The AI Reality Check
Using AI to run terabyte-scale analytics for regulated industries
Bill Balderaz is CEO of Futurety, LLC, a Columbus consulting firm that helps hospitals, government agencies, retailers and startups turn messy, regulated data into actionable insight. The firm uses AI to accelerate regression, Bayesian inference and high-dimensional clustering on terabyte-scale datasets, while deliberately keeping relationship-driven communication human.
Use AI against real business problems and organized data, not as a checkbox: AI can scale analyses that were previously impractical, but humans must frame the questions, validate results and handle relationship-driven communications. Ignore the hype and invest in people who understand both the technology and the business question.
What’s the quick origin story of your brand, and what makes your product or positioning genuinely different from other options in your niche?
We didn’t start with venture capital, a fancy launch party, or a crystal-clear business plan. Nope. Futurety began in 2014 with nothing but a $600/month office, a logo designed by a friend, and a whole lot of networking. The strategy? Ask people, “What problem would you pay me to solve for you today?”— then get to work figuring it out.
Fast forward, and we’ve grown into a powerhouse consulting firm in the heart of Columbus, Ohio, serving hospitals, government agencies, retailers, and tech startups with cutting-edge solutions in data engineering, AI, advanced analytics, digital marketing, and more. We help regulated industries transform their data into clear, actionable insights so they can make high-impact decisions with confidence.
But make no mistake, this journey hasn’t been traditional. We’ve MC’d holiday parties, pitched wild ideas (including a bionic suit and a pet streaming service), and even dabbled in rehydration drinks for dogs. What sets us apart is our relentless curiosity, a deep love for problem-solving, and a team that thrives on innovation.
Now, we’re recognized as one of the Best Places to Work, one of the fastest-growing companies in the U.S., and a trusted partner for organizations tackling complex challenges. We’ve built a culture where smart, driven people come together to push boundaries, challenge the status quo, and make work fun.
Where does most of your new business come from today, and where do you wish it came from?
Today, most of our new business comes from relationships, referrals, and our existing network. After 12 years, we’ve built a strong reputation, particularly in healthcare and other regulated industries, and that creates a steady stream of introductions and opportunities. We also generate business through thought leadership, speaking, LinkedIn, and expanding relationships with existing clients.
Where I wish more came from is a predictable, scalable top-of-funnel engine. We’re good at building relationships and converting opportunities once we’re in the conversation, but I’d like to see more net-new enterprise prospects discovering Futurety through our marketing—search, content, events, outbound, partnerships, and our own data-driven targeting. The goal is to complement the relationship-driven business that has always worked for us with a system that consistently puts Futurety in front of organizations that don’t know us yet.
What’s one thing you’ve actually handed over to AI in the last year, and one thing you tried it on and went back to doing the human way?
One thing we’ve really handed over to AI is data analytics at scale. We’re working with datasets that can contain terabytes of information and hundreds of variables, and AI has dramatically changed what our data scientists can accomplish. We’re using it to accelerate regression analysis, Bayesian inference, and high-dimensional K-means clustering—testing huge numbers of relationships and identifying patterns and audience segments that would have been impractical to explore manually. The human still has to frame the problem, validate the methodology, and determine whether the results actually make sense, but AI has massively expanded the amount of analysis we can do.
Where I’ve gone back to the human way is relationship-driven communication. I’ll use AI to organize my thoughts, but important employee conversations, personal notes, and communications with people I know well still need to sound imperfectly human. Sometimes AI is just a little too polished.
Have you noticed a change in how customers find you or what they already know before they reach out? Is anyone arriving through AI assistants like ChatGPT yet?
Yes! We are good at AEO/GEO and many clients are finding us through AI chats. The level of awareness and education has increased, but so has the number of misconceptions.
If you were advising someone in your industry on all of this for the next 12 months, what would you tell them to actually do, and what would you tell them to ignore?
I’d tell them to stop experimenting with AI on the edges of the business and start putting it against real business problems and real data. Over the next 12 months, focus on getting your data organized and accessible, then use AI to do things that previously required enormous amounts of time or specialized resources: regression analysis, Bayesian inference, high-dimensional clustering, predictive modeling, audience segmentation, and finding relationships across massive datasets. We’re working with terabytes of data at Futurety, and AI lets us ask questions of that data at a scale and speed that simply wasn’t practical a few years ago.
I’d also invest heavily in people who understand both the technology and the business question. AI can run 10,000 analyses; it can’t guarantee you’re asking the right question or that a statistically interesting result matters.
What would I ignore? Most of the hype. Don’t chase every new model, agent, or AI tool that shows up on LinkedIn. And don’t make “using AI” the strategy. Nobody cares that you used AI. They care whether you found something valuable, made a better decision, saved money, or grew the business.
Thank you to Bill Balderaz and the team at Futurety, LLC for sharing what actually worked with Leaders Perception readers.
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