My friend recently sent me an email with the subject line “This might incur your wrath.”
I’ll call my friend “Dan” because, well, that’s his name.
Dan informed me that he had cloned me. Not the sci-fi kind with test tubes and lightning bolts. The modern kind. He fed my blog posts, podcast transcripts, and personality quirks into an AI and created a “MarkBot” – a digital twin that thinks like me, writes like me, and probably knows my coffee order.
As part of a leadership framework he’s developed, Daniel Nestle’s imaginative “MarkBot” could possibly sit on an advisory board in my place one day, suggest edits to documents in my voice, brainstorm marketing strategy ideas, and write articles in my style — which, in fact, Dan did.
When I tested it out, it answered in the first person — as if it were me. Definitely creepy. When I asked it a specific question that I am “known” for, it did fine. If it had to guess on something less obvious, it made something up, explaining later in an apology that it had felt pressure to sound comprehensive and authoritative, so it “made up specifics.”
This isn’t just about me. If you’re a content creator, you can easily become somebody else’s private AI plaything. Or, even become a public one. What would keep my friend from promoting advice from the “second me” in his own consulting practice? And I would receive no benefit.
At least he told me. However, anyone could secretly use free online tools to create digital twins of other individuals. Yes, even you.
Is this flattering and fun, or a creepy theft of intellectual prowess? I’ve been on a rollercoaster of reflection about this emerging trend that upends marketing and thought leadership as we know it. Let’s take a ride.
The Rise of the AI Doppelgänger
Dan’s experiment is part of a much larger movement. Thanks to advances in generative AI, it’s possible for anyone to create a digital “clone” of a real person’s communication style and knowledge base. Through ChatGPT, Gemini, and other platforms, users can upload documents, website text, and other data to train a chatbot to think like you, in a matter of hours.
Meta began testing AI chatbots based on popular Instagram creators in 2024. About 50 creators partnered with Meta to create AI versions of themselves that fans can chat with (clearly labeled as AI). Mark Zuckerberg’s vision is to eventually enable every creator and even every small business to build an AI clone of themselves for enhanced customer engagement.
Entrepreneurs and startups have also jumped in. Companies like Delphi AI offer services to create and host digital clones. An AI Clone can attend Zoom meetings on your behalf or answer client emails with your tone and expertise. The company sells time with digital clones of wellness icon Deepak Chopra, leadership coach Brendon Burchard, and other celebrities to scale and monetize their personal outreach.
Of course the entertainment and influencer world will embrace (and monetize) AI clones. Perhaps the splashiest example is CarynAI. Caryn Marjorie, a 23-year-old Snapchat influencer with millions of followers, collaborated with a tech firm to develop an AI chatbot of herself that fans could pay to interact with. The result? Her virtual clone made $72,000 in the first week by engaging fans at $1 per minute.
There are benefits and risks, but this is not going away. I’ve brainstormed some of the implications of this for me and you …
The Upside: When One “You” Isn’t Enough
Why would anyone want an AI clone of themselves? There are some compelling benefits:
Scale and Productivity
For busy professionals, an AI doppelgänger could be like having an army of interns who all know exactly what you know. It can attend meetings or calls you can’t make, and report back. Imagine having two of you tackling a day’s work – one speaking at a client workshop while the other drafts a strategy brief. For marketers juggling clients and content, that’s a tantalizing superpower.
Another of Dan’s projects is to create a clone of his customer. He can then ask the clone for advice on a content project without taking up the busy executive’s time. Cool.
24/7 Engagement and Face Time
An AI clone doesn’t sleep. It can engage your audience or customers at any time, anywhere. That holds amazing potential if you have a global audience.
Extending that to business, a founder’s clone could greet website visitors, answer FAQs, or nurture leads around the clock. It’s your personality on-demand. For professional marketers, this could improve customer experience – every consumer gets “face time” with the brand’s expert or spokesperson via their AI. It’s like scaling the personal touch infinitely.
Consistency of Brand and Knowledge
The biggest time wasters in my business are the unavoidable tasks that I can’t delegate. Sometimes, it has to be me.
I’ve longed for a bot that would know me so well that it could operate in this gray area of business. Since your AI is trained on your own content and style, it knows your key themes, stories, and even personal values. This could ensure consistent, personal communication across many tasks. Could a MarkBot write a testimony for a friend’s book? Create a promo video for a speech? Respond to student questions?
Broader Reach (and Revenue)
AI clones allow experts to be accessible to far more people than one human could manage. Brendon Burchard’s AI clone can coach thousands of people simultaneously thanks to Delphi.AI. My own “MarkBot” could theoretically advise many young marketers without me and disseminate my ideas widely. Could we productize our expertise through AI?
Will an AI-native generation prefer learning from a patient, happy MarkBot over me some day?
Legacy and Learning
An AI clone of a retiring executive could serve as a mentor to future employees, preserving institutional wisdom. As marketers, we talk about building thought leadership that outlives us. Well, an AI doppelgänger might literally allow our insights to live on and keep teaching far into the future.
I’ve published more than 4,000 blog posts and hundreds of podcast episodes — all for free. I want my ideas to get into the world. Wouldn’t an AI bot just be another distribution channel? Think about it — is an AI Clone just a very complete and comprehensive search engine dedicated to you?
Maybe if somebody searches for me in the future, there will be just one entry: My digital twin. Ask me anything, forever.
However, before we rush to clone ourselves, let’s address the downsides and ethical dilemmas this trend presents.
The Downside: Whose Intelligence Is It, Anyway?
Against the promise of AI “mini-me’s” stands a host of ethical, creative, and personal concerns. My initial discomfort at Dan’s clone of me reveals some of these problems:
Intellectual Property & Consent
If you create a clone of yourself, that’s one thing. But what about when you are cloned without permission?
In my case, my friend meant no harm, but he could have appropriated the fruits of my intellectual property to build a tool for his own commercial use. It raises a thorny question: who owns “Mark Schaefer’s” expertise – me, or the public internet?
Legally, our published content is usually copyrighted, but an AI bot reading and imitating all of it blurs the lines. Lawmakers are scrambling to keep pace with the evolving realities of AI and copyright law. We don’t know how the law will settle out, but my hunch is that an unauthorized digital twin would likely be viewed in the same light as a deep fake — unwelcome, unauthorized, and unlawful.
Marketers must be mindful: cloning a person’s style or persona for commercial gain could invite legal repercussions (and certainly ethical ones) if done without a green light.
The Erosion of Trust
Marketing is built on trust and authenticity. What happens when customers discover that their heartfelt chat with an executive was actually with a bot?
Consider a more subtle scenario: a client receives a document “from you” that was 90% written by your AI. Are they getting the authentic insight they paid for, or a diluted copy? Overuse of clones could cheapen a personal brand if it’s not managed transparently. Professional marketers will need to strike a balance and maintain transparency about human vs. AI content and conversations.
Quality and Creativity Concerns
As impressive as my AI twin may be in parroting my known ideas, it isn’t actually me. When Dan asked the MarkBot to write an essay, he declared it to be “90% great.”
What was missing? My stories. My humor. My quirkiness.
I teach through my unique stories and experiences, and AI won’t ever get there.
I’m always pushing to understand the next trend and idea. The MarkBot might generate content that sounds like Mark Schaefer circa 2024, but will it connect the dots like I do to develop groundbreaking new ideas? Unlikely.
The MarkBot is cool, don’t get me wrong. It might even be useful. But it’s going to just add to the pandemic of dull without my stories and insights.
Reputation and “Going Rogue”
Hey, you know that CarynAI influencer bot that made so much money? Here’s the rest of the story: It was shut down a week later when she discovered her bot was having unrestrained sexual conversations with her fans. Fortunately for the world, Deepak Chopra has not yet encountered this problem with his digital twin. Nor have I with the MarkBot, but you never know. I need to ask Dan to test that out. Or not.
Handing over your voice to an algorithm will always carry reputational risk. Your AI twin might eventually say something really dumb or damaging under your name. And you’re not going to be able to blame a bot for ruining your brand.
Human Displacement
Let’s get honest here. Am I putting myself out of a job by cloning myself?
If a company can deploy “MarkBot” to sit on advisory boards and client calls, will they eventually stop needing Actual Mark?
At least for the moment, AI can’t truly replace human presence, taste, style, and accountability. But this is the first concern I had when Dan showed me MarkBot: Do I still matter?
There’s no way to sugarcoat this. An army of private MarkBots would hurt my business. Even if they are just “pretty good,” many businesses can do really well with “pretty good” marketing advice compared to nothing at all.
I’m not worried for now because I think I have a strong enough personal brand to stay in demand, even in the Valley of the Dolls. But the existential crisis will only become more real as the bots progress.
What Clone Wars Mean to Marketers
Every marketer will tell you they are both excited and terrified by AI. And so it is with the AI Clone.
We are in an era where much of our public “thinking” can be mechanized and scaled without us. For marketers and thought leaders, this presents an astounding opportunity and a mind-bending challenge.
This is not going away. Let’s embrace the change, but use our heads:
Efficiency, with Ethics
Smart marketers should absolutely explore how AI clones can amplify their productivity and reach. I’m considering adding MarkBot as a free offering on my website, provided I can determine that it’s not too expensive. Maybe that’s a new job category: “Rogue AI Tester.”
Be transparent. Don’t use secret stand-ins. And never clone someone else without explicit permission. That’s not just bad form, it could soon be illegal. In marketing, trust is everything; don’t squander it by crossing ethical lines with AI. An AI Clone demands an updated perspective on IT governance!
Innovate Beyond the Clone
While clones can handle the repetitive stuff, don’t delegate your original thinking to the machine. Reserve time for human creativity – spontaneous brainstorming sessions, imaginative campaigns, and authentic storytelling that make your brand unique.
MarkBot is like a DJ spinning my greatest hits, but dammit, you can bet that I’m still making new hits.
In an AI-saturated world, double-down on human creativity, authenticity, and bold ideas (that’s the main theme of my book Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World). It’s a great book and even sexy in places.
The New Era of Personalization
Without a doubt, digital twins will be invaluable for personalized communications at scale. I would spend hours chatting with accurate and deep representations of heroes from the world of sports, business, and entertainment. Might even pay for it.
Marketers should prepare for a landscape where AI-driven persona marketing is normal. Maybe the best bots win?
New Opportunities
Used well, used ethically, we could be on the cusp of an exciting new marketing horizon. That means opportunity. If a company can monetize digital twins of Deepak Chopra or Brendan Bouchard, who will be the talent agency managing me and my twin?
Who will create a marketplace for authorized clones of famous thought leaders? I would gladly take a licensing fee for my clone to sit on a board.
Try it for yourself
Have you ever imagined a day when we could assemble elements of metal and sand to create a machine that thinks like you? What a world.
Want to try out Dan’s MarkBot? Here it is.
Drop me a note and let me know what you think of it!
I’d like to conclude with a word of hope.
In my early days of blogging, I wrote more than a hundred posts about blogging. I also wrote a bestselling book about blogging. And yet, people kept hiring me to teach them about blogging. It made no sense. I already gave away my best ideas for free.
In a sense, a MarkBot is just another vessel for me to provide information I’ve already put into the world. Will people still want me? I think so.
I’m optimistic that we can harness our AI doppelgängers for good – as tireless assistants, creative partners, and outreach tools – while we continue to create, innovate, and lead with the one thing a clone can never fully replicate: our human spark. The bots can curate our content, but we still own crazy.
Use the clone, but don’t become the clone. If we get that right, the future of marketing with AI looks less like theft and more like a thrilling collaboration – the best of our minds working alongside intelligent machines to grow our ideas further than we ever imagined.
What would you want your AI clone to do? And more importantly, what would you never let it do?
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Image courtesy Mid Journey