Creatives WithAI: AI, Bland Brands, and the Art of Asking Better Questions with Michael Cawley

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 00:00

And I see this coming from the youth in particular. Anything AI generated will just be incredibly lame.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 00:08

Hi everyone. Welcome to Creatives WithAI.

I'm your host Lena Robinson and today we're going to be talking to a chap that I've known for about a year or so. His name is Michael Cawley. Michael has got a really amazing, well, I think it's an amazing title.

It is ‘Product Discovery Expert’, which, having a background in graphic design and marketing, and UX, which is user experience design, and so forth. I kind of get why you've got that job title. I would like to have a chat to you today…obviously we're going to be talking about AI and how that may or may not be impacting the creative industry in which you sit, and work, and do a lot of different things around product and brand and user experience.

But before we do that, it'd be really interesting to have a top-line view of…you started in graphic design and how you've ended up today being on a podcast talking about AI, so that journey leading up to today.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 01:15

Yeah, because it is kind of funny, of like how things can go in that squiggly line, as they say. Yeah, because like growing up I wanted to be an architect and then I discovered graphic design. I was like, oh no, that's, that's the thing.

And then studied graphic design. Did that in Ireland, then came here to do the last year of a degree to, like, London and then by total chance found myself working in sustainability.

The reason I do mention that is because I think that had a profound effect on my whole way of thinking. Because just the good fortune of like working with a, a total genius who thinks in a, in a truly holistic way.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 02:06

Which good marketing and good creativity is. Yeah, ecosystem.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 02:13

It's what it really was. It was all about how everything is connected and nothing operates in silos.

And that was actually then years later when I was, you know, I was there for a long time and then I moved into different marketing teams and then I remember working at this big telecoms and that's where I really recognised, you know, there was hundreds of people working. It was just silos and silos and silos and no one was talking to each other.

I remember like there was a support team, there was no one talking to them. And it was seeing that, how everything has to be joined up and how everything affects everything else.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 02:56

Which is a really great jumping off point, I think, to talk about AI, because one of the big areas of conversation we like to talk about AI, is impact. If it's being brought in, then it's clearly going to be impacting the ecosystem of things, isn't it?

So from an industry perspective, what is your view at the moment of how AI is impacting what you're doing, the people in your field, the industry that you are in at the moment?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 03:25

I think there's still an awful lot of people are playing around, seeing what you can do. Yeah, I think it's still in that kind of like, testing stage. And. Yeah. You know, like, I use it in my own workflow, but I don't…I was listening to something the other day and I was like, oh, my God, that's, that's totally right. Where it was essentially that we're all becoming managers, even if you are your own thing.

And it's actually one of my real bugbears of using anything right, AI…of like just back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. And then sometimes it is just, oh, I'll just do it myself.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 04:07

Right.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 04:08

But it depends on what you're doing. But I think there is that little bit of management and…but it also, it very much…I think it always comes back to the use case. What. What do you do? What do you need it for? And there are some things where it's like, oh, that's useful, you know, for doing rough drafts and things like that. But other stuff where it's okay. It gets you to a point.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 04:33

I think it's something that I've come across with quite a lot of the people that we've had on the show. It seems that the sweet spot is where the human and the technology, the AI, meets is where the good stuff comes out of it. I agree with you.

There are moments where I don't need to use AI at all. And I go, well, I think I've got this, I'm fine. I know. But there's moments where I think I'd like to maybe research for a lot of things.

For me it’s where AI comes hugely in handy, like if I want to understand something or I want it to go off and research something that would take me three days to research. It will come back, as long as I've done a really clear, and you'll understand this, a really clear brief to it. So I treat it like it's a creative, and I write it a really clear brief, with context and as much information as I can give it, with really clear instructions on what I want the outcomes to be, then the research comes back amazingly spot on. And so in microseconds, which it's saving me days and days worth.

And you and I were talking about this the other day, weren't we, about that time-saving thing and do we pass it on to the clients or not? Like, what's your view on, like you talk about it being in process in your workflow. Where does it kind of work for you in the workflow then?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 05:55

And a lot of it is just like setting things up. That's, that's a huge part of where. Yeah, because I have ways of doing things. So it's like, okay, you know, I might have a template for doing this and okay, I need to update it because I have this different project now. So it's little things like that. It's kind of okay, it's safe to use it here, here. And I think on those sort of things it's fine.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 06:18

Are you finding that you're worried about it, the safety of the quality?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 06:22

Oh, you've hit the words.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 06:26

Talk to me about that then.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 06:29

All right. In everything my preference is…is quality over quantity. And that is one of my big things with AI it's like quantity, quantity, quantity and it's first. And actually that is one of the things I'm constantly saying to ChatGPT. Slow down, slow down. Quality over speed. Please take your time, Think, think.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 06:56

And like, does it listen when you tell it to take its time?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 06:58

Yeah, it…now it does.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 06:59

Oh, take your time.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 07:02

Yeah, yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 07:03

What a great thing to ask because…

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 07:04

It's, yeah, just speed is not, is not the thing. And I don't, this is something like I have been thinking about particularly around. It was, it was very nice.

That was, it's a project I'm involved in and we were talking to the designer and it's, you know, like at the early stage of the project and he was saying, okay, well I'm going to need a few days at the start. And it was basically a, the real thinking about it and like, okay, so there's going to be more time at that stage.

And then he was going to have his clear thoughts and then he was basically going to go into almost like production mode. And that's true.

I think you do need that, you do need that stage and I think with creativity, I think you do need, you do need some time sometimes and space. And so I think so much of this, like time saving, saving, saving, quicker, quicker, quicker. Is that a good thing?

Because the actual final quality you have it, it's there, but I don't know, is that actually better? And like there's always, you know, it comes up in so many different places creativity takes. It takes a while for really good stuff.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 08:17

So I've been talking to some…some artists and some different types of creators, musicians and different things. And one of the things that I know, having worked in the agency world and seen how the creative directors, and the creators, and designers used to go off, and they'd have to go and sit in rooms with cushions and stuff just to have headspace. And I get that. I'm a quite…I'm a very creative person, and when I don't have headspace and there's too much coming at me, it…I don't…I'm not…I'm not as creative as I could be if I had headspace. If it was. Do you think it takes care of. If it can take care of the…the boring stuff that we don't do, then it gives the creatives more time.

Is that the…is that the benefit of this? Maybe. Sorry, that was a long question.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 09:05

No, no, no, no, no. And I see where you're coming from, but what I'm wondering about…yeah…s that actually happening?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 09:11

Dunno.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 09:12

In the actual practical case, is it like, oh, great, that's been taken care of. Well then just I…because that is the kind of…what has been sold in an awful lot of ways of like, oh, this is going to make things so much more efficient. And it definitely does save you time on some things, but I don't feel like people seem to have more time as well. It's funny, isn't it?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 09:32

It is true. I mean, I think what's probably happening, I'm guessing at this…I'm trying not to let it do this to me in the way that I do things, but it'll be really interesting to put that out to the community actually and ask them, once we've put this out, is… “if the space is being opened up, are we just filling it with more stuff or are we doing like what we should be doing…from in the creative community, which is…and I will guarantee you every person in the creative community listening to this will go, yeah, having more headspace is helpful from a creative perspective….gives your mind space to be imaginative and curious and go in places that it might naturally just want to go…if you have time.”

What we probably need to do is like, are we ‘ring fencing’ the extra time we're getting from it? Doing some admin. stuff for example, or some setup stuff, or helping with structures of things …or are we just jamming more in?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 10:29

Yeah, no, I…I think it's, I think it's, it's the ‘jamming in’. ‘Jamming more in’. And what was I also, you see, there's two sides to creativity. There's the…and we talked about this the other day, just briefly of, you know, like that there is the side where you want to be exposed to other things and be inspired. But, then there's the other side where you need…you need time and space for yourself. Exactly as you were saying like that, you know, ‘stop’. And I remember, like I've told people this before. Yeah, we just said it earlier on. Like, I like to go walk in nature near me and those walks, when I started doing them, they were like, amazing. And then I used to always listen to, listen to music or listen to podcasts. And then I was listening to a podcast with…it was an interview with, you know, Julia Cameron. She wrote, she wrote ‘The Artist's Way’.

And it's a really great… it's, it's all, it's, it's really, really good. But yeah, it's, it's an old, it's, it's a long, you know, it's maybe 30, 40 years old, but maybe more. But in the interview she just said how she was talking about music with lyrics and she said, like, if you're always listening to someone else's voice, then you're never listening to your own. Oh, and it was one of those, you're right, you're right. And. But what was it?

All right, and I know the irony of saying this on a podcast, but if you're always just taking in other stuff, external, external, external, then there's nothing coming from you which is unique and then that's going out back out.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 12:14

Which is a interesting moment, isn't it?

It's like AI is built predominantly to go and get other people's voices and bring it back into your question, your conversation, your whatever the thing is that you're trying to achieve. And on to your point, on the flip side of that, what it can do is give you more space to have time for yourself. More voices, but also less voices. I'm liking this conversation, where it's got. Everything's like a double sided coin.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 12:42

That's exactly it. Like, that's very much where I, I kind of said of…it's never one thing or the other with most things. It's a bit of both and which is, you know, it's a space where people don't particularly like, because it's like, oh, you're not like, you know, what's the phrase? You're like nailing your colors to the mast, or whatever it is. It's like you're not one thing, it's just like, yeah, a bit of this, bit of a bit of this, a little bit of that.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 13:12

But that's humans. Humans are a little bit of this and a little bit of that.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 13:16

And humans are great. Have you met them?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 13:20

They're amazing. They can be a pain in the arse too, but I like the humans pretty much. Yeah. It will be interesting to see how AI looks. Obviously it's running fast at the moment and it's impacting creatives, it's impacting workflows, it's impacting product development.

When you look at the next sort of three to five years, where do you see what you're doing in product discovery and areas of user experience, UX design and so forth? Where do you see AI is probably going to have the biggest impacts?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 14:05

I think…yeah, it will be just incorporated into, into the workflow and you know, like some products already do a little bit, but there's still that like, just discerning human aspect, which is needed because it's one thing that we talked about this before of, like, sometimes just because you're always given an answer doesn't mean it's the right answer, or there is an answer.

And that is one of the things I find quite frustrating about using AI, that it never says, “actually, no, I'm wrong”. Apparently Claude has started to do this, which I really like. It sometimes now apparently will give the answer. “I don't know.”

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 14:51

Oh, I love that. Oh, I love that.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 14:56

And “I don't know” is such a valid answer. I have so much respect for people who say it. “I don't know, but we can go find out.” And that's very much, you know, like what I do.

Like I kind of feel this, or this, feeds into AI, I guess as well. It's like there's almost like a fetish around data right now. It's just data and data, and collect more, and more, and more. No idea what it means, but we'll collect it, collect it, collect it. Like even the Head of Data at a startup that I used to work at, we had a good chat about this and he said like, companies, like he does advise companies about. Like, “Why? why are you…Why are you getting all this? You're not using it, you don't need it.” Like this is just…it's actually making things way more confusing.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 15:39

I like that…”there's a fetish around data”. I do agree.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 15:42

Data tells you lots of ‘what?’, but it doesn't tell you ‘why?’.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 15:47

It doesn't tell you ‘why?’, which is interesting, because for me, and all the work I've done over the years, ‘the why?’ is the most important question. To understand how to…I don't want to use this in a really fluffy way…of, to...to inspire, to influence, to engage. We…we kind of…how was I going to put that? Yeah, we need to ask. We need to ask ‘why?’. We need to understand ‘the why?’ in order to do those amazing things, to inspire, and engage, and influence, and, you know, impact even.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 16:24

Yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 16:27

I wonder if in time, well, if Claude…if Claude's doing it, then ChatGPT is probably going to do it as well. Like being okay to leave something as a question mark because they don't actually know, rather than shoehorning. Well, we think this is the best answer, as much as we know. Which kind of isn't really the answer, is it?

…sorry about that, everybody. We had a little bit of a technical glitch, so we are going to have to pick up the conversation from where we were before…we were discussing the impact on process and job roles, and skill sets, and things moving into the next sort of three to five years, especially around product and the creative around that. So let's kind of pick that up there, Michael, where we were talking about what your view is on the impact that it's going to have in the next three to five years on the industry.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 17:17

I'm going to take this on a different…because the thing that everyone's, you know, focusing on is, you know, jobs and all that sort of thing.

I think in the short term there is going to be a…everyone is just cutting, cutting, cutting. And I… I've even heard of it already in a different world of…I think it was something to do with some financial institute who had, oh, we've got all this incredible AI doing all this stuff and then there was no one to manage it, and then they actually weren't able to do anything with it. So now that we're having to hire back in people, they got rid of.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 17:55

A whole lot of people because, yeah…

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 17:56

Got rid of a load of all these people and then they were like, oh, yeah, we don't know what we're doing here. We've no, quite…

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 18:01

That's a dick move anyway, isn't it?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 18:03

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it reminds me of…it was something that somebody who I know called Graham Pug, he wrote this piece a few weeks ago about, in branding, just how ‘blandness’ has become a thing, and I have seen that all over, kind of culture, essentially, for the last few years, and everything is just going incredibly safe and just “Well, that's what the competition are doing, so I'll do something similar”. He made…exactly…his point is so great.

It's just like how do you stand out when you look just like everyone else?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 18:48

Which is a challenge with AI, I think, because you're using what's already been before rather than the pushing. Really good example of that is there was a quick, There was a…I think ‘The Drum’ put out an article the other day with regards to is it Unilever that's bought or PNG that's bought Wild? I can't remember. One of the big…one of the big organisations has bought Wild, the deodorant brand, which I love. And I've seen this happen before with alcohol brands that have been bought by big conglomerates as well. They buy them because they stand out, they're different, they've got amazing branding, they're cheeky, they're weird, they're different. And the moment they get bought into these big organisations, they get dumbed down. They get blanded out and what have you. Now, I wonder if AI is going to be one of the things that is going to make that even worse?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 19:42

Exactly.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 19:43

Do you think it will?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 19:45

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think we're seeing that already where everything is just sounding incredibly generic and I…it's…that's where I, I think there's going to be almost like, two levels, and there's going to be some companies who are just “everything is AI, everything's AI”. And then to be other people who kind of like, “oh yeah, that's okay, but like premium is…this is totally different. This is human.”

And yeah, because otherwise it's just everything is just the same. The same, the same. And I don't like that. Where it's just the same, the same, same.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 20:31

And again, it goes back to that idea of…what just jumped into my mind when you were talking about that was the ‘Just another Brick in the Wall’ video by Pink Floyd.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 20:39

Yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 20:42

It's that, isn't it?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 20:43

Yeah, that. That's what I kind of…I think is, is, is so important of…yeah, that. More of the same, more of the same, more of the same. That just doesn't get our attention after a while. I think what will happen is it's…and so much of this is just being driven by kind of capitalism to a degree. Well, to a huge degree. Whereas everything's just like, “oh, what can we do cheaper and quicker?”.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 21:04

But Productivity. Efficiency. Productivity. Efficiency.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 21:08

You know, it goes back to that. I'm sure you've seen it. You know, like, it was the triangle, and it was, you know, cheap, fast, good. Exactly what it was.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 21:17

Yeah.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 21:18

You can only choose two.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 21:20

Yeah, yeah. Cheap, fast, and quality. I think it is.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 21:23

Yeah. You could choose two.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 21:26

Yeah.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 21:26

Which do you want? And I think that's where we are with this as well, where it's like, and again, so everyone is just kind of banking on fast, fast, fast, get it out there. But I…yeah, I don't…I think there is this, yeah, like I said, like, that kind of like, two levels. Yeah. And also I…I…because we are very much in the hype stage right now. Like, wow. Like, I was talking to an AI expert…you probably want to get her on the show…talking to an AI expert just last week, and all she was talking about was like, the…the amount of hype is, like, ridiculous.

But I can see, and especially to do with anything kind of creative and in culture, and I see this coming from the youth in particular, that it will come up that way where it will seem very sudden, but it will make total sense of anything AI generated will just be “incredibly lame”.

Lena Robinson (Host)

Interesting

Michael Cawley (Guest)

And it's just like, “oh, you use an AI. You know, it's just like, that's so lame.” It's…it's again, it's that kind of blandness of it, and then to really stand out, it's like you have your own personality and all that.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 22:41

I've thought about this a lot, and to your point about that thing of the human being, the premium, which is not the first time that that's been brought up on the show, and I think the one thing that I think humans bring to the table, correct me if you think I'm wrong on this, is that we create the…the really creative, and the really extraordinary, is usually the unexpected and the not seen before. Now, the reality is, is that at the moment, data always looks backwards, not forwards. Right? And I think the thing that the humans will, at the moment, anyway, from what I'm seeing, will always continue to bring to the table, will be the unexpected, will be the left field, where on paper, just doesn't make sense.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 23:32

And I think we kind of crave that, but…

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 23:36

And get afraid of it at the same time, though.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 23:38

…but, this is something that has been happening long before AI as well. But I think AI now is just amplifying it. But I remember I got this great, very random book a few years ago, and I was just like…you know, when you read something….yes, yes, I, I did notice that it's called collage culture and it basically talks about from like 1999/2000 onwards, like something strange started to happen where we just started to look back. I remember growing up in the 80s and despising the 50s, really because so much in there was an awful lot of movies and everything that was like 50s, 50s, 50s. And then, you know, a bit older, then it was like the…or, sorry, there was the 60s, 60s, 60s, 60 s. And then I noticed this keep on. This kept on happening and then it became, well, I even heard about it basically that people working in creativity, that you work it away, work it away and you would only really be given responsibility to. “Okay, now you can do your own thing”. I'm talking about like movies in particular, let's say here. And then they get. Yeah. And that happens when they're in their like probably mid-30s and immediately they revert back to the childhood. So then, so, you go back 30 years, 30 years, 30 years. And we are seeing that now, everything is 90s.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 25:11

Yeah.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 25:12

And that's, that's behind. And like that's…it's an odd thing of…Okay, we always revert back. We always revert back. But then, exactly to your point, with AI that is amplified so much. Whereas we do…we want something new to come in. And I know, like how AI has like noise built into it. Yeah. Put in that little bit of randomness. But maybe, yeah, maybe, maybe again, like also, like so much this is like, it's so early. Like it still is.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 25:47

Yeah.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 25:47

And that's very early, you know, so. And also like I am really interested to see, “where is this going to go?” because there's an awful lot of like, so much of this right now is at a stage where we have all this amazing tech, but don't have the use cases for it yet. For some things it's incredible, but for huge, like vasts…of vast pieces of like workforce and communities, it's just like, that's, that's cool.

But how do I…how do I use this?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 26:21

But it's not the first time we've seen this. You and I have been around long enough that we saw it when…Dave and I have talked about this a lot as well. We've been around long enough to have seen the impact of what the Internet did to our jobs, and having to change them. And I was starting work just as the Internet was, in New Zealand anyway, was getting going in the very early 90s. I mean, I know it’d have been going earlier than that, but in my work scenario, you know, we got through that, then we got through the dot.com boom and everybody, all small businesses, which I've always been around, needing websites. And then we did it with social media. We've adapted.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 26:55

Yeah, exactly.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 26:57

And none of those had case studies, or what have you, at the beginning. You're completely right.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 27:03

Like, that's where it's, so it's…and it's… What way will it go? And it's that thing of no one now thinks about the Internet in a way because it's just ubiquitous, it's just everywhere. It's just life, isn't it? Yeah. So, yeah, I think so much will be just kind of in the background and taking care of things and. Okay, yeah, that's, that's good, that's good. But it's…right now, I think there's an awful lot of like, incredible work in one way, but then the use cases for how people…what, what are people going to do? And like, because in the sort of work I do, I'm all about like the person using something. So are they actually? Does this improve the experience? Yeah…does it improve things?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 27:50

Which is a…I was gonna say interesting. I keep using the word interesting, but it is interesting. Interesting, when it comes to things like, when you talk about the fact that everybody thinks it's a new thing, but actually when you look at the fact that chatbots on websites, they've been there for over a decade, that I've noticed…probably longer, you'll probably know better than the timing on that as well. And you know, the user experience around that just as a thing. Like you must have seen a huge change in the UX side of things.

Like chatbots, like when you first started seeing them and where they are now, like what, what's the difference in that and where do you think that's going still?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 28:29

Well, yeah, like how, and it still happens, but it's getting so much better. Like actually I, I know a guy, Doug…Ayres, I think is his surname, who, his company did they do chatbots and they even has like a side of business called ‘Chat To Impact’, which is for charities. And again, it's like, this is great, this is great.

And like, because they, they understand of… like, you can't have people stuck in those kind of infinite loops, and you're giving wrong answers, and kind of go, “oh, it sounds like you did that”. And just like that sort of stuff, where also again, like I said, I'm always thinking about the person using this, and so much of this, you know, like efficiency, productivity. That's very much on a business side.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 29:13

Yeah.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 29:13

Not the consumer side, not the person using it. And it's…does it improve the experience, or is it great for the bottom line of a business? Which ultimately won't, because it won't be great. Because people…then always something new comes along. AI shows this. The Internet shows this. Which then will, you know, example.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 29:33

And I think the…I mean what we, What AI can't do is the fact that on the other side is the human. To your point, explain experiencing things. So, you know, we've all been on the AI loop on a chat, you know, where it just goes. “But it's this.” And it's like, well, it's like you didn't listen. And that's the one thing none of us like is not being understood or listened to.

I am very clear when I'm writing on a chatbot what my requirement is, nine times out of ten it will shoot me off in a direction. Because it's. To your point that we started right at the beginning of the conversation about is like it should step up and go, “I don't know. We think you need to talk to a human. I don't know the answer to the thing you've asked. I don't know. Sticking you through to the human person right now.” That for me would be such a beautiful experience. That would make me feel like I would keep going back to an organisation that did it. I'm not. I'm fine with the chat bot because sometimes it answers my question. Done, sorted, easy. We've all been efficient, we've moved on. Great. Fantastic. From your perspective. Do you think that if it? If a chatbot was created in such a way that it had the. The Claude approach of like…or Claude, however you say it, approach to go “I don't know”. Do you think that would be a good thing?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 30:52

Well, again, if it's a conversation. But it would make sense. “I don't know. Can you please explain that a bit better so I can understand” rather than “Here's a terrible answer”.

But yeah, yeah, but again, but like that is, you know, it has evolved, you know, a huge degree and you know, companies like Intercom, which have, you know, taken these things to another level. But I guess so much of it is…yeah, how it's set up and. But yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. Ultimately you need to test these things out as well.

That's one of my big things. Just need to test it out. Does it actually work? You know, get…getting real people.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 31:35

I don't do most of the time.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 31:36

Well, that's one of the big things of…you know, I used to kind of joke, you know, when I was working at a startup where, you know, okay, we need to show this to real people.

We're not real people. We know this way too well. We need to show this to people who. They're seeing it for the first time, they're using it for the first time. Do they understand? And the great thing about that is, they're not wrong. They cannot be wrong.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 32:02

No. Because they are the ones that will continue to experience. I think that's a really interesting point because I…when I've come across any kind of AI in that kind of online environment, and I am not an idiot. I've been in marketing forever and I've been around technology and tech people and the world of, you know, there's no…there's a reason, a certain reason why I'm heading up this podcast. You know, I get it, might not be a technology person, but I understand it from a user perspective at a high level.

Nine times out of 10, I'm left frustrated and I'm thinking, if I'm not getting it, what is happening to the ‘average Joe’ who are still not idiots? They just…that's not their world. Right!? And I think the common denominator needs to be understood better.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 32:54

Yeah, yeah. It's, does it work for the people who are using this?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 32:58

So can AI help that, do you think, or does it make it worse? Is there a way that AI can be used in that .In the back end, when you are working with an organisation to ensure that whatever interaction is a good user experience, where does AI…

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 33:13

Where do you think? You know, like when I was saying earlier on about that, you know, the fetish around data, but of course, it's never one thing or the other, it's both. So it's like, this is where data is really useful. So AI helps with gathering all that data and then letting people know. Okay. And I used to love that, working with data teams and, you know, having like, here is the entire journey. Here's where there's drop off. I was just like, “okay, cool”. We know…we now know which part to really dive in and find out why there's an issue there. And then we would, you know, do crazy things like talk to the users and, you know what? Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

And, you know, they would tell us what was going on and we would see them using it and see where they're getting confused and just like, oh yeah, okay, okay.

And it's that thing of like, it's not just, you know, you know, the founders, you know, child doesn't think it's right or whatever or you know, it's so, it's like, no, here are the real people using it. And it's not just one person. We're seeing this, you know, it's, you see the theme over and over again and then you can, then you can start to like I always kind of say it's like, it's like a cheat code. Then you know, it's like, oh great, now we know what the issue is.

We can go and try and figure, you know, like now we can go and fix that essentially.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 34:44

Which I think, AI ]...what you're talking about is pattern…noticing patterns. Right!? And I think that's one of the things AI is very good at doing, is to your point, there is so much information and data collected, it can help narrow down the…the patterns that continually keep occurring. That's a good thing.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 35:05

Yeah, yeah. I guess the only thing with AI right now, and I don't know how they ever get around, it's just, it's very good at certain things. Like I… I do really question the whole idea of like, you know, calling it ‘intelligent’ because it's only intelligent in a certain way. Like it's not, it's, it's only a very kind of left hemisphere.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 35:35

Oh, so what would you rename it then?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 35:37

Yeah, I don't know.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 35:38

I love that, I love that.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 35:39

Yeah, yeah, there you go. So on brand it goes back again. Like a company that knows how to do these things.

Well, how smart, you know, Apple was and even Amazon with Alexa, you know, of like having that. Okay, let's make it more human in a way. Like that was genius actually.

It's my brother's mother in law, she has an Alexa and she couldn't, she couldn't get around Alexa. She just was like this, this is, doesn't seem right. So she changed it to…now she just says “computer”.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 36:18

She's called it “Computer”?

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 36:20

I love that. I love that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 36:23

Well, I'll tell you a funny story. So on, on the, we are going off on a tangent, but I thought we were going to do this today anyway. I've had to, this is a bit of a, this is a bit of an announcement to the world, but it's kind of funny. I've had to turn Siri off on my phone and my iPad because I have sleep apnea and I snore really badly at night. Right. If I don't have my machine on and it…and it wakes me up at like 4:00 in the morning going, “can you repeat that, please?” Because it thinks I'm talking.

So I've had to turn the bloody thing off. But I'm noticing. I mean, I did like it, it was helpful. But also I didn't like the voice.

She was condescending and annoying and just a pain in the arse. I'd much rather have Snoop Dogg talking to me or something. Because he's doing stuff like that now, isn't he?

He's doing voiceovers on different things and…but yes, we have gone off on a tangent. So the, the, the future. The future is. I think the future is “I don't know”, which is kind of exciting and scary at the same time, but.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 37:21

And also, like, it's. It's so funny of…yeah, we don't know. And we don't know what direction it's going to go in. Like, and that's why I think it's, you know, these sort of things will date so badly. But I love that. I think it was from some newspaper. I think it was like in the year 2000 and it was some big headline and it was basically, “The Internet is a fad”. I remember people saying “it’s nonsense. No one's gonna use this. Just forget about it”. And like, yeah, I do think that. I do 100% agree with the fact that, yeah, I do think AI is the same as the instrument. As in, it's a game changer.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 38:03

Yeah, I mean, I remember going into agencies right at the beginning of my agency career, which was in the mid-90s, and I remember there were still designers drawing and designing on desks rather. And they would go, “not using CAD, not using Apple, not doing any of that rubbish. It's never gonna happen”.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 38:28

Yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 38:28

A couple of years later, everybody was doing it. So the patterns do repeat. I think the way it kind of…the new tech comes in, and the way we embrace it, or don't embrace it and then…

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 38:38

But it's the one thing that I keep on coming back to about AI and it's not just AI, but it's kind of anything but just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do it.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 38:49

That is true.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 38:52

Which is why I think there's a real…I think just…there's a real kind of arms race. Just like, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. Rather than just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Do we…like, my big whole thing is, do we need this, like, what ultimately what, you know, is, is it? And like, like I said two minutes ago, I do think that this is a big change.

But, like, I don't think we're at the stage yet where we know how is this a game changer, and how useful this is, or where is this going to go?

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 39:28

Which is exactly how we started out, which is talking about. It's in the ‘playing with it stage’ at the moment. The curiosity. The playing with it stage, which is a great stage to be in, by the way, but I'm excited by the fact that we're testing things, and trying things, and sometimes pushing it to its limits or sometimes realising we haven't pushed it enough or what have you. I'm all up for new technology and playing.

When you look at what happened with social media on, I remember being in agencies and you go into, you go into a meeting with a client, they go, “we've got to be on Facebook”. And my question always was, and you will love this, “but why?” Right from a new…because as a new business person and agency that, you know, I always needed to understand why it was that they wanted us to do something. Because what they were forgetting was where did it sit in the marketing ecosystem? Where did it sit in relation to audience?

Which is very much where you are at about user and experience and audience. And I think what will happen, agree with me or disagree with me, I'm happy either way.

I'm wondering if what will happen is like social media, it will just settle and find its place of where it sits in the ecosystem. I think AI will be the same.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 40:36

Yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 40:37

I think at a point it'll find its place.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 40:40

Yeah. It will be something that people don't talk about. It'll just be in the background.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 40:46

Yeah, I think the legality will sort itself out.

I mean, we were talking about this earlier, you know, we wanted to bring up some news items and there's been pieces in the news about Elton John having issues with AI and what it's doing around copyright. We've just seen. Dave brought up something today which I haven't even read properly yet, but there's an article, I think in the BBC where artists have released a silent album in protest against AI and we've got people like Annie Lennox and so forth, Kate Bush then obviously against it.

And I think there's going to be a lot of legalities that are going to end and ways of appropriate, ethical ways of using it that are going to have to work themselves out. The government allowing Apple, telling Apple they have to put a back end of the…and I'm not a technical …business, I don't know the technical jargon, but you know, which means that there's access where access shouldn't have been for hackers and stuff being able to get in and all that kind of stuff. Again not my area but like that's.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 41:51

The problem of if you put a back door in for you know. Oh, so the good guys can get in…

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 41:56

…the bad guys can to.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 41:58

Exactly, yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 42:01

Which by the way is only my understanding is only happening in the UK at the moment I think. Yeah. Which is all new AI thing and things going in like it's just a mess but that's that just the.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 42:16

Fact you said that there. Yeah.

About like just the UK you know, like different countries working on their own thing and like there is that ‘arms race’ side of this of like there needs to be agreement on how this works because you can't have like oh, there's one rule for AI in one country just well that just doesn't work. And how do you.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 42:39

I mean they tried it with…they've semi got it right around data with regards to things like GDPR and so forth. But again that is just, that's European, technically the UK doesn't have to do it but…but it said they will. America does it slightly different like for marketers around use of social media for example.

It's just a nightmare and it's the same. Was going to be the same with AI for a while.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 43:06

I think you make a really good point there about GDPR, about that had to come in because there was all that data scraping going on. It was like the wild west for a few years until everyone realised “wait a second, this is totally unreal”. And then they had to bring in GDPR which is a horrible experience and I…so now is the same thing going to happen with AI where it's going to be now we are in the wild west and then in a few years time there's going to be all this kind of like what's.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 43:42

Well the good place to find some of that kind of information out about what's going to happen from a legal perspective is our other show which is The Law WithAI.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 43:50

Nice, nice.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 43:52

More's coming on that kind of stuff because that's definitely not my area of expertise, but I do see a similar pattern emerging as what happened with social. What happened. I mean there were, I remember there needed to be policies written about how to do stuff on the website.

Then there were policies that had to be very clear in organisations, which I have written, by the way, on how an organisation like the agencies, how they would do it, use social media and how an organisation had to. People that were doing it had to behave and so forth. And I've had to write it for clients as well. I think the same will happen with AI. It's got to.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 44:32

I think, going back to that other story that you mentioned about, you know, all the artists.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 44:39

Oh, the album.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 44:40

Yeah, yeah. That also kind of, you know, because, like, they don't want. And kind of rightly so, everyone can just basically, oh, release a song like this. Or, you know, I want to do a song with this, and you see that, that really, because, again, I kind of see this in a larger cultural sense already of this. Just, again, we're just going round in circles and we're just kind of like, safe bet. Safe bet, of, as a good example, Glastonbury headline for the last maybe 10 years. It's the classics. It's the classics again. Again. Again.

No, no, no, no. But I mean, like, have Paul McCartney on.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 45:22

Oh, I see what I mean.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 45:23

Yeah, exactly. Like, they have their place, but you want to have new people coming in, otherwise you're just. We're not getting anything new.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 45:38

Yeah.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 45:38

And then the kind of culture becomes, again, bland and stale when, no, you want new ideas. And I'm a big fan of, you know, new stuff on the main stage of Glastonbury. I don't have to listen to it, but I want it to be there for other people.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 45:57

Yeah, no, agreed…agreed. Well, look, we're nearing the time where we need to wrap things up. It's been an absolutely amazing conversation.

It has, in a beautiful way, drifted across lots of different things, but thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I have one tiny question left to ask you, which. And you, you were mentioning somebody that you think should be coming onto the show. We always ask, is there one person that you would like to see on the show? I thought you were talking about an AI expert you thought might be quite good.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 46:26

Yeah, Susie O'Neill. I had a chat with her last week. Happy to put you in touch with her.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 46:32

That'd be cool.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 46:33

Yeah. Or this, like Doug from Chat to Impact as well. Yeah.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 46:39

Alrighty. We'll put that onto this. Well, look, thank you very much for your time today. It's been an absolute joy, as always, having a conversation.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 46:46

I really enjoyed it.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 46:49

I would like to leave the “I don't know”, thing on the table being okay to have an “I don't know”, from, from a…an AI of any description, I think is a pretty cool place to end.

So where this conversation would have continued to go, I don't know. But I'm glad we've had it. It's been an absolute joy. So thank you for coming on to the show.

Michael Cawley (Guest)

:: 47:11

No, I really enjoyed it. Thanks for having me.

Lena Robinson (Host)

:: 47:13

You're welcome. And I would just say to thank all the listeners for listening, as always, and continue to go out there and stay curious. See you later.