From Overwhelmed to Augmented
How everyday creators can use AI without losing the plot 💫
How do you feel about AI?
Show of hands…
… Excited?
… Anxious?
… Both?
What tools have you tried?
Show of hands…
… Chat GPT?
… Gemini?
… Midjourney?
… Veo 3?
… Suno?
Who am I?
  • Alycia Leno @artdecotech
  • Victoria, BC
  • Head of Global Social @GoDaddy
  • AI enthusiast & creative thinker
  • Mom of a wild preschooler
My Journey
Before: Overwhelmed
  • Relentless demand for productivity gains
  • Skeptical of early chatbots, AI art and video
  • Difficulty keeping up with how AI is changing
  • Losing the plot 🥀
My Journey
After: Augmented
  • Upgraded confidence & communication
  • Faster first drafts
  • Tedious task automation
  • Expanded creative horizons ✨
“All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act
4 Roles – AI Creative Partner
Minion
Automate tedious tasks, freeing you to focus on your passion.
Mentor
Get constructive feedback, guiding you to better outcomes.
Medium
A tool for artistic expression, access to create in novel ways.
Muse
Spark new ideas and overcome creative blocks.
How does AI work anyway?
LLMs (Large Language Models) :
Trained on billions of text examples
Responds to prompts
Pattern-matching predicts next word
Visual & Audio Creation
Data-Driven Learning
Trained on images and sounds – and their text descriptions – identifying underlying patterns.
Latent Space
The knowledge is encoded into a "latent space" – an abstract, high-dimensional map where similar concepts are grouped.
Diffusion
Generation involves adding noise to a blank canvas, then iteratively removing it guided by the latent space, constructing desired outputs according to the prompt, parameters, and training data set.
Minion: "Voicey Version"
1
Set Clear Constraints
"Write in my style, like a friendly Canadian, casual but direct, a hint of witchy big sis energy, reliable expert"
2
Create Style Guides
Share examples of your best work as templates to analyze, or share guardrails for style, terminology, and brand.
3
Provide Voice Samples
Show AI how you would say it – using your microphone.
4
The Hack Prompt for Power Users
"Write this in my voicey version… ask me 3-5 questions to help guide your instructions for my desired writing style."
Minion: Would you fire the intern?
No, you'd correct them. Train Chat GPT and other models to be the best unpaid intern on your team.
Define Custom Instructions in Settings
Set the Chat's persona, preferred tone, and output style once.
This avoids needing to repeating yourself in every prompt.
Master Prompt Engineering
Learn to craft clear, detailed prompts with roles, goals, examples, constraints, and specific example formats.
Leverage Custom GPTs
Specialized AI agents and tools designed for particular tasks, from brainstorming to data analysis, customized by the community.
“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”
Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
Live Demo Time! 😅
Mentor
  • Don Draper – Custom GPT
Live Demo
Muse
  • Unexpected Combinations
  • Moodboard
… with audience participation! 🙏
Live Demo: Medium 🎨
New tools for creative expression.
They work best with production skills or knowledge of terminology (cinematography, photography, art history).
What can you /imagine ?
Let's make something using two tools:
  • Flux1.ai image editing
  • Labs.google/flow video generation
Imagine what we'll have in the next 1-2 years… 🤔
  • A tool trained on only UGC videos?
  • AI avatar video face swap?
  • Automated raw video editor?
  • Podcast creation from text?
  • Automation for localization?
All that exists already… 😮
  • A tool trained on only UGC videos?… ArcAds
  • AI avatar video face swap?… WAN 2.2 Animate
  • Automated raw video editor?… Ponder.ai
  • Podcast creation from text?… NotebookLM
  • Automation for localization?… TheBrief.ai
What’s Next > Agentic AI + RAG
These advancements are transforming how creators work with AI, bringing more autonomy and accuracy to your workflows.
Agentic AI = Autonomous Action
AI agents are capable of planning and executing multi-step tasks, using external tools, browsing the web, and seeking approvals when directed.
  • Automate complex workflows (e.g., research, drafting, publishing).
  • Manage content calendars or launch content and campaigns with minimal oversight.
  • Automatically export and share new formats and promo material.
RAG = Grounded in Your Truth
Retrieval Augmented Generation connects LLMs to your specific knowledge base (brand documents, style guides, past content).
  • Drastically reduces "hallucinations" by grounding generations in your data.
  • Custom knowledge for better output and brand consistency.
  • Your WordPress site becomes the ultimate source of truth for content generation.
Guardrails & Creative Confidence
Use AI safety without compromising your unique style or mental health.
Protect Your Voice
Define style rules, banned words, and provide examples to train your AI.
Blend AI with Editing
Learn when to let AI draft and when to step in with your human touch for refinement.
Avoid Burnout
Leverage AI to offload repetitive tasks, not to overload your creative process.
Ensure Content Integrity
Implement fact-check loops, use proper citations, and ensure commercial safety for media.
Uphold Ethical Standards
Understand disclosure, consent, data privacy, and basic copyright principles.
The Most Common ChatGPT Tropes
Recognizing these "tells" helps you refine and personalize your output.
Sycophantic & Tentative Language
Flattery like "That's a great question...", "It's important to note...", or excessive hedging can make text sound detached.
The "Unleashed" Buzzwords
Watch for common tells like "critical," "delve," "unlock," or "harness" that AI defaults to, stripping text of unique voice.
The Em-Dash Epidemic
An abundance of em-dashes—used for emphasis or asides—can disrupt the natural flow.
"Not X, but Y" & Analogies
AI frequently uses constructions like "It's not just about X, it's about Y" or elaborate and unnecessary analogies.
Subjectively fun list of AI tools to try
Chat / Text
Art / Image
Video
Sound / Music
Wrap Up
Your "Try This This Week" Playbook
Small, Safe Pilot
Pick one repetitive task or a small content piece, and use AI to augment it. Focus on learning.
Define Your Voice
Start building a simple style guide for your AI. What words to use, what to avoid, your tone, and examples.
Iterate & Refine
Review AI outputs critically. Don't publish without a human touch. Your feedback trains the AI to better match your needs.
You've Got This
AI amplifies creativity—it doesn't replace it.
Start Small
Pick one tool, master it first
Keep Experimenting
Stay curious, find influencers.
Your Voice Matters
Authenticity wins every time
"AI is here to liberate us from routine jobs, and it is here to remind us what it is that makes us human. Humans can thrive in the age of AI by harnessing compassion and creativity."
Kai-Fu Lee, AI Superpowers
Q&A
@artdecotech
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