July 1, 2025 • 9 mins
Marc Beckman, author of How AI Will Change Everything joins us to talk about the beginning of a new tech revolution underway, and how to harness generative AI to help your business, and how it is having a transforming effect on education, media, social movements and more.
#AI
#ChatGPT
#AIRevolution
#Technology
#Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
Welcome back to America TODAY. Jim Watkins here.
It's good to be with you on thisTuesday.
And you know how excited I am about artificial intelligence
and how much I've tried to keep the listeners of this program up
to date. It's changing.
The landscape is changing real fast.
And I will tell you, I think in the previous segment is talking
about Mark Beckman, who has written an incredible book about
(00:29):
how AI is going to change everything.
In fact, that's that's what the title of the book is called.
And he joins us regularly to talk about new developments.
And particularly ChatGPT right now is taking off like
gangbusters. And Mark is here to explain this
phenomena. I think there's what, a 35%
increase in the number of adultssince 2023 that have sort of.
(00:53):
And let me tell you, I've got people in my family all day, all
day long, they talk to me about what Chat ChatGPT told them
because they're going to it as aread like almost like a a
personal consultant. And here to talk about all that
is Mark Beckman. Welcome back to the program.
How are you, Sir? Jim, I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me again. It's good to have you.
(01:15):
I couple of things we talk aboutthe positives and the negatives
and I want to focus on some of the positives.
You're in fashion, you're in you're in marketing and you're
in fashion. How much of this of harnessing
AI does it really help the entrepreneur right now and in
what ways? Yeah, I'll be honest with you,
(01:37):
Jim. You know, it helps in an amazing
way. You referenced my book earlier
and and I try to encourage people to use my book exactly
those individuals who are small business owners because I
provide them with the tools thatthey could use to leverage
what's called generative AI. So think if you're a small
business owner, but you haven't had the money, the budget to
(01:59):
create an ad campaign and compete with one of these deep
pocket companies, any type of business.
You can now use artificial intelligence to stand up an ad
campaign for very, in very efficient ways from both a cost
perspective and a time perspective.
So what does that mean? Now you can use AI to create
copy for an ad campaign, to create video for an ad campaign,
(02:24):
photo realistic images, even music, gym to go and promote.
And then you can leverage other types of emerging technology,
including social media to createa viral campaign, organic social
media and beyond. And that's what a lot of
companies are doing today. From an advertising perspective,
we've been solving a problem forour clients, the ones with the
(02:46):
big budgets, through the use of artificial intelligence,
specifically generative AI. So what's happened is, you know,
we have a focus on style and design and our clients range
from Karl Lagerfeld and Tom Fordto Bath and Body Works and Pepsi
and beyond. A lot, a lot of big budgets.
But what they're the problem is that they've gone from one or
(03:08):
two campaigns each sum each season.
Think in terms of spring, summer, fall, winter, one big
campaign, 6 images. And now they require about 1000
different images and communications per month.
And they can, we can what we're,what we're we're able to do for
all of those clients is segment our target audience and really
go after them with organic and paid social media, earned media
(03:35):
as well as own media. So we're really very, very, you
know, powerful as it relates to controlling the narrative for
these big companies across social media.
We could target different demographic profiles and
psychographic profiles in a veryefficient way by leveraging
(03:55):
artificial intelligence. Now for the.
Clear that I'm was. Was that confusing?
I think if you're a person who'srunning a business, everything
that you just said should be an eye opener because the, the days
of big marketing agencies three floors up and you know, all of
these different departments, they're going to go away very
quickly because in, in essence, what, what I've seen from
(04:16):
ChatGPT and AI and specifically with generative like you do, I
use Hey, Jen and some others. What I found is that everybody's
in the content creation business.
So we are all now empowered withthis ability to create content
for a whole host of reasons. Let's say you attend a church
and you want to maybe take a couple of clips on Opus and,
(04:41):
and, and send out what your pastor did that week that could
change people's lives. Let's say you're a music fan.
I see a lot of young people now that are obviously rock and
rollers with one foot in the grave, but but they're doing
content on their favorite bands from the 70s and 80s.
And all of this pretends to the fact it's not just about getting
clicks. It's also about sharing ideas.
(05:03):
And it's actually in a strange way, has created a community
where we can all talk to each other in a variety of different
ways. And this up in, I mean, I'll
give you a good example. I don't mean to take up time,
but a couple years ago somebody gave me a rare photograph of
someone that I really enjoy and that person ended up passing
away. But it was such a unique
(05:24):
photograph, I hung on to it. Well, now with AII can turn that
into an avatar that speaks just like a human being.
I mean, that's mind blowing. It really is.
And it's interesting when you talk about again, focusing in on
the small business owners to useAI for advertising purposes to
(05:45):
create ad campaigns to really impact your bottom line.
We're seeing big companies, big tech get into that space too.
So it's only going to be a matter of time until the smaller
advertising agencies are eliminated.
Because I have first hand information, for example, that
Mark Zuckerberg is going to leverage the Meta vertical with
(06:06):
a tool that allows for now, not just strategic paid social media
advertising, but also he'll stand up ad campaigns that will
be more eye-catching. So all of these different
techniques are a reality and they're they're going to be more
and more prevalent within society.
As you know, as people start to use the tools, become
(06:29):
comfortable with it. I think it's going to be these
utility types of tools, Jim, that will get mass user
adoption. Because although you opened up
the, the lead in with some data,the, the, the fact is that most
people are still not using AI. They still don't know the
benefits from using AI or how toget there.
(06:49):
They're still a little intimidated.
Yeah. I know what you mean.
I mean, some people use it to AAII have someone who is in real
estate and they're just kind of getting their foot in the door.
So they asked ChatGPT, what should I do?
How, how should I structure my day?
How can I sell this house, whatever it is?
And ChatGPT will typically give you a fairly sensible answer and
(07:12):
a step by step approach so that it's it's a good tool in that
way, right? I mean, it can.
It pretty much can solve a lot of basic problems for almost
anybody, right? Yeah, as a search tool, I think
it's phenomenal. So AI search in general, there
it is trending users are generally speaking beyond what
(07:32):
you referenced, this Pew Research Center report that came
out on June 25th, like just generally speaking, Mark Beckman
information AI being used as a search continues to trend on an
upward trajectory. So right now about 10% of the
population are using, they're migrating away from legacy
(07:54):
search like Google, which is substandard.
And I think you and I touched onthis before and they're starting
to use AI search and that could be ChatGPT, perplexity, deep
Sea, Grok. There are so many that are are
there, but it's fascinating. It's a much better experience
for search than than the legacy search like Google because it's
(08:15):
not advertising in your face. It's doing all of the legwork
for you. So again, going back to that
small business owner scenario, Jim, if you're a small business
owner and you want to launch, let's say, a simple retail
store, well, you might not know how to do that.
And you can ask one of these. You could ask ChatGPT, for
(08:35):
example, how to launch the store, what the business model
should be like. How do you create an ad
campaign? Help me with architectural
design, Which products create the biggest profit margin?
I mean, all of these questions can be answered in literally a
matter of minutes. And it's such a big advantage.
You could literally take ChatGPTand have it to a certain extent
(08:56):
become like a business partner for you.
Yeah, it's and we've only touched the surface because
there's also areas about what are the negatives of, of ChatGPT
becoming too dependent and unfortunately we're out of time.
But I'll tell you what, if you're listening to Mark and our
conversation here and you are thinking how do I get out of
this rut? My business or or whatever it is
(09:17):
entrepreneurial vision. You have read his book How AI
will Change Everything, and he will give you a lot of ideas on
how to harness this this brand new technology.
Again, Mark Marc Beckman, How AIwill Change everything.
You can get it anywhere. And again, we'll have you back
on and continue our conversation.
(09:38):
So thank you, Sir. Jim, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. This segment of America Today is
brought to you by Southwest Florida dreamhome.com.
For those folks living in New York City, come on down, start
with Southwest Florida dreamhome.com and let the
journey begin.
Welcome back to America TODAY. Jim Watkins here.
It's good to be with you on thisTuesday.
And you know how excited I am about artificial intelligence
and how much I've tried to keep the listeners of this program up
to date. It's changing.
The landscape is changing real fast.
And I will tell you, I think in the previous segment is talking
about Mark Beckman, who has written an incredible book about
(00:29):
how AI is going to change everything.
In fact, that's that's what the title of the book is called.
And he joins us regularly to talk about new developments.
And particularly ChatGPT right now is taking off like
gangbusters. And Mark is here to explain this
phenomena. I think there's what, a 35%
increase in the number of adultssince 2023 that have sort of.
(00:53):
And let me tell you, I've got people in my family all day, all
day long, they talk to me about what Chat ChatGPT told them
because they're going to it as aread like almost like a a
personal consultant. And here to talk about all that
is Mark Beckman. Welcome back to the program.
How are you, Sir? Jim, I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me again. It's good to have you.
(01:15):
I couple of things we talk aboutthe positives and the negatives
and I want to focus on some of the positives.
You're in fashion, you're in you're in marketing and you're
in fashion. How much of this of harnessing
AI does it really help the entrepreneur right now and in
what ways? Yeah, I'll be honest with you,
(01:37):
Jim. You know, it helps in an amazing
way. You referenced my book earlier
and and I try to encourage people to use my book exactly
those individuals who are small business owners because I
provide them with the tools thatthey could use to leverage
what's called generative AI. So think if you're a small
business owner, but you haven't had the money, the budget to
(01:59):
create an ad campaign and compete with one of these deep
pocket companies, any type of business.
You can now use artificial intelligence to stand up an ad
campaign for very, in very efficient ways from both a cost
perspective and a time perspective.
So what does that mean? Now you can use AI to create
copy for an ad campaign, to create video for an ad campaign,
(02:24):
photo realistic images, even music, gym to go and promote.
And then you can leverage other types of emerging technology,
including social media to createa viral campaign, organic social
media and beyond. And that's what a lot of
companies are doing today. From an advertising perspective,
we've been solving a problem forour clients, the ones with the
(02:46):
big budgets, through the use of artificial intelligence,
specifically generative AI. So what's happened is, you know,
we have a focus on style and design and our clients range
from Karl Lagerfeld and Tom Fordto Bath and Body Works and Pepsi
and beyond. A lot, a lot of big budgets.
But what they're the problem is that they've gone from one or
(03:08):
two campaigns each sum each season.
Think in terms of spring, summer, fall, winter, one big
campaign, 6 images. And now they require about 1000
different images and communications per month.
And they can, we can what we're,what we're we're able to do for
all of those clients is segment our target audience and really
go after them with organic and paid social media, earned media
(03:35):
as well as own media. So we're really very, very, you
know, powerful as it relates to controlling the narrative for
these big companies across social media.
We could target different demographic profiles and
psychographic profiles in a veryefficient way by leveraging
(03:55):
artificial intelligence. Now for the.
Clear that I'm was. Was that confusing?
I think if you're a person who'srunning a business, everything
that you just said should be an eye opener because the, the days
of big marketing agencies three floors up and you know, all of
these different departments, they're going to go away very
quickly because in, in essence, what, what I've seen from
(04:16):
ChatGPT and AI and specifically with generative like you do, I
use Hey, Jen and some others. What I found is that everybody's
in the content creation business.
So we are all now empowered withthis ability to create content
for a whole host of reasons. Let's say you attend a church
and you want to maybe take a couple of clips on Opus and,
(04:41):
and, and send out what your pastor did that week that could
change people's lives. Let's say you're a music fan.
I see a lot of young people now that are obviously rock and
rollers with one foot in the grave, but but they're doing
content on their favorite bands from the 70s and 80s.
And all of this pretends to the fact it's not just about getting
clicks. It's also about sharing ideas.
(05:03):
And it's actually in a strange way, has created a community
where we can all talk to each other in a variety of different
ways. And this up in, I mean, I'll
give you a good example. I don't mean to take up time,
but a couple years ago somebody gave me a rare photograph of
someone that I really enjoy and that person ended up passing
away. But it was such a unique
(05:24):
photograph, I hung on to it. Well, now with AII can turn that
into an avatar that speaks just like a human being.
I mean, that's mind blowing. It really is.
And it's interesting when you talk about again, focusing in on
the small business owners to useAI for advertising purposes to
(05:45):
create ad campaigns to really impact your bottom line.
We're seeing big companies, big tech get into that space too.
So it's only going to be a matter of time until the smaller
advertising agencies are eliminated.
Because I have first hand information, for example, that
Mark Zuckerberg is going to leverage the Meta vertical with
(06:06):
a tool that allows for now, not just strategic paid social media
advertising, but also he'll stand up ad campaigns that will
be more eye-catching. So all of these different
techniques are a reality and they're they're going to be more
and more prevalent within society.
As you know, as people start to use the tools, become
(06:29):
comfortable with it. I think it's going to be these
utility types of tools, Jim, that will get mass user
adoption. Because although you opened up
the, the lead in with some data,the, the, the fact is that most
people are still not using AI. They still don't know the
benefits from using AI or how toget there.
(06:49):
They're still a little intimidated.
Yeah. I know what you mean.
I mean, some people use it to AAII have someone who is in real
estate and they're just kind of getting their foot in the door.
So they asked ChatGPT, what should I do?
How, how should I structure my day?
How can I sell this house, whatever it is?
And ChatGPT will typically give you a fairly sensible answer and
(07:12):
a step by step approach so that it's it's a good tool in that
way, right? I mean, it can.
It pretty much can solve a lot of basic problems for almost
anybody, right? Yeah, as a search tool, I think
it's phenomenal. So AI search in general, there
it is trending users are generally speaking beyond what
(07:32):
you referenced, this Pew Research Center report that came
out on June 25th, like just generally speaking, Mark Beckman
information AI being used as a search continues to trend on an
upward trajectory. So right now about 10% of the
population are using, they're migrating away from legacy
(07:54):
search like Google, which is substandard.
And I think you and I touched onthis before and they're starting
to use AI search and that could be ChatGPT, perplexity, deep
Sea, Grok. There are so many that are are
there, but it's fascinating. It's a much better experience
for search than than the legacy search like Google because it's
(08:15):
not advertising in your face. It's doing all of the legwork
for you. So again, going back to that
small business owner scenario, Jim, if you're a small business
owner and you want to launch, let's say, a simple retail
store, well, you might not know how to do that.
And you can ask one of these. You could ask ChatGPT, for
(08:35):
example, how to launch the store, what the business model
should be like. How do you create an ad
campaign? Help me with architectural
design, Which products create the biggest profit margin?
I mean, all of these questions can be answered in literally a
matter of minutes. And it's such a big advantage.
You could literally take ChatGPTand have it to a certain extent
(08:56):
become like a business partner for you.
Yeah, it's and we've only touched the surface because
there's also areas about what are the negatives of, of ChatGPT
becoming too dependent and unfortunately we're out of time.
But I'll tell you what, if you're listening to Mark and our
conversation here and you are thinking how do I get out of
this rut? My business or or whatever it is
(09:17):
entrepreneurial vision. You have read his book How AI
will Change Everything, and he will give you a lot of ideas on
how to harness this this brand new technology.
Again, Mark Marc Beckman, How AIwill Change everything.
You can get it anywhere. And again, we'll have you back
on and continue our conversation.
(09:38):
So thank you, Sir. Jim, thank you so much.
I really appreciate it. This segment of America Today is
brought to you by Southwest Florida dreamhome.com.
For those folks living in New York City, come on down, start
with Southwest Florida dreamhome.com and let the
journey begin.
Host
JIM WATKINS
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