AI Is a Fantastic, Idiotic Intern. Stacy Thal on AI.

Stacy Thal is a brand and creative strategist who helped build conversation design for the Google Assistant, the product that became Gemini. She sat down with Dane Frederiksen to talk about how companies should add an AI strategy without losing the human part of their brand.

Key Takeaways

• Treat AI like a team member, not a replacement, says strategist Stacy Thal.
• Thal calls AI "a fantastic, idiotic intern" that does grunt work fast.
• The AI rush feels like the dot-com era when every company scrambled for a website.
• Everybody might not speak AI, but everybody speaks ROI.
• Her advice for a fast-changing market: take a beat and don't believe the hype.

Why AI is "a fantastic, idiotic intern"

AI is best used as a team member that handles the grunt work, not as a replacement for people. That is how Stacy Thal frames it after years of brand and creative work in Silicon Valley.

She spent years embedded at Google, first on the Google Store and later on the conversation design team for the Google Assistant, which is now Gemini. That early exposure is why she does not panic about the current AI rush.

"Strategy really is about bringing that lived experience and human nuance, and then enlisting AI as a fantastic, idiotic intern to do some of the grunt work to get us there quicker, without a bunch of people power." — Stacy Thal

The point is speed without losing the human judgment that makes a brand connect. AI gets you there quicker. A person still decides where "there" is.

Why the AI moment feels like the dot-com era

Companies are feeling the same pressure today that they felt 25 years ago when websites were new. Back then every business scrambled to get a website because everyone else had one.

Thal remembers that era well. A lot of companies treated their new website like a paper business card. They built it once and let it collect dust.

• The website panic: "We have to have this thing called a website."
• The mistake: treating it as a static business card, never updating it.
• The repeat today: "It sounds like we need to use it. Everybody else is using it."

Her warning is to not repeat the old mistake of adopting the tool for its own sake. The tool only matters if it connects to what the customer actually needs.

How to add an AI strategy on top of an existing business

Adding AI is like stacking a new layer on a pyramid of strategy you already have. Dane describes it as putting a website strategy, then an AI strategy, then a video strategy on top of an existing business and marketing strategy.

The way to sell that new layer is to tie it to money. Thal says most decision makers are still nervous about trusting AI, so the case has to be made in plain terms.

"Everybody might not speak AI, but they speak ROI for sure." — Stacy Thal

Her own pitch is not just the technology. It is the technology plus her years at Google, Walmart, Yahoo, and dozens of startups. The human track record is what gets the C-suite to put money behind it.

Why video is no longer optional

Video is the one channel a business can no longer skip, even in B2B. Thal points out that B2B buyers are still humans, and they spend their days watching video everywhere else.

Attention spans keep shrinking, so a moving image does the work that text cannot. If a picture is worth a thousand words, she says, a video is worth far more, and worth the cost of making it.

That is the same shift Dane sells as video strategy. It sits right next to AI strategy as a new layer companies have to figure out.

What to do when the market is changing this fast

Thal's closing advice is to take a beat and not believe the hype. There is a lot of churn right now, and startups especially feel like they finally hold a golden key that means they need no headcount.

Her fix is to slow down and ask one question before chasing the shiny object: who is your customer, and what reaches them most efficiently?

"Take a pause and think about AI as a team member and not as a replacement." — Stacy Thal

The creative side, she notes, is not fully there yet. The work is evolving fast, but humans still have to connect with customers, and that connection cannot be handed entirely to the robots.

Frequently Asked Questions

How should businesses use AI in their strategy?

Treat AI as a team member that handles grunt work, not as a replacement for people. Stacy Thal calls it "a fantastic, idiotic intern" that speeds up the work while humans keep the strategic judgment.

Why does the AI rush feel like the dot-com era?

Because companies feel the same pressure they felt when websites were new, when everyone scrambled to get one because the competition had one. Thal warns against repeating the old mistake of adopting the tool for its own sake instead of tying it to customer needs.

How do you sell an AI strategy to nervous executives?

Tie it to ROI. Thal says decision makers may not speak AI, but they all speak ROI, so the case has to connect AI to real business goals and dollars.

Is video really necessary for B2B companies?

Yes. Thal says B2B buyers are still humans who watch video all day, and shrinking attention spans make a moving image the most effective way to telegraph a message.

What is Stacy Thal's advice for a fast-changing AI market?

Take a beat and don't believe the hype. She advises slowing down to figure out who your customer is and how to reach them efficiently before chasing the next shiny AI tool.

Full Interview Transcript

Dane: Hello everybody, I'm Dane Frederiksen I'm a video strategy and production expert. And today I'm going to be talking with Stacey Thal, who is a creative strategist among other things. Welcome Stacey, and I'll let you kind of introduce yourself too. Like, what do need to know about you?

Stacy: Thank you so much. What do need to know about me? Well, I'm a brand and creative strategist. What does that mean today? Who knows? know, hashtag AI, all of that. But I'm one of the human overlords that's trying to, you know, bridge the gap between AI and authenticity based on lived experience in many years as a brand director and creative director in the crazy volatile competitive world of Silicon Valley marketing and advertising.

Dane: Yeah, I'm sure you've seen a lot of things happen since the dot com and now we're kind of reliving another one of those eras. It's gonna be a crazy ride here. It already is, but I think it's about to get even crazier. Yeah.

Stacy: Every day, every day there's something new, someone new, some new offering, some new advancement, and a whole bunch of gold rush akin kind of whatever charlatans as well, right? Yeah. It's interesting.

Dane: Yeah. So in that zoo of an existence, how do we approach strategy? Things are changing all the time. how does the conversation kind of typically start with a company and when you're like kind of starting to work with them, how does it begin?

Stacy: Yeah, I have no idea. mean, the old playbook is gone and things are escalating exponentially every day. And so I think the conversation is changing and is very getting very particular. Everybody, of course, is talking about AI, especially when it comes to effectiveness and efficiencies, efficiencies in like for people with lean budgets or, you know, whatever lean teams. And so a strategy for me is about bringing in those efficiencies available to us now and the ways that startups and others can now afford to do market research, focus groups, and all those things with synthetic personas that you used to have to throw tons of money at that you can do easily these days to bolster the kind of strategy that I do around brand and creative to make sure that you're connecting the dots between founder and investor vision and ambition and what the end user customer all that really wants, what they really need, what they're going to respond to and, you know, hook into. And so I think for me with strategy, it's about, it depends now, right? Because I have clients who are like, you know, like we are drawing the moral line and we are not, we believe in humans and we are not using AI and others are, that is all you get. I do not have designers. I do not have copywriters set it up for me so that we can, you know, appeal to our customers on all the different platforms, channels.

Dane: Mm-hmm.

Stacy: you know, verticals and that's it. You like you get the robot, it's the robot in you and let's see what we can do, right? So it just depends. And the conversation is changing every day, you know?

Dane: Yeah, themes that I've just keep hearing and thinking about so much is like, yeah, we're gonna use AI, but we also need to have humans too, both as customers, employees, robot overlords. there has to be a place for all of this. I mean, these people are not gonna be deleted, right? Hopefully they're gonna, they're still gonna be around. So like, how does this all fit together?

Stacy: I don't know which people are going to be around. I the end users are going to be around for now. The robots are not yet our customers. I imagine that will happen at some point. But for now, yes, humans, B2B, B2C are our customers. Doesn't matter, either one. So yeah, I think that that's my job and I kind of love it. You know, it's an interesting, for somebody that grew up with rotary phones. This is a fascinating, terrifying, wonderful time to be alive and to be a professional working in this space. Some years ago, I was embedded at Google for years through an agency and was tapped because of my background in copywriting.

Dane: Yeah.

Dane: Yeah.

Stacy: I was working on Google Store then, and as one of the senior leadership there on creative, and I was tapped by Google period global to be part of their conversation design team for the Google assistant, which is now Gemini. And so I fell in love with AI and LM then and gratefully got exposed to that world and have been since there and ringing the bell for all of my startup and investor clients over time of like, we've got to get this technology and that can really create bespoke assistance for this wellness product that you have and things like that. But nobody was on board until whatever it was 18 months ago. And then now that's all you're hearing. So for me, it's gratefully nothing new. I'm glad to have the runway that I have with it, the familiarity that I have and the interest that I have. So it's not something that I'm forcing in. So strategy really is about bringing that lived experience and human nuance, right? And then enlisting AI as a fantastic, idiotic intern to do some of the grunt work to get us there quicker, right? Without a bunch of people power.

Dane: Yeah.

Stacy: But then it still needs to be, you know, sold in, bought into by the folks that are going to invest in whatever the things are, a website, you know, update launching, pivoting, growing, whatever it is. So, you know, that go between, know, the real high level expertise of the go between to be able to translate between what AI is telling us to connect the dots with what the customer needs strategically and to be able to communicate all of that, know, to the the C-suite that are gonna put money behind it is still important and people are really nervous still about do we trust AI? I don't know. So that's where I can come in and say, it's not just AI, it's me, it's my time at Google, Walmart, Yahoo, dozens of startups, but I can make the case if I believe in it.

Dane: Yeah. Yeah.

Dane: Yeah. Well, I want to get your perspective on the sort of transformation nature of this, but first I want to like kind of look back at the dot com transformation. And the way I've been thinking about this is like, there was a world where websites were new and all the companies had to be like, wait, do we need a website? And like, they didn't have one. And then they went through the transformation of deciding they needed one. And then they had to work in a website strategy, right? they needed to figure out who owns the website. Is it IT? Is it marketing? There's like this strategic layer they had to put on top of an already existing business strategy, marketing strategy, maybe a content strategy. I kind of think of it like a pyramid, right? And so like, then on top of that, you got to put a website strategy. And then now we're like, now you got to put an AI strategy on top of that. And what I've been selling is video strategy.

Stacy: And I'm

Dane: Everyone's talking about AI, they're also kind of talking about video or they're using video to talk about AI. And so that's another thing that's happening as a transformation for B2B especially. B2C is already, you know, pretty invested in the influencers and all that stuff. But for B2C, they're starting to embrace, we need to do more video. We need to be thinking about this. We need to have a video strategy. So how do I, as a video strategist or you as an AI strategist, pop that strategy on top of an already existing thing, right?

Stacy: Well, I think it's about the, you know, the upfront argument that is always, is fascinating to me that B2C, right? The C being the consumer. B2B still have consumers on the other end, right? People forget that it's humans and it's not just about what humans are seeing out there or what the competition is doing. It's what they are being exposed to day in, day out as decision makers in their own lives, professional and personal. And it is all video. have no excuse anymore not to have a moving image. And because mostly for worse, our attention spans as a species are shrinking by the day, video is the only way to go. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a lot more than that and certainly worth the cost, the investment in doing it.

Dane: Yeah.

Dane: Yeah. And so when you've talked to companies about adding strategies on that weren't there, like let's say in the dot com era, how do you dovetail a website strategy with an existing business strategy?

Stacy: Right, so you're talking about these days, about AI.

Dane: Yeah, because we're having the same problem that already happened like 25 years ago, that dot com transformation. Now we're, doing the same thing with video and also with AI. It's like we're, we're still the company. We still got to show up to work and do the same things we were already doing. Right. We still have existing marketing channels, activities, whatever you're spending your time on, but now you've got to like throw a website in the mix or AI or video.

Stacy: Yeah, well, I think let's try not to make the same mistakes that we made back then when people just had websites and it was like the equivalent of everybody had to in business, everybody had to have a business card to let people know, you know, and then websites came up. But if you don't, it's like hanging out a shingle inside the door of your business if you're not telling people about it, right? And so I think the issue was, as I remember it, because I was around then, is that people were like, God, we gotta have this thing called a website. And they had it like it was their business card that you would have in a box for years that would collect dust, never changing. But now that this is not the case with AI, but I think that people are feeling a lot of pressure to be like, how can we use it? It sounds like we need to use it. Everybody else is using it. And I think, you know, for folks like us that are selling strategy or specific products that buy into a company's strategy is ROI, right? It comes down to the dollars is to be able to prove why and how this is going to connect the dots again, between whatever your KPIs are, goals, you know, whatever ambitions are, what your customer needs to know your customer really well to know their customer. or you, Dane, know their customer really well and to make the argument of how video in particular, in your case, helps to connect those dots because these customers are these end users or whatever, this is what your competition is doing, these are where your end users are looking and how that video can be a quickly effective way to telegraph their message. But I think that, you know, it can, if you can, and these are the sort of amorphous things until you test them, especially if it's something on the website, you know, the more that you can speak to ROI, the better, you know, that's everybody, everybody might not speak AI, but they speak ROI for sure.

Dane: Right, right, there you go. Okay, so I wanna, as we wrap up here, I wanna just kinda get a closing thought from you about that kinda thing you talked about in the beginning of like, it's the Wild West right now, it's a gold rush. Everybody's like, what do I do? They're freaking out. Like, do you have any words of wisdom or like advice of how do we move forward with building a good strategy in a world that's changing so fast and so unclear?

Stacy: Yeah, I think two things. think one is take a beat. Don't believe the hype. There's a lot of churn happening right now. And I know that, you know, beyond the go to market pressures, now there's this golden key that everybody feels like they have, especially startups that I work with, where like, we have the answer now. We do not need to have a bunch of head count. but how do we integrate these things and which ones do we trust and what do we employ and which key, whatever staff members, employees do we get that can be the human overlords at this point while all of the, or is it about a bunch of outside vendors and then the cost escalates and what's that against hiring somebody, right? So I think take a beat, but rather than get enamored with the shiny object of AI for AI's sake, is to take a beat and really look at who is your customer and what can we do most effectively and efficiently to reach them and keep them. right? Whatever the end user is, whatever the customer is, is just to take a pause and find ways that you can do those things efficiently. And I don't know, you know, yet it's getting there, but I don't know that the creative aspect of things, you know, is quite there yet, you know, how many fingers can our supposed, you know, influencers have. So we're getting there and getting there quickly and maybe there by the end of the day, know, like morphing, evolving, quickly, but I think it's about taking a pause and thinking about AI as a team member and not as a replacement is important because it can bring all sorts of effectiveness, efficiencies, and revolutionize some of the ways in which businesses have been looking at their P&L, right? But still need to connect with your customers. So how is that going to happen without putting everybody off because it all goes to the robots.

Dane: Right. Well, that's some great advice. Stacey, it's been really great talking with you. Thanks for sharing your insights. And if people want to find you, imagine they can find you on your LinkedIn profile,

Stacy: Yeah, Stacy Thal,

Dane: Thanks again, Stacey. All right, take care.