Talking AI in East Texas: Two Months of Conversations
Over the last couple of months, I have talked with around thirty businesses across the Lufkin and Nacogdoches region about artificial intelligence. I have met with everyone from small family-run shops and law firms to schools, ad agencies, and industrial companies. About half of those talks were formal meetings, and the rest were hallway conversations, coffee chats, or community meetups.
After all that, here is what surprised me most. Folks around here are actually thinking about AI. While the majority are not using it yet, they are talking about it, they are curious, and they are watching to see how it plays out.
Most people are not scared of it. They just do not know what to do with it. They want it to make sense before they spend time or money on it. The businesses that handle a lot of marketing, documentation, or office work have been quicker to experiment, while the more industrial or field-based companies are taking a wait-and-see approach.
One of the most common misconceptions I hear is that AI just means ChatGPT, that the whole thing begins and ends with that one website. Another is that what I am doing with Acer Texas must be something futuristic or highly technical. In reality, most of these tools already fit into what people are doing every day. The real challenge is not the technology. It is helping people understand what is real, what is useful, and what is worth trusting.
The Range of Reactions
Across these conversations, I have met three types of people. The curious, the cautious, and the convinced.
The curious are the largest group. They have heard about AI and want to learn more but do not know where to start. Many have seen a friend or family member use ChatGPT or Canva and are wondering what it could do for them.
The cautious ones tend to worry about privacy or think AI is heading somewhere bad. Some of that concern is fair, and some comes from misunderstanding. One gentleman even hired me specifically to explain only the negatives of AI. With most of these folks, the issue is not really the tech. It is trust.
Then there are the convinced, the early adopters. They see AI as another tool, not a threat. One large company I spoke with is paying a third party to build a document flow AI system. They had already done a full time-savings study and cost analysis before they started. For them, trying new technology is just part of how they operate.
Another business, an ad agency, has gone all in. Every employee uses GPT and Canva to speed up marketing work, and they estimate productivity is up by thirty or forty percent. They have even been able to downsize a little because they can now do more with fewer people. Their main challenge is not whether AI works. It is teaching their team how to use it well and not create what they jokingly called slop.
Then there is a real estate group that wanted to build their own AI vendor portal. It was a big idea but a little too big for their current setup since they did not have any programmers. After we talked, they decided to start smaller with things like using AI to clean up photos or write property listings.
What I have also noticed lately is that a lot of employees are already using AI tools quietly at work, even though their companies do not have any kind of AI policy. In many cases, the decision makers have not even thought about creating one. Folks are past the point of asking for permission. They are just trying to work faster. That creates a situation where employees are already ahead of the organization itself. Eventually, businesses will have to address this not only for security reasons but also to make sure everyone is using these tools responsibly and consistently.
The Local Programmers
I have also talked with a few local programmers who are using AI in their work. Most of them use coding assistants to write code faster. Some are doing consulting for folks who want custom apps built since they can now take on more work.
They are smart people, but like most of us, they are still figuring out how this stuff really works. They know the tools but mainly for their own projects. They will tell you straight up they do not fully understand how large language models function behind the scenes. They just know it is changing fast and do not want to fall behind.
What is missing is connecting those tools to real business problems, like scheduling, inventory, training, and all the small things that eat up time. That is where the big opportunity still is.
What I Have Learned
After talking with everyone from the skeptics to the coders to the curious business owners, I have learned that most people around here do not need another sales pitch about the future of AI. They need someone who can explain it clearly and show them how it fits into what they already do.
I have also learned that you cannot just show up with a prebuilt solution and expect it to work everywhere. Every business has its own way of doing things. One owner might want to automate reports, another might want to handle email faster. Before recommending anything, I have to take time to really understand how they run.
These conversations have changed how I look at Acer Texas too. I am still optimistic, but I am more grounded now. I have stopped thinking of it as one fixed product and started seeing it more as a long-term learning and support mission.
The biggest barrier is not cost or hardware. It is translation. I can explain AI document search, but until someone sees exactly how that saves them an hour a day, it does not mean much. The tools work fine. The challenge is helping people trust them and use them in a way that feels natural.
Because of that, I have stepped back from pushing local hosted language models as the main route forward. They are powerful, but they are too complex for most small teams right now. Instead, I am focusing Acer Texas more on the lab and education side, showing people what is possible, helping them learn the tools, and figuring out what actually fits their business.
Where We Go Next
East Texas is not behind in ambition or interest. What is missing is someone to translate the noise and build trust. The curiosity is already here. The motivation is here. People just want to know that the tools they are hearing about can really help their team.
That is why I started Acer Texas. My goal is to help bridge that gap between curiosity and confidence. Not to sell software, but to help local businesses make sense of AI in a way that is safe, useful, and local.
If y'all are curious where to start, reach out. Whether you want to see how AI could fit into your workflow, get your team trained, or just talk through ideas, I would be glad to visit. The best way to make sense of this technology is to keep learning together.
Henry de Koeyer