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Pin Talk - Pinterest Tips and Updates for Creators
S1E2 Is A.I. Ruining Pinterest or Is It The Future?
01:01:41
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- [00:02]
A
Welcome to pintalk, the go to podcast for all things Pinterest for bloggers and content creators. I'm Tony Hill and with me is my co host, Carly Campbell. So today we're going to answer three questions. One, is AI ruining Pinterest? Two, is AI content a moral and legal issue? And three, how can we content creators respond to AI? So a lot to cover here, Carly.
- [00:28]
B
Yes. So we've already done this episode ones together, and we have gone over these things. We've gone back and forth for a really long time. The episode was really long, and at the end of it, I just felt like I needed time to collect my thoughts about it because AI is a really. Can be a really controversial issue and it can be a really difficult conversation.
- [00:51]
A
Totally. What that means is, like, we're still working through this in many ways, and I imagine we're not alone in this, especially as content creators and how we're going to. How we're going to respond ultimately to AI, if we're going to embrace it or not. And, you know, the more I'm learning and researching, there's just. It's a hard conversation. There's a lot of gray area to AI. And so my hope, and I know it's your hope for this podcast episode is for it to be a very balanced view and conversation about AI and what that means for Pinterest, the platform, and for us as content creators. I think it's an interesting one because we're almost on different sides of the, you know, AI fence, so to speak. I am very pro AI and you are not pro AI. You are kind of anti AI. And so it's going to be interesting and to see where we kind of meet in the middle on some things and where we don't. And that's okay. I'm approaching this kind of with open hands and recognizing that not everyone is going to feel the same about AI and approach it the same. And that's okay.
- [01:57]
B
Yeah. And I have experimented with AI in my business, and my opinion on it changes. The more conversations I have with you and other people who are using AI regularly, the more my opinion changes. Not necessarily always in one direction or the other. So it's been really. It's been a really roller coaster y kind of journey for me, trying to figure out how I feel about AI.
- [02:25]
A
Yeah, for sure. So let's talk about the moral and legal issues for AI.
- [02:31]
B
Okay.
- [02:31]
A
You've been using stock photos for a long time.
- [02:34]
B
Yeah.
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A
And you kind of make an interesting observation about stock photos and AI photos.
- [02:40]
B
Yeah.
- [02:41]
A
Can you tell us more about that?
- [02:42]
B
Well, I mean, from a real unique content perspective, I'm not really sure how different stock photos and AI photos truly are. I mean, when we're talking about a representation of an idea for a blog post, which is what my pins are supposed to do on Pinterest, they are a representation of an idea to introduce the reader to the concept, see if that's something they're interested in or not. If I present them a stock photo or an AI photo, are those things wildly different? And I don't really think that they are. At the end of the day, they're not a photo that I took. They're not an event that happened in my real life that I'm sharing. They're a representation of an idea.
- [03:31]
A
Right. And I know that there are stock photo websites out there right now that have AI photos, and you do not know if it's AI or not.
- [03:40]
B
Oh, interesting.
- [03:42]
A
Yeah. So there are creators who are using AI photos and they think they're using a stock photo.
- [03:47]
B
Oh, that's interesting because they're just, like, mixed into the regular content, right?
- [03:52]
A
Yes.
- [03:53]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I didn't realize that the stock photo website that I use has an AI image generator on it, built into it, and you can generate 400 images a month or something on your plan, or you can download 400 images a month or whatever.
- [04:07]
A
Yeah.
- [04:08]
B
And so to that company, they're treating it as interchangeable, but I didn't ever consider if the AI images were already generated and mixed in there.
- [04:17]
A
Yeah.
- [04:18]
B
And they might be. I don't know.
- [04:21]
A
So you're a little more okay with that because at the end of the day, it's an image that you are using that was created by something else. And it's hard, almost hard, to tell the difference for many types of stock photos. And that's not the purpose of. In a lot of cases of the kind of content you're creating for Pinterest, the stock photo or the AI generated photo is not the purpose and focal point of the content. As well as there's different types of content on Pinterest where the focal point and the purpose is the image itself. And that's where I think your opinion differs than mine on is it okay to use AI for that or not.
- [05:03]
B
Yeah. So it's hard for me when it comes to, like, the is it okay to use AI? My initial response to, like, the is it okay to use AI Question comes from my personal reaction to these AI photos, and that's that when I see them, when I'm scrolling on Pinterest or Facebook. Sorry, I actually don't see that many on Pinterest, which I think we'll get to. But when I'm scrolling on Facebook and I see these like obviously AI generated images, I see a lot of tiny houses, a lot of. Oh, I see a lot of really cute animals that aren't real. That's another one I see.
- [05:37]
A
Me too.
- [05:38]
B
I feel really angry that my time has been wasted that way. It's like a real gut reaction that I have. I don't care to see it if it's not real. It feels misleading to me and I know that it's AI, but I get really concerned about the people that I love and care about or I guess even people that I don't know and you know, still care about that they might be misled. And a lot of times the worst of this misleading is a wasting of their time or energy that still bothers me. And so a lot of my opinion on whether or not it's right or wrong comes from that kind of gut reaction that I have. Would these people who are seeing these images also feel that way if they knew they were AI? I think in some cases they would. So I mean, I'm not the morality police. I don't get to decide if it's right or wrong. I don't like when the AI content is image based to show when the image is the point of the content. I don't know what we call that kind of content. I don't like AI in that use case.
- [06:46]
A
And that's coming from a personal moral stance on AI. So for example, for me, my moral stance is I'm okay with AI. I use AI all the time. My 11 year old daughter uses AI. She's even using it at school with the guidance of a teacher. That's like outside of my control. And so for me, I have a personal belief that if I do not embrace AI, I will be left behind. And so I tried to keep up with a lot of the new AI tools and figure out how to leverage them to the best of my ability. And so for me, I'm, morally, I'm okay with it, but I recognize that for others, morally they are not. And you want to share a little bit about like where you stand like personally and how you're using AI or not using AI.
- [07:34]
B
Yeah, so I'm currently not using AI at all. I would say that is not. Because I have determined that there is no cases in which I would feel okay using AI because I think There are like, would I use AI for my pin descriptions or my alt text or you know, those kind of things? I absolutely would because I cannot see the damage that would be caused if I was to write, you know, in an alt text image of apples in a bowl on the cupboard versus if I had and AI do that for me. I don't see the harm. And so there are cases where I would use it for things like that. It may be in the future. Right now it is more work for me to figure out AI rather than just type those things out myself. I would potentially use it for generating text on image pins in the same manner that I use stock photos right now. I would potentially use AI to generate some of those images. It just hasn't been a necessity. I'm able to do what I've always done with stock photos. I don't know why I feel like I need AI for that. And I just don't like it. I don't like using it. I've tried mid journey and I cannot make it give me anything valuable.
- [08:55]
A
Yeah.
- [08:57]
B
But I have really had to come to grips with the fact that AI is not black and white. And therefore I can't just paint it black and white ly for my business. One of the things that this conversation brings up is, is AI plagiarism. And if it is, is all AI equally plagiarism. So that's another way of saying like, you know, is it all black and white? And it's probably not. So what do you think about that?
- [09:24]
A
Right. Yes. Well, I know we have some pending legal cases right now. OpenAI has several. I think they have one currently with the New York Times and how that relates to plagiarism. So it's still, at least here in the States, it's still up in the air on what that really means for plagiarism. And I kind of see it as the cat is already out of the bag.
- [09:47]
B
Okay.
- [09:48]
A
And there's no going back. All these large language models as well as the image ones have been trained on our content already. And there's no like untraining it. Maybe for future models they could strike a deal with content creators and being able to, you know, license to use their content for training their models. But that's just not what has happened. And that would only happen really in countries where it's highly regulated. And then there are lots of countries where it's not. And there are all these open source models and you can have people create their own and make it available to the entire Internet. For all creators. So it's a really tricky one to nail down. And I think what's frustrating for me and for a lot of content creators is just seeing sometimes it's really obvious that these AI models were trained on our content, and of course we got nothing for it. And so now what took someone, say, hours and thousands of dollars to produce for their content, AI can do within seconds for pennies. And for me personally, one of my bigger sites, I pay professionals to write all the content and I train them to write in a certain way because we were also writing for Google. But I also wanted to be helpful and we kind of had a template of how they would be writing. And so now when I'm prompting ChatGPT for that type of content, it is very obvious that it was trained on my content and the way it's outputting it. There's a lot of, like, new information that I introduced to the Internet that came from these paid professionals who wrote all this content for me. And so it's kind of frustrating to see, you know, all that content and anyone can generate it. And it's pretty good. And so it is what it is.
- [11:36]
B
The content that's being generated is good.
- [11:38]
A
Yeah, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's fairly accurate. There are times where it's not. And so it's still good to, like, a human set of eyes on it, but it's getting better and better over time. And so, yes, in a sense, I think it comes down to some people will say it's plagiarism, some will say it's not. I think it depends on whether or not you think the company was right or wrong. Like OpenAI to scrape our content and use it for their models. That's, I think, an individual belief in how you want to see that. For me, like, it is what it is. I'm moving on now. I'm trying to figure out how can I leverage these models to create unique content. And I think it's something that many people, they don't quite understand. Some people will say AI is just one big content spinner and it's only going to output what it already knows. And that is not true. Okay, yes, by default. Sure. Like, if you ask it to, you know, write me an article on the best way to potty train a toddler.
- [12:45]
B
Yeah.
- [12:46]
A
And that's it. You just give it that general prompt and then it's going to output very stock standard answers to include in the article. But you can take two concepts that have really never been brought together before and it can actually do a really good job bringing it together in a very cohesive way. And so, for example, going back to training a toddler, like doing potty training for a toddler, you could introduce that as an article, say, for maybe there's a grandma who has now full time custody of a toddler, and maybe it's a grandma that's disabled, they have some sort of disability. And so it's really challenging physically to help a toddler with potty training. And so if you can present with like ChatGPT this unique scenario, it can actually come up with some really helpful information and tips for that unique case where, I mean, there could be other people in the world that could be helpful too. But no one's ever written about that particular example before. But AI can do a good job marrying those two ideas together. And I've been impressed by that. And so that's one way that I see it not being exactly like plagiarizing content, but that comes to the individual user or the human that's prompting the AI. Yes, to me, I just see it as, it's forcing me to uplevel my creativity in a way so that I can get something unique from the AI.
- [14:18]
B
I think that it's so interesting to listen to your response. You have seen the AI literally like using your content and your response isn't, I need to get angry, I need to do what I can to stop AI. Your response is, okay, well, this is what it is. And now I'm going to move forward the best I can for my business. And I think that one of the things that sets successful creators apart over time is their ability to not only adapt, but, but to say, okay and then what? And now you're saying, okay. And then if this already knows what I want it to know because it's trained on my content, then I'm going to use it to create more and new ideas. New ideas are always the thing that moves our business forward. I mean, model changing, what are they called? Disruptive ideas. Anything that's new, that's what really moves business forward. And these disruptive ideas don't have to be. I mean, AI itself is a disruptive business model. They don't have to be that big. It can literally be writing about how to potty train a toddler in a way that's never been written before. And so I do think that successful businesses, instead of giving up and being Sad that Juno ChatGPT has been trained on your content. If you're just gonna figure out how to make that work for you, that's going to move you further a lot faster than if you try to fight it. Personally. Yeah. I don't know if AI is plagiarism. I haven't, I haven't figured it out yet. I definitely don't think you know the cases that you're talking about. If you use it to create new content, I definitely don't think that that's plagiarism. Like you said, it comes down to the individual user and who is prompting it, how they're prompting it, and we don't have control over that. So all we can do is decide for ourselves how will we use it. Yeah.
- [16:18]
A
Yep.
- [16:18]
B
And that's okay.
- [16:20]
A
I think that's okay. Now some people are equating AI with spam on Pinterest.
- [16:27]
B
Yes, that's right.
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A
So do you see it that way or, or not? What would you say to people who see it that way?
- [16:34]
B
I think probably when I started talking about AI and Pinterest a year ago, I think I probably did think AI is spam and all AI is spam. And I would have painted it that way. Then I started questioning, okay, but if a single AI image that truly represents the idea of my blog post, if a single AI image is posted and the user responds positively to that image and there's nothing misleading about that image, is that spam? I think the answer is no. No more than a stock photo is spam. And so I think that we can't say that all AI equals spam. There are certainly cases that, that I've seen that you have seen where AI is used to spam. When, you know, we get these third party image generation apps that are generating 100 pins a day and pinning them all to Pinterest and they all say or mean the same thing, they're sharing all the same idea. I would say that's spam, because a single user going to that Pinterest account would not find value in 99% of what's being posted. I also think that content that is incredibly misleading is spamming. If the image that is shown is giving somebody the impression that they could buy something that doesn't exist or make something that you can't possibly make, I would say that is spam. Unless it is so far in the other direction of. We talked about this in the past, you and I. I see a lot of fruit toilets on Pinterest. I hate the fruit toilets. They make me really angry because I think they're stupid. You said you kind of like to see their fruit toilets. You you think they're interesting to see?
- [18:27]
A
Yeah.
- [18:28]
B
So what's spam to me might not be spam to you.
- [18:33]
A
Right.
- [18:34]
B
So I do not think that we can say blanketedly that AI equals spam.
- [18:41]
A
Yeah.
- [18:42]
B
And I mean, I guess that you would probably agree with that.
- [18:46]
A
Yeah, for sure. Considering that, like, I pretty much use AI for all of my content, all the texts, for all the images.
- [18:53]
B
Yes.
- [18:55]
A
And I try not to be misleading or create anything that's harmful. I really just find it. I'm able to create very similar content than I was before, but I can just create more. Create faster and things are just more efficient and honestly cheaper. So. Sure. But then there are people that are flooding the Pinterest with all sorts of AI content that's pretty much respun. I mean, it's like no new ideas are necessarily entering into the platform, just slightly different versions of original ideas. And sometimes, honestly, that is good enough just to have a slightly different version of it that's a little unique. And then, you know, it can get lots of traffic. So home decor, just like a really popular niche on Pinterest right now that's been taken over with AI content. Yeah, it's all over the place. And it's interesting in that that's a particular niche where I can see Pinterest being more okay with that kind of content. Because a lot of times it's. People are just looking for an overall inspiration. Now. There are some people who are like, looking for really specific things. Like, I want to know, you know, where. Where can I get that artwork? Where can I get that exact. What's that exact paint color on the walls? Where can I get that, you know, exact. Like pillows that are on the couch? And yeah, that's something that I think is where Pinterest can do a really good job with their own AI, where they will analyze an AI image like. Such as a living room and it will find like all the different products, potentially all the different objects in the image that could be products that match a product from their big database of advertisers and all of the advertisers products. And I've been impressed with how well it will match up a AI generated product in a home decor photo to a real product that looks very, very similar. Like, it's close enough that it actually becomes helpful to the user, at least when they're on Pinterest. Now if they were to click through on that pin and they go to the blog post, the person who created the blog post, they are not generally adding in links to the products that are featured in those AI generated images, because there's no great tool that I'm aware of that will do that. I've tried and I've looked for it out of my own curiosity. And so it's not a great user experience in those cases on the blog post. But actually Pinterest is doing a better job of matching up on the AI image to real products.
- [21:32]
B
We cannot pretend that Pinterest won't be using AI. Yeah, Pinterest will be using AI, at least as far as we can see right now, unless legislation comes down. But that's unlikely and you kind of touched on it earlier. Even if we legislate in these countries, that's not necessarily going to happen in all the other countries. And so AI is happening. Pinterest is going to use it. AI is going to affect Pinterest. That's not like a question of if it's going to. We know it's going to. So you're explaining one of the ways that AI is kind of like reaching into the shopping part of Pinterest right now, and we're seeing its effects there. But what are other ways that we are seeing AI affect Pinterest right now? Already in the last nine months, have you seen the effect of AI on Pinterest?
- [22:24]
A
Okay, so here's an interesting exercise that I recommend everyone do right now, or maybe after this episode, and that is to go to Google and type in Pinterest AI Reddit, and you'll find tons of Reddit threads about people complaining about all of the AI on Pinterest and how it's ruining it and they are leaving the platform, shutting down their Pinterest account because it's just overrun with AI. And then also if you go to the App Store, in my case, I went to the Apple App Store and I did a search for the Pinterest app. And you can see all the reviews and you can see the most recent ones. And a lot of the most recent reviews are complaining about all the AI content that's on there. And then a lot of people are complaining about all the ads and the shopping ads that are on there. Which is interesting because Pinterest is saying that all their users love the ads and shopping ads. So who knows? Pinterest is telling one story, their reviews are telling another. So it's very clear because, I mean, I see tons of AI content when I log into my various Pinterest accounts. Yeah. But maybe that's just me and it's kind of fine tuned to me, but that's one of the reasons why I went to Google, was doing a search for the Reddit Pinterest AI and went to the App Store to look at the reviews because I was most curious to see how the general public is responding to it. And so, yeah, it seems like that there are a lot of people who are not liking the AI on the platform and it's kind of ruining it for them. And now there is a big chunk of Pinterest's user base that they have said. I'm trying to remember what they recently said. Like, 40% of their users are Gen Z right now. And I am very curious to know how much Gen Z even notices AI content, how much they like or don't like the AI content.
- [24:17]
B
Yeah.
- [24:17]
A
And what that means for the platform. Because according to Pinterest, their story is they're growing their user base, they're growing in Gen Z. Gen Z loves Pinterest. Gen Z loves to shop on Pinterest. It's becoming their, like, new shopping platform and engine. And so who's leaving all the reviews? Because when I think of Reddit and I think of people writing reviews about an app, I think of a younger demographic.
- [24:42]
B
Okay.
- [24:43]
A
I don't see a lot of the older demographic creating a Reddit account. I'm sure there are, but just in general, I'm not seeing like the, the baby boomer generation creating Reddit accounts. Where does that stand with this younger generation and how they are embracing AI and maybe they are embracing it more and which is, I guess, great news for Pinterest because there's so much AI entering into the platform every day and it's just going to increase.
- [25:10]
B
Oh, I have a few thoughts about that. So first of all, you know that I think Pinterest doesn't always give us the whole story when they share information. I think it's very possible that, like, if you heard this number, 40%. I think that it's possible that when they say 40%, they mean, like, oh, 40% of the users that are real engaged with shopping, they're Gen Z. But I don't think that they're giving us totals of like, the platform as a whole. And as creators, we need to worry about the traffic as a whole, the platform as a whole. I don't believe 40% of the users on Pinterest blanketed like that are Gen Z. So, I mean, I just haven't seen that kind of effect on my traffic. My content is not for Gen Z, and I haven't seen that kind of shift in the past. Eight years in my website traffic. You know, to think that so much more of the platform is Gen Z now. The people who are actually doing the shopping, the people who Pinterest are really concerned about engaging right now. They could be, and maybe they are using AI, but that shouldn't be a cause for concern for me right now because I think there's still like a huge pool of people that I can reach that that doesn't even affect, you know, whether or not they are. So the other thing that came to mind while you were talking about the shopping part of Pinterest being affected is that AI will affect different niches differently. We don't need to pretend that it's going to affect all the niches the same way. We've seen a lot of effects lately in home decor. We've talked about this. This has come up. I don't know if we talked about it today in this episode, but we talked about this before that you've seen a ton of AI images already ranking in home decor. I haven't seen a ton of AI images ranking anywhere on Pinterest in my niches. So what do you think that means for those niches that are already seeing AI images?
- [27:09]
A
Yeah, for sure. So I'm in several different niches and all of them AI content is easy to create for it and I'm seeing a lot of AI created content at the top of, say, the search results of a lot of the popular keywords for the niche. And honestly, some of my best pins are the AI generated ones. I mean, I've switched to like fully AI at this point. And so. Yeah, and even when I switched initially, like within the first 60 days, some of my best pins that appeared in my analytics were the AI generated ones. And so how am I supposed to compete if everyone loves all the AI images? And I'm producing original images that are not AI, but they're just not as, you know, interesting and appealing as what AI can do because it can create some really amazing looking images. So how do you compete, especially for someone who, like when it comes to AI as a moral issue, they are against AI, or maybe they're uncomfortable with the legal side of things, that it's still a gray area. And how are they supposed to compete if they just see nothing but AI content and their niche?
- [28:20]
B
Well, I do think that that is like a pretty key question. I personally believe that there will still be ways to compete. I think that it might be harder. I think that those of us who don't want to use AI in any Capacity. And I'm not necessarily saying that that is me, because I. I think that there are areas of a business where I would use AI. For people who don't want to use AI in any capacity, I think that they need to start thinking now about how they can still utilize available traffic, because there's lots of available traffic right now still to content that's not AI. Utilize that content to start hedging against the future happenings. But before we get into that, have we covered all of the things that we wanted to cover about the ways that AI could affect Pinterest or will affect Pinterest? You and I originally started our friendship, our conversation over the idea of volume pinning and what that means for the platform. And I personally think that if people start using AI to pin a thousand pins a day, I think that that will just implode. I don't believe that the platform will continue to allow distribution for accounts that are doing that. I don't believe that users will continue to engage when. When there are 7,000 pictures, slightly different, of blue couches per account, not just like, you know, per day on the platform per account. It's just not going to be a worthwhile pursuit. It's not going to be valuable. You know, you're going to be looking for that one pin, that needle in the haystack that wins. And I think that the more and more and more there is, the more time you'll be spending looking for that one, and you'll be back to spending just as much time as we were spending setting up living rooms in the beginning. So I think there might be a rough road ahead where there's some volume pinning happening that makes the platform difficult for us to navigate for a time. I don't think that's going to be how it ends up. I think you have a different opinion on how it will work.
- [30:29]
A
Yeah, it's still kind of a mixed opinion going back to all the negative reviews that we see right now from regular Pinterest users, right?
- [30:37]
B
Yeah, Those are so interesting.
- [30:39]
A
And so it'd be a different story if the app had a bunch of positive reviews, a much higher star rating, and less people complaining on Reddit. And so if the users love the AI content and they engaged with the AI content more on the platform and Pinterest made more money, I don't see them shutting down volume pinning whatsoever. If it's increasing all of their KPIs and they're at the end of the day making more money and they have happier users because of mass AI. Content. That's a scenario where I would see Pinterest being totally okay with it and letting the floodgates open. But I don't think that is what's really going on. It's based on looking at all those reviews. And we just know that AI content is very divisive. And there's a lot of regular users on all these platforms who love it, hate it, or maybe they don't even recognize it when they do eventually, or maybe, I don't know, it's getting so much better that it's becoming almost indistinguishable from something that's real.
- [31:45]
B
So this is really important. I keep saying, oh, I wish the platforms would label this. And you have explained to me that that isn't likely to happen for a number of reasons. Can you share those reasons again?
- [31:58]
A
Yeah, for sure. So, one, it's hard to regulate this. Now, there are some organizations like Facebook, where you can generate AI with some of their tools. And there's a few other AI image generators, I think with Google, Gemini, and there's some more where they are watermarking their images that they were AI created. And it's watermarking that is like invisible to the human eye. Only an AI can can recognize the watermarking. Okay, that works great if every AI image generator was on board with it. But not every AI image generator is because a lot of them are open source and people can run it from their own computer. And so to me, it's kind of a waste of time and to even try to do that. And so what Facebook is trying to do right now is they will analyze images and maybe even based upon the comments, they will put a label on images if it suspects that has some sort of editing that's happening, whether that was edited like say in Photoshop or if it was an AI generated image, it can't tell the difference other than it can't tell. Maybe there's a chance that this image isn't 100% what you might believe that it is. And so Pinterest doesn't have any sort of labeling like that. Maybe one day they'll come out with their own version of it, but they still can't prove it at the end of the day if it's an AI generated image or not. And it's just going to get harder and harder for those platforms to recognize AI images and then even for humans to recognize them if those images are trying to be passed off as real.
- [33:36]
B
Right. And you explained to me also, which I mean is completely like, I Can't believe I didn't realize it before, but you can't rely on the user to distinguish whether or not this is AI content when they upload it either, for two reasons. One, because, you know, they could require it of business accounts, but the spammers have business accounts too. And just because honest creators would say like, yes, this is AI, that doesn't mean the spammers would. And two, you know, they're not going to require that of non business accounts. And we already see right now in Pinterest that it is pins created by third parties, not necessarily business accounts that seem to perform really highly anyway. So I think that you're right. I think it's really unlikely that we are going to be able to rely on the platform to identify whether or not the content is AI. And I think that that is important to realize. I don't know if it really changes anything for me right now, but it's really important to recognize if you're just avoiding AI because you believe one day it'll be labeled that way, that's probably not a reason to avoid AI anymore.
- [34:49]
A
Yeah, yeah, that's a big gamble right there.
- [34:52]
B
Yeah, I think all of business, you know, all the things that we do or don't do is a big gamble. And some people might say that using AI right now is a big gamble because one of the future risks potentially of using AI that is being discussed right now in the content creator space is the risk of being demonetized by ad networks.
- [35:14]
A
Yeah, it's pretty scary. Quite a few publishers have had their accounts immediately cut off from Mediavine, and Rautive is another one that has been doing it. And from what I have, I've learned anecdotally from someone who is deeply experienced in how ads show up on websites and how advertisers buy them and that whole exchange that happens. And they said that for advertisers, they have very little awareness that their ads are being shown around AI content. And at the end of the day, they're looking at their conversion metrics. And so if their ads are converting on AI content, why would those advertisers pull their ads unless it goes down to a moral issue? And those advertisers decided, I'm anti AI, I do not want my ad showing up on AI content, so I will pull them off. So the question is, these networks like mediavine and Raptive, are they shutting down these publisher accounts because they had enough advertisers withdraw from showing their ads on those accounts because of all the ad content or Is it a moral issue that those ad networks are then impressing and imposing on the publisher? My guess is it's just the moral issues and where they stand on certain types of AI content. I don't believe it's the advertisers. I think most of them, they can't even tell. And again, as long as their conversion numbers are are just the same as on a site that is made by like real humans, they're not going to care. And that would do be a lot of work for them to investigate every single site that their ads are showing up on. They could do it. It's just not worth their time right now. Now. So we're still at this risk of those who are using AI to create all their content and getting ads shut off overnight on your account, instantly you lose all your source of revenue, which is pretty scary. So what do you do? Like why is, you know, mediavine and Raptive, why are they doing this and what particular cases have they done it for? I found that it seems to be the mass AI created content with no oversight and it's not adding really any value to the Internet. There's nothing new or unique or different and you can just tell these sites are made for ads. Mfas is like a term that Google uses internally where they've tried to demote a lot of these MFA sites. They did that through the September 2023 helpful content update. But there's a lot of good sites that got caught up in that really bad update unfortunately. And so I see mediavine and Raptive are trying to line up a little closer to Google and that is like Google, at least on the search side of things, they don't want to rank these kind of lower quality just obviously made for ads. They've got ads plastered everywhere. It's a very basic stock WordPress template, you know, and you can just kind of tell the creator behind this. It's a real person, but they're not really putting in a real effort to create valuable content for the long term.
- [38:24]
B
Right. And I think that, well, it goes back to what you said about if Google is demoting this because they're the advertiser and we have to recognize that Google controls the vast majority of the ad exchange. That's how you would say that, right? Like they run the ads. So if Google doesn't like it, they are not going to advertise on it and therefore mediavine adaptive are going to have their hands tied because that's how they make their money. But I also think that we bring up Again, the fact that all AI content can't be put in a box. Mediavine in particular has been really clear that the sites that they demonetized were not demonetized for AI use. They were demonetized for overuse of AI, which is different than for AI use. They really spelled out very clearly that the content didn't bring value. And so we don't right now have to worry about if you are using AI and you are stepping back and if you're using it for text, if you're editing it, you know, as a human, and if you're creating images, if you're stopping to look at them and say, is this. I mean, I do think, unfortunately, I think some of those misleading images, I think they'll still fall into the boat of being able to be monetized. Hopefully not for the long term. But, you know, could this be harmful to the reader, then I think that you might be at a higher risk. And you pointed out that the ad networks themselves are not going to comb through every website. We need to be aware that content creators who really hate AI will be taking it upon themselves to report these sites to the ad network. So the risk is there whether or not, if you're creating spam content, the risk of being demonetized is there whether or not Ad Thrive mediavine are going to comb through it individually. I think other content creators will report these sites because this is a tricky, touchy subject. And I'm just hopeful that eventually we will land on, you know, this isn't a black and white issue. It doesn't have to be a black and white issue. Don't create spam and you won't be in trouble. I think that's where I'm hoping that people live after listening to this maybe.
- [40:52]
A
Right. And right now there are also a lot of niches where it's just really hard for AI to create content for right now. So those people are safe. So one that comes to mind is like step by step knitting instructions, like on creating a, like stuffed animal through knitting. And, and AI is terrible at doing it. Now what's happening, unfortunately, on Pinterest is we will see AI generated images of like beautifully knitted, stuffed, like a stuffed giraffe. And then it's like a whole blog post of like, just inspiration of different knitted animals, but there's no instructions. And that can be really frustrating for those users. And how does Pinterest, how can they respond to that so that it starts to demote that kind of content where it really is not helpful? To the ending.
- [41:45]
B
Well, we know that Pinterest really values negative engagement signals. They've published an entire paper on the value of negative engagement signals on the platform. And so I think that it doesn't take very many engagements where, you know, the user is frustrated, so they hide that pin from their feed or whatever before Pinterest demotes it. So I believe these things will happen naturally. We need to be patient as creators. If we're in these niches where we know what we're creating is valuable, we just need to press on right now because it's the Wild west and we are waiting for this to play out. I believe that if there is just, you know, 10,000 knitting pins published on Pinterest that don't provide any value, that that will just implode. That Pinterest is in the business of making money. They're gonna figure out how to make money. They're not going to keep providing content that's completely useless to the user.
- [42:46]
A
Right. I foresee them updating the website and the app to be a little easier for users to report that kind of content.
- [42:55]
B
Interesting.
- [42:56]
A
You've gotta make a couple clicks or taps to do that.
- [42:59]
B
I don't know if it's still doing it right now. I gotta look. I gotta open my. But in the last few years on the app, when you went to a blog post, I'm just checking right now, there was a little question thing that popped up on the bottom that said something like, was this what you were looking for? Or something like that? It's gone now. It's not here.
- [43:19]
A
Okay.
- [43:19]
B
Yeah, but bringing back something like that.
- [43:23]
A
Yes.
- [43:24]
B
My app doesn't have that, but mine neither. But it was there for years and I believe that it was a really important feedback. I don't know when they took it away.
- [43:37]
A
I don't neither. I never actually saw it myself.
- [43:40]
B
I have a screenshot of it somewhere, so I can find out exactly what it says. But I would not be surprised if, like, right now they're taking it away. At this present moment, AI has really only been a big thing on Pinterest for, like, less than a year. So it's possible that in this time period, this hasn't been something that Pinterest has really had to worry about. It is going to become something that they have to worry about. Yeah, we know they measure time on site. Obviously that'll be something that continues to be an important piece of feedback for them. You and I have both. This was interesting to me the first time we talked about this. We have both had sites that we let go down by accident to 404s and Pinterest crushed them very quickly. And I believe that that is a given because when the user hits the page and bounces right back to Pinterest, they are telling Pinterest over and over again, this isn't somewhere that I want to be. And so those kinds of experiences, if the user is having those experiences on the other side of AI content, the AI content will naturally be demoted. When the AI content is very thoughtfully created and is a good user experience, in those cases, the AI content might thrive. But when I say it that way, it's not going to be the push of a button kind of thing. Do you foresee it becoming like there are sites out there that are just pushing a button and being successful in the long term?
- [45:19]
A
I think in some niches it will be possible, really to a degree. Now what's happening is right now the algorithm is favoring a lot of fresh pins, fresh URLs, fresh accounts. And so the top results look very diversified for if you're doing a search on Pinterest for keywords. And so it's getting really hard to compete with just one Pinterest account, which is one of the reasons why I'm creating multiple Pinterest accounts in the same exact niche. But I still continue to see new Pinterest accounts entering into that same niche. Like every week there are new accounts that I'm seeing and I can't keep up with that. Like, I can't go and create a new account every single week. And really then reality will be more accounts are going to be created, like every day there's going to be like 10 new accounts in just one of my niches. I can't compete with that. All I can do is like one a month at the most. And so how am I supposed to compete long term? I see that happening over the next couple of years in certain niches where it just lines up that it's really hard for Pinterest to identify AI content or misleading content. But also it's just content that's not. Maybe it's not misleading and maybe it's inspirational content and people get value out of it. And it just happens to be easy to create with AI if you're in that niche. I don't know long term, like, you might need to consider getting into another one or hanging up your hat if.
- [46:49]
B
You don't want to use AI. I'm not ready to go there yet. I think that it's just as likely that we see, I mean, based on the Reddit threads of people who hate the AI and the examples that you're giving, like, you know where, in crocheting with the inspirational images, but there's no value in the content. I think it's just as likely that we'll see Pinterest introduce a really heavy duty sandbox or dial up their engagement rate requirement. I mean, you're saying people are going to be engaging with the AI images in these niches, but maybe they will set the bar higher, stay on the page longer. I wouldn't be surprised to see that.
- [47:32]
A
So, yeah, and even bring back the importance of the number of followers you have, because that's a really high engagement signal of like, someone who likes enough of what they've seen that they're wanting to follow you. They dial that signal down and, I don't know, maybe they consider dialing that one right back up.
- [47:51]
B
Right. There are lots of ways that Pinterest could respond to AI on the platform, and ultimately whatever their response is will come down to engagement. And so again, I think we might be on a roller coaster for a little while where people don't realize this is AI yet. The engagement is really high. I think the engagement might go down. Depending on the niche or the generation, we might see engagement high in those places. And for those people who don't love the idea of AI like me, you might listen to this conversation and you might think, well, if that's the case, I'm just going to quit. But I would encourage you not to take that approach right now, because we have seen changes like this on Pinterest, maybe not. This change AI is big. It's scary. We have seen changes like this over and over and over again where the whole community said, this is the end of Pinterest, there's no way forward. And the people who quit lost out on millions of dollars. And I know that personally because I didn't quit. So I would encourage anybody feeling frustrated about the AI conversation to just keep going, hold tight. And you've seen accounts be affected by AI. The AI increases competition. I've also seen accounts that are only AI that have tanked completely. So it's not just one side or the other. Right now. There are still, what would you call it, old school creators that are just killing it on Pinterest right now.
- [49:31]
A
So going forward, as content creators, what are the most important considerations we should have? Now, you and I have come up with three different camps that most people listening here are going to be in. We've got Those in the camp of pro AI content and then the other camp is anti AI content. And the third one is they're just undecided. So let's start with the ones who are anti AI content and they're like the skeptics.
- [50:02]
B
I think I, I lean towards this, I mean more than I do towards being an AI adopter. Considering that I'm not somebody who is actively using AI content, I wouldn't say I'm completely undecided because at this point I have decided that there are likely use cases for AI in my business, like descriptions, alt text, et cetera. I would probably use it there, maybe even for some images when the image is representing the idea that I would have used a stock image for it anyway. There's no misleading those situations I would use it. So I would say I'm more of a skeptic than undecided. So one of the most important things for me in this whole conversation has been to check my own level of hypocrisy. When I started this conversation and I wanted to say, like all AI is spam months and months and months ago, not in the last couple weeks. It was important to me to check that because, you know, when I publish content that is just third party roundups on my site, is that any more valuable than AI content? Or when I use stock photos, is that any less misleading than AI photos? So I think it was really important for me to, to check that or, you know, we didn't talk about this in this episode, but years ago my mom and I were wedding photographers and we use Photoshop extensively for brides that wanted to be 20 pounds less on their wedding day or, you know, for this wrinkle that I have, I just get rid of it with Photoshop.
- [51:35]
A
Yeah.
- [51:35]
B
Is that any less false than AI? And so I was fine with that then. Do I really have a leg to stand on to declare that all AI is spam now? Probably not. I don't think so. So that's important for me. I think it's also important for me to know that if I decide not to embrace AI at some point in the future, I might have to face the reality that maybe my business will not be traffic based anymore. Maybe in some niches, not necessarily mine, but some niches, it might be difficult to generate enough traffic for a solely traffic based business. And in those situations right now we have a really golden opportunity to be building engaged audiences that will still be there if traffic becomes difficult to come by in the future. So be growing your email list et Cetera, as an AI skeptic who isn't really excited about AI and as somebody who knows this, I have not started growing a mom list for my email. I don't want to email the mom readers. I don't think that I'll want to email the mom readers in the future, and that's okay. But I just have to know that I have to accept that, that that might be a reality. I have an idea for another website that would be like completely written by me and all of my thoughts, and I would never try to generate traffic to it. I would just grow an audience for it. That's a whole other conversation. It would be a different kind of business than what I have right now.
- [53:18]
A
Yeah.
- [53:18]
B
And I think that for the undecided, it's just really important to listen to conversations like this and take in both sides of the story. And I think that it's okay to decide that you will use AI. I think that it's important to remember that there is no morality police and that you will have to morality police yourself. You will need to decide for yourself if you are comfortable with what you are putting out into the world, if you feel good, good about what you're putting out into the world, if you know in 15 years, if your kids Google you, try to figure out what you did, if they would think that what you put out into the world was a good thing or a bad thing. Ask yourself those questions. And that's really important to me. I mean, I. I think that's an important question for anyone who has an online business, regardless of whether using AI or not. What were your kids think of this when they Google you later?
- [54:20]
A
Yeah, that's a great question for sure. At the end of the day, at some point, maybe right now is not that point. But those who are undecided are eventually going to have to decide.
- [54:31]
B
Yes.
- [54:31]
A
What they're going to do moving forward. And if they sit on the fence for too long, that fence is gonna get knocked down and they're gonna go down with it. So you got a little bit more time, I would say. But either way, whether you are anti AI or pro AI, I think we're going to have to make some uncomfortable decisions and some moves with our businesses. And that's a little scary. And I think that's part of the underlying fear that a lot of us have about AI content is that will this force me to do uncomfortable things. It's no longer the easy content gravy train. Making money from ads and getting lots of traffic from pinterest the traditional way. We've known it for so long. And so that's kind of scary that we're going to have to adapt and change. So I would speak more to those who are pro AI content. Since I'm pro AI content, I'm also pro, I'm pro human content. If you want to use AI as, as a tool, I think if those who are not using AI as a tool, again, you're going to be left behind eventually because there will be creators who are creating human only content, but they're leveraging AI tools. And so they're going to create content faster and probably more content faster and maybe even slightly better content because it can leverage AI in certain ways. So that's something else to consider. But for those who are all in on AI, I think it's important to understand the risks at the end of the day, the short term and long term risks which we talked about, some of the risks such as getting your ad network to kick you out and you're no longer earning money through ads, but also the competition is going to increase. The easier it is for AI to create your content, the more competition you're probably going to see. And so what are you going to do then if you are just in a sea of other AI content creators? And for me, what I'm working on is building real brands. I would like to continue to test other ways that I can create a real product or service around that brand, around the site that's getting traffic from Pinterest, and that ultimately one day I can pay for ads and drive traffic and make my money back through product sales or services. I think doing those real things versus creating content will be the future. And there will be certain niches that yes, like creating content, you can earn enough and do well just with the content itself. But for many you're going to have to adapt and do uncomfortable things and create a real product or service around your content, around your site.
- [57:12]
B
That is interesting to hear you say that. I know we've talked about this already. I don't know if I had understood. So you also don't necessarily think that there is a really big future in traffic based businesses even with AI, unless.
- [57:30]
A
They'Re as a major change to how many newcomers can come into the platforms.
- [57:36]
B
Okay. So unless the platforms change their use, which I think is a real possibility. Okay.
- [57:43]
A
It does seem to be that Pinterest is a little more sensitive to new accounts that sign up and what those new accounts, especially the ones that convert to a business account and what they're doing. And we're seeing a lot of new accounts get banned pretty quickly.
- [57:58]
B
Yeah.
- [57:59]
A
And so I think they're upping those signals to try to detect, okay, are these new accounts joining the platform just to get traffic and create content that isn't great for the users at the end of the day. So if they get better about that, but I don't expect them to be perfect. And so eventually it will be. It will even be easier for these mass AI content creators to even create real products and services. Yeah, that's just gonna continue to get easier and easier, and that's what's been happening over the last several decades. And so, you know, what do you do then? Well, I'm gonna wait for another day for future Tony to figure that out, but I will continue to try to adapt and find a way forward, you know, ultimately providing value at the end of the day for the Internet, for the users. That's where I'm landing right now.
- [58:50]
B
Okay. Okay. So for those people who are pro AI adopters right now, really a lot of the things that we need to understand, the risks, they're really like. The risks are the same. They're largely the same across the board. We need to be considering the end user, and if our content is good for the end user, our businesses should. Should thrive, I think.
- [59:19]
A
Yeah, we'll see. Time will tell.
- [59:20]
B
Yeah. This conversation is largely a waiting game because we are living through it right now, and so we can't know how it's going to go. Nobody ever can predict the future. But if we are still doing this podcast next year, it would be really good to come back to the idea of AI and check in on what has changed on the platform. Maybe in our opinions. Maybe my opinions will have changed a lot in a year. I could definitely see that happening as I learn more about it.
- [59:49]
A
So hopefully this conversation has given people a lot to think about and some maybe different perspectives. I just find it great that you and I can come together and just have a conversation, even though we're on different sides of the spectrum here, for AI and AI content at the end of the day here, not everyone listening to this, but most of us have good intentions of creating good content for the Internet and for real humans. So just keeping that in mind and being able to, like, look forward a little bit and not put your head in the sand will be my biggest recommendation.
- [60:23]
B
Yeah. And I hope that it's really clear to everybody that even though I don't love AI content and I'm not interested in doing it myself right now. I in no way think that what you are creating and putting out is spam. I hope that that was clear in our conversation. It's different. It's differing opinions, but my opinion on the content that we are creating is the same. Like, if you're creating valuable content and putting that out there, that is a good thing to do.
- [60:51]
A
Yeah, I gotcha for sure.
- [60:53]
B
Okay, good. Just wanted to make sure that that was so clear.
- [60:57]
A
It's all good. Okay. All right. So you've made it this far in the podcast, and to me, that tells me, like, this is an important topic to you. So if you're a part of one of our communities that Carly and I are in, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to hear your thoughts on AI content. And if you're not one of those communities, just send us an email@pentalk podcastmail.com hey, thanks for listening to this episode of Pentalk. Head over to pentalkpodcast.com to get the show notes and the resources mentioned. And hey, if you like this episode and want to hear more from us, please rate and review our show. Thanks.