EP 371: Unlocking Revenue Growth with AI Avatars - With Hour One's Natalie Monbiot

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Whether you realize it or not, you're going to be spending a lot of time in the near future talking to AI, both AI agents on your phone, but also probably AI avatars. I mean, look at literally in the past five days, we've seen big announcements in this from Meta, from Chat, GPT and OpenAI in their advanced voice mode, and even Microsoft Copilot. They are all bringing lifelike AIs, and they're kind of expecting us and the world to just be interacting with smart AI assistants and AI avatars in the future. So whether you want to or not, I think this is the future of not just how we work in business, but how business gets done. So today I'm very excited to be talking with someone from one of our partners in hour one about how you can actually unlock revenue growth and grow your business by using AI avatars.

Right.

It's all the rage now, but our one's actually been at this for like five years. All right, so I'm very excited for today's conversation. If you're new here, thank you for joining us. My name is Jordan Wilson. I'm the host of Everyday AI and we do this every dang day, at least Monday through Friday, bringing you a live stream, podcast and free daily newsletter helping us all understand what's going on in the world of AI. Because it seems like there's way too much, but not just understand it, but how we can all actually use it to grow our companies and to grow our careers. So if that sounds like you, you are definitely in the right place. So, so make sure you go to your everydayai.com Sign up for our free daily newsletter. We'll be recapping our conversation, all the important insights and nuggets that we are definitely going to get over the next 20 or 30 minutes. Also, inside that newsletter you will see the AI news. Normally we bring this to you live. This is debuting live, but actually we're like 12 hours in the past right now or 18 hours in the past. So we're still going to have all the latest AI news. So make sure to go grab that in today's newsletter. All right, enough chit chat. Let's actually chat with our guest for today and how we can unlock revenue growth with AI avatars. I'm excited for this one, so please help me. Welcome to the show. There we go. I got it right There. Natalie Monbiot, the head of strategy at hour one. Natalie, thank you so much for joining the everyday AI show.

It's my pleasure. And just watching that intro, Jordan, I can tell you you are definitely not an AI avatar because you are way too expressive for the standard that they are at today.

You know what, it's funny. And we'll get into this. I have my own hour one avatar. So, yeah, we'll have to talk about that later. But before we do, Natalie, can you tell us just a little bit about what you do in your role at hour one?

Absolutely. So I'm Natalie Monbiot, and I'm part of the founding team and the head of strategy at hour one. So being part of the founding team, I've been with the company since the beginning, which is about five and a half years ago. So if you can cast your minds back to way past, way before the ChatGPT moment, even before the metaverse moment. So it's been quite a ride. So my role with the company since the beginning has been kind of uncovering how this technology can be used commercially. So five and a half years ago, we were kind of in this era of deep fakes, like, oh, my goodness, look, you can take a piece of video and you can manipulate it, and people will end up saying things they. They didn't intend to say or didn't give permission to say, and, you know, to create disinformation. So that's where we were. And not to say that that doesn't exist today, but that's all that we would. That's all that it was at the time. So part of my role at the company was like, okay, wait, this technology exists? How can we harness it and deploy it in a commercial way to actually help businesses? So it's been a really exciting ride, a very exciting problem right from the beginning. So, yeah, so my helping to identify and establish our first customers, our positioning in the market, our ethics, strategic partnerships, all that kind of thing.

Yeah. And it's actually wild to think about that. Hour one was before all those things, right before the chat GPT moment, before the metaverse. Right. So maybe can you talk like, let's rewind. Right five, six, seven years ago, you know, being part of this founding team at hour one. I mean, were people looking at you guys kind of crazy? Because it makes sense now, right? It makes sense today in 2024, when all the big companies are. Are rushing to it. But what was this like, you know, coming up with this idea of AI avatars, you know, five, six, Seven years ago.

Yeah, I think it really depended on who you were talking to and how you were presenting it. If you were just sort of saying AI avatars, you know, just like, ooh, that, you know, as a term just sounds a little unsettling. So to some people intrinsically exciting and to some people intrinsically scary. And I think that's always been the case, but I found that actually very since the beginning, if you couched it in how AI avatars can actually help solve business problems, then people were paying attention because the business problems exist and people are constantly trying to solve their business problems. So if you're presenting them with a viable solution to actually overcoming these challenges, then you're in a conversation that's real and you're kind of getting past the kind of the weirdness potentially of the technology.

Well, let's maybe. Speaking of those business problems and the technology, can you walk us through how are our one avatars actually used? Right, I'll talk a little bit about our use case because I like it. But tell us how do these actually work?

Yeah, absolutely. So the first use case or established product market fit, which is established at this point, there's a stat flying around that about 50% of Fortune 100 companies actually use avatars somewhere in their business. And that place is most likely in learning and development. So, and there's a few reasons for this. First of all, learning and development is an internal facing product or practice, right? So it's like training your own employees. So you can just therefore look at AI avatars and their practical application instead of having to kind of consider how your consumers are going to perceive the fact that you're using AI avatars. So first of all, it's kind of a safe sandpit to work in, Right? So it's just your own employees. And secondly, it's proven very early on that AI avatars and video, generative video, in which AI REI avatars at least are encased, actually drive much greater engagement than what L and D content traditionally has been, which is static PDFs, text based content that has very low engagement. So it's a problem getting employees to actually, you know, engage with this content. So this is a very easy, cost effective and simple way to just upgrade that content that already existed and turn it into content like you're seeing here on the screen. So a lot of companies are doing that, but I think what the opportunity is sort of as we're as the industry, as the technology and as culture is evolving and sort of societal acceptance of AI avatars and Just AI in our lives. What we're seeing is that AI avatars are being used in contexts outside of the internal use case. So, so we have one client, for example, using AI avatars in their Amazon listings to explain baby products. So, you know, ordinarily it's small print, right? It's like, okay, so is this the baby formula for me as a mom, you know, as a parent, you know, you're kind of like trying to get some more information about it and you're kind of stuck in the small print. You might give up. That's not very helpful to the brand or to the parent. So what if we take that content and just channel it through a, a brand relevant AI avatar that can deliver this content in a more engaging, friendly way? We're seeing that happening right now. You know, these are brands that are, you know, are seen as traditionally quite conservative, definitely not first movers that are using AI avatars kind of in their communications. So another thing, another area is that I especially love is where AI avatars can actually help a business digitally transform. So this is, I'm going to go back to an example from the very early days of our one. It's one of my favorite case studies still because we really helped a business do what it needed to do and couldn't have done it any other way. So this is a language school, 150-year-old business, and they were just a class, you know, all about classroom learning and the, the instructor experience, like learning from an instructor. But like all businesses needed to scale, needed to digitally transform and create a product that was accessible online to many more people. And they basically couldn't figure out a way to film their instructors at the scale that was required to create courses in different languages for different, different modules for different levels of learning, et cetera, et cetera. And so they actually turned to us and discovered us because they needed AI instructors, lifelike AI instructors, to be the backbone of this digital platform. And the stats there are incredible. They bought back a whole year's worth of time to reinvest in creative work, actually creating the content, coming up with what it is that students should be learning as opposed to the really cumbersome work of trying to film people and, you know, manage reshoots and the fact that people are coming back the next day wearing a different outfit or spill something on their shirt or, you know, and then also the file management of it all. So, you know, we handle all of that as well. So that's still one of my favorite case studies because of the transformation that this technology enabled for a brand that is, you know, very old school and definitely not, you know, like a first mover in technology.

So, yeah, I think what you said there was, you know, really important because, you know, I think when a lot of people think of AI avatars, well, they go down one of two paths, right. They either think of, oh, this is, you know, more of a, you know, templated, not a real person. And I can use, you know, I can go in and you know, like you could with a template for your business. Right. Going in Canva, right. And say, oh, this is a great flyer. Let's purchase, personalize it. So similarly, it's kind of the same where you can go choose from the existing avatars or create your own. But that's where people start to think about, oh, like the, the deep fakes and, and the safety implications. Can you talk about those maybe those two different routes? Because I'm sure there's pros and there's cons, right? To just choosing, oh, this is going to be an AI avatar that, you know, is going to. We're going to use for our business versus companies that maybe want to, you know, a CEO like I know, you know, Nvidia CEO Jensen Wong has an hour one clone that they use. So can you walk us through Natalie, kind of those two different options and maybe the, the pros and the cons or at least the considerations that you need for each.

Absolutely. So first of all, we've got about a hundred and any one time about 100 stock avatars available on our platform. So if you just want a generic spokesperson or actually if you want a few different spokespeople or representatives for your company to reflect your customer base, which might be diverse, you can find a diverse range of avatars on the platform. So if you just sort of needed a stock character like you would use stock footage, then we have that available and you can just get started, just log in. You can actually log in for free and do a little trial, then select from different avatars, create your content. Super simple. The other route is you can actually create a custom avatar of yourself or the CEO of your company or, you know, a person, a spokesperson for your company. And that process is. Well, with all of our avatars, the process is we do a shoot of some kind or we take some footage and with the permission of the person who's being featured in as the avatar, we get their express consent. And then there are rules around who can that's consent to create the avatar. And then there are rules around who can actually publish content with that avatar. So it could be just that person. So Jensen Huang, or more likely his team. Right. So his team will be handling that, and they are authorized to make content with that avatar. So those are the kind of the two routes. I would say that in general, our business was based mostly on the stock avatars, because that people weren't necessarily individuals, weren't necessarily fully comfortable unless they were AI leaders, to kind of go out there and kind of present their AI avatar when it wasn't necessarily about the content, wasn't about the fact that they were creating an AI avatar. But now I think we're kind of hit this inflection point where technology and cultural readiness are coming together, where people are sort of using their AI avatar in more practical ways, such as to speak. Speak to a global workforce in and translate that footage, translate that avatar content into different languages. That. So it's not just a convenience like, oh, the CEO didn't have to sit in front of the camera in order to create this daily video. Right. Which is just not practical for a CEO who's super busy and needs to run the entire company. So besides the time savings on that, there's also the ability to then do more with that content more than that person is capable of in real life. So you can speak any language. So then the doors start opening up to different places.

Yeah. And, you know, I think what you said there, as it becomes more technologically available and culturally relevant, and I think now's that time. Right. Like, I, I started out the top of this podcast talking about it in the last, literally in the last week, we've seen OpenAI, we've seen Meta, and we've seen Microsoft announce, you know, essentially big advancements in this space that is, you know, kind of encouraging all of us to start interfacing with AI. Right. Which I think is, you know, both exciting but also, you know, thought provoking. Right. And. And kind of the, you know, is it kind of separating us from. From humans and connecting? But I think with an AI avatar, especially one of yourself, maybe that's a little bit different. So could you speak a little bit maybe, Natalie, to some of those benefits? Right. And I'll talk about even the one that I did for everyday AI here in a minute. But what are then the benefits? And can you actually build trust right, between, you know, a highly visible person in your company and, you know, your current customers, new consumers, etc. How can you actually use these to, you know, build trash and ultimately grow. Grow your business?

Well, first of all to build trust. I think you need to be transparent about the fact that you are or this is an AI avatar. And in the same breath you need to be providing value that wasn't there before. It's not like, oh, I used to do this, but I can't be bothered to do this anymore, so my AI avatar is going to do it. I think it's better to think about the net new value that your AI avatar can deliver. I couldn't communicate with you every day because I'm just too busy, but I can now. It's a. It's important to me and now I can because I have this AI avatar to do that. I can't communicate with you in your language or I've never been able to do it before, but now I can thanks to AI. So it's like what is AI bringing to the table that that didn't exist before? Or I think another thing is, let's say how can you use an AI avatar to level up the content that maybe you're already producing but you can't do it in video. So fantastic. You have a video based on podcast that you know then becomes audio, etc. But a lot of people just have a lot of audio assets or they're only set up to, you know, produce audio. Suddenly you can create AI avatars and, and something they're working on, which we're really excited about the moment. It's not just creating AI avatars to be able to kind of present that audio kind of like, like we are right now like talking heads on the screen, but to actually like, you know, why don't we play with the medium of AI, right? Instead of just replicating exactly what you and I are doing right now, like because it's AI, why don't we do more things? Like for example, why wouldn't we share and be sharing an environment simulating the fact that we're kind of, you know, in this, I don't know, like, you know, a very cool on brand environment for us both. Something that people really want to see that's immersive and creative and interesting. We can invent all of that. And so that's what we're focused on at hour one right now is to create, create these new environments which are immersive and unexpected, like different. Capturing, capturing people, I guess, as their AI avatars from different angles to create more of a cinematic experience. Some of that your audience may be familiar with Reed AI, which is Reid Hoffman's AI avatar. Reid Hoffman is the co founder of LinkedIn amongst many other things. And he had a conversation with his AI avatar that he posted that, you know, got a huge amount of attention and suddenly everybody wanted one of those. And what we discovered though is like, you can have one of those. But it's not just the AI avatar itself that people are so intrigued with. It's also the fact that it's so well edited and put together and it's witty and the cuts are, you know, are great. And all of this because there's a brilliant team of video editors behind it as well. Okay, but that's his team. Not everybody has that. So we've taken the bold step to try to actually automate some of those things that we've learned through, through our projects with Reed. But also internal testing around what makes video engaging and basically automating that so that individuals that don't necessarily have this big production team can actually go in and create videos that are cinematic and immersive in a way that we haven't seen before.

And you know, speaking of, you know, internal testing and, you know, having engaging content, that's something I'm always focused on, right. For, for my company, Everyday AI, right. I have a background in, in digital strategy and marketing. So we do so much testing even on our own website. Right. And so sometimes you're just fighting for, you know, a couple more signups, a couple more email newsletters, right. Like for a little bit of everything. So I'm just going to share, you know, our podcast audience. I'll. I'll try to do my best to describe it. Pretty, pretty straightforward here. But, you know, here's how we're even using it on, on our website, right? So on different pages we have a little, you know, kind of our AI avatar and then you can click on it and then there's a video. So the thing that I really like about using it and how we are, you know, making this more engaging for our audience right now is we have literally more than a thousand web pages on our website and I can't make a thousand personalized videos.

Right.

And this is actually edited really nicely, Right. Like, if I wanted to record this right now, I don't necessarily have the editing skills, but at least an hour one, I can quickly go in there if I want. I can get 10, 20, 50 videos up this week, all for different landing pages, so speaking different languages, right. So it gives us capabilities that we don't necessarily have. Even though I can at any time jump in front of a camera and talk. Right. This just gives us another way to to scale that engagement. And I think we're already seeing, like, up to 7% improvements on, you know, time on page engagement, which might not seem like a lot, but 7% when you've already clawed and fought and done all the testing, 7% is huge. So kind of with, with my spiel and my little commercial in mind there, Natalie, because, you know, we're loving our AI avatar. Can you speak a little bit to the scalability of this? And, you know, even now, you know, being able to speak to new audiences and just being able to do more in more places.

First of all, I'm pleased to see that your AI avatar does have your expressive eyebrows. So I'm glad we were able to capture that. That is essential. So I'm very pleased to hear how you're using it. And then also the fact that you are seeing a lift without having to invest the time to do it, because really what we want to be able to do is help you achieve more and buy time. So that's, you know, this is the perfect. This is the perfect use case. And I think that, you know, going forward, there's even more things that you could do. Like, I think this is the perfect kind of approach. Like, you've seen 7% left with this stage. Like, well, what more can you achieve? Like, how are you going to get your extra 7%? And, and, you know, you're. You're managing hundreds of web pages there. Well, like, you know, what more can you do? Other new formats that you can create, right? Like, how can you take a conversation and drop it into a different kind of scene? Is that going to be engaging for your audience? Is that another way or another platform that maybe you can venture onto that you haven't even, you know, gone on yet because you just haven't got the time. And it's not of absolute strategic importance. Like, but could you start experimenting with broadening your reach through, you know, video in. In. In different places?

You know, early on, you know, you kind of started off today's conversation by walking us through where, you know, AI avatars have traditionally been most used. And you talked about that. You know, about 50% of Fortune 100 companies are using AI avatars, but maybe more in training and learning and development. But now you kind of reference that they're moving customer facing, right? And I've already talked multiple times about all the biggest companies in the world now putting AIs right in front of us. Right? So how would you recommend to, you know, business owners and decision makers out there to best use these AI avatars for areas where it matters, right? Like, like driving revenue, creating relationships. What are some of your best pieces of advice on how to bring these AI avatars front and center?

Absolutely. So I think one thing actually your example, Jordan, of how you're using it to populate your web pages and drive more traffic and engagement, I think that's great. Businesses can be doing that on their websites, on their homepages. So for example, if you've got like Q and A content or you've got blog posts, or you've got all of this kind of, you know, you've got this content that exists that's buried and is very low engagement, but you think the content is worth surfacing, you can easily transform that text into presenter led videos which are on, on brand, which can be on your website, but then also can be used to create a new YouTube channel if you don't already have one. Or at least populate your YouTube channel. Get your reach and engagement up there and you know, start monetizing. For example, either grow your think one way of looking at is like to grow your brand, right? To grow engagement with your existing, with your existing customers and visitors. And another way is like, well, how can AI avatars actually help me to create a new product? So the example of the language school, how could it create a new digital learning product? We have another customer in the news space that actually only existed in the age of, you know, in the age of AI because they, their host is an hour one avatar. So they do news capture the news or report the news every hour. Okay. Of the day. Like you would never have a human being do that, right? So it's capturing the, it's like tech news every hour of the day. And then we even did this really cool thing where a known futurist, you know, we created his AI avatar and his AI avatar got employed by this news company for the fraction of the price of actually employing him. And you know, and you know, and actually not having to think about his availability because he can kind of be in two places at once. So, but all of that. So the example there though to kind of boil it down, is a news platform, right? Suddenly you can have that with, with minimal setup. That's a news company without a new student, without any studios, without any reporters. You know, like you, you can kind of the startup costs. So think of it like the YouTube era. So suddenly anybody could be a content creator because the cost of creating content and just the, the, the barriers to creating it kind of lowered or you know, disappeared or at least lowered. So think about AI avatars in that realm. Like, what can it enable me to do that I couldn't do before? Whether it's leveling up the content that I have into video, which we all know is more engaging, or can it create something new for you, like a new populating a new digital channel, or could actually create a new product for you that you can sell.

I love that example. Right, like, and I wasn't even really thinking about that, just creating new lines of business. Business, right. Like, I always think, okay, how can an avatar, you know, help drive conversions or help drive your current business? But yeah, maybe it's a whole new line of business or a whole new line of information to current and prospective clients and customers that you just didn't have anymore, which I think is, is great. You know, maybe one other thing that we haven't focused on but maybe talked about and if, if you have any use cases, would love to hear them. But what about just culturally, right, Like, I don't speak Spanish. I wish I did. Right. Like, we have a lot of, you know, people listening to the podcast from all over the world, but I'm sure, you know, so many, so many big enterprises have customers and clients from all over the globe. How can being able to speak another language, right. Like, how can that really change the game, especially for driving revenue?

Right. I'll give you a very present example. So there's a creator in Mexico who's extremely popular and wants to break into the US market, so, but doesn't speak English and isn't going to start even if he could, like, well enough, wouldn't be able to just like, create double the amount of videos that he's already making. So how can he break into the US Market without actually like, having to do much other than rely create his AI avatar and translate his archive of content and then, you know, and then break into the US market that way, or at least get his foot in the door that way. I would say just to kind of, you know, be realistic about things like AI avatars can do a lot more than they could and as you'll see, they can. They're about to do more. But you know, so I think it's like today it's like it's not replicating you fully, but like, how can it be a version of you to kind of, you know, appeal to new markets that you haven't been able to penetrate before?

Such a good point. And then like, I'm almost over here, like Natalie, kicking myself because I'm like, oh yeah, that's probably like someone literally someone that works at Microsoft in Poland tagged me, you know, on social media today saying she loved the everyday AI podcast and her post was in Polish. And I'm like, I should be doing these things, right? Like I should be putting out, you know, these videos in these episodes in all these different languages. I think it's such a, you know, a no brainer way to just, you know, open up, you know, both my, you know, everyday AI, the podcast, but just any business up to so many new markets that you can't get to otherwise.

So we should definitely talk.

Yeah, so. So Natalie. Yeah, we've, I mean we've covered so much, right. Like we've talked about, you know, the, the deep fake side and the ethics. We've talked about how avatars can, you know, grow your business in new markets like we just talked about. And also how there is this new push, right of hey, it's actually I think going to become very normal talking to AIs and interfacing with AI avatars. But you know, as we wrap up today's show, maybe what is one of the most important pieces of advice that you have specific specifically for decision makers on how they can grow their business and grow their revenue with AI avatars?

So I'd say the most important piece of advice is think about how AI avatars can add value, right? Not kind of replace what human beings are doing particularly. I think this is a good, just a good pointer in general when thinking about AI like sort of especially generative AI. Not like what, what human aspects can it replace, but what new value can it create? And I think that's especially true when we're talking about human presence, where you've already got human presence and it's valued at your company. Don't replace that. Right? But what more can you do? Can you provide multilingual services? Can you provide more engagement? Can you provide responses by AI avatars that might be more engaging and joyful to receive than just like some text? So I think thinking in those terms like what, what can you up level that you are doing that you want to get more attention on and how can you use AI avatars to do that and the pl. How can you use the kind of unique properties of AI like language translation in order to really kind of put the cherry on top?

I love it. So many great even just, yeah, bringing an AI avatar is more joyful to receive than just text. Come on. Like so, so many good use cases. The use cases are endless but our time can't be. I can't keep you forever. So Natalie, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join the Everyday AI show. We very much appreciate your time.

That was really fun. Thanks, Jordan.

All right, and as a reminder everyone, we covered a lot, so if you haven't already, please make sure to go to your everydayai.com Sign up for the free daily newsletter. But hey, as you're there, go go check out our episodes page. Go go interact with, you know, my AI avatar. Let me know what you think. Also, thank you to our one for for sponsoring the Everyday AI podcast and the show. So make sure if you haven't checked them out already. I mean we already covered just so many great use cases on how you can actually use these AI avatars like I did to grow your business. So thank you for joining us. Please come back, join us tomorrow and every day for more Everyday AI. Thanks y'.

All.

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