53 | Ross Symons on AI Adoption in Creative Agencies

Are agencies keeping up with AI? Ross Symons doesn’t think so, at least not fast enough. 

In this episode of The AI Marketer’s Playbook, Audrey Chia speaks with the ZenRobot co-founder and educator about the real gaps in AI adoption across creative teams. Ross explains why most agencies are stuck between fear and confusion, what junior creatives are missing, and how to build workflows instead of chasing tools. 

If you’re leading a team or running an agency, this episode is packed with insights on how to upskill your org and stay relevant in a world where AI creativity moves fast.

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Transcript

Audrey Chia: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to the AI Marketers Playbook, where we cover actionable frameworks to help you leverage AI and marketing strategies in your business. I am Audrey Chair, your host, and today I have with me Ross Simmons. Now Ross is a leading AI content creator animator. An educator who bridges creativity with technology. Ross started as a web developer in advertising, then made a super interesting transition into origami, art and animation building a really impressive following on Instagram today, Ross is the co-founder of Zen Robot, where he develops workshops to train marketers, agencies and creatives, and teach them how they can really harness AI for social media. Brand campaigns and storyboarding. Ross, I'm super excited to have you on the show today. Welcome.

Ross Symons: 0:49

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Audrey. Um, yeah, and thank you for the wonderful introduction. Uh, I you filled in things there that I'd forgotten about, so I appreciate that. Thank you.

Audrey Chia: 0:58

I started my career also in advertising. So tell us a bit more about your background. How did you get started and what got you into the whole world of ai?

Ross Symons: 1:07

Hmm. So I come from a advertising background. I was a web developer, building games, applications, uh, you know, anything that clients in, in that space needed. Uh, I worked for agencies. I, uh, the last agency I worked for was Ogilvy, which is quite a big, um, international company, but here in Cape Town in South Africa. And. I worked out quite early on in my career that I love working with people, but I don't look like working for people. So I was, uh, I quickly understood that I needed to go and do something by myself. So in 2014, I started a, an Instagram project. Now, 2014 was. In South Africa, at least the Instagram was just starting to kick off. And I think globally, you know, between 2010 and 2014, Instagram and, you know, just started, um, ga gaining a bit of traction. All we really had before that was, uh, Twitter, which is now X and, and Facebook. And I wasn't really much into social media at all, but I'd always liked the idea of, uh, creating a. Something which I could put towards a, a year long project. So a little bit each day, which would contribute to a final project. So I, I kicked off this origami project, which was, it was me just wanting to, I had a fascination with it, and all I really wanted to do was keep a digital record of all the little origami pieces that I'd folded and found designs of. So I think when I started that project, it was just, you know, me. Getting interested in social media and started posting regularly, which, if I look at what I'm doing now, definitely, uh, lay the groundwork for how I'm able to create as much content as I do now, uh, for, mostly for LinkedIn and, and Instagram and. While I was creating that content, I quit my job. I, I went and did freelance work. So I was doing freelance, uh, web development work, building websites, uh, for clients. And by the end of that year, I had my following on. Instagram grew large enough for me to say, look, um, maybe I can just try and do this thing full-time and see what happens. So, uh, what I was doing at the time was animating the piece, the paper as well. So I think I, I, I hit a niche where it was a very specific type of content I was creating. I was. Uh, folding paper, which is something origami, if you've ever tried it before, it's not an easy thing to do. Um, so I just dedicated that year to becoming better at that. But I was also creating animations, so I was making it stop motion animation, you know, move, take a shot, move take a shot, and in telling little stories of that. So it was also at the beginning of when, uh, people were getting recognized as influencers and, you know, content partners for, for brands. So they saw the work and you know, that kind of kicked off that whole thing for me, but. I never, through the sort of 10 years that I did this up until, um, I guess till the end of 2023, uh, I never let go of the tech side of what I'd done. So I was still doing website stuff. I was trying to build little app applications with the APIs that were available. Um, I was into cryptocurrency when it came out, you know? Right. That was, I think around 20 16, 20, uh, 17, uh, the whole NFT thing, you know, with, you know, you had NFTs, which were. Uh, quite a popular thing for which I thought was gonna be this massive thing and kind of just ended up being not too much, but it definitely was a step in the direction of, you know, remaining in the creative space with technology. So in 2022, that was July of 2022, when Midjourney, which is a, a very popular, uh, text to image and image to image generation tool, when that. Came about. I saw that as a, I, I never really understood the concept of, um, well, never, never seen in prac practical terms what it would look like when you take a piece of text and turn it into an image. And because I think I come from a web development background or a coding background, understanding that you writing a piece of code and then creating something was, it was mind blowing for me. I remember, uh, one of the, some of the first few images I generated with my journey. Was, it was really a special moment for me because I understood that it was this magical technology that was being, you know, was now in the public space later that year, uh, November of that year was when Chachi PT arrived. So now you had a diffusion model, which was. Uh, mid journey and then a large language model being ChatGPT. So when those two technologies arrived, I was like, look, I'm pretty sure everybody is gonna be diving into this and understanding it, so I better just make sure I understand how this works. But I found that not everyone was as interested in it as what I was. And I kind of rushed ahead. I just continued using the tools. I started making as, as much content as possible. I was posting it a, a bit on Instagram, which I had an account on. And, uh, I then transitioned, I guess, uh, at the beginning of last year to LinkedIn. I just figured I'm gonna be doing this thing. Um, people are asking me to come in and teach them. So I was going into the agency, so the agency background that I had. And the, the network of people that I had, I'd reached out to them and said, look, if you need, if you need people to show you, or if you need somebody to give you a basic idea of what the landscape looks like in the AI space, I can come and do that. So I was doing these little seminars, workshops, um, creating content on the side for a couple of brands. And at the end of 2023, sorry, at the end of 2024, end of last year, my old, um, boss came to me and he said, look, you're clearly doing this thing properly. Let's form something. So Zen Robot was, was born. And what we do, what Zen Robot does is we do, uh, teaching under the Zen Robot Academy. So that is, uh, we have a masterclass every month where it's a four week master class where we take people from the basics of image generation all the way through to, uh, consistency and motion. Uh, and then finally a sort of portfolio ready piece, which they can use to, um, to show potential clients, um, that we run monthly. We, we create content for brands as well. Uh, so it's everything, ai, both on the teaching side as well as on the, uh, content creation side.

Audrey Chia: 6:33

Wow. And it seems like it has been quite a journey for you, right? In fact, there are also elements that remain consistent, right? Um, using creativity in different ways, whether it's your origami or in web dev or now ai. Yeah, I think that human element is still, uh, very strong in many of us. It's just what are the tools and the formats in which we deploy that, you know. Insight and creativity that we have now, because you also came from an agency background. I'm curious to know what are some of the big shifts you have seen after, you know, the dawn of ai?

Ross Symons: 7:05

Honestly, you know, this time last year when I was speaking to agencies, I thought that in a year's time we would be a lot further along. I thought that more agencies would be adopting the technology. They would understand how the technology works. It would be easier to use the technology, but that hasn't happened. And I've paid close attention to that. Um, and what has seemed to have happened is many people in agencies and in marketing teams have, are aware of this new technology. I mean, it's difficult to, to ignore and. Some teams have been told by their bosses and by their leaders, you have to go and learn how this technology works. And they try and they, they do their own version of it, and then they bring it back into the team and they attempt to try and, you know, piece it together. And some of those agencies are, are, they're doing it right and they, you know, are, um, they're using it to the fullest of its, uh, of its capacity. For the most part, I've just found that a lot of agencies have, they've seen the technology, they're not too sure which direction to go and that direction could be, which, which tools do we invest in? Um, do we need to train our whole team? Uh, is there one specific person that needs to be the AI person? Do we make this a company wide initiative where everybody learns ai? Um, so there's all these questions that are, that are coming up now and. I think it's a confusing time for marketers and a confusing time for, um, advertising agencies because, you know, there's this narrative of like, the agencies are dead and creativity creatives are gonna lose their jobs to ai. And there's all this like, um, the, these stories going around, which I think are not as true as, you know, the media likes to, uh, to make it sound. But I think there are some truths in it. And the truth is that I think smaller agencies that are willing. To invest a bit of time and uh, you know, to either take a course or just focus entirely on. Cool. We're gonna learn these workflows, not the tools specifically, because as you know, with the landscape of tools that are. Available at the moment. They are just changing all the time. Like it's just, you know, it's so difficult to keep up with what is changing. I mean, our job at Zebot is to keep up with those tools so that we can teach the next thing. But we like, what we aren't doing is we aren't teaching tools, we're teaching workflows. We're teaching and understanding and fundamental understanding of how to engage with these. Tools with this new technology because, um, and maybe it's my technical background that has assisted me in this, but what I have paid close attention to is that there's a new way of us engaging with these tools. You don't speak to it like a human, you don't speak to it like you speak to a Google search. Uh, you don't speak to it like a, an old or a young person, but it's also a computer. So it's kind of like, it's this weird thing that, that's going on there. So, uh, trying to educate clients and trying to educate people in general. On how to use this technology is, um, it's, it's difficult, um, because you have to get their buy-in. You know, you have to get them to. Tell you, look, this is what, uh, this is what it entails. Uh, this is what it costs and this is how long it's going to take. I think there's a, there's an easy assumption that well just teach us this tool and this tool. I can do that. I can, I don't even need to do that. I can send you a YouTube tutorial on how to do that. But all you're gonna get is a very small slice of what is possible within that tool, um, and understanding the fundamentals, which I think most companies should be investing in now. Uh. Is where the current landscape of the advertising and marketing agency space is for, for a lot of companies and a lot of people.

Audrey Chia: 10:13

Yeah. And I also completely agree, even on my end, I had a couple of X contacts of mine also reach out, and it has been about three years since the dawn of chat GPT, right? Yeah. But at the same time, the way that agencies are perhaps still perceiving AI is they. Might see it as sort of a threat, um, especially for those in a certain position. And then for the juniors who want to adopt it, they would love to. Quickly use it so that they can start optimizing their workflows. But then again, there isn't like what you said, a system or a structure in place for that to happen. And in your opinion, what would make the most sense? Would it be like a top down approach, a bottom up approach, or how does the company even get started? Especially if they are a giant agency like Vy with so many different offices functions? How do you upskill an entire suite, uh, you know, or, or team of people?

Ross Symons: 11:07

I look, I think that one of two things could happen. One is. The same as when traditional agencies started, um, integrating digital agencies into their, and I was part of that. I was, I I started at a digital agency. So we were, we were, you know, very much about social media and online and where traditional agencies, we know were all below the line, stuffed TV ads, print, uh, point of sale, that sort of thing. And with digital came this, it was also like, oh, where's digital going? Is social media gonna be a thing? And all that happened is a lot of the big companies bought those agencies and. And took them into the larger, uh, corporates. I think that something similar is gonna happen, uh, where there are these little, maybe not AI agencies, but AI companies that are proficient in certain tools and workflows and understanding, you know, this is how you, uh, this is how you use the tools. So those companies are just gonna get brought directly into that. Either that, and look, if. I was on the smaller AI agency side, I, I wouldn't go into the bigger companies because all that's gonna do is gonna slow everything down. So, and you've seen this, like, I mean, the reality of, uh, exactly to your point, trying to train hundreds, even thousands of people sometimes is, is near impossible. And not everyone is on the same level. Not everyone wants to. I mean, you know, as, as just from a, you know, on the ground level, people that want, or people that start a job. Let's say you're a mid-level, uh, creative mid-level designer, if you have to now, or even a senior designer, if you have to now get told by your boss, look, you need to go learn how mid journey works. You need to go learn ChatGPT. You need to build a workflow for your team. You know, they didn't study that, they didn't sign up for that. They, they might not have an interest in it, so why should they go and do it, and if the should. If the should is based on, you know, the scare tactics of, well, AI is gonna steal your job, or someone who knows how to use AI is gonna steal your job, then why would, I mean, I personally wouldn't want to be in that position because now there's, you are forced to learn a technology that you don't have any interest in. Where you went in as, as a designer because you like the creative process, maybe Photoshop or something that you enjoyed. Um, and yes, there's, there is, uh a shift that needs to happen. So, you know, to, just to get back to your, to your question and answer where, what that sort of medium and, you know, where do AI agencies sit and what should companies be doing? Uh, I think that training obviously has to happen on some level. Um, and instead of siloing AI as a department, it has to be a company-wide, um, adoption. Because otherwise what's gonna happen is you've got a silo, you've got the AI team, like the developers used to be stuck in the corner and, you know, they build their websites and their games. Uh, but then the, the communication between those teams is very difficult because now you're speaking about, you know, diffusion models and large language and models and APIs that connect via MCP and like it's all this new technology that needed this new understanding. Um, if only a certain department or a very small department understand how that works, then it will never filter into the rest of, it'll just be like, well, these guys do the ai, let's leave the clever stuff to them. And I also don't think it, it, it seems like because it is technical and it is a new technology, people are hesitant because they, they feel that it might be like re like learning how to code for example, or, uh, you know, relearning a piece of software. But the reality is. AI is here. It's not going anywhere. And as you know, and as an individual creative, uh, or as a marketer or an agency, if you aren't on board with where this is going, and it doesn't mean you have to understand all the tools and all the new things that are happening, but at least slowly starting to integrate it into your, uh, day-to-day running, which I think most people are doing, but they're doing it by themselves. Like, this person uses Cling, this person uses Dream Machine, or this person uses ChatGPT. This one uses, uh. I don't know, Gemini or Claude, uh, there has to be, everyone has to be on the same level. Not, and, and I'm not saying everyone has to be a complete rockstar doing this stuff, but there has to be commonality throughout.

Audrey Chia: 14:52

Definitely and even also see that in, um, copy, right? It's very interesting because somebody can take seven prompts to get to one output, when in fact if you know how the end result that you're looking for, a single prompt will do. And there's a difference between just keeping them a tool. And giving a person a tool and the knowledge of how to use it. So by, right, if everyone on your team has at least that basic understanding and frameworks internally, then that's when you can really get them to work together. I'm also curious to know what are your thoughts on that human AI kind of balance, right? So where does creativity start and where does AI come into the mix? How do creatives, marketers, and even businesses find that balance?

Ross Symons: 15:35

Hmm, that's a great question. Uh, look, the reality is what AI does is it can turn, I use this analogy all the time. It can turn a farmer into a designer overnight. You know, it can, uh, that farmer can decide he wants to be a designer. He can go sit, he can use ChatGPT to help him with layouts and the basic understanding of. Uh, you know how to set something up, how to, how to do a basic design layout, what topography means, how it relates to all of this. And overnight, they will have the very base level skills in order to create a design. Is that design gonna be good? No, it's not at all gonna be good because. AI doesn't know, AI knows how to create, it's generative. So it generates and it can, can only generate based on the input that you're giving it. Right? So what it does though, in this, using the same analogy, what it does for a designer is it takes a designer and turns it in, turns them into, if they know how to use ai, it turns them into a super designer because they have five, 10 years of relevant experience and very specific, um, a very specific field of expertise as a designer. So when AI generates something. And it shows an image, it shows a piece of text, it shows a video. That creative that's got those 10 years of experience, and this is where the creativity comes in, is able to look at that and go, there's something a bit off about it. I'm not sure what it is, and I'm willing to work until I get that either. Personally for me, it's, it's a feeling. You look at it and you're like, yes, something feels off. You know? Like, yes, I don't know what it is, and I'm willing to use the tool. I'm willing to sit with Midjourney for the next hour. I don't care if it takes five hours, but I'm gonna. Do what I do, what it takes to get it to a place that I personally am happy with. And if you speak to most designers and most creatives, they, that will resonate with them because they, they, they look at it and they're like, Hmm, that looks like it was designed by a machine. And the machine AI doesn't know. The subtle, uh, nuance differences between good design and excellent design. The reality is anyone right now can design good design. Our farmer analogy, our farmer can make a good design. Is it gonna be an excellent design? And is it gonna pass for an excellent design? No, it's not because the farmer doesn't know what to look for. So designers. And the creative, um, mind that is behind those using the tools, uh, is I think, gonna allow your work as a creative to be a lot better. Because what you do start finding, and this is what I've found, the more I use ai, there's little shortcuts that I'm finding that it's helping me with. Well, the reality is, I mean, I have an eye for design, but I can't design physically. So now I can use, now I know what to look for. And now because I know how to prompt and I know how to. And know how to edit. I can ask whatever tool I'm using to produce something when it produces something, I know technically how to get it to the point that I know or I know what a good design looks like. So that is where your field of expertise as a creative person is definitely gonna aid you and help you in using these tools. Where I do see a challenge coming in is the young sort of juniors that are coming up because they don't have experience, they don't, they, their well of understanding is, is not that deep. So. They are getting to a place now where the work that they need to do can be replaced by AI because it's very basic work. It's like templating and, you know, very basic structuring of, uh, of content, be it a website or a design or, you know, a code base. So how they are gonna fill in that gap. Like, I, I think if anything, they should, they should be mentored for the next two or three years by, you know, the designers and creatives that have been using this technology, particularly designers and creators that have used. Normal, traditional tools to design, uh, and create along with ai so that maybe, maybe there's a hybrid model where, you know, you have a senior designer and a junior designer. A junior, junior who knows, like some of the AI tools inside out, doesn't know much about design, but can help the senior designer shortcut what they're doing. I think there might be a sort of hybrid thing going on there, but is someone who's been working in the industry for the last 15 years gonna want to have somebody who's. Six months out of their first internship telling them what to do? I don't know. That's a good question. So, you know, I personally, I, I don't that, that wouldn't really sit well with me, but maybe it's time to, you know, it's also a time to just be humble, understand that this technology is upon you and it is gonna change everything that you do. Uh, either you can fit in or you're gonna fall out.

Audrey Chia: 19:48

Yeah, AI can solve many things, but it cannot solve the human pride. That's something that we have to navigate. But yeah, so many great points, right? Um, even for me, I like to say that the best copy, you know, the best people who. Can use AI to prompt for copy, uh, copywriters again.'cause you have that eye, right? Yeah. So what you talk about is that creative eye that from that wealth of experience that you have built over the years. Mm-hmm. And interestingly, um, one of a, a younger copywriter came up to me and said, Audrey, but I, I've been watching so many AI copywriting videos, but I, I can't, I can't. Tell what is good copy or I can't build good copy because I don't know what that is. I only know how to prompt. So you can see that without that human insight, I'm sure you've seen that, that AI then falls flat. Right?

Ross Symons: 20:34

Exactly. Totally. And, and, uh, you know, if what, what we are seeing with the people that are coming through our masterclass, it's people that have a. A particular skillset. Like maybe they've, they've done 3D animation or photography, or they've done documentary style films. Those people see ai and when they see what you're able to do, you can see this light go on and they're like, oh, I know what to do. But it's, it's because. They have, they, they are able to see what these tools are able to do for them, for them from a visual perspective. You know, simple example is understanding a little bit about film and photography. You know, if the difference between a closeup shot and a wide angle shot, or a higher angle than a low angle shot or a, you know, if you have n video, you have a tracking shot or a panning shot, those elements, uh, and those camera angles and those, uh, semi-technical settings create. A feeling on a visual scale. Okay? So if you understand that, if you wanna create something a bit more dramatic, like you have to have a closeup shot, okay? If you type dramatic, uh, dramatic photo into midjourney, it doesn't know what that means. So dramatic might be, you know, a man who's really upset and he's got a sword in his hand. Uh, but. Dramatic can also just be like really close up with an intense look on the person's face. So describing to the machine because you know what that looks like, you know what effect you're trying to achieve, as opposed to, and this is what photographers and filmmakers and, uh, people who have been as in a specific field, are able to do. Um, where if you have someone who can just prompt, they're gonna be writing these amazing prompts, but they stitch together or put them in a storyboard or in an animatic or an animation, it makes no sense because it might make sense and chronologically and, and logically fits a sequence that works. With a beautiful soundtrack over it, but maybe the soundtrack was a little bit off, didn't quite get that emotion. And someone who has studied music all their life and now he's using AI, knows what to look for so they can hear, ah, I know what to do to that little, that little piece over there. I know what sound effect to overlay with it. I know which visual fits better by swapping those two. Things around, I mean, a million examples that we've got here, but that is where we, I'm seeing a lot of, um, sort of these aha moments where people are using AI for the first time extensively and being forced down this path of this is what, uh, this is how you need to learn it. And they're waking up and they're going like, aha, that's good. But to the juniors, they need to partner up with people that have expertise in specific fields.

Audrey Chia: 22:53

Definitely. And that's why I also think even if you are, um, or especially if you're just starting out in your career, I like to tell my juniors. Don't use AI first, just get the foundations right? Yeah. So build up both skill sets, right? But learn to identify what makes a good, creative, good, uh, what makes great, great, what does that look like? Then when you use ai, you're really amplifying all of it. Now, um, Ross, a lot of our listeners are also perhaps business owners. They might have used chat GPT to. You copy create some content, but I'm sure many of them are very intimidated by using AI for visual uh, creation. So what are some ways for them to get started, whether it's like tools, um, specific, you know, techniques. What are some things they can get started with if they are really new to.

Ross Symons: 23:38

I, I just get started, get started as soon as possible. I think that's, that's the best advice I can give. I mean, I'm a very practical learner, so I don't, I'm, I'm not a very studious type of person. I mean, everything that I've learned from coding to origami, to everything I've done has all been me learning, watching other people do it, and then trying to apply the same thing. So having a project in mind, I want to create X, I want to use Y, how do I marry those two? The only way you do it is you try so. That's, that's kind of my philosophical, uh, approach to, to how to go about it. But from a practical standpoint and, and, uh, you know, technical standpoint, I think pick the tools that are the most popular. Pick one of each type of tool. So pick a chat, GPT, pick a midjourney, um, or, and pick a, you know, there's a lot of these vibe coding tools coming out now as well, which is the next wave of, of Gen ai. And I think just set aside a, a goal for yourself and maybe even if it's in your team, you know, if you like, cool. You wanna get the team excited about this. Buy them the tools, give them, say, cool, here's some dollars. Go use, there's a couple of credits. Work with that for the next month, and tell me how you, how you get on. And here's a project that we'd like to, you know, test it on maybe a sort of a, a client. I'm not saying test it on a client, that doesn't matter, but test it on a smaller scale project. You know, where instead of you doing the whole campaign with ai, because that's another thing, I think there was this assumption. That AI was gonna replace everything, which it hasn't. Okay. And you're still using the normal tools. So what it has done is it's, it fits in nicely to where you can fill in the gap. So. Take a project that is, you know, something that is pretty, you know, you're doing banner adverts, for example. Try and create a couple of images that are relevant and brand, uh, or brand ready or, or on brand, and create those images for those banner ads and even just do it for two or three of them. Test it out. If it works, then you can do more banners. Then with banners, it's, it's very, it's sort of not high level creative. They on these tiny little screens, they pop up every now and then test it out, see if that works. And if it works with that tool, then, you know, cool, you understand how that tool works. And then if you're feeling a little bit more, you know, um, dangerous and you wanna try out other tools, then ex, you know, expand that, try it out and, and just, just test it. Test as many of the tools as possible, but also don't overwhelm yourself with by get all the tools and then try and learn all of them. Having said that, there is a fundamental understanding, and again, because I teach this stuff every day, there is a fundamental understanding of how to engage with these tools that is not native to how we think and how we communicate, which has to be learned and it has to be, um, understood and understanding. That fundamental understanding. Look, I mean, the basic understanding of, uh, the difference between chat GPT and Midjourney. You don't. Ask Midjourney in the same way that you ask ChatGPT to create content. You don't ask Midjourney in the same way. You're not gonna say to Midjourney, Hey, midjourney, please can you create an image of a dog walking along the beach? It, it's gonna pick up keywords, and it is gonna understand it in some way, but you're gonna get frustrated because you're speaking to it in the same way as which you're speaking to. Chat, GPT where chat GPT, it's like, Hey buddy, how's it going? What, you know, this is my problem. And you can freestyle and you can, it's very natural language driven. Okay? And it's very conversational. Where a diffusion model, uh, like midjourney, uh, or flux or nano banana that's just come out the, these are slight, oh, I say nano banana. Banana banana is a lot more. Natural language driven. So I think going forward the tools are gonna get easier and it is gonna be easier for you to, to say what it is you want, but if you have a technical understanding of what the machine needs in order for you to create the the content that you want, you're gonna get a lot further, a lot faster.

Audrey Chia: 27:05

Yes. And I can tell that if you're able to. Firstly, imagine what you want. Secondly, communicate it in the right way to ai. Then you also don't have to spend so much time prompting back and forth first. I can imagine the frustrating part. It's like, oh, why is it not creating the image that I have here? Um, I think there is a lot very frustrating for a lot of marketers and create this and like, but Ross, perhaps you have an actual workflow that you could also share with us so that our listeners can see what is currently possible right now.

Ross Symons: 27:31

So look, I'm gonna show you something that I get very excited about. It is, it is a, a tool called Wey, so W-E-A-V-Y. It's. Now if you've never created an image or you've never used chat, GPT or anything, this is gonna be like a very technical thing. But the reason I wanna show this is because I think it's, it's important to understand how powerful this technology is. Okay? So it's called vy and it, it's basically got these little nodes, so you have. As you can see here, it says prompt. Okay, so I can drop in a, so I can type on the right hand side. It's got, think of this as the Photoshop. You know, you Photoshop, you've got all your little tools running down the side here. So, and it does have similar style tools. You've got your, you know, there's editing there. Options. Like, here's a painter, you can crop, you can resize, blur. So it's got, it's got some of those tools built in, but all in the context when in relation to, um, how you generate images and videos with, uh, with these tools. So if I, I have a prompt box. So I've got a prompt box here. I take this and I drop it onto the canvas. So now I've got this. Prompt box. Okay. So this is where we start. Okay? So now it gives a default prompt there if I say, okay, so I've got this tiger image, which I uploaded earlier. Okay? And cool, I generated this in my journey. So now we are already on the second tool. So I've used my journey to create an image because I know how to use my journey and I've dropped it in here, but now I wanna make changes to this image. Okay? So I say, okay, uh, let's say something like, um. Show the angle of the tiger from the, actually, wait, let's do this. Change the color of the background to blue. Okay. So if I now take, I have this image, I have to create another box. So I'm gonna use this, uh, nano banana, which is the very popular tool at the moment. Okay, so I can drop that prompt in there. And I'm using this image. So what I've done is I've connected, it's got these little like nodes. Okay? Now, if you've used chat GPT before, essentially the prompt box here is, that's where you type the prompt in, right? But I'm saying change the color of the background to blue. And I'm using this image, so I'm grabbing this image here and putting it in as in as the image. So in this box here, when I run this module, so essentially running the prompt. It's gonna look at this image, it's gonna look at the prompt and to the best of its ability. It's gonna now update what the background of this image will look like. Okay? This is a very, very standard, very basic example of what it's now. There we have our image, okay? It's kept it exactly the same, but now. You know what that, like, how long that would take in, uh, Photoshop. Okay. So you would have to deep etch or you would have to go around the entire target. You'd have to like, and this, because it's got hair is very difficult to deep etch because if you've done this before, it's, it's, I mean, I'm not a designer, but I know that that is a very difficult. It's tight. It's very fine air. I mean, I'm zooming into it now. It's like tiny little fibers that you've gotta get the Mark Marquee tool to go around. It's difficult. Okay. And with a simple prompt, I've now been able to change the background. Okay? This is a very, very basic example of what's possible. If we have a look at some of the other examples that I've created here. I've said, show a profile shot of the tiger holding the coffee tonight. It's kept the tiger. Now it's got the same tiger holding the coffee, but now it's from a different angle. Okay. Which again, I mean, how do you go from a still image to this image, which is stylistically and character and everything consistent? It's amazing. Let's do a top down shot of the tiger. So here has the top down shots. So now we've changed the angle. Now, you know, this is really just, it's scratching the surface, but it is giving you a very clear idea of what's possible. So I've said, uh, create an ultra wide shot of the tiger standing next to a blue Cadillac. I keep the aspect ratio. Didn't really get the aspect ratio right, but now we've got our same tiger blue Cadillac. Okay. And we can go on and on Now. Put the tiger in a car. Cool. Now we can carry on. Okay, now change the sunset. Put some sunglasses on the tiger. So you can see. It's fun. It's cool and it's just nice to, to work through this sort of stuff. Now I could, I could extend this and I could tell it to make a video. So it would be like in the video I explained that maybe as the car drives away, the target takes its sunglasses off. Um. So this is just, I mean, this is a very basic example of, of how you would use something like this and, you know, quite an advanced, um, if you've never used any of these tools before, is quite a a, it's a step up from, from what you do understand and know. Um, but everything that is integrated inside this platform is, uh, tools that you can find outside of, uh, the, um, the platform itself. So. Here it has GPT Image One. We've got Imagine Four, imagine Three. These are all tools that, uh, you have their own platforms. Flux is another one, recraft, mystic. We've got a whole bunch of these here. So what this allows you to do is run really, uh, extensive comparisons to like, well, I wanna create this type of shot. Let's create, uh, one, use one prompt, but run it through all of the image models. So then you get a, a snapshot of, cool, this prompt performs this way. And I, that looks to me like the kind of thing I want to, or this, maybe I get more realism, maybe I get more, uh, creativity. May I get, maybe I get, uh, a bit more of an illustrative thing. Um, so again, like I'm, I'm really just, uh, illustrating on a very basic surface level what is possible with, with something like this. Wow. But to me, this is the future of, of design. Like what I like about this be because again, if you have used any of these tools before, if I go to, uh, let me switch my, uh, browser here. So if I go to Midjourney, for example, here, I've created this image. This was in the workshop that we were doing last night. So this is just me showing this is the image. Now I've got the prompt at the top. I've got a couple of image references and I run this, and then it generates four images. Cool, beautiful. Looks amazing. But where I think in advertising where it becomes a problem is like, cool, this is great. Can you change this? Can you change the color of her dress? Can you change the color of her hair? Can you move her a little bit to the right? Can you make the lighting a little bit different? Yes, you can, but if you don't like, the reality is I cannot regenerate this image exactly the same again. So I'm gonna make changes to that. So how do I make changes to that? Either I need to know. How to take it into Photoshop, illustrator, Lightroom, make those changes that are gonna be relevant on brand, on spec to, uh, you know, the corporate ID or the, the whatever it is. Um, and then you've gotta fiddle and make changes with it. Um, but the main reason I'm bringing you into Midjourney here is to show you that I can only generate images in your, yes, I can generate video, but I don't have access to anything else outside of this platform. I love my journey because I understand how it works and how to prompt for it. I think it's got the most, um. It's got an amazing interface and it's very versatile in terms of the type of content it create can create. But I would essentially take, go from this platform into a platform like Wei, drop the image in and then start making changes to it. Um, or you could just start here. You could generate an image in here and work from there, there. And again, you know, as I'm speaking, I can actually see how if you've never seen any of this stuff before, you're like, well, where do I start? What do I do? How do I, how do I go about any of this? And the reality is you just have to start. You have to just invest a bit of time each day, um, to teach yourself, to learn and understand. Also, something that has been massively valuable for me throughout my career has been connecting with people on social media. Now, connecting with people on social media doesn't necessarily mean, Hey, what's up? Love to connect.'cause I mean, how many times do you get that message? Love to connect and I don't find that. There's anything wrong with, you know, love to connect, but personally I just think that if you are gonna go down this, this road of learning es establish some relationships with people online, it is not difficult to do. It is it's, it's. The reality is it's very easy to just reach out to somebody and say, Hey, love your work. Start by commenting on the work that they do. Follow them and learn from them. And when you learn something, when you, when you find something very valuable, this is what I've done. This is what I've done my entire career. Just see what they've done, reach out to them and ask them, look, how did you achieve that? I would love to know if you send out 10 of those messages, maybe one person will reply. That's just the, that's just how people are. People don't want to hear from anonymous people. So make yourself, uh, you know, make yourself known. And you do that by showing up. You do that by commenting. Valuable comments, obviously not excellent work or Great, great. What is the one that gets dropped on my comments all the time? Uh, great insights. Great insight. You, you,

Audrey Chia: 35:55

you recognized it already. It is like, oh, flat. Yeah,

Ross Symons: 35:58

exactly. But the thing is,'cause you can see that that person had, yes. There's nothing wrong. Thank you for the comment. I appreciate it so much, but like, just rather say nothing, rather just like the thing, you know, because, so what I'm, what I'm getting to is. If you are trying to learn something in anything, it doesn't have to be with ai, connect with a community that is already doing the work. Connect with the community and connect with, you don't have to go for the guys that have, you know, the people that have hundreds of thousands of followers. Like maybe at some point you'll connect with them, connect with the people that are on the, in the same space as you couple of, and it's got nothing to do with how large their following is. It's got to do with how active they are on the platform. I, I, the thing, like, personally, I try and reply to everybody's comments because I know what it feels like when I comment and I don't get a response. And also that person has taken the time. To comment on the work that I've done, and I would just wanna say Thank you, like, really. And if maybe they ask a valuable question that somebody else sees and someone else chimes in and says, Hey, I've tried this. What about this tool? Um, maybe you can try this, uh, and just start a conversation. Like start the conversation. But it requires work. It requires rocking up every day. Connecting with those people, follow them, see what work they're producing, and try and recreate what they've done. Use their workflows. Use, use everything. Because that's the reason we as creators and educators, um, show our work is because we want people to move forward. Well, me, that's what I want. At least the reason I'm showing all this work is so. That I can show people, cool, this is this. This is the process. This is how you do it. This is the tool you use and this is the workflow that I use. So go and use it. It's not my workflow. I didn't come up with it. I probably stole it from somebody else. Anyway, so it's like, you know, do you know what I mean? It's like, well, I didn't steal it, but I was, I used their same workflow. And the reason we

Audrey Chia: 37:33

by off.

Ross Symons: 37:34

Ex in look there, there's a fine line between inspiration and and theft, you know, but I think that as long as you are just actively, and you see it, a lot of the time people say, oh, these are my, you know, top five creators, and thank you so much for sharing your content. Reach out to those people, connect with them and engage with their content because that is where you learn the most. And when you see something that you like that they've done, try and recreate it. Use the new tool that they've got, uh, or that, that they've showcased. And try and understand how to use it in your own project because that, that is the only way you're gonna learn this. Um, and not try and be overwhelmed by all of this stuff that is coming out because there is a lot and there's no ways you're gonna catch up to where everyone else is. Just form your own path.

Audrey Chia: 38:14

I love that you also see learning from other creators.'cause that's how I also got started in my own journey. And that's also why I continued sharing content. And the great thing is you are learning from people who probably have spent hours experimenting, failing, figuring out. Then finally you get the prompt that works. What you share on LinkedIn or what we share is the final result from ours. And hours of work. Yeah. Exactly right. So there's so much valuable content. It's a content gold mine. Mm-hmm. So if you are just starting out, I'm sure Ross has lots of great tips on AI for creatives, and I also post a lot of great tips on AI for content and marketing. So do check those out. Now, Ross, thank you so much for sharing your insights. Perhaps if there is one thing you could tell our listeners that one key takeaway you would love for them to think about or remember, what would that be?

Ross Symons: 39:00

Stay curious. Just stay curious. That that is the only advice I can give because if you are, if you have a curious, mind you, it'll push you towards, you know, a, a goal that you might not even know that you have. But you have to be aware of the fact that there, there's too much going on. Uh, and as long as you keep an open mind and you are aware of the changing landscape, then I think that that'll benefit you largely.

Audrey Chia: 39:23

Awesome. So remember to stay curious and follow Ross for more insights. Ross, where can our listeners, find you and who should reach out to you?

Ross Symons: 39:31

Uh, well look, anyone wanting to train themselves as, as a creative, um, or they have, we, we have teams on our masterclass as well. You can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. I'm Ross Simmons on LinkedIn. Um, I, if you want an email address, you can email me at Ross at Zen Robots AI at, happy to answer any questions. I can send you our info packs for, you know, for the masterclass and any other products that we have. And. Maybe you just wanna chat. Maybe there's a couple of questions you have that I can answer quickly. So just reach out to me and I will try my best to answer as as soon as I can.

Audrey Chia: 40:03

Awesome. So thank you folks for tuning into this episode of the AI Marketers Display. Well, don't forget to hit the bell from what actionable AI and marketing insights. We'll see you next. Take care.