This week, we explore the exciting world of creative automation!
In this episode of the Thrifty Titans Podcast, we're joined by Advait Gupt, the co-founder and CEO of Kulfi Collective. We dive into fascinating discussions about automation ideas for content production, how AI can enhance human creativity through creative automation tools, mastering marketing automation workflows, and so much more.
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Saikat Pyne: Hi, I'm Sekar marketer, creative and media nerd. Welcome to
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Saikat Pyne: the you incorporated podcast on this show, I catch up
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Saikat Pyne: with some of the most bad ass founders, business leaders
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Saikat Pyne: and content creators in the whole wide world. Whether you're
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Saikat Pyne: a marketer, creative or a budding founder, if you want
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Saikat Pyne: to build your brand your voice your way, you are
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Saikat Pyne: in the right place.
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Saikat Pyne: Join me on the you incorporated podcast and start building
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Saikat Pyne: your empire. Here we go.
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Saikat Pyne: Please join me in welcoming a GOP the Co-founder and
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Saikat Pyne: CEO at Kulfi Collective, a media network that operates three
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Saikat Pyne: content ventures. Supai Studios for branded content, Post Office for
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Saikat Pyne: Immersive Content and Media. For a lot of original content,
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Saikat Pyne: A and his team are reimagining the future of storytelling
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Saikat Pyne: in the truest sense of the term. On this week's
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Saikat Pyne: episode with A, we are going to discuss the prospect
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Saikat Pyne: of automating creativity in marketing and in content creation. Welcome
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Saikat Pyne: to the show ad.
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Advait Gupt: Thanks for having me looking forward to this chat.
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Saikat Pyne: Whenever we think about content production,
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Saikat Pyne: it's always been perceived as something that would need 100%
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Saikat Pyne: human intervention because the presumption was machines and a I
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Saikat Pyne: can't be creative. So how can you really automate content
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Advait Gupt: production? I can start with giving a little bit of
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Advait Gupt: background of at least our thought process as content creators.
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Advait Gupt: That led us to believe that automation
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Advait Gupt: can augment our process. As we evolved as individuals and
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Advait Gupt: as creators, there are obviously a range of tools and
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Advait Gupt: technologies that have evolved over the last. I would say
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Advait Gupt: three or four years, and when you look at a I, specifically,
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Advait Gupt: there is enough examples of automation creeping into our everyday lives.
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Advait Gupt: It started off with neural networks and machine learning algorithms
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Advait Gupt: that were able to recognise objects
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Advait Gupt: and faces in images. It moved to speech recognition and
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Advait Gupt: speech recognition that could translate text to voice and voice
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Advait Gupt: to text. And now we're coming even closer to like
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Advait Gupt: machine learning platforms like Dali and Mid Journey that have
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Advait Gupt: gotten to a point where we are generating images from
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Advait Gupt: text descriptions, doing so with very accurate representations of what
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Advait Gupt: the text is asking the image to create. We are
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Advait Gupt: seeing technology evolve and there's a lot of research that
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Advait Gupt: is supporting it.
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Advait Gupt: Obviously there is a never ending debate on whether this
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Advait Gupt: level of automation is going to kill the human side
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Advait Gupt: of creativity in general. And our belief is it's only
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Advait Gupt: going to push the limits of our creativity and our craft,
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Advait Gupt: and it's going to augment us as content creators. That's
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Advait Gupt: the opportunity we see it. That's what we're particularly excited about.
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Advait Gupt: You spoke about
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Saikat Pyne: the prospects, but what can you automate? What can't you
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Advait Gupt: automate? So I'll speak about my area of expertise,
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Advait Gupt: which is largely around video content production. Obviously, there are
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Advait Gupt: other aspects around the distribution of content and marketing automation.
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Advait Gupt: There are obviously opportunities, and even I would say, using
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Advait Gupt: data in interesting ways to be able to actually define
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Advait Gupt: the creative language and the creative concepts that you want
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Advait Gupt: to work on. So I think that there are several
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Advait Gupt: pillars in which automation exists, and in our case, specifically
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Advait Gupt: what we've been focused on trying to do is
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Advait Gupt: identifying the entire workflow of content production, seeing where the
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Advait Gupt: fundamental bottlenecks exist, and then trying to optimise those through automation.
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Advait Gupt: We've basically seen an opportunity to try and drive automation
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Advait Gupt: in 34 areas. One is specifically in the talent management sphere,
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Advait Gupt: which is effectively finding, engaging, collaborating with the right kind
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Advait Gupt: of talents,
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Advait Gupt: essentially trying to bring human beings together and attach them
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Advait Gupt: out to creative opportunities or projects so to speak. And
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Advait Gupt: there's obviously tremendous scope over there. There is another very
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Advait Gupt: big avenue of automation that is being explored around asset management,
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Advait Gupt: which is effectively the
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Advait Gupt: actual generation or reuse of assets. So mid journey would
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Advait Gupt: be a very good example of of that, for instance,
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Advait Gupt: where the traditional process of creating a design asset was
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Advait Gupt: briefing a designer around a specific creative requirement and then
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Advait Gupt: expecting the designer to meet that requirement in some sort
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Advait Gupt: of visual form. That entire process can be done in
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Advait Gupt: a matter of seconds, as opposed to hours or days.
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Advait Gupt: And that means that you can just
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Advait Gupt: enhance the amount of assets that you can build out creatively.
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Advait Gupt: So not only aid the client but also create AIDS
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Advait Gupt: the designer as well in their process. And then there
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Advait Gupt: is obviously opportunities for us as an organisation in workflow management,
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Advait Gupt: which is basically optimising. The project work flows as well,
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Advait Gupt: so you can use automation in building out production breakdowns
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Advait Gupt: and scheduling and a whole bunch of other aspects and
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Advait Gupt: books
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Advait Gupt: flows that exist in the content production process. So what
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Advait Gupt: we've been doing over the last few years is basically
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Advait Gupt: trying to figure out where is there room to optimise
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Advait Gupt: and then effectively see if we can even go ahead
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Advait Gupt: and automate. Uh, and basically the the processes that are extremely,
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Advait Gupt: I would say repetitive are the ones that probably have
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Advait Gupt: more scope for automation,
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Saikat Pyne: taking that conversation of automation primarily into the territory of
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Saikat Pyne: content creation. The presumption of non creators is that there
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Saikat Pyne: is really no repetitive task in creativity because the presumption
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Saikat Pyne: is creativity in and of itself. There is some novelty
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Saikat Pyne: factor attached to it. So could you clarify
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Saikat Pyne: what exactly are the bottlenecks in terms of content creation?
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Advait Gupt: So just a point here to clarify, right? It's not
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Advait Gupt: just a I and complete automation. It's about optimisation to
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Advait Gupt: a large extent as well, and there are certain areas
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Advait Gupt: where you can completely automate the process end to end.
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Advait Gupt: But I think it's more about optimisation and, uh, streamlining
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Advait Gupt: the process and
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Advait Gupt: condensing the amount of time you spend on a particular activity.
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Advait Gupt: So I think, like you said, I think there is
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Advait Gupt: a raging debate around how a lot of people may
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Advait Gupt: see automation as the enemy of creativity, right? Like it seems,
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Advait Gupt: counter included in a lot of ways. But I think
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Advait Gupt: I would argue that automation can actually be a way
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Advait Gupt: to augment our abilities, and it can enable us to
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Advait Gupt: push the
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Advait Gupt: images of our craft. That gives us the tools to
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Advait Gupt: be able to focus on that novel factor that you
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Advait Gupt: are talking about that process of trying to create something
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Advait Gupt: new from various experiences and various inspirations, building out something
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Advait Gupt: completely original and fresh. But that can happen when you
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Advait Gupt: have these tools that allow you to do this at scale.
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Advait Gupt: So the way we see it is that automation is
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Advait Gupt: basically something that can enhance your capabilities as a creator,
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Advait Gupt: as opposed to impeding your capabilities as
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Saikat Pyne: a What's your take on A. I tools that claim
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Saikat Pyne: to be helping you to write better marketing
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Advait Gupt: content, at least at the stage. We are with the
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Advait Gupt: way in which the technology has evolved. It hasn't gotten
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Advait Gupt: to a point where it's replacing
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Advait Gupt: the human being. I think that automation when it comes
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Advait Gupt: to writing as well, the quality of writing may not
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Advait Gupt: necessarily be significantly better than the human being who is
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Advait Gupt: actually writing, but it basically can give you ideas or
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Advait Gupt: support you to be able to approach your writing in
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Advait Gupt: a better way. So it's basically three steps ahead from
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Advait Gupt: a blank piece of paper, and I think that that
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Advait Gupt: is basically what some of these tools can help support you.
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Saikat Pyne: Let's speak a bit about the future of marketing automation
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Saikat Pyne: because that's where we are headed not just in terms
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Saikat Pyne: of our abilities to automate, but also the kind of
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Saikat Pyne: processes we can automate. So what's your take on what
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Saikat Pyne: marketing and content led automation would look like, Let's say
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Saikat Pyne: five years down
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Advait Gupt: the line. So
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Advait Gupt: marketing automation, which involves the distribution of content, is still
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Advait Gupt: something that is, is not exactly my cup of tea,
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Advait Gupt: so I may not be equipped to be able to
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Advait Gupt: make serious predictions on where that could move. But I
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Advait Gupt: think when it comes to content production and the automation
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Advait Gupt: of creativity, I think that there are a couple of
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Advait Gupt: things that are happening. I feel that for starters, we're
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Advait Gupt: moving from linear workflows to nonlinear workflow, so we're moving
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Advait Gupt: to a stage where
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Advait Gupt: the traditional way in which content was made is completely changing.
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Advait Gupt: So you might actually get to the post production stage
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Advait Gupt: right at the beginning,
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Advait Gupt: right? You might have, uh, the pre-production stage itself. Spending
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Advait Gupt: time visualising what your final environment may look like in
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Advait Gupt: a tool in a game engine like unreal to be
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Advait Gupt: able to create that environment. And you could probably have
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Advait Gupt: that entire environment ready while you're shooting in postproduction. So
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Advait Gupt: you don't need to use a green screen for that
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Advait Gupt: map to be able to follow the traditional process. So
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Advait Gupt: I think that at least when it comes to the
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Advait Gupt: content creation
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Advait Gupt: side of things, we are moving to a stage where
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Advait Gupt: workflows will move from linear workflows to slightly more nonlinear workflows.
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Advait Gupt: I also feel that there's a massive convergence that happening
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Advait Gupt: in the nature of the output itself, right, like human
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Advait Gupt: beings are becoming more digital in a sense, and digital
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Advait Gupt: is becoming more photorealistic in a sense. So we're starting
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Advait Gupt: to see a convergence between digital and physical, and we
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Advait Gupt: will get to a point where you will not be
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Advait Gupt: able to tell the difference between computer generated imagery and
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Advait Gupt: and an actual real photograph.
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Saikat Pyne: We're seeing some of that happen already with multiple of
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Saikat Pyne: these a i engines creating photorealistic images.
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Advait Gupt: Exactly. So we're already like there. I think today it's
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Advait Gupt: in static images, but in video version and situations, we'll
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Advait Gupt: start moving to a place where you'll be able to
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Advait Gupt: create these balls, which will be very hyper realistic. And
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Advait Gupt: it's just a matter of time where the technology will
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Advait Gupt: be able to catch up to create such high fidelity
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Saikat Pyne: environment. My last two questions are there.
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Saikat Pyne: What will this mean for the content creator? When you
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Saikat Pyne: squeeze the creation process, it now really will boil down
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Saikat Pyne: to what you want to create, because until now a
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Saikat Pyne: lot of it was there was a huge barrier of entry, right?
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Saikat Pyne: You need to know logic or premiere pro. Otherwise, you
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Saikat Pyne: can't be a video content creator now. Technically, everybody can
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Saikat Pyne: be a video content creator, right? So what would it
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Saikat Pyne: mean to be a creator? And what is going to
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Saikat Pyne: be the differentiating factor between the good creators and the
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Saikat Pyne: OK
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Advait Gupt: creators? I think generally the difference will still be the same.
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Advait Gupt: I think it's the quality of content that will differentiate
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Advait Gupt: good creators from so great creators, so to speak. But
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Advait Gupt: I feel like
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Advait Gupt: what's going to change for the creator ecosystem is the
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Advait Gupt: fact that we're getting to a stage where it's opening up.
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Advait Gupt: It's democratising the entire process, like when we started off
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Advait Gupt: as a company. This is a time like 10 years ago,
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Advait Gupt: so a time when Fiji was just starting to become
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Advait Gupt: more popular in terms of Internet speeds, smartphones, which are
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Advait Gupt: starting to pick up and
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Advait Gupt: and camera technology, was starting to get very democratised. So
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Advait Gupt: it was becoming much more accessible for someone who stayed
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Advait Gupt: out of college to be able to pick up a
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Advait Gupt: DS L R camera and go ahead and shoot content.
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Advait Gupt: So we were getting to a stage where access to
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Advait Gupt: technology was enabling anyone and everyone to be able to
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Advait Gupt: create content. And I think that it's further gotten democratised
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Advait Gupt: in the past decade. So one thing that's going to
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Advait Gupt: happen is that the accessibility of these tools will make
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Advait Gupt: it easier for anyone and everyone
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Advait Gupt: to create content, and then obviously the quality of content
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Advait Gupt: will differentiate the good ones from the notable ones and
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Advait Gupt: I feel that the nature and the medium of the
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Advait Gupt: content itself, for the form of storytelling itself, is good.
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Advait Gupt: So we've obviously moved from radio to cinema to television
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Advait Gupt: screens to phone screens. The screens are getting smaller, and
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Advait Gupt: we're getting closer,
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Advait Gupt: closer to the screen, as as content consumers and probably
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Advait Gupt: we are now going to move from phones into immersive experience.
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Advait Gupt: So there is going to be some version of a
00:11:48
Advait Gupt: a Google class like snap spectacle, Oculus like experience, which
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Advait Gupt: is basically going to allow you to experience storytelling in
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Advait Gupt: an immersive and experiential way. Um, so at least when
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Advait Gupt: it comes to our interactions with screens, the format of
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Advait Gupt: storytelling is obviously going to change.
00:12:03
Advait Gupt: I feel that there is another, I would say, school
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Advait Gupt: of thought around consumption, diet and just the way in
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Advait Gupt: which our media diets are being defined. And we've moved
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Advait Gupt: to a stage where we're obviously consuming a lot of
00:12:14
Advait Gupt: low calorie content, uh, across the board and we probably
00:12:18
Advait Gupt: moved to a stage where much like your food movement
00:12:21
Advait Gupt: has translated into something called the Slow Food movement, which
00:12:24
Advait Gupt: basically talks about health and sustainability and organ
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Advait Gupt: processes. and understanding the supply chain. I feel like we're
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Advait Gupt: also going to see a slow content or slow Web movement,
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Advait Gupt: and people are going to become a little bit more
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Advait Gupt: conscious of the kind of content and the storytelling that
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Advait Gupt: they're consuming. So I feel like the medium and the
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Advait Gupt: form of storytelling is definitely going to change. The difference
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Advait Gupt: between what makes good versus bad will still continue to
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Advait Gupt: remain the same. In my personal opinion,
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Saikat Pyne: you led me on to my last question at Beth,
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Saikat Pyne: but just to close the loop, I think
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Saikat Pyne: for you to be a good content creators five years
00:13:04
Saikat Pyne: from now, it would not just be enough for you
00:13:07
Saikat Pyne: to be able to write well or to be able
00:13:10
Saikat Pyne: to script well or for you to be able to
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Saikat Pyne: edit well,
00:13:14
Saikat Pyne: your understanding of technology. And some of these tools are
00:13:17
Saikat Pyne: also going to determine your success as a creator. Do
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Saikat Pyne: you think in some ways we are going to hit
00:13:23
Saikat Pyne: a saturation point and we're going to see a dip?
00:13:25
Saikat Pyne: Because we are all hyped about the future of the
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Saikat Pyne: creator economy and quite naturally we are consuming more content.
00:13:31
Saikat Pyne: But there's only so much the human brain can absorb.
00:13:34
Saikat Pyne: When do you think we'll hit that peak and maybe
00:13:38
Saikat Pyne: the plateau in terms of how much content we can
00:13:41
Saikat Pyne: put out and how much content we can consume?
00:13:44
Advait Gupt: I think we're already like getting to a stage where
00:13:46
Advait Gupt: the number of hours in a day haven't obviously changed, right.
00:13:49
Advait Gupt: It still remains the same, so I think there's only
00:13:51
Advait Gupt: so much you can do. One lesson until the way
00:13:53
Advait Gupt: we work completely changes to a point where you don't
00:13:57
Advait Gupt: need to work eight hours a day. You can work
00:13:59
Advait Gupt: four hours a day and then how you use your
00:14:00
Advait Gupt: time changes drastically. I think we've already entered that saturation
00:14:05
Advait Gupt: point in some sense. I think with the
00:14:08
Advait Gupt: free time we have in our 24 hours, if we
00:14:10
Advait Gupt: are consuming a certain amount of time using some of
00:14:13
Advait Gupt: that time to consume content, I think we are. We
00:14:15
Advait Gupt: have already reached that point. I think it's now a
00:14:18
Advait Gupt: question of how discerning will we be about what we
00:14:20
Advait Gupt: are using and what type of content we consume, right,
00:14:23
Advait Gupt: so I feel like
00:14:25
Advait Gupt: are going to just become a little bit more picky
00:14:27
Advait Gupt: about the content that they are consuming. They're going to
00:14:29
Advait Gupt: become a little bit more discerning about what I think
00:14:32
Advait Gupt: holds meaning to them. And it'll define what are their needs, right?
00:14:35
Advait Gupt: Are they looking for content that is going to educate them?
00:14:37
Advait Gupt: Are they looking for content that's going to entertain them?
00:14:40
Advait Gupt: Are they looking for content that's going to inspire them?
00:14:42
Advait Gupt: Um, it will boil down to maybe those things. So
00:14:45
Advait Gupt: I feel like that saturation point has already reached, uh,
00:14:47
Advait Gupt: we've already reached a saturation point. It's now just a
00:14:49
Advait Gupt: question of the kind of content that you want to consume.
00:14:52
Advait Gupt: So back
00:14:52
Saikat Pyne: in the days we had a problem of too few.
00:14:55
Saikat Pyne: I guess we have a problem of too many in
00:14:57
Saikat Pyne: our hands in a couple of years.
00:14:59
Saikat Pyne: And if you were to believe what you're saying, we
00:15:01
Saikat Pyne: already have a problem.
00:15:02
Advait Gupt: If you had to go down to the bottom of
00:15:04
Advait Gupt: the Netflix feed or the bottom of your YouTube feed,
00:15:06
Advait Gupt: I think it probably take you like a few 100,
00:15:08
Advait Gupt: like a few 100 years to be able to actually
00:15:11
Advait Gupt: complete all the content that's there. It's practically impossible for
00:15:14
Advait Gupt: you to consume all the content you want. And so
00:15:16
Advait Gupt: I think it's just a function of now. You prioritising
00:15:19
Advait Gupt: what you want to consume, and you're becoming a little
00:15:21
Advait Gupt: bit more conscious. So I think we are also getting
00:15:23
Advait Gupt: to a stage where people are recognising the challenges involved
00:15:26
Advait Gupt: with social media, the concept of endless scrolling and how
00:15:30
Advait Gupt: attention is basically how these media platforms have basically been
00:15:33
Advait Gupt: designed to wrap human
00:15:35
Advait Gupt: potential. People are starting to get a little more familiar
00:15:37
Advait Gupt: with that and realising the complications involved with it, and
00:15:40
Advait Gupt: are becoming a little bit more conscious about the choices
00:15:43
Advait Gupt: they make when it comes to the kind of content
00:15:45
Advait Gupt: they consume. So I think it's just much like the
00:15:48
Advait Gupt: food movement. I think that this is also something that's
00:15:50
Advait Gupt: gonna happen with the the content as
00:15:51
Saikat Pyne: well. And with that, it's a wrap. Thank you so
00:15:54
Saikat Pyne: much for being on the podcast a bit. Loved our conversation. Guys,
00:15:59
Saikat Pyne: please tune in next week for the next episode of
00:16:02
Saikat Pyne: the U Incorporated podcast. See ya,
00:16:14
Saikat Pyne: Thank you for tuning into the U incorporated podcast with me.
00:16:20
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Saikat Pyne: our show notes catch you in the next episode.