How Podcasters Can Stand Out in the World of AI | Alex Sanfilippo

AI has flooded the world of podcasting, making it more competitive and crowded than ever before. Thankfully, there's a way that podcasters can stand out by simply being themselves. In this episode, Alex Sanfilippo shares that the best way to stand out in the world of AI is by embracing your humanity and doubling down on your own unique creativity. Get ready to stand out more than you ever have as a podcast host or guest without having to sell your soul!

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/354

Chapters

00:00 The Inbox Dilemma: AI's Impact on Communication
07:29 Standing Out in the Age of AI: Key Strategies

Takeaways

AI is increasingly influencing communication, leading to frustration in personal interactions.
Human-created content resonates better with audiences than AI-generated content.
Direct communication should always be human to human to foster genuine connections.
AI should be used to save time, allowing creators to focus on their creative efforts.
Creativity is a muscle that needs to be exercised to avoid losing it.
Podcasters should prioritize their unique voice in their content.
AI can assist with administrative tasks but should not replace human creativity.
Engagement and connection are key to standing out in a crowded space.
The human element is irreplaceable in content creation and communication.
Using AI effectively means leveraging it without losing one's personal touch.

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/354

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Inbox Dilemma: AI's Impact on Communication
• 7:50 Standing Out in the Age of AI: Key Strategies

Transcript

There I was Friday morning, opening my laptop to start work. Super excited because Friday is typically my slowest day, which means it's the one day of the week that I'm pretty much guaranteed to get caught up on my inbox and my social media messages. Listen, I don't know about you, but I'm an inbox zero guy. I love that sense of accomplishment being totally caught up. Although a lot of people tell you it's maybe not a good trait. But listen, Friday is my one day that I'm like, I'm doing it. It's going to be fun. I'm excited about it.

And so this Friday I opened up my laptop and I opened my inbox, I get my social media messages ready and I noticed something that I don't usually see. A lot of messages and a lot of emails, like a lot more than usual. And at first being the founder of Podmatch, a software, I assumed that this means there was a problem, like something broke, which sadly happens sometimes in software world. And a bunch of people were saying problem, problem, problem, this broke, this broke, right? Everyone kind of saying the same thing, but there wasn't any of that. So I was like, okay, like.

why is there so much here? And it's not like there's not a problem. What's going on here? And so I start going one at a time like, okay, I'm still sticking to my goal. Like I'm going to have inbox zero accomplished by the end of the day. And so I start going one at a time through them and I quickly start realizing a trend. And it's that people weren't writing these emails. It was AI that was doing it for them. And when I'd respond, I'd get very quick responses that were even longer emails because the first email was already too long and

didn't flow very well and that was even longer saying even less. And when you ever got an email like that where it's like paragraphs and you're like, you're not even saying anything here, right? What is the old saying? I didn't have time to write you a short email so I wrote you a long one. That's basically the definition of AI rights. And so here I am, I'm like looking at it and I'm trying to get caught up and I was like, man, what a day by the end of it, right? Now, thankfully I got caught up. So Monday I go back and there's even more. And Tuesday, the same thing, Wednesday, the same thing. I'm like, what is this?

And I actually got really frustrated. And so I decided to post on all my social media platforms and I titled it AI help needed. And under that, I just described the situation that I just explained to you here. And I basically was like, what should my perspective be? Like I'm getting frustrated and I don't want to have like bad thoughts or rude thoughts about any of individuals, but I can tell that they don't care enough to even read my email. They're just feeding it back to AI and saying, write me another response. So it's like, what should I be doing?

And so again, very frustrated. can hear there might still be a little bit there. I'm very grateful. I received hundreds of responses on every single social platform. One funny thing is a bunch of people used AI to write the response for it. And AI basically made a case as to why you would use AI to communicate versus using a person. they got called out by, everyone who did this got called out by a lot of other people. Not me, I try not to do that stuff. But was like, ha, you kind of deserve that, right? But the thing is I learned a lot from this and

Basically, I'm using that as the foundation of this talk today, which is going to be how podcasters, whether you're a podcast host or podcast guest, can stand out in the world of AI. And I am really grateful for all the people that helped with this, and I'm excited to talk about it today. Hey, if I've not met you yet, my name's Alex Sanfilippo, and I can't wait to talk about this, but I have to say one thing beforehand. I am not an AI hater. I think that everyone was assuming that like, uh-oh, here we go, Alex can talk doomsday. We're gonna talk the matrix. We're gonna be talking Terminator 2. Here we go.

Right? No, no, no, we're not going to get into that. And as a matter of fact, I, again, not an AI hater, I actually am a big proponent of it. I think that it should be used. And I'll even mention like in the actual written copy that we have, I've never been a great speller and my vocabulary isn't advanced. So I really like AI for basically restructuring a sentence or helping me understand a word that I don't know how to give me a good definition. And I've always found that search engines have lacked that. So it's been really cool from that regard. But in addition to that,

Many of you have probably heard me say if you've heard me talk before, but automate, delegate, eliminate everything that you possibly can. And AI is a great way to automate, delegate, and eliminate tasks that are on the administrative side, that are on the side of scheduling. All those type of things are super important. But what I'm talking about today and how you really stand out in world of AI is we don't let it take over the creative side of what we do, the human element. Now I'm going to say a really big statement here, so please buckle up, get ready. This is going to be intense for just a minute and then I'm to get into some really

Some really practical points for you that I think will be really helpful. But first, buckle up. Intelligence is not human made. Intelligence is not human made. We've named AI, artificial intelligence, the wrong thing. Intelligence is not the word that should be used because that's not actually what it is. Because it's not human made. Therefore, we can't create what we didn't make. And let me explain this to real quick. This might be like a strange analogy, but I think it works here. Let's imagine we have a table. We have all the pieces to build a person.

Listen, everyone knows some at this point who's had like a hip or shoulder replacement and that stuff is like outpatient now. so it's, it's not even that impressive. We're like, wow, they have like a robotic hip, right? Like my grandma has that, right? Like no one is like really impressed by that anymore. But did you know there's a company just a few years ago that designed a heart. So it's like a robotic heart that's like for humans that can actually beat for like tens of thousands of years, needs no maintenance. Like we, our hearts don't be for that long, right? Like that's impressive. And that's one of the most complex part of our bodies, I would say, but they built it.

And it works. So again, let's go back to our table example. We have all these pieces now to put together a person, the hip, the shoulder, the heart, and all the other things, right? And then we're to go ahead and throw all of our collective wisdom and knowledge into it because we have all that in a computer. So basically a really smart computer that can hold way more than ours can, right? This one's guaranteed to win trivia night. So we're put all that together and we're going to flip it on. We flip it on. And what happens next? Do we have a human that we created? The answer is no.

And no one hesitated in thinking that, right? Like as soon as I said, you're like, no, that's not a human. And here's why, if we had a real human on the table, sorry to be a little bit morbid, and we took the person apart, labeled all the pieces, we're missing one piece. No one in that operating room picks up the human soul and says, here's the soul, where do you want to put it? Let's label it. That's the missing piece. We've got everything else we need, but none of that really works without the human soul.

And the human soul is actually what contains intelligence. Intelligence comes from the human soul, which is something that we can't locate, that we can't find. There's not a physical piece for it. Listen, I'm making a case for creation here. Like, we didn't put ourselves here. We didn't come up with this soul, right? That is intelligence. It comes from a higher being. I happen to be a follower of Jesus myself, so this stuff actually makes a lot of sense to me. So some of your minds being blown right now.

because you immediately knew when I said that I'm absolutely right. There's no debating this at this point in the world. I think we've passed that point, right? And so I digress on that. My point is though, that all that we can create is a mere reflection of our collective history as humanity. So just our entire collective history is all that we can do and that's what we're calling quote unquote artificial intelligence. All it is, is putting a bunch of stuff together that we've already done and accomplished, all of us, which can be very helpful, but it's not true intelligence.

Therefore, it cannot replace us, the human element. I wouldn't have been frustrated if I had hundreds of emails on a random Friday and every day after that since then, right? I wouldn't have been frustrated if they were all human written, but I could feel that it wasn't. I could feel it was missing the soul. It was missing that depth that it needs. And that's what I wanna talk about today. I'm about to share with you four ideas that podcast hosts and podcast guests can use to really stand out in the world of AI. And again,

I'm not saying don't use AI. This is how we leverage it properly again, so we can stand out. Get ready take some notes. Here's the four ideas. Number one is this important content that you want to be seen must be human created. Every social media channel, every search engine, every large language model favors human content because it understands, got AI running the background that understands, if it can tell it's completely human made, it's going to resonate with people better. Even though

You could easily go to AI and write something way better. It doesn't matter. People don't resonate with that. They really resonate well with another human. Our flaws, our unique thoughts, which could never be replicated. No matter how good you get at changing the data and getting the algorithm to work well for you and teaching AI to sound like you, the model itself can never do that, because again, it's lacking intelligence. So if you want it to rank really high on any of these platforms, it has to be created by you.

Let me give you a great example of this. Every time I write a post on social media, every time I post a blog, every time I create a video, every time I do a podcast, everything I do ranks extremely high. And one of the most common questions I get is, Alex, how come everything you do seems to just hit the top of everything immediately? It's not because I'm the most well-spoken. It's not because I'm a good writer. Like, God knows I'm not a great writer. It's not because I do any of these things better than other people. It's because I do them.

I don't send it through AI. And even if AI wants me to correct my grammar, I don't correct it all because I'm like, no, I don't talk like that. I talk like this. You can't fix that. Now, if I get my, the word too wrong because I can't keep those three together or word there wrong, right? Like I'll fix that. But the rest of it, I want it to be my voice. It used to be that when I read a blog post, it was me and 10 other people writing a blog post. This, man, humans writing it before AI was a thing. Now it's me versus 100 people. The difference, I'm the only one who's willing to do it.

by hand myself. Therefore, all these platforms say human content is better. We know it's better because the engagement is higher. This is the only one of these hundred posts that is human written. Move it to the top. That's it. My competition has disappeared because people found a shortcut that most shortcuts don't work. Right. And so first and foremost, again, I wanted to share this point because if you want something to rank or you want it to be seen, it has to be human created. The same goes with your podcast host.

Don't ask AI to write your intro and read it word for word. Guess, don't come up with a bio that AI writes you. Don't come up with all your questions you're ready be asked and let it be AI. As soon as something hears that it's one dimensional, it was created by machine, not a person, it loses its depth and people don't connect with it. Here's the proof of this one, by the way. Notebook LM, created by Google. It is an AI like recap podcast. It has a host and a guest and they've even moved in things like someone hitting the mic.

the ums, the filler words, they've added all that to make it really mimic people well. I have never heard one person tell me that those are good podcasts. And then when I ask about them, I tell myself, people will be like, I can't listen to that. I don't know what it is. Like, I just can't get into it. It's missing the human element. That's what we connect with. We don't connect with the machine. So be very careful, even with your intros, your outros, anywhere you're using AI, make sure it has your touch involved in it. AI needs humans to continue to create so that it can mimic.

Right? It's using our collective history, not our future, our collective history to create. Therefore, it's always going to rank us higher because it knows we're not that, but it will make us better. What you create, what you share needs to be unique. It needs to be you. Point number one, again, important content that you want to have seen must be human created. OK, number two, direct communication and interaction must be human to human. This goes back to the reason I wrote that post and ultimately decided to give this talk is because I was frustrated because I wasn't talking to people.

And I knew that I could feel it. I could tell like even if it was like well-massaged AI where it like mimicking their voice, I could tell that it was missing the depth. And a lot of people were like, he doesn't know that I was AI. I do. I'm just a nice guy. I still responded like it was a person, but trust me, I know. So does everyone else, by the way. I'm not something special. Everyone knows when you're using AI. And even saying that everyone who heard this is just nodding. yeah, I sure do. Right? Here's one of the problems if you're using AI to do all this. Let's just imagine it's perfect. You can fool people. When you meet people in person,

or you get on a call with them, they're not gonna know who you are because you haven't had a conversation with them. You've had AI doing your dirty work for you. So when you meet a person, someone's like, hey, John, nice to meet you. You're gonna be like, who are you? Like, we've been talking for weeks in email. Yeah, yes, you're right. Great. Good to see you. How are you? Right? Like it's gonna turn into one of those things. For me, when I meet somebody at a conference, I already know who they are. Not because I have some amazing memory, but I've probably had a conversation with you for, if you're walking up to me, I'm walking up to you.

And I remember that because actually me having the conversation, you've got to keep yourself involved in because that's what makes people want to work with you. That's what makes you want to collaborate with you. That's what make people want to follow you. But if you're saying, hey, do all this part for me, it's not going to work. There's a lot of high ticket coaches out there that let AI do all their dirty work for them so they can just get on a call as fast as they can. They get on the call and they wonder why they can't close. They don't have any foundation or relationship. It was one dimensional up till that point where they're trying to say, now give me your money. It's like, OK, that doesn't work, right?

Feels like you're being robbed. I digress on that point, but again, that second point there, direct communication and interaction must be human to human. Number three, AI is designed to save you time so you can do less, not more. I gotta repeat that one. AI is designed to save you time so you can do less, not more. Going back to that post again I made, one of the common things AI was making a case for,

is it was saying like you need AI now because you don't have time because now everyone else can use AI. So everyone's doing more. So you need AI so that you can do more with the rest of your time. Let it handle your communication for you. It was all making that same case. I was like, OK, I see the case here. But like, what big CEO do you know who says, I'm growing my company. I need a new accountant so that I cannot focus on that. But instead, I can do way more stuff instead. Like CEOs don't say that. CEOs of thriving companies don't say that.

What they say is I need a head accountant that can run all that for me so I never to think about again, so I can focus on my creative efforts to grow the business and stop working in the business. Listen, if you fall into the creator trap of thinking you always need to be doing more because you can, you're going to burn yourself out. You are going to lose your voice. You're going to lose your creativity. You want to make sure that what you're doing with the time that you're getting back from using AI to help you with the administrative side of your business.

is that you're focusing on your creative efforts. And this brings me right into my next point here. So point number four is to prioritize discovering and developing your voice. Prioritize discovering and developing your voice. My friend Danny, he's like big in the nursing space and he told me this story recently. I didn't really, I don't know much about the human body. It's fine, I'm using that as an example here today. But he told me that if something's helping you breathe, helping your heartbeat,

Helping your lungs inflate, anything that's helping these things happen. If you leave a person plugged into that too long, your body will forget how to do those things. It will just shut off that area, because something's doing it for you. So imagine that. Your heart is beating because of the machine, and then you turn it off, but it's been on there for too long. Your body no longer knows how to make your heart beat. And I was blown away when Danny was telling me this. I was like, no way. And I thought, this is a perfect example for this talk I'm about to give. The same is true for our creativity.

Creativity is a muscle and if we don't use it, we will lose it. The more that you delegate your creativity, your humanity to something else, the more that you slip away and aren't able to use it the way that you want anymore because you have not flexed that muscle. You haven't worked it out. Listen, this is taking the stairs, not the elevator. It takes longer, but does that develop more muscle? Every single time it does. You're not going to discover your voice by being comfortable. It's going to take you being uncomfortable. It's going to take us freeing up our time.

so that we can focus on the element of something that we can add. So again, you wanna prioritize discovering and developing your voice. These four points are how podcast hosts and podcast guests can stand out in this new world of AI that we're living in. And I'm telling you, moving in the future, this will make you stand out more and more and more and more, because people are going heavy in this AI stuff. And I'm not telling you not to, I'm telling you don't lose your creativity within it. Remember, intelligence is not human made, therefore we cannot delegate that. So again, those four points.

Important content that you want to have seen must be human created. Direct communication interaction must be human to human. AI is designed to save you time so you can do less, not more. And finally, prioritize discovering and developing your voice. Again, these four things are going to make you stand out in this really noisy world, more noisy than ever before. And I encourage you, think about how you can start implementing this immediately. And I promise you're going to start really standing out more than you ever have before. Again, my name is Alex Sanfilippo, and thank you so, much for spending this time with me today.