In this episode of Craft On Tap, Growth Marketing for RIAs, Faustin Weber and Stephen Beach talk about the trend of AI avatars for financial advisors and explore whether this innovation is a helpful tool or a threat to authentic client relationships.
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Co-Founder Stephen Beach & Strategist Faustin Weber discuss the risks of AI avatars for videos.
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Transcript:
Faustin Weber: So, an idea that's becoming pretty popular right now, even amongst RIA financial practice circles, has been this idea of like AI-driven avatars of the individual advisors, right? So, essentially, you would submit videos of yourself. And the AI would learn, and there's a number of platforms out there right now. The AI would learn your ins and outs so that you could replicate yourself doing video on a number of different subtopics. Right. And I just, I love, let me just first of all say like, I'm not some Neanderthal that's like, oh, anti AI. I love everything about AI. I've used AI for like everything in my life at this point, personal and business-related.
Stephen Beach: You told me at one point, AI has changed your life.
Faustin Weber: Oh, it's completely changed my life. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah, a hundred percent changed my life. But the idea that you're going to build trust and credibility in something as important as managing the overall financial decision-making of someone else's life with the inauthentic nature of an AI avatar video is just mind-blowing to me.
I mean, video is one of the key differentiators right now in the marketing space, like just being able to see somebody talking builds trust and credibility. And so the idea that you would take that and build it out as a computer to essentially deliver the information that you could just get on a video right now, like I'm just ranting about, and share with somebody, is just mind-boggling to me. And I don't like it as an idea. I understand the appeal efficiency-wise, but there's so many tools out there right now that can streamline video editing for you. I just don't think it's a good tactic, and I don't like it, and I just wanted to say that. I don't know. How do you feel about it, Stephen?
Stephen Beach: So I don't know, I guess, let me just play devil's advocate for a second. And I'm not, I'm just gonna play devil's advocate 'cause I think I agree with you.
Faustin Weber: Okay.
Stephen Beach: What's the one, HeyGen, is that what it's called?
Faustin Weber: Yeah. HeyGen is one of the big ones right now that's being shared.
Stephen Beach: You see some of their examples? They look pretty good.
Faustin Weber: They're pretty good.
Stephen Beach: I mean, it's like creepy, but it looks pretty real. What if somebody, what if I was, to say, like, nobody can tell the difference between an AI video view and a video view straight up? Like, if you just can't tell... the human eye, the human intellect, can't decipher the difference. They can't figure it out. I mean, does your attitude change there at all or no? Like, does that convince you? Say we did this. Say we put...
Faustin Weber: Yeah.
Stephen Beach: Say we took an advisor, we took one of our clients to say, Hey, do five videos on these topics. They're each gonna be a minute long. And then, you record yourself and we'll edit it and, we'll do a finished product. And then also we're gonna take the screen transcript of what you just said and we're gonna do a HeyGen AI version of you doing that. We're gonna take those two things and we're gonna put 'em in front of 10 of your clients and ask them to pick which one they liked more.
Faustin Weber: Yeah.
Stephen Beach: Which one they thought was a better video overall. Do you think that people would be able to figure out the AI versus the real, you know, the real person on video?
Faustin Weber: I think they would be able to tell right now. Right, exactly. Like the technology in HeyGen is, and from the examples I've seen, and from tinkering around with it myself. 'Cause you know, obviously, like I said, I love AI. So like I've tried this, right? I've tried to replicate myself and there's still, it's still not quite at the level. But I think you asked a different question. It's more of like a philosophical question. Whereas if you couldn't tell, would you still think that it would be a good tactic? It's kinda like if you would use AI-generated copy, and you got it really good to sound exactly like the style and tone for the advisor, is that a tactic to use? Right? Because you're essentially trying to sell the written text that the AI generates, in the same way as you getting on video. And maybe I'm not so passionate about that, right? Maybe I'm not so passionate that it's a negative thing in that case, although I still have all, I just have that feeling inside, like the qualm of...
Stephen Beach: That icky feeling?
Faustin Weber: Oh my gosh. Like I, yeah, like qualms, like can you imagine sharing out 10 to 15 videos of yourself and just telling everybody that that's completely you? And even if they can't tell, I mean, does it just, does it hurt the relationship almost from the beginning, or is that just efficient marketing in 2025 and beyond?
Stephen Beach: Yeah, I don't like it when you have qualms. You know, I have a qualm about you having qualms. And, also you mentioned how do, how can you replicate yourself? I think we're all looking for that. How do we get more Faustin Webers in the world?
Faustin Weber: There you go. That's what we need.
Stephen Beach: I know your wife's looking for that, for sure. She needs, she needs five of you guys running around the house, with as many kids as you have. But, no, I think you couldn't tell, I don't see how it's that dissimilar from copy where if the AI copy is so good, you can't tell that AI did it. If you literally can't tell, which right now we can, a lot of people can still tell that it's AI versus human.
Faustin Weber: You can. You can tell. Yeah.
Stephen Beach: You gotta steer clear of that, obviously, but if you can't tell. And it makes you feel icky inside. I think even your internal feelings about your brand matter, like what you stand for, you know, just your credibility with yourself. I don't know, like that's what you're getting at.
Faustin Weber: Yeah.
Stephen Beach: Like you go to a conference and you're like, Hey guys, yeah, I got a hundred videos of myself on my website. Go check 'em out. But they're not actually you. If you feel, if you feel like, weird about that at all. I think it kind of actually reflect in your outward-facing brand if you were having these like internal, qualms about it. So I would pay attention to that as well. You know? Not to get too philosophical, I don't know if anybody's following this, but I think that, I think it reflects, even if it's internal, you're trying to take a little shortcut. It reminds me of this, I think I read this in the... it might've been Steve Jobs's biography. And it was a story about like when he was first building his first computers, like on the internal working parts of the computer. You know, there's like, there's some messiness to it, you know, and he wasn't satisfied with leaving it messy, even though it was gonna be covered up by a plate that, you know, to the, to the person using the laptop. They would never see the internal parts of the laptop that had, like, weird wiring and circuitry and glue here and there. And so like, it was working completely fine, like completely the same way as otherwise.
Faustin Weber: Yeah.
Stephen Beach: I think it was his dad that put a, put a bug in his ear, like, you know, they won't know. That, you know, it's, it's not perfect and like, you know, nice and clean inside, but guess what? You'll know.
Faustin Weber: Yeah.
Stephen Beach: And Steve Jobs couldn't live with that. Like, he couldn't live with himself. So I guess you're kinda like Steve Jobs. You can't live with yourself if you have an AI video, even if it's the same quality, if you live on a video, you might not even be able to live with yourself. Just 'cause you know, it's not you at your core.
Faustin Weber: Yeah. As much as I appreciate any comparison to Steve Jobs, I would say, I would say that I also think like what you get outta those AI videos, even if it's perfect, is just pure polish, right?
Stephen Beach: Yeah.
Faustin Weber: Just every imperfection whittled away. You get just the perfect version. It reminds me of like when I'm on Zoom and I look at myself on Zoom, and then I'll go in real life and look at myself in the mirror, and I realize I've got the enhancement effects up so much in Zoom. I'm like a completely different person on Zoom, right? And so it's just the idea like you're putting out a version of yourself. Even if it looks like you, it's the perfect, polished version of you. And I think that there's just a level of authenticity and trust that you miss out on by some of your imperfections.
I know that we, our "ahs" and "ums" we can edit out, right? And that's a little part of it, but I think if you... you put yourself out there as an AI avatar, the perfect version of yourself, and you're just consistently using that as your main marketing tactic or even one of your main marketing tactics. I just think you drive a little bit of skepticism, a little bit of doubt that hurts your potential, trusting relationship that you're gonna have with your clients.
Stephen Beach: Yeah. And then what's your client, you know that's what you're putting out there. I feel like it's, I don't wanna go on this rant about social media, but you know, like it's... whatever we put out, there's a lot of things that are put out on social media that aren't real. Like social media is not reality, right? And so people are, they're, you know, ironing out any little imperfection of their image or their message, or, you know, what their actual life looks like. And then they publish, and it's a different representation completely. But for the financial services space, and you as a financial advisor, where it is so personal with your clients and you take it so, seriously, you know, the credibility and, and kind of the relationship there. What's that person supposed to think when they come in to meet you? Like live in the flesh at some point? And some advisors don't do this and they, they do all virtual and that's fine too, but still, even if it's virtual, what, what are they supposed to think when you sign on Zoom and they're like, oh, you're actually a little bit different 'cause you're a real human. I mean, that thought shouldn't even come up in people's heads. You know, you don't want to even create that. So that sticks out to me like, okay, if you're producing these, you know, HeyGen AI avatar videos, then you sit down with somebody and you're talking about, you know, really personal situations, about their finance, and you are supposed to be representing, you know, an AI avatar in their mind. It's just weird, right? It just doesn't align.
Faustin Weber: Yeah.
Stephen Beach: So, yeah, I think, as it relates to real-life meetings and real-life interactions, I think it sets up the wrong kind of, I don't know, expectations? It sets up like a different kind of alignment with you as a person. So, yes, I guess I've fully come around.
Faustin Weber: Yeah. So, hey, you just, you moved over to my side, huh? I like that. You know, marketing, video marketing needs to be like this nice blend of polish and authenticity, and I think we've seen that just with the rise of platforms like TikTok and how LinkedIn wants to become TikTok. And they're just the algorithms favoring these in your face, upfront, authentic-type videos. And I appreciate polish, like we love polish, right? Like really nice looking websites that, that sort of capture the elegance of your firm can be really powerful in that first perception.
I mean, we're not completely saying - or at least I'm not like, and I don't think you are either - that polish isn't important. It's just, don't get it to the point where it's completely inauthentic because then it just takes away from your brand overall, and it's gonna end up hurting the experience.
Stephen Beach: One other thing that I would love to double click on, is you mentioned like, especially with the rise of other video marketing tools that are, that make it so easy. That's true even in the last 12 months. If you're doing videos that... it used to be a heavier lift, I guess, right? To script and record and produce and publish a video.
Faustin Weber: Oh yeah.
Stephen Beach: That barrier to entry just continues to get lower and lower. So I think, especially with that in mind, to me that's working against the AI avatar argument. Like, your barrier to entry to doing true, authentic, live video marketing is lower and lower. So why would you even need this AI video avatar person anyways? Like, it should just be you because it's easy to be you, you know?
So, I think that's a really good point, too. And we'll see more and more of that too. Like the the video marketing enabled by AI, it has obviously gotten exponentially better and will continue to. So I think that's the trend we're gonna keep riding.
Faustin Weber: Love it. All right. Thanks so much, Stephen for chatting that through with me, and appreciate you coming over to my side.
Stephen Beach: Yeah.
Faustin Weber: Thank you.
Stephen Beach: All right, Steve Jobs talk soon.
Faustin Weber: All right. Appreciate it.
Key Takeaways:
Here's what Faustin and Stephen discussed regarding AI avatars and authenticity in financial advising:
- The Authenticity Imperative: While AI-driven video avatars offer efficiency, the financial advisory space is built on trust and genuine connection. The inauthentic nature of AI-generated video can undermine the credibility crucial for client relationships.
- The "Icky" Factor: Even if AI video technology becomes indistinguishable from real human video, advisors might still feel a personal "qualm" about using it, which can subtly impact their brand and internal sense of integrity.
- Balancing Polish vs. Imperfection: AI avatars offer "pure polish," but this can strip away the natural imperfections that contribute to an advisor's authenticity and build trust. Real human video, with its genuine nuances, often resonates more deeply with clients.
- Real-Life Expectations: Using highly polished AI avatars for marketing might create a disconnect when clients eventually meet the advisor in person (or even virtually), potentially leading to a feeling of inauthenticity.
- Ease of Authentic Video: With the barrier to entry for creating authentic, live video marketing continually decreasing, there's less practical need to resort to AI avatars. Advisors can easily create genuine content that truly represents them.
Shameless plug for Craft on Tap
Figuring out if you should use new marketing technologies can be tricky. The secret? Know when to embrace efficiency and when to prioritize authenticity.
This conversation is only a starting point. For ongoing insights and practical strategies for RIA growth, listen to the new Craft on Tap marketing podcast. Available now, wherever you find your podcasts. Ready to chat? Get in Touch
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