00:00:00
the technology is just fine. It's great and only getting better. In fact, AI
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today, this very second we you and the three of us are talking, is the worst it's ever going to be. Tomorrow it's
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going to be better. The challenge has been for us is the technology is improving exponentially. Us humans, the
00:00:17
way we work, the way we approach and tackle problems is only sort of improving linearly. It's a little bit
00:00:22
like our washing machines at home. They have 57 programs and we use hot and cold. Make sure you have the tools to
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give people to use, but how do you take the whole horse to water and get it to drink? How do you actually incentivize,
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inspire, and actually create the the things where they want to lean in and use these technologies even when
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they're not perfect? >> Hello and welcome. You're listening to Marketing Matters on the Wharton Podcast
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Network. This is our weekly podcast where we analyze the latest in advertising, marketing, customer
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behavior, new product launches, retailing, branding, anything marketing. I'm Barbara Kahn, the Patty and JH Baker
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Professor of Marketing, and I'm joined by my co-host, Americus Reed, the Whitney M. Young Jr. Professor of
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Marketing and the Brand Identity Theorist. And today, we are very lucky to be joined by Joshua Spanier, who's the Vice
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President of AI and Marketing Strategy at Google. I'm sure everybody's heard of
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Google. That's the global tech company that shapes the future of marketing through AI, data, and large-scale
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digital platforms like Search, YouTube, and Pixel. Joshua is a senior marketing executive at Google, and he spent over
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14 years there and overseen more than $40 billion in marketing spend. As Vice President, he has led the
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integration of AI across global marketing operations, and he founded Google's central measurement and
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analytics function, which I'm sure he's being he's using to demonstrate the
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impact of all that money he's spending in marketing. Can you show that's the
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point of it? Anyway, Joshua, welcome to our show. Hi Joshua. Hey guys, great to be here. Thanks for so much for having
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me on the show. Of course. So you've been at Google for 14 years. Have you seen a lot of change or
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That's a loaded question, Barbara. I you know, I'm a very loyal guy. My I I I
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I've been married to the same woman since I been with the same woman since 20 my college sweetheart since we were
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21 and continuing to this day and of course I'm only 34 right now but massage those numbers down and
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I've worked at three companies in my life and Google has been the longest of
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my career. It's it's almost 15 years now and time has flown by and I feel like I've
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had a at least that sort of sidecar motorbike to some really big important moments in
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the technology space and the marketing space. I won't pretend I'm a marketer and Google is an
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engineering company, right? We build products which change the world for sure but as a
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marketer being close to that is really fun and I've seen a lot of cool stuff.
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Love that. I'm going to jump in Barbara. Apologies. I have to get this point out
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here while I still remember it. Joshua, thank you for that intro. It's amazing.
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I want you to start with your point of view on AI. There's I mean it's everywhere. Is it are we hyped? Are we
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over hyping it? Give me your point of view, your perspective in terms and we're going to get into
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this in a much deeper way when Barbara starts to asking her very pointed questions. Uh but I want you to I want
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you to lay the context for me because as a person who is like learning about all
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these things and feeling overwhelmed, give me your point of view broadly speaking about how we as a society
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should be thinking about artificial intelligence. So, I'm speaking to you as a marketer and
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I'm speaking to you from my personal view here because I'm not representing
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the entire company's view on what AI is. That mention of the word overwhelmed is
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pretty accurate. I'm very overwhelmed as a marketer, right? I work at Google. We
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have resources. We have some of the smartest, brightest people in the world. We have most amazing AI technology and
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it's overwhelming for me. I can't imagine how it is for everyone out there
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in the world, right? It's just a huge amount of change. I think two things can be true at once,
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though. It is a massive fundamental shift in the way the world is going to work at the broadest level and down to
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every part of marketing. And human beings are human beings. We crave companionship. We campaign. We we we
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crave connection. We all want good Wi-Fi. We just want to be able to live our lives and and and do so as humans.
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And so, the transition moment was so profound. Yes, AI has changed everything, but we still want stories.
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We still want entertainment. We still want connection. We still want love. That doesn't change and AI ultimately is
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a tool. It's a tool to enable better marketing. It's a tool to create new
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businesses. It's a tool to do all sorts of things. But us humans still want those core things. That's not changing
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even in a world with AI. Yeah, I want to add to that because that is that's definitely the way I've
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started to think about it myself. It's like if you think about AI replacing humans, etc. And all these things that
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people are afraid of, you got to go down to the basic core and it's like, well,
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what do humans want from life? You know, like I think about the big principle of
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marketing 101 that we teach in our core courses is the principle of customer value. So, you kind of have to figure
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out what is it the customers want? You know, give all the rest of the stuff to AI to do and then just kind of figure
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out how we can make the world a better place. So, how do you decide what customer value is?
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And before you answer that, how do you decide what customer value is from Barbara? I just want to say, guys, thank
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you very much for that wonderful, very humane opening. Joshua, your voice, by the way, your
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accent is soothing me. It's calming me down because I'm Barbara, I'm panicked.
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I don't know what's going on, but I do What talk about this customer value
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orientation that Barbara's pointing us to. I'm going to ask I'm going to answer
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that question in just a second. But first, I want to give a little bit of wider context as I see it. I spent 15
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years at Google, near enough. I spent the last 3 years as part of the core team helping the
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Google marketing organization embrace this AI moment. And I could talk a lot about the things which have worked and
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which haven't worked. And what I'm seeing right now is that we're sort of
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at the end of the beginning. We're at the end of the beginning of this AI transformation. And that first era, the
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first 3 years of this AI moment, really has been defined, as I see it, by honestly, fear, uncertainty, and
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efficiency. It's been about how can I do more for less? How can I get more for
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less? And that fear you that that where do you mention here, letting people go and having AI replace humans was like
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being the talk of the town, I guess, in the fear for the last 3 years. And what I'm seeing from smart CMOs and what I'm
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seeing from smart marketing leaders and business leaders now is the notion of actually AI can actually rethink and
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redo ways of working in its entirety. It's not about just making us 20, 30, 40% more efficient from the ways we used
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to work. It's what can we build with AI going forward? And so, the way I'd
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articulate this is everyone inside of Google marketing is a genius, frankly. They're all these Harvard, Stanford,
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Oxford, MIT, and Wharton Sorry. geniuses. I'm 100%, right? But they're a
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little bit like Tony Stark um out of the Marvel movies, right? Tony Stark is a genius. You put Tony Stark into an Iron
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Man suit, he becomes a superhero. And what I'm saying and what we're really
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exploring is how if we can give our teams, our geniuses the equivalent of an AI Iron Man suit, they can multiply
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their impact. They can actually do things they've never done before and the whole conversation shifts from one of
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fear and certainty to impact and opportunity. And that's been the really exciting thing. Focusing on the impact
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we can have. So, that's one point of view, which is this idea that it's a tool, it should
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augment, it should make humans who are good at things better at those things and the and the AI provides that tool.
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But another way of looking at it, which is kind of what I was trying to get at also with that question, is
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aren't there some things that humans want to do and some things that they want to pass off to HR to AI to do
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better? And have you given any thought to that notion of like what what are things that humans want like want to do?
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You know, like I would rather associate with another human probably than with an
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AI. I think that's the case with an AI companion or something like that. Or have you given any thought to that
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notion? What is inherently human value and what are things that AI could be offloaded on and we don't ever
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have to worry about again? Well, see, I I Barbara, I see the professor coming out cuz you're you're
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operating at at at a theoretical philosophical level, which may be beyond me. Here's what I will say.
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Inside of Google marketing, we have done for a decade and a half surveys of what
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are you working on? Where are you spending the most amount of your time? What are your deepest frustrations? We
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have this thing called Google Geist, where collect every year and then every week now we have these surveys go out,
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and we try to identify where our marketers are frustrated. And one of the things we've been looking at is
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where AI can solve with some of those frustrations and those pain points. And as a broad general rule,
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I'll I'll use very broad numbers. This isn't Google, this is for life.
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30% of or 33% of what you do in your life you love. 33% you hate, right? Filling out your
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taxes. And then 33% in the middle, which is like indeterminate. Ah, I just got to
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get done, it's not terrible, it's not the worst, right? Um what we are trying
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to do is what we're constantly trying to do at the management level is like, how do we
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move people out of that bottom third into the middle third and then into the top third, right? And what we see is so
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much of what we do in marketing, media authorization forms, uh purchase requests, um compliance tasks, uh
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trafficking, um resizing, transcreation, these are tasks which no one went to Wharton to actually learn how to do
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well. It's the bureaucracy, they're not fun, they're they're they're boring,
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right? It's a little bit like and I I'm I'm not a huge car person, but
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a few people lament the passing of the manual gear stick, but for majority of us, the the
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Audi's Tiptronic gear changing system is better than we could do it, and it makes
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driving more fun. That's what we're seeing with AI, and so our focus is really on reduce the friction, reduce
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the frustration, and actually unleash the human creativity and ingenuity on the things which actually matter to our
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marketers. So, we 100% see our marketers saying, "I would love never have to
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anecdate myself. Back in the day I was a TV buyer, and I used to send faxes when
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I lived in the UK, growing up in London, to the ITV and Channel 4 and Channel 5 saying, 'These are the schedules of
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spots we wanted.' And I lived by the fax machine. What's that one away? That was my life
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was much better. We're seeing that again and again and again. Help people do the
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things they actually are passionate about and engage about and can make better. That's where AI's really helping
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us actually do some fun things. Can I give you an example? Can I give you an example of something
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we did creatively which I think is really fun? I feel like a lot of the AI conversation
00:11:49
gets quite theoretical. So here here is a This is actually uh close to 2 years ago. So this isn't a brand new thing,
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but uh we have our Pixel phone, which is uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
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uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
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uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh
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uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh We got our creative
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teams in a room. We got our social teams and digital teams in a room. We did it on a Friday and a Saturday. They agreed
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to do it on a Saturday. And we asked people on social media, where should Pixel iPhone go on an adventure? All
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right? People sent us their ideas, and then using generative AI, using Google's
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uh near Nanobots and a VO and those capabilities, we made 300 customized adventures of Pixel and iPhone going in
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the world, and we sent them back to each one of those people who had a request for it. Those people have been both been
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pre-vetted and also had a significant following. If you receive an uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh 2 hours after
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asking for it, you get a customized video from Google say, here's how Pixel and iPhone are interacted living on
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YouTube. It's fun, and they shared it. And the reason I talk about this is it changes the dynamic. It's not fear of
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Google or fear of sorry, it's not fear of technology replacing a job. It's oh,
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I can make something that was impossible previously. That's the exciting part.
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And our teams, when they can see they can be more creative, have more imagination, can do more things, it's
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super fun. And I I um it's been really exciting seeing that, and that's what we
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began been striving to. How do we help our teams embrace this notion, this opportunity that AI can help me do
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things that I previously couldn't in fun ways, and drives business outcomes.
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That's a very good example. Creativity. I like that cuz that's what I was going
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to ask. How do you keep creativity instead of getting AI smushed? You know, like when when I have people, my
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students send in essays that they've written with AI, you can tell. You know,
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there really is this kind of smushiness to it, this bland flatness to it. But, if you start with the creative human,
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and then augment that, if you start with that as a point of view, I can see how you can kind of get around Yeah. And to
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your to your point, Barbara, the research that's coming out of Wharton right now is very clear on this point
00:14:04
that sort of to your point, Barbara, the idea of kind of mindlessly using these tools produces things with very little
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diversity of creativity and thought. >> Yep. Right? Obviously, because it's
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coming from the same inputs. So, looking for ways to unlock the human potential is is a beautiful concept, and really
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trying to think about it that way as opposed to just a pure utilitarian argument around trying to be 5x
00:14:30
productive on the joyless things That's what we do. Let me let me let me build
00:14:34
on this cuz I I I my title is VP of AI and marketing strategy, whatever that means, right?
00:14:41
I was going to ask you. Yes. I got I love that title, by the way. For the for the last 3 years, I've been
00:14:48
helping Google marketing transition and embrace these AI tools, and the single biggest learning that I've had, that
00:14:53
we've had, is the technology is just fine. It's great, and only getting better. In fact, AI today, this very
00:15:01
second we you this way of us are talking, is the worst it's ever going to be. By tomorrow, it's going to be
00:15:06
better. In 6 months, it'll be amazingly better. In a year, exponentially better. The challenge has
00:15:12
been for us is the technology is improving exponentially. Us humans, the way we work, the way we approach and
00:15:18
tackle problems, is only sort of improving linearly. It's a little bit like our washing machines at home,
00:15:23
right? They have 57 programs and we use hot and cold, right? That's So, everything that I've been doing
00:15:31
>> lot even worse. Yeah. Everything that I Not everything, but a lot of what I've
00:15:36
been doing is yes, make sure you have the tools to give people to use, but how do you get take the horse to water and
00:15:41
get it to drink? How do you actually incentivize, inspire, and actually create the the the things where they
00:15:47
want to lean in and use these technologies Interesting. >> even when they're not perfect. And
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that's a critical piece of this. And one of the mindset shifts is we've all had
00:15:55
that experience. We use an AI tool, it's not great the first time you use it. So,
00:15:59
you go, "Ah, come back in 6 months." But if you don't use it for 6 months, by the
00:16:03
time that 6 months rolls around and you come look at it again, someone else who's been practicing even with the
00:16:08
imperfect tool has got so much stronger and better at it. So, so >> Go on.
00:16:13
>> ask you a pedestrian question about this? Like, I've been talking to a lot
00:16:17
of students and young people and they really embrace AI. I mean, they just have no problem thinking creatively and
00:16:23
asking them all sorts of questions that it shocks me that they would think of to
00:16:27
ask a tool. And to your point, if they come out with that human face on it, then the AI answer is, you know,
00:16:34
augmenting what what they're inputting, which I think is a nice way to think
00:16:38
about how to keep the creativity alive. And I don't know if you're prepared to
00:16:42
ask, so if you want to deflect this question, that's fine if you don't want
00:16:45
to answer this. But one of the questions people ask me is like, as we more and more accept these AI tools, how are we
00:16:52
going to choose which AI tool to use or how are we differentiating among the different choices we have? And
00:16:59
clearly this is where we're going to start spending money. You get addicted to an AI tool. 100%.
00:17:04
>> Maybe it's free now, but you know you're going to pay for it eventually.
00:17:08
>> Or it may just disappear. Right. >> which one? Or is there a differentiation
00:17:13
in the market? I mean, can you give us some structure on that. >> Yeah. Um, I
00:17:19
So, we spend within Google marketing significant effort and and resources trying to get people to embrace and use
00:17:26
Gemini and its suite of the suite of models we have within Google. From Nano Banana and V O and and Flow and all the
00:17:32
other Notebook L M. These are remarkable tools. I do think this may be one of the
00:17:37
largest marketing challenges of the next two or three or four years because um at a certain point the technology is
00:17:45
like magic but it comes indistinguishable. But I would argue that that car marketing, like what is
00:17:49
the difference truly between a BMW, a Lexus, and a Mercedes? And yet, those brands do spend a lot of money and
00:17:57
actually do find a way to articulate that. So, it's on me and on us Google marketing to help define the Gemini
00:18:04
suite of tools such that you believe in what they do and what they have. There are certain capabilities. We had a
00:18:10
moment with Nano Banana, our image generation technology, where that where it it effectively went viral. We had
00:18:16
billions of hundreds of millions of assets of generative assets being made with Nano Banana in a very short period of
00:18:23
time. You do have breakout moments with these tools which can help set the stage
00:18:27
as it were and get people using them. But, what you're identifying, Barbara,
00:18:31
is a long-term marketing I don't want to say the word war, but it's going to be a grind because we get
00:18:37
used to ways of working and then we sort of stick with them. I I want to ask a question to build on Barbara's point
00:18:42
here, Joshua. I love that point. I'm just I'm struggling and overwhelmed. But then things happen in
00:18:49
the marketplace. For example, Sora just disappears suddenly. Uh, and it's like the marketplace is
00:18:54
recalibrating and shifting and all that stuff. What is And and and maybe what I'm hearing you say is that this is
00:19:00
going to eventually end up being a winner take most uh, type of market. Uh, and if that's true, like what is
00:19:07
Google doing to help us as consumers perceive more value in terms of interacting with Google products.
00:19:17
And and and and how are we going to you know how are you guys going to help us along this
00:19:23
journey? Uh and that that's question number one. Question number two, I want to get your
00:19:27
reaction to this too, Barbara. Give me your thoughts, Joshua, on the the regulatory implications here. Right? So,
00:19:33
you were mentioning early on I cuz it made me laugh because I was like, yeah, I remember when I first jumped on uh
00:19:38
these tools and I would create pictures of myself with six fingers. And suddenly
00:19:42
now I almost can't tell the difference between these incredible tools, which
00:19:46
reaches a point where at some point there has to be some rules around this that come from somewhere. So, can you
00:19:52
talk a little bit about in addition to Barbara's question, can you talk a little bit about like your point of view
00:19:57
on how you help us as consumers bring us along this journey, but also establish for us
00:20:03
parameters of how these things should and or should not be used? I don't know
00:20:07
that it's a winner takes most at this stage. I think the creativity uh is in in in the AI space around the
00:20:13
world is truly remarkable. And and the way I the way I articulate this is back in the day we all used to carry
00:20:20
around those little HP and Kodak point and shoot cameras, right? The digital cameras. And we thought they were great,
00:20:24
and they were great. And then the cell phone camera got good enough that all of a sudden you didn't need this. And that
00:20:31
was the challenging for HP and Kodak in that moment. However, the Cambrian explosion of creativity in business out
00:20:39
of that out of the cell phone camera you had Uber, you had Google Lens, you had um Snapchat, you've had DoorDash, you've
00:20:46
had all these myriad and myriad and myriad of businesses emerge out of the cell phone camera being good enough. I
00:20:53
think we are at the Cambrian explosion space phase of AI. So, I think the winner
00:20:58
takes most is a is a misnomer because the explosion is going to is going to happen. I That's what I think. That's my
00:21:04
general theory. That's fair. Uh you asked the question about um the regulatory sort of posture. Look, uh
00:21:12
this isn't getting it gets into sort of difficult territory to talk about, fair.
00:21:16
Is what I'd say. Sundar, our CEO, has talked about Google being bold and responsible. Bold and responsible. He's
00:21:22
repeated that phrase a lot, and we around the world do everything we can to protect consumer privacy, protect
00:21:28
everyone's uh uh operate in a way which actually is responsible and careful. And that's why
00:21:34
in some cases we haven't rushed to market with certain products or done things because we're actually being bold
00:21:39
and responsible. I'll leave it there because I I don't want to get into more uh sort of complicated areas. Uh
00:21:46
there was a third question. I don't remember what it was though. Gemini Nano Banana Gemini Yeah. There's a whole
00:21:52
suite to Barbara's point. There's a suite of things, customer value. How do
00:21:55
we choose? How do you get in front of us and convince us that Gemini and Nano Banana is better than X, Y, and Z and
00:22:01
all of these other things? Yeah, so so so you know, you you also said about Marcus that you're you're kind of
00:22:05
intimidated and scared by all this. And so so I'm going to come I'm going to
00:22:08
answer your question in a slightly roundabout way. I think like Nike, you just have to do
00:22:13
it, right? You just have to do it. That means you need to and this is true true of
00:22:18
everyone on this call who's listening to this. You need to set dedicate an hour a
00:22:22
day or an hour a week to just exploring in this space safely in a way >> you can learn doing that. It really is
00:22:29
because the AI helps you learn. It's unbelievable. So so Google has a new uh
00:22:35
music generation uh uh model called Lyra. Um I think it's Lyra 3 now. I hope
00:22:40
I said that name right. I'd be embarrassed if I didn't, but a couple of weekends ago I spent some
00:22:45
time with some friends. We were having drinks, and I pulled it up, and we ended up making rap songs and country music
00:22:51
songs about the events that had happened in our week. It was so fun. It was it was fun. We we were giggling and and and
00:22:58
having a great time. My kids started listening in as well because they were in the house. And I guess the the point
00:23:03
was is I'm using AI in a very sophisticated way. But from the to me it just feels like I'm just making some fun
00:23:09
songs. It was just a great thing. I think we can overthink this somehow that we're not doing it enough or when
00:23:15
it's too hard. I will say if you go on to Google, remember Google search? I do. If you go
00:23:21
on to Google search and just ask look for uh Google AI spites. We have in Google on
00:23:27
YouTube and on various websites to think with Google, a whole variety of training
00:23:31
materials specifically designed for quote-unquote regular people. Just simple ways and these are three to seven
00:23:38
minute video lessons. Each one ends with a uh now you try it. And it talks you through how you do it and stuff. And
00:23:46
interesting. Just do it. But AI Google, just go to Google search and search Google AI boost bites and you'll find
00:23:52
these video lessons. Again, just to get I agree with everything you're saying. It's
00:23:56
incredible how fast you can learn and you can make feel way more creative and produce different outcomes the more you
00:24:04
input or prompt your unique point of view. Which which I agree is very interesting.
00:24:09
And like if I think about what your business is like Google search, you brought up Google search and the
00:24:14
advertising model and the revenue and all the measurement you would have over search, how does all of that change when
00:24:21
the it's not a search engine anymore? It's like a an AI engine. The questions
00:24:25
are I find myself typing really different questions into my into Google search. It It puts me into the AI thing
00:24:32
right away because of the nature of the questions. But how can you measure all of that? How how does your business
00:24:38
change? So um I'll say very briefly um at the Google company-wide level cuz then I'm not
00:24:46
super qualified to talk about it. But what I can say is there were more searches on Google last year than in any
00:24:53
year in Google history. And we're expecting more searches this year. And what's actually happened is is AI is
00:24:59
actually allowed a level of innovation in our core Google search product. AI mode, AI max,
00:25:05
inner mode, and AI queries that is actually kind of transformed and it's turned from what
00:25:11
you might call queries into quests. Oh, I saw a celebrity wearing a cool leather
00:25:16
jacket. Instead of typing in three word Brad Pitt leather jacket and hoping you can get lucky, you literally can type in
00:25:23
Brad Pitt at the Oscars wearing this leather jacket with a half cut shape, you know, that's and you can do these
00:25:28
long quests and it works in and it's actually incredibly powerful. So, we are
00:25:33
seeing higher engagement. We're seeing a lot of usage of both on YouTube and on
00:25:37
Google core search by younger audiences in a way which is really really um super exciting. From a marketing side
00:25:44
though, I just want to say the Google has more AI engineers, more AI patents, and more incentive to build high quality
00:25:52
AI advertising solutions. So, AI max search is one of them. Everything we're
00:25:57
doing with creative tools on YouTube, everything we're doing on discovery. Every time we in Google marketing turn
00:26:02
on one of our AI products, demand gen P max and beyond, it drives performance. It increases our effectiveness in the
00:26:09
marketplace. Now, you can believe me or not, but as a marketer who spent a lot of money to
00:26:14
start this conversation, performance. We want to drive business outcomes. We want to drive growth for
00:26:21
the company. We spend money across the entire ecosystem. We don't just spend
00:26:25
any money on Google's platforms. I can tell you that Google's AI solutions,
00:26:29
powered by Gemini and all the AI technology we've got, are driving real business growth. That's really really
00:26:35
exciting. So, it's transforming the business and went to this new era of excitement for both search, for YouTube,
00:26:41
for Google's platforms overall, and I think for the marketing technology industry. We've always had this promise
00:26:46
of the right message to right person at the right time. We're getting closer and
00:26:49
closer to that and that's great. >> You know, that it it brings true with my
00:26:53
own personal experience. I've never used search or those kind of things more
00:26:57
because I can ask so many more interesting questions. It's no It's not a query anymore. It's definitely a
00:27:03
quest. Um and I can imagine how if you can monetize all of that in ways that are productive for me and for
00:27:09
businesses, it is an incredible growth market for Google. It's pretty exciting.
00:27:14
Yeah, and let me just I'm sorry. Joshua Barber's going to hate me for saying this.
00:27:19
But I love this this terminology you've presented for the following reasons.
00:27:24
From query to quest. For me, Barbara, in my mind, I'm hearing that it's a journey
00:27:31
and it's longer and extended and more thoughtful. And from what I'm hearing is
00:27:35
that it's my opportunity to have more of my identity in this engagement with the tool BECAUSE
00:27:42
IT I KNOW. THIS IS A RECORD. WE'RE ONLY WE'RE 27 minutes in before I bring up identity.
00:27:50
But I love that point, Joshua, because like literally, you're unlocking my potential and I'm going to look at
00:27:55
Gemini I'm going to look at this Google suite of tools and I'm going to see them
00:27:59
as part of who I am in engaging with the world to be creative and to bring myself, my voice, my vision, whatever it
00:28:06
is that I want to create to the world. That should result in incredible loyalty. Would Would you agree with that
00:28:11
or What's your perspective? Not only will it result in credible loyalty, but it comes
00:28:17
through utility. It comes from actually being solving a problem, an issue that you have as a consumer of the of the
00:28:23
world, just a person. One of the things which I'm particularly excited about is
00:28:27
when you sign up for Gemini, you can choose if you want to to connect your YouTube, your Google Maps, your Gmail,
00:28:33
all your Google products into Gemini. And so it's truly starts getting to know
00:28:38
you. So as an example of this, um Oh, that's a really interesting point. I I I was I was making a I was asking a
00:28:47
question I was on spring break last week, went on vacation, we went to Canada and I had asked in Google search
00:28:53
about I asked in Gemini about some of the weather conditions and it identified and said look you're you're going there
00:28:59
but you may not want to buy an expensive jacket cuz it's not going to be that
00:29:02
cold but if you do you actually there are three you know stores nearby you where you live and
00:29:09
there are three stores over where you're actually going to which you can get to
00:29:11
and here are the opening times for them. Do you want to pop by on your way home from work? I can plot the route for you.
00:29:17
And it my mind was blown because Yeah. a customization My dream in life is I I love Batman.
00:29:24
That's incredible. I already mentioned mentioned Tony Stark but I was like like
00:29:28
Alfred from Batman this this this personal assistant who just That's what I want in life. I'm never
00:29:33
going to have a butler but Gemini is starting to become my butler assistant. And that drives
00:29:37
loyalty, right? Because the more information I put in one particular quest or whatever we're talking this,
00:29:44
the more they're going to personalize the answers to what I've responded to
00:29:48
before and the much less likely I am to switch to another tool because I don't
00:29:52
want to start populating that other tool with all my history again. It already knows me. 100% 100% and
00:29:59
imagine Gemini reaching out to that store and finding a coupon for Barbara. Yeah. I mean there's just all kinds of
00:30:06
like Yeah. third fourth order level stuff that could be really to this is Barbara's point originally like customer
00:30:12
value opening up that spigot of just unbelievable utility which then I think results in for me like becoming super
00:30:19
loyal to the to the tool itself and to Google for that matter. In five or six weeks we have Google IO followed by
00:30:25
Google marketing live. Google IO is sort of the sort of the the the the wide stage where Sundar shows all our latest
00:30:30
developments and technologies. Google marketing live is where we do the same but for advertisers. There's going to be
00:30:35
a lot of information about agentic shopping, agentic commerce and how we can help your customers find find your
00:30:42
customers and and and and and convert them. Ultimately though, and I I said this
00:30:46
sort of at the beginning, humans are humans. The fundamental core of what Google have been built on is start with
00:30:53
the user. Start with people. Find the problem they have, solve it for them, and then everything else will follow.
00:30:59
And that's what we're doing with Gemini, it's what we're doing with AI. Build
00:31:02
something that people actually want to use and solves their problem, and then we'll worry about everything else after
00:31:07
that. That's the focus. >> value. Well, Joshua Spanier, it's like very fast, but the time is now up. So,
00:31:15
where can people go to find out about all the stuff you're talking about? Specifically, where can they go? Okay,
00:31:21
so I I I have two resources. I host a podcast myself called Frontier CMO, and I publish a weekly newsletter on
00:31:28
LinkedIn for the for that. So, just go on LinkedIn or go to YouTube and search for Frontier CMO, or search on any place
00:31:34
you get podcasts. And then at thinkwithgoogle.com is our sort of collection of all our
00:31:39
thought leadership around every aspect of the marketing business. So, thinkwithgoogle.com, you can also get to
00:31:44
Frontier CMO within that portal as well. But those two resources have an unbelievable wealth of free resource
00:31:52
for you to learn AI. It's incredible. Thank you so much for joining us. That's
00:31:56
all we have time today for today. We'd like to thank our producers Dianne Simpkins and Marissa Ranna, and thank
00:32:03
you all for listening today. We'll be back soon. Till then, this has been Marketing Matters on the Wharton Podcast
00:32:08
Network. I'm Barbara Kahn here with America's Read.