Have you ever felt left behind in the marketing tech race because you don't know how to code? Maybe you've watched colleagues implement amazing automation or create sophisticated workflows, while you're still struggling with basic tools. What if I told you that the coding barrier in marketing is crumbling, thanks to artificial intelligence?
The truth is, marketers everywhere are facing increasing pressure to be more technical, more efficient, and more innovative - but learning to code isn't always practical or necessary. This technology gap has been holding back countless talented marketers from reaching their full potential.
That's why I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Mike Russell. Mike is the founder of Creator Magic and serves as the Creative Director at Music Radio Creative, where his international team creates productions for over 4,000 clients in 120+ countries. He's been at the forefront of the AI revolution, teaching creators and marketers how to harness the power of artificial intelligence without writing a single line of code. His work has transformed the way thousands of professionals approach their craft, making sophisticated marketing solutions accessible to everyone.
The AI Hat Podcast host Mike Allton asked Mike Russell about:
✨ Start Small, Think Big - No-code AI tools allow marketers to begin with simple projects while building toward complex solutions.
✨ Tools Not Rules - Today's AI platforms offer flexibility to create custom marketing solutions without coding constraints.
✨ Future-Proof Marketing - Embracing no-code AI tools now positions marketers for upcoming technological advances.
Learn more about Mike Russell
- Connect with Mike Russell on LinkedIn
- Subscribe to Mike Russell on YouTube
Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode
- Creator Magic
- Cursor
- Perplexity
- Agent.ai
- Zapier
- Make.com
- N8N
- Notion
- AI and Copyright: What Marketers Need to Know with Mitch Jackson
- HeyGen
- ElevenLabs
- Creator Magic YouTube Channel
- AI Primer: A Comprehensive Guide
- Explore past episodes of the The AI Hat Podcast podcast
Full Transcript
(lightly edited)
No Code, No Problem: Revolutionizing Marketing with AI Tools with Mike Russell
[00:00:00] Mike Russell: Now essentially we've heard CEOs such as Jensen Huang from Nvidia and Sam Altman from OpenAI saying these agents are entering the workforce presently throughout the duration of this year. And so we are more and more, and this is not something that's coming, this is, this is something that is now here. So many companies, companies like Salesforce have said, we are not hiring developers anymore because AI agents can do it.
[00:00:25] This is not a, a coding. Thing. This is like an everything thing. Mike, we, we, we are toast. So, to be positive, 'cause I am an AI optimist, this frees us up. We've never, uh, it's just such an incredible time to be alive. We've never had this opportunity where AI agents can take care of pretty much everything. And we can, I hope, for as long as possible, be the, those high level directors. So essentially, you think of the way a film, a movie is created and the director sits in the chair. That is the person that orchestrates everything. So you now get that director chair in your life. And yeah, this is the, if you take one thing away from this podcast, learn how AI agents work and learn how you can, you can start using them and employing them yourself.
[00:01:15] Mike Allton: Mike's got The Hat, the AI kind. Unlocking power in business, you'll find. Cut through the hype, explore the tech. Every week, new ideas to check.
[00:01:40] Allton leads us on a digital quest. AI secrets, he'll always invest. Tune in tight, don't miss a beat. Knowledge, groove, keep you on your feet. Listen up! To the AI flow. Business growth, here we go. Cuttin' edge insights, that's the plan. With The AI Hat you'll understand.
[00:02:24] Greetings program. Welcome back to The AI Hat Podcast. Where I selfishly use has time to pick the brains of experts at harnessing the power of AI across all areas of business. From streamlining operations and boosting productivity to gaining a competitive edge and driving explosive growth. Oh. You get to learn too.
[00:02:41] Subscribe to be shown how to prepare yourself and your brand for this AI revolution and come out ahead. Now, have you ever felt behind in the marketing tech race because you don't know how to code? Maybe you've watched colleagues implement amazing automation or create sophisticated workflows while you are still struggling with basic tools.
[00:03:00] What if I told you that the coding barrier to marketing is crumbling thanks to artificial intelligence? The truth is marketers everywhere are facing increasing pressure to be more tactical. More efficient and more innovative, but learning to code isn't always practical or necessary. This technological gap has been holding back countless talented marketers from reaching their full potential, and that's why I am thrilled to introduce today's guest, Mike Russell.
[00:03:24] Mike is the founder of Creator Magic and serves as the creative director at Music Radio Creative, where his international team creates productions for over 4,000 clients in over 120 countries. He's been at the forefront of the AI revolution, teaching creators and marketers how to harness the power. Of artificial intelligence without writing a single line of code.
[00:03:42] His work has transformed the way thousands of professionals approach their craft, making sophisticated marketing solutions accessible to everyone. Hey, Mike, welcome to the show.
[00:03:53] Mike Russell: Hey, Mike. Thank you so much having me on. I'm, I'm so excited for this chat.
[00:03:57] Mike Allton: I am too. We had a fantastic pre-conversation. I was like, we gotta get the recording started 'cause we're talking about so many great things in ai. Before we dive though into these no-code tools, I'd love if you could help us just share what made you realize there was such a pressing need for code free solutions in marketing or business overall.
[00:04:19] Mike Russell: Yeah, I, I think we live in an amazing time because as with AI, things are changing all the time and they're only getting better.
[00:04:26] So any tool we use, it's the worst it's gonna be, when we create those images with Midjourney or whatever, and we think, ah, that's all right. But the, the person's got six fingers, eventually they're gonna solve that. And it's gonna be perfect. So there's never been a better time to use no-code tools to create things, to do things you want, like on automation.
[00:04:47] It's, it's incredible. It really is.
[00:04:51] Mike Allton: That's fantastic. So could you walk us through just, one or two of your favorite no-code AI tools that, that folks who are in marketing or, or business operations or even leadership should really know about right now?
[00:05:04] Mike Russell: Yeah, absolutely. So, I. Yeah, a first of all, I'd like to preface it by saying, a lot of people say you don't need to know any lines of code anymore.
[00:05:14] 'cause you can create things using the English language. I think even the CEO of Nvidia said that last year, he said, English is the new programming language, which is really, really interesting. But it is important to know a few basics and know the best tools that can get you there really quick.
[00:05:30] Now, my quick and easy stack would be using something like Cursor that is. Probably the number one no code AI tool. Now, when you load it up for the first time, it's comes across that it could be quite techie, but it's really simple to get started because it has a feature called Cursor Composer, and what that does is it allows you to say what you want.
[00:05:53] And then it'll go ahead and create all the code and all the files to make it happen to the best of its ability. But again, it's good to know things. So for instance, if you want to get into the no code space as a marketer and you want to create something to do something amazing, know what an API is. Now, I don't wanna get too technical.
[00:06:14] It's just to say that every single website, every service on the internet has one of these things, and it allows code to access data. So for a very short example, just to get us started, you could have a YouTube channel and you could say, I want to get the analytics of all the clickthroughs on all the thumbnails on my videos to find the best thumbnail I've ever made.
[00:06:35] You could tell Cursor to make that tool and use the YouTube data analytics, API. Then it will go ahead. It will make a tool, and then it will scan the whole of your YouTube channel and bring you back your best thumbnails, for example. This is just one thing you can do, but literally, Mike, anything you can think of in your head is now possible with no code and AI.
[00:06:58] I hope I didn't overwhelm too much.
[00:07:01] Mike Allton: No, but it's funny because I, I think you've touched on one of the core challenges with AI. When you can do anything that you can dream up of. It becomes a challenge to dream up of something that you can do, which is why on, on this show, we're always talking about use cases for AI.
[00:07:18] cause I say often AI isn't a tool like Canva, where I, I tell you, Canva is used to create images. I. That's it. You know what Canva does without actually having to log into the tool. AI is just this general technology that can do so many different things, so I love that you shared this example. What are, I would say, like the most impressive marketing solution or business solution that you've seen in terms of a no code tool, because again, I think these are the examples that help people unlock the potential.
[00:07:48] Mike Russell: You can, you can literally, like you say, this is the overwhelm. You can do anything, right? So anything you can think of, you can, you can start to create. Now, obviously there is a caveat there. You're not gonna create a clone of TikTok with one prompt. There are lots of secrets there on how the algorithm works and how the user interface looks and all of that.
[00:08:11] But my, my tip here is go step by step. So build a minimum viable product that's MVP. So build one of those. So something that can just do one thing and then add features, add bells and whistles as you go along. So I'll give you an example since you've asked for one Mike. I created an app completely with no code.
[00:08:31] I have not written one line of code for this, and it essentially assists me with my YouTube comments. So, as a busy YouTuber, I, I get a ton of comments. I want to respond personally to each one, but I find it incredibly difficult to type out every comment, especially using the YouTube studio app. I'm sure you're familiar with it.
[00:08:51] You go in there. You click into comments, you start tapping on your iPhone screen, and it's like, I've done this before. I've been, I've been on, on, on ferry rides. I live on a small island, so it takes an hour on the ferry and I'll sit there on the ferry. We have connectivity all the way, and I'm tapping, tapping, tapping.
[00:09:06] And, and one day, I think it was last year, I thought, there's gotta be an easier way than just tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And I thought, right, I'm going to just prompt cursor. I'm gonna say, make me a basic app that integrates with my YouTube channel. Using, again, there's, here's this word, the YouTube API, and I want it to bring in the comments, and then I want it to use an AI model to suggest me replies.
[00:09:29] Now, I didn't want AI to take over and like be, AI Mike replying because that's impersonal. I wanted it to give me suggestions and then I can dial it in further. And, and the thing is, once you've got the, the, the MVP built, so essentially the thing that gets the comment. Gives the suggested reply that you can then edit and publish.
[00:09:47] I was like, well, I can take this further. I can give it context of my videos maybe by feeding the transcript of the video so I can really be contextual in how I reply and say someone asks a really complicated question. I can use a tool such as I the online search Perplexity, which goes across the web to find answers.
[00:10:06] I can use the API of Perplexity to answer tough questions. So if someone asks me something very specific, I can actually say inside this little app that I'm creating, go to Perplexity and come up with a one or two sentence answer. Mike, the possibilities are limitless. But now I have this little app that I've built that essentially assists me and.
[00:10:27] I think the most important thing to, to any business person, any marketer listening right now is, how can I save time? How can I do less boring things, save time and focus on the bigger things? And by building this app, I've cut down my YouTube replying from maybe an hour or two a day to maybe 15 minutes every day.
[00:10:49] That's cool. Right?
[00:10:51] Mike Allton: That's fantastic, and I love how you're hitting on some themes that we've been talking about throughout the existence of this show. And it really underscores the point you already made, which is that, the AI technology that we have today is the worst it will be.
[00:11:04] It's the least comprehensive I that it will be. So if you go back 12 months ago, we didn't have a lot of these no-code solutions. We didn't have agents, which we talked about in the green room, right? Those are coming and the solution 12 months ago might've been, if I am spending a lot of time answering YouTube comments, maybe I create for myself a set of custom instructions where I throw the comment in there and it knows me, it knows my business, it knows my history, and it feeds me back a fairly decent reply, right? We've got stuff like that built into Agorapulse where you can just see, posts and comments and replies and, and you can have those saved and so on. But now you're talking about building a system where you identified something that you're doing repetitively that's taking time, and we want to build a system to try to replace or augment, or at least, build some efficiencies.
[00:11:54] And, and since I touched on agents, I, I'd love to get your opinion. How do you see what you're talking about there differing from what a lot of the AI companies today are, are touting as agents or is it just they're already packaging it for you and essentially it is you're building an AI agent. How, how do you see that as a difference?
[00:12:12] Mike Russell: Yeah, I think this is a great topic to bring up. AI agents are making a big entry this year. So last year we started to see what's possible and we, we could see various automation tools, chaining together AI models to do multiple things together. So, for instance, you could call Claude and ask it to go off and use a tool to research something and then, and then take an action.
[00:12:36] Based on the results it gets back. But now essentially we've heard CEOs such as Jensen Huang from Nvidia and Sam Altman from OpenAI saying these agents are entering the workforce presently throughout the duration of this year. And so we are more and more, and this is not something that's coming, this is, this is something that is now here. So many companies companies like Salesforce have said, yeah, we are not hiring developers anymore because AI agents can do it. This is not a, a coding thing. This is like an everything thing, Mike. We are, we are, we are toast. But, to, to be positive.
[00:13:13] 'cause I am an AI optimist, this frees us up. We've never. It's just such an incredible time to be alive. We've never had this opportunity where AI agents can take care of pretty much everything and we can, I hope, for as long as possible, be the those high level directors. So essentially, you think of the way a film, a movie is created and the director sits in the chair.
[00:13:37] That is the person that orchestrates everything. So you now get that director chair in your life and yeah. This is the, if you take one thing away from this podcast, learn how AI agents work and learn how you can, you can start using them and employing them yourself. But I, I said. Say employing them.
[00:13:57] And this kind of still sounds alien, I think it's HubSpot that have a website now, like a social network for AI agents where you can see how they're doing at jobs and you can, you can hire that agent to do that job. It's just, it blows my mind.
[00:14:12] Mike Allton: Yeah. In fact one thing I just wanna caution all listeners, 'cause whether it's been on this show or other AI.
[00:14:17] Other AI folks that you talk to or, or read on social media, I see this kind of commentary a lot where they'll say things like, AI's not coming for your job. AI can never do X, Y, Z, whatever that is. Right? And more often they're not. Those are being proved. Wrong. It's not that AI is necessarily coming for your jobs.
[00:14:38] There are jobs that are gonna be replaced by AI agents. To your point, there are things that AI can do today that people 12, 18 months ago thought, oh, AI will never be able to do that. Like host a podcast. It's coming. Those things are, are happening every day. So definitely be cautious and, and be wary about thinking, oh, AI can never do this because we're not sure about that.
[00:15:00] The things are developing super fast. But one of the things I wanted touch was. I have actual computer programming background. It's what I actually went to school for. So when I see HTML code and JavaScript and, and I, and we talk about APIs, that's all common knowledge to me and stuff I'm familiar with. So when I jump into a tool like Cursor, I'm, I'm not overwhelmed, but many marketers and businesses might be intimidated by that.
[00:15:24] How do you recommend that they start a no-code journey?
[00:15:29] Mike Russell: It's, it's a really good question. So. Start simply, and if, if starting simply is opening up Cursor for the first time. Going into Cursor Composer and asking it create me a, just don't even do anything too overwhelming. Create me a Hello World landing page with animated, like rainbow effects around the text, and maybe even an email opt-in form at the bottom.
[00:15:55] And just, just see what it makes. See from that one prompt what you get back, it's if you tell Tenant to create you a webpage. 'cause Cursor can do that too. You can get this HT ML file, which you can open up in your web browser. You can, so you don't even need to like get into executing Python or Node.
[00:16:13] And again, all of these like scary things to non coders will again be solved by these companies because you won't need to know what Python or Node is. It, it, it will just execute and run, and you won't even know what's being used in the background. But for now, yeah, I'd say get started. Create a website and iterate on it.
[00:16:31] I am doing this all the time. I remember when all the blogs I had were hosted on WordPress and I, I still use WordPress a lot, but now when I wanna throw a landing page up there. Straight into cursor. Create me a landing page for this. And what's more as Mike, you, you can train in documentation to Cursor or give, it i's exact instructions.
[00:16:51] So what did I do? I. Last year, Black Friday came around and I was like, right, I wanna do a really cool landing page that's gonna convert as well as possible for my, my brand new at the time, AI community. And I wanted to follow all best practices. Well, what had happened just the week before, there was a fantastic podcast about creating landing pages for Black Friday, hosted by someone I, I respect a lot.
[00:17:16] So I knew the information would be good. So what did I do? I grabbed the transcript of that podcast. Added it to Cursor's knowledge base. And I said, create me a landing page for this community. And then I gave it all the details about my community in the prompt, and I said, use this information to make the landing page brilliant.
[00:17:35] And it said okay like that. And it, it gave me a landing page with everything, all the tricks, Mike, like, scarcity countdowns, right? Maybe a seven at the end of the price and all of that kind of stuff. Did it all. And I was like, oh, this is just, yeah. Wow. So start
[00:17:52] Mike Allton: with a webpage if, if you wanna get started.
[00:17:54] I love that example. And I, I love the fact that you underscored how important it's to use the different tools. Together. Like I've been really embracing Gemini lately, Google's ai, LLM, because I think it's, it's fantastic and I love the integration with, with Google Workforce and I love Deep Research.
[00:18:10] That tool from Google is freaking amazing. So you could start there and say, Hey, Deep Research, I need to create a new landing page for this industry, for this kind of podcast or product. And I want you to go out and research all the competitors and give me keyword data, give me pricing information, and it will, within 10 minutes, you've got 50 competitors created in a document that helps you position what you're doing perfectly and then to your point, feed that into Cursor or another tool and help that tool create an even better landing page or whatever it is that you're trying to do.
[00:18:45] So I love that example. Thanks for sharing that. How would you say a tool like Cursor has changed the game for marketers who wanna create more sophisticated solutions. 'cause I got to, I gotta be honest, my, my head's already buzzing with ideas about how I can apply this to my podcasting, my blogging, and those kinds of things, which would be more sophisticated.
[00:19:08] I wanna create WordPress plugins and that sort of thing. How is it helping those kinds of solutions and situations?
[00:19:15] Mike Russell: It's, it's amazing. You can, you can create anything to, to compliment the kind of content you are, you are creating. And I think actually I, I'd just love to circle back on, on what you said about Google Gemini and Deep Research because you're right, that is an incredible tool and that is a, that's a tool I think Google dropped at the end of last year that essentially uses what are AI agents to go across the web, do the research for you, and, and bring you this report back. It's, it's absolutely incredible. So yeah, you, you can create. Anything that your heart desires using code. And I think one of the coolest things is if you are creating content, you are essentially creating a library or a knowledge base based on either your own information, if you're creating tutorials or self-hosted videos or podcasts. Or if you're having guests on, you are gaining the best knowledge from all different areas of the industry. And that kind of stuff is powerful. And again, I don't want to go too deep with techie stuff, but I'd love to drop a few ideas and for those listening, if something sticks or something sounds interesting and you don't know about it, please look into it more.
[00:20:31] But RAG, Retrieval Augmented Generation. So what is this? What is RAG? For those that don't know, it's the ability to create a database of things and then have AI go and look through sections of that database. Pull out the, the, the important and relevant bits, and then give a response based on what it found.
[00:20:50] So if you're a content creator, for instance, with a podcast you've got hundreds of episodes, you put it all in a RAG, or what's known as a vector database. Then you can tell the ai, go and look for every time I mentioned. I don't know AI voice generators, and it's gonna go through, find all of those mentions and give you a response along with citations saying, here are the tools and here was what was said about them.
[00:21:15] And I think any company, any business person, any marketer, any content creator can use RAG Retrieval, Augmented Generation with AI tools to create something amazing. And as we've heard Zuckerberg say, the AI clones of yourself. Are coming, and in some cases already here, where you can create an ai an AI Mike to talk about all your, your podcasts and be a 24 7 version of you.
[00:21:40] That's pretty cool.
[00:21:42] Mike Allton: That's so cool. In fact, we've, we've talked a little bit, I've got a case study on my site that I'll link below about how we use RAG at, at Agorapulse to house all of our support documentation, all of our success stories, all of our product release notes and help documentation. It was mostly for internal use, right?
[00:21:59] So that any sales rep or customer facing team member who had a question, can we do this? Can we do that? Do we have any success stories from agencies in France? Whatever question they have, they just pop that into Slack now. And Slack via the AI gives them the answer. Folks, we're talking with Mike Russell about how marketers and businesses can use these kinds of no-code solutions to really expand their capabilities.
[00:22:23] And I've got several more questions you aren't gonna wanna miss, but first, a quick word from our sponsor.
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[00:23:25] So, Mike, we've shared some examples of what folks can do, what are some examples of things they shouldn't do?
[00:23:31] What are some common mistakes that you see people making when they're first trying to adopt these kinds of tools?
[00:23:38] Mike Russell: The first thing, and this may not be the case forever, is do not assume that the AI knows everything. And this is often, I, I hear, I have a community of people who are building and they come and they post their questions and their issues.
[00:23:52] And a common first issue is getting stuck in, what is known as an AI loop, where you are trying to make the AI do something and it keeps falling over and it can't solve it on its own. Now we know with thinking and reasoning models. This kind of issue is, is getting solved because those thinking models take time to think things through, and if something didn't work, they'll go back and try a different solution.
[00:24:15] But often we'll see that many AI models such as ChatGPt for instance have a training data cutoff point where they no longer know things. Okay. So, and again, to go back to that word, API say you want to connect to the Google Maps API. And you ask it to do that, and then it, say create me a a, an app that'll find me, I dunno, the best cafes in my city.
[00:24:40] So it goes off and it codes something and it pops up, and then you get an error message and you're like, oh, okay. So how do you fix that? Well, you go back to the chat and say, Cursor, and you say, I got this error. Please fix. And sometimes it'll say, oh yeah, sorry. And it'll go ahead and it'll fix it and it'll work.
[00:24:55] Sometimes you get into that AI loop where you keep telling it to fix and it doesn't fix it, and it changes it and it makes it worse, and you're like, what's going on? So a common mistake is just assuming the AI is fully up to date and knows everything. Now, maybe after the cutoff date of the, the AI's training, Google Maps API dropped a huge update.
[00:25:14] They changed the way everything works. So the AI is never going to know that. Certainly in the, the present way, they're, they're made with cutoff dates on their training data. So you have to then explicitly go in and either copy paste from the, the documentation and say, this is, this is how I want you to build this feature and then let it go ahead, and then it should get it on the first try.
[00:25:36] Or with something like Cursor, they have the ability to train in documentation. So you can literally post the link to the Google Maps API in this case, and Cursor will train it. And then you can say in your prompt build me an app that finds the best cafes in my city or in the city that's typed into the search bar use @ Google Maps API. And then, Cursor has that really cool feature where it can pull in UpToDate documentation. So yeah, the, the most common thing I see is people trying to build something and saying, why is it not working? They just expect it to work, but it doesn't always.
[00:26:13] Mike Allton: Right. Right. And we see, we see that a lot.
[00:26:15] And the other thing that I'm hearing from you is that it, it is important for marketers and business owners who want to develop some no-code solutions to know and understand what the code is, right? They have to know what an API is, that application programming interface that allows two different software companies to actually talk to each other.
[00:26:38] And like, like I said, I've, I've been fortunate to, I've been in this space for a long time, I understand it. And at Agorapulse we live and breathe APIs 'cause that's how we connect with Facebook and X and LinkedIn. And, and those APIs are our arch nemesis. And, and best lovers at the same time. Because every time, LinkedIn decides to change their API, that means we have to change our API, but we have the benefit of a partner that tells us, Hey, next month we're changing how direct mentions are hooked in our API and you're going to have to change accordingly.
[00:27:08] That's something that yeah, you folks, you're gonna have to be aware of if you're starting to try to develop something with, like you said, Mike, the Google Maps, API or, or something along those lines. But other folks may be familiar with using more traditional automation tools like Zapier. They may even have, something like a HubSpot that has some built-in automation.
[00:27:31] How do you see the relationship between traditional marketing automation and these new no code AI tools?
[00:27:39] Mike Russell: I, I think it ties together perfectly. I think using an automation tool is a great an easy gateway to build really cool and complex things. So I actually think they work hand in hand. Something like Zapier.
[00:27:54] Where you can say, every time someone joins my community send them a direct message welcoming them. Now we can, we can take that to the next level. So that's a very simple automation. But then, we, we can go as far as we want with this, but we could say, I. Every time someone joins my community go out and find their LinkedIn profile, scan that LinkedIn profile, pull in some nuggets, find out what they're interested in, and then build a custom welcome message based on their LinkedIn profile.
[00:28:22] Something like that. I've, I've seen people on, on, on YouTube and across the web, using this to, to, to reach out to companies and say, oh, I see you're interested in X, Y, and Z. Take 'em from your LinkedIn profile, but this is just a, an example. So they can work hand in hand. Something like Zapier, Make.com even the, the, the code available version N8N, this is one tool I use all the time.
[00:28:45] You can build basic AI agents in there so you can say, every time there's a post on X that mentions this send it to this AI agent to analyze it and, and do whatever the possibilities are endless. Mm-hmm. So, I don't know if that answers your question, Mike, but automation tools such as these, I, I think are brilliant and will work great with any kind of AI that you are using.
[00:29:09] Mike Allton: Particularly, I think over the next I, I'm gonna be very conservative and say 12 to 18 months throughout 2025 and into 2026, where AI agents are just starting to be proliferative and I. They're not going to necessarily easily talk to each other. That's, I think, where we will, we'll be able to have one AI agent, process a podcast and then use Zapier to send that to another AI agent to say, generate the email notification that goes out or share it to social media or something else that we already have that agent doing those kinds of things, and we just need to feed it that data.
[00:29:46] I think within like three to five years, a lot of that stuff will be unnecessary. Agents will naturally talk to each other and we won't need to bring in those other tools. But we've talked about agents, we've talked about automation. Are there any other upcoming trends or tools in this no-code AI space in particular that you think we should be watching for?
[00:30:06] Mike Russell: Gosh. Oh my goodness. There's so much. It's changing all the time. Just go, go. Going back to that point though, I, I think also these automation tools, they're a shortcut to, to building something maybe before you even crack open the No Code tools like Cursor. So when I was, I was building out my, my YouTube comment solution, I actually started that.
[00:30:25] Very simply in, in Make.com I built an automation every time I got a comment, put it into a Notion board and then use Chat GPT to suggest a reply. So, and then I was, I was working with my YouTube comments in the Notion app like that. So that, that was really, really interesting. And then, and then I, so I, I prototyped the idea and then I, and then I built it using cursor.
[00:30:47] And that's something you have to be careful of with. For instance. What am I thinking of here? When yeah, when you are using a, a tool such as like, make or N 8 N that's good for your use case, but say you wanted to scale that and you wanted to make this as an app and I think this is maybe something to look to the future for people that are listening.
[00:31:08] You wanna scale an idea. So you, you, you, you get it. You're like, okay, I can make things with no code and they can solve problems for me that I'm having. But like, think about, there's probably thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions of people in the world that also have that exact same problem. So you wanna think about, maybe you should scale it, maybe you should create it into a piece of SaaS software.
[00:31:31] And then if you do that, it's better that you build the code yourself because then you, you own that whole process. If you are using like, Make in there, then you know what a Makes terms and conditions on, using them inside a SaaS project, product, that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I hope that's helpful for people who want to scale.
[00:31:48] But yeah, think about, I, I'd say think about the things that you are building and think about how they may be handy to other people. And, and you never know, you might create the next million dollar or, or billion dollar company right from your office or from your, your bedroom or your living room using just no-code AI tools.
[00:32:08] So, yeah, well, basically, I, I think we live in a time now where we can really create something amazing. Maybe, dare I say, we have a limited time to do that. Before AGI and ASI take over and just do everything for us. Like you say, Mike, there's no more using these automation tools because you, you won't need to link up different nodes in an automation tool.
[00:32:29] You just be like. Build me something that that pulls in my YouTube comments and tells me the sentiment, am I pleasing or displeasing my audience? And the AI will be like, of course I know how to do that and I know the APIs, and there's the dashboard. And you're like, wow. And in some cases you can already do things like this.
[00:32:45] So
[00:32:46] Mike Allton: right. Right. Yeah. But I, I appreciate the cautionary tale. 'cause we had an IP lawyer, Mitch Jackson on in an earlier episode, and we were specifically talking about Generative Ai and, and the fact that if's like you're a marketing agency and you use Chat GBT to create an ebook for a client, it's not copyright protected.
[00:33:04] And so if they put on their website and their competitor steals it, they can't sue their competitor. Because there's no copyright on that material. And you're right, it's the same when you're talking about no-code solutions. If you build something for yourself and then you decide, oh, I, I'd like to sell this.
[00:33:20] And, and share it with the world. You're probably going to have to revisit how you built that solution in order to have a copyright on that material. So folks be aware of that. But I'd love if you could share just one more success story 'cause you've had so many great examples and, and like I said before, I think there's so exem for, for folks to understand how to apply this to their own business and lives.
[00:33:43] So if you could share another success story maybe of someone who's transformed their own capabilities using these no-code AI solutions.
[00:33:51] Mike Russell: Yeah, there's, there's absolutely, there's, there's so much that you can do. I, I think one of the, the biggest interesting successes that I'm, I'm quite interested in is it's never been easier to create your own content, whether that's creating a, a fully animated AI avatar of yourself using HeyGen or an automated podcast using Eleven Labs.
[00:34:13] These things are only gonna get better. I can't think of a very specific, I'm trying to think of a specific success story that might be appropriate here. But I think it's just, it's a good time to, to create amazing stuff.
[00:34:26] Mike Allton: Love it. Love it. This has been really super helpful. Do you have any final advice for folks who are listening that any, any last nuggets you'd like to leave them with?
[00:34:36] Mike Russell: Absolutely. I would say go and play, create things, test things, in the comfort of your own environment. Build solutions for you first. But yeah, the cautionary tale absolutely. Really wanna circle back on that. If you are thinking of taking it beyond just you or your internal processes or your company, or even if it is your internal processes, make sure you are, you are being compliant.
[00:34:58] Do check terms of service, do check what is and isn't allowed. I. Many of the main AI models, do allow code generation and, and usage for commercial purposes. But I've certainly seen other AI models, particularly some open source AI models that say actually all the code you generate is ours and belongs to us.
[00:35:18] Mm-hmm. So imagine you create like a really successful tool and then that ai, company come back to you and say, ah, hang on, wait, you owe us. All the profits that kind of wouldn't read the TOS. Read the TOS. Read the TOS.
[00:35:34] Mike Allton: Mike. Such fantastic advice. And, and man, you have only just scratched the surface.
[00:35:38] I know for folks listening who are thinking about diving into no-code solutions and some of the other things that you talked about, they're gonna have so many more questions for folks who want to get to know you and reach out, where should they go?
[00:35:49] Mike Russell: Best place is the YouTube Channel Creator Magic. So you can just search for that on YouTube and it'll pop up.
[00:35:55] You can also type in my name Mike Russell. But you'll probably find my Mike Russell YouTube channel, which is all about audio and content creation. So you might be into that too.
[00:36:05] Mike Allton: Fantastic. Thanks Mike. Thanks to all of you for listening today. We have all the links, as always in the show notes below.
[00:36:11] And remember, if this is your first foray into the world of AI in business, I've got that perfect resource for you in the show notes below that free AI primer. It's designed to get you quickly up to speed on all the terms and the tactics and the underlying technology that we've talked about today that's powering its AI revolution.
[00:36:27] Check it out and I'll see you in our next episode. Welcome to the grid.
[00:36:31] That's a wrap on another episode of The AI Hat Podcast. I hope you've gained some valuable insights and actionable strategies to boost your business with Ai. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. And don't forget to visit the ai hat.com for more resources and to connect with me.
[00:36:49] Until next time, keep innovating and remember, the future of business is human and it's powered by AI.
