Graham Cochrane (00:03.788)
AI video just crossed a line that nobody is talking about, but it changes everything because very soon you won't know if the person you're watching online is real or if they even exist. AI influencers are about to flood the internet with unlimited perfect content. They don't sleep, they don't age, and they can out create every human on the planet. But here's the twist. When the internet
is drowning in fake personalities, the people who build a trusted personal brand right now are going to become more valuable than ever. Friend, this is your last window before the takeover hits. Let me show you what's coming.
Graham Cochrane (01:20.334)
So right now you're seeing two types of massive.
Graham Cochrane (01:36.014)
So right now, we are seeing two massive innovations with AI created video. One is the idea that you can create realistic videos and scenarios with just a prompt. Things like Sora 2, where you can type in any scenario you want and it makes the video as if it actually happened. People have recreated Martin Luther King Jr. and Robin Williams and all kinds of...
people who have since passed and current celebrities doing all kinds of things. Michael Jackson stealing someone's chicken nuggets in a convenience store. Like it looks real, it sounds real, and it's insane. That is more of the sort of reals and short form content that are gonna pop up where you're like, is that real? Did that bear really jump through the window? It looks real. Is that shark really wrestling that guy? It doesn't look fake anymore. It looks real. And you're have to like triple look to know if it's real.
That is going to perpetuate and simultaneously you have photo realistic AI influencers where then now you can either write a script and the AI influencer will speak and say the script or you can literally in real time have a camera track you and you can have it model what you're saying or doing so you can look like someone else, sound like someone else, be anywhere else. So you're to have two types of
AI influencers coming on the market, they're already here, but you're gonna see this flooding in the next 12 months. One is someone pretending to be someone they're not. So for example, and this is already happening, you have anybody could start an AI influencer model channel or TikTok or Instagram or YouTube where it could be a man pretending to be a beautiful woman and growing a massive following based off of what that AI influencer woman
looks like and the way she sounds and the type of people she attracts, but anybody can pretend to be someone they're not. So you're gonna see AI influencers who are created by real people. It might be real people saying it, but they don't look like the person behind it. So we don't know what they look like, which may or may not bother you, but you're gonna see people who know, if I looked a certain way, sounded a certain way, had a different setup, I could grow my following.
Graham Cochrane (03:57.548)
And so they're gonna be able to do that by just basically pretending to be somebody else. Second to that is gonna be completely made up content where you'll create an avatar and that avatar can then pump out videos left and right on any topic, trending or not, and speak for 30 minutes, 15 minutes, two minutes, whatever you want and say whatever you want so that you can be a content creator
faster, more prolifically than anybody else without having to do any of the work, without having to film it, without having to edit it. So what that just means is more content.
faster everywhere that's indistinguishable from real humans.
Anybody, absolutely anybody will be able to create and can already fake personalities, fake influencers in minutes. So that's going to happen. It's already happening. When that happens, there is now going to be way more content than there ever was. There's already way more content than there ever was. Too much content. It's already getting harder to get noticed than it was five years ago, pre-pandemic. It's going to be even harder when there's this
Deluge of new content that's not limited by ideas Time to film edit produce right? It's gonna be pumped out instantly So when you have AI creators and influencers flooding the internet with more content a couple things are gonna happen Why does this gonna be harder for your content to be discovered which will always be the case as there's more and more content? but now
Graham Cochrane (05:43.158)
As content becomes infinite, something happens. Trust becomes scarce. I'm gonna say that again. As content becomes infinite, trust becomes scarce. Audiences won't know what's real. Now what do you think is gonna happen when audiences don't know what's real? They are going to assume that it's not real. If I'm seeing more and more videos that are fake,
it's going to become my new default to become skeptical of what I see online. Instead of watching a video like I do today and go, do I like this creator or not? Do I resonate with him or her, his or her worldview? Did I learn something? Was it valuable? Do I agree? Do I disagree? Do I wanna leave a comment? Do I wanna thumbs it up and share it? Instead of going there, my brain's gonna go, is this even real? And even if it is,
I'm probably gonna assume it's not. This is what's going to kill you. If you don't already have a trusted personal brand and you're thinking of starting one, stop thinking, start building because if you wait 12 months from now, it's gonna be too late. 12 months from now, when you decide to finally take action and put out some content, you will be living in the world where nobody trusts.
When you're in a world where nobody trusts what they see online, how can you build a business? I grew up in the era, my businesses began in the era, mind you, I started in 2009, okay, I've seen multiple eras. My businesses began in an era where we trusted all content we saw on the internet and we based our buying habits around the brands that had the most helpful content and around the personalities that we liked, we felt that we trusted, we felt like we resonated with them.
Right? So it was just, all you had to do was show up with your unique voice and let people pick you over somebody else based off of whether they liked you or not, and whether they liked your content or not. It was a beautiful model, it's fair game, because there's plenty of room for everybody. That's still true, by the way. The problem with all the AI influencers and the flooding of fake content is that trust will be scarce, and so no one's going to trust you if they don't already know who you are. Are you tracking with me?
Graham Cochrane (08:06.028)
Now, I think there's two big takeaways. I'm gonna give you my prediction for the future and then here's what you need to be doing right now. Here's my prediction for the future. As AI continues to flood,
AI cannot replace a human because AI doesn't know your unique lived experience, your faith, your soul, your opinions. AI can create great content and can almost replicate a personal brand and have helpful useful content with a certain personality and a certain point of view that can drive a business forward. Absolutely. You're going to see lots of good AI created content, but AI can never replace you as the human.
You have so much to offer if you would just share it. Your story, your lived experience, your scars. Again, your soul. AI doesn't have a soul. Okay, you are a spiritual being, AI is not. So I'm not afraid of AI replacing me. Actually, I'm not afraid about anything for me. I'm more worried for you if you haven't started your personal brand. Why do I say that? Humans, personal brands, a real person,
becomes the new verification badge. You know the blue check next to your username if you're on Instagram or Meta or Facebook or whatever that shows that you are a verified human, you're not a cloned account. I used to people duping my accounts, all these fake Graham Cochran's coming out until I got that blue check which showed I'm the only real Graham Cochran for this brand. I think in a world of synthetic influencers or fake influencers or whatever you wanna call it, the real human
will be sort of that verification badge, but no one's going to believe that you're real or trust you unless they already know you in the pre-AI influencer age.
Graham Cochrane (09:59.786)
Now is the time to get known. Now is the time to build trust before it's harder and harder to build. Does this make sense?
Authenticity is the most valuable currency on the internet. It's gonna continue to be, but right now is a window that is collapsing of time to build a personal brand, get known online, build trust with your own tribe so that when the market is flooded with AI influencers, they already know you. They already trust you. They know you're real. You're relatable, you're credible. Does this make sense? So your number one priority
is to build your personal brand.
Personal brands are not the business necessarily. The business is the model. What you sell, who you sell it to, what problem you solve. This can be, you know, coaching, consulting. This could be just selling ads on your personal brand. This could be merch. All kinds of things you can sell if you have a personal brand. But the personal brand is the recognition, is the trust, is the name. What do people think when they hear your name? What comes to mind?
when they hear your name. We all have a personal brand. The question is just like, what is it and how good is it and how many people know who you are. So if you're starting from scratch, it's okay. You have time, but start now. This is why you want to be creating content and ideally long form video content every single week. Chop it up into micro short form content to post every single day.
Graham Cochrane (11:42.302)
Use a tool like Riverside.fm to film your long form video content like I'm doing right here, where I'm coming on YouTube and I turn it into an audio podcast as well every single week, usually 30 to 45 minutes. You don't have to go that long if you don't want to, but the more minutes people get to spend with you, the faster they get to know you and trust you. So more is better in this world, right? More authority is built, more credibility is built, more trust is built.
the more time you spend serving people powerfully, sharing your authentic journey, your authentic points of view, your personality, your opinions, your contrarian thinking, your expertise, your methodologies, whatever. Be you, stand for something, serve a certain avatar powerfully so that people know, when I see Graham, I know that he exists to help me build an online business, make more money, work fewer hours.
Be authentically me online, live the dream life I want. He helps me build an effortless business. That's what you think of when you think of Graham Cochran. I don't know what they think of when they think of you, but you need to create that now. You need to build your audience now. You can monetize later if you haven't already, but build the personal brand now. So you start on YouTube long form content. If you use a tool like Riverside or whatever you like to use, tools like, I like Riverside because it already has AI micro.
like content built in. So it'll take your 30, 45 minute video that you recreated and one click, it'll create what they call magic clips, will chop it all up and make these 60 second, 30 second, 90 second short form video content. That you can post to TikTok or Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts or Facebook or whatever to get more attention in people's feeds there that points them back to the long form stuff which builds more trust. Is this making sense?
There's gonna be a class divide. So 12 months from now, 18 months from now, 24 months from now, six months from now, whenever this sort of AI influencer to real content creator ratio has this, it's this breaking point, you're gonna have two groups of people. You're have the people fighting for attention that nobody really knows them yet. And then you're have all the personal brands that already have built-in trust credibility audiences that are gonna thrive.
Graham Cochrane (14:01.112)
They're actually gonna thrive more because people are gonna be looking for real humans. So this is the great news is real humans will make lots of money moving forward, but only if people know you and like you and trust you. If they can't tell you apart from an AI influencer and you're brand new, good luck. Like this is a unique window of time where you wanna get in now. You don't have to make all the money in the world now, but you need to get your personal brand built now. Do not hide.
Do not hide behind faceless content. Do not hide behind another brand that you're a part of. Like start your own personal brand. Your name, your brand, create content, build trust, serve people powerfully, solve their problems, speak to their pain, speak to their dreams. Build that trust now. Get your thousand true fans now, as Kevin Kelly would say, while the time is still available for you to do that before you get lost in the sea of
content creators, because otherwise you're gonna be fighting for the scraps while all the personal brands, myself included, that already exist, I have 16 years of creating content, being in front of people, building trust in two different industries, I'm gonna be fine. Not because I'm great, not because I'm better than you, but because people know me and trust me. But if they don't know you and trust you now, you're gonna struggle to fight the AI content. Does this make sense?
So there's gonna be three types of people watching and listening to this right now. Number one, if you already have your personal brand, you're in really good shape. Now is the time to double down on the personal brand. Speak more boldly than ever before about the things you believe in, the things you stand for. Speak against the things you stand against. Lift up your people, show your true colors, be as authentic as you possibly can, build your community.
Continue, continue, continue to be the trusted personal brand you are. Do not break that trust. Do not abuse that trust. You've created an ecosystem with your people that trust you. Full steam ahead. Do not slow down. Second group of people. You've dabbled. You have a YouTube channel. You have a podcast. But you're not consistent.
Graham Cochrane (16:16.972)
You're talking about all kinds of random things. You don't have a clear avatar. People don't know within three seconds who you serve and what you help them do.
You show up powerfully for a month or so and then you disappear. This is your opportunity to treat your personal brand like a business because it is. Your personal brand will be your retirement plan. It will be your wealth building tool. It will be your legacy. It will be what takes care of your children and your children's children. Treat it like an investment. Show up consistently. Pick a time and a place you're going to film your content and post it every single week.
Connect with your current audience. Find out what they're really struggling with. What's on their minds right now. Talk about those things right now to them powerfully. Make this your new number one priority is showing up powerfully on long form video every single week, same time every week, and then chopping that up into micro content for short form, okay? Group number three, you haven't started. You've thought about it.
You might even be following this channel or my content for a while and you're thinking about one day. I was at an event speaking in LA. Myron Golden, one of my mentors, was hosting an event out there called Wealth Accelerator Live and I got to speak a couple times. There were some other great speakers as well and one of them was this gal, Nika Maples, and I had heard about Nika, hadn't had a chance to meet her yet. Turns out I bumped into her in the hotel lobby.
She was like, Graham, I watched your stuff. You got me on Kajabi. You got me starting my online coaching side of businesses, my business, because I'm a motivational speaker. And I was like, that's so cool. I didn't even know you knew my stuff. But it's so cool to a chance to watch her speak. She's masterful. One of the things she said was to not wait to do the thing you have in your heart. And she said there's two reasons why people wait. Number one, as they say, I don't have enough time.
Graham Cochrane (18:17.27)
which is just a lie because all of us have time. The question is not how much time do you have, it's how much time do you make. We make time for the things that are important to us. If you have not started your personal brand, it's because you haven't made it important to you. It's just not important to you. Okay? Just like if you don't go to the gym, your health is not important to you. You might say it is, but it's not. If you don't work out, it's not important to you. The moment it shows up in your calendar, it actually becomes important to you. Okay?
If you don't invest money and take care of your finances, money is not important to you. You might say it is, but it's not, because you're not doing anything with it. Does this make sense? If you don't spend time with your wife or your husband or your kids, then your wife or your husband or your kids are not important to you. You might say they are, but they're not if you don't prioritize them in your calendar. So it's not do I have enough time? It's am I making time? So make time for your personal brand or you're going to miss out and you literally have a 12 month window.
The other reason why people don't do the thing they know they need to do, she said, instead of not just, I don't have enough time, is now's not a good time. Now's not a good time. I thought this was fascinating because she called this all out in the audience. She said, how arrogant are you that you think there is going to be a better time or that there even is going to be another time? Are you confident you're going to be alive tomorrow? You have no...
Guarantee about tomorrow. You know the book of James in the Bible James is a half-brother of Jesus. He writes Don't boast about tomorrow Saying we'll go into this city. We'll make this money. We'll do a trade. We'll do this We'll do that. He's like because you don't know what a day may bring You and I don't know That we have tomorrow promise. We don't know we're gonna be around here in six months or in 12 months. So
The idea that now is not a good time assumes that there is more time in the future and that it'll even be better. But now is not a good time is just what we say because it never feels like a good time. It didn't feel like a good time to start my business, but you know what? I was broke. I was unemployed. I was on food stamps for 18 months with a wife and a baby and a mortgage. And I had just moved a thousand miles away from home. And I thought, well, this is not how I thought I would start my career or build a business. Now is not a great time, but you know what?
Graham Cochrane (20:40.962)
Now is the only time I got, I gotta figure something out. I'm telling you, if you're in camp number three, someone who has not started their personal brand, now is the only time. You have 12 months, my friend. It takes time to build trust. It takes time to build an audience. It's not fast. You can run ads to a product fast. Building trust and credibility, it's not fast. Okay, it takes time. So start now. My plan for you is simple.
Pick a person you wanna serve. Rory Vadian says it best, you're most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. So the brand that you probably have the most power to run is serving the past version of you before you solved the problem you now have solved, before you went through the transformation journey you've gone on. Who were you back then, five years ago, 10 years ago, 12 months ago? What did you struggle with?
What did you want more than anything? What were your hopes? What were your fears? What were your pains? Speak to that person. Share everything with that person. Mentor that you from the past and come up with 50 things you could talk about. This is real simple. You probably have five categories that the things you could talk about fall into. Five core categories. Just come up with 10 ideas for each of those categories.
And if you're not sure what to talk about, look at where your audience, your ideal avatar is hanging out online right now. What are they consuming right now? What videos are they watching? What books are they reading? What podcasts are they listening to? And just create your own versions of those pieces of content. Speak to those people about the things that they are struggling with, the things that they want help with, and come up with 50 ideas. That's one a week, basically, a whole year's worth of content. 10 bullet points in five categories is it. And then turn on your camera, turn on your phone,
Create an outline, create a title, and just speak from the heart about the things that you struggle with, that you now no longer struggle with. Talk about your journey, share strategies, speak to their pain, speak to their hopes and dreams, create content. It's not gonna be great at first. It's okay. If you wanna see how bad my first video ever was, look up the recording revolution on YouTube, click on my videos and sort from oldest to newest. Watch the absolute.
Graham Cochrane (23:06.526)
Oldest one and laugh at your boy, but that video started me on a journey to now generating about 20 million dollars online If I had never posted that first video, I would never have become a millionaire multi-millionaire So start first video is not gonna be great Heck if you make a hundred videos 80 of them are not gonna be that great Maybe 20 will be great and of those 24 of them are really gonna build your brand. We call that the 80-20 rule
20 % of your videos are gonna be great and 20 % of those 20 % of videos are gonna propel your brand forward. The only way to get to those four to 20 videos is to put out 100. That's two years worth of content if you make one a week. If you wanna get to that 100 in a year, make two a week and you'll get there faster. But just start. Don't overthink it, don't obsess over it. Post, learn, iterate, post, learn, iterate, post, learn,
iterate and focus more on serving the audience than serving yourself. If you can talk about what they want to talk about, if you can speak to the problems that they have, it will solve all of your problems as it builds a business for you. Is this making sense? Okay. This window is closing. I have no idea what it looks like to be honest. I don't know the future. I just know that the trend is obviously getting to become more content.
by fake influencers that look and sound just like you and me, where you can have whole YouTube channels and whole people you follow on Instagram that aren't even real, that you actually like, and they are gonna get the attention, they are gonna get the eyeballs, and possibly the dollars, if not all the dollars, and you're gonna have to compete with that. And if nobody knows you already, if nobody trusts you, if nobody likes you, it is gonna be near impossible to break through the noise. Now is a beautiful, unique, golden opportunity
to get serious about building your personal brand, so you can get serious about taking care of your family by building the wealth you deserve. And this is the path forward, my friend. If you like this video, let me know. Obviously, subscribe to the channel, like it, but let me know in a comment below which category you're in. Are you already building your personal brand? Are you inconsistent with your personal brand? Are you gonna get consistent? Or have you not started? Which category are you in? Let me know in a comment below and commit, commit, commit to starting your personal brand.
Graham Cochrane (25:28.186)
right now, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, right now. You have a story to tell, you have a life to share, you have people that only you can uniquely serve, that God designed you, put you on this earth to serve. Do not let the robots take your place. They will if you don't get started today. Hope this helped you. I'll see you on another episode real soon.
