The Power of AI-Generated Videos in Modern Public Relations

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, Peter Woolfolk.

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now we are ranked by Apple as being among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide, so let me say thank you to all of our guests and listeners for this special recognition. Now question have you, as public relations practitioners, begun to explore the use of artificial intelligence in your public relations project? Opportunities that exist for storytelling, press releases, announcements, media relations and more. Ai video brings added attention to your projects. I personally am now a disciple with AI video, simply because I use it to promote my individual podcast episodes and the podcast generally. So joining me today from London, England, is Matt Kershaw, vice President of Strategy with D-ID, creative Reality Studio. Matt, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you very much for having me Great to be here. So look, why don't we start by you telling us exactly what D-ID does and how the users of it can benefit from your activities over there?

Sure, absolutely so. D-ID is the leading platform to create what we call digital humans, and do it in real time. So you can create videos, you can take a picture upload an image or use one of our ready-made avatars, add text to it and what it will create is a video, a talking video presenting whatever content you want it to present, and because we can generate animations really, really quickly, like 100 frames per second, four times real time, what that also allows us to do is create these digital human avatars that you can interact with, so you can also create your website or your press release as well as just giving, say, an example would be sort of just releasing a press release, you might have a bunch of Q&As that live behind that, and now your avatar can be available to two journalists for them to quiz and ask questions and hear it from the avatar. So, instead of just a normal press release, suddenly it becomes an interactive experience for those people to interact with.

Now, have people actually come to you or have you actually seen some of the results of some, let's say, customers or people who have said yes, I did it and look what we've done? What do you think about that?

Yeah, we have lots of users around the world. I think having the ability to create content on the slide like really rich, engaging video content is obviously one of those things that lots of different you know has really really broad applications. But actually where we really focus is on the kind of marketing and sales side of things. We know from you know from a lot of studies, that you know video is much more like to get attention. People are much more likely to watch video than they are to read text. We know again from other research that faces are really compelling. They just get more attention. So that's again really super useful in the kind of marketing communication space. And the other thing that's really interesting about these human avatars is they can be really really representative of and diverse and really represent the audiences maybe you're trying to reach and talk to in any language. Really we support 120 languages and that's the other thing is we know that where the presenter kind of is you know it's right for the audience. The information is better retained. You know, again, there's been a lot of kind of research into this space. So yeah, there's just something you know if you want trying to sell, you're trying to get people to learn something. You're trying to get them to engage better with your brand. It's better with a human avatar.

You know what comes to mind as I listen to you say that, particular, there are some of the organizations that it might be most appropriate for the president or chairman of the organization to speak to it. I mean it could be announcing a new piece of equipment or program or that you've had an emergency and he or she needs to be heard from that. Because I've seen that those individuals, those being a chairman you can feed the photo into the system and it converts it into an avatar so that it looks like it's actually speaking, and then actually upgrade his voice, upload his voice and it trans and you know it captures all of that so it really looks like the president or chairman is actually speaking when it's really. He's become an avatar.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know one of our customers I can't kind of say who they are, but they're a large, you know multinational insurance company and what they do they've turned, you know, into five or six they're most senior management into avatars that can then communicate in this case mostly internally, but it means they can do it in multiple languages as well. So that becomes super useful where you have an international footprint. You know, and it may just be your CEO a lot of brands and a lot of companies have ambassadors who talk to them. They have deals with I don't know sports stars. Typically, you only have access to that person maybe a few days a year, one or two, three days a year. Now you can, you know, by working with them and spending a couple of hours capturing their, capturing some video, capturing their voice, you can turn them into a 24, seven, three, six, five experience that will do communication on behalf of your brand and your company.

You know that raises an interesting question, and this is they were sports figures that you do have them all under contract to be a spokesperson for you. This might be a little bit out of the realm, but do you pay them individually for each separate AI video that they do? How would something like that work?

Yeah, I mean, I think this, I think we're at the really interesting boundary. There's so much new technology and new ways of doing things. I think they probably the, you know, the contracts haven't necessarily caught up with that. So I don't think there is a kind of set way of doing it. But and obviously you couldn't just use that spokesperson's likeness and their voice, you know, without agreeing it all up front with them. But you know the value in that. You know they don't have, they don't have to do any more work. You're still, you're only taking very specific part of their time, a limited amount of their time, and then you're getting, you know, a lot more backs and you're getting a lot more bang for your buck from that. And obviously, yeah, you, I'm sure the negotiation will be and that you would have to pay them extra, but I very much doubt it will be a multiplier of 365, right, you wouldn't have to, you know, because they're not, they're not making any further effort than what you know, what they put in the first place. So I think in a way it's kind of a win-win situation. They're getting probably a bit more money, but you're getting way more value out of that partnership than you would have otherwise.

You know one of the things again, as I sit here and I'm looking at something that says, basically, press releases, because nine times on a team we write a press release. Particularly if it's talking about a physical object, we send a photograph of it, but now we can actually have a video of it and someone standing beside it or however they can conjure up for someone is actually the avatar, is actually speaking and reciting all of the benefits of having this particular device, whereas, as compared to just seeing a photograph of it, yeah, absolutely.

We now have again. Another one of our customers is a major global telecom business and they use our technology in retail to create these like kiosks where people you know what it's like when you're buying a phone or you're buying a mobile contract. There's a lot of detail and a lot of fiddly questions that people want to ask. So they've created a kiosk in store. People can go up to it and speak to the digital avatar and get the information they need, and that frees up the store staff and the store representatives to deal with the more important job of actually selling and start closing deals, rather than to providing information. So, yeah, there's all sorts of ways this technology, I think, can be used to make all our lives richer and better.

That also brings up the part of it as I think again about thought leadership, because that is a big issue right now in terms of getting particularly leaders of organizations or companies be perceived as or seen as thought leaders. So now, rather than just writing an editorial piece, we can now actually have them speaking by way of an avatar wherever and wherever we need them, because that's available, because once you write the information, you just feed it into the computer, it does whatever it does and there's an avatar of him saying those very words and he's somewhere else.

Absolutely, and, as I said earlier, we know that people are much more like to watch video than they are probably reading an article. So you can grab their attention. Grab them initially with some video. If it's of interest to them, they're going to go and read the article deeply. If they're really interested in and they have thought questions. They can then ask CEO or your thought leader questions, thought questions. So it becomes a really rich kind of experience that you can create around these thought leadership pieces and it's like true storytelling. You're engaging people initially, you're giving them some really rich information and then you're allowing them to kind of quiz you. I think that's a kind of feels like a really natural process of how we engage with stories and information, much more than here's an article you know, read or don't read it, and expecting people to spend their time doing that.

Now, in terms of background, does your setup have an opportunity for people to set up particular backgrounds of their own or the stock backgrounds? How do you handle that?

Yeah, we have some. We have kind of different kinds of avatars. Like I said, you cannot load a single image. So obviously, if that image has already the background you want in it or you know, has your logo in, you know in view, or maybe your, the person is wearing an I know a t-shirt with the logo on it, that would work. The alternative would be you use one of our already made avatars. They've been filmed on a green screen so again, you can put a background image in, you can put your logo in, can make all the text, put text up on the video and that be in your company. You know colors, whatever it might be. So, yeah, there's full branding available, depending on you know the version you want to go with.

You know, another thing, as I'm sitting here thinking, because companies, organizations, a lot of them have newsletters and some of those newsletters are just circulating, maybe within the company or maybe they'll send them out to a broader audience as well. That sounds like an ideal opportunity, because now that you can manipulate the backgrounds and even change individual people, it does not have to be one person speaking all the time. The creativity begins to kick in as you develop opportunities for AI videos.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think there's a couple of things on that. One is you know, in terms of newsletters, they're not very personalized, are they? It might say at the top you know, hi Peter, hi Matthew, I might use your name, but that's it. Basically, everyone gets the same content with our system. You know you can completely, completely personalize it. So you know, part of your newsletter might be have an introduction from you or your CEO or spokesperson, and they're saying, they're saying in the video hi Matthew, hi Peter, hi Matthew. You know, I see you're in London. You know they can mention your location, they can mention the time of day, they can talk about the weather. You know they can. Really you can make the video personalized in a way that we're only ever used to possibly seeing text personalized and again, that creates more engagement or richer. You feel like you know there's a wow factor to it, like, oh my god. You know they've created they literally sent me a personalized video. How many? You know you can create hundreds of thousands of these, millions of them kind of on the fly, using our pay. So there's some really really interesting ways.

You know we could really revolutionize this space have we missed something that perhaps has been very unusual, that somebody has asked to produce for you or you could produce for them that you've been able to do. That's been outside of the normal way of things that we might have talked about. You know something unusual that might have come down the pike and said can, can you help me make this happen?

so, yeah, we, we are building out the tech and to do more and more and more clever stuff. So right now it's, you know, relatively static. You see a presenter and they're talking to you. Where we're moving to is, you know, technology that allows you to film, you know movement and you know I have a, a demo video where I've shown in my garden and I'm using my wife just to have a mobile phone on me and I'm literally going in circles and then we're able to use our technology to bring that to our silent. But in the video that we output from DID, suddenly I'm talking so suddenly, the ability to create these videos of your spokesperson or your CEO, or whoever it might be, walking down, while they're walking down the street or while they're looking at the product or talking about the product, pointing to the product these are all things that are going to become absolutely real just in the next two or three months. So, yeah, this, rather than it being rather kind of quite a static situation someone's looking at you and talking in one position the ability to be moving while it's happening I think is going to open up a huge number of possibilities.

I'm just thinking again because we talked about newsletters, but again, it's creativity that really gives you the opportunity to make things different and keep people engaged in using this AI video. Because I'm sitting here thinking I remember years ago I was doing some work for a hospital and they had the standard newsletter that they put together and sent out every I think it was every week. But because hospitals have a lot of film and video and so for mostly for use for operations, I suggested well, wait a minute, why don't we go around and use the video to look at all of things that are going on in the hospital that people don't know about and send it over the hospital system once a week so people can see? I'm beginning to think of you know, here's AI, this AI video. A lot of opportunities. We can do those kinds of things because you know some companies. People only work in one division and might not have any idea what goes on in other places in a company. So I think the imagination is almost unlimited in these circumstances.

Yeah, I would say I think. And again, this language issue, you know swap out. You know you record some on filming in English, but like we can also translate it, you know using so that kind of dubbing technology into, say, spanish. If you know some of the, some of the people, the users and the viewers are Spanish speaking. You know bringing making the content be on the terms of the user. The consumer is like you know it's gold dust. People are so much more like to watch, consume, remember content that kind of meets them halfway, that meets them on the. You know the grounds, where they're, they want to, they want it to be. So, yeah, I think you know we've talked about. You know answering queries in real time in showrooms. We've talked about. You know internal. You know internal usage. I think there's a lot of stuff around. You know like turning into assistance to help help people. You know almost like concierge services. Or you know helping them understand. I know you know the product they're buying. I think in terms of you know the press release, I think there's a there's a really interesting piece around relationship with media professionals. All the time when you're talking to, you know you're in a PR team, you're talking to publications. You know they are busy. They are busy people journalists are busy. They're moving around. They've got hundred you know hundred other PRs trying to get hold of them. Talk to them, like to be able to cut through with something really, you know, new and innovative and different. And you know, video based I think it's super interesting and personalized.

So you know, everyone's used to getting just generic videos, but if you can hear video that's talking to you specifically, think how much more likely you'll look, you are to engage with that story well, I can say for personally I mean 100 percent that would be a huge improvement and I'm certainly do will be looking at opportunities for that and and I've got some projects coming down the road that where that would absolutely fit in where they can actually hear from the head of the organization and then actually see some photos of visuals of what what'll be taking place and the fact that I can personalize it so that it'll because they will find welcome that I want you to take a look at this and do that for each individual reporter, and I'm sure we've got an excellent amount of response from that.

Yeah, yeah, and I'm sure, I'm sure that's right. It's just anything where you need to cut through, you know, and have more engagement, which let's say so I mean name your industry way, but it doesn't need that. Really, these digital avatars are going to help you do that. I think, it's a really really interesting yeah, really really interesting space. I mean we're, you know we have a studio, kind of self-service studio, so you can come to the dash idcom check out our studio. You can sign up. You know you can sign up for free, try it out if they like it. Also sort of paid plans. But you know, I think a lot of this space is about trying. I think we're all. There's been such a revolution happened in the past year to 18 months around all this generative AI stuff. But I think people, I think what people need to do to make the most of it is just get involved. Like, try stuff out, see how it works. You know, get involved with it. You know, try experiments inside, work with colleagues to kind of, you know, create little tests, do some tests around it, see what works, because it really is mind-blowing. That kind of the range of things you can do is almost too much. So my advice would be like you know, try it out, give it a go, see how it could work for your organization and see how you can use it.

Well, you know, I agree with them. Let me add to this it's how simple it is to do that. It is not difficult, you know you. Basically there's a box up there that says to type in what it is you want to be said. You go and pick the avatar you want not all the avatar you want. Then you can go down a little further and there's the language whether you want male, female, whatever language it wants to be in and click that button. So it's so simplistic that it's probably a bigger mistake not to use it than trying to use it.

Yeah, it is as you said. It's really kind of one, two, three kind of process Do this, do that, do that, click done and you know you've got your video in under a minute. Usually we also have a mobile app. I mean, the mobile app is even, you know, slightly easier, even, and that, of course, you can use on the go. So you know you see an amazing, you know picture or you're out with someone you want to, you know create that video right there and then they won't have to wait until you're in front of the desktop. You know use the mobile app. Or we also have plugins into PowerPoint, google slides, canva, so you can, you know, use this capability kind of in your workflow. So if you're already in PowerPoint or Google slide, you're making a presentation and you think, well, it'd be great if this presentation could present itself, you can go straight to the plugin and you know the ID plugin and you know create video for the presentation. So you don't even have to be there when you present the video. The video presents sorry, the presentation, you know presents itself. Maybe at the end of the presentation there's even a Q&A, so if people who've seen the presentation about the questions, they can ask your agent, your digital human agent. So, yeah, I think this is, you know, a fascinating space and, like you said, it's very, very easy to try it out.

Well, I mean, that's what got me hooked, the fact that it was difficult. And the fact is you can go back and correct mistakes. I mean, once you do it and you find, oops, wait a minute, I said something, I did something, you can actually go back and redo it and work on it until you get it where you want it to be. So my suggestion is not to fear it, just to get in there, roll your sleeves up and give it a go.

I mean that's right. The barrier to entry is so low and so cheap that it's one of the major benefits, actually what you end up. Imagine you're in a situation where you actually had to go to the studio, you had to film, you had to find some talent, you had to find, you know, a camera person, do the editing, all that, and then it turns out that some of the information you've conveyed is slightly wrong. You've got to go right back to step one, find a talent, etc. Well, this is like oh, do you know what I didn't quite say what I wanted them to say on Change the Script a bit. Change the Script, press a button, do it again and you can iterate multiple times. The opportunity cost of making a video is just radically changed by this technology.

Well, Matt, is there anything that you think that we should know that we have not covered?

I mean there is one thing you know, yeah, one really big area actually, which we really focus a lot of our time and energy on, which is around kind of the responsible use of AI. You know we've been in this space for six years and we've developed our kind of ethics pledge you know, three years ago, a long time before really the world was talking about it, and we've put a lot of guardrails and controls our technology so that people can't misuse it. You know you can't upload pictures of famous people. You couldn't upload a picture of, you know, taylor Swift or you know, a politician you can't put text in which is, you know, abusive or you know contains curse words, you know otherwise offensive. So you know we've protected our technology quite a lot from misuse. We work with, really you know, big industry people in this space are on our advisory board to help us navigate this kind of responsible use of AI, and we also spend quite a lot of our time we do kind of pro bono projects like positive social impact. So we've worked with organizations that help raise awareness around HIV, that help your women who are at risk of domestic violence by their partners, and then I mean, probably the one we're proudest of is. I mean, we didn't even come up with it, but we were contacted by one of our users who has ALS. They have muscular dystrophy and they can't talk, but they were able, by using our technology, to take an image as we just talked. One, two, three, take an image, put some text in, press a button and now they're publishing regularly on TikTok Because they now we've literally given a voice to people who are previously voiceless. So we think that we're you know we do well by doing good and by making sure that you know we uphold the high aesthetic standards. I think that's really important for people to know that, because you know we want to lead this space and lead it in the right direction.

Well, let me say this I'm so very, very happy to hear you say that, because one of the biggest issues being discussed right now is people who have malicious intent and particularly without presidential election coming up, folks are very, very nervous about how some folks might intend to use that for the wrong reasons. So let me say thank you for the position that the idea is taking.

on that one, I certainly appreciate that We've really invested a lot of time and energy into it because it's so important.

Well, matt, let me say first of all, thank you so very, very much. I mean, this has been again an additional learning experience for me because I'm a beginner at this, but I certainly when I looked at your site and see what it can do. I mean I'm already a user, as I said, because I use it to promote individual episodes of the podcast and the podcast generally and the feedback I'm getting that folks really, really do like what they're seeing. So I applaud UNDID for doing this work, and I'm sure there are others out there doing it as well. So let me say thank you very, very much for being a guest on the Public Relations Review podcast.

Thank you very much. Great to have talked to you today.

And to my listeners. I hope that this has been an important eye opener for you and that you give it a try DID actually it was the D-ID Creative Reality Studios and give it a go. I think that you will be very, very impressed with what you see. And, of course, we'd also like to get a review from you on our program today, and I invite you to join us for the next edition of the Public Relations Review podcast. Thank you.

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.