Artificial intelligence wizard brings message to Natural Products Expo West

For HIVE Interactive CEO Mitch Mitchem, the most frustrating part of teaching people how to use artificial intelligence as a tool to enhance their efficiency, productivity and creativity is the stark—even extreme—way most people regard the technology.

“It’s either like, 'get on board or you’re going to miss out' or 'it’s terrifying, and we’re all going to die,'” Mitchem says. “There’s no in-between.”

Mitchem, whose company is on a mission to revolutionize the way organizations engage with AI, is bringing his humancentric tech message to Natural Products Expo West this spring. During his keynote presentation and workshop, he plans to share how he and his team use AI and how retailers, managers and marketers can leverage AI tools to accelerate their output and streamline processes.  

Just under 40% of U.S. adults are currently using generative AI, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). In an August 2024 survey, about a quarter of workers told NBER they had used AI at least once in the previous week, and nearly one in nine said they use it every workday. That means that in the U.S., generative AI is being adopted faster than both the personal computer and the internet.

Love AI or loathe it, it’s time to get on board—or get left behind—but the majority of Americans still don’t use the technology (and may be slightly afraid of it). With his keynote and workshop, Mitchem hopes to give Expo West attendees their first opportunity to explore AI platforms and what they can do. “We’re going to share and show how some of those tools work, where they are, how to get them,” Mitchem says.

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Mitchem’s interest in humanizing technology and advocating for its ability to “connect, empower and uplift the human spirit” was piqued when he co-founded High There!, a dating app and social network for cannabis users, in 2014. The platform grew to more than 300,000 users in less than a year, but Mitchem was appalled by how over-customized personalization features inadvertently led to user isolation.

“What astonished me was how much, even then, human beings were sort of becoming commoditized in how they use technology,” Mitchem says. “In other words, you could trade people up and trade them down. But I also learned that if you let people tell their story and put a human element into it—made it personal—you actually got better results.”

Mitchem’s observations solidified his belief in the duality of technology—both its immense potential to help humanity and developers’ responsibility to prioritize humanity’s well-being.

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“One thing everyone asks me is what scares me about AI,” he says. “And it’s never AI. It’s always people--what humans will or will not do with it.”  

In his keynote, Mitchem plans to demonstrate “how we can leverage the practical tools of AI in a way that will augment humanity to make us better and faster in what we do.” He and the HIVE team will tailor the presentations to address natural products brands’ and retailers’ primary concerns, including marketing and customer service, based on live prompts from audience members.

“This might be the first real opportunity where they’ve heard in practical terms how to do this,” he says.

To learn more about Natural Products Expo West, which will be March 4-7, 2025, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California, click here.