Ep. #107 - AI and Storytelling: Crafting Narratives with Artificial Intelligence (w/ Jyotirmoy Dutta from Yarnit)

Speaker A: Welcome to the Marketing Mantra podcast brought to you by 99signals.com. A place to find top notch content on, uh, a wide range of marketing topics including SEO, social media marketing, content marketing, blogging and more. Take your blog to the next level and achieve massive traffic growth by learning top blogging strategies discussed in the Marketing Mantra podcast. And now, here is your host, Sandeep M. Mallya.

Speaker B: Hey everyone. Welcome to a brand new episode of Marketing Mantra. This is your host, Sandeep Mallya. From 99signals.com we have Jyotirmai Dutta, JD, as he's affectionately called as a special guest for this episode. Uh, JD is the C.O. founder of Yanet, a generative AI driven digital content creation platform. For those of you who are not familiar with JD's work, uh, here's a brief introduction. Uh, JD is an entrepreneur by habit, a pharmacologist by training and a storyteller by design. He has a strong belief in building products and teams which solve customer needs with empathy. JD has spent the last decade in uh, startups building AI products, from being a founding member of Limbic, to leading the global GTM of an AI analytics product to launching his own dream company, Yanet. In this episode we'll be diving deep into the fusion of AI with storytelling and, and I'm sure you'll have a lot of insights to gain from JD's wealth of experience and expertise. JD, it's a delight to have you on the show. Uh, thank you for uh, taking the time to be on this podcast.

Speaker C: My pleasure. Thanks for um, having me and thanks for the generous introduction.

Speaker B: You've had a very interesting journey jd, from pharmacology to building your own generative, uh, AI company. So can you tell us more about what inspired this transition and uh, the key milestones along the way?

Speaker C: Of course, of course. Um, you know, um, it's kind of a weird profile, right? And pharmacology to uh, to generative AI. Uh, but if you think of it, you know, a lot of medical sciences today is about deductive intelligence, right? Understanding a scenario, finding the root causes of it, getting into the depth of it. So there is a lot of logical reasoning that is involved, right? But my start, you know, the start of my career didn't happen uh, as a pharmacologist, it happened as a consultant. Uh, was part of genpact, you know, was being doing analytics and research consulting for a long time before I moved into the startup. That was my first exposure, I would say from analytics, data science to the AI and the technology world happened uh, A decade ago we probably built the first enterprise AI based analytics platform out of India. That is when we got our hands dirty with technology like AI technology like uh, generative AI. Right. Although you know, generative AI has been a term for the last one, one and a half years, two years at best. But language models, which became now large language models has been some time or has been there for a long time now. Right. Uh, so that you know, that's how the understanding, the empathy towards using this technology happened. Right. But one thing was constant all through, right. I think the passion for storytelling, uh, passion for content and uh, you know, while, you know, we had plenty of stories to tell but we didn't have the means of doing that. Right. Uh one, when we say means it's a function of time, we didn't have the time to do that and at the same time we didn't, of course we didn't have a lot of skills to our disposal. Now you know, where this intersection came together is basically our understanding of technology, what it can do, what it can solve for. Right. And the need um, for storytellers, for content creators, for businesses or brands to create very meaningful, engaging stories. Right. And these two sort of world came together to understand, you know, what can we do without short changing creativity. Right, right. And that, that's kind of formed the genesis of Yanet. Great.

Speaker B: I mean this is more of a personal question. So I see a flood of AI content creation tools. Right. Uh, so especially since um, Chat GPT uh went mainstream, there have been a lot of uh, generative AI tools. Uh, what makes uh, yarn it so different from the other tools that are available on the market or even ChatGPT? Uh, what is something that's very unique to Yanet that you can't find in any other AI content creation tool right now?

Speaker C: Absolutely. Uh, thanks for the question though. Of course the whole premise of building and it was meant for enterprises, for brands. Like the whole promise that we have is basically how do we help brands and businesses personalize their content? Which means it should speak to their customer needs, it should speak to their audience needs. It should also sort of keep in mind what is the brand style, what is the brand personality all about so that those two sort of worlds always come together, right? Mhm. Now what you can do with yard, of course you can, you know, probably will. We are probably very few. You know, you can literally count on your fingers the number of tools that can actually ideate, find new ideas, content ideas. It helps you uh, write content, both short form, long form content it helps you design content, right? Uh, it know, almost, you know, you can design any kind of marketing creative that you're doing, right? Whether it is for social media, whether it is for other marketing channels. And then of course you should be able to sort of publish all those content, audit those content and also analyze that content to say, hey, what am I doing right? Is my content good enough? What is working and what is not? And if you look at that spectrum today, you will not find many tools. Right? You know, so how do we sort of create that connected ecosystem for the content to work? It's almost like, can I take a content journey from the point it was in my head to the point where it is finally with my audience today and they're engaging with it. Right. How do you sort of take that journey together and help it uh, you know, help creators create more content, uh, at speed and at scale.

Speaker B: Right. Very, very interesting. And uh, we'll get into the nitty gritty of uh, generative AI a little later in the episode. But now let's uh, get to the main topic of this episode. Because of your background in storytelling and now that you have your own generative AI company, you have, uh, had experience of, uh, dealing with brands, uh, what I would like to understand from you, the first thing I would like to understand is when it comes to creativity, do you think AI is uh, more like the superhero or just the trusty sidekick to human writers?

Speaker C: Now that's a very interesting question. Okay, before I answer that, a quick disclaimer. You know, uh, I'm happy that you called me as a storyteller. You know, I've done my bit of it. Uh, but you know, at this point I'm a practicing storyteller because it's a practice, right? You can only sharpen your skills every day. Now coming back to your question, I think, uh, if you ask me, I'll probably lean towards being a trusted sidekick. But the term that I'd love to use is it's a force multiplier for a storyteller. Um, we have seen AI do massive stuff and fascinating stuff. Whether it is finding ideas for your content, whether it is writing copies, whether it is designing something, getting your creatives out. Uh, but when it comes to storytelling, there's also a role of human ingenuity, right? Uh, the creativity in that. And a lot of times, you know, content is demand subjectivity.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Right. And, and the subjectivity. And you know, let's, let's think of an example here, right? Let's say we uh, asked 10 people to create, uh, a story, ah, create a story or a blog post of their experience of COVID right? And I'm sure a lot many would write about their Covid experience and let's say then we ask them to find a picture that will, you know, support their blog a lot. Many times you would see people will find pictures of, of the virus, right? A lot. Many people will find the pictures of the vaccine, right? But then there are a few storytellers you would see, few creators you would see would find pictures of solitude or. Which signifies solitude. It could be your empty road, a person standing out alone in the balcony. It uh, could be such semiotic images. Right?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Now, choice of that image, the choice of my visual story at this point is rooted on my experience. Now that is where the subjectivity, the intuitiveness, the ingenuity of human creativity comes in, right? And these two world, you know, when you think of AI, what it can do, and when you bring the brain, human brain in context to this, you know, this is a massive force. This is super, super force. That's a superhero for me right now.

Speaker B: That's a very interesting analogy, uh, that you brought into the picture, uh, the force multiplier. And subjectivity is one thing that uh, always differentiates, uh, different writers. And the storytelling skills, um, of a particular writer is what, uh, makes him more resonating with the audience. And uh, that's something that I thought AI could never replicate. As soon as I, uh, saw the bio that you shared with me where, uh, you know, you talk about, uh, having like a storytelling background and uh, you're currently working on that aspect of, uh, AI. That's where, uh, it really piqued my interest because I have never seen AI which can help you with storytelling efforts. Being a blogger for the last seven years or so, uh, I thought storytelling was something that was unique to me. I mean, I have my own experience like you just, uh, shared, uh, with that example. And that's what, uh, makes each article that I write unique. Whenever I bring in my personal experience into the picture. I would like to understand how you can use AI, how you can leverage AI to create more engaging and immersive stories. And you're free to give examples here.

Speaker C: Absolutely. Thank you so much for asking that question, actually. Um, and you have been a storyteller, you yourself, so you probably understand what I'm saying here.

Speaker B: Uh, sorry for interrupting you, but, uh, when it comes to, I mean the topic that uh, we talk about mainly, I mean on this podcast or when it comes to marketing we are not seen as a very interesting sort of a, ah, niche. Right. And uh, so storytelling in marketing is a little different from say, storytelling, uh, uh, uh, when it comes to having your own, uh, wellness blog. Because there you can talk about different things. Right. When you're talking about your weight loss journey or how meditation, you know, changed your life. So there are a lot of stories that you can bring into the game. But uh, when it comes to marketing, you know, marketing itself, um, tends to be a little more on the technical side. So to bring storytelling elements here and there, that's what, that's what differentiated my content from the rest and that's what helped me reach an audience and also probably rank higher on Google because that subjective experience is valued a lot by the algorithm. So, so yeah, so that, that's what I, that's where I'm coming from. And uh, I would like to understand more how other marketers can incorporate the same thing and I can also, you know, like you, I'm a practicing storyteller. I'm not, I'm not an expert. Right. So how it can help me as a marketer create more compelling stories.

Speaker C: Yeah, go ahead. Absolutely. And you know, I, I, I didn't mean to talk about Satyajit Ray or Christopher Nolan at all.

Speaker B: Right, right.

Speaker C: Whole different storytelling. Right. I think the question is very apt actually, when you think about marketing and storytelling. Right. M, what's the need of storytelling here? You're basically presenting facts, you know, in a very compelling narrative so that it's easy for somebody to understand. It's easy to recall. Right.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Now, the genesis of any storytelling. Right. Or any, any kind of stories. You know, the way I see it, it's rooted on three different dimensions. One, it has to have a structure. Right. Whether you are doing an interview, whether you're writing a blog, whether you're making a curous post, whether you're writing a white paper. It has to have a beginning, middle and end. And it has to be told in certain narrative way. As in you'll see many people talking about Hero's, uh, journey or a nested loop or Sparklines. There are different storytelling techniques that we often use either consciously or unconsciously.

Speaker B: Right, Right.

Speaker C: Two. So one instructor. Right. Two. It should, you know, speak to the emotion. It should create that emotion with the audience. Right, Right, right. And the third, the most important one is basically it should be striking empathy. Right. Now, what do we mean by that when we say empathy? It should be relatable. Right. It should speak to somebody's problem. My audience's problem or what they typically seek for. You know, they would not be interested to know something very absurd from me. Right. Uh, because they don't see me as an expert. And at the same time, if it is not speaking to their need, they're not interested in my content. Right?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Now if you look at those three needs, right. Structure, emotions and empathy. How can AI help you there? Right? Let's start from the bottom. Right. Actually, empathy, right?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: If you see what AI has done, it has brought Internet even closer to us. Right. You're able to find facts, you're able to research faster so that you are able to understand what is that your consumer or your audience is struggling with today, what is that they're reading, what is that they're looking for when it comes to information. M. When it comes to finding what is the right content idea, what should be right, what should we communicate? You know, that is where AI has helped you a lot. So that is basically ticking the empathy box, right? To M. When it comes to emotions, right. M. Now that's a very interesting topic. Right. And then the normal discourse or the regular discourse at this point is that uh, AI is not. Is devoid of emotions as humans are. Um. Right. Which is, which is acceptable as a narrative. Mhm. But what brings in, brings emotions to a story, right. It's the plot, the narrative that you're painting. It may be the visuals of it, what images you're adding. Right. It could be the audio that you added. Right. Uh, which is creating that mega listening moment for. Or a more holistic listening moment for your users. Now that is where AI comes in, right?

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: You know, can you help me find the best music for my video? M. Uh, because not all of us are AR Rahmans. Right. We cannot go to understand what's beats per minute, what is genre of a music. To find out what could go for an explainer video versus what could go, uh, for a client testimonial video versus, you know, any other video that. Or a case study video that you're creating. Now that is where AI comes in to sort of remove or help us make those choices better. Finding images, finding music. Right. Uh, which can sort of improve the emotional quotient of it. Right?

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And the last ones, the structure in itself. Right. As in what, what, what generative AI has done. You know, on a uh, on a light note, I think you will see more Grammarly perfect content pieces coming your way today.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker C: A lot. Many content that you see is grammar perfect. And thanks to generative AI for that. But there are jokes about, if you look at the structure standpoint today, right. What you're able to do with AI is to structure your thoughts better, iterate on them faster, you know, so that you can constantly juggle with them, find the right narrative for you.

Speaker B: Right, right, right.

Speaker C: Also sort of, it kind of democratizes skills like this. Right. For example, not everybody would be aware of how to use Hero's Journey in a content. They might have a hero or a character in a plot. Right. Uh, you know, how do you use that? How do you sort of bring in some of the elements which accentuate your content, which is like, let's say I want to start my story with an analogy at this point.

Speaker B: Yeah, right, correct.

Speaker C: Now, not every time you'll have an analogy in your mind, and that is where you will see AI helping you correct. To get those, uh, you know, momentary brilliance, I would say, you know, give you those nudges, the right kind of nudges, so that you can improve your content. Yeah, right. Sorry for the long answer, but.

Speaker B: No, no, I, I expect only long answers from you. So. Because I don't have to do the talking. You're doing the talking. And it's an expert who's talking about, um, you know, AI and storytelling. So that's, uh. Thank you for that answer. And um, I also see a lot of boilerplate content when it comes to, you know, AI. And I've noticed this trend with Google reviews. Whenever, you know, I search for a movie and I see Google reviews for that particular movie. There used to be, um, a certain sort of uniqueness, uh, to it. I mean, each review used to be different, but now if someone has a particular agenda against a movie, they just, you know, basically you'll find the same one star review, hundreds of them. Not just, uh, like five or six of them, but hundreds of them. Same reviews being paraphrased here and there. But, but I've often associated AI with abstract, um, content. Right. I mean, I've never thought, uh, uh, AI can come up with brilliant analogies, even Chat GPT, in my experience, maybe I'm using the older version of ChatGPT. The certain analogies that I, um, have experimented with, uh, there are two analogies that are like very, uh, frequently used by Chat GPT. One has to do with a chef and the other one has to do with a musician. So these two analogies keep getting repeated. Right. So, uh, I have often seen that as a limitation of an AI, uh, tool, a generative AI. Do you think, uh, it's at a stage where it has evolved. You spoke about reducing friction. I mean, right now when it comes to, uh, reducing friction, that's where AI is really helping us. But, uh, it also depends on a lot of prompts that you give. So the prompts need to be just as good as the AI tool that you're using. So the onus is on the creator rather than the AI ah, tool. Sorry for that long question, by the way. So do you think AI is evolving to a stage where it can help us create original content?

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, it's a very, again, very, uh, interesting and a difficult question at the same time, right? And this is where you would see a lot of platforms. You know, of course we are responsible for building one coming, uh, into the picture, right? Where we are taking that ownership to ensure that, you know, your creativity is not getting shortchanged. Right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Now to your question, uh, you know, say, even, even if I have to speak for in defense of chat GPT, right? See there, of course, it is generating those analogies, right? As in. And the chef. And the other one. Sorry, I forgot the other one.

Speaker B: The musician.

Speaker C: Yeah, musician. Right. Now, so interestingly, if you see there are two things here, right? One, as a creator, do I have uh, that conscious moment at that point of creation that I need to use an analogy now that is the first intervention of AI to sort of at least help you saying, hey, this deserves a hook statement. Now that hook could be an analogy, could be, uh, could be a quote, it could be anything. Now that's first, as in making you aware for choice, right? Two, I think if you look at it, what is getting created? I think if you leave that aside for a moment, right? What is at least it is sort of framing a thought for you. I can replace the chef with a penta. I can replace the chef with a, you know.

Speaker B: Sculptor. Yeah, correct.

Speaker C: Yeah, sculptor. So at least what it is going, doing, basically giving you a template, right? And then comes the last part of it, which is where you will see tools like ours, right? Wherein can it keep the context in mind? What is that person writing right now? What is the subject of it? And therefore what could be an apt kind of a, uh, hook, Whether it's an analogy, an ideal state, or a, you know, a question that you're sort of asking your users or your audience in the blog. You know, it has to be a little bit more context aware. And that is where you have already seen advancements with tools like, uh, you know, which have built on top of these Large language models. M m. But you cannot sort of at the same time you cannot uh, uh, you know, dismiss the fact that one, it may can the AI make you aware? Two, can it give. Nudge you to think? Right. And third, of course it is giving uh, the actual response to, to what you're asking for.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: But there is you know, at the same time, to your point, uh, when you said uh, you know, it's still diy, right? It's still DIY that and it is absolutely my brilliance and you know, to some extent it has, should be diy otherwise you're killing the human, you're killing the human ingenuity at this point.

Speaker B: Right, right. And um, that's why many content creators are ah, scared. Even Google is scared for that matter that uh, Chat GPT will replace them. Right. I mean if you can find all the answers to a question where AI is also coming up with interesting hooks here and there, then why would someone go to Google? They can just go to ChatGPT or uh, any other um, um, you know, chat um, AI generative chat, uh, tool out there. So that's uh, the, the human creativity, um, subjectivity like you said, is super important and it has to be diy. Hope it continues to be diy. And that's how content creators can differentiate themselves. Right. So um, there are a lot of creators these days, including me, who are using uh, AI tools hand, uh, in hand to craft uh, different narratives. Right. At least it has speaking from a personal experience. It has helped me combat uh, writer's block, it has made me more productive. I churn out more articles on my blog more frequently than I used to. And you uh, may have uh, your own personal experience to talk about and you've had so many clients um, at Yarnet. So I would like to understand from you what does this collaboration between a creator and AI look like and uh, what are some of the notable examples that you can give of uh, creators who are using uh, AI to that effect?

Speaker C: You know, it's a collaboration that's probably made in heaven. Right. Uh, it is going to be mainstream. It is already mainstream. Right. Uh, if you ask me, we see fascinating stories coming out of Yardnet every day, which our users and brands are doing. Right. And it could be um, a topic as ah, serious as you know, how to choose the best cloud infrastructure or what's the best cloud provider to fashion trends like Barbie, uh, gore. So what we've seen a lot of our customers do, of course they are sort of using the product and our competition set Other products that are there in the market to find new ideas. You know that. Because that's pretty much the genesis of every content. Yeah. Uh, to do the production of it. Whether you are writing it, you know, whether you're rewriting it, you have a first thought, you want, you know, to add more to it. Right. At the same time there's a lot happening on the creative space. Right. And then if you look at, you know, mid journeys of the world or you know, uh, stable diffusion models, et cetera, or a Dali, a lot of people are using it for creating audio visual content. Uh, right. Uh, so that is also becoming quite mainstream, I think from a notable, uh, examples. I'm not sure if you followed the uh, say it. With the Oreo ad, which basically used two different forms of generative AI technologies. One to generate responses to the user queries. And then it used the voice clone of Farhan Akhtar to sort of, uh, give it the voiceover. Right, right. Uh, so, yeah, that was a very interesting campaign. I think the other one that I followed and liked, um, was uh, you know, um, the one, um. Sorry, I'm not getting Baskin Robbins. Actually, you know, Baskin Robbins recently, uh, launched, I think, uh, they had a new ah, set of ice cream, uh, lines. Right. And they used uh, you know, a lot of this image generation tools to create almost like a wonderland of ice creams. Very, very interesting. Yeah.

Speaker B: Right. I can think of, um, an example from the top of my head. Uh, uh, there was this Marvel show recently called Secret Invasion, uh, which got into controversy because they used AI for certain sequences. I think it was the opening sequence. And um, I mean these days the shows uh, that are coming out of Marvel look like they have been written by AI because they are not as critically acclaimed as they used to be. So that's one example that I can think of. But I'm pretty sure there are positive examples as well. And that's one of the reasons why this writer, uh, strike is going on. Because writers and actors, uh, both going on strike. Uh, you told about how uh, Farhan Akhtar's voice was emulated. Right. Right. Now I think there are digital likeness of these background actors that are used or supporting characters who are used. Netflix and uh, other streaming companies have their digital likeness. So the actors are not getting paid. And I think that's one of the main reasons why the strike is going on. So this would be a very interesting way for us to segue into my next question, which is about the ethical considerations of using uh, AI in Storytelling. And, um, the reason I'm asking this, uh, as a content creator is that, uh, there are rumors that Google is coming out with an algorithm update which will combat AI content. Uh, and this is where it becomes super critical for a creator to differentiate their content. I mean, you can't expect AI to write, uh, you know, 100% of your content or even 90% of your content. Right? Because at some point in time you are going to get very similar content. Uh, right. Um, and the M Movie review example that I gave you was similar. Uh, so what are the ethical considerations of using AI today for content creators?

Speaker C: You know, as you rightly said, the balance. The balance is the key, right? As in, you are using technology to do things faster. Right. Uh, at the same time, you know, if you just follow it blindly, you are going to land into repetitive content. Right. And. And your Google example, the Google review example is very apt for it.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker C: See, from an ethical consideration standpoint, my view is this. I think as creatives, as brands who are using AI, uh, as storytellers, we have to be. We have to take ownership of it, right? It cannot be a, uh, machine that is churning content one after the other, you know, and creating a billion pieces. Uh, we have to take ownership of it, which means the human has to be in the loop. A responsible, you know, human has to be in the loop so that they are able to moderate. They are also able to actually make whatever content is getting out of it to be, uh, you know, uh, to be factual, to be. To ensure that it is not a plagiarized content. Right? Right. So those are some of those things, uh, you know, that we certainly need to sort of look at, right? As in there's a whole lot of discussion, uh, around, you know, the biases that AI can bring in. Right? Uh, it should not speak to, or rather create a stereotype in itself. Right? Because you don't know what it has been trained on. So, you know, one, for companies like us, right, who are building solutions on top of, uh, using this AI technologies or building AI technologies themselves, we have to ensure that, uh, you know, we are taking care of these biases. Right? At the same time, as users of this platform, we have to get ourselves in, you know, uh, into this game because, you know, we have to ensure that ultimately the content is ours. M. Right. And it has to, it has to sort of, um, it has to sort of then speak for the brand personality. It has to sort of also, uh, should be engaging enough for the audience. So, you know, you are basically balancing uh, the two needs, right? As in of human ingenuity that you want. Right. Also the speed and the scale that you typically demand.

Speaker B: Right, right, right. Jyoti, you already spoke about uh, Oreo using storytelling. Um, and uh, since Yanit has a lot of enterprise clients, what I would like to learn from you is how is AI shaping storytelling for brands and businesses? Because that's one aspect where I thought I would Never see, uh, AI being used, least in terms of storytelling. Right. In terms of engaging the audience with a bit of uh, uh, storytelling involved in the whole thing. So how, how is AI helping in that aspect?

Speaker C: That's again, you know, a very interesting question because, you know, if you see what, what it has held businesses and brands do is that, you know, a couple of things, right. I mean, a lot, many times you are trying to capture the moment, right? M. Um, you know, Chandrayaan 3 hack, right? As in. And every brand wanted to sort of congratulate India and Israel. Rightly so. So. But it's also a function of time, M. How quickly can get that content out. Right. Uh, so one, whether you are capturing a moment that is happening in real time. Like two, you know, how do you sort of create a long form content storytelling strategy saying, hey, this is a narrative that we believe in. This is the brand philosophy, this is my product philosophy. And therefore how do we sort of use technology together to sort of create content which is one, not only meaningful. Right. But also sort of, you know, is current, up to date. Right. It's not dated content that somebody had that problem 10 years back or 20 years back. Right. It is actually a problem that's happening today. The other interesting thing, you know, where you would see is basically the point of compliance. You know, brands are not built in a day. Right. Uh, and the perception of a brand comes from what, as an audience. I see, right. What is that? I read of that brand. Right. And a challenge for brands have been around how to ensure the brand compliance is happening. Your personality is maintained across all the different formats, uh, whether it is social media, whether it is marketing, etc. What AI has been able to do or what it is helping. And you know, we are a big proponent of it. How can AI help you ensure brand compliance? Right. So that ultimately, you know, your brand is sort of taking more precedence, uh, and getting the required amount of, uh, you know, how do I put that? And then it's. You're basically able to create, maintain the sanctity of your brand.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: You know, a lot, many times, uh, we are not able to, you know, manifest our stories in the form that we want.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because of the lack of time, because of the lack of resources. Right. You know, not everything probably. I wanted to write as a blog, maybe I wanted to create a video because that is much more engaging. Right, right. Or I wanted to create a visual content of doing that.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: What AI is bringing, helping you here is to sort of have all those resources and means.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker C: Right. So, and that was my, you know, uh, what I also told you earlier, saying you will see more and more visual storytelling happening and taking shape now than what used to be happening earlier.

Speaker B: Right? Yeah. In some cases, I mean a person, uh, like an individual creator may have a story they have in mind, but they don't know the engaging template to capture it in. And I think that's where AI can be, uh, really helpful. Jerry, being up close and personal with AI. I'm pretty sure you have a few ideas about uh, the emerging trends and technologies when uh, it comes to AI. So what I would like to understand from you is where do you see the future of generative, uh, AI in the next few years? If you can just give us a fair idea. Because AI is constantly evolving. Um, you know, ChatGPT is not the same as it was when it was first launched. Right. And we are introduced with new features. So I'm pretty sure, ah, there are a lot of emerging trends that you would be aware of.

Speaker C: You know, this is the toughest question, right? Because in this world, if you want to be the fortune teller of AI, you are in the worst business, right? The most riskiest business. Because the world is changing every day. Pretty much every day.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Uh, but you know, if you, if you literally take the advancements that we have seen in the last year and before that, you know what, what is very, very apparent, right, Is you will see a lot more good content, right? A, uh, good, good content which is also sort of bringing in the right elements of storytelling. You know, well, structured content, engaging content coming our way. And that is going to sort of, uh, be a lot, many of them. Right. Um, two, as I was speaking earlier as well, um, you know, with advent of all these different technologies, whether it is generating videos, whether it is generating images etc, and even music to, to some extent, um, or, or maybe the editing capabilities of it or enrichment capabilities of it, right. That are coming our way and there are plenty of them right now. You know, if you look at Mid Journey or Dali and so on and so forth, right. You will see a massive uplift when it comes to visual storytelling, audio, visual storytelling, that is for sure. Right. But the one trend that I am very interested to see or uh, you know, how it takes shape is how the world of software and hardware would come together in the realm of AI. Right. Because now if you see there are a lot of technologies which is probably working as a software right now, right? And then churning content, but then the hardware will also play a role, right? And we have seen a glimpse of that, uh, with Apple new uh, headsets, the VR headsets now that will give us capabilities to do more personalized storytelling or content. Right. And also sort of bring those stories to them in their very personal sphere. Right. Um, you know, it could be the video games that you're doing, right? How you interact with the brand, how do you interact with the product. You know those interactive storytelling is something that is definitely going to take shape. Uh, of course there is a lot of advancement that you see in the space of AR already. You know, I just want to see, um, you know, how these two sort of world converge, the hardware and the software together. Right. But from a, from a, you know, if you see the way this technology is moving, of course the idea here is to be much more accurate, much more factual when it comes to giving information, uh, to, to the end user. Right? So those are, those are, some of these technologies are coming, you know, to in that particular context to improve the accuracy of these models.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Two, you know, uh, we already sit on a lot of huge, lot of corpus of data. You know, if you, if you talk to brands and businesses, everybody has a legacy, right? And then when it comes to the content that they might have already created, the information that they already have, the idea is that how do you ensure all of this is working or that knowledge is not neglected? You know, of course we have the general capability of AI, right? But how do you sort of, sort of personalize that capability with the data that these brands and the businesses have. Right? Because that's gold.

Speaker B: Very interesting. And um, uh, the fact that you brought um, uh, the Apple headset into the picture, a lot of uh, content creators have already said that it's going to be a bust. So uh, on the other hand there are people who uh, are waiting for AR to just pave the way because they, you know, when you talk about companies like Google, Apple, they've invested a lot of money, you know, into AR and uh, they've been doing it for the past 10 years or so. So uh, will it come to fruition is something that will be very interesting. To see. And, um, yeah, in the context of brands, there's so much of content, there's so much of data they have and how they repurpose that into the new emerging technologies will be very interesting to see. Uh, it's moving at a rapid pace. So I think we'll have the answer in the next five years. I think the next five years, uh, we'll definitely see, uh, a lot of evolution when it comes to AI and even blockchain. Um, blockchain has seen a lot of evolution in, in the past few years. So it'll be. And how blockchain and AI can be combined. That's another interesting topic, uh, that we can delve into, uh, in a future episode, you know, before wrapping things up. Uh, J.D. um, what are some key takeaways that you have, uh, for our listeners when it comes to, uh, generative AI? And, um, I would also like, uh, our listeners to try Yarnit because, uh, it's a very unique generative AI tool. I've already spoken about a few AI tools, uh, content creation tools on this podcast, and I would love, um, it if they try, uh, yarn it as well. So if you can, um, just give a few takeaways or insights when it comes to, uh, generative AI and also talk about your own company, Yarnit.

Speaker C: No, absolutely. Thank you so much. You know, and it was a lovely, uh, lovely discussion, I think. I hope you got something meaningful out of. Out of this conversation. Uh, you know, look, as in generative AI, if you can call certain moments as watershed moments, this is a watershed moment for sure, right? Uh, what it is giving us as a capability is immense, right? It just sort of maximizing the resources for us, right? Um, you know, if you, if you can imagine you can create, it is literally that, right? Right. Um, you know, a lot, many times, uh, you would see why. And I often call this as the content versus the story dilemma. Right? Um, a lot, many times we kind of leave our content with content and not turn them into stories. But if you look at that challenge, um, is because of time and resources, right? Uh, if we had all had the luxury of time to work on our content repeatedly, had a lot of resources in hand, right? We'll spend a lot of time to sort of get them into a beautiful narrative, right? Something that is really attracting, something that is really meaningful when it comes to the communication that you're making, the information that you're sharing, etc. Etc. Um, interestingly, what is happening is that AI is here to help. Now. Now, the time function of It. Right. It is getting reduced by multifolds. Right. And that is where you will see a lot of good content coming your way. Right. And I would only encourage everybody to sort of be a little bit more embracing to the technology in itself. I understand that there are questions about it, but unless you get to try it, uh, you would never understand what it can do for you, what it would not do for you. At the same time, we have to have ownership of the content. Um, uh, technology is great. Uh, but like I said, you know, ownership is very, very important. That ultimately it's you as a creator or the brand. Yeah. Uh, which is, uh, who is creating the content. Right. And therefore you have to be ensured that you know, one. It is actually correct. You know, factually writing information. You are not adding to any biases that is already existing in the world.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: And third. Right. I mean, there's, you know, we have to only see this as a force multiplier for our own creativity. Correct. Right. Um, and all that it is giving us right now is to think more, imagine faster, imagine bigger. Right. Make, um, our stories in, you know, as the cinema world called it, 70 mm M. Right. And not, not, not getting shortchanged. Ah. Um, by not having resources and time.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Um, so, yeah, absolutely. You know, personally, I'm very excited. Of course, as a part with Yanit, we are building probably, um, the most comprehensive tool when it comes to generative AI, uh, when it comes to storytelling, content creation largely. Right. Uh, but as a practitioner myself. Right. You know, a lot of the content or the idea that I had during showers or during my rides, uh, right now they're finally taking some shape. Otherwise they were always lost. Right. And now I have at least a digital version of it. Right. So I'm pretty excited, uh, for your audience to also sort of try Ayanet, give us feedback so that we can become better from where we are today.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Awesome. So I'll include, uh, the, um, link to Yanet in the show notes. And uh, uh, there's a free plan as well. Right. For um, anyone to try out. So, um, I would encourage all the listeners to give Yanet a try. And uh, jd, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show. Uh, lots of insights that we gained and it'll be very interesting to witness the growth of Yanet in the coming years. And I would love to have you for a future episode as well when, uh, AI has evolved even more. So it'll be very interesting to witness the journey of generative AI and And also Yanet and I wish you all the best.

Speaker C: You know, if you want to time it, Sandeep, with, uh, you know, the future of AI and the advancement of it, probably we need to have this episode every week, right? That's how, that's, that's how fast I

Speaker B: don't mind you having as a special guest every week.

Speaker C: Yeah. Ah, thank you so much. Lovely opportunity, you know, lovely discussion, lovely conversation, you know, you have a good day. Bye.

Speaker B: Yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker A: Marketing Mantra with Sandeep Mallya is a podcast by 99signals. A place to find top notch content on a wide range of online marketing topics. To get started, visit 99signals.com Best to check out all the top rated articles on the blog or simply view the description of each episode to download free online marketing resources to level up your marketing skills. You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts and you might find your review featured on a future episode. Got a question or topic suggestion for Sandeep? Simply send a voice message via anchor app or send an email to podcast@99signals.com. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Marketing Mantra on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or any major podcast player.