Ethan King urges operators to embrace AI as a business tool at CTW 2025

Ethan King mesmerized the audience during his keynote address at NAMA’s 2025 Coffee Tea & Water show in Miami on Tuesday with a challenge to operators: treat AI as a practical business tool, not a tech fad, and use it to buy back time and scale your story — and by extension, your refreshment services business.

King, a TEDx speaker and longtime entrepreneur, said that while he was no “tech guy,” he doubled the revenue of his promotional products business after adopting an “automation first” mindset. He highlighted the role that automation has played, starting with simple marketing automations and, more recently, layering in AI to generate content in his own voice. King encouraged attendees to harness the power of AI to grow their own convenience services businesses.

AI outputs only become valuable, he told CTW attendees, when operators feed the tool real context — among them, voice, role and customer pain points — and then publish consistently across channels so AI engines can actually surface their businesses. “The winners are the ones who adapt,” he said, urging operators to build “digital teammates” alongside human staff to answer SOP questions, draft emails, create social posts and even act as 24/7 receptionist.

For convenience services operators serving hybrid workplaces, King’s message aligned with CTW’s broader theme: Evolving from service vendor to strategic amenity partner. King emphasized that operators should use AI to remove routine work so teams can focus on higher-value customer conversations.

Key takeaways from King’s presentation

• AI is a neutral tool. It’s not good or bad: results depend on how humans use it. Treat it like a hammer.
• Automation first equals survival. He tied business turnaround to adopting marketing and operations automation (email drips, social media postings and even snail mail) and said that AI let him double revenue with fewer resources.
• Context improves AI output. If you feed AI your voice, stories, values and role via custom instructions and memory, you stop getting “AI slop” and start getting content that sounds like you.
• Build a “digital team.” Custom AI agents can sit beside human staff to answer SOP questions, draft emails, make social posts, mock up sales images and even act as a 24/7 receptionist. Managers will need “bot leadership” skills.
• Publish everywhere to be found. AI answers are influenced by what’s already on the web. The more authentic content you publish (YouTube, social, site), the more likely AI tools will surface your business.
• Story is greater than marketing. Swap “marketing” for “storytelling” in your mindset. Vulnerability, before/after journeys and relatable problems get shared and saved more than polished sales copy.
• Think AI first. Ask this every day: “How can AI do this for me?” and let the tool show you. That small mindset shift creates the “massive wins” he kept pointing to.