← AI Explored
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- [00:01]
A
Let me ask you something. When your team needs AI guidance, do they come to you? When leadership asks about AI strategy, is your opinion the one that matters? If you hesitated on either one of these questions, you're not alone. The AI revolution is creating a new hierarchy in marketing. Those who master AI are becoming indispensable. Those who don't are becoming replaceable. AI Business World Business positions you on the right side of this divide. Two focus days in Anaheim, California, April 29th and 30th, designed to transform you from quote, the person learning AI unquote into quote, the AI expert everyone depends on, unquote. Melanie Miller told us the AI teaching was mind blowing. You'll master workflows that deliver measurable roi, learn from practitioners already providing results and and build a network of 1000 AI focused professionals. This is more than just learning new tools. It's about professional security, career advancement, becoming the person your organization can't afford to lose. Learn more@AI businessworld.live. get your tickets at a businessworld.live.
- [01:20]
B
Welcome to the AI Explored podcast, helping you put AI to work. And now, here's your host, Michael Stelzner.
- [01:31]
A
Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the AI Explored podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers, creators and business owners who want to know how to put AI to work. People say that to do AI video, you need to have a video background, but is that really true? In today's episode of the AI Explored podcast, we'll explore the easy road to AI video. My special guest is an AI marketing strategist, educator and global keynote speaker who helps marketers build AI growth engines. She's the author of the book Sizzle or Fizzle? How to use AI to build you'd personal brand, grow, influence and become the go to authority in your industry. Stephanie Navinskas, welcome to the show. How you doing today?
- [02:17]
B
Oh, so good, Mike. Thank you so much for having me.
- [02:20]
A
I'm really excited you're here. Let's get started with, like, your story. How'd you get into AI and ultimately into AI video?
- [02:26]
B
Yeah, so I actually got into AI after many, many years working in the digital marketing space. But I started in 1995 when I actually worked for the newspaper industry, which sounds very archaic now, but once upon a time, that used to be cool. That was early in my career, in 95, and that was right when dot com became a thing.
- [02:50]
A
Yeah, I remember those days. Were you a journalist or what did you do for them? Were you in the marketing team?
- [02:55]
B
I was writing. I was writing material, yeah.
- [02:57]
A
Nice.
- [02:58]
B
So I moved over into dot com as soon as that became like all the buzz. And then as soon as wireless apps became all the buzz, I jumped over there. So I've kind of have this history of being this early adopter with technology, but always staying in that marketing media space. In I think it was in 2000, I opened my first company. 2009, social media took off. I was all in on that. And then of course, 2022, toward the end of that, I think it's November 30th. When ChatGPT came out December 2nd, I was deep ingrained and I was judging the heck out of it and saying how horrible it was. But I knew something big was happening. And here we are.
- [03:43]
A
Tell me a little bit more. I mean, I can relate as a fellow writer. I mean, a lot of writers right when that came out, had a little bit of an existential crisis moment because it wasn't horrible, you know, and it wasn't excellent, but it could see where it was going. So once you had that chatgpt moment, like, tell us a little bit more about the AI journey for you.
- [04:01]
B
Well, to be completely honest, at first I had my nose up in the air and I thought, okay, well, this is very average. Not worried. It took all of about three weeks until I got worried and. And I actually got really worried. If I'm really honest. I had my very first panic attack. That was not a fun experience, but that is how rattled I was because I was like, I've been doing this for 30 years. What in the world? Am I being replaced in real time? And after grappling with things and having what I call a six week pity party, I decided I could either hand in my keys and say, it's been a great ride, hasta la vista, or I could grab the bull by the horns, learn everything that I could about this new technology, and become a very early adopter and master of it in my particular space. And I chose the latter.
- [05:06]
A
Love it. So bring us up to the present and all the stuff you've been doing with video, just add a little bit of flavor to that part of the story as well.
- [05:13]
B
Okay. So I have stayed entirely in the marketing space because that's what I know. 30 years of being in this industry and with AI video, it's one of a few different areas that I am niching down into. The reason for the niche in AI video is. Well, we all know that video is the most powerful medium we can use right now. And content production. Scaling content production, especially a video, is extremely laborious. It can be extremely expensive, and it can just really make life unbearable for a lot of people that are trying to make a big dent in the world. And so it made sense to me. Like, we've got a gaping problem here. This is expensive, it takes forever, yada, yada, yada, we've got got to figure out how AI can fill in the gap. And so that was my drive for getting into this particular space.
- [06:14]
A
Love it. So when people apply AI video in the way that we're about to talk about today, and they do it well, what is the benefit? What are the upsides to everyone who's listening?
- [06:27]
B
There's so many benefits. One of them is the ability to scale so much faster. If you are putting out one video a week when you're doing it manually, versus possibly using an avatar or using some of the other AI technologies for video out there right now. And you're putting out five a day, right. The content amplification is so powerful in increasing your visibility, increasing your ability to really position yourself as a thought leader and saving time and saving money at the end of the day.
- [07:07]
A
Love it. And I personally have not yet gone into the AI video rabbit hole yet because I'm just not. I don't identify as a video creator. I identify more as a writer. But I'm beginning to see what a lot of my friends are doing and what a lot of the industry professionals are doing with AI video. And it's. It's actually really encouraging because if we think about the barriers typically to video, there's so many. I don't know what to say. I don't like the way that I sound on camera. I don't like the way that I look on camera. Yet we know deep down, because we're marketers, that video is absolutely crushing it, right? If we think about YouTube, it's doing incredible. And we think about Instagram with reels, and we think about TikTok. There are marketers out there and content creators and entrepreneurs who understand how to do this and are having incredible advantages to them. And then there's the rest of us watching on the sidelines. And what I'm excited about, what we're about to talk about today, is the easy, easy path, right? Like, like you can get off the sidelines now, people, which I think is the huge advantage. So before we get into actually creating AI video, are there any kind of baseline things we need to talk about or foundational Stuff we need to set in place, you know, stuff we need to consider before we actually create AI video.
- [08:26]
B
Yeah. I think that one thing that everybody needs to really reflect on and make a decision for themselves is, is it okay to even have an AI video avatar? Right.
- [08:39]
A
Define that for people. They might not know what that means.
- [08:42]
B
Having an AI version of you that can show up on camera and whether you're teaching, whether you're giving announcements about your company, whether you're doing whatever you want to do, is that morally, so to speak. Okay. And everyone has to make their own decision about that. I'm of the mindset that of course it's okay. It is my thought leadership that's behind every video. It is just a likeness of me so I can scale faster.
- [09:16]
A
Interesting. And it is the big struggle. Some of the stuff we're about to talk about today involves creating a AI version of yourself that sounds like you and looks like you and talks like you and help people understand maybe how you grappled with that, just so people can process a little bit about how they might be able to grapple with that. Because I'm sure there's a lot of conflictions going on in the brains of people as they're listening to this right now, you know?
- [09:40]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I will be honest and say it was weird. It was quite creepy when I saw what could be done with this technology. In the beginning, I did not really have a problem with having an AI likeness of myself because I just. All I saw was advantages. The more I looked into it, I learned about security and it actually making me safer if I created my own AI avatar as opposed to waited for somebody else to create something for me. So that was further fuel for me to say, hmm, I think I want to do this. Around the same time, actually, I had a family member that got one of those horrible phone calls where someone was impersonating her son and demanding money. And we've all heard those horrible stories. And of course it was traumatic and terrifying and all of that stuff. And. And that was further drive to say, I really need to learn how to do this, and I need to learn how to do this well for the safety of my own family and the safety of the people I love and the people that I can share this with.
- [10:54]
A
So did you have a story about how you shared a version of yourself that you wanted to share?
- [10:59]
B
One thing that was really funny is I speak on a lot of stages, and there was one time when I was introducing this whole AI video concept, and I wanted to Start the talk by having my avatar come up on the screen and deliver. And so I just jumped in. I had my avatar just start the speech the way I normally would if it were me on stage. And it was about 4:30 seconds in. And I had the avatar say something like, so you think I'm really talking to you right now, don't you? You saw my face, you heard my voice, you saw my mannerisms and you thought it was me, and it is me, but it isn't, because this is actually my AI avatar. And then the video stopped and I came out on stage. Now, the funny thing was when, when I was preparing for that speech, you know, a lot of times I'll just run things by my husband. I'll be like, what do you think about this idea? And I said that I wanted to do this where I show my AI Avatar first and then come out live. And he's like, okay. And I said, so look at this. And I showed him what the AI Avatar did. And mind you, I've been married to this man for 25 years, okay? We know each other very well. And I said, okay, so watch this. And it was the AI Avatar speaking. So. And he's like, okay. I said, just, okay, you don't have any more thoughts? And he goes, why did you just show me a video of you? And I said, that's my avatar. He's like, wait, what? The man did not know. He's been staring at my face for, well, 27 and a half years if we could include dating time, right? And he literally did not know the avatar was not a video I just, you know, recorded with my phone of myself.
- [12:53]
A
That's super cool. All right, so for the folks that are still triggered on the family member that got scammed by someone who impersonated their son, I'm just going to throw this out there. Come up with a secret passphrase, okay, with your family. And if they don't know it, you hang up on them, okay? It's that simple. That's the way you do it, right? This is a good old fashioned word that you never write anywhere. You just have a passphrase. You ask them what the passphrase is, or you ask them a question that you know for a fact that they would know. Anyways, okay, so back to the avatars. So at this point in the journey, we have discovered that Stephanie has created AI avatars of herself. She has put it up on the main screen as she went out on stage. Even her husband didn't realize it was her and she did it to showcase to people that this can actually look and sound exactly like you. Which is really valuable because it means you could use it to create content. You could script that content in your own voice. You can effectively control this output and do some really cool stuff with it. So the first barrier you've got to get over is like you have to say to yourself, I'm willing to experiment with an AI avatar. Okay? So now when it comes to getting started with AI avatars, we've defined what it is a little bit, right? Which is it is a, for lack of better words, a version of yourself. But why don't you just talk about some of the applications and then we can get into some of the tech just so people can understand, like where they might use something like this.
- [14:17]
B
Okay, so anytime that you need to be on camera doing anything is a time where you can use this. So for example, if you are doing a, let's say you want to do an evergreen webinar, you could use your avatar for that. If you have written a million blogs over the last 15 years and you want to make them richer, you can actually feed your blog to an AI avatar software and it will create a video version of your blog. Right? If you've written a book, you can have it read your book and then you could throw it into one of the tools and have it automatically slice and dice it into short form video content. And then you've got months and months worth of short form video that can be just done literally in no time at all. There are so many different versions. You know, people are so hesitant to get in front of the camera and they don't like the way they look, they don't like the way that they sound. And now you can make sure that that's all dialed into your liking. And if you still don't like it, you can use an AI generated avatar that's not even you. That's also an option.
- [15:33]
A
So as I'm thinking right now, I'm thinking to myself, well, we could do this with courses. So let's say we've written a course, but it's mostly worksheets and written mater. Or we feel like the videos are outdated, right. Because things have changed. We could change the function of the course and we could have a new version without having to rerecord the whole thing, which is kind of cool.
- [15:53]
B
Absolutely, yeah.
- [15:54]
A
We could create YouTube videos from our content, I would imagine, and publish those on YouTube. It sounds like there's really no limit. So is there a limit on the duration of these videos. Just out of curiosity, how long they can be.
- [16:05]
B
I think it depends on which tool that you choose to use. So I tend to lean toward hey Jen. For my AI avatar stuff. If there's a limit, I haven't run into it yet.
- [16:18]
A
So let's talk about hey Gen. And spelled G, E, N, not the name gen. Hey Gen. Talk about a little bit about what it is, how it works and any kind of tips or anything that you have for us on that. Because I would love to dig in on that.
- [16:31]
B
Yeah. So hey Gen is a tool that will create your AI video avatar. Okay. So basically what you'll do is you'll upload some training material for it, right. And that could be clips from you speaking or just delivering something. It doesn't need to be anything fancy. If you don't have any professional recordings, it doesn't matter. Right. Could be something that you did on your phone or if you don't even have it, you can actually record it in the software itself. So you will upload training data which is real video of you.
- [17:09]
A
Real quick. Before we even go there, I want to pause just on the video data just a little bit, if you're okay with that. So do you recommend, because you know how a lot of people might have a lot of stuff, like they might have videos of them walking across the stage with the logo in the background. They might have kind of like a little studio like you and I have with a microphone. Do you recommend just starting with like a talk that you've given or like what's the best kind of training video to get started? Because I would imagine the quality of the training video is going to have a big impact on the quality of the output. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.
- [17:42]
B
No, absolutely. I think if you have high quality video, then that's what you want to feed it. But if you don't, I don't want people to feel like they can't use this technology because there's ways around it.
- [17:54]
A
So we're uploading a bunch of video and how much video is enough?
- [17:59]
B
I actually uploaded about two hours when I did it myself. I know that different tools will say different things, including, hey Jen, I have seen things like, oh, all you need to do is upload a couple of minutes and you're good to go. In my experience, the quality is compromised when you give it so little to work with. So I really wanted to dial mine in at a high quality level. Like I said, I gave it two hours worth of Content. It was not two continuous hours. It was different clips from different things that I've done. I think that also helped because it helped different dial in some of my mannerisms better because I'm not just in one shirt doing the same thing with my hair the same way. It actually gave it the variety of my facial expressions, the variety of my voice tone, the variety of how I move my hands, and all of those things that prevent you from feeling like you're in an uncanny valley moment when you're watching it.
- [19:05]
A
Do you have any tips for people that maybe don't have that kind of content and want to create good content as far as things like lighting, audio, and any kind of tips on that kind of stuff?
- [19:15]
B
Absolutely. So you can get a light and a microphone on Amazon at this point. They're so inexpensive and you can get just fine quality. I have a blue yeti mic that I got. I've probably had this thing for five years, actually. I gave this to my husband for Christmas and then I stole it. So my husband's Christmas present that I took back. And for a light, I have an Elgato light. Got it on Amazon. I want to say it was probably $100 at the time that I got. It might even be less expensive. Now I have it right behind my monitor, and it's a rather big light. Some people will say you should have two lights. I'm pretty low maintenance. There have been times when I've recorded things without any professional lighting at all. And I literally have just stood with a window facing me. And that natural daylight is beautiful.
- [20:13]
A
That's awesome. Okay, what about the audio side? Do we want to get close to the microphone or. I mean, I'm just curious, like, as far as, like, that part of it, you know?
- [20:20]
B
Yeah. The closer you are to the mic, the crisper your sound will be. You'll also want to get a pop filter. They come in different forms, but one common one is it almost looks like a little disc that you put in front of the microphone. What that does is it softens the pop. Yeah, the P's and the Q's and things like that softens those sounds. So also, of course, you want to get a mic that will prevent noises outside of what you're recording. Right. That's an important step because, of course, inevitably when you go to record something, that's when your neighbor's going to start mowing their lawn. Right.
- [21:02]
A
Some of the people like me, if you're watching this on YouTube, you're going to see I have that microphone that you're talking about, and I have the little pop filter in front of it, and I'm pretty close to it because I am optimizing this for the audio listeners. Right. Which are the podcasting audience. But I would imagine if a mic is close, it's going to show up in your AI avatar as well. Right. So you probably have to decide whether you want the mic to be there or not be there. Is that accurate?
- [21:27]
B
Yes, absolutely, that's accurate. In my case, I chose for it not to be there, and that worked just fine for me. One of the things you can do is you can edit the sound after it's recorded.
- [21:40]
A
Oh, okay.
- [21:41]
B
So if something isn't dialed in perfectly because the mic wasn't in the perfect position, that's okay because you can edit it afterwards.
- [21:51]
A
Every year, the gap widens. The marketers who understand AI are pulling ahead, creating better content faster, automating strategic work, and delivering results their competitors Simply can't match. 2026 could be your best year ever because you finally embraced AI. Now you're listening to this podcast, but why not join us for two days of systematic mastery at AI Business World, April 29th and 30th in Anaheim, California? Here's what Melanie Miller told us. Quote, the AI teaching was mind blowing. I'm so far ahead of so many people that claim to do what I do because Michael Stelzner only brings the best to teach, unquote. Here's what sets apart this from random tutorials and scattered learning, which I know we all use. You're going to get complete workflows, not isolated tips, strategic frameworks that connect everything, implementation plans you can execute immediately, and 20 sessions dedicated to build comprehensive AI mastery. These are the best of the best that I have recruited. By the end of the event, you'll have all the AI skills that took others years of random implementation to figure out literally at your fingertips. The gap is widening. Which side are you going to be on? Learn more at aibusinessworld Live. Grab your tickets today at aibusinessworld Live. Okay, one of the things when we were prepping is you suggested creating multiple versions of yourself or multiple avatars. Can you explain a little bit about what that is and why that matters?
- [23:24]
B
Yes. So if you're going to be putting out frequent video, you probably don't always want to be wearing the same shirt and have your hair in the same way that it is, unless, of course, you're bald. So what I did is I actually have probably about 10 different versions of myself where I just changed the way that I looked and changed my mannerisms a little bit. And now when I create videos, I can say, oh, I want the one in the pink shirt. I want the one in the yellow shirts. I want the one where I was, you know, had a little bit of a different background or I was off to the side a little bit. Things like that. It just gives it a little more variety. Of course, the easiest way is to have a uniform. You can pull a Steve Jobs and wear the same thing every time. That makes it a lot easier for you. I'm just a girl that appreciates variety.
- [24:18]
A
When you're creating these different versions of yourself, are you reading a script or something? Talk about that a little bit. Because obviously that's an intentional effort you made to either pull some old recording of you or create something brand new, right?
- [24:30]
B
Yeah. One thing that I did do in addition to pulling old clips that I had was I just sat in front of the mic and I read a book.
- [24:39]
A
Oh, okay.
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B
I read it. My book. But it doesn't have to be my book. It could be any book, right? I read it a book, and I tried to read it in a way that would reflect the way that I would speak. Not necessarily. I wasn't trying to be a Hollywood voiceover actress, right. I wasn't trying to sound like James Earl Jones and some professional that had this dialed in in at a certain level. But I was trying to read with a certain amount of inflection and things that would keep a listener engaged. Enough variance in my voice. Like as I'm speaking to you right now, you can hear my tone is changing, right? Sometimes I'm talking faster, sometimes I'm talking slower. Sometimes it's a higher pitch or a lower pitch. I was doing that when I was reading the book because I knew that's how I show up in real life. And I want to show up that way here too.
- [25:35]
A
Okay, so up to this point, we have trained up some AI avatars of ourself using hey Gen just before we go into actually creating the video. Any idea of what the cost is for something like this with the hey Gen side of things?
- [25:50]
B
You know, I've got it a long time ago. I don't know what the current pricing is.
- [25:55]
A
Are we talking hundreds of dollars or tens of dollars a month or something like that?
- [25:59]
B
No. I know that there's options. If you're a solopreneur just getting started, there are going to be options that are very, very affordable for you. And there are options all the way up to enterprise level.
- [26:11]
A
Very cool.
- [26:12]
B
So I think they've done a good job of making various packages available for various markets.
- [26:17]
A
Cool. So we've trained up these models. Let's talk about the actual craft of creating videos now that we've got these avatars trained on us.
- [26:25]
B
Once you have your avatar that is built, honestly, it is so easy. You just have a script that you write, you feed it to Heygen and your avatar takes it from there. It takes a few minutes. Well, I suppose it depends on how long the script is. Right. In my case, it usually will take a few minutes and then it's just done the hard part, which isn't even really hard. But the most time consuming part is creating the avatar. Once that's done, it's feeded a script and it takes it from there.
- [26:58]
A
Do you have any tips on scripting? Because you know this and I know this because we both have backgrounds in writing and speaking. Sometimes the way you write isn't the way you speak. And do you have any tips on how to make sure that you script it so it actually sounds the way you're supposed to sound when you talk?
- [27:16]
B
Yeah, I read all of my scripts aloud before I record anything. And so I want to make sure that I am not falling into that when I write. It's very polished. And that's not how you show up in a human conversation. Right. So I read it out loud and I might sometimes even intentionally add in the things that you might think you would delete. For example, the word. Right. It's normal in a normal conversation for there to be an in the conversation.
- [27:52]
A
Right.
- [27:53]
B
So I know a lot of people are like, oh, I said the word. I need to edit that out. I don't think so. I think if you get an in there occasionally it makes it more real.
- [28:03]
A
So what do you use to do your scripting?
- [28:06]
B
I write my scripts myself or I'll use something like ChatGPT or Claude or. Or one of the other AIs. But you know, I am a writer. If I weren't a wr, I would probably point people toward Claude. I think it writes better content than any other LLMs right now. I think ChatGPT, however, is coming up as a very close second. You know, it's a constant race of who's going to outperform the other one. But those two are my favorite for writing scripts.
- [28:37]
A
Okay, so we've got the script. We put it into. Hey, Jen, what if we're not happy with the way it comes out? I mean, does it always come out perfect? Talk to me A little bit about that.
- [28:47]
B
It doesn't always come out perfect, and sometimes you regenerate it just like anything else with AI.
- [28:54]
A
All right, Anything that we need to watch for. And like, what is unacceptable? I mean, like, does it glitch sometimes? Or does stuff show up in the camera and then disappear? I don't know.
- [29:03]
B
What.
- [29:03]
A
What are the things that people need to be looking for?
- [29:05]
B
Yeah, I have not had an experience of random things showing up in the camera. That would be kind of creepy. Honestly, I have not seen that happen. The things that I would look for is what's happening with your eyes. Are you blinking at a normal and natural pace? Is your voice. Does it sound like you? Sometimes the AIs can get a little carried away, and they can make your voice sound deeper or higher or something that you're like. It's just. It doesn't sound like me. That's when you get into the editing studio and you're able to make little tweaks. But the thing that's so beautiful about it, Mike, is that you don't have to have any professional production background to do this. Like, literally, if you can use your iPhone or your Android or whatever, you can use this.
- [30:01]
A
Okay, so you put a script in there, and then how fast does it generate the video? How long does it actually take?
- [30:07]
B
In my case, it takes a couple of minutes for most of my videos.
- [30:10]
A
And then what do you do? I'm imagining you watch it to make sure you like the way it came out. Right. And if you don't like some of the ways it came out, like, what do you recommend? Do you recommend just completely regenerating it, or do you recommend something else? Because you already mentioned editing, and that's something that I think a lot of people maybe haven't really thought through, you know?
- [30:27]
B
Yeah, I think it depends on how much you dislike it. If it's a simple little tweak with something, I would make a quick edit. If I look at it and I'm like, I hate this. This is horrible. Then I would regenerate it. But honestly, I have not had that experience ever. And I've used this a lot. Everything that I have found has been, you know, 90% to the finish line. It just needs a little. A few I's dotted and T's crossed.
- [30:53]
A
Okay, so let's talk about editing. How do we do that? Does heygen have that built in? Are there other tools that you recommend?
- [30:59]
B
Yeah, you can do some editing in. Hey, Gen. There are a lot of different tools out there. I think that if you try to really step into the editing space, you're probably going to overcomplicate this and kill the opportunity that you have to scale quickly with AI video. So I would actually encourage people not to go use other editing tools because it defeats the whole point. Then you're going to spend forever editing like you would if you were recording something before AI avatars. The other thing is, the goal is not perfection. The goal is to scale your content. The goal is to get things done and have it be good enough. And when I say good enough, I don't mean I am settling for something mediocre. Good enough with this stuff is actually really good.
- [31:54]
A
It's probably better than what we could do on our own, right?
- [31:57]
B
Absolutely. It's going to be better. Absolutely.
- [32:00]
A
So let's say we do want to do some editing. What tools do you recommend?
- [32:03]
B
Tools for editing? You can use Camtasia. That's one that I've used. Adobe has all kinds of stuff that you can use there. You can use Garagebit. That's kind of an old school one. I have used Camtasia when I needed to edit things.
- [32:18]
A
You had mentioned earlier that you could take something really long like an article and make a video out of it. And you kind of hinted that you could extract stuff out of that video, which obviously is going to require some editing. So talk to us a little bit about that process and maybe how you've done that for yourself.
- [32:35]
B
Even so, there is another AI tool called Opus Clips. And what you can do with Opus Clips is you can feed it long form video and it will use its capabilities to slice and dice that long form video into multiple short form clips for you. And it is truly amazing because it doesn't just slice and dice it into clips, but it actually will rate it according to the virality expectation. So it will tell you things like this has a 97% chance of going viral versus this has a 63% chance. Right. Their algorithm has determined that. I don't know the mechanics behind it. All I know is it's pretty spot on and it works because I've tested it. Right. So Opus Clips will do that for you. And it's incredible being able to pump out so much short form content from a long form piece that you created so quickly.
- [33:40]
A
So tell us how you've used that.
- [33:41]
B
I use it for social media. I honestly don't do as much of this for myself as I do it for my clients.
- [33:49]
A
Okay, cool. Yeah, very cool. All right, so we're going to move on to some other Non AI avatar video tools. But is there anything else you want to share on the avatars front before we move on to any other video tools that you Recommend?
- [34:03]
B
I think Lumen 5 is another tool that I really, really love Lumen 5 and it's L, U, M, E, N and the number 5. And that tool is great for if you just need text to video created for you and you want to upload. Let's say you were in an internal communications position working for another company. Right. And you have a script for the CEO that was supposed to be made into a video, but there's no time or whatnot. Right. Instead of using the AI avatar, what can happen is you can put that script into Lumen 5 and it can create video using either stock footage or footage that you've provided, as well as stock voiceovers or your own voiceover that you've provided. And it can brand it according to your company brand guidelines or not. You know, of course the free version, the low cost version is going to have more of the stock version of what you're going to get. The more you pay, the more customization you get. And that's another great way to get a lot of video out really quick from stuff that has already been written.
- [35:19]
A
Yeah. So let's explore this a little bit. I know that on the podcast We've talked about 11 labs in the past as a great tool to kind of model just your voice. So do you recommend a tool like 11 labs? If, let's say, the scenario like you're the CEO and you're putting out a video for a brief of the week for all your staff internally? Let's say, do you recommend training using a tool like 11 labs or do you just recommend using a generic voice like, what's your thoughts on that?
- [35:46]
B
I like the idea of personalizing it as much as you can. And 11Labs is a great tool. I used to use 11Labs in conjunction with Heygen. I actually stopped using it. I found at a certain point that I didn't feel like it was necessary anymore. However, if I were the CEO of Netflix, something, you know, a big company, or not even necessarily that big, if, if I were the CEO of a company that had 50 employees, 100 employees, then yes, I would want to use a tool like 11 labs to make sure my voice is dialed in really well. If I were a very small business owner, a solopreneur, somebody that maybe had, you know, a VA and maybe one employee, something like that, I probably wouldn't go to the expense or trouble.
- [36:36]
A
So what would you use then? What's the alternatives?
- [36:38]
B
I would use my own voice recorded into my mic.
- [36:41]
A
Oh, so you would narrate it and then you would have that be the audio track?
- [36:46]
B
Yep.
- [36:47]
A
Oh, talk to me a little bit about that.
- [36:48]
B
I've done that several times, actually, in Heygen itself.
- [36:51]
A
Okay.
- [36:52]
B
When maybe I didn't have time to go into editing, and I had a feeling I was going to need to edit some things about the voice to get it dialed in, I just decided I'm just going to read this. Took me 2 minutes to read the script, and it was done.
- [37:07]
A
Well, I would imagine that some words the AI is going to screw up on too. Right. So you probably at this point want to record some words like maybe your last name and my last name. I would imagine the AI going to screw up on. Right.
- [37:18]
B
Any of those things. Whenever you're using words that could be pronounced in different ways. For example, my maiden name was Read R E A D. Okay. The word read could be read or it could be read.
- [37:31]
A
That's right.
- [37:32]
B
Right. The AI doesn't know which one it is. So if your script has words like that in it, just do the personal narration version.
- [37:42]
A
Love it. Okay, so we're clear. Lumen 5, you can give it a script, or you can give it an actual audio recording, and it effectively is going to create a beautiful video.
- [37:53]
B
It will create beautiful videos, and it can have B roll in it, and it can be a combination of photos and videos that you provide, or it can do stock, or it can do a combination of both.
- [38:04]
A
How much control do you have over it? If it makes its first pass and you don't like some of the B roll, can you tell it to change it or is it it? Talk to me a little bit about that.
- [38:14]
B
Yeah, editing is super easy. Once you get it, you can open up the back end and you can look at every clip that you have. And if you don't like it, let's say it's stock footage. You don't like it, you can just go in and you can delete it and regenerate it with new stock footage. Oh, cool.
- [38:31]
A
So it's got a little bit of a editor in it that allows you to kind of like drop in new footage. How long did it take to generate, like, a Lumen 5 video? Is this also just a couple of minutes once you give it what it needs?
- [38:42]
B
Absolutely. It is so fast, it's unbelievable. I would encourage all of your listeners just to try creating a video on the free version of Lumen. Right. Like you don't even have to put a credit card down for a trial. None of that. Just go to Lumen 5, dump in a script and see what it does. And then when you get the version that it produces, go into the editor and try and make some little changes just to experience it. You'll get a good idea of what's going on. Possible for free. Then you know that if you want to pay, then you can dial in the personalization.
- [39:23]
A
Do you think it's possible that we could record an actual video and upload the whole thing and then it will selectively use part of the video and put B roll over the top of it?
- [39:30]
B
Absolutely, yeah.
- [39:31]
A
Oh, and can it do vertical versus horizontal and all that kind of stuff too?
- [39:35]
B
In Lumen, you can in Opus clips. That's one of the things that I really love is that I will upload a video and it will be, you know, in landscape format and then without doing additional work, it's literally the click of a button. It becomes ready for TikTok or a vertical format. I can also make it into a square format. So it will literally work on any platform.
- [40:00]
A
Are there any other video tools that you've been messing around with that are worth mentioning here?
- [40:04]
B
Well, the big three frontier models that everyone talks about are, let's see, sora, Runway and VO3. Yeah, those are the three big ones. They are all great in their own way. One thing I will tell you at this point, Runway does not have native audio in it. So if you do, Runway Runway has incredible editing capabilities if you dig that kind of stuff. But it doesn't have audio, so you're going to have to use it with another tool as opposed to Veo or Sora. It has native audio built into it. The clips are quite short at this point. So if you want something razzle dazzle, that's super fast, it's a great option. If you're looking to create something that's a 30 minute long video, it's going to take you a long time. Even though it's AI.
- [40:58]
A
Yeah. And for folks that may not know this, Sora is part of OpenAI ChatGPT and VEO is part of the Google Gemini platform. And Sora also has a standalone app that you can use, which I've not. I've downloaded the app, actually haven't created a video, but a lot of people are doing really innovative things there. And Veo is included. If you have a Google Workspace account, you already have it and so obviously is included. If you have a ChatGPT account. Do you have personal preference as far as like which one you think is better at this point?
- [41:29]
B
Out of the three, I think if you want to spend the time editing, Runway is going to be the leader. I don't honestly, I don't want to fuss with heavy duty editing, so I lean toward void it.
- [41:43]
A
Awesome. Well, Stephanie, thank you first of all so much for opening everyone's eyes to the simplicity of how easy it is utilizing tools like Heygen and Lumen5 to actually create AI video. If people want to connect with you online, what platform is your preferred choice as far as socials go and then if they potentially want to work with you, where do you want to send them?
- [42:06]
B
Yes, please Visit me online. LinkedIn It's LinkedIn.com in Stephanie Navinskas, but that's going to be complicated so just go to the show Notes. You can also find me on TikTok at sizzle. Force is the handle. I am on several other platforms, but those two tend to be the ones that I spend a lot of time on outside of personal connections. And of course for my website it's Sizzle for Silver. I always say Sizzle like bacon and Force like may the force be with you.
- [42:39]
A
Love it. Stephanie Navitaskas, thank you so much for sharing your insights with us today.
- [42:44]
B
Thank you Mike.
- [42:45]
A
Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com a93. Be sure to follow this show on your favorite podcasting app. And if you've been a longtime listener, would you give us a review on whatever platform you're listening on and also also let your friends know about this show. You can tag me on Facebook, LinkedIn and or X. And do check out my other show, the Social Media Marketing Podcast. This brings us to the end of the AI Explored Podcast. I'm your host Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may AI help you become more successful.
- [43:18]
B
The AI Explored Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner.
- [43:27]
A
What if you could get year round AI training? That's exactly what's waiting for you with our AI Business Society. To learn more, visit socialmediaexaminer.com AI.