Podcast Summary

The guest, Neil Wilkins, joins the Cambridge Marketing College podcast this week.  Neil Wilkins is the founder and host of the AI Marketing Summit. The conversation centred on his upcoming online event, designed to help marketers navigate the complexities of artificial intelligence. Neil Wilkins highlighted the summit's goal of bridging the gap between tactical AI use and strategic integration. Key themes discussed included the importance of maintaining "humanness" and ethical standards in an AI-driven world, the emerging trend of AI agents, and the necessity for human accountability, with Neil Wilkins framing AI as a "copilot" rather than a replacement for human marketers.

 

Key Points

  • The AI Marketing Summit was a unique, global online event scheduled for September 3rd, created to address the fear and confusion marketers felt about implementing AI.
  • The event aimed to be a comprehensive resource, covering tactical skills like prompting and video creation, as well as strategic topics like process mapping and integrating AI into business plans.
  • A primary objective of the summit was to bridge the significant gap between the common tactical use of AI (e.g., drafting content) and its strategic application to achieve business goals.
  • Neil Wilkins emphasised the importance of a "humanness" session at the summit, designed to discuss balancing AI's efficiency with human oversight, creativity, and ethical judgment.
  • He introduced the advanced concept of AI "agents" that could not only perform tasks but also manage other agents, creating a new paradigm for workflow automation.
  • While acknowledging a potential financial "correction" in the AI industry, he asserted that the practical value and competitive necessity of AI tools meant they were here to stay.
  • Neil Wilkins stressed that all existing ethical and legal standards, like GDPR, still applied when using AI, and that human intuition should be a guide; if an application of AI felt questionable, it should be avoided.
  • He repeatedly reinforced the idea that humans must retain final accountability, using the analogy of AI as a "paralegal" who prepares a first draft that the human "lawyer" must review and finalise.

 

Podcast Transcript

Transcripts are auto-generated.

 

Kiran Kapur (host) (00:00):
Hello and welcome. This week we are back in the world of AI and I'm delighted to welcome back to the podcast Niel Wilkins, founder and host of the AI Marketing Summit.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (00:12):
The buck stops with me. The accountability is with me as the human, but I have a lot of assistance. I have a lot of help with AI, but I'm always that funnel that bottleneck, if you like, through which the AI activity meets the world.


Kiran Kapur (host) (00:26):
Neil, we have to start with what is the AI Marketing Summit?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (00:30):
Oh, Kiran, yes, we do. Absolutely. So the AI Marketing Summit is, it's brand new, it is actually unique online event, which we're hosting on the 3rd of September, starts 9.30 UK time, and goes literally through the day and deep into the evening. Because this is a global event, it is a first, actually, we can't find anything quite like it. It's going to be covering multiple time zones. So we start in the UK very much, but then of course we're welcoming our guests overseas over in the States, and we'll be going through to about 11.30 in the evening UK time so that we can welcome all the live guests from America. So we've got a whole host of people's speakers, keynotes, panel sessions, live interviews, and more. Very exciting.


Kiran Kapur (host) (01:20):
It's the 3rd of September, so not very much longer to go. Tell me a little bit about the thinking behind it. Why an AI summit?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (01:29):
It just feels that people are going off in so many different directions. I'm seeing a lot of fear people thinking, "Oh yes, I've got a ChatGPT or Co-pilot has been pushed on me through the IT team at work and I'm not really sure what to do. And because I'm in marketing, I'm kind of expected to know this stuff." So I'm finding that if we can bring people together and have these kinds of conversations and almost be led by the thought leaders, we have 24 of those such named thought leaders coming along throughout the day, and it really is kind of almost a one-stop shop if you want prompting, if you want to learn about how to embed AI into your strategy or your planning if you want to be creating incredible content. We've got some real video AI specialists coming along around the middle of the day, and yeah, there is something for everybody, whichever starting point you are, but I think for me it's really important that everybody gets this kind of bigger understanding of where AI can really power your organisation. I mean, it will literally touch on everything that you do. And again, that's why I'm finding this is going to be a really exciting assimilation of all the possibilities, but leaving you with a very clear sense of what I can do next confidently.


Kiran Kapur (host) (02:42):
Yeah, I think that's one of the things I find a lot with AI and obviously we attend AI webinars and we read white papers and I talk to you about AI and go help what is agentic AI? And you have to explain it to me, but I never really know what I'm supposed to do next. So I think there is quite a sort of concern about that. Tell me a little bit about some of your speakers.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (03:07):
Well, I mean starting actually as some seamless link there because starting with one guy, Sam Drauschak, who's going to be joining us from the states and his real specialism is process mapping. And one of the key starting points is to understand all the processes that you have in your role and also in the organisation. Everything from customer journey mapping through to how you serve a particular product, leaving your factory and arriving on a customer's doorstep. Literally every single thing that you do is a process. Most people don't realise that, but as soon as you realise that, then there are little pockets in there that AI can then support. And that for me is where almost this kind of seam of gold suddenly appears because people think it's going to be replacing their job or it's going to be doing this miraculous stuff that they could never do before.


(03:58):
But actually it's the little incremental gains that you get from understanding your processes. So Sam will explain process mapping to us, and yes, it's a little bit of a science. It's quite a dark art as you could call it, but actually in relative terms it is actually really simple. So it is about understanding the things you can do practically. We've got a number of other people who are very much more strategists. We have Emanuel Rose, we have Lillian Pierson, who is a world renowned strategist in the AI sphere. Does a lot of talking around sort of agents and no code sort of creation of solutions. She'll be an incredible speaker at the event. And yes, literally a whole sort of seam, if you like, of CEOs and founders. So we have people who are actually driving and developing the tools. Alexander De Ridderi for example, from SmythOS who is one of the leading AI agent platform founders, he's going to be joining us. We managed to grab him in his time. Super busy guy, as you can imagine, Cheryl Cunningham, who is Huro AI CEO, who's very much looking at what we call AGI. So this next generation where AI potentially has a little bit more intuition and can make decisions of its own. And so we're going to go there too. So a real kind of breadth and depth of speakers that, yeah, it is kind as I say, it's quite a unique event really.


Kiran Kapur (host) (05:30):
So one of the things that you and I are doing in November is we're actually speaking together about AI and it's a group of marketing leaders in Cambridge, and we asked what their questions were and I was really intrigued, and also what they used AI for. What they were using AI for was tactical things, the sort of things that I use AI for a quick bit of research, help me to draught something, summarise some, in my case often academic stuff that I just need summarising, it saves me reading it, that sort of thing -transcription services, whereas all the questions were around strategy. So is the summit going to sort of cover both sides of that?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (06:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And I'm seeing this, and we've talked about this before, aren't we, Karen, that I've kind of seen this play out in all sectors. This is in the public sector, this is in private sector, small, medium, large businesses. There is this real kind of clear water in between the tactical and the strategic. And very few people have figured out, because there is no playbook, there is no official way that you say, if you follow these steps, this is what will happen. So we're all kind of trying to figure this out in isolation. And I think the beauty of doing a summit like this, and this is what I personally am also really excited to learn from these guys collectively because it is that bringing together of "I've got these things I need to solve in my business. I've got these targets that I have in my marketing now, how do I then bridge the gap between a little bit of creative stuff that might be appearing off of ChatGPT" or something?


(07:07):
Well, I've created this lovely image", which is the most tactical of tactical things all the way through to, "no, I actually need to make a difference in my business." And so that really, that bridging of the gap I think is something, well, obviously we'll be talking about that with this newfound knowledge that we're going to get from the summit in November there. But actually as we go through the day in this summit, I think this will start to materialise. It's almost like the fog will lift and people will be able to see, "oh, that's where it works. Oh, that's how you did it. That's how you join this with this. And yeah, I'm pretty confident that the combined thinking power and examples that we're going to see through the summit will manifest that for everybody, to be honest.


Kiran Kapur (host) (07:47):
So again, I find it intriguing. I know you run a monthly short course on AI, and I also happen to know that you taught a summer school last week because I was judging the students' output after you taught some Chinese students. And what really amazed me was the day before you taught them how to use AI to do video, and on the Friday they produced an AI video for me to judge, and it was just shocking how quickly one, they picked it up, they were aged 14 to 18, so they're very comfortable with new things and new ideas, but also how quickly they could use the tools that you had taught them hands on the day before. So I'm very intrigued by whether you think that can still happen at a more senior level, at an older age group. Is it still possible?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (08:34):
Oh, I think absolutely. I mean, one of the incredible things that just amazes me every single day when I'm using this stuff, I wouldn't ever claim to be an expert in this. I don't think there is such a thing to be fair right now, but every time I do something, it is just that interface that you have. You can either talk to your ai, you can type to your AI, but it's so, so simple. It is this kind of this human interaction with some kind of machine that gives you this incredible, scalable, super fast output that was even say three years ago. Absolutely unheard of. And it's interesting with AI because time takes on a whole different meaning. You can do a whole strategic plan within an hour, whereas it used to take us weeks, you'd have to have big meetings to research this and commission an agency.


(09:23):
You can literally just talk to your AI, give it a general sense of what you want, and develop that conversation to get to some really granular level detAIl of information that gives you the insights to build your business. And time takes on a whole different meaning. It used to be days and weeks and months. Now it's just in the moment. And that to me is so exciting. And I think that's what those students found was I was dipping, dangling these carrots in front of them saying, look, you could do this and ready for your presentation, have a little go. This will where the judges, and they're like, oh, you can see them type, type, type, type, type. And some of them were actually doing it in the session. So yeah, it's just so exciting to see that actually happening in real time.


Kiran Kapur (host) (10:03):
And it did, I have to say, well, this judge certainly, I mean I think given more time, given more chance to go over it, it was very much the AI had done it rather than, okay, fine, the AI has done it now make it better. I think that's something that maybe humans need to get their heads around. It's not perfect just because the AI did it. It's like it's not perfect just because you found it on Wikipedia. You do actually have to put some input in.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (10:30):
And I think that's one of the things that we have a session, actually we're calling it "humanness" actually in the summit where we have three people who are coming into the session to almost give the counterbalance, if you like, to this hype of, "oh, AI is coming and it's going to be incredible and we don't need to work anymore. We can just go to the beach because AI will be sorting everything" and actually give a sense of reality that there's this balance. Like you say that, yeah, AI is your copilot, it is your assistant, it is your agent or multiple agents, and they can be working alongside you and with you collaboratively. And that to me, that's the key. So we're going to retain humanness in this mix. So the summit is going to be quite strong on how do you balance the human side of it, so the editing, the improving, that kind of sense of it's good, but we could go better with that AI output and then training and teaching and leading our ais almost as, yeah, well assistants as members of a little team. And I think that agAIn is another fascinating new thing that we've never had before. We've never had to really use robots or agents or machines in this same way that they're part of our team. It is never been like that before. So to me, that's a really exciting new opportunity for people who can figure this out.


Kiran Kapur (host) (11:47):
I'm really pleased that you've got a humanness sessions going in. I think you are right. We need to accept the fact that AI is a tool, and I know you are very keen that we view it as a copilot. It is something that is alongside us as opposed to something we work for. Is there a session that you're particularly excited about?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (12:08):
That's a really interesting one.


Kiran Kapur (host) (12:09):
You can have two or three sessions


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (12:12):
- I know I could. I think the humanness one always is interesting because that one intrigues me a bit more philosophically. Yes. I mean you can see the nuts and bolts of you press this button, this is what happens. You prompt here, that's the output. But I think this kind of more sort of philosophical, how is this going to play out in the future? What's this going to mean to how I feel about my work in the future? How is marketing going to be almost like redefined as we go into, well next year? I mean, we're not talking five, 10 years out, we're talking literally by the month here. So I think those more philosophical things always interest me. It's the psychology behind it that I love. So certainly in my questioning of the guests as I'm hosting the event, I'm going to be bringing those questions into play because I don't want this to become a science lesson.


(12:57):
It is a bit of science, but it has to be balanced with the humanist and the biology of this too. So I think that session is probably really interesting, but I couldn't not answer the word agents because I'm fascinated by agents, not just that we have a little agent, this as we call them, over-caffeinated interns, sat by our side ready to help us getting all excited as long as we can tame it with our prompts and stuff. But actually thinking more broadly about that and actually thinking, could I have an agent that manages other agents? In other words, there's this almost hierarchy. So I get a proper team, but I have a lead agent who I brief in the morning and that agent then goes off and manages all the other agents to do their specialist things. So I might have a campaign manager agent, and that campaign manager has other agents, one who does the research, two, does the content, three, who does the scheduling. So this is a whole new way of thinking, and I'm certainly going to be pushing our guests to explore that, and some of them may well not have actually even thought of some of these questions in the way that we're going to approach it. So I'm going to be putting people on the spot as we go through the day. So yeah, can you tell of my face, I'm looking quite excited by that bit.


Kiran Kapur (host) (14:09):
I must admit, when you and I met a couple of weeks ago, you were talking about the AI managing AIs, and that was the thing that stuck with me is, well, I came away from that meeting going how on earth now I find it difficult enough, having humans that manage - managing managers is a completely different thing for managing a team. The idea that I'm going to throw AIs into that as well just sounds really quite frightening. I suppose the point ISIS don't need time off for illnesses and things.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (14:38):
No, they don't. I mean, they do hallucinate. They do lose the sense over a long time. And anybody who's done a significant amount of prompting an AI in an individual thread will know that they can lose track of where they started. So their memories are good, but they're not infallible. So I think this is the interesting thing is to not expect perfection because you won't get perfection. They are only as good as your prompt, but also of the information they're drawing from at the moment, they don't think for themselves, but watch this space that is coming. So I think, yeah, this kind of whole evolution of it I think is going to be fascinating to watch play out. And again, I'm going to be pushing people for some proper opinions as we go through there because we've got some really smart minds. I mean, especially some of the strategists that we have coming into the thing, they are thinking these big picture kind of questions. And yeah, I'm going to delve deeply into those.


Kiran Kapur (host) (15:35):
I appreciate it's the city season at the moment, but there have been a number of articles over the weekend and some that I've had not just from direct mainstream, but from other sources suggesting that maybe we're into a sort of AI bubble and we're about to have an AI burst. And I noticed Gar Moore, the management consultancy who produced this wonderful hype cycle, AI is at the top of the inflated expectations and we're about to hit the slope of disillusionment. Where do you feel it actually is? I mean, you are dealing in this space all the time.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (16:10):
Yes, it's a great question. I mean, if anybody had a perfect crystal ball, obviously the famous as well as very, very successful financially I think is there's been a lot of money put into a lot of investment that has gone into many, many of these startups. I mean series B, series C, even further funding. And that I think has to correct. I mean we've seen this time and time again for us of a certain age with tech industries, we've seen the development and then the bursting of the aforementioned bubble. I think this one's different though. I think what we'll see here is there will be a correction, understandably. There has to be, I mean, it has just been crazy the amount of investment that's gone in. But the players who are coming through with really solid solutions, and I think particularly in the agent space, I think those will be the ones who will sustain.


(17:08):
I think those are the ones who have got actual tangible products. I think this possibly is the different thing now between AI versus some of the earlier tech cycles. It was a lot of and mirrors, it was a lot of hot air. We can actually now as consumers, as business people, we can actually get hold of these things. They exist. They work right here, right now. So I think the correction is going to be more financial than it is actual practical. So I don't see necessarily too many of these businesses disappearing, but there will be a correlation of these things with what's happened before. And I think certainly the good players, the successful ones who are providing great service and great innovative products, I mean they will be the survivors undoubtedly. I mean, it has always been that way and I don't really see that as anything different. So yeah, correction, yes, but I don't think we should run for the hills quite yet.


Kiran Kapur (host) (18:01):
And also we can't bury our head in the sense and assume it's all going to go away. Its AI is very definitely here and here to stay, I think is the message I'm getting.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (18:09):
Yeah, it is, absolutely. And I think that there are just too many benefits. Yes, there's the risks, we're going to go into ethics and data protection and all those kind of sensible things that we need to obviously as we go through the conversations, but the opportunities here for scaling, for efficiency, for automation, so that we can focus on the real valuable stuff. It is just too valuable for businesses to ignore. It is just a simple fact that you will not want to be ignoring this. In fact, you almost from a competitive angle, you won't be able to in the coming months. So yeah, get on board is what I'm saying.


Kiran Kapur (host) (18:45):
So I think that's quite interesting, should we briefly explore some of the data protection and the ethics side? Presumably you've got sessions coming up on this. What should I be thinking about?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (18:58):
Well, I think if there's any kind of question marks that you have in terms of the authenticity of what you are using AI for of the outputs, almost just doing a sort of due diligence on what you would do without AI. So if you wouldn't do it without AI, do not be doing it with AI. That's the key here. So all of the kind of rules that already apply GDPR and everything else in terms of the standards, and if you're in a specific industry, then those regulations in those industries, everything applies. This isn't rewriting law, let's just put it like that. I think a lot of people think they can almost sort of jump beyond what you'd normally do just because you've got AI. No, absolutely everything that applies today will apply. It's just you are using a tool that enables you to do it faster, at scale, more efficiently and possibly more accurately.


(19:48):
So I think that's the sensibility here is that just be careful with what you're doing. And I think there is this, I mean, just touching on the ethics bit, I think there is this word sort of honesty I think is just be sensible with how honest you are about how you are using it. If there's no need to mention it because nobody's really going to care, nobody really minds, it doesn't affect the outcome, particularly I'm thinking for your customer, then there's possibly no need. But if it's something that's going to change the way you do business, if it's going to impact on them, not just legally, but maybe even morally, if it's going to have an impact that is different than doing stuff without AI, then I think it's about being very open and honest. And it's kind of how we would define responsible marketing really. And if you feel a little bit of a question mark or you're not feeling comfortable about something you're doing, then that's a surefire sign that your intuition's cutting in. You shouldn't be doing it. So if you feel a question mark emerging, stop, pause, and review,


Kiran Kapur (host) (20:53):
I think that's a fantastic piece of advice. I really do. And the other thing is don't assume that other people don't realise you're using AI. I mean, I think you and I have both seen, obviously in our case, we see students works that's been turned in where you are looking at it going, you don't talk like that. You've never written to me like that. You are clearly used a tool here. And if you tell me that's what you've done, that's one thing, honesty. But if you just think you're going to pull the wool over my eyes, and I find that quite insulting actually as an educator.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (21:24):
I think it is. And I think one of the things that obviously with high quality prompting, you can make it sound like you can buck the system. You can do that. The question is, do you want to? That's the thing. And collaboration is absolutely key here. I think the way I kind of view it, and I'm hoping that you'll agree this is an appropriate way of using it, is I kind of think of AI. If I'm generating some content, for example, I'm thinking that, okay, here's the analogy. If I'm a lawyer, I've got my paralegal to do the first draught. I'm not going to take that first draught into court. I'm going to look at that first draught, make my improvements to it, add the additions, make the changes, that kind of thing. And then I'll take that piece into court. So I'm using AI almost as my paralegal and I've got a number of paralegals here to use the analogy, but I'm always having the final say so the buck stops with me. The accountability is with me as the human, but I have a lot of assistance. I have a lot of help with AI in doing what I do, but I'm always that funnel or that bottleneck if you like, through which the AI activity meets the world.


Kiran Kapur (host) (22:36):
I love that. I think that's a brilliant analogy. Are there any other sessions you want to draw our attention to?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (22:43):
I think really it's just the fact of, because we're doing prompting, we're doing agents, we've got the humanist piece, we've got the strategy and plan, and we've got how to use AI in your marketing. That's a really practical session. We've got a lot of, as I say, video experts in there. I think it's about the pick and mix approach. I wouldn't want to say, oh, everybody, you've got to come to this session or that session. You can be selective. It's a big long day. And I think the key here is to dip in and dip out to the sessions that you find most relevant. And if you get a VIP ticket, you can always come back and watch everything on Catchup anyway, which is a huge bonus there for everyone. So yeah, I think just adapt it, kind of dip your toe in the water of some of the things maybe you're not so familiar with. And yeah, let's have some fun on the day.


Kiran Kapur (host) (23:30):
Fantastic. Right. You mentioned tickets. How do I get hold of a ticket and what do I need to do?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (23:35):
Super simple. If you go to AI Marketing Summit dot Live L-I-V-E, you'll find all the details. You can read about the sessions, you can see the timings and obviously the profiles of our amazing speakers. And there is some little orange buttons there that you can click to get your tickets.


Kiran Kapur (host) (23:53):
Excellent Cost?


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (23:55):
Cost varies. If you're a student, it is literally just 10 pounds. If you are a normal person in business, a marketer is £30 and you want to watch it live. If you want to go for the VIP ticket, which gives you access to putting some pre-questions to the guests and the speakers, that's going to be a good one as well as the full access, lifetime access to the whole recording of the whole summit. That's the VIP ticket, which I would recommend that is the one to go for really. And that's just £50.


Kiran Kapur (host) (24:28):
Perfect. So that was AI Marketing Summit dot live. Fantastic. Neil, it sounds like you are in for a very long day that day. You start early, you finish late by the sound of it.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (24:41):
I do, but I cannot wait. Can you tell? I'll have plenty of coffee by my side and lots of great guests. It's going to go so quickly. I can just feel it.


Kiran Kapur (host) (24:49):
Fantastic. And that's on the 3rd of September, starting at 9.30 UK time, and then going on until late by the sound of it. Neil Wilkins, thank you very much indeed for your time and the insight into the AI Marketing Summit.


Neil Wilkins - AI Marketing Summit (25:04):
Thank you.