How to Build a Brand in the Age of AI | Ep 976

21,393,122 followers across all platforms for Leila, Sharan, and me in the ACQ brands. And I want to break down how to build a personal brand in 2026, both leveraging AI, but more importantly, in spite of AI, and how you can actually prove yourself as somebody that people will want to listen to. And so I think the big thing that has to be understood in AI is that AI will not equally disrupt all creators. And so creators actually sit on this continuum, you have low risk, and then you have high risk.

So how can you have a high risk creator or low risk creator? Well, it depends on what is being asked of the consumer. So for example, if you consume a meme or you consume a stand-up comedy clip, the risk that you have is just the time that you're putting into consuming the clip, and the product of that creator is the clip itself. It's self-contained, meaning when you consume it, if you laugh, the value is already delivered.

You have a complete cycle. And so these fall into the category of entertainers. And so entertainers, and I define entertainment as one thing, which is the objective of the content is to be consumed. So if you think about a perfect retention curve, if 100% of people watch 100% of a video, you would have a video that would alter or alter viral, right?

But there's nothing after that. It's just you consumed it, you have been entertained. So then what are the other parts on this continuum? So the next one you would have would be what I couldn't consider a B2C educator.

So what does that look like? Now to be fair, do you have to be only one of these things? Of course not. You're going to vary along this continuum.

It's not like there's a box that you're like, I'm only this or I'm only this. The different types of content you make make correspond with different parts on this continuum. And you also might even have within the same piece of content a couple of them that you might have a little joke that you say that's entertaining of itself. But then you have a point that you'll make, which might lead to something else.

We have to answer the next question, which is what's the point of education? The point of education is to change behavior, right? Like you don't put your kids in school so that they act the same. You put their kids in school so they can start reading or they can start writing or they can start speaking or they can start doing math.

They can change behavior, right? And so the stakes are significantly lower for B2C educator. So imagine a girl who's doing a hair tutorial or a makeup tutorial or a fitness thing for diet or for working out or somebody who's giving maybe relationship advice. The reason that I say it's lower risk is that let's say you start the diet and it doesn't work as well.

It's not the end of the world, right? If you buy some last extensions and it doesn't work as well, not the end of the world. Now, can these people drive sales? Absolutely.

I mean, Huda Beauty built an empire off of just this concept, right? And the thing is is that she had credibility within that domain because she could demonstrate it live, right? She actually used the product. You see it before and after in real time using the implement.

You say, I'm willing to take this risk. And so you do it. Now, AI, we best suited to interrupt the stuff on this side. Why is that?

Because if you see a clip of an AI avatar girl who's doing her lashes or doing her hair and giving you tips on how to do it, the likelihood that you'll listen to it even if it's AI is probably decently high as long as the stuff seems like it makes sense. You're really, I didn't know that. Maybe I'll give that a shot, right? Now, as you move along this continuum, when the stakes get higher, you're less and less likely to listen to someone who does not have third-party proof that's as demonstrated.

So I'll explain. So this middle tier here would be what I would consider a kind of B2 Pro Sumer. All right? So this is kind of where you get into your money stuff.

So you look at people who talk about savings and investing money. That's like, is there certainly more risk to what you do with your savings and your money and investing than lashes and your hair and maybe even a diet? Ask when it's people. The answer will probably be yes, right?

So if you look at some of the top creators in the space, let's think of some of them. So you've got like Erica taught me who's done an awesome job. Now, why do people listen to her because she talks about how to like make disputes and ask refunds. It's all about money.

What is she? She's an attorney, right? She has more real-world credibility. What's another example?

Vivian too. She's also, she's someone who came from finance. And so she has that credibility of kind of wall street, et cetera. And so she's leveraged that and she talks about saving and investing and stuff.

You think about like Dave Ransy, right? He obviously has his big business success, which is big overlay on this. And he's, I've been doing this for a really long time. So for each of these people, there's a little bit more proof that's required.

Now, are there people who are making content in the space that have zero proof? Maybe? Are they the biggest? No.

Why? Because listening to their advice is riskier than listening to somebody who has some visible proof. Hey guys, real quick, many of you guys are getting started in business and don't know, but other entrepreneurs have already tried to help. And so 3.

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So as we move along to continue them, we have our B2B creators, right? And so I would consider myself in this category. For a lot of my content, this included. I started this video by saying that we have over 20 million plus subscribers followers, et cetera, across platform because I have to have some credibility is to what I'm saying, right?

Now me giving credibility around that and AI could totally replicate because if an AI has a lot of followers, for example, then that AI would be able to talk about it because it would have proof about it. That all makes sense. Now if an AI is saying, hey, do this thing in your business until there are AI's that have built gigantic companies that no human was involved in, then the likelihood that the AI will have the ability to gain the trust of the audience so that they listen to the advice goes down.

And so why do we actually care about proof or demonstration in general to begin with? Well, we take as a signal to decrease our own personal risk. And so if you have two people that you're listening to, one person that just GPT'd, hey, this is six things you need to do to scale your sales team, never sold anything in their life, never built a sales team versus somebody who's built 10 sales teams and says, here are six things that you need to do. If the content was the same, which one of these two people do you think would have significantly larger followings?

This one, why? Because people can actually believe they're actually willing to take action on it because they say, okay, this guy probably knows what he's talking about because he's done this in the real world. Now, there is a little bit of chicken egg of the six things this guy comes up with versus the six things this guy's come up with. These ones will probably be a little bit better because he has in the trenches knowledge.

And so there's a little bit of chicken egg, but assuming the information was literally identical, the person who has the most credibility wins and not just by a little bit, by a lot of it, like why is Elon the number one business influence in the world? Because he's the richest man in the world, right? And so it will be increasingly difficult for AI to create the proof required for B2B and higher risk types of content. And so when we think about this, you're like, how do I make my brand or build my brand in a world where AI can duplicate anything?

Well, we have to focus on proof. We have to focus the demonstration. And if we're looking at this continuum, the more you're this way, probably the safer you are, at least in the short to medium term. Underneath of that, we get the next question, which is, okay, if that is indeed the case, what do I need to do in order to create content at scale that can compete with AI?

Well, it's going to come down to how can I do demonstration at scale? How can I provide proof at scale in real time? For sure, it's great to have accomplishments. The accomplishments you can mention, right?

You can say them one time. People can know that you sold a company or you're scaled or you're doing two out of $2 million a year. Remember, whatever it is, you can have that stuff. But demonstrating in real time is something that is incredibly difficult to fake, right?

Now, is there a world in the future where AI can take calls? Absolutely, it's probably a year or two away. It's not even that far, maybe by the end of this year. But to what are you going to do today, like watching this video?

Well, I'm going to give you a couple things that have worked really well for me. So number one is, instead of saying, hey, of course you want to do Epic shit and then document it and then do more of it in the document. That's a no question. That would be more of a content creation method.

So it's like you look at your calendar, you look at all your meetings, you put a plug-in for each of the meetings because you do them virtually so you transcribe them, then you say, hey, AI, tell me the interesting moments from these meetings, and then you can talk about them. So rather than you making up stories, you actually give real examples, right? That is further along this proof-to-risk spectrum. So that's a good thing.

But is there something that's even better than that? And I think there is. Which is, is there a way that you can engineer within your existing business motion? Which is, how do you service customers of whatever it is that you sell?

That you can bake in components of proof. So how would that work? Well, if I were selling hair extensions, I would probably have sweepstakes and lottery tickets inside of the hair, which then creates a marketing motion that I can put around it, which why not? Then the winners, I can call in person to come to my salons where I can install them for them.

And then all of a sudden, I've got this beautiful loop, a self-licking ice cream cone, if you will, of I sell, you know, customers come in, they buy products, those products generate marketing. That marketing gets more customers, those customers buy more products, and around and around we go. That is a self-licking ice cream cone. And you won't install it in every business you have, especially in light of AI, where proof is going to be more than anything else.

If you're going to be to be setting, it works the same way. Now if you're like, oh, well, I, you know, this doesn't work for my business. You're not going to make it, dude. I don't know to tell you.

Like, if you can't think, how could I engineer a way for me to interact with my customer so that we could demonstrate the value of the products that we have in a real way, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I'm trying to think like the most basic, you know, version of this. It's like, all consumer products are really straightforward. Like, literally use the product.

That's, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's simple, right? On the B2B side, it's going to be more around the proof that you can demonstrate around, let's say you're, you know, obviously, you're a marketing agency. Okay, bring someone in, walk through the campaign, bring the customer in, and show it, right? Even if you're a small agency, do it with all of your customers.

Why not? Right? And worst case scenario, you make a marketing motion that's, let's say you only have 10 customers. Okay, start doing these, these audits for people for free and document them.

That's the trade. Hey, let me do a whole bunch of work for free. I'll document it and I'll just give it away. Who says no to that?

Right? The big point here, zooming all the way out is that AI is going to disrupt disproportionately the lowest risk to the higher risk people in that order. To protect yourself, you want to do things that AI will be more difficult for you. Now, is there a world where AI can literally do everything?

Probably. Are we there yet? No. And so in the meantime, what do you do?

You win with what you got, right? Which is we demonstrate our expertise and the quality of our products and services in front of people, ideally to our customers, which we document. And if you don't have enough customers to do with, you do it for everybody publicly. That's the game that I think is going to keep you ahead of the pack of AI, GPT, avatar driven content because the proof is going to be in the pudding and you want to make sure that you've got your first spoon in.

I've talked publicly about my whole concept strategies, live and interactive. That's what I'm doing. I'm showing you my cards. I'm telling you what I'm doing.

All right. And so there's two types of content that you'll be seeing more and more of. And I'm trying to engineer more and more components of this into my existing business so that I can document while I deliver so that it's no extra added time, right? Because it's like, how does Alex make so much content?

And so the reality is that I'm usually not making content. We're just capturing it, right? That's what allows me to do so much more volume. And so if you're thinking to you, it's like, well, like if you have to sit down to actively court every single thing and you want to make 20 pieces, 50 pieces of content, you're going to do nothing but to stand in front of the camera.

That's going to be really miserable for you, right? But if you do what you like doing, like for me, I love doing Q&As with business owners. I've had a lot of reps with it. And I just like, it fills me up, right?

And so in person, when we have events, if I have time, I go downstairs and I take questions. I can't do it all the time. But whenever there is an event that's happening, and if I have a blank calendar, I'm going to try and get down there, right? If I do, like, today when I do a recording, I'm going to take calls from people who are in our newly launched a million dollar plus community for business owners, right?

And so all of this is like, how can I feed the proof machine? Proof is both the third party. These things have happened. That's the big exits, the revenue, all that, like headcount, whatever.

I've this many companies. And then there's the demonstration side of it, which is, can I see this person use their expertise in real life? Now, to be clear, this is a hardcore moral on the services side, but you can still do demonstration with products. You just physically demonstrate them rather than using your hands to do whatever service you have.

And so hopefully that gives you at least a handful of ideas to think through, not just, oh, well, I just sit in front of a computer all day. There's no way I can document what I'm doing. It's like, yeah, you got to create the opportunity. No shit.

And so, hold a sweepstakes. Hold a very limited thing where you email your whole list and say, hey, or you just take the 10 customers or five customers you got right now, go to their houses. Like, of course, there's a way to do it. It just takes work, but you said you wanted to win.

So welcome to the game.