In this illuminating episode of the AI Edge Podcast for Enterprise Marketers, hosts Yadin Porter de Leon, Jessica Hreha, and Michelle Moore sit down with Mike Kaput, Chief Content Officer at Marketing AI Institute and co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing and the Future of Business.
In this illuminating episode of the AI Edge Podcast for Enterprise Marketers, hosts Yadin Porter de Leon, Jessica Hreha, and Michelle Moore sit down with Mike Kaput, Chief Content Officer at Marketing AI Institute and co-author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing and the Future of Business.
Forget the endless quest for "the right AI tools." Mike challenges this common question, guiding listeners towards a more strategic approach to AI adoption in marketing. Discover how enterprise companies can shift their behavior, focusing on strategic intent rather than just tool acquisition.
The conversation delves into the core changes needed within marketing teams to effectively integrate AI, exploring practical AI tools that marketers can leverage today for enhanced content creation, personalization, and customer engagement. Mike shares insights on often-overlooked AI capabilities and discusses the evolving roles of marketers and marketing leaders in an AI-driven enterprise, highlighting essential skills for success.
Follow Mike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikekaput/
Marketing AI Council: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:20:00
Mike Kaput
At the end of the day, enabling your average person within your company to have a baseline of saying, okay, wait a second, I could go play with this. Oh, I'm going to be really good at figuring out how to make this work for me. I think that's really just a critical first step and it's not happening.
00:00:20:00 - 00:00:47:19
Yadin Porter de León
Welcome to The AI Edge podcast for Enterprise Marketers, a show dedicated to sharing insights, strategies and experiences from a group of experts who have successfully implemented solutions in a large enterprise B2B software company, specifically within the context of global marketing and how that effort can connect to sales, its product and the rest of the business. I am the importer de Leone, and I am joined gleefully excited by my co-hosts, plural Jessica Hreha and Michelle Moore.
00:00:47:19 - 00:01:12:23
Yadin
Michelle, it's been a little while since you've been on the show as a co-host. What have you been up to? What's in Michelle's world?
Michelle Moore
Oh well, I have been consulting for a large enterprise company that makes like eight ships. And ironically, of course, internally, that company does not have any sanctioned generative AI tools. So my personal exploration continues.
00:01:12:23 - 00:01:45:22
Michelle
I consume a lot of content, including, of course, our Guests podcast and keeping up with the trends. And I still definitely use and explore a lot of tools for my professional research and development, and that all continues.
Yadin
Oh, it's a journey. Never stops.
Michelle
Exactly.
Jessica
So good to have you on, Michelle. For our audience, it's been a while perhaps that Michelle was one of the original authors of our generous usage policies and really spearheaded that entire initiative.
00:01:45:22 - 00:02:07:15
Jessica
When we say it was updated weekly, that was all Michelle and her team were creating the internal SharePoint style site with our guidelines linking to other tools. All of that really shepherded by Michelle and her team. So she is, in my mind, the resident policy expert and really happy to have you back on the deck.
Michelle
Thank you.
00:02:08:17 - 00:02:30:09
Yadin
That's fabulous. The whole ethical workflow to them, that was really powerful. And Jessica, what is going on in your world?
Jessica
Yeah, Good to see you again. Getting excited. We're getting back on a regular Friday calendar for recording podcasts, so hopefully our audience, you guys see these pumping out more often and super excited about our guest today.
00:02:31:10 - 00:02:55:08
Yadin
Yes. And great segway. Thank you. Well done, Jessica.
Jessica
You're welcome.
Yadin
It's almost like we know what we're doing.
Jessica
I'm getting there.
Yadin
All right. So super excited to welcome Mike Brooks. Mike is the chief content officer. I love that title. Chief Content Officer and Marketing Institute, an education event and media company that makes A.I. approachable, actionable for marketers and business leaders. As chief content officer.
00:02:55:12 - 00:03:17:18
Yadin
Mike uses content marketing, marketing, strategy and marketing technology to grow and scale traffic leads and revenue for marketing and institute. Mike has published hundreds hundreds people of articles on how to use A.I. and marketing to increase revenue and reduce costs. Mike is also the coauthor of Marketing Artificial Intelligence, A.I. Marketing and the Future of Business. Mike, welcome to the show.
00:03:17:19 - 00:03:38:17
Mike
Thanks for having me.
Yadin
Fabulous. All right. So today we're going to talk about really tools in the enterprise. And actually there's tons and millions in Utah. So there's really kind of we're going to be taking a step back and tackling it from a strategic lens as well. But I think one of the great things you've done, Mike, is you've done a lot of shows, articles, webinars, enablement on here's this tool.
00:03:38:18 - 00:03:53:20
Yadin
Here's what it does, Here's how you can use it, which I think are absolutely fabulous and hopefully want to tap into a lot of that. And so the structure of the show, for those of our listeners who are familiar with this, we start with topics and objectives. Then we go to strategy and tactics, teams and tools, then business impact, and then at the end we do a lightning round.
00:03:53:20 - 00:04:25:22
Yadin
So let's go in the first segment, the show, which is topic objective. People asked you a lot, I'm sure, Mike, what tools should I be using?
Jessica
You’re like attend to my 30 in 30 segment right there.
Mike
Right. Yeah. How much time do you have? Right.
Yadin
How do you answer that question?
Mike
Yeah, it's a good question. I think that if there's no one answer here, I'd say that there's a single answer you should be thinking about.
00:04:26:00 - 00:04:47:07
Yadin
Yes, exactly.
Mike
I'm going to actually kind of cop out a little bit and take a step back, because I think you need to start thinking first and foremost about your use cases. For a I, it's not about just shotgunning a bunch of technology at your team, at your staff, at your company without any conception of what you're trying to achieve.
00:04:47:09 - 00:05:08:17
Jessica
Right.
Mike
That's not a new I problem. We've been dealing with that for 30 years now with any type of marketing, technology and Internet technology and software of any type.
Yadin
Wait what are you saying, Mike, that marketing teams throw technologies at problems that are actually really knowing what they're trying to do?
Mike
Those are your words, not mine, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:08:17 - 00:05:25:13
Mike
100%. Yeah. So I genuinely do think you need to step back and say, what are my actual top say 3 to 5 use cases for. I there's ways of getting to that. There's ways of figuring that out. And once you have some conception, then you're going to be able to fit the right tool in for the right job.
00:05:25:15 - 00:05:50:11
Mike
Now, obviously there's the chat chapters of the world, the frontier models out there, the big providers of these kind of cutting edge models. It's a wise move as a marketer, as a business professional, to be familiar with at least what some of those can do. But really beyond that, you're really looking at, okay, I need an actual understanding of what I can do today, which sounds obvious, but is not always.
00:05:50:14 - 00:06:10:08
Mike
Things are changing really fast. So if you're a marketer or business person who hasn't spent the last couple of months figuring out what's going on right now in a I, it would be a good idea to honestly, like ground yourself in that it doesn't take that much time, but understand what's possible today. Start understanding what you're actually trying to do and then fit the tool.
00:06:10:08 - 00:06:30:23
Jessica
Well, and it's always like, what tools do you have access to today, going back to your company guidelines, right? And do they even know that sense.
Mike
Yeah, you may not have even control over all of this at your company or company may have already chosen approved tools for you. So again, that's where genuinely the use case methodology becomes even more important.
00:06:30:23 - 00:06:51:16
Mike
You need to know what you're trying to achieve and what the tools you do or don't have access to you can actually do to help you achieve it.
Yadin
Yeah. And so I like the way that you phrase that too, because that challenges that idea of putting that sort of that I guess the cart before the horse. Ah, everyone always talks about you should be people process technology but it always seems to be in the verse.
00:06:51:18 - 00:07:11:05
Yadin
Let's throw a piece of technology in there then let's try and wrap a little bit of process around it and then let's give it to the people. Like you said, we've been dealing with that for the last 30 years, which is like, Oh, let's implement Percolate, and then two years later versus percolate. Horrible. Well, it's because you just threw it at everyone and then it turned into a giant mess, garbage in, garbage out.
00:07:11:08 - 00:07:33:15
Yadin
And that's pretty much the story of like 90% of implementations that I've seen gone wrong. And if they just took a step back and actually talked to everyone and this is I think the biggest thing is a recurring theme is that you go and you do the process work and you find out how people actually do things and you realize that there actually is no process and it's very dysfunctional.
00:07:33:20 - 00:07:48:21
Yadin
And what they do is allow you to consulting. The consultant comes in and says, Oh, this is how the process should be. And then they create this wonderful, great deck. And Jessica, you and I have gone through one of those.
Jessica
I'm like, oh, I feel it.
Yadin
And I know you are excited and like everything out to the deck, this is going to be so great.
00:07:49:00 - 00:08:07:12
Yadin
And then it was like, okay, so what are we going to implement this? Hmm?
Jessica
And nothing gets done because they weren't ready.
Yadin
Nothing gets done because. Yeah, because nobody wants to change the way they do things. So that's what you're basing your had to get. So Mike, you bring up a great point of is what are you trying to accomplish and have that goal and then what you create that goal.
00:08:07:13 - 00:08:34:15
Yadin
I think the big step and you can give me your perspective on this is you then have to go into the organization and change the way you do things because air is something that's going to change the way you do things. So you actually have to change those two things. It's just crazy because stepping into the strategies and tactics section of the show and so what are the key changes that you're seeing that need to happen within a marketing team to effectively integrate ad tools?
00:08:34:16 - 00:08:56:15
Yadin
And we're going to continue to push it until teams actually do what you tell them to do.
Mike
Oh my gosh, I sigh because it's such a huge question too. And you hit the nail on the head so much of this is actual change management, but I've stood on this soapbox forever. As a company. We stand on the soapbox, but we do it for a reason, which is step one that people still don't do.
00:08:56:16 - 00:09:18:21
Mike
Is I literacy? At a basic level, that's kind of a fancy term. We get it. But every single person in your marketing team, in your company, the lowest of the highest level people, it doesn't matter what they do, how much experience they do or don't have. Every single one of them needs to understand just at a baseline on what air is, what it can actually do, what it can do specifically for them.
00:09:18:23 - 00:09:45:05
Mike
Too few people actually have it are grounded in that kind of knowledge. In marketing. There's plenty of forward thinkers out there, plenty of them, I'm sure, listening to this podcast. But the teams you're trying to bring along, often times are so much I don't even want to say further behind. They just haven't kind of grok the idea of, Oh wow, okay, this technology is going to fundamentally reshape what's possible and what I can do in my job.
00:09:45:05 - 00:10:03:23
Mike
And you kind of have to open that door first. I think through a little bit of education. It doesn't have to be taking 200 different courses or watching a million different videos. You can get to it pretty quick, but you do have to ground people and saying, okay, this is different than what you've used in the past and the software you're used to.
00:10:04:01 - 00:10:23:13
Mike
Here's roughly how it works. Here's why it's going to have an impact here. The expectations around this technology and what it can do for you. And then I want to enable you in some basic way to go experiment and play with it and figure out how to use it for your own role, because you're the expert on your work, not someone else.
00:10:23:15 - 00:10:42:03
Mike
There's a huge amount of leeway and space for like outside vendors and consultants to help with this. But at the end of the day, enabling your average person within your company to have a baseline of saying, Oh, okay, wait a second, I could go play with this. Oh, I'm going to be really good at figuring out how to make this work for me.
00:10:42:05 - 00:11:03:15
Mike
I think that's really just a critical first step and it's not happening.
Yadin
It's tough.
Jessica
And even if you don't have access to it at work, having your own paid personal license, I always tell people even to bring it up at work meetings. I have custom goods now for co-parenting, for nutrition and fitness coach. By the way, that I'm obsessed with, and I used to pay for that.
00:11:03:17 - 00:11:37:18
Jessica
And all these things that give you an idea of how to use it. And even if you can't use it at work, it helps you build a business case of what could be done.
Michelle
That's exactly what I wanted to explore next, because for those who are in a situation where their company prohibits the use of that in-house, and I'm sure people have approached you, Mike, with this question, where do you recommend they get started so that they could maybe simulate some of the work that they would like to be doing within their company, but do so in a safe or anonymous way outside of their company?
00:11:37:18 - 00:12:04:05
Michelle
So do you have any recommended starting points for that?
Mike
That's a really good question. I would say as an initial caveat, like obviously don't go do anything that's going to violate your company's policies or NDAs or privacy, whatever. But I would say to Jessica's point, you can probably invest 20 to 40 bucks to spend 1 to 2 months with a paid version of chat CBT in your personal life.
00:12:04:07 - 00:12:27:18
Mike
From there, you don't have to be putting in super sensitive company data to simulate. Like you said, Michelle, what you could be doing in your job. Plenty of marketers that I know have side projects doing marketing for themselves, for side hustles for kids, school or whatever. Also, we all have hobbies, right? I love Jessica, what you mentioned of your personal stuff.
00:12:27:18 - 00:12:47:02
Mike
That's actually a really good place to start. I would argue, as you get a real quick sense of what's possible when you're passionate about something. So if you can't use this stuff at your work and if you're having even a hard time simulating marketing use cases at home, I think you can probably still figure out on your own, use it for something personal.
00:12:47:02 - 00:13:07:16
Mike
What is the thing you like to do? Use it as an advisor or as a planner or as an assistant for that thing. Whether it's running, cooking, parenting, you'll really quickly get a sense knowing some kind of domain of what's possible. So I think you're in a tough spot if your company is not letting you use any of this technology.
00:13:07:16 - 00:13:27:14
Mike
But I do think there are ways to quickly say, okay, I at least have some expertise and a sense of what's possible with the technology off the shelf out there.
Yadin
Yeah. And for those listening right now, hey, I thought this episode was about practically I tools to worry. It's not a bait and switch. We're just warming you up to say, Hey, don't just jump in, use a bunch of tools.
00:13:27:14 - 00:13:49:12
Yadin
Okay, So we're going to get to some tools. And I think Michel kind of put us into now the two teams and tools section of the show. And I think the way we talk about this is not, hey, use this tool from this company. I think where you're talking about right now is like, let's look at categories of tools, things you can tackle that may be the easiest ways to do the quick wins, because quick wins is always a really great way.
00:13:49:12 - 00:14:02:05
Yadin
If you're launching something new, get a quick win, get a use case, talk about what the impact is, and then, like you said, get a subscription to activity, of course, which then you'd have to choose. Is it 3.5? Is it for is it for Turbo, is it for a Omni? Is it for one? Is it for one minute?
00:14:02:07 - 00:14:21:12
Yadin
I don't know which one. So I think getting to that really it can gets too much in the weeds. So I do like the way that you're approaching it. What kind of categories of tools do you feel like is gone from a marketing perspective is going to make that first big win? And if it is a frontier model, then we talk about a frontier model and a use case.
00:14:21:13 - 00:14:43:03
Yadin
So you have Gemini, you have chatty beta for teams for the office Enterprise license. What's that first one, If someone's listening, they should jump into this type of tool. And this type of use case I think is probably good to pair those two together.
Mike
I'll try to hopefully break this down. How I would approach it is kind of I knew nothing about what was going on right now in the landscape.
00:14:43:05 - 00:15:03:00
Yadin
It's going to be hard for you to pretend, Mike.
Mike
Everything changes so fast. You'd be surprised. Some days I wake up and I'm like, Oh, everything I knew before is like, useless.
Michelle
It's all gone.
Jessica
Yeah.
Yadin
It's like we're recording this at 10:00, so if anything happens after that, it's not our fault. Okay?
Mike
Yeah, exactly right, exactly right.
00:15:03:02 - 00:15:29:19
Michelle
Yes. You and Paul always caveat that. Like every podcast episode. Exactly. When you recorded it.
Mike
you have to timestamp it. That's so true. But I would say first there are what we might call non reasoning models like Jeopardy for Show is a good example. The latest smartest non reasoning model that you have access to in something like chat CBT.
00:15:29:21 - 00:15:56:08
Mike
I would say if you have not experimented with the latest non reasoning models, go try to use them for general assistance, general advice, possibly producing copy content ideas. From there I would then look at reasoning models so something like Opening Eyes oh three Gemini 2.5 Pro. The newest models from Anthropic Cloud for Opus I think has some reasoning capabilities.
00:15:56:08 - 00:16:27:10
Mike
These are models that go one step further and actually take time to think through the steps they're going through. So you can do the same things with those types of models. I would encourage you to experiment with any and all use cases you might have, but you can also go a step further and say, okay, I'd actually like to use this as an in-depth strategic assistant or use it with a ton of data to really build out a very comprehensive plan or approach or strategy g to some type of marketing task.
00:16:27:12 - 00:17:04:06
Mike
So I'd encourage you to kind of figure out where did the fast, cheap and pretty intelligent non reasoning models work out? Like where are those enough for your quick hit stuff you're doing every day? As a marketer, where can the reasoning models then add a lot more value in terms of these in-depth, really strategic use cases that I think we're all kind of just starting to experiment with because people don't always realize, Oh my gosh, like I could dump transcript from a two hour meeting into one of these things and get like a full on marketing plan in like 2 minutes from an O three or a Gemini 2.5 per whatever.
00:17:04:08 - 00:17:28:06
Mike
And then from there I'd also say just experiment with the category of what we call deep research tools. So openai Google perplexity, they have these tools that they call deep researcher capability is within the current models where it will a gently go autonomously research topics for you and every knowledge worker, every marketer absolutely needs to go try this out for themselves.
00:17:28:06 - 00:17:47:12
Mike
I think there's at least one free option with Google or Chachi, but I think to do this on your own, go see what it does and what it produces on a complex topic. It produces research briefs that are dozens of pages, sometimes tens of thousands of words long that are pretty well cited. You still have to check them as a human.
00:17:47:12 - 00:18:07:16
Mike
But my gosh, you're going to really have a pretty eye opening moment seeing what these things can do. We can talk about image generation of video generation, all that. But that's kind of roughly those big categories right now that are really impactful. I would say for marketers.
Jessica
That's what I was going to comment on. So sounds like starting with language first, the lowest hanging fruit.
00:18:07:20 - 00:18:30:12
Mike
Yeah.
Jessica
Because then I think it's really easy to get into complexities or access issues once you get into image and video as well. But I feel like a lot of questions that we get around like what's the best tool for PowerPoint? What's the best tool for video? What's the best tool for imagery?
Yadin
I just wanted to say that you found anyone who's fixed spreadsheets.
00:18:30:14 - 00:18:48:21
Yadin
Is there a tool out there? I won't have to do spreadsheets again.
Michelle
Please.
Mike
Yes.
Jessica
I've been doing a lot with Google Gemini in sheets because it's a Google shop and getting you are two in terms of data analysis being right there next to it and going through math without having to do formulas like I know you could do the equals.
00:18:49:02 - 00:19:09:12
Jessica
I would even just asking Gemini, I'm talking survey data or multiple columns. We use different metrics of time and things like that. Gemini has been really helpful not and still had to create the spreadsheet, but I kind of like doing our part, I guess.
Mike
Right.
Yadin
I guess that's the part I was talking about is like…
Jessica
It makes me feel organized, I feel like.
00:19:09:14 - 00:19:32:19
Michelle
I'm sure an agent is coming your way.
Yadin
Yeah.
Jessica
Yes.
Mike
I'm at the stage where I think that we've gotten very far down the road of great data analysis with tools like Gemini are awesome. But yeah, I want to get to the point of I don't want to see the spreadsheet ever again. I just wanted to tell me what's in it or tell me what to do with it.
00:19:32:21 - 00:19:57:05
Jessica
I love that breakdown, by the way, of how to approach the different language models and use cases. So to recap, number one, a non reasoning model and number two reasoning model. And then number three, deep research before we move on, because I do want your take on video and audio or any other category, I guess is do you have an example first deep research project because it's still blank page syndrome.
00:19:57:11 - 00:20:19:22
Jessica
If people don't know what to do with them, the tool is something out of the box that comes to mind. That's just an easy way to show capabilities.
Mike
So for deep research, the advice I would give is don't overthink your prompt to start, just type in a sentence of like research something and that's something. Make it something that you know pretty well, I would say actually, because this is where these tools can go a little wrong.
00:20:19:22 - 00:20:44:13
Mike
If you could get some amazing research on a topic you know nothing about and it looks great, but an expert looks at it and says, well, okay, that's pretty interesting, but there's A, B and C, things wrong with this. I would actually say go just as a test with something you know pretty well or that you're interested in because you'll quickly see how powerful it can be and you can also really quickly start understanding, okay, here's where it went, right?
00:20:44:13 - 00:21:04:14
Mike
Here's where it went wrong. I kind of learn from that moving forward.
Jessica
Research X.
Mike
Yeah.
Yadin
Yeah. And one of the things I found super, super helpful and I think this is something that you and Paul suggested as well, where you don't know what amazing prompt you should do. So you have a large learning model who can create a really amazing prompt for you.
00:21:04:14 - 00:21:20:20
Yadin
So don't get the prompting of nobody has to be a prompt engineer. You just have to say, Hey, I want this really cool thing and can you give me a prompt so I can use in Google's deep research tool to do this kind of stuff and then boom, it will put out like a three page prompt with details and some bullet points.
00:21:20:20 - 00:21:37:17
Yadin
And you're like, Oh yes. And I wanted that and that. And then you just go and check that, Yeah, it looks good. And then you dump it into Google deep research. And that's what last I did. And that just created like a 50 page brief of something that was just utterly amazing. And the hardest part was really just cutting out the stuff that I didn't need.
00:21:37:19 - 00:21:56:03
Jessica
Yes, I was going to say quick plug for Mike's from GPT because I save it and I actually use it a lot with that wiser framework.
Michelle
I have used it too. Yeah.
Yadin
Yeah. Yes.
Mike
Yeah, it's super helpful. Like honest. Oh of course. Yeah. I mean, it's been like a huge unlock for me because I actually, you know, is a writer by trade.
00:21:56:09 - 00:22:16:11
Mike
I kind of took the prompting and really enjoyed actually doing it, but then I was like, this needs way more time and attention. Any time I'm trying to do something with a I than I have to give. So we all default towards like a sentence or two prompt and I think eventually we'll get to where the models are just smart enough that it's like, okay, you won't need to do all this stuff.
00:22:16:13 - 00:22:31:23
Mike
But for the time being, even like I still find it really valuable that GPT will use a framework out there that's helpful too. Like a sign that a role come up with some tasks and subtasks are instructions for it to follow. And you just type in a quick sentence like, Hey, I want to do this thing and it writes it for you.
00:22:31:23 - 00:22:47:07
Mike
Copy and paste that in you're good to go. You can ask any model you need to do this for you as well. And honestly, that's huge. That's probably step one. I would do for anyone listening. If you're struggling with this is just ask a guy and use the prompts it gives you and see what the output looks like.
00:22:47:09 - 00:23:03:18
Michelle
Yeah. And quick side note, Clod has a feature that I think I just set up in the settings and it will ask me clarifying questions so I can start with just a really generic prompt. Then it'll ask me like five or six clarifying questions and I'll answer them and then it'll give me the intelligent response.
Mike
I love that.
00:23:04:00 - 00:23:26:08
Jessica
And there's some tips that answer the clarifying questions and then go back and edit your original prompt so that it's in there from the beginning because they'll get a better output then the continual back and forth. But that came up on that and the master remembers it today with Paul to Michelle about actually going through and answering the questions that the chat bot is giving you about whatever your strategy and whatever you're doing.
00:23:26:08 - 00:23:46:00
Jessica
And even Paul said he used to not answer all of them. All. They're like rush through them. And now he actually enjoys the process of going through all the questions. And my light bulb moment was there is even all of the AI assisted enabled marketers, there's still levers to pull to differentiate yourself as an individual because not everyone is going to go through and take the time to do that.
00:23:46:02 - 00:24:23:18
Michelle
Yeah.
Jessica
And it's going to improve your outcome. I think just overall, like improve how you use the tool, but it'll be more strategic from the beginning, taking the time to actually think through everything.
Michelle
Exactly. I just love being prompted to do so.
Jessica
Yes.
Michelle
So keep me honest here.
Yadin
That's fabulous. And so one of the things that I think came up too is I think you guys are already pulling on a thread, as I wasn't really mean to be the marketer in the future with these tools, whereas people used to say, well, I'm the HubSpot person or I'm the Salesforce person or know that I do the ABM tool, it's almost like they people there were
00:24:23:18 - 00:24:50:12
Yadin
functions of people that needed to be like when you put a body in front of this tool or in front of this workflow, when now you can start to automate those things in ways that we couldn't before. And marketers aren't just people who are super experts in pivot tables or other things where you're seeing that evolution of what it means to be marketing and what kind of skills are really going to be, what set you apart from other people.
00:24:50:14 - 00:25:12:20
Mike
This is like the trillion dollar question.
Yadin
You guys are writing a book about this, right?
Mike
Yeah, right. We're asking a guy to write us a book about this, probably, I would say at this stage.
Yadin
Oh, there you go. And it's written.
Mike
My first draft answer because it's a question I think about a lot. And just in general, what does it mean to even do knowledge work in general?
00:25:12:22 - 00:25:36:05
Mike
I don't have a perfect answer at all here, but I would say first draft thinking for marketing would be whatever it is you do, you're probably going to be. And I didn't make up this analogy. Some multiple other people have written about this. You're going to be the conductor of some type of orchestra of A.I. tools, models, capabilities, agents, whatever terms we want to end up using there.
00:25:36:07 - 00:25:57:10
Mike
So maybe the HubSpot person or the copywriter or the e-com person, they might still whatever that secret sauce is, that makes them really good at their job. I think parts of that will still really be relevant, but you're going to have to move into that conductor role with these tools to have any hope, I would say, of continuing the relevance of that role.
00:25:57:10 - 00:26:22:07
Mike
And you can also probably argue and Jessica, I think we talked about this a little bit yesterday when we recorded our B2B summit panel. When things are always changing, look to what doesn't change. Human psychology is kind of changing the AI tools, but it's always going to be super relevant. So the whole consumer psychology piece of marketing and building relationships with customers, I would imagine is going to be super relevant as well.
00:26:22:07 - 00:26:48:13
Mike
But I think all marketers become conductors of the orchestra and not the individual contributors to it.
Jessica
Yeah, and I think it's an interesting opportunity even to say, like there are people who don't ever want to become people managers, but maybe you get management experience still because now you're managing the agents and then at some point you have to decide maybe that's a path and you still have to prioritize, communicate, manage up even what's going on.
00:26:48:15 - 00:27:11:16
Jessica
But Mike, what we were talking about yesterday, I think too, is the human traits of it all. I really started thinking about all of the things that we look for in high performers. It is a lot of times execution oriented, but executioners are executioners. I think to some degree, no matter what type of rule they're in, it's the willingness to get stuff done, to work through problems, to see it through.
00:27:11:21 - 00:27:32:16
Jessica
It's that tenacity, I think, to problem solve, which is also the same tenacity. You need to work through that initial process that is then going to scale across the organization as well as everyone always talks about curiosity. But I think it's even questioning programs and strategies and the infrastructure that you have already set as an organization or as a team.
00:27:32:18 - 00:27:57:03
Jessica
What do you value in high performers outside of their work? And it's all of these other characteristics that I think makes people leaders in their role, even if they're not in a hierarchical leader position.
Yadin
Yeah. So ChatGPT says strategic thinking is number one, and literacy is number two. And then following that is creative direction data interpretation. I don't think that's maybe not going to need that one.
00:27:57:05 - 00:28:19:23
Jessica
And the Future of Work report had a lot of these stats in it too. Yeah.
Yadin
Yeah. Experimentation mindset. I think I was kind of one of the threads you're pulling on, Jessica. Experimentation mindset.
Jessica
Is there a different way to do this?
Yadin
I'm here using Gemini and ChatGPT and a bunch of other stuff in the background constantly. Just because I like to pull on threads and see what are the tools, strength and adaptability.
00:28:19:23 - 00:28:39:06
Yadin
That was one of the key ones. I think this was kind of the beginning of our conversation. Why can't we get people to change? What they're doing is because people hate change. That's constantly what we're running into it. Absolutely everything. Hey, have a new idea or we want a new workflow or want to do event differently, or we want to try something exciting and people are like, Whoa, we've already done it.
00:28:39:06 - 00:29:00:20
Yadin
This way for many years and don't change anything. But I think the listeners to the show or listen because they want to do things differently, because they want to be adaptable. They want to have a literacy. And I think you give them some good pointers on where to get started, because I think that's probably the biggest hurdle. Is there just some website is there some thing I should listen to?
00:29:00:22 - 00:29:16:15
Yadin
So people are coming to the show, I think to be part of that of what should I be trying, what should I be doing next from a tools perspective and a company perspective, it's tough because you keep running into some of the same themes. And like you said, Jessica, you and Mike were just talking about this in another recording.
00:29:16:17 - 00:29:56:19
Yadin
Where do you see that inflection point? Are you seeing that inflection point in any companies right now who are starting to become successful, who are becoming the least not a first, but maybe a forward?
Mike
Yeah, it's hard to have a one size fits all answer because I've seen so many companies do this in so many different ways. But I would say that coming back to this point, one recent example I can't name the company but a large enterprise that we worked with what really, really worked, even though they had all sorts of technology investment and education was really at the ground level taking in this case at least a small team and helping them understand
00:29:56:19 - 00:30:19:18
Mike
what they could actually do with something as simple as cheap teeth In chat CBT It was the simplest thing ever. I'm sure everyone listening to is like, okay, great, I've heard of that. I've used that whatever. For them, it wasn't it. And they didn't know a lot about A.I.. They were all domain experts in their own areas and they had previously had courses, workshops.
00:30:19:23 - 00:30:43:09
Mike
They'd gone to events. They were given literally thousands of licenses to certain A.I. tools. It had kind of stuck in certain patches. But really what moved the needle in my mind was sitting down a small group and saying, Look, here's one really narrowly focused thing you should focus on for the next. Call it one month to month, three months, how long you need.
00:30:43:10 - 00:31:09:01
Mike
Here's how to actually make it work for you and then literally turn you loose and let me know how it goes. And with regular check ins, with regular support, not a huge amount of hand-holding, but that kind of process, it was like night and day because a bunch of people that previously had been on the fence about a lot of this stuff came back and were pretty over the moon about what they'd been able to do.
00:31:09:01 - 00:31:47:04
Mike
And it's half the stuff they did is stuff I wouldn't even have thought of as someone who is helping them because I don't work in their role. I understand their role, but I'm not in the day to day. So that kind of process really at the very granular level showing individually people no, here focus on this one thing, let's niche down whether it's GP days, whether it's, hey, we're onboarding Jasper, whether it's hey, we have a new tool, whatever it is, maybe get a little more focus on doing one thing really well and understanding it and then use those lessons because you can extrapolate so many lessons to other tools from that kind of initial pilot or initial project.
00:31:47:04 - 00:32:06:21
Jessica
People have to know what to do within the tool. So there's a difference between the experimentation because you're learning through experimentation. When I log in, in the morning and I log in to my said I tool, this is what I'm using it for that is directly related to my day to day job. And so that's why we're always trying to find those really specific use cases.
00:32:07:03 - 00:32:26:08
Jessica
And that's how you're rolling it out to new teams.
Yadin
Yeah, I know. We dig deep into it and a lot of the previous episodes stay focused when adopting AI and that was super key. And I like where you're going, Mike, because if people are listening to this, what tools do I need to use? You pick something that you want to tackle.
00:32:26:12 - 00:32:43:00
Yadin
You get people in a room or on a call and you walk them through it and say, This is the tool, this is the impact you can make. And like you said, Mike, it just can be like light bulbs going off everywhere because that's kind of how we ingest everything. We're Forced Care is a meeting on our calendar.
00:32:43:00 - 00:33:09:09
Yadin
I am now committed to this hour of my life on whatever's being talked about. Even if sometimes we go to meetings, we're like, What? What are we just do for that? I really don't know. Do something with AI and walk them through it, say this is what you do, and then actually get them to do it. If they have a license, get them to do it, and then, like you said, have a check in because if there's no accountability, then people are going to put it at the very bottom of the stack because there's 20 billion other things that they're trying to do.
00:33:09:09 - 00:33:29:06
Yadin
So this is competing with all of the things that they normally do every day in the way that they've learned to do them and done them for maybe years or even decades. And now you're asking them to step outside of that and do more work on top of what they're doing. But the more work will end up yielding massive difference in time saving or doing things that just simply were never possible before.
00:33:29:08 - 00:33:47:09
Jessica
And even before you pick a tool, pick a problem, decide I just want to over-emphasize here.
Mike
I was even going to say that's exactly kind of what we try to get at is I get doing talks, doing classes, whatever. I get so many people that will come up to me and very well-meaning and very interested, which is great.
00:33:47:09 - 00:34:18:18
Mike
And I'll be like, all these three different models just came out, which one's better? And it's like, okay, that's a valuable question, but which one's better for, let's say, copywriting? My next question would be What have you done with copywriting with a guy that has failed that you're asking is questioning if you haven't done the use case with a tool and you're asking about different tools, you're probably asking the wrong question or asking the question out of order because I want you to come to me and say, Here's my use case.
00:34:18:20 - 00:34:37:16
Mike
I'm really trying to write a killer landing page copy. So many people get bogged down in that analysis paralysis before even trying the tool in the first place, like go fail first. And I know that's not a clear cut answer. It's like takes time, but I want you to come ask me about tools when you have a specific use case.
00:34:37:16 - 00:35:01:10
Mike
Exactly like you mentioned, Jessica, that you are trying to solve for that you've already experimented and tried a bit with another tool.
Yadin
So I think we're forwarding into that the impact section of the show. Michelle I think you actually had a question to kick it off.
Michelle
Yeah, I love that we're all optimists here more or less. And this conversation has been really focused on what's possible.
00:35:01:11 - 00:35:37:17
Jessica
Are you, Mike?
Mike
Yeah, well, it depends on the day, honestly.
Michelle
So we've been talking a lot about what's possible, great starting points and all that. But the flip side of the coin really is the need to introduce some cautionary thinking and critical as you approach what's out there and the available tools to marketers. So for marketing leaders who are listening, what capabilities exist today that you think that they are just not prepared for and should maybe prepare themselves for?
00:35:37:19 - 00:36:05:09
Mike
That's a really good question. So I guess I would kind of break this up into a couple of them. I would say they're probably not fully appreciative of how good reasoning models are and what that means for their workforce, their teams and their plans moving forward, because I think we're going to see in a very positive way some very eye forward air savvy marketers come into the workforce that are able to do things with these models in like 5 minutes.
00:36:05:09 - 00:36:37:11
Mike
That would have taken you 20 hours to do if you're in the traditional marketing mindset. So if you're any type of marketing leader and you have not really pushed the limits on something like, you know, three Gemini, 2.5 Pro, whatever reasoning models are out there, I would say that's really, really important to do. And I think related to that, the deep research tools, because while it's still really early, there are so many things that those tools can start doing for you that you frankly should not be spending time on ever again, I would argue.
00:36:37:13 - 00:36:56:17
Yadin
Yeah.
Mike
So I would say those two, it's like, you know, these tools exist as a marketing leader. You can say, okay, of course I've heard of reasoning models or deep research, go really kick the tires, do it for stuff you know, Well, go give oh three the hardest marketing problem you've solved in your career and see what it does.
00:36:56:19 - 00:37:38:10
Jessica
Multi-touch attribution.
Yadin
Yes.
Mike
Right, right, right.
Michelle
Well, and the irony is that the conversations, the narrative is still that I will automate those repetitive, boring tasks and free people up to do more strategic work. What is that strategic work? We've been talking about these reasoning models who can be strategic partners. So when do you see that narrative shifting? I think those who are really in the space are already thinking differently, but I feel like the general population, the conversation is still around automating repetitive tasks.
Jessica
But I think the deep research is the strategic work sometimes, right?
00:37:38:12 - 00:38:03:11
Mike
Yeah, I think in our circles, Michelle, kind of to your point, I think the narrative is starting to get to the point where people are starting to be like, Oh, wait a second, what's going to happen next? I don't think that's permeated broadly to the general public yet, but it could happen very quickly and all at once. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if the next few years are pretty rocky in a public discourse perspective with some of this stuff.
00:38:03:11 - 00:38:22:15
Mike
I mean, we're already kind of starting to see it at the edges as something takes off like that goes viral or becomes like a hot button issue in the general discourse with AI and people freak out. And I think we're going to start seeing that actually quite a bit more among people that aren't following this stuff regularly and don't realize things are capable.
00:38:22:17 - 00:38:48:05
Michelle
Yeah.
Mike
Veo three by Google is a great example. They dropped their new VO three video model, which is jaw dropping. It's incredible. I look at that and I say, Wow, we're getting very close to a future that I knew was coming year. Average person that doesn't follow this stuff looks at a hyper realistic video is like, wait a second, Two years ago I saw some crappy video that I video made.
00:38:48:05 - 00:39:10:00
Mike
Wait a second. You're telling me it can do this? And then they're like, But what about misinformation online? What about knowing what's real? And then suddenly it's like, okay, good luck to you. And I have many months of sleepless nights like we all have. So yeah.
Yadin
Yeah.
Jessica
I think you mentioned like the be buzzin video. Was that yours, Mike?
Mike
Yeah, I think Paul posted about that, which is incredible example, yeah.
00:39:10:00 - 00:39:39:00
Jessica
I was going to say that video that's we can talk now. What are we going to say now? But I think the other one is even more impactful and I think there's a lot of managing up that still needs to happen here. So my plea for marketers listening to who may not be at the top of the organization is there's still a lot of opportunity to manage up showing the reasoning model, showing the deep research, getting your marketing leaders to get beyond travel, which I'm still hearing from some leaders.
00:39:39:01 - 00:39:56:17
Yadin
Work, travel. Yes.
Jessica
It's do the work for them to show them what's possible, but also make it meaningful. So maybe there's a project that you're paying a consultant to do or a question that came up that someone's like, Yeah, it would be amazing if we knew that and move on on the side. Like, do it for them and then show them what that looks like and then walk them through how you did it.
00:39:56:17 - 00:40:20:00
Jessica
Because I think that's also a huge eye opening thing for leaders is they don't want to ask or say that they don't know how to do it, but getting them in a small group or it's not in front of the whole organization to show them step by step by step and they'll say like, wait, can you go back three steps because they're in a safe environment, but now you're the one showing them and it gives you a lot of leadership capital in that sense to.
Mike
Also, we all know this, we're marketers.
00:40:20:00 - 00:40:43:15
Mike
You have to do a lot of internal marketing.
Jessica
Yes.
Mike
So if you're a marketer, don't describe to me in 80 slides the history of I go show them 2 minutes of what this can do.
Michelle
Yeah.
Yadin
Yeah.
Mike
Go Video or deep research report running on the last strategic thing you guys were researching. Show the executive and then trust me, you're going to get interesting questions about like, wait a second, you can do this.
00:40:43:15 - 00:41:01:06
Mike
How do you do this? How do we do this?
Yadin
Yeah.Knock the head back. Yeah, like I just said, like to my CMO, I just dumped all of our customer stories into a notebook and say, Look, you can just take which customers are doing this product from this vertical and this is GEO and they create a spreadsheet for all the customer quotes.
00:41:01:08 - 00:41:15:05
Yadin
And she was like, make a demo, share it with the entire organization, and that's the knock your head. And then I was talking, Jessica, about it. She's like, You should share that on LinkedIn. So it's on LinkedIn now
Jessica
Because I didn't think about doing that ever. You ask a shared advice and that is and my favorite quote ever.
00:41:15:08 - 00:41:36:16
Jessica
We all need to share more.
Yadin
We do. All right. So I should get to the lightning round part of the show. We just got a few more minutes left and this is where each person on the show shares. One thing that's happened recently about Jenny that is meaningful, insightful and doesn't have to be something that's news. It could be just something general and wanted to just share a quick roundtable of lightning rounds.
00:41:36:18 - 00:42:01:18
Yadin
I'm going to do one that's about Google video because while you were talking about it, I was watching the demos and I'm like, It is insane.
Jessica
Multi-task…
Yadin
It's crazy. Google video. So video for those who do not experiment with the Google image and I'm just like blown away just with some of the basic stuff and I'm sure it's super basic and it's like, wow, So this is something I think no leader is prepared for.
00:42:01:22 - 00:42:22:02
Yadin
How do we wrap our heads around? I generated hyper realistic video and our use in marketing. I'm still wrapping my head like, well, is it shall we copyright issues with anyways my lightning round things I'm just looking at right now.
Jessica
It's your homework lesson for everyone.
Yadin
Yes. Who's ready with the lightning Round one too? I don't want to put Mike on the spot next, unless you're ready, Mike.
00:42:22:02 - 00:42:50:09
Mike
I could go next. I think I actually have been thinking about similar related things quite recently, both about what's real and how we tell what's real online due to things like video, but also just overall AI's impact like Michelle was just saying and kind of alluding to, like, I think we're hitting we're getting close to a tipping point about the general public being aware, at least more aware and some really vivid examples of what's possible.
00:42:50:09 - 00:43:11:21
Mike
And I don't think we're ready for the ripple effects of what that will be. I don't know if that means anything like legislation, public outcry. We're going to probably see some more interesting conversation around jobs and work. I just think we're about to if you thought I was already buzzworthy, I think it hasn't even broken containment yet. Really.
00:43:11:21 - 00:43:32:00
Yadin
For those with kids, you're already seeing next level cyber bullying. And that's the first hot button topic where parents and people are really getting confronted with the A.I.
Michelle
Oh, we could do a whole episode, maybe about that.
Yadin
Yeah, like an AI for parents episode. No. My God. Yeah. I have the best F for marketing parents.
Michelle
We're all parents here, yeah.
00:43:32:00 - 00:43:56:10
Jessica
There's a new series for you, Paul. Mike, there's the parent GPT or Kidsafe.
Yadin
Kid Safety GPT. I love it.
Mike
Yeah. Kids Safe GPT , yeah.
Jessica
Which you can also get to write your summer screen policies it sounded like from the podcast this week. So Paul was chatting with it to help summer rules and kicking off summer here so definitely top of mind
Yadin
It's fabulous.
00:43:56:12 - 00:44:20:03
Jessica
I talk a lot about communication, culture, change, leadership and I want to share something that's been really cool at Jasper. We have a women's ERG, which I'm sure all enterprises have, and there's different flavors of these, but we've been really incorporating AI in this and not me. The leader has been doing different things, so every Friday there's like a fun Friday prompt that they give out that everyone goes and uses their tool of choice to put in.
00:44:20:03 - 00:44:41:02
Jessica
So for example, today the prompt was around dropping in your first name and current mood in a prompt that gives you your women in tech weekend horoscope. It's like expect sass, wisdom, tech jokes and nudge and it's just I don't care if anyone else reads mine. That was amazing and super fun. I like about my weekend plans and lift you up on the week.
00:44:41:02 - 00:44:57:02
Jessica
There's different stuff like write a Slack message that sounds helpful, but says absolutely nothing. One day it was like a bunch of things in a session. What oddly specific Hill would I die on at work, which is where the memory comes in, which is really fun. Based on what you know about me, what would my beige flags be?
00:44:57:02 - 00:45:14:15
Jessica
And I'm sure you can prompt for all of these ideas, but it's a cool way to get to know each other as a team, to push people towards the tools and to also have fun. Because I talk about getting maniacally focused on your KPIs goals a lot, but you got to do the fun stuff too, to get people engaged and really get into the tools.
00:45:14:17 - 00:45:36:20
Jessica
I like Fun Friday prompt.
Michelle
Thanks. So I would love to end on a humanistic note since we've been talking about tools and there is a lot of concern floating around out there about people getting too attached to their tools, developing relationships with their chat bots, yada yada. Again, that could be a whole podcast series.
Yadin
A whole thing, whole series.
00:45:36:22 - 00:45:58:19
Michelle
But I read something just this morning. It popped up on my Quora feed and there was this whole thread around Jenny AI being the best therapist ever, and I was really curious about people's comments and just wanted to quote from a couple of the comments. And one person wrote, I don't want to replace people, but people are so difficult lately.
00:45:58:21 - 00:46:20:14
Michelle
And then the response, yeah, we can all relate to that. But then the response that I just loved is it's in the difficult that we grow and learn. True, it's messy with humans and my chat. GPT gives me perfect answers, but our humanity is in the mistakes and the getting up and trying again.
Yadin
Yeah, I like that. I like that because it's the messiness that creates the challenges.
00:46:20:19 - 00:46:38:20
Michelle
Yeah.
Yadin
I talked to LLM’s. There's no challenging. They're not like, Oh, let me challenge you, let me push back on you, which is one of the things I think from a strategic standpoint really is missing. And I have to put that in the prompts like, no, be critical, be harsh even. And then it's like, well, you may want to I'm like, No, really, come on, push back.
00:46:39:01 - 00:47:02:22
Yadin
That's what I need to get tougher, Mike.
Jessica
Relationships.
Mike
I think maybe that's one of those human skills that we should be thinking about, is the human thing moving forward that we should all cultivate as being a pain in the butt.
Yadin
There you go.
Mike
When we're talking to people to be counterfactual…
Michelle
The anti sycophant.
Jessica
Relationships are built in shared suffering or shared moments, right?
00:47:02:22 - 00:47:21:19
Jessica
Like we talk about our marketing, I counsel from our previous company is so strong because of what we went through together. And so if you think about it in that way to that relationship, you're not going to have that struggle with. This is why communities are so big right now, is because we're all trying to figure this out together and learning together.
00:47:21:19 - 00:47:25:19
Jessica
And that's what's creating bonds and relationships that will stand the test of time.
00:47:26:03 - 00:47:28:00
Michelle
Yeah, embrace the messiness.
00:47:28:00 - 00:47:42:16
Yadin
There you go. Embrace the messiness instead of trying to be more of a pain in the butt. I don't know.
Jessica
There’s something there.
Yadin
We're at the end of the show mike. It's been fabulous. We could have talked for hours more, but I know we all have lives to go and live outside of talking about AI.
00:47:42:17 - 00:48:00:19
Jessica
Do we?
Michelle
Speak for yourself, Yadin.
Mike
Yeah, right.
Yadin
All right. Well, thank you so much, Jessica. Michelle. Thank you, Mike, for joining The AI Edge podcast.
Mike
Of course, thanks for having me.
The End