Creativity Meets AI in 2025

As artificial intelligence continues to reshape the marketing world, staying creative and authentic has never been more important. In a recent episode of Avidly Talks, Paul and Erik Mashkilleyson dive into the evolving relationship between AI and branding—unpacking how marketers can use AI tools like ChatGPT to elevate strategy without losing the human spark. They explore how to navigate AI fatigue, refine creative prompts, and maintain a distinctive brand voice in an increasingly automated world. Whether you're experimenting with AI for the first time or looking to level up your current approach, this conversation offers fresh insights to help you strike the right balance. Let’s dive into the takeaways.

Listen to the Full Episode here

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Takeaways from this episode:

• Erik recently won four awards for innovative campaigns.
• AI is rapidly evolving, impacting strategy and client engagement.
• Clients are experiencing imposter syndrome regarding AI tools.
• There is a growing fatigue with AI-generated content.
• AI lacks the human touch and taste in content creation.
• Brands must maintain their unique voice in AI usage.
• Clients often rush to use AI without proper vetting.
• AI can enhance efficiency but should not replace creativity.
• The landscape of AI in marketing is still developing.
• Curiosity and creativity are essential in leveraging AI effectively. AI can significantly reduce the time spent on ideation.
• Human insight is crucial in guiding AI-generated content.
• Avoiding clichés is essential for effective branding.
• Specific prompts yield better AI responses.
• Experimentation with AI tools is encouraged.
• AI can help in linking mission statements to company values.
• Recognizing when to pivot in AI interactions is key.
• The pace of AI development is rapid and transformative.
• Users should not hesitate to ask AI in different ways.
• AI serves as a supportive tool, not a replacement for human creativity.

Chapters 

00:00 Introduction and Awards Celebration
02:59 AI in Strategy and Client Engagement
06:03 Navigating AI Fatigue and Imposter Syndrome
09:00 The Role of AI in Content Creation
12:09 Balancing AI Efficiency with Human Creativity
14:56 The Future of AI in Marketing and Branding
22:42 Harnessing AI for Ideation and Insights
25:30 Collaborative Branding with AI
29:03 Navigating Clichés in Brand Messaging
31:08 Refining Ideas Through AI Interaction
36:02 Practical Applications of AI in Marketing
39:31 Evolving AI Capabilities and User Experience

Human Creativity in the Age of AI: Insights from Avidly Talks

As AI continues to redefine how we work, create, and communicate, marketers face a new frontier—balancing innovation with authenticity. In this episode of Avidly Talks, Paul is joined by Erik Mashkilleyson to unpack the intersection of AI and marketing strategy. Fresh off recent award wins, the duo dives into how AI is transforming branding, ideation, and client engagement—while also exploring the importance of keeping human creativity at the core.

1. AI as a Creative Partner, Not a Replacement

AI tools like ChatGPT are rapidly changing how marketers approach content creation. But Paul and Erik are clear: AI should enhance human creativity, not replace it. From campaign ideation to content drafts, AI offers a powerful starting point—but it’s human insight that adds meaning and originality. The key is learning how to guide AI effectively to avoid generic outputs and cliché messaging.

2. Overcoming AI Fatigue with Strategic Use

The flood of AI-generated content has sparked what Erik calls “AI fatigue”—a sense that everything is starting to sound the same. To combat this, marketers need to use AI with intention. That means:

• Avoiding over-automation

• Infusing brand personality into AI-assisted work

• Knowing when to switch back to a human-first approach

3. Refining Prompts for Better Results

One major takeaway from the conversation: better prompts lead to better outputs. Erik shares his approach to prompting AI tools, encouraging marketers to:

• Be specific and contextual

• Layer creativity into requests

• Iterate and experiment to fine-tune the result

Prompt engineering is quickly becoming a core skill in marketing—and those who learn it well will have the edge.

4. Brand Voice Still Matters (Maybe More Than Ever)

As AI becomes a content staple, standing out means doubling down on brand voice. Paul and Erik stress that originality and emotional resonance are still what drive connection. Brands that clearly define and protect their unique tone will rise above the noise.

5. Balancing Efficiency with Authenticity

AI can supercharge workflows and save time, but marketers should be cautious not to lose the human element. The most successful strategies blend AI efficiency with storytelling, empathy, and critical thinking. As the tools evolve, so must our creative standards.

Conclusion: Navigate AI with Confidence and Curiosity

AI is here to stay—but how we use it is up to us. As Paul and Erik discuss, the future of marketing lies in thoughtful integration: pairing smart tools with smart people. With a curious mindset and a commitment to creativity, marketers can unlock AI’s full potential without losing what makes them—and their brands—human.

Transcript:

Paul (00:24.974)
You're listening to Avidly Talks by the way. Welcome back. It is a new series. Not that we ever stopped, but a new topic. And I'm joined by my colleague, Eric Maschillessen. He is Strategy and AI Director at Avidly. Avidly Design, Avidly Swarmy, the Avidly team over in Finland. You've just come straight off a pitch to one of your clients.

Erik Mashkilleyson (00:47.422)
I have, yeah. I was, which went great by the way, but otherwise I was in London last week at the Sabre Awards where we brought home four awards from there. They wouldn't allow us to take them on the plane because they're sharp and pointy so they're classified as weapons or something so we had to put them in the cargo. Yeah, great to be here with you, Paul.

Paul (01:02.936)
Did you carry them on the plane?

Paul (01:13.302)
makes sense that it's say that yeah so for rewards what with it yeah ticket and what we want to

Erik Mashkilleyson (01:18.402)
Yeah, long time listener, first time.

Erik Mashkilleyson (01:29.102)
They were for best social media campaign, best corporate philanthropy award, what were the two others? Best news jacking, yeah, I'm just coming up with this on the spot. And then best startup campaign. so there were two campaigns. was Origin by Ocean, which makes chemical components out of invasive seaweeds.

Paul (01:39.982)
I take it you didn't work on the other two.

Paul (01:49.132)
Nice. Was that the origin?

Erik Mashkilleyson (01:58.018)
like this biotech company and then another one was the Bridge of Trust who brought a hundred European investors by land to live in Ukraine to a local startup event so that they can fund Ukrainian startups. So really inspirational clients.

Paul (02:19.37)
And there on the website on the case studies I know origin is and I've seen the video from Liv. So, nice. Have you sobered up?

Erik Mashkilleyson (02:24.12)
Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (02:27.938)
Yeah, I some great videos done of them.

Erik Mashkilleyson (02:34.222)
Yeah, mean, it's Monday, so I think I'm getting rid of the shakes by now.

Paul (02:40.334)
Right, we're gonna talk not just your awards, which is pretty amazing. We were gonna record this the morning after your ceremony. And just for the record, you were there on time, you were ready. It was the Airbnb Wi-Fi that let us down.

Erik Mashkilleyson (02:56.418)
Yeah, was a shame. story about that Airbnb somewhere next to Barbican. The day that we were supposed to go in, I got a video from the host and which had the directions of how to get in and everything. We went in, took the keys, got in. There was someone else's stuff in there. So then we left, we went to the pub and then started texting him and like, what's all this then?

Paul (02:59.396)
The awards were there then. Go on.

Paul (03:20.035)
Double booked.

Erik Mashkilleyson (03:25.384)
And yeah, apparently he'd sent us the wrong video. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of scary, you know, if someone else could just come into your room while you're not there.

Paul (03:29.302)
He just got into some houses.

Paul (03:39.951)
That reminds me of Anka in Norway, the HubSpot AI director. When we went to Inbound last year, she was messaging, I don't go in the room, it looks like there's a body. What do I do? Frantic messages. And it turned out in the end it was just a mess. There was like a spilled drink and the bedding had all been rolled up and it looked like a body in the shadows.

Erik Mashkilleyson (03:57.998)
Mm-hmm.

Erik Mashkilleyson (04:05.022)
okay.

Paul (04:07.854)
with liquid everywhere so she ran away. It worked, it worked but they moved her.

Erik Mashkilleyson (04:08.14)
Yeah, maybe somebody just left it there as a prank. I think I live somewhere like, you know, in the middle of the Norwegian woods or something. So, you know, you don't know what you're going to find there.

Paul (04:21.868)
Yeah, so maybe just normal city things could have spooked her.

We are talking AI.

Erik Mashkilleyson (04:27.918)
I'm Anka by the way if you're listening.

Paul (04:31.278)
We're talking AI and obviously with what you do in your role tell us a bit about you do strategy and AI director for internally and avidly clients I suppose.

Erik Mashkilleyson (04:42.806)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So I work on brand strategy, service design, do UX strategy as well. So digital experience strategy, how that's linked up to how brand and digital touch points link up. yeah, so we just had a presentation where we came up with the whole vision and mission and values and a whole brand story for this deep tech client.

That type of stuff, that's what I've been doing for most of my career. Now I'm also an AI director at Avidly and that job is pretty much evolving every day on what it actually means. mean, basically it's how to deliver different AI solutions to clients, but also keeping our design business unit up to date on, you know.

everything that's happening in the world of AI and what sort of tools they should be using and what's new and everything's, stuff is popping up every day pretty much. Yeah. And then everyone's sort of in a panic that we're getting left behind and there is this sort of franticness about it all.

Paul (05:48.492)
without warning as well. It's not like they give a runway, is it?

Paul (06:03.598)
do you pick that up from from customers from clients what what's their sort of because we're in a bit of a bubble aren't we what where clients had to have generally

Erik Mashkilleyson (06:13.998)
I mean a lot of them have been you know playing around with with chat GPT and and you know looking at what it can do but there's like this sort of huge imposter syndrome with everyone going on that everyone wants to sort of I suppose they might be a bit scared for their jobs too that if they can't keep up with all of this then they don't know where they're gonna be in a few years time so everyone wants to sort of you know

even though the market's not at its most active point. People are very interested in buying all sorts of AI coaching workshops and just for someone to give them a hand on what stuff they should be looking at and what's in the horizon.

Paul (07:08.312)
guess you can waste a lot of time as well if you choose the wrong tool. I imagine there's a bit of advice of don't use that. This is actually, use this thing over here.

Erik Mashkilleyson (07:19.19)
Yeah, because once you get used to using some tool, then you'll notice in a few months time that it's obsolete and you should be using something else. And I think a more interesting phenomenon that's going on is that, you know, in addition to all the AI hype and that people are very curious about everything, there's also like this AI fatigue, right? That people are kind of getting cynical about it all. Everyone's, people are starting to like spot.

content that's created by AI, right? That, you know, that there's like text that has the certain like, it's all correctly written, but it has this sort of chat GPT flavor to it, right? And, and then, you know, the, the internet is just filling up with that, with sort of this, it's not even just AI slop, right? Like, you know, weird crapily.

I've carefully made generated AI stuff, just even properly written technical text, still doesn't feel like a human has written it.

Paul (08:28.64)
seen some some writers like

telling or training their AI tool to stop using an dash because it's too grammatically correct.

Erik Mashkilleyson (08:39.042)
Yeah, that's the classic one. And then there are these words like delve and robust and tapestry of something. So you've got these certain terms that...

Paul (08:48.162)
The rocket emoji.

Paul (08:53.334)
it's all because you know what what if if if that was your in your vocabulary if you were thrilled to announce this new thing you know can't say that

Erik Mashkilleyson (09:00.024)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. mean, everyone's removing, you know, on LinkedIn, there was some guy who was declaring the funeral of the dash.

Paul (09:14.614)
I never bothered. It felt like too many clicks to press option and the hyphen. Now it definitely is.

Erik Mashkilleyson (09:20.268)
Yeah, the thing is, in Finland we use dashes instead of dashes. So once you started seeing dashes in Finnish text, you knew that this is chat GPT. Cause it was adding the dashes from the English use of the dashes.

Paul (09:35.095)
and I'm loving loving him to bits but if I saw my father-in-law using dash then I know full well where he's got that post from because he's he's a plumber not a writer so the fact that he's using grammatically perfect posts yeah big telltale sign what where else you can where else you helping avidly your colleagues but also your clients

Erik Mashkilleyson (09:42.818)
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul (10:01.72)
do things beyond like writing linkedin posts or generating imagery. What other AI usages are you seeing good adoption or good uses for?

Erik Mashkilleyson (10:12.586)
I think a lot of the uses of AI are ones that you don't really see, that they're like invisible. So you want to get those into your work processes to make, to get people to be sort of more efficient. mean, and without, you know, getting too lazy, right? So what we advise clients is that play around and, you know,

figure out how it works and what sort of text it creates when you use different prompts and play around with the prompts. And once you've written a text, can use ChatGPT or Gemini to look at the text and evaluate it. And then you can write a bit of it again. And then you can put it back in there and sort of like having like this very eager junior assistant that's ready to please and will...

check everything that you write, but don't trust them 100%. And so depending on what's the most valuable, what are the most valuable piece of content for the client, and we can assist with those. And also maybe to find their tone of voice. And if we're talking about AI and branding, what will be valuable for...

for brands is that they find their own brand voice and instead of just copy pasting your tone of voice from your brand book and say like talk like this but actually like giving them good examples of this is how we speak. Can you create more text in this style but then also always have that human being who's there to make sure that it's written with taste.

That's something that the AI doesn't have really taste and that's something that we should really cling on to and why humans are needed. We have sort of a sense of empathy and a sense of what's cool.

Paul (12:29.906)
Yeah the taste bit is interesting isn't it? You can get it to know your voice or your company voice inside out and better than you do technically. But you need to be that gatekeeper. Do you ever have to coach clients into not just going, I've trained it on the voice, I'm going to post, I'm going to not vet it myself.

Erik Mashkilleyson (12:53.868)
Yeah, I mean, because everyone's in a hurry always. So, but I do notice that if the clients that are most in a hurry and don't, you know, they'll put a hastily written LinkedIn post on their wall and you can instantly see that this is just copy pasted. So in those cases, I would advise that, you know, let's have a look at this again.

and analyze why I could spot that this was written by ChatGBT. But maybe just, you know, not taking whatever comes out of it, just immediately posting it. That is more of a process of like cooperation with the LLM.

Paul (13:41.859)
What do you, in your experience, what do you see sort of the landscape like when it comes to everybody is in a rush and if you take a cold hearted sort of purely efficiency point of view, you can get a sales pitch done, you can get a website page done, you can do whatever it is. Sales, marketing, a customer report, whatever can be finished, an email can be drafted in reply to somebody. All these things can be done like that.

Erik Mashkilleyson (14:04.664)
Hmm.

Erik Mashkilleyson (14:08.194)
Yeah.

Paul (14:10.21)
What's the flavor out there of what's the appetite for people to do that and where's the level of understanding for people actually going no hold on do what you just said Eric and actually just because you can do it faster doesn't always mean you should. How are you finding things in your conversations around there with clients?

Erik Mashkilleyson (14:27.31)
Well, it's interesting that people aren't very completely open about their use of AI, that it's still sort of seen as a, that you're a bit of a cheat if you start writing emails with AI and just putting them like that. And once someone notices that, I see that you wrote this with AI, it's sort of a bit embarrassing that, I'm not that important that you would actually write.

your email to me. So I think once people start noticing this, that this person has just been using AI to write their LinkedIn posts, they'll become embarrassed. And then there will also be a backlash that people would try to write more original human sounding stuff.

I mean, it's going to be this evolution of laziness and creativity. So you won't be bothered to write something because you're just in a hurry, but then you'll notice that, I can't just put it out like this, so I'll have to be more creative and make it more interesting. And then it's going to go between those two.

Paul (15:54.233)
What do you say to people who worry about that in terms of losing that creativity opportunity in their work? What should people do to sort of mitigate that?

Erik Mashkilleyson (16:08.878)
I guess there's gonna be some sort of internal pressure. Although I did notice that now that Trump's President Trump's tariffs came out, those were, well now it's kind of widely published that those most certainly were done with the help of AI, because you had countries in there like Tripper Altar and some islands off

of Antarctica and because they've got these different country suffixes in their internet pages. the LLM decided that those were separate countries as well. So and most of those were also done with some sort of function that has, you know, is not related to countries tariffs against the US in any way. So that was probably just

laziness. I don't know, they couldn't be bothered to go over each country and look at, you know, what sort of tariffs and rules they have. So that's definitely going to happen. I mean, if it happens at the highest levels, then. So we won't have any idea, unless, you know, we do some detective work and, know, whether something is done with AI or not.

Paul (17:22.382)
Hmm.

Paul (17:30.678)
if you're a if you you you know where fifteen years back in your career something and so if you just

got this new tool that can speed up certain aspects of your role. Where would you advise people to draw the line in terms of get it to do these things but keep that as human created rather than AI created and then edited? Is there anything in sort of the marketing and brand sort of job role really that you think, no at the moment you can only use AI for this but not for that?

Erik Mashkilleyson (18:00.622)
Hmm.

Erik Mashkilleyson (18:14.478)
Yeah, it's hard to have strict rules, say 15 years, I mean, I would have been, I would have used this for everything. I was, if I was to say, doing my university studies, I mean, this would be such a great tool just because you have a companion that never gets tired of the stuff you have to have to say to it.

Paul (18:14.668)
Or is it so interwoven that that's... Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (18:37.262)
because it also helps you learn if you're curious enough. And I think that's one thing that you don't want to let go of your curiosity.

But also like you have to rely on that you should have sort of your original taste, right? And I keep coming back to that. But that's something, because we as people, we're interested in whatever stands out, right? So, and especially in branding and marketing, you you want to position yourself as different from the others. But because LLMs are...

by design, cliche machines, right? Because they're predicting what you want to get out of them. So they manufacture cliches. So the only way that you're going to get any originality in there is by using human imagination and creativity. So you want to really hold on to that and not let your creative muscle get...

Get too floppy.

Paul (19:52.109)
And you gotta keep curiosity and keep creativity in your role where you can. So where do you, where can people start using AI to write their process? And I think your mind went where mine did with my previous question. So it's interwoven at all different stages. It's not a don't use it on a Tuesday kind of rule. It's where are you using it effectively in that?

curiosity and creativity in your process, you're still doing those things. So how is this assistant, whether it's JackTBT, whether it's Gemini, whether it's Claude, whatever your company uses, precisely, where are you using it and what for in sort of that whole work production?

Erik Mashkilleyson (20:34.222)
Well, it depends on, I mean, I use different tools for different purposes. Mostly I use open AIs tools. think personally I just found GCPT to be a better text producer than Gemini, for example. But I'd use Claude to go over data sheets or like...

Excel spreadsheets and find some insights from data. It's pretty good in that. And then I've got like different voice tools and I tried one just for one called Pi, which is just made to be like sort of this emotional companion and you could just talk about here.

daily issues with it. But there are several different ones for several reasons. But if we're talking about brand and marketing, then I think you want to start out with just getting your thoughts on paper, maybe, or just talking with another, if you know your creative partner, about where do we want to go with this? What are the initial thoughts that we're getting out of this?

Paul (21:59.319)
and use ChatGBT or whatever as this partner. You mean?

Erik Mashkilleyson (22:02.314)
No, mean, this would preferably be with another human, know, with an art director, for example, or another strategist. And, you know, to get some human insights at first so that you wouldn't immediately race to check GPT and ask what it thinks about this, because it will give you the most obvious answer. And, you you're not going after the obvious answers. You want to, you know, steer away from...

Paul (22:05.326)
Oh, okay, right, I'm with you.

Erik Mashkilleyson (22:32.386)
The most obvious. I guess, you know, what you could do is ask Chetjipi for what it would do and then do something completely opposite.

Paul (22:40.27)
Says Aberdeley's AI director.

Erik Mashkilleyson (22:45.72)
Yeah, no, mean, in terms of ideation and finding insights. But then when you're producing stuff or once you have some of those human insights, then you can really flesh them out with AI and you don't have to spend so much time thinking about, am going to fill out this customer profile? How am I going to lay out all the target groups that I have for this campaign?

or who am I targeting with this brand? So it can really like, know, fill in all the details and all that stuff that used to take hours. So I'm really glad that...

Paul (23:28.366)
you're doing that? Are you meaning sort of ask it questions or are you giving it data and asking it to reorganise it? What kind of thing are you picturing while you're talking me through that?

Erik Mashkilleyson (23:39.214)
Well in terms of like so if you have the have an idea that we want to make this brand about

Let's take some sort of term like...

about say like being bright or something, you know, the many meanings of the word bright, you know, that it's a bright future and people are bright and intelligent and something like that. Maybe it could be like a university or something like that. And then you're working with that concept and then you want to find out different meanings for that. So you can come up with a lot of different stuff. I mean, it'll give you the obvious ones first, but then...

you can pinpoint a few in there and then start working on those and just branch off. But I mean, you're still the human there making those decisions on where you want to go with that. Or maybe it'll give you some options that will give you an idea of something that wasn't even listed on there. And that's an interesting process because that's a back and forth instead of you just copy pasting what's...

What's in there?

Paul (24:58.862)
I'm going to try and do a bit of a live play along to demonstrate that. Yeah, we've got, me and you have had a back and forth around the angle we've taken, I guess, for a campaign about being the companies called Bright Solutions. Say that again, we want some ideas or...

Erik Mashkilleyson (25:15.607)
Okay.

Erik Mashkilleyson (25:22.721)
OK.

Erik Mashkilleyson (25:30.38)
Yeah, so let's start with what we're going for in terms of branding them, for example. Now, we're creating a brand strategy for Bright Solutions. They work with Deep Tech, or something like that.

Paul (25:59.757)
want to play with the idea that bright is the future, it's clever people.

Erik Mashkilleyson (26:06.252)
Yeah.

Yeah, and then, know, let's say we want to come up with a mission. Mission for this company that's written in a way that it would inspire the employees, the stakeholders, the customers.

Paul (26:35.598)
Okay, now let's stop a minute.

Erik Mashkilleyson (26:37.602)
Yeah.

Paul (26:39.672)
presuming what do you want from this exercise with chat GBT in this example? Are you just brainstorming whilst?

Erik Mashkilleyson (26:50.114)
Yeah, so this would be like some sort of phrasing that we could start building a strategy on. For example, that once we get these several uses for it, then you can start dissecting it into what else can we find from this. And now my assumption is that what it's going to offer is probably

a lot of like cliched stuff but there could be something interesting in there so what you could do is like give me some like left left field ideas or

Paul (27:23.822)
Mm.

Paul (27:38.168)
find as well if you give it a specific the most specific you get with what you want back the better at the moment I'm finding

Erik Mashkilleyson (27:39.992)
Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (27:48.15)
Yeah, and because that's, you know, you as a human are making choices for it. You're giving it more strict parameters. And it means that you already know kind of what it is that you're wanting to get out of it. And the more general it is, then the more general the answers are going to get and the more cliched they'll be too.

Paul (27:52.653)
Yeah.

Paul (28:09.102)
I want to get those cliches out on the table. Get them out of the way and move past. And then left field you said. Give me six, I don't know why I picked six. Six left field out of the ordinary directions to pursue. Is there anything else you'd sort of do at this stage to, because this is just getting that blank page removed I guess.

Erik Mashkilleyson (28:11.33)
All right.

Erik Mashkilleyson (28:39.374)
You could, well, you could also ask it to link the mission to the company's vision and its values, but then that will give you another list. So, I mean, if we want to keep this example to, know, keep it simple enough, then we could try this and then see where it goes. And because then we'll know what it's doing wrong.

Paul (28:48.514)
We don't

Paul (28:58.008)
I'll just read this. Okay.

Let's do this then. just in case you're not watching on Spotify or on LinkedIn. Bright solutions, ChatGPT prompt. We want some directional ideas for a brand strategy we're creating for Bright Solutions. Now this is our fictional company just for this example. Eric and I have had a brainstorm prior to this where we know some ideas. What we want now is to move on a step, remove the blank page. They work with Deep Tech. We want to play the idea of...

brights connotations to the daylight, future, clever people are bright. We want to come up with a mission for this company that will inspire stakeholders, employees and customers. We want some sort of phrasing that we can start then further ideating and creating from. Give me all the obvious cliches so we can get them out of the way and move past them and give me six left field out of the ordinary directions to pursue. Does it need to know anything more about what they do actually? I know it's a fictional company so we might just have to make that up.

Erik Mashkilleyson (29:58.146)
Well, I mean, it definitely would help if you know what it is that they actually do or who it is that they're trying to convince. So that we know.

Paul (30:00.488)
Hahaha

Paul (30:08.546)
What's their product then? Let's just make it up. Let's say it's a charity for disadvantaged people. don't know. They are a charity for dis...

Erik Mashkilleyson (30:18.38)
Yeah, that's fine.

Erik Mashkilleyson (30:23.022)
I don't know what sort of deep tech solutions they'd be using, but maybe it'll come up with that as well.

Paul (30:30.708)
yeah but i missed out that did not yet one gives a different what they do and that makes sense

Erik Mashkilleyson (30:35.847)
Let's say it's for...

for R &D departments of industrial companies.

Erik Mashkilleyson (30:52.782)
Does that make it boring enough?

Paul (30:55.118)
So let's see what that comes up with. We've asked for cliches, all the obvious cliches, and we've asked for six left field out the ordinary directions to pursue. Now then when you're doing this, you...

much of your time are you spending with the sort of... say you were going for...

two final ideas to take back to the team. How long do you spend in this sort of back and forth with tools like ChatGPT? Is it the morning? Is it two minutes?

Erik Mashkilleyson (31:25.762)
I'll spend a good amount of time, but I mean, the stuff that I'll go back to the team with is would probably not come out of this. I'll say straight away, this would be inspiration for me to write. If it's just a mission, that's usually just one phrase.

Maybe I could find an idea from this or something, a concept to go on, but then I'd put it in my own words. So you've got, guess these are the cliched ones, engineering tomorrow, today. So I mean, that's pretty much like Toyota's slogan.

Paul (32:10.35)
any really cheesy ones where bright ideas become real illuminating the path to progress these are all the cliches I think

Erik Mashkilleyson (32:13.1)
Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (32:19.724)
Yeah. But I mean, then again, these are ones that, you know, you see a lot of companies using and a lot of times they were invented by people, not, not AI.

Paul (32:33.048)
building that's the thing isn't it actually and yeah it'll give you a cliche but then actually you go hold on a minute something there isn't that the word pioneering or brighter you can you can jump in on one thing and then the idea sparked in you I guess

Erik Mashkilleyson (32:46.264)
Mm.

Erik Mashkilleyson (32:49.848)
Yeah.

So then also your task turns into convincing the client too that you shouldn't go with a very cliched slogan because that's gonna look like AI created it or that people are tired of this in any case and it won't position you differently. All right, so we've got solar punk industrialists.

Paul (33:15.852)
I don't know, they sound like a good gig.

Erik Mashkilleyson (33:19.074)
Yeah. I'd go see them. Yeah.

Paul (33:20.11)
I've seen them in the brewery near the Helsinki office, I think, R &D as exploration. Mental brilliance equals physical outcomes. Subversion of the bright. right, okay, hold on. These are themes, sorry.

Erik Mashkilleyson (33:33.528)
Yeah, those are themes and then you've got the slogans on them. Help industrial visionaries build the future they want to live in.

Paul (33:45.976)
They were all, I think.

Erik Mashkilleyson (33:46.382)
Sunlight breaking through the fog. So that's a nice image in your head which can be used. Talking about beacons, sharp mines meet steel and you've got, you know, cutting edge, I guess.

Paul (34:02.594)
i like the beacon don't know something to explore there i think it's done its job though there hasn't it mean that had taken us an hour to come up with on that list

Erik Mashkilleyson (34:06.284)
Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (34:10.242)
Yeah, mean, it's way better than all of those cliched ones. And what I like about this is that you've got, it's not just the slogans that it's got there, but it's got these concepts above it. like lab to launch pad or time bending, bright equals acceleration. So maybe you've got like the speed of bright, for example, could be.

Paul (34:36.046)
There you go.

Erik Mashkilleyson (34:36.814)
Bright as speed. I mean, the last one. If you want to do things at the speed of bright, if it's a solution, then you could use that to market a product. And the speed of bright isn't even written on there, but it could be something that could be used like that.

Paul (34:54.638)
And there you go.

i like that there's use case demo over as well so so you hit a roadblock you get mental block i don't know i guess we can check back but about five minutes there from opening chatty vt and okay we've got two ideas we both liked and we can go back to refining that seeing where it goes exploring it

Erik Mashkilleyson (35:05.198)
Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (35:15.406)
And if Bright Solutions, you're listening to this, then...

Paul (35:20.746)
If you exist and you are listening, this is not an avidly thing, this is a Paul and Eric thing. Because that was, yeah, I like that. So I guess I just wanted to explore, see how your brain works with sort of, I find that often. I had a good, I don't know, it was over an hour dialogue the other week, the week before last with ChatGPT, and then I ultimately ended up just going speaking to somebody else. But I'd done all my gibberish and dead ends.

Erik Mashkilleyson (35:35.118)
you

Erik Mashkilleyson (35:50.327)
Hmm.

Paul (35:50.467)
with Shatchi PT and knew how to just ultimately go and ask a couple of questions and get to a better answer. So it's there, it's a weird sort of, I didn't get any output out of it, but it helped me through.

Erik Mashkilleyson (35:59.352)
Yeah, that's.

Yeah, mean, mean, recognizing those dead ends is definitely a skill that you need to have when you're using that. Because once you hit that roadblock and touchy people will try to please you, you know, whenever you ask it, but then it'll just come up with the same stuff over and over again, because sort of the way you need to do is, you know, rewind, go back, see where you sort of went wrong. And you, you know, gave gave some advice that always, you know,

stay away from cliches or something like that. And then, you know, it's then just stuck on. Yeah.

Paul (36:35.47)
But it's in that, yeah, exactly, in that cliche example where we were doing that, stopped us working for two hours to just come up with the cliches and get them out of our system. Just done. There's lots of little use cases like that, think, isn't there? Where can somebody, perhaps in the internal sales or marketing team, that's normally people who listen, where can they get started with using, let's say, charge EBT, because it is the most common by far, where can they start using it?

Erik Mashkilleyson (36:44.31)
Hmm, that's right.

Erik Mashkilleyson (36:55.885)
Yeah.

Paul (37:04.428)
where perhaps they haven't considered already. So moving beyond LinkedIn posts.

Erik Mashkilleyson (37:06.229)
I yeah, I mean, I would, I would look at what is the work that you're spending the most time on and, and whether it's repetitive and mechanical and then figure out ways how you can sort of delegate that to, to, to AI. Cause that that's usually stuff that's, you know, for example, writing, P O.

then so what you're doing is you're basically just writing the same document over and over again, but just adding new details to it. So instead of spending all your time on that, maybe you want to spend your time on thinking about what's good for the, what does the client actually need? And you know, what's the debrief? Yeah, so, then just generally what I tell everyone is just, know,

Play around, you're not gonna break anything. Just start using it and see how it works. The more familiar you are with it, the more you understand what the tone is in the discussion. You can ask it anything, and the way that you ask something from it is the way that it's gonna reply back to you.

Paul (38:27.466)
Yeah, that's something you once you've played with it for a long time you can take for granted if you're new to it Try asking it in a different way if you don't like what it's giving back to you It's not a standard thing it'll

Erik Mashkilleyson (38:37.538)
Yeah, because I've heard stories where you have people that say that, yeah, I tried AI and it wasn't good. I'm not using it. So just because they had a few bad experiences or they couldn't get. Yeah, and they've developed immensely. Like back 12 months ago, I used to tell people that you preferably use English when you're speaking with an LLM because most of the

Paul (38:52.59)
12 months ago.

Erik Mashkilleyson (39:06.702)
data set, the data pool that it's getting its information from is in English. So you're going to get better answers from it in English than in Finnish. That you'd rather get an answer in English and then ask it to translate it to Finnish. But now the level is so good that that doesn't really matter anymore.

Paul (39:31.436)
Amazing. That pace of change, and I guess what I'm taking away from your answer is that pace of change, if you tried it a while ago, try it again. And if you don't like how it's trying to help you, try asking in a different way. Give it more information. Don't just assume the first answer it gives is all it can do.

Erik Mashkilleyson (39:51.606)
Yeah, don't think that you're talking to a genius, but more of like a very, very eager junior helper that's got an immense amount of time and resources and they're willing to do whatever they can to please you. So.

Paul (40:05.76)
and you don't have to wait three weeks, it'll give you back in five seconds. So, nice. I'm gonna play around with some more little concepts like that. We might do another video with sort of some other use cases you have for it. Cheers for your time, Eric. I know it's been the end of a long Monday there. If you've enjoyed this episode, we're gonna be exploring this topic, how to adopt AI safely and securely and effectively in your business alongside some other ones too over the coming weeks. Thank you, Eric.

Erik Mashkilleyson (40:09.773)
Yeah.

Erik Mashkilleyson (40:19.852)
Yeah.

Paul (40:32.93)
Have lovely evening, well done again on the awards. I'll see you soon.

Erik Mashkilleyson (40:33.262)
Thanks very much, Paul. Thank you. It's been a pleasure and I hope to be back at some point. Great, bye.

Paul (40:40.59)
Cheers pal, you will be. Bye.