Meet the Billion-Dollar Startup Using AI to Disrupt Media and Advertising

hey everybody welcome to the show I'm Steven Bron live from the NASDAQ Market site and today we have David Jones who is the founder and CEO of the Brand Tech group also an author an activist and he took a city bike here so he's an envir he's an environmentalist too so David welcome to the show it's great to be here so you sit on the Forefront of of advertising branding but also generative AI you were talking about stuff not last month not last year 2015 before AI was the buzzword of everything set the table for me what are we seeing right now so look I think you've you're just seeing an explosion uh in generative AI all over the world and I think it's going to be the biggest Revolution and change that we see not just in marketing but in business and there's a few reasons for that you know firstly you have every major Global CEO of of any of the tech platforms saying this is going to change the world and we're going to spend billi to make sure it does secondly you're seeing investors you know saying this is the future so whether it's Nvidia going you know past two trillion or Microsoft going past Apple depending on the day on the back of AI you know thirdly you're seeing the world's people saying it's amazing I mean chat GPT was the fastest technology in history to get to a 100 million users and I think fourth it's amazing you know I mean just if you play around with any of the tools what it does isn't remarkable but but but how it does it is absolutely remarkable so you know humans today can probably still create better content than gen and machines it's just you can't do it in 60 seconds um but the the thing I would kind of package all of that under however is you know I have no doubt that we're going to see just enormous change but today if you're particularly talking about the advertising business you know about 100% of the headlines are around generative AI but still less than 1% of the content is created using generative AI now that's going to change um but we're very much at the start of it w and you guys recently at Brand Tech raised about $112 million5 $15 million American at a $4 billion valuation as a advertising technology company and I have to admit I'm surrounded by advertising like everyone all day long I'm in media so advertising keeps the lights on and pays my salary yeah but I don't really understand how how the business Works tell me what you guys do on like a on a Monday morning so basically probably the easiest way to describe it is we have a platform called pencil which is an endtoend platform for creating advertising um so on on the one side it it plugs into all of the models so from chat GPT to Gemini to stability but also some of the databases like gy so that's kind of on on the left which is what feeds in and here on the right it plugs directly into the advertising accounts of Instagram and Facebook and Tik Tok for a brand and then the platform sits in the the middle and you arrive on the platform and very simply you can decide what you want to do so do you want to make a video for Tik Tok do you want to make a post for Instagram do you actually just want some consumer insights do you want to create a pack shot and it's a workflow that takes you through that entire process and at each step it gives you a prediction because we have it's it's sort of been in Market since 2018 we've made over a million ads using generative AI spent a billion dollars of media through the platform a million you've made a million ads a million gen ads since since 2018 um and that allows us to predict what how we think a particular piece of content um is going to perform and so literally you just go through the the process you start with insights you then start with you know what images you want to create start with some headlines it worksoft templates and then you can literally publish those if you want to direct to the social media platforms and you get live data back on how you're doing so what it what it does is that there's nothing remarkable about what it does it's just to be able to do that in one place which as each of the Gen models gets better it gets better to give you predictions and to get data back so it's just exploding when you say like a million ads is it going to be are these custom like let's say Forbes is high using pencil and we're trying to self subscriptions memberships will a Forbes ad serve to you be different than to me like are there all these iterations or they kind of AB testing what works or what doesn't work the thing about it is like you know it's gone from almost AB testing to a to Z testing because the size and scale that you can now create content at so you can literally just pull down you know and create Limitless feed variation so if you literally wanted to have you know 150 different Target audiences and segments it can instantaneously create the content for you for that one of the one of the most it's like not necessar that impressive it's just impressive to watch is when you just ask it to translate immediately into any language your all of your content and it it's that speed which is really remarkable and you know since 2018 we've been able to prove that we can make the content 10 times faster we can make it perform twice as as effectively and we can do it for about half the cost give me an example of a campaign recently done with with through pencil or done through Brin Tech so I mean literally you know there's literally thousands of ads on Instagram on Tik Tok you know and it it's typically that social uh content so social and digital it's not yet and we can come talking about this it's not yet getting in pencil isn't yet getting into the the the TV side but it particularly good around e-commerce around Performance Marketing around social and we're working today with you know 50% of our top 20 clients in the space you started you've been in advertising all your life you're like the youngest advertising CEO ever I think I was once young yes still young what was in so this is the 90s correct when the when you first started yeah exactly what was I mean it's insane to think that you started this before really the internet before mobile before digital before influencers like how has what you did years ago and then fast forward today how has that changed so look I think I mean I launched Australia's first ever internet agency in 1998 um and I and I think we we often we look at today and we think it's always been like it is today and we think it will always be like it is today and you know those two things are never true and I literally when we launched Australia's first internet agency we honestly never never thought you'd watch a video on a computer you know now if you can't stream Netflix up in the air flying over the Atlantic you're annoyed if the Wi-Fi is down in a plane it's like what you're sending planes to you know the airline well 15 years ago if someone had said to you you'll have really high performance Wi-Fi in a plane and you can stream videos on your mobile phone you'd say don't be stupid and I think it's exactly the same thing I mean you know there is not a single thing that humans do that cannot be done better faster and cheaper using generative Ai and that's already um and if you think about just the progress that the tools have made if I look at pencil you know when pencil launched in 2018 one in 10,000 ads you know you could use today it's 10 out of 10 um and and and that's where we are just imagine where we're going to be in in 12 months if if you take a tool like mid journey in 2022 if you ask mid journey to create an image of a woman it was pretty terrible it had seven fingers it didn't really you know 23 was not bad 24 it's exceptional you know chat GP failed CH gpt3 failed the the New York bar exam in 2022 passed in the 90th percentile in 2023 so you know you've got all of these companies spending billions to make this better and better and so the speed of progress is huge and a few people have said you know that expression that we always massively overestimate the change we're going to see in two years and underestimate 10 years I think maybe not this time I think maybe in the next two years we're going to see pretty remarkable change so this big 10x we're seeing what does that mean for three stakeholders what does that mean a for people in advertising that used to make this write this what does that mean for Brands and then what does this mean for consumers like me who is you know the ultimate Target frankly of all this what what's where we going you said you know you know two years ago you know chat GDP failed the bar exam now it's just it's excelling it's it's it's the rate of change is exponential and so fast where are we going so look I think for Brands it's fantastic because you are able to create your content better faster and cheaper H and so you know it's going to basically be an amazingly powerful um and significant impact in marketing and advertising I think for you know creative people and people in the industry um you know the the kind of the the saying that you know it's not J that's going to take your job but someone that is using it um you know I think we're going to see the greatest creative revolution in history if you look at what the mobile phone did it turned every single person into a content creator like people now get up and create content who never would have thought of creating content before generative AI turns every single person into an advertising agency so you know there are 60 million people today employed is that good for the world well maybe not but we we'll see but 60 million people you know work in the creater economy yeah today and you know pretty much the same number of people work in the traditional advertising industry those jobs only exist because of the mobile phone so I think we're going to see you know and the reason we called pencil pencil is we believe that it's a tool for humans to use not a placement and then what does it mean for individuals and people I mean you know some of the things that digital advertising and marketing have done with technology are terrible like you know we' we'd buy a pair of sneakers and then that would follow us around the internet for a week now firstly that's really annoying because I know you're following me and secondly I'm the last person who's going to buy that again and and so that you know we've done some when I say we not us but the industry has done some really really dumb things but I think the potential for AI to create you know a much better more targeted and more personalized so we talk a lot about hyper personalization you know people that hate Brands they just aren't interested in some Brands and they are in others and they don't hate advertising they just don't want annoying yes you know bad poor advertising and and if we get into the world that I think we'll be able to get into a world of hyper personalization where you're going to be able to understand much more about people and Target them based on what they're genuinely interested in you can almost head to sort of the perfect Market where you know brands aren't spending a bunch of money uh annoying people platforms aren't creating big platforms that annoy people and as an individual you're actually only seeing things that you're interested in or would be interested in wow I'm I have a question with advertising in in media so you know the news media is in it's in a paradox I think I'm pretty sure that people have never read more in their lives they never read more news and the history of of humankind at the same time the model's broken just look at What's happen happening to Legacy Media layoffs startups are failing people are moving away from free digital advertising to memberships I can go on for hours what does this mean for media and could this be a positive change or is this going to be another you know big hurdle for traditional news media to you know get around so look I think um you know if we fast forward 10 years I think there'll be way more content and I think we will look back on 2024 and go remember it was so easy and exactly the same way as we look back to the old TV world and kind of remember so I think you know the rule of of of history is that there will be more and more content but I think hopefully generative Ai and AI will allow us to make much more sense of that content and whether that's us as individuals or us as as companies and I'm not sure if you saw sat adella's annual letter um to the Microsoft shareholders he kind of said and I'll paraphrase it but you know we've spent decades organizing data into databases but the one thing that's been missing is the ability to kind of reason and have intelligence over that data and I think that's where we're going to get to to be honest I actually think generative AI is is fairly neutral in terms of its impact on on media I think a much bigger disruption was the arrival of social media was the explosion of mobile phones because literally everybody went from you know reading a newspaper every day and sitting in front of a television to you know 90% of their time spent on a device they have in their pocket and I think that was an enormous disruption for the media industry to to cope with I think gen AI is going to be much more neutral and will actually enable any business no matter what you're doing and potentially in particular if they adopt it super early and look at well how do we get ahead through gen it could be a real positive if you and I were let's take a time machine way back if you and I were 18 years old right now in University hoping to get into the creative worlds of marketing advertising you name it what do you think we're doing in four years what's our skill sets like what what should people looking for a future in any kind of content creation what skills do they need and what do you see them doing so look I think you know one of the most important skills today as with any tool it's the ability to prompt and to use the tools so I you know I think a lot of people you know sort of look at it as if there's going to be this is going to like remove everyone's job and I I think that's highly unlikely it actually enhances humans because you can do so much more and you know we created a brand in under an hour entering to end everything from the name the product design the logo e-commerce assets the business plan the Press relies and so you know what was the what was the brand I I'm I'm it's going to be announced so I can't I can't tell you it's it's basically a a cat brand that gives money put it's a not for profit and all of the money goes to putting girls into education um but we literally built the entire thing end to end in 59 minutes okay um and I and I think you know when you have that kind of potential actually the ability to decide and to choose becomes much more important than the ability to create because you can create you know you almost have infinite creativity uh you know you and so I would say much more about the prompting so what are the prompting skills you need if you if you put a poor prompt into a model it will give you a poor outcome if you put a great prompt into a model it will give you a great outcome so I think in the short term you know prompting super interesting but honestly that the advice I would give people like is sort of I give them two pieces of advice number one it actually doesn't matter so much what you're doing just be in that industry you know it's a it's a bit like getting into anything in and around social media or anything in around the internet and and the second one is just make sure that you're playing and learning and experimenting yourself what role with this you know it's a you said it's a tool what role do humans have we'll have in the process of creating this this copy this advertising and what do we all have to watch out for because there's obviously risks when you know you're creating content targeting you name it like what should we be cognizant of and where do humans sit in this kind of this this timeline of you know coming up with a brand with the help of social Med I mean with the help of um generative AI then you know letting it go wild in in the public yeah look I think you know as a few people have said making predictions is hard especially about the future um if you ask me where I think the the future of Industry plays out I think 70% of it is going to be very much how you know the New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ or any of the the the the the kind of stock markets of the world play out today where it's all automated so I don't think you'll have humans in the loop I think you'll have humans outside of the loop and it will be set up to connect content data and media in real time it will optimize it will change it will Reserve content it will create content and in much the same way you know you were you in that world you know there used to be people sitting on trading room floors with Bits of Paper and and phones and running around and no one does that anymore but there's still a lot of people employed and doing very well in in the finance Indy so I think about 70% of that is probably fully automated and 30% will be high quality High human involvement I mean we did a TV commercial in the UK um for a brand called Hotel Shaka um and it's all created through generative Ai and it was actually one of the most effective TV commercials in Great Britain last year um and so the ability to create content Now using J it was fully it was a TV commercial and TV commercial it was R they you know it was ranked number one in The Confectionary category again ahead of anyone else and I think it was like the number eight most effective t no no not absolutely it's basically hotel chocol are as as the name says on the tin they make amazing hot chocolate and chocolate um and no so it's not like a hotel made of chocolate no it it goes it basically takes you through the whole journey of seeing the product and gorgeous chocolate and all the imagery um and it it's pretty remarkable and I think you're going to see that become the norm rather than become an exception you got into this world in 2015 I mean got into the AI is going to be the future of advertising that was so early on what kind of gave you the confidence to be like I'm going to go all in on this technology that no one was talking about we're talking like six years before geni sorry when CDP kind of like rocked the world and got the most downloads this was almost like science fiction what was the kind of Beacon that got you into this I look I think I've spent my career sort of seeing things come along and seeing lots of people be cynical and then seeing it become huge so you know whether it was internet in 199 8 or mobile in you know 2011 I wrote a book on purpose back back then and and then you see how something like that you know goes from being dismissed comes really becomes really massive and mainstream and I think just the potential that it had and that doesn't mean to say that it necessarily happens quickly but we invested in AI chatbots in 2015 we created the world's first um AI chatbot for an influencer for Kanani Hil with what was that like what was the chatbot like in I think and I think this is the point it's like if you stayed in kind of specific guard rails it was really good but once you moved out of that we invested in a company called AI Foundation who built you know digital humans and they and they created digital dpack and he went on Jimmy Kimmel and he led um a guided meditation and it's fantastic but a deep deack CH yeah but but back you know back then this is probably 2018 you know once you got a little bit outside of um you know what what the AI was comfortable with it kind of went spir you know there was my we bu my mind twin and it was in a meeting with one of our clients who asked them you know who asked me what my purpose was and instead of talking about a proper purpose it said my purpose in life was to have fun um so but I think you've se you know for whether it's AI data or AI media plan you've seen all of these things make enormous progress for the Forbes um our 100th anniversary issue we had Warren puffett on the cover holding the the first issue of Forbes and it was remember AR back augmented reality if you held your phone up it came alive you could ask Warren questions but again and he can only answer yeah very tight swimland of questions he wouldn't tell you the purpose of of life kind of but I think we and and and so because we've been investing in the space since 2015 and learned a ton of lessons seeing what works seeing what didn't work you know and I was always looking for a platform that could do endtoend advertising using gen and that's when met you know pencil and will who founded the company in in 2018 and um brought him into the into the fold but I you know I think we we we always look at the new technologies and are quite dismissive of them it's sort of human nature we don't like change you know if we if we look at it we think it's actually going to be a really bad thing not a really good thing if you look in human history every time humans have had great technology and use technology in the broadest sense you know whether it's the wheel fire the printing press you know most recently the mobile phone we've done amazing things with it and I have no doubt it will be the same there are clearly some issues that come with it and but I think overall it has an enormous potential to be a massive positive for Humanity when you come across a new technology or a new paradigm if you will do you have like a certain checklist or way of of thinking about things where you're not because you've been on you've been right about a lot of things throughout your career do you have a way to be like obviously not fearful but also not ere exuberate is there like what is your get me in your head because you've you've you've picked a lot of winners and if you've seen where the media world is going for a long time like around corners as a cliche goes what is kind of your way of thinking so you're not dismissive but you're also not like optimistic look I think I mean I think it's it's a couple of pretty simple things we have one set of criteria in terms of when we're looking at investing but when it comes at looking at technology in general I think it's actually just using common sense and going do do I think people are going to you know use this do this um and and so it that's really like the common sense radar I think there's a second one which is you know is this pretty frictionless you know we were very early investors in Niantic in credit Pokémon go and at the time you John the founder said that he thought AR would be bigger than VR because everyone had a device and nobody thought that at the time back in 2015 everyone was on the VR train and he was right everyone had the device they created a really simple game and the world played it yeah um so you know secondly is it kind of simple and frictional and I think thirdly is how quickly can this change and if this changes how big could it be so I if you look at all of the headsets that are coming out today you know they're making a lot of progress but if you fast forward and imagine imagine every single person on the planet could have a pair of glasses that can be normal that can be augmented reality and that can be virtual reality and they're absolutely seamless and they're not that expensive do we think the world would wear them and probably it would replace the mobile phone yeah absolutely now if it's super heavy and uncomfortable cost $3,000 you feel you look frankly nerdy but but don't forget you know like mobile phones there was a thing called the ium which was this giant satellite phone that worked all over the world and cost about $120,000 you know and then obviously we all have one of those in our pocket now it doesn't cost $120,000 and and so I think that's the thing I think we under it's that you know we underestimate just how good this is going to get um and and I think we will you know we will no doubt do it again with generative AI but it's sort of been the barometer for my career which is like you know don't be stupidly naive and think we're going to make 100% of our Revenue in this this year but actually if the technology evolves is this something that could be completely gamechanging absolutely I know you're an expert and you live in the worlds of advertising and branding what is this jump mean for journalism for novels for music for movies do you what do you see the change coming do you see this is advertising is an early on thing and then is this going to spread to everything yeah I mean I think what's interesting about it usually Technologies new technologies the kind of you know the first use case or best use case isn't content and advertising and with generative it is but I think the most important thing to understand uh about it is it's a horizontal not a vertical so pretty much every other thing look come like social media is a vertical you know e-commerce a vertical metaverse a whereas this is a horizontal and what that means is there's nothing that anyone in any industry does today that they can't do better faster and cheaper help with generative Ai and and if you just play around a little bit you know literally from you know what are the 10 questions you want to ask me based on everything I've said publicly for the last 10 years you may not love the exactly what it gives you but I guarantee it'll be three or four on there for you which you actually think are quite good and one of one of my clients found me um the other Sunday and S said David you you say this phrase a lot I've got a big presentation to investors this week I'd love you to you know just give me some some content and I spent about an hour putting some stuff together but I also then just did a quick prompt and said hey give me you know answer this for me and honestly I mean the two together was a great combination but what I got from chat GPT I could have just sent that and they would have been really pleased and and I think you got to get into this well was the hour I spent on a Sunday worth it worth the extra versus doing that but there's nothing that you can't you know get help with which is why I think it's going to be so gamechanging this is moving so fast the whole AI world gener of AI world the whole content world how do you stay up on on how do you stay current on everything how do you know what do you read where do you get like your best insights about this like ever changing world ever changing AI world so I think the first thing is you can't you know we're literally in a space where are you a tech person I know you're a tech person but are you technical no I'm I think I I understand how people will use technology rather than how to build technology so I've got a good radar for do you think people are going to use that will they do that will they not do that rather than could I build it um but I I think honestly you can't keep up and I think if you try you'll kind of burn out I think you want to you want to have you know 8 nine 10 sort of key sources you go to so that you're across most of the big things that are happening but I think the other thing is just to be openminded and talk to people I mean you will know three things that I don't know and I'll probably know three that you don't know you're very you're very optimistic no I guarantee you and we'll and we'll have that conversation and I think you know the worst thing you can ever do is pretend that you have all the answers and you know everything and you know people who want to appear smart like to do that but you can't you know it's moving way too fast if you I was literally in a plane you know half of last week and you kind of you you land and the you know enormous things have happened so and then I think just you know probably more important than that is just play with all the tools you know when you see that someone's launched something just go have a little play you don't need to spend a long time on it just spend half an hour so that you understand how it works and how you use it I think going out to play is a perfect spot to end this I want to thank David Jones the founder and CEO of Brand Tech group David thank you so much it's a pleasure

Channel: Forbes

Views: 98,442

Keywords: Forbes, Forbes Media, Forbes Magazine, Forbes Digital, Business, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Investing, Personal Finance, brandtech, disrupt media, nasdaq, david jones, best media companies, AI ads, what are AI ads, generated revenue by AI, how to generate AI ads, media and AI, advertising tips

Id: qruo4yIeWoI

Length: 26min 5sec (1565 seconds)

Published: Thu May 23 2024