2856: The Dawn of Digital Agents with D-ID

[00:00:00] Have you ever wondered how the boundary between the digital and the real world seems

[00:00:06] to be blurring every day?

[00:00:10] Particularly how we interact with technology.

[00:00:13] Well today we're going to be diving into a conversation that stands at the forefront

[00:00:17] of this fascinating evolution.

[00:00:20] Because I'm going to explore the realm of Genoative AI with a company called DID and

[00:00:26] they are a pioneering force that's redefining how still photographs are not just viewed but

[00:00:31] experienced.

[00:00:33] By transforming static images into dynamic AI video narratives and interactive experiences

[00:00:39] with digital humans, DID is crafting the future of digital communication and with their

[00:00:45] robust API and intuitive creative reality studio they're breaking new grounds in live

[00:00:52] streaming customer engagement, educational content and making sophisticated AI generated

[00:00:57] videos more accessible than ever before.

[00:01:01] When you experience that with a brand or company that then becomes your standard expectation

[00:01:06] for all future experiences.

[00:01:08] So today I want to explore the layers of innovation behind DID's transformative technology

[00:01:14] and also its impact on marketing and the future that it is shaping for us all.

[00:01:20] Now before I get today's guest on quick shout out to the sponsors of Tech Talks Daily because

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[00:02:05] But now let's get today's guest on.

[00:02:08] So buckle up and hold on tight as I beam your ears all the way to Tel Aviv where

[00:02:14] Toma Zuka, a visionary whose career spans over two decades across tech giants and startups alike

[00:02:21] is going to talk about all this and so much more.

[00:02:26] So a massive warm welcome to the show.

[00:02:28] Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:02:32] Everybody.

[00:02:33] So I'm Toma Zuka.

[00:02:35] I'm the VP marketing of DID.

[00:02:37] DID is really exciting startup around AI and specifically generative AI.

[00:02:43] And for the last 23, 24 years I'm in the tech industry in marketing, in sales, business development.

[00:02:52] I work for big corporations like Microsoft, IBM, Amazon and also for smaller startups

[00:02:59] and currently I'm working for really interesting startup, DID.

[00:03:05] In addition to that, I'm managing a huge community on LinkedIn.

[00:03:09] Its name is Linkers.

[00:03:10] It's all about LinkedIn, helping 10,000 of people to leverage this fantastic platform.

[00:03:18] Also have a podcast which I really love.

[00:03:20] Its name is Market Trip.

[00:03:22] It's about marketing and people and innovation.

[00:03:25] So I'm trying to diverse my activation.

[00:03:30] Well, it's a pleasure to have you join me on the podcast.

[00:03:32] There's so much to unpack there.

[00:03:34] So I've got to ask what was your origin story?

[00:03:38] What was your journey into the tech industry?

[00:03:40] You mentioned marketing, business and so many different areas.

[00:03:42] So what is that backstory and how did it ultimately all lead to DID?

[00:03:47] There's got to be a story there, right?

[00:03:49] Yeah, it always has an interesting story.

[00:03:52] So my first role in the tech industry was actually techie role.

[00:03:57] I studied business management and specialized in marketing and information systems.

[00:04:03] So I touched code and it was hype around startups and the dot com good old days.

[00:04:13] So I started as a QM manager and a professional services expert in a startup

[00:04:19] around text analytics.

[00:04:21] And to be honest, I found myself sitting all day longs in front of the computer

[00:04:28] and trying to review code.

[00:04:29] And I totally understood that this is not my place.

[00:04:33] I went out to meet customers and prospects.

[00:04:37] So after this kind of really exciting journey as a techie person,

[00:04:43] I crossed the road and moved to the business side, which is my natural place.

[00:04:48] And that was the beginning.

[00:04:49] In the beginning, the first years I spent few years in sales,

[00:04:53] mainly enterprise sales B2B.

[00:04:56] And by the way, this is something that I really recommend any marketer to start

[00:05:02] with to spend few years in sales, mainly in the B2B domain.

[00:05:07] And after a few years in sales, I switched to marketing, which is my passion.

[00:05:12] But I did these switches between marketing and sales few times in my career.

[00:05:18] So I consider myself as a person, as a marketer that know both of the

[00:05:23] ends of the funnel.

[00:05:25] And to be honest, it's really an advantage.

[00:05:29] And fast forward to 2024 and the world has gone completely nuts for all

[00:05:34] things generative AI.

[00:05:36] First began about 18 months to two years ago.

[00:05:39] And now we're at the point where people are talking about text to video.

[00:05:42] I've been reading a lot about Dev-in AI, first AI software engineer this week.

[00:05:47] Of course, from your viewpoint, have you seen Gen AI and that entire market

[00:05:51] evolve over the years?

[00:05:52] And are there any other trends that you see shaping its future right now or

[00:05:56] anything that excites you in this space?

[00:05:58] You know, for someone that spend, I would say like, 20 years, two decades

[00:06:04] in the tech industry, you see these kinds of trends coming and going.

[00:06:11] A few years ago, everybody talked about blockchain and afterwards

[00:06:15] create monkeys on NFTs, and before of that cloud computing and whatever.

[00:06:22] But this time, this is something different.

[00:06:25] This is like a true revolution in the way it changed the way we

[00:06:31] interact with machines, with technology.

[00:06:35] It even bring into the table some philosophical questions about who we

[00:06:41] are as human being.

[00:06:44] I'm not going to dive into singularity and you know, this kind of

[00:06:49] areas, but it's really fascinating.

[00:06:52] But you know, I have a perspective, we are talking about AI for decades.

[00:06:58] AI is not something new.

[00:07:00] It started in the 50s, you know?

[00:07:03] But it was like a secret that is known only for a very, very

[00:07:10] limited amount of experts, you know, data scientists and people that

[00:07:16] created, you know, programs around NLP and natural language programming

[00:07:23] and such.

[00:07:24] But what happened two years ago, I would say even less than that is

[00:07:29] that we moved from an area that is mainly run analytics or analysis

[00:07:36] into a creation.

[00:07:38] You don't have to know code in order to generate the output.

[00:07:43] So in that sense, OpenAI and I feel very comfortable to name their

[00:07:49] name because they open up the market.

[00:07:51] Broad GenAI to the masses, to everybody.

[00:07:54] If my 74-year-old father talked with me about ChetGPT, and he does

[00:08:00] by the way all the time, it says something.

[00:08:04] It says we lowered the bar and allow more people and more

[00:08:07] businesses to benefit from this technology.

[00:08:11] And currently we have more than 10,000 GenAI tools, which is crazy

[00:08:18] when you think about that.

[00:08:20] And what I expect that will happen in 2024, we will see this

[00:08:24] kind of consolidation in the market because this is anomaly.

[00:08:29] Nobody can learn, control and use thousands of tools.

[00:08:34] So currently we are very close to a tipping point when

[00:08:39] the market, this kind of hype or bubble even, you would like to call it,

[00:08:43] around GenAI will become more mature and people will ask now the right

[00:08:49] questions about the value, the real value they can generate from Generative AI.

[00:08:55] It's such an exciting space at the moment.

[00:08:57] And one of the reasons I was excited to get you on here today is

[00:09:00] every day I try and take an area that is not just a small area

[00:09:04] but I'm excited to get you on here today is every day I try and take an area

[00:09:09] of technology or a buzzword that people hear about, try and demystify it

[00:09:12] and talk about it and explain it and the kind of value that it offers

[00:09:16] to everyone. And the reason I invited you here was to discuss

[00:09:18] the concept of digital agents.

[00:09:21] So can you just explain that concept and how at DEID you position

[00:09:25] yourself as the first natural user interface company?

[00:09:29] Again, incredibly cool.

[00:09:30] But for anyone who's hearing about it for the first time,

[00:09:32] can you just offer a bit of an explanation behind that concept?

[00:09:36] Sure. You know, when you're looking back into the history,

[00:09:40] the short history of technology and you look on the way people

[00:09:45] interact with software or applications, you always find yourself

[00:09:53] under some constraints in terms of the user interface because

[00:09:58] you are almost like obligated to navigate on the app or the software

[00:10:06] based on the programmed application.

[00:10:09] You have some conventions, you have to click here or click there

[00:10:13] in order to get some value.

[00:10:16] It's not natural for us.

[00:10:18] You know, we have to use keyboard and mouse.

[00:10:21] We didn't borrow a mouse on our hand, right?

[00:10:25] We learned to do that.

[00:10:26] We adapted ourselves into the constraints of technology.

[00:10:29] But it's not natural for us.

[00:10:31] And because it's not natural for us, and it's quite complicated

[00:10:36] because you have a very complicated UI now,

[00:10:39] people cannot benefit 100% of the value of the software.

[00:10:46] And it's very frustrating from the supplier point of view,

[00:10:51] the vendor, but also from the user point of view.

[00:10:54] What we come up with the natural user interface or NUI,

[00:10:58] it's like the next step in the evolution of the user interface.

[00:11:02] Back then in the late 70s and 80s in the 20th century,

[00:11:07] we use TUI, textual user interface.

[00:11:10] We use black screens and green fonts and type codes and commands.

[00:11:19] Then we move to a graphical user interface, the GUI.

[00:11:22] This is what happened now still.

[00:11:25] But now the technology has reached to the point that it can bring

[00:11:32] another way to interact with the software.

[00:11:36] You see, for instance, like Vision Pro of Apple.

[00:11:38] It's another way to interact.

[00:11:40] You saw that years ago with Siri and Cortona.

[00:11:45] And what we brought now into the table

[00:11:48] is real-time interaction with software

[00:11:52] through digital people or avatars.

[00:11:56] So what is more natural for us to converse with technology?

[00:12:03] I don't want to use a mouse.

[00:12:05] I don't want to follow some very restricted commands.

[00:12:10] I would like to create a dialogue with the software

[00:12:14] in a natural language and explain the software what they need.

[00:12:18] So DAD was founded in 2017, a few years ago,

[00:12:25] as a cybersecurity company by the way.

[00:12:27] We did a pivot in 2020 into the GNI market, Generative I.

[00:12:31] Before anybody knows what is Generative I,

[00:12:35] there were other names around that synthetic media and such.

[00:12:40] And we started our journey by creating avatars.

[00:12:45] We can take a still photo and convert it into a talking head

[00:12:51] or avatar, a talking person.

[00:12:54] That was the origin of DID.

[00:12:55] And currently in the world there are more than 150 millions

[00:12:59] of digital people that were created based on DID technology,

[00:13:03] which is fantastic.

[00:13:05] Every three seconds we have a new sign up to the platform.

[00:13:08] It's amazing.

[00:13:09] So we bring a lot of value in terms of creating content,

[00:13:12] video-based content using digital people.

[00:13:14] Think about product marketing videos and learning

[00:13:19] and teaching and such.

[00:13:21] That was the story till the end of 2023,

[00:13:27] the beginning of 2024.

[00:13:29] We found out, we read very interesting researches,

[00:13:33] that people interact with avatars,

[00:13:37] though digital people in the same way they interact

[00:13:40] with real people.

[00:13:42] The same area in our brain are being activated,

[00:13:48] although we know it's a synthetic figure.

[00:13:53] So it's a matter of something that is related to evolution,

[00:13:56] I would say.

[00:13:57] We as human beings prefer to interact with human being.

[00:14:01] But human being is a luxury.

[00:14:04] You cannot have human being everywhere.

[00:14:07] If you had this kind of experience

[00:14:08] calling to customer support and waited on the line

[00:14:11] for long, long, long time, really frustrating,

[00:14:14] or you're getting fault answers or whatever,

[00:14:17] you can bring up to the table a lot of scenarios.

[00:14:20] People are expensive and people are limited.

[00:14:24] So we took the avatar that we created in the past,

[00:14:29] like two years ago.

[00:14:31] And now we brought them a brain and a voice and emotion.

[00:14:38] And now the avatar are conversational avatar.

[00:14:42] And we call them DID agents.

[00:14:44] So you can take the avatar, you can train it

[00:14:47] on a specific data set, a knowledge base.

[00:14:51] And you can embed the agent on your website

[00:14:55] or you can share the agent.

[00:14:57] And you can invite your users, customers, prospects,

[00:15:02] fans, followers, listeners to interact with you in real time.

[00:15:07] So think about your podcast.

[00:15:09] You now create an avatar of Neil.

[00:15:12] You train Neil the avatar on Neil's biography

[00:15:17] or knowledge base, whatever.

[00:15:18] And you place Neil the avatar on your podcast,

[00:15:22] on your website.

[00:15:24] And people can interact with you in multiple language.

[00:15:29] In real time, think about the experience

[00:15:32] that now we are bringing to the world.

[00:15:35] And it's super, super exciting.

[00:15:37] Wow, you've just blown my mind.

[00:15:39] That is incredibly cool.

[00:15:40] And just to go back in time, just for a moment,

[00:15:42] we didn't mention during your origin story

[00:15:44] that you've got vast experience at companies

[00:15:46] from Amazon, Microsoft, to IBM.

[00:15:49] And if you look at where we are now

[00:15:51] and the work that you're doing,

[00:15:52] how do you see January to May I transforming marketing

[00:15:55] strategies across different industries,

[00:15:57] especially using those digital, those DIDs

[00:16:00] that we were just talking about there?

[00:16:02] It's really, you know, we are now into,

[00:16:08] you know, inside this kind of revolution.

[00:16:10] So we don't have enough perspective

[00:16:13] just to look back and say,

[00:16:15] hey, this is the year of the revolution.

[00:16:17] We are into that now.

[00:16:19] But what can I see since the last year

[00:16:22] is that it's really transforming the way we do marketing

[00:16:25] and we can do marketing.

[00:16:28] My approach is, I call it like Gen I first marketing.

[00:16:31] So anything we can do using Gen I tools,

[00:16:34] I prefer to do with Gen I tools

[00:16:36] and not with traditional tools.

[00:16:37] And this is my, I'm preaching for that.

[00:16:40] And I'm investing budget to my team

[00:16:42] to purchase a relevant Gen I tools for them

[00:16:46] for the day to day use.

[00:16:48] So think about that currently,

[00:16:53] this is like the latest research I read

[00:16:56] that around 60% of the organization

[00:16:59] have already started to adapt AI in the marketing.

[00:17:04] The highest adoption of AI is in marketing

[00:17:07] and within marketing,

[00:17:12] around 90% of the usage is related to content creation.

[00:17:16] Think about blog post and product reviews

[00:17:21] and obviously videos and images, right?

[00:17:24] So you have a lot of tools, great tools like

[00:17:27] GPD and Gemini and Mid Journey and such

[00:17:29] that can help you to speed up the content creation process

[00:17:35] to shorten your time to market

[00:17:37] which can be translated into a competitive advantage,

[00:17:41] lower your cost and increase your scale.

[00:17:44] So this is like a dream for a marketer.

[00:17:47] You can create more content,

[00:17:49] you can reach out to more prospect,

[00:17:51] you can increase your market coverage.

[00:17:54] Now, this is not the end of the story,

[00:17:58] it's only the beginning

[00:17:59] because if you are looking on solution like agents,

[00:18:04] you can ask yourself,

[00:18:05] why should I leave my marketing department

[00:18:08] only to human beings?

[00:18:10] Why can't I augment my team members

[00:18:14] with virtual team members, with agents?

[00:18:18] Think about the hard work we are investing in

[00:18:23] capturing leads on our website or during campaigns, right?

[00:18:27] You have this kind of lead form,

[00:18:28] you ask people to leave their details,

[00:18:31] people really don't love it.

[00:18:33] But what about if we can create this kind of agent

[00:18:38] that is integrated into your line of business,

[00:18:40] into your CRM or marketing automation and such

[00:18:43] and can be hyper-personalized

[00:18:46] and can make a dialogue with you in real time

[00:18:50] and qualify your needs and understand your intent

[00:18:54] and even understand your emotions?

[00:18:57] How cool is it?

[00:18:58] It's not only cool,

[00:19:00] it can increase and improve your conversion rate

[00:19:03] and boost your business.

[00:19:05] So I'm seeing like few months from now,

[00:19:08] it's not the far future.

[00:19:10] Few months from now, a year or two,

[00:19:13] that the marketing department will be a hybrid marketing department.

[00:19:17] Human beings and agents will work together

[00:19:21] and people will orchestrate teammates that are virtual.

[00:19:27] Now I'm saying that because few years ago,

[00:19:30] I was a CMO of a really cool company named Cryon

[00:19:33] in the RPA domain.

[00:19:35] RPA is 10 for Robotic Processing Automation.

[00:19:39] We have started the AI journey

[00:19:42] using AI or machine learning to identify some

[00:19:46] if inefficiencies processes in the organization

[00:19:49] and deploy bots in order to automate

[00:19:53] and improve inefficiencies.

[00:19:56] Now with LLM, Large Learning Models

[00:20:00] and Advancement in 2024,

[00:20:02] you can take this concept, edit

[00:20:06] and edit to product like agents,

[00:20:09] add automation, add orchestration

[00:20:13] and add a framework that will allow you

[00:20:15] to operate a wider marketing organization in a lower cost.

[00:20:20] And for me, this is the direction

[00:20:23] and I'm going to adopt this what I'm pitching now

[00:20:27] in 2024 to my team.

[00:20:29] And just to further bring to life

[00:20:31] everything you were just talking about there,

[00:20:33] especially in terms of DID's portfolio,

[00:20:36] is there anything you can share around the key categories

[00:20:39] and products that may be almost excited about yourself?

[00:20:42] Yeah, just to simplify the things,

[00:20:44] first of all, DID is a platform company

[00:20:46] which means that we have API,

[00:20:48] application protocol interface

[00:20:51] that we allow programmers and developers

[00:20:54] to use our code in order to create solutions.

[00:20:56] So we have currently more than 250,000 of developers

[00:21:01] across the globe that have access to our API

[00:21:04] and creating their own solutions, which is amazing.

[00:21:08] You can embed or create avatars

[00:21:12] and embed them into your solutions

[00:21:14] and help your user, your customers

[00:21:17] to benefit with this kind of interaction.

[00:21:20] So in terms of the portfolio,

[00:21:22] we have the API, we're working very closely

[00:21:24] with the global developer community

[00:21:27] and also with the development power houses.

[00:21:29] In addition to that, we have the DID Creative Reality Studio

[00:21:34] which is the place that people can create avatars.

[00:21:38] This is like the avatars factory.

[00:21:40] You can upload your own photo,

[00:21:42] a photo realistic image or fictional image.

[00:21:45] You can generate an image within our studio.

[00:21:49] You can add the voice, you can record your voice,

[00:21:52] you can generate synthetic voice,

[00:21:55] you can clone your voice

[00:21:58] and you can add a script, a text.

[00:22:00] You can generate the script, you can whatever.

[00:22:02] So you have the full package

[00:22:04] and then you can generate the video.

[00:22:07] We offer a few type of avatars

[00:22:11] in terms of the quality,

[00:22:13] housebody, headshot and such

[00:22:15] and the output is a video

[00:22:18] that you can use in different ways.

[00:22:20] In addition to that, we also provide plugins, add-ons.

[00:22:24] For instance, we have a plugin for Microsoft PowerPoint.

[00:22:27] So think about you have a deck already created a deck

[00:22:30] but now we can add a layer with a token avatar

[00:22:33] in 120 languages that can explain the content.

[00:22:38] It's a different way to learn and teach.

[00:22:41] So we use that mainly with learning

[00:22:43] and training division in the organization.

[00:22:47] In addition to that, we just launched the agent

[00:22:49] which I mentioned that help you

[00:22:52] to make a real-time interaction using live streaming.

[00:22:55] It's really unique and this is the place

[00:22:59] that we are now focusing our development efforts

[00:23:02] in order to bring another

[00:23:04] or different experience to our user.

[00:23:07] I mentioned emotions during this talk

[00:23:10] but think about that the next gen of agents

[00:23:14] will understand people's emotions

[00:23:17] using emotional or sentiment analysis.

[00:23:21] Think about an agent that understand

[00:23:23] that now you are in a hurry, for instance.

[00:23:26] So we can speed up the talk

[00:23:29] or if you understand during the dialogue

[00:23:32] that you are angry, for instance,

[00:23:34] it can be more empathic.

[00:23:36] So think about the interaction

[00:23:38] and this is like the concept of natural user interface

[00:23:41] because it's the closest experience

[00:23:46] like you are talking with a real person.

[00:23:49] It's incredibly cool and I think it's very easy

[00:23:51] for people such as you and I

[00:23:53] who are right in the heart of this space

[00:23:55] find it incredibly exciting

[00:23:56] but there will be business leaders listening

[00:23:58] all around the world

[00:23:59] that we're blowing their mind right now

[00:24:01] also maybe feels a little bit daunting,

[00:24:04] overwhelming, the pace of the technology, et cetera.

[00:24:07] So from your perspective,

[00:24:09] from all those customers that you're talking to

[00:24:11] what are the main hurdles companies are facing

[00:24:14] when trying to integrate these technologies?

[00:24:16] And any advice on how they can overcome

[00:24:18] those initial fears?

[00:24:20] Yeah, it's a great question

[00:24:21] because for the last year or so,

[00:24:24] I'm feeling that there is a huge FOMO in the market

[00:24:27] fear of missing out

[00:24:28] because everybody talks about AI, AI here and either

[00:24:32] but it's really confusing

[00:24:34] because you have so many tools,

[00:24:36] you have so many vendors.

[00:24:38] It's super competitive landscape.

[00:24:41] So how should you start?

[00:24:43] So I would say that from an organization point of view,

[00:24:46] first of all, try to map all the places

[00:24:50] where you believe you can do more with AI.

[00:24:54] Places you can reduce your cost

[00:24:57] or improve your efficiency

[00:24:59] or increase the scale.

[00:25:02] Okay, so first of all,

[00:25:03] understand what are your real pain points?

[00:25:06] Once you understand what your real business pain points,

[00:25:11] you can explore the relevant tools

[00:25:14] that can help you to close the gap.

[00:25:16] This is one thing.

[00:25:17] The other thing is that currently

[00:25:19] the majority of AI tools

[00:25:21] are great for personal productivity

[00:25:23] for the sole designer,

[00:25:26] for the sole content writer,

[00:25:28] but you need to scale up from your point of view

[00:25:32] and think about how can I make my organization

[00:25:35] an AI first-hand organization?

[00:25:37] It's not only in a specific department.

[00:25:39] How can I use AI to improve the iron law,

[00:25:42] like procurement for instance,

[00:25:46] or to better understand

[00:25:48] or better to design better products?

[00:25:52] So you need to take it from the personal level

[00:25:55] into the department level,

[00:25:57] into the organization level.

[00:25:59] And the third things I would recommend for executives

[00:26:04] is think about the adoption

[00:26:07] and the deployment and the enablement

[00:26:10] of AI in their organization

[00:26:12] because there are some concerns

[00:26:14] and we have to be honest around that.

[00:26:16] The consent can be related to job security,

[00:26:19] they can relate it to privacy and such.

[00:26:22] So you need to mitigate that.

[00:26:24] You need to deal with that.

[00:26:27] It's really a revolution

[00:26:29] and because this is such an extremist technology

[00:26:35] you need to have the buy-in from the organization.

[00:26:37] You need to explain people

[00:26:40] how they can do their job better using AI.

[00:26:44] How can they be more productive, more efficient

[00:26:47] and maybe to benefit the human advantage

[00:26:51] for instance, imagination or collaboration

[00:26:55] and such versus doing repetitive work

[00:26:59] that we actually don't have any kind of advantage.

[00:27:02] The machine can do that better than us.

[00:27:05] So it's like change the balance

[00:27:08] and even the positioning of human beings

[00:27:11] within the organization.

[00:27:14] And as you said there, there's a lot of FOMO around AI

[00:27:16] and a lot of people just get distracted

[00:27:18] by the technology itself.

[00:27:20] And I know another topic very close to your heart

[00:27:23] is that you don't have to do all this stuff on your own

[00:27:25] and you've got a huge passionate community

[00:27:27] out there as well, haven't you?

[00:27:29] So could you tell me a bit more about the human element

[00:27:31] and that's passionate community that you've got?

[00:27:33] Yeah, so to be honest

[00:27:35] there is not real substitute to human connection.

[00:27:38] I see that because as I mentioned in the beginning

[00:27:42] I'm managing with colleagues and partners, huge community.

[00:27:47] We're doing a lot of virtual activation activities

[00:27:50] and webinars and a lot of writing and such

[00:27:53] but the real magic happens in the face-to-face interaction.

[00:27:59] So people are looking and starving for human touch.

[00:28:08] So in that sense I would say that there is like a different

[00:28:14] user journey or customer journey

[00:28:18] that can balance between the synthetic atmosphere

[00:28:24] and using AI tools for instance for creating content,

[00:28:28] interact with people and those precious time

[00:28:31] that you actually meet people.

[00:28:34] It looks like the advancement of technology

[00:28:38] is much, much faster than our biology

[00:28:42] and people are trying to adapt themselves

[00:28:45] into this evolving environment

[00:28:48] and we have to adapt ourselves.

[00:28:51] You don't want to stay behind the curve

[00:28:55] but in the same time you don't want to lose your humanity.

[00:28:59] And I think this will be like the game in the upcoming years.

[00:29:05] How can we use technology in the best manner

[00:29:09] that will not damage our place as human beings?

[00:29:13] And this is like a very, really heavy question to ask.

[00:29:18] 100% with you on that.

[00:29:20] And there's the pace of technological change

[00:29:22] continues to race ahead at breakneck speed.

[00:29:24] It gets increasingly difficult to predict the future.

[00:29:27] So looking ahead though,

[00:29:29] if you look into my virtual crystal ball,

[00:29:31] are there any innovations in generative AI

[00:29:33] that you're most looking forward to

[00:29:35] or any ways that you see

[00:29:37] that this will change the marketing landscape forever?

[00:29:40] What you see here?

[00:29:42] Yeah, I think we'll see

[00:29:46] to direction.

[00:29:49] First of all, it's going to be very immersive.

[00:29:52] It's going to be native.

[00:29:54] AI will be everywhere.

[00:29:56] It's almost like if you're looking like 20 years ago,

[00:29:59] 15 years ago when we talked about digital marketing,

[00:30:02] it was like the new thing.

[00:30:05] There is no other marketing,

[00:30:07] almost no marketing right now

[00:30:10] except digital marketing.

[00:30:12] So it will be the same with AI.

[00:30:14] It will be everywhere.

[00:30:16] It will be transparent to us.

[00:30:18] It will be hard for us to imagine

[00:30:20] a world without the consultation with AI.

[00:30:26] So AI will be everywhere

[00:30:28] in our day-to-day life

[00:30:30] in the job environment and such.

[00:30:33] This is one thing.

[00:30:35] The other thing is

[00:30:37] the convergence between

[00:30:39] the AI software

[00:30:42] and robotics.

[00:30:44] We saw that this week

[00:30:46] with the announcement of OpenAI

[00:30:48] of using ChagPPT within a robot,

[00:30:51] I believe it will be the next step

[00:30:54] because you have the brain of LLM

[00:30:57] and you have the body

[00:31:00] from a very sophisticated manufacturer of robotics

[00:31:04] and you have the needs.

[00:31:06] So even today,

[00:31:09] a lot of medical robots doing surgeries

[00:31:12] that are much better than human beings.

[00:31:15] So I think this will be the next big thing.

[00:31:18] This kind of convergence between the mind

[00:31:21] and the body.

[00:31:23] Incredibly exciting.

[00:31:25] Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:27] Well, I always say at the end of every episode,

[00:31:29] technology works best when it brings people together

[00:31:32] and I know that you're someone

[00:31:34] who's in community building and thought leadership

[00:31:36] as well as the tech stuff.

[00:31:38] So how do you believe that marketing community

[00:31:40] can maybe better prepare for some of these advancements

[00:31:43] in AI technologies that we're talking about today,

[00:31:45] especially around understanding

[00:31:47] and leveraging AI and marketing?

[00:31:49] Anything you could share around them?

[00:31:51] Yeah, I would recommend every market year

[00:31:54] to invest at least 10 to 15 minutes

[00:31:57] in a day just for AI practice.

[00:32:00] Learn a new tool.

[00:32:02] Try it. Experiment it.

[00:32:04] Pick a specific workflow.

[00:32:07] Workflow you have today in your day-to-day job

[00:32:10] and try to use AI for that.

[00:32:13] I really believe in, you know, on the job training.

[00:32:18] This is the best way to run

[00:32:20] and to be honest, most of the tools

[00:32:22] are really, really easy to use.

[00:32:24] So challenge yourself and dive into the water

[00:32:27] and do a lot of experiments.

[00:32:29] This is my, I think, the first and most important

[00:32:33] recommendation.

[00:32:35] Then I would also recommend to join some communities

[00:32:40] and professionals, you know, forums and such

[00:32:43] to learn from other professionals

[00:32:45] about their own best practices, how they can use AI.

[00:32:48] For instance, I'm doing a lot of research

[00:32:50] and exploration about companies and brands

[00:32:52] that use AI for their own campaigns.

[00:32:55] Try to open my mind in the way people use AI

[00:32:59] to improve their day-to-day work.

[00:33:01] So those are the things I would like to recommend

[00:33:05] and in order to avoid a lot of confusion

[00:33:08] because you have so many tools,

[00:33:10] try to pick the most relevant tools for you.

[00:33:15] For instance, I'm not in the sound industry.

[00:33:18] I'm not creating sounds and music.

[00:33:21] So I will spare less time in tools that generate music,

[00:33:25] maybe just my own curiosity.

[00:33:28] But in today-to-day work, I will invest more time

[00:33:31] in tools like Gemini and, you know,

[00:33:34] Claude and such because they're bringing a real value

[00:33:37] to my day-to-day work in terms of market research

[00:33:40] and value proposition and such.

[00:33:42] So try to be very picky with your time.

[00:33:45] Otherwise, you're going to chase your tail every day.

[00:33:50] Fantastic advice.

[00:33:51] So we started the podcast talking about your origin story

[00:33:54] and I will put you on this path.

[00:33:56] But as we come full circle,

[00:33:57] I'm going to ask you to look back one more time

[00:33:59] because none of us are able to achieve any degree of success

[00:34:02] without a little help along the way.

[00:34:04] So is that a particular person

[00:34:05] that you might be grateful towards?

[00:34:07] Maybe they saw something in you,

[00:34:08] invested a little time in you

[00:34:09] or just played a small part

[00:34:11] in helping you get you where you are today.

[00:34:13] Who would that person be and why?

[00:34:14] And we'll give them a bit of a shout-out to them.

[00:34:16] Yeah, definitely.

[00:34:17] So as I mentioned,

[00:34:18] I started my journey in the tech industry

[00:34:20] in the techie role but then moved to sales.

[00:34:23] I spent around four or five years in enterprise B2B sales,

[00:34:27] really like the heavy stuff.

[00:34:29] But my passion was in marketing.

[00:34:32] And to be honest, in big organization,

[00:34:36] it's really hard to cross the lines

[00:34:38] and switch from sales to marketing.

[00:34:40] So I looked for an opportunity

[00:34:43] to do this kind of cross and change in my career.

[00:34:47] And I had this manager in the organization

[00:34:50] I work with, he was a salesman,

[00:34:52] he was a marketing manager, a team leader

[00:34:55] that saw something in me.

[00:34:57] So we started to play ping pong, I would say,

[00:35:00] for a few months.

[00:35:01] He challenged me doing some marketing stuff

[00:35:04] for his own team in parallel to my work

[00:35:07] as a salesperson.

[00:35:10] And during those times,

[00:35:12] I succeeded to convince him

[00:35:15] that if he's not going to hire me,

[00:35:17] he's going to lose.

[00:35:18] And that was happened.

[00:35:20] It was quite a challenging switch

[00:35:23] but I just jumped into that very aggressively.

[00:35:29] Took into advantage this opportunity

[00:35:32] and I always thankful for him.

[00:35:34] We are still in touch.

[00:35:36] He's a fantastic person.

[00:35:39] Fantastic.

[00:35:40] Well, give him a huge shout out there.

[00:35:42] I hope he gets to listen to this

[00:35:44] because it's so important.

[00:35:45] We all impact people around us

[00:35:47] without even realizing it

[00:35:48] just by investing a little time.

[00:35:50] So a big thank you there.

[00:35:52] Before I let you go,

[00:35:54] you mentioned you've got a podcast

[00:35:56] and we've talked a lot about DID.

[00:35:58] But anybody listening wanting to find out

[00:36:00] more information about you,

[00:36:02] about DID, about your podcast,

[00:36:04] where would you like to point everyone listening?

[00:36:06] Yeah, I think first of all

[00:36:08] if people would like to follow me

[00:36:10] and consume my content,

[00:36:11] I'm very active on LinkedIn.

[00:36:13] I have a few tens of thousands

[00:36:15] of people that connected to me.

[00:36:17] I'm writing a lot,

[00:36:18] a few hundreds of posts in a year.

[00:36:20] So I invite people to follow me

[00:36:24] and contact me.

[00:36:25] In terms of the podcast,

[00:36:27] Market Trip is a podcast

[00:36:29] that I'm doing that with a colleague.

[00:36:32] We are trying to create this kind of season

[00:36:35] that focus on specific domain

[00:36:37] and trying to create

[00:36:41] a 360 degree perspective on this domain.

[00:36:45] For instance, about employment branding

[00:36:47] and about generative AI

[00:36:49] and about the relationship between CMO,

[00:36:51] VP Marketing and CEO and founders

[00:36:53] in tech companies.

[00:36:55] There's a lot of stories over there.

[00:36:57] So in those seasons

[00:37:00] we are bringing into the table professionals

[00:37:02] and trying to look on this specific domain

[00:37:04] from various perspectives.

[00:37:06] So I'm in Spotify and Apple Podcasts

[00:37:09] and Google Podcasts.

[00:37:10] So people are most invited

[00:37:12] to listen to the podcast.

[00:37:14] Well, it's been a huge honor chatting with you today.

[00:37:17] I'll add all those links to the show notes.

[00:37:19] We covered so much there

[00:37:20] from the concept of digital agents

[00:37:23] and how DID has positioned itself

[00:37:25] as its first natural user interface company.

[00:37:28] Talking about generative AI,

[00:37:29] portfolios that excite you

[00:37:31] especially in marketing, use cases

[00:37:33] and transformation efforts, etc.

[00:37:35] But for me, it was all wrapped up

[00:37:37] in the human element, the power of community,

[00:37:39] your powerful origin story

[00:37:42] and how great for you all to that person

[00:37:44] that invested a bit of time in you.

[00:37:46] It had it all for me,

[00:37:47] but just a big thank you

[00:37:48] for sharing your story with me.

[00:37:50] Thank you so much for inviting me.

[00:37:51] It was fun for me, interesting.

[00:37:53] I'm talking about that.

[00:37:54] I'm really passionate about that.

[00:37:55] You cannot, you know,

[00:37:57] I cannot express

[00:37:59] how I'm really excited about this change

[00:38:01] and I think it's a privilege

[00:38:03] to be in the front line of the AI industry

[00:38:07] with DID

[00:38:08] and interact with professionals like you

[00:38:10] and talk about this.

[00:38:11] This is oppression,

[00:38:12] like marketing and technology

[00:38:14] converge together.

[00:38:15] I'm happy with that.

[00:38:16] After our conversation now,

[00:38:17] I'm left with this profound appreciation

[00:38:19] for the leaps generative AI

[00:38:21] is making in our lives and businesses

[00:38:23] and DID's groundbreaking work

[00:38:25] is not just about enhancing digital communication.

[00:38:28] I think it's also about creating

[00:38:30] a seamless interactive experience

[00:38:33] that can bridge the gap

[00:38:34] between technology and humans.

[00:38:37] So from revolutionizing customer experiences

[00:38:40] to redefining marketing strategies,

[00:38:42] I think the real potential of digital agents

[00:38:45] and natural user interfaces is boundless.

[00:38:49] But as we do begin to look to a future

[00:38:52] where AI becomes ubiquitous,

[00:38:54] it reminds us that the importance

[00:38:56] of staying informed, adaptable

[00:38:58] and proactive in understanding

[00:39:00] and integrated these innovations

[00:39:02] responsibly and ethically

[00:39:04] are so important.

[00:39:06] But this is a huge, huge topic.

[00:39:09] We couldn't cover everything

[00:39:10] in the 30 minute podcast.

[00:39:11] So please your thoughts on the future of AI

[00:39:14] in our personal and professional lives.

[00:39:16] How do you see these technologies

[00:39:18] transforming your industry

[00:39:19] or even your daily experience?

[00:39:21] Share with me now by emailing me

[00:39:23] techblogriteroutlook.com

[00:39:25] Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram

[00:39:27] just at neil chews.

[00:39:29] Let's join the conversation on

[00:39:31] how we can navigate.

[00:39:32] I want you to join the conversation

[00:39:34] on how we can collectively navigate

[00:39:36] this exciting digital frontier together.

[00:39:39] So keep your messages coming in.

[00:39:41] I'll be back again tomorrow.

[00:39:43] We'll explore a completely different topic.

[00:39:46] But as always, thank you for listening

[00:39:48] and until next time.

[00:39:51] Don't be a stranger.

[00:39:57] Thank you.