Ep. 138 - Winning Retail Media with AI | DBB Event Recap

Shoppers don’t think in channels, they remember how your last interaction made them feel. We sit down with leaders from Google, Hershey, AdFury, and HashKu to show how AI can meet that rising bar by turning messy data into crisp experiences across search, store, service, and even gaming. The throughline is clear: when your brand story is structured and accessible, agentic systems can personalize creative, refresh copy before fatigue sets in, and keep a consistent message from Walmart Connect to Amazon to social and beyond.

We dig into what “good” looks like behind the scenes: consolidating product data, enriching PDPs, and using models to compress planning cycles from weeks to days. AdFury explains how agent networks generate platform‑specific assets that stay on‑brand while adapting to audience context. HashCube opens the door to gaming as a retail channel, where co‑playing families and 13+ environments offer brand‑safe ways to build affinity, think seasonal moments like Halloween in Roblox, where virtual wearables connect with real‑world baskets. Hershey’s perspective underscores the power of heritage storytelling, especially when expanding to global markets without built‑in nostalgia.

We also get practical about getting started. Use consumer tools to build prompting skills, then move into enterprise setups to protect corporate data. Ask for sources, push for specificity, and treat AI as a magnifier that clears low‑value tasks so teams can focus on strategy and relationships. If you’re aiming for results in the next 90 days, define your narrative, clean your data, pilot agentic creative in one channel, and expand what works. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello, everybody. My name is Eric Howerton with Doing Business in Bentonville. And it was my honor today to witness these wonderful panelists and moderator do an AI and retail media show, live event here in Northwest Arkansas at the Acosta office, sponsored by Acosta, sponsored by the Bentonville Chamber of Commerce. And what we did was we just basically brought together leaders from the community, brands, brokers, selling partners, agencies, folks like that to come in. And the fantastic thing about that is that the response was fantastic. We had a full crowd, and then we delivered a really important topic today. And we were led by Jessica Duquesne, who is our moderator. Thank you, Jessica, for doing that today. Thank you, crap. And then we had Eric McCourt with Google. Jessica, by the way, is with her. She excused me, Jessica. Sorry about that. Eric McCourt with Google. And we had Toby Wilsie with Ad Fury. And then we had Joel Pons with HashCube. And Jessica, really, you really set it off great this morning. I just want to say that. Great job with the moderation. The questions were fantastic. Maybe you can kind of recap a little bit about some of the questions you've asked and why maybe you asked those questions.

Why AI Matters For Retail Media

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yes. First, I do want to say like, what a great turnout. Yeah. I was very impressed with the amount of people that were there. And something that that lets you get in the insight of people really want to talk about AI. Right. So as soon as they have the opportunity to have that conversation, of course, we had a great panel of people that are very knowledgeable and that use it every day and they see what results there are. Is that there is a need in this community, specifically in the CBG community, to have more in-depth information of how to use these tools and how they're can create an impact in their organizations. Right. So first of all, I think that that was very clear, which I love that we keep having those conversations and you have a plan to keep bringing that along. But today it was more focused about, you know, like AI in retail media, right? So retail media ecosystem, because I would think most people here focus on Walmart business and probably Samsung business, right? And so that retail media environment, especially because it's pushed out by Walmart, is so important to understand it and see how they're like AI partners with that and how they can leverage. So how is AI in retail media like how are they used, like a how are they um creating an impact and measurable results through AI? And I think that that was a very important question that we asked. Another way is like how AI is influencing your uh workflows internally, like how the way you work with your teams. Um, what is different? And then the last is kind of like we were like a little call to action, right? Like a what do we what should brands do in order to create an impact and how can they win? Let's say in the next we even said 90 days, we give them 90 days. I don't know, maybe they're gonna do it right now.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

I saw a lot of people taking notes, so that was very impactful. So those were, I think, the top big overarching topics that we had. And thank God we had like um these three over here that were like really good at answering them and answer all the questions.

Customer Expectations In An AI World

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Well, I've really thank you, Jessica. I really appreciated uh how you how it was staged out. You know, and and what was neat when we you and I were first talking about doing this, you were like, Eric, why don't I, as a brand, ask the questions that brands would ask? I'm like, wow, that's genius. How did I never think about that? So thank you for making me smarter again, as always, Jessica. But it was fantastic because I think that the way that you position them, like really thinking about the brands. And then I feel like that the brands came in, they got a lot of value. You know, one thing too about Erica, whenever you were uh talking about the internet, you know, what I didn't expect that I personally was going to get a lot out when I started hearing you talk about how Google has structured its ecosystem, you know, with Gemini Enterprise, you know, and I mean, and those are kind of like some of these things we hear about, you know, you get there's so much information coming out about tools and LLMs and everything, all this stuff that's going on, but you started kind of crystallizing a little bit about what that means. And really what it means from a brand standpoint is what are the customers like because everybody in the world's getting that, you know, and they're gonna have this experience with enterprise and all these different tools that they're using. Um, I thought that was really valuable. I mean, can you go into that a little bit again, just talking about, I mean, from you know, if I'm a brand listening to this, what are customers you how are they using tools for shopping? What's that experience? Can you dive into that a little bit from what you know?

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah, for sure. So I think um the thing that has been obvious to me in in the space of AI is your most recent experience becomes your expectation. And so I think when you think about customers, um, they aren't doing it intentionally and thoughtfully, but they're just reacting to what's given to them. And so when you're on a customer service call and it's clunky and it feels like they don't know you, it's agitating because you can absolutely get on a call where someone knows your name, knows what you why you're probably calling, and then quickly gets to resolution. So your time is being saved. And I think that's what customers want. They want to be seen, they want to be known. And I think anybody who can create that experience, whether that's on their website with their agent, if that's, you know, with their customer service or with their associates in store, that's what customers desire. They want to be seen, they want to be known, and they want to be efficient. I mean, I am the efficiency coin. I want to get in and out, and I don't want to have to do extra steps because somebody isn't using the data that's available to them. Now, in full transparency, companies have a lot of work to do to serve up that data in a consumable way so that you're setting your front line up for success, that they have that data in a very digestible format that they can speak intelligently into the customers. And that's the work, right? That's where I think that we really need to spend some time knowing our data, where our data lives, pulling the data sources together to deliver that expectation for customers.

Brand Storytelling As Data Fuel

SPEAKER_00 6:19

You know, Eric, what makes me excited is I've been, you know, I had White Spider before and it was all about data and content, right? The catalog. I mean, we just relentlessly are pushing that. And it was more about SEO and you know the customer engagement experience. But the same truth still holds. Content's keen, right? I mean, because like basically we can say like the machine has already consumed all the data that's really available in the world, but it wants new, better data. I thought your analogy about calling in at the airline and I'm having this problem, this conversation. But if, you know, can a brand, if they really focused in on that depth of their data, like why they, you know, why their research and development does these things? Why, what's their sustainability practices? Like, what's really at the core of their messaging, just go deeper and deeper and deeper, providing that back to these agentic shopping experiences. Is that kind of what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Absolutely. And I think that like people want to connect with brands and they want to know their story. Like way back in the day, uh, Ben and Jerry's ice cream, you could go to the Northeast and you could tour where things originated. You then come to find out it's a public brand that owns that bought them out, kind of takes some of the mystery away. But like everybody wants to hear the story behind the brand. And so I think that as a company, as a brand leader, the more precise you can get about how you're differentiated, how you stick out, and how you can connect with your audience, people want to know that. They look at reality TV show. Like everybody wants the dirt of like what's going on in people's lives. If a brand approached their messaging that way, like how are they revealing some of the backstory as to what brought them to this point or how they've served their customers over time, how they've evolved their brand, how they connect it, all of that is just people being responded to and being in um on the inside with a brand, being crisp about that story and finding a way to pass that through in your, you know, your PDP page, the what you show to the customer, how they can land on your brand, how they can see and how you message and market to your customer. If there is a thread that is connected to that, that's pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

You know, just I can't help but sit here and think like, if I was like, if I was on, you know, Walmart and I'm talking to the bot, right, trying to find I want the best chocolate, but I, you know, and and all these different attributes. But then I'm like, I want one that's made in the USA. Like, what's the best, you know? I mean, it just seems like that's perfect time for Hershey, like, did you know? Like, here's our founding story, and we are this and that. And it seems like a lot of times those stories exist, but you don't, they're not upfront a lot of ways, right? It's not synchronized in. I mean, what are your thoughts on something like that?

SPEAKER_01 9:04

It's interesting from the point of view of Hershey. Okay. Right. Because it even if you don't know the backstory of Hershey, like Milton Hershey, and how he wanted to make the best chocolate and affordable and also help back his community. It's almost like it feels like the Waltons thinking we want to make this community grow, like Benville, and that's why they have the headquarters. Like he wanted the headquarters over there in Pennsylvania, and he wanted to grow that community. That's why he wanted all the plants there, et cetera. And so if people don't know, it still has like this nostalgia attached to it. So even if you don't know the whole story, you know Hershey's part of like your parents' life, your grandparents' life. Right. You know, like how um, and that they're connected to it from an emotional, you know, sense. Like there's new chocolate brands, obviously, right? Which again, they have to do, especially in the US, they have to do a lot more, I guess, of that backstory. Why do I exist, right, as a brand? You know, and some some of them are influencers. So it's like I am this person and people feel connected to that and therefore connected to the brand. Others, it's just a brand that comes like, who are you? Why are you in this space? Right. Um, so from Hershey's perspective, I think that there is that advantage in the US. Now I work on global markets and we have to tell that story.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Interesting.

Gaming As A Retail Channel

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Uh, you know, overseas. There's no nostalgia connected to our brand. But don't understand what is it? What do you want? Like, so everything that you're saying, we have to optimize on a global scale. Wow. So people understand our brand. But hopefully, I would like the shameless picture of Hershey movies coming November 2026. Really? Tell the whole story. I would love it. Hershey, yes, it's coming out.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

I can't wait to see it.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

Can we show it right now in this video screen?

SPEAKER_01 10:58

I don't think the production has to go back.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

I thought this was the premiere of the Hershey movie. My bad. I'm actually excited about that because I've I've always been a big fan of like American entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs history. This is such a wonderful. It is, it really is. So when we had uh these questions that popped up at the uh at the uh event, and then you got Toby and uh and Joel started talking, you know, it started getting kind of kind of deep and in and cool, but that's really cool. You know, I I think that like the question I have for you, Joel. I mean, your your HashQu, just so we're clear, like it. I mean, we know Google, we know Harshee, like just like what you're just talking about, Jessica. We already know, right? It's got a nostalgia, but I mean, kind of smaller companies, founding startup companies, right? Um, HashQu, it's in the gaming industry for the most part, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:46

Think of us as a media innovation agency with specialty within gaming, helping unlock gaming as a retail channel and building intelligent systems to really take strategic planning process from weeks to days. Uh, we frankly started developing that as a way to learn more about our clients, their brands, and their customers, uh, because that ultimately allows us to better serve them. Um, that's been a really powerful unlock for us.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

So, like, for example, like you you you can help a brand advertise within gaming environments, which I mean, we all know is really that's a blowing up space, right? It has been. Um, you know, I imagine that there's it's kind of like there's a lot of education inspiration you have to give. Joe's like, yes, yes. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's I'm very tired.

SPEAKER_03 12:31

That that's that's the job. But yeah, when you think about it, like just look around, think about, you know, friends, family. Um, they're either spending time on their phones playing Candy Crush Works Friends, um, they're on their Xbox or PlayStation, they're on their Nintendo Switch. So we know I had a good conversation about how, you know, when I was in Nickelodeon, we used to talk about co-viewing, but now you think about this concept of co-playing. My nephew will call me and be like, hey, Uncle, you want to play Lego Fortnite? Because there's a new Star Wars DLC. Let's go get the lightsaber. It's a family activity now. It is. Um, and there's a lot of misconceptions. People think it's, you know, kids are a dude in his basement. And it's really multi-generational. So the really big questions are it's not, are your customers spending time there? More often than not, the answer is yes, some more than others. It's more how do you show up in a brand safe way? How do you do it in a way that aligns to your goals and objectives? Um, and what's the best place to start?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

And then how do you scale from there? And so I imagine uh uh AI is really helping. Is it starting to help accelerate or go deeper into these?

SPEAKER_03 13:31

It's helping us gain a deeper understanding of any brand we work with to find the right way for them to show up in those environments. Because it's not just throw up an ad with whatever you want to say your display ad in this space. You want to be contextually relevant to this.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Right.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

And the deeper we understand the brands, the better we're able to do that.

Personalization At Scale With Agentic Ads

SPEAKER_00 13:50

So, for example, uh, you know, if you had like Hershey, not to call that Hershey's doing something like that, but if Hershey wanted to do it, you're you're looking at the environment of the gaming space along with the really the you can almost get down to maybe an average of who the player is or what any of those types of things, marry that together, create that promotion, that ad that's contextually relevant in the time.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

So, you know, in their case, like think about Halloween as a super important moment for them. That's their Super Bowl, right? Well, uh when you when you think about uh Roblox, for example, Halloween is kind of the Roblox of the Super Bowl of Roblox as well. People are often dressing up during that time, people are always changing outfits, billions of dollars are spent in in-game wearable items. So, what an interesting opportunity for you to create a moment where people can celebrate in-game and in real life.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

I can really see that. Like if you can capture that, and we you guys talked about that quite a bit. Like it's not just about, like, for example, in that environment, but where are people discovering or becoming exposed to a brand? I mean, if they buy a game wearable Hershey shirt or cap or something like that for the character, that's what you're talking about, right?

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Okay, you can wear a whole like a chocolate bar or pieces outfit or visit's jacket.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

We did that for Halloween.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

We did that. Yeah, we did that. Uh really? Yes. That's super cool. Yeah. So we absolutely did that, and we learned that the older the player, the more they want something to feel like it was uh something they could wear in real life. The older the player, the more they want it to be something over the top. And and again, it's doing it in a brand safe way. So uh when we work with their team, it's identifying the places that were, you know, predominantly 13 plus. That's super important for a brand like Hershey's and many others that have uh high sugar content for it, too.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

So I imagine that they experience that there and then they take that, it's in their mind as they're out in store or online, or they're getting their next basket or whatever it might be, right? They have this now affinity towards what they were wearing.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

And it's super important. We think about uh there's psychology studies talking about the age of imprint. Like, how do you show up in a consumer's mindset before they start making decisions of the brand that they know and trust and are going to be a part of their day-to-day lives moving forward? Uh the studies kind of vary, but like usually that's you know, in the 12 to 16 range. So, how do you show up in that environment from an advertising perspective, 13 plus, um, and start getting them to think about your brand and your consideration set? Adidas, I think, has done a fantastic job with this in Roblox. So they're outfitting the next generation of consumers. They literally have a virtual store of a mall of Adidas, and they're selling all these kicks and jerseys, and like all of a sudden, you see all these Roblox avatars wearing Adidas gear everywhere. Like that's really interesting, right? When you go to Fortnite, you can buy Adidas shoes, you can buy Nike shoes. Uh, they're outfitting their virtual characters, which people might see more than they see the real person in your life. So it's a bit of a bragging rise.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

That's super cool. And so AI is allowing you to be, I mean, just expedites the speed at which how you match that relevancy.

SPEAKER_03 16:49

At the moment, we're using it a lot for strategy and planning and helping us do that infinitely faster and more thoughtfully. Um, we do see a world where this is going to start allowing us uh to do more on the asset development side as well.

Stitching Tools Into End‑To‑End Flows

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Oh, wow, that's cool. Toby, so on your side, what are you, I mean, adfury.ai is who you're with. You're the chief media, uh chief media officer at the company. Um, I mean, what are you doing? I mean, I know your experience is really specific in retail media. I mean, you did stuff with Walmart in the past and Amazon, many other retailers. Um, how are you seeing, I mean, what are you doing at Ad Fury that's that's in that space? And how how do you see that help and all that good stuff?

SPEAKER_04 17:31

Yeah, yeah. Um, so Ad Fury is, you know, a purely a genet platform with proprietary IP that's allowed us to create uh essentially our own system of agents. And what that allows us to do is have uh personalization at scale. What we're trying to achieve is allowing brands to be able to create unique assets for each of their different targeting strategies and each of their different channels so that realistically they can have a similar brand ethos around their entire marketing strategy. And they can be able to have similar creatives wherever they are appearing, whether it be social, retail, or marketing, but they can be able to scale that across that entire bevy of retailer game bit as well as social channels so that they can tell that same story, but uniquely adjust the creative, the context, the ad copy to the audience they're targeting within each. So they can tell the right story and bring the consumer through the journey while ensuring that they stay with consistent messaging so that they do not confuse or remove the consumer from that funnel because they lose interest or lose trust. Um, and on top of this, you know, we found that brands really need help with their content as well. And so we were able to create generation tools to allow uh very, very rapid PDP content generation so that they can customize their PDP content and constantly change it over. Because what happens with brands more and more uh and what they're experiencing is ad fatigue because ads exist so much. And the problem with historical advertising is that you use a singular creative for months at a time. And so that fatigue hits hard. And so you start to see a natural decline in performance of your ad as it runs. And by having this personalization tool and the concepts that we're developing at uh Ad Fury, you can actually have multitudes of different assets readily available and move through every time you start to see that ad fatigue so that you can consistently keep your consumer engaged without losing that messaging.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Um, you know, Eric reminds me of like when you were talking about earlier at the when really I asked the question during the event. I'm sorry about that. Uh, you know, like no one was asking. I was literally waiting on the audience, like Jessica asked at the end of the event, like, any more questions? They had a couple and then when you know, nobody said anything. I'm like, oh, this is okay. I'm gonna do one that, but we went into the kind of this deeper flow, right? Because we were talking mostly about tools, AI tools specific to that. And I asked about the the flows, the next level, like putting agents, stitching it together into the flow. And you you made a really good uh you know comment about that. But it's almost like I'm hearing just from these two companies, right? Like there is a there's this flow that could happen. And I'm just trying to paint a picture for a brand. So like for brands to think, it's almost like how do I how do I use this company plus this company plus this one? And it can all kind of be we're we're seeing a point where we can stitch it all together to where the entire campaigns now are becoming a systematic flow. When I don't know, Jessica, maybe back in the like that was really difficult, that has been extremely difficult to do, right? But I could almost see a world as we go forward that if you have more AI native or AI infused partners, that we can connect these dots a lot faster and become super fast.

Overcoming Intimidation And Getting Started

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yes. I mean, like it used to be a lot harder because I think there was a lot of fragmentation and ownership as well. You had, of course, your retail media agency, your brand media agency, then you had other suppliers and vendors and your creative agency, and everybody was doing their own thing. And I think that now things are working in a different way. And I see a lot of, let's say, places like, for example, Flywheel, where it used to be that are very connected on our creative side, right? So it's not just media planning, but they're thinking ahead on creative and how that's gonna work. And that has been connected already with our brand planning. So it's like circulating that, and a lot of those are actually created by AI as well. So it has the same sets of approval, and so there's like a unique, but also very uh seamless journey for the consumer. They see the same in all platforms, in all ways of communicating, and all the planning in the store, everywhere. And so I think that right now it's flowing in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

You know, I almost want to, Eric, I'd love to, I'd like to have everybody weigh on this, but Erica, you and Jess. Specifically, like there's been some sort of like feeling that AI is like is is kind of really accelerated, right? And and and I would think that brands, and part of our reason for having the event and the show is like hopefully bridge the gap of between AI and what brands have known to do and they're the best in the world at doing, specifically here in Northwest Arkansas. But it's been a little bit overwhelming, semi-intimidating, and because you don't know what tools you don't really understand. There's all these new acronyms, LOM, which we did a great job today, by the way. You did say LOM large language model.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Yeah, well done, man.

SPEAKER_00 22:38

Uh all these acronyms, all these things, all these new tools coming from Google, you know, uh stuff like that, it can be a little bit challenging. And so it's almost like you don't want to mess with it. But when you just paint that picture a little bit, Jessica, it's actually really optimistic and encouraging, right? That we're this new world that we're getting into is honestly starting to take it's going to fix a lot of the historic pains that we've been facing. Would you agree with that?

SPEAKER_02 23:04

Oh, 100%. And I I think that if you take the stuff that people are doing that they don't get energy from and they don't get joy from, let AI be that, you know. So it's just really thinking through how what was so impossible to deliver against because the the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. You just can't put that much time into all of those things to deliver maybe in the way you want to do it. But AI makes all of that possible. And so I think what definitely my encouragement to anyone is is don't be afraid, be curious. Um, I think that AI has some great capabilities and it's always evolving. And so nobody's an expert. I mean, that is the piece that we all just have to sit and that's actually really covering hearing from you.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Yeah, right.

Prompting Skills And Safer AI Use

SPEAKER_02 23:48

I mean, I learn on a daily and I get told all the time. That's awesome. But I think that like, like, don't feel like an imposter. Just jump in and try. And if you can do it in your personal context and that's more approachable, that's awesome. I mean, I think the accessibility I hear all the time of like parents like learning from these different moments of like, hey, I asked AI this and it was able to do that. Like, how cool is that right? You're talking about a generation that didn't even know computers, being able to jump in, ask questions, and get answers, and they're being delighted by the technology. So start in any accessible way that you can to get more comfortable with it. And then as you get more comfortable, that context will continue to grow and you'll be able to realize this applies to my job. And then be smart about like what tools are accessible to you in your workplace. I think that's the one thing that I would just offer encouragement. There is a personal space and then there is a corporate space. Please protect your corporate data because it is so important that you honor that for your company and you're in a garden wall where that information is not getting outside of that space. In the personal context, be smart and be thoughtful because you're sharing that to the entire world and it's being used. And so all of that stuff is just the reality of AI that we need to be thoughtful about who we're talking to and how we're talking to them. But in your corporate space, like, go for it. They, your IT team has built this structure so that you can explore and learn. And all tools are not created equal. You're gonna find things that you feel like are better at writing, and you're gonna find things that are better at images. And there's no right answer. And every model that launches, there's gonna be new capabilities. So it never stops. You're going to continue to have to keep leaning in, learning, growing, exploring, testing, doing in this whole journey because the models are changing on the daily.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

And they're gonna continue to, right? And what I hear you saying is is like give yourself permission, have fun with it, get on the personal side. And what I love about this too, because I've keep like, how do you start as a brand in this space, right? And the answer, like I'm starting to have revealed to me today by y'all's discussion, is do it personally and start using it personally, because that can actually that will a lot of that can transfer into the corporate side as it becomes available depending on your tools, right? Because was it you? I don't know which one of you it was today. You talked about the prompting, like going deep. I think it's you, Toby. Yeah. So going deeper with the prompt, it starts learning more about you. Well, that can transfer over when you start using the corporate side of things, or even if you're starting to work with, you know, companies like a HashCo, right? That can like you can understand the depth because of your experience personally, like what this agentic or you know, adverity, the agentic thing means and what it means, right?

SPEAKER_04 26:40

Yeah, and willing to push the platforms. I mean, the a lot of people take the responses from these uh AI tools as face value and like that's what you can get, that's what it can provide. But most of these tools can go deeper. You just need to prompt them to go deeper. Um, I think Joel made a great comment today during the conversation that like you don't want to ask it five different things in a single prompt. It's gonna get context overload and it's gonna give you a terrible response. But if you ask it concurrently your questions, you can layer on what you're actually trying to achieve. And then it's now it has all this context for its history and it remembers that. So then the next time you have a conversation with it, it remembers all of this context and it's able to give you a much better response and go deeper into the areas that you care about. I I think you know, going back to what Erica was saying, like I feel so strongly about that that people are so scared about looking stupid. Like it's it's scary. It's it's really scary in this world of AI where everyone's talking about it and it's so important and every big retailer, every big brand is saying we're doing it. And you know, CES was all about it this year. It's all they talked about. And then you're someone who barely knows anything about it or only uses a few of the tools. You know, a lot of people just either shy away from it or act like they know what they're like, what's happening, and oh yeah, I totally use that. But by doing that, they don't ask the questions to learn. You mentioned Notebook LM today, and I never used it. I knew it existed, but I had never used it. And like after the conversation, I was talking to Joel about it, he was telling me what he uses it for, and I was like, all right, I'm gonna test this thing. Like everything I was doing in a base, I was doing it already, just in a base LM where it was taking me two X as long as if I just used another tool already by Google to do it for me. So it's all about just being willing to be curious and being willing to just show your vulnerabilities because realistically we can only get better if we're willing to show that we don't know everything. And those who act like they know everything or or want to live in this bubble where they're like, I'll figure it out later on my own, are going to struggle because this is a very hard thing to learn in the world.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Or or we've been waiting on somebody else to come in and teach them. Like exactly that's what I think the big power statement is here is like folks, just you know, sign up for Google Enterprise when personal, right? Or can you for enterprise for personal?

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Um, you know, I would say go to Gemini.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

Okay.

Practical Wins And Human Oversight

SPEAKER_02 28:54

And then you can choose to use the basic free version or you can opt into the paid version. The paid version is gonna then open up your ability to know you. And so that's where the power is. If you just do the free version of any of the platforms, to be clear, this is the same for Chat GPT. Um, but if it's paid, then it saves and understands and learns you. And so, for example, we have short-term rentals in this area. And so it's like, hey, Erica, your happy trails business, this is something that would be relevant for you. Like it knows me because of the ways that I've been using it, and it builds that into all of the answers that it gives to you. So if that's something you need, I think that that's a worthwhile investment. If it's not something you need, then you can use the free version. Either way works. We just want you using it.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Exactly. So I would say, like as an in-cap to this conversation, while you're having your your your Hershey's bar. And you do or you're in your races and you're playing your game on Roblox and you happen to see some ads delivered by HashCube, you know, and then then you like get impressed, and you want to go to Walmart.com and you see an ad that ad Fury delivered. Creative, get you the free version of Google, Gemini, and start playing around with it. And that's how you advance and escalate, right? Because these things that's what I love is they they do transfer over. And it's about diving in, having fun, being curious, checking it out, and watch it help you. Try out Notebook LLm, right? Or notebook LLMs.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Find a place to start.

SPEAKER_04 30:29

That's the biggest thing. And do the free ones, like you said, like 100%. I started with the free ones, and within a couple months, I was like, you know, all of them are eventually gonna give you a prompt. I mean, I was like, hey, I'll give you pro for you know discounted price for three months. And I was like, let's give it a try. Personal. I use the pro version for professional work. So I put it on my personal laptop and I'm not going back. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yeah, it's memory. And but that's the big thing is like you don't need to jump into that right away. You can use the free version and be like, oh, this is pretty cool. And start to just get your feet wet. And then once you've waded into the pool a good bit, you're like, I'm ready to dive in, and you can go into those paid versions, and it just opens your world of possibilities.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

And think about the discussion we had around these uh tools as really magnifiers of human capability. I think that's really important. Um, I think about, you know, back in the day when Photoshop was brand new, like people must have gone through a very similar thing where it might have been weird, but all of a sudden it's like, oh my God, can you imagine a creative agency right now without using Photoshop like tools and capabilities? Same thing's gonna happen here. This is a magnifier of human capabilities.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

It just happens, it just happens so often and spots, so many, there's just so many folks developing these things, like the amount of tools that come out are ridiculous. And I just think that we're that's part of this overwhelming thing. Like it when you had photo to your analogy, you're correct, but you didn't have 30 other Photoshops hitting all at the exact same time. It's like, which one do I choose?

SPEAKER_01 31:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yeah, you know, so but I mean, but to your point, like you just gotta start diving in and you can always choose a different one.

Final Advice And Community Plans

SPEAKER_04 31:56

And it's the best time to do it because there's so many tools, honestly. Yeah, like overwhelm yourself a little bit right now, learn it all because it's it's honestly gonna get a little bit more streamlined. It's only gonna get easier as AI continues to get more integrated with everything, it becomes just a natural part of everyday life, like the internet is today. I I equate this a lot to be when the internet first started getting really popular because ever there are so many people who are like, I use it here and there, I don't really touch it. Now it's an integral part of your life. You often don't have mail in your mailbox because email has replaced most traditional mail. And that's that's just what's gonna happen with AI as well. And so you're gonna see a rapid change in the amount of companies that exist. Some will really succeed, others will not. And that's going to allow you to have a very streamlined idea of which tools you want to use and allow you to have much more um understanding of the tool sets that exist because you have already tested them all historically, and you know the different tools that used to exist and why this particular tool that still is in its evolved state is the best in class. Perfect. Eric, are you gonna say something?

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Oh, I was just thinking about um start with something that you don't want to do. So I just got tasked with taking inventory in these rentals because the state now requires me to literally line list every item. And I was like, that's gonna take days. So I was like, how can I think smart about this? So I went and took pictures and I uploaded 10 pictures into Gemini and I said, create me an inventory list and value what these pieces are. Oh, wow. You guys minutes, minutes that would have taken me days to do that. And so it's really like think big because it is big and what it can do is transformative. And so if you try to do something that you don't think is possible, you're not always gonna be met with success, but like play around with it and just keep spending time figuring out what it can do and what it can do well, and then always check. Check your work, just like we had to do in school. You need to check your problems to make sure you got the right answer because there are still gaps, right? Like, let's be clear there, there's still models, they're still learning, there's still limitations, but it's a great way to start of what is really bearing you down. And some of it is like a thought starter. I am just in that I can't think about how to start this presentation. So have it, you know, give you some thought starters to get over that white blank page feeling. Um, it's just great for that. And then you can grow from it because we still need humans in the loop. We still need us to provide the strategic perspective, but it is a great way to get going.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

It's almost like that we finally got an answer for writer's block.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Right. I mean, I think that's a good analogy. Jessica, final words for brands, encouragements, last thoughts. What do you have? Anything?

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Don't be afraid of AI. Actually, dig deep, find out how you can use it. Again, like you said, white space. Even when you know what your problem is, but you don't know if AI can do it, you can prompt it and it will tell you this is what I can do for you when you didn't even have that idea. Right. So, again, very uh useful tools. Something that I really enjoyed today that was set, and then from my seat, I could see the audience, which were very smart leaders, was that they said when it was mentioned, AI is wrong sometimes, and their face was what people do take it for the face value. But I think that that is going to trigger too many people to prompt and ask and push back, where did you get this? What are your sources? You can ask AI what your sources are, right? And if it says Wikipedia, that's probably a red flag. And I've seen it, my children have shown me. And I said, I don't see that's gonna work. Anyway, push back, learn, be curious, um, and then you know, like just uh leverage it for growth.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Love it. Hey, thank y'all so much for today uh time at the live event for coming here and doing this. Extremely important for our community, great for brands, great for us. I've really enjoyed it. I had a good time. Excellent.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

Yeah, so you get to geek out over this stuff. Uh yeah, it always be here.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

I'm like everyone, right? I'm with you, bro. I'll show up. I'll come here. I mean, like I'm really having a hard time in control of time. I'm like getting myself in trouble, but uh not enough time in the day to talk about it. But it was really fun. Thank you so much, and thank you for tuning in. Uh, please subscribe to the U Newsletter. Only it's free. Only reason is that you can stay involved with all the events that we have going on, like the one we had this morning, more shows that we're doing. We got a lot more planned out in the future. We got workshops coming down. We got hackathons that we talked about doing, a lot of cool stuff, live podcasts, all kinds of stuff here, right here in Northwest Arkansas for doing business in Bentonville. And thank you very much and have a fantastic day.