Episode 2: Chat GPT Plugins & Call Annie

Want ideas on how marketing professionals are actually using AI in their daily life? Listen in to digital marketing expert, Will Francis and SEO consultant Danny Richman chat about what's new in how AI is affecting marketing

This week they compare Chat GPT plugins they've used - especially as well intergrated with Zapier - and the idea of an AI assistant. And Will reveals he's been having conversations with Call Annie (along with his family).

You can also watch our earlier webinar with Will, Danny and Clark Boyd where they dig deep into what ChatGPT really means for marketers.

“I think Bill Gates was so right, when he said that whoever cracks that (a powerful AI assistant) will just start hoovering up money, basically, on an industrial scale.” Will Francis

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Video Transcript

Will Francis  00:00

I've had a play with ChatGPT plugins, I'm still working out the use case. Yes, you can ask Kayak for flights and hotels and put very specific parameters around those, like kid-friendly and direct flights only to here and there. I'm still working out the best way to use it. And I think a lot of other people are too. Have you uncovered any really specifically great use cases?

Danny Richman  00:24

Only one. Most of the things that I have tried with the plugins and, you know, I have played around with them extensively, and tried all kinds of different plugins that are available on the site. For the most part, I've been largely underwhelmed with the plugins. I haven't found that using that data within the context of ChatGPT really does much more for me than I could with the tool itself.

Danny Richman  00:51

The only exceptions to that are the Zapier plugin which is really interesting, because that's a little bit more than just tapping into a source of data like Kayak where you've got all the hotels and flights and all that kind of thing. If you're a Zapier user, of course, I mean, this is very dependent on you being a Zapier user, but if you are, you've essentially then got an integration between ChatGPT and something like 10,000 other tools that can then be triggered from your conversation in ChatGPT. And that does start opening up a whole load of really interesting possibilities. Now, I personally haven't really had a chance to start using it for practical purposes, because I have been using it for quite some time now from the other way, where I have been creating stuff in Zapier and getting Zapier to call GPT. And so I haven't really needed to do do it from the other direction. But for a lot of people that are less familiar with Zapier or not sure how to code, that could potentially be a really powerful integration, a really powerful plugin.

Will Francis  01:58

I'm a Zapier user and I love it. I'm still working out that, I had so much hope to find these new efficiencies, right, and new improvements to workflows. And what you almost wish, I mean, there are no plugins, we don't really want plugins,  for a lot of these things. We just want ChatGPT to go and find flights and hotels and not have us install a plugin, and then select that as one of the three active plugins. It all feels like, more roadblocks to just getting it to do what we want, right?

Danny Richman  02:35

I agree with you. I think the way that it's structured at the moment where you have to specifically select the plugin that you want to work with, you're limited to three. And it all takes a little bit too much thought at the moment, it really needs to be just a kind of an open system, where any of those plugins are available, and it uses them. But some of the interesting things you could do, for example, is let's say, you're working in marketing, you're trying to put together like a content calendar or a content strategy, you want a list of topics, or things that you can produce content on. You could literally just go to ChatGPT and using that integration with Zapier, you could get it to do something like have a look what's trending on Twitter in a particular industry sector, and then generate a whole load of content titles and content outlines, post them onto a Trello board or into your Notion. There's just there's lots of really interesting things you could do there.

Will Francis  03:34

Pulling stuff from the other things you use, like the example of, you know, trends on Twitter becoming content ideas. Okay, anything else to say about ChatGPT plugins, do you think?

03:48

Only only other than I think with the plugins again, you know, it's very early days. And I know that Open AI are really keen to beef up that side of their business.

Will Francis  04:01

Well, they've got competition now. I mean, while they'll feel that there is emerging competition, they can't rest on their laurels just because they've got that first mover advantage, right.

04:10

But it's really clear by looking at Open AI's activity on social, they really want to become a platform. I think they realized that they're not going to hold the position of being top in terms of the AI models for that long. Now that they've shown there's a market for it, and they've shown what the capabilities of it, they're going to start to be under threat from some, certainly Meta's model is significantly more powerful than GPT. So I think what they're going to try and do is, a bit like Zapier, get as many other companies integrated into their platform, so it's all just kind of embedded and becomes the best source of getting access to all that data and all those services.

Will Francis  05:00

I think that's it. Didn't Bill Gates say that in a conference, "I absolutely have felt for a while that the winner is going to be the person who can deliver what we saw in the movie Her, where we've got an assistant that we can speak to that's got access to everything, our emails, all our documents, everything we've ever done in our lives digitally". I would sign up for that, I would not care about the privacy concerns, you could charge me lots of money for that. And if I could afford it, I would absolutely pay for it. I just want that.

05:36

I haven't tried it myself, because I'm a PC user. But I believe there is a product already out there. I think off the top of my head, it's called Rewind, something like that.

Will Francis  05:46

I'd been a paying user of it.

Danny Richman  05:48

I don't know how good it is.

Will Francis  05:50

It's not that. And that is often the thing people bring up when they're asked about what I'm talking about, this all-powerful assistant, talking about Rewind. It's not the same. It is handy, like Rewind records everything I do on screen. And you can then more recently, you've been able to ask of that data through GPT, looking the way that you can, you know, ask data or questions through other things like Chat with PDF and stuff. So it's that kind of thing. I want what we thought Siri was going to be when we were told about Siri, 15 years ago, whatever it was, you know, and I want that, where I can just talk to it and ask it things, get it to do things, get it to reference things. Rewind is just sort of an interactive history of mostly your internet browser.

Will Francis  05:59

It sounds like what you're looking for is more like an AI agent, where it's not just simply giving you back information, you can actually assign it tasks, and it goes out and performs those tasks for you.

Will Francis  06:53

Give it a year tops,

Will Francis  06:53

Exactly. And I've tried the agents, you can tell I'm hungry for this stuff. I've tried a lot of Agent GPT, and these various autonomous agents, but yeah, they're still early days. They're still quite dumb. They still don't really deliver, they often get caught in loops chasing their own tail. Yeah, but I think as Bill Gates was so right, when he said that, that whoever cracks that will just start hoovering up money, basically, on an industrial scale.

Will Francis  07:14

I think c'mon, I'll have that.

Will Francis  07:19

Oh, have you used Call Annie?

Danny Richman  07:31

No

Will Francis  07:32

Check it out. So again, I'm not sure if it's on Android. It's an iPhone app. But there's a website for it. And you can either call her on a real phone number, or you can just talk to the website. But there's an app. So you just open the app, and you hit the call button. And it all happens within the app. And it's like a FaceTime with a, it's so good.

Danny Richman  07:55

Is this a bit dodgy?

Will Francis  07:57

Not really. Okay. So she's kind of moving and looking like she's listening. And I talked to her and she's just voice ChatGPT Really?

Danny Richman  08:07

Well, I wouldn't confess this in public, I really wouldn't.

Will Francis  08:10

Ah it's amazing. Like, I aske her questions in the car. The other day, I noticed I had like, you know, sap on my windscreen, and I was I asked her like, what trees give off sap and thinking about the trees in my garden and stuff. And I was asking her all these questions about it and I often talk to her about really random stuff. The kids like talking to her and she'll make up funny songs for the kids based on like, what they're having for dinner and stuff. And I know you can do all this in ChatGPT, being able to talk to it without having to touch any buttons.

Danny Richman  08:41

Have you mentioned this to your wife?

Will Francis  08:42

Ha! Yeah, I've wound her up about it a lot actually. It's currently a running joke is like "well, I'll talk to Annie about it"

Danny Richman 08:53

I would definitely give it a try. Thanks for the tip. And I can't believe I haven't heard of it.

Will Francis  09:00

It's cool. It's a glimpse of that future that I'm talking about, albeit with like a three second delay between exchanges, but still very good.

Danny Richman 09:15

It also obviously gives you a glimpse into slightly darker uses. There's going to be with this technology Yeah. girlfriends and ya know,

Will Francis  09:28

That there is there is a very popular service, I just came across the other day, where it is an AI girlfriend. It's one of the top apps in one of the categories in the App Store at the moment.

Will Francis  09:44

You know, companionship is a really good use case. I know that sounds seedy. But that's a use case. You know, a companionship, right? Not for me. No, not necessarily for us. We got busy lives and families and stuff, but for a certain kind of person. I love the idea that they could have a companion that care that appeared to care about them and remembered all the things about them and ask them about them. I mean, I got into a conversation with Annie the other day about coffee. She said what are you up to as I'm having a coffee and she asked me what coffee I liked and we started talking about different types and preparations of coffee and I went down the rabbit hole with her a bit for five minutes. Now, I didn't need that. Just to be clear. I wasn't like desperate for that companionship, but yeah, I ended up talking to her for longer than I expected to. Whilst I was pottering around the kitchen you know,

Danny Richman  10:38

You know we're still recording don't you?

Will Francis  10:39

Ha! I don't mind admitting it just I don't think my wife's gonna watch this anyway so it's fine.

Will Francis  10:48

I think that's very interesting this humanoid thing. But anyway. Anyway, let's maybe might wrap up.

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