EP 30: What Happens When Brand-Building Meets AI?

This is the Everyday AI show, the everyday podcast where we simplify AI and bring its power to your fingertips. Listen daily for practical advice to boost your career, business and everyday life.

Will our digital doubles be making more than us in the future? That's one of the things that I wanted to talk about today on Everyday AI. This is your daily livestream, podcast and newsletter. Yeah, we're doing it all, helping to bring you the latest news and development in everything AI and to help you actually use it. So today I have a special guest to help us dive into all of those things. Guermo Thompson. He is the founder and director of umbu. G. Thank you for joining us.

Good morning. Hi, guys. Thank you for inviting me, Jordan. I'm really excited to just have fun with it and chat with you.

Yeah, let's go. All right, so before we talk about branding and what that means with these digital doubles and all these other things, I wanted to talk about what's going on in the world of AI news. And as a reminder, if you're listening to us live on the show, please drop us a comment. Drop a comment for G or myself. We'll, we'll answer your hottest questions. It's Monday, but keep us, keep us on our toes, keep us honest. So, but if you're listening on the podcast, make sure to tune back in every day as we do this at 7:30am Central Standard Time. First story, it hasn't even happened yet. G. We're going to be previewing this, but Apple is finally, we think, making a big splash in the AI world. They haven't really done a lot, whereas Google, Microsoft, Facebook, everyone else has been going hard in the paint with AI. AI, Apple, not so much. But they're expected to be announcing their mixed reality headset today. Apparently it's going to be crazy intuitive but extremely expensive. What are your thoughts on this? Is, is this going to do anything or is this just going to be something for, you know, people to play with?

I don't know. Like, people probably, they would just, probably read the title of the articles or, or just watch the news and the TV and they just didn't. When it, when it comes to Apple, people are so excited about the brand that I could already hear the riots. You know, I mean, like, just. Yeah, yeah, they're riots already. Like, people probably like line up, camp outside the store and try to get a hand of it and they didn't even know the price. You know, like they're just gonna buy it and see what.

So true. So true. Speaking of you know, having a very hardcore following and fan base Google is, is probably right there with Apple. But people aren't too happy with Google's new high powered search experience. Apparently it's very slow. Not everyone has access to it yet, but Google has slowly started to give access to its new search experience called SGE or the Search Generative experience. Essentially it's supposed to be a much better search experience with a lot more AI summaries and not necessarily having to go in and click 10 different articles to read them all to get a good understanding of what's going on. But it's better, but it's slow. G Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

I mean it's just a matter of time. This reminds me of like joke that goes something like, you know, when they started having WI fi in planes and then you know, I mean like he's sitting next to a guy and the guy is like, ah, can you believe this? The WI fi is really slow. And then Lucy K. Like it's like a day before and today there was no WI fi in planes. You know, I mean like now there is WI fi and you're already complaining that it's low. So I mean it's, it's a natural reaction for trolls that, you know, I mean like they haven't been on the process, they don't know anything that what it takes to make it to complain. So prompts to Google for keeping it up. There's a huge race among these huge enterprise IT companies to see who gets first and who's like up with the new technology. Same with Apple, Microsoft. But you know, I'm excited to try it out even if it's slow now, like in a matter of days, you know, speeding up.

Yeah.

I worked for a leading software testing company so I know what it takes in terms of functionality and quality assurance. So I'm not complaining, you know.

Yeah, yeah, that's. I mean you bring up a good point with the, the analogy of WI fi on airplanes. Right. I think even though if it's slower on the front end, I think if you look through the typical googling journey, you usually have to search multiple queries within each of those queries. You usually have to read multiple web pages to get to the point of getting the right information that this new search experience will bring. So I think when you frame it like that it's like, all right, well maybe it's a half of a second more on the front end, but in theory saving a ton of time on the back end. Speaking of saving A ton of time. That's what Hollywood's been trying to do with the, I'll say, almost rampant use now of digital doubles. Right. So we opened the show asking if digital doubles are going to be making more than us. But at least in Hollywood, this is something that Hollywood's largest union has been talking about this. So separately there's been the writer strike in Hollywood, but now the, the Hollywood's largest union is discussing this and talking about pay in the age of artificial intelligence. So they're going into contract negotiations with studios this week. But essentially actors are worried about losing control of their image due to AI. You know, Guillermo, you work a lot in branding and so what do you think that this is going to result in? Like, are the Hollywood studios going to come up with something concrete in terms of their, their digital doubles or is this always going to be a gray area, do you think?

I don't know. I think there's a lot of things here to digest. First of all, I think actors have been feeling this. Like this is not something new for actors. Like as soon as they started to having visual effects, you know, actors started feeling that they were like, even in movies they were pulling away from acting more and more. You know, we all seen those like behind the scenes of Marvel movies where they're just like, this is not acting, right? They're just pretending to talk to someone is not even there. So now it's transitioning to we don't really need actors, we just need their recognizable faces. And I don't know, like, I don't know. They're very privileged people. Let's be honest. We all, we all seen the Golden Globes, we all heard what's his Ricky Gervais like really tackle this issue about. Like come on. Boo hoo. You know, I mean like you guys complaining but. And this is, this is also why I admire someone like Tom Cruise. I'm not a fan of him, but I respect him because he, he just committed to the craft, you know, like doing his own, his own stance and so forth. And I don't know, you guys like there's so many to many things to, to, to think about on this topic. But I recommend everybody I did to Jordan before the show started. Watch Dead Love and Robots or Love Dead and Roberts. I don't know. It's a show in, in Netflix and this is the first show I actually watched where I saw like they were using someone's famous actors faces. I think Hugh Jackman and there's a couple more recognizable faces there that I was certain there was nothing involved with the actor. They just bought the rights to use his image and not even his voice, you know, and this is the future. I mean, in a sense they just want to get paid for that or get compensated for that.

Yeah, you know, just, just threw that up on the screen there. What, what? G just recommended Love, Love, Death and Robots. So let's, let's actually talk, you know, speaking of this, you know, because it is about actors concern of, of losing their brand image. Right. Well, or at least not being compensated for it. Right. There's probably two different pieces.

They, they, they own their image because everybody's going to recognize Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise. They just want to get as much paid as they did before. But I don't know, like, they already have the money, you know, I mean like and, and at the same time with this, I think many actors, I don't know if every actor is complaining about this, but I'm sure many actors are happy that now they're going to reach immortality, you know, I mean, in a sense they're going to be forever in the screen because that was always a problem with their egos. It's like, oh, you know, I'm going to grow old, I'm going to be forgettable. You know, they're going to be a new generation now with this kind of technology, they can have a Tom Cruise for hundreds and hundreds of years. And for the industry it even works because we all know that they just like, even when, when an actor retires or goes after his prime, they will look for that kind of stereotype, kind of type, you know, body or face. So I don't know, you guys, like, I think, I think that I have nothing to complain, you know?

Yeah, no, I get it. You know, but, but speaking of this, right. So I think even if you, if we bring it back outside of actors and we bring it back to just general branding as an example, right. In theory I could duplicate my face, my voice. I could have a 24,7 non stop version of this show. Maybe the quality wouldn't be as, as good. Right.

But I could, I thought you were, you're already on it.

Jordan, this is, yes, this, all my reactions are definitely AI AI generated. But you know, at least. So when you're working with clients or, or even just talking to people in the branding space, what's, what's your recommendation? Should, should companies or individuals be exploring this? Should they be making avatars that are AI generated that can go off and do more for themselves or should they stay Away from it. What do you think?

Well, this is where it comes, like we talked about this last week in a different context, but I think this is where it gets ethical. And the whole thing behind promoting a personal brand to help your actual brand or your company or your business is to be authentic, to give value, to get people to know the persons that are behind these companies. And so, no, I'm totally against AI generated avatars, but at the same time, I mean, again, we talked about this before, is that we all need to assume, we all need to recognize that even the people that are watching me today or getting to know me and your show, this is not me. There is more beyond branding in Guillermo, you know what I mean? There's other interests, there is family and friends, there's hobbies. You know what I mean? So even this is the thing, is that even before this, AI technology was accessible for us to generate avatars and so forth, even with the social media effect that had in society, like, even at that point, even in early stages, we were already showing something that was not us entirely. It was an avatar, it was an image that we wanted to, to convey to other people, but it wasn't real. You know, I mean, like, we all know the cases of all these people and that are like, you know, suffering depression because they're, they're showing an image in social media that is like always happy, always outgoing. And then if they don't get the feedback, the loving from their audience, then, then they get the cravings, then they get lonely and they'. So we'll see. Like this. Like I, I just watched a video yesterday of someone getting a selfie next to a buffalo on Yellowstone. You know, what are we doing? Like, you know, I mean, like we're not even contemplating basic human safety. Yeah.

Or safety. Right.

AI, it's just, it's just like a caveat to it. I mean, like now, now you can take it to a whole another stream which is like, I'm not even creating the content now. It's like AI generating it for me and AI showing up in front of the camera.

So my question, and I get your point about being against kind of the, the digital avatar. I see that too. I do see use cases for it. But I want to ask you though, how can the everyday person still use AI? So generative AI, maybe ChatGPT, maybe mid journey or any, any other thing. How can we use those tools to build brands or should we not be using them at all?

Well, I mean, I'll be a hypocrite if I will say, you know, don't use it. We, we all implementing it, we all experimenting with it, we all speculating, you know, the results we're going to get. We all feel like there is a definitely benefit of being so immediate, right. In terms of delivering results. I don't know if there are like better results than before. I also think that we're all kind of getting lazy in some like, thought processing. You know, like we talked about this off camera before. It's like, you know, if I'm going to make a post, do I just prompt ChatGPT or do I take like the one minute to actually be myself and post it? Sometimes it takes longer to prompt the right response you want from ChatGPT than actually be yourself and splash on social media. So I do recommend using it, I do recommend experimenting with it. I encourage a lot of, especially young people that are uncertain of if they're. It's not that there aren't. I feel like people, sometimes they feel like young generations don't know what they want. I think that they do know what they want, it's just that they don't. No one told them they really can because we're always comparing ourselves to the most successful people in the world and that's just like, just like defeating, you know, like I would never be like, you know, Elon Musk because, you know, so far away. But I do encourage people to use AI and try to build their own brand, trying to build their own business, but going rooted on the basics, which is like giving value to people or, or, you know, the, the motivation has to be a very noble mission. Right?

Yeah. How do you, how do you think you find the balance? Right? Because that's, that's one thing we always talk about in, in branding especially, you know, with, with personal branding is, is, you know, staying authentic and being, being truly yourself. But then obviously even the best, you know, the most successful people in branding now are also saying, yes, leverage. Leverage AI to build your brand. How do you find the balance?

That's a great question, Jordan. I don't know. I think because if I want to build on your question, but I don't have the answer because that's true. It's like if you, I mean, AI still a tool, right? Like any other technology or any other tool we have. So it's just a matter of what do you use it for. So if you're using it to have a possible positive impact on your community or help your family or, you know, I mean like your company or your brand is actually going to be, has a, it's going to have a positive effect in others, then go for it, you know, I mean, yeah, but if you're just concerned about profit and cutting corners, you know, I mean, and scamming people, then, you know, I mean, stop, you know, like, don't use it.

Yeah, please don't. I actually started this with a question, but I think you rephrasing the question helped me maybe get a potential answer. So I think one thing too is whether you're talking about building a personal brand or if you're working on building a brand for a company, the way I kind of think of it is, okay, what if you had unlimited resources or what if you had a larger team? What would you do if you had more people or more resources? And that's kind of what I think at least using AI is for, right? Like you as the human or you as the, you know, founder. You know, the founder and director of Ombu can still build brands yourself, but you can then have as an example, a team of, quote unquote, a team of researchers using AI in an ideation session that can go way in depth using AI. You know, someone that can help proofread or improve your, your brand strategy or your brand identity using AI. So maybe, maybe that's one way. Question mark, you know, what's, what's one way that you've, you know, let's say the average person out there, if they are in branding, but they haven't dipped their toe in AI yet, what's, what's maybe one piece of advice that you would give them on. Hey, here's a way to get started and to take those first steps.

Well, I mean, ChatGPT is definitely like the most accessible AI language model that, you know, even everybody can like experiment with it. Like we all seen those videos. Like Here are the 5 prompts or 10 prompts you must do to really squeeze the juice out of the, you know, of Chat GPT. But really you have to experiment with it, use it as a consultant and, and don't forget that, you know, again, it's a tool, right? So it doesn't matter like what prompt you put, but think about your end goal. Like, what do you really want to, to get results out of it? You know, I mean like, and go to the core of values, you know, I mean like, am I going to, is this going to have a positive impact in me or others? Or I'm just going to be selfish and ask, like, what stock should I invest to? You know, I mean like, or you know, I mean, like how to. How to scam people. Give me. You know, I mean, like how to make. Be rich quick. You know what I mean? Like, just think about how do the end goal. It doesn't matter if you use AI or you ask your peers. You know what I mean?

Hunter just dropped a comment. Like, the idea of using it as a consultant. Intriguing. Yeah, Hunter, thanks for the comment. Maybe let's even talk one way real quick. I know we are really dragging this one out. Gee, but I love your insights. What's. Maybe what's one way? Because, you know, we've all seen those posts. Try these 10 prompts. You know, get them. Yeah, get. Get the most juice out of your. Out of your lemon. You know, what's. What's maybe the one very practical example that you've used something in the AI. If. If. If you have one. Something in the AI space where you were like, whoa, okay, this is. This is going to help, you know, help me help a client. You know, what's. What's that one example that you did and you were. You were blown away.

Well, going along with what I said and hey, pp, how's it going? Yeah, the lottery. But no, seriously, I always tell him who he is or who she is. You know, I mean, like, so if I want to get like a advice in terms of, like, strategy, I'm like, you are an expert at marketing strategy and helping define the Persona behind ChatGPT. It always helps to get the better results, I think. But again, I don't feel like there is a best way to go at it. I think you have to experiment in anything. There is probably a thousand ways. Same with Adobe tools back in the day. You know what I mean? There is different ways to get the same results in editing a video or editing an image, which, by the way, those days are gone.

Have you seen the new the Generative AI? Oh, wow.

Oh, my Lord.

Yeah, it's crazy. We'll actually share some examples of that in today's newsletter as well. Oh, gosh. I mean, I know we went over. Thank you for the comments, Hunter. Yeah, yeah. Pierre. Ppc.

See?

What are the next winning lottery numbers? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe we should just start using Chat GPT that way. G. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your day to join the show. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for the space. Jordan, I love what you're doing. Keep it up. I checked your newsletter. It's really, really good. So thank you for your work. It keeps all of us up to date with the news in AI. So I'm glad you're doing it and I'll. I'll keep being a fan in the distance.

Thank you. Thank you. So thank you for that plug. That's a great way to end the show. So, yeah, please go to your everydayai.com like G just said, we are not only putting out this live stream where you can interact with our guests, also podcasts on all major networks. Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, apparently they have something. But also the daily newsletter. We put a lot of time and effort, so a lot of the things that G's been referencing, we'll make sure to put those things in the newsletter so you can read more about what we've been talking about as well. So thank you for joining us and we hope to see you back tomorrow and every day with Everyday AI. Thanks.

And that's a wrap for today's edition of Everyday AI. Thanks for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating. It helps keep us going for a little more AI magic. Visit your everydayai.com and sign up to our daily newsletter so you don't get left behind. Go break some barriers and we'll see you next time.