WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.299 I believe there are more opportunities than ever. 00:00:02.439 --> 00:00:04.900 It's just that they're more diffuse and that 00:00:04.900 --> 00:00:08.679 it requires a shitload more legwork and research 00:00:08.679 --> 00:00:11.060 and like infiltrating these little corners of 00:00:11.060 --> 00:00:13.359 the internet. I interview a lot of people in 00:00:13.359 --> 00:00:17.539 AI and generally what I'm hearing is that 2026 00:00:17.539 --> 00:00:19.660 is the year of disillusionment. That on the source 00:00:19.660 --> 00:00:21.960 side of things, the stat that we have seen is 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:25.839 that 21 % of all pitches are 100 % AI generated. 00:00:26.100 --> 00:00:28.839 The one -on -one personal relationships. are 00:00:28.839 --> 00:00:31.440 going to matter so much more because everyone 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:33.979 can be whoever they want at scale now thanks 00:00:33.979 --> 00:00:37.460 to AI. So being a real human has a premium. Welcome 00:00:37.460 --> 00:00:40.340 to Under Embargo, the podcast that says the quiet 00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:43.140 part out loud about PR, communications, and the 00:00:43.140 --> 00:00:46.350 chaos in between. Hosted by two of LinkedIn's 00:00:46.350 --> 00:00:49.289 most connected comms pros, Becca Chambers, a 00:00:49.289 --> 00:00:51.969 no BS corporate comms exec with raging ADHD, 00:00:52.409 --> 00:00:55.750 and Pari Hedrick, founder of tech PR firm Crackle 00:00:55.750 --> 00:00:59.149 PR. This show brings it all. Real talk, sharp 00:00:59.149 --> 00:01:01.649 insights, and the kind of industry truths they 00:01:01.649 --> 00:01:04.769 don't put in press releases. No fluff, no filters, 00:01:04.969 --> 00:01:08.549 no f***s given. This is Under Embargo. Let's 00:01:08.549 --> 00:01:12.780 get into it. Welcome back to another episode 00:01:12.780 --> 00:01:16.019 of Under Embargo. I'm Becca, CMO at Scale Venture 00:01:16.019 --> 00:01:18.579 Partners, and as always, joined by my trusty 00:01:18.579 --> 00:01:21.420 co -host, Perry Hedrick, founder of Crackle PR. 00:01:22.319 --> 00:01:27.000 Today, we have a very interesting guest who recently 00:01:27.000 --> 00:01:30.799 has made him a hero probably to many in the PR 00:01:30.799 --> 00:01:34.090 and journalism worlds. Brett Farmilow is the 00:01:34.090 --> 00:01:37.269 founder and CEO of Featured .com and the recent 00:01:37.269 --> 00:01:41.189 savior of HARO, Help a Reporter Out, and regular 00:01:41.189 --> 00:01:43.750 contributor to Inc. and Fast Company on the intersection 00:01:43.750 --> 00:01:45.750 of AI and the workplace, which we will get into. 00:01:45.930 --> 00:01:48.890 But first, welcome to the show. We're happy to 00:01:48.890 --> 00:01:50.790 have you here. Welcome. Thanks for having me. 00:01:51.230 --> 00:01:55.609 Awesome. I guess let's just start with tell us 00:01:55.609 --> 00:01:58.569 about Featured .com and how HARO fits in and 00:01:58.569 --> 00:02:01.659 what... all of that looks like right now since 00:02:01.659 --> 00:02:04.760 our audience is definitely interested totally 00:02:04.760 --> 00:02:07.299 totally i ran a marketing agency for 10 years 00:02:07.299 --> 00:02:10.199 we had 500 small business clients and the hardest 00:02:10.199 --> 00:02:12.419 problem that they had was getting featured in 00:02:12.419 --> 00:02:15.400 the media and so we created a platform that allowed 00:02:15.400 --> 00:02:17.800 them to share their expertise basically answer 00:02:17.800 --> 00:02:21.060 questions that were about their business and 00:02:21.060 --> 00:02:24.120 then put those insights into articles that got 00:02:24.120 --> 00:02:27.770 published on on different outlets and so Sold 00:02:27.770 --> 00:02:31.210 the agency at the end of 21, went all in on featured 00:02:31.210 --> 00:02:34.729 as a platform. And then last year we ended up 00:02:34.729 --> 00:02:36.810 acquiring Help Reporter out, bringing it back. 00:02:37.189 --> 00:02:41.449 It had been founded in 2008, got rebranded over 00:02:41.449 --> 00:02:43.849 to Connectively and pushed away from its original 00:02:43.849 --> 00:02:48.590 email format into a platform. And then that got 00:02:48.590 --> 00:02:50.949 discontinued because it didn't work. So we bought 00:02:50.949 --> 00:02:53.599 it, we brought it back. And now people, like 00:02:53.599 --> 00:02:55.759 you said, are pretty happy that three times a 00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:57.780 day there's some journalist requests that land 00:02:57.780 --> 00:03:00.199 in their inbox. That's awesome. Can you talk 00:03:00.199 --> 00:03:02.780 about how, so featured and Harrow, how do they 00:03:02.780 --> 00:03:05.000 interact with one another? Which is which? Can 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:06.680 you just walk through that a little bit? Yeah, 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:10.599 I think the cleanest way to think about it is, 00:03:10.780 --> 00:03:13.419 well, first of all, Harrow, three times a day 00:03:13.419 --> 00:03:17.979 email. that has journalist requests. Featured 00:03:17.979 --> 00:03:20.900 is a platform that has not only HARO requests, 00:03:21.199 --> 00:03:23.580 but exclusive opportunities through Featured 00:03:23.580 --> 00:03:27.539 and aggregated opportunities that we source from 00:03:27.539 --> 00:03:30.780 Substack, from X, from LinkedIn. And so basically 00:03:30.780 --> 00:03:33.439 Featured is kind of this powerful platform. It's 00:03:33.439 --> 00:03:35.520 like HARO in a platform with all these other 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:38.139 different opportunities. So the challenges are 00:03:38.139 --> 00:03:40.240 people don't have enough time to essentially 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:43.139 look and find all the relevant media opportunities. 00:03:43.789 --> 00:03:46.949 Feature will learn what your expertise is. It'll 00:03:46.949 --> 00:03:49.889 identify those opportunities and then bring it 00:03:49.889 --> 00:03:52.009 right into your inbox so you could just act on 00:03:52.009 --> 00:03:54.770 that and have a good ROI on your time. That's 00:03:54.770 --> 00:03:58.090 awesome. Can I ask something? Are your clients 00:03:58.090 --> 00:04:00.270 mostly agencies or are they mostly in -house 00:04:00.270 --> 00:04:04.289 people? Yeah, it's mainly agencies, in -house 00:04:04.289 --> 00:04:06.349 marketing teams, and then do -it -yourself small 00:04:06.349 --> 00:04:08.689 business owners that want to bypass using an 00:04:08.689 --> 00:04:12.520 agency. So directly from my team, I queried my 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:14.599 team at Crackle because I said that you were 00:04:14.599 --> 00:04:15.759 going to be coming on and they had a bunch of 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:17.899 questions. And I candidly don't use the tools 00:04:17.899 --> 00:04:19.740 myself because I'm a little removed from the 00:04:19.740 --> 00:04:22.579 day to day grind. So if I botch the delivery 00:04:22.579 --> 00:04:24.180 of the question, just know that it came from 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:26.939 a real person who does the job. What was the 00:04:26.939 --> 00:04:29.199 process like in rebuilding Harrow post decision 00:04:29.199 --> 00:04:31.139 in particular was a question from one of the 00:04:31.139 --> 00:04:33.689 people. Yeah, that's a great question because 00:04:33.689 --> 00:04:37.029 the thing that I've heard frequently of why HARO 00:04:37.029 --> 00:04:38.889 was even discontinued in the first place was 00:04:38.889 --> 00:04:42.649 an erosion of quality and trust. And so basically, 00:04:42.750 --> 00:04:45.910 because it's an email format, it's so accessible 00:04:45.910 --> 00:04:48.329 to so many people. And so that basically just 00:04:48.329 --> 00:04:50.449 allows anyone to email the journalist directly. 00:04:51.160 --> 00:04:53.220 And that was causing a lot of issues from the 00:04:53.220 --> 00:04:54.959 journalist side, a lot of spam, a lot of AI, 00:04:55.220 --> 00:04:57.899 things like that. And basically, from my understanding, 00:04:58.180 --> 00:05:00.699 the resources weren't devoted to maintain that 00:05:00.699 --> 00:05:02.819 quality and trust. And so the very first thing 00:05:02.819 --> 00:05:05.790 that we did was... aim to restore that. So a 00:05:05.790 --> 00:05:08.269 couple of examples, every single pitch that gets 00:05:08.269 --> 00:05:10.230 sent through HARO or featured is checked for 00:05:10.230 --> 00:05:13.850 AI. So we'll do AI detection so that if it's 00:05:13.850 --> 00:05:16.829 100 % AI generated, a journalist has a decision 00:05:16.829 --> 00:05:20.230 to opt out of receiving that message. So that's 00:05:20.230 --> 00:05:22.730 one example. Can I stop you there quickly? Yeah. 00:05:22.790 --> 00:05:26.990 How confident are we with the sort of designation 00:05:26.990 --> 00:05:29.430 of 100 % AI? You know what I mean? Like that's 00:05:29.430 --> 00:05:31.939 always the sticky wicket, isn't it? Is it AI? 00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:34.819 Isn't it? How do you feel? How confident are 00:05:34.819 --> 00:05:38.399 you in those designations, I guess? The AI detection 00:05:38.399 --> 00:05:40.740 partner that we use is called Pangram. If you 00:05:40.740 --> 00:05:44.180 go to pangram .com, the tagline there is AI detection 00:05:44.180 --> 00:05:48.459 that actually works. And I think that in our 00:05:48.459 --> 00:05:51.339 experience, that has been true. So in terms of 00:05:51.339 --> 00:05:54.019 confidence level, I think that everyone's got 00:05:54.019 --> 00:05:55.980 their own AI detection tool. We've got ours, 00:05:56.120 --> 00:05:59.470 but it's at least a signal. that allows those 00:05:59.470 --> 00:06:01.990 journalists to now say, OK, like, let me look 00:06:01.990 --> 00:06:04.629 at this from a closer lens, because ultimately 00:06:04.629 --> 00:06:07.449 journalists are tasked with is this a real insight 00:06:07.449 --> 00:06:09.589 from a real person? Like, let's start there. 00:06:09.750 --> 00:06:12.810 And so a lot of what we had to do was figure 00:06:12.810 --> 00:06:16.209 out, OK, this is first person get a blue checkmark. 00:06:16.370 --> 00:06:18.509 Can we verify that they actually work at the 00:06:18.509 --> 00:06:21.569 company that they that they claim to, that they 00:06:21.569 --> 00:06:24.069 have the credentials to back up what they're 00:06:24.069 --> 00:06:26.790 actually sharing? So. Making that connection 00:06:26.790 --> 00:06:29.769 between expert sources and journalists has a 00:06:29.769 --> 00:06:33.029 lot of intricacies behind the scenes. How are 00:06:33.029 --> 00:06:37.370 you getting the journalists on board? So bringing 00:06:37.370 --> 00:06:40.449 Help A Reporter Out back was like flipping a 00:06:40.449 --> 00:06:43.930 light switch. Because it was founded in 2008, 00:06:44.230 --> 00:06:47.670 almost every journalist, PR professional that's 00:06:47.670 --> 00:06:50.209 been in the industry has heard about Help A Reporter 00:06:50.209 --> 00:06:54.029 Out. And so when we brought it back... It was 00:06:54.029 --> 00:06:58.209 crazy. I remember the Friday before we were going 00:06:58.209 --> 00:07:00.170 to bring it back, we wanted to just test that 00:07:00.170 --> 00:07:01.689 the deployment of the website would actually 00:07:01.689 --> 00:07:03.930 work. And it was like a Friday afternoon at 4 00:07:03.930 --> 00:07:07.410 p .m. And Harrow had been offline for like 18 00:07:07.410 --> 00:07:11.290 months. And within three minutes, we had 10 new 00:07:11.290 --> 00:07:15.040 signups. of just people who were doing referral 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:18.439 traffic on like a Friday afternoon. And so I 00:07:18.439 --> 00:07:20.980 think that, you know, it's a really, really well 00:07:20.980 --> 00:07:23.079 -known brand. It's one that's built up a lot 00:07:23.079 --> 00:07:25.240 of trust with journalists because they've been 00:07:25.240 --> 00:07:27.040 able to get connected with different sources. 00:07:27.199 --> 00:07:29.740 And that's what makes makes the network really, 00:07:29.800 --> 00:07:33.040 really unique and special. So I have another 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:35.019 I'm going to go to my little mailbag here of 00:07:35.019 --> 00:07:39.769 staffer questions from. One person, they said, 00:07:39.810 --> 00:07:42.069 how are you guys competing with Quoted or other 00:07:42.069 --> 00:07:45.910 new platforms on the scene? Can you talk a little 00:07:45.910 --> 00:07:48.430 bit about that? Totally. I think that Help Reporter 00:07:48.430 --> 00:07:51.829 Out is the largest expert network where journalists 00:07:51.829 --> 00:07:55.189 can source from. So because it's email -based, 00:07:55.290 --> 00:07:57.470 because it's free for all, it's got a different 00:07:57.470 --> 00:07:59.509 monetization model. So it's supported by newsletter 00:07:59.509 --> 00:08:02.509 ads where Quoted and Featured both sell subscriptions. 00:08:02.850 --> 00:08:05.750 So I think that that's one key difference is 00:08:05.750 --> 00:08:08.750 that Anyone can show up and share their expertise 00:08:08.750 --> 00:08:11.990 on Help a Reporter Out. Featured, a little different 00:08:11.990 --> 00:08:14.730 because we own and operate HARO, so you get early 00:08:14.730 --> 00:08:18.550 access to HARO queries. One of the things with 00:08:18.550 --> 00:08:20.889 HARO, because it's email -based, we send out 00:08:20.889 --> 00:08:24.649 emails every five hours. And so there's a delay 00:08:24.649 --> 00:08:28.170 between when a journalist submits and when it 00:08:28.170 --> 00:08:29.810 actually gets featured in the newsletter. So 00:08:29.810 --> 00:08:32.649 as soon as we approve it, it's live on featured. 00:08:32.909 --> 00:08:36.759 That's one of the key differences. I think that 00:08:36.759 --> 00:08:41.220 illustrates that a little bit. Got it. And Becca, 00:08:41.320 --> 00:08:43.580 I have a bunch of questions. I don't want to 00:08:43.580 --> 00:08:46.620 cut you off. Go ahead. All right. I just want 00:08:46.620 --> 00:08:48.179 to back up a little bit to the AI piece of this, 00:08:48.279 --> 00:08:51.639 because obviously everybody's staring down the 00:08:51.639 --> 00:08:53.840 zeitgeist of AI and what it means to our jobs. 00:08:53.899 --> 00:08:56.240 And there's existential dread related to it and 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:59.159 AI slop and blah, blah, blah. What would you 00:08:59.159 --> 00:09:02.460 say the percentage of journalists, in your view, 00:09:04.299 --> 00:09:06.139 What percentage of these journalists actually 00:09:06.139 --> 00:09:09.580 even entertain any of these AI pitches? In other 00:09:09.580 --> 00:09:11.539 words, once they know it's AI, do they just categorically 00:09:11.539 --> 00:09:14.700 dismiss it? Is the overwhelming majority of the 00:09:14.700 --> 00:09:17.480 journalists in your mix, do they just say, screw 00:09:17.480 --> 00:09:20.039 anything AI, I want humans only? Or are people 00:09:20.039 --> 00:09:22.100 beginning to be like, well, there's such a volume 00:09:22.100 --> 00:09:23.679 of this stuff coming that at some point I have 00:09:23.679 --> 00:09:25.759 to acquiesce and start reading some of this shit? 00:09:25.940 --> 00:09:28.820 I think there's two camps. There's the camp that 00:09:28.820 --> 00:09:31.159 cares and the camp that doesn't. The camp that 00:09:31.159 --> 00:09:35.070 doesn't is... doing their job past the initial 00:09:35.070 --> 00:09:38.009 AI pitch. So they care most about getting connected 00:09:38.009 --> 00:09:41.210 with the right source. And so it doesn't matter 00:09:41.210 --> 00:09:43.409 if that pitch is AI generated or not. If it's 00:09:43.409 --> 00:09:44.889 the right source, the journalist is going to 00:09:44.889 --> 00:09:46.929 do their job. They're going to schedule a Zoom 00:09:46.929 --> 00:09:48.850 call. They're going to get in an interview. They're 00:09:48.850 --> 00:09:51.269 going to get to verify the source and get what 00:09:51.269 --> 00:09:53.669 they need for their story. So I think that you're 00:09:53.669 --> 00:09:56.750 seeing that. where very rarely is someone just 00:09:56.750 --> 00:09:59.889 going to copy -paste, put into whatever got sent 00:09:59.889 --> 00:10:02.389 in their inbox into a story without any verification. 00:10:02.769 --> 00:10:05.710 And so I think that you're seeing more of an 00:10:05.710 --> 00:10:08.950 adoption and an openness to AI as we go along, 00:10:09.090 --> 00:10:11.730 as it becomes more of the norm. But there's definitely 00:10:11.730 --> 00:10:13.649 two camps, and there's definitely, you know, 00:10:13.669 --> 00:10:16.129 sometimes journalists are handcuffed in the sense 00:10:16.129 --> 00:10:18.169 that their publication puts their own requirements 00:10:18.169 --> 00:10:21.289 on it. So I think that it's becoming more of 00:10:21.289 --> 00:10:23.070 the norm. If you had to handicap it, would you 00:10:23.070 --> 00:10:26.879 say something like, I don't know, 70 % are still 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:28.820 kind of old school and want real human interaction, 00:10:28.980 --> 00:10:32.340 while 30 % are now becoming open to the AI piece, 00:10:32.519 --> 00:10:34.379 or I don't want to put words in your mouth. What 00:10:34.379 --> 00:10:37.500 are you seeing? I need to get the, now you got 00:10:37.500 --> 00:10:39.580 me curious about what the actual stat is, because 00:10:39.580 --> 00:10:42.340 - I feel like that would go on fire on LinkedIn, 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:44.419 if you had that actual number, that people would 00:10:44.419 --> 00:10:47.200 go ballistic for that. We do have a filter that 00:10:47.200 --> 00:10:51.019 allows journalists to check that says no AI responses. 00:10:51.769 --> 00:10:53.649 That's not checked by default. So I'm going to 00:10:53.649 --> 00:10:55.789 have to do some stats and verification on it. 00:10:55.870 --> 00:10:58.309 What I will say is that on the source side of 00:10:58.309 --> 00:11:00.769 things, the stat that we have seen is that 21 00:11:00.769 --> 00:11:05.750 % of all pitches are 100 % AI generated. So that's 00:11:05.750 --> 00:11:07.870 what we're seeing on our platform side. That's 00:11:07.870 --> 00:11:09.970 why we had to restore a lot of the quality and 00:11:09.970 --> 00:11:12.529 trust is because a lot of people will set up 00:11:12.529 --> 00:11:15.549 automations to detect and then automatically 00:11:15.549 --> 00:11:19.190 send something through AI. I would venture to 00:11:19.190 --> 00:11:22.059 say that... it probably mirrors that a little 00:11:22.059 --> 00:11:25.620 bit on the journalist side where maybe it's like 00:11:25.620 --> 00:11:30.759 60 40 if i had to guess like 60 are not cool 00:11:30.759 --> 00:11:34.059 with it yeah 40 are and it's getting closer to 00:11:34.059 --> 00:11:38.779 50 50 as as we go along that actually lends itself 00:11:38.779 --> 00:11:41.440 well to just kind of the general question of 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:46.340 how do you how has getting media coverage changed 00:11:46.340 --> 00:11:48.779 in the last three years? Because clearly there's 00:11:48.779 --> 00:11:51.700 been a massive shift and we're moving into a 00:11:51.700 --> 00:11:54.639 new direction. So what are you seeing trend -wise? 00:11:54.700 --> 00:11:59.200 Yeah, I'm seeing that with NPR, AI is being embraced. 00:11:59.539 --> 00:12:03.679 It has huge gains for people in the profession. 00:12:03.899 --> 00:12:06.240 And at the same time, it's drastically shifting 00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:11.279 media entirely. So the places where people want 00:12:11.279 --> 00:12:15.960 to be featured, are on podcasts, on social platforms, 00:12:16.179 --> 00:12:19.840 on someone's Substack. It's getting very fragmented 00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:22.759 by channel, and it's no longer, oh, I just want 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:25.139 to be featured in Inc. and Fast Company and these 00:12:25.139 --> 00:12:29.919 national outlets. So it's influence is shifting 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:34.360 quite a bit as AI is dramatically changing what 00:12:34.360 --> 00:12:36.679 that market looks like. Do you think influence 00:12:36.679 --> 00:12:39.539 is shifting away from organizations into individual 00:12:39.539 --> 00:12:44.360 people brands? Like, you know, do you talk about 00:12:44.360 --> 00:12:47.759 Substack and podcasts and things like that? I 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.100 think it goes back to creators because the thing 00:12:50.100 --> 00:12:51.980 that is kind of lacking in the world is trust. 00:12:52.100 --> 00:12:55.779 And, you know, that's what people as individuals 00:12:55.779 --> 00:12:59.559 have. And so I think that you're seeing attention 00:12:59.559 --> 00:13:03.259 go towards individuals because of trust, because 00:13:03.259 --> 00:13:05.919 of accessibility, because of some of the economics. 00:13:05.980 --> 00:13:08.919 Like, how many times do I have to click? I don't 00:13:08.919 --> 00:13:12.610 want this pop up. on a media site anymore. So 00:13:12.610 --> 00:13:15.370 I think that just the user experience is more 00:13:15.370 --> 00:13:18.350 intuitive as well. And so time and attention 00:13:18.350 --> 00:13:21.950 is really scarce. What's the proper economic 00:13:21.950 --> 00:13:24.090 model that has the best user experience? And 00:13:24.090 --> 00:13:26.549 you're seeing audience flow in that direction. 00:13:29.899 --> 00:13:32.559 I know AI, we keep coming back to it, and it's 00:13:32.559 --> 00:13:34.340 probably exhausting because that's probably what 00:13:34.340 --> 00:13:36.440 most people want to talk about most of the time. 00:13:36.980 --> 00:13:39.039 But when we talk about journalists and we talk 00:13:39.039 --> 00:13:41.639 about PR, I'm still a bit of a purist. I use 00:13:41.639 --> 00:13:45.320 the tools. I use them for some ideation. I use 00:13:45.320 --> 00:13:47.240 them sometimes if I'm like, God damn it, I can't 00:13:47.240 --> 00:13:48.480 figure out an ending for this. Can you give me 00:13:48.480 --> 00:13:51.620 some ideas? I use it, but it's not the primary 00:13:51.620 --> 00:13:53.360 thing that I use. And my team doesn't primarily 00:13:53.360 --> 00:13:55.299 use it to write pitches. We don't write press 00:13:55.299 --> 00:13:57.480 releases with it. We might put outlines together. 00:13:58.820 --> 00:14:02.179 pretty pure still and i know that the vast majority 00:14:02.179 --> 00:14:05.460 of journalists are also still fairly pure they 00:14:05.460 --> 00:14:07.659 have to you know begrudgingly they they deal 00:14:07.659 --> 00:14:09.679 with because they have to there's such a volume 00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:12.159 of it is it your opinion and i know you have 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:13.820 to be careful about how you couch this because 00:14:13.820 --> 00:14:15.620 you try to serve all audiences here but like 00:14:15.620 --> 00:14:18.759 is it your opinion that that ai is like a commodity 00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:22.759 and over time the human voice the human writing 00:14:22.759 --> 00:14:26.080 the human pitches will become a premium. And 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:28.039 I asked that question against the backdrop of 00:14:28.039 --> 00:14:30.179 all of these hires and all these major brands 00:14:30.179 --> 00:14:33.100 of people paying like 350 K to bring on head 00:14:33.100 --> 00:14:35.620 of content, 300, you know, $50 ,000 to bring 00:14:35.620 --> 00:14:37.600 their editorial director on. Like, I think I 00:14:37.600 --> 00:14:39.419 see a lot of people getting hired in very, very 00:14:39.419 --> 00:14:41.759 important jobs who are human beings to make sure 00:14:41.759 --> 00:14:44.320 that the machines are not running amok. What 00:14:44.320 --> 00:14:48.720 do you think? Give me that 350K job. There's 00:14:48.720 --> 00:14:51.980 a bunch of them. They're everywhere. They're 00:14:51.980 --> 00:14:55.259 hiring human beings to oversee this shit. And 00:14:55.259 --> 00:14:57.519 those people used to get paid crappy in these 00:14:57.519 --> 00:14:59.440 companies, right? Like those are the underpaid 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:02.559 people. And now it's like, just dollar, dollar 00:15:02.559 --> 00:15:04.480 bills. I guess to put it another way, are you 00:15:04.480 --> 00:15:06.600 worried about the commoditization of AI writ 00:15:06.600 --> 00:15:11.100 large and how it might sort of take down the 00:15:11.100 --> 00:15:13.460 value of platforms like yours because it becomes 00:15:13.460 --> 00:15:16.350 so overwhelmed with slop? I guess that's ultimately 00:15:16.350 --> 00:15:18.690 the question behind the question. Yeah, I'm not 00:15:18.690 --> 00:15:20.929 too concerned about it because ultimately readers 00:15:20.929 --> 00:15:25.590 will reject slop. If you're in an experimentation 00:15:25.590 --> 00:15:28.350 phase with it, you're going to have publications 00:15:28.350 --> 00:15:31.629 that are going to open their doors up and then 00:15:31.629 --> 00:15:33.669 probably pretty quickly close those doors because 00:15:33.669 --> 00:15:37.990 that 350k a year person is going to see that 00:15:37.990 --> 00:15:41.679 it's not working. And they need to have a detour. 00:15:41.720 --> 00:15:46.100 So where I'm seeing PR adopt AI is as a thinking 00:15:46.100 --> 00:15:48.559 partner. It's not the place that's generating 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:51.820 the ideas. It's that the person in the job has 00:15:51.820 --> 00:15:54.620 gotten it to 80 % of the way there. AI could 00:15:54.620 --> 00:15:57.539 come in to make sure essentially that you are 00:15:57.539 --> 00:16:01.139 not missing anything, get it to 90%, and then 00:16:01.139 --> 00:16:03.659 allow the human in the loop to take it to 100. 00:16:03.860 --> 00:16:08.190 So I'm not too worried about... AI slop at scale 00:16:08.190 --> 00:16:10.250 because readers will reject it before it gets 00:16:10.250 --> 00:16:12.250 there and at the same time I'm actually more 00:16:12.250 --> 00:16:15.370 of an optimist to think that I'm on this podcast 00:16:15.370 --> 00:16:18.009 I've already created some different content there's 00:16:18.009 --> 00:16:20.470 a lot of stuff out there that I personally can 00:16:20.470 --> 00:16:22.750 use to better train myself on a knowledge base 00:16:22.750 --> 00:16:27.409 and then if time is my biggest constraint and 00:16:27.409 --> 00:16:28.929 I want to share more knowledge I want to have 00:16:28.929 --> 00:16:31.429 more thought leadership AI can actually take 00:16:31.429 --> 00:16:34.159 a lot of what I've done and connect to different 00:16:34.159 --> 00:16:36.580 sources to now help me unlock more new knowledge. 00:16:36.779 --> 00:16:40.799 So I do think AI can advance with the right data 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:42.980 sets and the right structured workflows sitting 00:16:42.980 --> 00:16:45.100 on top of it. And I think that's probably the 00:16:45.100 --> 00:16:47.919 exciting part that we could lean more into. Yeah, 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:51.120 fascinating. Becca, I don't want to keep barreling 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:53.440 away, but so my next question is, do you ever 00:16:53.440 --> 00:16:55.980 use your own platform to generate publicity for 00:16:55.980 --> 00:16:57.820 yourself? Like, do you eat your own dog food 00:16:57.820 --> 00:17:00.659 when it comes to getting opportunities for your 00:17:00.659 --> 00:17:04.559 company? On both sides. I freaking love it. It's 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:07.880 like my favorite thing to do. So I contribute 00:17:07.880 --> 00:17:10.500 articles to Inc. and to Fast Company, primarily 00:17:10.500 --> 00:17:13.400 on AI coverage. And for that, I go to Harrow. 00:17:13.480 --> 00:17:17.420 I put out a Harrow with my story and I get hundreds 00:17:17.420 --> 00:17:20.119 of pitches. I get connected to some of the most, 00:17:20.160 --> 00:17:24.319 the smartest, most insightful, innovative people 00:17:24.319 --> 00:17:26.680 in the world. And I write an article and it's 00:17:26.680 --> 00:17:29.630 really, really cool. On Featured, I use that 00:17:29.630 --> 00:17:33.690 as my vehicle to identify relevant media opportunities 00:17:33.690 --> 00:17:36.769 and then give me a suggested draft that I could 00:17:36.769 --> 00:17:40.309 take over the finish line. So I'm not scanning 00:17:40.309 --> 00:17:43.549 Featured and refreshing the browser all day, 00:17:43.569 --> 00:17:45.690 every day. I'll get an email when there's a relevant 00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:48.210 opportunity that's like, hey, Brett, here's one. 00:17:48.630 --> 00:17:51.049 Here's what we think you should say. And then 00:17:51.049 --> 00:17:53.009 I'll edit it and then submit it. And that's a 00:17:53.009 --> 00:17:56.329 ton of fun to get Featured as a source. yeah 00:17:56.329 --> 00:17:59.069 well that's that's good that i don't know if 00:17:59.069 --> 00:18:00.509 you've done anything with this but if you haven't 00:18:00.509 --> 00:18:02.089 you should consider doing like a case study how 00:18:02.089 --> 00:18:04.509 you actually use your stuff because it's like 00:18:04.509 --> 00:18:06.670 the whole uh what was it the hair club president 00:18:06.670 --> 00:18:09.130 for men guy back in the days like i'm not only 00:18:09.130 --> 00:18:13.890 a hair club member i'm also a client it's kind 00:18:13.890 --> 00:18:17.609 of good uh a good proof case i guess yeah absolutely 00:18:17.609 --> 00:18:21.470 i might have to put out the infomercial i mean 00:18:21.470 --> 00:18:25.329 throwback nostalgia is in right now but here 00:18:25.829 --> 00:18:30.490 You said that 2026 will likely be the year of 00:18:30.490 --> 00:18:36.329 AI disillusionment. Say more. Yeah, I think that 00:18:36.329 --> 00:18:39.490 that's so I interview a lot of people in AI. 00:18:39.750 --> 00:18:43.309 And generally what I'm hearing is is that that 00:18:43.309 --> 00:18:45.930 2026 is the year of disillusionment, mainly because 00:18:45.930 --> 00:18:49.609 the shock and gains that you're going to see 00:18:49.609 --> 00:18:53.089 within models will be more subtle. It's not going 00:18:53.089 --> 00:19:01.000 to be such a jump from. GPT 3 .5 to 4 to 5. So 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:04.000 I think a lot of what the models have built is 00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:07.819 fantastic. And now we're kind of like, how do 00:19:07.819 --> 00:19:11.359 we get to that last mile? And it's already ingested 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:14.839 the entire web. Like the last mile is now in 00:19:14.839 --> 00:19:17.819 experts' heads. And so that's a little bit more 00:19:17.819 --> 00:19:20.390 of a slower process where... Where is a model 00:19:20.390 --> 00:19:23.549 not good? Okay, let's go find 200 experts that 00:19:23.549 --> 00:19:26.069 specialize in that area. Let's go create a bunch 00:19:26.069 --> 00:19:28.410 of raw data. Let's better train these models. 00:19:28.549 --> 00:19:31.869 It just gets slower. The gains get slower. And 00:19:31.869 --> 00:19:35.109 we're also fatigued. Like a lot of people are 00:19:35.109 --> 00:19:37.549 just fatigued after multiple years of hearing 00:19:37.549 --> 00:19:41.400 how great it is. And then you're like, you know, 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:44.359 on LinkedIn, you see someone's post about how 00:19:44.359 --> 00:19:46.839 great what they've done in AI is. And it's like, 00:19:46.880 --> 00:19:48.480 all right, give me something else. Like, what 00:19:48.480 --> 00:19:51.180 else do we got here? So I think that both things 00:19:51.180 --> 00:19:54.279 just start to balance out. The projections of 00:19:54.279 --> 00:19:57.259 AI models just get a little bit slower. The fatigue 00:19:57.259 --> 00:19:59.660 gets greater and we start to level off and it 00:19:59.660 --> 00:20:02.359 all starts to kind of set in. I will say there 00:20:02.359 --> 00:20:04.640 are moments of surprise and delight still that 00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:09.559 I'm like, as an example, I recently used nano 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.619 banana, like the image thing on Gemini. I was 00:20:12.619 --> 00:20:15.519 like, Holy Jesus, this is so advanced. It's so 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:17.500 easy to use compared to all the other stuff I 00:20:17.500 --> 00:20:19.200 had done. So like every now and then there's 00:20:19.200 --> 00:20:21.319 like this Eureka thing. And I, and yes, obviously 00:20:21.319 --> 00:20:23.940 I'm now I'm with Taylor Smith, Taylor Swift on 00:20:23.940 --> 00:20:26.559 Instagram. I'm like, you know, I'm making all 00:20:26.559 --> 00:20:28.559 these pictures of myself. I love these little, 00:20:28.579 --> 00:20:30.339 these little surprise and delight moments, but 00:20:30.339 --> 00:20:31.740 I think to your point, those are going to be 00:20:31.740 --> 00:20:34.710 fewer and far between as A, all the platforms 00:20:34.710 --> 00:20:37.450 are kind of on par for the most part. Like all 00:20:37.450 --> 00:20:38.970 the conversations I'm seeing are like, well, 00:20:39.069 --> 00:20:41.289 I deleted chat GPT in favor of cloud, all right? 00:20:41.630 --> 00:20:43.630 Perplexity I use instead of X. Like they're almost 00:20:43.630 --> 00:20:46.210 kind of interchangeable at this point. So I think 00:20:46.210 --> 00:20:48.269 there is that fatigue and people are kind of 00:20:48.269 --> 00:20:51.569 now immersed in the world instead of just shocked 00:20:51.569 --> 00:20:53.529 out of their goddamn mind every time they like 00:20:53.529 --> 00:20:56.250 hear an AI story. But I think that's part of 00:20:56.250 --> 00:21:02.509 why like the... individual trust creator trust 00:21:02.509 --> 00:21:06.009 communities like why that matters so much more 00:21:06.009 --> 00:21:08.150 now is like we're all just like drowning in like 00:21:08.150 --> 00:21:11.009 all of these new tools or options for tools or 00:21:11.009 --> 00:21:14.450 ways to do things and the fatigue is real and 00:21:14.450 --> 00:21:17.289 the fomo is real so it's like how do we even 00:21:17.289 --> 00:21:20.430 start where do we go and i think knowing that 00:21:20.430 --> 00:21:23.569 you know if i say i use x y and z tool and i 00:21:23.569 --> 00:21:25.410 tell my friend they're like great i'll start 00:21:25.410 --> 00:21:27.230 there at least right and i feel the same way 00:21:27.230 --> 00:21:30.589 if somebody says to me I'm using this and I chose 00:21:30.589 --> 00:21:34.190 it over the 97 other options because of why it 00:21:34.190 --> 00:21:37.130 like helps me start to do something that I'm 00:21:37.130 --> 00:21:39.589 feeling like I can't even start to touch because 00:21:39.589 --> 00:21:41.910 there's too many options. I feel like that's 00:21:41.910 --> 00:21:44.670 part of why the like individual taste, trust, 00:21:44.930 --> 00:21:48.470 whatever metric is going to become way more important 00:21:48.470 --> 00:21:51.849 because we're just overloaded. There's just too 00:21:51.849 --> 00:21:54.170 much stuff. And I kind of welcome a slowdown 00:21:54.170 --> 00:21:56.029 because then maybe we can catch up a little bit. 00:21:57.630 --> 00:21:59.750 Yeah, absolutely. And on the flip side of that, 00:21:59.829 --> 00:22:03.990 too, I do think that as much as 2026 might be 00:22:03.990 --> 00:22:06.589 the year of disillusionment, I also don't know 00:22:06.589 --> 00:22:11.829 if you guys remember this. In 2006, Time came 00:22:11.829 --> 00:22:13.650 out with the person of the year. Do you remember 00:22:13.650 --> 00:22:14.609 who the person of the year was? Yeah, we were 00:22:14.609 --> 00:22:16.670 all the person of the year. Was that what it 00:22:16.670 --> 00:22:19.710 was? Everyone was. It was so cheesy. Yeah, it 00:22:19.710 --> 00:22:24.309 was the tooth. Yeah, the magazine cover was a 00:22:24.309 --> 00:22:29.609 mirror. And the person was you. And like, if 00:22:29.609 --> 00:22:31.829 we're going to name the AI company of the year 00:22:31.829 --> 00:22:34.769 in 2026, I actually think that 20 years later, 00:22:34.829 --> 00:22:38.029 that that magazine cover is like turning the 00:22:38.029 --> 00:22:40.369 mirror on a lot of companies, because I feel 00:22:40.369 --> 00:22:43.970 like a lot of companies are now an AI company. 00:22:44.430 --> 00:22:48.109 Like SaaS is AI, you know, services has AI components. 00:22:48.529 --> 00:22:51.009 I think that's also kind of the theme as we look 00:22:51.009 --> 00:22:53.970 ahead is like 2026, as much as we're going to 00:22:53.970 --> 00:22:56.710 get fatigued by AI. Well, wasn't the most recent 00:22:56.710 --> 00:22:59.349 Time magazine cover AI as person of the year? 00:22:59.410 --> 00:23:01.849 And it had all the AI people on that. I didn't 00:23:01.849 --> 00:23:05.150 see it. I mean, it had all the people from like 00:23:05.150 --> 00:23:08.470 NVIDIA to, you know, everybody that is like anybody 00:23:08.470 --> 00:23:11.650 in AI was sitting on that big iconic picture 00:23:11.650 --> 00:23:13.920 up on the Empire State Building. transitions 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:16.799 are hard right like we are in the middle of like 00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:21.380 a massive shift and it's always this like push 00:23:21.380 --> 00:23:25.059 and pull of like i don't know over promising 00:23:25.059 --> 00:23:28.480 over correcting you know there's just i don't 00:23:28.480 --> 00:23:31.740 know nobody likes not nobody most people don't 00:23:31.740 --> 00:23:34.740 like having to change in a massive way and i 00:23:34.740 --> 00:23:37.440 think you know five years from now god only knows 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:39.259 what that's gonna look like but at least we will 00:23:39.259 --> 00:23:42.579 have been like farther along in it that we can 00:23:42.579 --> 00:23:44.920 expect something right now we're just in this 00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:48.039 kind of wild west free -for -all that you know 00:23:48.039 --> 00:23:51.859 we haven't experienced in 25 years yeah totally 00:23:51.859 --> 00:23:55.859 and i you know just closing off this like i think 00:23:55.859 --> 00:23:58.200 that that's actually what has made the resurrection 00:23:58.200 --> 00:24:01.819 of of harrow unique like it's an email tool all 00:24:01.819 --> 00:24:04.700 right like and you're connecting with another 00:24:04.700 --> 00:24:08.680 person and that's kind of like a rare corner 00:24:08.680 --> 00:24:11.940 of the web today like where can you do that that's 00:24:11.940 --> 00:24:14.539 exactly what i thought when i was thinking about 00:24:14.539 --> 00:24:17.319 that harrow is back as an email tool it's like 00:24:17.319 --> 00:24:19.480 we're we've come full circle right like we've 00:24:19.480 --> 00:24:22.420 gone back to the very beginning of how you used 00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:25.960 to reach people digitally like so freaking cool 00:24:25.960 --> 00:24:29.950 and the one -on -one personal relationships are 00:24:29.950 --> 00:24:32.549 going to matter so much more because everyone 00:24:32.549 --> 00:24:35.089 can be whoever they want at scale now thanks 00:24:35.089 --> 00:24:38.609 to ai so being a real human has a premium so 00:24:38.609 --> 00:24:42.630 a couple of interesting thoughts i think and 00:24:42.630 --> 00:24:45.410 then like questions around it is like if college 00:24:45.410 --> 00:24:47.730 kids asked me two three years ago like should 00:24:47.730 --> 00:24:50.869 i consider a career in pr i was kind of inclined 00:24:50.869 --> 00:24:53.089 to say like i don't know man i think you i think 00:24:53.089 --> 00:24:55.089 you might not want to because i think i feel 00:24:55.089 --> 00:24:56.950 like ai is just going to eat all of our jobs 00:24:56.950 --> 00:24:59.960 um full stop so i would think about other things 00:24:59.960 --> 00:25:01.759 maybe becoming an electrician or a plumber or 00:25:01.759 --> 00:25:04.200 something or something that ai can't steal um 00:25:04.200 --> 00:25:06.779 because all the signs were pointing negatively 00:25:06.779 --> 00:25:10.180 toward ai gobbling us up now in the intervening 00:25:10.180 --> 00:25:13.779 months and years ai has kind of thrown pr a bouquet 00:25:13.779 --> 00:25:18.589 in the sense that llms heavily prioritize earned 00:25:18.589 --> 00:25:20.549 media and their citations when people are looking 00:25:20.549 --> 00:25:22.109 for products and services at the point of need 00:25:22.109 --> 00:25:24.690 so somebody's like hey well what's the best crm 00:25:24.690 --> 00:25:26.349 software what's the best security software cloud 00:25:26.349 --> 00:25:29.730 and they ask you know any of these llms Earn 00:25:29.730 --> 00:25:32.470 media is what is cited in those responses. And 00:25:32.470 --> 00:25:34.730 so therefore, it's basically, if not completely 00:25:34.730 --> 00:25:37.730 taking over traditional SEO, then it's 100 percent 00:25:37.730 --> 00:25:41.049 eating part of its lunch. So PR has kind of gotten 00:25:41.049 --> 00:25:42.730 that bouquet in the sense that now guess who's 00:25:42.730 --> 00:25:44.549 relevant as shit again? It's the PR people that 00:25:44.549 --> 00:25:47.250 hook these stories up with the reporters to get 00:25:47.250 --> 00:25:50.549 the earn media that LLM cite. Now, having said 00:25:50.549 --> 00:25:53.990 that, reporters are fewer and far between. Washington 00:25:53.990 --> 00:25:56.210 Post just laid off one third of their staff yesterday. 00:25:57.859 --> 00:25:59.880 How do you how do I reconcile when I'm talking 00:25:59.880 --> 00:26:02.099 about the opportunity that AI has thrown us with 00:26:02.099 --> 00:26:04.900 LLMs using earned media as a citation with a 00:26:04.900 --> 00:26:08.119 dwindling amount of reporters and journalists 00:26:08.119 --> 00:26:11.079 to cover the shit that we need them to cite? 00:26:11.380 --> 00:26:13.059 Have you thought about that? And like, what does 00:26:13.059 --> 00:26:15.259 that mean for your platform moving forward as 00:26:15.259 --> 00:26:18.859 reporters kind of wither on the vine? Yeah, I 00:26:18.859 --> 00:26:21.000 think that it just comes back to the stuff they 00:26:21.000 --> 00:26:24.690 were talking about earlier. Like, OK. So one 00:26:24.690 --> 00:26:27.930 interesting thing that I did when we acquired 00:26:27.930 --> 00:26:30.829 HARO was I wanted to talk and interview with 00:26:30.829 --> 00:26:33.950 over 100 journalists who had used it. Same thing 00:26:33.950 --> 00:26:36.849 on the source side. When I got on these Zoom 00:26:36.849 --> 00:26:39.410 calls with journalists, like the thing that I've 00:26:39.410 --> 00:26:43.049 learned very quickly was that they have about 00:26:43.049 --> 00:26:45.549 eight sources of income. I would have to ask 00:26:45.549 --> 00:26:47.619 them like, hey. Like, how are you earning a living? 00:26:47.819 --> 00:26:49.599 Like, what are you doing? And they would name 00:26:49.599 --> 00:26:51.319 off their writing for five different publications. 00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:53.279 They've got a sub stack that they're doing. They've 00:26:53.279 --> 00:26:55.079 got consulting hours. They've got this course. 00:26:55.180 --> 00:26:58.720 They're doing a lot. All right. So the tracking 00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:02.740 a journalist, their beat tracking with where 00:27:02.740 --> 00:27:05.680 they write like that is really, really tough. 00:27:05.779 --> 00:27:08.920 That is a constantly moving thing. At the same 00:27:08.920 --> 00:27:13.420 time, like. there's influence in different places. 00:27:13.640 --> 00:27:16.859 So what is a journalist in 2026? Like, is it 00:27:16.859 --> 00:27:19.180 a creator? Is it a, someone who writes articles? 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:23.440 And so I think that for PR, this just opens up 00:27:23.440 --> 00:27:26.200 a lot of opportunity on who do you want to connect 00:27:26.200 --> 00:27:29.259 your clients with? Where, what channels are right 00:27:29.259 --> 00:27:32.599 for them? What are the end destinations? So I 00:27:32.599 --> 00:27:34.940 think that like, that's another bouquet for PR. 00:27:35.079 --> 00:27:38.180 This is going to be even harder for companies 00:27:38.180 --> 00:27:40.880 to figure out of like, How do I promote my business? 00:27:41.079 --> 00:27:44.259 How do I build visibility with customers? That's 00:27:44.259 --> 00:27:48.180 a very hard thing that's going to get increasingly 00:27:48.180 --> 00:27:50.240 harder for companies. Yeah, everybody thinks 00:27:50.240 --> 00:27:51.500 they know PR, but they're not going to be able 00:27:51.500 --> 00:27:53.920 to figure that part out. And so just to follow 00:27:53.920 --> 00:27:56.259 up on that, what I've been telling myself is 00:27:56.259 --> 00:27:59.000 that. I believe there are more opportunities 00:27:59.000 --> 00:28:01.119 than ever. It's just that they're more diffuse 00:28:01.119 --> 00:28:04.819 and that it requires a shitload more legwork 00:28:04.819 --> 00:28:08.440 and research and infiltrating these little corners 00:28:08.440 --> 00:28:10.059 of the internet that didn't really amount to 00:28:10.059 --> 00:28:12.880 much. You have to be in way more places to reach 00:28:12.880 --> 00:28:15.240 the same number of people as before. Yes, but 00:28:15.240 --> 00:28:17.339 in aggregate, you can still get that halo effect 00:28:17.339 --> 00:28:19.359 and maybe even bigger, but it's a hell of a lot 00:28:19.359 --> 00:28:22.200 more work, which to your point, may be even better 00:28:22.200 --> 00:28:25.240 for PR. Anyway, it's a fascinating topic. I feel 00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:26.839 like that is something I want to write about 00:28:26.839 --> 00:28:30.500 actually soon on LinkedIn. All right. Definitely 00:28:30.500 --> 00:28:35.599 agree. Sorry. I was just going to make a little 00:28:35.599 --> 00:28:41.299 shift into besides AI and PR journalism world, 00:28:41.480 --> 00:28:46.279 what else do you do? I drive a minivan with three 00:28:46.279 --> 00:28:49.759 kids. That's about it. I relate to that. That's 00:28:49.759 --> 00:28:53.769 all I got time for is family. keeping track of 00:28:53.769 --> 00:28:56.410 AI within the PR and journalism world and trying 00:28:56.410 --> 00:28:59.890 to grow a startup. Yeah, totally. How many people 00:28:59.890 --> 00:29:04.789 work at the company? We've got seven of us. And 00:29:04.789 --> 00:29:08.269 I would just say that, like, the thing that I've 00:29:08.269 --> 00:29:11.710 noticed pretty frequently, like, I sympathize 00:29:11.710 --> 00:29:15.269 with the media and, you know, people who work 00:29:15.269 --> 00:29:18.430 in media. But Perry, to your point, like, I sympathize 00:29:18.430 --> 00:29:20.849 with a lot of the college students coming out. 00:29:21.240 --> 00:29:23.779 And a lot of the people in early stages of their 00:29:23.779 --> 00:29:27.700 careers, because every PR agency owner that I've 00:29:27.700 --> 00:29:30.579 spoken with has been like, look, you know, we 00:29:30.579 --> 00:29:33.400 should employ probably another two, three people 00:29:33.400 --> 00:29:36.839 on staff. But because AI has been such an effective 00:29:36.839 --> 00:29:39.000 job to increase the efficiencies of our existing 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:41.339 team, like we've been able to unlock so much 00:29:41.339 --> 00:29:44.460 more so much more productivity. I think the same 00:29:44.460 --> 00:29:47.059 is true for us, like the software engineers that 00:29:47.059 --> 00:29:50.000 we have on on staff are like. look coding is 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:53.799 no longer the bottleneck we have a 10x gain where 00:29:53.799 --> 00:29:56.640 ai creates the code we review the code because 00:29:56.640 --> 00:29:59.200 we've been software developers for 10 15 years 00:29:59.200 --> 00:30:01.640 we know that what's good and what's not and we 00:30:01.640 --> 00:30:06.059 put it in the prod and that is like very, very 00:30:06.059 --> 00:30:08.079 crazy to think that you could run, you know, 00:30:08.079 --> 00:30:10.099 startups supporting hundreds of thousands of 00:30:10.099 --> 00:30:12.880 users with a team of seven. Well, headcount used 00:30:12.880 --> 00:30:15.140 to be a badge of honor, right? Like the tech 00:30:15.140 --> 00:30:16.980 company is like, we plan to increase headcount 00:30:16.980 --> 00:30:19.420 by X. You know, everybody's like, yes, those 00:30:19.420 --> 00:30:21.799 guys are on fire. And now it's looked at kind 00:30:21.799 --> 00:30:23.779 of like, what are these guys doing? They're fucking 00:30:23.779 --> 00:30:26.519 up. They're hiring people. You should be reducing 00:30:26.519 --> 00:30:29.700 people, getting way more efficient. So that's 00:30:29.700 --> 00:30:33.500 been in my view. having worked in tech for years 00:30:33.500 --> 00:30:35.599 and years has been the biggest swing is that 00:30:35.599 --> 00:30:37.680 we are always talking about how these guys are 00:30:37.680 --> 00:30:41.019 growing like wildfire and now it's like ah look 00:30:41.019 --> 00:30:42.700 at those guys they don't get it they don't get 00:30:42.700 --> 00:30:44.799 they should be you know reducing their head count 00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:48.660 by a third totally i have said it before and 00:30:48.660 --> 00:30:50.859 i'll say it again though i think the biggest 00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:54.680 hurdle to ai adoption for like the normies in 00:30:54.680 --> 00:30:58.299 roles like ours is giving people the time to 00:30:58.299 --> 00:31:02.559 go experiment and f it up and try and fail and 00:31:02.559 --> 00:31:05.640 spend the money that they need on the uh credits 00:31:05.640 --> 00:31:08.460 and blah blah blah because that's part of learning 00:31:08.460 --> 00:31:12.599 right is like just trying and i think when everyone's 00:31:12.599 --> 00:31:14.420 grinding away at their job and they know how 00:31:14.420 --> 00:31:18.160 to do things the old way they don't have the 00:31:18.160 --> 00:31:21.200 time to go learn a new tool so like is imperative 00:31:21.200 --> 00:31:24.359 on like leaders and organizations and whatever 00:31:24.359 --> 00:31:26.660 to say okay if we expect you to use these tools 00:31:26.660 --> 00:31:29.490 and do more with them It's not just like, here's 00:31:29.490 --> 00:31:32.150 a training once in a while. It's like dedicate 00:31:32.150 --> 00:31:34.509 four hours a week to building something. And 00:31:34.509 --> 00:31:35.829 if you build something cool, share it with the 00:31:35.829 --> 00:31:38.829 team. And, you know, how do you kind of democratize 00:31:38.829 --> 00:31:42.930 AI learning so it doesn't have to just be like, 00:31:42.990 --> 00:31:45.410 I'm going to an AI class because that isn't the 00:31:45.410 --> 00:31:48.930 same thing. Yeah, it sounds a little boring with 00:31:48.930 --> 00:31:52.210 the going to an AI class. And I think that, you 00:31:52.210 --> 00:31:55.789 know, AI tools do a really good job of. For us, 00:31:55.950 --> 00:31:57.970 one of the biggest startup hacks that we've ever 00:31:57.970 --> 00:32:01.910 had is sign up for startup programs with NVIDIA, 00:32:02.109 --> 00:32:06.769 with Microsoft, with AWS. That gave us over $500 00:32:06.769 --> 00:32:12.730 ,000 of AI credits. For startups, all these model 00:32:12.730 --> 00:32:15.250 builders and providers have these credits that 00:32:15.250 --> 00:32:17.130 you could utilize so you can mess up and you 00:32:17.130 --> 00:32:19.609 can figure out what works in your workflows and 00:32:19.609 --> 00:32:23.460 what doesn't. That to me has been a huge unlock 00:32:23.460 --> 00:32:25.660 for us over the last couple of years. So a hundred 00:32:25.660 --> 00:32:29.380 percent go, go test it. I think the widely cited 00:32:29.380 --> 00:32:32.460 stat that kind of has a misleading headline is 00:32:32.460 --> 00:32:35.500 how many failures there are of AI prototypes 00:32:35.500 --> 00:32:38.039 at the enterprise level. Like, would you want 00:32:38.039 --> 00:32:41.359 a reverse of that with a 90 % success rate? Probably 00:32:41.359 --> 00:32:42.960 not because they're probably not pushing the 00:32:42.960 --> 00:32:45.420 boundaries of what it could do. So I think that, 00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:47.500 yeah, there's a lot of room for messing up and 00:32:47.500 --> 00:32:49.299 seeing what the limitations are so that you can. 00:32:49.819 --> 00:32:52.680 know uh where the boundaries actually exist so 00:32:52.680 --> 00:32:54.819 speaking of an unlock and limitations and all 00:32:54.819 --> 00:32:57.359 that what what's featured in particular what 00:32:57.359 --> 00:33:01.359 um what's the one thing that you guys are can't 00:33:01.359 --> 00:33:03.079 do yet but you're aspiring to do is they're like 00:33:03.079 --> 00:33:05.740 man if we could only do this thing or these two 00:33:05.740 --> 00:33:09.119 things we would be on fire or is that is that 00:33:09.119 --> 00:33:10.759 giving away a roadmap like i don't want you to 00:33:10.759 --> 00:33:14.460 no we want a position featured as a pr assistant 00:33:15.069 --> 00:33:18.190 So look at all the different things, all the 00:33:18.190 --> 00:33:21.650 different workflows that exist within PR. Finding 00:33:21.650 --> 00:33:24.789 a journalist, identifying a relevant HARO query 00:33:24.789 --> 00:33:27.529 and responding with a good pitch. These are things 00:33:27.529 --> 00:33:31.809 that you can have an assistant get to 90 % of 00:33:31.809 --> 00:33:33.410 the way there and then have the human in the 00:33:33.410 --> 00:33:35.430 loop so that you can have that 10x efficiency 00:33:35.430 --> 00:33:39.569 within PR. So for us, it's a matter of we feel 00:33:39.569 --> 00:33:42.539 like we have... really unique proprietary data 00:33:42.539 --> 00:33:44.859 with what's coming through, help a reporter out. 00:33:45.079 --> 00:33:48.519 We know what kind of workflows exist within our 00:33:48.519 --> 00:33:51.480 customers. I think that now you could get it 00:33:51.480 --> 00:33:54.799 into a more usable, friendly user interface that 00:33:54.799 --> 00:33:57.660 allows to have those 10x productivity gains. 00:33:58.059 --> 00:34:00.359 And that's what we're working towards. I think 00:34:00.359 --> 00:34:02.420 that's a really exciting future. Have you connected 00:34:02.420 --> 00:34:04.460 with the people that are working on Honeyjar? 00:34:05.420 --> 00:34:08.199 Are you aware of them? You should just take a 00:34:08.199 --> 00:34:11.059 quick note about Honey Jar, because while they 00:34:11.059 --> 00:34:12.800 haven't really revealed what they've done yet, 00:34:12.840 --> 00:34:15.119 they have some pretty big investments from like 00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:17.820 former bigwigs at Anderson Horowitz. But they're 00:34:17.820 --> 00:34:21.519 looking at specific to PR and comms, creating 00:34:21.519 --> 00:34:24.719 like some kind of ecosystem of all these tools 00:34:24.719 --> 00:34:28.159 that I think are going to be interesting to you. 00:34:28.179 --> 00:34:30.280 And I've signed up for their free thing. I haven't 00:34:30.280 --> 00:34:32.920 gotten it yet, like their early beta stuff. But 00:34:32.920 --> 00:34:34.699 you should just be aware of them, I think, because 00:34:34.699 --> 00:34:36.719 I think they're talking in similar ways that 00:34:36.719 --> 00:34:40.719 you're talking about here, which, hey. Yeah, 00:34:40.780 --> 00:34:42.960 no, I appreciate the tip. You should take a look. 00:34:44.199 --> 00:34:48.000 It's a small comms world. And frankly, I'm just 00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:50.239 glad that there are tools being developed that 00:34:50.239 --> 00:34:53.099 are like for us. It just always felt like we 00:34:53.099 --> 00:34:56.280 were such an afterthought. And I think AI brings 00:34:56.280 --> 00:35:01.840 this whole world of comms. reporting and comms 00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:04.940 automation and stuff that just didn't exist before. 00:35:05.900 --> 00:35:07.659 And nobody cared about us because we were such 00:35:07.659 --> 00:35:11.760 a small and low budget cohort. I still don't 00:35:11.760 --> 00:35:13.980 think anybody's really nailed the reporting piece. 00:35:14.139 --> 00:35:16.760 No one's nailed it, but at least we have the 00:35:16.760 --> 00:35:19.380 ability as individuals to not spend $80 ,000 00:35:19.380 --> 00:35:23.460 on a tool and get some kind of data, which didn't 00:35:23.460 --> 00:35:25.420 exist for a lot of us before. It was just a black 00:35:25.420 --> 00:35:29.340 box. Yeah, yeah. I think that's right. Should 00:35:29.340 --> 00:35:31.820 I go to my questions? I mean, I think it's time. 00:35:32.119 --> 00:35:33.460 I'm going to go to my questions. So we're going 00:35:33.460 --> 00:35:38.420 to shift into, I ask the same questions of all 00:35:38.420 --> 00:35:40.639 of our guests because it's nice to get a perspective. 00:35:40.760 --> 00:35:44.039 And then Perry comes in with insanity, but mine 00:35:44.039 --> 00:35:46.679 are just normal questions. That's not that crazy. 00:35:47.239 --> 00:35:51.699 Okay. You get to erase one corporate buzzword 00:35:51.699 --> 00:36:01.860 from existence. What is it? AI? How do we talk 00:36:01.860 --> 00:36:06.199 about AI without saying AI? I don't know. I don't 00:36:06.199 --> 00:36:09.440 know. But at least for a day, can we just maybe 00:36:09.440 --> 00:36:12.880 eliminate that from maybe agents? I don't know. 00:36:12.920 --> 00:36:16.320 Like all the things that are revolving around 00:36:16.320 --> 00:36:20.480 the AI word cloud. You just need a break. Something. 00:36:20.619 --> 00:36:22.260 I don't know. It's like what you write about 00:36:22.260 --> 00:36:24.360 and what you talk about, but you're like, but 00:36:24.360 --> 00:36:27.090 not today. We're going to take a day off. A little 00:36:27.090 --> 00:36:31.650 fatigued. Okay, next question. You are about 00:36:31.650 --> 00:36:35.309 to walk on stage to give a presentation to 50 00:36:35.309 --> 00:36:39.010 ,000 people, screaming fans, if you will. What 00:36:39.010 --> 00:36:43.949 music do you walk out on the stage to? Probably 00:36:43.949 --> 00:36:49.530 Journey. Specific Journey song? Any of them. 00:36:49.590 --> 00:36:53.639 I mean... Something. I mean, I feel like for 00:36:53.639 --> 00:36:55.619 50 ,000 people, you need to pick something pretty 00:36:55.619 --> 00:36:58.019 mainstream that appeases the crowd. And Journey's 00:36:58.019 --> 00:37:00.099 got product market fit with that. I was going 00:37:00.099 --> 00:37:03.260 to ask, are you a Journey fan or is this about 00:37:03.260 --> 00:37:05.800 the audience? This was answering the question. 00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:10.260 So, yeah, I think I'm not rocking out to Journey, 00:37:10.340 --> 00:37:13.500 but you got to please the people. OK. All right. 00:37:13.659 --> 00:37:16.920 You know, I like Journey. I don't like I'm not 00:37:16.920 --> 00:37:19.559 putting Journey on in my car, but like. you know 00:37:19.559 --> 00:37:21.219 i'm not changing the channel if it comes on the 00:37:21.219 --> 00:37:23.159 radio right i'm one of them it's going to warm 00:37:23.159 --> 00:37:25.760 warm people up so and everybody knows all the 00:37:25.760 --> 00:37:27.960 journey songs because like it's just part of 00:37:27.960 --> 00:37:32.820 the ether um okay next question if you had to 00:37:32.820 --> 00:37:39.820 give a ted talk on anything but ai or journalism 00:37:39.820 --> 00:37:45.539 or pr com stuff what would it be you know i gave 00:37:45.539 --> 00:37:50.530 a tedx talk a while back It was about a cross 00:37:50.530 --> 00:37:52.889 -country journey that myself and three friends 00:37:52.889 --> 00:37:54.929 took in an RV interviewing people about their 00:37:54.929 --> 00:37:56.909 career paths. And it highlighted a couple of 00:37:56.909 --> 00:37:59.949 the best stories that we got from the road. And 00:37:59.949 --> 00:38:01.929 one of the best stories that we got was from 00:38:01.929 --> 00:38:05.289 a fainting goat farmer and how baby fainting 00:38:05.289 --> 00:38:07.809 goats don't faint and how, as an entrepreneur, 00:38:08.070 --> 00:38:12.250 you need to essentially block the adrenaline 00:38:12.250 --> 00:38:15.539 that could paralyze you to continue to... take 00:38:15.539 --> 00:38:17.880 actions and keep moving. So probably be a repeat 00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:19.980 of that. Like, quite honestly, baby fainting 00:38:19.980 --> 00:38:22.500 goats, as cheesy as it sounds, is like very core 00:38:22.500 --> 00:38:25.699 to being a founder. Dude, that sounds awesome. 00:38:25.800 --> 00:38:29.159 Is there a video? I'm interested. Of this? There 00:38:29.159 --> 00:38:33.860 is a very grainy video. I gave a TEDx talk before 00:38:33.860 --> 00:38:36.300 TEDx was cool. So yeah, it was like somewhere 00:38:36.300 --> 00:38:38.880 buried in 2010. Man, I feel like we gotta go. 00:38:38.940 --> 00:38:42.429 2010, really? I think it was probably 2010, 2011, 00:38:42.630 --> 00:38:44.010 somewhere around there. Dang, that sounds cool. 00:38:44.150 --> 00:38:45.929 And you should totally reprise that because that 00:38:45.929 --> 00:38:49.130 sounds very interesting. I would watch that. 00:38:51.030 --> 00:38:57.010 My last question, if you could, you only get 00:38:57.010 --> 00:39:00.789 to use one emoji for the rest of your life. Which 00:39:00.789 --> 00:39:04.469 one? Or none? I'm not, yeah, I'm not an emoji 00:39:04.469 --> 00:39:08.690 guy. So maybe just a thumbs up. Going with the 00:39:08.690 --> 00:39:11.280 standard. I'll take it. That's fine. And emojis 00:39:11.280 --> 00:39:13.900 are so like out of style now, but it makes me 00:39:13.900 --> 00:39:16.500 so sad. Like AI ruined. I'm all into emojis. 00:39:16.940 --> 00:39:18.619 People probably read my stuff and they're like, 00:39:18.699 --> 00:39:20.940 this guy needs to calm the hell down with his 00:39:20.940 --> 00:39:23.420 emojis. I know. Whatever. That's cool. We're 00:39:23.420 --> 00:39:27.960 old. It is what it is. Perry, over to you, sir. 00:39:28.039 --> 00:39:30.960 Okay. All right. This could go either way, actually. 00:39:31.320 --> 00:39:34.739 I wouldn't be surprised if you answered either 00:39:34.739 --> 00:39:37.570 way. I always have a money related question. 00:39:37.670 --> 00:39:39.510 Like, okay, you can get, someone's going to give 00:39:39.510 --> 00:39:42.269 you $50 million right now. 50 million. That's 00:39:42.269 --> 00:39:43.969 F you money. Walk away, do whatever you want 00:39:43.969 --> 00:39:47.230 the rest of your life. But to take that money, 00:39:47.309 --> 00:39:50.670 you can only brush your teeth using your fingers 00:39:50.670 --> 00:39:53.929 and hand soap for the rest of your life. Do you 00:39:53.929 --> 00:39:56.329 take the money and use fingers and hand soap 00:39:56.329 --> 00:39:57.369 for the rest of your life to brush your teeth? 00:39:57.550 --> 00:40:01.369 No, keep working, go earn it. You're not taking 00:40:01.369 --> 00:40:04.409 the money? Okay, that's interesting as hell. 00:40:04.610 --> 00:40:06.869 I have a question. Do you have to brush your 00:40:06.869 --> 00:40:08.829 teeth or can you just be nasty and never brush 00:40:08.829 --> 00:40:11.769 your teeth? I mean, you can do that. I think 00:40:11.769 --> 00:40:13.610 I would brush my teeth with my fingers and soap. 00:40:13.789 --> 00:40:18.190 Me too. 50 mil? If it was like two mil? I thought 00:40:18.190 --> 00:40:19.670 you would have said brush your teeth with fingers 00:40:19.670 --> 00:40:22.269 and soap because you can do a fair job with that. 00:40:22.329 --> 00:40:24.250 Let your fingernails grow a little bit and get 00:40:24.250 --> 00:40:31.619 in there. It would not be pleasant. Yeah. Maybe 00:40:31.619 --> 00:40:35.719 you can take that 50 million and like if you 00:40:35.719 --> 00:40:37.679 don't have the restrictions, like can you invest 00:40:37.679 --> 00:40:41.619 or can you like create a new technique with some 00:40:41.619 --> 00:40:44.119 of that cash? I'm afraid not. You have to brush 00:40:44.119 --> 00:40:48.239 your teeth with your fingers and soap. OK. Yeah. 00:40:48.599 --> 00:40:51.139 You know, gross. All right. So I'm going to ask 00:40:51.139 --> 00:40:52.599 you the other one because we haven't done this 00:40:52.599 --> 00:40:58.230 this season. Becca is you. how does it work again 00:40:58.230 --> 00:41:04.210 with the hiccups and the, Oh my gosh. Yeah. Can 00:41:04.210 --> 00:41:06.929 you remember? Yeah. Which one would you choose? 00:41:06.969 --> 00:41:09.570 It's just a either or. You have to have hiccups 00:41:09.570 --> 00:41:11.510 or you have to cut off your own pinky, but hiccups 00:41:11.510 --> 00:41:13.590 for six months straight around the clock. You 00:41:13.590 --> 00:41:16.230 can't get rid of them. Sleeping, eating, all 00:41:16.230 --> 00:41:19.389 the things, hiccuping. Around the clock. Or you 00:41:19.389 --> 00:41:21.469 can cut your pinky off and immediately get rid 00:41:21.469 --> 00:41:24.090 of the hiccups, but it's only six months. How 00:41:24.090 --> 00:41:27.380 much of the pinky? No, you have to do one or 00:41:27.380 --> 00:41:29.559 the other. Like the whole pinky? The whole pinky, 00:41:29.599 --> 00:41:34.920 yeah. Gone. I'll go hiccups. Yeah, me too. Guess 00:41:34.920 --> 00:41:36.780 what Becca's choosing? Going with the pinky. 00:41:37.900 --> 00:41:40.920 So many people, and actually a lot of women would 00:41:40.920 --> 00:41:42.480 just cut their pinky off, which is surprising 00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:45.980 as hell. Yeah. I feel like there's no way in 00:41:45.980 --> 00:41:48.210 hell that I would want... to live the rest of 00:41:48.210 --> 00:41:50.329 my life like this. I don't think men have experienced 00:41:50.329 --> 00:41:52.989 the level of like body discomfort that women 00:41:52.989 --> 00:41:55.449 have. So we know what happens when you live in 00:41:55.449 --> 00:41:59.760 a sustained state of like, you know. I just feel 00:41:59.760 --> 00:42:02.079 like maybe you could, over the course of the 00:42:02.079 --> 00:42:04.619 six months with hiccups, maybe get involved in 00:42:04.619 --> 00:42:07.340 some medical studies. Maybe make it into a more, 00:42:07.420 --> 00:42:10.139 like, promotable story for yourself. Like, this 00:42:10.139 --> 00:42:12.179 guy can't get rid of the hiccups. And then when 00:42:12.179 --> 00:42:15.260 he does, finally, after six months, oh, my gosh. 00:42:15.440 --> 00:42:17.679 You would be an instant TikTok star, honestly. 00:42:17.800 --> 00:42:20.260 Like, the person who can't stop hiccuping. Yeah, 00:42:20.380 --> 00:42:22.340 versus cutting the pinky off. Like, no one wants 00:42:22.340 --> 00:42:24.440 that. It's not a great story. But six months 00:42:24.440 --> 00:42:26.820 can't cure. And every problem is an opportunity. 00:42:27.159 --> 00:42:29.980 I get you. I feel you. Valid point. No one has 00:42:29.980 --> 00:42:33.460 ever put the positive spin on this question. 00:42:33.559 --> 00:42:35.940 And I am actually impressed that you PR'd the 00:42:35.940 --> 00:42:38.969 question. Could you imagine doing that? Can you 00:42:38.969 --> 00:42:41.070 imagine doing an interview like you do have the 00:42:41.070 --> 00:42:43.829 hiccups and you're like on local TV podcast? 00:42:44.829 --> 00:42:48.550 No. And like, I mean, the host would be trying 00:42:48.550 --> 00:42:50.849 to hold it together to be like to you without 00:42:50.849 --> 00:42:53.969 interrupting. And you're just like, yes, it sucks 00:42:53.969 --> 00:42:55.349 to have them, but I don't even want to be around 00:42:55.349 --> 00:42:57.570 someone else that has them. They drive me insane. 00:42:58.070 --> 00:43:03.070 Yeah. Well, all right. With that, I'm going to 00:43:03.070 --> 00:43:05.989 ask. Because I like to ask everybody, Brett, 00:43:06.090 --> 00:43:08.409 do you have anything that you would like our 00:43:08.409 --> 00:43:10.269 guests to know or that you would like to share 00:43:10.269 --> 00:43:15.409 or direct us to, to find more about you or Featured? 00:43:15.909 --> 00:43:18.389 Yeah, sure. I mean, I'd love for anyone to sign 00:43:18.389 --> 00:43:20.789 up for Featured .com. I would love for you to 00:43:20.789 --> 00:43:23.110 sign up for Help A Reporter out too. Just enter 00:43:23.110 --> 00:43:25.570 in your email address at helpareporter .com and 00:43:25.570 --> 00:43:27.989 then feel free to, if you're a LinkedIn person, 00:43:28.230 --> 00:43:31.110 I use LinkedIn. So feel free to connect with 00:43:31.110 --> 00:43:33.809 me there. But yeah, I appreciate you both having 00:43:33.809 --> 00:43:36.369 me on the show. Yeah. Awesome. It was great having 00:43:36.369 --> 00:43:38.170 you. And I know that my team in particular is 00:43:38.170 --> 00:43:40.230 going to be interested in listening to this one. 00:43:40.289 --> 00:43:43.550 And happy to meet you. Thank you. Yeah. Enjoy 00:43:43.550 --> 00:43:45.690 the Super Bowl out in the Bay. Yeah. Go Pats.