“There’s only 28 hours in a day, and I’m working all of them.”

- The lament of most business professionals these days.

This week on The Digital Download, we’re tackling the overwhelming demands that business professionals face and exploring a radical approach to managing your time. Our guest, TJ Walker, Founder and CEO of Ultamize, brings an intriguing solution with his new interactive video clone, designed to help you handle more responsibilities in less time. Walker is a personal development leader with over 1.3 million students on Udemy, and he’s trained top global leaders in media and communication.

We’ll dive into questions such as:

* How can you effectively duplicate yourself to boost productivity?

* What are the limits (if any) to using a digital clone in your day-to-day?

* How does this technology impact personal branding and communication?

* What challenges come with integrating a clone into professional workflows?

With decades of experience coaching high-profile leaders, TJ brings a fresh perspective on how digital innovation can enhance business communication and efficiency. Whether you're curious or skeptical about this concept, you’ll come away with insights that could transform how you approach time management and productivity.

We strive to make The Digital Download an interactive experience. Bring your questions. Audience participation is highly encouraged!

This week we were joined by our Special Guest -

• TJ Walker, Founder and CEO of Ultamize

This week's Host was -

• Rob Durant, Founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Panelists included -

• Tim Hughes, CEO & Co-founder of a DLA Ignite

• Adam Gray, Co-founder of a DLA Ignite, and

• Bertrand Godillot, Managing Partner, Odysseus & Co, a proud DLA Ignite partner

Transcript of The Digital Download 2024-09-27

Rob Durant [00:00:00]:

Good afternoon, and good day wherever you may be joining us from. Welcome to another edition of the Digital Download, the longest running weekly business talk show on LinkedIn Live. Now globally syndicated on TuneIn Radio through IBGR, the world's number one business talk, news, and strategy radio network. Today, we're solving one of your biggest problems. You don't need more time, just a clone. We have a special guest, TJ Walker, to help us with the discussion. Founder and CEO of Ultimize, TJ is a personal development leader with over 1,300,000 students on Udemy, and he's trained top global leaders in media and communication. But before we bring TJ on, let's go around the set and introduce everyone.

Rob Durant [00:00:54]:

While we're doing that, why don't you in the audience reach out to a friend, ping them, and have them join us? We strive to make the digital download an interactive experience, and audience participation is highly encouraged. Alright. With that introductions, Bertrand, would you kick us off, please?

Bertrand Godillot [00:01:16]:

Of course. My name, thank you, Rob. My name is Godillot. I am the founder and managing director of Odysseus and Co, a very proud DLA Ignite partner. We're trying to we're actually helping companies create more conversations.

Rob Durant [00:01:33]:

Excellent. Thank you very much. Adam.

Adam Gray [00:01:37]:

Hi, everybody, and thank you, Rob, as always. I'm Adam. I'm, cofounder of DLA Ignite. And,

Adam Gray [00:01:45]:

I don't know

Adam Gray [00:01:45]:

about you guys, but the, the intro to this about cloning yourself, that really piqued my interest. And I'm I'm, I'm very interested to see what exactly TJ means by that.

Rob Durant [00:02:00]:

Excellent. This should be an interesting conversation. Thank you, Adam. Tim, welcome.

Tim Hughes [00:02:07]:

Thank you, and welcome everybody. My name is Tim Hughes. I'm the CEO and cofounder of DLA Ignite. And and, actually, there was actually, a package about, a cloning on the BBC news, at lunchtime today. So, I'm really interested to, hear what, T. J. Says. And I'm famous for writing the book, social selling techniques to influence buyers and change makers.

Rob Durant [00:02:34]:

Excellent. Thank you very much. As I said oh, I suppose I'll introduce myself as well. I'm Rob Durant, founder of Flywheel Results, a proud DLA Ignite partner, and I'm not quite famous for writing the book, The Social Enablement Blueprint. Stop pitching and start selling.

Adam Gray [00:02:55]:

Not quite famous yet.

Rob Durant [00:02:57]:

Yet. There we go. This week on the digital download, we're speaking with TJ Walker. With decades of experience coaching high profile leaders, TJ brings a fresh perspective on how digital innovation can enhance business communication and efficiency. Let's bring him on. TJ, welcome. Welcome, TJ.

TJ Walker [00:03:24]:

Good to be with you. Thanks for having me.

Rob Durant [00:03:26]:

TJ, let's start by having you tell us a little bit more about you, your background, and what led you to where you are today.

TJ Walker [00:03:34]:

So I've been coaching people how to communicate effectively for 40 years, and that includes everyone from presidents of countries, prime ministers, Nobel Peace Prize winners, Miss Universes, and podcasters, like you guys as they start their career. And, usually, what I do is face to face, 1 on 1, video camera in in hand, highly personalized, where I get people on camera a dozen times a day, and they get to the point where they love how they look, how they sound, and it's very transformational. And then back in 1998, I started doing online training, online video courses. Turns out, way too early. I lost 100 of 1,000 of dollars for years getting into online training too soon. But finally, after about 15 years, it kicked off. I now have actually more than 2,000,000 online students. That's great because it's scalable.

TJ Walker [00:04:32]:

I can help anyone around the world. It's very inexpensive. I can be asleep. They can be awake someplace else. The problem with it is it's too passive. People can sort of sit back and watch a video, check a box while they're checking email, but they don't really get better. So I've always dreamed of how can I have the best of 2 worlds, the best of something truly interactive, and yet all the cost savings and the time savings of of something in the digital world? And that's what brought me to this cloning technology where now someone can come in and just say, hey. I gotta go on Rob Durant's podcast.

TJ Walker [00:05:15]:

I'm nervous. How can I come across more comfortable? And my my clone will work with them on what they want. It can actually rehearse them. So it's really bringing together the best of both worlds, and it's video. My clone can tell you if you're wearing something distracting. If I'm wearing a baseball hat right now, my clone would say, why are you wearing a baseball cap? It looks silly. And it can coach you on your messages as well. So that's what I'm so excited about, is it really is using AI technology in a way that's personalizing conversations, not just creating more content.

Rob Durant [00:05:54]:

Alright. So you've given us an idea of how to duplicate ourselves with a clone. Talk us through the process a little bit more. What do you mean by, cloning yourself?

TJ Walker [00:06:09]:

So I'm not talking about a robot that walks around, like, you know, lost in space. We're talking about something that stays in the digital realm. So what I have done and what is now easy to do, through consumer platforms, and I happen to use the consumer platform, delphi.ai. I have no formal association with them. You create an account, and they have free accounts you can start with. And then I build the brain of my clone. I do it by just clicking on files in my computer. So every book of mine you see behind me is uploaded instantly into my brain.

TJ Walker [00:06:47]:

Every video on my YouTube channel is uploaded. Every video from my 250 online courses is uploaded. So now there is a database, a digital brain, that if you ask my clone any question, it can speak using my voice, my image, and answering pretty much the way I would answer. Sometimes it's a little bit worse. I'll be candid with you, but sometimes it's actually better because my clone has a perfect memory. If you ask me, who gave the best Oscar acceptance speech and why in the last decade? I've had to really think about it, and it would take me a while. If you ask my clone, it'll go right to a particular year, probably say Matthew McConaughey and list 10 things he did well in that speech. So in some ways, the digital video clone is actually superior to a live human being.

TJ Walker [00:07:47]:

But I wanna stress it's not about getting rid of me. It's about increasing the time I spend face to face and making it more meaningful. If I have a prospect come and spend half an hour on my clone asking basic questions, then when we meet face to face in real life or on Zoom, there's already a connection. They already feel comfortable with me. They already have gotten a sense of my expertise. So it it really enhances live human connection, which I think is what we all want.

Rob Durant [00:08:23]:

Absolutely.

Bertrand Godillot [00:08:25]:

So so quick question, TJ, just about the process of, training your clone. Is there is there a process for training your clone? You mean, apart from, you know, uploading your books and and and, you know, giving access to your videos and your image, your voice, etcetera. Have you tried it yourself? Do you have interesting conversations with your clone?

TJ Walker [00:08:50]:

This may sound, weird, and it may sound, narcissistic. Yes. I talk to my clone every day. Excellent.

Bertrand Godillot [00:09:00]:

That's right.

TJ Walker [00:09:00]:

I will have my clone say, I'll say, TJ, give me my morning programming, reminding me of all the habits I wanna do today. And it'll say, okay. TJ, remember, keep a large glass of water next to you at all times and and keep away anything with sugar or soda in it. It'll say, TJ, keep a glass of green tea next to you at all times so that you stay properly hydrated. So I use it every single day, multiple times a day. Now you don't have to, obviously. You might not want to, but it it is there. Now as far as programming your your clone, at the again, the platform I'm using is a consumer platform because full disclosure, I am not good with technology.

TJ Walker [00:09:45]:

I don't know a gigahertz from a megabyte from a Python. All I really know how to do is type, click, upload. And so I wait I didn't go out and hire 14 developers and raise $2,000,000 of venture capital to build this myself. I am using a consumer platform called Delphi. And there may be others out there. I haven't found anything else that is truly interactive. There's plenty of platforms that will create a text chatbot for you. For me, that's uninteresting.

TJ Walker [00:10:16]:

Those have been around for, you know, decades. There's plenty of platforms that will clone your voice. Can I think of a big bank or phone company doing that? That's not interesting. Every day, all of you are getting emails, I'm sure, about platforms that will create a digital clone for you where you have to create the speech in advance, and it will read the speech. That doesn't interest me. What I'm interested in, what I've created is something that's truly interactive where someone can come on, and my clone comes up, and they start talking about their agenda. And my clone talks to them. It's not doing a prerecorded video.

TJ Walker [00:10:58]:

It is using the power of artificial intelligence and large large language models to then have what, by all accounts, appears to be a live interactive conversation. But, again, I'm always disclosing that it's a clone. I'm not trying to fool anyone. My clone says right out of the gate, this is a digital clone. So there's there's no confusion. But you can, in fact, program the clone. So I have a place in my clone studio where I give it instructions, and I say act like a coach helping people in their communication skills and personal development skills. Be positive.

TJ Walker [00:11:38]:

Be uplifting. Be personable. Be friendly. I'm getting it specific lessons. I can actually decide how long I want the answers to be from short to long. I can change how I want my voice to sound. So I have recorded I've taken numerous recordings of my own voice Mhmm. And played with it to get it to the point where it sounds, if not a 100% like me, about 95% like me.

TJ Walker [00:12:06]:

Sometimes it's a little faster than my normal speech pattern, but most of the time people say, wow. That sounds just like you. And the video, it's not some cartoon image. It's video of me right here in this very same studio, with some movement. It's not frozen and stiff. It's the head is moving. The hands are moving. Is it a 100% lifelike? No.

TJ Walker [00:12:31]:

But it's pretty close, and it's getting better every day. So you have the power to control things. And, for example, if you are a financial planner, you could program into your clone. If someone asked me about what stocks to buy today, tell them I'm not gonna talk about that. If you're a medical doctor and someone wants to know, should I take this prescription or this, you know, this over the counter thing, you can program it to say, look. You need to call my office and talk to a real doctor now. So you have a lot of controls over this.

Bertrand Godillot [00:13:07]:

Sounds great, really. Did you have any experience where your, your actually your student or your, your client, actually notices a difference in what I mean is that, what the clone would have said is actually not exactly what you would have said or what you

TJ Walker [00:13:28]:

Sure. The the the clone is not the clone is not perfect. The particular platform I'm in, any conversation someone has, I see it in the sort of the insides, the guts of the program on and I can access online. So I can see an answer. I can then edit it and change it. So the next time someone asks the same question, it gets the response that I've edited. There's also a a system in the plan I use where my revised answer can be emailed to the the user if they provided an email. Now if someone goes to my clone at tjwalker.ai, they don't have to even give their name or email for the first five exchanges.

TJ Walker [00:14:15]:

But I wanna stress, this is not just about answering questions. You can get a question answered on Quora. You can get a question answered on, you know, Wikipedia or Google. The real beauty of the clone is the experience it can create. My clone, since my background is on training and rehearsing people before speeches and interviews, my clone can actually simulate doing a live interview on CNBC or this show, and it can then give you critiques. And then as soon as it's done, you'll have a video of it. You can watch it again if you want to. You can learn from it.

TJ Walker [00:14:53]:

So that's what I think is so valuable, is it can create unique transformational experiences for users. Because if someone's coming to you and wants advice on how to change their their copywriting for their newsletter, if if you can actually give them feedback just as you would on a live Zoom call, but charge them a lot less and it now fits their budget and they're doing it, they wanna do it when you're asleep, then everyone can win.

Tim Hughes [00:15:25]:

And what's the feedback been on on this, TJ?

TJ Walker [00:15:29]:

I mean, the number one piece of feedback I get from people who use it, especially from people I show it to in person just on my cell phone, is I sort of bow gel. Like, wow. I thought this was still decades away. This is amazing. I gotta get this for my own business. Because I think people can realize that most of us who are professionals, we spend a tremendous amount of time every day or at least every week or every month talking, saying the same things to people. I I bet each one of you could sit down with a pad and pen right now, come up with 10 questions that you have to answer several times a month, if not a week, from clients and prospects. If you could say it once and they could hear your clone talk, that way when they actually talk to you face to face, you can have higher level conversations.

TJ Walker [00:16:27]:

Again, what what gets lost in all this is people think, oh, I'll just make a clone and I'll sip margaritas on the beach the rest of my life. That's not what it's about. It's about empowering you to help people at a greater level and a higher level. And instead of maybe having to spend 8 hours a day on Zoom calls, maybe you do 3 and a half hours. And the rest of the time, you can spend, you know, writing books or preparing keynote speeches or things where you can help more people at a deeper level.

Adam Gray [00:16:58]:

I I can absolutely see the value in this. And, oddly, every day this week, we have had a conversation very much along these lines about the power of AI and what it might be able to do. And the challenge that I can foresee with AI doing some of this stuff is where is the boundary between what you get AI to do and what you get yourself to do? So the sweeping generalization, people are lazy and want to do the minimum amount of work they possibly can. Like you said about, you know, I'll clone myself. I'll sit on the beach sipping margaritas. The money will start rolling in. And, I get that for some of the activities that I would do, for example, in terms of coaching people, there will be bits that are a reminder. You know? So like like you and don't forget your glass of water, TJ.

Adam Gray [00:17:50]:

Don't forget your your green tea, TJ. Don't forget to do this. You know? So so that kind of stuff. Now, obviously, those are very basic things, but there are more advanced things. So you might say to to everybody that you coach, right, before you begin to speak, and then begin because your voice is much more under control. So so that's something that you say to every single person that you ever work with, and that could easily be replaced. But there's other stuff, potentially, where I I don't want your clone to critique me. I want you to critique me.

Adam Gray [00:18:26]:

So I say to your clone, should I it's a white shirt or this is shirt. Okay. Now, actually, it's your input that I want. I don't want that input. So how how so how do we balance these two things?

TJ Walker [00:18:39]:

Mhmm. I think there's always gonna be a marketplace for people who want the higher end personalized service. That's always been the case. And there's always been a situation where people worry about, well, if I use this technology, people won't want me. I mean, I'm I'm old enough to remember back in the days, late seventies, early eighties, where a lot of people in my space would say, well, I'm not gonna write a book. Then who would ever hire me to do my day long seminar? And I I just think that's shortsighted. The more ways you have of reach reaching people, generally, it only increases the number of people who want personalized contact with you. There has never been more videos and books and tutorials on how to golf in the world than there are today, and yet high you know, really good coaches are in demand more than ever because people who have the money for it are going to want to have a personalized coach.

TJ Walker [00:19:39]:

It's never been easier to buy an Anthony Robbins book or video or speech, and yet he still fills stadiums with people spending as much as $5,000 who want the in person experience. So the history of technology is the more people can experience you in some digital format like, you know, people my daughter loves Taylor Swift, listens to it every day. She still wants me to pay $3,000 to take her to the concert in Miami next month. So I think it just it's it's not a matter of 1 or the other. It one builds upon the other. It builds interest in the other, in the live personalized experience, but it allows the creator, you, to be more selective, to figure out where you can focus your energies the most. And it also frees up some of your time to actually think of more expertise that you can share with people, whether it's in the form of a book or an online course. Because if you're just running around meeting to meeting all day long or Zoom call to Zoom call or in person workshop, it's very hard to really go deep and come up with new innovations.

TJ Walker [00:20:55]:

At least, I've found it to be that way.

Rob Durant [00:20:58]:

We have a question from the audience. Andrew Slesser asks, will there come to a point with digital clone and AI where it will give advice or agree to a deal that you would not give personally?

TJ Walker [00:21:12]:

Oh, sure. But you could make the same case anytime you've ever hired 1 employee. If you've ever had a sales rep working for you, there's a chance a sales an actual live human being might say something not the way you did. So it's not perfect. Nothing is perfect. Nothing is ever perfect, but it's a new technology. I'm old enough to remember back in the days when, you know, a phone was in the kitchen or in your office and had a call that you did this. There were no voice mails and no answering machines.

TJ Walker [00:21:45]:

And then people started using answering machines. And sometimes they sound a little awkward, but it was better than the old days when you had to call someone 10 times if they weren't home. So technology has advantages, but it's never perfect. I have videos of mine, old online courses. Some of them I did 15 years ago, and sometimes there's a in the audio, and the lighting isn't perfect. Does it represent me perfectly? No. But does it still help people, and does it make me money every day? Yes. So I don't think we can make, you know, the perfect the enemy of the good here.

TJ Walker [00:22:26]:

We shouldn't be doing that.

Rob Durant [00:22:28]:

So, TJ, I find myself saying very frequently, there's only 28 hours in a day, and I'm working all of them. So the thought of 2 or 3 of me cloning myself, fantastic. But then I pause. I have hesitations because I'm wondering how this technology will impact what I truly believe in personal branding and communication. Mhmm.

TJ Walker [00:22:56]:

And I think that anyone who really wants to build a personal brand is going to have a digital clone. I I'm gonna make a prediction right now. Every single person on LinkedIn today is going to have a digital clone in the future. Now I can't say it's gonna be in 6 months versus 6 years or 16 years. It takes a while for technologies to filter out there, But it is another tool for you to help people because the you know, someone watching this video a month later isn't really spending time with you face to face. These are digital representations of you that you could not have done 30, 40, 50 years ago. It's it's a technology. I mean, people used to be the first time someone heard a voice coming out of a phone, they thought it was evil spirits.

TJ Walker [00:23:52]:

So I I do wanna be very clear. Early adopters are going to get criticism. They're gonna get harsh criticism. This scares people. The CEO of the company that I use for my clone was on a major news network just the other day for a very straightforward product demonstration interview. Everything was positive. When you look at the comments, there were 3,500 comments. Every single one of them was negative.

TJ Walker [00:24:21]:

Every one of them was, oh, this is the end of the world. This is the end of time. Just as criminal, you should be put in jail. This is the sign of the a cop apocalypse. But it is totally consistent with how humans have always dealt with new technology. The very first movie that came out when people were sitting there and they saw the train coming on the screen, they jumped out of their chairs. They were scared. People thought that record player playing music was a sign of evil spirits in the room, and they would run out of the room.

TJ Walker [00:24:56]:

To this day, they are human beings in certain cultures that feel if you take a picture of them, you have robbed their soul and done something very harmful. So in every single roll out of new technology that represents any part of a person's voice, face, body, it always terrifies a lot of people eventually. And yet, you know, people who are anti clone now, you ask them, okay. Do you wanna give up your cell phone? Because that's artificial, you know, that, you know, some thought that was the devil's work initially. Oh, no. I'm not gonna give up my cell phone. So there's always this time of something going from seeming strange and bizarre to the point of, I can't imagine not having it, which is how most people would view a phone, a TV, digital music, and most other things we enjoy today.

Rob Durant [00:25:52]:

Are there ethical concerns about using a a digital clone to communicate or or represent myself?

TJ Walker [00:26:00]:

There's absolutely a lot of ethical concerns. So for starters, let people know they're talking to a clone. So my clone, the very first thing out of its mouth is, hi. I'm TJ's clone. How may I help you? It doesn't say, hi. I'm TJ and make people wonder. If you call my so my clone has a phone number and it has a WhatsApp. It says right at the beginning, disclosure, this is a digital clone.

TJ Walker [00:26:28]:

So that's one thing. Another thing is I think you should only clone yourself or if you're in an organization, someone who has specifically authorized you. We're going to see a lot of fraud. We saw it within the last 24 hours. Someone cloned the CEO of, I believe, Google and Apple claiming that their voice is endorsing some new product. So there's gonna be all sorts of fraud. It's happened in politics. This is a new technology.

TJ Walker [00:26:58]:

It's a powerful technology. With every technology, there's the potential for good or evil. I can use this pen to write something that's really helpful, or I can jab somebody's eyeball out and kill them. It's a technology. It's it is exactly the same thing with cloning technology. So there are lots of possibilities for abuse. I've actually started an organization, anyone interested in it, at tjwalker.ai, that's trying to promote ethics in digital cloning. I've come up with what I think are the 10 commandments for using clones ethically and responsibly.

TJ Walker [00:27:35]:

But let's think back. I mean, 30 years ago, you could have said, hey. You know, this whole Internet thing is gonna empower con men and fraud and email scams and princes from Nigeria. There's lots and lots of fraud coming, and you would have been exactly right. Does that mean we should go back in time and not have the Internet? I mean, I remember those days. You wanna get anything done, you had walk around the office, look for a piece of paper, look for a pen, look for a stamp, look for an envelope. Everything was really slow. Do we wanna go back to those days just because the Internet does have a lot of fraud? I don't think so.

TJ Walker [00:28:13]:

It's the exact same thing with digital clones. They're going to be unethical uses of it. There's going to be ethical positive uses, and billions of people are going to be helped because of digital clones that have been created to help them. And I think a lot of creators are going to benefit as well. Just as you benefit from the digital podcast you've created and the video show you've created. And you've all of you benefit from intellectual property you create that you email to people in your books and everything else, that's not you. It's a representation of you using technology. I mean, a book is a technology.

TJ Walker [00:28:55]:

A digital clone is a technology. I don't really think you can be against one without being against the other.

Tim Hughes [00:29:01]:

TJ, I think you're really responsible that, by actually giving those ten commandments around, the use of it. Do do you think that's 1 I I said earlier on that there was a, a piece on the BBC news at lunchtime today, and there was a classic example of an update of the Nigerian prince sending you an email saying you needed to get some money out of the country was which was there was a a voice clone, that had contacted, the finance director saying you needed to transfer $18,000 out of their bank account. So clearly, that's that that's gonna go on, and it's something that we need to to be aware of. Do do just changing just changing, you know, what you've done is that you've only ever used the IP, the intellectual property that you own, haven't you, in your clone? You haven't used anything else?

TJ Walker [00:29:56]:

Correct. So when someone asked the TJ Walker AI clone question, it's not pulling from the Internet. It's not pulling from what Dale Carnegie wrote in 1914 about how to be a good public speaker. It's pulling specifically from 15,000 files that were created by me, and it's got 12,500,000 words created by me. So it's pulling from that. But is it possible for someone to sheet and steal and upload everyone else's books on a particular subject. It yes. It is.

TJ Walker [00:30:34]:

It's also possible someone can write a book and steal other people's ideas and not give attribution. So like any technology, there are going to be opportunities for unethical use. Now the platform I'm using has something very clever. So I could upload a video interview that I did with with Rob or Tim, and I click a button, and it's only uploading my voice. It has learned my voice. I can also upload it in such a way so that if it does absorb an idea from you, it can't have it come out of my mouth without showing the citation and quoting you. So you can use it that way, just the way a real person would. All of you have given speeches where you've occasionally quoted another expert, that's considered fair use.

TJ Walker [00:31:29]:

You give attribution. You can actually train your clones to do that as well.

Tim Hughes [00:31:36]:

Do do you think that there needs to be, some sort of regulation at all by, governments or because there is some AI regulation going on with the US and the UK. But, I mean, what happens is it always that it trails behind the the the technology. Is this something do you think that we should regulate?

TJ Walker [00:31:56]:

Absolutely. It's in need of regulate. This is a powerful technology, and that's one of the things you you do see whether it's the CEO of OpenAI and others. I mean, people are saying, look. We know this is powerful. This needs to be regulated. It sure it certainly should be illegal to steal someone else's voice. Right now, you could get away with it.

Adam Gray [00:32:19]:

Yeah.

TJ Walker [00:32:20]:

And you could, you know, capture Taylor Swift's voice and monetize it. Maybe maybe it take a couple of weeks before they caught you and shut you down. I don't know. I mean, I I try to stay away from that and I keep my

Tim Hughes [00:32:34]:

life But you can but you can go to Taylor Swift show with your mobile phone Yeah. And record it. Sure. And then sell it as a

TJ Walker [00:32:45]:

Again, that's I mean, you could do that now and record it and sell it as a digital download Yeah. 2. So I I wanna stress with every single technology, there is a potential for abuse, for fraud, for con artistry. This is no different except for the fact that it's more powerful. Here's how it's being used already. Bertrand, let's say you have a 19 year old daughter in college, and she goes off on a a trip for the weekend with friends, and somebody knew that. They could they could steal her voice, copy her voice, and then call you at 2 in the morning saying, hey, dad. I'm in trouble.

TJ Walker [00:33:29]:

I'm in jail. You gotta send me $5,000 right now. These people are gonna attack me and it's gonna be ugly. And it's her voice, and it's your own daughter's voice, and she sounds panicked. And she's giving you the information of where does Venmo 5,000 up. Things like that have happened. They're going to happen more. So this cloning technology can be a more powerful tool than just an email another email newsletter from a Nigerian prince.

TJ Walker [00:34:00]:

So, yeah, I do think it needs to be watched and the BBC covers that and they should. Here's where I think your audience is different because the mainstream media, all the algorithms, all of the financial incentives are to talk about the scariest thing for fraud, for abuse, and it deserves coverage. But the vast, vast majority of positive ways of using this technology aren't getting talked about now because it's not sexy for the news media. It's much sexier to talk about the fraud, the abuse, the scams. But I know your audience is very savvy, and they're looking for ways of helping their their audience, their community, their customers. Let me give you a perfect example. Just a few days ago, I had a young woman in Uganda. She is 23 years old.

TJ Walker [00:34:58]:

She's an aspiring media trainer. She kind of wants to be like me. She's doing a YouTube show. She has an entry level job. She's not making a lot of money. She wrote to me and said, well, TJ, I want you to be my mentor. And I do get as I'm sure all of you do, I get requests like this from time to time. And in the past, I just say, well, you know, I've got an online course how to be a media trainer, and maybe I give her just maybe I give it to her for free.

TJ Walker [00:35:24]:

But I can't spend an hour a day mentoring someone for free or almost free. I mean, I wasn't making any money when I was 23. I can't expect her to pay a $10,000 a day fee that corporate clients would. So what do I do? In the past, it was either couldn't help them or give them a a book for free. And the problem with that is it's one way. It's my expertise pushed out. I can't answer any of your questions. Now I can give her access to my clone for something very reasonable for her.

TJ Walker [00:35:55]:

Really, just a few bucks a month for her covers my costs. She can now access my clone with questions to help her. So she's and I'm and she's also got access to some of my some of my online video courses. So she's got the courses, but she now has me as a digital mentor. So I can do that for her for, you know, like, 10, $20 a month. So she benefits greatly. I save time. I benefit a little because that's now a scalable thing.

TJ Walker [00:36:29]:

Otherwise, the old way I mean, I seriously doubt any of you guys can just regularly mentor someone in another continent with no money on a regular daily or weekly basis. There's just not enough time in the day. And that's a perfect example of how I think it's really a win win situation. Clone is helping her dramatically. It's helping me, everybody win.

Rob Durant [00:36:55]:

TJ, I have a question for you. But before that, I wanted to bring up a comment from our audience. Sure. Nadia Vincent says, today, we need more legal innovation collaboration and help to develop and establish new laws to protect digital intellectual properties. I'm open to collaborating with, legal professionals. So there are those out there who are looking as you are to the ethics of this. That's encouraging. My question actually calls back to when you said earlier, you can have somebody interacting with your clone, but you personally, TJ, can review that interaction and maybe even respond to it.

Rob Durant [00:37:44]:

Can a digital clone then really help me improve my work life balance, or is it just creating more work?

TJ Walker [00:37:51]:

Mhmm. So you can review it. So the program I'm in, again, I'm not hawking them, but it's delphi dotai. They send me an email if my clone doesn't answer a question. So if I continue to refine and improve it, I'm gonna get fewer of those because the clone is gonna get better and better. So, I mean, I've got people around the world talking to my clone since we started this call. So I'm not gonna have to stop and start and schedule calls for them the rest of the day. So I think it can.

TJ Walker [00:38:28]:

Now short term, like with any new technology, there's some upfront cost. When you started your podcast, it took more time. You had to learn about what microphone, what camera. Should I use restream? Should I use stream? You had to do a whole bunch of work upfront. But now you've got a well oiled machine, and you get together with your crew and you do it. And boom, you're able to speak to 100 of thousands of people all over the globe in a way that you couldn't 5, 10, 20, 30 years ago. So, yes, there's some upfront time that it takes. But long term, it scales your expertise.

TJ Walker [00:39:08]:

It makes you able to help more people at a different time. And one of things we haven't talked about is the possibility of language. So my clone will now speak to people in 36 different languages. Now I'm the typical ugly American. I'm sure Bertrand's, being French, probably speaks 18 languages. I only speak one language. And I, you know, I can say bonjour when I'm in the cafes in Paris so they don't get angry.

Bertrand Godillot [00:39:39]:

That's a good start.

TJ Walker [00:39:40]:

But, really, I only speak I only speak one language. So And

Adam Gray [00:39:45]:

that isn't English.

TJ Walker [00:39:48]:

And that is American style. So I've trained in 45 countries, but people have to talk to me in my language, and they may be interpreting it. English might be their 7th language. So I've always felt a little bit bad about, you know, forcing everyone to bend to me. Obviously, not bad enough to learn how to speak more languages. But out of 8,000,000,000 people in the world, I basically can't help 7,000,000,000. That's all changed. If you go to the it's coming soon on the video clone.

TJ Walker [00:40:22]:

But on the audio clone, when you go to the page and you say you wanna talk, you push the button for call on the top right, there's a drop down menu. And so if you hit Mandarin or if you hit Spanish or French or Arabic, my clone will come on, and the first thing out of its mouth is in that language. And you can have an entire conversation with me. It's still gonna pull my expertise from my own writings in saying, but the entire conversation will be in that language. I don't know about you, Rob, but if someone all of a sudden calls up and says, oh, I only wanna speak to you in Arabic or in Hindi, in the past, it just didn't go anywhere. Now that problem is solved through the power of artificial intelligence and generative AI. So that to me is very exciting. Basically, in the last couple of weeks, I've gone from being able to share my expertise with only a 1000000000 people in the world to now about 7 out of 8,000,000,000.

TJ Walker [00:41:27]:

There's some languages it doesn't have. But out of the top 36 languages, you can hit about 7,000,000,000 people in the world. So to me, that that's really exciting knowing that someone can you know, if they're from a small country somewhere and they don't speak English, they can access my expertise and benefit and learn and be helped right away in a way that I never would have been able to help them in the past. Even if I'm willing to work 20 hours a day, just wouldn't have happened.

Adam Gray [00:42:01]:

So so how often do you get an email that the that the the clone hasn't been able to answer the question? So I I assume that you, you know, you're working now in 36 different languages. You're working all around the world. So it's not like there are 5 people on this platform. There are there are a lot of people that are consuming your content and being coached by your AI clone.

TJ Walker [00:42:22]:

Mhmm.

Adam Gray [00:42:22]:

So is answering the questions the clone can't answer a full time job, or are these a rarity, an anomaly?

TJ Walker [00:42:30]:

I would say it happens between one and 6 times a day. And now when my when you ask my clone and it can't answer, I have programmed it to say, wow, you got me. I don't know. Why don't you email my team at producer@tjwalker.com? So some of the times I look at the questions and I think, okay. That's exactly what I want them to say. If someone says, are you available to give a a speech in London, October 3rd, I want them to email me or call me. I give it gives out a phone number too. I don't wanna take the time of programming every single contingency to every question like that.

TJ Walker [00:43:18]:

So it's not it it's not particularly time consuming. The other thing is, yeah, nothing is perfect. You know, you can have a frequently asked question section on your website, and someone may have a slightly different version and it's not answered. Does that mean you get rid of the FAQ or that you stay up every night revising your FAQ and you're what? No. It's just another tool.

Bertrand Godillot [00:43:42]:

Mhmm. And just on that, TJ, because we had a lot of, as you as you can tell, we've got a lot of question marks, and I think everybody is really thinking about how we should regulate this. And, you know, we we tend to see, obviously, the risks involved in deploying this type of this type of new technology, let's say. Well, not so new, but, you know, the application is a bit new. But I would like to take it the other way around. You know? But where do you see this where do you see your your clone in 5 years from now? What what would be

TJ Walker [00:44:20]:

I see it actually main activity.

Bertrand Godillot [00:44:22]:

Main activity.

TJ Walker [00:44:24]:

I'm sorry. I spoke too soon. Tell me, no.

Rob Durant [00:44:26]:

No. No. What what

Bertrand Godillot [00:44:27]:

what would be his main activity or its or his main activity? I don't know.

TJ Walker [00:44:32]:

The main activity will be coaching, and I believe it will replace courses. I believe it will replace online courses. Now Alexander the Great didn't go to grade school with 30 other kids in a classroom. He had Aristotle come and tutor him. There's been numerous studies showing that you learn two standard deviations faster with a 1 on 1 tutor or coach than you do in a classroom setting. The only reason to go to an online course and be a part of nanny or have something linear is to save money. So right now, since people don't really know what a digital virtual clone coach is, I am packaging my clone with my 250 online courses. So if you take a course, in lecture 3, it says, hey, by the way, this course now has its own clone tutor.

TJ Walker [00:45:32]:

You can ask it questions anytime. But think of it this way, if you had if you were a billionaire, you had unlimited amounts of money, and you decided to take up golf, are you just gonna out, download a video about golf or take a golf online course or just read a book by Tiger Woods? Or we can try.

Bertrand Godillot [00:45:55]:

I tried. It doesn't

Rob Durant [00:45:56]:

work. I'm not to be good there.

TJ Walker [00:45:58]:

Probably say, let me just hire Tiger Woods, whoever Tiger Woods' coach is, to fly to me and stand next to me and watch me and coach me when I'm out on the golf course every time. That's what you would do if you had unlimited resources. Well, that's the beauty of a clone is it just costs so little because it's digital. It is scalable. It could be going on anywhere in the world. So at at the same time, in any language. So I believe that it is going to become the preeminent way of learning in the world. Doesn't mean schools are going away, but it does mean teachers can really do things in a much more hands on way with experiences rather than just lecturing, one to many.

TJ Walker [00:46:45]:

The whole one to many model is done to save money, and I understand that traditionally.

Bertrand Godillot [00:46:53]:

Mhmm. But if

TJ Walker [00:46:54]:

you can have a 1 on one experience I mean, how many of you with all of your clients, wouldn't have 10 times as many clients if your prospects who said, well, I only have, you know, $50 a month, but I really need your help doing all my marketing. And I need you to rewrite it and coach me. I mean, you you would have 10 times as many clients as you have now, but you can't work for $50 a month if it's your time and you're having to give an hour of mental space a day. So that's the the potential of the clone, is it it scales your expertise. It also scales the ultimate experience that customers everyone all things being equal, everyone would like a private 1 on 1 tutoring session. As I can tell you right now, I'm sort of biting the hand that feeds me because my most of my income comes from my online students. I have 2,000,000 students taking my 250 courses. The problem is most of them really don't get better with their public speaking or media training because it's a passive experience.

TJ Walker [00:48:08]:

They're sitting back watching me demonstrate perfectly good principles. But in that, it's a one to many. It's me lecturing. When it's a live in person experience, they have no choice. I turn the camera. I say, now speak. And I'm doing that a dozen times with them to the point where at the end of the day of training, they're not saying, wow. TJ's a great trainer.

TJ Walker [00:48:32]:

No. They're pointing to the screen saying, wow. I can be half as good as that kid or that woman. I'll be the star of my industry. And they're pointing to a video of themselves. That's when you know a real breakthrough took place. It unfortunately doesn't happen with online videos. But that's to me is the real potential of the clone experience.

TJ Walker [00:48:53]:

It could be much more like what I do when clients hire me full time for a day to spend a full day or a week with them. And it makes it scalable because most people in the world are not gonna be able to afford the time and the money to hire me for a full day and either fly to me or have me fly to them. And I assume that's true of all of you and most of your audience. But if if they can get your and get the personalized 1 on 1 feedback and coaching at maybe 11 100 or 11000th of the price they benefit, if you can scale that out, you can make a lot more money long term than if you charged $500 an hour or $800 an hour, whatever you charge.

Rob Durant [00:49:45]:

Sure. I wanna pick up on that. What you just described there goes from one to many to a situation where we are one to one to many. You've also said that you're now accessible to 7,000,000,000 people. So is this technology only designed for large organizations, or is it accessible for small businesses?

TJ Walker [00:50:13]:

Well, it's definitely accessible for small I mean, I own a small business myself. But you ask most small business owner, what do you actually do in, you know, the 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week you're in your business? And look at it a month, you know, the 200 hours a month you're working, there's a tremendous amount of time where you are explaining to people answers to basic questions about what you do and how you help people. And then once someone is a client, there's an awful lot of time spent explaining to people what you're doing that they need to do in order to help them. If you can distribute that information, still make it personalized, and make it scalable so it doesn't take all your time. You free up your time to do higher level things, whether it's working with higher level clients, whether it's doing more research in your industry, whether it's turning your insights into books or or online courses so you can help people. I mean, one of the things we haven't even talked about is the clone can really help create more content in different formats. I mean, just today, I launched a new book on how to build your own digital clone. But I didn't have time to write the book, but I didn't just have Chat GPT write the book.

TJ Walker [00:51:39]:

I took the transcript of my online course on how to make a clone. I downloaded that. I had chat GPT rewrite it, and it's now been turned into a Kindle book, a paperback on demand book, a hardback on demand book. And I didn't have time to make the audio version of the book. My clone actually made the audio the audiobook the audio version of my book.

Adam Gray [00:52:12]:

Was it using your voice?

TJ Walker [00:52:13]:

Walk out 3, 4 hours to do it, and I'm pretty fast at doing things like that.

Tim Hughes [00:52:18]:

No. They used you a voice, Adam.

TJ Walker [00:52:20]:

My she said that's just like, hey. My my assistant could do it in maybe 1 hour of cutting and pasting the transcripts from the the 47 lectures from the course into my clone, push a button, it instantly turns it into the audio download. And unlike me, it's perfect in one take.

Adam Gray [00:52:46]:

I'm sure you're perfect in one take as well, TJ.

TJ Walker [00:52:50]:

Sometimes, but not always.

Rob Durant [00:52:53]:

TJ, this has been great. Where can people learn more? How can they get in touch with you?

TJ Walker [00:53:01]:

The easiest way is to go to tjwalker.ai. They'll find out more about me. They can actually try the clones. And I've got I've got a bunch of clones, I should say. There's one just for communication skills. There's one clone that is designed just to help you prepare for job interviews. There's another clone to help you with personal development improvement, life coaching. And there's one clone just for information and services.

TJ Walker [00:53:27]:

If you wanna find out how to hire me, you can go there. There's links to my my new book on how to build a digital clone there, and I've got other courses and services. The ethics statement we talked about is all there. So that's gonna be the easiest way of going to tjwalker.ai. And they can also just send me an email. Tj@tjwalker.com is the easiest email for me.

Rob Durant [00:53:52]:

Fantastic. We now have a newsletter. Don't miss an episode. Get show highlights beyond the show insights and reminders of upcoming episodes. You can scan the QR code on screen, or you can visit us at digital download dot live forward slash newsletter. On behalf of the panelists, to our guests, TJ, and to our audience, thank you all for being a highly interactive participatory audience. We appreciate it a lot. Join us next week when Lois Creamer teaches us how to leverage public speaking to grow your business.

Rob Durant [00:54:35]:

This has been The Digital Download, and we will see you next time. Bye, all.

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