Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsch.

Welcome to Metaviews, recorded live in front of an automated audience.

And today we're going to tackle a subject I think is rather dynamic and tricky, which is brands in the age of AI.

And I'm joined by a special guest, Molnuveau Ami Gabriel.

And this is where I have to tell you a couple of things right at the start of the episode.

Number one, we have a couple of segments that we use as kind of icebreakers to really tap into the intuition of our guest.

But this is where I do have to warn you.

I'm not sure that my audience is particularly interested in, say, e commerce.

So what we want to do today is kind of tap into your brilliant fusion of technology and business, right, of kind of economy and the way technology is changing economy.

Because our goal here at Metaviews really is to make the most of our guest, right?

To really try to harness their brilliance and get you thinking about stuff that maybe you have not previously thought about.

We start, of course, every episode with Metaviews by talking about the news, partly because we publish a daily newsletter.

And today we were actually kind of speculating on the impact of the American food system as a result of the immigration crackdown that already in California is causing people not to show up to work out of fear of deportation.

But, Gabrielle, our main purpose of the news segment is to turn to our guest and say, what news have you been following?

This could be local news, could be industry news, could be world news, could be personal news.

You know, the.

The goal is, what do you think our audience should be paying attention to?

I mean, I think it really depends on what your audience is and, like, what I want to focus on.

I mean, for me, I'm a geek guy, so I've been, like, passionate about my whole life about technology.

So I think the big world right now, I think everybody know, is like, is AI.

So, I mean, it's like.

It's like a pretty covert subject.

But if you want to dip into that with, like, maybe like, another angle, I would love to, but I'm open to whatever.

You know, it's like, I mean, yeah.

To that point, AI is a huge, sprawling ecosystem.

Presently, I'm going to focus on something that our audience would be interested in but doesn't have access to.

Tell me about the French AI industry because so much of the global press focuses on America and China, and yet France does have a fairly advanced AI industry.

So as an observer, as a geek, give us your perspective on the folks closer to home, as it were.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you're right.

I mean, the U.S.

of course, has been dominating the market and what's been pushing forward the boundaries of what AI is and what is capable and what we can expect in the future.

But you probably saw, you know, the new AI.

I think the name is Deep Seq, right?

Coming just from China.

I mean, I was traveling like, for the past like, 15 days.

So I've just read a bit about it.

So, I mean, I just tried it like today for like a couple of minutes.

But yeah, it seems interesting.

But when.

When it comes to France, I mean, I feel like France, of course we have Mistral.

I don't know.

I mean, I know about it.

I.

It's known in France, I think it's known overseas.

I don't know how much the name is known versus, like, other competitors, like, you know, like Chat GPT or Clothes or something like that.

So have you heard of them?

This.

This French startup called Mistral?

Yes, very much so.

Yeah.

So, I mean, for me, I'm not an expert in AI, but I know when I first saw the news, I was like, okay, interesting, because I do know, because, you know, my sister lives in California and she's.

She's been studying there for a bit.

Like, she was in UC Berkeley, and we were talking about the difference education systems when it comes to the US and the French.

And I do believe that the French, we have a really good engineering system and really good engineers.

But sometimes when it comes to like, the newest technology, like, we are not at the front end, you know, like when it comes to like, anything like social media, we haven't created like, anything, you know, like when it comes to E commerce, stuff like that.

So it's actually pretty good and make me, like, proud, you know, like to see like a company like Mistral who comes a little bit out of nowhere, you know, like, because they kind of release late versus, like the was already big when they were like, oh, we're gonna learn something else.

And I was like, okay.

I is that is because, you know, like, French startup, they could go either way.

They could be like, really, like, really, really good and surprise you.

Oh, they could be like, oh, my God, that's.

That's kind of like, disappointing.

And like, you should probably not have released that, you know, But I think Mistral lands on the first category, right?

Like, they're pretty good competing, like the highest level.

So of course it's.

I mean, it's good for the technology.

It's good.

And I think it's.

Maybe it's going to make people less afraid to try AI because it's French.

Right.

So sometimes people are like, well, it's us, China.

We don't know what you're going to do with our data.

We don't want to influence anything, so they might step on that.

But Mistral being like a really good competitor and really accessible and they're doing just like, just a French way.

You know, I love the website.

It's just like so simple, so French, so tech, so young.

So I don't know, I just love what they're doing.

Right on.

And to your point, Deepseek has kind of changed the game.

So if Mistral's able to adapt, if they're able to learn especially the new technique that Deepseek has kind of developed to your point, they could be a source of French pride.

Now our second segment of every episode we call WTF or what's the Future?

Partly because we are a future centric podcast, we really try to focus on what's coming next.

And again we're looking for a kind of intuitive answer.

Like in your gut, what do you think our audience should see on their event horizon?

What are you looking at when it comes to the future?

Yeah, I was talking with my girlfriend actually a couple of months ago and we were talking about what's going to be like the next, not the next new thing, but the next thing that's going to be incorporated into people's day to day life.

Because you know, ChatGPT was a big thing because everybody could go on ChatGPT and use it.

But there's a lot of use cases of AI that only makes sense in industry, e commerce like you know, like company based.

So the real people that they don't really care about this and I think we basically land on the idea of a new type of device and I think that was around this time the, the rabits was like starting to pop up and we're like, okay, could this be the new thing?

But does it really compete with the phone?

We don't really know right now.

I'm really excited about the new meta glasses, you know, that integrated AI.

So I, I mean I think, I do think and of course it's, it's slower because it's, it's, it's, it takes longer to create like a new device versus like a software.

But I do believe, and I do hope we're going to have some pretty new device type, you know, maybe even challenge the, the phone, you know, like in a couple of years to see how they can, you know, hopefully makes, you know, regular people's life easier, be able to connect more with loved ones, you know, I think it could be like, really, really interesting.

Like just the glasses, you know, so we were like on traveling, like last year.

Last week.

Last week, sorry, in Africa, and my girlfriend, I gave her my meta glasses and, you know, like, she could, like, you know, she had her handbag, she had like a bottle of water, but she could still like take pictures and videos around her without having to stop.

Put out your phone, you know, and being like this weird, you know, person, you know, looking at you with the phone, it's just like, oh, glasses, you know, ah, Looking at you, saying hi, taking the pictures.

That's really fun, you know, So I, I do hope we're gonna see, like a lot of nice devices that can be used by everyone.

Not just like tech and geeky people, but just, you know, like, like a mother of two can enjoy at home, you know, or something like this.

Well, and I'm particularly partial to the rise of smart glasses because I already have stupid glasses.

And so I would love.

I've been waiting for these to develop and have both the functionality, but also the price point.

Yeah.

Because I'm sure you saw that Meta prototyped a pair of AR glasses, which they kind of estimate cost around $5,000 to produce, but their capability is really impressive.

So I'm personally very eager to see that capability arise.

And I'm curious as we get into our conversation today.

By all means, I would love to hear your thoughts on the role that fashion plays in achieving what you've just described.

Right.

In creating technology that is both usable but desirable.

Right.

And gives people an aesthetic and a style that they desire.

But, you know, our structure for every episode is when we talk about a feature conversation.

And this is our turkey prez coming into the roost.

As our guest sort of comes into the roost.

I try to take three themes that I use to kind of wrap the conversation with the guest around.

And when I was researching you, I thought that I would do a brand's storytelling and then SEO.

Right.

And try to use those three pillars under the context of AI and how AI is changing the marketplace, how AI is changing our culture.

And it was interesting when you were describing the meta glasses, you didn't call them Ray Ban.

Right.

There's a branding power there that I think is really interesting.

So I'm curious, as someone who runs an award winning agency, as someone who loves technology, what are the kinds of challenges that brands face when dealing with A dynamic technological environment.

Right.

When things are changing constantly.

And to use the example, people think meta glasses, not necessarily Ray Ban glasses, although that may depend who you ask.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean it's for brand.

It's.

I feel like it's, it's like a new, a new era a little bit, you know, with all this new technology.

Because I do believe that the world of fashion, fashion loves new things.

Fashion loves involvement.

You know, like fashion is not like a, an industry that stays stales.

You know, we have like new connection every year, new new designer.

So we like to try new things, you know.

And I do believe that brands are really excited about what they can do more with AI.

I think when I talk to brands right now, I think the main focus is how can we improve, of course, customer relations, customer experience.

And I do believe that AI brings just like a new era of E commerce, you know, maybe like an era when we can actually have kind of like a one on one conversation with the customers, you know, using like the power of AI and be able to maybe recommend them a better product recommendation.

Well, and yeah, let me ask a follow up there because I think you're absolutely right that one of the challenges, one of the competitive advantages is making that customer experience way better than everyone else.

Yeah.

Which strikes me that you had this almost inflationary effect that you can't be left behind if people can not only get the personalized experience, but the seamless experience.

So it just feels easy.

Their expectation of buying stuff, their expectation of relating to brands is a moving target.

Yeah, it's moving higher.

Yeah.

They're raising the bar every day so you have to keep up.

But that's how, you know, I think I'm talking about, I'm thinking about something like a talk about like Steve Jobs in the past about wanting to embrace new technology a bit too early.

And that's a trap I think that some people fall into.

It's not just because something is new and funny that you should like adapt it.

It's all about what value does it bring to your, your customer.

Right.

So AI is nice, but not every brand need like a new AI assistant, a new AI machine, a new AI.

I saw this.

I mean, I don't want to, you know, like say any bad thing, but I saw these, these things a couple days ago.

But like the AI mirror, like a connected mirror, and I'm like, I mean that's good.

That's probably expensive.

Like what is the value added to this mirror?

I'm like, I mean, maybe they're gonna do great.

I'm gonna see like a couple of that.

There's a big company, but I was like, okay, I, I see the value, but is the value, like worth the time to go on this machine?

You know, so, yeah, it's all about making these choices, you know, like making sure that you focus on the right thing, which is at the end of the day, the customer experience and how they feel about your brand, how they interact with it.

And AI allows you to play with that in so many ways.

And if you do it right at the end of the day, it's probably going to improve your business and improve hopefully your customer's life.

Well, how does that relate to the storytelling side of brands and marketing?

Because we have this paradox where on the one hand, people's attention spans are shorter and shorter and shorter, but on the other hand, stories continue to be what cut through the noise.

They continue to be what kind of connect people, especially to brands, when it comes to desire or trust or other emotions.

So to what extent does storytelling get squeezed by AI and kind of squeezed by targeted marketing rather than something that brands need to invest in as part of their lore or as part of their broader identity and essence?

Yeah, well, I don't see them as being screwed.

I see them, how can they incorporate, you know, each into the other world?

So you talk about storytelling and actually like the way we told story is, well, you know, through, of course, through images, through video, through sound, through experience.

And I think like the, the world of, you know, like image generation and video generation through AI just allowed brand to be so much more creative and especially for small brands, because, you know, when we talk about brands, of course it's like the, you know, big brands that we do consulting with, but we also work with smaller brands and you know, they don't have the 20,000 budget to hire like a studio to do like a 5 second commercial.

But with AI now they actually have the ability to do that in a very captivating way, I would say, you know, with AI.

So, and, and let me get you to, to double down on that because we've had a few guests on the podcast that are using AI tools for creative purposes.

Yeah.

And it's been interesting to kind of get their user experience as creators, as agencies in terms of the stuff that they're producing.

Yeah.

So it's a two part question.

How has that been, how these experiments and projects been for you?

And do you see any clear leaders?

Like, are there any tools that you're like, I really like this.

And this is the Kind of thing that I would encourage people to play with and experiment with.

Okay, well, I'm going to start with the second question.

The answer is quicker for me.

I will say I don't know because the tool changed so much.

I remember I was watching for one of my clients, I was trying to figure out how we can generate a new stray of AI photography for the E commerce website.

Right.

So we did some research and we identified one tool that was good for us, that was not perfect, but good for us.

So by the time the client came to me, I did my research with the client, went to production, a new tool already surfaced and was better than us.

So we were like, okay, we had the best at this time, but things changed so quickly that now it's another one.

So I'm pretty sure, by the way, people watch this video, whatever tool, I can say right now, maybe it's not going to be the best.

So I think it's good to know.

Although for the record, we will be publishing this video an hour after the moment we are recording.

But your point is valid.

Your point is valid?

Yeah, I mean, you know, like, things change all the time.

So I think we like in this phase when it's like up and down, up and down, up and down.

And of course you never want to waste time looking for perfection.

You want to find a tool that you, that looks good for you, that you can use.

And don't try to always find the perfect tool because, you know, it's like a new, a new market.

So they're going to evolve, they're going to change.

Let me then reframe the original question.

What is your process of experimentation?

What is your process of learning?

So that as an agency, on the one hand, you're not allowing to, you know, have perfection as an obstacle.

Yeah.

But you do have to be on the landscape.

You do have to be swimming in the ecosystem and trying out the tools.

What's your strategy there?

Well, it all started with the use case, you know, like, what does the client want at the end of the day?

And I will, I will have a different accommodation for like a premium luxury clients because they expect like a different type of video and software.

If I'm considering like a small brand, for example, you know, so like a small brand we can have like a, like a more relatable design, you know, like it just need to look normal in a way it doesn't have to look perfect.

But then for your like higher brand, it needs to look like a $10,000 photo shoot.

So.

Yeah, so we will always try to start with the use case.

What is the requirement for the clients?

And then, of course, test many tools and try to.

I mean, I talk to a lot of people in the AI industry.

They know more than me, and I will ask them, like, oh, I need this shoot for this Hermes type of brand.

They have this idea for this campaign.

We need, like a couple of videos and shoots and images.

What can we use?

And most of the time it's a combination of different tools, plus maybe some human work at the end, especially if you're looking for these really great works.

AI is great right now.

It would give you maybe 90% of the work, but you will still need this 10% of expert that can maybe fix a few things and make it look good.

Then allow me to bring that back to storytelling.

To what extent do you have to either hold the hand of the client or push the client to better storytelling?

Or do they come with a story and then you're helping them use the tools to bring that story to life?

Oh, yeah, no, they would come with the story because we can't come for the story.

We're not the brands.

Right?

So the story of the brand is something that even we at agency who work with our clients for the longest time is something that we, you know, we don't work on this aspect of their business.

So they come with a story and we just help them tell the story in a good way, in a way that it's effective and hopefully will drive sale.

So they usually come with the story.

And of course, we will have our feedback, you know, because we're looking at what's happening in the market and, you know, we see the trends, we see what people are reacting to, and we can basically, like.

Because, you know, like a story, you have like a story, you have this thing that exists, the story to tell, but then it's about the angle as well.

You know, you can tell a story, like 10 different ways.

Which way is the best for your brand based on what you want to achieve in the market from, like, a commercial point of view.

So we'll help them shape the story in a way that it makes sense for the market, for the customer, and hopefully for the sales process.

And AI will help us actually do that.

Especially when you want to iterate through, like, different, you know, like different ways to tell a phrase, you know, like different rephrasing system.

They will give you.

AI, will give you ideas.

It will help with the creative process.

But at the end of the day, I do believe, and that one of My belief right now you mentioned in a couple of months, I do believe that you still need a human person, like a real person for the 10 to 20%, because AI is not that great at creating content that feels real, that connects on an emotional level.

So you still need that aspect that needs to be done by a human being.

And that's been the through line really of a lot of our conversations, that AI helps expand your capacity, it allows you to have more options.

But fundamentally, the human touch, the human oversight, the human direction is the difference between excellent AI products or outputs and mediocre ones.

But paradoxically, this does bring us to the larger issue of SEO or search engine optimization, because that is fundamentally how you're getting the sales, how you're getting the attention, how you're getting the clicks.

It strikes me now that we're in this bit of a paradox where on the one hand you have AI helping you with the SEO, coming up with words, coming up with phrases, coming up with different ways to position the content, position the stories so that they are as accessible as possible.

But at the same time AI is kind of killing the search engine.

Right.

Increasingly we're not getting the results anymore, we're just getting the summary.

And maybe you're lucky if your link was in that summary or mentioned in that summary.

Yeah.

So I'm curious how you see this dynamic or how you see this conflict playing out in the industry.

Yeah, Especially in issue of SEO.

I think it changed for the couple of weeks.

First I was thinking like, yeah, SEO is such a good tool to use in SEO.

It allows you to create more content.

And I mean, to be fair, I mean I'm an SEO guy as well and SEO like content that is produced only for the sake of SEO, usually like really bad.

You need to think about the customer.

So I, even as a customer, when I look something online and I see like a tech that's obviously like SEO written gives no value, I, I'm, you know, I'm mad.

Right.

So unfortunately we probably see more and more of that with, with, with, with AI and that's a shame.

But like what can you do?

Like unless Google starts to strike every, every SEO based content.

But at the same times, and I think it's happening right now, people are using a little bit less on Google.

I mean, I think like last year TikTok became the most viewed website.

So people will actually are more likely to search on TikTok or YouTube than Google.

That was a big hit for SEO.

But I think right now I was literally on a call with a client today and you know, I always ask them like, how did you find about this?

And they say, Well, I asked ChatGPT what would be the best E commerce agency for my store.

And they tell me, you.

And I was like, I just got the lead from ChatGPT.

It's crazy, you know, so people don't run towards Google anymore.

They go to ChatGPT because it's cheaper, accessible, and the content just makes sense.

Even I, I know how to write like an SEO query.

Sometimes it just makes more sense to go through ChatGPT.

So we're probably gonna hopefully see a new brand of SEO which will be like, I don't know, like a AI optimized content strategy or something, you know.

But maybe that's not SEO to your point.

That's something new.

That's something new because, well, in, at the moment, you know, AI, they are still reading from the web.

So every content that is good SEO will be, I think probably be regarded as more relevant by the, the AI tool.

But at some point, some people will figure out a way to, I don't know, like feed like some content directly into like chatgpt, like to parasite the content and, you know, and that, you know, something is fun is going to happen.

Like you're going to ask a question and they're going to say, oh yeah, this guy is probably the best to contact.

And he was like, how did this guy end up here?

You know, well, he's probably like an expert in AI content reduction or something.

I'm pretty sure that's going to happen.

I mean, hopefully 100 and whoever does it first, you know, they're going to have a successful business for everyone else is going to want to do it after.

Yeah, exactly.

And to your point, I've been on the Internet for several decades and my test of any search engine is to ask it what it knows about me, because I'm the authority on me.

And if I say, okay, what do you know about me?

And I asked Deep Seek over the weekend about me, and the answer was way better than anything ChatGPT has ever given me.

So I was impressed.

The Chinese clearly know who I am and have a file on my political activities.

But speaking of which, you know, to put you on the spot, do you give us.

As you know, we mostly are Canadian listeners, but we actually have, I look this in our analytics, we've actually got 15% of our listeners are in France.

Hey, bonjour.

And I ask you this as a geek, as a tech person, but also as an Entrepreneur, what's your take on French politics right now?

Because certainly politics around the world seems to be kind of chaotic thanks to the United States.

So give our listeners a bit of a take on what you think is going on in France with Macron.

You mean globally?

I mean, I don't really look at politics that much.

I tend to focus more on business, I tend to be in my thing.

But I've been hearing a lot of things right now about, well, French not only, but also like you know, the European government and especially what's happening with, with startup.

And I don't know, I do feel like when Macron got elected, you know, like a lot of the business startup world was really, I'm gonna say not happy but you know, enthusiastic.

You know, oh, we have a president that actually like pro business plus stuff like that.

And that was, I think that was great.

You know, he had this idea of this startup nation which I do believe was a good idea.

I do believe startup and allowing people to create beyond their own and being able to, you know, like to capitalize on everybody's resources and intelligence to make the, the country greater.

I think it's a good idea.

I do believe people have a better opportunity to participate in the common efforts when they are, when they are able to create companies and do great things.

But I feel like, I feel like right now we are kind of falling short a little bit, you know, like because European and maybe that's their way.

I feel like they try to regulate, regulate, regulate which, which you want of course, but it, for me it doesn't make sense to regulate to the point that progress stops because you can only regulate what you control, right?

So if you regulate too much your own company, your own advancements.

Well, the China, Chinese, they're not going to follow your regulation.

They're going to advance, advance, advanced to the point that your progress will not even matter because the competitor is just way too far ahead.

So you know, I mean that's the way we are.

Like even when, I don't know if you guys know about this in Canada, but like grdp I guess it's the name in like the privacy law.

You know, when it came, when he came, I was like, the people who made this law obviously don't know anything about Internet and how it works.

I mean I understand the privacy is intra important, right?

You want to be able for people to go online, shop, communicate in, in a safe way when their data communication is, is protected.

But the way they went about it, I mean, I don't even know if they know what a cookie is, you know, and I'm like, what?

Like how?

So you know, it's, it's, it's.

They're trying to make protection but they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

So then the loadout doesn't make sense and they hurt more people.

So many people have had to spend so much money with the new cookie bar that I hate every time I said, I'm like, nobody knows what this is about.

Everybody click.

Yes.

People who click, no, they don't know what they're clicking.

No, it doesn't prevent anything from the end of the day, you know, so.

And to your point, it becomes a barrier for small businesses because large businesses, they can do the regulatory compliance, but small businesses can't afford it.

Yeah.

And I think also to, to affirm your point, as America becomes more isolationist, as America becomes more controversial, Europe should invest in startups.

Europe should create a startup culture that allows for them to take the lead both economically and morally as America starts shooting itself in the foot.

So hopefully they see that opportunity.

But this brings us to our last segment that we have at every meta views, which is the shout out.

You know, the Internet being what it is that we kind of learn from each other and find stuff from each other, this is a chance.

If there's anyone you want to promote, if there's anyone that you think our audience should know more about, kind of as an each one teach one model.

Oh wow, that's a good one.

Who's inspired you?

Who do you follow for insights and ideas?

Insights and id?

Well, I mean, okay, let me get a shout out to my business partner because we started this agency together, right?

So it's like, it's like a two men's job to start this agency and we've grown to like a 20 plus team now.

And it's funny because we both have such a different type of profile.

Like I'm a geek guy, like really into gigging and technology.

He's a graphical designer guy.

His family is like from his dad, I think was a sculpture.

His granddad was like a famous painter.

But we kind of like both reconnect in this world of technology.

And we had this agency when we helped fashion brand and luxury brands.

And I come from a technical side so I'm able to help my client on a digital and marketing approach.

But he's also focusing on the design and does it feel good?

Does it look good?

Because I don't know how to make a website look good.

Like this is a website.

He made a design.

I cannot make this one look so good.

And as you said earlier, looking good, yes, it's nice.

But you talked about the meta glasses and how, yes, they are ray ban, but we stay meta.

Well, you probably know about the project, the failed Google project that they had with the glasses.

I think the reason why they failed is because they were ugly.

So people didn't want to wear them on their head during the day.

So aesthetics is also very important when you launch a new project.

It's not just about the technical aspect.

It's about making it great, making it look good.

You want people to want to use and wear your products.

And I think ChatGPT made that great.

ChatGPT was just a chat.

AI existed like way before ChatGPT, like 3.5.

But they were the first one to make it usable and fun to use.

And I do believe that people start to catch up on that, but not all the time.

But you're having a good designer on your team that can think about the user experience.

I think it's really paramount for the success of any enterprise.

Shout out to Antoine.

Right on.

And other than your website, which we brought up and it's KNR Paris, where can people find you on the Internet?

Well, we started like a YouTube channel when we.

We want to share a lot of our knowledge and our strategy.

So we talked about SEO.

So we released this Case Studio, like exactly how we grow this website to like 1 million plus revenue using like only SEO, for example.

So you just type my name Gabrielle Cam on YouTube and hopefully you'll find me.

Unless somebody did like an SEO trick on me, but yeah.

And then on LinkedIn, of course, Gabrielle came.

I'm really easy to find.

Right on.

And speaking of SEO tricks, don't click on the pronunciation button on Gabrielle's LinkedIn profile because it's a trap.

Messi for coming on the show.

This has been another episode of Meta Views.

You can find us on all the different socials.

We'll upload this video really quickly because as Gabriel mentioned, otherwise it could be obsolete by tomorrow.

The pace of change that we live in.

But that's it for another show.

We'll be back soon.

Let us know if you have any comments or questions.

Otherwise, see you soon.

Take care.