December 3, 2024 • 32 mins
It's the last CX Pulse Check of 2024! Discover how AI is reshaping the marketing landscape alongside our special guest co-host Andy Crestodina. First, we unravel the secrets behind Taco Bell and KFC's AI-driven marketing success, which not only boosts sales but also enhances personalized communication. However, the episode also offers a reality check for smaller businesses considering AI adoption.
We then spotlight the burgeoning trend of transparency in technology. The conversation parallels AI disclosure with privacy laws, highlighting how this shift could foster trust. The discussion takes a thought-provoking turn as we question AI's capacity for empathy, pondering whether AI can deliver more meaningful experiences than humans.
Our exploration extends into the educational arena, where AI is both a boon and a challenge. AI can enhance learning but also presents obstacles to foundational skill development. We emphasize the vital balance between embracing AI's efficiency and nurturing essential human skills and relationships.
About Andy Crestodina:
Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, an award-winning 50-person digital agency in Chicago.
Over the past 24 years, Andy’s provided guidance to 1000+ businesses. He’s written hundreds of articles on content strategy, SEO, GA4, AI and visitor psychology. He’s also the author of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.
- Top 10 Online Marketing Experts, Forbes
- Top 50 Marketing Influencer, Entrepreneur Magazine
- Top 25 Content Marketers, Express Writers/Buzzsumo
- Top 10 Social Media Influencers, Social Media Explorer
Follow Andy and Orbit Media on...
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/andycrestodina/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/orbit-media-studios-inc./
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/orbitmediastudios
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/crestodina
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/orbiteers
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Orbitmedia
Articles Mentioned:
Taco Bell and KFC’s Owner Says AI-Driven Marketing Is Boosting Purchases (The Wall Street Journal) -- https://www.wsj.com/articles/taco-bell-and-kfcs-owner-says-ai-driven-marketing-is-boosting-purchases-ab3a5f36
Retailers confront trust issues as generative AI becomes commonplace (CX Dive) -- https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/retail-customer-trust-generative-bain-e-commerce/733018/
Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators Website -- experienceinvestigators.com
Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniewalters/)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeannie Walters (00:01):
Hi everybody.
It's my favorite episode of themonth.
It's time for CX Pulse Check,where we check in on what's
happening in the real worldaround customer experience.
Of course, I also bring in aspecial co-host, and today I am
(00:22):
delighted to bring in my friend,Andy Crestodina.
Andy Crestodina (00:26):
Jeannie it's great to be here.
I'm great, I'm great, I'm gladto join you.
This will be fun.
Jeannie Walters (00:31):
It will be fun.
And for those of you whosomehow don't know who you are,
Andy, because you are everywhereand have been everywhere for a
while now, why don't youintroduce yourself to our
audience?
Andy Crestodina (00:44):
I'm the co-founder of a digital agency
called Orbit Media Studios.
Orbit is 100% focused onwebsites.
We build and optimize websitesfor both search and conversion
lots of B2B lead gen sites andI'm also just a longtime content
marketer, SEO, social mediamarketer, email influencers,
teacher.
(01:07):
I'm just active and love CX,analytics, conversion.
I love the things you love, soI'm glad to join you here today.
Jeannie Walters (01:16):
Yeah, and for those of you who are not
following Andy on LinkedIn andfollowing your blog, it is
always full of just incredibleinformation.
I've learned so much from youover the years, so thank you for
that and it's just a joy tohave you on.
So thank you, and I picked outa few articles here that I
thought would be compelling forboth of us, because you have all
(01:38):
this incredible background incontent marketing and digital
marketing and just the way theworld is going in that way.
And, Andy, it might surpriseyou, but we're going to talk
about something called AI.
Have you ever heard of that?
Andy Crestodina (01:51):
Two-thirds of my conversations are about AI.
I'm actually not tired of it.
I love it.
I find it to be useful andhappy to share my points of view
here as we go through these.
Jeannie Walters (02:02):
Well, I am excited to hear that because I
feel the same way.
I'm excited about the potential.
I think we are in a reallyinteresting part of history
where we are at the cusp ofsomething and we get to kind of
figure out what feels right andwhat the rules are, which is
pretty cool, and I know thereare things that aren't going to
(02:23):
go well, but we're going to doour best to use it for good.
That's my attitude at least.
So let's talk about I mean, weneed to, of course, make a run
for the border.
So we are going to talk aboutTaco Bell here.
This is an article from the WallStreet Journal and the headline
is Taco Bell and KFC's ownersays AI driven marketing is
(02:47):
boosting purchases.
And I thought this was sointeresting because we've talked
about AI in the fast food spacebefore, around kiosk choices
and drive throughs and thingslike that.
This went into a little bitmore of a broader perspective
about personalized communicationand how that links up with some
(03:09):
of the choices in the store aswell.
So what do you think about this?
What did you take away fromthis?
Andy Crestodina (03:15):
Well, this is an example of a case study that
it's not surprising if they'reseeing a lift and they have such
scale that a small lift canmake a big difference to a
company like that.
I think there are lots ofbusinesses like mine and lots of
my clients that wouldn't see asignificant enough lift for the
investment here at this point in2024 from that level of
(03:37):
personalization.
So when you have I mean you'reselling chicken, you're selling
tacos what is this person likebased on their activity at this
kiosk or wherever in theirexperience, like can I give them
something that they're slightlymore likely to engage with?
Yes, and is that worth $10million to us in technology
investment?
Yes, because the lift is sohigh.
So I think that it's my.
(04:00):
I love it, I believe it, Ithink it's the future.
My caution is that forcompanies for which the value is
gained by, you know, getting alower volume of higher value
leads, let's say, like a B2Bcompany most many of us in
digital here not that relevant.
This is not something thatanybody could just emulate.
Yum brand or whatever they'recalled now, has different
(04:23):
opportunities than many of us,but it's definitely a space to
watch.
Jeannie Walters (04:27):
Yeah Well, and I think you bring up a really
important point about we have tomake sure that the investment
pays off, and there are lots ofsituations where it might not
right now, today, and what I seeis that a lot of the customer
data is just not organized theright way, it's not in the right
place, it's not centralized, sopeople kind of plug in AI in
(04:50):
just the marketing space andit's not connected to the rest
of the customer journey.
So it actually leads to reallyhigh expectations based on the
personalized marketing and thenif we can't deliver that through
further in the journey, wemight be setting up for actual
more disappointment for ourcustomers.
So it really comes back tounderstanding what is it?
(05:12):
What's the goal here, what arewe trying to do?
And then I'm seeing a lot of myclients and different
organizations that we work withwho are really large and
complicated.
They're trying little pilots tosee.
Is it worth scaling?
And I think that's somethingthat you know.
You read an article like this,you hear about that success and
you say, oh, it must have workedright, like right away.
(05:34):
And I think it's reallyimportant to stress that we need
to test things.
We need to make sure that ourinformation security and our
customer data and all that isaligned in the right way.
But I think one of the thingsthat I'm sure we've been talking
about for a decade plus now isthis whole idea of personalized
(05:55):
marketing.
And one of the things that I'mseeing changing and I'm curious
what you're seeing is that usedto mean certain things.
It meant, like using somebody'sname and giving some
suggestions, but now in thisarticle they talked about how
their Pizza Hut consumers someof them are very frequent, some
of them only order on the SuperBowl right, like that's their
(06:18):
one thing.
And so they are able to, basedon those data points, really
understand who they're talkingto and then provide the right
offer, the right coupon.
All of that based on actualbehavior, which I think is where
we're going, instead of justsaying to customers what do you
want and they tell us and theydon't necessarily behave that
(06:39):
way.
We're using behavior to reallyunderstand customers.
So are you seeing that as well?
Andy Crestodina (06:45):
I am.
I have that same feeling thatyou did.
It's like this isn't anopportunity that everybody would
have.
You're seeing like an output oran outcome at like phase nine
maturity.
Like they've got, they knowthat you only bought once a year
because they've been trackingfor years.
Not everyone's got years ofdata or their data is like
structured properly or able toget this to achieve that.
(07:06):
But no, I think it's one thing Ithink I'm seeing now is that
the personalization technologiesand tools and the testing, AB
testing, technology and toolsare sort of the same tools now,
because you're, if you want tomake so, let's just translate
into something more likely,useful to people like me.
You want a landing page toperform from a traffic source.
(07:29):
You want to know what versionsof this page will perform better
.
The tools now aren't creatingan A and a B and you're going to
get a lot of data and thengiving you an insight.
AI personalization and testingtools are creating 15 variants
(07:49):
of that and showing it,continuously changing slightly
who's seeing it?
It might say, oh, mobilevisitors are 8% more likely to
engage with this word or thisposition of the button.
So personalization is sort ofhappening in the testing
environment, just as kind of thesame thing, and the tools are
sort of spinning up and creatinglots of variants.
It's really interesting just howAI is going to blow up the A
(08:15):
and the B approach to testingand the three variants versions
of personalization.
I'm watching those technologiesconverge and create ongoing
iterative, data-drivenvariations with all kinds of
options.
(08:35):
In some cases the tool is evenwriting the variants using AI.
Jeannie Walters (08:39):
Wow, that's interesting to think about, and
I think part of what I think isso exciting about this moment in
time is that some of what wasinaccessible to smaller
organizations, to entrepreneurs,is becoming accessible, because
we don't need a developer allthe time, right, we don't need
(09:00):
those very specialized skills.
If we can lean into askinggenerative AI to help us with
those skills.
I'm not saying it's going toreplace that completely, but I
think that there is a lot aroundthat with even testing.
Like what should we test?
Help me understand.
What should we test?
Is it the language?
Is it the design?
(09:21):
How would we do that?
And I think that's where Ipersonally am also using it in
that way.
I'm starting to lean into if Idon't know something, my kind of
go-to right now is saying well,how can I learn this quickly
and how can I learn this in anactionable way for me?
And so I'll say, like this isthe scenario, help me understand
(09:43):
.
And sometimes what that meansis it says you need somebody
smarter than you, right, likeyou need somebody to come in,
but at least I know that.
So I think it's reallyinteresting to think about those
different pieces and thosedifferent tools that will be
merging together and that wewill have available to us in new
(10:03):
ways.
So, yeah, I'll be watching YumBrands and then I'll be, you
know, on step one and whenthey're on step ten.
But that's okay.
That's okay.
So this next article is from CXDive, and this is where the this
(10:24):
is again about generative AI,because it is everywhere, but
this one is the headline,retailers confront trust issues
as generative AI becomescommonplace, and they talked
about a few different surveysone from Bain and Company and
essentially a lot of consumersdidn't always understand that
(10:46):
they were interacting with AI.
And we've been talking abouttransparency.
We've been talking aboutproviding trust through
transparency with customersforever, it feels like, and yet
we're still not quite gettingthere.
So do you think that's theproblem?
Do you think we're not beingtransparent in the communication
(11:08):
and the expectation setting?
Or is it just that this is themoment in time we're in, or what
do you think?
It is such an accessible andinexpensive and fast tool that
probably later today you and Iwill read copy that was
generated by AI, that someoneused to quickly make it.
(11:29):
It might even be an email thatwe got from someone on our team
who knows.
So it's a weird time and Ithink that there will be a big
trend toward disclosure.
I think that you're going tosee it.
A lot in images.
AI images are currently sort ofeasy to identify anyway.
If there's regulation, I thinkyou'll first see it in Europe.
I don't think Americans reallyare that likely to push
(11:53):
businesses to disclose thesethings.
Maybe California.
It reminds me of privacy laws.
I don't think that we canrealistically expect to always
see disclosure for when we'reinteracting with an AI or we're
reading something or watchingsomething that was generated by
an AI.
The labor market impact you'llsee probably first in
entertainment, where they'reunionized and they're going to
say you know, hey, the videogame industry is up in arms
(12:17):
because you know, there was allthe concept designers are
becoming obsolete, you know, butit's really the genie's out of
the bottle and I don't thinkthat there's any going back.
And personally, as a brand, Ithink that we have an
opportunity to build trust inthis moment by disclosing this
(12:40):
and I think that, just as anaddendum, sort of at the bottom
of things, if it was made by AIor a watermark, if it was an
image, I think that people willappreciate that and if your
audience cares that, this couldbe good for you.
But then again, I don't use AIto write anything.
I use it to do research, I usegap analysis, I use it to
(13:02):
analyze GA4 reports and look forcorrelations in survey data.
But at least for me, myexperience, content that
performs well is supercollaborative, like we're making
right now.
It's very visual, like we'remaking right now.
It has strong points of viewand takes a stand, which I'm
doing right now.
(13:22):
AI doesn't do any of thosethings well, so easy to
differentiate content from AI.
For many of us, this won't bean issue as a brand, but for all
of us it's an issue as aconsumer.
Yeah, I think it's a really again, it's an
interesting question because,for example, one of the things
that they're struggling with ineducation is where is the line
(13:45):
of what's acceptable use andwhat's not?
And is it?
You know, AI is great atideation, it's great at finding
patterns, it's great at kind ofdistilling information that
might be overwhelming for aregular person.
So that can all be reallyuseful if you're writing a paper
(14:07):
, right.
But if you are the one writingthe paper but you're using those
tools, do we have to disclosethat?
And that's where I think, toyour point, the genie's out of
the bottle.
This is the life we're livingnow, and I think what I thought
was so interesting about thosesurvey results and I just saw it
again and it's 70% of peoplewho basically said that they
(14:30):
didn't know that they weredealing with AI.
And I kind of wonder what thatmeans, because we were talking a
little bit before we startedrecording and you said, yeah,
but we've all had thesesuggested next purchases, that's
AI, right.
And so it's kind of like I'mcurious.
(14:51):
I want to kind of go back andsee how did they phrase that
question?
Who did they ask?
When did they ask, because itcould be that they were, you
know, dealing in a chat anddidn't realize they were dealing
with AI, and that can be veryfrustrating because that can
cause these loops that you can'tget out of and and you think
you're dealing with a person,but at the same time, if we can
(15:12):
use AI to provide more serviceand more empathy in the moment,
I think that's okay, right?
Andy Crestodina (15:23):
And it may be preferred in some contexts.
I mean, there are, you know,would you want an AI therapist?
That sounds absurd, until yourealize like, wow, I wouldn't be
squeamish about disclosinganything.
Like I don't have to be polite,I can just tell you know, there
are probably categories wherepeople will suddenly embrace it
and say, well, yeah, actuallythat's a I don't want.
You know, humans, I gotta be.
(15:44):
You know, you're a little moresensitive.
You know, is this person?
You know, can I get right tothe point.
Customer service, some evenhealthcare things.
I mean, there it we mayactually find that AI is a great
way to use the internet or toget advice or to get a service.
So that's all TBD.
(16:05):
Politics very bad.
It's going to be very good atmanipulating us and triggering
us, and so there's a bigsociological impact.
It's all kinds of things to beconcerned about, but generally,
yes, this is a great moment andhumanity can decide.
As a country, as people, we candecide that this should always
(16:25):
be disclosed.
I think that would be apositive.
Jeannie Walters (16:28):
Yep, and I think when it comes to
disclosure and you mentioned,you think there are some
disclosure regulations coming.
I also would think about evenlike early search right, like
when we think about how theywould say like these results
might not be right, like let'sjust say it, like we're doing
(16:50):
our best, but these resultsmight not be right.
Google originally had that.
I'm feeling lucky.
Remember that button.
Andy Crestodina (16:55):
Yes, I do.
Jeannie Walters (16:56):
And it gave you like three instead of all of
them, and so I think that thattype of disclosure I think we
just need to embrace as part ofthis and knowing that you know
what machines make mistakes too,and especially when they're
trained by humans, which all ofthem are, and we have to just
(17:17):
accept that.
And going back to your pointabout sometimes it's preferred
in service interactions andthings like that, I like to
remind the teams that I workwith, like, empathy in humans is
a finite resource.
We don't have as much empathyat the end of the day as we do
in the beginning, and so if weare put into that situation
where we have to provide thatsame empathy throughout the day,
(17:39):
it's not going to be the same,and so the consistency of the
empathy might be really valuable.
Andy Crestodina (17:47):
Oh, yeah, it crushes emotional intelligence
tests.
It's extremely good atidentifying someone's mood and
adapting itself to that person'smood.
It's kind of a myth, you know,that people that you're not
going to feel a close connectionor it can't really understand
you.
It's going to be better at thatthan people.
I saw a study.
People like if you take Tylenol, you're slightly less
(18:08):
empathetic.
People like strange, like, waita minute.
There's all kinds of thingsthat affect empathy.
Like am I hungry or tired?
You know, I know for a fact thatI'm not always empathetic.
AI is inexhaustible.
It does not have limitedresources to apply to analyzing
your voice and face.
So I think that we will allcome to appreciate it, but I
(18:31):
think it's very important for usall to know when we're working
with it.
Jeannie Walters (18:37):
So yeah, and that's where the trust comes in
and that's where thetransparency comes in.
And when we talk to clientsabout chat especially, people
really want to know if they'retalking to a person or not in
chat, and if you don't revealthat, that can lead to a lot of
mistrust for the entire customerrelationship.
So I do think erring on theside of more transparent is
(18:59):
where we need to go and at thesame time, we as a society are
learning this isn't so bad, andI actually this is okay for us
to interact this way, but yeah.
Andy Crestodina (19:09):
Hey, Jeannie, I've got a question.
Suppose you're a collegeadmissions officer and you're
reading an essay and at the endof the essay there's a
disclosure that AI was used tohelp write that essay.
Jeannie Walters (19:19):
Yeah.
Andy Crestodina (19:20):
Does that increase trust.
What do you think?
Jeannie Walters (19:22):
Yeah, we are in the thick of that right now.
We have a senior right now whois applying to colleges.
So this is my life.
Um, yeah, I think that all ofeducation is struggling with
this and struggling with whereis the line.
If I were that admissionscounselor and saw that, I would
(19:45):
not think of it as thatstudent's work today, because
we're assuming that to yourpoint it was written by AI.
But my experience, like yours,with writing is it's very, it
follows a formula, it feels veryformulaic when it spits out
something, and I think that themore that we can really empower
(20:09):
students and people in themarket too, that the human voice
really does matter, like we arewired differently by design,
and having that true voice comeout, I think, is just going to
be more and more important as wemove forward.
(20:29):
What would you do?
Andy Crestodina (20:31):
I could well in that example, I think I would
as a college admissions advisoror officer.
I would assume all essays wereat least partly written by AI,
and if I saw a student disclosethat on their essay I think I'd
be impressed.
Jeannie Walters (20:45):
Interesting.
Andy Crestodina (20:46):
I think it'd be different.
I think it'd be like this isdifferent.
This is the only one who saidthis and if you're trying to
stand out, I mean that checkedat least one box.
I teach a class.
I teach a class at Northwesternit's for masters of
communication students and Irequire AI.
They must use it.
My assignments require them touse AI to audit their homework
(21:07):
before turning it in.
I teach them the right prompts.
I teach them to edit andimprove prompts and evaluate the
output of prompts or of AIresponses.
I give them, I think AI is anamazing teaching tool and the
work of my students is betternow than it was years ago.
But if a student decides to useAI to do all their homework for
them, they are wasting theirmoney on education.
(21:30):
So if your goal as a student isto learn, it's incumbent on you,
as the student, to pushyourself to improve your skills.
And if you're abdicating yourjob at communication, which is
the main benefit of higher ed Ithink, by not writing anything
yourself, I think you are goingto be at a competitive
(21:53):
disadvantage in the long run.
You're not going to be a goodpublic speaker if you can't put
words together on the spot.
I mean there's a milliondisadvantages for the student
that does not learn to write.
Jeannie Walters (22:05):
Yes and I think that's a really good point too
is that there are ways toincorporate it that are really
meaningful and helpful andthey're going to be the way of
the future.
So I love that you'reincorporating that.
I'm noticing I have a collegestudent and a high school
student right now and I'mnoticing how there are some
(22:25):
things like everything old isnew again, like blue books,
right.
Like instead of having themtype things out, some professors
are asking them to write inblue books in the classroom to
make sure they're not reallyoverusing AI.
So there are some techniques.
There's some math stuff that mysenior here is doing and he has
(22:48):
to take pictures of hishandwritten work to hand in, so
it's, and I sympathize becausethe teachers want the students
to learn this and so they'retrying these different
techniques to figure this allout.
But I think again, this allcomes down to where we are in
the evolution of all this and weare figuring this out as we go
(23:10):
and we need to collaborate onthat and we need to say, like I
bet your students reallyappreciate that you teach them
how to use it, because otherwisethey're they're going to be
it's all trial and error, right.
Like we're all figuring thisout.
Andy Crestodina (23:23):
Yeah, my job is to prepare them for the market,
which is very competitive.
Jeannie Walters (23:28):
Yep.
Andy Crestodina (23:28):
And I don't think.
I think it's.
I think all teachers at leastin college I mean should teach
their students how to use AI.
Why would you not?
It's like, you know, in the 80sor let's say the 70s, should
accountants use calculators.
In the 80s?
(23:53):
Should lawyers use computers?
I mean it's, there is no.
I think it's absurd.
You're trying to prepare thisperson for the rest of their
life, like to go compete well inthe marketplace.
But oh, don't use that superpowerful, you know highly
advantageous technology thatmight make your output better.
Jeannie Walters (24:09):
Yep.
Andy Crestodina (24:10):
Yep, so yeah, I mean, but then again I'm not a
high school teacher, I'm notsure what I would do to help
them learn the foundations.
Jeannie Walters (24:18):
Yeah.
Well, and I think it's a goodpoint because there are things
that, um, you need to know evento use that calculator, right,
and so it's like that type offoundational education is so
important.
And I keep asking, like, howare people even teaching
business and marketing, becauseit's so fast paced right now,
and I'm sure you've had thisexperience too, where sometimes
(24:39):
I maybe interview or talk ornetwork with people who have
been in kind of a steadycorporate job for a long time
and it takes five minutes for meto realize they are not keeping
up at all because they don'tneed to in their mind.
But in today's world you needto, like everybody needs to be a
(25:00):
constant student with this andexperiment and try things and
figure out what works, becauseotherwise there is no doubt you
will be left behind, in myhumble opinion.
Andy Crestodina (25:11):
Yeah, I think managers need to try to learn
from their teams.
How are you guys leveragingthis?
I think there needs to be, youknow, all the best practices
which you hear everywhere, likecross-functional, you know
knowledge sharing, sharedlibraries of prompts, but
literally there are tasks nowthat can be done in a week that
used to take a week, that arenow done in a day or less, and
(25:34):
this has and we're this is 2024.
So most people aren't yet usingagents which will combine
prompts and tools and doactually do things.
But no, I think that theanybody that doesn't still apply
their own experience andknowledge and background and
points of view is at adisadvantage.
Really, when this becomes evenmore widely used, it tilts the
(26:00):
scales toward people that aremore, that are better at the
fundamental human things, likeyou know strong points of view
and making people feel special.
You know offline interactions,you know events, all of the
networking it's.
It's those people will have astrong advantage.
(26:21):
And look at how you, Jeannie,we've known each other for 15
years, maybe, yeah, probablymore.
Jeannie Walters (26:26):
Yeah.
Andy Crestodina (26:26):
Yeah, that wouldn't have happened if we
didn't get offline.
So I think that thisconversation is an example of
people who just stay behind.
You know, LLM their whole livesare never going to get the fun
that we're having now.
Jeannie Walters (26:41):
Yeah, it's true , and I think that, as things
evolve, the other thing that I'mseeing that I think is exciting
is that we have these largelanguage models, these LLMs, but
now these organizations arefiguring out their SLMs, their
small language models, becauseyou can do that just for your
space, just for yourorganization, and sometimes
(27:03):
that's a lot more valuable thanyou know, opening up to
everything.
So I think there will see morecustomization, even within how
these things operate.
And I'm going to skip our lastone because this is too much fun
.
So we're just going to finishup here, but I want to.
If somebody's listening to thisand they're like, whew, I
(27:25):
really just need to get into GenAI, I haven't really
experimented these two arereally telling me I have to.
What should be their goal, youthink, for 2025?
How should they go into nextyear thinking about this?
Andy Crestodina (27:38):
I'm just going to share my favorite use case
for AI, which is to use it tofind gaps and make the thing
that you're making better.
Whatever you're doing I mean,I'm a marketer, so any page that
you're writing, or any email orany copy, any presentation, an
(28:01):
ad if you're a paid marketer anyad it probably is missing a few
things that are important tothe target audience.
So if you can first train theAI on your target audience.
I have persona prompts for this.
Connect with me, I'll share.
There's also, it may be like anICP that you have or a
documented kind of persona.
Give that to the AI, along withthe draft of the thing that
(28:24):
you're making, and ask it what'smissing.
You will suddenly become muchmore confident.
You're going to be happy.
You've learned some AI trickstoday, made you smarter and it
didn't remove any of the partsof your job that you love.
Right, being creative or doinganalysis.
These are fun things for me, soI like doing those.
I don't want AI to do those forme, necessarily, but AI powered
(28:46):
persona driven gap analysisamazingly helpful.
Like oops, I forgot to talkabout this.
My audience cares about thisbut only works if you first
train the AI in your audience.
I often joke before you trainAI on your target audience's
information needs AI might aswell stand for average
information.
It's not targeted, it's notspecific, it's generic, it's
(29:08):
water.
It tastes like water because itingested the internet and
summarized that corner of theinternet.
But then train it.
First train it on your targetaudience and it suddenly becomes
breathtakingly useful,especially if you just use it to
get another point of view onwhatever your deliverable is.
Jeannie Walters (29:24):
I love that and I think this I would offer the
same thing for, uh, I keepthinking about time and how,
right now, the expectation isthat I need that now.
Whatever it is, right, like Ineed it now.
If you tell me something'savailable, I want it on my
doorstep tomorrow.
(29:45):
If you are communicating aboutinformation, that is a lot to
learn.
I want to learn it now.
And so where are the placesthat you can lean into
shortening the time of whateverthat delivery is and that would
be?
You know, I use it a lot forthings like if we have some
customer data points that wewant to summarize, it's very
(30:07):
good filtering through that andreally discovering the
priorities, the right prioritiesfor those personas.
So, yeah, it's pretty coolstuff.
Andy Crestodina (30:18):
It's a very dynamic category.
We're in right.
It's a fun time doing this.
Jeannie Walters (30:23):
I know you think about where we started and
the technology we were usingback then and where it's coming.
in
Andy Crestodina (30:28):
In one lifetime it's so crazy.
I
I know.
Really there's never been.
This is really amazing to seethe growth of the internet and
browsers and then mobile andsocial and all like we've seen
these things.
Just yeah, I, I gotta say likethat I, uh, I actually feel for
and understand the people whoare like, oh, I'm, I'm 60s year
(30:50):
now, I'm gonna sit this one out,like yeah, I appreciate that
too.
Jeannie Walters (30:54):
I know, I know and the cool thing for me
personally and I'm gonna saythis because my dad listens to
every single one of these but mydad was a systems analyst in
like 1961 and two, so he wastrained like there wasn't even a
degree right like he waslearning by IBM and all these
others, and now my son is acomputer science major at school
(31:17):
and watching their interactionsis really interesting because
they the span of what they bothwitnessed in their lifetimes is
pretty remarkable.
So, yeah, it's really cool stuffand we get to ride the wave
together, right.
Well, Andy, this was so great.
Thank you so much for beinghere and thank you for all you
(31:37):
do.
For those people who haven'tfollowed you, I highly recommend
.
There's always stuff to learnand I know you're always very
gracious as well with yourteaching and being out there for
people, so thank you for that.
Andy Crestodina (31:51):
Thank you for this.
I would never miss the chanceto collaborate with you, Jeannie
.
This is awesome.
Jeannie Walters (31:55):
Thank you so much.
Well, and thank you everybodyfor being here with us on the
Experience Action Podcast.
We will talk soon and talkagain in 2025.
Thanks for all you do.
Hi everybody.
It's my favorite episode of themonth.
It's time for CX Pulse Check,where we check in on what's
happening in the real worldaround customer experience.
Of course, I also bring in aspecial co-host, and today I am
(00:22):
delighted to bring in my friend,Andy Crestodina.
Andy Crestodina (00:26):
Jeannie it's great to be here.
I'm great, I'm great, I'm gladto join you.
This will be fun.
Jeannie Walters (00:31):
It will be fun.
And for those of you whosomehow don't know who you are,
Andy, because you are everywhereand have been everywhere for a
while now, why don't youintroduce yourself to our
audience?
Andy Crestodina (00:44):
I'm the co-founder of a digital agency
called Orbit Media Studios.
Orbit is 100% focused onwebsites.
We build and optimize websitesfor both search and conversion
lots of B2B lead gen sites andI'm also just a longtime content
marketer, SEO, social mediamarketer, email influencers,
teacher.
(01:07):
I'm just active and love CX,analytics, conversion.
I love the things you love, soI'm glad to join you here today.
Jeannie Walters (01:16):
Yeah, and for those of you who are not
following Andy on LinkedIn andfollowing your blog, it is
always full of just incredibleinformation.
I've learned so much from youover the years, so thank you for
that and it's just a joy tohave you on.
So thank you, and I picked outa few articles here that I
thought would be compelling forboth of us, because you have all
(01:38):
this incredible background incontent marketing and digital
marketing and just the way theworld is going in that way.
And, Andy, it might surpriseyou, but we're going to talk
about something called AI.
Have you ever heard of that?
Andy Crestodina (01:51):
Two-thirds of my conversations are about AI.
I'm actually not tired of it.
I love it.
I find it to be useful andhappy to share my points of view
here as we go through these.
Jeannie Walters (02:02):
Well, I am excited to hear that because I
feel the same way.
I'm excited about the potential.
I think we are in a reallyinteresting part of history
where we are at the cusp ofsomething and we get to kind of
figure out what feels right andwhat the rules are, which is
pretty cool, and I know thereare things that aren't going to
(02:23):
go well, but we're going to doour best to use it for good.
That's my attitude at least.
So let's talk about I mean, weneed to, of course, make a run
for the border.
So we are going to talk aboutTaco Bell here.
This is an article from the WallStreet Journal and the headline
is Taco Bell and KFC's ownersays AI driven marketing is
(02:47):
boosting purchases.
And I thought this was sointeresting because we've talked
about AI in the fast food spacebefore, around kiosk choices
and drive throughs and thingslike that.
This went into a little bitmore of a broader perspective
about personalized communicationand how that links up with some
(03:09):
of the choices in the store aswell.
So what do you think about this?
What did you take away fromthis?
Andy Crestodina (03:15):
Well, this is an example of a case study that
it's not surprising if they'reseeing a lift and they have such
scale that a small lift canmake a big difference to a
company like that.
I think there are lots ofbusinesses like mine and lots of
my clients that wouldn't see asignificant enough lift for the
investment here at this point in2024 from that level of
(03:37):
personalization.
So when you have I mean you'reselling chicken, you're selling
tacos what is this person likebased on their activity at this
kiosk or wherever in theirexperience, like can I give them
something that they're slightlymore likely to engage with?
Yes, and is that worth $10million to us in technology
investment?
Yes, because the lift is sohigh.
So I think that it's my.
(04:00):
I love it, I believe it, Ithink it's the future.
My caution is that forcompanies for which the value is
gained by, you know, getting alower volume of higher value
leads, let's say, like a B2Bcompany most many of us in
digital here not that relevant.
This is not something thatanybody could just emulate.
Yum brand or whatever they'recalled now, has different
(04:23):
opportunities than many of us,but it's definitely a space to
watch.
Jeannie Walters (04:27):
Yeah Well, and I think you bring up a really
important point about we have tomake sure that the investment
pays off, and there are lots ofsituations where it might not
right now, today, and what I seeis that a lot of the customer
data is just not organized theright way, it's not in the right
place, it's not centralized, sopeople kind of plug in AI in
(04:50):
just the marketing space andit's not connected to the rest
of the customer journey.
So it actually leads to reallyhigh expectations based on the
personalized marketing and thenif we can't deliver that through
further in the journey, wemight be setting up for actual
more disappointment for ourcustomers.
So it really comes back tounderstanding what is it?
(05:12):
What's the goal here, what arewe trying to do?
And then I'm seeing a lot of myclients and different
organizations that we work withwho are really large and
complicated.
They're trying little pilots tosee.
Is it worth scaling?
And I think that's somethingthat you know.
You read an article like this,you hear about that success and
you say, oh, it must have workedright, like right away.
(05:34):
And I think it's reallyimportant to stress that we need
to test things.
We need to make sure that ourinformation security and our
customer data and all that isaligned in the right way.
But I think one of the thingsthat I'm sure we've been talking
about for a decade plus now isthis whole idea of personalized
(05:55):
marketing.
And one of the things that I'mseeing changing and I'm curious
what you're seeing is that usedto mean certain things.
It meant, like using somebody'sname and giving some
suggestions, but now in thisarticle they talked about how
their Pizza Hut consumers someof them are very frequent, some
of them only order on the SuperBowl right, like that's their
(06:18):
one thing.
And so they are able to, basedon those data points, really
understand who they're talkingto and then provide the right
offer, the right coupon.
All of that based on actualbehavior, which I think is where
we're going, instead of justsaying to customers what do you
want and they tell us and theydon't necessarily behave that
(06:39):
way.
We're using behavior to reallyunderstand customers.
So are you seeing that as well?
Andy Crestodina (06:45):
I am.
I have that same feeling thatyou did.
It's like this isn't anopportunity that everybody would
have.
You're seeing like an output oran outcome at like phase nine
maturity.
Like they've got, they knowthat you only bought once a year
because they've been trackingfor years.
Not everyone's got years ofdata or their data is like
structured properly or able toget this to achieve that.
(07:06):
But no, I think it's one thing Ithink I'm seeing now is that
the personalization technologiesand tools and the testing, AB
testing, technology and toolsare sort of the same tools now,
because you're, if you want tomake so, let's just translate
into something more likely,useful to people like me.
You want a landing page toperform from a traffic source.
(07:29):
You want to know what versionsof this page will perform better
.
The tools now aren't creatingan A and a B and you're going to
get a lot of data and thengiving you an insight.
AI personalization and testingtools are creating 15 variants
(07:49):
of that and showing it,continuously changing slightly
who's seeing it?
It might say, oh, mobilevisitors are 8% more likely to
engage with this word or thisposition of the button.
So personalization is sort ofhappening in the testing
environment, just as kind of thesame thing, and the tools are
sort of spinning up and creatinglots of variants.
It's really interesting just howAI is going to blow up the A
(08:15):
and the B approach to testingand the three variants versions
of personalization.
I'm watching those technologiesconverge and create ongoing
iterative, data-drivenvariations with all kinds of
options.
(08:35):
In some cases the tool is evenwriting the variants using AI.
Jeannie Walters (08:39):
Wow, that's interesting to think about, and
I think part of what I think isso exciting about this moment in
time is that some of what wasinaccessible to smaller
organizations, to entrepreneurs,is becoming accessible, because
we don't need a developer allthe time, right, we don't need
(09:00):
those very specialized skills.
If we can lean into askinggenerative AI to help us with
those skills.
I'm not saying it's going toreplace that completely, but I
think that there is a lot aroundthat with even testing.
Like what should we test?
Help me understand.
What should we test?
Is it the language?
Is it the design?
(09:21):
How would we do that?
And I think that's where Ipersonally am also using it in
that way.
I'm starting to lean into if Idon't know something, my kind of
go-to right now is saying well,how can I learn this quickly
and how can I learn this in anactionable way for me?
And so I'll say, like this isthe scenario, help me understand
(09:43):
.
And sometimes what that meansis it says you need somebody
smarter than you, right, likeyou need somebody to come in,
but at least I know that.
So I think it's reallyinteresting to think about those
different pieces and thosedifferent tools that will be
merging together and that wewill have available to us in new
(10:03):
ways.
So, yeah, I'll be watching YumBrands and then I'll be, you
know, on step one and whenthey're on step ten.
But that's okay.
That's okay.
So this next article is from CXDive, and this is where the this
(10:24):
is again about generative AI,because it is everywhere, but
this one is the headline,retailers confront trust issues
as generative AI becomescommonplace, and they talked
about a few different surveysone from Bain and Company and
essentially a lot of consumersdidn't always understand that
(10:46):
they were interacting with AI.
And we've been talking abouttransparency.
We've been talking aboutproviding trust through
transparency with customersforever, it feels like, and yet
we're still not quite gettingthere.
So do you think that's theproblem?
Do you think we're not beingtransparent in the communication
(11:08):
and the expectation setting?
Or is it just that this is themoment in time we're in, or what
do you think?
It is such an accessible andinexpensive and fast tool that
probably later today you and Iwill read copy that was
generated by AI, that someoneused to quickly make it.
(11:29):
It might even be an email thatwe got from someone on our team
who knows.
So it's a weird time and Ithink that there will be a big
trend toward disclosure.
I think that you're going tosee it.
A lot in images.
AI images are currently sort ofeasy to identify anyway.
If there's regulation, I thinkyou'll first see it in Europe.
I don't think Americans reallyare that likely to push
(11:53):
businesses to disclose thesethings.
Maybe California.
It reminds me of privacy laws.
I don't think that we canrealistically expect to always
see disclosure for when we'reinteracting with an AI or we're
reading something or watchingsomething that was generated by
an AI.
The labor market impact you'llsee probably first in
entertainment, where they'reunionized and they're going to
say you know, hey, the videogame industry is up in arms
(12:17):
because you know, there was allthe concept designers are
becoming obsolete, you know, butit's really the genie's out of
the bottle and I don't thinkthat there's any going back.
And personally, as a brand, Ithink that we have an
opportunity to build trust inthis moment by disclosing this
(12:40):
and I think that, just as anaddendum, sort of at the bottom
of things, if it was made by AIor a watermark, if it was an
image, I think that people willappreciate that and if your
audience cares that, this couldbe good for you.
But then again, I don't use AIto write anything.
I use it to do research, I usegap analysis, I use it to
(13:02):
analyze GA4 reports and look forcorrelations in survey data.
But at least for me, myexperience, content that
performs well is supercollaborative, like we're making
right now.
It's very visual, like we'remaking right now.
It has strong points of viewand takes a stand, which I'm
doing right now.
(13:22):
AI doesn't do any of thosethings well, so easy to
differentiate content from AI.
For many of us, this won't bean issue as a brand, but for all
of us it's an issue as aconsumer.
Yeah, I think it's a really again, it's an
interesting question because,for example, one of the things
that they're struggling with ineducation is where is the line
(13:45):
of what's acceptable use andwhat's not?
And is it?
You know, AI is great atideation, it's great at finding
patterns, it's great at kind ofdistilling information that
might be overwhelming for aregular person.
So that can all be reallyuseful if you're writing a paper
(14:07):
, right.
But if you are the one writingthe paper but you're using those
tools, do we have to disclosethat?
And that's where I think, toyour point, the genie's out of
the bottle.
This is the life we're livingnow, and I think what I thought
was so interesting about thosesurvey results and I just saw it
again and it's 70% of peoplewho basically said that they
(14:30):
didn't know that they weredealing with AI.
And I kind of wonder what thatmeans, because we were talking a
little bit before we startedrecording and you said, yeah,
but we've all had thesesuggested next purchases, that's
AI, right.
And so it's kind of like I'mcurious.
(14:51):
I want to kind of go back andsee how did they phrase that
question?
Who did they ask?
When did they ask, because itcould be that they were, you
know, dealing in a chat anddidn't realize they were dealing
with AI, and that can be veryfrustrating because that can
cause these loops that you can'tget out of and and you think
you're dealing with a person,but at the same time, if we can
(15:12):
use AI to provide more serviceand more empathy in the moment,
I think that's okay, right?
Andy Crestodina (15:23):
And it may be preferred in some contexts.
I mean, there are, you know,would you want an AI therapist?
That sounds absurd, until yourealize like, wow, I wouldn't be
squeamish about disclosinganything.
Like I don't have to be polite,I can just tell you know, there
are probably categories wherepeople will suddenly embrace it
and say, well, yeah, actuallythat's a I don't want.
You know, humans, I gotta be.
(15:44):
You know, you're a little moresensitive.
You know, is this person?
You know, can I get right tothe point.
Customer service, some evenhealthcare things.
I mean, there it we mayactually find that AI is a great
way to use the internet or toget advice or to get a service.
So that's all TBD.
(16:05):
Politics very bad.
It's going to be very good atmanipulating us and triggering
us, and so there's a bigsociological impact.
It's all kinds of things to beconcerned about, but generally,
yes, this is a great moment andhumanity can decide.
As a country, as people, we candecide that this should always
(16:25):
be disclosed.
I think that would be apositive.
Jeannie Walters (16:28):
Yep, and I think when it comes to
disclosure and you mentioned,you think there are some
disclosure regulations coming.
I also would think about evenlike early search right, like
when we think about how theywould say like these results
might not be right, like let'sjust say it, like we're doing
(16:50):
our best, but these resultsmight not be right.
Google originally had that.
I'm feeling lucky.
Remember that button.
Andy Crestodina (16:55):
Yes, I do.
Jeannie Walters (16:56):
And it gave you like three instead of all of
them, and so I think that thattype of disclosure I think we
just need to embrace as part ofthis and knowing that you know
what machines make mistakes too,and especially when they're
trained by humans, which all ofthem are, and we have to just
(17:17):
accept that.
And going back to your pointabout sometimes it's preferred
in service interactions andthings like that, I like to
remind the teams that I workwith, like, empathy in humans is
a finite resource.
We don't have as much empathyat the end of the day as we do
in the beginning, and so if weare put into that situation
where we have to provide thatsame empathy throughout the day,
(17:39):
it's not going to be the same,and so the consistency of the
empathy might be really valuable.
Andy Crestodina (17:47):
Oh, yeah, it crushes emotional intelligence
tests.
It's extremely good atidentifying someone's mood and
adapting itself to that person'smood.
It's kind of a myth, you know,that people that you're not
going to feel a close connectionor it can't really understand
you.
It's going to be better at thatthan people.
I saw a study.
People like if you take Tylenol, you're slightly less
(18:08):
empathetic.
People like strange, like, waita minute.
There's all kinds of thingsthat affect empathy.
Like am I hungry or tired?
You know, I know for a fact thatI'm not always empathetic.
AI is inexhaustible.
It does not have limitedresources to apply to analyzing
your voice and face.
So I think that we will allcome to appreciate it, but I
(18:31):
think it's very important for usall to know when we're working
with it.
Jeannie Walters (18:37):
So yeah, and that's where the trust comes in
and that's where thetransparency comes in.
And when we talk to clientsabout chat especially, people
really want to know if they'retalking to a person or not in
chat, and if you don't revealthat, that can lead to a lot of
mistrust for the entire customerrelationship.
So I do think erring on theside of more transparent is
(18:59):
where we need to go and at thesame time, we as a society are
learning this isn't so bad, andI actually this is okay for us
to interact this way, but yeah.
Andy Crestodina (19:09):
Hey, Jeannie, I've got a question.
Suppose you're a collegeadmissions officer and you're
reading an essay and at the endof the essay there's a
disclosure that AI was used tohelp write that essay.
Jeannie Walters (19:19):
Yeah.
Andy Crestodina (19:20):
Does that increase trust.
What do you think?
Jeannie Walters (19:22):
Yeah, we are in the thick of that right now.
We have a senior right now whois applying to colleges.
So this is my life.
Um, yeah, I think that all ofeducation is struggling with
this and struggling with whereis the line.
If I were that admissionscounselor and saw that, I would
(19:45):
not think of it as thatstudent's work today, because
we're assuming that to yourpoint it was written by AI.
But my experience, like yours,with writing is it's very, it
follows a formula, it feels veryformulaic when it spits out
something, and I think that themore that we can really empower
(20:09):
students and people in themarket too, that the human voice
really does matter, like we arewired differently by design,
and having that true voice comeout, I think, is just going to
be more and more important as wemove forward.
(20:29):
What would you do?
Andy Crestodina (20:31):
I could well in that example, I think I would
as a college admissions advisoror officer.
I would assume all essays wereat least partly written by AI,
and if I saw a student disclosethat on their essay I think I'd
be impressed.
Jeannie Walters (20:45):
Interesting.
Andy Crestodina (20:46):
I think it'd be different.
I think it'd be like this isdifferent.
This is the only one who saidthis and if you're trying to
stand out, I mean that checkedat least one box.
I teach a class.
I teach a class at Northwesternit's for masters of
communication students and Irequire AI.
They must use it.
My assignments require them touse AI to audit their homework
(21:07):
before turning it in.
I teach them the right prompts.
I teach them to edit andimprove prompts and evaluate the
output of prompts or of AIresponses.
I give them, I think AI is anamazing teaching tool and the
work of my students is betternow than it was years ago.
But if a student decides to useAI to do all their homework for
them, they are wasting theirmoney on education.
(21:30):
So if your goal as a student isto learn, it's incumbent on you,
as the student, to pushyourself to improve your skills.
And if you're abdicating yourjob at communication, which is
the main benefit of higher ed Ithink, by not writing anything
yourself, I think you are goingto be at a competitive
(21:53):
disadvantage in the long run.
You're not going to be a goodpublic speaker if you can't put
words together on the spot.
I mean there's a milliondisadvantages for the student
that does not learn to write.
Jeannie Walters (22:05):
Yes and I think that's a really good point too
is that there are ways toincorporate it that are really
meaningful and helpful andthey're going to be the way of
the future.
So I love that you'reincorporating that.
I'm noticing I have a collegestudent and a high school
student right now and I'mnoticing how there are some
(22:25):
things like everything old isnew again, like blue books,
right.
Like instead of having themtype things out, some professors
are asking them to write inblue books in the classroom to
make sure they're not reallyoverusing AI.
So there are some techniques.
There's some math stuff that mysenior here is doing and he has
(22:48):
to take pictures of hishandwritten work to hand in, so
it's, and I sympathize becausethe teachers want the students
to learn this and so they'retrying these different
techniques to figure this allout.
But I think again, this allcomes down to where we are in
the evolution of all this and weare figuring this out as we go
(23:10):
and we need to collaborate onthat and we need to say, like I
bet your students reallyappreciate that you teach them
how to use it, because otherwisethey're they're going to be
it's all trial and error, right.
Like we're all figuring thisout.
Andy Crestodina (23:23):
Yeah, my job is to prepare them for the market,
which is very competitive.
Jeannie Walters (23:28):
Yep.
Andy Crestodina (23:28):
And I don't think.
I think it's.
I think all teachers at leastin college I mean should teach
their students how to use AI.
Why would you not?
It's like, you know, in the 80sor let's say the 70s, should
accountants use calculators.
In the 80s?
(23:53):
Should lawyers use computers?
I mean it's, there is no.
I think it's absurd.
You're trying to prepare thisperson for the rest of their
life, like to go compete well inthe marketplace.
But oh, don't use that superpowerful, you know highly
advantageous technology thatmight make your output better.
Jeannie Walters (24:09):
Yep.
Andy Crestodina (24:10):
Yep, so yeah, I mean, but then again I'm not a
high school teacher, I'm notsure what I would do to help
them learn the foundations.
Jeannie Walters (24:18):
Yeah.
Well, and I think it's a goodpoint because there are things
that, um, you need to know evento use that calculator, right,
and so it's like that type offoundational education is so
important.
And I keep asking, like, howare people even teaching
business and marketing, becauseit's so fast paced right now,
and I'm sure you've had thisexperience too, where sometimes
(24:39):
I maybe interview or talk ornetwork with people who have
been in kind of a steadycorporate job for a long time
and it takes five minutes for meto realize they are not keeping
up at all because they don'tneed to in their mind.
But in today's world you needto, like everybody needs to be a
(25:00):
constant student with this andexperiment and try things and
figure out what works, becauseotherwise there is no doubt you
will be left behind, in myhumble opinion.
Andy Crestodina (25:11):
Yeah, I think managers need to try to learn
from their teams.
How are you guys leveragingthis?
I think there needs to be, youknow, all the best practices
which you hear everywhere, likecross-functional, you know
knowledge sharing, sharedlibraries of prompts, but
literally there are tasks nowthat can be done in a week that
used to take a week, that arenow done in a day or less, and
(25:34):
this has and we're this is 2024.
So most people aren't yet usingagents which will combine
prompts and tools and doactually do things.
But no, I think that theanybody that doesn't still apply
their own experience andknowledge and background and
points of view is at adisadvantage.
Really, when this becomes evenmore widely used, it tilts the
(26:00):
scales toward people that aremore, that are better at the
fundamental human things, likeyou know strong points of view
and making people feel special.
You know offline interactions,you know events, all of the
networking it's.
It's those people will have astrong advantage.
(26:21):
And look at how you, Jeannie,we've known each other for 15
years, maybe, yeah, probablymore.
Jeannie Walters (26:26):
Yeah.
Andy Crestodina (26:26):
Yeah, that wouldn't have happened if we
didn't get offline.
So I think that thisconversation is an example of
people who just stay behind.
You know, LLM their whole livesare never going to get the fun
that we're having now.
Jeannie Walters (26:41):
Yeah, it's true , and I think that, as things
evolve, the other thing that I'mseeing that I think is exciting
is that we have these largelanguage models, these LLMs, but
now these organizations arefiguring out their SLMs, their
small language models, becauseyou can do that just for your
space, just for yourorganization, and sometimes
(27:03):
that's a lot more valuable thanyou know, opening up to
everything.
So I think there will see morecustomization, even within how
these things operate.
And I'm going to skip our lastone because this is too much fun
.
So we're just going to finishup here, but I want to.
If somebody's listening to thisand they're like, whew, I
(27:25):
really just need to get into GenAI, I haven't really
experimented these two arereally telling me I have to.
What should be their goal, youthink, for 2025?
How should they go into nextyear thinking about this?
Andy Crestodina (27:38):
I'm just going to share my favorite use case
for AI, which is to use it tofind gaps and make the thing
that you're making better.
Whatever you're doing I mean,I'm a marketer, so any page that
you're writing, or any email orany copy, any presentation, an
(28:01):
ad if you're a paid marketer anyad it probably is missing a few
things that are important tothe target audience.
So if you can first train theAI on your target audience.
I have persona prompts for this.
Connect with me, I'll share.
There's also, it may be like anICP that you have or a
documented kind of persona.
Give that to the AI, along withthe draft of the thing that
(28:24):
you're making, and ask it what'smissing.
You will suddenly become muchmore confident.
You're going to be happy.
You've learned some AI trickstoday, made you smarter and it
didn't remove any of the partsof your job that you love.
Right, being creative or doinganalysis.
These are fun things for me, soI like doing those.
I don't want AI to do those forme, necessarily, but AI powered
(28:46):
persona driven gap analysisamazingly helpful.
Like oops, I forgot to talkabout this.
My audience cares about thisbut only works if you first
train the AI in your audience.
I often joke before you trainAI on your target audience's
information needs AI might aswell stand for average
information.
It's not targeted, it's notspecific, it's generic, it's
(29:08):
water.
It tastes like water because itingested the internet and
summarized that corner of theinternet.
But then train it.
First train it on your targetaudience and it suddenly becomes
breathtakingly useful,especially if you just use it to
get another point of view onwhatever your deliverable is.
Jeannie Walters (29:24):
I love that and I think this I would offer the
same thing for, uh, I keepthinking about time and how,
right now, the expectation isthat I need that now.
Whatever it is, right, like Ineed it now.
If you tell me something'savailable, I want it on my
doorstep tomorrow.
(29:45):
If you are communicating aboutinformation, that is a lot to
learn.
I want to learn it now.
And so where are the placesthat you can lean into
shortening the time of whateverthat delivery is and that would
be?
You know, I use it a lot forthings like if we have some
customer data points that wewant to summarize, it's very
(30:07):
good filtering through that andreally discovering the
priorities, the right prioritiesfor those personas.
So, yeah, it's pretty coolstuff.
Andy Crestodina (30:18):
It's a very dynamic category.
We're in right.
It's a fun time doing this.
Jeannie Walters (30:23):
I know you think about where we started and
the technology we were usingback then and where it's coming.
in
Andy Crestodina (30:28):
In one lifetime it's so crazy.
I
I know.
Really there's never been.
This is really amazing to seethe growth of the internet and
browsers and then mobile andsocial and all like we've seen
these things.
Just yeah, I, I gotta say likethat I, uh, I actually feel for
and understand the people whoare like, oh, I'm, I'm 60s year
(30:50):
now, I'm gonna sit this one out,like yeah, I appreciate that
too.
Jeannie Walters (30:54):
I know, I know and the cool thing for me
personally and I'm gonna saythis because my dad listens to
every single one of these but mydad was a systems analyst in
like 1961 and two, so he wastrained like there wasn't even a
degree right like he waslearning by IBM and all these
others, and now my son is acomputer science major at school
(31:17):
and watching their interactionsis really interesting because
they the span of what they bothwitnessed in their lifetimes is
pretty remarkable.
So, yeah, it's really cool stuffand we get to ride the wave
together, right.
Well, Andy, this was so great.
Thank you so much for beinghere and thank you for all you
(31:37):
do.
For those people who haven'tfollowed you, I highly recommend
.
There's always stuff to learnand I know you're always very
gracious as well with yourteaching and being out there for
people, so thank you for that.
Andy Crestodina (31:51):
Thank you for this.
I would never miss the chanceto collaborate with you, Jeannie
.
This is awesome.
Jeannie Walters (31:55):
Thank you so much.
Well, and thank you everybodyfor being here with us on the
Experience Action Podcast.
We will talk soon and talkagain in 2025.
Thanks for all you do.
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