14 | AI Meets Art: Blending AI with Human Creativity with Kerry Harrison

In this episode of AI Marketers Playbook, Kerry Harrison, a leader in AI-driven creativity, explores the evolving role of AI in the creative field with host Audrey Chia. Carrie shares stories from her pioneering projects, like the AI-generated gin and AI cocktails, to demystify AI’s creative potential. 

Listen as Carrie explains her “AI sandwich” approach, a blend of human strategy, AI assistance, and human polish, for using AI in copywriting and marketing. Perfect for marketers eager to maximize AI without losing their unique voice.

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Transcript

Audrey: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the AI Marketers Playbook, where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI in your business. I'm Audrey Chia, your host, and today I have with me Carrie Harrison. Now, Carrie is an educator, speaker, and copywriter who is an expert in AI. Over the past five years, Carrie has achieved some remarkable feats, including co creating the world's first AI generated gin, And bringing an award winning AI curator to life at a UK science festival. She has won numerous awards such as the Data Marketing Association Award for the best use of AI, and is a highly sought after AI trainer. We are so excited to have you on the show, Carrie. Welcome!

Kerry: 0:45

Thank you. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, looking forward to it.

Audrey: 0:48

Awesome. So Carrie, as a copywriter, I know you started dabbling in the world of AI quite some time back, right? Would you like to share more with us about your journey?

Kerry: 0:58

Yeah, so I started out in 2018 working in AI. So well before the world of chat GPT. And a lot of the time people were saying like, what is this stuff? Like, you're crazy. but, yeah, it started actually in a really weird place. It started from a place of like fear. So I was heading up an agency creative department and someone came in to talk to us about this AI tool called Phrasee, which is an AI subject line creator. So we'd work with copywriters and agencies and it would help you to create subject lines that would email subject lines that would, it said, beat human writers over 90 percent of the time. And at that time, I, I just never had anything like it. And I just, I thought, what's going to go, what's going to happen now to my copywriting career? This is, this is it for me. And, I ended up just getting really interested in it and doing loads of research and reading lots about it and trying out any tool that I could find at that time. And then in, in around that time, so 28, very end of 2018, I co created a, It co founded a practice called Tiny Giant and we were all around exploring the capabilities of AI and using it as a way to augment human creativity. So that's kind of where it started for me and it's still very much like that now. But how could it help us to think differently? How could it push us creatively as humans? And so we got into all sorts of experiments. We created the world's First AI gin, which is a collaboration between ai. So we trained in AI neural network on hundreds and hundreds of gin botanical combinations. And then we used one of the generated, recipes or combinations and tied in with a gin distiller in Bristol, which is what, which is my hometown. And we created a gin, which then sold all over the world. It was a limited edition. I still got one on my desk, actually. Oh, this is one on my desk.

Audrey: 2:46

What does it taste like? Can you describe the taste of your gin? Yeah,

Kerry: 2:50

it's very, it's really fruity and it had marigold in it and some very, yeah, some quite, very sort of florally. It was really lovely and it actually won two taste awards, sold all over the world. So it was one of those things and people, I think, were quite nervous about trying it, but I bought one to drink and then I've got one on my desk and I just, I always keep it there and I'm wondering if one day I'll crack it open. But, yeah. So did that, we created an AI curator for the Chatham Science Festival, which is a big UK. we even took the AI curator onto BBC radio and gave it an AI generated voice, which at that time was so otherworldly, like in 2018, the AI generated voices were just so big. Bizarre. And now they're amazing. And you just can't tell the difference between a human and an AI and voice now. But it was, yeah, so that was, that was really cool. And then also creates AI cocktails, which again served at events all over the world as a really nice way of promoting conversation. Because a lot of people at that time hadn't really didn't really, it was very intangible, this whole idea of AI. And actually, they really liked the idea that you'd have a cocktail in your hands at an event. And that was, again, AI generated, so trained on loads and loads, well, as many as we could possibly find, cocktail recipes, and then it was able to generate its own, and then the cocktail maker, this amazing human gin distiller, not gin distiller, amazing, cocktail maker put it all together and just made them into beautiful cocktails. So they were weird, like, champagne, sour cherry, and courgette, and things like that. But they were really, they were really amazing. And so that promoted lots of conversation. So those are the kind of things I started out. And so that's what I was doing in 2018, 2019. And did lots of talks around that time as well. And I remember just talking about everything AI and creativity. So talk about AI in music, AI in art, AI in writing, just everything, everything that we could show that it was this amazing tool that was going to be coming to really help us with our creativity. And that's why, that's what I talked about then. And then over time, so since the arrival of ChatGPT, so back end of 2022, I've definitely shrunk massively because it's just too big now for me to talk about AI and art and music and it's so I've, what I've done is over the last couple of years is really lent into my history as a, as a copyright. So I still do copywriting now. So although I talk and teach around AI, I do do the occasional copywriting projects. It's getting less and less because the AI seems to be getting massive now. but I do still write and I love writing. So, yeah, so I do, I still do the copywriting, but yeah, very much lent into that. So most of the stuff I teach now, I've tended to focus more on AI and content creation or AI and copywriting. So I teach at the Chartered Institute of Marketing. I teach the AI Copywriting Masterclass there. I teach AI on the AI Marketing Masterclass at the DMA and, and there I very much just focus on the, content generation side of things. And I'm also working, as a Google Garage trainer. So I go into communities to talk about AI and work with communities that wouldn't necessarily always be able to go onto some of the more, expensive courses. And then I also do my own courses, private courses, bespoke courses for individuals and businesses. And there, it's pretty much always around content creation. So I talk about AI texts, AI generated images, and AI generated videos. That's kind of my niche. So I've gone from this like massive AI and creativity to like, but I think for me, that was the only way that I could really move forward with it. And because I, I know that part of the industry really well, it made sense. So that's a very long answer to your question, but that is my kind of history. But

Audrey: 6:20

it's super amazing to hear. And it's really cool that you started and you saw its potential even before CHATGPC, like you are one of the early ones who already saw the vision and the future, right? I think what I love. About, you know, what you said about even the gin, the AI gin or the AI cocktail idea was the idea is human that and then you bring AI into the mix and then that's how you have that beautiful human AI collaboration, right? I would love to know your thoughts on like, you know, the future of creativity, especially because you're a copywriter, you're in a creative space and you have seen AI evolve so quickly over the past couple of years, right? Where do you think we're going to be headed in the next couple of months or even years?

Kerry: 7:01

Yeah, no, it's really interesting. I always think it's really difficult to answer questions around where AI will be. And because some people say like, where do you think we'll be in 10 years time? And be like, Oh, it's too big a scale. Like it's too far. Cause if you think about where we were, you know, just the fact that chat GPT wasn't even in our domain until the end of November, 2022. So it's not even been two years. It's pretty mad. but yeah, I, I would hope. And I'm a relative optimist about it, but I'd hope that we would use, continue to use AI as a tool to support our human creativity as a way to augment our skills and to potentially push our creativity into new directions and take it to places we've just never been able to do before. And I love that about AI, that it can help us to do things, not just quicker or not, not just make us more productive, but it can actually help us to do things that we wouldn't be able to do without it. and I've seen, you know, some really nice advertising campaigns that I've seen, you know, recently, there's a few that a couple of award winners at Cannes Lion Festival, where AI was played a quite a significant part in it, but the idea was still human created. It was a brilliant idea. And then AI enabled them to make that that sort of vision a reality. And I look and I love that. I love those combinations where it's a kind of human idea or concept, but then AI Bye. Bye. just takes it to this whole different level. So, I'd hope that that would still work. I still think, from a copywriting point of view, I still really hammer this home that it's really important that we still really concentrate on the craft, and we learn how to write well, and we learn about copywriting tactics, because, although CHAT GPT does a great job to a certain extent, we still need to know The craft we still need to understand what great great great writing looks like because when it comes out of chat gpt i think it's very easy to get oh wow it's like it's done this thing for me but actually we need to be able to look at it analytically and say is this That's actually what I would do if I'd written it from scratch or, you know, and we can't really analyze if we don't have the skills in the first place. So I think we still need to be really concentrating on that. I also think, you know, human creativity will become so much more important than it's ever been before because anyone can just turn up and do things with tools now. And actually, if you can think of something that's really off the wall or really out there or super, super creative and fascinating, I think people will pay for that.

Audrey: 9:24

Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think one thing that you said, that I absolutely agree with is you need to understand the craft of copywriting even before you use AI. So the first thing is, as a copywriter myself who leverages AI, a lot in work, right? Some of my clients, or partners ask, So how do we get started? And I actually told them that if you have a junior team member who is trying to learn copy, I would actually tell her or him or them to not use AI first. Yes. Really like understand what makes a good headline. Great. Right. and then when you pair that with AI, that's how you see that evolution. But I would love to also know from you, like what are some very clear business use cases or copy or creative use cases that you have seen stand out, during the past couple of years?

Kerry: 10:10

Yeah, so I think For me personally now, since the arrival of ChatGPT, I remember when it first arrived I was like oh my goodness, like this is, this is just like something else because I've been talking about AI writing for quite some time and I don't remember people asking me in 2018, 2019, they were like, are you worried about your copywriting job? And I was like, God no, it's, AI writing is terrible. And then obviously it evolved, over that time and then chat to Bettina and I was like, okay, this is, this is pretty good. but yeah, for me,

Audrey: 10:39

did you have the same thing? I paused. This is pretty good.

Kerry: 10:42

Yeah. So I think it does. It's only, you know, you're a copywriter too. I think it does really make you question your own skills. I would say for me, sorry, I'm slightly going off the question, but for me, it's also given me. a bit of a kick up the backside in a way. It's like I can't, you know, I've got to, when I do my handwritten copy, which I still do a lot handcrafted, that I have to work really hard, I have to make sure that I choose really vibrant language, that I really think about every word, the choices that I make, I think about the poetry and the rhythm and the storytelling, because I know that actually if I don't do that, It could be very similar to something that Jack GPT creates. So we have to work even harder on the craft now, I would say more than I've ever done before, because if I want it to sound really, really beautiful, which I do, I have to do, do all that extra work, but in terms of, your, in terms of things that were the ways that I use it personally, lots of different ways for me, it's more of a starting point. So I really think it's great for doing research. I think it's really helpful for, you know, some ideation. Some first, first ideas for things like headlines. and then sometimes for structuring too. So I think structuring is really helpful when I've done a lot of research myself, or I've done a bit of research with the School of AI. And actually sometimes getting into a structure is really helpful. And even if, using something like chatGPT or Cloud, if I use those to create a structure, I don't necessarily use the exact output that it's given me, but I will use it and it will just maybe speed things up a little bit for you. So for me, it's just a really great starting point. It's a great way to stimulate our, again, our amazing human creativity. And just to go, Oh, wow, I've got these like 20 ideas and 20 seconds. And the fact that I can then use that to go, Oh, now it said that, like maybe I could take my thinking that way or this way or that way. So for me, I think it's just a brilliant starting point. So yeah. research, structuring, And first, first sort of thoughts, thought starters, a bit of a springboard for copywriting. That's, that's where I use it.

Audrey: 12:37

Yeah. And it's almost like using it as a tool to flex your creative muscle, right? Cause you don't ask, I think a lot of, what I've seen so far is people expect AI to solve the problem for them and, you know, write the entire ad copy or landing page, but it doesn't work because they are just, you know, They're not guiding it. They're expecting the end output. API doesn't respond, as well to that. As for example, if you were to give it that step by step instructions, teach it how to think. and that's also your copywriting expertise comes into play, right? Yes. You solve a problem. It's like a Rubik's Cube, right? And how do you solve it? And with that also, do you have any, for example, like tips for people who are just trying to get started? As much as the both of us love AI, I do know that there is a huge percentage of people who are still not fully elaborating it, in their day to day, and they're struggling with getting AI to sound like them. They're struggling to identify what's good copy. What are some tips that you have for people who are just getting started?

Kerry: 13:39

I would say, I always just say to anyone getting started, just try it. I think there's a lot of fear around AI. There's a lot of fear around people taking people's jobs or fear that it's going to be a really difficult thing to learn and understand. And I know people are very strapped for time and a lot of people just don't have time to go and research a new tool in great detail. So for me, I just always say, just try it. Give it a try. Just try with something small. Maybe try with some headlines, ideas, or I'll say, even if you don't use it in work, just type in what you've got in your fridge and ask it for a recipe. You know, it doesn't have to, you know, ask chatGPT or Claude, but that kind of thing. It's just actually just getting started sometimes and just seeing what it's like to interact with an AI chatbot and to ask it questions and to Get something back and to see how it feels for you as a human to do that and where it takes your thinking. And so for me, I think it's often just starting in terms of copywriting. Yeah, I would say. It's a really good idea to find out about prompting. So as you've just said, you know, actually prompting makes a massive difference to the output that you get. So I think it's probably worth jumping on a course or finding out a little bit about, about prompting and how to prompt. So, cause really your prompt needs to be. Specific and detailed. And you need, like you said, to add in your own expertise as a writer or your own expertise as a strategist or whatever it might be to actually tell the model what it is you're looking for, who you, who you, who you're targeting, what kind of role it might want to take. So, you know, Say act as a copywriter with 20 years experience, but just give it as details as you can. But I think a lot of it is around trial and error about, you know, you'll know as well using the tools. It's often about refining and reviewing, seeing what comes out and saying, okay, so now I've seen that. I think maybe I need to go back in again and retweet the, the prompt in a bit more detail, but I think just get started if you've not tried it at all. Just begin, because the tool is very much here, and you know, a few years ago, I think people were like, Oh, maybe it's just another one of those passing, like, technology trends. But I think it is very much here now, and so just begin, and just have fun with it.

Audrey: 15:41

I think having fun is a huge, you know, It really helps in the process. Yeah, even I was teaching my mom how to use chat gpt And now she's like the top power user in her company And I was so proud of her. I love that Look at me. I'm top Yeah It's the best thing I could hear. you know this year, but I also was thinking about it, right? And I know there are a lot of people in You know, creative or advertising or marketing industry who might still be resistant to AI. Have you seen that? And what are your thoughts about, you know, people who are still on the fence?

Kerry: 16:17

Yeah, I have seen it. I've seen it a lot. And Yeah, some of my closest friends, my actually my other half, he just hates it. He just doesn't want to touch it. Just don't like it at all. so I've seen it, I've seen it quite a lot and I totally understand it because I know as you, you know, the fact that I'm here is because I had that fear back in 2018 and I was, Worried about it and where it would go. And also because I think especially if you are someone who really values the human craft, which I do as well, I've often gone back and forth. I'm like, Oh, I just maybe I just need to leave the whole world of AI. Like I genuinely have had so many existential crises over it. But I think it's just finding this balance. I think first of all, it's this acceptance that the tools are here and you could ignore them. And of course you can, you can go 100 percent human, as long as you can charge the amount for that. so you can ignore it, but I would say to just, first of all, accept it's here. To know that it's a tool that we can use to support our processes and our creativity. It's a way to, you know, push us in ways that we've never been able to do before. So it can actually help your creative thinking to go places that, yeah, that you could only have dreamed of like five years ago. So I think it's, yeah, first of all, I think it's the acceptance. It's here. And so actually just. Making the choice to embrace the tools and to try them and see how they work for you. I think is probably a good way to go. And most of the people I know that have jumped into AI, that have embraced it, they do see the benefits of it. Not for everything and not everyone wants to go and write everything with ChatGPT. Of course they don't. Some people want to still write human copy and they want to do that and they don't really want to touch the tools. But maybe they might want to use them for better writing. Just getting them started, or they might want to use it for a bit of research. So it doesn't even have to go right into your creative process. If you love that so much that you don't want to touch AI, that's great, but it may be able to help you just slightly outside of that, and really help you to give, actually give you more time to do that creative stuff that you love to do. So, I think, yeah, embracing it, trying it out, accepting that it's here, and knowing that it's not about replacing, it's about, augmenting your skills.

Audrey: 18:23

Yeah, definitely. So I think one thing even for me is, I noticed that it has increased my productivity. So much and I'm not using it to replace entire processes But I'm using it to at least get the stuff that I don't really enjoy doing done a lot faster because yeah It's creative as writers You will have projects that you are of course more excited about that gives you more room for expression and stuff There are more day to day business as usual, right? and for example your emails and newsletters, so if you're able to use AI to then, you know Work on stuff that you may not want to spend as much time on, then it frees up your mind and your mental capacity to also Brainstorm, think of new ideas, and think of new ways to grow your business, and I know that your, your business has evolved and pivoted Quite some over time. Yeah, okay. I would love to talk more about that Like how did you make those decisions? And you know, how are you really integrating AI into your workflows and processes? as you journey along

Kerry: 19:23

Yeah. So I think it's, yeah, it's interesting. So as I mentioned already around the niching thing, I've definitely niched and pivoted, I think probably moving with the technology, but also just because it really exploded. It's 2022. And so I think that it was just a matter of me deciding, okay, what are my skills? What do I love? What do I really know? And then that's when I went into, I think aside from my copywriting processes in terms of running my own business, I, one of the tools that I really love is Motion, which is an AI, scheduling tool. So I work for myself, I, I'm a solopreneur. And for me, this, sometimes scheduling my work's really hard, especially when new projects come in, or when I've got projects that are quite far off that I need to write. So, when I'm working for, my own individual clients, sometimes someone will phone me up and say, I need a, you know, a full day or a half day course in November or December this year. But I've got to bear that in mind that I have to then write that course. And so, and that takes me a long time. And so, I have to be aware that it's not the kind of thing I can do, you know, the best Two weeks before the course, I need to have really thought about it and prepped it. So it's great that I can just type that task in to, into motion, and then the AI tool will then schedule it all in, make it all work with like the other things that I've already got in that are very, things that need to be done this week, but also then it might just creep in and just look an hour on that there, an hour on that there, an hour on that. And I love that. It's completely revolutionized my scheduling. I'm not great at time organization, like ask any of my friends, I'm like, I don't know She's terrible with time. So just the fact that I can write all my tasks down and that an AI tool will literally schedule my entire day or my entire week or my entire month, that is completely revolutionized stuff for me. So it's not just using the tools for my copywriting, it's also using it for things like that as well. So yeah, check out Motion if you need to schedule your work. It's so good. I don't know if you've used that already, but I found it really helpful.

Audrey: 21:18

After, after hearing you talk about it, I know I need it in my life. They probably have a new user right now. And what about like copywriting tools, right? are you currently using, you know, the LLMs or do you have a specific tool that you lean on for copywriting?

Kerry: 21:36

So, I lean on different tools for different times and different projects. Because this is a lot of things that I get asked in my course a lot. You know, if I had to choose one tool, which would it be? And I'm like, oh, it's too difficult. yeah, I tend to use, I tend to use perplexity for research, I think that's really good. I really like chatGPT and Chord for ideation. I tend to use Chord for my B2C writing. I think it's got a good natural default tone. And although, you know, we use prompting and we Make sure we come out of the default tone as an absolute basic. I would, I still tend to go to CORD for writing. I also like the fact that they, they've trained their, model to align with an AI constitutional document. So there's a bit more around sort of safety and, ethics and stuff in that. So I tend to choose that. I also use things like, Grammarly, ProWritingAid for things like editing. so, so yeah, I kind of, you know, dip in and out of different tools. I also quite like Google for Google Gemini for long form content because I think they've got some nice little, editing elements that you can do and the fact that you can press the Google button and it'll go off and sort of cross reference your, the outputs with the search results so that you can, it helps to maybe in some part overcome the issues with hallucinations. So different things for different projects. I probably, if I was doing B2B ChatGPT over Claude. so. Yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to just trying things out, knowing what tools to use when, but also knowing when not to use AI tools. So I think if I'm doing something really, really conceptual, like if I'm doing things like ad sets or, above the line kind of ideas or campaign concepts, I just don't think it can, it's off the wall enough because it's a generative tool. So yes, again, it can give you some sparks of ideas, but there's times where I've tried so hard to make an AI, a generative AI tool. Do a really off the wall idea and it's just like, do you know what? What I've realized is it's just not going to work. I actually need to sit down with a piece of paper, and my brain, and a pen, and that's what I need to do. But you also need to know when to go, no, I need to just use my brain here, and not use an AI tool. So there's also that learning I think, and that's what comes over time, and that's why it's really important to keep trying the tools. Not so many that you get overwhelmed, because there's a point where, probably about a year and a half ago, maybe a year ago even, If there's a new copywriting tool that came out, I would literally go and try it and I would be spread so thinly trying out all these different tools. And in the end, what I've just done is like, no, I'm going to go chat GPT, Claude, Copilot, Gemini, which I know are the big ones, but I'm going to just use those and I'm going to learn how to use them really well and really wisely. And that's always been my thing, really, how to use these tools wisely and well. And so, And now I've done that. It means that whenever there's an update and there is isn't there like all the time there's like an update to this or an update to that or a new feature or, it means I've got time to actually review that feature and see how it works for me. And so, yeah, so I'd always say, you know, choose two or three or maybe four or six, but just get to use, know them really, really well. And I just think you'll do better in that way. And also know when to lean on your amazing brain and human creativity because sometimes, well, a lot of the time that is going to trump. An AI tool, especially when it's conceptual work.

Audrey: 24:46

Yes, I absolutely agree. So even for myself, when I'm brainstorming for Vega campaigns, if you ask Chair GPT for ideas, sometimes the ideas are very, either flat or cliché, or you know that it's trying its best, but it's just not anywhere near a big idea,

Kerry: 25:02

so it's going to

Audrey: 25:03

be like, wow, right? But what I also realise is that Like, for example, for me, Czech GPT is much better at strategic work, versus CLOT. Whereas for CLOT, I use it for a more human like language, like what you said. Like, it's more of a B2C language. And the funny thing is, you can prompt both, LLMs in the same way, but you can get really different voices because they're just trained in different ways, right? So, getting to know the tool is important because that allows you to find something that really fits your needs. And then when you find that match, you get to quickly generate your end output a lot faster. Yeah. Yeah. Just try every single. Yeah, exactly. And then hope one of them works and then you're just going to get confused. Yeah.

Kerry: 25:45

Yeah. Totally. Totally. And

Audrey: 25:46

with that, I would also, it would be amazing if you could share, for example, any kind of like a demonstration or if you have an example of how you would usually prompt AI, what are some tips and techniques that you have?

Kerry: 26:00

Yeah, sure. So I have this methodology which I created probably about eight months ago now, it's called the AI sandwich and people seem to love it in my training and talks that I do. it's, and so I can take you through that. So let me share my screen. You just have to tell me if, you can see it.

Audrey: 26:17

Awesome. So for those of you who are listening on Spotify and you can't see the screen, we will walk you through whatever that Carrie is going to be sharing here right now. Awesome, yes, we can see your screen. You can

Kerry: 26:30

see it, excellent. So, yeah, so I'm talking about my AI sandwich. And this is something that, it's a methodology for writing, but you could use it for other creative processes as well, but for me, because I was just so interested in copywriting, this is where it all began. And I think if you'd have asked me about, Maybe eight months or so ago, I would have said to get the best possible writing with the support of AI. What you would do is you would use AI to generate an output. Excuse me. You'd use AI to generate an output and then you would put your human craft on top. So you would add your amazing copywriting tactics. You would add in some storytelling, some personal anecdotes, whatever it might be. So it would be AI generated and then human on top. And then probably about eight months ago, I realized actually what you do before you use the AI tools is equally important if not more important than what you do with it afterwards. And so for me, it was about this process of AI, human, AI, human, so human, AI, human process. And that felt a bit like a sandwich to me. So it's an AI sandwich. So the AI and the human processes on either side. And so the, so the first part, so step one. If you think about it as the bread of the sandwich, it's the human intelligence. And for me, this is what we do before we even touch any AI tools at all, is we use our amazing human intelligence. So as a very basic requirement, I would always say, come to the tool with an objective. So what do you want to create today? What do you want to make? What's the overarching strategy for you? how does this work? piece of work that you're going to do tie into your wider marketing strategy or wider content strategy. If you have any research that you've done, that's the kind of thing, again, that we can bring into the prompts. If you've done any research on your target audience, or you've got some really amazing personas, or you know some, you've got a really great angle for something, a really great angle for a blog, all of those things we can bring into the prompts. So writing your prompt, it's really, really worth taking the time to really think about what do I want to get out? What's my objective here? What's my strategy? What ideas have I got? What do I want to see in this final output? I think sometimes we hand a lot over to AI and don't really think, if I was writing this, what three or four things would I really, really want to see in this article or in this blog? So that's step one. So human intelligence, that's the first bit of the bread. And then the filling is the AI, and that's what we've done. We pull in whatever tools that we need to help us to push this process forward to maybe speed things up a little bit for us to get us started. So the AI comes here and we now generate the content. And then the final bit, the last bit of bread to make our sandwich. Again, this is back to human intelligence. And this is where we add our craft. So this is why my original thoughts were around the best way to get AI to support us with our writing is to also bring in our amazing human skills. So this is where we bring in all the things we know about copywriting. This is where we also add in our personal experiences. So AI can't it doesn't know and experience the world like we do. So if you've got any experiences of the world that really tie in with what you're doing, bring that in. You're really deep knowledge of your clients and your brand. That is again, something that you can bring in afterwards, but also to fact check everything. So you need to be fact checking, especially if you're using, large language models like chat, GPT and Claude that they can hallucinate. So hallucination, if you're not sure of that is when the model will, create something that's not factually correct. So maybe it doesn't have enough context or maybe it hasn't been trained specifically on what your task is. So then it might make them make something up. so we need to be fact checking everything. So this isn't, you know, why it's really important to have the human at the end of this sandwich is that we have to fact check, but also to sense check it as well. So I think there's this real wow factor involved with AI, you know, the fact that we can type in a prompt and then. 20 seconds later, or even less than that, it's generated a whole blog for us. It's really easy to get really wowed by that and go, Oh, wow, I've got this entire blog. Amazing. It's done. and so for me, I think it's really important that we push past this wow factor. And even though AI probably written something for you and you know, it's a blog and it's done and it just brilliant. What, you know, what can I do now? it's really important to go over it, sense check it. Is this what I really wanted? if I wrote this myself, would it look anything like this? And then also going back again, then to step one, this human intelligence, but, you know, does it meet my objectives? Is this, is this what I set out to do here? So, you know, all of these things are really important. So that's how my sandwich works. So always a human AI, human process. I

Audrey: 31:12

love that. And that's how you really combine the best of, you know, your human intelligence and AI execution to get better results. one thing that I also would like to add to that is I think. Like what you said, right? Being able to discern the quality of content is very important. I realized that it is easy for you to, take the shortcut because with AI, it's very easy for us to so quickly get the end output, right? And sometimes your brain just like, oh, wow, it looks so good. Perfectly structured. There's headlines up here. Yeah, I think it makes sense. But if you actually read the content Yeah, you you will realize that there are gaps in you know, the reasoning or for example, the messaging isn't quite right but if you don't do that and you just copy and paste everything that's when you realize that hey It's very AI like and it's missing a bit of it, you know human touch and that realness, right? So totally totally talking about also that human creativity, right? I think this is a hard question, but I want to hear from you, Carrie. What does human creativity mean to you? I find that question hard myself, but I've been pondering about it because you know, AI is going to be able to create so many things and yet as creators, we keep saying that you can't replace that human part of things, but then I wonder how do we then capture what exactly is, you know, that human creativity we are talking about?

Kerry: 32:37

I mean, It's a mystery, isn't it, what human creativity is. I don't know, but I think that human creativity comes from somewhere that you just, that the AI can't quite get. So when I do my copywriting courses, I explain, if you, if you explain how a large language model works in very simple terms, it's basically trained on huge amounts of data. It makes predictions and then it will generate the most likely outcome. So it's a predictive tool and that's how it writes. And if you think about how we write as humans, it's so far away from that because we write from experience and our knowledge of the world and our own personal stories and our knowledge of our brand and the conversations that we've had with our clients and actually just looking at the way that AI generates. Versus how we as humans write, you know, and I also read this really beautiful article recently and in, in the New Yorker around the fact that humans, when they write or create, that it's, that it's actually involves. A series of thousands of choices that we make choices when we, when we write or when we create, you know, when we, when we paint or if we create art, we make choices on the exact color that we would choose. We, we make choices on, you know, the exact composition, like what we're going to paint today. And it's the same with writing, you know, we make choices on. You know, I'm sure you're the same. I agonize, agonize over a sentence, over a particular word. I'll go and look at a thesaurus and I'll like, okay, it's not quite there. Like I know what I'm trying to say, but, and we, and we, we do that and we make choices. And, you know, as humans as well, one thing I do with my writing is I read it out loud and see how it sounds like, not, not just, It's not just how it reads back, but like how it feels, like if, is there a rhythm? Is there, does it move, like, does it flow, does it, does it like actually grab me as a human being? Like actually, you know, those things, it, it, it can't do that. And so for me, it's a, it's a whole process of, it's quite like, I know when to stop writing. Like if I'm writing something without AI at all, and I'm sure you're like this, you get to this point where it's like, I've done, I'm done now. I'm done. I'm done. And you just know, and that's intuitive and intuition. We have human intuition and we know when to stop. We know when something's like amazing because it feels so blooming good. When you come up with a great idea. It's like, yeah, you know, we don't get that with AI. We do not get that with AI. And so for me, the human process is all of that. And on top of that, you know, outside of, outside of AI, like I'm also a yoga teacher and I run women's circles in the woods and we sit around a fire. and we do journaling with pen and paper, so I write, I do lots of journaling, I write with pen and paper. And, you know, that, that sort of process of, of pen and paper, of writing, of tapping into our intuition, we can find wonderful answers in our bodies and, you know, through writing like that, through our imaginations. And so for me, I think it's really difficult to really define what, what human creativity is. It's this beautiful intuitive process that relies on our, on our life experience. And in a way there's some ideas and some creativity that only We would be able to, you know, that I personally would be able to come up with because of the life that I've lived and the stories that I've seen and the things that I've learned. And so I just, I don't know. I also think the process of creativity is so important. Like, I don't know if you've seen the human creative process. It was like a bit of a, it's quite a funny process that someone created, which I really loved. And it was a kind of like this process of like, you start off with the idea and it's like, this is going to be amazing. And then over time you get down and you're like, well, this is crap. And I'm crap. And then you come out and go, maybe I'm not crap. This is quite good. Now this is amazing. And this whole, like, this whole creativity process, there's something also really beautiful about that. It's not easy. It's actually quite hard, but we also feel like we've been through this real wonderful human process of doing that. And we come out and we feel really amazed. And I, I wonder how, if we always shortcut that beautiful human process, I worry what will, I don't know. I just, I've been pondering this myself, If we cut out that human creative process, and bearing in mind we've been having this wonderful human creative process for years and years and years, it's been passed down by our ancestors. We, you know, back very, to the early days of cave drawings, you know, we've always needed to express, we've always needed to, to be creative in some way. And so for me, if we shortcut that, if we take that out, if we no longer go through that process, I, I worry what will happen and I don't know the answer what will happen, but I just know it will be a real shame because creativity in general, it's not just great for work, but it's actually something quite a real well being benefit to creativity as well. It makes us feel good. Our ability to express our ability to tell stories. There's just something that's really very, very good, good for us as well. so I just was so passionate about it, and I just would not want a I to stop doing that, which is why I really advocate for this sandwich of this human and I Yes, do your amazing, amazing thinking and use a I to take it maybe one step further. But don't stop doing the thinking. Don't stop doing the creativity because it's really good for us.

Audrey: 37:48

Yes, I completely agree with you. And I love that when you talked about it, your eyes lit up, you know, there's so much passion. I think as copywriters or as creatives, I, I think there's a desire in us to express, to create, and then to also want to bring to life something new and different. I, I think that the joy in bringing the idea to life, or like, Seeing something new for the first time being born out of our minds experiences and having those conversations is something Extremely beautiful. So yeah, I and I also agree with you that on my end even when I When I work or I share tips with clients, I always say human AI, human AI, because I don't want them to remove the human from the AI and only have one part of the equation, right? So that is really amazing to hear. And I think for our listeners as well, like what Carrie said, don't be afraid to try, but also don't, you know, don't just rely on AI. I have your own human take and I think continue to dare to dream, to think of ideas, to create. I think that's what keeps us as a species so special and keeps the work fresh and unique. And you will see that as more and more AI generated work is being put out, the human type of AI work will also stand out. I think that is going to be something we'll be seeing in the coming months. And with that, thanks so much, Kerry. I would love to know from you if our audience wants to reach out, where can they find you? What do you do? And you know, what's the best way to contact you?

Kerry: 39:23

Yeah, I'd say I'm on LinkedIn, Kerry Harrison. I have a website, kerryharrison. io. It's quite easy to remember. I also have a newsletter on Substack called Minds and Machines News. So Minds and Machines was taken, but as you can imagine from the name, and probably from what I've said, I talk around AI, but also how it combines, and I also do some, a human element in every one that I do. So whether it's an amazing book that I've read, or a film that I've seen, or some amazing piece of creativity that's totally human led, I'll put that in as well, so this nice mix of AI and, and human, so yeah.

Audrey: 39:55

Awesome. Now, thank you, Harry, for head grinding us on the show. It was a pleasure having you. Thank you guys for tuning in. Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and hit the bell for more actionable marketing insights. We'll see you next time.