In this week’s episode, Travis and Stewart discover just how much the field of machine learning, AI, and cognitive computing has grown over the past few years. And naturally, there’s a new AI-powered marketing technology to reveal this week too, as well as a conversation about LinkedIn and its video strategy.
We then talk to the amazing Gary Nix about all things social, branding, and being authentic — something every company needs to focus on if they’re going to succeed.
By listening to this episode of VB Engage, you will hear:
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- Welcome to VB Engage episode 60! [0:10]
- Stewart is now a SoCal softie. [01:00]
- This past week we had the 10th annual version of MobileBeat. [01:25]
- The conference theme was artificial intelligence with some amazing speakers. [02:15]
- AI is not some sci-fi future. [02:35]
- Speaking of AI, McKinsey released the State of Machine Learning and AI 2017 Report. [03:00]
- Baidu and Google spent $20-30 billion on R&D on AI in 2016. [03:45]
- The US is driving the AI agenda. [04:05]
- Also in the news, Qubit announced an AI-powered mobile commerce discovery platform, called Aura. [06:20]
- Seventy percent of the top 50 grossing U.S. ecommerce sites still require “exact matching” to ensure a product appears in the results. [07:20]
- Mobile shoppers are spending 59 percent of their time on mobile, but only 15 percent on buying. [08:15]
- If you want to check out Stewart interviewing Qubit at MobileBeat, check out our Facebook page, where we streamed the event. [09:10]
- This week in creepy news, artificial intelligence software created a Fake Obama, using existing video and audio that is publicly available. [10:20]
- It also means that content creation would be easier in the future without the need for actors. [11:35]
- Eventually, we will have a VR room full of deceased notables, using AI and inputting all of their words, audio, and video to create a lifelike roundtable of awesomeness. [13:45]
- LinkedIn just jumped on the video bandwagon. [14:35]
- This week’s guest is the digital strategist Gary J. Nix. [15:55]
- Distribution channels across many industries are broken. [17:30]
- People have more choice on what they want to pay attention to. [18:05]
- Social media is over 15 years old now. [18:30]
- How are AI and machine learning affecting social in Gary’s world? [19:15]
- Not just AI and machine learning, but AR and VR are getting marketers excited. [19:35]
- Industries are becoming less afraid of the machines. [20:05]
- It makes sense to take the Tencent approach. Use humans where you can. [21:40]
- What are some of the things that Gary is seeing from a strategy standpoint for brands today? [23:00]
- Many brands think of social as a lead gen tool, and they shouldn’t. [24:15]
- Stay in contact and cultivate relationships with your existing customers. [26:00]
- In Travis’ book on customer experience, Digital Sense, he explains that a customer is one experience away from moving to your competition. [26:45]
- Connect with Gary on Twitter, @Mr_McFly. [28:45]
Next week on episode 61, we have Cathy Hackl on to discuss virtual reality and augmented reality content creation and engagement!
If you missed last week’s episode, we interviewed the excellent Ben Parr, who continues the conversation on AI, chatbots, and where this is all headed.
As always, thanks for tuning into VB Engage. Please review it and rate it on your favorite podcast platform. Next week, Stewart and I will be in Seattle at Tune‘s Postback event, so that episode will be in person! You’d better “Tune” in. (We’ll see ourselves out now.)
