1:27Paul Roetzer: from the college days, I guess, because I came out of journalism school. So I think the first thing people need to know about me is, i’m actually a liberal arts, Major. I’m a writer by trade. My wife is a painting major, and in our history, major, so like
1:41Paul Roetzer: I come at this from an angle of I. I have a deep respect for the arts and the human ability to create. So I am not an a machine learning engineer or data scientist, or, you know, an AI researcher in a traditional sense.
1:56Paul Roetzer: I I started working in a marketing agency, and eventually founded my own in 2,005,
2:03Paul Roetzer: and that that we became Hubspot’s first partner in 2,007, and which really threw me into the marketing technology space and the emergence of Mobile. You know, iphone social media. Everything was sort of bubbling up at that time.
2:16Paul Roetzer: and then in 2,011. I just developed a curiosity about artificial intelligence, and started trying to understand what Ibm Watson was, and how it worked, and how it one on jeopardy. And so I spent a couple of years just researching AI and
2:29Paul Roetzer: wrote about it a little bit my second book in 2,014 to some theories about how it could be applied to marketing.
2:35Paul Roetzer: and then I started just doing all the public speaking about it. People started asking me to come and give talks on that topic, and
2:41Paul Roetzer: and then, in 2,016, we turned that sort of interest and curiosity into the marketing. I Institute and just started publishing a couple of times a week what we were learning and
2:50Paul Roetzer: interviews we were doing, and companies we were following like Prisato. You know the companies that in the early days early days of AI in the mid teens we’re actually like doing some interesting things with machine learning and natural language processing.
3:03Paul Roetzer: And yeah, and so then I sold my agency in 2,021 to focus on marketing. I Institute, and that’s what I do today. We’re a media Event and Education Company run conferences, online courses and publish a bunch of content. And
3:16Paul Roetzer: I have a podcast. So
3:18Paul Roetzer: yeah, just so. I wouldn’t say I fell into it. It’s been like a 12 year. Run to end up where we are today. But chat Gpt certainly accelerated the interest in what we’re doing, and I think just overall awareness about artificial intelligence
4:34Paul Roetzer: Yeah. We think of Jenner AI’s the ability for the machine to create something from a prompt, so
4:40Paul Roetzer: language is an obvious one, the ability for it to write things. But you also have image generation, video generation, audio generation, you know, music or the AI Drake thing, you know. A few weeks back or month or 2 ago. It’s able to generate audio, and then code is the other one. But those are the kind of the 5 major things now that it’s going to keep expanding, and there’s other things like synthetic data and like. But in terms of you know, most business and marketing people.
5:05Paul Roetzer: those are the categories that you’re gonna be really be thinking about. And so the used cases are basically anywhere where those things exist anywhere where you’re creating content. So if you’re in sales and you you know, sales, emails and proposals. If you’re in marketing, you know, marketing emails, landing pages, website copy ads, social copy.
5:25Paul Roetzer: These are all things that AI can assist. And again, like Prasado’s, been doing stuff like this for years. Where your custom, training these things, these capabilities, based on, you know, brands and data. So it’s not new, but Chat Gbt sort of
5:39Paul Roetzer: the generative AI term for it emerged in 2,022, and then chat Gpt Just brought it to everyone like, I think. What was the 100 millionusers in January or something?
5:50Paul Roetzer: So that was really what changed, as there were some breakthroughs in the capabilities. But it was really just the mass access and adoption to the technology that brought us to where we are.
6:58Paul Roetzer: Yeah, I mean, I I do think that most organizations we’re talking to are trying to solve for the the language model side, because it does touch every function of business. So anywhere where words are created marketing sales, Service, Ops. Hr. Finance legal. It’s going to affect
7:17Paul Roetzer: all of it all knowledge work, basically so I would say, a lot of organizations are just trying to get a grasp of what exactly is this technology, and what are they going to do now? We’ve seen really interesting examples like actually, I just saw one yesterday what Wendy’s is putting like
7:37Paul Roetzer: a chat interface basically at the drive through that’s powered by language model, or, you know, like it’s it’s trained on like the acronyms people use for the food. And so I think you’re gonna start seeing a lot of these higher profile examples
7:50Paul Roetzer: where people are going to start interacting with these AI agents.
7:53Paul Roetzer: and it’s going to become second nature, you know, having to think about it. But for right now I think a lot of corporations are really racing to figure out what to do on the language side. And do they need to train their own models? And where’s the data come from? And so that’s what a lot of our conversations are centering around right now.
9:13Yeah, we’re definitely seeing it at the University level. I’ve had quite a number of conversations with different universities, and everyone is screaming. I even just hired like I’ve talked with high schools. I’ve even talked with primary school like principals and heads of
9:27Paul Roetzer: districts that just don’t know what to do like. They don’t understand the tech, and they have teachers. They, they may know, are using it, or maybe they don’t. They have students that they’re not sure if they’re using, or if they should encourage them to use it.
9:41Paul Roetzer: So it is very disruptive, and it is the challenges we still have to teach critical thinking like we we can’t have students coming through any little school. My kids are in fifth and fourth grade, and i’m very cautious and how to show them how to use the technology. And I’m very much teaching it more like a calculator at this point that I am.
10:00Paul Roetzer: They’re exposed to the technology, and they know it exists. I’m sure. Their friends, you know, are aware of it. But we’re using it as a tool to like check our work and and try creative alternatives to what they’re doing.
10:11Paul Roetzer: And then i’ll actually want them to analyze what the machine outputs. And then in a perfect world. You’re actually ta having them critically analyze how that output maybe, is different. And what did it do? Maybe better than we did? And what can we learn from it.
10:26Paul Roetzer: So I do think there is a very important conversation to be had about education. It’s moving slowly.
10:33Paul Roetzer: i’m. I’m guessing a lot of leaders of schools are going to spend the summer trying to figure this out. It kind of got thrown at them like in December, and
10:41Paul Roetzer: in the middle of the school year. You got all the sudden try and figure out how to transform education. That’s a big ask for these people. So I think you’re gonna have a a a summer where there’s gonna be a lot of work probably done around this space going into next school year.
11:32Paul Roetzer: Yeah, I mean, it starts with a base, level understanding of what it is and how it works. So to me all of this is anything you do has to be premised on that. You have an understanding of what it is, and you can explain it at a you know, confidently explain it to your peers or to your your leaders in the organization. So you have to invest what’s needed to do it. Now you can get that pretty quickly like we do an intro day, I for marketers class. The last one we just did had over 1,300 people registered for it.
12:00Paul Roetzer: and that is like 30 min of me explaining the fundamentals and then doing Q. A. For 30 min. That could be enough like that can give you enough of what you need.
12:08Paul Roetzer: Then from there you can start getting into okay, how do I actually identify a used case and prioritize those use cases to pick them?
12:17Paul Roetzer: And then, once I have my used cases. Maybe it’s an eye writing tool, or a social media tool, or an analytics tool, or an advertising tool. Then how do I actually go find the right vendors to do this. How do I assess those vendors? So understanding of the technology, identification and prioritization of use cases, and then
12:35Paul Roetzer: knowing how to like really evaluate these vendors is is critical
13:33Paul Roetzer: Selecting the right vendor, you know.
13:52Paul Roetzer: So I think what’s gonna happen is
13:55Paul Roetzer: we’re seeing
13:58in the past you had to go seek these tools out. You had to go find third-party applications that were smarter versions of what you were using or new kinds of technologies that enable you to do things.
14:08Paul Roetzer: What’s about to happen in 2,023? Is it just going to be infused into all your core tech platforms. So if you use box for knowledge management storage, they have box. AI. Now, where you can just have a conversation with your knowledge. Base, like whatever you’re looking for, and you know, query it you have. Slack is going to have Einstein Gpt
14:26Paul Roetzer: baked into it. Hubspot has chat spot salesforce as Einstein. Google Workspace is going to have language models, baked in microsoft 365 co-pilot all this year.
14:37Paul Roetzer: So if you think about any industry.
14:40Paul Roetzer: and the fact that all of your workers, including administrative staff, like everyone, is going to have access to generative tools baked right into the platforms they’re already using.
14:50Paul Roetzer: and they have no idea what those technologies are, nor how to use them, or how to change their processes based on them. And it’s just going to be like flipping a switch. And all of a sudden everybody’s got these capabilities
15:01Paul Roetzer: that that on its own is insanely disruptive.
15:04Paul Roetzer: Then you take it and say, okay, well smart entrepreneurs could look at this technology and say.
15:11Paul Roetzer: this whole industry is backwards and slow and inefficient. What if I just go find a couple of people. We just build a smarter version of this company.
15:19Paul Roetzer: I think you’re gonna see a lot of that in different industries, too like. There are some industries who are just ripe for disruption. They are
15:26Paul Roetzer: slow and inefficient by design, because that’s how they make money, and not to get like too specific. But law firms like they, They profit from inefficiency.
15:38Paul Roetzer: and that is just not going to cut it in the age of AI. So I. I just feel like there are some industries that
15:45Paul Roetzer: it’s very obvious. What’s about to happen? They don’t want it to happen, and they’re going to resist it and pretend like it’s not going to happen, but it’s coming, and it’s because it’s just going to be infused into everything we do, whether we seek it out or not. I think that’s the major change. Here
16:14Paul Roetzer: So efficacy. You know, how do you
16:23Paul Roetzer: produce something more quickly, you know.
17:32Paul Roetzer: There will be trade offs. No doubt
17:56Paul Roetzer: Yeah, I I mean to answer the the second question. First, My thesis is the future of all businesses. AI are obsolete. So either AI native built smarter from the ground up AI emergent you evolve to infuse AI across the organization, or you just become relevant
18:11Paul Roetzer: and depending on the industry that a relevancy could take years. If you’re a Sas company could be months or days like it. How quickly it happens is going to be based on what kind of industry you’re in, and how quick adoption is happening
18:23Paul Roetzer: Now the barriers, the first one that comes to mind to me is this is a complex buying environment.
18:28Paul Roetzer: There, there’s literally thousands of generative AI tools. And you just go. If you just focus on language or image, generation or vision like
18:36Paul Roetzer: it. It’s really hard
18:38Paul Roetzer: to to know who the players are. And so you’re now, especially in larger corporations. You’re likely starting with the known trusted entities. You’re going to go work with organizations who have a proven track record of working with larger enterprises
18:52Paul Roetzer: because they understand the dynamics of a business well beyond just your need for smarter technology.
18:57Paul Roetzer: So
18:58Paul Roetzer: I think that for a lot of organizations can be very hard to figure this out, because the tech is evolving so quickly, and the second piece that I I think a lot about is the lack of talent that understands this stuff.
19:10Paul Roetzer: So if you look around your your group in your company, or you know, even at you know, higher level. Go find somebody who can explain to you like what a language model is, or
19:20Paul Roetzer: how generally I works like they don’t exist like they they, they’re very hard to find. So you’re talking about like upscaling a workforce potentially hiring. But what do you hire like? I I don’t know, like they’re not coming out of universities trained on this stuff yet. So
19:36Paul Roetzer: it’s all new, and I think that’s the big. The Talent Gap is probably in it gonna end up being
19:42Paul Roetzer: the biggest barrier the other one that comes to mind. I know you all work with highly regulated industries. There are some industries, those aren’t going to be allowed to do this stuff like in the near term, like you, you’re gonna have governance, or regulations or laws that prevent you from benefiting from all the things that’s capable of
19:59Paul Roetzer: for different reasons within your industry. And so that’s a reality, too.
21:01Paul Roetzer: Yep.
21:02Paul Roetzer: So on the ownership front that I mean the latest guidance from the copyright offices.
21:06Paul Roetzer: In the case of Drake no one owns it. So there the Copyright office on March sixteenth, 2,023 issued updated guidance. That, said a prompt is not considered human authorship, and only a human in on a copyright.
21:19Paul Roetzer: So if it’s images, videos, text logos, anything you create. If AI created it, you cannot copyright it, and I can steal it and put it on hats and sell it, and like that, that there is no protection. Basically, I always at this moment say, talk to your IP attorney like I am not an IP attorney. I have spent lots of money with IP attorneys, and learned a few things along the way. But this is not my ex Don’t. You know domain of expertise.
21:43Paul Roetzer: but that is the guidance. I’m I’m. Passing along, I would say, from the copyright offices, do not assume you on it, and if you hire agencies to do work for you. This is a really important one, and you have a work for higher agreement where the copyright passes to you.
21:55Paul Roetzer: If that agency unbeknownst to you is using AI to generate these things, then you technically Don’t actually on the copyright that you think you own. So it’s an important issue for people to to wrap their heads around. And I say, talk to IP. Attorneys like
22:50Paul Roetzer: Yup.
23:42Paul Roetzer: Yeah. So there’s 2 things that seem to differentiate companies right now and be defensible in this. The software world and those are data and distribution meaning.
23:53Paul Roetzer: Yeah, let’s say you an AI writing tool like they want to use it the right blog post whatever
23:59Paul Roetzer: I could use chat chpt as of November of 2,022. I could use, you know, any number of other players. But then grammarly showed up, and grammarly is 30 million customers. That’s distribution like you can show up late to the party, and you got massive audience, and you can introduce a tool, and you can be a winner.
24:17Paul Roetzer: What Persado has always had is the data, and I mean distribution as well, like a proven customer base. But
24:24Paul Roetzer: what the way these tools work is, They make predictions about words based on general knowledge. They go learn the Internet what they don’t have is performance data. So when it’s generating things for you, it doesn’t know if what it’s writing actually will work. It just knows that it looks like what it learned from.
24:42Paul Roetzer: And those can sound like really good emails. They can look like really big landing pages or blog posts or social shares or ads, or whatever you’re creating
24:51Paul Roetzer: the language models, and these, like app companies that are building interface on top of them, can look really good and sound. Really good.
24:59Paul Roetzer: Are they actually going to perform? They have no idea
25:03Paul Roetzer: they have no performance data to tell them it’s going to perform, and that’s where Prisado shines is that’s what it was built on was
25:11Paul Roetzer: performance data like learned performance data, and what words work and what words motivate action, and that is probably like the the the most valuable asset for Prisado is that that’s what you have is data that these other models just Don’t have.
25:25Paul Roetzer: So I would see it, at least from like an outside or objective perspective.
26:35Paul Roetzer: yeah, like the reduce
26:39Paul Roetzer: where you started saying that I think my Internet might have dropped for a second.
26:48Paul Roetzer: So if we go back to like after I finish the differentiation, let me just run a check real quick on my Internet. Okay, yeah, it seemed all clear on my side. But I all I can start over. Yeah, cause you’ve you’ve frozen. So I wasn’t sure if it was you or me? I didn’t actually hear your answer to that.
27:03Paul Roetzer: No worries. Let me just check it real quick.
27:17Paul Roetzer: Yeah, i’m, I’m assuming okay, though, again, yeah, I mean. And you’re You’re You’re loud and clear. Can you? Can you hear and see me fine? Yeah, you just froze for a second
27:30Paul Roetzer: Yeah, go for it seems okay, perfect.
28:47Paul Roetzer: Yeah, I would think that the the data alone is
28:50Paul Roetzer: grounds for excitement. I mean, I I do think you have what a lot of these companies are going to be looking for.
29:15Paul Roetzer: Yeah. And our big event is the marketing AI Conference every year. So it’s July and Cleveland, and this this one’s shaping up to be the certainly the biggest one yet. It’s already the biggest one yet, I think, in terms of the sales.
29:29Paul Roetzer: So we’re seeing a whole new level of interest around that so really excited about that. And then I think just events overall. We did an a. For writers summit in March. We thought we’d get a 1,000 people. We have 4,200,
29:42Paul Roetzer: so I just so much like of a ground swell of interest.
29:46Paul Roetzer: and we have that we have the AI for agency summit in the fall, and we’re looking at some other like kind of expanding that strategy because it’s just the quick way to get this information to people and help them.
29:58Paul Roetzer: And then online education. Our piloting AI for Marketer series you mentioned is sort of the the the core offering at the moment.
30:06Paul Roetzer: But we have some pretty cool ideas around some other original series that we’re working on. So I think there’s just going to be a lot of focus on creating as much value as possible through the events and online education and continuing to expand those areas
30:30Paul Roetzer: Yeah, marketing AI institute.com is where everything’s housed, the book, the courses, the newsletter, the podcast, the blueprints about different industries. You can find it all there and then personally, i’m very active on Linkedin and Twitter. So either of those linkedin’s, great though, and let me know you heard, you know, on the podcast and
30:47Paul Roetzer: definitely connect. So those are the 2 main areas you will kind of connect with me
31:05Paul Roetzer: No more off. I don’t think we’re gonna more of those coming any time. I was. I was gonna ask if there’s a fourth book coming. It’s like we can. We can check in later. Maybe some digital books. I don’t know a lot of print book anytime, maybe author. But by Chat Gpt: Who knows? Yeah, there we go.
31:23Paul Roetzer: Thanks a lot. Paul is a pleasure.
