We Fixed It, You're Welcome - ChatGPT vs Claude: Which AI is Winning the PR War?

Episode Date: July 7, 2026

OpenAI and Anthropic are locked in a high stakes rivalry, and the fallout is hurting public trust in AI overall. In this episode, the "We Fixed It, You're Welcome" panel (Aaron Wolpoff, Melissa Eaton, and Chino) sits down with veteran tech PR strategist Perry Headrick to unpack whether the ChatGPT vs Claude rivalry is a branding win or a trust disaster. With over 20 years of experience representing brands like AOL, Bing, Yelp, and Logitech, Perry brings sharp, no nonsense insight into why both AI giants are missing the mark with everyday users, and what they need to do to fix it. Key Topics Discussed Why only 17% of Americans trust the people running major AI companies, and 40% consider them untrustworthy The origin of the OpenAI vs Anthropic rivalry, born from a philosophical split within OpenAI How the Super Bowl ad wars and competitive digs are backfiring on both brands The psychology of "AI dread" and why fear, not excitement, dominates public perception Why AI companies make themselves the star instead of the customer Perry's real world examples: turning heads at a local Chinese restaurant with an AI generated photo, and using AI to pick better golf clubs The case for radical transparency over "promiseware" and vague grandiosity Why sycophantic AI responses (agreeing with everything, false reassurances) erode user trust The Claude broken links example and why owning limitations matters more than smoothing them over Reddit and AMAs as an underused trust building tool Are OpenAI and Anthropic "too big to fail," or heading toward a Yahoo vs Google outcome Why competing companies dragging each other down risks making the entire AI category look unsafe Connect With the Show Subscribe for more deep dives where we fix big business problems with fresh perspectives. • Website – www.wefixeditpod.com • Follow us on: Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/wefixeditpod LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/wefixeditpod YouTube – ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@WeFixedItPod⁠ If you liked this episode, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your friends! Keep listening to find out how we fix companies and put them back better than we found them. Disclaimer A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We’re here to ask the kinds of questions everyone’s thinking, have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you’re welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to We Fixed It. You're welcome. The show where we take over companies, you come along for the ride, and we try to put them back better than we found them. Open AI and Anthropic are head-to-head competitors. They both want as much market share as possible. And when we use their AI agents, Chat Chitin'Klaude, we tell them everything about ourselves. So both companies need us to trust them. The challenge is that we don't know who to trust. the more these two companies fight dirty and expose each other, the shakier that trust gets.

According to a recent U-Gov survey, only 17% of Americans trust the people who run the major AI companies, while 40% consider them untrustworthy or very untrustworthy. That's a big problem when you've got two companies fighting for the top. Here's my question. Should Open AI Ananthropic act like competitors? Because if one backs down, the other could pounce. But if they keep pointing out each other's flaws, they both are. come off really bad, and we might trust AI even less than we do now. And AI isn't going away.

So if these are the companies building our future, we're going to need to clean up their image. We'll do it for them. Otherwise, this could all go downhill fast. So that's what we're here to fix. And to help us with that, we've got someone who's no slouch in the PR department, Perry Hedrick. Perry's the founder and CEO of Crackle PR with over 20 years in tech PR and communications. Throughout his career, he's worked with a who's who of technology consumer brands like AOL, bang, Yelp, and Logitech. He brings expertise in media strategy, reputation management, and crisis control, and probably more where that came from.

Welcome, Perry, and tell us more about yourself. Thanks. Well, it's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, I think you did a pretty nice job of explaining who I am. I'm founder of Crackle. We are primarily a B2B tech company working with a range of startups through publicly traded companies with a big B2B bent, but I've done a lot of consumer tech. I've really done just about everything as it relates to.

the PR world. I'm also co-host one half of the show of the under embargo podcast that I host with Becca Chambers, who is a CMO at Scale Ventures. So I mix it up a little bit on the podcast as well and try to give my audience like you some good directional thinking about where to go and what to do next. Very cool. Thanks, Perry. I'm really glad you're here and you're coming in as a podcaster so you know how to play on our show and you've got a ton of experience. If you're cool with it, you're about to give OpenAI and Anthropic a bunch of free advice, so they should be glad you're here too.

Let's get into it. So like a lot of competitors, OpenAI and Anthropic have a shared past. Anthropic was founded by former Open AI employees after philosophical disagreements around how AI should be developed and released. Now the two of them act like rivals, and you might prefer one over the other, Coke versus Pepsi. You might like them both for different reasons, or you might be put off by both of them, which is true for a lot of people. because when they compete, they go for it.

For example, Open AI fast-tracked the initial release of Chat-GTPT because they learned Anthropic was working on its own chatbot, which became Claude. Anthropic ran a Super Bowl campaign this year about how Claude would stay ad-free and made it seem like Chat-TPT would be flooded with ads. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a growing distrust around AI in general, and when these two companies go at it, that can't be helping the situation, and they both need our trust. Anthropic wants us to trust them because AI is

powerful, risky, and should be governed carefully. So when they say their AI is safer, is that a PR play or the truth? OpenAI says we should trust them because AI is powerful and should be available to everyone. So when they say progress shouldn't stop, is that a dig in Anthropic? Or the truth. And when both companies use each other's strengths to make the other company look worse, they both come out looking bad. So what are we going to do about this image problem? This is our problem to solve. Let's go for it. Perry, let's start with you. Is this PR? Is it a PR problem? I mean, we can unpack a lot of stuff. But when they play things out in the news, in the news cycle for us to digest and make of it what we will, is that a PR?

Well, PR Playbook 101 problem. Yeah. So I think it's a PR problem. But I think more than that, it's a lack of awareness about the existential dread that the vast majority of users of Anthropic and Open AI. and Cheminine and you name it, they all feel. So I feel like one of the most sort of illustrative examples of that is all the commencement speeches that have been getting booed when people talk about AI as, you know, the next revolution and all the students are listening to that saying, what are you guys talking about?

You're making this sound like this is fantastic. When I'm terrified, I'll never have a job. Like, this is not exciting to me. This is actually really terrifying. So the myth, in my view, on behalf of both of those companies, is that they're not, empathetic to what real human beings who are forced to learn these tools, they may not otherwise want to learn what they're feeling about the direction of where this is all headed. So while they're

squabbling and backbiting and kneecapping each other, the real miss is that they're not connecting in a human way with the audiences that desperately need some assurance that this is not going to render them moot or wipe them out. Yeah, that's a great point. If they're not reading the room, like when Apple unveils a new tech product and they hold it up and everyone says, what? You make, this is amazing. You know, they get the response they're looking for. But if, you know, if one of these founders or AI leaders stands up in front of a room of bright young individuals that are ready to lead our future and they're optimistic and they're saying, boo, we don't, we don't vibe with what you're telling us. That's a fundamental problem.

Yeah. You know, it reminds me just a little bit, just quickly. you talked about the Super Bowl ad and how, you know, these guys are taking pot shots at each other. It reminds me a little bit of how Mercedes and BMW do that on billboards. You guys may have seen that in some of the bigger cities. Like one is claiming something and the nice try, BMW, check out this. And they go back and forth. And that kind of thing, that rivalry, I think, is more cheeky and amusing and interesting in brand building.

Because no one has to buy a BMW. No one has to buy a Mercedes. These are very optional luxury things that you could. if you wanted to get. AI is not optional for the majority of humans at this point. We're all like, God damn it, we better get smart on this stuff or die, like be left behind.

So the backbiting and fun little stuff isn't cheeky at all. It's just obnoxious to most people. They're like, you guys are fighting as if, you know, we want to choose this. We have no choice. We just, we're just sitting here,

you know, wallowing in the world you've created for us without our consent. I think it's a really interesting one, too, because you have to look at the psychology of dread, right? Like most people, like, that's the feeling when you hear AI because, you know, you're afraid that it's going to replace you. Like, we don't really understand what's going on. And, you know, people don't really love AI unless you're in kind of a tech and design industry. And what we have to remember is that when we talk about purchasing power and why marketing is so important is because people do not purchase the product.

It's the feeling. And so the challenge here right now is that AI is bringing a feeling of dread. And so it's really hard to control that narrative from a PR perspective because if people feel dread, they haven't used it. They're unfamiliar with the product. You know, again, it's the feeling that you're doing. And so if you're both pointing each other's differences, it's very challenging to let the consumer, the layman consumer who does not know what AI could be or kind of the way it could be effective. for them, you're only adding to this dread and it's creating a larger problem from a PR perspective. And I think the way to help solve that and to fix it is to, again, look at familiarity

and exposure, right? Both Anthropic and ChatGPT need to really train people and, and, you know, provide that trust to, you know, allowing people to use it more and more. Um, so that, that they can understand what it is about and to have some form of familiarity that's built in. But that takes time and it's not possible if you're building and kind of reaffirming this threat. It feels like the companies are very focused on those narratives and the brand narrative that they're trying to deliver. But understanding that they're not looking at the visible trust signals, which are telling a different story. And to your point, you know, the way you would have to. to show up is in your product and in your experience. And that's the thing that's really important

because consistency beats sophistication in a narrative of something when it actually is something that's building, you know, the models that are more capable are giving you something that you can trust is real, and more predictable is really something that will bring the customers in in a way that provides that, you know, because again, users really want consistency and truth to really help them build that capability of understanding who is the best to go to. And there's a huge feel. I mean, it's not just these two, obviously, right? There's Gemini, there's copilot. There's a lot of different things and we can get into that in the future. But like, again, it's that narrative. And I think I'd also like to go down that path, which you kind of touch Chino is about accessibility, because when there's

a paywall and you're paying for different tiers or there's ads involved, then that also seems to put a little, you know, tweak into that credibility because I have to wonder if you're, if I have to pay for, and I'm seeing ads, is that impacting the results I'm getting when I'm putting a prompt in? So in most marketing and branding and public relations, the goal is to make the customer, the end user, the star. I mean, you want them to feel special. They are the ones that, you know, should feel great. The problem with AI writ large in these companies in particular is that everybody feels like a failure.

They feel hopelessly left behind already and like they don't even want to start almost because they know they're already way, way behind. And then against that backdrop, you have OpenAI talking about AGI, artificial general intelligence, which is like orders of magnitude beyond where we already are to a point where the machines are now infinitesimally smarter than they already are at this moment. And people are just like, Jesus, well, what am I going to do? So that's a major disconnect. The brands should be trying to make the customer the star. Instead, they're making themselves the star so much so that it becomes distasteful and out of reach to the average human being. And to also add on that as well, with Anthropic, you know, they released in June of 2026, and the U.S. government said, we got to pull it back.

You're a little too powerful, like you're saying, Perry. And so that also opens up the Pandora's box of like, what can AI do? Is it too far advanced? And again, we got to bring it back. AI is still so new. It really became, you know, mainstream back in 2020. 2021. And so we've had four or five years of like basic understanding of it. And if you're saying that this is going to completely exponentially, you know, leap, you know, for people who are just catching up, it's again very hard to build that trust where going back to the podcast topic of, you know, is this a PR nightmare for them? And I think it is. And so would love to dive into Aaron and Alyssa and Perry, like where we think that, you know, we can help. And either company to do better.

Yeah, and I love, you know, having branding in my background, I love when brands clap back at each other and drag it out in public as long as it's done in a cheeky and constructive way. But Burger King and McDonald's, you know, everyone knows whether they prefer a Big Mac or a Whopper, but they're still going to point out each other's flaws and make it fun and, you know, to show the one patty versus another or whatever they do. Like, I'm all fun. I love that. I'm all for it. those bolder the better but when there's something with distrust and instability and you're building it as you go and then you're doing these same types of tactics i think that's where it's

falling short but perry i i'm i'm curious because if like open a ian anthropic if they don't engage you know there's public discourse if they don't engage that's a problem because they keep if they if it seems like it's too secretive and kept behind a lockbox and nobody knows what's happening, that's scary, right? But if they engage too much and they're just at it all the time and pointing out competitor flaws and then they're trying to kneecap each other, that's a problem too. So I don't know, like we're trying to build toward a happy medium, but, you know, what are they kind of screwed either way? Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think they are screwed either way. I think they are not helping one another in the realm of public opinion by clapping at

other all the time because again we can't relate to these companies. I say we I'm really talking about the rank and file like I use AI every day and everything I do in my business. I'm more versed than the average bear about what AI is and how you can use it to benefit your lives and blah blah blah. But the average person looked at them and like they're from a different planet and they're arguing about who's going to eat the earthlings. You know what I mean? Like that's how the average person views it. So I think what needs to happen to give you like some some PR sort of guidance here to fix the problem would be the have to start talking with into humans who are actually going to be using it that aren't like

Joe Crypto bro who already is pretty dialed into tech, but like mom and pop who are running a little soda shop, how does AI positively affect their lives? How is AI positively going to affect the car dealership? How will it positively affect the butcher who's trying to figure out how much meats he should order for the coming, you know, festival? Like those kinds of real world applications I think are sorely missing from both of these companies sort of go-to-market approach. And they're actually spending a shitload of money on marketing. A stunning amount of money.

Like billions of dollars is being spent on marketing, but they're missing the audience that they most need to impress, which is the people that are ultimately going to win or lose by the sword, the sword being AI. I go to a local Chinese restaurant, which I love. It's called Family Chinese. It's in Salisbury, Massachusetts. It's delicious.

I love the owner. I love everybody there. I used an app. I think I used chat GPT to take a picture of his guy. His name's Ben, the guy behind the bar. And I put a celebrity next to him. I showed him the picture of him next to a celebrity. And he was like, that's amazing.

And everybody at the bar wanted to see the picture that I created, like, in 10 seconds with this app. They looked at me like I was a magician. They were like, how did you? They could not believe that I did that effortlessly at the bar. And I was like, well, if you think that's impressive, What if I told you you could use AI to put in all the groceries you have in your cupboards to make a delicious meal? What if I told you that you could use AI to plan an inexpensive vacation that hits all the things that you care about to save a ton of money?

What if I told you X, Y, Z? My point is these are approachable real world things that the average Joe can use to benefit from. And the big AI companies are not reaching those audiences with those messages. Instead, what they're doing is instilling fear by, you're standing atop Mount Olympus in flowing robes talking about how the world is going to be exponentially better without them. Right. It's the Oracle, right?

And so you've just said Perry is really important because trust increases when users and consumers feel in control. And we're showing them, you know, experiences and we're showing them opportunities where they are in control. And they could create something that would be wonderful using this tool, right? And right now, it just seems like it's kind of this thing up above them that they don't really understand. And so I love what you said there because that's a great example of where this could really head and go. And it really could create much more of an environment that is interactive, feeling a little bit more trust.

And then exploring what are the different company, what are the differences between the companies besides their ads? that really showcase the things that I need. I think she kind of on this note, right? So the fix being, you know, reaching audiences outside of the larger tech ecosystem. And the cut actually, as of June 17th, released an article, which was yesterday, as you're recording this,

released an article talking about a mom who runs her household using AI. And it talked about some of the very tangible everyday things. So groceries, planning the trip, helping, you know, find daycare for her child and using different AI agents. And I think again, you know, what would be really smart for both platforms is to, you know, I don't want an ad, as you mentioned, Melissa, in the actual chat as I'm using it. I can't trust it because then it's like, where is this data coming from? Is this bias? But you don't be really cool is if I saw an ad or I see another article where it's describing someone's

experiences. And I think looking at other ways to market outside of just, you know, here's a billboard saying how great we are, going in different resources where it's actually touching people. So, you know, having stories like you shared about, you know, the Chinese restaurant, Perry, or, you know, talking to moms or, you know, someone who's looking to travel and creating these grassroots but feel good ads for people to actually to hit. because then again, people, consumer behavior, it's not the product, it's about how you make people feel. And if you're making people feel good and you're showing them what the possibilities are from both companies and platforms, that will be kind of the way forward to reach the audiences who are saying, I don't know but you, I can't trust you. And like, that is the bulk of kind of the population.

And so you need to be able to target these folks or else like, you know, fable and like. like, you know, be shut down from the government sooner than later. Yeah, I love that, you know, because I've been going, so I've been going down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos that are tech, like news broadcasts about technology, but they're from 1975 or from 1982. And they're showing a computer the size of, you know, 75, the size of a room and telling a little kid, someday this will be in your house and it will sit on a table. And the kids going, whoa.

And then in 1982, they have a home computer. and you can put in, you can type in everything that's in your closet and you can keep track of it, right? All these things that, you know, pick a moment in time and we've always projected forward and saying, look, here's our technology limitations right now, but give us 10 years, give us 20 years. This is what we'll be able. We're living in that promise. Like everything we wanted, we have now. So, you know, and there's practical applications like you're saying, we could all use them.

You don't have to, you don't have to code anymore. You can get it to Cloud Code and all those things that you want, but you don't have to. You can go, you can put a celebrity next to you. You can make your grocery list. You can do plan a trip. You know, a billion applications. Why are we living in an age of fear and apprehension instead of being appreciative of what we have? We wanted this.

So, Aaron, to that point specifically, like taking this a level up from the Chinese restaurant example into like a real world thing, I've built, I've been VP of marketing for a very large, PR agencies. And I built several websites as part of my charge. Each time it costs probably $50,000 to $100,000 to build these websites. Took many, many months, back and forth, getting all the key constituents involved, rounding up all the information. Revision, rounds, blah, blah, just took forever. It was a nightmare. It's like it's the worst experience. If you've never built a website, never do. Having said that, I was turned on, I don't know, a year ago or seven months ago to an AI company called Lovable.

And they're not a client, and this is not a, you know, am I getting paid? But I built the website I have now, which is better optimized for SEO and geo, than anything I've ever seen. It's elite. And it took me about four and a half hours to build. And it cost me about $50.

That's the kind of thing that if you could break into every layer of society, whether it's the Chinese restaurant level, the dry cleaner, the butcher, a small business owner, the mid-sized agency owner, and just partition these examples out for people so they can see themselves benefiting in the technology. I think that is a huge win from a PR standpoint. And yes, it requires a lot of work.

And yes, it requires an authentic touch to it. But it's absolutely an exercise worth doing. It reminds me a little bit of IBM back in the day. You might recall the commercials where they try to humanize that brand a little bit because it's like this stodgy company. And suddenly they had like rank and file people be like, I'm an IBMer. I'm an IBMer. Like real people, real faces, like not these sort of robotic

backroom, you know, like losers, for lack of a better term. And it really, the company enjoyed a boost in terms of its halo effect. And I think that's the kind of thing that both anthropic and open eye desperately, desperately need. Well, it gets back to basics. You know, in customer experience, customer testimonials are really the strongest way to really get your product out there and services out there. And I think that's what we're saying. You know, we're going back to the basics of a customer testimonial can really tell a wonderful story. Like, period, that's a great, you know, and I actually know some of the founders at Lovable, and they will be very excited to hear that. That is an example of what they want. And we're in a society today where there's so much data, right? There's

data overload. And if you think about what we're talking about with customer data and customer reviews and testimonials, you'll see there's complete industries around this type of review, right? Trust pilot, blast door, there's all of these types of things. And Reddit, I mean, that's not, it's, you know, a forum for discussion. It counts because that's where people go, right? Like, you know, I actually, there was something I was looking at the other day and I went to Reddit and I was like, oh, and then it changed my mind. I was like, okay, I'm not going to buy that product because there were a lot of criticisms about the service. So, again, I think that people are trying to be more thoughtful about making investments in their time and in what they're doing. So we really should continue to look at the strength of that customer testimonial, the strength of the narrative and the story that you're telling, and really how it kind of broadens that aspect without really that much work.

Right. I mean, it's usually pretty easy to find somebody that's willing to tell their story and share the world. Yeah. And Reddit counts. Reddit is reading the room. You know, I worked with a big consumer brand and I said, hey, guess, you know, I'm, you know, I guess, you know, I looked at all their, their, their backlinked profiles and traffic. And I said, guess, you know, and audience engagement, guess were your biggest audience is?

And they said, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, you know, Reddit is the pulse. Reddit is a room full of graduates, you know. Do you like us? Tell us about it. It's not even on prompting. What do you think about us right now? Like, if they're not paying attention to, you pray, Perry, you're calling it the rank and file, but everyday individuals that just either have mistrust or don't.

have a reason to trust, we've got a fundamental problem that hasn't seemed to go away or budged at all. No, I think that's right. Reddit doesn't suffer fools either. They are brutally honest and they can smell marketing from a mile away and they don't let you get away with it, which is why it's such a good barometer for what, you know, what's really in the zeitgeist, I guess, at the moment. And there's a lot of other pockets of influence, too, that you could kind of measure that stuff. And there's all kinds of ways, including share of voice and, you know, positive, negative. neutral. There's a bunch of scoring tools that we in PR and other professions use. And I know that the negatives on those two companies we're talking about today in particular are really, really high

for the reasons that we're discussing today. And when we talk about what fixes it, it's empathy for their audiences. I think they have none, or at least they show a very small amount of it. They need to show a heck of a lot more. And I think in terms of, you know, other guidance, how do you fix this thing is it's time for some radical transparency around what these companies are doing and what they're building versus throwing out this sort of promiseware and big, grandiose, scary-ass stuff. Like, tell us what you're actually working on, where are you actually at today, and what are you doing to safeguard our kids from it?

What are you doing to safeguard people from losing their jobs? What are you doing for responsible, you know, capitalism with this stuff and not, you know, creating these super villains who are using this technology to, like, do really, bad shit. Like, that's what scares people. And I think if they begin to sort of take these things one by one and do it earnestly, show the data, have the receipts to back up what they're trying to do to make these things help the world be a better place, I think that goes a heck of a long way toward engendering the kind of trust that we're talking about today. And I think that they're just, they're not up for it yet because they're still chasing dollars for IPOs.

And IPOs are happening live as we speak too, right? And so kind of going back. back to that fix and, you know, reaching the actual audience, right? Reddit is incredible. I think everybody here uses it. Why not do an AMA session? Ask Me Anything session where, you know, you actually say, hey, exactly, right? You say, hey, I'm Anthropic or I'm chat GPT. You know, how do we help you trust us more and, right?

And maybe get and do a campaign or an add around that too, because the challenges, as you were sharing, Kerry, is there isn't the safeguard And, you know, if we're talking about it in like cartoon terms, the people who have access and who are really using, you know, AI right now are the kind of super villain high tech big companies. And if AI is learning from us and if it's learning from that, the everyday person is forgotten. And it's actually important for, you know, everybody else to actually use it so that it doesn't become this beast that kind of forgets us. Or it doesn't place these staples. We're not a part of these conversations. And so I think sharing that with the public and saying, you know, everybody's aware that AI isn't going anywhere, but finding places to safeguard and build that transparency internally on what you're doing.

And I think it's tricky when you are talking about IPOs because you don't want the competitors to steal from you. Fine. We understand that. But if you can actually share what you're doing to actually save or help and support us, as you were saying, Perry, will go a long, long way. And I think doing an AMA, Reddit, something where you're actually speaking to real people about what their actual concerns are outside of kind of the tech ecosystem will go, will be huge. So they're going to go into a quiet period before their IPOs. That's how it works. There's a period of time where you can't, you know, pollute the, the markets thinking about your products and services. Before they get to that quiet period, they need to be loud as hell about the things you just said, Chino, and the things that we're recommending today.

get loud out there and stake their ground in a more sort of egalitarian way. You know, the Ronald Reagan thing used to be trust but verify. That doesn't work in this scenario. There is no trust. They need to verify with radical transparency, and that may lead to trust. But for right now, they don't have it. Yeah, I also would caution that oversharing, right, creates noise, which also erodes trust. So it's not that I don't disagree about transparency in general, but it's the type of transparency

because a lot of these companies and not just Open AI and, you know, anthropic, there's many companies that do this. They use selective transparency. And we all know about that, right? Where they choose what they're going to share with you. And that's not what I'm talking about because what I'm saying is that as a customer, I don't necessarily want more. information. I want relevant information. I want what can I trust in this process and who can I trust? When do I need to double check? And what tends to be going wrong here and how are you planning to fix it and what are you doing to safeguard me, right? And my information. And I do think that's the thing that it feels, Perry, to your point, it's like there's like some stuff going on,

but it's almost like, look over here, look over here. Don't worry about this other stuff that's getting, you know, regulators are all over us for due diligence for IPOs. And, you know, they're going to have to go through all these processes. And they're not going to talk about that, right? They're going to talk about, oh, yeah, we are transparent. We're doing this for you. But again, as a user, I feel like, you know, I am still skeptical of what they mean by transparency

versus what I need from transparency. Yeah. If we start seeing these feel good. campaigns with people, and there's, you know, one's got a grandma in Pittsburgh who made her a 90-year-old grandma, who great-grandmother, who improved her bowling score because she used, you know, Claude or Chattee. It's just a case of one-upsmanship. Then the other company has to say, well, we have a room full of grandmas. And they all did, you know, this incredible public service campaign, you know, like they all did a give-back effort. And it's, none of it would seem authentic. Like,

they really have to dig deep to find the actual rationale behind flipping a switch and saying, no, no, we are people now. We care about people now. Because if it's just like, we're, you know, these are real stories. Like, they could both manufacture real stories pretty quick. The user bases are huge. Right. So how do you keep from that just being another ploy in the vein of what they've already been doing? But now they're just, now they're like, okay, we're about people. Now we're about people. I think it's really more, of the efficacy. Like, I get your point there and you don't, like, yeah,

you can pull on the heartstrings and have grandmas and like puppies and how you help all these wonderful, you know, like soft and warm and fuzzy things. For me, it's like, from a PR standpoint, it's practical real world application, right? The things that you can verticalize for people in their real lived lives. Example I just thought of as we were talking is,

I'm a golfer, you might not have guessed. I'm a golfer and I was, looking for new golf clubs. I have a golf simulator in my house, and I'm able to track the swing speed and a bunch of different metrics just when I take swings. I took all that data and plugged it into, it was actually Chad GPT, and said, I'm, this is my age, this is my swing speed, this is my handicap, et cetera, et cetera. What shaft could I buy for my club to improve the distance off the T in my accuracy? That was it. And it went through its computational algorithmic math. and explained in great detail that I was riveted by because I love this sport,

why it chose the shaft that it chose. Now, I went and got those clubs. I hit the ball 30 yards further than I ever have off the T, and my shot dispersion is amazing. I'm keeping in the fairway, all because I took data, plugged it into this AI, and it tailored a solution for me on a topic that I'm passionate as hell about. So I'm stressing that, yes, be loud, but be loud in constructive, applicable ways to people

who will feel the meaning in their real lives. None of this syrupy bullshit that is like obviously designed to like, you know, tug at the heartstrings. I'm talking about efficacy that will improve your actual life, your passion, your hobby, your job, your parenthship, like all the things that people care about. And again, that takes a shit. to work. But I think it's worth doing because that's how you're going to reach the audiences that you need to convert. And so going on to the kind of like the, you know, not just, you know,

putting a sugarcoat on it. I think it is again going back to like speaking to real people and Reddit and saying, what is it? Like what do you want to hear in terms of the transparency and showing that, right? Doing a behind the scenes like, you know, we ask these questions. Here were the four kind of main themes of concern, whether it was safeguarding and your information, how we're protecting you from losing your jobs, X, Y, and Z, whatever the five main themes are, and then saying, okay, great, then here's how we're actually doing it, right? Again, analysis paralysis is real. We can't overexpose too much information and then because we don't trust that either, but looking at whatever those top three or four themes are that the people, real people,

are saying, hey, I don't want to use AI because I'm afraid of this. Can you actually answer this? And if it's an AMA, if it's a robot, however you're doing that, whether it's an ad, whether it's more articles in the cut where it's real people talking about it, that is what need both companies for their benefit, need to work together in some way and do that. Or one of them just needs to because at the end of the day, there's really only two real players at the end with this.

And so if one of them can do this, when we're talking about market share as a brand, the person that's going to do that first, or sorry, the company, not the people that are going to do that first is who we're going to trust. So, you know, you can become Googlable and become a verb if you're kind of first to actually caring about what the humans are saying. Otherwise, you're kind of screwing each other over. I can't tell you how many people I've talked to that are in their 50s, early 50s, mid-50s, that say, I wish I could have fucking retired before AI King because I cannot deal with learning

all this stuff and I'm scared. I'm going to lose my job. I wish I could have just, I wish this stuff just came 10 years after I was done working so that I could just sit back and watch the chaos versus having to be thrown into the maelstrom of this stuff. So many people are, I'm talking corporate professionals, you know, CMOs and people that I talk to all the time, they are saying, I just wish this stuff came five years later. So I could have gracefully exited without having to change my whole world based on this thing.

And that's a problem. Or it's also an opportunity, right? Because that represents a great swath of human beings that are the drivers of these decisions about AI. So maybe that's a layer of folks that should be sort of center of target for the outreach for AI companies, particularly because a lot of those folks have kids who are about the college age I mentioned earlier that are about to enter the workforce. And gee, wouldn't it be good if mom and dad were getting savvy and feeling comfortable with AI could help those kids who are about to enter college? Like, that's a virtuous cycle that I think it would be tough to argue would be beneficial. Well, and I know that you all understand this.

I know Aaron knows this better than most, you know, around brand and marketing. It's about the customer segment and understanding the profile of those customers. And so, Perry, you bring up a great example of there's this whole swath of it's generational, right, of leaders. and people that have been in the workforce, whether it's, you know, white call or blue call or whatever, that haven't really engaged or really haven't, you know, they feel like it's been put upon them. They haven't really accepted that. And so there's that whole change management with AI and where it's going to go. But I also want to bring up the other thing is there's also, you know, where trust is one and lost is when there's difficulties, right? So that's the other

thing that I think that all of the AI companies could do a little better is really in very simple behavioral language, let us know when there's a limitation, right? Like I had this happen recently. I was sharing this with the panel earlier. I did I put something into it wasn't chat GPT, it was Claude. And I asked for actually some AI modules about agentic AI. I wanted to do some research on that. And I said, I need 12 modules, you know, 45 minutes each, free, blah, blah, blah, blah, like multimedia, because I, I'm a little ADHD. And they were, and so they gave me 12 modules and I was like, oh, great. And so I did the first one.

I loved it. It was great. It was, you know, it was a YouTube video, da, da, da, da, da, da. The second one I clicked on it didn't go anywhere. It was fake. And that it was like, you know, a Harvard business review thing, you know? So I was like, you know, then I type it in Google to see it back. And that wasn't even a thing.

So I went back to Claude. I used the same thread, a prompt. And I was like, these are not valid. Like, can you check all the links, all the, all the modules that they're recent and that they're valid? And it came back and it said, good catch. Okay, that doesn't make me feel any better, right? So what I'm saying is like, if you have a limitation, give me a path forward. Don't just block me by saying this and try to appease me.

like they were like oh yeah good catch right i was like what is the plan moving forward what is the fix right and or if they say we're just this requires a higher model than you know then you're in right now you're in like the clod freeware or whatever i was in um and so we're limited to be able to give you provide you that information of course then they try to upsell you and say oh why don't you try to get into the next level, right? You know, Claude 2.0, and I'm like, I don't want to do that, right? So, again, I feel like there's that opportunity as well,

is that when there are instances of that, because that is, again, eroding trust of people who don't use it very often, when you use it for something, and then it actually doesn't deliver. And what a lot of people don't understand is AI is there to make you feel good. So it tries to tell you what it thinks you want to hear.

And it does, you know, you have to put into your settings, like be a contrarian, you know, challenge the norm. Like I've, you know, I've done things in there as well where I put something in there. And then it gives me an answer. And I'm like, don't be a sycophant. Do not be a sycophant. Right. Yeah. We've all dealt with that.

And I mean, there's still hallucinations. There's still links. I've, I've had yelling matches where I say, stop giving me these links. I've already, you know, I've told you. I'm handsome, but I'm not that handsome. I told you to train on this skill. You'll come back with advice and you'll say, that's a bad idea. And I'll say, you're right.

That is a bad idea. You know, I agree with you. Great catch. Good catch. So, yeah, it's the people-pleasing aspect of it that if it agrees with everything you say, that does a road trust, especially, you know, Perry and, you know, we're probably more savvy users than most. We all know our way around these systems.

Some people don't. Some people are for good reasons sitting on the sidelines. But part of the winning the trust is, yeah, owning the platform limitations, owning where we are. I think getting some of that, I mentioned it earlier, but some of that awe and appreciation of look what, look at the age we're living in. Like in our lifetimes, this is happening. We wanted this for, again, maybe I was not. not us personally, but human evolution, we've wanted and just dreamed about and written science fiction about what's happening now. Why do we not even have a fundamental just appreciation for

this moment we're living in? And then what are we going to do by? How are we going to handle it ethically and responsibly? And if we're going to compete, you know, what are the rules of engagement and how do we do that in a healthy and productive way? And how do we do that in a way where we don't cannibalize the entire industry? So we'll get to our fix. Before we do that, I just, I want to throw one thing in there is, are they both too big to fail? Like, is there, are we getting to a VHS beta situation where maybe one becomes behind the scenes utility and one becomes the public face of things? Or one screws up so bad that they just go away?

Or are we, these are the Titans? I know there's other players, but are these the two Titans that we're going to be with for the foreseeable future? I think we're looking at Yahoo and Google. I feel like it's Yahoo and Google. Google, right? And at the end of the day, who's going to win is who's actually going to follow and listen to what this podcast is saying today? Because at the end of the day, AI, as we've mentioned, isn't going anywhere. And I think, you know, going back to what we're talking about of some of the

hiccups and the learning, you, it's a language learning model, meaning it's constantly learning and evolving. And I think if both companies aren't able to actually train and teach, um, their user base, whether that's net noon user who has no idea what AI is or, you know, people who are deep in the tech world and you use like 20 different agents, right? There should be a section within kind of the platform saying, you know, here's some of the watchouts. Here's, again, what we love to say, a playbook on how to use this and how to just kind of fact check so that you can ensure trust and say, you know, we're not perfect. We're working on it.

We're learning. And here's what you need to do. And if you can actually have that visible in the prompt and say, you know, remember the little paper clip on Word, like a little paper cup or something where just the tips and tricks of how to actually use it will actually help build on the eroding trust when we're finding challenges within the AI that the answer is giving us. Let's roll with it. Let's fix it. So we've talked about what both companies can do. We've pointed out. You know, there's a big trust, and there's a trust erosion. I didn't say it, but they took the same poll that I pointed out earlier in 2021. And there was a higher trust of AI back in 2021 than there is now.

So we're going the wrong way. And these companies, they know it. They have to know it, especially if they want their valuations up, if they want market share, if they want to be the future of all this. They've got to turn things around like now. So how are they going to do that? They're going to ask us. ask us the end user they're going to say what do you need you know what have we how where have we let you

down um you are a partner in this we're building this future together what do you want from us what do you want this to look like and this could be i don't know what all the executions are but you know we'll do the redid amas we'll do we'll do the commercials with the puppies and the grandmas they will but maybe they're you know the more you humanize it and the more you tell those real stories not about how AI took my job, but how AI got me a job. And it's not just one upsmanship or one company's trying to outdo the other, but they really find their voice in their lane where they're distinguishable. And then you can choose, oh, I do like one or the other. I like them both because they're both responsible companies and they're both doing AI development and roll out the right

way. And I'm with both of them. But I'm just going to pick one or the other. Or I'm going to have two subscriptions. No big deal. They're both priced reasonably enough. You can you can use the free ones or you can pay the, you know, the, the, the, the, the $20 ticket price right now. If there's value for each, that's, it's well worth it. And then, you know, they have to compete. They have to act like competitors in a competitive marketplace. If it's a zero-sum game, like someone's got to race at the top. But if they do it just to, just to point out each other's flaws and just to point out how bad the other's AI is, it's just going to come back to bite them. So, I'd say be competitors, but be, I don't know if there's a word for it, but align competitors

or just agree to agree on certain things for the betterment of everybody and for the long-lasting viability of this industry. Because if we all get sick of AI, it's just going to be, it's not going to go away. But it might become more of a utility and it might drive systems and machines and architecture and, you know, behind the scenes components, but we might just say, look, we tried. Human experiment. It failed.

We don't want it anymore. Ducked up go is having a moment. It's the last thing I'll throw out because they, it's a browser, right? It's like doesn't have any market share compared to the big ones, but they've said they're having a moment because they've said, look, in our browser, you can turn AI off. If you don't want it, you don't have to have it.

And people are flocking to it. Like they have the option. went way up. So, um, anyway, don't, don't fatigue us with, with the battle you have going on between the two of you, work it out between yourselves, figure out how to play nice, figure out how to win us back and ask us what we want, you know, make us a participant in where we go from here. Um, Melissa, did we fix it? I think we gave them some great pathways forward to fix it. I think one of the things that I've always said to my CX operations teams is that we're there to deliver on promises. So what you would just mention, so if their stories, customer testimonials, trust stories,

are different than actually the way the AI product behaves, users will believe the product, not the press and the marketing. So that's a very important point. It also kind of gets to, you know, you mentioned about the competitive nature of where we're at right now. The second you win in this arena and this ecosystem by making your rival look unsafe or not as good, you actually make the whole category look unsafe to the end user. So I think those are just a couple watchouts I would have. And I'm glad, Erin, that you brought that up because I do believe the competitive marketplace, you know, you have to include Gemini and all the other

Claude, everybody else, right? It's really, it's very rich. And I think Perry brought up a great idea. Some of these folks should really kind of look to figure out what category should they be in. Because maybe they should be really focused on, you know, helping households figure out how to run a household or, you know, working in the education arena. And I know there's, you know, Magic School Bus AI and all these places that are trying to get into that world.

But like, maybe that's a way in which to broaden. and really get your audience, but really be focused and really great at what you do. Because starring in your role is important, and it feels kind of like everybody's trying to be the quarterback here. Good point. Yeah. So we'll add it to what you said, Melissa, keep finding differentiation so we can tell them apart. And maybe, again, you know, at the price points they're at now, maybe we use them both. But we'll, we're encouraging them to be friendly competitors and, and, and, and, and, all of us into in a really welcoming way and a really listening way invite us in and say, look, we're partnered.

We're you part of this too. It's not just us building this for you and then you come get it. Whatever comes next, you're part of it. Chino, do we fix it? I think we gave them some really good solutions. At the end of the day, AI will succeed based on how they make people feel. And to do, to make people feel great, you need to actually speak to the people. people that you're talking to, whether that is a new user, current, you know, hyper users

and everybody else in between, speak to them and ask what they need in terms of finding out the transparency and the secrets people are looking for. And I think by being able to differentiate yourself, because there's a lot of different options, I do think that we have fixed AI and getting them solutions. All right. Perfect. Thank you, Chino. Pair, Do we teach them anything? Do we teach ChatGBT and Cloud and the companies behind them? Anything they can use for self-preservation and category validation and just making us feel better about this whole thing? Yeah, you know, I think we collectively gave them the path, whether they choose to take it remains to be seen.

And I say that against the backdrop of pending IPOs, which we've already covered, and the looming reality of AGI, which is artificial, general intelligence, which changes the conversation radically once again. But I do think if they are open and receptive to hearing what we've said and implement those changes, they will bring a lot more users along with them in a positive and meaningful way, rather than further alienating and scaring people half to death. So I hope they listen because the receipts are what people want to see. They want to feel empathy that actually the giants making these things and making billions of dollars care about their actual users. They want to make sure that their kids aren't going to be assisted in when they make bad decisions, whether it's committing suicide or committing crimes by using these tools. They want to feel like these tools are their maybe not their friend, but certainly their aides rather than going against them and making their lives appreciably worse.

So do we fix them? I think we gave them a path. Did they take it? Who the hell knows? Well, thanks, Perry. I hope they are listening. We look at our listener engagement. We know that companies do listen to us. So hopefully they listen to this one. That's going to do it for this episode. A we fixed it. You're welcome. A big thank you to Perry Hedrick from CrackleP.R. For helping us make sense of this whole convoluted situation. Perry, if a good tech company wants us all to know that they're a good tech company, how would they get a hold of you and how can we all keep up with what you're doing? Sure. So you can follow me on LinkedIn. My name is. Perry Hedric right there in the tile. I have a decent

following and I share stuff there every day. So you can get fresh insights just about daily for me. But also the under embargo podcast, which I mentioned at the onset where I'm co-hosting with Becca Chambers of Scale Ventures. And then finally, cracklepr.com is the website where you can do deep dives on everything that we've done for a bunch of tech companies. We don't work with Anthropic. We don't work with any of the companies mentioned today. But I'm,

open to it. Thanks, Perry. That's awesome. Thanks, Melissa. Thanks, Chino. Thanks to you, our listeners. Before we go, I asked Chatchip-T to describe Claude in one sentence, and this is what it said. Said, Claude is the AI equivalent of the smartest kid in class who always follows the rules, raises their hand before speaking, and occasionally reminds the teacher they forgot to assign homework. So, of course, I asked Claude to clap back about Chat-E-P-T, and this is what it said, So ChatGPT is the minivan of AI. It's reliable, widely adopted, and just exciting enough to get you where you're going. So there you have it.

If ChatGPT and Claude can both agree on one thing, it's that we have the best listeners out there. If you want to share what you think of us, we'd love to hear from you. Reach out to us at we fixeditpod.com. Let's chat. And we will see you next time. We hope you enjoyed this episode of We Fixed It. You're welcome. We go into every episode somewhat cold, and nothing we say should be construed as legal

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