 out of 5. On a five point scale, 3 is the neutral middle. The average agent sits just below it.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Give your AI permission to ask clarifying questions. It comes back with ten, and half of them make you say: oh, I should have told you that.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

An AI Chief of Staff isn't a better chatbot. It's a seat on your org chart with a job description, standing rules, and your context.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

We asked 112 insurance agents what they would do with 10 hours back each week. 31% said research new territories. 21% said deepen client relationships. 21% said more discovery calls. Not one said they would work less.

theaihat.com

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Three men flew Apollo 11. Four hundred thousand people worked the mission. Nobody ever said the ground crew replaced Neil Armstrong.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

One agent described her day: log into every carrier portal, then re-log into HealthSherpa and healthcare.gov every 30 minutes. Her own math on what that costs her: a minimum of 30 minutes a day. From our survey of 112 insurance professionals.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Most people frustrated with AI are standing on rung one, asking a goldfish to be a colleague.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

One agent told me she re-logs into the same two sites every thirty minutes. All day. Her estimate: half an hour a day, minimum. That's a licensed professional working as a login. 56 prompts for enrollment season, free digital edition: theaihat.com/aep-prompts

theaihat.com

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

72% of the insurance agents we surveyed have a specific detail they look up again and again while a client is on the phone. OEP rules. Medicaid details. What a summary of benefits actually covers. The answer exists. It just is not where the conversation is.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

The best thing my AI Chief of Staff does isn't drafting. It's pushback.

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Mike Allton | AI Keynote Speaker | Digital Crew System creator @mikeallton.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Asked which weekly task feels like data entry rather than selling, 43% of insurance agents named the same thing: updating the CRM. Close the sale, then type what you already know into fields. Nothing in that needs a license.

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