[00:01] We're covering every YouTube AI change here in 2026 so far. So, short, content labels, Google I.O. events, so much. And, Roberto, the question we keep seeing in the Opus Clip community, we're both brand partners, is, is AI no longer allowed on YouTube?
[00:17] Roberto, what's your take? Oh, that's insane. Google's the leading AI company came back, you know, for it in blood. It came back from everyone clowning Gemini to be like the number one when it comes to AI everything now.
[00:33] And it's inserted into almost every part of YouTube. You have it in YouTube app studio as your guidance system for every YouTuber right there in the dashboard. You have them just inserting nano banana right now into shorts effect generation.
[00:45] They even did some kind of marketplace, if I'm not mistaken, for people to make stuff to assist in AI generated content as a marketplace going into Google. Google has even now for its own agent, not agent Opus, not the same thing, to go out and 24-7 do stuff for you.
[01:06] And even on the content creator side, there's stuff with the playables and them having indie video game developers, all kinds of stuff. It's insane. They're even going to do AI clipping to some degree for YouTube, but it will not be as good as Opus Clip because you're not going to have any control.
[01:22] So YouTube, like YouTube showing down AI, impossible. They're all in. Yeah. And I think, like, if you haven't seen it, we'll have links in the description. But one of the new things they are testing is, you know, Ask YouTube, not to be confused with Ask Studio.
[01:39] And if you haven't seen it, it is in beta. It's rolling out at the time of this. So if you are seeing this in my, if you're watching this in the future, June 8th is when this little test ends. But if we were to type in something like, I don't know, Opus Clip, here's what the new search will look like.
[01:55] And so when people are like, does this mean we're in the end of AI? No, I think it means they're going to be putting more AI into this. And the way they're doing this, and if you notice, it's starting to give summary. Andrew, this means SEO is back.
[02:08] It never left. I know. I know. I have to say. SEO is back, baby. We are so back. But you know what? People discounted me when I said you got to focus on chapters. Every single result here is pulled from a chapter timestamp.
[02:21] And I've been screaming the importance of chapters, and people are like, they're useless. They're not. From day one, I've been screaming it and everything. You know why they say it's useless? Because, Andrew, like 80% of YouTubers make entertainment content, and even they don't understand that within that, there's a way to do it properly.
[02:36] And they're also scared of, oh, retention rate, because they've all been groomed on click-through rate plus average view duration equals viral when that's not true. and even the biggest YouTube strategist, Patty Galloway, Mario Juice, who worked for Mr. Beast,
[02:51] they're all now saying that that's not true, and I agree with that. Those things are important, but that doesn't get you a viral video, but that's what everyone wants to hear, and that's what everybody hears and lies a coarse little coach on. And the thing is, I've always said that that's not the end-all, be-all of it,
[03:05] and that's not true, and it never guaranteed a viral video. Exactly, and, like, one thing I like about this, I'm not 100% on it, because, like, it's still buggy, it's still in beta, but original search will still be there as an option, at least for now.
[03:19] And I think it's important because if you look at the answers, it's trying to get you moments. One thing I noticed this is really bad on, and I'll just, you know, this is as bad as it'll ever be, is for recipes.
[03:31] It'll give you, like, different recipes from, like, five different videos, and I'm like, that's not how you make a recipe. Because if, like, I follow Roberto's recipe and then he follows mine and, like, our two, like, cooking videos are very different,
[03:45] you're going to have a bad, you know, time. Oh, yeah. This is going to be great for people who want certain phrases, lines, or things from a movie or television show or moments and everything like that. This is going to be gold for them. And then also...
[03:57] You need to own your own keyword, because what happens if I type in Roberto Blake? What shows up? If you're not even targeting your own name, someone else might own it. Now, thankfully, Roberto is a master of his craft. As it says, master the YouTube economy.
[04:10] I don't think we had any fear of this. But I was actually working with one of my clients, and they're like, you know, I own my niche. I might let's test it. And they didn't even show up when they searched their name. So it goes to show if you don't own your own name, you know, SEO isn't dead.
[04:25] But you should definitely be aware of who is using it, right? And I think shout out to Sean and Think Media, the crew over there. I think you're not upset with that being there. Oh, I'm not upset with that over there. In fact, actually, it's very flattering that my video interview with Sean is probably the currently highest viewed video of the last 15 or 20 videos over on the fake video channel.
[04:47] So I find that very humbling and, like, very grateful. And I'm glad that, you know, people in their community respect what I have to say. So I'm not mad at that at all. Another thing I want to point out is, like, people are like, oh, this is going to kill older videos.
[05:00] Six years ago, seven years ago, six weeks ago. evergreen my friend evergreen I like how it'll pull from different videos by the way for advice and you know we even have that uh strategies for small channels specifically this is great for me
[05:15] for research too because it means I should fill out more buckets like this and then that's like I can reverse engineer this from your about when people are like oh I don't care about my about YouTube always cares so we're showing this to show that like people are like is YouTube going
[05:31] to penalize your time. There's my collaboration with YouTube from how many years ago? Eight years. Eight years. I've been working with YouTube directly for almost a decade and I don't think people realize that, that we've collabed on those kind of things. I've been doing workshops
[05:43] for them this year. We even were together, I think there's a clip here of where we were on YouTube on their Creator Insider channel around YouTube shopping. Maybe there is, maybe there isn't, but like, I just
[05:55] love that this really did capture a really solid amount of my body of work. Your tagline is empowering the next generation of content creators. It actually gets this right. It actually got, like, you just put in my name.
[06:07] You gave it no other context. That's how powerful the AI engine behind YouTube and Google really is. And, you know, we have a great question here from Ava. We love you, Ava, by the way. We see you every week.
[06:20] You don't go unnoticed. But, hey, look at that. We will answer this in just a moment. I just wanted to show, like, people also think, ah, well, live streams have no use. Look right here. Opus Cup livestream three weeks ago showing up for Asian Otis.
[06:34] Like, livestream, short. Like, every facet is coming together, right? And now here's the thing. One thing I will say, and they said that this won't take over traditional search, but it might be where they lean traditional search.
[06:48] I think it'll take over from a user standpoint. I just think that users want to talk to and say things out loud. I just hope this always stays because I do find this helpful. And, like, I like reading titles. But also, if you notice, when we go back, descriptions are still important.
[07:05] It never left. Yeah. And so, you know, this... And knowing how that gets truncated and knowing how titles get truncated or not. Exactly. And this goes perfectly into Ava's question, which is, or Ava, how do you own your name?
[07:21] Does a person need to copyright it? You don't need to copyright it. In most cases, you can't. And if it was going to be anything, you'd trademark your name. Correct. And also, I think you want to own your name from an SEO standpoint. A great way to do that is putting it in your description.
[07:35] You're about putting it in, like, if Roberto wanted to do, like, collaborations, you can make a collaboration playlist and say, Roberto Blake Collaborations, and then he owns any kind of collaboration.
[07:48] Well, Andrew, I had to fight for, like, months to own my own name because there's a famous actor, a famous controversial actor. There's actually two famous actors, one that's super controversial based on a murder, accusation charge, Robert Blake, right, which is also a very common name.
[08:02] My name is Roberto Blake. I had to really fight. This is more than a decade ago, almost like 20 years ago. I had to really fight to kind of own my own name. That's part of why, like, almost 20 years ago I bought RobertoBlake.com
[08:14] because I wanted to have narrative control of my name and not be confused with this person or very, very bad reputation at the time. And that took a while. And I had to write articles.
[08:26] I had to do a lot of stuff. I had to get my name in social media everywhere, and it took a while for it to start making a differentiation between, did you mean Robert Blake, the actor, because he's the most relevant person. You know I've actually done industry work.
[08:38] A lot of people keep forgetting my time in the entertainment industry. I worked in advertising and did entertainment, out-of-home advertising and broadcast television at an agency in Manhattan. And then beyond that, I did work as a contractor, but also kind of a hybrid role internally for a film distribution company.
[08:58] I think you remember this, Andrew. I worked as a lead graphic designer for a film distribution company. So I actually have an IMDb profile. Like, I actually have projects that I've done in IMDb. And so differentiating myself there, too, because Robert Blake, the actor, would be more prominent, I had to go through a lot of work to own my name.
[09:14] As you say, it's not about copyright or even trademark. I just had to make myself very hyper-relevant by publishing a volume of work that would earn me my own space.
[09:26] And that's what it really came down to. Yeah, no, I mean, I've had similar things. Like, you know, we talk about the importance here. And look, because SEO is what powers AI, which comes directly from Google Search Console, that SEO is what powers AI.
[09:41] And I love that they finally just said it. Because when people are like, SEO is dead, I'm like, no, what do you think is powering all this? Andrew, that's why... Andrew, if you literally type in right now, you can actually test this right now, Andrew.
[09:55] Go type in, like, how many, not in YouTube, but in Google. You'll see. Go type in how many YouTube channels have one million subscribers.
[10:09] At least four. Let's go for it. Yeah, let's just see if I'm going to get... Right there.
[10:26] Oh, also traderacademy.com. That's a road of life. Right there is the AI overview and everything like that. I seeded the AI overview. I have the power. I know you could also follow this up for even more authority. I'm going to with a YouTube video.
[10:39] For 2026, then 2027, then... Yeah, I'm just... But this kind of stuff's important, right? And one thing that people fail to understand is because the conversation keeps going around, is SEO dead?
[10:52] It's not dead, but I think as we continue to go through what YouTube and Google are focusing on, is SEO is a process, it's a workflow, it's a system. Correct. And people want one part of it.
[11:05] They don't want the whole flow. But if you build a house and you like I gonna build walls first no foundation then when the house falls apart you can be surprised Oh no you need support beams you need the foundation you need
[11:17] to make sure that you're pouring the concrete right and letting it settle, you gotta do the framing, you gotta do the insulation, the drywall, da-da-da-da-da-da, you're gonna need my guys.
[11:30] Just like Nano Banana became part of a lot of people's systems, Google is hoping with Omni that that comes as part of their system, so So reason, create, newest model. So again, when people are like, AI won't be able on YouTube,
[11:43] they're putting this out to enhance and do more. It's in shorts. It's in a lot of places. And you can see an example in this GIF here of how they see it. Remixing Omni delivers a fresh way to create and build on each other's imagination.
[11:58] And so they're hoping that this with YouTube Shorts will be even more powerful. This, I think, mirrors the remix tools in a different way of TikTok, but powered by AI.
[12:10] And I don't even think TikTok is going to be against AI with doing this sort of thing for remixes and for doing reactions to people's videos. And it will be in the YouTube Create app, which is a separate app from YouTube Studio, YouTube Music, YouTube.
[12:25] So now YouTube Create, which is officially on both Android and iOS. Yes, it is. another thing that's getting lost is, you know, people are like, I hate AI. There's no way to tell. They're doubling down on their sense. They did the thing that I said. Remember,
[12:38] like, I think it was three years ago. Maybe it was four years ago. It might have been four years ago. Three or four years ago, I always said, Andrew, and you have this on the record because, you know, you follow me on X and everywhere else that I've ever put this on. I even put this, I think,
[12:50] on LinkedIn. I always said that the answer to everything AI artists are concerned about, or their even legitimate concerns, was always going to be And the thing is, in private, they all agree with me. While they yell at me on Twitter, they DM me and they go,
[13:02] no, actually, I agree with you on this. I wish they would do it. It's a nuanced take, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I said there has to be a protocol, and it probably has to be a protocol and be something that's a metadata layer at inception for chain of custody
[13:14] that creates a fingerprint, a DNA, a digital ID to where when something is generated, we know who generated it, and we know what tool generated it, and we know if it's AI, we have the forensics, and we just fingerprint it as everywhere,
[13:26] just like excess metadata in your camera. We know in your camera when you take a shot, it has its own basically ID and label, if you didn't know that. You've got to turn off location settings if you don't want when you publish your stuff
[13:38] for people to know where you shot something, so be careful with that. Same thing happens if you shoot a photo in your phone. You really want location settings off if you're shooting around the house and then publishing to the Internet. But my point is I said they would have to make some kind of ID system.
[13:51] Both Google and Adobe did their own version of it, and Google's going to be the one that's widely adopted, just like when we had video codecs be widely adopted back in the day. That's how we got things like MP4 and the H.264 protocol and the H.265 protocol for video codecs.
[14:06] Now we have SynthID from Google, and it's been adopted by almost every single one of the major players because it's Google. Google universalizes everything. So now there is going to be an ID. There is going to be a way to say made with AI with certainty
[14:18] across almost everything in the ecosystem. There's still going to be a couple of rogue players that don't come on board with Google, But the big ones, they're all adopting it. Higgs field, all the big models, FOD, Higgs field, OpenAI,
[14:30] they're all adopting SynthID. And I think it's important that we talk about these things because there are more ways to detect than ever, which is good, especially as this is coming to more creators.
[14:42] And they're also expanding likeness detection, which if you don't know what that is, it's the ability so that you can see how your likeness is being used. And it's expanding to all creators, It's 18 and older.
[14:54] It's an important distinction. And I think that, you know, as we discussed this, you know, can I monetize AI content? YouTube's always been pretty clear on this. As long as you follow their rules and you clearly label, which is another huge update,
[15:08] which is the AI label update from YouTube, is how they're changing it. I will say that this is also pretty new. It comes from Rene from YouTube. Rene Ritchie. Shout out to Rene for a lot of great updates, transparently.
[15:22] and like this is one of those things where people are like oh there's no easy way to tell when something's ai there is and they're making it even clearer and i'm glad they're doing this i'm mostly
[15:34] happy about this because i'm not against ai labeling i think it's going to eventually become so universalized as to be almost pointless at some point for some niches for some niches not all obviously but i also am fine with this as long as they're accurate about it but they also are
[15:50] trying to help creators if they're excuse me inaccurate you can go in and manually update the settings and you know appeal that my biggest issue with the inaccuracy label is not even they're not going to do any demonetization they're not going to do any throttling or gating
[16:03] on the views so I'm not worried about that I am worried that there is a non-trivial amount of creators who have audiences that are so anti-ai that they would get called out for this but I
[16:15] think it'd be a wrongful thing because, Andrew, if this system is even 2% flawed, then in theory, with 115 million YouTube channels, there'd be over 2 million creators affected, which is like two-thirds of the partner program, right?
[16:28] Let's look at that a different way. There's so many videos uploaded from so many channels across YouTube daily that at 2%, it won't be 2 million channels, it will be tens of millions of channels, technically, at 2% of all uploads being wrongfully labeled, if that were the case.
[16:43] I think YouTube and Google are so good that it won't be, but I'm going with a worst-case scenario to paint a picture here of why no one should also take the AI labeling so seriously if they're, like, an anti-AI type person,
[16:57] because that is just way too much trust to put in an imperfect system to accuse someone of trying to be deceptive in some way. And I think that one thing we need to be really clear about
[17:09] is it's more about generative AI than anything. and that is a huge one because I see people say, well, what if I remove the silences with Opus in AI? Do I need an AI label? No. In that use case, no. You're just using it to speed up your
[17:23] flow, get clips. For workflow stuff, there's zero need to disclose AI workflow stuff in terms of clipping, audio enhancement, sharpening an image,
[17:36] enhancing an image in terms of resolution. if you want up res image you don't have to disclose that it's only for photorealistic things where something didn't happen but could be falsified and so it's things of that nature
[17:51] it's not anything even animation Andrew which is a big thing people are coming in really quiet for me Roberto no you're coming in pretty good for me on my side but I don't know how it's going out to people on the replay but you're going in great for me you're coming in crispy coming in even
[18:07] You're coming in really quiet for me right now, and I'm not sure. So they're saying I'm much louder than you, but you're saying I'm coming in quiet for you. Yeah, so I'm not sure exactly what's happening.
[18:20] They are saying you're quiet, Roberto. Oh, really? Okay, well, here's the thing. I'm going to just, like, turn up, like, game, but, like, I don't. Let me see if there's anything new on the screen.
[18:32] Software side. Ooh. What? The game turn up came. yeah it said roberto okay that was a stream yard okay so that was a stream yard thing okay roberto now quiet roberto just dropped later it was a stream yard thing yep okay all right
[18:46] i'm good now or i'm allowed now better five by oh wait monique i see your five by five yeah better people are saying better oh five by five ah we got buffy fans in the house but one
[18:58] thing i do want to just quickly also say we were talking about like if you're using ai for production or workflow. That's one thing. If you are using Asian Opus, and Opus has been very open about this,
[19:11] you need to disclose and follow the guidelines of each platform, and I need to really drive this home, because I was talking about this with a friend. California, New York, a few states are passing transparency acts
[19:23] which are required. If you do not disclose, you could be subject to fines. So just be careful as we continue to go. This is an ever-evolving thing, which is a great reason why you should
[19:35] subscribe to the Opus Cup YouTube channel. Every Saturday we go live. But also, I want to just quickly mention that AI is going to be continuing here. I mean, like, we have
[19:48] AI that powers Ask Studio. It powers the Inspiration tab, the Trends tab, it helps. Like, recommendations for YouTube shopping are probably going to be also further AI powered. AI powers
[20:01] YouTube shopping even now in terms of going back and finding images and voice of where you gave products to generate passive income for you in your back catalog.
[20:14] AI is making YouTubers money. Some of you here are monetized with YouTube shopping and that's powered by AI, you guys. It's doing the detection, the visual detection of the logos and the brand
[20:27] that you're doing and the time stamps and all that brought to you by AI to make creators money. So this is like something that I think people need to make a little bit of their peace with Andrew.
[20:43] Which you're now muted, which I don't want to make my peace with. Now you're back, yeah. I love streaming softwares. Anyway, I think the thing that people are, especially when it comes to the AI conversation
[20:57] and I think we saw this as shorts actually at first where people were very anti them and then as the years kept going they start using it more and more and they see the value I think that for
[21:09] me and I've been very open about this I like productive AI I don't like replace of AI and AI is a tool like any other tool and I personally choose how to use it and I don't think that I can
[21:21] individually make enough change to stop these things but I can work on helping creators use it in a way that empowers them and others instead of replaces them, and that's what I can't affect change in.
[21:33] But I do think that, you know, we always focus on the bad side. Like, the positive side is a lot of educational content is, like, for abstract things or getting more clear to people. Oh, yes.
[21:45] Like, medical explainers, like, hard-to-understand concepts, that's great. And I think another thing is people are afraid that AI content will replace them, but people are actually still really good at identifying AI stuff.
[21:58] But also, like, Andrew, it's not going to replace people. It's going to allow people to fulfill something that they were never going to hire someone for in the first place. A primary example.
[22:10] The things I use AI for, I was never going to hire somebody to do that job in the first place. I just wasn't. They weren going to get any money because I already in many of these cases have these skills but either A not quite at the level that I want them or B even if I do it just takes too much time so I won do it
[22:30] So the difference is I get to make something that I would have preferred to make myself, but didn't have the time to do it. Because for me, this isn't a budget thing. This is a time thing. But I also don't want to hire somebody else.
[22:42] Do you know why? Andrew, what is the reason why a creative person might not want to hire somebody else, even if they're better than them? A lot of the time it is, you know, having to still, like, do quality control, having to track, having to have conversations.
[22:59] And it's, you know, slow. It's time. It takes time for them. I'm an introvert. Yeah, you know this. I'm an introvert. I like people I like. But aside from those people that I like, like you, Andrew, or like when I'm on stream with the chat and the community that I like, you've seen me at events.
[23:16] You've seen my conferences. I try really hard with people, but it wrecks me and I'm drained and I'm completely depleted and have nothing left for myself. And I can't even enjoy the location or anything like that when the event is over.
[23:30] I just sleep. And I also make sure to get this man water because he will just talk. as I'm known to do. I also watch your camera gear now because that will not happen if I'm there.
[23:45] But I think, Roberto, you've gone quiet again? Mic check, mic check, mic check, mic check. Yeah, you're quiet on, yeah. I think we're fighting a bug with our software system for sure.
[23:58] Is it silent or quiet? Quiet. They can hear you. It's just like really quiet, which is a step up from, I guess, a week ago. Okay, so here's what I found. The volume setting is changing without me.
[24:10] Huh. Yeah. I had to manually go in and change the volume setting again. It was changing without me doing anything. Do you have any of the, like, do you have any of the echo cancellation or anything like that?
[24:22] No. No. None. So am I still quiet now? Back up now. Same thing, but low is better than none. I'm quiet again, or I'm good now?
[24:34] You're back now, they said. Okay. So, I mean, this is a great example of where AI could maybe help solve this kind of issue. And sometimes that's another thing, you know, we're going back to where AI could be helpful is, like, sometimes, like, you stare at the thing for so long that you lose analytical or critical thought in looking at something.
[24:54] And I think for brainstorming, you know, your point, Roberto, you said you're introverted, and for you that's a harder thing. For me, I'm not so much. I don't mind, you know, that's just something I can do. but it's...
[25:06] Bro hired AI to do his game control. Actually, he's fighting AI for this one. No, I don't think it's even AI. I think it's just a glitch in the actual software. I think AI would actually do a better job. I think if I had, like, Adobe's Podcast Enhance running live.
[25:21] See, if Adobe would let you run their Podcast Enhance software live on your stream, everybody here, even with a, like, Bobo-cheap microphone, would be able, like a Blue Yeti,
[25:33] would be able to, the famous Blue Yeti, Blue Yeti Snowball, would be able to have studio-quality audio if we could just run Adobe's AI podcast and camp protocol across our live stream.
[25:45] Boom, we'd have perfect audio audio. You're kind of describing what Elgato did in the creator space with their new, like, Wavelength, full disclosure, I'm an Elgato partner, but what they do is, like... I need to get on this.
[25:57] They have, like, really good software that's free for anyone, Mac PC, any mic. It used to be not so much, but it's really good now, and it does a lot of that kind of processing for you.
[26:09] So that's the situation where things are getting a lot better, and I think, you know, that also goes into AI's been around, and I keep hearing this, well, AI's new. Machine learning's been around since early 2010.
[26:22] Yeah, the AI branding and even the AI rhetoric and all the job loss stuff and everything like that is just for tech bros to bump their stock price, which I'm not going to complain about because it's full disclosure. I buy all the shares in all the stocks.
[26:34] So I, like, I'd say they're winning. Like, you know, but I'm not going to whine about their, I'm going to whine a little bit about their narratives to jump their stock price. And then I'm also going to benefit from the profit from them doing that.
[26:46] But I'm going to tell you guys they're lying, like, a little bit. But machine learning was first used as a term in 1959. Like, it's not that new. Asimov, Asimov, iRobot.
[26:58] he wrote that, like, well before all the, like, iRobot was written in, what, the 1970s? And Foundation was written in the 60s? Like, AI was,
[27:11] Asimov was writing about this, the AI protocols for the three laws of robotics were written, like, I think in the 1960s or 70s. I think what we're in, and I saw this on Wikipedia of all places,
[27:23] they call it a, like, deep learning boom, which is like the large language learning models. And I'm like, that, I think, is where we're at. And, you know, a lot of times people are like, oh, I wish I knew what the next gold rush is,
[27:35] or are we in a creative... We're in it. In fact, we were in it years ago. But I'm glad you're here, because you can be in it too. And I think that's the thing. Oh, dude, the three laws of robotics were written in 1942.
[27:49] The three laws of robotics that govern AI and govern robot ethics were written in 1942. But, you know, the thing is, when you think about that, or you think about all of, like, our works, like, a lot of times people will cite 1984.
[28:04] When was 1984 written, right? When I was born? I think it was actually in 49, 1949, you wrote 1984. Oh, wow. So it goes to show that, like, science fiction has a lot of thoughts and theories into our future.
[28:22] And I think that the future of the creator economy and the future which we have with AI, like, I think that a lot of creators should find ways that if you don't want it to do the creative part, don't use it for the creative part.
[28:35] Don't use it for the generation. Don't use it for the tedious stuff. Like, the main use of, Andrew, like, I'm one of the biggest defenders of AI to where people swear that it's the content that I make or that I rely on it. I'm like, guys, I'm on camera and I live stream.
[28:47] I make the most human content. I do the content y'all say y'all want. It's the most human content. Like, I learned Photoshop, like, 25 years ago. I'm still paying for the subscription, and everyone then complains and whines about it and says it's evil. Oh, the thing I do by hand that y'all whine about?
[29:01] Like, come on. You can't win with people sometimes. Because, I mean, like, I just use AI to fix my audio, like with Podcast Enhanced, which I wish I had right now in the background. I use it for Adobe's text-based editing for clipping out silences.
[29:15] I use Opus Clips for the same thing for my short form for clipping out the silences. I use Opus Clips auto-reframing to take my live footage that I did speaking on stages like VidSummit, VidCon, Social Media Marketing World, and to reframe it and to auto-track.
[29:30] I use the AI in Opus for that. I'm using it for my live performed human content to be better and less annoying for the viewer, and they all thank me for it. And that's invisible AI.
[29:42] I think people's problem with AI is they wouldn't complain about it if it was invisible to them. Now, they would then complain about, well, you duked and you disclosed, but it's like, but you liked it until you knew it was AI. That's where I struggle with people is, is your opinion, like, if your opinion of the thing changes with foreknowledge, which is your truth then? What is the truth? Is the truth the thing that you believed when you had ignorance of how it happened, or, and that was your genuine first reaction, is that the truth?
[30:11] or is your truth the thing that you now believe when you've been tainted by knowledge? My personal belief is that the truth is absent of being tainted by knowledge, because, by the way, what if I then taint the knowledge and I lie to you
[30:25] and I say something, because watch this, people all the time, if you tell them something's AI, they'll rake it over the cold, and then when you pull back the ring and say, actually, this was done 50 years ago, and you just really revealed that you have a communist bias
[30:39] that has no basis in reality. I think we're also seeing the rise of proving it content AI is often wrong in both sides
[30:51] and there have been students who now have to film themselves writing their own papers because the AI gets it wrong too and so you mentioned the discrepancy earlier when AI gets things wrong
[31:03] and the trust there, that is real too healthy skepticism of anything is good But I think... We've moved to unhealthy skepticism very quickly already. We have, and I think we're also shooting the wrong people about the issue.
[31:17] Like, if you really have the issue, what I tell people is, the amount of feedback people actually give versus not is very low. A lot of people lurk. In fact, I saw a data study, and this came from a couple of different places.
[31:31] It was, like, Zenforo and, you know, some forum software that said 90% of people lurk. Yeah. 10%, 9% will speak up, 1% are deep people. So when 90% of people say nothing and the 9% are very vocal,
[31:48] well, the company is going to cater to the unvocal 90. Yes, which is why when people scream, oh, you don't listen to us, it's like, no, companies, including YouTube and Google,
[32:00] listen to revealed preference instead of stated preference. Stated preference is the 9% or 10% of people that are very vocal, very loud. and debate their opinions. And remember, even out of the people being vocal, they're usually split down the middle.
[32:12] So you're actually, like, have 5% of people on either side that are being very loud about something. Meanwhile, the data shows how the 90% of quiet people behaved, and then whatever the majority of that 90 is,
[32:26] is how they act, because that's why everyone and everything is driven by big data. And that's why it's actually very good, because that's what people would call stated versus revealed preference. Another example of this for a content creator is you can have a bunch of people being really ugly and mean about something in your comment
[32:42] section, and then you can also have people debating them and defending you, but the real data will be, and how did the video perform in terms of retention? How did the video perform in terms of click-through rate? How did the video do in monetization?
[32:55] Those are all stated realities of how something is. Oh, I hate when you do these thumbnails. You still keep watching and clicking on them. Just a comment that you don't like it, so it still worked on you. And so it's stated versus revealed preference.
[33:09] Oh, I don't like when you do that. Not enough to stop. Come in here and complain about it, right? Still here. So you have to look through how, what is that phrase?
[33:21] Oh, it's one of my favorites. Mind what people do, not only what they say, because deeds will betray a lie. Oh, yeah. I mean there was a thing that Adobe put out that 76 of creators have said generative AI has helped them grow their business and purpose in a brand And they found 85 of creators turned to AI agents that learned their style
[33:45] And, like, 76%, 85% means 24% said no. And the 85%, only 15%. So it's also hard because that silent majority also doesn't want to be caught in the crossfire.
[34:01] They just want to make their stuff. Yeah, that's true. They don't want to, like, if you let people privately and silently reveal their preferences, whether with behavior or they have a guarantee of assurances that what they believe or what
[34:15] they do will never see the light of day, then you'll have honesty and transparency. Like, that's where blind data is very useful. That's why even with my own software, what I've been doing with creator scorecard.com is I've been looking for data points and inflections that say how people behave.
[34:30] I'm even using it to help people that, like, use Opus because one of the things I found was, well, what would be the truth? I want to see whether your video's short set was 15 seconds or lower, 30 seconds or lower, 90 seconds.
[34:43] I want to see which one of these more often, based on how much you published across the last 100, got more views. When we see that, I go, it's like, great, so let's go into Opus, let's clip up your gameplay or whatever,
[34:55] and let's start to focus on only this range in the majority and see if the data moves. oh look the data moved and when we did more of what worked you got better results over and over and over and over again so you know i even use that with my clients even um wild husky house
[35:11] um you know a small been working with like they use opus to trim up the stuff for their huskies they have um smoky and jojo and so great beautiful beautiful huskies like very intelligent
[35:27] And so when they make their shorts, they got a viral short because of this with Opus, by the way. They like their channel. I think they have like maybe 1,200 subscribers now. They have a short that I think has 1.6 million views. They have a couple that got like 800,000 views or something like that.
[35:43] So because they use Opus, but informed by this is how long our stuff should be because this is what people respond to. What people respond to is revealed in big data and large data sets or even for you as a creator in your own data and analytics.
[35:57] That's why I focus on analytics so much, Andrew. People whine about, oh, would you focus more on creativity, Roberto? It's like you put your heart and soul into something that doesn't work, or you can put your heart and soul into something that does.
[36:09] You know who does focus on a lot of data and analytics and people don't realize how much it is? Sports. Sports is really data and analytical heavy. And, like, have you ever watched this old money ball
[36:21] that changed the engineering of baseball, right? And, like, if you look at LeBron James, who, like him or not, is one of the greatest of all time. I didn't say the greatest. I said one of. Yeah, we all know who that one belongs to.
[36:33] You're right. Wilt Chamberlain. To be fair, not a bad pick in that debate. But here's the thing. He studies his health and fitness using apps, using analytics,
[36:46] same with Steph Curry. They are very on top of it because they are great at what they do. But they said in order to be better, I had to study. is the greatest in their sports has to study, so will you.
[36:58] Look at F1 and the F1 boom. They are very data-backed. Yes. Oh, so much so. Down to the, like, millisecond, down to the aerodynamics, trimming the body thing. I don't care about
[37:10] the style. I care about the aerodynamics. Oh, I'll do this. Oh, I will literally change the color just to get a fraction of a second more edge. Like, they will do craziness like
[37:22] that because it'll make that much of a difference in the outcome when like fractions of a second add up or matter for them. But you know what we call that in the critter side? Getting 1% better video after video?
[37:34] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Oh, right. You guys have a point. John Cena knows his stats and wrestling is real. Amen. Amen. He's not even on the screen. I don't even know
[37:46] who you're talking about. Who's John Cena? You're right. John Cena follows me on X. I did not know that. I can't see him. But, yeah, the, you know, so there's this, like, there's this really thing that gets to me, Andrew, is that, like, I have been an artist my whole life.
[38:07] I've been an artist, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm 42 this year. I've been an artist longer than a lot of people in a lot of the creative community that we interact with have been alive. I was literally developing actual film in a dark room by my uncle like at 10 years old
[38:21] because he got me like really into it. My visit him for Uncle Charlie, rest in peace. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Edith, rest in peace. Like he had a dark room because he was really into photography. My Uncle Gilbert was into photography and ham radio.
[38:34] They got me into technology very, very young. This is analog tech. And I was like very and super into it very young. My mom has a photo. I was drawn before I could even walk.
[38:46] I was always a creative person my whole life, Andrew. And technology has only made my life better because I grew up poor. Like, I mean, I'm serious. I gave up on my dream, and you saw I did a vlog about this years ago.
[38:59] I got like, you know, when I was a small YouTuber, I got like maybe 20, 30,000 views on just a yapping vlog back in the day before we had the word yapping. And that's all I would do. You remember, I used to do the Sunday yapping vlogs. And then I also did a vlog series.
[39:12] People forget that I was a vlogger at one point. I did a whole month of vlogs once in a series called Dear Entrepreneurs. I did another one, Creative Thoughts, that I did. I think we did 40 episodes of that.
[39:24] I did, like, vlogs. I did, like, over 100 vlogs back in my early YouTube career, well over 100. And one of them that people really resonated with was when I talked about the fact that I partly had to give up on my dream of animation
[39:38] because I was limited by the technology of my time and I was poor. when we were doing everything as a family. Like, AOL was a sacrifice. AOL was expensive as a sacrifice back in the day with dial-up.
[39:50] Internet, that was like, you know, single-family home. That's like, you know, single-parent home. That's like four kids. That's a big deal to just even have the Internet and have dial-up back then. And then eventually we got DSL.
[40:02] Technology only has made my life better, though. Like, I got to instead be created for a living as a rough designer at first because of technology and because there were some affordable tools out there until I could get my hands on Photoshop through school, right?
[40:17] And so at the time, though, I had no way to bring my drawings to life. But if I was 16 years old again right now, 13 years old even, if I was 13 years old now, you can have a YouTube account at 13 years old, Andrew.
[40:32] So a 13-year-old Roberto today would have the opportunity to have software that could let him draw, like he could draw by hand and be all the artist he wants, and then he could go ahead and he could animate that and bring it to life and go onto YouTube, and he could
[40:49] maybe get donations or money to support him buying more art supplies, learning the craft, getting some tutoring, and really building himself up. And by the time he turns 18, he has a following and an
[41:01] audience so he can monetize. Actually, I think he can monetize at 16. By the time he's 16, he can monetize fully and really start earning from this and doesn't have to get a job at the mall. Instead, he could put all this free time from school into creativity and really building out
[41:18] his craft and put his money and invest it right back into that and not suffer for it. Oh, you could work his way through college. He could build up that thing, build up a following, maybe even take his summer to build a feature-length animated film on his own if he can't get his friends to
[41:35] stop screwing around and help him. If he needed to, he could voice act everything via human performance, but use AI voice filters to change, instead of having to figure out how to be Robin Williams, how to do voices.
[41:47] Yeah, your voices is a talent. It's something people can do if they want to really learn how to do voices. It's a pathway to many abilities some would consider to be unnatural.
[41:59] Yeah, you can figure out doing voices without AI, but you can also strain the heck out of your vocal cords, like whenever I try to do master yoga, it hurts me. It does. So that is something that if I didn't have people to help me,
[42:12] I could just do everything myself as a solo creator, as a working class creator, as a poor kid. I would not be relegated to be a starving artist if I lived in this era from 13 to 18 to 22 through college
[42:25] because I would have, with no barrier to entry, the capacity to compete at the highest level with the tools available to me, and they would be free and largely affordable. I have a platform I could monetize at $0 coming in,
[42:39] merch I can produce around my original characters and sell to the marketplace once I get attention for it, and access to information, mentorship, anything I don't need to do. I can find a YouTube video for it or AI can tell me how to do it.
[42:52] That is the era we live in, Andrew. This is the gold rush. This is the golden age because the gold is you, and now the shovels are free. The excavation. you're not just obligated to having free shovels
[43:05] you have free shovels, free pickaxes and excavation and you literally if need be to extract the real value from you can have an army of robots to do it and also like
[43:17] if you think about it, back in the day we would tell kids make a lemonade stand this is the lemonade stand of the internet it is the lemonade corporation if you do it right, but you have to start somewhere and I think that ultimately
[43:29] as we talk about all these AI changes and everything that's coming to this platform is that it is all under the hopes of making the platform easier to use, get more people creating, and actually getting more people sharing their stories.
[43:43] Now, I think that is the thing that we forget a lot. And trust me, I understand there's a lot of negatives, but we also always focus on them. Rarely do we focus on the positives. And if you want to focus on the positives, you should be following Roberto Blake.
[43:57] Roberto, where could they be following you? You can find me everywhere at Roberto Blake in all the social medias. You can find me at YouTube.com slash at Roberto Blake. And if you want to check out what I'm currently working on, go check out creator scorecards.com.
[44:14] And you can see what my current project is. And of course, every weekend, you can find me right here on the OpenSquid channel. Absolutely. You can follow me over at KDC.social or Andrew Cairn on YouTube.
[44:27] and as always here on the Opus Clip YouTube channel where we have quite a slate coming up. So be subscribed to check out what we're talking about soon. We're actually in our next one talking about how streamers have been learning from YouTube,
[44:39] specifically vertical video and clipping. I have so much to say about that. It's going to be a good one. You're not going to want to miss it, and we'll see you then. Take care, everyone.