Episode 20: The Data Trade-Off: How to Take Back Control of Your Money in an AI-Driven World
What are you really giving away every time you tap "accept," download an app, or hand your information to AI?
Technology runs on our personal data, and every app, loyalty program, and AI tool asks for something in return for convenience. Those small exchanges add up to detailed profiles that quietly shape pricing, insurance rates, and financial decisions most people never think twice about.
Sanjana Chintalapudi, founder of the Data Conscious Collective, helps people build real agency in a data-driven world. A data scientist by training, she explains the "data trade-off," why AI is a language generator rather than a financial expert, and where the real risk lies when you hand over sensitive information.
Listen in as Sanjana shows how to spot the tech anxiety behind impulsive money decisions, protect your financial information from AI and scams, and use technology on your own terms.
What You’ll Learn:
What the "data trade-off" is and how apps quietly collect more than you realize.
Why uploading tax returns and financial documents into AI tools is genuinely risky.
Why AI generates language well but often gets math and analysis wrong.
How tech anxiety and constant notifications push people toward emotional money decisions.
How to recognize get-rich-quick pressure around crypto, day trading, and market FOMO.
Why data literacy matters as much as financial literacy today.
How business owners can use AI while keeping humans on high-risk work.
Ideas Worth Sharing:
“AI's intelligence is not human intelligence, and the danger is thinking those are interchangeable. I love AI for the access it provides, but at some point you will need a human, because humans are the experts.” - Sanjana Chintalapudi
“These models are definitely game-changing, but they are not life-changing. And I think we forget that these are just tech and tools and not water and food. They're not the things we need to survive.” - Sanjana Chintalapudi
“Accessibility does not always mean better. Just because you've opened it up—you've democratized an idea, a concept, a tool—doesn't mean it's actually a better way of living and doing for users and people.” - Sanjana Chintalapudi
Resources:
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Bits of Us
About Our Guest:
Sanjana Chintalapudi is the founder of the Data Conscious Collective and a management professional with over 7 years of experience leading cross-functional teams across AI, analytics, and HR transformation. She has a proven track record of driving business strategy and implementing AI-driven solutions that align with ethical standards and organizational goals. Passionate about using data and technology to solve complex problems, she helps individuals and organizations build confidence and real agency in a data-driven world.
Connect with Us:
If you're ready to stop avoiding your finances and start building the future you deserve, schedule a free call with me at pelicanfinancialplanning.com and let’s create your personalized financial plan together.
And if you want ongoing guidance, clarity, and confidence as you grow your wealth, subscribe to our newsletter for financial insights delivered right to your inbox.
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Read the Transcript:
Sanjana Chintalapudi: AI's intelligence is not human intelligence, and the danger is thinking those are interchangeable. I love AI for the access it provides, but at some point you will need a human, because humans are the experts.
Welcome to The Wealth Development Studio. I'm your host, Genevieve George, Senior Financial Advisor and Founder of Pelican Financial Planning & Wealth. Our goal for this episode is to provide clarity about today's financial topic, inspire you to be brave with your questions, and gain confidence in your financial future. So take a deep breath, grab your favorite cup of coffee, and step into the studio. Your dose of financial empowerment begins now.
Genevieve George: We talk a lot on this show about making smart financial decisions, but today's conversation is really about something that gets in the way of all of that: the speed, noise, and pressure that technology has baked into our daily lives. My guest today is Sanjana Chintalapudi, founder of the Data Conscious Collective, where she works with individuals and organizations to build confidence and real agency in a data-driven world through workshops, coaching, and speaking.
Her core belief is that understanding how AI and data influence our lives isn't about fear; it's about power. And today we're gonna talk about something that affects every single one of us, whether we realize it or not. It's how the way we've been trained to respond to technology is quietly shaping our financial decisions, sometimes in ways that cost us real money.
Sanjana, thank you so much for being here.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, thanks, Gen.
Genevieve George: I had the pleasure of attending one of your workshops, and so I really enjoyed it, and you shared a story on there that I just felt like really resonated with me in, I think you called it the data trade-off, and I would love to have you just sort of expand on that and how that sort of impacts what we do on a day-to-day basis.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, for sure. So what I call the data trade-off is really what do we give technologies or really anybody or anything, and what do we get in return for that data? So think about it in terms of even a simple example could be you go to a yoga class, and it's not tech, but you fill out a waiver. They have your name.
They have your email. They have your date of birth. Why do they need that? But they do take it. Right? So they…
Genevieve George: They just know how old this person doing yoga is.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Exactly, right? Like, why is that necessary? But they take those. They might sometimes take your address, your phone number, and all these things, and then you give that data away, and then you also might pay for that class, so you also are giving money away, and then you get in return a yoga class.
And so that is the data trade-off. So in technology, we do the same thing. I think about loyalty programs as a data trade-off. So when you apply, you go shopping, and they say, "Fill out a…” "Make a profile, and you get 10% off.” What do they get for that 10%? They get your name. They get your email.
They might get some of your preferences of where they might get your address, and they might also get your credit card 'cause they might say, "Store your credit card for faster checkout." And so for that 10%, you've given all this data about you that then they then use to create a profile about you.
And what happens, especially nowadays with our name and email, is we have so many systems connected to those things that there's actually digital profiles of us in the digital world, and that these companies can access once they have your email. So although you might say, "Oh, I'm just giving out my email," they're actually getting so much more information about you than you probably even know because—
Genevieve George: Because of everybody else I've given my email to?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Exactly. Right. So it's these small data points that we think are, like, very minimal. But as we kind of do it over and over across many different technologies, across many different companies, it builds this robust profile of us. And so this is where I think about the trade-off: is my 10% discount really worth Nordstrom getting this entire profile about me?
And that's an individual's choice. That, I am not here to say that's a right or wrong. It's really up to you what that looks like. I think…
Genevieve George: But to take a step back and really think about what that trade-off is. And you're saying that, and I feel like that's almost really hard because everything asks for something, right?
Like you're saying with the points or the loyalty programs or whatever, I feel like I can't operate without giving some level of information.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And it's hard. It is hard because we've created all these incentives to provide information. The one I consistently think about and reject is Google constantly asks me for my home address and to put a picture on my Gmail.
And I still don't put a picture on my Gmail because I'm like, "Okay, Google, you are a very large technology data company." "And you're an AI company, so I don't know where my picture," 'cause we have no regulation protecting our likeness, “I have no clue what they're gonna use my picture for.”
And if they suddenly attach that to my email and my home address, like, what is that profile really looking? And does it really add value? If I email someone, do they really need to know my picture to recognize it's me? Probably not, right? That doesn't help; that doesn't add value to my day in any way or to my email responses in any way.
So that's where I just am like, “Not necessary." But then there are places where I do give it, like LinkedIn, because that is the, like, status quo, and that helps people validate and verify you are a human and not some bot.
Genevieve George: And somebody I can reach, legitimately reach. And our goal on LinkedIn is to reach people and work with them.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Yeah. So it goes company to company, and I think just recognizing that is the easiest way to start being aware of the data trade-off.
Genevieve George: So you named your company the Data Conscious Collective, and you use that term data conscious very intentionally, and I feel like that is what we're talking about here, and I'll let you just expand on that, but it just feels like something that needs to be present in our everyday lives.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: So I named mine Data Conscious Collective because I think there needs to be an awakening, and there is an awakening around what is our data and how is it used, and how does it impact us in ways that we're aware of? Netflix recommendations are a great way of saying, "Okay, I'm aware of this that this is being used, like my data's being used to recommend me shows and movies."
But there's also unconscious ways and ways that are not surfaced yet of ways that our data's used. I think about insurances as a really easy one that we might not always be aware that our insurance, whether it's car insurance or health insurance, fluctuates based on the data they collect about us and the assumptions they're making about us, whether we've given that data willfully or not. Like I think about car insurances tell you to download the app, and then you get rewards if you're a good driver. But think about the amount of data that they're collecting on you.
They're collecting location data on you. They're collecting, like, how fast you drive, when you stop. I mean, they literally track whether you're picking up your phone, so they're track... And then they put a price on. They're saying, "Oh, you can get this insurance. You get this discount, or you don't get this discount."
But that's a lot of data they have on you for something that you are paying for. Consciousness is something like, “Oh, am I aware that this app might be benefiting me or not? Where's my data going to?” Things like that rather than just saying, "Oh, my data's out there, whatever." Right. It doesn't need to be whatever,
Genevieve George: Yeah. And is there anything that we can do to sort of reverse the data that's already out there? Or stop the bleed?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: I think it's really hard right now, just because unfortunately there is no real regulation and protections around like what data's already out there. But that doesn't mean we're, like, at a place that we can't go back, and that's why I call my company Data Consciousness, 'cause I do think if we are conscious about what data we are putting out there, then we will make different decisions about the data out there, and we might say, "Actually, I'm not gonna download this app."
And if enough people do that, that means something will have to change, right? And that's why I also called mine Data Conscious Collective because I do believe this is kind of we're all in this together. We're all in this collective together on my... if I'm the only one doing different actions around data, that doesn't really change the large-scale behaviors.
But if we all make different decisions, then it can.
Genevieve George: And I feel like a lot of what you're describing is the environment that we're in too, right? I feel like, okay, yeah, I'm at checkout on whatever I need to purchase, and I could get a little bit of a discount, so I'm gonna send my email, and I'm gonna send 'em my phone number, and they're gonna text me all this stuff nonstop.
And I feel like that is pressure to take those actions, and I think you called that tech anxiety. Can you maybe speak to that a little bit on how we sort of can rewire ourselves?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. So tech anxiety is this need to constantly be on tech, put our data out there, whether it's on social media, or whether it's joining the apps, or just honestly… I mean, when I first started this, I recognized how anxious I would get if I heard a text, and I'd feel this need to respond to my friends texting me, and it was this anxiety I'd get, and I'd be at work, or I'd be doing something, and I'd just get pulled away from the moment and into this text that I didn't really need to respond immediately, yeah. And so, that's part of the anxiety. It's just so…
Genevieve George: Not everything is an emergency, you're saying?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yes, exactly. Yeah.
Genevieve George: But we are, like, so trained or have trained ourselves to just like we heard the buzz, like we gotta see what it is. Ugh. What if it is an emergency? I don't know.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Right. 100%, right? I mean, think about how many notifications we get per day. I mean, I've literally turned off all my notifications. I think I have phone calls from favorite people that are turned on, and that's about it. Because it's constant and you're just so... And that one little buzz just pulls you away from the present moment, whether it's with your family or your friends at a show.
And you're just in a different space. And so I think about that as the anxiety that we all kind of feel is we're all feeling this like it's never calm. It's never... There's always this rumbling in us that we have to be on social media or that we have to look at this app or we have to check this data point.
I mean, then think about the amount of newsletters we get in our emails, and we're like, "Oh, we have to read all this news." And it's just this constant anxiety because we're just constantly bombarded with notifications or things. And then there's also this, I feel like, idea that if you're not into it, then you're not aware enough and then you're not woke.
All these things, and it's like none of that is true, right? That's just the cycle.
Genevieve George: Right.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: I mean, the way I think, again, that's not doom and gloom. We can all make changes. And it's really, to me, it's just starting with what makes us anxious.
And this was a year or two ago, I spent a week just noticing when I'd be anxious.
So it was anytime someone would text me, and I'd just hear the buzz, and that would make me anxious. And I would be like, "Oh my God. I don't wanna hear or see that." Or I'd start to notice how many times I picked up my phone, even if there was nothing on my phone, right? I'd just be sitting on the couch and and I'd be watching TV, like watching something…
Genevieve George: And checking your phone, reading memes and scrolling socials and...
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Right. And it's like that was also anxiety because I was just so disconnected from what I was doing in the present, and so that was also causing me anxiety. The other thing I would notice was, like, on social media, we're just in this loop feed, and the term ‘doom scrolling’ is very real.
And so I'd notice what was, like, really causing me anxiety, and I literally unfollowed every... if I saw a post that I was like, "Causes me anxiety," I'd unfollow. And then they'd start to recommend things of people you don't follow, right? And that caused me anxiety. And so then I would just literally turn off my Instagram.
I would say anything, anytime I would be anxious on Instagram, I would just turn it off.
And that actually changed my feed a lot because Instagram, because it cares about your engagement, as you start to turn off your phone and just exit out of the app more, it actually recognizes that you're exiting out and it gives you less of that content.
So I started to notice my algorithm change to much more lighter things. It actually started to give me back friends’ posts again, which for a time I was just- On like random people's influencers pages, news pages, whatever. And so I never saw what my friends were doing on Instagram and things like that.
And I think that's like really just the start is like just noticing, and then just making, doing something that brings us joy instead. I'd go, I'd like literally get up and walk away from my phone. Yeah.
Genevieve George: I mean, you're saying all of that, and I feel so much of that myself. And I'm sure you feel this too, particularly as a business owner, right?
It's not necessarily the text, but it's the emails. I'm like, "Oh, my goodness, I just wanna make sure that I'm like servicing my clients and for their needs and whatnot, and I don't want anything to slip through the cracks." But nobody is emailing me expecting an immediate response, but that is like the pressure that I carry around that I like, "Oh, my God, I have to sit down and get this hammered out right now.” Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: No. But yeah. We've like created this culture of like immediate feedback, immediate responses.
Genevieve George: And just being like always connected, right? You can reach me anytime and…
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, 100%.
Genevieve George: And I want my clients to feel like I'm accessible, but at the same time, like they're not expecting me to respond in a moment's notice, and if they are, they're calling, right? If something is really on fire, they're calling. Right?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, yeah.
Genevieve George: It’s part of like my own rewiring, right? It's okay if the, what, what used to be the standard, 24 hours to respond, right?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: I don't think that's the standard anymore.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: No. Yeah, 100%.
Genevieve George: But it’s it's interesting.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. I mean, and like we even have I think about at work you'll have Slack on your phone, Outlook on your phone. And so it's just like you're always on. And I think the pandemic in many ways made that worse because it just fused our life and work so much, and we're so connected because we were forced to be so like technologically connected. Now it's kinda like, how do we kinda reel it back a little?
Genevieve George: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I like to see that there are there were a lot of terrible things that came out of COVID, right? There were some wonderful things in that we could spend more time with our families and that merger in some positions was positive, but then there are some cons to it, right?
That work is always at home with you and there's no off switch because you merged your personal and your professional life. But it's an interesting time to be moving through and trying to navigate, and I'm sure you see it in the professional space that trying to help your teams that you're working with navigate those changes for themselves as well, right?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Yeah. I think there's definitely this anxiety of if I'm not connected, I'm behind, and it's absolutely not. That's something even with AI; we have this, like, I hear and I read it all the time about the AI hype of "If you're not involved in AI, you're being left behind. This is the technology of the future.”
And you're like, everyone's gotta take a break. We all gotta just relax, and these models are definitely game-changing, but they are not life-changing. And I think we forget that these are just tech and tools and not water and food.
They're not the things we need to survive. Yeah. And it's just a tool, and you can use a tool when you feel like it. And you don't need to use a tool when you don't feel like it, and that's up to you, and it doesn't change your perception of whether you're behind or not.
Genevieve George: Yeah. And I appreciate that you bring up the AI tools, because they are such powerful tools if used correctly. And I'm not here to say what is correct or what is not correct, but I feel like there are maybe some advice going around that's a little dangerous. So you and I recently chatted about this.
I am a big fan of Mel Robbins, but she went on and told people to upload all of their financial information into AI, and that is scary, right? Because you talk about that data exchange, the trade-off there. Maybe speak to that and how people should operate under that type of advice.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, so that's a great example of where the data trade-off is and the risks of just putting our data out there. So you and your listeners probably know best of your tax documents and your financial documents might have Social Security numbers on it, might have your income level. Yeah. Yeah. Like, all these things that are your, like, personal identifiers, and if you put it on, in a system, and ChatGPT, Claude, all these systems are, they're large language models, and they are trained on massive amounts of data, and that means they are storing massive amounts of data.
Genevieve George: And now they're storing my tax return? In that situation?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Exactly.
Genevieve George: I did not upload my tax return, by the way.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Please do not. Yeah. But it's also we actually... they're getting better at this, but the security of a model and a system that is that large is very hard.
And so we also have to think about it's not just putting your data in there; it's where is that data gonna show up that it should not show up.
A few years ago, there was a study done. They actually were trying to think about where do emails come up again and again?
If people are putting their emails in or their cities, date of births, and AI can pull, because, again, it's just taking training data, learning on it, and then pulling that information back out and generating on it. So you might say, "Oh, I'm just giving this to this system," but that system might store it and then retrieve it in another instance where you are not involved at all.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: So, that's the risk of when… I appreciate why Mel Robbins was saying things like that, but that is half the story. Telling people to use AI without understanding the risks of AI is, especially in a financial perspective, that is honestly very disgraceful. It's dangerous. It's dangerous, right?
It's dangerous. It's just not okay. And so, to me, I do use AI for, like, financial estimates. If I'm like, “Oh, I wanna make X amount of money in 10 years, what should I be thinking of to do that?"
I gave it very generic income statements.
Genevieve George: Yeah, you didn't upload your account statement and say… "Analyze these investment options." You're asking for information. Not giving it information.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yes, exactly. Yes. That's a really great way to put it, Gen, yeah. And it is a generative algorithm, so I think we have to remember it generates very well. Even the analysis, I mean, again, it's getting better, but ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, they are natural languages at their core.
So their models are not analytical. They are language next-word predictions, and so that's why even if you give it math problems, I mean, I was on it the other day, and it counted dates wrong.
Because it's just a language generator.
Genevieve George: Yeah. So It's not analyzing the data in the way that, that people might think it is, right.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yes. Yeah. It does, like when I was in my data science courses, it did stats math wrong. And if I just believed it, then…
Genevieve George: And turned that in.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, it would've given me the wrong answer. It's not mathematical by its nature.
Genevieve George: Right.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: Well, yeah, and I think that's so important to understand that and to make sure that you're being really cautious on what you're looking for it to do for you, under the guise of upload all of your stuff to… I think the intention was let it help you see where the opportunities are or there were some prompts provided and that kind of thing.
But an area that comes up a lot is, oh my gosh, are we even gonna need financial planners, financial advisors in the future, right? Because AI can just do all that. I'm sure that applies to a lot of other industries, but I'm mostly thinking about my own. Yeah. And I think that hits on part of what we're talking about here is okay, you can make the choice, fairly risky choice, to upload all of your stuff to some sort of AI platform and try to get some analysis or information.
But I think it's missing the human element, which is how I feel secure in my job for the foreseeable future, in that there is a lack of being able to discuss options and understand. Can you speak to that? I don't know, in the financial sense or non-financial sense, just, like, how the human side is so still important?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, for sure. I think AI and the internet and all this technology is great because it makes things more accessible. But I do think it's not the expert; I know online it gets compared to an entry-level analyst or whatever. I honestly think that's disrespectful to all these college students who pay 200K plus to get this amazing degree, and you're getting compared to AI.
It is so much more rudimentary than that. And granted, again, it generates really great... to me, I think it's really good at brainstorming. If you're, like, stuck on an idea and you need just some inputs, great at generating, brainstorming, great at summarizing. Language.
So summarizing, not analytical documents, but any kind of PDFs, things like that. But that's about it, and so when we start to compare it to human judgment, human expertise, you and I have the ability to connect patterns and dots that AI cannot, 'cause AI uses data to do that.
We use our own human experience. We use other people's human experience. We recognize risk differently than an AI would.
Genevieve George: The emotions that might be on the other side.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: We're able to, like… AI's intelligence is not human intelligence, and the danger is thinking like those are interchangeable.
And so I love AI for the access it provides. If you want basic financial advice and you can't afford a financial advisor, but you're not on, I think even Fidelity and these companies are starting to come out with bots that are much more focused to help.
If you can’t… You don't have access to those, for sure use it in a generic, general way to get started. But at some point you will need a human, because humans are the experts. You will always be the expert and able to give much more precise, much more necessary advice to a human than an AI can.
I mean, even when I've asked AI for support in business planning, it never gets as good as someone who has been through building their business, can tell me the pitfalls, really tell me how to build a business plan. I've had AI tell me how to build a business plan, and then I've had a human tell me how to build a business plan, and the human is so much better at telling me how to build a business plan because they have the experience to know what works and what doesn't.
Genevieve George: Right.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: And the AI is just aggregating all this information they found on the internet and giving me a very, like, standard… I mean, a good starting point.
But that's what it is, just a starting point.
Genevieve George: You and I had talked before the show, of course, and one of the areas that I like to talk about is I love to hear people share stories, either themselves or somebody that they know that made what I'll call like a financial misstep.
And the whole purpose there is really so other people can learn from that and hopefully watch for those missteps in their own lives. So you had shared a story with me about being on the Facebook Marketplace. Do you mind to share that and just speak to how that impacted you?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. So I was trying to get someone to take over my lease while I was renting, and it was a very stressful time. I was in the process of closing the house I bought, so I had to get out of this lease, and I only had a month or two left, or I was paying double, so I was very stressed about that.
And there was just a lot. I was applying to jobs. There was just a lot going on in a very short amount of time. And so I was also in a place of anxiety and stress, and I really wasn't looking, wasn't as keen on the Facebook Marketplace as maybe I should have been. And so, someone reached out saying, "Hey, I'm interested in your apartment.”
I was like, "All right. Cool. I have someone to replace." I was like “It's crunch time. Let's just do it." And basically they told me they would Zelle me. So they used another app, right? They would Zelle me money, and I would have to do something with a check, and I totally forgot what happened.
But basically, I lost about $1,000 through that exchange. And the money was bounced back. I lost the check. Like, all this happened. And that caused more stress on these platforms.
Genevieve George: So they used, like you gave them your number. “Here's where you Zelle me." And they used that against you instead of sending you money, they essentially took money from you and…
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Exactly.
Genevieve George: And it's such a thing that comes up so commonly, right? Zelle or Venmo for these things, and just…
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Yeah. And after that, I was like, it's kind of crazy, like Zelle as a technology platform does not have any security across what's real or what's not.
And this is where I do think technology, this is where the risks of technology are, is like we want everything so convenient. This person Zelling me was so convenient, and at that time I was so ready to move on. I was stressed. I needed the convenience, or I felt like I needed the convenience.
And so all of this felt so convenient. Facebook Marketplace felt convenient. Zelle felt convenient. And yet it cost me $1,000 and a lot of I was, like... And I was really disappointed in myself. It caused me even more anxiety 'cause I just was so upset that I fell for that and I couldn't believe...
Thank God it was, like, only $1,000, but if it was more, I was just so... It was scary. And if I think about, like, how these technologies just aren't as secure as they want us to believe. Or like that, like they ask us to trust, right? Like Zelle asks me to just trust that the bank accounts are accurate, like the numbers are accurate, and so now I literally don't Zelle anyone that I don't.
I have to know them as a human. Right.
Genevieve George: Yes.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: That's like my lesson learned. Because I mean, Zelle even gives a, an alert like, make sure you know this person. Or it's like or it can be scammed. And I'm, on the back of my head I'm like, "You are a financial technology firm, and you have not figured out how to like validate whether a bank account is real or not? Or like someone's scamming or not?" That's a little crazy that…
Genevieve George: Right. But they're just putting, they're just fully putting the onus on you as the user to just… That’s up to you, like this might not be a real person.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And they're like, "Just because we do it in seconds versus whatever a bank..."
I don't even know how to like, just like bank account to bank account.
That's how, like because I think if you…
Genevieve George: I mean, even in that comparison that you just used, right? If I was to be sending you money through a wire or something like that, I’m asking you for even more information, right?
That's good. So that's where the convenience of Zelle makes you or Venmo or something similar, right? That makes you feel more secure. 'Cause I didn't give you my account number and routing number, but I gave you my phone number that's tied to all of that.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: So it is what you described. I wouldn't call that being careless.
I would call that being overwhelmed, and you were just trying to move forward with what you had going on, right? Yeah. With and how many other people are falling victim to something like that during our very busy lives every day.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Right. Right. That was part of it. I was like, "Oh shit, maybe she's looking at other apartments. Like I gotta respond quick. Like I gotta lock this down." Right.
Genevieve George: Yeah, I need this renter.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: ASAP. Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. So like that was part of it, is "Oh my God, like I gotta do this ASAP." And honestly, after that, like the next person I found it, I literally waited a day to respond. Because I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna make sure like this feels good, this aligns.
I'm gonna make sure this human is real." Like I saw her before I like…
Genevieve George: No money was exchanged until we met.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. It was just, and like lessons learned on like what happens on the internet. And I know crypto is like now the, the fad of like… You can make so much money, but there's so much anxiety.
I see people just get really just basically.
Genevieve George: And that's one more app, but Coinbase or whatever, just tracking that on a day-to-day basis.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And I will say I've seen Coinbase's customer service. It is absolutely terrible, and you don't even know if they're, like, real or if they're AI or bots.
You're just like, and you have thousands of dollars of my money that I'm betting on and, like hoping that I get return? And you're just… sometimes I feel like it's careless, especially in the financial situations.
And so, yeah, those are the times I'm like, "Ugh, I wish we had more secure technologies."
Genevieve George: Right. And do you feel like the industry is moving towards that, or do you feel like they're moving more towards putting it on us as the consumer, like we've talked about?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: You might have a better answer than I do. My perception is it's a lot of, like how can we conveniently or quickly get rich.
Right? How can we accumulate wealth quickly? And I think that itself is a dangerous space to be in. Right.
Genevieve George: Right.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: And so when Robinhood came out, all the ideas of oh, like anybody can trade and invest and things like that, and without people understanding the basics of financial literacy.
And I think this was, what, almost 10 years ago now, but a kid committed suicide because he didn't understand what being in a deficit in your trade meant.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: And that's careless of Robinhood to not... I mean, granted, now they're so much better. They've had 10 years of experience in…
Genevieve George: Right
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Like securing it. But I think about that in terms of crypto a lot, and now the thing is Klaviyo and these ideas of, “Oh, let's gamble on world events, and like you can make wealth on world events. “And you're like, really? Is that where we want to make money, and not… Giving people…
Genevieve George: And that goes to what you're saying, right? That's sort of people looking for that get-rich-quick option, right? Because they've seen instances where that worked, not long-term historical returns and the ability to prove that that could work long term, right?
It's been instances. Yeah. So chasing that specific return is also dangerous, comes with a lot of risk. It's not that you can't do it; it's that you need to go into that as a well-informed investor, knowing the risks. And in something like that, the risk is that you lose what you invested.
So then it's a matter of being, we'll use the word conscious, like conscious of how much of your overall wealth did you just invest in that or gamble in that, and making sure I'm not here to say you can't take any risks. I just want you to make them well-informed risks, and make sure that you're not damaging your long-term goals with this short-term option.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And it's almost like in my early 20s, like a lot of my friends, mostly men, which is interesting, did a lot of like stock trading. That was their thing. And so I would listen to them and talk to them about it, and it was... But they came from families and backgrounds that they've been trading stocks since they were, like, 15.
Their parents were teaching them this stuff. So they had years on me, and so they can make bigger risks 'cause they had that years and that financial security, financial literacy, that they could make bigger risks that I could starting off when I did. I was in my first year.
And so that's also something I think about when we think about these like, how quick can you get rich, is yes, the wealth is there, to your point, but it's like, what does that person have that you may not know yet?
That you have to just kind of be aware of and be informed about, and be…
Genevieve George: Well, and I think that's the human element as well, right? 'Cause if you're talking to your friends and they're saying, "Hey, Sanjana, you should definitely invest in this stock over here," right? And they're telling you, "I'm putting $20,000 in," right?
At that moment in your life $20,000 might have been insurmountable for your entire wealth, and you're putting that into the one stock that this… But you're right. You don't know enough about the rest of their picture to know are they risking everything? They're asking me to, but are they, right?
Yeah. And so that's the human piece of that, where you need somebody to be able to talk to, to be like, "Okay, I'm interested in doing this with every dollar that I have." Yeah. If I'm your advisor in that situation, I'm saying, "Hold on." "At the end of the day, they're your dollars. You can do whatever you want with them, but here are the risks of such a decision," and we're talking about that, right?
But it's so difficult because it's this keeping up with the Joneses and comparing, right? And social media makes that so much harder, right? But you're comparing yourself to this other person, but we don't know enough about that other person's situation.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And something I hear a lot in my kind of age group is this idea that we're already behind.
When I was looking for houses, people used to ... The thing that would piss me off, people was like, "Oh, you should've bought a house yesterday." And I was like, "That would've been f*cking great if I..”
Genevieve George: “Except for I didn't have the ability to do that yesterday, so thank you.”
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Don't talk me that sh*t, right? Or they're like, "Oh, you're gonna miss out on this stock." I made millions off of Facebook stock 10 years ago, and all this stuff. And so, this anxiety, like I definitely feel it. I felt it in the Nvidia stock.
Like when Nvidia grew big.
Nvidia two years before it grew big because it was in the tech circles a bunch, and yet I did not invest as much as I could because I literally did not know. Right. And then so people were like, "Damn, I missed out on all this." And it's but you can't predict the future. And like.
Genevieve George: My crystal ball is like fully in the shop all the time.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. It's so crazy that we have this anxiety that we’re… Like, the fear of missing out in my... I feel I don't know in other generations, but in my generation, I hear it so much with my friends and my peers of "I wanna be able to find the next Uber, find the next Apple."
And you're like, what are you risking to get there? Or what are we missing out, like in the present, because you're so tied to this future…
Genevieve George: And that comes back to like what you talked about, like right at the basics of financial literacy. And honestly, it's not taught. So if you didn't get it in your family and you don't have somebody that you can talk to about it, you more than likely did not get it in school, or you got like really, really base level information, right?
And so there's so much education that's needed in different industries, and I like to pick on different industries. But you come out of school to be an attorney, right? Law school. I mean, these are incredibly smart people, right? They went to law school, they took the Bar, they've got all these degrees and all these things.
They didn't get any training on being a business owner.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: And, having to manage employees, and payroll, and their own 401(k), and their personal debt, and their business debt. Nothing. Nothing.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: And so it's so hard because you... they're incredibly smart, but they don't have that information, and I'm just picking on that industry, but there's plenty of industries that applies to.
But it's so important to get out there and I'm trying to get out there and educate more people so they can make better decisions, but we have to educate ourselves too, right? You are smart enough to know I'm sitting next to this person and they're telling me to invest in this one stock, but I can't do that.
That doesn't work for my current financial picture. You had the knowledge to know that about yourself, but so many people don't. Yeah. And it's hard. Or they're going to the wrong... maybe not using the tools appropriately.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Yeah. And these tools going back to tech, it, they just m- they just offer this con- this idea of convenience, this idea of ease, so, it almost is oh, you don't need to be literate, because let me show you how easy investing is or trading is. And it's actually, maybe we should make it a little harder so people do get the skills that they need before they go do it.
And this is where I'm always like, accessibility does not always mean better, right? Right. Just because you've opened it up, you've democratized an idea, a concept, a tool, doesn't mean it's actually a better way of living and doing for users and people. And that's why I really think about to me, I always say data literacy is very similar to financial literacy.
Because finances are everywhere. Our world operates on money. And so, if you don't understand it, it's really hard to engage with the world.
Genevieve George: Or to get ahead. To be able to take the right steps to buy the house or to invest for retirement, it's hard, because if you don't have that information, you're just sort of chugging along.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And it's the same with data literacy, right? Data runs our world now. Everything is a data point. Everything is data-driven. And so it's if you don't understand how your data works, then do you really understand the world we live in?
Can you make informed, conscious decisions about where to put your data, where it might go, how it might be affecting your livelihood, whether it's in job screening or even in buying a house? Dynamic pricing is here; what you get as a price is different than what I get off as a price.
So not understanding these very core concepts actually affects us in our livelihoods and monetarily in many ways.
Genevieve George: Now, so tell us about how you work with your clients to help them individually and as teams take a more conscious approach to the data.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. So I offer it in a couple different ways.
So I offer education, so really just learning what AI is and the data trade-off, what technologies are and how they're used. This could be within your organization itself, so what tools you are using and have implemented, how they work, and then what can you do with AI? So I try to take a values-driven approach, and so this really means we're not just gonna put AI on top of everything and anything.
Instead, what I look at is more of a holistic way of your processes and your technologies. Where does the data sit? Should it even be AI-ified in many ways? And then if so, how do we get there? Again, where does the data sit? Is it a repeatable task that AI can do really well?
Or is it something that needs your expertise or your team's expertise to get right? So we really try to divide that out so you come into it with a very so that you're pretty confident when AI is being leveraged.
And it's not just, "Oh, I'm gonna use it, and I hope everything goes well."
Genevieve George: Yeah, and you're talking about dissecting where it's gonna be most effective within the organization. And so that now if I'm in that organization, I'm using my time better because I'm not using it for the things that AI can safely do on my behalf.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Exactly, yes. And you're involved in the process.
I'm a big believer of approvals where approvals are needed, validations where validations are needed. And this is all able to do with AI. You don't have to have AI just do everything automatically, which it can. And there are tasks that, that are great for automatic scheduling that it can just run in the background that you don't have to worry about.
But then there are things, especially when we think about, especially in an HR function, if you have a small team and you're running payroll or you're doing, like, HR tasks or financial tasks, right? Those two are the most in a business, I think, as the most kind of risk- you wanna be risk-averse because those kind of hold your business together.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: So, we wanna be very mindful when we use AI in those spaces. But then if you are running operations or admin tasks that can, that are pretty routine, those you can probably do on a scheduling basis, automated. As long as the data is consistent, it's there; there really is no need for a human to be in the loop.
We can go and operate those. So I try to, I work really closely with our, the business itself to really identify those opportunities because my goal is for Like businesses to feel more confident that their business is run on AI. They shouldn't feel... I never want them to feel like, "Oh, I have to do this because I'm gonna be left behind or not."
That is not my approach. I can go into a business, and we can decide AI is not for them, and that's okay.
Genevieve George: Right. They can feel good that they took the time to study it with your help, and figure out, does this make sense or am I just plopping it on top of my existing systems because that's the sexy thing to do these days?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Exactly. And I help as well, like so many technologies are coming out with their own AI tools.
And saying, “Hey, here's a free AI tool." I hear this a lot in that like enterprises are getting. And so then I will also validate those and say, "Okay, what does that really mean for it to be free?"
Again same thing in the data trade-off. If something is free, what are they collecting from you, and how might that put maybe not your business at risk, but do you really trust this company and this tool so much that you wanna be experimented on? Because that's really what it is. When you have these AI tools that are being just out there and saying, "Hey, they're free," think of your data as the experiment.
And that allows you to say, "Okay, maybe I don't wanna do..." I never use a free AI tool because I just would rather pay, and then I could know it's secure, do the the proper functions to train off the, turn off training models, whatever it needs to be. So, that's something we could do together as well.
Genevieve George: Great, and I feel like it's such a powerful exercise, what you're talking about, because I did go to one of your workshops, and you s- in the first one, you sort of explained the different types of AI and how that impacts our lives. But in the second one, we really got into some of the details on how to use the agents and that kind of thing.
And it's to your point, right? It's not something that I think perfectly fits into my business, but I came out of it hollering at my husband, "You need to do this. This is gonna make your life so much easier."
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: And so having that just even, I think that's barely scratching the surface on what you shared with us, but it was just so powerful that I think I was operating it from a place of fear, right?
Not using it as a powerful tool to make my life more efficient where it makes sense. I was operating in fear like, "Oh my gosh, I don't wanna, I don't wanna engage in this 'cause I'm not sure what it means." Yeah. And you created such confidence in that, in knowing, okay, this is what it means, and I'm available as a resource to work through this with your business or you at the personal level or whatever the case may be. So I think what you're doing is so incredible.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Thank you. Yeah. I mean, that's really the goal of my company is to get people to understand that this is a tool we have influence on, that we have agency over, that it does not run our lives if we don't want it to, and that we have the decision to make it as involved in our lives or as little as we want.
I have friends who completely reject AI, and I am, like, so happy for them because I get it. It's overwhelming. It's not always necessary. They think I would prefer a human doing those tasks. I don't really care for AI to do those tasks. And I'm like, as long as you understand AI and what it can do, and also what it can't do, 'cause I think there's a lot of hype out there around, oh, I mean, this is the latest one that I really get annoyed by, is they're equating it to AI employees. AI employees to employees, and you're like, "That's not reality." AI employees are just a set of agents. And so are you saying an employee's just reduced to the tasks they can do?
Are we really there? Probably not. And so it's kind of like understanding what is hype and what is reality allows us to also make better decisions, 'cause then that fear really isn't there. I'm not fearful about AI, I hear a lot about AGI in the tech circles and that we're gonna reach this, it's gonna be sentient and things like that.
And as a data scientist looking at the data, that's really- we are nowhere close to that. Literally not even close. It's so crazy how not close we are to that, and yet that's the hype out there.
Genevieve George: That's the fear that's being talked about.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Right. And so we miss out on actual consequences and actual education that's needed about AI in the present when stuff like that is just what is in every headline.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: And so that's kind of my goal to combat all that.
Genevieve George: Well, and I think that your approach, I know we've talked about some of the negative things in the space, right? So I wanna close on the positive side too, right? Because there are so many pros to being able to implement it into different processes and procedures in your life, to make teams and even just regular everyday things more efficient. Yeah. So maybe talk to that part, the power of this.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: Yeah.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: I mean, the power of AI really comes from… Like, one, where does your data sit, and is the data even accessible? One of the things I run into a lot with organizations is the data sits in our brains.
We have really great people doing really great work, and it's all in their brains, and they're the only ones that can do it. And if they ever leave the organizations, it, that knowledge transfer is so hard.
Genevieve George: Right.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: And so, what AI allows us to do is actually pull that data out of someone into just English, because AI, for the most part, is natural language.
So what I've done is literally say, "Okay, dump your brain into a document. You don't even have to make sense of it." AI will help us make sense. It will ask questions. It will figure it out, and then it will help us create the process itself. So the tasks someone might be doing that they're so good at, it puts it into a process, into a language, that then it can a- actually do itself and use that human as needed.
But you're not... That one person isn't doing the same repetitive admin tasks over and over again.
Genevieve George: And for their own side of that, right? Somebody may be hesitant to do that because now they've just worked themselves out of the job. But I don't think that's really the case. They have worked themselves into a more efficient version of the job that they were doing, and they can use their time better for the things that are gonna have the most impact and value in their position.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah. It's much more about what are you operating on? What are the low-level admin repetitive tasks that you don't wanna do anymore?
Or what kind of task... one of the questions I always ask clients is, "What would you rather be doing with your work?"
And every time, it doesn't matter what level they're at, they wanna do something that's more strategic. They wanna really help the business grow or influence it in wonderful ways.
They wanna be closer to customers and have that human touch with customers or their clients better. We want to be able to have the time to do these very human, very connected what humans are really good at. And again, it really doesn't matter at what level. This is, these are the answers I consistently hear.
And so it's, like, when I think about AI, it's always, how can I help this human have time for the things that they enjoy most? That they're gonna help grow the business because they're doing something that they're excited about, they're doing something that they're really good at that not a lot of people can do, and things like that where they're growing their business and really enjoying their work, because we spend so much time at work.
Versus these low-level tasks that we all get bogged down in because we're the ones that got stuck doing it, and nobody else can, or that's what needs, that's, those are the tasks that need to get done to run our business, things like that. Those are the tasks we can offload to AI. So, I mean…
Genevieve George: Everything that you're talking about, it keeps coming back to time, right?
We're giving people time back. And I equate it to when you're in your corporate job and there's a meeting, and it ends earlier than expected. You just got that time back, and it's always "Oh my gosh, what could I do with this magical 15 minutes that I was just given?"
Right? And you're talking about so much more time than that, that it is so powerful. And can just get allow, that's just a resource that we can't find anywhere else, right?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah, for sure. And I think about it, in even in like businesses, think about why do we have to work eight to 10 hours a day?
Like the beauty of AI, and I hope what AI gets us to, is not to be more, to put on, pile on more work, but actually give us time back so we can spend it more with our friends and family, do make more adventures. Grow wealth in a way that doesn't like just drown us and allows us to like actually use that wealth in ways that empower and give us the freedom that we all crave.
And so like that's really my goal, is like I want to help business owners really be like, "Oh, I don't have to spend all my time just on this business hustling, grinding. Instead, I can just offload these tasks to AI, and then I get to enjoy it with my family and friends more." Like how awesome would a world be?
Genevieve George: Yeah, that's incredible.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah.
Genevieve George: And so is there one thing that you want people to come out of this conversation doing differently this week when it comes to their technology or their money?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: I'll go back to what we started the conversation with. I think just being more aware of where do you feel the anxiety of tech. Is it like that, like just start to notice that reach for your phone, that desire to respond to the email or the text as soon as it comes in maybe doom scrolling on social media.
If you're in like investing, are you constantly looking at the stocks? And even that I think is like that anxiety of are you paying attention to every dip, every high.
Genevieve George: I mean, honestly, I tell people, it will make you crazy to look at it every day. Yeah. Like I want you to know, I want you to take a seat at the table and know what's going on, but I don't love for you to look at it every day 'cause it will make you crazy, and it'll make you make emotional decisions around your money, and that's what we're trying to avoid, right?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And tech makes us all emotional. Right? That anxiety is so emotional. And so yeah, I think just notice, and then, I mean, then you can decide, do I really want this anxiety or not? Like I think I use my technology so differently now after noticing because it's just
Sometimes when I'd start doomscrolling, it used to take me 10 minutes to figure out whether I was doomscrolling. And now within seconds, I'm like, "What is happening?" It's "Why do I do this?" And I just, like put my phone down 'cause I was like, "I don't even need to look at this. Like, why did I just… I wanted to relax, and now I'm not relaxed.”
Genevieve George: Yeah. I think it's an escape for us from the other stressors of the day, right? Yeah. So we just go on social media, and I've run into that loop myself, and a many years ago, when I was studying for my exams for my CFP, I made my phone be black and white so that it would be less appealing, right?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yep.
Genevieve George: Because, the videos and the photos and all that are not, like not nearly as exciting without any colors.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: That's a good idea.
Genevieve George: But it was just like I had to do that for myself because otherwise I was like, it was a distraction from the studying that I needed to do.
But who wants to sit down and bury themselves in a book for the next three hours? So it let me take 10 minutes, and then I was like, "That's bad."
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. And it's not actually, like joyful.
Genevieve George: Like Yeah. It didn't add any value to what was going on. It did- It actually probably did the reverse, right?
Now I'm looking at people going and having these adventures, and I'm gonna sit down and be in this book for the next three hours. And it was probably like the reverse of what it needed to do from a motivation standpoint.
Anyways, we've had an awesome conversation. How can people work with you? How can they find you?
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. So if you'd like to work with me, my company's website is called dataconsciousco.com. You can check out our services; just reach out. You can book a free discovery session with me. We can just talk through pain points, like where you'd like to use AI and how.
I also host monthly workshops. In June 1st, we are having a workshop about bias in tech, and all the ways our tech might not be built for us, but also the ways we have agency over that. What can we do differently now knowing the ways that tech can be biased? You can also follow me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is @sanjondata.
And then I also have a Substack called Bits of Us, where I just do long form essays of all the ramblings that I might have.
Genevieve George: I love it. I love it. And your workshops, if somebody isn’t able to attend live, they're recorded and they can be accessed as well? Yes. Okay.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yes. There are replays. So the last two workshops around the foundations of AI, as well as the agentic AI, and what AI agents are both on my website to purchase and just watch the replay.
Genevieve George: That's awesome. All right. Well, thank you so much, and I look forward to talking to you soon.
Sanjana Chintalapudi: Yeah. Thanks, Gen.
That's it for today's episode of The Wealth Development Studio. Remember, financial clarity is powerful. Do you need help with your financial plan? Go to pelicanfinancialplanning.com to schedule a call with me. Until next time.
