Skyler Mattson on Unlocking AI Value Through Creativity and Personalization

Jeff Kavanaugh:

I’m Jeff Kavanaugh with the Infosys Knowledge Institute here at Infosys Connect in Los Angeles. I’m here with Skyler Mattson, head of Infosys WongDoody.

Skyler Mattson:

Hi Jeff, it's great to see you and be here.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

It’s great to see you again in your home turf.

Skyler Mattson:

I love it. I’m in my time zone. I’m usually tired and everybody else is feeling great. So this time I’m seeing a lot of people yawning and I’m feeling wide awake.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Awesome. We’re talking about unlocking value from AI and I know we can have cliches and well-worn phrases, but let’s make it kind of fresh and specific. You’re in the world of creative. How are your clients and companies and the industries out there actually approaching AI and getting value from it?

Skyler Mattson:

I think one of the most exciting things that we're seeing in our industry is content creation at scale. So if you take the old school way of doing things before AI, it was a photo shoot and maybe traveling to some distant land to get sun or beaches, and then it was days of retouching. Sometimes the models had a tattoo or something you didn't like, and it was millions of dollars. Now with AI, we can take something that was millions of dollars and six weeks long and do it in a day for pennies. So I'll share an example for a global CPG brand we're currently working with. This is a huge brand that has hundreds of sub-brands underneath it. And you can imagine the amount of assets they're creating daily, thousands of assets. So let's take a skincare product, for example. This one product probably has 15 different scents. And if you could take this one product and via a prompt say this is pumpkin spice and have the entire background change. This is ocean breeze, have the entire background change. These are buttons that you're pushing. This is for Instagram. This is for…

Jeff Kavanaugh:

You’ve gone well beyond Adobe Firefly. You're talking everything changing.

Skyler Mattson:

Well, I mean, Adobe Firefly is really starting with the content creation. We’re going to go as far as also to deploy it, to measure how it’s performing against other…

Jeff Kavanaugh:

So it’s integrated.

Skyler Mattson:

It’s completely integrated. And this is the beauty of Infosys, it's WongDoody, plus DX plus DNA, all coming together to create assets, to deploy assets to measure them and make them better. So this global CPG brand was spending around $150 per asset. That's not a lot in the grand scheme, but when there's millions of them, we are doing it for nine cents.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Nine cents.

Skyler Mattson:

And I want to be clear because when you talk about AI content creation, you think it's, it's speed and it's cost savings. It's not just that. It's better content. It's content and context.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

And so you need the impact.

Skyler Mattson:

Exactly. Context and the impact. That's right, it's personalized. And if I get something that's personalized to me, I'm 25% more likely to click on it and buy it.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Well, to click, to engage, to buy, to be loyal.

Skyler Mattson:

Exactly. So it's incredibly exciting and I think too, you know, talking to our clients, we're not replacing their creative teams. We are empowering their creative teams because I could see a retail brand we're working with, there's a woman who all she does is localize. She just translates and this is now a button, but that's a button that she can push and prompt and now do other more innovative things.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Are the actual number of these content creators, copywriters, and associated is that raw number of people going down and they’re being redeployed or what’s going on?

Skyler Mattson:

Right now it’s not going down with the customers we’re working with. What’s happening is their jobs are getting bigger and more interesting. So, you’re going to be able to create this content more quickly, now let’s talk about how we’re going to innovate for our customer. Now let’s talk about new products. Now let’s talk about new, more interesting, creative ways to engage with our audience. So, that’s what’s exciting. Once you save all this time, what do you do with it?

Jeff Kavanaugh:

That’s on an absolute basis, things are much less expensive and better. Well if everyone's doing that, how are companies competing given this new reality?

Skyler Mattson:

You know, that’s tough and I think the way companies are competing is the what do we do with the extra now? So it’s not just… I mean we’re going to not have a job anymore if we’re just faster, cheaper, all you’re doing is prompting.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

It's a race to the bottom in that case.

Skyler Mattson:

It’s a race to the bottom. What we have to do is say we’re going to automate these things so we can all start thinking bigger.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

What are the winners doing that are allowing them to do this?

Skyler Mattson:

I think what a lot of the winners are doing are co-creating with their clients. So, some of this falls apart at the adoption level. So, you could create all these prompts, we call the system a brand OS and we fill in the brand’s name so they know it’s for them. Now if we create this whole system and no one on the creative team uses it you haven’t unlocked AI value. You’ve spent a bunch of money on a new workflow that isn't adopted. And so I think this co-creation with our clients is a winning behavior. I think showing clients that they're a part of this process and that we aren't just giving them an off-the-shelf solution but something that is super specific to their unique workflows, their unique use cases, that’s what the winners are doing. I think it could be commoditized, but those are people who are saying here's an off-the-shelf solution, good luck. Being a true business partner and saying, let's co-create, let's empower, let's ensure you're adopting, and let's change and iterate along the way. Because what we build for you today, in two weeks we can make it better.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

I get this for CPG, what about for manufacturing, industrial companies?

Skyler Mattson:

Oh my gosh, it’s so exciting for manufacturing. So take automotive for example, and I think… if you think about the whole purchase cycle for automotive, people want to configure. They want to go onto a website and they want to try this color and that color and we want to serve them content specific to them, so a little creepy, but let’s say you go onto a website, Mitsubishi Canada is a client so I can name them, you’re looking for the Outlander and you start configuring it. It’s blue, it’s going to have racks, you want to put your skis on it. Well, the next time you’re served content, it’s going to be that exactly. And when you do show up to that dealership or you try

Jeff Kavanaugh:

They know you.

Skyler Mattson:

You're halfway there.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

More than halfway.

Skyler Mattson:

You're halfway there. We say it's a handshake, not a handoff. That dealer’s gonna know everything about you when you walk in the door and not waste your time. So not in the creepy, stalkery way but in the Jeff you're a busy guy, I want to show you what I think you're looking for.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

The style and tone of that disclaimer is so important.

Skyler Mattson:

I think so too. It is, otherwise you’re turned off by it. I think so too. The other thing that’s really interesting when you talk about websites and the way people are shopping, when we’re building an interactive experience, we used to only be targeting the customer, now we’re targeting agents, because guess where people are going to shop? They're going to ChatGPT. And so a lot of brands are taking their money out of TV for example and they’re putting it in the hands of influencers because ChatGPT is combing everything from a brand's website to TikTok. And you need as many third-party endorsements for that to be a recommended brand via an agent. So, it’s kind of wild. We’re now building experiences for the customer and the agent.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

And you need the analytics to extract insights and patterns in a way you haven't before.

Skyler Mattson:

Well, data’s never been more important and I do think one of the biggest barriers to unlocking AI value is a client’s data’s not ready.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Yeah.

Skyler Mattson:

And there’s a lot of data and analytics guys, Gopal just gave a great speech on this, who can go really deep into how Infosys is coming in and preparing data for AI readiness.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Yeah. Next question is kind of keeping the humans in the loop and in the office. What are you seeing for the companies that are able to not either have massive layoffs when they do this or maybe succeed because of the human AI combo.

Skyler Mattson:

You know, I think it can’t be all top down, right? It can’t be leadership mandating like this is how our company’s going to work with AI and this is what everyone has to do. There needs to be part of that and there needs to be sort of these safe sandboxes. But there has to be a lot of bottom up and that’s enabling playgrounds and innovation hubs because everything’s changing so fast… I mean as the leader of WongDoody I’m certain I don’t know the most about everything. I need my teams to be playing and experimenting and sharing and so I think…

Jeff Kavanaugh:

And have the trust to do so.

Skyler Mattson:

And have the trust to do so for sure.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

So you don’t change the bar every time you do something.

Skyler Mattson:

That's right.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Alright, well what is the one thing that your market, your clients need to be on the guard for either as a risk or an opportunity in the next six to twelve months.

Skyler Mattson:

I think it’s talent because everything starts with people.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

That’s ironic, because people are saying, hey we don't need as many people. You're saying we do need the right people.

Skyler Mattson:

We need the right people and we’re talking a lot about this during this conference. It’s reskilling. It’s not replacing. It’s reskilling. And there are a lot of teams who are nervous, but they’re not… they don’t want to leave. It takes companies to make a bet though.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

You’re betting on their people and reskilling, not replacing, because the simple accounting thing to do is pull back now and hope to do it later. That’s right. But it’s a longer term play.

Skyler Mattson:

That's right. I mean you need to inspire your people, you need to help them feel safe. And it takes some good leadership, otherwise you have…

Jeff Kavanaugh:

because you're signing up to do this. That's right.

Skyler Mattson:

I mean we talk about life long learners… also when you're interviewing talent, I'm always asked what do you look for… I’m like curiosity. I always ask what’s the last thing you taught yourself or that you learned.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

What's something new that you learned, recently?

Skyler Mattson:

I think talent that doesn’t want to be reskilled or is nervous or hesitant, they’re going to self-select out.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

Yeah, it used to be… I used to call it a transformation, a third, third, third. A third of the people, they're going to self-select out. A third of the people will kind of muddle along and kind of see where the wind blows. And a third of the people are your next leaders.

Skyler Mattson:

That’s exactly right. That’s exactly right. It’s such an exciting time. I’m amazed at the things I’m learning. I’m amazed at the things I’m seeing. I’m amazed at the way we’re able to help our customers like never before. So, what a fun time to be in business transformation, digital transformation, creativity.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

It is. I know you’ve got a lot more people to connect with here at Connect. So, thank you Skyler.

Skyler Mattson:

Jeff, it's so good to see you always.

Jeff Kavanaugh:

You bet. Thank you. I'm Jeff Kavanaugh. Until next time, keep learning and keep sharing.