Too short for a blog post, too important to ignore, here are a few observations from the world of marketing and beyond:
Why text matters so much to AI
There has been a healthy debate in the RISE community about the best possible AI content strategies, and we’re basically coming down to text as the best option, for two reasons.
First, OpenAI has come right out and said it prefers text over audio and video because it is more straightforward. The algorithm doesn’t have to interpret tone or facial expressions.
Second, it is far more economical to process text. My friend Dr. Matt Wilkinson found research indicating that the cost of processing text is approximately 0.75 tokens per word.
Audio is 25 tokens per second.
Video is around 300 tokens per second.
Of course, it depends on the model, and they are all getting more efficient, but given a choice, the LLM will train on the most available information, so it will default to text first.
Thinking is for weirdos
Interesting quote: Will Wilson, co-founder of Antithesis, said: “It’s very possible that we’re entering a world where very soon any kind of cognitive labor, any kind of reason, any kind of thought… It’ll be a thing that weirdos do.”
This is one of the big ideas I cover in my new book, How AI Changes Your Customers. More and more people are delegating their thinking and decision-making to the AI algorithms. Wilson’s quote seems extreme — in this moment — but based on the trends, I can see it happening.
In a recent podcast episode, I wondered aloud if AI is the new psychological operating system for human beings?
The Storyteller in Chief
I’ve worked with executives from many Fortune 500 companies. While most CEOs hold a degree in business, finance, or engineering, as I observe the best leaders today, they are also amazing storytellers, and that can be a significant advantage.
Case in point, Jensen Huang of Nvidia. An amazing rags-to-riches story and incredible leader, Jensen’s chief strength might be his ability to dazzle the right audience with the right story at the right time.
About six months ago, President Trump said he had never heard of Nvidia (the most valuable company in the world). When he learned of the company’s market dominance, he threatened to break up the company.
But then Jensen paid a visit. Within a few days, the U.S. Commerce Department began issuing licenses allowing Nvidia to export certain AI chips to China—a strategic moment for the company’s market access. New doors opened in the UAE, and Trump formed a revenue-generating alliance with the CEO. Jensen then embarked on a tour of Europe, effectively convincing heads of state that their nations needed to develop sovereign AI capabilities.
The power of story!
Trivia time: Nvidia’s biggest competitor is AMD. Who is their CEO? That’s what I thought.
Other storytelling leaders include Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Satya Nadella of Microsoft, Richard Branson of Virgin, and Mary Barra of General Motors.
It occurs to me that in the always-on social media age, storytelling is probably an under-appreciated competitive advantage for today’s leaders.
Everywhere, all the time
A few weeks ago, I introduced The MarkBot in a blog post, and it has since become the most-visited page on my website. Cool!
This might sound weird, but I really don’t care if people use it. It’s an experiment. There is no intuitive business case behind it. It’s free and private. I don’t even know who or how people are using it.
So why do it? Mentoring at scale.
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. One person wrote that it is the best thing she has seen from AI so far. I don’t know about that, but all of my public writing has been loaded into this custom GPT, and it works pretty well!
Middle of the pack
Saw this chart about global AI adoption. Really provokes a lot of questions. I was surprised that the U.S. is in the middle of the pack. State-led education efforts seem to be paying off in Scandinavia. Is this a sign of how Russia’s isolation is hurting the country?
AI adoption is still in its very early stages!
It’s the effort that matters
I just received a pitch promising to help me build my reach and effectiveness on LinkedIn “effortlessly.”
You can’t effectively engage on LinkedIn “effortlessly.” The effort is what makes you stand out.
Optimization a go-go
I blame this on the obsession with “optimization” and performance marketing. It’s great, it works, but we have over-indexed. We have lost the soul of marketing.
Last month I spent a few weeks in France. I re-discovered food! France places a premium on local goods, natural ingredients, and real meals rather than processed food. In America, we have industrialized food to provide cheap calories.
This is similar to marketing, right? We have industrialized our craft to optimize mass marketing, but look at what we have lost. We’ve traded our souls for cheap calories.
Real, for Reel
Instagram Reels has become much less fun for me because I am pausing for most videos trying to determine if the thing is real or not. In the Sora Era, Insta is taking too much brain processing power! We need an AI-free social media channel. Billion-dollar business idea. No need to thank me.
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Illustration courtesy MidJourney
