← We Fixed It, You're Welcome
Loading summary
Transcript68 lines
- [00:01]
Sponsor Host - Google Chrome Ad
This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block. Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it, ready to make anything online make sense. There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up, required compatibility and availability various 18 plus
- [00:27]
Sponsor Host - Indeed Jobs Ad
when you need to build up your team to handle the growing chaos at work, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs. It gives your job posts the boost it needs to be seen and helps reach people with the right skills, certifications and more. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit@ Indeed.com podcast. That's Indeed.com podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored
- [00:55]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Jobs welcome to We Fixed it. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride and we try to put them back better than we found them. OpenAI and Anthropic are head to head competitors. They both want as much market share as possible, and when we use their AI agents, ChatGPT and Claude, we we tell them everything about ourselves. So both companies need us to trust them. The challenge is that we don't know who to trust. The more these two companies fight dirty and expose each other, the shakier that trust gets. According to a recent YouGov survey, only 17% of Americans trust the people who run the major AI companies, while 40% consider them untrustworthy or very untrustworthy? That's a big problem when you've got two companies fighting for the top. Here's my should OpenAI and Anthropic act like competitors because if one backs down, the other could pounce. But if they keep pointing out each other's flaws, they both come off really bad. And we might trust AI even less than we do now. And AI isn't going away. So if these are the companies building our future, we're gonna need to clean up their image. We'll do it for them. Otherwise this could all go downhill fast. So that's what we're here to fix. And to help us with that, we've got someone who's no slouch in the PR department. Perry Hedrick Perry is the founder and CEO of Crackle PR with over 20 years in tech, PR and communications. Throughout his career he's worked with a Who's who of technology consumer brands like aol, Bing, Yelp and Logitech. He brings expertise in media strategy, reputation management and crisis control, and probably more where that came from. Welcome Perry, and tell us more about yourself.
- [02:35]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Thanks. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, I think you did a pretty nice job of explaining who I am. I'm founder of Crackle. We are PR, primarily a B2B tech company working with a range of startups through publicly traded companies with a big B2B bent. But I've done a lot of consumer tech. I've really done just about everything as it relates to the PR world. I'm also co host one half of the the show of the Under Embargo podcast that I host with Becca Chambers, who is a CMO at Scale Ventures. So I mix it up a little bit on the podcast as well and try to give my audience like you some good directional thinking about where to go and what to do next.
- [03:15]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Very cool. Thanks, Perry. I'm really glad you're here and you're coming in as a podcaster, so you know how how to play on our show and you've got a ton of experience. If you're cool with it. You're about to give OpenAI and anthropic a bunch of free advice, so they should be glad you're here too. Well, let's get into it. So, like a lot of competitors, OpenAI and Anthropic have a shared past. Anthropic was founded by former OpenAI employees after philosophical disagreements around how AI should be developed and released. Now the two of them act like rivals and you might prefer one over the other. Coke versus Pepsi. You might like them both for different reasons, or you might be put off by both of them, which is true for a lot of people because when they compete, they go for it. For example, OpenAI fast tracked the initial release of ChatGPT because they learned Anthropic was working on its own chatbot, which became Claude. Anthropic ran a Super bowl campaign this year about how Claude would stay ad free and made it seem like ChatGPT would be flooded with ads. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a growing distrust around AI in general, and when these two companies go at it, that can't be helping the situation. And they both need our trust. Anthropic wants us to trust them because AI is powerful, risky, and should be governed carefully. So when they say their AI is safer, is that a PR play or the truth? OpenAI says we should trust them because AI is powerful and should be available to everyone. So when they say progress shouldn't stop, is that a dig and anthropic or the truth? And when both companies use each other's strengths to make the other company look worse, they both come out looking bad. So what are we going to do about this image problem? This is our problem to solve. Let's go for it. Perry, let's start with you. Is this pr. Is it a PR problem? I mean, there's. We could unpack a lot of stuff, but when they play things out in the news, in the news cycle for us to digest and make of it what we will, Is that a PR Playbook 101 problem?
- [05:12]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Yeah. So I think it's a PR problem, but I think more than that, it's a lack of awareness about the existential dread that the vast majority of users of Anthropic and OpenAI and Gemini and you name it, they all feel. So I feel like one of the most sort of illustrative examples of that is all the commencement speeches that have been getting booed. When people talk about AI as, you know, the next revolution, and all the students are listening to that saying, what are you guys talking about? You're making this sound like, this is fantastic. When I am terrified I'll never have a job, this is not exciting to me. This is actually really terrifying. So the myth, in my view, on behalf of both of those companies, is that they're not empathetic to what real human beings who are forced to learn these tools they may not otherwise want to learn, what they're feeling about the direction of what, where this is all headed. So while they're squabbling and, and backbiting and kneecapping each other, the real miss is that they're not connecting in a. In a human way with the audiences that desperately need some assurance that doesn't. This is not going to render them moot or wipe them out.
- [06:17]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Yeah, that's a great point. If they're not reading the room like when Apple unveils a new tech product and they hold it up and everyone says, what you make, this is amazing, you know, they get the response they're looking for. But if, you know, if one of these founders or AI leader stands up in front of a room of bright young individuals that are ready to lead our future and they're optimistic and they're saying, boo, we don't vibe with what you're telling us. That's a fundamental problem.
- [06:48]
Sponsor Host - Shopify Ad
When it's time to scale your business, it's time for Shopify. Get everything you need to grow the way you want, like all the way. Stack more sales with the best converting checkout on the planet. Track your cha chings from every channel right in one spot and turn real time reporting into big time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today.
- [07:16]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Yeah, you know, it reminds me just a little bit, just quickly you talked about the super bowl ad and how, you know, these guys are taking pot shots at each other. It reminds me a little bit of how Mercedes and BMW do that on billboards. You guys may have seen that in some of the bigger cities, like one is claiming something and the nice try, BMW. Check out this. And they go back and forth and that kind of thing. That rivalry I think is more cheeky and amusing and interesting and brand building because no one has to buy a BMW, no one has to buy a Mercedes. These are very optional luxury things that you could if you wanted to get. AI is not optional for the majority of humans at this point. We're all like, God damn it, we better get smart on this stuff or die. Like be left behind. So the backbiting and fun little stuff isn't cheeky at all. It's just obnoxious to most people. They're like, you guys are fighting as if we want to choose this, we have no choice. We're just sitting here wallowing in the world you've created for us without our consent.
- [08:16]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
I think it's a really interesting one too, because you have to look at the psychology of dread, right? Most people, that's the feeling when you hear AI because you're afraid that it's going to replace you. We don't really understand what's going on. And people don't really love AI unless you're in a tech and design industry. What we have to remember is that when we talk about purchasing power and why marketing is so important is because people do not purchase the product, it's the feeling. And so the challenge here right now is that AI is bringing a feeling of dread. And so it's really hard to control that narrative from a PR perspective because if people feel dread, they haven't used it. They're unfamiliar with the product. You know, again, it's the feeling that you're doing. And so if you're both pointing to each other's differences, it's very challenging to, to let the consumer, the layman consumer who does not know what AI could be or kind of the way it could be effective for them, you're only adding to this dread, and it's creating a larger problem from a PR perspective. And I think the way to help solve that and to fix it is to, again, look at familiarity and exposure. Right? Both Anthropic and chatgpt need to really train people and provide that trust through allowing people to use it more and more so that they can understand what it is about and to have some form of familiarity that's built in. But that takes time and it's not possible. If you're building and kind of reaffirming
- [10:00]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
this dread, it feels like the companies are very focused on those narratives and the brand narrative that they're trying to deliver, but understanding that they're not looking at the visible trust signals which are telling a different story. And to your point, you know, the way you would have to show up is in your product and in your experience. And that's the thing that's really important, because consistency beats sophistication in a narrative of something when it actually is something that's building. You know, the models that are more capable are giving you something that you can trust is real, more predictable, is really something that will bring the customers in in a way that provides that, you know, because again, users really want consistency and truth to really help them build that capability of understanding who is the best to go to. And there's a huge field. I mean, it's not just these two, obviously, right? There's Gemini, there's Copilot, There's a lot of different things, and we can get into that in the future. But, like, again, it's that narrative. And I think I'd also like to go down that path, which you kind of touched. Chino is about accessibility. Because when there's a paywall and ad, you're paying for different tiers or there's ads involved, then that also seems to put a little, you know, tweak into that credibility, because I have to wonder, if you're. If I have to pay for and I'm seeing ads, is that impacting the results I'm getting when I'm putting a prompt in?
- [11:42]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
So in most marketing and branding and public relations, the goal is to make the. The customer, the end user, the star. I mean, you want them to feel special. They are the ones that, you know, should feel great. The problem with AI writ large and these companies in particular, is that everybody feels like a failure. They feel hopelessly left behind already. And, like, they don't even want to start almost because they know they're already way Way behind. And then against that Backdrop, you have OpenAI talking about AGI, artificial general intelligence, which is like, orders of magnitude beyond where we already are to a point where the machines are now infinitesimally smarter than they already are at this moment, and people are just like, Jesus, well, what am I going to do? So. So that's a major disconnect. The brands should be trying to make the customer the star. Instead, they're making themselves the star. So much so that it becomes distasteful and out of reach to the average human being.
- [12:39]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
And to also add on that as well with Anthropic, you know, they released in June of 2026, and the US government said, we got to pull it back. You're a little too, too powerful. Like, you're saying, Carrie. And so that also opens up the Pandora's box of, like, what can I do? Is it too far advanced? And again, we got to bring it back. AI is still so new. It really became, you know, mainstream back in 2020, 2021. And so we've had four or five years of, like, basic understanding of it. And if you're saying that this is going to completely, exponentially, you know, leap, you know, for people who are just catching up, it's, again, very hard to build that trust. Where going back to the podcast topic of, you know, is this a PR nightmare for them? And I think it is. And so would love to dive into Aaron and Alyssa and Perry, like, where we, you know, we can help either company to. To do better.
- [13:43]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Yeah.
- [13:43]
Podcast Host - Aaron
And I love, you know, having branding in my background. I. I love when brands clap back at each other and drag it out in public, as long as it's done in a cheeky and constructive way. But BURGER KING and McDonald's, you know, everyone knows whether they prefer a Big Mac or a Whopper, but they're still going to point out each other's flaws and make it fun and, you know, to show the one Patty versus another, whatever they do. Like, I'm all. I love that. I'm all for it. Those, the bolder the better. But when there's something with distrust and instability and you're building it as you go, and then you're doing these same types of tactics, I think that's where it's falling short. But, Perry, I'm curious, because if, like, OpenAI and Anthropic, if they don't engage, you know, there's public discourse. If they don't engage, that's a problem, because they keep. If they. If it seems like it's too secretive and kept behind a lockbox and nobody knows what's happening. That's. That's scary. Right? But if they engage too much and they, they're just at it all the time and like pointing out competitor flaws and then they're trying to kneecap each other, that's a problem too. So I don't know, like we're trying to build toward a happy medium but you know what, Are they kind of screwed either way?
- [14:59]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think they are screwed either way. I think they are not helping one another in the realm of public opinion by clapping at each other all the time. Because again, we can't relate to these companies. I say we. I'm really talking about the rank and file. Like I use AI every day and everything I do in my business. I'm. I'm more versed than the average bear about what AI is and how you can use it to benefit your lives and blah blah, blah. But the average person looks at them and it like they're from a different planet and they're arguing about who's going to eat the earthlings, you know what I mean? Like that's how the average person views it. So I think what needs to happen to give you like some, some PR sort of guidance here to fix the problem would be they have to start talking with into humans who are actually going to be using it that aren't like Joe Crypto bro who already is pretty dialed into tech. But like mom and pop who are running a little soda shop. How does AI positively affect their lives? How is AI positively going to affect the car dealership? How will it positively affect the butcher who's trying to figure out how much meats he should order for the coming, you know, festival. Like those kinds of real world applications I think are sorely missing from both of these companies sort of go to market approach and they're actually spending a shitload of money on marketing. A stunning amount of money, like billions of dollars is being spent on marketing. But they're missing the audience that they most need to impress, which is the people that are ultimately going to win or lose by the sword. The sword being AI. I go to a local Chinese restaurant which I love. It's called Family Chinese. It's in Salisbury, Massachusetts. It's delicious. I love the owner. I love everybody there. I used an app, I used, I think I used ChatGPT to take a picture of his guy. His name's Ben, the, the guy behind the bar and I put A celebrity next to him. And I showed him the picture of him next to a celebrity and he was like, that's amazing. And everybody at the bar wanted to see the picture that I created. Like, in 10 seconds with this app, they, they looked at me like I was a magician. They were like, how did you, like, could not believe that I did that effortlessly at the bar. And I was like, well, if you think that's impressive, what if I told you you could use AI to put in all the groceries you have in your cupboards to make a delicious meal? What if I told you that you could use AI to plan an inexpensive vacation that hits all the things that you care about to save a ton of money? What if I told you xyz? My point is these are approachable, real world things that the average Joe can use to benefit from. And the big AI companies are not reaching those audiences with those messages. Instead, what they're doing is instilling fear by standing atop Mount Olympus in flowing robes, talking about how the world is going to be exponentially better without them.
- [17:39]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
Right. The oracle.
- [17:41]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Right.
- [17:41]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
And so you've just said, Perry is really important because trust increases when users and consumers feel in control. And we're showing them, you know, experiences and we're showing them opportunities where they are in control and they could create something that would be wonderful using this tool. Right? And right now it just seems like it's kind of this thing up above them that they don't really understand. And so I love, I love what you said there because that's a great example of where this could really head and go. And it really could create much more of an environment that is interactive, feeling a little bit more trust, and then exploring what are the different company, what are the differences between the companies besides their ads that, that really showcase the things that I need, I think, to
- [18:35]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
kind of on this note, right? So the fix being, you know, reaching audiences outside of the larger tech ecosystem. And the cut, actually as of June 17, released an, which was yesterday as we were recording this, released an article talking about a mom who runs her household using AI. And it talked about some of the very tangible everyday things. So groceries, planning the trip, helping, you know, find daycare for her child, and using different AI agents. And I think again, you know, what would be really smart for both platforms is to, you know, I don't want an ad, as you mentioned, Melissa, in the actual chat, as I'm using it, I can't trust it because then it's like, where is this data coming from? Is this bias. But you know what, be really cool is if I saw an ad or I see another article where it's describing someone's experiences and I think looking at other ways to market outside of just, you know, here's a billboard saying how great we are going in different resources where it's actually touching people. So, you know, having stories like you shared about, you know, the Chinese restaurant Perry, or, you know, talking to moms or, you know, someone who's looking to travel and creating these grassroots but feel good ads for people to actually to hit. Because then again, people, consumer behavior, it's not the product. It's about how you make people feel. And if you're making people feel good and you're showing them what the possibilities are from both companies and platforms, that will be kind of the way forward to reach the audiences who are saying, I don't know about you, I can't trust you. And like, that is the bulk of kind of the population. And so you need to be able to target these folks or else like, you know, fable and like, you know, being shut down from the government sooner than later.
- [20:33]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Yeah, I love that, you know, because I've been going. So I've been going down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos that are tech, like news broadcasts about technology, but they're from 1975 or from 1982, and they're showing a computer the size of, you know, 75, the size of a room, and telling a little kid, someday this will be in your house, and it'll sit on a table and the kid's going, whoa. And then in 1982, they. They have a home computer and you can put in. You can type in everything that's in your closet and you can keep track of it, right? All these things that, you know, put. Pick a moment in time and. And we've always projected forward and saying, look, here's our technology limitations right now, but give us 10 years, give us 20 years. This is what we'll be able. We're living in that promise like every. Everything we wanted we have now. So, you know, and there's practical applications like, like you're saying we could all use them. You don't have to. You don't have to code anymore. You don't. You can get it to cloud code and all those things if you want, but you don't have to.
- [21:32]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
You.
- [21:32]
Podcast Host - Aaron
You can go. You can put a celebrity next to you, you can make your grocery list. You could do, plan a trip. What, you know, a billion applications. Why are we living in an Age of fear and apprehension. Instead of being appreciative of what we have, we wanted this.
- [21:47]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
So Aaron, to that point specifically, like taking this a level up from the Chinese restaurant example into like a real world thing, I've built, I would. I've been VP of marketing for very large PR agencies and I built several websites as part of my charge. Each time it costs probably 50 to $100,000. To build these websites took many, many months of back and forth getting all the key constituents involved, rounding up all the information, revisions, rounds, blah blah blah, just took forever. It was a nightmare. It's like it's the worst experience if you've never built a website, never do. Having said that, I was turned on, I don't know, a year ago or so, seven months ago to, to an AI company called Lovable and they're not a client and this is not a, you know, am I getting paid? But I built the website I have now which is better optimized for SEO and Geo Geo than anything I've ever seen. It's elite and it took me about four and a half hours to build and it cost me about $50. That's the kind of thing that if you could break into every layer of society, whether it's the Chinese restaurant level, the dry cleaner, the butcher, a small business owner, the mid size agency owner and just partition these examples out for people so they can see themselves benefiting in the technology, I think that is a huge win from a PR standpoint. And yes it requires a lot of work and yes it requires an authentic touch to it, but it's absolutely an exercise worth doing. It reminds me a little bit of IBM back in the day. You might recall the commercials where they tried to humanize that brand a little bit because it's like this stodgy company and suddenly they had like rank and file people being like, I'm an IBMer, I'm an IBMer. Like real people, real faces, like not these sort of robotic backroom, you know, like losers for lack of a better term. And it really, the company enjoyed a boost in terms of its halo effect. And I think that's the kind of thing that both Anthropic and OpenAI desperately, desperately need.
- [23:45]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Well, it gets back to basics, you know, in customer experience. Customer testimonials are really the strongest way to really get your product out there and services is out there. And I think that's what we're saying, you know, we're going back to the basics of a customer testimonial can really tell A wonderful story like Perry, that's a great. You know, and I actually know some of the founders at Lovable, and they will be very excited to hear that. That is an example of what they want. And we're in a society today where there's so much data. Right. There's data overload. And if you think about what we're talking about with customer data and customer reviews and testimonials, you'll see there's complete industries around this type of review.
- [24:31]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
Right.
- [24:32]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Trust, Pilot, Blast, Door, there's all of these types of things. And Reddit, I mean, that's not about, it's, you know, a forum for discussion. It counts because that's where people go.
- [24:44]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
Right?
- [24:44]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Like, you know, I actually, there was something I was looking at the other day and I went to Reddit and I was like, oh.
- [24:51]
Sponsor Host - Indeed Jobs Ad
And.
- [24:51]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
And then it changed my mind. I was like, okay, I'm not going to buy that product. Because there were a lot of critics, criticisms about the service. So again, I think that people are trying to be more thoughtful about making investments in their time and in what they're doing. So we really should continue to look at the strength of that customer testimonial, the strength of the narrative and the story that you're telling, and really how it kind of broadens that aspect without really that much work. Right. I mean, it's, it's usually pretty easy to find somebody that's willing to tell their story and share the world.
- [25:32]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Yeah. And Reddit counts. Reddit is reading the room. You know, I, I worked with a big consumer brand and I said, hey, guess. You know, I looked at their, all their, their backlink profiles and traffic, and I said, guess. You know, and audience engagement. Guess where your biggest audience is. And they said, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit. You know, Reddit is the pulse. Reddit is a room full of graduates. You know, do you like us? Tell us about it. It's even unprompted. What do you think about us right now? Like, if they're not paying attention to Perry, you're calling it the rank and file, but everyday individuals that just either have mistrust or don't have a reason to trust. We've got a fundamental problem that hasn't seemed to go away or budged at all.
- [26:15]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
No, I think that's right. Reddit doesn't suffer fools either. They are, they are brutally honest and they can smell marketing from a mile away, and they don't let you get away with it, which is why it's such a good barometer. For what, you know, the, what's really in the zeitgeist, I guess, at the moment. And there's a lot of other pockets of influence too that you could kind of measure that stuff. And there's all kinds of ways, including share of voice and you know, positive, negative, neutral. There's a bunch of scoring tools that, that we in PR and other professions use. And I, I know that the, the, the, the negatives on those two companies we're talking about today in particular are really reasons that we're discussing today. And when we talk about what fixes it, it's, it's empathy for their audiences. I think they have none or at least they show a very small amount of it. They need to show a heck of a lot more. And I think in terms of, you know, other guidance, how do you fix this thing is it's time for some radical transparency around what these companies are doing and what they're building versus throwing out this sort of promise where, and big grandiose, scary ass stuff like tell us what you're actually working on. Where are you actually at today and what are you doing to safeguard our kids from it? What do you do? What are you doing to safeguard people from losing their jobs? What are you doing for responsible, you know, capitalism with this stuff and not, you know, creating these super villains who are using this technology to like, do really bad, like that's what scares people. And I, I think if they begin to sort of take these things one by one and do it earnestly, show the data, have the receipts to back up what they're trying to do to make these things help the world be a better place, I think that goes a heck of a long way toward engendering the kind of trust that we're talking about today. And I think that they're just, they're not up for it yet because they're still chasing dollars for IPOs.
- [28:02]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
And IPOs are happening live as we speak too. Right. And so kind of going back to that fix and you know, reaching the actual audience. Right. Reddit is incredible. Every, I think everybody here uses it. Why not do an AMA session, Ask me anything session where, you know, you actually say hey. Exactly right. You say hey, I'm anthropic or I'm chatgpt. You know, how do we, how do we help you trust us more and. Right. And maybe get and do a campaign or an ad around that too. Because the challenges, as you were sharing, Carrie, is there isn't the safeguards. And if we're talking about it in cartoon terms, the people who have access and who are really using AI right now are the kind of super villain high tech big companies. And if AI is learning from us and if it's learning from that, the everyday person is forgotten and it's actually important for everybody else to actually use it so that it doesn't become this beast that kind of forgets us. It doesn't place these safeholds. We're not a part of these conversations. And so I think sharing that with the public and saying everybody's aware that AI isn't going anywhere but finding places to safeguard and build that transparency internally on what you're doing. And I think it's tricky when you are talking about IPOs because you don't want the competitors to steal from you. Fine, we understand that. But if you can actually share what you're doing to actually save or help and support us, as you were saying, Perry will go a long, long way. And I think doing an AMA Reddit, something where you're actually speaking to real people about what their actual concerns are outside of, kind of the tech ecosystem will go, will be huge.
- [29:46]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
So they're going to go into a quiet period before their IPOs. That's how it works. There's a period of time where you can't, you know, pollute the, the market's thinking about your products and services. Before they get to that quiet period, they need to be loud as hell about the things you just said, Chino, and the things that we're recommending today. Get loud out there and stake their ground in a more sort of egalitarian way. You know, the Ronald Reagan thing used to be trust but verify. That doesn't work in this scenario. There is no trust. They need to verify with radical transparency and that may lead to trust, but for right now, they don't have it.
- [30:25]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Now I also would caution that over sharing, right, creates noise, which also erodes trust. So it's not that I don't disagree about transparency in general, but it's the type of transparency because a lot of these companies, and not just OpenAI and you know, anthropic, there's many companies that do this, they use selective transparency and we all know about that, right? Where they, they choose what they're going to share with you. And that's not what I'm talking about because what I'm saying is that as a customer, I don't necessarily want more information. I want relevant information. I want what can I trust in this process and who can I trust? When do I need to double check and what tends to be going wrong here and how are you planning to fix it and what are you doing to safeguard me.
- [31:21]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
Right.
- [31:22]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
And my information. And I do think that's the thing that it feels to Perry, to your point, it's like there's like some stuff going on, but it's almost like look over here, look over here. Don't worry about this other stuff that's getting, you know, regulators are all over us for due diligence, for IPOs and you know they're going to have to go through all these processes and they're not going to talk about that. Right. They're going to talk about, oh yeah, we are transparent, we're doing this for you. But again, as a user, I feel like, you know, I am still skeptical of what they mean by transparency versus what I need from transparency.
- [31:58]
Sponsor Host - Google Chrome Ad
Tomorrow morning is knocking. Stock your fridge now. How about a creamy mocha frappuccino drink? Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or white chocolate mocha. Whichever you choose, delicious coffee awaits. Find Starbucks Frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries.
- [32:13]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Yeah, if we start seeing these feel good campaigns with people and there's, you know, one's got a grandma in Pittsburgh who made her a 90 year old grandma who great grandmother who improved her bowling score because she used, you know, cloud or chatgpt. It's just a case of one upsmanship and the other company has to say, well, we have a room full of grandmas. And they all did, you know, this incredible public service campaign. You know, like they all did a give back effort and it's, none of it would seem authentic. Like they, they really have to dig deep to, to find the actual rationale behind flipping a switch and saying, no, no, we are people now. We care about people now. Because if it's just like we're, you know, these are real stories. Like they could both manufacture real stories pretty quick. The user bases are huge.
- [33:02]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
Right.
- [33:03]
Podcast Host - Aaron
So how do you keep from that just being another ploy in the vein of what they've already been doing. But now they, it's just now they, okay, we're. You're about people now we're about people.
- [33:13]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
I think it's really more of the efficacy, like I get your point there. And you don't like, yeah, you can pull on the heartstrings and have grandmas and like puppies and how you help all these wonderful, you know, like soft and warm and fuzzy things. For me it's like from a PR standpoint, it's practical real world application, right? The things that you can verticalize for people in their real lived lives. Example I just thought of as we were talking is I'm a golfer. You might not have guessed I'm a golfer and I was looking for new golf clubs. I have a golf simulator in my house and I'm able to trap track the swing speed and a bunch of different metrics just when I take swings. I took all that data and plugged it into it was actually chat GPT and said I'm this is my age, this is my swing speed, this is my handicap, etc. Etc. What shaft could I buy for my club to improve the distance off the tee in my accuracy? That was it. And it went through its computational algorithmic magic and explained in great detail that I was riveted by because I love this sport. Why it it chose the shaft that it chose now I went and got those clubs, I hit the ball 30 yards further than I ever have off the tee and my shot dispersion is amazing. I'm keeping in the fairway. All because I took data, plugged it into this AI and it tailored a solution for me on a topic that I'm passionate as hell about. So, so I'm stressing that yes, be loud, but be loud in constructive, applicable ways to people who will feel the meaning in their real lives. None of this syrupy that is like obviously designed to like, you know, tug at the heartstrings. I'm talking about efficacy that will improve your actual life, your passion, your hobby, your job, your parentship, like all the things that people care about. And again, that takes a shitload of work. But I think it's worth doing because that's how you're going to reach the audiences that you need to convert.
- [35:16]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
And so going on to the kind of like the, you know, not just, you know, putting a sugar coat on it. I think it is again going back to like speaking to real people and Reddit and saying what is it like, what do you want to hear in terms of the transparency and showing that right? Doing a behind the scenes like, you know, we asked these questions here were the four kind of main themes of concern, whether it was safeguarding and your information, how we're protecting you from losing your jobs. X, Y and Z, whatever the five main themes are, and then saying okay, great, then here's how we're actually doing it right again. Analysis paralysis is real. We can't over expose too much information. And then because we don't trust that either. But looking at whatever those top three or four themes are, that the people, real people, are saying, hey, I don't want to use AI because I'm afraid of this. Can you actually answer this? And if it's an ama, if it's a robot, however you're doing that, whether it's an ad, whether it's more articles in the cut where it's real people talking about it, that is what need both companies further benefit, need to work together in some way and do that, or one of them just needs to, because at the end of the day, there's really only two real players at the end with this. And so if one of them can do this, when we're talking about market share as a brand, the person that's going to do that first, or, sorry, the company, not the people that are going to do that first, is who we're going to trust. So, you know, you can become Googleable and become a verb if you're kind of first to actually caring about what the humans are saying. Otherwise you're kind of screwing each other over.
- [36:56]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that are in their 50s, early 50s, mid-50s, that say, I wish I could have retired before AI King because I cannot deal with learning all this stuff and I'm scared I'm going to lose my job. I wish I could have just. I wish this stuff just came 10 years after I was done working so that I could just sit back and watch the chaos versus having to be thrown into the maelstrom of this stuff. So many people are, I'm talking corporate professionals, you know, CMOs and people that I talk to all the time. They are saying, I just wish this stuff came five years later so I could have gracefully exited without having to change my whole world based on this thing. And that's a problem. Or it's also an opportunity.
- [37:37]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Right?
- [37:38]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Because that represents a great swath of human beings that are the drivers of these decisions about AI. So maybe that's, that's a layer of folks that should be sort of center of target for the outreach for AI companies, particularly because a lot of those folks have kids who are about the college age I mentioned earlier that are about to enter the workforce. And, gee, wouldn't it be good if mom and dad were getting savvy and feeling comfortable with AI, could help those kids who are about to enter college. Like, that's a virtuous cycle that I think it would be tough to argue would be beneficial.
- [38:09]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
Well, and I, I know that you all, all understand this. I know Aaron knows this better than most. You know, around brand and marketing, it's, it's about the customer segment and understanding the profile of those customers. And so Perry, you bring up a great example of there's this whole swath of generational right. Of leaders and people that have been in the workforce, whether it's white collar, blue collar, whatever, that haven't really engaged or really haven't. They feel like it's been put upon them. They haven't really accepted that. And so there's that whole change management with AI and where it's going to go. But I also want to bring up, the other thing is, there's also, you know, where trust is won and lost is when there's difficulties.
- [38:52]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
Right?
- [38:53]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
So that's the other thing that I think that all of the AI companies could do a little better is really in very simple behavioral language. Let us know when there's a limitation. Right. Like, I had this happen recently. I was sharing this with the panel earlier. I did, I put something into. It wasn't ChatGPT, it was Claude. And I asked for actually some AI modules about agentic AI. I wanted to do some research on that and I said I need 12 modules, you know, 45 minutes each, free, blah, blah, blah, like multimedia. Because I, I, I'm a little ADHD. And they were, and so they gave me 12 modules and I was like, oh, great. And so I, I did the first one, I loved it, it was great. It was, you know, it was a YouTube video, Da Da, da da. The second one I clicked on, it didn't go anywhere, it was fake and it said it was like, you know, a Harvard Business Review thing, you know,
- [39:52]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
So I was like, you know, then
- [39:53]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
I type it in Google to see if that. And that wasn't even a thing. So I went back to Claude, I used the same thread prompt and I was like, these are not valid. Like, can you check all the links, all the, all the modules that they're recent and that the valid. And it came back and it said, good catch. Okay, that doesn't make me feel any better, right? So what I'm saying is like, if you have a limitation, give me a path forward. Don't just block me by saying this and try to appease me. Like they were like, oh yeah, good catch, right? I was like, what is the plan moving forward? What is the fix? Right? And, or if they say we're just. This requires a higher model than, you know, than you're in right now. You're in like the Claude freeware or whatever it was in. And so we're limited to be able to give you, provide you that information. Of course, then they try to upsell you and say, oh, why don't you try to get into the next level? Right. You know, Claude 2.0. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. Right. So again, I feel like there's that opportunity as well. Is that when there are instances of that? Because that is, again, eroding trust of people who don't use it very often when you use it for something and then it actually doesn't deliver. And what a lot of people don't understand is AI is there to make you feel good. So it tries to tell you what it thinks you want to hear. And it does, you know, you have to put into your settings, like be a contrarian, you know, challenge the norm. Like, I've, you know, I've done things in there as well where I put something in there and then it gives
- [41:33]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
me an answer and I'm like, don't be a sycophant. Do not be a sycophant.
- [41:38]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Right, yeah, we've all dealt with that. And the, I mean, there's still hallucinations, there's still links. I've, I've had yelling matches where I say, stop giving me these links. I've already, you know, I've told you,
- [41:49]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
damn it, I know I'm handsome, but I'm not that handsome.
- [41:54]
Podcast Host - Aaron
I told you to train on this skill. Or you'll say, look, you'll come back with advice and you'll say, that's a bad idea. And it'll say, you're right, that is a bad idea. Why? You know, I agree with you.
- [42:02]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Great catch.
- [42:04]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Good catch. So, yeah, it's the people pleasing aspect of it that if, if it agrees with everything you say, that does erode trust. Especially, you know, Perry and, you know, we're probably more savvy users than most. We all know our way around these systems. Some people don't. And some people are, for good reason, sitting on the sidelines. But part of the winning the trust is, yeah, owning the platform limitations, owning where we are. I think getting some of that, I mentioned it earlier, but some of that awe and appreciation of. Look. What? Look, look at the age we're living in, like in our lifetimes. This is happening. We wanted this for again, maybe us, not us personally, but human evolution. We've wanted and just dreamed about and written science fiction about what's happening now. Why? Why do we not even, you know, have a fundamental just appreciation for this moment we're living in. And then what are we going to do about it? How are we going to handle it ethically and responsibly? And if we're going to compete, you know, what are the rules of engagement? And how do we do that in a healthy and productive way? And how do we do that in a way where we don't cannibalize the entire industry so we'll get to our fix. Before we do that, I just, I want to throw one thing in. There is, is, are they both too big to fail? Like, is there, are we getting to a VHS beta situation where maybe one becomes a behind the scenes utility and one becomes the public face of things, or one screws up so bad that they just go away? Or are we, are these the titans? I know there's other players, but are these the two titans that we're going to be with for the foreseeable future?
- [43:43]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
I think we're looking at Yahoo and Google. I feel like it's Yahoo and Google. Right. And at the end of the day, who's going to win is who's actually going to follow and listen to what this podcast is saying today? Because at the end of the day, AI, as we've mentioned, isn't going anywhere. And I think going back to what we were talking about of some of the hiccups and the learning, it's a language learning model, meaning it's constantly learning and evolving. And I think if both companies aren't able to actually train and teach their user base, whether that's net new user who has no idea what AI is or you know, people who are deep in the tech world and who use like 20 different agents. Right. There should be a section within kind of the platform saying, you know, here are some of the watch outs, here's again what we love to say, a playbook on how to use this and how to just kind of fact check so that you can ensure trust and say, you know, we're not perfect, we're working on it, we're learning and here's what you need to do. And if you can actually have that visible in the prompt and say, you know, remember the little paperclip on Word, like a little paperclip or something where it just is the tips and tricks of how to actually use it will actually help build on the eroding trust. When we're finding challenges within the AI that the answers that it's giving us,
- [45:06]
Podcast Host - Aaron
let's roll with it. Let's let's fix it. So we, we've talked, talked about what both companies can do. We've, we've pointed out, you know, there's a big trust and there's a trust erosion. I didn't say it, but they took the same poll that I pointed out earlier in 2021, and there was a higher trust of AI back in 2021 than there is now. So we're going the wrong way. And these companies, they know it, they have to know it, especially if they want their valuations up, if they want market share, if they want to be the future of all this, they got to turn things around, like now. So how are they going to do that? They're going to ask us, ask us, the end user. They're going to say, what do you need? You know, where have we let you down? You are a partner in this. We're building this future together. What do you want from us? What do you want this to look like? And this could be, I don't know what all the executions are, but, you know, we'll do the Reddit AMAs, we'll do, we'll. They'll do the commercials with the puppies and the grandmas. They will, but maybe they're, you know, the more you humanize it and the more you tell those real stories, not about how AI took my job, but how AI got me a job. And it's not just one upsmanship where one company's trying to outdo the other, but they really find their voice in their lane where they're distinguishable and then you can choose, oh, I do like one over the other. I like them both because they're both responsible companies and they're both doing AI development and rollout the right way. And I'm with both of them, but I'm just going to pick one or the other or I'm going to have two subscriptions, no big deal. They're both priced reasonably enough. You can use the free ones or you can pay the $20 ticket price right now. If there's value for each, it's well worth it. And then, you know, they have to compete, they have to act like competitors in a competitive marketplace. If it's a zero sum game, like someone's got a race to the top, but if they do it just to, just to point out each other's flaws and just to point out how bad the other's AI is there, it's just going to come back to bite them. So I'd say be competitors, but be I don't know if there's a word for it, but align competitors or just agree to agree on certain things for the betterment of everybody and for the long lasting viability of this industry because if we all get sick of AI, it's just going to be, it's not going to go away. But it might become more of a utility and it might drive systems and machines and architecture and behind the scenes components, but we might just say, look, we tried human experiment, it failed, we don't want it anymore. DuckDuckGo is having a moment. It's the last thing I'll throw out because they, they've had, it's a browser, right? It's like doesn't have any market share compared to the big ones. But they've said they're having a moment because they've said look in our, in our browser you can turn AI off. If you don't want it, you don't have to have it. And people are flocking to it like they're adoption went way up. So anyway, don't, don't fatigue us with, with the battle you have going on between the two of you. Work it out between yourselves, figure out how to play nice, figure out how to win us back and ask us what we want, you know, make us a participant in where we go from here. Melissa, did we fix it?
- [48:34]
Melissa - Podcast Panelist
I think we gave them some great pathways forward to fix it. I think one of the things that I've always said, my CX operations teams is that we're there to deliver on promises. So what you just mentioned, so if their stories, customer testimonials, trust stories, are different than actually the way the AI product behaves, users will believe the product, not the press and the marketing. So that's a very important point. It also kind of gets to, you know, you mentioned about the competitive nature of where we're at right now. And the second you win in this arena and this ecosystem by making your rival look unsafe or not as good, you actually make the whole category look unsafe to the end user. So I think those are just a couple watch outs I would have and I'm glad Erin, that you brought that up because I do believe the competitive marketplace, you know, you have to include Gemini and all the other Claude, everybody else, right. It's very rich. And I think Perry brought up a great idea is like some of these folks should really kind of look to figure out what category should they be in because maybe they should be really focused on, you know, helping households figure out how to run a household or, you know, working in the education arena. And I know there's, you know, magic school bus AI and all these places that are trying to get into that world, but, like, maybe that's a way in which to broaden and really get your audience, but really be focused and really great at what you do, because starring in your role is important. And it feels kind of like everybody's trying to be the quarterback here.
- [50:18]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Good point. Yeah. So we'll add it to what you said, Melissa. Keep finding differentiation so we can tell them apart. And maybe again, you know, at the price points they're at now, maybe we use them both, but we'll, we'll, we're encouraging them to be friendly competitors and, and invite all of us into, in a, in a really welcoming way, in a really listening way, invite us in and say, look, we're partnered where you're part of this too. It's not just us building this for you, and then you come get it. Whatever comes next, you're part of it. Chino, did we fix it?
- [50:56]
Chino - Podcast Panelist
I think we gave them some really good solutions. At the end of the day, AI will succeed based on how they make people feel. And to make people feel great, you need to actually speak to the people that you're talking to, whether that is a new user, current hyper users, and everybody else in between. Speak to them and ask what they need in terms of finding out the transparency and the secrets people are looking for. And I think by being able to differentiate yourself, because there's a lot of different options, I do think that we have fixed AI and gave them solutions.
- [51:34]
Podcast Host - Aaron
All right, perfect. Thank you, Chino. Perry, do we teach them anything? Do we teach ChatGPT and Claude and the companies behind them anything they can use for self preservation and category validation and just making us feel better about this whole thing?
- [51:50]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Yeah, you know, I think we collectively gave them the path. Whether they choose to take it remains to be seen. And I say that against the backdrop of pending IPOs, which we've already covered, and the looming reality of AGI, which is artificial general intelligence, which changes the conversation radically once again. But I do think if they are open and receptive to, to hearing what we've said and implement those changes, they will bring a lot more users along with them in a, in a positive and meaningful way, rather than further alienating and scaring people half, half, half to death. So I hope they listen because the, the receipts are what people want to see. They want to feel empathy that, that actually the, the, the giants making these things and making billions of dollars care about their actual users. They want to make sure that their kids aren't going to be assisted. And when they make bad decisions, whether it's, you know, committing suicide or committing crimes by using these tools, they want to feel like these tools are their maybe not their friend, but certainly their aids, rather than going against them and making their lives appreciably worse. So did we fix them? I think we gave them a path. Did they take it? Who the hell knows?
- [53:06]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Well, thanks Perry. I hope they are listening. We we look at our listener engagement. We know that companies do listen to us, so hopefully they listen to this one. That's going to do it for this episode of We Fixed It. You're welcome. A big thank you to Perry Hedrick from Crackle PR for helping us make sense of this whole convoluted situation. Perry, if a good tech company wants us all to know that they're a good tech company, how would they get a hold of you? And how can we all keep up with what you're doing?
- [53:30]
Perry Hedrick - PR Expert and Guest
Sure. So you can follow me on LinkedIn. My name is Perry Hedrick right there in the tile. I have a decent, decent following and I share stuff there every day. So you can get fresh insights just about daily from me, but also the Under Embargo podcast, which I mentioned at the onset, where I'm co hosting with Becca Chambers of Scale Ventures. And then finally, cracklepr.com is the website where you can do deep dives on everything that we've done for a bunch of tech companies. We don't work with anthropic, we don't work with any of the companies mentioned today, but I'm open to it.
- [54:04]
Podcast Host - Aaron
Thanks Perry. That's awesome. Thanks Melissa. Thanks Chino. Thanks to you, our listeners. Before we go, I asked ChatGPT to describe Claude in one sentence and this is what it says. Said Claude is the AI equivalent of the smartest kid in class who always follows the rules, raises their hand before speaking, and occasionally reminds the teacher they forgot to assign homework. So of course I asked Claude to clap back about ChatGPT and this is what it said. So ChatGPT is the minivan of AI. It's reliable, widely adopted, and just exciting enough to get you where you're going. So there you have it. If ChatGPT and Claude can both agree on one thing, it's that we have the best listeners out there. If you want to share what you think of us, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us@wefixitpod.com let's chat and we will see you next time. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed It. You're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice, or anything that would get us in trouble. All trademarks, IP and brand elements remain property of their respective owners.