VISIONS Live: Let's Get Personal: Creating Connection in the Age of AI

Phillip: [00:00:08] Welcome [00:00:30] to VISIONS, a podcast by Future Commerce presented in partnership with Bloomreach, the personalization platform for commerce professionals, and BigCommerce and Stripe, global [00:01:00] partners in checkout and payment solutions. Hi. I'm Phillip, and welcome back to VISIONS. Today, we go live for our second episode of this 3rd season of VISIONS in conversation with Alicia Esposito, the VP of Content from Retail TouchPoints, who is interviewing Sebastian Reetz. Now Sebastian is one of those people who is multi-talented and multi-disciplinary. Aside from having an incredible insight into what's happening in the world of personalization and AI-driven platforms and his role at Bloomreach, [00:01:30] the personalization platform that makes you limitless, he also has an incredible mindset around content creation, the creator economy, and how AI is going to change things that are multiplayer in this world, like gaming and commerce. This conversation is chock full of insights, and it's incredible. So without any further ado, let's go to the Celeste Bartos Theatre for VISIONS Summit, New York City, recorded on June 11th at the Museum of Modern Art.

Announcer: [00:02:01] From [00:02:00] Bloomreach, please welcome Sebastian Reetz. And from Retail TouchPoints, Alicia Esposito.

Alicia Esposito: [00:02:08] It's a very appropriate, a kismet of sorts, I think, that we followed that incredible segment because we're going to be talking a bit about how AI is impacting art, how we create art, and, of course, how we consume art. And I think, Seb, a lot of your perspectives are going to be influenced and inspired by not just your professional work, [00:02:30] but your personal work as well. So let's start with the professional. Why don't you share a little bit about yourself and, of course, the work that you're doing now with Bloomreach?

Seb Reetz: [00:02:40] Yeah. So my name is Seb Reetz. I lead the solutions consulting org for Bloomreach Engagement in the Americas. So I sell AI on a day to day basis. I also am a writer for video games. So I definitely think about AI and the sort of ethics around it. And I'm [00:03:00] basically biased in one part of my life, and then my Batman part of my life, I'm sort of seeing it from the other side. Well, is this going to get me out of a job? Right? So it's definitely something I think about regularly, and happy to be here today.

Alicia Esposito: [00:03:15] Yeah. I think that's something that we bonded over in our initial conversation because I write every day, but I also know that a big part of running and managing a media entity is how quickly [00:03:30] you can get content out, how quickly you can jump on what's trending, how you can be part of the conversation, which I think came up quite a bit in the last conversation. But let's dig into your artistic side. So you are in video games, film, scripts, comics. How does AI influence your creative process on that side? What role does it play as you think about your workflow or your [00:04:00] creative flow, I guess?

Seb Reetz: [00:04:03] Yeah. So it was interesting. The artist we were just watching is obviously using AI as sort of like an ideation tool. That's definitely something that I've done regularly. I'm currently working on a video game called, Timothy Leary, Charlie Manson, and the Animals of NIMH. It's about the player character as a rat living in a simulated experiment that is the size of a major city, and there are doctors, lawyers, trials, [00:04:30] courtrooms, and drugs being tested on all the rats, and you are trying to escape. So some of that might sound familiar to New Yorkers, but what's kind of interesting about it is, well, you're translating it to the sort of animal context all the time. So ChatGPT is a great tool for just coming up with ideas about, like, well, what's rat slang, and what would what would a rat do on a Friday night? You know? And kind of sort of contextualizing those things. And I don't always use it because [00:05:00] there are a lot of bad ideas that come out of LLMs, but sometimes you can spark an idea, sort of some bait that you can freestyle with and use. I've also used a tool called ElevenLabs that will generate voice. So we had to show a demo of the game at the Prague Arts Festival earlier this year, and we needed voice actors. We didn't have time to do that. So I downloaded a [00:05:30] video. I think it was Matthew McConaughey in True Detective and then John Cusack in The Grifters and merged them into a voice. Now you can't do that from a copyright standpoint, like release that to the public. But in terms of filling in the gaps for that conference, that works wonders. So [00:05:51] AI, from a creative standpoint, I think of it in terms of ideation primarily, but also proof of concept. Being able to sort of flesh [00:06:00] out an idea with AI is really easy as a single person. You don't need a team of people. [00:06:08] In fact, it sort of democratizes a lot of media like a video game that ordinarily one person couldn't do. And then the second piece is, yeah, sort of scaling. And we all have to push out social media content to promote constantly. We're all spammers some days. [00:06:30] I believe you that, you know, if you're posting every day, your life is interesting, but some days, it's not that interesting. And you just had to get something out to stay on top of the conversation that day. And AI is very good at that, sort of filling out, creating content that is part of a monoculture that can relate to what is required to stay relevant. So I think ideation, proof of concept, scaling, tools I've found [00:07:00] it very useful for.

Alicia Esposito: [00:10:03] Yeah. [00:10:00] And it's interesting, as you test these different tools, I know I've tested a few myself, and [00:10:09] it's interesting to see how it can facilitate both of those sides of the creative coin, so to speak. It can really help unlock ideas or show what could be possible, or it can just help you create that thing that you need to get done as quickly as possible. But I guess with that, I kind of go in that internal tug of war [00:10:30] of myself where I ask, "To what end?" [00:10:33] If our job is to create at scale and get this content out, whether it's an article or whether it's a marketing campaign, what does that mean for our creative process? How do we ensure that the integrity, so to speak, I don't mean to get on my writer soapbox here, but what does that mean for us? How can we ensure that we keep that creative process in [00:11:00] check and can achieve that scale? Is that possible?

Seb Reetz: [00:11:04] Yeah. It is. That's a great question.

Alicia Esposito: [00:11:06] We only have 9 minutes, so hurry up. Let's move it along. {laughter}

Seb Reetz: [00:11:08] That's a very good question. You're getting to the heart of it, Alicia. I think, you know, there are different points of view. I have a point of view. I tend to be optimistic, but it's important to note that there is no wise old lady about AI. No one knows where it's going to be in five years, 10 years. I know what exists today and how it [00:11:30] can help me today and how that will evolve. At the beginning of the Internet there were ways to create that have evolved since then. The one thing that I don't think is going away is the curatorial aspect of you control what goes into your creative process, your inspiration, your head on a day to day basis. Humans have been playing with fire since literally the discovery of fire. So if [00:12:00] you think about cars when they were invented and the fear around, well, our cars is going to run over our kids in the road. Well, no. Because there's a human who's controlling the car. Well, now the human's not controlling the car. Actually, the car is driving itself. The plane's driving itself, but the human is the air traffic controller. There's still some form of creative impetus that needs to come from a human source. And whether that is I mean, I think what that means from a day to day basis [00:12:30] for me, how I treat that is I'm very careful about what are the influences that I choose to give to myself? If you went and ate at a McDonald's every day because it's available, yeah, it wouldn't be good for you. But if you, you know, sort of try and develop a taste in something, then that will be unique because those are choices that you've made. And then how you then can scale that taste and  [00:13:00]create something from your unique worldview, which everyone in this room has a unique worldview, that's what AI can help to do. So I think maybe that's a little optimistic. [00:13:12] Some people might say, "Oh, I think AI is going to kill us all," but I don't I don't find that. I think that humans have proven consistently that we can play with fire and create amazing things, the stone age and the bronze age. History is helpful, I think, for [00:13:30] thinking about new technology. [00:13:31]

Alicia Esposito: [00:13:32] So let's put our commerce hat on then. So if the opportunity is to have the person flying the airplane or driving the car, in the world of commerce, we have marketing teams, we have content creators. Are they the gatekeepers? Are they the shepherds? What role are they playing in this stage, currently and possibly in the future, when we have these systems [00:14:00] that can adapt to our brand requirements and what our consumers want? What role can they play and ultimately add value continuously for the business since, obviously, the top of my question is, well, what does this mean for me and my job?

Seb Reetz: [00:14:18] Well, I think marketers have a remarkably difficult job in this day and age, which is you're trying to create a brand that resonates, that draws people to [00:14:30] you, like a lifestyle. Why do people buy the Hermes bag we were talking about earlier? Well, Hermes has built a brand over years years years that is beyond a bag. It's a lifestyle, and it's so compelling that people will pay whatever they can to get even a duplicated little reflection of what that is. It means something that is immaterial. So that is the world that marketers play in, which is hugely theoretical, it's conceptual, it's [00:15:00] built on the art world and artistic concepts that are changing constantly, so there's that side of it. Then there's also this incredible data-driven personalization side where I want to understand Alicia so well that I'm only ever talking to her about her. And it's like, okay. So we only want to talk about the brand, and we also only want to talk about the customer, about them. So navigating those two things is extremely difficult, and marketers have to do it on a day to day basis. There's a lot of work that goes into it. [00:15:30] Again, I think AI is can help to move faster, to scale harder, better, faster, stronger, what you're already having to do. Right? And then when it comes to marketing today, I think there's such a demand for content, for constant relevance that it starts to exceed human capabilities. And I think [00:16:00] AI is a really powerful tool to help with that. So, again, I go back to the you're the air traffic controller as the marketer, and you're sending in and out planes, campaigns, conversations every day to different people all over the world.

Alicia Esposito: [00:16:15] And what are the true opportunities, especially as we consider our own individual shopping journeys and how we engage with the brand? It's obviously across channels. It's at different stages go slow, some stages go fast. So what are the opportunities [00:16:30] for using AI, especially if the end goal is to maintain authenticity, build brand credibility, and foster loyalty? I mean, three really big things. Right? They take time to nurture. So how does AI come into play there? What are the opportunities from a customer experience standpoint?

Seb Reetz: [00:16:51] Yeah. So I would say there are three main opportunities. The first is going to be the content bottleneck that exists today, where if [00:17:00] you do want to personalize or you want to translate your brand to different people in different parts of the world who have a different reality, then you have your New Yorkers, then you have your people in middle America, then you people in Australia and Africa and India. And to be able to translate a brand message to all those places every week or every day with a newsletter is insane. That level of work to really personalize, I [00:17:30] think that's the first thing is eliminating the content bottleneck. And that's image generation, text generation, which Bloomreach helps to do. That's basically taking campaigns you're already running and auto-personalizing them without breaking that brand voice, which is tricky. The second piece is the ability to identify new opportunities in your audience base and take advantage of those opportunities. [00:18:00] A team of one marketer in a small SMB, it's impossible to do that. Even at a large American Eagle type of company, a team of 10, 20 marketers is still going to struggle to do that on a regular basis and run into organizational issues. So humans aren't good at moving quickly in that way, but AI is extremely good at it. You can say, if you want to increase your conversion rate [00:18:30] by 2% this month, you should be sending an email to this segment of people that we've identified for you twice a day. That is the sort of the second piece, so automation of campaigns through AI. The 3rd piece would be really breaking out of the current channels that we have, which to a channel that only AI can deliver, which is conversational commerce. And I think, in a year, you'll see this [00:19:00] even more. Obviously, Apple had their release yesterday with Siri being sort of in everyone's phone. You're going to be able to communicate with an LLM to manage many different aspects of your life. You're going to expect that from marketers. You're going to expect that from the brands that you engage with and you go onto a website or not on a website. You text Uniqlo and say, "Hey. What was that item that I bought for my kid? Can I get another one? Because he broke [00:19:30] it." You know?

Alicia Esposito: [00:19:32] Typical.

Seb Reetz: [00:19:33] Yeah.

Alicia Esposito: [00:19:33] I could say that. I have a 6-year-old. That's fine.

Seb Reetz: [00:19:35] So Bloomreach is powering Clarity. We're releasing it in Q3 of this year, which is going to be our first cross-channel, conversational, shopping assistant, which does that too, which is kind of cool.

Alicia Esposito: [00:19:48] So not only do you achieve that level of interaction at scale. Because you're sending this to, you know, thousands of people at once, but that level of granularity and context [00:20:00] allows the customer to feel not just that they know me. It's like, "Oh, I can trust this brand." Because there are times where I see things that it's like, "How many people got this thing, really?" So it kind of checks all of those boxes. Awesome.

Seb Reetz: [00:20:17] Yeah.

Alicia Esposito: [00:20:18] That went by really fast. We're out of time.

Seb Reetz: [00:20:20] We're out of time. Yeah. Alright.

Alicia Esposito: [00:20:21] Well, thank you so much for this, Seb. This is very enlightening, and I'm glad we hit on the art and the science of AI.

Seb Reetz: [00:20:27] Thanks, Alicia.

Announcer: [00:20:33] The [00:20:30] VISIONS podcast is brought to you by Future Commerce. You can find more episodes of this podcast and all Future Commerce properties at FutureCommerce.com.