3004: The Intersection of AI, Analytics, and Content at WordPress VIP

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_01]: How is AI transforming the content that we consume every single day on the web?

[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And what role does human creativity still play in this evolving landscape?

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Well today I'm joined by Nick Gernert, CEO of WordPress VIP, which is a platform that

[00:00:24] [SPEAKER_01]: powers some of the world's top digital experiences.

[00:00:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So today we're going to explore how AI is reshaping content creation, the balance between

[00:00:34] [SPEAKER_01]: automation and human editorial judgement, and how data-driven insights are guiding the

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_01]: future of web content.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_01]: But what does this mean for businesses and content creators striving to stay ahead in

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_01]: this rapidly changing digital environment?

[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: These are just a few of the things that me and Nick are going to tackle today.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Before we welcome our guest onto the podcast today though, delivering daily content to 140,000

[00:01:02] [SPEAKER_01]: of you wonderful monthly listeners across the globe is no small feat.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to take all the credit here because it wouldn't be possible without

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_01]: the backing of our dedicated sponsors and partners.

[00:01:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I also want to shine a light on the fact that legacy managed file transfer tools

[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: are dated, unlike the security that today's remote workforce often demands.

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And companies that continue relying on that outdated technology often are in danger of

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_01]: putting their sensitive data at risk.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So in the world of secure file transfers, Kiteworks stands alone with their FedRAMP

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: moderate authorised since 2017.

[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_01]: It is now known as the gold standard in MFT security, and with yearly audits and

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: continuous monitoring, Kiteworks doesn't just meet standards, it sets them.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: For example, if you need CMMC compliance, Kiteworks fast tracks your authorisation,

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_01]: saving you both time and money.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: You can step into the future of secure managed file transfer with Kiteworks today

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_01]: by visiting Kiteworks.com to get started.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: That's Kiteworks.com to get started today.

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: But now it's time to dive into today's fascinating conversation with my guest.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_01]: So buckle up and hold on tight as I beam your ears all the way to Florida,

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_01]: where Nick's waiting to join us.

[00:02:16] [SPEAKER_01]: So a massive warm welcome to the show, Nick.

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Can you dive on listening a little bit, who you are and what you do?

[00:02:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me, Neil.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_00]: It's great to be here.

[00:02:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm Nick Gernert.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I am the CEO of a company called WordPress VIP.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_00]: The easiest way to really explain what it is that we do here at WordPress VIP

[00:02:35] [SPEAKER_00]: is we take something that I think is widely known as something on the web,

[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_00]: WordPress, and we are taking a lot of the ease of use and a lot of the

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: sites on the web today, but taking that and making that something that is

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: purpose-built and intentional for large enterprises and really doing that at scale.

[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So we spend a lot of time thinking about things around security, compliance,

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_00]: performance, and really the demands of sort of the enterprise,

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_00]: but really trying to give them better software than you're typically used to

[00:03:14] [SPEAKER_00]: getting in the enterprise side of things.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's me, and that's a bit about what I get to do all day.

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Although there's a lot of nuance and detail behind that that we could dig into.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm curious, what's your origin story?

[00:03:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone has their origin story.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_01]: So what was the journey and vision behind WordPress VIP,

[00:03:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and what is it that sets it apart in this incredibly crowded content

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_01]: management area because you type in something like WordPress in the Google

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_01]: you're going to get a lot of results, right?

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_01]: So tell me a bit more about that story.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, we can get into it.

[00:03:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It depends on how far you want to go back and how much time we've got, Neil.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: You'll learn quickly.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_00]: I can go off on some tangents.

[00:03:53] [SPEAKER_00]: So the VIP thing, it goes back quite a bit.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're part of a broader organization called Automattic.

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're really a subsidiary of a company called Automattic,

[00:04:02] [SPEAKER_00]: which was started in 2005 by the creator of WordPress,

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: one of the co-creators of WordPress, Matt Mullenweg.

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you've got an open source project in WordPress started in 2003.

[00:04:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got Automattic that was started in 2005 as a for-profit business

[00:04:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that was really the hope was that it would fund the open source project

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and be something that could really create a thriving ecosystem around

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_00]: WordPress, but that took capital to really ensure that.

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So Automattic started then.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it in the early days of Automattic

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: was focused around how do you make it easier to just spin up WordPress websites

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and do that.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a SaaS model in 2005.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's one of those things where be careful what you name things,

[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_00]: because you can imagine there was a plan page where it was like free

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: might have been on one side and then VIP was on the other side

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_00]: of that plans continuum.

[00:04:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And on that side, it just said, call us.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And the intent was really like, hey, there's probably some larger brands

[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_00]: or bigger.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: You might have been a big blogger in those days

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and you might have wanted some extra help with WordPress.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, hey, we've got this thing called VIP.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll try to take care of you.

[00:05:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was 2000 probably six or seven at that point.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I joined up with Automattic in 2013 now.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's about 11 years ago.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And when I joined my background, my personal origin story

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: is all on the agency side of things.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I was a developer, a freelancer.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Went through college freelancing websites for folks, all that,

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: into big large agencies.

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So prior to joining Automattic, I was at part of a brand

[00:05:40] [SPEAKER_00]: that was under the Omnicom group umbrella,

[00:05:43] [SPEAKER_00]: so the major multi-billion dollar marketing organization.

[00:05:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And part of what my mandate was to help standardize

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_00]: platforms across Omnicoms, different businesses

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and how they worked with customers, as you can imagine,

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: you might have 15 different ways to do a website

[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_00]: or 50 different ways.

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But one of the standard things we were seeing then

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_00]: was WordPress was being adopted.

[00:06:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And it was being adopted by very large companies,

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_00]: very large organizations, but they had no relationship

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_00]: with Automattic.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And at the time really, there wasn't anything

[00:06:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in the WordPress ecosystem that was really tailoring

[00:06:21] [SPEAKER_00]: anything towards Fortune 500, Global 2000,

[00:06:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and large demanding enterprises.

[00:06:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So when I came into Automattic, it was how can we take

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_00]: this thing VIP, which had grown organically

[00:06:33] [SPEAKER_00]: as something that would help large users

[00:06:35] [SPEAKER_00]: as they would need it, but more people coming to Automattic

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: than Automattic going out to the world

[00:06:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and saying, here, we've got this thing.

[00:06:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And how could we take that and be much more intentional

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: about building a business around this?

[00:06:48] [SPEAKER_00]: What would it take for us to really go after

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_00]: some of the biggest companies in the world,

[00:06:53] [SPEAKER_00]: which again, we can get into a lot of this,

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00]: but it becomes a focus on what do you have to do

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: at a platform level to really stand up to the demands

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_00]: of those organizations that can be big targets

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_00]: or have a lot of concerns around security,

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: data privacy, data residency, et cetera.

[00:07:10] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you have sales and marketing teams

[00:07:12] [SPEAKER_00]: that are used to more of an enterprise go

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: to market motion?

[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you have customer success and support teams

[00:07:17] [SPEAKER_00]: that can really dig in and support

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and meet the demands of large organizations?

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So that was a lot of what we ended up taking

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and building the VIP business around was,

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: WordPress, this thing that came up

[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and through more of an individual to SMB adoption,

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: very successful there.

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_00]: We'd have to think about it fundamentally differently

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: if we wanted to make it successful

[00:07:39] [SPEAKER_00]: with these large organizations that we all know and love.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And personally, I just have a certain amount

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_00]: of vanity around, I like to work with names

[00:07:46] [SPEAKER_00]: that folks recognize.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So when you can say something to your neighbor

[00:07:50] [SPEAKER_00]: around when they're asking, what is it you do?

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, well, have you ever been

[00:07:54] [SPEAKER_00]: to the White House's website or something?

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: You can say, that's us sort of thing.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So we like to try to take those things in.

[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, that's just my personal vanity there in that.

[00:08:04] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know, that's a bit of the origin.

[00:08:07] [SPEAKER_00]: We can dig in anywhere you want to on that stuff, Neil.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, if we fast forward to 2024

[00:08:13] [SPEAKER_01]: and we're also 10 minutes into a tech podcast,

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_01]: there are two words that are bigger than WordPress

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_01]: and also an acronym bigger than VIP.

[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And of course, I'm talking about AI

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: or artificial intelligence.

[00:08:26] [SPEAKER_01]: It's almost a law that I have to mention in a podcast.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_01]: But how are you leveraging AI

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_01]: to enhance this content creation process for your clients?

[00:08:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Because initially it had a bit of a mixed reaction

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: from those in the industry.

[00:08:40] [SPEAKER_01]: But how do you see it and how are you leveraging it?

[00:08:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I would still say

[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_00]: that things are a bit, things are mixed.

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_00]: Although like I do think folks are,

[00:08:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think we've all appreciated like,

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_00]: look, this is a technology shift that is here to stay.

[00:08:55] [SPEAKER_00]: So, and but I think in reality,

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_00]: it's still very early days, right?

[00:08:59] [SPEAKER_00]: We're still truly trying to understand.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_00]: We do this annual survey.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a report we put out called Content Matters.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_00]: We go out to about a thousand different people

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and ask them a bunch of questions.

[00:09:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And one of them was just like,

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: what's your adoption right now on AI?

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Where have you adopted it?

[00:09:14] [SPEAKER_00]: And like 52% of the respondents were still in the none.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Like we have not adopted any as part of our business.

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that points to maybe a part of the market

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: that's still out there that's quite skeptical

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_00]: around just what is the value and also,

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_00]: where does safety really align

[00:09:34] [SPEAKER_00]: with the use of these technologies?

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And that could be brand safety.

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00]: That could be a number of things around safety.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_00]: But there is just this concern

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_00]: where probably half of the market

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_00]: is still very much being cautious

[00:09:43] [SPEAKER_00]: about adoption in this space.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And then folks like yourself

[00:09:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and then folks like us that live in tech,

[00:09:48] [SPEAKER_00]: we're like, look, this is exciting.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_00]: This is new technology.

[00:09:50] [SPEAKER_00]: This is a sea change.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_00]: We wanna try to drive forward adoption

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_00]: because we see this as potentially a superpower

[00:09:56] [SPEAKER_00]: for individuals and organizations, et cetera.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_00]: How do we really drive that forward?

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's where we fall

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_00]: is like how do we wanna truly try to bring that

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_00]: to our customers?

[00:10:09] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of this is, I mean,

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_00]: I think about this personally on our business.

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00]: I've crossed a few of the dimensions.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_00]: The first is just where do we help our own customers

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_00]: in their everyday work and doing these things?

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So part of our offering

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_00]: is we have a developer platform.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_00]: We have the CMS aspect

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_00]: where content creators and writers live in.

[00:10:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's lots of opportunities across that.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_00]: I think on the developer side,

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a well-worn path where AI is helping

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_00]: in code creation and the overall management

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_00]: of code bases, et cetera.

[00:10:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of that comes to bear for our customers there.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: On the editorial and content creation side,

[00:10:46] [SPEAKER_00]: we're working with some

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_00]: of the world's largest media organizations, for example.

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot of hesitation around just

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: what is responsible adoption of this technology?

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And also there's a lot of excitement

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_00]: for adoption of this.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I've got one particular CTO in our customer base.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I won't give him up here necessarily,

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_00]: but he is just like, look,

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling everyone on my team

[00:11:08] [SPEAKER_00]: what is the new thing you did with AI today?

[00:11:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Because if you haven't done something new with AI today,

[00:11:13] [SPEAKER_00]: we're probably falling apart

[00:11:14] [SPEAKER_00]: or falling behind as a business.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So what are you doing that's new?

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the kind of person

[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_00]: that we are excited about

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and thinking about technology adoption.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And the things that we're doing

[00:11:23] [SPEAKER_00]: are where can we actually add value

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_00]: in what is a very exciting, but also crowded space?

[00:11:31] [SPEAKER_00]: There's 50 different ways for you to generate a headline.

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: There's 50 different ways for you

[00:11:34] [SPEAKER_00]: to generate a body of text

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and change the tone of it

[00:11:39] [SPEAKER_00]: or any number of things that are novel,

[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_00]: but also when it comes to real world practice,

[00:11:45] [SPEAKER_00]: how valuable are those things in this?

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we have been really focusing on

[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_00]: where do we add unique value?

[00:11:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the things that is, I think,

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_00]: unique about where we sit in our platform,

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_00]: we have a wealth of traditional web analytics type data

[00:12:00] [SPEAKER_00]: that lives alongside of the content itself.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we have an understanding of content performance

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and historical performances

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and helping predict what might work well

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_00]: into the future on things.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And so where we've been looking at

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and where we've been releasing capabilities

[00:12:18] [SPEAKER_00]: unique to our platform around AI

[00:12:21] [SPEAKER_00]: are really in how do we make,

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_00]: how do we give editors and content creators superpowers?

[00:12:26] [SPEAKER_00]: We want folks to be able to publish faster

[00:12:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and more accurately and more effectively.

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And you could think like as an example,

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_00]: like maybe a breaking news situation,

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you would wanna get something out fast

[00:12:41] [SPEAKER_00]: because if you're fast out into market,

[00:12:43] [SPEAKER_00]: then you probably drive the significant amount of eyeballs.

[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But also to be fast, you might not set up links.

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_00]: You might not tag as well as you're supposed to.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_00]: You might not do a lot

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_00]: of the editorial content creation checklist.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_00]: You might make compromises on which images you select

[00:12:58] [SPEAKER_00]: or any number of those things.

[00:13:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's where we're seeing AI

[00:13:02] [SPEAKER_00]: can really help on these things

[00:13:03] [SPEAKER_00]: in our content workflows, which is like,

[00:13:05] [SPEAKER_00]: hey, let us help you on the linking aspects.

[00:13:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Let us help you on content categorization of things.

[00:13:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Let us help you on actually we're finding

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: things in headline creation when we're using statistics.

[00:13:18] [SPEAKER_00]: More than 70% of the time,

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_00]: the AI generated headline performs better

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_00]: than the human generated headline and like A-B testing

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_00]: and this across multiple customers.

[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So you're starting to see where we're taking the analytics

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and what we know of content performance

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_00]: and then marrying that with that editorial process.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Right now, we're just making people faster, more accurate

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and creating more robust content

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_00]: so that you're not compromising on all the tedious,

[00:13:43] [SPEAKER_00]: the tedium, tedious things that goes into that.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not in the world right now

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_00]: of creating a bunch of tools

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00]: that are suddenly saying like, oh, the editors,

[00:13:52] [SPEAKER_00]: the human, let's get the human out of the loop.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just write all these things.

[00:13:55] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll put it out in the world.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_00]: All your Olympics coverage can come via AI.

[00:14:00] [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to do any of these things.

[00:14:02] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not saying that's even the realistic state

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_00]: in the coming years.

[00:14:06] [SPEAKER_00]: We're saying, look, we want an editor

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_00]: and a human in the loop out of you,

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_00]: really make that person faster, more effective

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and focusing on the value

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00]: that humans provide in a lot of this stuff.

[00:14:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Not just the tedious tasks of content production

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_00]: that I'm sure you can relate too deeply

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: is for every podcast you put out,

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: how many little checklist items do you have

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: as you get that thing onto your website

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and on the various platforms, et cetera.

[00:14:31] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot of tedious activities.

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So AI is immensely helpful for our customers there.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 100% with you.

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_01]: And if we've got a business leader

[00:14:40] [SPEAKER_01]: or entrepreneur listing,

[00:14:41] [SPEAKER_01]: they might be the cautious type

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: that are sitting on the fence right now,

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_01]: not quite understanding it.

[00:14:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Or equally, they might be somebody looking

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_01]: for those superpowers you were just talking about.

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Are there any examples

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_01]: of some of the AI powered features

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that assist WordPress as VIP clients

[00:14:57] [SPEAKER_01]: in generating more engaging,

[00:14:59] [SPEAKER_01]: more personalized content experiences

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: and hitting that sweet spot

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_01]: and getting those big hits

[00:15:05] [SPEAKER_01]: or viral hits on their websites?

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Examples of how to use it

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_00]: or just give them an example

[00:15:12] [SPEAKER_00]: of where it's happened.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, or some of the features.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think very often we get distracted

[00:15:18] [SPEAKER_01]: by some of those shiny features

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_01]: and not the value add or the impact that it can have.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Is any of those features,

[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: how they stand out

[00:15:26] [SPEAKER_01]: or any measurable impact people have had from using them?

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so one of the things I had mentioned

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_00]: was just around again,

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_00]: like a headline creation process

[00:15:35] [SPEAKER_00]: where that is something

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: where we have seen both A-B testing

[00:15:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and of these approaches,

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_00]: human generated, AI generated,

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and then which performs better.

[00:15:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And which performs better

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_00]: is purely around what drives more traffic,

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00]: what drives more engagement.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So typical engagement metrics on the web

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_00]: is how that's being measured against.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, and we're seeing things like performance there,

[00:15:57] [SPEAKER_00]: but we also know that robust tagging

[00:16:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and categorization of content

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_00]: also really helps in how do you relate things together

[00:16:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and actually bring together an experience

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_00]: that helps a user wanna continue on

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_00]: beyond that first click.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Many of our customers will talk about,

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't really care about that first page view

[00:16:16] [SPEAKER_00]: because I've already gotten you on that one.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_00]: What I wanna know is can I get you to look

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_00]: at another one sort of thing

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_00]: and can I actually get you to stay engaged

[00:16:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and by more robust

[00:16:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and actually more accurate relationships

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_00]: between particularly large volumes of content.

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: This is one of the things

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_00]: that we'll see a lot in our customer bases.

[00:16:34] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got millions potentially of pieces of content

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: you need to relate.

[00:16:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And so this helps get more accurate in that.

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And we do see a lift in the engagement,

[00:16:43] [SPEAKER_00]: whether that's an additional page views

[00:16:45] [SPEAKER_00]: or time on site is typically something

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_00]: that folks will look at pretty deeply

[00:16:49] [SPEAKER_00]: on our customer base.

[00:16:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're seeing engagement

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_00]: or we're seeing those metrics also move there.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_00]: The other aspect of this is just reduced time to publish.

[00:17:00] [SPEAKER_00]: We've seen folks take minutes off of time to publish

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and they will like measure these types of things

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_00]: against various setups and say like,

[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_00]: all right, in this context,

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_00]: it takes me 11 minutes

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_00]: to produce something fully in the editor.

[00:17:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Now I've rolled these things out.

[00:17:14] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm seeing that happen in eight minutes in cases

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_00]: and you'll see reduction in time to do that,

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_00]: which again has a business value

[00:17:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and are you like earlier to market

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_00]: which gets you more traffic potentially

[00:17:24] [SPEAKER_00]: or are you just able to do more

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_00]: in a given period of time

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_00]: which hopefully more equates to,

[00:17:30] [SPEAKER_00]: more outcomes on the other end of these things.

[00:17:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And so, and we are seeing those things

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: with our customers in doing that.

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And all of it, and I say all of that

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and I say like all of that still really early days

[00:17:42] [SPEAKER_00]: for us because it's kind of just scratching the surface

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_00]: that like, okay, it's helping me do a lot of the tedious

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_00]: things that I've already done.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's yes, it's helping me take less time.

[00:17:51] [SPEAKER_00]: That's great.

[00:17:53] [SPEAKER_00]: But like where is all this really going?

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Like in doing this and one of the things we haven't done

[00:17:58] [SPEAKER_00]: this isn't our customers don't have the ability

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_00]: to do this yet.

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And I guess somebody else can now go work on this

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and copy this idea.

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_00]: It's fine.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But is there's immense value in the authority

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: that your content repository already has.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_00]: So if you've got articles or you've got things

[00:18:19] [SPEAKER_00]: you've created, it might have high authority

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_00]: on like a Google or whatever

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_00]: where it drives a lot of traffic.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And so typically links from that to something else

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_00]: also then get a lot of a higher amount of authority

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and it helps drive more traffic in content relationships.

[00:18:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So essentially you're back linking

[00:18:35] [SPEAKER_00]: your most authoritative content.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Extremely tedious kinds of work to go back

[00:18:40] [SPEAKER_00]: into your content archives, identify that stuff,

[00:18:42] [SPEAKER_00]: set up those links and drive that

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_00]: to new content you're creating.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_00]: This is something we're all looking at doing

[00:18:49] [SPEAKER_00]: in a fully automated fashion.

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So as you create a new piece of content,

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_00]: we can look across an entire network of content

[00:18:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and say, oh, you wrote about this over here.

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_00]: You wrote about this over here.

[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You wrote and we know it has higher authority

[00:19:01] [SPEAKER_00]: because we have that information on hand.

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna go into that content

[00:19:04] [SPEAKER_00]: and actually update links in that content

[00:19:06] [SPEAKER_00]: to newer piece of content

[00:19:07] [SPEAKER_00]: to make it more authoritative

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and drive more users to that particular piece

[00:19:11] [SPEAKER_00]: of content right now.

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And that will have a measurable impact

[00:19:14] [SPEAKER_00]: on search and relevancy, et cetera.

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_00]: This is not released yet.

[00:19:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And this is still something,

[00:19:19] [SPEAKER_00]: but this is something we're really excited

[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that comes together because we have the rich content

[00:19:24] [SPEAKER_00]: analytics living alongside of the CMS

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_00]: where all the content actually lives.

[00:19:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So those are the kinds of things

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm also excited about to come in the next year

[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_00]: that I think will be very valuable.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, yeah, absolutely.

[00:19:35] [SPEAKER_01]: You just blow my mind there's someone

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_01]: with 3000 podcasts interviews on.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_01]: With the biggest names out there.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'll be honest with you, as you just said,

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_01]: he's too tedious that stuff.

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got very little interest in doing it.

[00:19:49] [SPEAKER_01]: The benefits would be huge,

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_01]: but I haven't got time to sit down

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01]: and do all that stuff.

[00:19:53] [SPEAKER_01]: So no, that's something that I'd be greatly interested in.

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's important to mention as well

[00:19:59] [SPEAKER_01]: that AI is a tool, not a replacement

[00:20:02] [SPEAKER_01]: and a tool that can help you get further along,

[00:20:06] [SPEAKER_01]: but it can't just replace the content creation, et cetera.

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of instance I'm reading at the moment,

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: such as the Google algorithm,

[00:20:15] [SPEAKER_01]: penalizing websites that create nothing

[00:20:17] [SPEAKER_01]: but 100% AI written content.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's the problem with plagiarism,

[00:20:22] [SPEAKER_01]: which we've all talked about to death.

[00:20:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So how are you at WordPress VIP

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_01]: ensuring that authenticity,

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_01]: that trustworthiness of all these sites

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_01]: and the content that they publish on their platform remains?

[00:20:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: This is an interest.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I would say to be honest about our business or real,

[00:20:41] [SPEAKER_00]: we work with what tends to be large scale organizations.

[00:20:46] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're not just a social platform

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_00]: that tends to just have kind of individuals.

[00:20:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And so our ability to really vet

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and understand who is leveraging our technology

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and is higher than most organizations

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_00]: because of just the customer base we work with.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And so then what extends from that is you've got,

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: large media companies, et cetera,

[00:21:10] [SPEAKER_00]: that have ascribed to journalistic standards and ethics

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and understand and have committed to,

[00:21:17] [SPEAKER_00]: there is a process and a craft

[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_00]: to what they're publishing on the web.

[00:21:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And so in a lot of cases,

[00:21:25] [SPEAKER_00]: what our platform is enabling

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_00]: is actually highly reputable media organizations

[00:21:30] [SPEAKER_00]: that tend to be viewed as the source of fact

[00:21:34] [SPEAKER_00]: that have actually been the organizations

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_00]: that have been quite worried about,

[00:21:38] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, what's training these models in the first place?

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: It turns out to be a lot of our customer base

[00:21:43] [SPEAKER_00]: has been what has been helping train those potentially.

[00:21:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And so our customers are much more on the line of,

[00:21:49] [SPEAKER_00]: look, we're actually the ones

[00:21:50] [SPEAKER_00]: that are the source of many facts

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_00]: that end up being associated.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_00]: How do we protect that?

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_00]: How do we think about protecting our own businesses,

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: et cetera?

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And our customers, those are,

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_00]: there's plenty that has been covered recently

[00:22:05] [SPEAKER_00]: in different media companies,

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_00]: striking partnerships and deals

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: with the various AI platforms and companies

[00:22:11] [SPEAKER_00]: to for fair use of their content and doing those things.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But we also do everything we can

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_00]: to help them discourage different things

[00:22:19] [SPEAKER_00]: from crawling their websites potentially

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_00]: and training these models.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we are trying to help

[00:22:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and like how can we help protect you in the fair use?

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: How can we alert you potentially

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: if there are bots crawling and doing this,

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_00]: how could you then use that as a signal

[00:22:32] [SPEAKER_00]: to maybe go and talk to one of these groups

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and say, hey, good.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're trying to help in that regard.

[00:22:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And then I think in the world of fact,

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the sad state of the web is that like

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_00]: when we've got out and surveyed folks,

[00:22:46] [SPEAKER_00]: we've asked, where would you like to get your news?

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And folks like a large percentage,

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_00]: more than half of folks will say,

[00:22:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I would love to go

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: to highly reputable news sources for content.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And then that same group will also say,

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_00]: but I really just use social

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_00]: to get a lot of like my news and things like that.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And you've got this like really painful,

[00:23:06] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, tension there between these things.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And the reality of that is that

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: because so many media experiences

[00:23:13] [SPEAKER_00]: and a lot of these places

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: where you actually would go

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_00]: to learn about something more deeply,

[00:23:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the experiences have been terrible.

[00:23:19] [SPEAKER_00]: They have been littered with, you know, ads

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and content partnerships that mislead you

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and distract from the overall experience.

[00:23:29] [SPEAKER_00]: We've created these really unfortunate web experiences

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: in many cases in an attempt

[00:23:35] [SPEAKER_00]: to extract whatever revenue we could

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: from those types of things.

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And what that does is that disincentivizes

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00]: the reader from actually wanting

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_00]: to spend time on the site.

[00:23:43] [SPEAKER_00]: So we wanna work with organizations

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_00]: and say, how do you create better experiences?

[00:23:47] [SPEAKER_00]: The web is your website, your apps.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_00]: These are something you own

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and can be really amazing experiences.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_00]: And the platforms have shown us all

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_00]: that if you create great engaging experiences

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_00]: people will stay there

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and make habits out of coming back to you, et cetera.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're really trying to think

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_00]: how can we help organizations

[00:24:06] [SPEAKER_00]: build better experiences for their audiences?

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's within their control to do those things

[00:24:11] [SPEAKER_00]: because I do think, you know,

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00]: we are in this moment of a platform shakeup, honestly

[00:24:16] [SPEAKER_00]: where you're seeing all of the sort

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_00]: of fighting around social platforms

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and you know, what users are where

[00:24:24] [SPEAKER_00]: and ad safety and brand safety

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and are we gonna show media content at all or not?

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's lots of tension in these things.

[00:24:32] [SPEAKER_00]: There's concerns around

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00]: is Google even gonna drive traffic to me anymore

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_00]: because they're just gonna put an AI response

[00:24:38] [SPEAKER_00]: in front of the user.

[00:24:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm never gonna see the actual click.

[00:24:41] [SPEAKER_00]: And so much of what has to underpin the solution

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_00]: to many of these things is

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_00]: what is the experience you're giving your own audience?

[00:24:49] [SPEAKER_00]: What is the experience you're giving your own users?

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_00]: How do you incentivize a habit

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_00]: for them to wanna come back

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_00]: and actually come to you directly

[00:24:57] [SPEAKER_00]: as opposed to relying on so much of the referral audience

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_00]: that we've all become addicted to over decades

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_00]: in this current paradigm.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot of what we're thinking about there

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and it becomes this counterbalance

[00:25:08] [SPEAKER_00]: to go back to your question

[00:25:10] [SPEAKER_00]: on, you know, this

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_00]: where could I find misleading AI generated content?

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Largely it's going to be in these big open platforms

[00:25:18] [SPEAKER_00]: where you're not sure what you can trust

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_00]: and where can you become more attached to fair,

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_00]: hopefully potentially unbiased

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_00]: or at least fact check journalism, et cetera,

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, with a lot of these organizations

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_00]: that actually ascribe to those things

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_00]: but there needs to be an experience there

[00:25:32] [SPEAKER_00]: that incentivizes you to want to actually engage

[00:25:35] [SPEAKER_00]: with them and do those things.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's where we think

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_00]: we have a responsibility to help folks.

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_00]: How can you create better experiences

[00:25:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and sustainable businesses behind those experiences?

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And on an extension on that, I'm curious,

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_01]: have you developed any AI based tools

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: to help clients build and maintain their own consumer trust?

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Is there any tools you can share there

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_01]: or things that you're working on possibly?

[00:26:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there are some,

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_00]: so there's some interesting things here

[00:26:03] [SPEAKER_00]: and this is where I would plug like,

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_00]: the beauty of automatic in a way is,

[00:26:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, there's other subsidiaries

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_00]: that focus more on like the small and the individual

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_00]: or the SMB up to mid-market kind of users.

[00:26:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a lot of experiments

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_00]: and early products that are doing

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of the experience building around,

[00:26:24] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, help me build an experience

[00:26:26] [SPEAKER_00]: that creates a form and has these fields

[00:26:28] [SPEAKER_00]: or whatever else that you can just do

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_00]: more prompt based building of web experiences in general.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of these things are happening now

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_00]: in the consumer side of the business

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and I think they will graduate up into more of like

[00:26:40] [SPEAKER_00]: what we're doing on the enterprise side

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_00]: as we kind of bring those use cases together.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You can test some of this stuff using a product

[00:26:48] [SPEAKER_00]: we run here on a Mac called Jetpack.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a way you can install that

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_00]: if you're already using WordPress

[00:26:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and you can actually get a lot of these AI content

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_00]: creation and superpowers by leveraging that

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_00]: as part of your WordPress use today.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so you can, that's why I was saying like,

[00:27:03] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a lot of this stuff

[00:27:04] [SPEAKER_00]: that's already accessible to folks

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_00]: if they're already in the WordPress ecosystem

[00:27:08] [SPEAKER_00]: where you can use and try this stuff

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and then what we'll do is we continue to take that stuff

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and really tailor it for enterprises.

[00:27:15] [SPEAKER_00]: But the things we kind of, we think about on the VIP side

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_00]: are like how would we take stuff

[00:27:19] [SPEAKER_00]: like where people are doing a lot of work in Figma

[00:27:21] [SPEAKER_00]: for example, how would we take stuff out of Figma

[00:27:23] [SPEAKER_00]: and make that like a one-to-one relationship

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_00]: behind between like what you're copying

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_00]: and creating there and how do you just easily

[00:27:30] [SPEAKER_00]: pull that into WordPress

[00:27:31] [SPEAKER_00]: and make that a seamless experience.

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_00]: Those, how do you take content

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_00]: from a lot of disparate sources

[00:27:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and just bring that all into a nice, easy to use experience.

[00:27:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Those are a lot of the challenges we're solving right now

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and AI will help us do some of those things

[00:27:46] [SPEAKER_00]: as we go along the way.

[00:27:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And as we've said multiple times,

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it is this tool that can take away

[00:27:52] [SPEAKER_01]: those tedious horrible tasks

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_01]: that when they're put together

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_01]: they can really move the needle there

[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_01]: and it's not about replacing humans.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I've got to ask, I mean,

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_01]: when it comes to balancing efficiency

[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: and the human touch when looking into AI powered content

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_01]: and the approach around that,

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_01]: is that something that's important to you as well

[00:28:13] [SPEAKER_01]: to ensure that you get that right balance?

[00:28:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Barry, I think a lot of this is,

[00:28:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's gonna be context dependent

[00:28:22] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of like what's that balance per organization

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_00]: for example on how you get those things right.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I think from our perspective,

[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_00]: the thing we've always,

[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_00]: we're talking about AI right now.

[00:28:33] [SPEAKER_00]: If you and I had met 15 years ago,

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_00]: we would be talking about mobile

[00:28:37] [SPEAKER_00]: and the entire upending of display rendering

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: on a desktop browser as we know it

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and what's that going to mean?

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And we were talking about responsive trends

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and all of these things around

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and what's WordPress' role going to be

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_00]: in a world where people on their mobile phones

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_00]: and things.

[00:28:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So we see a lot of the,

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_00]: we've all, we've lived long enough

[00:28:56] [SPEAKER_00]: to go through a lot of these different changes

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and shifts over the years.

[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we look at AI

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_00]: and what's this balance of people in there

[00:29:04] [SPEAKER_00]: is just another one of these moments here

[00:29:06] [SPEAKER_00]: where it's like,

[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_00]: it's a good moment to be self-critical

[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_00]: and think,

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_00]: did I really like doing this stuff in the first place?

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And then think about what else could I be doing

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_00]: with my time if I wasn't doing those things?

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I think there's so much that we,

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_00]: there's things to be concerned about

[00:29:21] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of what you described,

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: which is like, look, if we just turn this loose

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and say create a bunch of low value content,

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_00]: what state does that leave the experience in?

[00:29:33] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a pretty sad state.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_00]: However, so we don't want that end of the extreme on this,

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_00]: but on the other end of this, it's like, look,

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_00]: as a writer, as a creator, as a business owner,

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_00]: what are the things that you're uniquely suited to do

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_00]: and how can you focus on those?

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_00]: And we don't just see this in content creation

[00:29:53] [SPEAKER_00]: when it comes to AI,

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_00]: we see this on the developer side too.

[00:29:56] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, how much of a technology stack

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_00]: do you really wanna manage?

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_00]: For example, like, do you really want to be managing

[00:30:03] [SPEAKER_00]: lower level architectures at server levels

[00:30:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and things like this,

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_00]: or would you rather just adopt like a cloud-based

[00:30:09] [SPEAKER_00]: technology that allows you to not have to worry

[00:30:12] [SPEAKER_00]: about those things and then just focus

[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: on your unique business challenge in those things.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_00]: And then that gives the existing team

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_00]: just much more leverage to actually focus

[00:30:20] [SPEAKER_00]: on the business needs as opposed to keeping the lights on.

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So, so much of this balance will be like,

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: look, I can focus less on just the mundane,

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_00]: how do I keep the lights on tasks?

[00:30:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And actually we can refocus the discussion

[00:30:32] [SPEAKER_00]: on like, how do we actually create more value

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_00]: given this new context we live in,

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_00]: which is to say that like, you know,

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_00]: these large language models are pretty darn good

[00:30:44] [SPEAKER_00]: at returning text in certain ways.

[00:30:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And if that's the case, then like,

[00:30:49] [SPEAKER_00]: or any sort of content,

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_00]: how can I now leverage that and go focus on something else?

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So the balance should always swing

[00:30:58] [SPEAKER_00]: in the direction of business value

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_00]: instead of just like, oh no, I just do this

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_00]: because that's my job.

[00:31:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's always been my job.

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And now I'm threatened because that's no longer my job.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, no, no, no.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, how would you, now, create more value.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_00]: You've got a higher calling than tagging content

[00:31:16] [SPEAKER_00]: or writing the perfect headline.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's okay.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You can focus on something else now.

[00:31:21] [SPEAKER_01]: 100%.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_01]: And another positive change I would say

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_01]: is large enterprises in particular

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_01]: are all about making data-driven decision-making

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_01]: rather than just the loudest voice in a meeting room.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_01]: So can you explain how WordPress VIP,

[00:31:35] [SPEAKER_01]: you're leaning to data-driven insights

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_01]: and how they're helping content creators

[00:31:40] [SPEAKER_01]: make those more informed data-driven decisions?

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Because again, hugely important right now,

[00:31:45] [SPEAKER_01]: is that no one wants to create content

[00:31:47] [SPEAKER_01]: that nobody's gonna see.

[00:31:48] [SPEAKER_01]: It needs to be data-driven, right?

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_00]: That's it.

[00:31:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And so for context, we have the CMS side,

[00:31:58] [SPEAKER_00]: the WordPress CMS side of our business,

[00:32:00] [SPEAKER_00]: which has been the core since the early days of Automatic.

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_00]: We also have a content analytics solution.

[00:32:05] [SPEAKER_00]: It's called Parsely that our customers leverage.

[00:32:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's a content analytics dashboard.

[00:32:11] [SPEAKER_00]: If you've worked with other analytics products

[00:32:14] [SPEAKER_00]: that have either been offered by Adobe or Google

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_00]: or others over the years,

[00:32:17] [SPEAKER_00]: it's in that vein of how do you take analytics

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and then help that inform the work that you're doing.

[00:32:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So one of the core things

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_00]: that we push with our customers

[00:32:29] [SPEAKER_00]: is you're going to be able to move faster.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_00]: We talked about this earlier where it's like,

[00:32:34] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, I've taken publishing time down

[00:32:35] [SPEAKER_00]: from 11 minutes to whatever.

[00:32:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And so now I can do it in one minute

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and now I can do it 100 times a day

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_00]: or something like that.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's great.

[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Now you can move more quickly.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_00]: But what's important is also like,

[00:32:46] [SPEAKER_00]: does move quickly also equate to additional results?

[00:32:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Because it may be something

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_00]: where you're actually just putting more into the machine

[00:32:53] [SPEAKER_00]: but you're not getting it.

[00:32:54] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you're putting more gas in the engine

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_00]: but you're not getting any more output to it.

[00:32:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's just running hot.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_00]: So we wanna make sure that folks understand

[00:33:03] [SPEAKER_00]: what's working and what's not.

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And actually the interesting thing when we had

[00:33:06] [SPEAKER_00]: that same survey where we had asked like,

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_00]: hey, how important and where's AI falling for you in use?

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_00]: It was very important was I think around 15%

[00:33:15] [SPEAKER_00]: in this group, 45% said like my analytics dashboard

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_00]: is very important to me right now.

[00:33:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So there's still this aspect of like,

[00:33:24] [SPEAKER_00]: look, I like the new tools

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_00]: and the excitement around that.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_00]: However, in my day-to-day,

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I need to know what's working and what's not.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_00]: And like, that's the stuff

[00:33:32] [SPEAKER_00]: that's still like vastly important to me.

[00:33:34] [SPEAKER_00]: So, and the beauty of that

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_00]: is that all of that stuff comes together.

[00:33:38] [SPEAKER_00]: As I said earlier,

[00:33:39] [SPEAKER_00]: you can actually take a lot of the analytics

[00:33:41] [SPEAKER_00]: and the data and what you understand to be working.

[00:33:43] [SPEAKER_00]: You can just feed that back

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_00]: into the recommendation side of what's generated.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And then you start to get to this beautiful world

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_00]: where actually you don't even need the dashboard anymore.

[00:33:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So what we've been doing

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_00]: and where we really tend to focus on this

[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_00]: is how do you take the point

[00:34:02] [SPEAKER_00]: at which you're creating content,

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_00]: where all of your creativity is going

[00:34:06] [SPEAKER_00]: and how do we surface it in context,

[00:34:09] [SPEAKER_00]: performance and understanding

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_00]: so that you have right in front of you

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of the analysis around engagement,

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_00]: page time, time spent, et cetera,

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_00]: what's trending, all of these things

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_00]: right there with you as you're creating content

[00:34:23] [SPEAKER_00]: so that that can help inform how you're building things

[00:34:26] [SPEAKER_00]: as opposed to switching between contexts.

[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_00]: The other aspect of this is that we've built

[00:34:31] [SPEAKER_00]: some content analytics products

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_00]: that are very focused on the content creator use case,

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_00]: which means they lower the bar,

[00:34:43] [SPEAKER_00]: they're more accessible to just more folks.

[00:34:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So you don't need to be a data scientist

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_00]: in order to just like build and understand

[00:34:50] [SPEAKER_00]: how analytics is working in your business.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So much in the same way that WordPress

[00:34:54] [SPEAKER_00]: reduces the barrier to entry on content creation

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_00]: and engaging on the web,

[00:34:59] [SPEAKER_00]: we wanna do the same thing on the analytics side.

[00:35:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Like how do we bring,

[00:35:02] [SPEAKER_00]: how do we lower the bar to entry on analytics

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: so that folks aren't sitting there thinking

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_00]: like am I looking at the right thing?

[00:35:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Is this even the right signal?

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Am I being misled?

[00:35:10] [SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm potentially gleaning from these insights

[00:35:13] [SPEAKER_00]: or anything else, how do we simplify a lot of that

[00:35:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and make that more approachable?

[00:35:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Because what we do find is that when more folks

[00:35:19] [SPEAKER_00]: can get their hands on the tools,

[00:35:21] [SPEAKER_00]: great things happen in that case.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And so we're constantly thinking

[00:35:24] [SPEAKER_00]: how do we make things more accessible to more people

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_00]: to actually do that work.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's some of the thinking around data.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Love it.

[00:35:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Looking to the future,

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_01]: I was recently talking with my son

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_01]: who found himself in a sticky situation

[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_01]: abroad not knowing how to get a bus from A to B

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_01]: or something like that.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And he said, dad, I went onto Google

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_01]: and I'll try to Google my way out of this as you do.

[00:35:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And he had a whole page of irrelevant information,

[00:35:52] [SPEAKER_01]: sponsored ads and everything.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_01]: But then when he turned to,

[00:35:54] [SPEAKER_01]: it was either ChatGPT or Claud and asked the same

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_01]: question, he got the information he needed instantly.

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_01]: So now he searches for answers that way.

[00:36:03] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, there were problems with doing that

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_01]: which I had a bit of a debate with him about,

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_01]: but it's just got me thinking about the future.

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_01]: If people start leaning towards that

[00:36:13] [SPEAKER_01]: for searching for things, what does this mean?

[00:36:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Is SEO going to be different or even dead in the future?

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm curious,

[00:36:21] [SPEAKER_01]: what AI driven content creation trends are you seeing?

[00:36:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Are you having similar conversations

[00:36:26] [SPEAKER_01]: and how are you preparing for a different future

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_01]: of the web and how people access information?

[00:36:31] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you were talking about the news.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Some people prefer to get it on social.

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Some people, the website.

[00:36:36] [SPEAKER_01]: There's just so much going on in this space, isn't there?

[00:36:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:36:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's interesting if we all just like think

[00:36:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and we're a bit self-critical around how we think

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_00]: about things like SEO and what that does.

[00:36:47] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of how we think about,

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_00]: how do I create something that's search engine optimized

[00:36:52] [SPEAKER_00]: that might not also be customer optimized.

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there is an interesting dynamic where,

[00:37:00] [SPEAKER_00]: because there's an understanding of the importance

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_00]: of referrers such as a search engine

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_00]: and then what we understand in terms of what they like

[00:37:08] [SPEAKER_00]: and how and what they will preference.

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_00]: We try to play those games, honestly.

[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_00]: There's just an aspect of playing those games.

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a part of me

[00:37:16] [SPEAKER_00]: that actually celebrates the fact

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_00]: maybe we just have to stop thinking

[00:37:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that we can play a game to drive traffic

[00:37:22] [SPEAKER_00]: because to your point, that search engine result

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_00]: that was largely meaningless was probably also

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_00]: the product of people playing a game

[00:37:30] [SPEAKER_00]: whereby some way they had loaded that up

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_00]: with results that either through sponsored content

[00:37:37] [SPEAKER_00]: or something else came back that way

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_00]: and it was of low value.

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And so I think in those experiences,

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_00]: those were a harbinger for there's going

[00:37:43] [SPEAKER_00]: to be a change here.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So there is a part of me that says, great,

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad for there to be a change here

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_00]: because the search engine optimized sponsored content

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_00]: and everything else game doesn't really create

[00:37:58] [SPEAKER_00]: great user experiences on the other end of this.

[00:38:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And so if now it's a moment for business leaders

[00:38:04] [SPEAKER_00]: to take a pause and say, hey, what are we doing now?

[00:38:08] [SPEAKER_00]: How are we going to rethink this?

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Being as the search engine optimized

[00:38:12] [SPEAKER_00]: isn't going away anytime soon by the way.

[00:38:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Like this is still,

[00:38:15] [SPEAKER_00]: the realities of referral traffic

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_00]: and all of that are still alive and well.

[00:38:18] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think it's changing anyhow.

[00:38:20] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think if we have to ask ourselves

[00:38:22] [SPEAKER_00]: the question again of like, okay,

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_00]: again, if there's a query that gets dropped somewhere

[00:38:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and there's a great response

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and it doesn't kind of follow the 10 blue link paradigm

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_00]: into the future, then how do we need to rethink that

[00:38:36] [SPEAKER_00]: into the future?

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And look, I'm not a great predictor, Neil,

[00:38:41] [SPEAKER_00]: on like how actually does that look?

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I actually think if you try to carry

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_00]: that forward as a prediction in terms of what happens,

[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_00]: maybe someone would tell you like,

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_00]: look, the website's irrelevant.

[00:38:51] [SPEAKER_00]: It's going away.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Possibly I don't tend to buy into those

[00:38:55] [SPEAKER_00]: that type of like doomsday sort of assessment.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But I actually think what,

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_00]: how does user behavior change

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_00]: is going to be an interesting thing to see unfold.

[00:39:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think the important thing is to be really dialed

[00:39:08] [SPEAKER_00]: into how this is changing and then being ready yourselves

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_00]: to adapt to how consumption changes.

[00:39:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So that if Google does introduce

[00:39:17] [SPEAKER_00]: or any platforms introduce AI powered responses to things,

[00:39:22] [SPEAKER_00]: how are you then taking that into context

[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_00]: as it relates to what it drives for you

[00:39:27] [SPEAKER_00]: in referral traffic or user behaviors?

[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_00]: And then how are you going to adapt your own product

[00:39:32] [SPEAKER_00]: in that paradigm into the future?

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That is going to be very dependent on each organization

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and each situation.

[00:39:40] [SPEAKER_00]: The beauty though, is that like,

[00:39:42] [SPEAKER_00]: and what I lean into on the,

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: when we think about this from the WordPress VIP context

[00:39:47] [SPEAKER_00]: is that a lot of how WordPress and RCMS

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_00]: and our relationship to the web comes about

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_00]: is that it's built around the fundamentals

[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_00]: of how the open web even exists.

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_00]: So kind of going back to the open standard of 1990,

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_00]: it's amazing to think that a lot of how we experience

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_00]: things like the web today is really built on top

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_00]: of a few very simple protocols that were established

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_00]: almost 40 years ago now, crazy,

[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I think 35, 34 years ago on that.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think we actually lose sight of some of that

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_00]: in terms of it's like all of this works

[00:40:21] [SPEAKER_00]: because of a few things that actually nobody owns.

[00:40:24] [SPEAKER_00]: These protocols are free for all of us to use

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and they work and it's magical

[00:40:29] [SPEAKER_00]: and they're very resilient and adaptable.

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_00]: They've shown themselves to do that for 35 years.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So as organizations, how are we prepared

[00:40:35] [SPEAKER_00]: to take advantage and to adapt via things like the web

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and these owned channels that we have as organizations?

[00:40:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where focusing on the new challenges

[00:40:47] [SPEAKER_00]: becomes so important.

[00:40:48] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know what the future of the website

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_00]: looks like relative to an AI response

[00:40:54] [SPEAKER_00]: showing up in a search engine.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_00]: But what I can tell you is that great experiences

[00:40:59] [SPEAKER_00]: on the web will end up informing the source of truth

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_00]: for these things, like the truth has to come

[00:41:05] [SPEAKER_00]: from somewhere in all of this.

[00:41:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And many of these organizations are providing that truth

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_00]: and their relationship to then the audience

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and the customer on the other end,

[00:41:14] [SPEAKER_00]: largely depends on how well they treat that audience

[00:41:17] [SPEAKER_00]: with their own products that they've developed.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would just say, many of us have not treated

[00:41:20] [SPEAKER_00]: the users all that well in some of the experiences

[00:41:23] [SPEAKER_00]: we've developed.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's a great opportunity to invest in that

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and improve that and not necessarily trust that,

[00:41:30] [SPEAKER_00]: oh, this platform is 70% of my traffic today

[00:41:34] [SPEAKER_00]: and it will always be that way.

[00:41:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I do think there has been this just assumption

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_00]: that hey, it's kind of always been this way

[00:41:41] [SPEAKER_00]: with maybe a search engine referral.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And it will always be that way into the future.

[00:41:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It's like no, actually it's a great reminder it won't be.

[00:41:48] [SPEAKER_00]: This could change at any moment.

[00:41:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And so how do you focus on what you control in this

[00:41:53] [SPEAKER_00]: and how do you stay tuned into that?

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of that again gets back to like

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_00]: making sure you're focusing on the new

[00:41:59] [SPEAKER_00]: and unique challenges into the future,

[00:42:01] [SPEAKER_00]: not necessarily rebuilding a CMS or rebuilding

[00:42:05] [SPEAKER_00]: underlying technologies that are solved challenges

[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_00]: honestly out in the market.

[00:42:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And you can focus on the new and novel challenges

[00:42:12] [SPEAKER_00]: that will inevitably be there in the world.

[00:42:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that was absolutely beautifully answered.

[00:42:19] [SPEAKER_01]: I think it's a powerful moment to end on,

[00:42:21] [SPEAKER_01]: but so many food for thought there.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But before I let you go,

[00:42:24] [SPEAKER_01]: for anyone listening wanting to find out more information

[00:42:26] [SPEAKER_01]: about WordPress VIP, explore some of the topic

[00:42:29] [SPEAKER_01]: that we discussed today or contact you or your team.

[00:42:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Where would you like to point everyone listening?

[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh my gosh, you can just go to wpvip.com

[00:42:38] [SPEAKER_00]: and you can find all that stuff there.

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm easily found everywhere.

[00:42:41] [SPEAKER_00]: My name's Nick Gernert.

[00:42:42] [SPEAKER_00]: There's not a lot of Nick Gernerts

[00:42:44] [SPEAKER_00]: out there in the world.

[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_00]: So you can find me, you just Google.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not hard to find.

[00:42:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Every, I think every sales rep has my phone number.

[00:42:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So just ask your sales reps

[00:42:53] [SPEAKER_00]: if somebody wants to get in touch.

[00:42:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I will add links to everything

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_01]: to make sure people can find you nice and easy as well.

[00:43:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And we covered so much from ensuring website security

[00:43:05] [SPEAKER_01]: across the entire web ecosystem.

[00:43:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's the big talking point of the day,

[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_01]: the hour, the impact of AI,

[00:43:14] [SPEAKER_01]: what it's having on web content that we read every day

[00:43:17] [SPEAKER_01]: and how that is gonna evolve so much food for thought.

[00:43:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm hoping that a lot of businesses will find it

[00:43:22] [SPEAKER_01]: as equally as value as I did today.

[00:43:25] [SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for sharing it with me today.

[00:43:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, thank you, Neil.

[00:43:28] [SPEAKER_00]: This was so much fun.

[00:43:29] [SPEAKER_01]: As AI continues to influence

[00:43:32] [SPEAKER_01]: the way content is created and consumed,

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_01]: how can businesses ensure

[00:43:37] [SPEAKER_01]: that they leverage these tools effectively

[00:43:39] [SPEAKER_01]: while preserving the essential human touch?

[00:43:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Nick at WordPress VIP

[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: has given us valuable insights

[00:43:46] [SPEAKER_01]: into how to strike that balance

[00:43:48] [SPEAKER_01]: and navigate the future of digital experiences.

[00:43:52] [SPEAKER_01]: But what steps will you take to adapt to these changes

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: and enhance your content strategy?

[00:43:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Email me techblogwriteroutlook.com,

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, just at Neil C Hughes.

[00:44:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Let me know your thoughts.

[00:44:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Other than that, time for me to prepare

[00:44:09] [SPEAKER_01]: for another guest who's gonna be joining us tomorrow.

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_01]: So thank you for listening today.

[00:44:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And until next time, don't be a stranger.

[00:44:16] I'm Neil C Hughes.

[00:44:20] I'll see you next time.