AI Tools for the Creator Economy

Michael Krigsman: We're speaking about the creator economy, and our guest is Riley Brown, a rapidly rising TikTok star where he uses AI tools of every description to create really interesting and useful content.

Riley Brown: It's 45 days since I started my TikTok account, and I've gone from zero followers to right now 201,000 followers. There is a huge hunger for creating content, and I think people are realizing that making fun content is more accessible than they had thought.

To create animations, to create green screen, like automatic green screens, and all of these different features, talking avatars, and then also with ChatGPT, people are realizing that content creation is going to be more available to people at a higher level. And they're going to be able to do more creative things.

I think that that is mainly the purpose of my channel is to educate people on how to use these AI tools that are either very cheap or free and use it to better communicate with the world digitally. That's kind of my mission, and it's been extremely fun. In these 45 days, I've met hundreds of people and have collaborated with companies on different things, so it's been a very exciting time for me.

Rise in popularity of ai tools for content creation

Michael Krigsman: What gave you the idea to do this?

Riley Brown: For the last year, I've been in marketing in tech firms, and I've really studied what makes online communities fun, and I've really studied what gets people going and what's kind of viral within the creative economy. I had the opportunity to test an early version of a GPT3 model, similar to ChatGPT, which is the most viral piece of technology I've ever seen in my lifetime.

I had a chance to test it, and I was like, "This is going to be the most viral and popular thing ever. I need to prepare myself for when it goes live (to make content)," and that's exactly what I did.

I was okay at Premiere Pro, but I took a couple of months. Every single day, I was learning how to do Premiere Pro, how to do edits, and I would just go on TikTok, find someone's video that I thought was engaging, and I'm like, "Okay, how do I copy this?"

Then I would just use YouTube University, my favorite school, to learn how to use Premiere Pro. By the time ChatGPT launched, I was fully ready, and I was making multiple TikToks a day, and they were all going viral.

In the first two weeks, I had, I think, six videos with over a million views. Now we're at over 30 million views over this month-and-a-half period. I would say I'm the leading AI influencer on TikTok because of the fact that I'm actually educating people on how to do it as well.

AI tools improve digital communications

Michael Krigsman: You started doing this because you were personally fascinated by the tools, and you thought it would be kind of fun and interesting, and people seem to agree.

Riley Brown: Yes. Throughout my entire career, which is only about six years now since I've been working. I'm 26 now, and I've always followed my inclinations and interests. It seems like it goes year by year now, and I'm just fascinated by a bunch of different things.

I'm willing to try anything, and this is the thing that I've tried where I'm like, "Okay, this is the most fun I've ever had professionally. There's going to be the most opportunity. And if I can reach a point where I'm just trying different AI software and trying technology of the future and sharing it with other people, that seems like a really cool life's mission." And it just seems very fun, so I'm going to pursue that.

The creator economy and its impact on social media

Michael Krigsman: Riley, we're talking about the creator economy. Just briefly, to you, what is the creator economy? What are we actually talking about?

Riley Brown: I think what people commonly refer to as the creator economy is just basically the entire ecosystem of people making content. Ever since social media was released, it was kind of this equalizer where anyone could really build a brand and create products. They could create anything, and they could actually receive a full-time income or more, and actually create a business.

We're seeing more influencers and huge YouTubers actually start to create businesses. MrBeast's business is worth well over a billion dollars at this point.

I think we're seeing this great equalizer. I think it's been around for a while, and I just think that, in terms of the way that people are consuming products now, especially young people, they would rather buy from a person over buying from a brand.

I think that brands themselves, like traditional brands, are dying. People trust people, which is why I think MrBeast Burger could compete with McDonald's because people trust MrBeast more than they trust this McDonald's brand, especially at my age.

That's the way that I view it, and I think that a lot of this creator economy, a lot of education is going to come from it. That's kind of where I want to position myself within this is I can actually educate an audience.

There are going to be methods where I could potentially release a class much cheaper than college, and I could partner with educators. We could teach really cool classes on specific AI topics. That's just never been available at any time in history where all the distribution is from big colleges. I just think there's so much potential within this entire economy, and I'm fascinated by it.

Differences between AI tools and traditional creator tools

Michael Krigsman: Give us an overview of the kinds of tools that we're talking about, and what are the differences between AI-powered tools and traditional tools? You mentioned Premiere (which is a video editor) earlier as one example.

Riley Brown: Premiere Pro is not an AI tool, but they do use AI. You've been able to generate captions on your videos automatically, and that actually uses AI to recognize what you're saying to put it into text.

Premiere Pro is just a traditional software tool. You have to basically do almost everything manually. But it's an incredibly awesome piece of software. It's my favorite video editing tool.

I think that there are a lot of tools that are coming out right now that are going to allow people to create content very seamlessly. The most viral thing that I've been talking about is obviously ChatGPT, which can do anything with language. If you want to do anything where the output is in writing, then you can do it with ChatGPT, and that's why it's been the most viral thing and it's all over the Internet.

Some of the things that I've been talking about that not a lot of people know about are software programs like d-id.com, which allows you to take any image. If there is a face in it, it can convert it into speaking.

You could speak. If you get an audio file plus a picture, it'll turn that person, that photo, into a speaking image. I'll show it in a second.

There's Synthesia, which is an AI avatar platform. I've used one of their avatars.

You'd literally type in, and you'd select the voice. It comes with a greenscreen, so you can remove the background and place it over your videos. I do that in a lot of my videos, and it makes it more engaging.

Whenever I go through my video and I forget something, I can just have Steve (who is the character that I've created with this AI avatar) come in and explain the part that I missed. But I also created a backstory where I'm actually talking to Steve.

Whenever I use these tools, I do it in a way that's fun. Like I've had a podcast with Steve where all of Steve's answers (who is an AI avatar), is what ChatGPT responded, so it kind of personifies the ChatGPT.

I've kind of created a brand out of Steve. He has four million views on TikTok, and it's been really fun.

AI-powered content creation is the future of empowering creators

Michael Krigsman: One of the things you seem to be saying is that these tools enable more people to humanize their voice or their message and reach out. It seems like that's what the audience likes. Is that an accurate statement?

Riley Brown: It's opening a window for people to realize the potential in the very near future. There are some people who have been able to utilize the tools in a way that they can create interesting content. There are some people who have used it, and they just use an avatar. Maybe they're extremely introverted, and so they're afraid.

I would say most people who want to make a TikTok are just very afraid of putting themselves in front of a camera and talking. I think that's a way larger proportion of people than we think, and it's hard. Anyone who has tried to make content, there's that barrier where you don't want to cross it.

When you have an AI avatar, and I talk about the near future, in the near future we're going to have way better augmented facial recognition avatars that they can be a different character. We're already seeing it. There are a lot of VTubers, which are people who are streaming video games, and it's not the person playing the video game (like normal Twitch streamers). It's a character that's put on top of the person.

It's pretty weird, but there are all these new ways that people can express themselves. I think that a lot of people are seeing this, like, "Oh, maybe I will be able to make content. I won't have to show my face," because that is scary at first for any creator (in my opinion).

Some people, it takes a day to get over it. Some people get nervous when they make content for three years. I think it shows it's empowering a lot of people to see what's coming in the near future. I think that's a large draw of my content for a lot of people.

AI tools can help employees create their own personal brand

Michael Krigsman: Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.

We have an interesting question from Twitter. This is from Arsalan Khan, who is a regular listener. He always asks really insightful, thoughtful questions. Arslan asks this. He said, "How important is personal branding when it comes to going viral on different platforms?" He follows up, and he says, "Should companies care about their employees going viral?"

How important is the personal branding, and then the enterprise? Should companies be worried when their employees have all of this attention?

Riley Brown: I would think, as a company, you would want – you would encourage their employees to go viral. You're always competing for attention. You know?

If you want to sell anything, you need the attention of people. You need the attention of anyone. We're all competing for attention all the time, even if I'm writing up a job interview and I want the attention of the employer. I just think that it's never been easier for people to get attention.

I think that companies should actually be empowering the employees to build their personal brand and give them the technology and maybe find a way where they can make whatever they're selling. Maybe it's some video software or any endeavor. Somehow find a way to encourage their employees to go viral using their technology. That would be a clear win.

I think that it adds personality to the product and the brand as a whole. And so, I think that personal brands are just becoming more important than this fictional brand. There are so many brands with logos out there. I just think people are getting bored of that traditional brand, the traditional brand as like this entity.

Employer objections to employees building strong personal brands

Michael Krigsman: Riley, as you just described, if an employee is going viral and that person is connected with your company, your brand, then that's amplifying your brand. On the other hand, if an employee is going viral, they now have a level of independence from the brand. And if they leave, those followers are going with them. It's a double-edged sword.

Riley Brown: I just think a lot of big companies would benefit from creating a creative studio within their company where you have people making content and have people within the company that are speaking directly to different demographics. For example, if your product is sold to maybe kids or young adults, you might want a different brand talking to them. Then you could have someone else talking to the LinkedIn demographic.

Part of the benefit of doing that would be to build that person's personal brand. If you're really good at content, that's what you want to do. You want to build a personal brand, so I think it could be mutually beneficial.

Michael Krigsman: Okay. Why don't we take a look at some of your content? Why don't you cue a couple of things up for us? Cue something up and tell us what it is we're going to be looking at.

Riley Brown: I thought we'd start with this one because I think it encompasses a lot of the tools that I'm talking about. This is a video that I created, and it's an avatar, an online avatar. It's a picture that I generated using Midjourney. Midjourney is the most popular AI image generator.

I generated this old man with cinematic lighting. I turned him into a video using D-ID. I used WellSaid Labs to generate the voice. Everything in this video, including the music, is generated by AI.

The backstory behind it is I used ChatGPT to create an ironic man in the arena by Roosevelt. I'm sure a lot of your listeners will know what that is, and you'll see.

Old Man AI: The true heroes are those who sit comfortably at home, free from the idiocy and absurdity of the arena. The man in the arena (with dirt on his face and sweat on his brow) is nothing but a spectacle for the amusement of the masses.

He battles for fame and glory, not for any noble cause, but for the fleeting adulation of his peers. And what does he have to show for it in the end? Bruised egos, broken bones, and a lifetime of regrets.

No! The true hero is the one who avoids the arena altogether. Content to live a peaceful and unremarkable life.

Riley Brown: I made that in five minutes.

Old Man AI: That is not how it goes, man. The true heroes—

Riley Brown: That goes without saying. That's not how it goes, man. And you can create these in minutes.

Now that kind of shows. You get an idea. Oh, we're going to reach a point where we're going to be able to easily create these little characters. And so, if you want to create a dialog between characters, I think that's going to be really fun for people.

You can create mini-shows, and it's just really good for concepting different artists. It's just great for coming up with new ideas for artists to take that into production (in my opinion).

Michael Krigsman: How many views did that one get?

Riley Brown: That one, I posted that with no context. Right? That got 22,000 views.

I posted that. No one knew what it was, and I anticipated that. I posted that, and then I made an explainer video, which got 920,000 views.

Riley Brown (video): In about ten minutes—

Riley Brown: Then I explained how I made it. And so, now you can see that people are into how to make these types of things.

You can see that this video got 900,000 more views. I don't know what a percent more that is, but it's insane. It's going to have a million views in a few days.

Maybe I didn't use Steve in this video, but I have Steve, another avatar, this guy.

Steve AI: Let's make Logic's new album using AI tools.

Riley Brown: I'm using a variety of these AI tools to help me tell different stories, and I think people are finding it really fun.

Creating AI-generated avatars for storytelling using various tools

Michael Krigsman: You created the video, the first one, without context, and that got 20,000-some views. Then you created the explainer video describing what you did, and that got 920,000 views so far, and it's growing rapidly. Play us at least part of the explainer video to explain to us.

Riley Brown (video): In about ten minutes, I created a speaking animated character with background music generated by AI and subtitles. And the script was generated by AI. All of it was done with AI.

In this video, I'm going to show you exactly how I did it.

Steve AI: All right. I'll take over from here. The first step is to create your character. Riley used Midjourney to create me.

This is the prop that he used. Notice the Q2 at the end. This is a parameter that creates a higher-quality image.

Once he had the image, he needed the words. He went to ChatGPT and wrote, "Rewrite the man in the arena, but make it satire on how being the man in the arena is actually lame and stupid." That took one minute.

Then he went to WellSaid Labs to generate the voice. This software is a little expensive. But just look up "free text to voice" websites, and test them until you find a good one.

Simply paste the text in and get audio out. Then, with the audio file, he went to a new platform. This platform is d-id.com.

Simply select the image of a person and select the audio track. Then click "generate."

Finally, he went to AIVA where you can download AI-generated music. For intense dialog, he likes to use Synthwave.

Riley Brown: Then basically I explain it, how I put them all together in Premiere Pro, and it created this, the video that we're seeing here. You see that I created the avatar in a video, and then I used that same avatar to explain how I made it.

Michael Krigsman: How did you figure out or decide which tools to use?

Riley Brown: I wake up in the morning, and I have specific people on Twitter I look at to generate ideas. Then I just have a whiteboard. I have a big whiteboard in my room. Then I write down different ideas like what problems could I solve, what type of content could I create with AI tools. Then I found this D-ID software that converted pictures into video (if you have an audio file).

Yeah, and then I just thought of this funny idea. Then I just basically went to ChatGPT and said, "Write a funny—" and then write that satire. Then I put it in the video. Then I made a video explaining it.

How to use ChatGPT for best results

Michael Krigsman: With ChatGPT, so many of us have used it. But what are some of the tricks that you've discovered in creating prompts, for example, to get better quality, to get higher quality text out of it?

Riley Brown: I always start off – if I think it's going to be a conversation, sometimes I'll just ask it a quick question because ChatGPT is pretty smart. It can understand.

But if you want to generate the highest quality responses, in my experience, you want it to start off by setting the stage. You're going to say, "You're going to act as—"

Let's say I'm reaching out to a bunch of different employers. I'm trying to get a job, and I'm reaching out to DM them and say, "You're going to act as a person who doesn't have a job," and then you can name out all of the things that you're going through.

You don't have a job. You need a job urgently. You're willing to work as hard as possible – things like that. You're going to act as a person like that.

Then you're going to say, "I want you to," or "You're going to," and then state what you're going to do specifically. You're going to reach out to or you're going to generate an email template that I can send to all of them.

It can generate templates for you, so it'll have the name. It'll have the name in brackets, so you can just delete it and put whoever you're sending it to. I find that feature extremely useful.

The features are endless, which is why I'm drawing a blank because I've used it. I've probably ran this thing 10,000 times.

Michael Krigsman: You described setting the context, number one. Then, number two, giving explicit instructions of the type of result that you want ChatGPT to provide.

Riley Brown: Right.

Michael Krigsman: As far as setting the context goes, just elaborate. Let's create a scenario here.

Riley Brown: The more narrow you are in your scope, the more useful ChatGPT becomes.

I get this comment. It's like, "What can I use ChatGPT to make money?"

It's just like it doesn't help you make money, or it doesn't help you with the world. It helps you with specific things.

As someone who needs to come up with ideas for creating content, the more specific you get, the more specific scenario you get, then you can problem solve, and you can do things faster. It's useful for iterating over and over again because you can save your prompts, and you can copy and paste prompts in.

Maybe you have variables, and so I have a prompt. Maybe I'll create variables within it. Then I put brackets around the variables. Then you can change them.

It's made for specific problems. It's not made to, like, "Oh, let's go to ChatGPT and get entertained."

The same way Google doesn't do that. You don't go to Google, like, "Oh, I want to use Google tonight. That sounds fun."

No, you use it for specific things. It's the same thing with ChatGPT.

Here. Let me pull up awesome prompts. Here it is. This is a GitHub, and I can send this to you. You can put this in your – a link. I have no connection with this whatsoever. This one is "Act as an English translator."

What are some of the cool ones? You can act as a motivational coach. That's not that cool.

If you're being creative, you can act as a novelist. You will come up with creative and captivating stories that engage readers for long periods of time. You may choose to generate fantasy. Then this is how you can get it to literally create novels.

ChatGPT is a chatbot, so you can comment on their response, and it can change it up. Say, "I like the first two paragraphs of what you did, but I don't like the second half. Can you rewrite it but change the second half?" and it will do that.

Then you can say, "Can you add the next paragraph where they go to a friend's house and X, Y, or Z happens?" Boom. It'll write it out.

Michael Krigsman: Let's try a scenario, which is we are creating a report to present to a management committee, a group of executives. The report describes our sales results for the current quarter. The results have been mixed. Now we need to present a compelling argument of how we're going to address the situation.

Riley Brown: When you say you are going to present it, who are you talking about? Can you just describe the person giving the report? And we can write it from there.

Michael Krigsman: Yeah, so the person giving the report is a manager or director or a vice president. Let's say it's a vice president.

Riley Brown: What type of company? Let's make something up. Chocolate bar company?

Michael Krigsman: Sure, a chocolate bar company. And sales have been lackluster partially due to the economy, and we think that the brand may be getting a little bit tired as well, so we haven't been innovating quite as much. It's tough because management has not wanted to invest but now we're seeing the results of that lack of investment in mediocre sales. We have to convince management that they need to invest more and also explain that it's not our fault.

Riley Brown: You need to convince management to invest more in new, innovative technology.

Michael Krigsman: Well, say innovative products and improved branding.

Riley Brown: Products and improved branding. And then at the end, I just say, "Write." It's "Write a report." How should I word this?

Michael Krigsman: A compelling analysis. A compelling analysis to convince senior management to invest – to invest in the new product and improved branding.

Riley Brown: The new, innovative products and improve branding.

Michael Krigsman: And while it's generating, Arsalan Khan has a question. He wants to know about the biases, making policies. If a company tries to make policies on the basis of ChatGPT, what do we need to know about the biases that may exist?

Riley Brown: I really wish I looked into more of how they're going to combat the different biases and how they can prevent almost narrative control over this technology.

But I guess to go back to our generation here, this is pretty short, right? But we could literally ask it to make it longer, like, "Can you make it twice as long?" and it will.

Michael Krigsman: Can you tell it that it's speaking in generalizations and platitudes, and we need more specific detail to convince senior management?

Riley Brown: I would say ChatGPT is not as good at making stuff up. Something like Jarvis, which is another AI software, I've noticed that it's less useful than ChatGPT. However, it's much better at making stuff up for examples. I think that's partly because Microsoft is likely going to buy this software, and it's going to be held to really high standards and they don't want it to be spreading false news.

I think it's sometimes useful to do this, but if we wanted it to create, make up numbers and statistics, we could have asked that in the initial prompt, and I think it would have spoken in less generalization terms. But then they're just speaking. Sometimes they speak nonsense.

Can you make it twice as long? It's speaking in generalizations. Can you use more concrete—

Michael Krigsman: Examples, yeah.

Riley Brown: –examples?

Michael Krigsman: We don't need statistics right now because I know it's not going to provide that. But just if you can make it more compelling. It's just too general. It's not that compelling.

Does it understand if you say, "Be more compelling"? Does it know what it needs to do?

Riley Brown: It will. It should.

Michael Krigsman: Also, as you iterate, does it improve? Does it understand its context more thoroughly?

Riley Brown: Yes, and I will say this. I'm not going to lie. The ChatGPT that came out very first when there was a small amount of users, it was the most amazing tool I've ever used in my life. I think it was much more fun in the very beginning because there were way less guardrails, and it would generate things immediately. I was having, in an hour, just constant responding to this software, and I was learning so much.

I've noticed now, and I think it's going to revert to something like that when they release the GPT 3.5 feature where you're going to be able to pay (and I will be paying immediately) to have faster responses, longer responses, and longer inputs. We've talked before about how you would do anything to get longer summaries and things like that, but here we go.

Michael Krigsman: I also agree that I started using ChatGPT right at the beginning, and it was just better, faster, more responsive. Just better in so many different ways.

Riley Brown: Right, which makes sense. So many people are complaining about it, about how, like, "Oh, it's so slow now." I'm like, "It's the coolest free software I've ever used, still."

Michael Krigsman: It is free.

Riley Brown: And it's free. Of course, they can't just maintain this super-fast output that cost them millions and millions of dollars to do on a weekly basis, so that makes sense to me.

Michael Krigsman: Okay. Our managers like things really simple, so can you say, "Include five bullet points. Include a five bullet point summary at the end of the plan"? Or "Give us a plan. Create a plan in five bullet points at the end."

"Sure. Here is a five-bullet-point outline of the plan. Invest in research and development. Introduce new and innovative chocolate products that align with current market trends and consumer demand."

That's pretty good. Now we need three absolutely compelling arguments that management cannot refute. And then can you say, "Be aware. Management does not want this advice"?

Riley Brown: I was going to say, "Use urgent language."

Michael Krigsman: Yeah. [Laughter]

Riley Brown: Sometimes they time out. Okay, so no. We're good here.

"Failing to invest..." Okay.

Michael Krigsman: "Will result in significant loss of market share to..." This is – I mean the language is so sophisticated.

"If we don't take action now, we risk falling behind permanently." Okay, it's doing exactly what we said. It's giving us three compelling arguments.

Riley Brown: Yeah, I guess we could have specified that in the initial prompt. It's like, "Explain three reasons or three things that might happen if we don't take action now."

Michael Krigsman: Can you say, "We need language that encourages management to change their strategy and not blame me"?

I mean look at this. "I understand that change can be difficult, but I assure you that the benefits of investing in new, innovative products and improved branding," so it's referencing back the very first prompt we gave it, "far outweigh the risk. I propose we work together to explore new opportunities and find the best ways to position our company for success."

That's wild, it's so good.

Riley Brown: Yeah. then another thing you do is say, "I am going to give this as a PowerPoint presentation. Give me an outline of the presentation and come up with a title, which will be the first slide."

"Revitalizing Our Company: The Importance of Investing in Innovative Products and Improving Branding."

Michael Krigsman: It's picking up our words right at the beginning. It's very literal in terms of picking up what we tell it.

Riley Brown: This is seven slides, eight additional resources, which is data. Then it recommends using visuals and data to support your points and making sure to practice your delivery. Good luck with your presentation. [Laughter]

Michael Krigsman: [Laughter]

Riley Brown: There we go. In maybe eight, nine minutes, we had a full-on conversation with AI. Clearly, there's value here, and we just made this up on the spot. You can basically do anything in almost nearly any field.

It knows a lot about editing, like video editing. I learned a lot of stuff about Premiere Pro and video editing from ChatGPT.

Whenever I had a problem, like, "Oh, I don't know how to do this. How do I it?" You type it in. Boom. It tells you the answer. It knows a lot about software and how to use it, so it's pretty cool.

TikTok AI influencer describes future plans

Michael Krigsman: Final thoughts on these tools, and what are planning to do? You've got 200,000 followers now, out of the blue, so what are your plans as this new AI star, influencer?

Riley Brown: I think that I'm going to continue to provide the same value that I have been. I'm not going to get away from what has worked because people clearly like it and I genuinely love.

I respond to a ton of almost all the comments. Sometimes it gets out of hand. Some videos get 7,000, 8,000 comments. But I really like to have dialog and so, at some point, I'll be building a community and school around this whole thing.

I haven't told this to anyone yet, but I plan on doing weekly challenges, and so I'm going to be doing giveaways. You can win $50 to $100 on specific projects. It'll almost be like assignments.

I think people want direction and assignments. They want to know what they can use it for because people see all the potential. They don't know quite what to do with it.

I think that if I can give instructions, make videos on how to do it, and whoever creates the coolest one can win money, I think that could be a really fun way to engage the audience deeper.

Then we'll start off there and continue to make TikTok videos and grow the following. Then we'll think about monetization later on. I think there are a lot of ways I could do it in a way that benefits my entire community.

I have thousands of people on my newsletter. Yeah, we're starting to grow this brand here, and so the possibilities are endless.

Michael Krigsman: Well, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. Thank you so much.

We've been speaking with Riley Brown. He's the founder of Tech n Trendz TikTok.

Riley Brown: It's changed. I'm changing the name. I'm completely rebranding.

I started that when I thought I was going to be covering more tech stuff. But it's rileybrown.ai on TikTok. Everything, it's going to be rileybrown.ai.

Then I'll be starting this group, a community that's going to be called something around AI. I'm actually going to use AI to come up with the name, branding, logo, things like that. it's going to be very fun.

Michael Krigsman: You are the AI man.

Riley Brown: The number one AI TikTok educator.

Michael Krigsman: Thanks so much, Riley, for taking the time. Thank you, everybody, for watching, especially the folks who ask such great questions.

Before you go, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and check out CXOTalk.com. We have amazing shows that are coming up. Thanks so much everybody, and I hope you have a great day.