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Raj Panjabi
Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi from HuffPost.
Noah Michaelson
And I'm Noah Michaelson, also from HuffPost.
Raj Panjabi
And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
Noah Michaelson
Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.
Raj Panjabi
And we're talking like legit credible experts.
Noah Michaelson
Doctors, PhDs all around superheroes from HuffPost and Acast Studios. Check out Am I Doing It Wrong wherever you get your podcast.
Matt Britton
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same Premium Wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com.
Ryan Reynolds
Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month Required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full terms@mintmobile.com.
Matt Britton
This.
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Matt Britton
The distinguishing factor about Gen Alpha is they will never know a world without AI. So for them they're going to just think, oh, this is how humans are supposed to interact with technology, like they're people. Because the reason that AI is so powerful is there's no learning curve. You text it and talk to it just like you talk to a human. And as AI gets smarter and has more emotional resonance, it will kind of hook people to thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape. Landscape brands must move in an ever increasing pace. I'm Matt Britton, Founder and CEO of Suzy. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now and how you can keep up. Welcome to the Speed of Culture.
Toby
So no preamble required here. Matt, I want to just like jump straight in. But first of all, obviously thank you so much for doing this. Thanks for taking the time, obviously appreciate everyone else joining Today, this is going to be pretty fast paced. We've got 30 minutes with Matt and we're going to jump into his book, which I'm incredibly excited about, Generation Alpha. But here's where I want to start. I want to talk about the Goonies. I want to go back to 1985 and talk about a movie that I think was, like, pretty seminal for you. It certainly was very important to me growing up. I am a kid of the 80s, as are you. And of course, the movie's about a scrappy group of misfits who follow a treasure map. They dodge booby traps, they save their town. There are no phones, no filters, just bikes, backpacks, and lots of yelling. Fast forward to today. Generation Alpha is born into a world of location sharing, AI tutors, and pretty much algorithmic everything. And this cultural reference point you talk about in a recent Newsweek interview, and you sort of push this idea of Generation Goony. So I want to know, first of all, where were you when this movie dropped? What did it mean to you? What is Generation Goonie? And I think, most importantly, to kind of kick us off, talk about why you think today's kids, what they're potentially missing without that kind of real world adventure that that movie represented.
Matt Britton
Yeah, and actually the Goonies reference wasn't mine. It was actually the reporter from Newsweek. And I think it was a great insight. But to answer your question, in 1985, I was 10 years old. And I think during that period, it was just a different world. In fact, I just saw something on Instagram this morning where there was a game at the end of Michael Jordan's career where Kobe Bryant ran into him and he picked them up, and everybody in the crowd, no one has had phones. I was just thinking, like, those people witness a historic moment, and they actually saw with their own two eyes. And that wasn't in the 80s, that was in the 90s or late 90s. And it just shows how fast things have changed. When I tell my kids that when I grew up, there was no Internet. It's kind of like if your parents told you when they grew up they had no electricity, it kind of feels that way. But to answer your question, in 1985, I was growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and we went outside every day and we played and we didn't have phones and our parents didn't have phones. And when they dropped us off at the shopping mall, we had to meet them at a specific time because if not, they would have no way to get in touch with us. And our Parents didn't know where we were when we went to go hang out and play. We had this type of freedom that I don't think kids have. I think most importantly, and I have two older kids and my daughter's a sophomore in college and my son's going to be a freshman next year, is that they grew up in public and they had to fail in public when I didn't win class president in 1993. And I wrote about this in the book, like, I lost, Nobody cared. I didn't have to see people posting nasty comments about the fact that I lost on Instagram. It was just kind of over and I was able to fail in private. And I think that's a completely different world where obviously we are right now.
Toby
So the book opens in a really interesting way, kind of with a little bit of a haunting twist because the Forward is written by AI, which I know is something that you are very kind of reticent about doing. And I know the intention was not for it to be a gimmick. In many ways, it's sort of part of the broader thesis of the book. But what is the point you were trying to make? Is it a point about kind of consciousness and you have to read the forward to know what I mean or were you just handing the mic to kind of like the future?
Matt Britton
Well, I think it's sort of a forward looking, almost like signal of where I think the future is headed. Where when I told people that I know that I wrote a book, like, well, did you have AI write it? I'm like, no, I actually wrote a hundred percent of this book besides the Ford where actually when I wrote Youth Nation 10 years ago, I had a ghostwriter. But this time I don't know if I'll ever write another. And I wanted it to be my words. I was sort of like really thinking about legacy and my children reading it. I wanted it to be my words, et cetera. But at the same time, I know that over time we are going to be using AI for more and more and more. And if this is going to be looked at as a mark in history by anyone who cares, I think the fact that showing that I knew where it was headed, I knew about AI's capabilities today. And I did it in a way where AI was writing it. It was actually I used anthropic Claude to write it, wrote it in, like the first person. Like, this is what it means to be AI, don't have emotions. Matt asked me to write this Forward. Here's what it meant so it's showing the reader what AI's capabilities are today, but also in the future when they look back, it'll show that I kind of knew where it was headed.
Toby
So let's talk about the alpha paradox, this idea of like agency and I think the idea of like agen as we move into an increasingly automated world and we talk a lot about the sort of the idea of AI tutors and personalized learning and the potential that these could be like silver bullet solutions in terms of how they can transform education. But at the same time, I think a kid with an algorithm isn't the same as a kid with a teacher. And so do you think at this moment in time we're potentially over indexing on teaching kids how to use AI before teaching them how to be human and even how to just learn?
Matt Britton
Well, I think it's both. I think that there's some things that are taught in school actually. I think it's a big part of curriculum in K through 12, especially where it's this notion of memorization and regurgitation. So it's like memorize all these facts and then regurgitate it on the test. And if you're able to do that, you're going to get a high score. And I kind of game the system. I wouldn't like pay attention at all in class. And the night before I was just chug Red Bull and I memorized as much as I could because I would be able to keep it in my mind and I would spit it out and I would probably also regurgitate the Red Bull. I drank and then I would forget about it. And so I passed the test, but I didn't really elevate myself. And I think in the past facts were far more important. The retention of facts and knowledge now I would argue that's more commoditized. So the question is, what should it be replaced with? And I think to your point, it's skills like problem solving and creativity and critical thinking, which are things that we're not spending enough time teaching kids how to figure out. Having empathy, how to negotiate, how to manage and grow people, how to deal with resilience are things that we never learn about. We learn about identifying different types of leaves so we can get do well on tests. So I think at the same time I do think understanding these tools is critical because I don't want to hire anybody right now who doesn't use AI. Why would I? And if the whole purpose of school is to prepare people and future proof them for this coming world, it's only going to become more and more important. So I do think it's a little bit of a barbell approach. On one side, you need to lean into the empathy and the critical thinking and the problem solving. On the other side, you need to be very tactical with the tools. I think where education right now is in the middle, which is neither of those things.
Toby
Yeah, I think it's going to be a challenge for the existing system to adapt. I mean, look, this book felt very personal to you. As you mentioned, you got two older kids, you've also got two younger kids as well, who all of your kids span two different generations. And of course, younger kids are very much part of Generation Alpha. But what is your hope for this generation, particularly as you sort of think about the ways in which you can guide them through this sort of transformational and certainly transitional, like, moment that we're all experiencing right now? I mean, we've talked a lot on discourse about this idea that, like, knowledge and even intelligence is becoming commoditized, so we have to kind of equip and give the skills to our kids. But it's not as straightforward as that. And as a parent, it's hard to know what to do in this moment. So, like, how are you preparing and even providing kind of sort of starting to think about how you're going to provide guidance to kind of your younger kids.
Matt Britton
Yeah. So, I mean, Toby, we both have been in business around the same time, and we were both blessed to have been running companies through the dawn of the digital era, when the Internet was first introduced. In the Big Thing, I talk about the book, remembering driving down Highway 101 from San Francisco to Silicon Valley to sell youth marketing services to companies like Ulta Vista and ebay and Yahoo. And that was a huge change that I wrote about during the book that Hershey said they would never stoop down to advertising on computers. That's what that's an executive from Hershey told me. So we saw that play out. Then, of course, we saw the social media era and the mobile era, which was largely Gen Z driven. And we saw Facebook stock plummet when they, quote, unquote, trade it, display advertising dollars for, you know, mobile dimes. Like, you know, their stock dropped dramatically. And they said, we're just focused on mobile. And people didn't understand how much we would be doing on mobile devices, whether it's watching TV or buying things, et cetera. And now it's happening all over again. And there's many correlations that I think I'm seeing kind of history repeating itself, if you will. Except I think it's going to be with much broader and deeper implications because of the power of AI, because of there's no learning curve to be able to adopt it and the rate of change that in terms of rate of improvement, which we just saw with OpenAI this week with its image creation. So we've never really seen anything like this. So you can compare the similarity similarities between the dawn of the digital era or the dawn of the mobile and social media era in some ways, but in other ways it's completely different. To answer your question, what I would tell my kids is that you have to either go deep into an art or deep into a science to be relevant in this future world. So either you have to lean heavily into the things that machines can't do because the machines have never ridden a roller coaster, the machines have never fallen in love, they'd never broken their leg, they'd never gotten by somebody. So there's humanity, it's still going to matter. Or you need to go deep into a science and learn how to code and operate these machines and how companies put them to work. I don't think anything in the middle is going to make sense. So having a job where you're jack of all trades, master of none, I think is going to put you in a really tough position. Or if you want to get a role in middle management, as the agents are going to do the middle management. So figure out what side you're going to go on and lean in and really own your domain on one side or the other.
Toby
All right, let's talk about culture and commerce and that kind of like intersection. So I've known you and we've worked together for probably 15 plus years at least. And you've always been someone that I look to in terms of providing bleeding edge kind of consumer behavior insights. And in many ways, as we think about this moment, AI is now starting to understand our behaviors perhaps even better than we do in some ways. And when you think about this context of brands and what that represents as an opportunity, if brands start to know us better than we know ourselves, do we actually stop being consumers and then do we just ultimately become the product?
Matt Britton
I don't think AI is ever going to know us better than we know ourselves. I run a market research company during my day job called Suzy and we have 300 employees and we're scaling and we work with most of the large major consumer brands that you think of. And I spent obviously a lot of time trying to figure out what the future of Suzy is in the world where when you talk about facts of being commoditized, so much types of research can be done using perplexity. Like you don't need to conduct first party market research to understand what are the three attributes people look at before picking a brand of toothpaste. Right? You can ask perplexity and get that. However, what you can ask AI for is how do you feel the day after the election? Because AI doesn't really care about that necessarily. Or how did it make you feel the moment that you decided to buy a Lexus? AI would never buy a Lexus because they would buy a Toyota because it's the same engine and Alexa is more expensive. But AI doesn't have to worry what your neighbor is going to think about you if you drive home in a Toyota versus Lexus. So brands are emotional, brands are not rational and humans are more emotional. So I do think that there's a huge role in tapping into humanity and in market research specifically. There's this whole big movement on synthetic data like basically creating digital twins of real people that answer market research responses. I do think there's a role for that. But I think in this world I think getting humans voice and understanding consumers is going to be even more valuable and it's going to be more precious as things move forward.
Toby
Connect that to the idea of like personalization and this actually again it's been a hot much debated topic within the on discourse community and actually one of our members recently on a call was sort of trying to make the argument that it's not about personalization, it's about being more personal. Those are two fundamentally different things. But algorithmically enabled or driven personalization like sounds great. It's always been this kind of like huge promise in the world of kind of marketing. But it also kind of kills so much of what it means to be human.
Matt Britton
Right.
Toby
It sort of like flattens the kind of the surprise element. It kills spontaneity. It can reduce kind of discovery to like predictive loops. So like talk about what it means for you and your observations around what AI can potentially usher in or provide some support to in terms of how we can make our relationship with brands more personal.
Matt Britton
Well, I don't think personalization being personal are mutually exclusive. I mean you never really talk to Coca Cola and take it to dinner. So Coca Cola is never really personal for you. Brands aren't supposed to be that. I think what where personalization adds value and I've actually spent probably 80 to 90% of my waking hours at work building an AI because I'm not an engineer, but I've actually, that's a big turn I made about 18 months ago, as you know, Toby. And now there's very little things that you can tell me that I wouldn't know how to build, which is crazy considering I don't really know how to write code. And one of the things I've built is sort of a hyper personalized engine where based upon specific data points, you can get a string of emails or texts or slacks or whatever that's completely custom to you and gets more custom over time. And you could do that at scale, send out a million emails and a million different people, get something completely different that's something that we'd never seen before. And yeah, you could say Amazon knows what you bought and it'll kind of try to show you something different. But I'm saying going really deep in terms of the individual data you're about to uncover. And I think that could unlock a lot for brands. And it means the more data a brand can get on somebody, the more that they can actually serve them. Things that really interest them and really make sense to them. And I think we'll start seeing that with TV shows and video games and all sorts of modalities because the ability to create infinite sorts of content based upon specific data signals continues to grow. We'll be right back with the Speed of Culture after a few words from our sponsors.
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Ryan Reynolds
Foreign.
Raj Panjabi
Hi, I'm Raj Panjabi from HuffPost.
Noah Michaelson
And I'm Noah Michelson, also from HuffPost.
Raj Panjabi
And we're the hosts of Am I Doing It Wrong? A new podcast that explores the all too human anxieties we have about trying to get our lives right.
Noah Michaelson
Each week on the podcast, Raj and I pick a new topic that we want to understand better and bring a guest expert on to talk us through how to get it right.
Raj Panjabi
And we're talking like legit credible experts.
Noah Michaelson
Doctors, PhDs all around superheroes from HuffPost and Acast Studios. Check out Am I Doing It Wrong? Wherever you get your podcasts.
Matt Britton
Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway. Give it a try.
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Toby
Let'S go back to the book for a second. So in it you write about the impact of AI on mental health. It's one thing, I think, to have an AI coach. I think it's another to mistake that for like a real connection. And I think we see the potential danger of that. I've seen my kids interact with AI under my supervision and it's wild to see how quickly they start to sort of feel that there's a real connection there. So how do we navigate this, man?
Matt Britton
Well, it's really hard because Gen Alpha, you know, the distinguishing factor about Gen Alpha is they will never know a world without AI. So for them, they're going to just think, oh, this is how humans are supposed to interact with technology, like they're people. Because the reason that AI is so powerful is there's no learning curve. You text it and talk to it just like you talk to a human. And as AI gets smarter and has more emotional resonance, it will kind of hook people. Perfect example. So for Suzy, we create these AI powered moderators. So instead of having to schedule a real person and do focus groups or interviews, we have an AI moderator you talk to and people pour their heart out. This AI moderator, I was shocked that they actually do it because once you get into the framework of talking and it sounds like a human voice, sometimes people just forget that it's actually not a real human on the other line. And I think the danger in that is it isn't a real human. And I think if younger people start to create relationships with AI powered chatbots or any other form factor, it's just rife with danger because you don't know the company behind it. We've already seen somebody tragically commit suicide and there's a lawsuit right now, a wrongful death lawsuit against this company, character AI because the family is basically saying that this product would basically lead this teenager down the wrong direction. Mental health was a big issue obviously during COVID because kids felt disconnected. I think this could actually create more of that. I'm an AI optimist. I think that there's a lot of positives going to come out of this. And I think like every technological innovation, there will be negatives and this is one of them. I think. I write a whole section on parenting in this book, even though I'm not necessarily like a psychologist or somebody who's a parenting expert. But I do have four kids that are all different ages. And so I know a little bit about parenting and I really thought that was important because obviously kids need to know where to focus, but grownups and work, the workforce really needs to know how to focus. You're responsible for providing for a family and you're worried every Single day is AI going to take my job? You know, I have 300 employees that are all worried about that and trying to keep them productive and focused and tell them where to spend their time when the reality is that that is the case for every worker. You saw Meta laid off hundreds of engineers yesterday. That makes billions of dollars a year. So if they're going to do it, obviously every company is going to do it.
Toby
So I do want to take a couple questions in a minute and Shmiel, our head of discourse, will just feed me some of the questions that are coming through on the thread. But before I do, real quick. So we've been pushing this sort of idea of around sort of solving small in AI. And so the idea is basically AI transformation isn't about like some great revolution, it's about solving small human sized problems. And so if you are giving advice to either a founder or a parent in terms of where to start with AI, in particular in terms of starting small, what would be your recommendation?
Matt Britton
So what I see a lot of people doing is it's almost like if you walk into an all you can eat buffet and you circle around because you don't know what to eat because you can eat everything and then you ended up wasting time and not even getting the right thing in the end. That's the problem a lot of people have with AI is they play around with tools, but they really forget what they're trying to solve for. So for me it's put all the tools away and just think about what are the biggest problems that you need to solve in your life or your business. That's step one, two, when you identify the problem, what data can help you solve that problem and then three, what does the solution look like? And then you could very simply go into a chatgpt and say, here's a data I have, here's a problem where I want to solve, here's what a solution looks like. I want you to give Me, step by step instructions. Don't give me step two until I've completed step one and you will get there. And you know, an example I have is I created my own healthbot, which I aggregate it 25 years of health history and it now creates dossiers for me. When I go to a doctor's office, then they don't have to ask me any questions, so they spend more time treating me and less time asking me questions because I've given them everything in advance. That's something that every human should have because everybody has the problem of wanting to stay alive as long as possible. So that's one example for my business. I want to solve the problem of allowing my salespeople to be more efficient. So I took 25,000 hours of gong call transcripts and I fed them into a model. And now my sales team knows everything there is to know about what customers want in a particular category or vertical based upon those call transcripts. So they have more knowledge. So that's an example of taking a data and solving a different problem. That framework works for everything. What starts to happen is people just like, oh, I need to use all these tools. They forget what problem they need to solve, so they're not starting small and they don't actually move the needle at all.
Toby
All right, so a quick lightning round on this kind of solving small. So this is kind of a real or hype response. So first question, AI tutors. Within, let's say the next 10 years, AI tutors will replace school as we know it. Real hype, hype.
Matt Britton
I think that people need mentors, they need people who they can interact with. I think AI might be great assistance in the education world, but not replace teachers.
Toby
All right, Generation Alpha will never learn to drive or even need to.
Matt Britton
The younger Generation Alpha, I actually agree with that.
Toby
And in five years we're going to miss making bad decisions.
Matt Britton
I think in five years we'll still be making bad decisions.
Toby
Great. Awesome. All right, so we're going to have one foot in the analog, one foot in AI or you've obviously lived through this, but I want to ask you a personal question. What is the one thing that you envy about Generation Alpha? And then what is the one thing that you pity?
Matt Britton
I envy that they just have this incredible technology because knowing what my personal skill sets are, if I had it at my disposal, because I'm more of a creative thinker and I think it really is a powerful tool for creative thinkers, I think I could have even accomplished more in my life if I had it at earlier stages in a disproportionate way. I pity or not pity, but I feel bad for the fact that of everything we've talked about that I think it's going to keep them away from those real experiences, from experiencing incredible things with other people, because they're going to be spending so much more time with technology. Spending more time with technology is almost a definite thing I can say about this generation, and I don't think that's a good thing.
Toby
All right, let's take a question from well, she was one of the inventors of Alexa. So very excited that Joanna is here, Joanna Pena Bickley, who also was one of our keynotes at our summit this week. She has a question applied to media, news and personalization at scale. This has created silos of truth. How do we create communal information centers in probabilistic models?
Matt Britton
So, I mean, let me tell you. I mean, I speak about AI all the time, and depending upon where I am in the country, you have people concerned, obviously on both sides of the aisle, so to speak about AI, and you have a lot of people saying it's biased and pushing people in one direction or the other. I think avoiding bias in AI is nearly impossible because everybody's definition of unbiased is different. And I think ultimately people have to be the arbiter of their own truth and not require AI to be that role of truth teller, because then I think you're going to be dependent upon whatever model that you use.
Toby
So this question from Sarah Hollerbeck is a phenomenal one, and I was sort of going to try and get to it, which is partly about taste, I think, and why critical thinking is an important skill. But, like, how do you teach taste? And her question specifically is, how do we teach discernment in schools?
Matt Britton
Well, I don't know if discernment has ever been taught in schools. I think discernment happens in life. I mean, I don't think teachers are trained to teach discernment or to teach taste. I think that happens through your experiences. That happens from the minute that you come out of the womb and your parents have certain values and that drives your worldview and the types of decisions you make. And it continues to evolve over time based upon the people you interact with and the experiences that you have. And I never thought that was the role of schools, and I certainly don't think it will be moving forward.
Toby
Amazing. All right, question from Solomon Rogers. How do you distinguish an AI character from a Tamagotchi?
Matt Britton
Well, I mean, I've Never had a Tamagotchi, but isn't something that you can actually touch and feel a Tamagotchi and AI characters? You can't. So I guess that's how I distinguish it. Interesting question.
Toby
Very interesting question. So I want to go back for a second, Matt. Just a couple things that we sort of touched on, but I think knowing who is sort of here and in the room and as we sort of all wrestle with various different sort of anxieties around the. We touched on and talked a little bit about kind of the future of jobs. And I think at the moment the message. And it frustrates me sometimes that like we push these messages, particularly in media, around how to kind of make everybody feel comfortable about what's happening and where things are going to be at a time where I don't think anyone can really reliably predict what the future is going to look like. And in particular, I think young kids who are very concerned about jobs and their careers and what have you are being told, don't worry. If we look back in history, new jobs always emerge during these like enormous transformational kind of moments. And we certainly saw it during the Industrial Revolution, we saw it during the Information Revolution. And I think the same argument is being made today, but it's different, or at least it feels different. So what's your kind of way of being able to communicate to young people what the future is going to potentially look like, particularly in terms of their careers?
Matt Britton
Well, I mean, it's hard to really map it out. No one's really a fortune teller in terms of where things are going. But it goes back to what I was saying earlier. I think to oversimplify it, you need to actually really go deep into being super right brained or left brained and being super technical or super on the emotive and human side and not be in the middle. I think we pretty much know the skill sets that are needed right now. Like for example, when OpenAI pushed out this incredible new tool where you can create all these new assets instantly, for some people, they wouldn't even know how to use it. Like it's not intuitive to them how to create a cool image because they're not creative enough to understand the type of image they want to create. And for those people, no matter how great the tool is, they're never really going to get the benefit of it because they don't think that way. And if you don't think that way, that's okay. Well then you have to go on the other side and really Be super technical. But if you're not technical and you're not creative, I think that those in the middle are all the jobs where AI is taking things away. They're knowledge based, they're process based, and knowledge and process are the two things that AI does. So I think it really is about focusing on one side or the other.
Toby
All right, last question from James Cooper. When will we stop talking about AI? Because it's just how everything is made and no longer interesting to highlight in the same way that no business calls themselves can call themselves a dot com anymore.
Matt Britton
That's a great question. I would say probably in a couple years. I think it's probably when those legacy companies finally adopt it because it's going to take so much longer than people think. I mean, there are still companies that I work with that are using Lotus Notes. So I think it's going to take a while before we see this AI based transformation. We obviously are very biased. We generally live on the coast, we understand technology, we work for these digital companies. Most of corporate America is not nowhere near this. And there's going to be lawyers and privacy and data security, and so much is going to get in the way. So it'll probably be longer than we think.
Toby
So, everyone here, we promised you a free book. Matt's been very generous. The book comes out in May, I believe. Matt. So how do the attendees joining us here today get a copy of your free book?
Matt Britton
So I created a tool talking about personalization called the AI Readiness Report, where basically you fill your information and then it goes into your LinkedIn takes information from you and gives you an idea of the things you should focus on in AI. And it's@AI readinessreport.com so if you go there and you complete the report, I'll get your information and we'll ask you for your address and we'll send you a free book. It doesn't take long. You have to just fill out your name, your email address and your LinkedIn profile and that's it.
Toby
All right, let me just drop the link into the chat here. There you go, everyone. AI Readiness Report. Fill out your details.
Matt Britton
I created it by understanding how to build an AI. I patched together a variety of different AI applications and put it together myself. And I wanted to figure out how to truly be hyper personalized. And now I'm applying it to my business as well. I built it myself completely. I'm using an automation tool like Zapier to stitch together multiple different applications, which is, frankly, the way I think you build an AI.
Toby
There you go.
Matt Britton
Thanks everyone. Back soon.
Toby
Thanks man. Appreciate your time. Thanks everyone for being here. See you soon. Cheers.
Matt Britton
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The Speed of Culture Podcast: Matt Britton and Toby Daniels on How AI Has Reshaped Our World Before We Were Ready (and How We Can Catch Up)
Release Date: May 6, 2025
Hosts: Matt Britton, Founder and CEO of Suzy
Guest: Toby Daniels
In this insightful episode of The Speed of Culture Podcast, Matt Britton engages in a deep and thought-provoking conversation with Toby Daniels about the profound impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on society, particularly focusing on Generation Alpha—the youngest demographic cohort. Released on May 6, 2025, the episode delves into how AI has transformed various aspects of our lives, often ahead of our readiness to handle these changes, and explores strategies to bridge the gap between technological advancement and societal adaptation.
[02:19]
Toby Daniels initiates the discussion by drawing a parallel between Generation Alpha and the iconic 1985 movie The Goonies. He highlights the stark contrast between the adventurous, hands-on experiences of the past and the digitally dominated lives of today's youth.
Toby Daniels:
"Generation Alpha is born into a world of location sharing, AI tutors, and pretty much algorithmic everything. And this cultural reference point you talk about in a recent Newsweek interview, and you sort of push this idea of Generation Goonie."
[03:51]
Matt Britton reflects on his childhood in the 1980s, emphasizing the absence of ubiquitous technology and the resultant freedom and personal growth that came from real-world interactions and failures.
Matt Britton:
"When I tell my kids that when I grew up, there was no Internet, it's kind of like if your parents told you when they grew up they had no electricity, it kind of feels that way."
[03:58]
Britton introduces the term "Generation Goonie" as coined by a Newsweek reporter, encapsulating the spirit of adventure and resilience that characterize past generations compared to the highly connected and algorithm-driven lives of Generation Alpha. He underscores the potential loss of authentic experiences and personal growth opportunities in the digital age.
[05:26]
Toby moves the conversation towards the "Alpha Paradox," questioning whether society is overemphasizing teaching children to use AI tools at the expense of fundamental human skills like empathy, creativity, and critical thinking.
Toby Daniels:
"Do you think at this moment in time we're potentially over-indexing on teaching kids how to use AI before teaching them how to be human and even how to just learn?"
[07:28]
Matt Britton acknowledges the dual nature of education today. He critiques the traditional K-12 curriculum's focus on memorization and test performance, which he argues is increasingly obsolete in an AI-driven world where such factual knowledge is easily accessible.
Matt Britton:
"What should it be replaced with? And I think to your point, it's skills like problem solving and creativity and critical thinking, which are things that we're not spending enough time teaching kids how to figure out."
[07:45]
Britton advocates for a "barbell approach" in education: balancing the development of emotional and critical skills on one end with technical proficiency in AI and related tools on the other. He stresses that education systems are currently stuck in the middle, failing to adequately prepare students for the realities of a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
[09:08]
Toby inquires about Britton's personal strategies for guiding his own children through these transformative times, considering his experience as a parent across different generations.
Toby Daniels:
"How are you preparing and even providing kind of starting to think about how you're going to provide guidance to kind of your younger kids?"
[09:58]
Matt Britton draws parallels between previous technological revolutions—such as the rise of the Internet and social media—and the current AI revolution. He underscores the unprecedented speed and depth of AI's impact compared to past changes.
Matt Britton:
"There's no learning curve to be able to adopt it and the rate of change that in terms of rate of improvement, which we just saw with OpenAI this week with its image creation. So we've never really seen anything like this."
[10:15]
For his children, Britton emphasizes the importance of specialization. He advises that to remain relevant, individuals should either excel in areas where machines cannot replicate human creativity and emotional intelligence or become deeply proficient in the technical aspects of AI and its applications.
Matt Britton:
"You have to either go deep into an art or deep into a science to be relevant in this future world."
[12:00]
[12:15]
The conversation shifts to the relationship between culture and commerce in an AI-driven world. Toby raises concerns about whether brands, empowered by AI's ability to understand consumer behaviors, might inadvertently shift consumers into merely being products of data analysis.
Toby Daniels:
"If brands start to know us better than we know ourselves, do we actually stop being consumers and then do we just ultimately become the product?"
[12:54]
Matt Britton counters this by asserting that while AI can analyze and predict behaviors based on data, it lacks the capacity to understand emotional nuances and personal experiences fully. He emphasizes that brands thrive on emotional connections, which AI cannot authentically replicate.
Matt Britton:
"I don't think AI is ever going to know us better than we know ourselves... Brands are emotional, brands are not rational and humans are more emotional."
[14:25]
Britton highlights the irreplaceable value of human-centric market research, where understanding genuine emotions and motivations goes beyond what AI can deduce from data. He mentions Suzy's role in conducting such research, leveraging AI-powered tools to facilitate deeper consumer insights without losing the human touch.
[14:58]
Toby introduces the debate between algorithm-driven personalization and authentic personal connections with brands. He suggests that while personalization aims to tailor experiences based on data, it can sometimes undermine spontaneity and the genuine discovery that comes from unexpected interactions.
Toby Daniels:
"Personalization can reduce discovery to like predictive loops. So what does AI do to make our relationship with brands more personal?"
[14:58]
Matt Britton responds by differentiating between the two concepts. He clarifies that while personalization can optimize interactions based on data, it does not replace the inherent personal connection between humans and brands. Instead, he envisions a future where hyper-personalized content—crafted through AI—can enhance the consumer experience without stripping away its personal essence.
Matt Britton:
"Personalization being personal are not mutually exclusive... hyper personalized engine where based upon specific data points, you can get a string of emails or texts that's completely custom to you."
[15:20]
Britton illustrates this with examples from Suzy's work, showcasing how AI can deliver highly tailored content that resonates individually with consumers while maintaining the brand's emotional connection.
[18:19]
Toby raises a critical issue regarding AI's influence on mental health, particularly the dangers of mistaking AI interactions for genuine human connections. He shares concerns about the potential for AI-powered chatbots to create illusory relationships that might lead to emotional harm.
Toby Daniels:
"It's wild to see how quickly kids start to feel that there's a real connection with AI. How do we navigate this?"
[18:46]
Matt Britton expresses both optimism and caution. He acknowledges the benefits of AI in enhancing efficiency and accessibility but warns against the risks of over-reliance on non-human interactions. He cites a tragic incident where an AI chatbot was implicated in a wrongful death lawsuit, highlighting the urgent need for responsible AI deployment, especially in sensitive areas like mental health.
Matt Britton:
"If younger people start to create relationships with AI-powered chatbots... it's just rife with danger."
[18:46]
Britton emphasizes the importance of human oversight and the necessity for safeguards to prevent AI from replacing essential human interactions. He discusses his book, which includes a section on parenting in the AI era, offering insights into balancing technological integration with nurturing genuine human relationships.
[21:27]
In addressing practical applications of AI, Toby asks for Britton's recommendations for founders and parents on how to start integrating AI effectively without being overwhelmed.
Toby Daniels:
"If you are giving advice to either a founder or a parent in terms of where to start with AI, what would be your recommendation?"
[21:27]
Matt Britton advocates for a problem-centric approach rather than a tool-centric one. He advises individuals to identify specific problems they need to solve, determine what data can aid in addressing these issues, and define the desired outcomes before selecting and leveraging AI tools.
Matt Britton:
"Put all the tools away and just think about what are the biggest problems that you need to solve in your life or your business."
[22:05]
He provides concrete examples, such as creating a personalized health bot to streamline medical interactions and using AI to enhance sales team efficiency by analyzing extensive call transcripts. This structured framework ensures that AI adoption is purposeful and impactful, avoiding the common pitfall of tool overload without clear objectives.
During the Q&A segment, Matt and Toby address several audience questions related to AI's role in education, decision-making, discernment in schools, and the future of AI in business.
[23:22]
Question:
"AI tutors will replace school as we know it within the next 10 years. Real or hype?"
Matt Britton:
"I think that people need mentors, they need people who they can interact with. I think AI might be great assistance in the education world, but not replace teachers."
[23:31]
Britton believes that while AI can support educational processes, it cannot substitute the nuanced mentorship and interpersonal interactions that human teachers provide.
[23:35]
Question:
"Generation Alpha will never learn to drive or even need to."
Matt Britton:
"The younger Generation Alpha, I actually agree with that."
[23:37]
Britton concurs, suggesting that autonomous technologies may render traditional driving skills obsolete for Generation Alpha.
[23:35]
Question:
"In five years, we're going to miss making bad decisions. When will we stop talking about AI?"
Matt Britton:
"I think in five years we'll still be making bad decisions."
[23:43]
He acknowledges that despite advancements, human fallibility will persist, and poor decision-making will continue to occur.
[24:34]
Question from Sarah Hollerbeck:
"How do we teach discernment in schools?"
Matt Britton:
"I don't know if discernment has ever been taught in schools. I think discernment happens in life... it happens through your experiences."
[25:41]
Britton posits that discernment is a life skill developed through personal experiences rather than formal education, suggesting that schools may not be equipped to teach such nuanced abilities effectively.
[26:14]
Question from Solomon Rogers:
"How do you distinguish an AI character from a Tamagotchi?"
Matt Britton:
"You can actually touch and feel a Tamagotchi and AI characters? You can't."
[26:14]
He humorously differentiates AI characters from virtual pets by highlighting the tactile interactions Tamagotchis offer, which AI currently lacks.
[28:54]
Question from James Cooper:
"When will we stop talking about AI?"
Matt Britton:
"Probably in a couple of years... it's going to take so much longer than people think."
[28:54]
Britton speculates that AI will become seamlessly integrated into business operations once legacy companies adopt it, likening the transition to how 'dot com' became a standard business suffix.
[30:05]
As the podcast nears its conclusion, Matt Britton shares a personal initiative—the AI Readiness Report—designed to help individuals assess and prepare for AI integration in their personal and professional lives. He emphasizes the importance of leveraging AI thoughtfully to enhance productivity and creativity without compromising human values and connections.
Matt Britton:
"I wanted to figure out how to truly be hyper personalized. And now I'm applying it to my business as well."
[30:34]
Britton reiterates the necessity of balancing AI's capabilities with human-centric skills, ensuring that technological advancements serve to augment rather than overshadow the human experience.
Balancing Act in Education:
AI as a Tool, Not a Replacement:
Specialization for Relevance:
Human Oversight in AI Applications:
Problem-Centric AI Adoption:
Preserving Human Experiences:
Matt Britton:
"Generation Alpha is born into a world of location sharing, AI tutors, and pretty much algorithmic everything."
[02:19]
Toby Daniels:
"Do you think at this moment in time we're potentially over-indexing on teaching kids how to use AI before teaching them how to be human and even how to just learn?"
[07:28]
Matt Britton:
"Personalization being personal are not mutually exclusive... you can get something completely different that's something that we'd never seen before."
[15:20]
Matt Britton:
"I don't think AI is ever going to know us better than we know ourselves."
[14:25]
Toby Daniels:
"AI might be great assistance in the education world, but not replace teachers."
[23:31]
In this episode, Matt Britton and Toby Daniels navigate the intricate landscape shaped by AI, shedding light on its profound implications for Generation Alpha and society at large. They advocate for a balanced approach that harnesses AI's potential while steadfastly cultivating human-centric skills and relationships. This dialogue serves as a crucial guide for individuals and organizations striving to thrive in an era where AI is both a tool for advancement and a catalyst for existential reflection.
For those keen to explore these themes further, Matt Britton offers the AI Readiness Report, a tool designed to help individuals prepare for AI integration in their lives—a testament to the proactive strategies discussed throughout the episode.
Connect with Matt Britton and Access the AI Readiness Report:
Visit AI Readiness Report to receive a free copy of Matt Britton's upcoming book by completing the brief survey.