S14 E5: How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Ecom Marketing (with Liam Millward, Co-Founder and CEO of Instant)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Podcast: Limited Supply
Host: Nik Sharma
Episode: S14 E5: "How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Ecom Marketing (with Liam Millward, Co-Founder and CEO of Instant)"
Date: October 29, 2025

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Overview

In this episode of Limited Supply, host Nik Sharma sits down with Liam Millward, Co-Founder and CEO of Instant, to dive deep into the transformative role of AI in e-commerce marketing. The conversation is a candid, tactical exploration of how artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic luxury but a present-day necessity for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands to compete and thrive. Nik and Liam dissect AI-driven personalization, retention, email marketing innovation, and the cultural shifts required for leaders and teams to adapt to this new landscape.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. AI in E-Commerce: Beyond Hype, Into Operations

• AI as a Tool, Not a Product: Nik underscores that AI isn’t a standalone product—it's a foundational toolset that reconfigures operational possibilities for brands.
• Adoption is Essential: Liam stresses the urgency for adoption:
  • "If AI isn’t driving at least 25% of your revenue today, you’re already failing." (02:04)
• Danger of AI Illiteracy: Brands hesitating or simply relying on ChatGPT are falling behind those integrating AI across functions.
  • "If you’re not adopting it in your business now, you’re already behind." (02:06)

2. Instant’s Journey: From Checkout to AI Retention Powerhouse

• Evolution of Instant: Initially a Shop Pay competitor, Instant pivoted, using its tech to identify and remember anonymous site visitors, thus powering advanced retention email flows.
• Unlocking the Anonymous Majority:
  • "98% of people that visit your website—you have absolutely no idea who they are." (03:37)
• AI-Generated Email Marketing: Instant’s AI crafts unique, on-brand emails for each shopper, referencing individual behavior, products viewed, and dynamic on-site changes.

3. Why Existing Email Marketing is Broken

• Manual Bottlenecks: Most brands have minimal staff dedicated to email, leading to generic, outdated, low-performing campaigns.
• Limits of Agencies: Agencies tend to churn out volume rather than optimize for personalization or test new variables.
• One-to-One Personalization at Scale: AI enables what was previously impossible: unique, behavior-based communications for every visitor, not just standard flows.

4. Real-World Results & Specific Use Cases

• Significant Performance Lifts:
  • Examples: ThirdLove, Liquid IV, NeuroGum, and Karen Kane have all reported 3x–5x email revenue increases after implementing Instant AI.
  • "Some like Karen Kane even see a 5x increase." (18:06)
• Smart Coupons: AI now customizes offer value and timing per user, protecting margin and optimizing conversion—not just blanket discounts.
• Send-Time Optimization: Reminders are now sent when individual shoppers are most likely to convert, not after a fixed period.
  • "Today you should be sending emails based on when that particular shopper is most likely to convert." (11:55)
• Continuous Micro-Optimization: Beyond A/B testing, AI runs infinite experiments, updating subject lines, offers, and creative in real time—something humans and agencies simply cannot do at scale.

5. AI as a Strategic Differentiator—Not a Job Killer

• Not Replacing, But Enhancing Teams:
  • “It’s never been possible before, and it still isn’t possible for an agency or a marketing manager to sit there and send a unique email to every shopper.” (07:07)
• AI Drives Revenue, Not Just Saves Time: Real value comes from topline growth, not just cost cuts or time savings.

6. Leadership Challenges & What’s Next

• Senior Leadership Resistance:
  • Often it’s senior decision makers stalling AI integration out of fear or lack of understanding.
  • “It’s always the senior leader in the company that is pushing back because maybe they’re scared of it, they don’t understand it.” (19:39)
• Cultural Shift Required: AI competency (or even basic literacy) is rapidly becoming non-negotiable for team members and leaders.
• Wave of AI Literacy: Expect a shift similar to the DTC education wave a few years ago—boards and executives will demand AI plans from their teams.
  • “What the fuck do you mean you don’t use AI?” (20:56, Nik as Boardroom Chair)

7. The Next Wave: Personalization, Data Compliance, and Funnel Integration

• Deeper Personalization Coming Soon: The next generation goes beyond names and product—AI will harness richer behavioral data.
• Importance of Brand-Owned Data:
  • Liam: “That needs to stay with the brand... Otherwise it becomes super creepy.” (28:47)
  • Effective personalization avoids the “creepiness” of generic, mistimed, or poorly-targeted messages.
• AI Running the Entire Funnel:
  • From optimizing pop-up timing to crafting individualized emails using smart coupons and send-time optimization, AI should underpin every touchpoint.
  • “If you look at it as a funnel, you can see, all right, we’re increasing identification, we’re able to send more emails, let’s send that email at the right time, and by sending that email in a very unique way, you significantly increase results.” (32:00)

8. Actionable Advice for Brands and CMOs

• Leverage AI for All Routine Marketing Tasks:
  • “AI should be your experimentation agent today. There should not be a single person in your business that is doing one to one A/B tests.” (24:34)
• Retain Creative Oversight, Automate the Repetition:
  • Human creativity best serves brand direction and campaign ideation, while AI executes and optimizes the grind.

9. Experimentation Mindset is Everything

• Winners Move Fast:
  • “They get rid of things just as quickly as they bring them in. But that’s fine because they’re experimenting consistently to grow their revenue. That’s why they win.” (26:19)
• Paralysis by Waiting is Costly: Those who wait for a “perfect” tool will be left in the dust.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Nik Sharma on the DTC Boardroom Shift:
  • “What the fuck do you mean you don’t use AI?” (20:56)
• Liam Millward on AI Urgency:
  • “If you’re not adopting it in your business now, you’re already behind.” (02:06)
  • “If AI isn’t driving at least 25% of your revenue today … you’re already failing.” (02:09)
• On AI and Job Fears:
  • “It’s never been possible before, and it still isn’t possible for an agency or a marketing manager to sit there and send a unique email to every shopper.” (07:07)
• On Resistance from Leadership:
  • “The leaders of these businesses are actually holding the business back.” (19:54)
• On AI as a Revenue Driver:
  • “Moving the needle in my mind is driving revenue and driving profitability, not saving time in the warehouse.” (35:24)
• On Experimentation:
  • “They are so obsessed with experimentation…that’s why they win.” (26:22)
• On AI in Hiring:
  • “If you’re not using AI today, I mean, you’re behind no matter where you are.” (33:56)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |-----------------------------------------------|-------------| | AI’s necessity for DTC brands | 02:04–02:43 | | Origin and evolution of Instant | 03:18–04:56 | | What’s broken in email marketing | 06:10–07:05 | | Smart coupons & send-time optimization | 10:33–12:24 | | Real-world revenue impact testimonials | 15:07–15:27, 18:06| | Micro-optimization: beyond manual A/B testing | 16:36–17:27 | | Culture shift, leadership pushback | 19:34–20:43 | | AI-driven funnel: popups to email | 31:32–32:15 | | Experimentation mindset | 26:11–26:35 | | Next-level personalization and data strategy | 28:13–30:14 |

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Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode is a wake-up call for brands trapped in email and retention marketing inertia. Nik and Liam systematically break down how AI is not just another SaaS feature, but an existential requirement for modern DTC marketers. The winners are moving fast, automating the routine, relentlessly experimenting, and using AI-driven personalization to drive measurable revenue impact—now, not in the future.

Final advice:

• Adopt, experiment, and iterate with AI now—waiting is the only thing riskier than moving too quickly.
• Focus your human capital where it matters: creativity and strategic direction. Let AI handle the tests, the timing, the segmentation, and the optimization.

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This summary captures the episode’s core lessons, tone, and tactical edge. For marketers feeling the pressure or just starting on their AI journey, it’s required listening—and a powerful nudge to get off autopilot.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome back to Limited Supply, the podcast where we get deep into the tactical and strategic side of e commerce, digital marketing and building consumer brands. I'm your host, Nick Sharma. I've spent the last nine years building, scaling and investing in brands. And through this show and my weekly newsletter at Nick Co Email, I'm here to share everything I've learned. The wins, the losses, the experiments, the tactics and the insights. All so you can unlock your next.

[B]

Hundred thousand dollars in revenue.

[A]

Today's episode is a good one, but before we dive in, let me tell you about our chosen sponsor for this week's episode.

[B]

Think about your best friend and how they shop. It's vastly different than how you might shop online and you both should never get the same cart. Reminder emails. That's where instant AI takes over. In just the last few weeks, instance rolled out AI flows for over 300 brands. The momentum is crazy and I've been talking on stage with liam at the Q4 summit and grow ny about it non stop. Here's why it works. Instant can immediately understand what who's on.

[C]

Your site and what all they've been looking at.

[B]

The discount, the copy, the imagery, the on site promotion, all of that's pulled dynamically into personal email flows. Then it sends it at the exact moment that the shopper is ready to buy. Don't let your retention email stay old and lame. Check out Instant AI and start tripling your email revenue. Grab a demo by October 31st and get 50% off your first 60 days at Instant One.

[C]

Sharma. All right, Liam, so you're back on the podcast. Today we're going to talk all things AI. And you know, AI has evolved so much. Everything from, you know, well, I think the thing is like AI is not a product, it's just a. It's a new tool that I think everybody has the opportunity to use. And I feel like those who do not figure out how to use it will find themselves being consumed from it. And so, you know, yesterday we talked about AI at a conference as well. But you know, I guess before we go into all this, why don't you give a quick background of yourself at the intersection of AI. Why is it fun to have you on and talk all things AI?

[D]

Yeah, well, thanks for having me back. I mean, we've had an incredible podcast previously and we've spoken on so many stages and together in your newsletter, et cetera at this point. So thanks for having me back on. I mean, AI is if, if you're not adopting it in your business now, you're Already behind. And one of my topics that I speak about on stage a lot is that if AI isn't driving at least 25% of your revenue today, whether it's across email, SMS retention, marketing, you're already failing. And I think that AI is still being spoken about, particularly in the world.

[E]

Of E commerce and brand founders.

[D]

As a hypothetical, it's coming in the future, it's not here yet, it's really cool. Or people think they're using AI because they're addicted to ChatGPT. But then there's this completely other side where AI is real and if it's not such a big part of how you're thinking in the operations of your business today, you're already behind. So excited to cover some of that. In terms of instant, I mean, started the company When I was 17, we work with thousands of brands today. Started the company when I was back in Australia, now spending majority of my.

[E]

Time in, in New York.

[D]

And I think that we actually started as a shop pay competitor.

[C]

I didn't know that till recently.

[D]

Yeah, to Shopify. That was our, that was our biggest product. We helped brands with one click checkout, remembering their shoppers every time they came.

[E]

Back to their website.

[D]

And then eventually we, we decided that Shopify was the beast that we didn't really want to compete with. And so we use that technology of being able to remember a shopper every time they came back to your website and bring it into the marketing world and help a marketer unlock their anonymous shoppers that are visiting their website. 98% of people that visit your website, you have absolutely no idea who they are. And so we uncovered a huge portion.

[E]

Of that enabling brands to, to trigger email marketing.

[D]

And alongside that, you know, I've been on the podcast before talking about audiences and instant audiences and helping brands unlock that channel. And that grew so quickly like that product, you know, we went from zero.

[E]

To like 500 brands in 10 months, which was wild.

[D]

But out of that and kind of where we started to invest in AI was we were building all of these optimizers because across all of our portfolio.

[E]

Of brands, email marketing was something that.

[D]

Just had zero investment, you know, hadn't been updated in a year. We're seeing like declining results. And we built this tool that helped.

[E]

A brand optimize that their flows and.

[D]

Campaigns and eventually we stood back and went, hang on, why don't we just do it all for you?

[E]

You know, we've already identified the problems with these emails.

[D]

Why don't we just fix it with AI and That's our biggest product today.

[E]

Instant AI, which helps brands to completely.

[D]

Automate that their email marketing from end to end.

[C]

And, and that's like, that's actually doing all the generative copy, pulling imagery in. Are you, are you making these emails from scratch? Are they just templates?

[D]

We make them from scratch for every brand. So it like we had a huge fashion brand in Australia, Fate, the label. Similarly Karen Kane here in the US, third love. And they're all up and running in like 24 hours. They have a conversation with us and live 24 hours later. And the way we do it is you input the URL of your website, we connect your Shopify and we basically analyze your website. So we look for your tone of voice based on the copy on your website.

[E]

We pull all your brand colors, images.

[D]

Logos and then we use that information to create one to one email emails to every shopper. So every shopper receives a different email.

[E]

No two shoppers receive the same email twice.

[D]

And for those brands, what they saw.

[E]

In the last three months with their ordinary outdated flows, we generated for them in the last 30 days with Instagram.

[D]

Yeah.

[E]

So it's pretty crazy.

[C]

I feel like there's, there's so many flaws in the way that modern like the way email is handled today. Right. Most brands will maybe have one person internally who's managing email but like they're.

[D]

Pretty much, if you're lucky. Yeah.

[C]

And they're pretty much drinking from the fire hose, trying to get the next campaign out, you know, managing a copywriter, a designer, putting it into klaviyo, you know, maybe exporting audiences for the paid team, running reports because the klaviyo reporting is not that great. Or you have an agency and the agency's goal is to just churn out, you know, a high volume of creative. But then they're not usually going back and looking at flows or updating campaigns or testing new dynamic blocks or figuring out, you know, what a b testing, you know, layout works better than the other. And I mean to your point too, like being able to pull from the site, you get a lot of other signals that you just can't do at scale because you know those are one to many versus this is sounds like it's all one to one.

[D]

Exactly. And we we a common misconception amongst agencies or brands when it comes to AI is stealing people's jobs and it's just not true because it's never been possible before and it still isn't possible.

[E]

Today for either an agency or a.

[D]

Marketing manager to sit There and, and, and send a unique email to every shopper that abandoned your site.

[E]

And so it's not a war against.

[D]

You know, this, this mindset of being having no agencies in your business. There's, there's still absolutely a place for them. However, emails that, or attention marketing that is unique to every shopper that visits your website is.

[E]

It converts wildly better.

[D]

And an example of this is today every single retention flow that you get, no matter what website you get, will be, hey, Nick, saw your band on your cart come back to purchase.

[C]

There's like a standard playbook of 16 standard.

[D]

And everyone just goes, delete, delete, delete. Never has any cut through.

[C]

No discount, no discount. 10%, 50%, 20%.

[D]

Right. Because that's all that's available.

[E]

Right.

[D]

Whereas now, and like one of our, you know, really large brands, July Luggage, you go on their website and rather than it saying basically any brand that uses instant AI, there's thousands of them now starts to pull in copy into.

[E]

Those emails, like the name of the.

[D]

Shopper, the item that they viewed, maybe for the luggage, you know, it's telling, it's reminding the shopper. It might say, like, come back and check out the pistachio dark green travel case. This is your perfect travel case for your next trip. 30, you know, blah, blah, blah, leaders. Free shipping, like the emails auto update based on the updates that you make.

[E]

To your website as well.

[D]

So sometimes you're doing free shipping and so that copy is automatically injected into the email.

[C]

It's like an agent is constantly going, reviewing the site.

[D]

Almost like always up to date.

[C]

Yeah. And like somebody's sitting on the site watching this viewer come in, see what they're doing and then tailors the content basically just to them.

[D]

Yes, exactly. It's. It's very hard to explain on a podcast.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Such a visual product.

[C]

Total.

[D]

But when you see it, I mean.

[C]

For me, the whole instant thing was visual. Like when I saw the demo.

[E]

Yeah.

[C]

That's when I was like, whoa, this is crazy.

[E]

And then the revenue results just back it up as well. Right. And that's what I think excites brands and us most.

[C]

Yeah. I mean we see usually like a 2x base or double lift. But what do you think are like, you know, there's been all these Shopify SaaS, companies that have been doing AI and personalization for years. What do you think is actually now possible with AI, Whether it's generative or, you know, in the personalization world. That wasn't possible a couple of years ago.

[D]

I think copy Personalization really is just the surface. And there's a lot of companies, a lot of opportunity with copy generation to really increase conversion. If you're not using AI to generate copy, unique copy to every single shopper.

[E]

No two shoppers should receive the same email twice.

[D]

You're not doing that today. You are already. Yeah, I mean, you're, you are so far behind, it's crazy. And the brands that invest in that early are the ones that are clearly winning. But there's also so much other opportunity.

[E]

That really moves the needle.

[D]

Like one of our biggest features today is smart coupons. Ordinarily, you know, it's the standard to, to do kind of what you mentioned before. All right, every shopper gets 10% off no matter their behavior, no matter their shopping history, no matter the time of day. Whereas now a brand can set a minimum order value and a maximum percentage and let the AI do everything in between. Some shoppers will get 12% off, some shoppers will get 10% off, some shoppers will get 0% off, some will get 20% off on. Every shopper gets a unique discount based.

[E]

On the minimum percentage that the AI.

[D]

Thinks to convert that shopper.

[E]

And so you're converting more shoppers.

[D]

You're also protecting margin and profitability as.

[E]

Well in a completely automated way.

[D]

Another really cool thing with AI is send time optimization in your emails today.

[E]

Like, if you look at any report.

[D]

Across the Internet, any case study, any downloadable, any email that these SaaS companies.

[E]

Put in your email inbox, the number.

[D]

One thing that they always say is.

[E]

To send emails two hours after a.

[D]

Shopper abandons their cartoon. And the reason why they say that is because there's just no, there's just no alternative. I mean, what's the alternative? Right? And however, today you should be sending emails based on when that particular shopper.

[E]

Is most likely to convert. Not a blanket rule. Two hours to everyone like Nick, he.

[D]

Loves shopping at 10pm at night when.

[E]

He'S lying in bed. So let's send him an email then to remind him to purchase.

[D]

You know, this really busy mom, you, she really loves to purchase at 8pm.

[E]

At night when the kids have gone to bed.

[D]

And so based on her previous shopping.

[E]

Behavior, let's send her an email then.

[D]

Versus just two hours.

[C]

It's almost like having like a little team of agents and they basically sit on your site and they see somebody come in, they get the email or they figure out who the person is, they try to connect them with an email, then they watch what they do on the site and Then they figure out what they know about this person from before and then they craft a personal email and they fire it off. Except that happens in like, what, 30 seconds?

[E]

Easily. Yeah.

[D]

And even down to the subject line, it's again, like, you can have all these little features, but it's never been.

[E]

Worth a marketing manager's time to sit.

[D]

There and go, shit, what is the subject line that is best going to convert? And what happens is a marketing manager.

[E]

Will sit there once and they'll craft.

[D]

The subject line and, you know, that's the subject line that they stick to for forever. Totally. Whereas these agents now just consistently experiment.

[E]

With the best subject lines.

[D]

The subject lines consistently change based on the time of day of that shopper. Consistently change based on, you know, the.

[E]

Sale that's running on your website.

[D]

If you're running a birthday sale, that.

[E]

Subject line now includes it.

[D]

You get rid of that birthday sale and now have free shipping.

[C]

It includes a lot of, like, micro optimizations that you can now make. Because the technology enables it.

[D]

Exactly, yeah. And the biggest feedback we get from brands is, all right, email marketing is 20 to 30% of our business. Basically, nobody spends any time on it. And I think the biggest reason for that is because, honestly, if you look back, what innovation has there been in.

[E]

Email for the last decade?

[D]

It's been the same, the same advice, the same percentage of your revenue for decades. And so I don't think it's a.

[E]

Matter of brands not wanting to invest.

[D]

In the innovation of email. There's just been no innovation.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Whereas that has changed.

[C]

There's been. Yeah, there's been some innovation, I feel, on, on the SMS side, but there's been very little on the. On the email side.

[D]

Yeah.

[C]

And also, there's been no. Well, I mean, also. Yeah, it's just. I don't know why there's been no, no innovation, to be honest. I think, I think there's like, there's a few players in the space that are just happy with being what, wherever they're at right now, maybe.

[E]

Absolutely.

[D]

I mean, I think that brands, that if a brand could increase their, their revenue from. From email, they would be ecstatic because.

[E]

It hasn't moved in forever.

[C]

Yeah. Cost them anything.

[D]

You're already getting these shoppers to your website, so you're already spending a shitload of money in meta ads to get these people to your website in the first place.

[E]

They're landing there.

[D]

You may as well be targeting them.

[E]

To bring them back. Yeah. If you can increase the amount of shoppers that are identified on your website.

[D]

And increase or improve the emails that.

[E]

Are going out to. To bring these shoppers back to convert.

[D]

You win totally. And like, I think the revenue results just speak for, I mean, one of the brands that we work with is higher dose, right?

[C]

Like what, 3x in 60 days?

[E]

Yeah. Crazy.

[C]

More than 3x, but yeah, nuts. And from a relatively simple or relatively low time investment, where do you think AI is finding itself in other places in the marketing stack?

[D]

I think that, like, do you think.

[C]

Do you think the same way that you're able to generate emails on the fly based on, you know, the signals or data points you grab immediately, like, when is that coming to a landing page? Where as soon as, you know, instant identifies you're the person coming to the landing page, it immediately builds the page.

[D]

I think that stuff is coming. I really do. I think that today we definitely focus on kind of the retention piece. But where I really see AI going most when it comes to marketing is what I was just speaking about around these really consistent optimization, consistent experiments. And one of our biggest features is called Instant Labs. And it's just, you know, unless you're a brand that is willing to sit there and do these, you know, really frustrating a B tests, testing, you know, two things at a time.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Waiting for two weeks, nobody's interested, and.

[E]

Then you do the experiment and it's like, well, of course it generated more revenue because of the time of year.

[D]

And so it's just so hard to get an accurate answer. And so you just stop doing it. And the brands that need to do this most are either really big brands that have, you know, so much internal.

[E]

Complexity or really small brands who just.

[D]

Don'T have the manpower. And so I think AI now gives a brand the ability to do these.

[E]

Micro optimizations consistently without any human involvement, consistently figuring out the best subject line formula.

[D]

We spoke about this on stage yesterday, where a women's fashion brand we see having a, an emoji, the shopper's first.

[E]

Name, comma, and the name of the product being the best winning formula in terms of a subject line.

[D]

But that subject line formula significantly changes during Black Friday Cyber Monday.

[E]

Right. Which significantly changes to a store that.

[D]

Heavily focuses on men's products or, you know, has a different Persona. And so these micro optimizations on a store by storefront is very interesting, rather than these blanket, I guess, blanket rules.

[E]

Or advice across the entire industry.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Brands like ThirdLove, Liquid IV and Neurogum all swear by Instant. They've tripled their email revenue. And some like Karen Kane even see a 5x increase.

[C]

Why?

[B]

Well, because AI can build hundreds of versions that you'll never have time to make. While you're running your brand, Instant is running all the experiments, figuring out what works and then continuously optimizing those to keep the conversions growing. Don't get left behind while Everybody else goes AI. Grab a demo by October 31st and get 50% off your first 60 days at Instant1/Sh Slash. Sharma, go lock it in and crush BFCM.

[C]

If somebody wanted to, like, you know, we've basically evolved from the generative AI to the agentic AI. If somebody wanted to start using these, you know, building agents and, you know, everybody talks about getting agents to replace routine tasks. Even if it's something as simple as, you know, generating a report about email performance for the last 30 days or analyzing that and giving opportunities to do better. How can people start with building things like this?

[D]

It's interesting, I think that there's, I mean, so many tools out there now, like lovable, replit, the vibe, coding stuff. You can really start to experiment with different tools. And I guess we're still in the phase where people are learning, where I think that if you're not learning or becoming very sharp on AI, it's basically you're becoming illiterate. And if you're not adopting it into.

[E]

Your business or as a leader, you're.

[D]

Not pushing people in the business to, to adopt A.I.

[E]

You'Re already behind.

[D]

I think that's the biggest thing that I, you know, talking to merchants today.

[E]

It'S always the senior leader in the.

[D]

Company that is pushing back because maybe they're scared of it, they don't understand it, they don't experiment with it. And so it's all of a sudden.

[E]

The leaders of these businesses actually holding the business back.

[D]

And so I think, you know, using those types of tools, you know, there's also so many other tools out there, like analytics platforms are really starting to.

[E]

Bring AI into, into the business.

[D]

Shopify is heavily leaning into, into AI if you're not using those tools. Yeah, with Sidekick and whatnot.

[E]

Huge, right?

[C]

I feel like, you know, a few years ago I was getting called into like the, the boardrooms of like, Tom Ford, Diageo, Bacardi, and these guys were like, we don't know anything about direct to consumer. Yeah, we need you to come teach us, you know, and maybe like we hire you to basically educate our whole staff on how this works and, you.

[B]

Know, do an audit of what we're.

[C]

Doing wrong and what we're about, what we need to change. I feel like that same type of wave is about to hit on the AI side as a lot of these, like, senior leaders are like, yeah, we, no, we don't use AI. And they're reporting that up and the board's like, what the fuck do you mean you don't use AI?

[D]

Yeah, that's what's happening. Yeah.

[C]

Have you gotten calls like that? I feel like you're like the, the, the person to call for that.

[D]

A huge. We always, we always lean into. I mean, we have so many features across AI now that it's hard to jump on a podcast or a particular.

[E]

You know, piece of content and explain it all.

[D]

Yeah. And so I think that we get so many. Yeah.

[E]

I mean, we had 300 brands in.

[D]

The last six weeks alone move to instant AI, which is crazy. And a big push for that is not the hardcore sales. You know, you need this, you need this. Like, we don't cold call anyone. It's brands coming to us going, well, we just received this, this wildly unique.

[E]

Email from another brand that I was shopping on. We need that on our site.

[D]

Or I was at this dinner with X brand last night and they said.

[E]

That they had three times their revenue on email.

[D]

Unheard of, haven't focused on email in years.

[E]

We need instant.

[D]

And so I think this word of mouth amongst AI tools, you should only follow, you know, adopting an AI tool if you hear about it organically, because.

[E]

They'Re the best ones.

[C]

Yeah, there's a lot of apps, a lot of advertising garbage in the AI world.

[E]

Absolutely. And look at the quality of brands using them as well. I mean, there's plenty of brands that.

[D]

And I think this is going to be the real shift over the next six months is seeing where individuals, businesses.

[E]

To C brands, what tools become very sticky.

[D]

I mean, you, you look on Twitter X and majority of, majority of, you know, these AI tools are like, yeah, we've gone from zero to $100 million.

[E]

Of revenue in 612 months.

[D]

I think that, that, that a lot of that will be very, you know, interesting to see if those businesses actually.

[B]

I feel like if they scaled at.

[C]

If they scaled that fast, it's going to be easy for more people to just replicate that and do it themselves.

[D]

Whereas the, the really good tools I think will start to pop up over.

[E]

The next six to 12 months where.

[D]

These, these really large businesses are relying.

[E]

On it to, to, to run their majority of their revenue.

[D]

And today a brand that uses instant AI, we are accountable for about 20.

[E]

To 30% of their entire revenue. Their site revenue while driving that.

[D]

So, you know, it's not these I.

[E]

Would be looking for.

[D]

You know, there's plenty of tools out there that you know, can drive like 2% of your revenue. 3% of your revenue is a nice.

[E]

To have charging you thousands of dollars a month.

[D]

Yeah, but you need to look for those tools that are like, you know, straight in and really moving the needle on your business.

[C]

Totally. Where do you think like CMOS today can spend time incorporating AI?

[D]

I think that I would be focused on incorporating AI so I can focus on the most important things in the business. For example, you know, there's been lots of innovation in SMS marketing. Like AI should be running your SMS marketing today. There's a lot of innovation in, in retention experimentation. AI should be your experimentation agent today. There should not be a single person in your business that is doing one to one A B tests and experimentation. AI should be doing that. There is, you know, in terms of email marketing, AI should be running your.

[E]

Email marketing from a retention perspective almost entirely.

[D]

A human should be going in and maybe having a small part of creative.

[E]

Control to make sure it's on brand.

[D]

Maybe adding some things to a campaign.

[C]

Have you played much with Nano Banana?

[D]

I haven't, no.

[E]

No. What is it?

[C]

It's Google's. One of Google's like image video models.

[E]

Okay.

[C]

Does a phenomenal job of removing things, swapping products out. I mean there's, there's, there's, there's a couple of GLP1 brands that I'm aware of that their best ads across the ad account where they're spending, you know, 100 to $200,000 a day are videos of women holding products or taking something out of a box. It's all made by Google using renders and like stock video and then putting them together.

[D]

So good. And I think, I mean the image generation was something that was behind for.

[C]

You know, a long time.

[D]

For a long time.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

A long time in this world is.

[E]

Like four months though.

[D]

Yeah. And now it's world class.

[E]

Yeah.

[D]

And so if you're wasting all this time on things that could be automated.

[E]

And not spending your human time on. All right, what influencer are we working with next?

[D]

You know, what in real life event are we putting together? You know, creating, you know, doing photography in real life and you know, maybe designing certain campaigns. If you're not spending your human time on that and you're spending your human time on things that could be automated, you're behind and I, you know, we work with incredible brands like NEUROGAM Third Love Karen Kane, Liquid iv and the, the, the number one thing that I.

[E]

Look at across those brands and why.

[D]

They'Re so successful is because they are just so keen on experimentation.

[E]

They are so obsessed with experimentation.

[D]

AI. Yep, we're in, we're going to trial it and they, they get rid of.

[E]

Things just as quickly as they bring them in.

[D]

But that's fine because they're just experimenting.

[E]

Consistently to grow their revenue.

[D]

Right, that's why they win.

[C]

Yeah, totally.

[B]

As a, as a.

[D]

Brands that are behind are the brands that are just waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. They're too scared to be.

[C]

They're waiting for the next tool to kind of do it all for them. You're already behind but, but yeah, by the time they get on that. Also, I think another problem is like, you know, I think, I think a lot of times about, like I always say, modern day media buyers on ad platforms have no idea about that, like gut feeling when something's about to rip. And it's because, you know, they never used the power editor back in the day where you had the, you had to feel it out a lot more before, you know, you got the more condensed version of it. And I think the same thing goes with AI. If you're not, if you're not kind of like in IT as it's evolving, you're going to miss out on what the parameters are or what the inputs are or what the outputs can be and you're not going to know how to maximize the use case of it. You'll just be confined to whatever it's delivered to you in for sure. I agree completely as a, as a founder who's building in the world of AI. So like you're probably building. I mean, you just said four months is a long time. So like whatever you're building now, that's coming out in a month or two months or six months. Like what are you seeing that's not even out yet that is exciting or cool coming?

[D]

I think what I'm seeing is that, you know, it's becoming apparent that personalization on the surface level is no longer, you know, just someone's first name. I mean that's, that's been around forever. It's no longer, you know, now we've kind of moved into personalization, being product based and you know, very particular things about that specific brand that shoppers, you know, previous behavior. I think now we're going into kind.

[E]

Of the Tier 3 of personalization that's coming over the next two or three months, particularly on our Front where it's.

[D]

Really taking into account more of that shoppers previous behavior and it's really taking into account how that, what, what that shopper interacts with.

[C]

Do you think, do you think like data sources are going to become like, do you think that somebody's going to have a business where all they do is sell data about shoppers to companies so that their AI, generative AI is much more targeted and on point? Like do you think like in some world, you know.

[D]

No, I think that the, the brand.

[E]

Needs to, that's the number one thing.

[D]

That I think needs to stay with.

[E]

The brand to own because I think.

[D]

It'S just a dangerous world if, if people are not compliant with, with data. Like it's so important to, to be.

[E]

Compliant when it comes to data. And I think the rules around, you.

[D]

Know, having an opted in shopper is, is, is important and it will be important increasingly as we go into this world of personalization. Otherwise it becomes super creepy.

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

And so it's like a fine line.

[E]

Balance between creepy and. All right, this is a cool email.

[D]

This I feel, you know, special. This is on point a shop, I.

[C]

Think to the less personalized the email is, the more creepy it is. Like from my experience, you know, running instant but also other, other companies like it. The, the creepiness comes when the, when the content is not personalized and it's just a generic. You left this in your cart, you left this on the site. PayPal used to do this one that was like they'd give you a $5 coupon and then they would take an affiliate fee if somebody used that.

[E]

Right.

[C]

And people found that so creepy because it was like within 45 seconds of leaving the site you get this generic email.

[E]

Sure.

[C]

But I think when you have the content so personalized and like you said, you can use buyer behavior to generate content in a way that that person is going to understand and consume the best. You lose the creepiness factor.

[D]

Exactly. I think it just forces brands now.

[E]

To be more curious, more conscious of.

[D]

All right, if we need an opted in shopper and we don't want to be creepy, we need to find new ways to collect this data properly. And so you know, there's so much opportunity again with AI around looking at a shopper's behavior to simply display a.

[E]

Pop up at the right moment.

[D]

You know, you land on most Shopify stores today and you get that annoying pop up as soon as you're trying to load the website and almost every shopper exit out of it, totals out.

[E]

Of it and Then when they're finally.

[D]

Ready to purchase they're like, oh, where was that 20% pop up? Like I'm ready now. And so displaying that pop up, using.

[E]

Behavior about that shopper and consistent learning.

[D]

To display that pop up at the right moment when that shopper is most.

[E]

Likely to either purchase or not purchase.

[D]

Has astronomical increases in conversion but also astronomical increases in collect collecting that opted in shoppers information.

[E]

Right.

[D]

You know there's, there's so much to do in. I think brands should focus on looking at their website as a funnel where AI should be powering basically everything from that shopper first landing on their website.

[E]

All the way through to, to converting.

[D]

And you know, top of the funnel is displaying the pop up at the.

[E]

Right moment to collect more information.

[D]

The second phase of that is, is.

[E]

Sending the right email at the right time using things like smart coupons and send time optimization.

[D]

And then the third part of that is crafting a unique email to that.

[E]

Shopper in a very personalized way that engages with them.

[D]

And so if you look at it.

[E]

As a funnel you can see, all.

[D]

Right, we're increasing identification. That means we're able to send more emails.

[E]

Let's send that email at the right time.

[D]

And by sending that email at the.

[E]

Right time in a very unique way, you significantly increase results.

[D]

So it's not one thing, but AI.

[E]

Can do all of it.

[C]

Right. I'm curious like in your own personal life, do you use AI a lot? Do you use chat GPT to ask questions?

[D]

Absolutely. I mean I think that you know, who use, who uses Google now?

[E]

Really?

[D]

Yeah, although if you do use Google they have a really good summary at the top which I kind of like. Yeah, but yes, I do use, I mean ChatGPT is the simplest version of using AI, but we, we on the other front of, you know, being four.

[E]

Months ahead or four months behind with.

[D]

AI, we significantly invest in product and engineering. I mean we triple our product and engineering team almost every quarter this year, which is wild. And I look at us compared to.

[E]

Other SaaS companies and sure you can.

[D]

Have the best marketing and the best sales, but in our world if, if you're not investing in product engineering significantly, both from a product perspective, a safety.

[E]

Perspective, you know, a future advancement perspective, you just lose.

[D]

Yeah, and I think that's why we're able to work with so many incredible.

[E]

Brands is that we are just clearly ahead from a product perspective.

[D]

But you know, even our team uses things like Cursa now to significantly increase engineering capacity, you know, even down to things like Meeting notes, customer success things in our dashboard. You can get a real picture on.

[E]

Instant just by clicking an AI summary.

[D]

In our dashboard, which shows you all.

[E]

The results of instant in a very summarized way.

[C]

Do you look for when you're hiring team members across all spots? You know, from HR to marketing to finance.

[B]

Do you look for people who are.

[C]

Using AI in interesting ways too?

[D]

Definitely. If you're not using AI today, I.

[E]

Mean, you're behind no matter where you are. Yeah.

[D]

I think it's a fine line between using AI to advance your business or advance your personal ability and using AI.

[E]

To be lazy, though.

[D]

Yeah. Like, AI is not.

[C]

What's crazy is half the country thinks that AI is the worst thing to man because of that, which is crazy. I have never read. Maybe it's like the bubble I'm. I'm in. I've never read or consumed one piece of content where I looked at as negative.

[D]

But isn't drafting, you know, a shit email to your boss, tell them how much that, you know, you hate them or what's going wrong. Like, that's just lazy. Right? Like, if it's something that is. That is personal and needs a personal touch, don't rely on AI. Right. Like, I, you know, I. I think.

[E]

That crafting an email shouldn't be left.

[D]

To AI, but maybe the collection of data or what to say in that email or to summarize the most important.

[E]

Points should be used in that email. Right.

[D]

But I think mostly AI in the world of business, whether you're a SaaS company or a DTC brand, should be focused on. All right, how are we using AI.

[E]

To actually drive revenue?

[C]

Yeah.

[D]

Do we really, like.

[E]

Sure.

[D]

Let's use AI to save time. Let's use AI to do customer support. Let's use AI to do the basics. But that's just.

[E]

That's just common practice now.

[D]

You need to be finding ways to use AI that actually moves the needle on your business.

[E]

And moving the needle in my mind is driving revenue and driving profitability, not saving time in the warehouse.

[D]

Yeah, that's.

[E]

That's the real. If you can crack.

[D]

If you can crack, figuring out how to use AI to actually move your.

[E]

Business forward, you win.

[C]

Amazing. Well, Liam, thank you for coming up on limited supply again. We'll have to do this again.

[D]

Thanks for having me on, Nick.

[C]

We hear more about what you're doing on the AI side.

[D]

Thanks for having me.

[F]

Thanks for listening. We'll be back next time to cut through the noise on cpg, retail and E commerce. If you enjoyed this episode. Why not share it with a friend? And be sure to subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss the next one.

[D]

Sam.