How AI Is Rewiring Your Customers (And Why Most Businesses Aren't Ready)

In this episode, I sit down with Mark Schaffer to break down what's actually happening beneath the surface, how AI is rewiring human behavior, shifting decision making and forcing a complete reset on how businesses grow.

“This isn't about tactics, this is about what happens when the customer stops thinking and starts delegating that to machines. Let's unlock it.”

Welcome to the show. I'm actually truly excited to jump into this because I mean, this week alone, what I've learned about AI, human connection, where that's going.

The fact that a lot of humans will be being replaced, I think, with AI, and I know you will book on that. I know you will. You're known as a marketing branding expert. I want to jump in all of that if we can, because I know myself, I'm excited to learn, so I'm going to give you the floor here. Tell us about the last book, the least book you just wrote in the impact it's having right now on marketing and humans themselves.

“First of all, thanks so much for having me. I'm really, I feel a sense of urgency about getting these ideas out into the world, you know, that's why you're right books.”

So I did something really crazy last year, so I wrote actually two books in one year and that was not a plan, but I wrote this book called Audacious, how humans win in an AI world, because this is what I see the world is really struggling with now. As we go, increasingly toward AI, where do we fit, what do we do? And so I had this like kind of two-year project to interview some of the greatest marketers, greatest creatives in the world, to see how they're breaking through the noise. Okay, great. Great book, everybody loves it, selling great, and then I was asked to participate in a research study. They gathered 300 futureists from around the world, psychologists, philosophers, academics, scientists from Silicon Valley, and they said, "We want you to answer this question."

How will AI change humanity by 2035? So I was part of this report, when I saw this report cave-on, it was so stunning, and they came up with, they had consensus. Nobody really knows what's going to happen with AI.

But these 300 futureists said, "Yeah, we see some places where it's going to go. I thought, "Well, look, if it's changing humanity, it's changing our customers." And nobody's talking about this.

AI is literally rewiring our customers, and we've got to get on top of that, right? So I went to the sponsors of the research, I said, "This is such a great report." Can I turn this into a book? They said, "Not only yes, we're jealous, we didn't have that idea." And so I just had, that's how I spent my summer vacation last year, because I just, I've got to get this out into the world. It's such a big idea.

“Let's, please, let's jump right into it. I think it's so important. So you said there was a consensus, what was that consensus? How did all these different peoples from all walks of lives?”

And I love what you said. We don't know what the future is, but we've seen what the past is, we see what we're going. You can look into the mirror a little bit and then see how the window I say. What is the consensus? I really want to know that in 2035, and then I would love to know everything else that came in that book. There were a couple of big buckets. I think they came up with about 10 ideas that were kind of big ideas. I picked about six of those, because I thought those were most relevant to business and marketing.

And I didn't want to turn it into a gigantic book. I mean, this is a small book. It's 150 pages. You can read it in two hours maybe.

So some of the things I focused on, the first one would be cognitive offloading.

So let me give you an example of kind of how this is showing up. I was talking to this young woman at a neighborhood party. She's a junior in college. She said, I use every hour of the day. I use AI for everything.

So I called her on the phone the next week, and she said, something really weird is taking over me.

When you told me, you wanted to interview me for your book. My first reaction was, I have to get the answer from chat GPT.

I am using AI to represent me on every email, on every message, on every text. And it made me, when I, when my first reaction was, I can't answer you without chat GPT. It made me think, where am I? I am making myself dumber. So, this is going to be really a powerful, powerful trend because we're trusting AI more. We're offloading more responsibility to AI.

“And what happened when we were seeing this in the universities, right?”

We're seeing this look. If you're trying to hire people, do you really know who you're getting out of a university right now? Are they learning anything? Or are they just using AI to get the quick answers? Humans tend to want the shortcut.

They don't want either work, but here's what happens.

I could have used AI to write my book. Lots of people are doing that. But if I used AI to write the book, I would not be able to have the conversation I'm having with you today. Because when you do the hard work, this process called "Frenesis" occurs. "Frenesis" means you're internalizing this work. You're gaining wisdom. And when I did the hard work, now I can consult about this topic.

“I can give a speech about this topic. I can have a knowledgeable conversation with a guy like you about this topic, right?”

So some of these experts, some of these futures are saying AI is the equivalent of self-imposed dementia. Self-imposed dementia. Oh, interesting. And we're starting to see this now because people aren't able to think for themselves. So this was a big one. Now related to that is human agency. When AI can do everything for you and it can do everything better than you. And this is starting to bubble up in the public conversations now, right?

If AI could do everything better than me, like then what's left for me? I'm really in control anymore. What's my meaning? What's my purpose?

“What do I do when I get up every morning if AI is taken over all this?”

I'll tell you probably the most pressing moment of my professional career was I had just finished writing a book. I guess it was what when the chat GPT came out. I think it was November 2023. I had just finished writing this book or maybe it was 2022. Finish this manuscript. I had spent two years working on this book called "Blaming of the Brand" about "Blaming of the Brand" about "Brand" communities.

The first time I ever tried chat GPT, I said okay, right in essay, I would in this book in the voice of Mark Schaefer.

I have a lot of content out there, so I was able to do that. And in three seconds it wrote a perfect essay. Now you start to think, "Holy crap." Like, what do I do? Part of my purpose is the struggle. Part of my purpose is working on a book for two years. It's so bold, so beautiful. It's got to help people in so many ways. And you're telling me, "A, I can do that." That existential question is going to be creeping into many people's lives right now.

How does this impact human agency? How does this impact meaning and purpose? And look, start looking at this from a sales and marketing perspective. This is going to be changing our customers, this cognitive offloading, this agency, this the need for meaning and purpose, right? And we're starting to even see this creep into sales and marketing strategies. You know, we could talk a little bit more about that, you know, at the end. So, another one I'll mention briefly is human relationships.

What it means to marry a bot, right? And so we're creating more trusting human, more trusting relationships.

“There is this, I think it's something like 32% of Gen Z have a meaningful trusting relationship with an AI agent, with a non-human entity.”

8% would characterize it as a romantic relationship. Wow, human entity. So, thank that through. Yeah, what happens when your, your most trusted friend is AI. Who are you going to ask for recommendations on the best shoes to buy?

You know, your most trusted friend. And what happens when this trust increases in AI? And AI never gets bored with you.

It's, it's, it's like a constant frictionless relationship. You know, AI never falls asleep in the middle of the night when you need somebody to talk to.

“And so this idea that we are trusting AI and look, here's the number one use for AI right now.”

This just came out in a research report like two weeks ago.

It's not planning your trip. It's not searching for information. Here's the number one use for AI by far therapy.

I would not be surprised to hear that to be honest with you. Number one. So the question is this. So let me just ask, I know there's a lot here, but I've got so many pressing questions. And that's a good one to say. So we know the number one reason people are using is what I'm hearing from you. The number one reason people are using AI or the conversations they're having within AI are for therapy.

Why is that necessarily a good old bad thing? One of the things I stayed on my book is, so one of the best piece pieces of advice I ever got was from a mentor of mine. And he said, you know, there's really no such thing as a weakness, just overdone strikes. So there's kind of a good and bad to everything, right? If you are a reliable, self-reliant person, that's good. You're afraid to ask anybody for help, that becomes a weakness.

If you're confident, that's good. If you're over confident, it becomes arrogance, it's the same with AI. Look, we know we live in a world where many, many people, especially young people, are lonely and isolated and depressed. It's hard to find a therapist. It's expensive to have a therapist. Yeah. So AI absolutely can play a positive role. Now, even the therapists, you know what, AI does a pretty good job. I have to say, I have to say, I'm impressed because what are therapists best at recognizing patterns and responding to those patterns with ideas to improve your life or alter those patterns in some way.

“AI is excellent at that. So there's definitely a positive role. Now, what's the overdone strength? You know, what's the weakness?”

Well, it's when you can't separate AI from reality. If you depend on AI that you, you're not turning to humans when you turn to humans. That can be, you know, that can be the weakness and not recognizing when you need real human. How real human connection. Yeah. It's interesting because, hey, I have an idea for you to say, I use AI with therapy. Not only that, I'm using it in the therapy sessions. Yeah, why not therapists? And the therapist is going to play them. I actually play them against each other, not to out my therapist.

You're going to get your therapist respond to that. She won't do the love it. They, they, they, it's kind of like, I forced the kind of like you could see there's this energy was like, oh, here we go. And then I go, okay, you just give me a second here, because what, so I'll say, what I'm hearing you say is this is correct. So I'm going to say, hey, hey, this is what I'm hearing. I'm not quite understanding this. And then it tells me, and then I go, so what you're saying is this, and they're like, I couldn't have said it best, you know, and then that's good. And then, and then if it gets it wrong, the therapist was like, well, it's a little bit off.

And especially people who, who I now, I want to say this might be may have illness, let's say mental illness, right? And then and they already feel nice to let you say they already feel on the loan. And the only relationship they're getting attached to is a relationship here's this thing they can control.

It's the challenge in the real danger is it's an illusion of compassion, right? Look, it's math. It's an algorithm.

It's the algorithm. It's crap about you, right? Now, but it gives the illusion of compassion. And as you said, it can learn to do a better job, the more it talks to you. And up to a certain point that can really be helpful. I had the same experience. I was kind of struggling with a, you know, I'm sort of in this career transition where I'm trying to slow down a little bit, trying to get off the road a little bit and turn it AI for some advice on some things.

“And it gave me such an good answer that was like, so thought provoking, so profound. I like, I ran and showed my wife. I said, listen, I just got this, I think it's right.”

So, and then all, so if you put all this stuff together, came on, it leads to this last sort of big, okay, and that is this. And I think this is what would be, you know, so vitally interesting to you and your audience is that AI has become the decision maker for us in many ways. I wrote in the book that in many ways, if you're in sales and marketing today, you are in the diaper business. What I mean by that.

So I, the joy of my life right now, I have my first grandson and he is a wonderful bright, strong boy and he is an expert pooper. He goes through a lot of diapers. Now, he is the end user.

“If you want to sell diapers to him, he's the end user, but he is not the decision maker. You have got to sell to mom and dad.”

Now, I, last year, I went on a trip to, went on a trip to Europe. I said, you know what, I want to hang out in Paris for five days, just to hang out. Have a little fun. I went to Jackie B. T. I said, I love art, I love music, I love history, plan a five day trip for me. Tell me where to go, how to get there, what times to go.

And also, I have to eat gluten free. Every location, I meet a gluten free restaurant near that location.

I followed that path exactly. I didn't see any ads, I didn't see any branded content. So, AI, many of the decision. It didn't consult with anything. So, AI is representing these locations, these museums and sending me there. AI is the decision maker. I'm just wearing the diapers. I, I hear that. Okay, so, man, there's so many ways we can go here. So, in that decision, I've done that before too, and you know what, I didn't like the responses. And then, but I think I think it's about understanding how AI works.

That information that you got from AI is all from people's blogs and blogger on the internet. It's not necessarily correct information. It's just what it feels is maybe the best information for you. So, in that case, you also have to understand that about AI when it comes to that type of decision making. And I think that for humans, who've lost all sense of that, and they're just going 100% on that decision, I think that's a problem for sure. I would say that that's a problem.

“I think you bring up a key point. The first of all, we do have to have human discernment, and especially one is high risk.”

And the other point is, look, millions and millions of people go to Paris. They know the inside tricks, right? So, I mean, one of the things on this, I tend to already been said, oh, when you go to the Louvre, don't go to this entrance, go to this entrance by the metro station, because there's no crowds. And it was right. Yeah. So, in this case, there were low risk. Yeah. What's a day to out there? Now, let me add one more thing, because this is very, very important.

I want to stay in these hotels. Now, the brand is the override for AI.

“That's why branding is more important than ever, creating that meaning, creating that loyalty with your customers is more important than ever.”

You don't have to depend on AI. You don't have to depend on an algorithm. They're in a recommend you, because they love you. They know you do good work, right? That's point number one.

The second place I didn't follow AI is, I have a friend in my marketing brand community, and she said, oh, I see you're going to Paris. I know you're gluten free.

There is this bakery in Paris. You have got to try. It is the best gluten free bakery in the world. Did I go there? You bet. In fact, it was so good. I went there twice. So you're exactly right, that when you get a recommendation from AI, you're going to consider it. And you're going to put a human discernment and figure out if it's true. When you get a recommendation from a friend you trust, you're going to act word of mouth marketing. That is another override for AI, creating a product and idea, a service that's so cool, that's so conversational, that's so worthy and admissible. People can't wait to talk about it.

That bakery, they don't have the marketing firepower to end up on an AI recommendation, but it's so good. People talk about it and recommend it to their friends all the time.

And that is unadulterated. Here, the best marketing, the best advertising you can ever get when a friend tells you to go there. So let's jump into that if that's okay, because I want to understand because you brought up a good point. So branding and AI is more important than ever.

“And whatever. So what is that new branding and AI? How does a company be able to take that sentence and actually implement that into their business tomorrow?”

So there is a couple of, I mean, this is emerging, right? Everybody's trying to figure out how do we get in, how do we get recommended on AI?

So there's like a cottage industry emerging of people and businesses trying to figure this out. But the number one sort of conclusion that I can make right now is that the standard marketing and sales best practices still work, right? You're creating a good product that a good price you're getting good reviews, you've got people talking about you, you've got people reviewing you online, maybe talking about you in a positive way on Reddit. So if you're taking care of your company, your marketing, your and your sales function, all those good things still work products still work price still works promotions still works the four piece of marketing you pay attention to that stuff creating great content having, you know, an authoritative presence on the web having good customer service that is going to show up in the AI.

All right, so don't everybody shouldn't be overwhelmed and freak out because what we've been doing all along is still going to work.

“Okay, there are a few, there are a few things that are a little bit different and I'll just name one because I think it's pretty significant.”

If you're working on SEO, one of the big factors is backlinks, right? So you worked at SEO at all and by the way Google search, you know, a lot of people are moving toward AI, but Google search is still growing, right? So it's not like Google's going away, Google search is still growing so don't dismiss Google. The AI AI recommendations pay no attention to backlinks. What AI really loves is data. So Google wants to see great content, helpful content, lots of backlinks. AI doesn't care. It's a robot, it's a machine, it just wants lots of information, lots of data, FAQs, and it wants to see you mentioned in other places.

Not necessarily backlinks, but someone talking about you in a positive way on Reddit, or someone featuring you in an article somewhere, or showing up on a podcast, you know, like this.

For AI, this is the golden age of public relations of PR, of showing up in media on people's blogs, reviews, testimonies, podcasts, video interviews.

That's an important difference, but other than that, look, stick to your marketing, treat people well, build your brand, it's more important than ever.

“You know, I think a focus on word of mouthmarking is super important right now because that's one of the overrides of AI.”

So when it comes to the marketing and it's interesting, SEO, because it goes to my head when you're saying that is, is how do you compete with the animal, how to do it, but how do you compete with the businesses that know how to use AI, where the bot is literally working 24/7 building and posting SEO written specific H1H to all that stuff written properly blogs, yeah, I don't speak, they're no human can ever keep up with. How does the small pop even keep up with that type of thing that that's the scary part about AI is is the advancement and understanding, like what it is and then understanding how to use it and then the deeper one is really understanding how to build it.

So that is working 24/7. I actually disagree with you in a way. I think this is the best opportunity for small businesses. Look, I work with some of the biggest companies and some of the biggest brands in the world, they are struggling. They are really, really struggling. So just think about this, think about this.

So, well, basically, I'm a one-man show, basically, I mean, I've got, you know, 1099 employees kind of scattered around the world, but I don't have a, I'm not a big company, I'm not a big agency.

I don't have resources creating AI content, 24 hours a day, but this is what I do. I create content that matters when everyone on my blog posts have a badge that says 100% human content. So, bring on the AI slot. You're just creating a pandemic of dull, but I'm going to give you something special. And you are, too, right? You are, you are looking at your guess.

You are curating your content very carefully. People can count on you. They can turn to you. That's going to be rewarded by AI. It's going to be rewarded by AI. It's going to be rewarded by humans, of course.

“But, you know, why am I here with you? Why aren't you interviewing, you know, somebody from, you know, proctor and gamble?”

You're interviewing me because I did the work, right? I wrote the books that got your interest. I've, I've blogged every single week with maybe an ex, and I took a little break around COVID three or four weeks. But basically, I've blogged more than 1,000 weeks in a row. I had a podcast for 13 years.

I never missed a single episode.

I've written 12 books that are, they're all as sellers. There's books of people love and they're helping. I did the work. I have a personal brand that means something to people. And so I'm going to show up in all these places and, eventually, AI will, will notice.

“I got a new customer cave on, and I said, well, you know, how did you find me?”

And this person said, well, I wanted to chat to you, and I said, who are the top 10 digital marketing authorities in the world? And then I went to your website. And I said, oh, look at this, you know, I like what I'm going to hire him. Now, let me tell you a little secret. I am not one of the top 10 digital marketing authorities in the world.

I can name 10 of my friends smarter than me. I'm not joking, but I show up. And again, I'm not a big company, you know, with millions of dollars. I don't have an advertising agency. But here is something you're not saying that I think that you've said it indirectly,

but it needs to be said because I can tell you, I'm showing up on AI for certain things.

It wasn't from this year of writing blogs and trying to out, outwork the algorithm.

But actually from three years ago, when we play full on a business plan in place for SEO, knowing there was going to be a three year plan. And now that's coming to fruition. So if you're telling me, you're thousands of podcasts and, you know, thousand weeks of SEO blog writing, then yeah, you will be showing up.

Absolutely. That makes sense. And it's no hockey stick. Right? I mean, there's no shortcut. You didn't know. It's the work every week, every week, every week.

That's the one thing I think a lot of them, I have no problem saying it. Because I speak to too many business owners, not respecting and understanding the power of SEO number one, but not realizing it's not like paid ads.

You don't win by the way.

Like you've got to invest invest invest invest invest invest in less time money energy, invest time money energy in a year, right? 10 years, it starts to come to fruition, but it doesn't happen overnight.

“And I think a lot of business owners that want, what's the ROI on it?”

And you can't look at it. I don't believe you can look at it like that on SEO unless you're writing out a five year plan, then you can't. So again, I just want to make sure everyone's even thinking about doing SEO, understand that because it's not there's no overnight success with SEO.

And when someone's telling you that, the line you're being doped innocent. Yeah, I want to go with something I think is super important. Looking at the time, I want to make sure we touch this because I was excited again to you. You said, oh, yeah, you even directly said, who's the new decision maker?

It is not even the human.

So when you're writing, like, what I was thinking about, okay, when I write up my avatar, I think about my the person who's in the seat who's who's, you know, going through the problem, going through the pain, what do they think, how are they operating, what's going through their head? Now, you're saying that there's actually a deeper level here is, what are they typing in the AI?

What is AI saying back to them? What's his next level of psychology?

“I want you to please tell me, where, like, what is going on with that?”

Yeah, well, I think, a lot of people, it's like, okay, much you think it through and you say, oh, yeah, sales really is changing. I'm using AI to make decisions. I mean, I use AI to help me make decisions every single day, and I'm not talking to a salesperson.

I'm not even going to a website. I've just said, okay, this isn't the best. Here's the rating. I don't have to look at 10 websites. This is the answer.

You know, maybe it's 80% correct. That's okay. You know, it's saving me so much work. Maybe it's not the perfect answer, but look, I'll just buy that. It's good enough.

So, again, if it depends on the risk. So, I, and one of the things we're seeing, which is so interesting, is look, if it's a low risk decision, and I actually consider a trip to Paris, kind of a low risk decision, because I kind of know where I want to go. I know what I like, and it introduced me to some new places I did know before,

but they're highly rated. Ah, oh, for it. Let's do it. But here's something that's so interesting. More and more people are turning to AI for high risk decisions.

They're turning to AI. Where should I go to college? They're turning to AI. What are the best companies to work for? Where should I live?

You know, I like this, I like this, I like this, I like this. Give me the best city to live. I'm trying to make big life decisions. Who should I marry? So, the AI gets better and better and better.

It gets more tuned into you. We are handing over even big ticket item decisions.

“Yeah, agency over to, so I think what I was hearing you say is,”

so it's more and more than ever to make sure in this way you're saying to brand yourself. Yes. In a certain way, to do the content. Yeah. To get yourself out there, to get yourself on the PR, on the blogs, all of that,

because more than ever now, people are not going to www.yourname.com. They're going right to AI, and if AI's not picking this up, that's what I'm hearing. I think we're sort of at a transition point, because when I started in marketing many, many years ago,

most of it was brand marketing and it was really hard to measure. Then when we got into the internet age, you can measure almost everything.

and that's called performance marketing. And it's great, and you know, dollars in, dollars out. Yeah.

“Brand marketing is a little harder to measure, right?”

And I give the example, I don't know, if you have international listeners, they may not know this tradition, we have in America, that when you, in America, if you win a big football game, the football, the football players sneak up behind the coach at the end of the game, and they dump a bucket of gatorade over their head.

It seems silly, but the TV cameras always go there.

Last year in the college football playoffs, one of the games was sponsored by Powerade, Gatorade's competitor. So here it is on TV. The players are sneaking up with the blue bucket, and here's what the TV announcer said.

Here comes the Gatorade bath. Gatorade's brand is so powerful, and they have an 80% share of an $8 billion sports dream market. Their brand is so powerful, even when the things said Powerade, they couldn't say those words, they said Gatorade.

Now, what's the ROI of the Gatorade bath? Does that sell more Gatorade? Of course it does. Of course it does. Can we measure it?

No. But branding is more important than ever. When you talk to athletes, I've studied Gatorade and Powerade a lot. I've wrote it up as a case study in one of my books. When you talk to athletes, they don't even consider Powerade.

They're saying no way. It's Gatorade. I always use Gatorade. It's the only thing I drink. So, and they charge 25% more at the store.

So, their branding is dominant. Their branding is working.

“But you can't say what's the ROI of sponsoring that football game?”

What's the ROI of putting our name over here? What's the ROI of connecting with these influencers, their dominant athletes? It's really, really hard to create attribution of a lot of these branding ideas to specific dollars. But you've got to do it. You have to do it.

It's more important than ever in this world of AI because again. I don't know how you win that AI. But you can win a brand. You can win a brand. And so, are you going to agree more?

I'm telling people like, "Blan is more important than ever now." Especially if we're going to live in this world with AI like you're saying. And people are going to lose their relationships with things. And they're going to be more listen to AI. Then when they actually get connected to the real world,

they're getting connected into what is going on. I think that relationship for them to brand to something that they can connect to, feel good about trust, no like. We'll be more important than ever before. Yeah.

There's a case study in the new book in the audacious book. Here's the fastest growing brand in beverage brand in America. Liquid death. Liquid death is this crazy product.

“Look, the only thing I can remember from my first college marketing class”

was never associate your brand with death, right?

I mean, these people are just disrupting the whole thing. And here's what the founder of the company said. They created this water brand in cans. Put a skull on it. Their mascot is murder, man.

It's insane. He said, "You know what? Coca-Cola and Pepsi can copy everything we do. They can copy every flavor. They can copy every ingredient.

If you say it gives you energy, they can copy that. They can copy your colors, they can copy your logo. The only thing they can't copy is our brand. The brand is everything. It's the only thing that means something to people.

And their sales have quadrupled in the last two years. So how do people, I mean, we don't have the time now, but it goes the question,

then how do you create such a powerful brand?

What it makes a brand that goes that you think is going to be great, and you put it out there and nobody likes it.

would even find two days of business.

Of is now the fastest-going drink company in North America. So how do you win the brand game?

“What are the keys to winning a brand in today's market?”

Well, when I work with companies, I mean, I go through a couple different processes, but I think the one that really helps the most, that I think would be actionable for your listeners right away, is how do you finish this sentence?

Only I, or if you're a company, only we. Now, sometimes I'll go to a company and the executives will be around the table, I'll say, get out of piece of paper, finish this sentence only we. And chances are, if there are five people in the room, they have, I have different answers.

What that means, they don't have a market strategy. Because if you can finish that sentence, you know what makes you different. They, you know why customers love you. You know who your customers are and why they keep coming back to you and why your competitors fear you.

And if you can finish that sentence, you know what to say. You know where to say it. You know how to say it.

So that's a big first step.

“Now, the other piece is you have to think about how are you relevant.”

So now you kind of say, all right, I can finish that sentence. I know what my special sauce is. And if, by the way, if you can answer that question, go ask your customers. They'll probably tell you how to finish that sentence. So once you have an idea of your special sauce,

now think about what's keeping people up at night. The customers that I serve like what are they struggling with? That's how I write books, right? I'm not the, I'm not the LinkedIn guy. I'm not the Facebook guy.

I look at the world. I get to meet with companies all over the world. And I see them struggling with these things. I'll say, you know what? If I could figure that out, that would be a really helpful book.

So think about what's keeping your customers up at night. And then think about, here's my special sauce. How do I solve that problem for them? How am I relevant in this world? You know, are people afraid of AI?

Are they worried about the environment? Are they struggling with, you know, remote workers? Are they, are they struggling with healthcare costs? Like we are in a world of so many megatrends. And so many crises.

And every megatrend and every crisis is an opportunity that creates underserved and completely unserved customers. It's creating new needs and new worries.

“And you have to think about, all right, here I am.”

This is what we do. How do we uniquely solve this problem for these people? And that creates a brand. I mean, I hope people are writing this down because that's the answer right there. I know there's more nuance there, but that was the, that's a 30K.

Yeah. If you actually want to answer all those questions, you'll get to your brand. I've become to an end. I want to ask this one last question here. Going back to the study, at the beginning, you know,

that you're asked to, you're a part of a big study and you read the book. As you go through, I think you said there's like 10 things that were like the common denominator or the consensus. As we're going through that whole study, what was the one thing you saw or read?

That's stuck out. That stood out the most for you and that scared you. It's, it's the one about relationships. You know, it's, it's, it's, like, I'm, I'm a father. I'm a grandfather.

I'm a mentor to young people. And when you, when you, when you really look that this data, it's really happening that people are falling in love with non-human entities. That really worries me. It just, it just, it's, there's such deep societal issues attached

with that. You know, everything else is kind of business. It might be sales. It might be, you know, how do we make people feel better about themselves because they're losing human agency.

But when people start to advocate human relationships, because talking to an AI is frictionless,

and it'll always tell us what we want to hear.

And, and then you lose contact with the world. And you lose contact with your friends. It's happening. It's really happening.

It really was hard for me to write.

“So I'm going to add this because I think it's important”

if people don't realize this is not only is that absolutely set side and devastating that that's happening. But on the other side, that AI, that's, I'm not going to say who, but that's people controlling that as well. Yes.

Yes. And I'm going to do it. Right. And I talk about this.

There's a few people controlling all of it.

I know. I know. Now the controlling. How you think. How you block.

How you talk. I know where you spend your time. And now where you are. Intimately. Yeah.

That is the scariest. I mean, I address that.

“I take, it makes a pretty bold state as in this book.”

And, and, and when you, when you go to a bot,

and you feel seen and heard and compassion, there's a business case behind that. Absolutely. There's a business case behind that, right? They want you to be there. And they are going to be selling you things.

Maybe it's a subscription, maybe it's whatever. But anytime you feel compassion from AI, there's a business case behind it. We can't, it's an illusion. We can't lose sight of that.

“Just as we end here, what can people find you, Mark?”

Well, it's really, really easy. You don't have to remember how to, my name or how to spell my name. Nobody can. But you, if you can remember, business is growth. You know, business is growth.

That's my website. It's easy to remember. You can find my blog. You know, we talked about a couple different books today. We talked about audacious.

How humans win in an AI marketing world. We talked about how AI changes your customers. And I've written 12 books. There's even a thing on my site. You can, like, put in where you are in your career and find the right book for you.

All my social media connections are on there. So business is growth.com. Awesome. Mark, I just want to say thanks so much for having me. Thank you.

But a lot of fun. [MUSIC]