December 1, 2025 • 35 mins
Spill the tea - we want to hear from you!
What if AI didn’t arrive overnight but grew up with us—and only now stepped into the spotlight? We’re joined by Nadeem Ibrahim to map the real story: from Spectrum tapes and pagers to telco‑powered data flows and the rise of large language models that collapse research, recommendation, and purchase into a single conversation.
We get honest about the agency dilemma: when a strategist uses AI to draft research or polish slides, is that cheating or smart leverage? Nadim argues for a different metric—returning 30% of brainspace to strategy, creative judgement, and client problem‑solving. The machine assembles; the human interrogates, edits, and decides. That’s how brands earn distinctiveness in a sea of sameness. Along the way, we unpack how user‑generated public data fuels models, why conversational commerce is a direct threat to traditional search, and how marketers can meet customers at the moment of intent inside AI interfaces.
The stakes rise with ownership and trust. Deepfakes, synthetic voices, and viral misinformation make provenance non‑negotiable. We dive into talent IDs and authenticity metadata designed to protect artists, route royalties, and help platforms block abuse. Today it safeguards public figures; tomorrow it should extend to everyone, because a face and a voice are not public domain. We also explore fintech’s convergence with e‑commerce and AI, envisioning systems that can nudge healthier spending while delivering uncanny personalisation—if guardrails like consent and auditability are built in.
If you’re leading a team, start small but deliberate: automate low‑leverage tasks, codify human review, treat prompts and logs as sensitive data, and pilot conversational commerce with clear measurement. If you’re a creator, add authenticity signals and demand the same from partners. Subscribe for more sharp, human‑centred takes on AI, advertising, and digital culture—and tell us: where should AI never cross the line?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Arjun Radeesh (00:04):
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of
Incongruent.
And like yeah, today we'retalking to this amazing guy who
has been on the forefront whenit comes to AI, like using AI on
different what do you call ondifferent fronts.
I would say that's brilliant.
Thank you very much for thatwonderful introduction.
(00:24):
Oh, you're most welcome.
Stephen King (00:26):
You didn't meet me, did you?
Arjun Radeesh (00:28):
Who did we speak to our so we ended up speaking
to Nadim Brahim.
He currently is the legalproduct manager at Metal.
Stephen King (00:38):
And he's also a podcaster robot.
So please do check out therobot podcaster forget the check
if you listen to this and enjoythe episode.
We had a water forward.
We talked about AI theappetizing tech.
We talked about uh genres oftechnology from the 80s to
today, how that's all emerged,how that's brought us to the
(00:59):
current situation where we are.
We talked about future trendsabout the tech.
Uh this conversation goes allover the place.
Uh but it is extremely,extremely interesting.
Arjun Radeesh (01:10):
Absolutely, and but really in the title chat
with them and um all the sort ofideas we kind of put through
and open my thoughts to be veryhonest.
Stephen King (01:22):
So if you like the episode, check out robot,
subscribe to them, subscribe tous, like us, give it a comment,
and all that you think becauseit's a wild ride.
Here we go.
Arjun Radeesh (01:41):
So today we are talking to a renowned
forward-looking digitalauthority in the Middle East and
North African region.
Nadim Ibrahim has garneredindustrial recognition for his
outstanding proficiency andstrategic foresight, holding the
position as regional programmanager at Meta, he brings forth
(02:03):
more than 18 years ofexpertise, steering
audience-focused strategies andproviding invaluable insights to
his clients.
Nadim's passion for gaming andAI drives his dedication to
ensuring clients maintain acompetitive edge, to stay at the
forefront of innovation.
Additionally, he isspearheading the creation of a
podcast series encompassing awide array of topics relevant to
(02:27):
our industry, such aswell-being and empowerment,
further solidifying hiscommitment to knowledge,
dissemination, and industryleadership.
Nadeem, welcome to Incongruentand how has it been going?
Nadeem Ibrahim (02:39):
Thanks for having me, Arjun, Steven.
Yeah.
I would like to say, yeah,thank you first of all for
having me.
Thanks for that introduction.
I've never heard it like thatbefore.
If I'm being honest with you,it's amazing to hear it from
someone else because often we weuh we don't often reflect on
(03:00):
maybe some of our greatestachievements or what we're doing
um right now in the here andnow.
So thanks for that.
Um yeah, and also the podcast.
And yeah, so I'm I'm I'mlooking forward to some some
fruitful conversations.
Um as you know me and Stevenknows me quite well.
I like to be as raw as possibleand unfiltered as possible, but
(03:22):
I will stay within the realmsof what is acceptable based on
what you would need me to be.
But at the same time, I'm notgonna I'm not gonna shy away
from the truth either when youstart throwing questions at me.
And just for the record, justfor the record, so uh people
listening are aware of this, Ihave barely seen the questions,
(03:43):
and I have come a little bitunprepared, Stephen, as I look
into say OMG.
But I guess look, there's twothings I always say to the team
I've always managed and mentoredover time, and including within
myself, you either know it oryou understand it.
So you're gonna get hopefullyquick answers of me
(04:04):
understanding what you're askingrather than just knowing it,
because knowing it is just likehalf-hearted.
So bring it on.
Stephen King (04:10):
Steven, looking a little bit.
I'm not worried, I'm notworried at all.
Uh I from my perspective, wesent you the questions three
weeks ago.
Uh and and if you choose not tolook at them, then that's then
that's fair game.
Nadeem Ibrahim (04:22):
But that's when you get the best reaction,
right?
Stephen King (04:25):
Well, let's see.
Okay, Arjun, let's rock androll.
Arjun Radeesh (04:29):
Alright, like definitely that's something
which we want.
But um going on with thequestions.
We would would you like to tellus a bit about your career
history today, and especiallyhow have you got involved with
artificial intelligence?
Nadeem Ibrahim (04:44):
Yeah, so uh great question in a way.
Like, I don't like to talkabout myself, but I will talk
about myself.
Now I've been in the space oftechnology for about um ever
since I was a youth, a kid,right?
I've always been in the in thespace.
Technology's always beensomething quite passionate for
me.
I I remember, and Arjunju mightnot remember this, but I think
(05:04):
Steven should remember this withwhen when pagers were around.
Stephen King (05:09):
I was one of those young, I was here before pages.
We used to knock on people'sdoors.
Yeah, so pages pages.
There we go.
I was like, how is here whenpages we don't want to use
pages?
That's terrible technology.
No, no, no.
Nadeem Ibrahim (05:23):
Okay, let me go a bit further back further back
then.
I spectrum, okay?
And you might have this on myown podcast, you know, where I
talk about when I ask guestsabout what was their sort of
like piece of tech that theysort of grew up with.
And my I always talk about thespectrum because Spectrum was
the first fascinating piece oftech that I ever came across,
which was a tape cassette thatcan load an 8-bit game that you
(05:45):
can really be engrossed with forhours and hours and hours.
Um so tech's always been like areally soft spot in my heart
whilst growing up, and I had theability to sort of disconnect
from technology when I was goingthrough school and university.
Um I became more focused onsort of economics, I became more
(06:07):
focused on trying to be like aninvestment banker, but then,
truth be told, after graduation,I sort of decided that it's not
for me.
I didn't want to go down thatcycle of you know just being a
number in an organization or anindustry where I wanted to look
for something different.
And I guess when you when youlike technology, the you're
always trying to be ahead ofwhere technology is going.
(06:31):
So you're so interested andintrigued by emerging
technologies, right?
So at the time of university,that curious factor from
technology brought it into mycareer.
Like, what's up and comingback?
Can I think of myself, youknow, being that I want to grow
into?
And advertising came around.
And I took the job of the firstonline sales executive for the
(06:56):
Scotsman newspaper, which wasowned by Johnson Press at the
time.
Um, and that's how I fell intosort of the space of digital
advertising.
Korea sort of started off fromthat for about fast-forward 18
or 19 years now, and I'm here inDubai.
Previous to my currentposition, I was leading you know
(07:16):
an entire market of SaudiArabia for UM, head up digital
strategy.
Had had the fantasticopportunity to work across some
of the prominent brands in SaudiArabia, the top five most you
know lucrative brands from STC,Aramco, Sabik.
Then you have like McDonald'sand espresso and a PIF, Daria,
(07:37):
like super, super, super coolyou know, brands to ever sort of
encounter and be part of atleast a little bit of that DNA
is still in within me.
Um, and then you know, todayI'm at Meta, as you know, um,
you know, running some regionalprograms for them for in the
space of telco.
And telco, funny enough, hasalways been a you know the part
(08:00):
of my career in advertising.
So from inception of myadvertising career, maybe omit
five or six years, it you couldregard like you know, 14 years
of my own experience has been inthe space of telco, from optis
in Singapore to O2 in the UK,Vodafone Group and Vodafone UK,
(08:22):
and then here STC, and nowworking across many other telcos
where I am today.
So telco in itself has a softspot for me, which also is an
enabler of technology and alsois a passion point of me.
To answer your next question,follow up, which was how I fell
into AI.
I grew up with AI, like youhave grown up with AI, and
(08:42):
Stephen has grown up with AI,and everyone listening has grown
up with AI.
We've not necessarily you knowfall fallen into AI in that
specific way of looking at it.
I always like to think it'slike with search engine, with
the internet, it was anevolution, right?
So when the internet camearound, it wasn't a case that
you had a choice between theinternet or knowing it.
(09:03):
We fell into the internet, itbecame a communication channel,
became a research channel, andnow before you know it, it's an
e-commerce channel, it's an AIchannel, it's everything that
you can think about.
So AI kinda has always beenthere, but it's become more
evident now that AI is a thing,like a venom, effectively.
It's out the lead, they can'tgo back in the lead now.
And we see many, many factionsof AI, but I like to think that
(09:30):
we've always been involved inAI, but we've never really
understood or seen AI at theforefront.
So look at aviation, has alwaysused an AI or form to navigate
flights and you know avoidturbulence or bad weather, it's
using some form of AI proxy.
Search has always used AI,Netflix has used AI in the you
(09:52):
know, through user behavior.
So we've had some form of AI,and I think you know, for me
personally speaking, AI hasnever been like a focal point
because it's not really a focalpoint.
AI has been built intoeverything that we've used in
our day-to-day.
So I've never seen it seen ofit as like the elephant in the
room.
It's been like an adoption thatI've just naturally endorsed.
(10:15):
So, unlike for many, manyothers, perhaps, AI has become a
thing, a terrifying thing.
Remember last year, or evenperhaps the year before, when
Steve and I was on stage, wewere talking about is AI going
to take our jobs, and you know,AI is taken, unfortunately, you
know, is taking a lot of jobsand some specialities, and it
(10:35):
had become a thing.
But I think if you've grown upor you endorse AI natively, and
like for me right now, I'mtrying to maybe use my time
wisely and get ahead of what AIis and sort of look at LLMs and
build an LLM if I can and soforth.
But taking the time out iswhat's needed, right?
So I've grown up with AI, Iwould say, not necessarily
(10:57):
fallen into it, and I use it dayto day, frankly speaking.
Stephen King (11:00):
That's good.
I'm gonna jump in here,actually, just a second.
So we've talked about uh youmentioned the venom of AI, uh,
which sounds like it's a nastything it's come up, but so there
is uh a country point.
So we have the boiling frog,right?
We've been boiled for many,many years with all the
automation and all this narrowAI.
Let me let me use some jar.
(11:21):
Uh and now we have the generalAI which has just been dropped
on us.
And uh do you think there'sthat is that the analogy that
we're seeing?
It's it's more of a case of thethe we've been dropped in this
pot of ChatGPT available toeverybody, and everyone's gone.
Nadeem Ibrahim (11:40):
I think you gotta look at it in a different
way.
Like, I wouldn't say that wehave been dropped into it, um I
would say more the fact that umit's been there for us to use
for quite some time.
We've just not really known howto use it.
A few uh a few times with someof my guests I've all I've
(12:02):
debated the fact that I'm notsure if I debated it with you,
but around we are the guineapigs of AI of this generation.
Because AI before was anenterprise function.
As I mentioned, like airlineswere using it, you know, bank
and finance have been using it,cloud computing has been using
(12:23):
it intelligently and so forth,okay?
But now that it's become aconsumer and I guess a human
utility that you can practiceand you can utilize day to day
by choice.
Well, choice for a uh for thetime being.
You know, a AI is now there atthe forefront that gives people
(12:44):
the no the ability to think,okay, I can build a PowerPoint
slide using AI, or I can buildit using just PowerPoint.
Okay.
Um which which route do youtake?
For some, they still prefer theold way, and there's some
industries that are still usingmanual way of building slides,
(13:05):
there's some that are endorsingit.
However, it's it's notnecessarily being thrown on us
as such.
There's a perception thinghere, depending on the industry
you look at.
If I think of the advertisingindustry, and I've recently
written a piece for a anindustry publication, which
talks about the fact that AI isthere to be utilized in the way
(13:30):
you want to utilize it.
But the perception is if Iutilize AI, I'm either utilizing
it to cost cut, or I'm mute ifI do utilize it for my own
needs, whether like in the adindustry, it's perceived as
you're cheating.
It's perceived as you'recheating, and I'm sure it's the
same for the education sector aswell, with people using it for
(13:53):
a piece of research, it'scheating.
And that perception needs tochange because it's not
cheating.
Stephen King (14:00):
If you were actually to Google that, you
would see in the UK that Xnumber of uh teachers do
actually feel that using AI ischeating, and there's a report
that was published, I think itwas by uh Bet, B-E-T-T, BET
Global, the conferences, uh, andand and that was their
perspective.
Um, and there is a 20% of onein five teachers are scared of
(14:24):
it and have got real fear thatit's gonna cause problems.
But that's education in theworld.
Nadeem Ibrahim (14:30):
If I say a word, can you bleep it out?
Stephen King (14:33):
Uh well we can do all kinds of things.
Nadeem Ibrahim (14:36):
I mean that's effed up, right?
That's effed up to think aboutthat.
Because I also had a recentthing, a recent experience,
whereby someone uh needed someinformation around about um few
pieces of technologies that wasout there, and they needed it in
(14:57):
a very short space of time liketoday, but you're talking about
maybe like a week to ten daysworth of work to put in.
If you have to manually do someresearch, and if you manually
had to sort of call around,understand what's the latest
tech that they've got,understand what's the latest
features that they have, that'snot gonna happen overnight,
right?
That's gonna take some time.
Um and I used AI for thepurpose of to really scrape the
(15:21):
market and understand who iswell renowned, what is the
current market play that theyhave, what is their market cap
to understand if they've gotlongevity in the industry or
they're gonna go bust, you know,and really to understand like
you know, what is the point ofdifference.
So I got I got this informationin six hours, you know, by the
(15:45):
time I sort of digested it, putmy spin and understanding of it,
put more context around it, butI had enough information for me
to build on that and to reallysort of manifest what needed to
be to be shared.
I don't think that's cheating,I think that's being productive
because I would have got to thatend goal, I like to think,
(16:06):
anyway, in a week's time and tendays' time, after maybe a
number of reiterations of backand forth, back and forth, back
and forth.
But I was able to do it in onegoal, essentially, that then
benefited the other party tothen mutilize it and be the one
that's utilized.
Stephen King (16:21):
I'm just gonna come in there.
As an advertising sector,advertising is is actually is a
luxurious product.
I mean, at the end of the day,you've got the WPPs, you've got
the PCs, you've got the the dentsues and the havers and the
IPGs and the and everybody atone hopefully I mentioned
everybody.
Uh but they charge a premiumfor their creativity, they
(16:41):
charge a premium for theirideas, and if a client sees you
using a £25 a month subscriptionmodel and be publicly using it,
doesn't that diminish in theireyes the value that you're
offering?
Nadeem Ibrahim (16:59):
No, because again, this isn't a piece that
I'm writing up, and I'lldefinitely share that piece when
it's released.
I would say no categorically,because there's a few bullet
points coming, okay?
Depend on the agency and dependon the leadership and what they
want how they want to run theirtheir teams and their
organization.
This is across the globe, thisis not just restrictive to the
Middle East, right?
Is if I'm able to afford mytalent to reduce research or
(17:25):
building slides, and thatequates to this just say for
argument's sake, 30% ofproductivity of driving
efficiencies.
That 30% then should be able totranslate into 30% of you know
effectiveness for a client,meaning the client should get
30% more headspace and thinking,human thinking now, because AI
(17:50):
does not replace humanintelligence or gut feel.
So that in itself is invaluableto be able to have, right?
So that to have a headspace of30% of that person's time to be
able to come into a client andsay, look, all all all the
slides and reports is taken careof in the background by AI, and
also our research for weeklyreports is taken care by AI.
(18:11):
Now you have me, you know,without any distractions that
you're asking for me for.
This now have some creativethinking, this have now more
strategic thinking, this havemore one-to-one discussions now
of what really matters for youand why you appointed us as an
agency, you know, because thenotion is when you go into a
pitch to pitch for a client,you're not necessarily pitching
(18:32):
to say, Oh, we're gonna buildPowerPoint slides, or we're
gonna build reporting.
That's one part of a pitchprocess.
But what clients want to hearin that pitch process is that
how are you gonna love my brand,how are you gonna drive my
brand forward, how are you gonnatransform my brand, transform
my organization, how you gonnatransform transform my talent,
how are we gonna be an enablerfor you as an agency to
transform yourself, right?
(18:53):
So we get very quickly caughtup into this you know wave of
reporting, client calls,reporting, client calls, and
then there's no innovation,there's no transformation until
maybe the final year of thatcontract.
And so I like to think thatclients are waiting for agencies
to use AI.
Clients are waiting for them touse AI that whether it's
(19:15):
proprietary, which I kind ofdisagree with because why create
something where you can ingesta piece of technology that can
very quickly you know fuel yourworkforce, right?
Yes, you want to try and buildagents or agentic AI and things,
fine, but then that's like mesaying rather than buying
(19:36):
programmatic through Googlethat's now using agentic AI, buy
it through build your owntechnology and then build your
own agentic AI.
This stuff will get Google havebeen working in the space of AI
for God knows how many years.
So you can't replace that,right?
So I like to think clients arecraving for it, clients want it
because then it gives the agencymore space, headroom, headspace
to be able to focus on them alot more.
(19:58):
And to be honest with you,you're then going to get reports
that look nice.
Okay, I'm an OCD guy when itcomes to formatting.
I it has to be perfectformatting.
If it's not formatting, it'snot going anywhere.
That's beautified.
Then the insights, it's allaccumulated and aggregated in
one place.
What is missing in that though,and I put a big caveat on
(20:18):
there, is not a cheat area,right?
If if a if a team has been ableto aggregate a lot of insights
for a client for let's say areport or something, they have
to put their human intelligenceon top of that, right?
Again, known and understanding.
AI is common for a lot ofmistakes and a lot of errors.
(20:39):
It will give you something youthink, okay, I know this now.
But if you understand it, youmight question it to think
actually these two points ofwhat is spitting out is not
correct.
I need to add my human or myexpertise on top of that to
really give it, but it's givingme some direction of how I
should maybe frame my answer.
You see what I mean?
So I think agencies need to bemuch smarter for it.
(21:00):
There is a couple of holdingcompanies though, and I I won't
name them, but there was one inparticular where they were very
open to say, by the way, we arean AI first agency now.
I thought, wow, okay, that's avery brave move to make, but a
very confident move at the sametime.
(21:22):
Because we are in the world ofAI, right?
We are in the world of AI inthe sense of it's to drive, you
know, I would say less aboutefficiencies, more about you
know, effectiveness.
So there's no harm in shyingaway from AI.
So it's been thrown in us ayes, but we have we and agencies
have to adopt it in the waythat clients want it.
unknown (21:41):
Okay.
Stephen King (21:42):
Arjun, uh you can continue.
Sorry, I've interrupted you.
Arjun Radeesh (21:46):
Oh no, it's fine, it's fine, no worries.
Um, so m let's kind of movealong from the advertising space
to the podcast side.
So, as an host of a majorpodcast in your own right, what
topics you have you identifiedas being future trends?
Nadeem Ibrahim (22:04):
Oh goodness me.
Future trends.
Let me ask you first.
What's a future trend I andI'll answer your question, don't
worry.
Arjun Radeesh (22:14):
Oh wow, this is I I I'm I'm clearly not prepared
for this.
But uh Wow, that's that again,kids are trend I didn't what are
you are you asking from a froma definition of what future
trend or like you're drowning.
Stephen King (22:34):
Let me let me jump in and help you out that okay.
Mute yourself, mute yourself indisgrace.
Okay, so here's a trend that Iwill I will fish into it.
Uh uh we always used to talkabout user-generated content.
Now I am into user-generatedpublic data.
With the idea being thatadvertising campaigns are or
(22:56):
should be derived with theobjective of encouraging uh
consumers to produce data whichthey can then use to train a
model which will then help themto uh create new financial
opportunities.
Nadeem Ibrahim (23:10):
Stephen, that's already that's I mean, I will
answer the question just asecond.
I was just playing with Arjun,but that's already happening.
If you am if you look at theamount of input that's going
into Chat GPT right now, and nowOpenAI is about to monetize.
I don't know if you've seenOpenAI's monetization concepts.
Stephen King (23:27):
Tell us about them.
Nadeem Ibrahim (23:28):
It looks amazing in the sense of it's a bit like
search and Google, but in somemarkets, if you wanted to order
a phone, for example, and youwanted to do research to say,
okay, you know me now by nowbecause I've given you all my
personas over time anyway.
So I'm looking for a newreplacement device, it will give
you a range of devices I thinkis right for you, plus a maybe a
(23:50):
plan that's right for you, andit will say you can order it now
and we can have it delivered toyou today.
So if I think about in theMiddle East, you can almost
imagine Noon, Kareem, all thesesort of you know, uh MCOMS
platforms going into that space,and it just gives a different
(24:11):
set of recommendations now, andit's a big it's a big um it's
it's big competition for thesearch engines.
That's why you've seen AI comeinto the search engines and you
know in a very similar way thatOpenAI will become another
search engine to be.
The difference is with thoseChatGPT and Gemini equivalents
(24:34):
is we feed it with informationthan what we previously we'd
always opt out.
Whenever you used to get that,do you want to opt in for
cookies or do you want to opt infor data?
We always used to opt out.
But now we're we're digressingin these engaging with these
open AI platforms or ChatGPT,those types of platforms, we're
(24:57):
feeding so much informationabout you know our personal
lives, or you know, I'm having ashit day with my you know with
my dog, or you know, I need youknow what whatever.
We're just giving it so muchinformation that we don't
realize.
But their new piece of tech isquite cool.
Now that is a future trend,Arjun.
(25:17):
And brings me on to my nextquestion about on my forecast
about what future trends I havenoticed, right?
Um look, what I love about likeand I'm not I'm not plugging in
my podcast in any way, butBluebites was there about to
talk have like a tech cultureenvironment from all different
types of backgrounds.
(25:38):
We've had Steve on there, youknow, and I've had a few other
guests that are forthcoming aswell.
Uh that will be part of seasontwo to be released.
And the beautiful thing aboutthe podcast is it gives you a
different lens of how people areapproaching technology in their
(25:59):
own respective fields.
So whether you work in theeducation sector, like Stephen
has was, is yeah, um, whetherit's I've had a I've had a Saudi
guy who's who's from a veryprominent fintech, uh, who you
know as well, Arjun, um, speakabout how the banking sector is
(26:21):
still transforming itself andfintechs are also transforming
themselves.
And what I think where fintechswill end up being is becoming a
hybrid between fintech ande-commerce platforms with the
use of AI.
So I know how much you'respending, I know I know what's
your pain points, I know alsowhat's your um dopamine effects
of purchasing.
(26:42):
How can we now be one very sortof um very empathetic when it
comes to sort of not paying anydebt, but also how can we also
bring brands in to sort of lureyou into purchasing, right?
So I think fintechs are veryinteresting space of how that's
gonna continue to evolve.
They've already broke thebanking sector for the big banks
(27:06):
that we know of today to reallytransform themselves, and I
think that's just gonna continueand continue and continue.
Um, where that sort of comes iswhere you have finance,
e-commerce, or m-commerce and AIall coming together.
So it wouldn't surprise me ifsome fintechs don't have a you
know, don't have a feed of openopen AI in there plus e-commerce
(27:31):
coming, m-commerce coming inthere plus finance data all
coming in together.
And what does that mean?
It means as a consumer, I'mfeeding my own information into
open AI today.
I'm ha I'm I'm running my ownmodel for myself.
It comes into the space offintech, finance knows more
about me, it's learning thatdata, plus M-Commerce.
If you shop with any of thee-commerce or m-commerce
(27:54):
platforms, know more about me.
If you bring all that datatogether, it knows even more
about me, it knows more about mebefore I even know more about
myself.
So, whatever I'm about tothink, I'd probably be able to
preempt that very, very quickly.
So I've seen a lot of cooltrends, so that being one thing.
There's been discussions aroundwhat it means for creativity.
I think in creative, the futuretrend of creative is still to
(28:16):
is still to be decided becauseyou know, having platforms like
Midjourney and those were allhypers.
I still think there's anelement of creativity thinking
that still needs to be decided.
What has become more apparent,I would say, which is a very
cool trend, I did a shoot in NewYork during the month of
(28:40):
September, and there was thisone guy, Willcriff, a
fascinating guy, he has builtwhat's called a talent ID.
And this talent ID, he'sworking with Hollywood and
artists across the space ofentertainment, music, sports, to
(29:01):
create talent IDs that isunique to that one specific
individual who's in a in aprominent space.
And if you imagine what happenswith copyright infringement,
what happens when it comes tolife after death of an artist,
the royalties, all these typesof things.
Well, you can then, after a youknow, an artist passes away,
what can you do with acopyright?
(29:22):
What can the family do with acopyright?
Can they make more versions ofmaybe a previous episode of
something they featured in andthen put it onto different
social platforms?
So he's created what's called atalent idea, and he's been
working with Hollywood quiteextensively on it, and it's been
quite successful.
In fact, on LinkedIn, if youupload any bits of information
or like an image or a video onLinkedIn, you might see a CR
(29:45):
symbol on some of it.
The CR symbol is scraping themetadata to qualify if this is
an authentic piece of imagery orvideo that's been captured that
belongs to either that personor has the rights to feature
that piece of image.
You won't see on everything onLinkedIn.
It's still been believe it'sbeen tried and tested still, but
you might see it sometimes.
(30:05):
CR.
I forget what he's gonna hateme for this, but I forgot what
it what it stands for.
But talent IDs is alsosomething that's becoming quite
a future piece of innovationthat I think we'll see a lot
more, especially with socialplatforms blowing up in the way
that you know what's fake news,what's deep fake, all this type
(30:26):
of stuff, you just don't know.
Yeah.
This is the whole reason whythis has been created to protect
artists, to protect authenticcontent, to protect royalties of
those who have worked very hardto thoroughly deserve that
royalty payout if their copy, ifthe content is being utilized
in an you know, in the in aninfringed way versus what's
authentic.
Stephen King (30:47):
Um so just on that note, because we just had
something like this just happenvery recently.
I don't know whether we couldtalk about Sora uh and what
happened with Robin Williams.
Uh are you aware of of whathappened there?
It was vaguely, I'm veryvaguely, I was just googling it
to try to find out.
But when Sora came up, theylaunched a whole lot uh people
(31:10):
were having Pokemons uhattacking Florida Beach or
something, and there was a hugePokemon protest around a picture
of Sam Altman saying Nintendo'sgoing to sue you, and then
there was a whole lot of videosof uh Robin Williams saying
things, uh fake videos, andthere's Martin Luther King
videos as well.
They've just had to removethese uh figures from uh
(31:32):
whatever uh training materialthat they have.
Um no thoughts?
Nadeem Ibrahim (31:39):
Yeah, so this is so this is kind of um so this
so yeah, what Will is creatingthe company's called Hand, okay,
Human and Digital.
And his whole manifest was allaround this, right?
Um is the fact that you know hewill create a unified ID for
actors, musicians, or any typeof performer that might be out
(32:00):
there, right?
To really be able to managetheir rights and for digital
replicas.
Yeah.
So in a way is designed toprotect it, so you know, to
avoid and work with socialplatforms and other digital
platforms to really be able topick up whether this is just CR
(32:20):
or talent ID, you know, to beable to understand that based on
that meta layer of data thatthis is authentic, right?
So that in that instance itwould have been blocked.
Stephen King (32:31):
Yes.
So do you think that this isgoing to become like a new
right?
I mean, I can see thisgentleman, if it find me a stock
market, I'd probably invest init myself right now, because I
can see it being locked to yourEmirates ID in the UAE or in the
Richmond's digital ID card.
Because uh you know it's itshouldn't just be for the rich
and famous, it's for Yeah.
Nadeem Ibrahim (32:50):
I mean a Vencer might be you know democratized
at some point, right?
That if you own your owncontent, that you have the right
to have a talent ID to be ableto protect your content.
I think that's the importantbit for us, is content, okay?
Because a high-profileindividuals of from all
different sectors have theability to be able to influence
(33:15):
change in society or influencebehavior change of some form of
nature, whether it's to buy aset of products or whether it's
to change a school of thought oran opinion or whatever it might
be, they have the ability andthe influence to be able to do
so.
So if you're able to sort ofmodify or sort of you know
manipulate their content in away, that's a big problem.
And you see that already withdeepfakes, it's a big problem in
(33:38):
the one that you mentioned,absolutely.
So headspace of technology Ithought was quite you know
enlightening and refreshing tosee that actually there's groups
and bodies out there that aretrying to you know protect what
is to prevent the inevitable ofmisinformation, disinformation,
that type of thing, whilstprotecting the rights of the
individual who have createdthat.
(33:59):
I do think eventually citizensand stuff maybe at some point,
but I think from from the fromthe in from right now, it's
about how you stop thatdisinformation, misinformation,
protect the rights of ofartists, you know, and and
nothing breaks loose in someextent.
Stephen King (34:15):
Good.
Well, I think we're coming tothe end of our time.
So it was lovely to meet youand to collab with Brubites,
which is now it's on our podroll, uh, because it's seven
o'clock here and it must benearly eleven o'clock there, and
Arjun must have go to bedbecause he's still a young boy.
It's Hollywood time, right,Stephen?
Arjun Radeesh (34:32):
It's it's just about nine, like just about ten,
but like okay.
Stephen King (34:37):
You need your beauty sleep, Arjun, so that you
don't end up like both of us,believe me.
Um excuse me.
Nadeem Ibrahim (34:47):
I should have brought an AI version of myself
on this instead of speak to myown avatar Lamin.
Stephen King (34:53):
This is this is the next trend that's gonna be
beautiful AI avatars to speak.
We've already seen Fireflieshas got the note taker in the
canal talk, so this will be afuture.
But on that, that's a differenttopic.
Arjun, would you like to closeus down?
Thank you very much, Nadim.
Arjun Radeesh (35:06):
Uh yeah, absolutely.
So um, once again, Nagim, thankyou so much for uh joining us
on this episode and kind ofgiving that full lowdown on say
how things can are changingwithin the space in advertising
and on the space of podcastingand also grilling myself.
Uh that got me speechless forlike five minutes.
(35:27):
Uh like yeah, thanks for uh uhthank you once again and thanks
for tuning on to another episodeof the incongruent podcast.
Uh please do uh like, share,and subscribe, and like yeah,
feel free to share some commentson how did you feel about this
episode.
Um until next time, this is theentire crew from the
(35:48):
incongruent podcast signing off.
Goodbye.
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of
Incongruent.
And like yeah, today we'retalking to this amazing guy who
has been on the forefront whenit comes to AI, like using AI on
different what do you call ondifferent fronts.
I would say that's brilliant.
Thank you very much for thatwonderful introduction.
(00:24):
Oh, you're most welcome.
Stephen King (00:26):
You didn't meet me, did you?
Arjun Radeesh (00:28):
Who did we speak to our so we ended up speaking
to Nadim Brahim.
He currently is the legalproduct manager at Metal.
Stephen King (00:38):
And he's also a podcaster robot.
So please do check out therobot podcaster forget the check
if you listen to this and enjoythe episode.
We had a water forward.
We talked about AI theappetizing tech.
We talked about uh genres oftechnology from the 80s to
today, how that's all emerged,how that's brought us to the
(00:59):
current situation where we are.
We talked about future trendsabout the tech.
Uh this conversation goes allover the place.
Uh but it is extremely,extremely interesting.
Arjun Radeesh (01:10):
Absolutely, and but really in the title chat
with them and um all the sort ofideas we kind of put through
and open my thoughts to be veryhonest.
Stephen King (01:22):
So if you like the episode, check out robot,
subscribe to them, subscribe tous, like us, give it a comment,
and all that you think becauseit's a wild ride.
Here we go.
Arjun Radeesh (01:41):
So today we are talking to a renowned
forward-looking digitalauthority in the Middle East and
North African region.
Nadim Ibrahim has garneredindustrial recognition for his
outstanding proficiency andstrategic foresight, holding the
position as regional programmanager at Meta, he brings forth
(02:03):
more than 18 years ofexpertise, steering
audience-focused strategies andproviding invaluable insights to
his clients.
Nadim's passion for gaming andAI drives his dedication to
ensuring clients maintain acompetitive edge, to stay at the
forefront of innovation.
Additionally, he isspearheading the creation of a
podcast series encompassing awide array of topics relevant to
(02:27):
our industry, such aswell-being and empowerment,
further solidifying hiscommitment to knowledge,
dissemination, and industryleadership.
Nadeem, welcome to Incongruentand how has it been going?
Nadeem Ibrahim (02:39):
Thanks for having me, Arjun, Steven.
Yeah.
I would like to say, yeah,thank you first of all for
having me.
Thanks for that introduction.
I've never heard it like thatbefore.
If I'm being honest with you,it's amazing to hear it from
someone else because often we weuh we don't often reflect on
(03:00):
maybe some of our greatestachievements or what we're doing
um right now in the here andnow.
So thanks for that.
Um yeah, and also the podcast.
And yeah, so I'm I'm I'mlooking forward to some some
fruitful conversations.
Um as you know me and Stevenknows me quite well.
I like to be as raw as possibleand unfiltered as possible, but
(03:22):
I will stay within the realmsof what is acceptable based on
what you would need me to be.
But at the same time, I'm notgonna I'm not gonna shy away
from the truth either when youstart throwing questions at me.
And just for the record, justfor the record, so uh people
listening are aware of this, Ihave barely seen the questions,
(03:43):
and I have come a little bitunprepared, Stephen, as I look
into say OMG.
But I guess look, there's twothings I always say to the team
I've always managed and mentoredover time, and including within
myself, you either know it oryou understand it.
So you're gonna get hopefullyquick answers of me
(04:04):
understanding what you're askingrather than just knowing it,
because knowing it is just likehalf-hearted.
So bring it on.
Stephen King (04:10):
Steven, looking a little bit.
I'm not worried, I'm notworried at all.
Uh I from my perspective, wesent you the questions three
weeks ago.
Uh and and if you choose not tolook at them, then that's then
that's fair game.
Nadeem Ibrahim (04:22):
But that's when you get the best reaction,
right?
Stephen King (04:25):
Well, let's see.
Okay, Arjun, let's rock androll.
Arjun Radeesh (04:29):
Alright, like definitely that's something
which we want.
But um going on with thequestions.
We would would you like to tellus a bit about your career
history today, and especiallyhow have you got involved with
artificial intelligence?
Nadeem Ibrahim (04:44):
Yeah, so uh great question in a way.
Like, I don't like to talkabout myself, but I will talk
about myself.
Now I've been in the space oftechnology for about um ever
since I was a youth, a kid,right?
I've always been in the in thespace.
Technology's always beensomething quite passionate for
me.
I I remember, and Arjunju mightnot remember this, but I think
(05:04):
Steven should remember this withwhen when pagers were around.
Stephen King (05:09):
I was one of those young, I was here before pages.
We used to knock on people'sdoors.
Yeah, so pages pages.
There we go.
I was like, how is here whenpages we don't want to use
pages?
That's terrible technology.
No, no, no.
Nadeem Ibrahim (05:23):
Okay, let me go a bit further back further back
then.
I spectrum, okay?
And you might have this on myown podcast, you know, where I
talk about when I ask guestsabout what was their sort of
like piece of tech that theysort of grew up with.
And my I always talk about thespectrum because Spectrum was
the first fascinating piece oftech that I ever came across,
which was a tape cassette thatcan load an 8-bit game that you
(05:45):
can really be engrossed with forhours and hours and hours.
Um so tech's always been like areally soft spot in my heart
whilst growing up, and I had theability to sort of disconnect
from technology when I was goingthrough school and university.
Um I became more focused onsort of economics, I became more
(06:07):
focused on trying to be like aninvestment banker, but then,
truth be told, after graduation,I sort of decided that it's not
for me.
I didn't want to go down thatcycle of you know just being a
number in an organization or anindustry where I wanted to look
for something different.
And I guess when you when youlike technology, the you're
always trying to be ahead ofwhere technology is going.
(06:31):
So you're so interested andintrigued by emerging
technologies, right?
So at the time of university,that curious factor from
technology brought it into mycareer.
Like, what's up and comingback?
Can I think of myself, youknow, being that I want to grow
into?
And advertising came around.
And I took the job of the firstonline sales executive for the
(06:56):
Scotsman newspaper, which wasowned by Johnson Press at the
time.
Um, and that's how I fell intosort of the space of digital
advertising.
Korea sort of started off fromthat for about fast-forward 18
or 19 years now, and I'm here inDubai.
Previous to my currentposition, I was leading you know
(07:16):
an entire market of SaudiArabia for UM, head up digital
strategy.
Had had the fantasticopportunity to work across some
of the prominent brands in SaudiArabia, the top five most you
know lucrative brands from STC,Aramco, Sabik.
Then you have like McDonald'sand espresso and a PIF, Daria,
(07:37):
like super, super, super coolyou know, brands to ever sort of
encounter and be part of atleast a little bit of that DNA
is still in within me.
Um, and then you know, todayI'm at Meta, as you know, um,
you know, running some regionalprograms for them for in the
space of telco.
And telco, funny enough, hasalways been a you know the part
(08:00):
of my career in advertising.
So from inception of myadvertising career, maybe omit
five or six years, it you couldregard like you know, 14 years
of my own experience has been inthe space of telco, from optis
in Singapore to O2 in the UK,Vodafone Group and Vodafone UK,
(08:22):
and then here STC, and nowworking across many other telcos
where I am today.
So telco in itself has a softspot for me, which also is an
enabler of technology and alsois a passion point of me.
To answer your next question,follow up, which was how I fell
into AI.
I grew up with AI, like youhave grown up with AI, and
(08:42):
Stephen has grown up with AI,and everyone listening has grown
up with AI.
We've not necessarily you knowfall fallen into AI in that
specific way of looking at it.
I always like to think it'slike with search engine, with
the internet, it was anevolution, right?
So when the internet camearound, it wasn't a case that
you had a choice between theinternet or knowing it.
(09:03):
We fell into the internet, itbecame a communication channel,
became a research channel, andnow before you know it, it's an
e-commerce channel, it's an AIchannel, it's everything that
you can think about.
So AI kinda has always beenthere, but it's become more
evident now that AI is a thing,like a venom, effectively.
It's out the lead, they can'tgo back in the lead now.
And we see many, many factionsof AI, but I like to think that
(09:30):
we've always been involved inAI, but we've never really
understood or seen AI at theforefront.
So look at aviation, has alwaysused an AI or form to navigate
flights and you know avoidturbulence or bad weather, it's
using some form of AI proxy.
Search has always used AI,Netflix has used AI in the you
(09:52):
know, through user behavior.
So we've had some form of AI,and I think you know, for me
personally speaking, AI hasnever been like a focal point
because it's not really a focalpoint.
AI has been built intoeverything that we've used in
our day-to-day.
So I've never seen it seen ofit as like the elephant in the
room.
It's been like an adoption thatI've just naturally endorsed.
(10:15):
So, unlike for many, manyothers, perhaps, AI has become a
thing, a terrifying thing.
Remember last year, or evenperhaps the year before, when
Steve and I was on stage, wewere talking about is AI going
to take our jobs, and you know,AI is taken, unfortunately, you
know, is taking a lot of jobsand some specialities, and it
(10:35):
had become a thing.
But I think if you've grown upor you endorse AI natively, and
like for me right now, I'mtrying to maybe use my time
wisely and get ahead of what AIis and sort of look at LLMs and
build an LLM if I can and soforth.
But taking the time out iswhat's needed, right?
So I've grown up with AI, Iwould say, not necessarily
(10:57):
fallen into it, and I use it dayto day, frankly speaking.
Stephen King (11:00):
That's good.
I'm gonna jump in here,actually, just a second.
So we've talked about uh youmentioned the venom of AI, uh,
which sounds like it's a nastything it's come up, but so there
is uh a country point.
So we have the boiling frog,right?
We've been boiled for many,many years with all the
automation and all this narrowAI.
Let me let me use some jar.
(11:21):
Uh and now we have the generalAI which has just been dropped
on us.
And uh do you think there'sthat is that the analogy that
we're seeing?
It's it's more of a case of thethe we've been dropped in this
pot of ChatGPT available toeverybody, and everyone's gone.
Nadeem Ibrahim (11:40):
I think you gotta look at it in a different
way.
Like, I wouldn't say that wehave been dropped into it, um I
would say more the fact that umit's been there for us to use
for quite some time.
We've just not really known howto use it.
A few uh a few times with someof my guests I've all I've
(12:02):
debated the fact that I'm notsure if I debated it with you,
but around we are the guineapigs of AI of this generation.
Because AI before was anenterprise function.
As I mentioned, like airlineswere using it, you know, bank
and finance have been using it,cloud computing has been using
(12:23):
it intelligently and so forth,okay?
But now that it's become aconsumer and I guess a human
utility that you can practiceand you can utilize day to day
by choice.
Well, choice for a uh for thetime being.
You know, a AI is now there atthe forefront that gives people
(12:44):
the no the ability to think,okay, I can build a PowerPoint
slide using AI, or I can buildit using just PowerPoint.
Okay.
Um which which route do youtake?
For some, they still prefer theold way, and there's some
industries that are still usingmanual way of building slides,
(13:05):
there's some that are endorsingit.
However, it's it's notnecessarily being thrown on us
as such.
There's a perception thinghere, depending on the industry
you look at.
If I think of the advertisingindustry, and I've recently
written a piece for a anindustry publication, which
talks about the fact that AI isthere to be utilized in the way
(13:30):
you want to utilize it.
But the perception is if Iutilize AI, I'm either utilizing
it to cost cut, or I'm mute ifI do utilize it for my own
needs, whether like in the adindustry, it's perceived as
you're cheating.
It's perceived as you'recheating, and I'm sure it's the
same for the education sector aswell, with people using it for
(13:53):
a piece of research, it'scheating.
And that perception needs tochange because it's not
cheating.
Stephen King (14:00):
If you were actually to Google that, you
would see in the UK that Xnumber of uh teachers do
actually feel that using AI ischeating, and there's a report
that was published, I think itwas by uh Bet, B-E-T-T, BET
Global, the conferences, uh, andand and that was their
perspective.
Um, and there is a 20% of onein five teachers are scared of
(14:24):
it and have got real fear thatit's gonna cause problems.
But that's education in theworld.
Nadeem Ibrahim (14:30):
If I say a word, can you bleep it out?
Stephen King (14:33):
Uh well we can do all kinds of things.
Nadeem Ibrahim (14:36):
I mean that's effed up, right?
That's effed up to think aboutthat.
Because I also had a recentthing, a recent experience,
whereby someone uh needed someinformation around about um few
pieces of technologies that wasout there, and they needed it in
(14:57):
a very short space of time liketoday, but you're talking about
maybe like a week to ten daysworth of work to put in.
If you have to manually do someresearch, and if you manually
had to sort of call around,understand what's the latest
tech that they've got,understand what's the latest
features that they have, that'snot gonna happen overnight,
right?
That's gonna take some time.
Um and I used AI for thepurpose of to really scrape the
(15:21):
market and understand who iswell renowned, what is the
current market play that theyhave, what is their market cap
to understand if they've gotlongevity in the industry or
they're gonna go bust, you know,and really to understand like
you know, what is the point ofdifference.
So I got I got this informationin six hours, you know, by the
(15:45):
time I sort of digested it, putmy spin and understanding of it,
put more context around it, butI had enough information for me
to build on that and to reallysort of manifest what needed to
be to be shared.
I don't think that's cheating,I think that's being productive
because I would have got to thatend goal, I like to think,
(16:06):
anyway, in a week's time and tendays' time, after maybe a
number of reiterations of backand forth, back and forth, back
and forth.
But I was able to do it in onegoal, essentially, that then
benefited the other party tothen mutilize it and be the one
that's utilized.
Stephen King (16:21):
I'm just gonna come in there.
As an advertising sector,advertising is is actually is a
luxurious product.
I mean, at the end of the day,you've got the WPPs, you've got
the PCs, you've got the the dentsues and the havers and the
IPGs and the and everybody atone hopefully I mentioned
everybody.
Uh but they charge a premiumfor their creativity, they
(16:41):
charge a premium for theirideas, and if a client sees you
using a £25 a month subscriptionmodel and be publicly using it,
doesn't that diminish in theireyes the value that you're
offering?
Nadeem Ibrahim (16:59):
No, because again, this isn't a piece that
I'm writing up, and I'lldefinitely share that piece when
it's released.
I would say no categorically,because there's a few bullet
points coming, okay?
Depend on the agency and dependon the leadership and what they
want how they want to run theirtheir teams and their
organization.
This is across the globe, thisis not just restrictive to the
Middle East, right?
Is if I'm able to afford mytalent to reduce research or
(17:25):
building slides, and thatequates to this just say for
argument's sake, 30% ofproductivity of driving
efficiencies.
That 30% then should be able totranslate into 30% of you know
effectiveness for a client,meaning the client should get
30% more headspace and thinking,human thinking now, because AI
(17:50):
does not replace humanintelligence or gut feel.
So that in itself is invaluableto be able to have, right?
So that to have a headspace of30% of that person's time to be
able to come into a client andsay, look, all all all the
slides and reports is taken careof in the background by AI, and
also our research for weeklyreports is taken care by AI.
(18:11):
Now you have me, you know,without any distractions that
you're asking for me for.
This now have some creativethinking, this have now more
strategic thinking, this havemore one-to-one discussions now
of what really matters for youand why you appointed us as an
agency, you know, because thenotion is when you go into a
pitch to pitch for a client,you're not necessarily pitching
(18:32):
to say, Oh, we're gonna buildPowerPoint slides, or we're
gonna build reporting.
That's one part of a pitchprocess.
But what clients want to hearin that pitch process is that
how are you gonna love my brand,how are you gonna drive my
brand forward, how are you gonnatransform my brand, transform
my organization, how you gonnatransform transform my talent,
how are we gonna be an enablerfor you as an agency to
transform yourself, right?
(18:53):
So we get very quickly caughtup into this you know wave of
reporting, client calls,reporting, client calls, and
then there's no innovation,there's no transformation until
maybe the final year of thatcontract.
And so I like to think thatclients are waiting for agencies
to use AI.
Clients are waiting for them touse AI that whether it's
(19:15):
proprietary, which I kind ofdisagree with because why create
something where you can ingesta piece of technology that can
very quickly you know fuel yourworkforce, right?
Yes, you want to try and buildagents or agentic AI and things,
fine, but then that's like mesaying rather than buying
(19:36):
programmatic through Googlethat's now using agentic AI, buy
it through build your owntechnology and then build your
own agentic AI.
This stuff will get Google havebeen working in the space of AI
for God knows how many years.
So you can't replace that,right?
So I like to think clients arecraving for it, clients want it
because then it gives the agencymore space, headroom, headspace
to be able to focus on them alot more.
(19:58):
And to be honest with you,you're then going to get reports
that look nice.
Okay, I'm an OCD guy when itcomes to formatting.
I it has to be perfectformatting.
If it's not formatting, it'snot going anywhere.
That's beautified.
Then the insights, it's allaccumulated and aggregated in
one place.
What is missing in that though,and I put a big caveat on
(20:18):
there, is not a cheat area,right?
If if a if a team has been ableto aggregate a lot of insights
for a client for let's say areport or something, they have
to put their human intelligenceon top of that, right?
Again, known and understanding.
AI is common for a lot ofmistakes and a lot of errors.
(20:39):
It will give you something youthink, okay, I know this now.
But if you understand it, youmight question it to think
actually these two points ofwhat is spitting out is not
correct.
I need to add my human or myexpertise on top of that to
really give it, but it's givingme some direction of how I
should maybe frame my answer.
You see what I mean?
So I think agencies need to bemuch smarter for it.
(21:00):
There is a couple of holdingcompanies though, and I I won't
name them, but there was one inparticular where they were very
open to say, by the way, we arean AI first agency now.
I thought, wow, okay, that's avery brave move to make, but a
very confident move at the sametime.
(21:22):
Because we are in the world ofAI, right?
We are in the world of AI inthe sense of it's to drive, you
know, I would say less aboutefficiencies, more about you
know, effectiveness.
So there's no harm in shyingaway from AI.
So it's been thrown in us ayes, but we have we and agencies
have to adopt it in the waythat clients want it.
unknown (21:41):
Okay.
Stephen King (21:42):
Arjun, uh you can continue.
Sorry, I've interrupted you.
Arjun Radeesh (21:46):
Oh no, it's fine, it's fine, no worries.
Um, so m let's kind of movealong from the advertising space
to the podcast side.
So, as an host of a majorpodcast in your own right, what
topics you have you identifiedas being future trends?
Nadeem Ibrahim (22:04):
Oh goodness me.
Future trends.
Let me ask you first.
What's a future trend I andI'll answer your question, don't
worry.
Arjun Radeesh (22:14):
Oh wow, this is I I I'm I'm clearly not prepared
for this.
But uh Wow, that's that again,kids are trend I didn't what are
you are you asking from a froma definition of what future
trend or like you're drowning.
Stephen King (22:34):
Let me let me jump in and help you out that okay.
Mute yourself, mute yourself indisgrace.
Okay, so here's a trend that Iwill I will fish into it.
Uh uh we always used to talkabout user-generated content.
Now I am into user-generatedpublic data.
With the idea being thatadvertising campaigns are or
(22:56):
should be derived with theobjective of encouraging uh
consumers to produce data whichthey can then use to train a
model which will then help themto uh create new financial
opportunities.
Nadeem Ibrahim (23:10):
Stephen, that's already that's I mean, I will
answer the question just asecond.
I was just playing with Arjun,but that's already happening.
If you am if you look at theamount of input that's going
into Chat GPT right now, and nowOpenAI is about to monetize.
I don't know if you've seenOpenAI's monetization concepts.
Stephen King (23:27):
Tell us about them.
Nadeem Ibrahim (23:28):
It looks amazing in the sense of it's a bit like
search and Google, but in somemarkets, if you wanted to order
a phone, for example, and youwanted to do research to say,
okay, you know me now by nowbecause I've given you all my
personas over time anyway.
So I'm looking for a newreplacement device, it will give
you a range of devices I thinkis right for you, plus a maybe a
(23:50):
plan that's right for you, andit will say you can order it now
and we can have it delivered toyou today.
So if I think about in theMiddle East, you can almost
imagine Noon, Kareem, all thesesort of you know, uh MCOMS
platforms going into that space,and it just gives a different
(24:11):
set of recommendations now, andit's a big it's a big um it's
it's big competition for thesearch engines.
That's why you've seen AI comeinto the search engines and you
know in a very similar way thatOpenAI will become another
search engine to be.
The difference is with thoseChatGPT and Gemini equivalents
(24:34):
is we feed it with informationthan what we previously we'd
always opt out.
Whenever you used to get that,do you want to opt in for
cookies or do you want to opt infor data?
We always used to opt out.
But now we're we're digressingin these engaging with these
open AI platforms or ChatGPT,those types of platforms, we're
(24:57):
feeding so much informationabout you know our personal
lives, or you know, I'm having ashit day with my you know with
my dog, or you know, I need youknow what whatever.
We're just giving it so muchinformation that we don't
realize.
But their new piece of tech isquite cool.
Now that is a future trend,Arjun.
(25:17):
And brings me on to my nextquestion about on my forecast
about what future trends I havenoticed, right?
Um look, what I love about likeand I'm not I'm not plugging in
my podcast in any way, butBluebites was there about to
talk have like a tech cultureenvironment from all different
types of backgrounds.
(25:38):
We've had Steve on there, youknow, and I've had a few other
guests that are forthcoming aswell.
Uh that will be part of seasontwo to be released.
And the beautiful thing aboutthe podcast is it gives you a
different lens of how people areapproaching technology in their
(25:59):
own respective fields.
So whether you work in theeducation sector, like Stephen
has was, is yeah, um, whetherit's I've had a I've had a Saudi
guy who's who's from a veryprominent fintech, uh, who you
know as well, Arjun, um, speakabout how the banking sector is
(26:21):
still transforming itself andfintechs are also transforming
themselves.
And what I think where fintechswill end up being is becoming a
hybrid between fintech ande-commerce platforms with the
use of AI.
So I know how much you'respending, I know I know what's
your pain points, I know alsowhat's your um dopamine effects
of purchasing.
(26:42):
How can we now be one very sortof um very empathetic when it
comes to sort of not paying anydebt, but also how can we also
bring brands in to sort of lureyou into purchasing, right?
So I think fintechs are veryinteresting space of how that's
gonna continue to evolve.
They've already broke thebanking sector for the big banks
(27:06):
that we know of today to reallytransform themselves, and I
think that's just gonna continueand continue and continue.
Um, where that sort of comes iswhere you have finance,
e-commerce, or m-commerce and AIall coming together.
So it wouldn't surprise me ifsome fintechs don't have a you
know, don't have a feed of openopen AI in there plus e-commerce
(27:31):
coming, m-commerce coming inthere plus finance data all
coming in together.
And what does that mean?
It means as a consumer, I'mfeeding my own information into
open AI today.
I'm ha I'm I'm running my ownmodel for myself.
It comes into the space offintech, finance knows more
about me, it's learning thatdata, plus M-Commerce.
If you shop with any of thee-commerce or m-commerce
(27:54):
platforms, know more about me.
If you bring all that datatogether, it knows even more
about me, it knows more about mebefore I even know more about
myself.
So, whatever I'm about tothink, I'd probably be able to
preempt that very, very quickly.
So I've seen a lot of cooltrends, so that being one thing.
There's been discussions aroundwhat it means for creativity.
I think in creative, the futuretrend of creative is still to
(28:16):
is still to be decided becauseyou know, having platforms like
Midjourney and those were allhypers.
I still think there's anelement of creativity thinking
that still needs to be decided.
What has become more apparent,I would say, which is a very
cool trend, I did a shoot in NewYork during the month of
(28:40):
September, and there was thisone guy, Willcriff, a
fascinating guy, he has builtwhat's called a talent ID.
And this talent ID, he'sworking with Hollywood and
artists across the space ofentertainment, music, sports, to
(29:01):
create talent IDs that isunique to that one specific
individual who's in a in aprominent space.
And if you imagine what happenswith copyright infringement,
what happens when it comes tolife after death of an artist,
the royalties, all these typesof things.
Well, you can then, after a youknow, an artist passes away,
what can you do with acopyright?
(29:22):
What can the family do with acopyright?
Can they make more versions ofmaybe a previous episode of
something they featured in andthen put it onto different
social platforms?
So he's created what's called atalent idea, and he's been
working with Hollywood quiteextensively on it, and it's been
quite successful.
In fact, on LinkedIn, if youupload any bits of information
or like an image or a video onLinkedIn, you might see a CR
(29:45):
symbol on some of it.
The CR symbol is scraping themetadata to qualify if this is
an authentic piece of imagery orvideo that's been captured that
belongs to either that personor has the rights to feature
that piece of image.
You won't see on everything onLinkedIn.
It's still been believe it'sbeen tried and tested still, but
you might see it sometimes.
(30:05):
CR.
I forget what he's gonna hateme for this, but I forgot what
it what it stands for.
But talent IDs is alsosomething that's becoming quite
a future piece of innovationthat I think we'll see a lot
more, especially with socialplatforms blowing up in the way
that you know what's fake news,what's deep fake, all this type
(30:26):
of stuff, you just don't know.
Yeah.
This is the whole reason whythis has been created to protect
artists, to protect authenticcontent, to protect royalties of
those who have worked very hardto thoroughly deserve that
royalty payout if their copy, ifthe content is being utilized
in an you know, in the in aninfringed way versus what's
authentic.
Stephen King (30:47):
Um so just on that note, because we just had
something like this just happenvery recently.
I don't know whether we couldtalk about Sora uh and what
happened with Robin Williams.
Uh are you aware of of whathappened there?
It was vaguely, I'm veryvaguely, I was just googling it
to try to find out.
But when Sora came up, theylaunched a whole lot uh people
(31:10):
were having Pokemons uhattacking Florida Beach or
something, and there was a hugePokemon protest around a picture
of Sam Altman saying Nintendo'sgoing to sue you, and then
there was a whole lot of videosof uh Robin Williams saying
things, uh fake videos, andthere's Martin Luther King
videos as well.
They've just had to removethese uh figures from uh
(31:32):
whatever uh training materialthat they have.
Um no thoughts?
Nadeem Ibrahim (31:39):
Yeah, so this is so this is kind of um so this
so yeah, what Will is creatingthe company's called Hand, okay,
Human and Digital.
And his whole manifest was allaround this, right?
Um is the fact that you know hewill create a unified ID for
actors, musicians, or any typeof performer that might be out
(32:00):
there, right?
To really be able to managetheir rights and for digital
replicas.
Yeah.
So in a way is designed toprotect it, so you know, to
avoid and work with socialplatforms and other digital
platforms to really be able topick up whether this is just CR
(32:20):
or talent ID, you know, to beable to understand that based on
that meta layer of data thatthis is authentic, right?
So that in that instance itwould have been blocked.
Stephen King (32:31):
Yes.
So do you think that this isgoing to become like a new
right?
I mean, I can see thisgentleman, if it find me a stock
market, I'd probably invest init myself right now, because I
can see it being locked to yourEmirates ID in the UAE or in the
Richmond's digital ID card.
Because uh you know it's itshouldn't just be for the rich
and famous, it's for Yeah.
Nadeem Ibrahim (32:50):
I mean a Vencer might be you know democratized
at some point, right?
That if you own your owncontent, that you have the right
to have a talent ID to be ableto protect your content.
I think that's the importantbit for us, is content, okay?
Because a high-profileindividuals of from all
different sectors have theability to be able to influence
(33:15):
change in society or influencebehavior change of some form of
nature, whether it's to buy aset of products or whether it's
to change a school of thought oran opinion or whatever it might
be, they have the ability andthe influence to be able to do
so.
So if you're able to sort ofmodify or sort of you know
manipulate their content in away, that's a big problem.
And you see that already withdeepfakes, it's a big problem in
(33:38):
the one that you mentioned,absolutely.
So headspace of technology Ithought was quite you know
enlightening and refreshing tosee that actually there's groups
and bodies out there that aretrying to you know protect what
is to prevent the inevitable ofmisinformation, disinformation,
that type of thing, whilstprotecting the rights of the
individual who have createdthat.
(33:59):
I do think eventually citizensand stuff maybe at some point,
but I think from from the fromthe in from right now, it's
about how you stop thatdisinformation, misinformation,
protect the rights of ofartists, you know, and and
nothing breaks loose in someextent.
Stephen King (34:15):
Good.
Well, I think we're coming tothe end of our time.
So it was lovely to meet youand to collab with Brubites,
which is now it's on our podroll, uh, because it's seven
o'clock here and it must benearly eleven o'clock there, and
Arjun must have go to bedbecause he's still a young boy.
It's Hollywood time, right,Stephen?
Arjun Radeesh (34:32):
It's it's just about nine, like just about ten,
but like okay.
Stephen King (34:37):
You need your beauty sleep, Arjun, so that you
don't end up like both of us,believe me.
Um excuse me.
Nadeem Ibrahim (34:47):
I should have brought an AI version of myself
on this instead of speak to myown avatar Lamin.
Stephen King (34:53):
This is this is the next trend that's gonna be
beautiful AI avatars to speak.
We've already seen Fireflieshas got the note taker in the
canal talk, so this will be afuture.
But on that, that's a differenttopic.
Arjun, would you like to closeus down?
Thank you very much, Nadim.
Arjun Radeesh (35:06):
Uh yeah, absolutely.
So um, once again, Nagim, thankyou so much for uh joining us
on this episode and kind ofgiving that full lowdown on say
how things can are changingwithin the space in advertising
and on the space of podcastingand also grilling myself.
Uh that got me speechless forlike five minutes.
(35:27):
Uh like yeah, thanks for uh uhthank you once again and thanks
for tuning on to another episodeof the incongruent podcast.
Uh please do uh like, share,and subscribe, and like yeah,
feel free to share some commentson how did you feel about this
episode.
Um until next time, this is theentire crew from the
(35:48):
incongruent podcast signing off.
Goodbye.
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