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Transcript

How I'm Using AI in My Ecommerce Businesses Right Now · eCommerce Podcast

0:04
Well, hello and welcome to the eCommerce Podcast.
0:07
My name is Matt Edmundson and it is great to be with you today.
0:11
Of course, this is your first time with us, a very, very warm welcome to you.
0:15
Make sure you like and subscribe and do all of that good stuff if you think
0:18
there's going to be some value to staying connected with us, which of course
0:22
I truly believe there will be.
0:25
And of course, if you're a regular, welcome back because
0:28
today I'm going to be talking about
0:31
how I use AI in my e-commerce businesses right now.
0:36
This is a big question I get asked a lot.
0:38
It's a big topic and we're going to get into it.
0:41
A stat I came across recently, which really surprised me is
0:46
56% of CEOs report a zero ROI from their AI investments.
0:54
In other words, there is zero ROI on their ai.
1:02
Oh, I love it.
1:02
Anyway, just little jokes that keep me amused really.
1:07
But I don't think we're, they're experiencing that zero ROI on their ai.
1:13
Not because AI isn't working, but I would venture to say it's probably
1:18
because we're not using it in a way that creates that ROI on our ai.
1:22
Anyway, enough for that.
1:25
So I, my experience here is most of us, like the idea of ai, some
1:30
of us are using it, the majority of us that are using it are dabbling with
1:34
it, sort of playing around the edges, not quite sure how to dig into
1:39
it and how to get the most out of it.
1:42
And because it's moving so fast, how do you keep up with the whole thing, right?
1:48
I thought we'd talk about it in this episode and hopefully move you a little
1:52
bit closer to getting an ROI from your ai.
1:56
Okay, that's honestly the last time.
1:58
So let me give you a quick overview of the tools that I'm currently using,
2:05
and then I'll do a little bit of a deep dive into each tool and why I
2:09
think each tool deserves its place in my tech stack in my e-com business.
2:16
Okay.
2:17
Now, across my whole company, organization, we currently use amongst
2:27
the whole team, including me, four tools.
2:30
Okay.
2:31
We've tried more.
2:32
And there are definitely lots and lots out there at the moment, but they
2:37
tend to be the four that we stick with.
2:42
Now, the main one that we use is Claude.
2:45
We probably pay more to Claude than any other,
2:51
software platform, with the exception of Klaviyo,
2:57
but with Claude, I personally have the Max plan subscription.
3:04
I don't know its specific name.
3:05
It's the Max Max plan, as high as I can go, because I do hammer it.
3:08
And it costs about 150 pounds a month plus VAT £180.
3:14
It's about $250, I guess.
3:16
$220, $250. You definitely don't need to spend that much money, by the way.
3:21
It's just, I hammer it and for the longest time I was on their
3:24
£90 a month plan, which was great.
3:26
But I just needed a little bit more with some of the stuff that we're doing.
3:30
The second one.
3:31
So we use Claude.
3:32
The second one is called Perplexity.
3:35
And again, I'm going to go into each one of these in detail.
3:39
But just to give you some idea of cost.
3:40
Currently, Perplexity costs about $20 a month.
3:44
For the sort of the platform that we're on.
3:51
I also
3:52
love Google NotebookLM, which is my third system, it's part of
3:56
their Google Gemini AI system.
3:58
I think I pay 20 bucks a month for.
4:01
For that.
4:02
I think I pay 20 bucks a month for, I really should check.
4:05
I think we just pay 20 bucks a month for the whole Google suite of AI
4:08
tools, of which NotebookLM is one.
4:11
And the fourth tool we use is also part of Google Suite.
4:14
You may have heard the name Nano Banana.
4:17
Or I suppose to my cousins across the pond, my nano banana.
4:23
Which actually stands better when you pronounce it that way.
4:25
But anyway, it's not actually a separate tool.
4:27
It is part of Google Gemini's sort of image generation model that went viral.
4:33
And I guess Nano Banana is a better name than image generation tool,
4:39
so, but that's part of Google Gemini as well.
4:42
Now, if I was on Shopify, which currently.
4:49
I am not specifically on Shopify with any of our e-com businesses.
4:53
I've talked about that before on the show.
4:55
There is a company, there is a possibility of one of our websites,
5:02
or a website that we're getting involved with potentially being on Shopify.
5:07
The reason I'm saying that and being slightly cagey, is if you are on
5:12
Shopify, if I was on Shopify there, there might be a fifth platform
5:16
that I would add to this mix.
5:18
Because ai is now available on Shopify.
5:21
It's called Shopify Magic, and Shopify Sidekick, and the
5:27
guys in the e-commerce Cohort groups have used it.
5:34
I personally haven't, like I say, our businesses aren't on Shopify,
5:36
but they have, and the, they.
5:41
Actually really, really like it.
5:44
They're loving it right now.
5:45
So if you are on Shopify, go and try Sidekick.
5:48
Maybe that would be the fifth one that I would add.
5:50
I think it's available on all plans, but it's definitely worth exploring and
5:54
like I said, it sort of comes,
5:58
recommended to me by the chaps in Cohort.
6:03
If you don't know what Cohort is, if you're new to the show, Cohort is a monthly,
6:08
group that you can connect with.
6:11
And every month we jump on Zoom, in the various groups.
6:17
And we just talk about eCommerce.
6:19
They're free to join.
6:20
You get to meet some sort of fellow eCommerce traveling,
6:23
the world of journey of eCommerce.
6:25
Some of them have big businesses, some of them are just starting
6:28
out, but it's really great.
6:29
We get that mix.
6:30
And the calls last for about I guess an hour or two.
6:34
I love them.
6:34
It's one of my favorite things we do every month actually, is the different
6:37
Cohort groups and just chatting with people about e-commerce, learning
6:41
from them and throwing ideas in.
6:44
And we're all.
6:45
Throwing ideas in and learning together and it's really, really good.
6:49
If you want to know more about that, go check out eCommerce
6:53
Podcast dot net slash Cohort.
6:55
I actually think you can go to, I'm just going to check it now.
6:58
This is really unprofessional.
7:00
I should've.
7:01
I should have done this beforehand, but I think if you go to eCommerce,
7:06
Cohort dot com takes you to that.
7:10
Yes, we have the domain and it's working.
7:15
So just go to eCommerce Cohort dot com.
7:17
If you can't remember any of the domain, it'll take you to the
7:19
exact page you need to go to anyway.
7:23
All of that said, the Shopify AI might be the fifth
7:27
one you want to add to your list.
7:29
So I think across the whole company, we probably spend about 3, 3 50, something
7:37
like that on ai, bearing in mind, I'm taking up the vast majority of that with
7:42
my Claude subscription and our dev team have some pretty.
7:48
They have the big subscription as well.
7:50
So I think that's about what, 4 50, 500 bucks a month?
7:54
US dollars, something.
7:56
Along those lines.
7:57
And what we did was we were actually spending quite a bit more.
8:03
And so what we have done is culled,
8:07
if that makes sense.
8:08
We sort of stripped back the.
8:12
AI tools that didn't make sense for us.
8:15
And so we definitely have stopped chasing the shiny objects, you know,
8:19
which I'm really bad for actually is just that.
8:25
I just come across 'em and go, oh, that sounds a good idea.
8:27
We could do that.
8:28
And we would try it and then we'd forget about it.
8:30
You know, some of the image generation stuff and things like that.
8:33
We've tried.
8:36
So we finally cut everything down.
8:38
We've simplified it and this tech stack of four AI tools work like
8:43
insanely well for us and our company.
8:47
Okay, now.
8:49
Full disclosure, this may well change in the future, starting like maybe tomorrow.
8:55
I don't know of anything that will be different tomorrow, to what we're
8:58
doing now, but it's ai, it's moving quick.
9:00
You don't know.
9:02
For example, one of the things that we did in this culling was
9:06
we dropped ChatGPT, the whole open AI thing.
9:14
We don't subscribe to that anymore other than the fact that we do have a few.
9:18
Again, just being totally honest, we have a few apps that use open
9:24
AI's Whisper, which transcribes things, and it does it super, super well.
9:29
But we dropped chat.
9:31
GPT is still a great tool, genuinely a great piece of ai,
9:34
but I just prefer Claude.
9:37
It's what I do.
9:38
There's a bunch of reasons, why I do.
9:41
So let's dig in.
9:41
Let's dig into each one of these tools.
9:45
And specifically how I am using them.
9:48
And I'm going to spend a bit of time explaining to you how I'm using Claude.
9:52
You might be like, Matt, surely it's easy.
9:54
You open up the app type stuff in and away you go, haha.
9:58
No, it's not.
9:59
Like, like that.
10:01
For those of you don't know, Claude is an AI assistant made
10:05
by a company called Anthropic.
10:07
Like ChatGPT, you can have conversations with it, you can ask it questions,
10:12
you can get it to write things, you can analyze documents, you can, it
10:17
can help you with all kinds of tasks.
10:20
And it, and like sort of basic ai, a lot of it is down to prompting.
10:28
And prompt engineering.
10:30
It does come in different versions, and you can use it through the,
10:34
a web interface, like in a browser.
10:36
You can use it on an app, like a desktop app or on your phone.
10:40
And it's also got this built in coding tool, which is actually what I use.
10:46
It's how I use it.
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And that's called Claude Code.
10:51
Okay.
10:51
Now, Claude Code is basically, it is Claude.
10:55
It's the same system.
10:57
But it's, it's having Claude live inside your computer's terminal.
11:02
Which without getting too technical, if you're not sure, is the black
11:05
screen of texts that developers use.
11:07
You'll see that quite often.
11:08
So instead of chatting into a browser, what this means is Claude
11:15
can run directly on your computer and it can see your files on your computer,
11:22
it can run commands on your computer.
11:24
It can make changes to computer code.
11:28
And originally this was designed for coders and to do coding.
11:32
Right?
11:33
And it was like having a developer sit next to you who can actually
11:36
touch the keyboard in, who can code.
11:40
So why does this matter?
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If you are not a coder and you're just, you know, something like you're using
11:45
Shopify, you're not writing code, you know where you've got, you've got a dev,
11:49
a dev team, you know, whatever, right?
11:51
You're not, you're not doing the code.
11:52
Why would you want to use Claude Code?
11:53
Why would I want to use Claude Code?
11:57
So imagine asking, say, ChatGPT to fix something in a
12:02
document or basic clause, right?
12:05
And it's going to reply with the comment, okay, well here's what you need to change.
12:09
And then you would copy it and you would paste it into your document,
12:12
or you would download the document from ChatGPT and you would save
12:16
that somewhere on your computer and you do whatever you need to do.
12:18
Right?
12:19
That is the normal sort of Claude / ChatGPT behavior.
12:25
Imagine if you could just have AI make that change for you.
12:32
So it changes the file, right, right there.
12:36
Right.
12:37
And it tests it, it tests it once it's changed it to make sure it works and
12:41
then it can move on to the next task.
12:43
Right.
12:44
So that's, that's in essence Claude Code.
12:47
It doesn't just advise, it actually does.
12:51
In relation to the files on your computer, and the key
12:54
thing this then means is it has.
13:00
Context.
13:01
Okay.
13:02
So it, Claude Code then can see your whole project.
13:05
So it could see your whole coding project, it could see,
13:09
what's going on in there.
13:11
It could see all the files, it could read them, and it could understand
13:14
how all the different files and pieces connect and it can make
13:18
changes that fit with everything else.
13:19
So rather than giving it isolated snippets of information,
13:25
you know that sort of give it part context or you have to figure
13:29
out how to plug that all in.
13:32
It's way more than that.
13:33
So think of it like the difference between texting a plumber for
13:37
advice versus having the plumber in your house with their tools.
13:43
Okay.
13:43
That's a really good sort of analogy of Claude Code's.
13:48
Okay.
13:48
It's the plumber in your house with your tools now.
13:52
Stay with me here because we are going to supercharge this a little bit.
13:56
Okay?
13:57
Now what I do then, personally with Claude Code, bearing in mind it can
14:03
interact directly on my computer with files and make changes to those files.
14:08
Okay?
14:10
I combine Claude Code with a tool called Obsidian.
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Now if you haven't heard of obsidian, it's basically a note
14:22
taking app, which I appreciate.
14:25
Does not sound exciting in any way.
14:31
Why am I telling you about a note taking app?
14:36
Get ready.
14:36
Okay.
14:37
Most of us use note apps like, I've used Apple Note, I've
14:42
used Evernote, I've used Craft.
14:44
Never really played around with Notion.
14:46
I know that's a big deal for a lot of people.
14:49
Google Docs, you know, I've played around with all of them.
14:52
So why obsidian?
14:53
Why is this different?
14:54
Why, why do I use it?
14:58
And more importantly, what's this got to do with Claude Code?
15:01
Well, remember,
15:04
Claude Code interacts with files directly on your computer, and obsidian
15:07
might be another note taking app.
15:11
Okay?
15:12
But it's got one crucial difference.
15:14
To the other note taking apps, your and what it does is when it creates
15:21
the notes, okay, they in effect become very simple text files
15:27
sitting in a folder on your computer.
15:29
And if you're used to obsidian, it's called a vault.
15:33
And so you have a vault, which is a folder full of text files.
15:37
They're not locked away in someone else's cloud like my Apple notes are in iCloud.
15:45
Okay.
15:46
When I was using craft, uh.
15:49
Thus the notes were stored in their system somehow and they
15:52
synchronized down to my computer.
15:55
But
15:55
not only does Obsidian store the files on my computer, they're in
16:02
this plain text formats, right?
16:05
They're in a format that other apps can use and access.
16:11
Okay?
16:12
So think of, think of them as like a. I don't know.
16:15
A a, a Google Doc or a Microsoft Word document, but much simpler now.
16:21
Stay with me.
16:22
We're going to go a little bit deeper.
16:23
The files that obsidian creates on your computer are something
16:28
called markdown files, which if you've never heard of markdown,
16:32
it's just a way of formatting text using very simple characters.
16:37
So you have these sort of text files, which carries some kind of
16:41
formatting, for example, if you wanted.
16:46
A line of text to be the equivalent of a heading or your fur, your
16:50
main heading, you would use an asterisk, or a, sorry, a hashtag.
16:55
You'd put a hashtag in front of the text and that signifies
16:58
that this is heading one.
16:59
If I put two hashtags, it's a heading two.
17:02
So you can see as you're typing documents, it's really easy
17:04
to just go one, two hashtags.
17:06
This is heading two.
17:07
Type the heading and go to the next line.
17:09
You can use asterisk to help identify bold text, for example.
17:15
Um.
17:16
It sounds maybe a little bit more complicated than it actually is.
17:18
It takes literally like five or 10 minutes to pick the, pick up the
17:21
idea of what markdown files are, and they're just really quick, easy
17:24
ways to create text documents now.
17:28
This is how Obsidian works.
17:30
It makes these markdown files for all of your notes.
17:33
And the beauty of obsidian is why do I need obsidian?
17:36
I could just put them in any text document you could.
17:39
But the beauty of obsidian is, is it, is it formats that so, you're
17:44
not staring at symbols all day.
17:45
Actually looks quite, quite lovely on the screen.
17:48
You know, it's got some nice formatting.
17:51
The other cool thing about obsidian is it has this internal linking
17:56
system so you can link notes together.
17:58
And so every day I write a daily note and I'll put in that daily note
18:02
the different things that I've been working on, and I can link through.
18:06
To those da, to those items, to those projects, to whatever it is,
18:11
using a very simple internal linking system that obsidian has.
18:15
So what this means is over time you build this sort of web of connected thinking,
18:21
your ideas, your projects, your meeting notes, your daily notes, all the research,
18:25
everything links up, and you're in effect building your own personal Wikipedia.
18:31
And so people, including me, will often call this building your second brain.
18:37
So that's what Obsidian does.
18:39
It's brilliant for note taking, for interconnecting files and
18:43
building this second brain.
18:47
So let's plug that into Claude Code and see where the magic happens.
18:53
Okay.
18:55
Because your notes are just simple text files in a folder.
18:58
They're not trapped inside an app's database on the cloud somewhere.
19:03
Claude Code can work with those files directly.
19:07
It can read through them hundreds.
19:09
I mean, I've got thousands of notes on my system.
19:13
It can understand.
19:14
How those notes connect.
19:16
It can create new notes and it can slot them right into my system.
19:20
Okay, so a simple workflow here might be, like I say, I capture my thinking
19:27
in obsidian throughout the day.
19:30
I have a daily note.
19:31
I write into the different project files.
19:33
Meeting notes, transcripts, blog posts, even, you know, EP episode transcripts.
19:40
I can put them in there.
19:41
They're all in my vault.
19:42
And I write this sort of note that connects 'em all together.
19:46
I know where they are.
19:47
It's a simple folder system, simple file system in effect.
19:51
So then Claude Code, the second thing comes across all of that,
19:54
and at the end of the day, it sort of distills my daily note.
19:59
And it makes sure, make sure, make sure that everything's organized,
20:06
everything's in the right place.
20:08
It pulls out tasks for me so I know what I'm doing.
20:11
It updates project files and it connects dots that I've missed.
20:15
Okay.
20:15
Which is beautiful.
20:16
So the third thing then, so I create the notes first thing, second thing,
20:21
Claude gets involved, and so then.
20:24
The third thing to bear in mind with this flow is everything stays on your
20:27
computer in your files, which you own and only you can open, right?
20:33
So there's a security thing now, which is quite nice.
20:36
It's a bit like having a brilliant assistant who can read your entire
20:40
notebook collection in seconds and actually file things properly without
20:45
you ever handing your data to a third party, which is, is a beautiful thing.
20:52
So I hope you're with me still on this, right?
20:53
This combination of obsidian, which is all my thinking, my second brain and
20:59
Claude Code, which is my AI assistant who can see and act on the thinking on
21:06
that thinking, well, this is genuine, genuinely one of the most practical uses
21:13
of AI that doesn't really require massive technical ability beyond the ability.
21:20
To type.
21:21
Okay, so.
21:24
I get excited about Claude Code and Obsidian, and it's one of my big things at the moment.
21:27
All our company information, for example, our branding documents, our
21:31
playbooks, like on email marketing, the playbook that I gave you a couple
21:36
months ago on the stuff we did around narrative binding that's in there.
21:40
Our content plans, all past scripts from the eCommerce Podcast
21:44
episode, you know, the blog posts, the transcripts are on there.
21:47
I can search them, I can have Claude interact with them.
21:50
Everything is in its own separate markdown file stored in my obsidian vault, or
21:55
just a simple folder on my computer.
21:58
And again, it's secure because it's not storing stuff in the cloud, it's just
22:02
working on local files on my computer.
22:05
So Claude Code then knows our brand voice.
22:08
It knows our product range.
22:09
It knows what we've tried before.
22:11
It knows what's worked.
22:13
So I'm hoping you can see why this matters because AI needs
22:16
context and it has all the context it could possibly need.
22:23
So the default way I think most of us use ai, certainly I did for a
22:27
long time, was to open up a chat.
22:30
On a browser window or, you know, using the app, type in a question
22:36
and I would get my generic answer.
22:37
And then we realized, well, we could actually give it some kind of
22:40
context maybe with project files.
22:43
That was, that was helpful.
22:45
But it did feel a little bit like every single time.
22:49
You used it, it was like, you know, you're hiring a new employee, right?
22:53
They've got a little bit of information, but then they're,
22:55
they're still quite dangerous.
22:56
And so, felt like every morning they didn't really
23:00
need know a whole great deal.
23:02
And you'd have to sort of explain your business again and again and again.
23:06
Right.
23:08
But what I've built with Claude Code and Obsidian
23:10
is more like having a team member who has spent six months reading
23:14
every document you have ever written.
23:16
And the difference then is night and day.
23:19
So take writing my ideas out for this podcast episode.
23:22
I can use Claude Code, I can brainstorm that.
23:24
Right?
23:25
And because I'm using, because I'm doing that brainstorm in obsidian.
23:31
Then that's stored with all my notes as local text files.
23:34
It's got access.
23:35
Then Claude's got access to all my previous notes, all the
23:39
scripts from previous podcasts.
23:41
We've got all the transcripts, the blog posts.
23:44
It's got my voice guide, my brand documents.
23:46
It's got access to my complete slingshot framework.
23:49
How I think and understand about e-commerce, it's
23:53
got access to all of that.
23:54
It knows how I write what I've covered before and what our business context is.
24:00
And so you can see when you put all this together, the beauty of this is
24:04
Claude learns as well and it, because it can update its own files when it
24:09
learns, when I give it more info, it can update its system files.
24:14
Because I'm giving it more context every day.
24:16
That system is constantly staying up to date.
24:20
It's a remarkable thing.
24:23
Now, I don't think it's a common setup.
24:26
I've not many met many people that use it, but I do think it is properly powerful.
24:32
I've explained the system to quite a few people and it's, I
24:35
think it's quite transformative.
24:36
There are some videos on YouTube if you want to find out more.
24:40
If you're using any kind of note system.
24:43
That stores plain text files on your computer, whether it's
24:46
obsidian or something else that you've maybe found, you could.
24:51
Use this system.
24:53
And for me, when I stumbled across it, I thought, actually, I'm going to do that.
24:56
That makes all the sense in the world.
24:58
To me, that's going to solve so much headache I have with ai.
25:01
It's going to boost my productivity and it's going to make everything run a lot quicker.
25:06
And so I, the start of that, which actually was only, three months
25:12
ago, at the time of recording, three months ago, three and a half months ago.
25:16
Anyway, I spent, two solid days.
25:20
Exporting my notes from my note taking app at the time.
25:25
Which was craft.
25:28
I exported all of those as markdown files and I imported them into my obsidian
25:33
vault, but I cleaned them up as well.
25:34
That's why it took two days.
25:35
The whole operation would've taken an hour, but I wanted to go
25:38
through them, and do a bit of housekeeping because it was really
25:42
needed, and absolutely worthwhile.
25:45
So I'm glad I spent the time doing it.
25:47
And since then, the whole thing has just gone from strength to strength.
25:51
Okay, so Claude Code is my thinking partner, my co-pilot, if you like,
25:56
for building, for creating, for doing a whole bunch of stuff.
26:02
So let's talk about perplexity.
26:04
What, what is it about perplexity that I like, given that, you know,
26:08
I've just wiped lyrical about Claude Code and obsidian.
26:13
There's a number of things.
26:15
Every Wednesday morning I walk from my house to the office.
26:21
It's one of my favorite times of the week.
26:23
It takes about an hour and a half, and for me it's Prayer time, it's just
26:28
thinking stuff through, processing, but it's also learning.
26:36
And this is where perplexity comes in.
26:38
I love in perplexity this chat feature, which it has, which is where you
26:45
can have a voice conversation with it and it will talk back to you.
26:49
So, the other day I was in the van, I had like a 30 minute drive.
26:53
I just put this voice feature on.
26:56
I just, nothing to do with e-commerce.
26:58
I was just like, why did the Roman Empire fall?
27:02
Just this question in the back of my head.
27:04
I had some thoughts around it and I just wanted to clarify.
27:06
I must have spent 45 minutes just going back and forth in conversation,
27:10
with their chat feature.
27:12
I absolutely love that feature, but that's not the main reason I use perplexity.
27:18
I use Perplexity when I need to research something specific.
27:23
I will open up perplexity on my computer or my phone and I will go for it.
27:28
So for example, I mentioned the episode we did a couple months ago
27:32
about narrative binding, which if you don't know what that is, it's a really
27:37
powerful idea for writing product copy.
27:41
For the products you sell on your e-commerce site.
27:43
Now, I'm a big fan of this idea and I've spent a lot
27:46
of time thinking about it.
27:47
And that whole episode came about because I spent the day locked away
27:53
doing a lot of research on the topic.
27:58
And I did that research with perplexity.
28:02
And the great thing about perplexity, the reason why I like it for research
28:06
is because you can sense check.
28:09
It gives you all of the sources, so it will give you some information,
28:14
and then there'll be a link to the source where it got that information from.
28:20
Which is awesome because let's be real, AI has the ability, an extraordinary
28:27
talent to do this whole hallucination thing quite well, doesn't it?
28:32
It really, really does.
28:34
And so it's good to verify.
28:37
And you can follow the links through the sources and see what makes
28:41
sense or what doesn't make sense.
28:43
And I'll tell you what, I came away from that research session.
28:46
It was, I spent literally like a whole day doing it.
28:49
I got so engrossed in it.
28:52
I came away from that knowing that strategic product copy optimization
28:56
delivers, measurable substantial conversion improvements, which
29:03
is all very AI speak, isn't it?
29:05
Measurable, conversion improvements, et cetera, et cetera.
29:09
What it actually did, it, to put it in real language, is it
29:12
gave me the confidence to invest a little bit more time and energy.
29:16
Into that area by looking at the research, by looking at case studies
29:22
and seeing how other people were using that idea, and then understanding how to
29:28
apply that to my own business as well.
29:31
The result of that day was a 30 page document on the topic.
29:35
There's a lot of stuff in there, let me tell you.
29:39
And all that learning then became the backbone of the episode, which is episode
29:43
2 74, all about narrative binding.
29:45
If you've not listened to it, check it out.
29:46
It's really good episode.
29:48
So perplexity is a great piece of AI when it comes to doing really deep research.
29:55
I know now it's got new features like computer and it's trying to compete
29:58
with Claude Code or Claude Cowork, which is sort of another version.
30:02
It's more sort of user friendly version of my Claude Code obsidian, setup.
30:08
It started to do things like that, but I use it specifically for deep research.
30:13
That's where I sort of got used to it.
30:15
So I've got Claude Code with obsidian.
30:18
I have perplexity.
30:19
Like I said to you, the next tool on my list is Google's NotebookLM, and
30:23
this is a different beast entirely, and for me has a very different use case.
30:30
So I mentioned that perplexity will go to the web and it'll do
30:33
a whole chunk of research around a topic like narrative binding.
30:36
It will come back with its finding and give you the links to those.
30:39
Sources, Google NotebookLM is a little bit like that, but I give
30:46
it the sources to look at and it restricts itself to those sources.
30:51
Why would I want to do that?
30:52
So let's say I want to learn about a topic or I'm trying to synthesize
30:56
large volumes of information.
31:02
This is where NotebookLM sort of becomes your co-pilot for
31:06
getting smarter and faster?
31:07
I think.
31:08
Lemme give you an example.
31:09
Yesterday, I wanted to spend a little bit of time learning about negotiation.
31:17
The topic intrigues me, and the reason this came about was I had breakfast
31:22
with a friend, and he recommended to me the book, Getting to Yes.
31:29
I'd not read it.
31:31
I had read the book, Never Split the Difference with Chris Vo
31:34
and thought it was a great book.
31:35
But I'd not read.
31:37
Getting to Yes, which was Harvard's Strategy for Negotiation.
31:40
And so I got that book and realized actually these, the, they
31:45
approached negotiation in a, in, in, there's some similarity between the
31:51
two books, but there's some things where they, they're quite different.
31:54
So.
31:55
What I did, because reading a book is great and you get some ideas,
31:59
but I actually want to download the information into my brain and learn it.
32:03
Which for me means doing a whole bunch more stuff than just reading.
32:07
So I uploaded my, notes, my research and some other
32:12
stuff I'd found on the web.
32:14
I uploaded, I uploaded those to a notebook in NotebookLM.
32:17
Now I think you can add up to 300 sources of information.
32:21
And that can be blog posts, it could be YouTube videos, it can be
32:25
audio files, it can be a PDF, it can be text files like from your
32:30
obsidian vault, whatever it is.
32:33
You can upload that to your notebook and Google NotebookLM will
32:39
restrict itself to that information.
32:44
So when it comes to negotiation, I can ask NotebookLM questions
32:49
and it will give me answers from the research and the notes that I uploaded.
32:53
It doesn't give me answers from the web, okay?
32:58
It keeps its answers strictly to my documents, which is a great way for me to
33:02
ask questions and also learn from large volumes of information that I may have.
33:08
So I specifically want to learn.
33:10
The Getting to Yes, the Never Split the Difference, the and sort of what
33:16
that means amongst the two systems and what that might mean for my businesses.
33:19
So when I'm talking to NotebookLM, I want it to restrict itself to
33:22
that information, which is great.
33:25
And technically I can now do that with Claude Code and the
33:28
Obsidian Vault, but I think Google NotebookLM is a little bit.
33:32
Stronger in that area, but for me,
33:36
the most amazing feature about Google NotebookLM, is that you can have
33:43
it generate 20 minute audio files.
33:51
Now, these audio files.
33:53
It generates based on the what you want it to do.
33:57
So with the negotiation, I wanted an overview of the two systems.
34:00
It generated a 20 minute audio file.
34:03
In essence, it gave me a podcast.
34:05
Okay, and this podcast is two voices having a conversation
34:11
about the topic of negotiation.
34:14
I love podcasts.
34:15
I'm a big fan of listening to podcasts.
34:19
So what this gives me is a podcast around a very specific topic that I'm
34:27
trying to learn and understand about.
34:28
It's like podcasts on demand.
34:32
It's like you calling me and going, Matt, can you do a 20 minute
34:35
podcast on, email marketing?
34:39
In France selling flowers to women in age 50 to 60.
34:46
I mean, you can get really super specific, you know, and I go away, do that research,
34:50
come back and do a 20 minute podcast on it to help you and your business.
34:54
You've got that with Google NotebookLM. And it's the most extraordinary thing.
34:59
So if I take this case, like I said, negotiation, I
35:02
listened to that podcast.
35:03
I call it a podcast.
35:04
Is it a podcast?
35:05
It's an audio file, isn't it?
35:06
It's an overview.
35:07
I listened to that thing this morning and it was a remarkable
35:10
overview of the key information in a, sort of this audio conversation
35:14
base, which, like I say, works super well for me and it's so well done.
35:19
That I think it's pretty much impossible to tell them apart from actual humans.
35:25
Now, that's both scary and fascinating at the same time.
35:30
But if I'm trying to learn about a topic, I can upload my notes, my
35:34
information into NotebookLM and I can have it generate a bunch of different
35:38
podcast episodes for me about the different aspects of that, and I can
35:41
listen to those whilst I'm out walking.
35:44
To the office every Wednesday morning.
35:46
And so, you know,
35:50
if you fancy creating your own podcast around a topic that's
35:52
going to help you learn, go for it.
35:53
I mean, I love it.
35:54
I love, love, love that feature.
35:57
Okay, so let's move on to the last tool.
36:01
Nano banana.
36:02
Nano banana, Google Gemini's image generation system.
36:07
Yes, nano banana.
36:08
It's so much better, isn't it?
36:10
Than, than the other name.
36:12
So what I use this for, I use this product for lifestyle images,
36:17
product lifestyle shots.
36:20
So what happens here is you can take a, a product photograph,
36:23
upload it to Gemini, and then have it generate, products, shots,
36:28
lifestyle shots in different contexts.
36:30
Okay?
36:30
So the stupidest example that I could think of was the
36:35
very first time I tried it.
36:36
I uploaded a picture of our Omega-3, which if you're
36:39
watching on YouTube, is this here?
36:42
Not that you can see.
36:43
I need to cover my eyes.
36:44
There you go.
36:44
It take,
36:47
So, yeah, we've got this Omega-3 from our supplement site.
36:51
And the thing about our Omega-3, you'll have heard me talk about
36:54
this before, if you regular on the show, is it is fish friendly, okay?
36:57
Because the Omega-3 in those supplements comes from
37:02
algae and not from fish.
37:03
Fish don't make Omega-3.
37:05
Fish ingest Omega-3 from the algae.
37:08
So we just take it from the algae and as we like to say, cut out the middle fish.
37:13
And it's one of its unique selling points.
37:15
Every jar of Omega-3 you get from us saves the lives of 50 fish, which
37:21
is, you know, just fascinates me still.
37:24
And it's the purest, strongest form you can get.
37:26
So we've got a really great product.
37:28
It's a really good hero product for us.
37:30
And it worked super well.
37:32
So I took a shot of Omega-3, which was on a, I think it was on a transparent
37:38
background, or it may have been on a white background, I can't remember.
37:41
But I uploaded that to Google.
37:45
Gemini and I said to it, right, I want you to take this bottle of
37:48
Omega-3 and put it so it's like being held up slightly by the ocean.
37:54
I want the sun setting behind it and I want dolphins jumping over it, sort of
38:01
making that heart shape as dolphins do.
38:03
And I want it to be as realistic as possible.
38:07
I mean, it is the cheesiest image.
38:10
Idea that I've ever had my whole life.
38:13
But I just wanted to see, it was so well done.
38:17
I was like, we will never use that image, obviously.
38:20
But the fact that we could do that was amazing and just playing
38:26
around with it was great fun.
38:28
So, like I say, you can take product photos and generate them
38:31
in different contexts, different settings, different moods.
38:35
So you can take a product photo on a plain background.
38:37
You can put it on a kitchen counter, you can put it in the hands of kids.
38:40
You can do, I mean, there's all kinds of things that you could do.
38:42
And there's no need for the expensive studio setup, right.
38:46
I mean, there's no way I'm getting dolphins to simultaneously jump over
38:50
a bottle of Omega-3 while the ocean.
38:52
Lifts it up, it's just not going to happen.
38:54
But for AI it was a pretty straightforward thing to do.
38:58
Now, full disclosure, because I know I'm going to get asked.
39:01
Yes.
39:01
We still use, our photographer Lindy, who is just awesome.
39:05
She's brilliant.
39:07
And AI supplements what Lindy does.
39:11
AI is not replacing Lindy and.
39:15
This, I think is true of all AI tools, right?
39:19
They're supplements.
39:21
They are co-pilots.
39:23
They're not always replacements.
39:27
So I think learn to use AI as your co-pilots is the way forward
39:34
for me, for your website, social media, quick lifestyle
39:38
images, all of that sort of stuff.
39:41
Use nano banana.
39:42
It's brilliant, but use it as a co-pilot.
39:45
I will say this, video generation tools like vo and similar ones
39:50
are starting to make some really interesting waves, aren't they?
39:56
We haven't actually played around with them that much yet.
39:58
Played around a little bit with them, but I, not enough for me to be able to talk
40:02
with confidence about it on the show.
40:04
They are definitely on our horizon.
40:08
But for me it was all about getting the foundations in place where we really
40:12
start to try and get complicated things.
40:14
So that for me was all image stuff.
40:16
So, you know, try nano banana.
40:17
It's not perfect, but it is pretty good for your website, social media stuff.
40:23
A fraction of the cost.
40:25
The only thing you've really got to do well with that is write
40:30
the prompt and give it context.
40:32
But guess what?
40:35
If you use Claude Code and obsidian, then Claude Code's got all of that context.
40:39
You can use Claude Code and say, write me a prompt to use on Google's nano
40:43
banana that gives it enough context.
40:46
This is the kind of thing that I want.
40:47
So please write a, a really great prompt and it will write
40:51
the prompt for you, which you can then paste into nano banana.
40:57
Your whole life becomes a lot easier.
40:58
And actually what you could also do if you really wanted to supercharge it, is
41:02
you would go to perplexity and go, right, I want to do some research on how to write
41:07
the best prompts to generate the best images from nano Banana, specifically
41:12
these types of images that I wanted.
41:14
Do I want it to take product shots and I want it to create
41:16
these lifestyles type shots.
41:18
I want it to be on the website.
41:20
So I want both a, a sort of landscape version and a square
41:23
version and a portrait version.
41:24
I want this to be high res. I want 'em to be, playful in nature.
41:30
I want this sort of color tone to the image.
41:32
Whatever it is, right?
41:34
You'll go away to perplexity, have it go away, do some research, do some,
41:37
and use the deep research feature.
41:38
It'll go away and it'll come back.
41:40
You'll go back and forth, get a whole chunk of research.
41:43
You then put that research into Claude Code and Obsidian,
41:48
or put it into obsidian.
41:49
You tell Claude Code.
41:50
Here's a whole bunch of research we've done around how to write prompts.
41:54
I want you to write a really detailed playbook, using that.
41:58
As the skeleton, as the foundation, as the principles, but figure out
42:03
how that all applies to our business and write me a detailed playbook.
42:07
Then it writes you a playbook which you store in your vault.
42:10
So when you ever need to create an image, you go right Claude, using our
42:15
Google image, nano banana playbook, I want you to write for me a prompt
42:20
that will take a product image and create this kind of output and it will
42:24
create a, I mean, you're talking about.
42:27
Creating a prompt that is so specific and so context rich, you can put that
42:32
into nano banana and voila, everything suddenly becomes a lot easier.
42:36
And because you've got the playbook written you, you then go back to
42:40
next time you want to do another image.
42:42
It's already got all that context there, right?
42:44
It's already got that context there.
42:45
And in six months time you'll go back, you'll take that.
42:49
Notebook, you'll put it into perplexity and say, this is our
42:52
current notebook for image generation.
42:54
It was done six months ago.
42:56
What has changed in the last six months that needs to now update in here?
43:00
It'll go away, do some more research.
43:01
You'll give that back to Claude and the whole process starts again.
43:04
So you're always up to date.
43:06
That'd be one way to supercharge it.
43:08
Okay.
43:09
That is my current AI stack.
43:13
So hopefully you found this helpful.
43:15
Now I am rolling the AI out in our company and everyone in our
43:20
team uses AI with one exception.
43:23
I'm not going to name names.
43:24
They know who they are,
43:28
but here's the thing, right?
43:29
I found even in our own office adoption.
43:33
Was slow for ai and we're a tech company, right?
43:37
Even the dev team, were slow to use Claude Code and I wonder if this
43:44
is because we don't understand it.
43:45
And let's be frank, I don't think AI has always lived up to the hype.
43:50
And we may, you may have been like me, you may have spent
43:52
more time trying to sort out ai.
43:55
Sort of output than doing the actual job that AI was supposed
43:59
to help within the first place.
44:01
And I, I get that frustration having been there on many occasions.
44:06
But I also get that AI is moving at such a rapid pace.
44:13
Even this episode may well date quickly.
44:16
I don't know.
44:17
And I might have to do another one, an update probably in six or 12 months time.
44:21
I'm definitely going to have to do an update, aren't I,
44:23
to talk about what's happened.
44:25
But neither of those things really should be a reason that you don't
44:31
do anything where AI is concerned.
44:33
You know, I think there's a real fear factor here.
44:36
It does feel alien.
44:37
I get it.
44:40
We've got different competence levels across our team,
44:42
different technical levels.
44:44
We've got the dev team that's going to use it more for coding the marketing team
44:48
that's going to use it more for content.
44:50
But it's my responsibility in my company to make sure everyone's
44:54
getting better and better, that we have an AI policy and that we are
44:58
growing in our learning, because I don't think it's going to go anywhere.
45:02
I could be wrong, I just don't see it right now.
45:06
And even for some of the, say our admin team, we use in, you know, my system,
45:12
Claude Code and Obsidian, it's easy for me to create specific prompts that they use.
45:17
So they might not have the Claude Code Obsidian set up.
45:20
They use Claude and Project Files, so I can give it the context
45:24
and the prompts for those project files and they can use those.
45:27
It's just, it's really straightforward, right?
45:30
Like, the prompts we used in the narrative binding episode,
45:34
an SEO product description is the one that I've mentioned.
45:36
Well, guess what?
45:37
Our team who, who look after the website are using those exact prompts.
45:42
They're all inlaws and they're just using them.
45:44
They're putting the product information in and getting the
45:46
output out, which is great.
45:50
So that's sort of what we found out with the transition.
45:54
And I think the real lesson for me with AI is it's not, I
46:01
don't think it's going anywhere.
46:02
There is a lot of hype around it.
46:05
So understanding how to use it specifically for your business
46:08
I think is where it's at.
46:10
And the good news is you do not need to be a power user.
46:16
You really don't, you just need to find the use cases that, that sort of
46:22
help you do what you need to do better.
46:26
Right?
46:27
I think that's the key.
46:28
Like, like for me,
46:34
the, one of the beautiful things about AI is if I get stuck and I don't
46:39
know what I'm supposed to do next.
46:42
I just ask the ai, I go, I'm stuck here.
46:44
I don't understand this, or explain this, or what's the next step?
46:48
And you know what?
46:49
It's starting to really get smart because it's been really, really helpful anyway.
46:55
I hope this has sparked some ideas for you, and I hope you have the courage
47:00
to go and try some of these things.
47:01
And like, you know, like I always do on these solo episodes, I have put together
47:04
a freebie for you this month, which is my guide to using AI in e-commerce.
47:10
It covers the tools that I mentioned, simple getting, starting guides, and
47:15
of course I've added some more of the prompts in there that's going to help you
47:17
get started, with some of them.
47:20
And I've also added a priority matrix.
47:23
Which is going to help you know what to try and where to start because
47:28
I think a lot of this stuff feels overwhelming and because of the
47:31
overwhelm we don't start anywhere.
47:33
So just use that to kind of, sort of answer a few questions.
47:36
It'll help you figure out where you are right now and then make
47:40
some decisions based on that.
47:42
You will of course find the link to said freebie in the show notes or in
47:47
the description if you're on YouTube.
47:49
But of course you can head over to the website eCommerce Podcast dot net.
47:54
Just click on the resources link and you'll find it.
47:58
There.
47:59
No problem at all.
48:00
So go check that out.
48:02
It's a free download and it will be super, super helpful for you.
48:05
Let me, let me close this episode with a challenge.
48:09
Start with one thing, just one thing.
48:11
Pick the use case that resonates most with where you are at right now and just give
48:16
it a right old go for the next two weeks.
48:19
Not a quick play, but a proper go.
48:21
We're going to learn what this does and means for us.
48:24
You're going to get your head around it.
48:26
I'm going to watch YouTube videos that talk about your specific use case.
48:30
I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, but I'm going to give it a right go.
48:33
I do not think.
48:36
I know there's for, again, this is just my brain and where it's at.
48:39
I could be wrong.
48:40
I do not think AI is replacing us.
48:44
I think it's definitely going to replace some jobs, don't get me wrong.
48:47
But I think.
48:51
Some of the roles it will replace.
48:54
Yes.
48:55
But for most of us, I think AI is a co-pilot, and I think that's
49:00
a really good way to look at it.
49:02
I think the roles that'll be replaced will be the people that
49:05
don't actually learn how to use AI to help them with their role.
49:09
The people that learn how to use AI as a co-pilot, I think will be some of
49:12
the most valuable people on the planet.
49:14
That's just my own personal opinion.
49:16
Time will tell whether I was right or wrong.
49:19
And I think the people that will figure out or figure that out are
49:23
going to be the ones that can pivot quickest, if that makes sense.
49:27
And it's going to give you, certainly in your econ business, a bit of an
49:30
edge, because I would say 98% of people aren't doing the stuff that we
49:35
just, the stuff that we've talked about.
49:37
In this episode, it just puts you above everything.
49:40
So yeah, just my thoughts.
49:43
I'd love to know what you think.
49:44
Of course.
49:45
So reach out to me on social media, on LinkedIn especially.
49:48
That's Find me at Matt Edmundson.
49:50
I would love to know how you're using ai, what your questions about AI
49:53
are, where you think it's going to go.
49:54
Because this whole topic I find absolutely fascinating.
49:59
And of course, if no one has told you yet today, let me be the first.
50:04
You are awesome.
50:05
Yes, you are awesome.
50:06
It's just a burden you have to bear whether you use AI or whether you don't.
50:11
Now.
50:13
Like I said, the freebies available on the website eCommerce Podcast dot net.
50:17
Check out Cohort as well.
50:19
If you'd like to come join us in the Cohort groups, it'll
50:21
be great to see you in there.
50:22
It is a free community to join.
50:24
There's definitely no strings attached and we just all help
50:28
each other out, grow in eCommerce.
50:30
So hopefully I'll see you in there.
50:32
But that's it from me.
50:32
Have a wonderful week wherever you are in the world.
50:35
I will see you next time.
50:36
Bye for now.