I want to be honest about something upfront: I am not an AI expert. Yes, I have read more white papers than I care to admit. I think about this technology constantly. But I am still learning. And the more I learn, the more I realize how much I still don’t know.
That admission matters because I just recorded a webinar called AI Agents 101 (see the video above) for our local tourism industry in the Florida Keys, with the intent of sharing it with our businesses and stakeholders. And if I’m being real, building that webinar is as much for me as it is for them.
There is nothing that forces you to truly understand something like having to explain it to someone else.
Teaching is the best learning tool I know. When I sat down to build that presentation, I had to ask myself hard questions. What does an AI agent actually do, in plain English? How is it different from the AI tools people are already accidentally using? And most importantly: what does any of this mean for a dive shop in Key Largo or a restaurant in Key West? Those questions pushed me further and faster.
What Prompted This
When I look across the Florida Keys, I keep noticing something in conversations with our stakeholders. Business owners were hearing about AI everywhere and feeling a quiet anxiety about it. Not panic, just that low-grade worry that something big is happening and you’re not quite sure if you’re falling behind. I recognized that feeling because I’d felt it too, before I started digging in.
Not many are really talking to them about it in a way that is connected to their actual lives. So I thought: if not us, then who?
I want to be clear that I didn’t come into this with a polished program or a master plan. I came in with a slide deck, a camera on my computer in my office, and a genuine belief that imperfect and helpful is better than perfect and absent.
What I Discovered Along the Way
Translating AI concepts for tourism businesses is teaching me things I hadn’t expected. For one, the questions our stakeholders ask are better than most of the questions I’ve seen in formal AI education settings. They’re not asking about algorithms. They’re asking about trust. Will this make my guests feel like they’re talking to a robot? What happens when it gets something wrong? How do I stay in control of my own business if I hand pieces of it over to a system I don’t fully understand?
Those are genuinely hard questions. I don’t have complete answers to all of them. But I’ve found that being honest about that, sitting in the uncertainty alongside people rather than pretending to have it all figured out, creates more trust than a polished presentation ever could.
Sitting in the uncertainty alongside people, rather than pretending to have it all figured out, creates more trust than a polished presentation ever could.
I also discovered that the Florida Keys community is more ready for this conversation than I expected. People are curious. They want to understand. They’re not resistant to new technology; they’re just waiting for someone to explain it in terms that make sense for their world, not the world of Silicon Valley or enterprise software.
Why I Think DMOs Are Uniquely Positioned to Lead This
This is the part I’m still thinking through, so take it as a hypothesis more than a conclusion.
Destination marketing organizations have something that most AI educators don’t: genuine relationships with the community they serve. We’re not selling software. We don’t have a product to push. When we show up to talk about AI agents, we’re showing up as neighbors, as partners, as people who are wrestling with the same questions.
That might make us imperfect AI educators in some technical sense. But I think it makes us exactly the right ones for this moment. Because what most small tourism businesses need right now isn’t a technical deep dive. It’s permission to start. It’s someone saying: this is confusing for all of us, and that’s okay, and here’s a place to begin.
I don’t know yet if the AI Agents 101 webinar will turn into something bigger. Maybe it becomes a series. Maybe I look back in two years and think I got half of it wrong. That’s fine. What matters is starting the conversation.
An Invitation, Not a Prescription
If you’re a business leader reading this and thinking about whether you should be doing something similar in your community, my honest answer is: I don’t know. Every destination is different. Every community has different needs and different readiness levels.
But if you’re feeling that same low-grade pull that I felt, that sense that something important is shifting and your community is going to need help navigating it, I’d encourage you to trust that instinct. You don’t have to have it all figured out first. You just have to be willing to learn out loud.
I’m still doing that. I expect I will be for a long time. And honestly, that might be the most useful thing I can model for the people and businesses I serve.
If you’re working through similar questions in your organization or your destination, I’d genuinely love to compare notes. This is one of those topics where I think we all get smarter faster if we stop pretending to have the answers and just think out loud together.
— Kara
In case you missed it:
· The Year That Changed How I Lead
· Beyond the Influencer: Building Destination Brands Through Coordinated Partnerships
· The Florida Keys Grew While U.S. Travel Declined. Here’s How.
· Show Me the ROI: How Four Pennies Power the Florida Keys Tourism Economy
· The Uncertainty Advantage: Turning National Hesitation into Opportunity
· AI Agents, Florida Fishing Guides and the Future of Destination Data
· AI Agents & the Future of Hotel Marketing in The Florida Keys
