The WP Minute+

Hey everyone.

Welcome again to another
episode of WP Product Talk.

Um, my name is Matt Cromwell and I am,
uh, one of the co-founders of Give WP.

And, uh, have been building
products in WordPress for,

uh, eight, nine years or so.

I need to just figure out the
number and stop, like guessing.

I feel like every time that comes
up, I, I have to scratch my head.

It's like asking me how old my kids are.

Um, but, um, and, um, I like to be
able to talk about products and how

to grow them and how to do better with
them, uh, in WordPress specifically.

And, uh, another person who
likes to do that is Katie.

Keith.

Um, Katie, you wanna tell the world about.

.
Yep.

So I'm Katie, c e o, and
co-founder at Bar two plugins.

Um, we've been selling plugins since 2016.

You see Matt, I don't have to do maths.

If you just say the year, um, year.

I like, um, working out, um, new ways
to, um, sell the plugins and build the

business and also help other people with
their own WordPress product businesses as.

Exactly, and this is WP Pro where
we talk about all those things

and we bring somebody smart and
intelligent who uses years also,

um, uh, to talk about this subject.

And today we have the benefit
of having Andrew Palmer with us.

Andrew, tell us a little
bit about yourself.

Hello.

Hello, I'm Andrew Palmer.

I'm the co-founder of bertha.ai, but I
used to run the elegant marketplace.com,

which I sold to in motion.

So sold a lot of plugins,
helped a lot of vendors.

Um, Sell their plugins as well, including
WP Feedback, which is now Atin io and.

I'm joined by little Berth, so thank you.

.
Say hello.

That's excellent.

Nice.

Oh my goodness.

That's some good swag right there.

Um, there's some child in the world that
has that and is choking on it right now.

Probably.

It's, it's unique.

It's the fu It's the only one.

She's the only one.

Ah, are you gonna do more?

No.

That's

invaluable.

If you do sponsor something though,
then you should do that is a good

idea.

Yeah, yeah, it's, she's great.

She's handmade and um,
she looks great, doesn't

she?

That's amazing.

That's fun.

So if you, um, if you haven't figured it
out yet, the subject today is artificial

intelligence, uh, specifically using AI
to grow your WordPress product business.

Um, and, um, it's a subject that of
course is trending and interesting because

of chat G B T and things like that.

Um, I've been really fascinated just
digging into it all and finding out

how long of a history artificial
intelligence actually has in tech.

It's not really a new thing at all,
it's just getting a little bit more

consumer oriented as of recent.

Um, so, uh, we brought Andrew
on to talk about it because

he's the one who's really, um,
been doing this in this product.

Um, not the only one,
but one of the big ones.

Um, With, uh, Bertha AI in particular.

Um, and, uh, I'm excited to to jump
in and see how things are going.

Uh, if you're watching right now, uh,
thanks for being here and, um, you can

reach out to us and ask your questions
as well, and we'd like to answer them

on screen, so feel free to add them
into, uh, whatever chat box you might

ha happen to have in front of you.

YouTube, Facebook, um, Twitter.

Um, or on Twitter, we're also
watching the hashtag WP Product Talk.

So, um, any and all ways
to reach out is fair game.

So topic first is why is this an important
subject for WordPress product owners, uh,

artificial intelligence in the product?

Um, who wants to jump in first?

Let's, let's let, let's let
Andrew be last on this one.

Um, because, uh, I can tell you that so
far my experiences are, Small, but I just

see tons of tons and tons of potential.

I've been hearing lots of
people talk about ways that

they might want to implement it.

Um, Andrew was just telling me about
some conversations he had about

LearnDash on, on my side of things.

Um, I can tell you that, um, I'm not
gonna go into detail, um, but Cadence is

working on some really interesting things
with artificial intelligence right now.

I personally have just been using it
mostly for content generation type

ideas, uh, for marketing purposes.

Um, I've tried to imagine ways
that it might be helpful to

nonprofits, um, and donations, but
I haven't been able to figure out

the best way to leverage it there.

Um, but, um, I just see it as a, a
huge potential, lots of opportunity,

um, for, for products in general.

If it, if, if the, if the shoe fits, of
course, it really depends on the product.

So I can keep it short.

Katie, what's your thoughts?

Yeah, it's basically the trending topic,
um, of the last few months, isn't it?

You really couldn't put anything in tech
that was trending more than AI right now.

Um, triggered of course by chat G P
T, but in no ways limited to that.

And I think, um, full WordPress
product businesses, it brings, um,

two different areas of opportunity.

One applies to all of us, which is
the internal, um, workings of our.

Um, there's lots of different
opportunities that we need to think

about of how it changes our working
processes, whether that's marketing,

coding, design, or anything else really,
it has so many different strengths to

it that we all need to think about.

And in addition to that, there's the
opportunity for AI related products,

which is what Andrew, of course,
um, is at the front line of, at the.

Yeah, absolutely.

If there was, if you didn't see we, Andrew
and I had a fun tweet thread comment last

week of how I generated the description
of this podcast with I think five

different, um, AI platforms, . Um, and I
will say I think it was one of the best.

Podcast descriptions I've
ever written for sure.

And I think it just was like, it
felt like I had like four different

editors standing over my shoulder.

I was like, man, I better get this right.

So, um, Andrew, what's your take?

Why is this so valid, relevant,
important for WordPress product owners

right now?

Well, for WordPress product owners
particularly, so let's, let's just

analyze who a WordPress product owner is.

They're generally a, a freelancer
that's want, wants to scratch their

own itch, so they build a plugin.

Mm-hmm.

. , they know pretty much
nothing about marketing.

They don't know how to do a strategy.

Uh, they don't know how to write a blog
post or they dunno what to to write about.

They don't know how to
do some research maybe.

So with AI you can.

Basically write a blog post about
how do I solve this particular

issue with this particular plugin?

And the AI will cut, will
give you some marketing ideas.

How do I build a strategy
around the plugin?

Or how do I build a
marketing strategy around it?

You can literally ask.

. Um, in my case, Bertha AI's got
chat as well, so you can ask in the

chat, how do I build a strategy for
this particular plugin which solves

this particular problem, right?

Yeah.

And that, and, and she'll come
up with the answers for you.

And there's many other UMIs out there.

Most of them actually, uh, are layer or
application layers on top of open ai.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, so we're all using GPT
three, including ber, and we are

using a couple of other engines.

Open AI has had its own problems
over the last few weeks.

I mean, ironically, Microsoft put 10
billion into them, um, and they did

a similar thing with Skype, and about
three weeks later, Skype just crashed.

So, um, it's just ironic and it's, it's,
I'm sure it's a total co coincidence,

but open AI has been crashing pretty much
every day for the last week and a half.

So we've mitigated that.

Using a different system.

So when open AI crashes, we automatically
swap across to another application,

which is, uh, it's not perfect,
but it's, you know, it's getting

there and it is working for us.

But the, for product vendors like
Katie, you know, when, when Katie

first started, suddenly had the spring
of the, you know, the, this fresh

idea about what she wanted to do,
Katie, what was your biggest problem?

It was looking at a blank piece of
paper saying, how do I describe this?

as a solution.

How do I get it across that
it's a cost effective solution?

Why would somebody want to install
something that they don't know

Will is going to work for them
on their own WordPress install?

And I think that's the
benefit to, to vendors.

Let's not forget that Pippin's piping
himself when, when Pippin's plugins were

were sourced when he built Ed Digital
downloads, I don't think he ever imagine.

He'd have, uh, you know, a hundred
thousand users or 50,000 users

or whatever, and the support
that goes along with that.

So, what's happening now, particularly
with Aaron Edwards, who you had on last

week, um, at Twitter, he's now developing
a system where people can easily upload

their data for their help files or
their FAQs or their knowledge base.

And then that will build a, a chatbot
that's specifically within their.

, um, help desk, and that'll be
first line of defense, if you like.

So, you know, the, the power of AI to.

Uh, product vendors be bigger than
they actually are, even when they're

first starting, is quite amazing.

So we've always said as,
as, as plugin developers.

And in fact, I remember having a
conversation with Katie months ago

when I bought one of her, her plugins
a year ago even, where I couldn't do

something and it's because I didn't
read the manual and really, mm-hmm.

what, what I should have done is just
looked at and she said in nicest, nice.

Possible way.

Read the manual, you know, so it
was, but if you have any problems,

you can't read the manual.

Come back to me.

And that's the issue is now we
don't have to read the manual

because we can ask a chatbot.

How do I get over this issue?

Um,

a chat.

How to read the manual for

us.

. Yeah.

We're building stuff for They lie

though, don't they?

They make stuff up.

They think every work.

For example, if you train them
properly, Katie, you know, if

you train your, yes, that's true.

Your bot on all your documentation.

Then it, then it will produce an answer
for the user to say, how do I do this?

Or, I've got a problem with this.

And, and it will analyze and
it'll generate some text and say,

well, this could be the problem.

Go here and, and actually produce
a link to the, to the part of the

knowledge base that people need.

So anybody that's got a highly developed
knowledge base, they'll, they'll take

advantage of, of us and, and of what
Aaron's doing and building them a

chatbot, that will be their first line.

, which would be great.

That's, that's one of the,

didn't he show that to us, Katie?

After.

afterwards, right?

He didn't bring it up.

Did he bring it up during the show?

No, he asked, he actually
asked me to talk about it.

we're we technically competitors?

But I mean, I love what Aaron's doing.

He's, he's, he's doing similar to
stuff to us because it's all in open

ai, you know, so we can, we can train
on models and stuff like that, but

you know, effectively, , if I'm a sole
plugin developer or plugin vendor, my

life has now changed because I now know
how I can now got somebody to help me

do the marketing, which is AI driven.

And I've got somebody to, to be my first
line of defense, which is AI driven.

Mm-hmm.

, uh, and I've also got product
development if I decide to use

Codex to help me write my code.

Um, you know, so there's lots of things
going on with AI that will help, uh, all

software product developers actually.

in the WordPress community we are, I'm
seeing lots of people write lots of

little plugins to just help themselves
actually, rather than just sell them on.

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

I, I think he, he actually showed it
to us after we had like, turned off

the recording and it, I was like, this
is something that I want, like Yeah.

For, especially for any of the stellar
products, uh, for our documentation

section or one thing we do on the give
side, um, on the support form is we,

we, before you can even see the form it.

Hey, like, here's a, a
quick search of our docs.

Like, is your answer, um, is
your question answered here?

Um, I could totally imagine, um, having
the chat box there first, um, and then

it's like, have I answered your question?

And you're like, no.

Okay.

Then you could fill out a support ticket.

Um, well, can you, can you imagine
in the future that you'll actually

be talking to an AI generated.

Avatar.

So I would like to just imagine me as
the avatar, and you ask me, you can

verbally ask me a question via whatever
medium you are, you are doing, and

I will hand created bot right there.

That, that, that one is the chat bot?

Yeah.

Yeah.

A live chat.

Yeah.

Where, where's your,
where's your birthday bot?

Where'd it go?

That's the one we, we should imagine
we're all talking to the Bertha.

Yes.

I dunno.

She wants, she says no, she says not.

Katie, what do you think?

Does that, is that, I'll make one.

I'll make one for your daughter Katie.

I know that you are just,
you're eyeing it up.

.
I'm worried that he's the
only one in the world.

You have two business partners.

They at least need one.

I have

one business partner and he is not getting
it and he's got two kids, so that's it.

Ok.

Not having it.

Katie, what do you think if,
if, if all of our customers were

interacting with, uh, Bertha bots,
um, instead of technical support

technicians, what do you think of that?

In theory, yes.

I have personally not seen it yet.

All I have had is trying to talk to my
bank or something and being frustrated

and because I think there's a lot
of, um, people outside of WordPress

have integrated this years before
it was ready and you would both have

had that experience of these box.

It's like, for God sake,
you can't do anything.

Um, just tell.

Let me speak to a real person.

So yes, if the bots genuinely has that
level of knowledge so that they could be,

uh, first line of support, just like a
tier one support engineer would be, then

I'm all for that and I'd, I'd like to
spend some time testing the latest tools

to see if they're at that stage yet.

I just haven't personally seen it
yet because I haven't done that.

Yeah, the, the, the term I keep hearing
bantered around a lot is generative ai.

And that to me is kind of why I can't
imagine it actually a answering super

technical support questions quite yet.

Um, cause I think it's
really challenging to, into.

Generate actual actionable
responses to technical problems

based on the documentation as is.

Now, of course, like what you were
saying, you have to train them, uh,

to be smart enough to do those things.

Um, we could literally.

inform the bot by the actual tickets.

Um, and not just the online docs,
like throw help scout at the

whole bot and see what happens.

Um, that would be interesting.

Um, well cause lot of data.

It's a ton of data and there's
plenty times where we are

training our technicians to use.

Canned responses, uh, but to
customize them to the situation.

Uh, I imagine that's not that different
from training an AI bot, right, Andrew?

Absolutely not.

So if, if somebody asked a question,
it's a detailed question because

in support, I do support as well.

And I'm sure Katie's done
the fair share of support.

It's, it's, it's like getting blood out
of a stone from some people when they say.

. It's not working well.

Not what's not working, right.

So you, you then have to get
an explanation from them.

So one of the things that we are training
the bots to do is to read the intent of

the email, understand the frustration,
because exclamation marks, um, uh,

capital letters, all this kind of stuff.

Become, come back empathically
and say, I understand this.

I understand the situation is not,
not making you particularly happy.

However, if you would like
to go to this part of our.

Documentation.

This, this will probably help you.

If it doesn't help you, then please
come back to me and I'll get a live

support agent to, to deal with you.

Yeah, but also part of the, the,
the training is the live support

agents have got masses of notes.

solutions, whatever, those can all
go into the knowledge base as well.

Those can all go into the training
model and eventually that first line.

So, and, and lots of people will say,
well, you know, what's gonna happen to

your first line support guys and girls?

And you'll say, well actually they'll
become second tier and third tier.

Mm-hmm.

, their job gets better because they are
then dealing with real issues rather

than, , I installed the plugin as a theme,
or I installed the theme as a plugin.

You know, and we've all come
across rather than just read

the doc Andrew, rather than

thinking that it's been, you
know, there's no CSS file there.

Well, that's because you installed
it as a plugin, but you know,

all those kind of things.

And you've gotta be sympathetic with them,
uh, with, with people, because, What we

don't realize or what we don't really
understand as technical people, you know,

even the technical Twitter and we're
all into in support and we're all doing,

you know, the developing these plugins.

We don't actually.

Understand what a non-technical
person goes through day in, day out.

You know, I had somebody install Bertha
today on Chrome, who's not, who's

definitely not a technical person, and I
saw some issues around the installation,

which I thought was very, very simple.

It's like two click installation
where if, if there was a w was an

issue that ha happily this person
looked around and made sure that.

Got it.

Right.

But I've now seen a way to
improve that for a non-technical,

a totally non-technical user.

We, we, we assume too much
sometimes as plugin developers

and, and theme developers.

Yeah.

So we, we make sure that we've, we
make it as simple as possible for

people to install our stuff and use it.

So I've.

Yeah, I've gotten a little bit off
script here just cuz it's interesting

and I think we wanna flesh out, uh,
the whole scope of what this is.

But like, if we have like one
sentence, uh, why is this an

important topic for WP product owners?

Um, let's go around the horn and
then we'll jump into story time.

Um, Katie, why is this
important for WP product?

Because it's an opportunity for us all.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Andrew.

Uh, growth.

That's it.

Ah.

, ah, gimme two sentences.

Short sentence.

.
Well, it, it, it will help
you grow as a developer.

Mm-hmm.

a product owner and a marketer.

So it will help you grow basically.

So, and, and it will
help your product grow.

And if, if you integrate AI
into your product, that will

also keep it sticky as well.

Mm-hmm.

. Mm-hmm.

nice.

People will want to use

it every day.

Yeah, I think, um, generally because
keeping fresh, because I do see this as

becoming a tool that is in everybody's
tool chest going forward, um Sure.

In one form or another.

So making sure you're on
top of things going forward.

Um, we have one questionnaire and
I do wanna make sure we highlight

questions whenever they come up.

Um, I'm not sure what this means exactly.

Maybe Andrew, you have
any insight on this?

Is there a plugin for.

Not Microsoft.

Well, I mean, ber uh, Chrome Extension
works with all Microsoft online products.

So PowerPoint, um, word.

Excel, it, it, you know, Bertha just
works because she's in a web browser.

She'll work with, with all the Microsoft
Live products and Google Docs and mm-hmm.

things like that.

Mm-hmm.

, so anything that's web browser.

My, my, our, our extension,
Bertha's extension, I know because

obviously I'm the owner of it
and, um, I know that it works.

In any web browser with anything
like Notion, Mundy, um, mm-hmm.

, WordPress, Shopify, every, every
web browser based thing where you

need to generate text or images.

So it works in everything.

That's why we did it as a prime extension
as well as a a WordPress plugin.

Nice.

Cool.

Keep the questions coming folks.

Um, I wanna jump into story time and
I think, uh, it's important, um, when

we are talking about our experiences
to really say like, openly, like, I

haven't built anything with AI to date.

Um, but it doesn't mean I
don't have insights into what

products can do with them.

So let's talk a little bit about our
personal experiences of, uh, using

AI in different ways and, um, and
what that might mean for other folks.

Um, Katie, you want to go first?

Yep.

Sure.

So I don't think it matters if you
haven't built anything with it because

of the two strands that we've got.

Um, so it's about how, um, you've used
it to, um, build your business and

the businesses that you work with.

So in my case, I personally use it
partly for marketing and partly for.

Just my own tasks.

Um, with marketing, uh,
I use it all the time.

I mostly use it to write,
uh, outlines for articles.

I will always flesh them out
myself using my product knowledge.

I would never assign an article to
a writer that came straight from

chat g p t, um, but it really does
save time and also add ideas that I

probably didn't come up with on my own.

Um, I use it to rewrite things.

I'm actually quite a good
writer, but it still.

Um, something that I've
missed and can improve on.

The wording that might be, um,
writing a sensitive email, um, to a

team member or something like that.

It actually, often, this makes me sound
terrible, but it adds a human angle,

which my own writing doesn't have.

So the robot is clearly more human than
me, uh, by adding humanity to the words.

Wow.

I didn't know this was gonna
be like, confessional time.

This is amazing.

Yeah, I won't be more specific,
um, than about the ways I've used I

shoes from the hit, basically.

That's what she's saying.

Yeah.

. .
Um, I use it things like rewriting tweets.

Often I don't use what it comes
up with because it is way too

boastful or something, but it's
interesting to have another.

Perspective, it's good for coming up
with alternate headline ideas, and

in fact, many of the headlines for
the shows of this podcast are used.

Chat G p T to draft and chose
it, chose the best option.

So those are ways I use it.

But as the, um, business owner,
I'm also, uh, thinking about

how my team can incorporate it.

So, for example, at the moment one of
my developers is building some custom

reports for our e d D sites and, uh,
about, cuz we don't have the business.

Information we need.

So I've asked him to look at different AI
tools, um, in terms of speeding up that

process and um, automating it and so on.

I've talked to my marketing team
about how they can be using it and

it is interesting cuz some people
seem to be a bit threatened, whereas

others are willing to embrace it.

So I need to word it in a sensitive way.

I'm not trying to do
them out of their jobs.

I'm trying to see how they can
achieve even more, um mm-hmm without,

you know, having fewer people.

Yeah.

And um, we've had a new in-house designer
start today, and I've also created

a task for him to look at how maybe
AI might help with image generation,

particularly on like blog posts,
social media posts, that kind of thing.

So I'm thinking more widely about how
it could be used within the business.

. And of course there's something that's not
my area, which is the whole development

side of things, and I haven't spoken yet
with our plug-in developers about whether

they're using that and how they could
use that in a positive way, um, for their

work.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

My experiences are very similar, uh, in
the sense, uh, I'm a, I'm a consumer.

Um, I just, uh, recently paid for chat g p
t just cuz I'm impatient and I don't wanna

refresh the screen 25 times and exacerbate
their problems with server load.

Um, but.

Uh, I think one of the things,
I use it for like many ways.

I would just call it like an
enhanced search engine because,

uh, for like a research purposes
recently, I'm looking a lot into.

, um, net promoter score, uh, type stuff
for, uh, customer experience and support.

Um, and I just have been, um, asking,
uh, different chatbots like, uh, what's

the best way to implement Net Promoter
score on an existing customer base?

Um, I like asking like human
questions to the, for them to give

full responses and sometimes I, I
say, Three sentences on this, or I

say write three paragraphs on this.

Um, one thing I, uh, I like on the way,
uh, Microsoft being has implemented it

is it always, uh, sites, its sources.

Um, I really like that a lot.

Um, but I have found that their sources
are usually three to four years old.

Usually I haven't found them,
like citing new sources hardly

ever, which is interest.

. Um, and then, um, even, um,
when I was putting together,

Description of this podcast.

What I really liked in when I was using
Notion, which I know that all these

are all chat G P T, but the, their
implementation makes it have a different

experience, which is interesting.

But when I did Notion, I said,
write a paragraph on, uh, podcasts,

introducing Andrew Palmer, uh,
talking about WordPress products.

Um, and it gave me a paragraph and
then I said, now rewrite that par.

I just told it.

Rewrite the paragraph above with
a Fleisch Kincaid score of sixth.

and it did it and it was really good.

I was really impressed.

So like, iterating on the responses as
you go, uh, I think is really interesting.

Um, so those are, those have
been my experiences too.

Um, I did try, one, one of 'em was
write a plugin on how I can implement

SEO O Metatags on my WordPress
site just to see if it would.

, you know, make me compete
against Yos tomorrow.

Like let's, let's do that.

Um, and it was like, I can't
write a plugin for you, but

here's how you would do it.

. Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I wanna, okay.

Well there's code, there's
Codex, you know, you got Codex.

So how I use AI every day, obviously I'm,
you know, we're, I'm testing the plugins,

uh, I'm testing implementations as well.

You know, as you say, we had a, I had, you
know, I'm talking to learning management

people all the time about it, you know,
write me a course description, uh,

write me a lesson on a particular site.

You know, I did the example I did for,
for, um, the meeting that I had with

your guys was, You know, do me a course
description on rock climbing and now give

me 10 lesson titles for rock climbing.

From that, from the lesson titles.

Write the lesson on that,
that wrote the lesson.

And so, you know, and, and every
time I show the power of AI to

people, Their, their heads have get,
literally, they go, oh my goodness,

I've got to be able to use this.

So chat, G P T is great, don't get me
wrong, but it, it's not the whole story.

You know, there are many,
many UMIs out there that.

The ones that I don't like are
the ones that will write you a two

and a half thousand word blog post
instantaneously from a, from a thing.

I think that's the wrong
way to go around it.

I think, you know, we've got to
use them as writing assistance.

So for today, for instance, I was in a
coaching, uh, day with a client who's

a marketing manager of, uh, a law
firm that has seven separate offices.

So we used Rephrase a lot because
we, we did, we wanted to tell

a similar story, but not the.

On each website.

And we also didn't want to get pen
penalized for, um, duplicate content.

So we, we basically took some copy,
rephrased it, put some localization

in it with seo, wrote some seo,
meta metatags, and titles and meta

descriptions, and boom, you know,
we've got the seven websites all.

but similar because they're,
they're a similar brand.

So that's the power of AI is that
you can use the generative, and why

it's called generative is to separate
it, separate it from the AI of, say

Tesla, that you drive a car, you
know that that will drive a car.

or the AI that will, will help a surgeon
do a, a heart operation from Mars away.

So that, that's why it's pretty
much called generative AI

because it is very specifically
generating text and, and or images.

Um, which Bertha does both of in,
in its own plugin and in the Chrome

extension as well, and, and improving
all the time on what we can get outta.

generative AI it with prompts.

So, you know, a new
skill is prompt writing.

Yeah.

Uh, part of what makes our plugin
better than anybody else, in my view,

is that our prompts are excellent.

You know, we spent four months
writing prompts from a website owner's

perspective because we've built.

4,000 websites between us, Vito and I,
so we know what website owners want or

we felt we knew and then we built the
prompts and then we're building more

prompts and, and educating Bertha more and
more helping her learn the user as well.

So that's the benefit
that I've got from it.

But I, you know, for instance, I'm
now, I've got a, a web agency as well.

I'm now offering very
quick website builds with.

because I can.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the benefit
for a small, um, web design

agency or a web build agency.

Go into your templating stuff, do
renter websites if you like, or

lease websites and say, okay, you
can pay, pay for this over 18 months.

Here's your solution, Mrs.

Florist, because you
haven't got a lot of money.

You know, you've literally got to.

A bouquet of flowers a month just
to pay for this, this website,

that's what it's gonna cost you.

It's gonna cost you 85 good a month or
150 good a month to run this website.

But you don't have to
worry about writing copy.

You don't have to worry about local seo.

You don't have to worry about anything.

And also with, uh, today, you know,
with seven Google business pages,

we had to make them all different.

So we used AI to make them all different.

Yeah, again, similar but different.

So that's where, where I'm using ai, I'm
making sure that people, um, can build

their businesses locally, uh, make sure
that the content is not duplicated,

uh, but it says a similar message.

And also, you know,
building images around.

Imagine building a blog post out
and being able to generate images

whilst you are building that
blog post out as, as an example.

, you know, it's, it's crazy.

That's, this is why it's so
executing just the product.

Absolutely.

It's a productivity tool and
that's what you've gotta think

of it as.

Mm-hmm.

. Yep.

Good question here from Jim Ross.

Um, do you think there are any
ethical concerns with using AI

in WordPress product businesses?

And how can they be addressed?

Um, I'll just say there's always
ethical concerns about everything

related to business, but, um,
anybody gotta take on this?

, Katie in particular, like
copyright concerns maybe, um, or.

I have tried to check chat
beat G P T before, and I don't

think it does plagiarize.

It does what real writers do, which is
combine things to create something new.

That's actually how a lot of humans
write unless it's true creative writing.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, so I haven't found
that source of issue.

Um, I did read.

A story.

Um, it was, I think there was
like a shooting or something

and somebody got found out.

Have you heard about this?

That it said, um, there was an
email that somebody wrote and it

said written by chat, g p t at
the bottom and everybody Yeah.

Was up arm, uh, sorry,
that's a really bad phrase.

Was really annoyed about that.

And, . But then when I read it, it
wasn't that the email content was

wrong, it was that it was the, it was

the principal, the impression

principle of Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think the writing was appropriate
from what I could gra gather.

Mm-hmm.

. So it's more about people's, I,
um, prejudices, opinions, emotions.

Uh, if they think that a robot
has written them a, a sensitive

email, they may not think it was
genuine, even though actually it.

Um, because people think, oh, if it
was written by ai, then the person

had no true input into it, which
is not the correct way to use it.

Of course, as we've touched on,

Yeah, I mean that emailed, it's
like a special letter from our

ceo o and founder, and then at the
bottom generated by chat, g p t.

Like it just wouldn't go over very well.

or generated with the help.

You know, it, it depends whether or not
the person is, um, you know, like Katie

was saying that she shoots from the hip,
but, so sometimes she might use chat

GTP or so, or, or some, some other, um,
AI to, to gentrify it really, or, you

know, make it a little bit more gentle
or more sensitive, or IPA empathic.

I don't know what the,
where, where's the ethical?

I don't.

I need to know what the
ethical concerns are before.

Yeah.

Um, I answer that really, I dunno
what ethical concerns are around ai.

There's been a lot of talk about it's got
bias and, and it's inbuilt bias because

it's built by a certain demographic,
but it's, uh, but it's also only

scanned 20 10% or 15% of the web anyway.

But the, I think where this, I think where
Jim's aiming at is, is it copying stuff?

So more, more of the ethical stuff
is coming from the arts generation.

Copyright.

So from the image generation.

But when I go to college and I learn, um,
about the Renaissance and I learn about

Greek mythology or Greek, you know, the
Greek statues and sculpture and all that

kind of stuff, I'm learning a style.

Production for, um, a painting, for
a sculpture, for a design product.

Designers, you know, Steve Ives or
whatever, you know, the, the guy

that designed the iPhone had ideas
for years, um, about how he would,

how he would put things together.

He was inspired.

By other artists or other creatives
or other product designers.

So with ai, all AI is doing is being
inspired by everything that it's

scanned, everything that's in its
database, but because it's not human

or it doesn't bleed when you cut it.

. Mm-hmm.

, it's copy, it's not inspiration.

Yeah.

And that's that.

I think that's the key.

But in, in, in the end, at the end of
the day, generative AI can only produce

what it's learnt just like a human being.

We can only, yeah.

Be as creative as we can be from
learning how to be creative.

There's never, yeah,
there's no spontaneity.

I can't, I'm not born and then held in a
box for 20 years and then I suddenly come.

as Van Goff.

Am I?

Yeah.

I can't.

Is this impossible?

I've gotta learn that
process through education and

inspiration from other things.

So that's all generative.

I like That's true.

Same.

I

think for me.

Yeah.

For me, there's two, two things that stand
out as, um, a little slippery slope ish.

Um, uh, the first one is really
on the generative image side.

Uh, not so much content, but like
the way that AI generates images.

Specifically around concerns that all
of our images are out on the web and

all of our images might be used in
ways that generate something that we

might not like, um, particularly well.

Um, and, uh, you know, if it, if
something too closely resembles me.

Um, putting me in a position
on an image that I don't want.

Like, uh, I, I don't love that idea.

Um, uh, but I know that a lot of folks
are already digging into some of those

implications and what that might look
like and how we might like somehow put

tags into the meta of images to prevent
that type of thing, um, when it's your

likeness, um, and things like that.

So I think that is something to.

in mind.

Um, I have a really, the other
one is, is on the content side.

Um, and, uh, specifically in education.

In the education realm.

I have a funny story where, My
16 year old, um, was asked to

write an essay, um, comparing
Jesus of Nazareth with Spider-Man.

Um, I just thought it
was a ridiculous prompt.

Uh, I was like, I cannot believe this
is like a 10th grade, uh, prompt.

But all right.

I said, it's so ridiculous.

I, I, I decided I'm gonna
show her a Chachi pt.

I said, you should just
generate it from this.

Um, then you should change it.

Uh, it needs to be your own.

But that is exactly where the.

, the ethical side of things comes into
play is if you, if you do try to just pass

off, um, content that you're either paid
for or it's supposed to be a reflection

of your, of your effort, uh, uh, uh, or,
uh, in, in, in a envir, excuse me, in a.

educational environment.

Um, you're trying to pass that
off as your own when it's not.

Um, I think those are ethical
concerns that are really important.

Um, especially even when
it comes to like LearnDash.

Like, all right, let's generate
a whole course on how to write

WordPress plugins with chat G B T,
and then sell it for 25 bucks a pop.

You could do that for sure,
and you don't even have to.

I think the part, I don't think that would
be ethically sound to do it that way.

Um, you could, um, but I do think
that there is also just the raw

marketplace that will put you in check.

Like, I don't think that people will
enjoy that course particularly well and

you might get a lot of refunds for it.

Um, but uh, using it as a launching pad.

Thinking of ideas and putting
together your own thoughts and

actually crafting something, uh,
based on that is a different story.

So those are my two ethical

ones.

Um, well, I, well, I, was that an
example you used from a, a school?

Did they asked to compare
Jesus to, um, to Spain?

Did they really have Very old, yeah.

Um, yeah,

I mean, it was a religion course,
so, um, pardon me, it was a, it

was a religion course, so, Okay.

Mm-hmm.

, still an odd thing

anyway, because none of these are in
specific to ai, the ethical concerns.

Mm-hmm.

, plagiarism, um, image doctoring,
uh, those sorts of things.

All of that, it applies
to life in general.

Mm-hmm.

. Um, so AI might, AI might have exacerbated
that, but we haven't really, I think

between us, come up with any issues that.

Specific to AI that are bringing
new into the world that we haven't

already had to tackle in some other.

I

agree.

That's really, cause I don't, I mean,
I don't, I agree with you, Katie.

There's nothing, there's nothing that
hasn't been done by humanity, good or

bad, that AI has yet to, to recreate Yeah.

In, in yet to create something new
that, that would, would cause somebody

to say there's an ethical concern here.

Yeah.

But we do, human beings
naturally are bias.

They, they have bias.

And because of we've got bias, AI has
bias because it learns from humans.

Right.

Eventually there will be, you
know, there's, there's the, the

court that says there will be
so much AI generated content.

But when AI res scrapes, whatever it
res scrapes, it will actually be AI

writing, ai, writing ai, learning from ai.

So there will be no originality
left in the world, but AI inception,

yeah, I'm not sure we're gonna
be alive when that happens.

I think, I mean, I think we do have
to acknowledge so that like while um,

those problems have existed, this.

Proliferate them in a way
that wasn't available.

Like people can forge images, but I know
that I couldn't reliably forge an image

before . Like I couldn't do something
passable as a, as an actual image forgery.

Uh, but now suddenly tools like that are a
lot more accessible, a lot more available.

, uh, to the common user.

I mean, it's the same thing with weapons.

Like when weapons are only
helped by a few folks, they're,

they're only limitedly bad.

Um, but when you proliferate
them across a whole population,

things will happen, is that
AI will generate a screenplay

and then AI will make that.

Mm-hmm.

. Yeah.

That, that, that'll happen.

You know?

So Will sure will be, will be
inundated with Ai . It's just so

we have to fi, we have to find
some way to almost control it.

Will we be punished by Google and
others for using AI-based content?

No.

, they've, they've said that
as long as it's interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

Useful.

And, um, you know, I mean, I've
always felt about SEO stuff.

If it's entertaining, educational, um,
and useful, then you'll, it doesn't

matter whether it's AI generated or
not, it will be indexed by Google.

Simple

as that.

. Yeah.

I mean, Google has its own AI that
it's, uh, had for a long time, but

they're trying to commercialize
it and, um, or consumerize it.

Um, I think it would go against,
against who they are as a product

to start penalizing the thing
that they're really good at.

Um, but yeah, they have
said that like if it's, if.

If they detect a lot of ai, um, content
in a piece, but it actually is really

good content still, then it's gonna be
elevated just like any other content.

Sure.

Which I think is the right answer.

Mm-hmm.

,
there's a lot of paranoia about that.

Um, there's no evidence.

That it would penalize you if you are
producing genu genuinely useful content,

which is relevant and everything.

Mm-hmm.

, but I have that paranoia as well
that um, I think for example,

chat, G p T always concludes with
the word overall or something.

It always says the same word
and I always remove that in case

Google makes, uses that as a clue.

Mm-hmm.

. But there is no real evidence.

It just feels like you
might get penalized.

It feels like cheating doesn't.

Yeah, well, it does, but you can
also ask that G p t to, to write

in the tone of voice of a human.

Mm-hmm.

. So, you know, if you, if you, that's why
we have tone of voices and we're, and one,

one of the things that I use it for as
well, particularly my own plugin, because

obviously I've got instant access to it
in millions of words, is translation.

You know, I, I can say, Here's this
paragraph, write this in French, or write

it in German or write it in Hungarian.

That's nice.

Yeah.

And, and it, it does it, so
it's, you know, it's pretty

useful for that kind of stuff.

So it's, it's multi, multi-language
universal and, um, is a solution,

uh, is a global solution basically.

And even Japanese, you
know, it will open ai.

Is, is.

For languages as well.

So it helps translation people,
helps, um, uh, understanding, uh,

cultural understanding as well.

You know, say say, I wanna write a
letter to my girlfriend who's Polish,

but I wanna write it in Polish.

Track it into.

A rephrase, say, write
this in Polish, please.

You know?

Yeah, yeah.

And then get in Polish as

well.

Yeah.

Regarding, uh, universities, um, I
mean, that's a little bit of my example.

It wasn't it my, my, um, my daughter's
high school essentially, but not

universities, but like, they have
had plagiarism detectors for a

really long time, uh, at Univers.

I, I, I used to teach.

Um, and, um, Plagiarism detectors
have been around for forever, and

they're gonna continue to be that way.

But, uh, one thing I've heard more
and more common from, from teachers

is that they won't be assigning
essays, um, to, to write, uh, outside

of the classroom, uh, much anymore.

Great idea.

You wanna do, uh, an essay, it's
gonna be 30 minutes at your.

in the classroom.

Um, and, uh, and that's it, you know, uh,
no screens, no, no, uh, mobile phones.

I ha I I did install Microsoft Bing
on my phone, uh, because I got access

to the, to the Bing AI bot, and
I tried it out just this morning.

Um, and it's really cool just
having a little AI bot on my phone.

Um, but, um, if I've
taken a test, not so much

so, but when I was at school, we didn't,
I mean, we all our, we didn't do this

kind of, um, You know, the, the, you
get assessed now, there's part that's

like 60% or 70% of your, your SATs
or whatever it may be, or your exams.

We didn't do that.

We, we sat down, you know, I'm,
I'm old, so when I was at school

we did sit down for an hour and
write an essay on such and such.

Yeah.

And that was it.

Yeah.

And that's what you got marked on.

So maybe we are going back to the old
school way of doing stuff cause of that.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Um, cool, cool.

So next and last segment is, um, what
is your best advice for new plug-in

shop owners who are considering,
uh, AI in one form or another?

Um, Andrew.

Um, , train it on your
documentation for a start.

Write good docs and then train it
on documentation that will save

you a lot of time in support, um,
to get rid of the what, what some

people regard as stupid questions.

I don't think there's ever a stupid
question in, in WordPress, but, you know,

so to get rid of the, the, the low level
questions, let's low hanging, low level,

low hanging fruit, get rid of it for that.

Um, use it for writing.

Better content to better
describe your plugin solution.

Um, and also use it for maybe
evaluating your plugin code as well.

You know, certainly with open AI codex,
you can throw it into there and say,

you know, what mistakes have I made?

Or Can you reexamine this code?

And it'll, it'll tell you where maybe
you've, um, Left an open bracket or

closed bracket or whatever, you know,
it'll just, or your syntax isn't quite

correct or you've got a loop wrong.

You know, specifically in Woo Commerce.

You know, Katie knows if you get a
Woo commerce loop wrong, it's like a

nightmare to fix it and find it, you know?

So you use it to your
best advantage and, and.

Have no guilt about using it.

You know, just use it as another tool.

Use it as we all use tools, um, and, uh,
AI is a great tool to help you improve

your business and your productivity.

Excellent,

Katie.

Um, my advice is to be positive and
embrace it as a genuine opportunity

to make your business more successful.

Uh, think creatively about the
different ways, cuz there are really

a wealth of different opportunities,
um, that you probably haven't

thought of that you can incorporate
into your processes and possibly

even your future products as well.

Um, but don't.

as a sticking plaster for bad work.

Don't use it to be lazy.

Mm-hmm.

, it's only a tool, it's
only a starting point.

Mm-hmm.

, you still need to, uh, finish it off.

Put your own unique knowledge
about your product into it,

and don't rely on it too much.

It's all about getting the right balance.

Excellent.

Really good advice.

Um, I think my best advice, um, is to
dig into the APIs because there's a lot

of power in there from what I can see.

And I do think a lot of the opportunity
is being able to leverage them if

at all possible in your products.

Um, I don't wanna call it a gold
rush, but like, essentially if your

product has a good solid use case, not
like, Tertiary, like this is just a

marketing employee kind of use case.

Uh, if your product has a good use
case for AI to be leveraged in the

product itself, jump into the APIs,
get familiar with it, see what you

can do immediately, because there is
a lot of opportunity at the moment.

Um, and if you get, get ahead of the
game right now, um, then you might

be beating out some bigger players.

Uh, honestly, um, cuz uh,
it's harder to implement.

Features like this in, in,
uh, in the bigger products.

Um, uh, there's, uh, you, you
can be scrappy right now and

get ahead of the game, so sure.

Cool.

Well that wraps us up for today.

This was a great conversation.

Um, went in lots of really
interesting dir directions.

Um, Katie, do we have things lined up?

We we're actually a
little bit behind still.

Do we have somebody for next week?

We do, don't we?

We do.

We have, and this is one of my favorite
topics, marketing, and we have Alex.

Denning from Ellipsis, who's one of the,
that's right top people in marketing.

And also because he works with
so many product businesses to do

their marketing, he has some really
great insights as well as being a

very thoughtful, strategic person.

So he's very, um, definitely
someone to, um, listen to next week.

Absolutely.

Uh, I love Alex.

He's a great guy.

I'm looking forward to that for sure.

So Andrew, thanks so much
for being here, everybody.

Thank you.

Do that fun YouTube stuff where you
like hit the like button and the

subscribe button and all that stuff
and uh, we'll see you all next week.

Thanks so much.

Bye.

Thanks.

Appreciate it.

Bye.

Care.