Ep 92: AI in marketing: The good, the bad, and the reality
Welcome back to The Built Environment Marketing Show.
In this episode, Ayo Abbas kicks off a mini-series exploring how marketers are using AI across industries. She interviews Stuart Wilks and Kristian Downer about the practical realities of AI adoption, sharing real-world examples, concerns, and the future of marketing with artificial intelligence.
Key takeaways
Stuart and Kristian shared:
How to unlock AI's creative potential while preserving brand authenticity
Ways to build robust AI governance that enables innovation
What effective AI leadership looks like in progressive marketing teams
The opportunity to create sustainable competitive advantages in an AI-driven market
How to strategically position your team for the AI-enhanced future
Resources and links
Fyxer.ai - Meeting management and transcription tool
NotebookLM - Document summarisation and podcast creation
Crystal Knows - LinkedIn profile analysis tool
Social Media Marketing podcast - AI marketing resources and tools
MIT study on AI making people lazy
About the show
The Built Environment Marketing Show is hosted by marketing consultant and content creator Ayo Abbas from Abbas Marketing. It is a show that is unashamedly about marketing for architects and engineers, as well as bringing forward voices that we don't always get to hear.
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Transcript
Ayo Abbas 00:00
Hello and welcome to The Built Environment Marketing Show hosted by me. Ayo Abbas. Today I am launching a mini series that I'm doing all about how marketers are using AI. I wanted to know, I guess, real world examples, and find out the facts of what people are actually doing, rather than what we're reading online. So that's what I've set out to do today. We're going to kick off and we're gonna have an interview with Stuart Wilkes and Kristian downer talking about the positives and negatives of AI, and then the following couple of weeks afterwards, we will have the launch of a survey that I've done recently with marketeers from across the piece, not just the built environment, talking about how they're using AI, their use cases, and also their concerns. So that's a really good, interesting read. I had a sample return of 72 responses, so that's a good sample size. I'm also going to be interviewing a number of people about their kind of specific use cases for AI, so how they've used it for content creation, how they've done it, you know, used it for podcasts, all of that stuff, all of that good stuff that you can copy and learn. And finally, then I'm going to close that with an interview with one of the kind of AI gurus, I guess, who is fantastic, who I saw at Atomicon. I'm gonna be interviewing Heather Murray as well. So that's gonna close out the series. So there's a whole load of episodes coming up about AI, I hope you find them really interesting and useful. And yeah, just make sure you're subscribed to the show. And let's kick off the first part with an interview with Stuart and Christian Take care. Bye.
Ayo Abbas 01:31
Hello and welcome to The Built Environment Marketing Show. Firstly, can you introduce yourself, Stuart, and who you work for. And I guess one sentence that sums up what you think of AI,
Stuart Wilks 01:45
yeah, so our company's called Limeslade, which I set up about eight years ago now, which seems ridiculous, not a little bit before you, but not much. And then we do marketing, business development and events for people in the built environment. Particular focus, I guess, on the kind of contractual, legal, project management, those kind of people, but all kinds of consultants. And my relationship with AI, I guess you'd say is kind of, it's complicated. Should we say that
Ayo Abbas 02:11
sounds like a proper relationship? And over to you, Kristian, can you introduce yourself and your, I guess, relationship with AI,
Kristian Downer 02:17
yeah. Hi. My name is Christian. I'm a paid social media expert, and also offers marketing coaching and an AI speaker, which will probably make you think that my relationship with AI is probably a little bit less complicated, than Stuart, I am basically incredibly curious and always looking to understand how I work. I like to see myself as an optimist as to it being something that can really help our clients and our business be more productive.
Ayo Abbas 02:46
Fantastic. Now I know I've heard you speak about kind of AI at events as well. Kristian and can you kind of walk me through something where you've used it successfully in terms of marketing?
Kristian Downer 02:58
Yes. So for me, a great example of how I use it every day in my business is I, although like to think of myself as a creative, I am not a visual creative. I can't create, you know, designs or that kind of stuff. I'm almost illiterate when it comes to those things. So I rely on designers and people like that to help me grow my business and create the artwork that we run our ads for. The problem is, when you go to a designer and say, I want to design, they then go, what would you what do you want? And that can be the hardest part, is explaining to them what you want. Whereas now, what I often the starting point is we will look at, obviously, what's out there on like the ad libraries and so on, but we'll also put a prompt into a large language model, particularly chat, GPT, and go create me an ad that does this, this, this, this, and this as a visual, because that's the kind of things I'm looking for, and it'll give me a few starting points to work for. So the one I go to, the designer, the human that's going to actually make the vision come true for me. We've already got rid of that awkward bit at the beginning, because I can give them a brief that's been used by that AI has helped me create, and a couple of visuals that kind of help me give them an idea of roughly what we're looking for. And then they can go away and they can create me something that fits that brief and is better and more professional and fits the brand more than maybe that initial idea we've had. So initial idea creation is a huge thing for us and how we use it.
Ayo Abbas 04:28
And so there's an efficiency part as well here, isn't it? It helps you, I guess, spend less time having to brief a creative which would cost more, right and time as well as cost Right exactly.
Kristian Downer 04:38
And we get, we get better results first time around in that first that first go round, so we get a better result and a better outcome. But I think the key takeaway for me here is that we're using it as part of the ideation process. We're not using it as part of the creation process. And that's where my line with AI kind of sits is. I think that where possible. All we need to keep the bit that keeps us human in there and add the spark on the end, because if we all just use these products to create stuff, then we'll all look the same, we'll all become boring, and we'll all become monotonous. So it's about using AI the right way, and for me, that's as a as a foundational stone of bringing an idea to life, not actually finishing the product.
Ayo Abbas 05:23
And how would you kind of respond to critics who say, AI makes marketing generic and soul less? Do you think it's true, or do you think it's kind of nuanced? Kristian?
Kristian Downer 05:33
I think most things in life are nuanced in some way, and marketing is no different the and I would agree with those critics that it has created a lot of terrible marketing content that's very boring, very monotonous, because we've always had that content now it's just much easier to scale. You've always been able to outsource to outside to countries, you know, and get content that's very generic and sounds the same. You've always been able to do that. Now you can do that on a industrial scale where it's just pumping that out for pennies, pennies, pennies, pennies. And it's all sounds the same. It's all monotonous, because it's just write me a blog post about the construction industry, and it gives you a very generic blog post about construction industry, right? So it's all about this, this combination, for me, of combining your expertise and being able to fast forward that using AI rather than going, I'm just going to outsource my thinking, my creativity and my creation to AI. Because if we do that, I think the real risk is that we create boring, monotonous content. And if you've ever been on LinkedIn, there's a ton of it on there. If you want to see some examples,
Ayo Abbas 06:48
There is some really bad stuff right now on to you Stuart, what's your kind of biggest bug bear or concern? I know you filled in my survey.
Stuart Wilks 06:55
Yeah. And as I have strong views, I think the biggest problem for me, and it's going to disappoint you, to find that I agree with Kristian I think he's spot on. I think that's the thing, is using it intelligently. The biggest problem is the lack of common sense out there. There's so many people, and I don't want to criticise young people too much, but it does tend to be the younger generation who seem to just put their question in and accept the answer without any kind of question whatsoever. One of the biggest thing, I had an application for a job recently, and it said I'm so and so currently studying blah, blah, blah, with a strong interest in marketing strategy and project based work, which is all okay. And then it got to I've been impressed by Limeslade's involvement in the RIDW opening reception and the second annual golf mediation roundtable. And I was like, hold on a minute there's something a bit odd going on here. And I looked at it again, and I was like, ah, the wording is a bit odd, and it's and we've never been involved in the events that she'd mentioned. I was like, Well, I've never even been to those events, never mind organised them. And she just, I said, I wrote back. I said, Did you use AI at all for this? Is that? Yeah, I thought it would make my application sound better, I said, but you didn't bother to check whether we'd actually had any involvement in the event, the events that you've quoted in your thing. And it was just those sorts of things where the kids are just going, No, yeah, I believe the computer. I believe it. And no, just use your common sense. Do use a bit of discretion. And the people out there that are using it without any ability to sort of critically think, and yeah, it's, that's the biggest problem with it.
Ayo Abbas 08:22
I think your example is absolutely brilliant and also really shocking, like it takes seconds to actually go back and double check, right? I mean, that's the thing. It's like, did we actually do this? And I, because often, I always find out with companies and stuff. Tell me you're like, that's not the same company or not the same person, or, as soon as you start checking back, you kind of need to do that kind of analysis, don't you? It's kind of like, yeah. So Stuart, are there any kind of applications and ways that you're finding that you are using it and you're finding it useful?
Stuart Wilks 08:57
Yeah. I mean, the other thing I was going to say is that there's an MIT study that came out just recently. In the preparation for this, I was reading The Guardian, as we do, and there's an article in there about AI making people, just before we get onto things that I think are acceptable, AI is making people lazy, and it's MIT have done this study where they split people into three groups. One of the groups had no AI, and one I had a bit and the bit one at the bottom was using all the AI, and the one at the bottom just eventually lost all ability to think critically, and all ability to use the, you know, to use their own brains, essentially. So it just eventually your brain just goes to mush. So that's worth looking at. It's in this article in The Guardian, if you
Ayo Abbas 09:42
go three weeks ago? No, I did see it. Yeah, I did. And it was one of those things where it's like people were using Yeah, because if you don't have to think through a process, and you don't know what good looks like in your own mind,
Stuart Wilks 09:52
eventually, yeah, you just stop thinking entirely, yeah. So. And the other thing is, it's got a limited number of verbs, it seems as well. So, and I was looking that up, and that's the thing. It's like, AI is going to have since, like, you know, the large language thing is it's going to have limited number of verbs, because it's working on a limited pool. So it very much, you know, you end up, as Kristian said, with formulaic and emotionless copy and emotion is the important thing. However, going back to your question about AI applications that are acceptable? Yeah, I think they're all acceptable. And there are things that are great. There are some good stuff out there. I've used one. A couple of days ago, one of our clients was doing a run down the River Thames, and I said, I could do, you know, to do something a little bit humorous, to kind of raise a bit of money for his charity, of the just giving thing and stuff like that. So we, created a caricature of him using AI. It's like, can you create me a cartoon character of this guy with curly hair running down the Thames? And Job done. It. Did it in a few seconds, and it was just a nice way to add something visual to the social media posts that we did. So it's great for stuff like that. It's great for starting points. I love chatgpt. If I complete mental block on an article, I want to write ideas, but then you've got to take it and run with it and use your own intelligence to actually put the content behind it.
Ayo Abbas 11:07
And I guess one of the things that I know you touched on Christian as well was around that human connection and human touch. I mean, is there a way that AI can build, help us to build real connections?
Ayo Abbas 11:20
so you listen to soften your tone basically
Ayo Abbas 11:20
100% and and ask it questions, like, you know, what? How should I interpret this or, or, you know, is, Am I missing something? That's often how I ask it with stuff, is, like, Am I missing something here? Because, again, I can be a little bit too laser focused on what I want to achieve. And I'm like, and I'm like, we're not doing that. Why is this not working? Okay? Well, because three emails ago, they made it very clear what they wanted, and you've just, you've just gone away on your own little side tracks. So, yeah, I think again, it's just providing an analytical friend rather than a than something. Yeah, it can't make you better emotionly, but it can certainly make you more attuned and understand a little bit more what's going on.
Kristian Downer 11:20
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's, there's tons of different ways that that these things exist and already do that. So whether that be analysing scenarios or helping you roleplay things, or just being that kind of assistant it, it can help you understand just, I mean, the scariest thing to ever do at the moment is because I use ChatGPT on on a very regular basis. Just ask ChatGPT now, it's got its extended memory. What do you know about me? Oh, I've done that. What are my biggest weaknesses? What are my biggest strengths? And some of that stuff is scary. How accurate that is. And so you can, you know, there's a software on LinkedIn called Crystal nose. I think it's called and it analyzes. It uses machine learning to basically analyse profiles and essentially do a dis me, dis profile on people based on their behaviors and how they interact and so on, so all the time. I think it gives you just insights. But I think what Stuart's talking about being lazy, it's, it's kind of, it's about that. It's, it's, it's not about outsourcing your empathy or those kind of things to to an AI. It's about just thinking, Well, how do we do that? And I, you know, the bit, the way I use AI, the most probably, day to day, is responding to emails, I use a tool that, you know, one I have, one that just categorises and manages my emails for me, so I know which ones I have to respond to in a sea of spam. And I also am able to respond and go look, because I write quite direct an email. Apparently I can come across quite terse. So saying this is my objective, this is what I want them to feel, or what I want them to say, and getting a version of that that isn't me just going, I want the thing. Give me the thing
Kristian Downer 11:30
Are there ways that you think we can use AI to help us, kind of, I guess, keep in touch with people and that emotional side. Stuart, or do you reckon, Nah, never.
Stuart Wilks 14:10
Oh, it's difficult, isn't it? I'm not convinced it'll ever that's a really interesting point from Kristian though. Are you allowed to say what software it is you're using, what tools you
Kristian Downer 14:19
Yeah, very, very popular startup fixer. Ai, oh, I keep getting ads
Ayo Abbas 14:25
for that at the moment, yeah, really pushing it
Kristian Downer 14:30
at the moment, very, very good piece of software, and one of the things that really excels at is conversations like these on Zoom. It's the best software I've had it sending out a summary. So it like fathom and others, it will have a note taker that will come into the room and kind of start taking notes. And it's incredible, like it is literally the best one I've seen for this is these are the stakeholders. This is what was discussed. This is the action points. And then it'll even give you a list of links. To the bottom, going well, here's a link to the recording, here's a link to the transcript, here's a link to the highlights, and here's and it creates a little chat bot, which you can then ask questions. Going well, what happened here? So sometimes, just to see if it worked, I was like, how did I perform in this meeting? And goes well, this is what you did. Well, this is what you didn't do. Well. You know, you have to, kind of with all AI, it's very positive, so you do have to kind of go, no, no, be critical. What? What didn't I? What didn't I? I do well. And it also timestamps each of the the key points it makes. If you want to go watch it back and see what happens, you can, you can do that. So, you know, I feel like I've turned into infomercial for fixer, but it's very good.
Stuart Wilks 15:40
Sorry, that's very my fault. But that's the thing where it can be useful. It's just, but again, I was talking to somebody the other day, and they were saying, you know, young again, young people, sorry, young people, then they'll lose the ability to make notes from meetings. That's the other thing. It's like, No, you actually do need this skill to actually sit in a meeting be able to do it.
Kristian Downer 15:59
Why?
Kristian Downer 15:59
Well, that, yeah, good question. But my, you know, I think I agree with them, is they were saying, you know, if you don't learn that manual skill of being able to take notes, you'll eventually start just accepting what the computer tells you. And that's the problem is that you have to understand, as you just said, you know, it's, it's all very positive, so you have to adjust it slightly, and you have to understand the nuance in the language and the the body language in the room at the time, because there's Yeah, against the point where I think the person was making to me is that was no point in us taking a junior member of staff into a meeting at all if they're just going to use AI to write the notes and not bother to even listen to it at all themselves. And it's a Yeah, it's a challenging, thing.
Kristian Downer 16:41
No, so interesting one. Stuart, and I mean, I come from a place of bias, because I haven't taken a meeting though, in two and a half years, and I don't intend to start, but I think you've hit the nail on the head where you're during the generational divide that you and I point of our career, where we've got experience and we have been in those situations, and we do understand the nuance, I guess, of these meetings, but I know how you know terrible my memory is. So even now, when I'm having casual conversations about work with people, I'll be like, No, I'm turning on the recorder so letting them know, so that I can come back to that piece. And I yeah, I think you're right. Whilst I will never take a meeting note again, I do think you're right. It's, How do we make sure that we build foundational skills for the workforce of the future, so that they can work with these tools, rather than rely on these tools?
Ayo Abbas 17:34
Because that's the thing you kind of sit there. It's like, you know, I always think that thing get towards, like, going towards a cardless society. It's just great until the card system goes down, right? Cashless. Society. Sorry. I mean, I do think it's that kind of thing, but, I mean, for me, I have to write stuff down because I don't remember anything if I don't write stuff down, like it doesn't sink into my brain. If I just used AI solely, I wouldn't remember a single thing. And that, I've always been like that, and that's how my mind works. So I do think there is we're all going to be slightly different in terms of how we retain information. Retain information and knowledge as well. So it's a really interesting one. I personally couldn't just record all my calls, even though I do use do that and then not write anything.
Stuart Wilks 18:12
That's an interesting point as well, because I'm one of these weird people who insist on typing everything I don't write anything, because if I write notes and nothing ever survives. It's like, firstly, I can't read my own writing. I'll lose the paper, and so everything has to be typed. So yeah, and that's it. It is. It's different horses for different courses, isn't it as well. So you know what works for Christian might not work for me. What works for you might not work is that kind of, yeah, Annie has notebooks everywhere, and I, you know, and I work with She's full of notebooks, but then sometimes she forgets a notebook, and I'm like, Haha, let me just open up my laptop. So, yeah. So
Ayo Abbas 18:52
I guess, in a way, like these AI tools are giving us more options, right, but giving us more options to choose from. So I think there is that thing of actually, it's it's another it's a bigger suite of the bigger toolkit we've all got now, isn't it? And you choose the bits that you want to adopt and use and how you build out how you and that's
Stuart Wilks 19:09
it. And it needs to be, I've written this in my notes. It needs to be a tool, not the be all and end all, not the only solution. You just have to add it as a tool and use it. Use it carefully and use it with critical thinking. Yeah, exactly.
Ayo Abbas 19:25
Sorry, Kristian, did you want to say something you did look like,
Kristian Downer 19:26
yeah. I was just gonna say that there's, there's 2.1 is, I'm always drawn to there's an IBM poster that was on the wall in the 70s that they had to remind their employees, which is, like a computer will never be responsible for anything. It will never be able to hold it accountable. So it's a poster that was on the IBM walls, and that applies to AI as much as it does to anything else. And the second point is, the challenge that kind of we're going to find as marketers now is there are so many tools being released, some of which are genuinely game changing, some of which are just Chat, GPT wrappers, but they're all being promoted, and it's like, well, how do we build our own toolkits to to allow us to make the right decisions and get the best out of it? Because I think there's, I've seen these charts of all the tools are out there, and there are literally 10s of 1000s of now that you could potentially use. It's how do we find the ones and kind of check them and kind of sense check the use case to use the ones that actually help us, rather than just feel like we're doing something with AI because we're using this tool.
Ayo Abbas 20:29
Are you a practice leader who isn't getting the industry profile that you deserve? I often hear from practices who do brilliant work, but aren't actually getting the visibility they need to get business through the door. Practices that influence the sector aren't necessarily the best at design. They're often better at positioning their expertise and getting it seen and valued by those with budgets. I'm Ayo Abbas, and for 24 years, I've helped leading built environment firms build the recognition and authority that their expertise deserves. Drop me a line at ayo@abbasmarketing.com which is Ayo at Abbas marketing.com to set up a call where we can talk about how I can help you get a strategy and plan in place to get you to where you deserve to be you Yeah,
Ayo Abbas 21:14
What's interesting is, I was looking at the survey data from what I've done so far, and out of, say, 72 people, the majority of people were using Chat GPT, like 87% of them, and then it's Claude. Like a third of them were then also using Claude. But apart from that, it was tiny in terms of, like, what different tools people were doing and and I don't know. I guess people are just using the main ones and not necessarily exploring some of the kind of newer ones as they come out. I guess people don't, they have the time, do they have the inclination to do that? I guess there's a thing, isn't it?
Kristian Downer 21:53
I think they're using tools that are using AI without necessarily realising it as well. So they may be the external tools that they're paying for. But for example, if you've got Google workspace now, it has a summary of the email chain that you're in as a as a standard until that's an AI generated summary that that's that's there. If you're using Microsoft, you've got co pilot, and you've got pieces in there. But also you go on Google Maps, that's all AI, machine learning pieces like that. You're using any number of different tools that you're using your day to day. They're all Canva, for example. They're all now adding in AI, or have had elements of particularly machine learning in them for a very long time. It's just now we know what to call it, Grammarly being the classic example that is just one massive machine learning algorithm that's learning what's right and what's wrong, and then providing you suggestions based on based on that. And then the other tool that I love, that I think doesn't get as much love as it should, is just notebook LM, absolutely love that. So you can upload a document and it'll give you a summary of it. But you can also upload it as a podcast. If you are an audible learner, you can kind of, it'll create a 20 minute podcast based with two, two AI voices, talking, talking through the idea to kind of help you. I use that again every day. When it comes to if I've got a pitch meeting or something like that, I'll upload the conversations we're having, and it'll give me an overview. So there's hundreds, if 1000s, of tools out there. I think we've all we've all got to think, well, let's not just use chat GPT. Let's build use cases, work out the problems we're solving, and then work out what software and tools we're going to use.
Ayo Abbas 23:39
That's a good point. That is very good point. And I am How do you feel about AI voices? I find them really weird. Still. I have listened to podcasts where they do that, you know, when they're two two things, talking to each other. I love it. I miss and I listen to Social Media Marketing World that, you know, their podcast. And I was like, Oh, God, that really creeped me out. I don't know what it is. As a podcaster, I was slightly freaked to I mean, they are sounding a lot better now, though, but it's just the slight intonations are slightly weird. I don't know what it was. I just found it weird. Yeah,
Kristian Downer 24:07
well, Michael and the Social Media Examiner team are very much at the trying to be at the forefront of going on with marketing and AI and and that podcast is definitely worth a listen to kind of get some insight into what tools are out there. So if you're looking for inspiration for tools, I know on on the website and their and their resources, they they recommend a ton of them, and they're a bit more battle tested, because they are being they use themselves, aren't they? Yeah, my marketers. So if you were looking at a resource to recommend, Social Media Examiner, definitely would be one. I'd recommend to take a take a gander at.
Ayo Abbas 24:43
Yeah, it's a good point. So what can we what happens with junior marketeers going forward of AI is kind of doing a lot of the kind of early stage, more Grunty style tasks. Stuart, do you want to go first?
Stuart Wilks 24:55
Oh, I think it goes back to what I was saying. I think you've got to give do. Junior people the opportunity to think that's the biggest thing. It was like, we've, we've got a young person working with us now and and again, she can be quite reliant on AI, you know, the and it's everywhere. As you say, it's not just you get it, whether you like it or not, and you don't realise, you know, Google's search results immediately you get the little AI generated, as they call it, you know, their little What's it? No, no click search results. So it's everywhere, and have to constantly just reminder, well, is that right? Or are you looking at something that's not quite right? And it's just constantly encouraging young people just to think, and we, we're so lucky, I think, to have lived through the kind of era where we've got all this technology, but we also had the previous bit where it wasn't there as old people like we I don't know if everyone's as old as me, but no, it
Ayo Abbas 25:45
turns out I'm 10 years older than Kristian. We found out before. I'm nearing, I'm nearing 50.
Stuart Wilks 25:54
And yeah, we're like, We're the lucky ones, I think. And we've got to remember these, you know, I do think, yeah, it must be hard if you're just constantly bombarded with it. And that's your life and all you've ever known where, where we don't, you know we have the ability and the the opportunity to understand what happened before that. So, you know, just got to keep helping the young people and helping junior people to get those opportunities to do the entry level tasks, so that computers don't just replace them all. That's been a long thing, that's been, think, a thing that's going on for a year. So my legal clients that I have, you know, they've been worried for years that the juniors would be out of a job, because a lot of that legal stuff in the first few years of your job is basically photocopying and reading stuff, and a computer can do that very easily. But, yeah,
Ayo Abbas 26:40
really good. And you Kristian, how about you about what we should be doing with more junior level marketers? Yeah,
Kristian Downer 26:45
whilst there's a genuine concern across every industry, from coding to marketing to about what happens when entry level or kind of more or less automated processes disappear, and how people make that jump from entry level to to mid level to senior I think we've got to remember that we're just at the start of this kind of commercial revolution when it comes to AI and it being in the public sphere. We are, if we look at where we were with the internet, the last major shift we saw with how things work, we're in 1995 but for AI, it feels like we've gone through this rapid change, and everything's happening, but we're still at the point where people are on tomorrow as well, going, Look, here's a website where you can buy something, and one day, this will be Commerce of the future, and other business going, No, no, no. Well, network never imagine a world where people buy their books
Ayo Abbas 27:40
or their have stuff delivered,
Ayo Abbas 27:42
or their consumables, or their shopping and online and and how that works. We're very much at that 95, 96, 97 point of that revolution. We haven't got to the bubble yet that bursts, and then we find practical uses on the on the Gartner height loop. We're still on the up upswing of the hype that we haven't got to the point where we it evolves and becomes more mature, and we know whether it's happening. So this, yes, it's concerning for that skill thing, but these kids are going to grow up as as AI natives, just as I would consider myself fortunate enough to be a digital native, where I was, kind of 13, 14, when, when e-commerce and things like that went native. So, you know, smartphones became a thing. So therefore it's always been something I'm aware of. You know, I was, you know, Facebook was founded when I was at university. So it's kind of always been something that's part of my adult life, and that's given me an advantage over with respect to the people in the room, to the people, maybe slightly older
Stuart Wilks 28:51
slip of a boy.
Kristian Downer 28:51
Have to make that, make that transition we're gonna grow up in as with an AI advantage, because you're you're painting it as a or it has been painted by many as a disadvantage. When this technology gets to the next level, these kids have grown up, grow out of it, and they're already teenagers in their bedrooms making becoming millionaires because of what they're doing with AI. And just as there were kids that did that to become millionaires with the internet and the digital revolution. So I'm not worried about the kids. I think that they will ride this boat and I'm and they will be much better suited to survive the storm than than
Ayo Abbas 29:33
gray haired people,
Stuart Wilks 29:35
yeah,
Stuart Wilks 29:37
the old people. Now it's terrible,
Ayo Abbas 29:41
but I have to admit, you know, that's a good point. I mean, when I look at my 10 year old and Chat GPT, he gets it, man, he gets it, like, straight away. And he's always like, how come I haven't got this on all my computer stuff, because he just really enjoys it. And the way he approaches it and tackles it, it's like, this is completely normal. So you. Yeah, he I don't have that barrier, I guess, isn't it? It's like this is just normal and every day.
Kristian Downer 30:05
But to draw the parallel to the digital revolution, what we need to do, which didn't really happen with the internet revolution, is we need to teach the kids the responsibility. But the internet was allowed to just run like wildfire, and, you know, for amazing good, but also amazing bad, you know, the the way that kids accessing and we're putting their digital profiles online at young ages, and we're, you know, the kid that makes his England debut for the England cricket team. But then also, then has to apologise for a tweet he made when he was 12. You know, that kind of thing we need to be educating our children about the way AI works, the pitfalls, the growth and kind of how to navigate that space in a safe, ethical, moral and productive way, because this technology is is going to evolve faster than we can regulate it. So we need to look at how can we morally teach our children and the next generations to navigate this space? And hopefully they'll be able to do it better than generations did with the millennials did with the internet, because we still haven't really figured that one out.
Ayo Abbas 31:17
And you know what, I don't think it's gonna come from school. Schools are so far behind. It's insane. And I look at it, I'm look at it, I'm looking at it, and I'm like, what you're teaching you at school and about AI and stuff. It's just nowhere near there. So, yeah, it's a really interesting that's a good point, but it's probably going to come from people in the industry and things like that, because I just don't see schools or anything like that doing it personally.
Kristian Downer 31:39
Well, that's gonna be the bit with your junior where you sit them down and you go, welcome to the company. Here's a crash course in how we use AI and how we expect you to use it, and being upfront and honest about that. Yeah,
Stuart Wilks 31:52
and there's, there are place. I mean, I know we had an intern last summer who worked with us for a few weeks, and he'd they had a course at university on how to use AI effectively. And put that because I think the students at his university had been using AI, and the lecturers have gone, oh shit. We ought to teach these people how to do it properly, rather than just worry about it. Actually, grab it and go, actually, yeah, we'll learn it, and we'll teach you how to make the most of it. And he, he was phenomenal. He taught us so much in the few weeks he was with us because he, yeah, again, he just understood it and he knew what he was doing. So as you say, yeah, that that learning piece, and that, you know, understanding how to do it is, is so important. Yeah,
Kristian Downer 32:31
I will just very quickly shout out Nottingham Trent University, because I, I've lectured there, and they've very much taken the approach you mentioned there. Stuart of you know, I was, I was actually teaching at the point where students were starting to use it, and when it was kind of, you can't use it, but they very quickly, rapidly changed on a and evolved their position quite quickly to and added that training and that development in because I think they realised that, you know, I'll be honest, I was using it to mark stuff, so it was only, it was only natural that the students were going to be using it.
Ayo Abbas 33:05
It's quite an interesting one, though, isn't it? Because a lot of businesses do have a no AI type policy, don't they? And and, like you say, it's like, how do you stop it? Because people will just be using it on the down low and not tell you, which, to me, is a far bigger risk.
Kristian Downer 33:17
Bans always, always struggle, because there's always a way around the ban. You know, it's, I'd much rather companies have clear policies and encourage and build, even if they build their own AI, large language models that lock down a lot of that stuff that talking about, it would be much safer for a company to build their own version of AI or a large language model using one of these that's locked down in a way that makes it safe, has all the pre loaded bits about their business and brand in it, then it will be to go, we're going to ban it and then watch them put all their sensitive information about the company into Chat GPT on their phone, about us having any visibility on how where that data is going or how it's being used?
Kristian Downer 33:18
Yeah, no, I tend to agree on that. Okay, so where do we think marketing will be in five years with the rise of AI Stuart, what's your what's your crystal ball?
Stuart Wilks 33:37
Oh, um, in my original answer to this, I said dead until someone fixes it. But I don't think that's true. That's not fair, is it? It's not fair. It's not no Kristian. I think Kristian, convinced me. I think, you know, it is, it's here to stay, and just it's going to learn, and it'll evolve, and it'll become far better, hopefully, won't replace everything. This guy called Andy Owen, who's like a copywriter, who's, I mean, he's, he makes us look young. You know, he's been around for a long time, but he used to work with Ogilvy and all the big agencies, and he did a little thing a few weeks ago where he'd asked AI if he would ever be replaced by AI, and AI had responded to him said, No, I don't think I'll ever replace you. So even AI doesn't think it will replace us all. So who knows, who knows where we'll be in five years? I think hopefully. In a lot better place, because it'll have settled down, and everything will be working a lot better, and people will be a lot less kind of there'll be a lot more critical and able to understand and use it better, because we'll have all learned how to do so, so, yeah, I think who knows, who knows where we'll be in five years, but hopefully, hopefully we, yeah, hopefully AI will be better and will be helpful, a lot more helpful than it is now. Fingers crossed,
Ayo Abbas 35:23
and Kristian, where do you think the world of marketing will be?
Kristian Downer 35:26
I think that's an impossible question to ask. If we look at the transformation we've seen in sort of years, to predict that far out, and the pace of change, I think is going to be rapid, but we're going to see we're going to see some innovation steps, but also going to see a lot of missteps. We're going to see people thinking they can do things with this software before it's ready, and it not happen. But the changes are already afoot people. The number of copywriters being hired or jobs posted on Upwork, for example, for copywriters, has dropped 30% in the last 12 months. That is a natural thing that's happened because of AI and the existence of that. But I think that marketing is about creating connection and emotion and and communicating, and I think that that is still going to exist in this in the short to medium term, and the ability for companies to get across their message to the right people at the right time and collaborate on that is always going to be there. I don't think AI is close to being able to kind of wholesale take over and just go, Okay, we're going to give that to the AI, and that'll do it, but it's going to evolve, and I think that the smart marketer is going to be out there figuring out those steps and making sure that whether they work in house or they're outsourced, that they they're providing that guidance to the people they work with and the companies they're working for, to kind of hold their hand and bring them through that process and being at the front, because where I wouldn't want to be is, if you're under the age of, kind of, say, 60, I wouldn't want to be going AI is not going to affect me. I'm just going to plod on and do my thing and hope for the best, because you might get away with that if you're kind of nearing the end of your career. But if you're like me. You know, 40 AI is going to be a big part of the next 20 years of my life. I hope it's going to be good. I hope it's going to have a positive impact, but we never know. I've seen wildly varying estimates on that, so I'm going to take the optimist camp and go in five years time, marketers will be using AI to create stunning outcomes for their clients faster, but they'll be retaining the individual. The successful ones will keep the individuality and the emotion that that humans can provide to the marketplace and well, they're all going to be fine.
Ayo Abbas 37:56
Ah, that positive note. Thank you. Both really enjoyed that. I hope you did too.
Stuart Wilks 38:00
Yeah, it's really good. I think, yeah, there's I've just agreed. I mean, it's really disappointing. I hoped I was going to fall out with Kristian and we're going to have totally opposing views. But I think he's right. You know, it's just you have to adapt, and you have to change over time, don't you? The people who don't get left behind, and that's it. You've just got to adapt exactly it. Use the tools. Yeah, and
Ayo Abbas 38:19
did you move? Did you move the age ceiling to 60 just to make sure we were covered?
Kristian Downer 38:26
I must have that was more a case of, I think that you probably can ink out a career for another five years being
Ayo Abbas 38:34
they keep moving all the all the pension things, by time you get there, blimey, you'd be like,
Kristian Downer 38:39
I don't think I'll ever retire. I don't think that's going to be a I don't think that's going to be the way it works anymore. I think people will enter a phase of lower economic output where they maybe work part time. Just, oh, a lot
Stuart Wilks 38:52
of people do that anyway, don't they? Yeah, that's it. Yeah. We're already in that stage. I know loads of people who get to 65 and become consultants and will go back and do bits and pieces. It's not Yeah, absolutely,
Kristian Downer 39:02
yeah. Pressure off. Just use my use my expertise rather than and
Ayo Abbas 39:07
do the stuff you really want to do. That's for sure. Well, thank you both. I really enjoyed that.
Stuart Wilks 39:11
Awesome. Yeah, brilliant. Thank you.
Ayo Abbas 39:17
Thanks so much for listening to The Built Environment Marketing Show. Don't forget to check out the show notes, which will have useful links and resources connected to this episode. You can find that on abbasmarketing.com and of course, if you like the show, please do share it with others on social as it helps more people to find us see you soon. You
